Jim Hunter
I like games… sometimes.
‘Splosion Man (360)
Aug 4th
Something has gone wrong in a mad scientists’ laboratory. They’ve created an uncontrollable, maniacal creature who glows red and has a strange fascination with Arnold Schwarzenegger movies… Oh, and he can make himself detonate at will and has escaped. You are this creature, and its your job to make those scientists pay for… I guess creating you?
The story isn’t the strong point of this game. In fact, it’s barely there. So if you’re looking for the next Godfather movie, move on. Instead, this game is all about the platforming. ‘Splosion Man could just as well be played with an old school NES controller as there’s really only two things you can do: Move and ‘Splode. You can also suicide but most of the time you’ll just die. As long as your feet are on the ground, you can explode just about whenever you want, but once you go airborne, you’re limited to three blows which equates to triple jumping.
Most of the time, you’re running (or being propelled) from left to right, trying to get through 50 increasingly complex levels of death. Reaction time is critical and you need to be as precise as possible, or you die. Miss one detonation? Die. Blow up a hair too late? Die. Forget to pick up the fat scientist? Die. In fact, you will die in this game more than you’d probably like to… but don’t worry too much. While you’ll have to re-try sections of the game numerous times, the developers have crafted the levels beautifully, throwing down checkpoints in all the right places so you never have to repeat too much over and over.
The game is broken up into three worlds, each with its own quirky and entertaining final boss battle. While you blow through the game, you’ll learn new mechanics pretty much right when you just begin feeling like you need a new mechanic to learn. Each of the levels is setup as a mini puzzle and has a “par time” that you can attempt to hit (and probably fail doing so). Optimally, you’ll shoot for the fastest time through a level and that info is posted to the Xbox Live Leaderboards, but at first you’re probably just going to work at trying to get through a level without quitting or lobbing your controller through your LCD.
In an effort to reduce the feeling of platforming fatigue, Twisted Pixel have injected ‘Splosion Man with plenty of charm and whimsy (and gasoline probably). The lead character is memorable, maniacal, and magical with plenty of hilarious animations and voice work. Sometimes he’ll throw his arms out to the side and pretend he’s an airplane, other times he’ll hunch over and pretend he’s a gorilla complete with gorilla sounds. The levels are full of frightened scientists who both try to stop you, and run away from your explosiveness. If they get too close to a boom, they’ll comically turn into steaks and hams (no blood, just comedy here). There’s even a big, fat, donut eating scientist that comes with his own donuts theme song. If anything bad can be said about the artwork, its the backgrounds. Each world has a specific tileset that never deviates too far from the generic. A bit more variety would have been welcome.
In addition to the lengthy single player campaign, there’s a whole separate co-op multiplayer focused set of levels that are designed to be less about pinpoint precision, and more about working together as a team. You can take up to four folks (both online and offline) and try to traverse the levels with your own colored version of ‘Splosion Man. In addition to the new levels, you even get a few more mechanics to play with, like super jumps off of one another, and even a way to coordinate timed explosions.
‘Splosion Man is a classic platformer with changes made in all the right places. It’s a great looking, sometimes hilarious, often frustrating game, but its a hell of a lot of fun. Hearing ‘Splosion Man yell “GET TO THE CHOPPAH!” in a chipmunk inspired voice while blowing the meat out of a scientist makes the hair pulling seem not so bad and honestly, who doesn’t like explosions OR meat? Bad people, that’s who. Having the single player alone makes this game worthy of the price tag, but throwing an entirely separate cooperative mode makes it an incredible value. If you’ve got any love for the old platformers and want to see what a well done, more recent entry can pull off… go buy this game.
Score: 5 out of 5
The Good
Incredible sense of humor and style
Spot on platforming is difficult, but doesn’t get old
Plenty of stuff to do
The Bad
Needs more background variety
The Ugly
Missing a jump by that much.
Sam & Max: Save the World (360)
Jul 14th
True adventure games, for a time, were all the rage and dominated the gaming landscape. The evolution went something like all text based (Infocom), to text and graphics (Sierra On-Line), to point and click (LucasArts), then they practically fell off the face of the earth when First Person Shooters blazed onto the scene. With the emergence of consoles, there have been plenty of adventure games created which use different ways to tell the story and blaze new paths. These often put of an more action element in (Metal Gear?!), but now a company called Telltale Games is looking to bring the genre back as they once existed, with all trappings and annoyances fully intact.
Sam & Max: Save the World is actually a series of episodic games originally released on the PC in one package for Xbox Live Arcade. With it, you’ll get six somewhat self-contained point-and-click adventures, each with a constant theme that exists to tie them all together. They share locations, assets, characters and voices. Noting that this is a port from the PC is very important as it is still a point-a-click adventure game. Instead of trying to shoehorn some other control scheme on top of this very mouse specific title, Telltale opted to just have your 360′s gamepad control a cursor just as if you were moving it with a mouse, just way less accurate. While this may very well be the best approach for the type of game, it completely sucks. What exacerbates the issue is that often you’ll find yourself trying to click on a very small item, or locate a hidden object somewhere on the screen.
The entire game focuses on item finding in a scavenger/pixel hunt kind of way, then taking those objects and combining them with the people and places in the world to advance the story along. You control Sam by clicking around the environment while his evil bunny sidekick Max follows you around. The biggest problem here is that more often than not, you’re stuck scratching your head as to what you should do next and spend plenty of time just clicking around and trying different items with different people trying to get a reaction. Some of the item combinations are clear as day, others… not so much.
In terms of visuals, Telltale has kept very close to the original game while bringing it into three dimensions; its all very whimsical and cute and there are plenty of sight gags laying around. One thing that I felt was odd was that there are clear issues with the engine. While most of the game runs silky smooth, it will stutter in the same spots all the time. Make sure you watch for it when leaving your office. Technical issues aside, the world (as small as it is) is well realized and nicely designed and the characters do all have a bit of charm on their own.
But of course, you don’t play these games for the gameplay, you play them for the humor and the story right? Well, even when I made it past the control issues, I found the majority of the one liners to be somewhat forced and uninspired only laughing to myself a few times. The later episodes do a much better job at delivering the material (Reality 2.0 was probably the best of the bunch). Using the stock audio options as well, the horn heavy soundtrack would often drown out the character dialog at particularly “action filled” moments. Your exploits as Sam and Max will let you see your local block plenty of times, talking to the same people, and traveling to one unique environment per episode as you foil dastardly plots by some crazy folks and ultimately as the title states, save the world.
Conversations in the game are handled in your typical dialog tree fashion where you may as well just select every option from the menu as long as you’re not trying to respond in a particular way. This is where one of the old trappings rears its ugly head. If a particular conversation is important, and you screw it up, you’ll get to hear the exact same bit of dialog delivered in the exact same way over and over as you simply try other dialog choices. They’re not going to let you fail because the very linear time line will never advance if you do. Keep in mind that the B button will let you skip over dialog… or you’ll probably go insane.
That’s about all there is to it. Giving away much more would be ruining the only thing this game may have going for it (the plot). Its been mentioned before that creating humor in video games is a difficult thing to pull off, and when you’re banking on dialog to drive your game but it doesn’t resonate with the player (me) you’ve got a tired, archaic, and downright boring game. I admire what Telltale is trying to do, and being a huge player of many adventure games in my youth, in theory it sounds like something I would have been all for. I can’t help but think though that this type of game does not have a place in the current landscape of titles. Do yourself a favor and try the demo first, if you dig the humor and the characters, there’s a great chance you will like this game. I however, didn’t.
Score: 1.5 out of 5
The Good
Looks pretty good
Lots of content for your dollar
The Bad
Forced humor is very hit or miss
Tedious interface and dated design
Framerate hitches a bit too much for something as fixed as this
The Ugly
There’s a reason that people don’t make games like this anymore
Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers (360)
Jul 7th
Magic the Gathering has been around for over 15 years now and has seen it’s fair share of expansions, tournaments, rule changes and shoddy video games. Sure, you can take to the PC and play Magic Online, but really… who wants to spend real cash to get virtual booster packs? Not this guy. Enter the latest video take on the super popular collectible card game. Titled Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers, Stainless Games has tried to give every type of Magic player (newcomer to veteran) something to enjoy.
Learning the rules of Magic can be simple or difficult depending on the method, therefore Stainless has included multiple ways to learn the ropes. First, you’ve got your typical tutorial that will help you get started but due to the sheer number of things you’ll need to know, playing is the best way to get your learn on. The tutorial does a fair job at helping you learn the different phases of play and order. While you play and card with a new attribute is introduced, you’ll get an explanation right there in plain words, describing the new ability of that card. What’s smart here is that they allow you to just dismiss it for the time being so it will be explained again if that attribute comes up again, or permanently once you feel you know what it means.
The most helpful included learning method is quite cool. There is a ‘mentor’ system in place that allows you to either mentor, or be mentored by people on your friends list or on Xbox Live. This is often the best way to learn how to play Magic as you’ll be able to ask questions and get responses to immediate situations. If you’re a noob and worried about running into a foul mouthed tween who really doesn’t want to help and instead berate, don’t. After each mentoring session, you can rate the person you were with on a scale of 1-5 stars and that info is displayed for everyone to see when picking who they’re going to learn from.
During the campaign mode of the game, you’ll fight a series of Planeswalkers without any specific story tying them all together. This is mostly a catalyst for online play as you’ll get to learn the ins and outs of the included decks as well as unlock plenty of extra cards to use. Each deck is unlocked by playing through the campaign mode, and have 17 unlockable cards on top of that. While this helps with aiding customization and variations on decks you’ll see online, its a fixed and known quantity and removes much of the randomness you see. You can pick and choose which of these extra cards you’ll include, but cannot remove anything from the pre-builts. Additionally, while you have 17 cards to unlock, some are dupes as its usually prudent to include multiple copies of certain cards to ensure they come up during the game.
Feature wise, this game has just about everything you could want with the exception of tournament play. Campaign mode is there, alongside an offline co-op campaign mode. When you take your fight online, you’ve got 1v1, three and four player free-for-all, and two headed giant games (2v2). Lastly, you’ve got a puzzle mode to mess around with and learn how to effectively use your cards. Veteran players will certainly enjoy the competitive nature of Xbox Live matches although the deck customization (or lack thereof) will probably eventually force them back to the real world.
I’d be amiss if I didn’t mention some technical issues with the titles. For whatever reason, the game has a tendency to lock up on you at inopportune times. This is severely frustrating, particularly in the midst of a heated battle. You’ll need to reset your 360 to get things going again. Hopefully Stainless will fix these random lockups. Additionally, if you want to take a look at a specific card on the table, highlighting and enlarging is often a chore and sometimes can’t even be done, so I hope you’ve got a good memory. There are icons that denote a card’s special ability, but it’ll be a while before you can easily recognize what all those mean.
Xbox Live Arcade has seen it’s fair share of tabletop games, most of which translate very nicely while some seem like simple cash in takes on social gaming. Thankfully, Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers falls into the earlier category with a title that streamlines and somewhat simplifies the complex rule-set of MtG which can be daunting to learn for beginners. While the ‘seasoned’ player will certainly find faults, for the price point it truly is a great way to get some some quick and entertaining games of Magic in without having to brave the nerd shops and spend all your disposable income on boosters.
Score: 4 out of 5
The Good
For 800 MSP, this is a no brainier if you’re interested at all in Magic
Attractive, high-res card artwork
Features up the wahzoo
The Bad
Played card selection and enlarging is overly laborious
Card customization is weak
The Ugly
Random lockups on a console game? Fail.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Wii)
Jun 30th
‘The Boy Who Lived’ has started his sixth year at Hogwarts Academy for Witchcraft and Wizardry, and such Electronic Arts has brought this latest endeavor to the small screen on every current platform. Ringing in the new school year with classes, perils, and hormones, Harry, Ron and Hermione set out to stop Voldemort once again.
Unless you know who Albus Dumbledore and Hermione Granger are, as well as key plot points from the previous movies or books, you should probably steer clear of this game… not because it’s bad mind you, but because Half-Blood Prince is full of fan service and inside references that will make no sense unless you’re up on that Potter.
Based upon the movie version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the story is told through a mix of in-game cut scenes and pre-rendered bits, which I can only assume at this point, touch upon the major plot points of the film coming out in two weeks. While they do a good job at leading you through the happenings at Hogwarts, some of the scenes feel a bit disjointed and happen without prior explanation.
Harry and the crew are decently modeled although during story sequences, their faces are a bit peculiar. They certainly look like Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, but the developers have attempted to throw some emotion into their face as events unfold. Good idea to help avoid the stone faced glare, but it comes off as nothing more than a replacement skin that just swaps out, instead of natural emotion.
Additionally, the entire cast is voiced and unless you turn on subtitles, you wont have to read the dialog. Most of movie actors have lent their voices to the in-game characters, including Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy and Evanna Lynch as Luna (Looney) Lovegood, but some of the stand-in voices are terrible. One particularly egregous example is that of Severus Snape… I guess Alan Rickman impersonators aren’t all that easy to come by.
The area that makes up Hogwarts is an amazing achievement on the Wii. Everything has been meticulously recreated allowing you to guide Harry through the halls, classes, courtyards and surrounding area. It looks downright stunning. What’s even more impressive is that it is all done with minimal load times. Normal exploration of the school grounds will seamlessly stream from area to area without much of a hitch (although the frame rate can chug here and there) and you’re only given a brief load screen when a large transition is happening. To add a little incentive to make sure you walk everywhere, there are plenty of Hogwarts Crests to collect, as well as “mini-crests” which will build into full Crests after you get enough. These Crests will unlock different things such as multiplayer dueling and “gags” that you can use on the grounds.
Outside of exploration, you’ll take part in three main activities which all seem a bit too much like mini-games to the point that once they’re unlocked in the single player campaign, you can jump right to them through the main menus and just play that particular one. The most entertaining of the three is Potions. You plop yourself in front of a bubbling cauldron and have to mix, heat, pour and shake all sorts of ingredients to devise the proper concoction. This is a great implementation of the Wii remote as it feels like you’re really pouring out liquid and stirring that pot. Once you get the hang of the current potion, they’ll throw something else at you to keep track of for the next.
Next up is Dueling which you do a fair amount of. The Wiimote here is used in conjuction with the nunchuck as your wand and different waves will cast different spells and dodge incoming curses. At first, it’s fairly easy and you simply cast Stupify and Expelliarmus to defeat your foe but later on you’ll be deflecting and hanging the enemy by his (or her) ankles.
Finally the weakest of the bunch, riding around on your broom with Quidditch. As the Seeker for Gryffindor, its your sole job to catch the Golden Snitch. The films depict this as a harrowing battle against the opposing team’s Seeker while dodging incoming Bludgers and other stick riders. Pretty cool stuff right? Not in this game. All it is, is a slalom race where you point the Wii cursor at the next gate. Once in a while, you’ll get someone coming in to try and bump you, but its effectively a meaningless motion as nothing changes. Just hit those gates, and a winner is you.
While two out of three are genuinely entertaining, I can’t help but think that adding a couple more things to do would have greatly increased my enjoyment of the game. Granted, over the span of about five hours, you’ll probably get tired of them just in time to see the finale, but they do say that variety is the spice of life and maybe two more gametypes would have hit the sweet spot.
I’m kind of torn with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. On one hand, you’ve got a completely wonderful and fully realized world based off of the same one you’ve been watching in the movies for the past several years, including many of the same voices you’ve come accustomed to. On the other hand, the title just isn’t varied enough in terms of actual gameplay. Still, if you’re a fan of the series, you’ll certainly find something to like about this game and as far as movie tie-ins go? It’s probably one of the best ever made.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
The Good
Faithful, well-made, and great looking representation of the Harry Potter universe
Included minigames are interesting and mostly fun to play
Find out what happens in the movie, two weeks before it hits theatres!
The Bad
Very limited selection of activities
The retelling of the story feels a bit disjointed
The Ugly
Bellatrix Lestrange’s hair
Rocket Riot (360)
Jun 23rd
Now now, before you immediately say “Oh great, ANOTHER dual stick shooter on Xbox Live Arcade”, hear me out. Rocket Riot puts robots, pirates, zombies and ninjas in the same game, lets them all fly around with jet packs, and gives them all rocket launchers to blow stuff up with. Review over.
Still not convinced? Ok, let me explain a bit. The premise behind Rocket Riot is about as silly as its pseudo retro art style. A bad pirate named Blockbeard has escaped and stolen everyone’s legs. Scientists have invented a jet pack that attaches to your butt, so everyone is now jet pack enabled (not disabled, got it?). Your job is to chase after Blockbeard through 80 levels of action.
Mechanically, Rocket Riot resembles any number of dual stick shooters that grace Xbox Live Arcade with one important addition: Gravity. You control your little pixelated fellow with the left stick. If you’re up in the air and stop moving that left stick, you’ll fall downward. On the rocket side of things, the right stick will shoot them, but again with a bit of a twist on that mechanic. All the rockets are effected by thrust and gravity, the longer you hold in the direction you want to shoot, the harder and faster the rocket will fly out. Sure, you can spam a bunch of rockets out of your launcher, but they’ll dribble out and fall to the floor likely missing their intended target. This ballistic trajectory makes it much more difficult, and entertaining, to hit your targets.
While the rockets certainly blow apart your foes, they will also destroy the environment around you in an explosion of particle cubes. Doing this can create short cuts through levels, escape routes, and reveal much coveted power-ups (or much despised power-downs) for your flier. It’s easy to rip apart the pixels, but give them a short amount of time and they’ll begin to rebuild themselves a few blocks at a time. The power-ups range from homing and triple rockets to giant-sized rockets, and if you get them you’re sitting pretty for a limited time. The power-downs are more annoying… avoid the red pickups at all costs… one of them will even replace your rocket with a “BANG” flag, leaving you completely helpless (for a limited time).
Artistically, Rocket Riot is full of charm and character. While played on a 2D plane, everything is certainly a 3D model and the perspective shifts here and there to show that off. The entire environment and cast of characters are built from 3D cube shaped pixels which, as previously mentioned, fly around in a particle storm when being asploded. The cast of characters all have an early SNES Final Fantasy look to them and consist of just about every archetype you’d want in your retro styled title, each unlocked after you blow them to bits. Zombies, Army Men, Ninjas, Robots, Pirates, Normal Dudes, and more all make appearances.
My biggest issue with Rocket Riot comes down to it’s campaign mode. Sure it has 80 levels of blasting dudes, but it only has about 5 different modes for each of the maps with a few additional gimmick maps thrown in. You’ll be doing basically the same things over and over in different themed levels, just to unlock all of the characters. By the time I hit the half way mark, it was wearing quite thin and the whimsy has lost a lot of its charm.
The mode that’ll keep you sticking around is the Multiplayer which has a bunch of different modes to play in. Normal death match, Rugby Riot, Golden Guy, all of which are entertaining and frantic in a Smash Brothers sort of way. Playing against real people is certainly a different and better challenge than against mindless drones of single player. Everyone has a regenerating health meter which works just how it sounds (this meter is also present in campaign mode) so you’ll need to get a few quick hits on someone to take them down.
The physics introduced make Rocket Riot feel just different enough to keep the dual-stick shooter game type fresh and the art style is something that needs to be checked out. Codeglue has a nice hit on their hands. Rocket Riot is, in fact, a riot.
Score: 4 out of 5
The Good
Great retro art style, complete with cube particles everywhere
Huge roster of unlockable characters
Who doesn’t like Jet Packs?
The Bad
If you go headstrong into the Campaign, you’re likely to get burnt out by the end
Levels in Campaign need more variety
The Ugly
Needing only 4 more kills (out of 70), spacing out, and dying.
Plants Vs. Zombies (PC)
Jun 9th
Around the time PopCap released Peggle, they really started their way into the hearts and minds of people who consider themselves ‘serious’ gamers. Many folks, myself included, just looked at their games as something you didn’t really admit to playing (Bejeweled) but would still find hours lost to relatively pointless jewel swapping. Now though thanks to Peggle, folks revel in their love for PopCap games, so when they told everyone about their latest title… notice was taken by many and people started talking.
Plants Vs. Zombies is their own take on the tower defense genre where you must protect your house from the walking dead. Instead of building large structures to hinder their progress, you grab a trowel, your best sun bonnet, and step into the shoes of a gardener laying down a lawn full of special plants that do your dirty work. The zombies shamble down up to six fixed lanes, and most plants you lay down will only defend on one of those lanes. If they get past all your plants, there’s a single use lawnmower on each lane to protect your house. If that goes and a single zombie comes in for dinner… game over.
Each round of play begins by picking which seed packages you’ll be able to use in battle. At first, only a handful of slots are available but as the game progresses you’ll be able to buy more slots for more photosynthetic options. With 48 different types of seeds to pick from which are unlocked as the game progresses, there’s almost endless mix-and-match possibilities. You “pay” for the majority of plants with sunshine, which is earned by clicking on little suns that float from the top of the screen onto your lawn, or generated by Sunflowers. This adds a bit of an actiony feel to the title as you’ve got to make sure to collect the suns in the midst of combat, or they’ll go away.
As you progress through the game, you’ll have to defend the front and back yard of your house in the daytime and nighttime and switch to different locations around your humble abode. Each level provides a new challenge to overcome and forces you to adapt and pick new plants to throw down. To help break things up, there are a few mini games interspersed as well, changing the way a board is played completely if only for one round.
Probably the best part of PvZ is the art style. Everything is wonderfully adorable, including the zombies with their cute little arm bones sticking out. Everything drips with a certain loving quality that shows how much thought went into making these zombies family friendly. If you don’t laugh when the Michael Jackson zombie moonwalks onto the board and summons some backup dancer zombies, you have no soul. There are plenty of other amusing zombie archetypes as well, but some of the fun found in this title is coming across them for the first time.
Not all is sunshine and daisies though. At no point during the majority of Plants vs Zombies did I feel truly challenged. While the introduction of new plants helped move things along, it felt like one way too long tutorial on the mechanics of play. By the end of the game, even though more modes were unlocked, I had my fill of PvZ and really have no desire to play further.
Additionally, there’s no typical upgrade mechanic for your plants so that large 48 seed packet list isn’t as impressive when taking a second look at it. If you want a dual Pea Shooter instead of just a single one, you’ll need to take up an inventory slot with that type of seed. Space is limited on the game board as well, so if you want to make room for that type of plant, you’ll have to dig up (with no resource return) the existing plant and plop the next on open plot. Perhaps this adds a bit more to the thought process in how you take on the zombies, but I found it more annoying than anything.
I’d also be amiss if I didn’t point out one egregious oversight on PopCap’s part. There is zero wide screen support. This game was created to be 4:3 and that’s it… so if you go full screen you’ll get some pretty sexy black bars on the left and right of the game board. The least they could have done is place some sort of graphic over there.
Plants Vs. Zombies is a charming title, but once you get past all that charm it’s still just another tower defense game that’s light on challenge. For $20 though, its hard not to recommend at least a one time play through just to check out the art, zombie designs and laugh at Crazy Dave’s helmet.
Score: 4 out of 5
The Good
Great art style
Lots of different plants to choose from
Multiple mechanics help keep the flow moving
The Bad
Not much challenge to be had till the end
Wears out it’s welcome after a few hours
The Ugly
Stupid Digger Zombie!
Zeno Clash (PC)
May 5th
Ghat has a problem. He is in the very unique situation of having committed both matricide, and patricide, by killing one person. This forces him to take flight in a prehistorically fever-dream of a landscape, along with a scantily clad antlered woman, Deadra, from several of his brothers and sisters who seek his head. The story in Zeno Clash is told by jumping between present day and a series of flashbacks, leading up to the murder of Father-Mother.
Built upon the famed Source engine by Valve, Zeno Clash’s main draw is not necessarily its combat, which is a mixed bag of first person melee and strange gun play, but instead it’s cast of characters and landscape. Drawing from all points East of obscure and strange, each character seems to be lovingly crafted from the depths of insanity, complete with their own quirks. One of my favorite characters is certainly the antagonist, Father-Mother, who is a bird-like creature who has given birth to the protagonist as well as dozens of others. Hearing it talk and seeing it move, has granted me with a very uneasy, haunting feeling that is not easily matched and rarely seen in games.
The combat throughout, as mentioned, is a combination of first person melee combat and gun play. The fisticuffs present work better than most titles who have attempted it, and is a shining example of how to do it right. Presented in standard fighting game style, before each ’bout’ you are given a versus screen, outlining the combatants about to face off. Basic punching and kicking works great, is well implemented and feels visceral and primal. Connecting with a solid elbow or uppercut results in some resounding bass tones that really heighten the experience and the occasional melee weapon allow for some nice bone crushing blows.
Ranged weapons however, feels forced, uninspired, and a bit overused. They generally seem like they are odd for the sake of being odd, one particularly egregious example is the akimbo fish guns. With such a great melee system, the only reason I can think of to include them is an attempt to break up the combat to avoid monotony. While the goal is sound, I can’t help but think that it would have been best to stick with the very satisfying hand to hand stuff, and skip the guns altogether. Nothing stinks more than getting into a sniper duel, with a rifle that, by design, doesn’t have a scope.
After the main story is complete which will take you all of about 4 or 5 hours, ACE Team has forgone any sort of multiplayer. Instead they’ve opted for a challenge mode in which you can face off in a series of melee matches in which you fight your way up a large tower. While it may be nice to see some multiplayer added in the future, this mode is complete with online leaderboards for the competitor in all of us.
In general, I feel it is a bit difficult to convey the tone and experience of Zeno Clash in words. It is something best experienced for yourself. Being an independent developer often allows for much more freedom in game development due to not having to constantly answer to a higher, and often more powerful publisher. Sometimes taking chances doesn’t exactly pay off, sometimes it pays off in spades, and more often than not, it hits somewhere in between. Zeno Clash is one of the few games that lands in the upper tier of the indy scene. It isn’t the longest game in the world, and it certainly isn’t perfect, but at $20, it is a fresh step outside the normal comfort zone.
Score: 4 out of 5
The Good
Satisfying and entertaining melee combat system
Superb art design and direction
Well written and well execute plot
The Bad
Could use an extra coat of polish
Guns aren’t great at all
The Ugly
Fish Guns
Street Fighter IV (360)
Apr 21st
Let me first start out by saying that I have not been the most loyal Street Fighter fan. The only versions of the game that I played with any sort of religiosity were the Super Nintendo versions of Street Fighter II. This includes Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting and Super Street Fighter II. Those were released about 15 years ago, and while I can remember playing them every day after school or during the summer against the same few opponents, seperation between versions is very hazy. The next next step was on PlayStation 1 with Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha which I couldn’t stand (Skullomania anyone?) and abandoned the series in general, not touching it until Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting’s release on Xbox Live Arcade and its abysmal network code.
The formula of a fighting game is typically fairly simple. Take some people with a score to settle, throw them into an area, and allow them to beat the crap out of one another. Enhance the experience by varying attacks between opponents, including special moves, blocking techniques and you’re good to go. I feel that the keys to success though are in depth, accessibility, and balance. Make one character too strong and everyone will hone in on that. Make it too shallow and button mashy, it’ll have a short (or no) lifespan. Make it inaccessible, and people just won’t play it except for a core group of masochists.
What Street Fighter IV does so well, is all of the above. Novices can quickly jump in, learning some fairly simple moves and enjoy themselves while veterans can take the core move set and learn to utilize focus attacks, cancels, super and ultra combos. For every strong guy that moves slow and hits with severe pain is a quick fighter who can get in and out landing multiple hits. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and they all play very nice together… just as long as you’re not facing off against the AI controlled Seth, who is the epitomy of a cheesy end boss.
One thing fans of Street Fighter II will certainly be is right at home. You’ve got the same core group of characters you know and love with most of the same basic move sets that you still have the muscle memory to pull off with ease. Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Zangeif, M.Bison, and my personal favorite, E.Honda all make appearances, along with several new fighters like C.Viper, Abel and El Fuerte. The new fit with the old just fine, and no one stands out as a glaring idiot (although Rufus is kind of gross). You’ll even finally get to play as Gouken, the master who trained both Ken and Ryu. There are 25 total combatants, several of which will need to be unlocked by heading through the single player ‘arcade’ mode.
While I can appreciate the desire to unlock things, I wish Capcom had included some sort of method for unlocking primary characters through online play. As it stands, you’ll have to face Cheesemaster Seth at least 24 times before getting all 25 characters into your stable. Seth is named after a dude who works at Capcom and is a great SF player in his own right, but the game throws you into a handicap situation, dulling down the actual impact of your moves and forcing you to game the system instead of actually play well. When you have to fight him with a character you aren’t exactly great with, this can lead to some serious frustration and possible controller throwing moments.
There is at least some sort of reward system for playing online though. Each player can display both an icon and title to the world when meeting up in the online battlefield, and there are a ton of both to unlock as you progress. There’s also a Battle Points system in place which will increase or decrease depending on you winning and losing in ranked matches. They are a general indicator of your skill. Additionally, there are plenty of achievements for putting in your time online as well as medals that you are awarded due to your performance in individual matches.
Another sleight bone of contention is the matchmaking system in place. As it currently stands close to two months after release, there’s not much to it and often it doesn’t work properly much of the time. You can play in player matches or ranked matches without all that many options except time limit and number of rounds. When you can actually get into a match however, most of the time it will run very well and there’s typically no noticeable lag to be seen. There is a Tournament patch coming out this Friday, so that will add more robustness and hopefully will fix issues within this particular aspect, but as it stands, there isn’t much to it and sometimes you could spend more time looking for a game than actually playing in one.
Visually, SFIV has a very exaggerated yet beautiful art style. Not trying to be photo-realistic, each character is lovingly crafted in three dimensions with just the right balance of cartoon quality. It’s colorful, very distinctive, and there’s no mistaking one character for another. When specific special moves (ultra and super combos) are triggered, the camera will zoom in to get a better look at the fighter performing it, often showing the opponent with a bug eyed “oh crap” look on their face in the background. My only real complaint in this department is the number of locales in which to fight feels fairly limited. Added to the cartoonish style are broad pen strokes and even what appear to be ink splatters during the fights. The end result is unique and stunning and while the characters and environments are in 3D, the matches themselves take place on a single 2D plane. No rotating around each other endlessly or diving into the background or foreground, just pure head-to-head fighting that has undergone a great deal of playtesting and balancing.
When Street Fighter IV was pitched as a close successor to Street Fighter II (and even takes place chronologically directly after SFII and before SFIII), I became excited and thankfully, it delivers on that promise. It shares plenty in common with its 15 year old brother and adds just enough depth, fighters and features to make it feel like a completely new yet familiar experience. If you have given up on fighting games because nothing was as fun as Street Fighter II in your best friend’s house back in the ’90s, or you’re interested to see what a purely fun and well crafted fighting game can do in this generation of gaming then you owe it to yourself to pick up Street Fighter IV.
Score: 5 out of 5
The Good
Great art direction
Accessible, deep, and balanced
You’ll be able to play forever and almost never get bored
The Bad
Somewhat broken and limited online component
Not very robust statistics
The Ugly
Cheesemaster Seth is cheesy.
Flower (PS3)
Mar 10th
The PlayStation Network is quickly becoming one of my favorite things about owning a PS3. No, it’s not because you can play multiplayer titles for free across it, but instead there’s this little outlet called the PlayStation Store that is becoming chock full of games that are creative, entertaining, and buck the status quo by taking chances outside the typical spectrum. For some reason developers feel like they are able to take more risks with PSN titles than on Xbox Live Arcade, and we are better off for it.
Enter Flower. A title developed by ThatGameCompany that is not really much of a game but is a completely engaging experience from start to finish nevertheless. You play as the wind and it is your job to guide a single flower petal throughout five different levels exploring widely ranging landscapes while picking up a swirling train of additional multicolored petals.
Controlling the wind is simple enough. Pressing any button on the PS3 controller initiates your forward flowing breeze, while the SIXAXIS’s motion control is your steering wheel. There’s no arrow pointing you in the direction you’re to go, no heads up display or concrete objectives. Instead, the game encourages you to explore the lush scenery yourself, sometimes floating carefree and whimsically through the air, while other times avoiding potential hazards that could hinder your progress.
Speaking of the lush scenery though, this game is certainly a sight to behold. Showcasing an impressive 200,000 simulated blades of grass on the screen at a given time, there may not be anything that comes close to the visual fidelity of Flower on the PlayStation 3. It is gorgeous and all presented in 1080p. Vibrant colors literally explode from every corner.
When I first started Flower and entered the first level, I spent about 5 minutes just marveling at the beautiful landscape before me with the serene audio lulling me into a conscious trance. When in action, musical tones were provided by the landscape itself and the plethora of flowers that decorate it allowing a dynamic melodic experience that seemed perfectly fitting while swooping down low through the parting waves of grass or soaring high above the game’s majesty.
You can plow through Flower in about two and a half hours if you’d like, possibly less without bothering to really hit up much more than necessary but while some may feel this is a drawback… it is exactly as long as it needs to be. You can lengthen the experience by heading back in to try and unlock all the trophies, which you may just do while showcasing this visual feast to all the visitors to your abode. Flower is also perfectly acceptable as a screensaver.
Its easy to equate this title to poetry or enter it into the ‘games as art’ debate, but it does present a story complete with its own message that will play out over the different levels. It appears to take place within the dreams of different flowers that look out over an urban landscape all day; what you take away is completely up to you.
In general, I’m not a fan of poetry or motion controls but I am a huge fan of Flower. It is a game that any PS3 owner should try, putting a few hours in to get a simple yet beautiful experience. Who knows, you may even come away more enlightened. Without the PSN, this game would not be possible. I can only hope that future entries into this experimental space turn out so wonderfully.
Score: 5 out of 5
The Good
One of the best looking games available for any system
Exudes quality from every single blade of grass
As proficient aurally as it is visually
The Bad
Some may think its a bit heavy handed with its environmentalist message
The Ugly
Industrialism
Savage Moon (PS3)
Feb 17th
Its pretty clear by now that in the future, we’ll have used up all of Earth’s resources at some point and if science fiction has taught us anything, it’s that space has a plethroa of awesome reserves that we can exploit for fun and profit. Of course, along with the limitless caches found in the outer reaches comes the biggest threat to humanity: ALIENS!
In Savage Moon, those aliens take the form of arachnid styled bugs called Insectocytes. These guys just don’t want you touching their stuff and will attack any mining operation that goes up. So, its up to you to build up a defense system that’ll fend off these foes from taking down your factories. How do you do that? By building towers to shoot them of course.
Savage Moon is a Tower Defense game through and through. You have to take your limited resources and plan the best way to defend your base from the rushing horde of squishy bugs by building up towers. Aside from placement, there are two things you’ll need to take into account though when building, and those are money and drop-pods. Basically, you can only build as many towers as your pod allotment, no matter how much cash you’ve got. This may seem like it’s a problem, but it only remains one in the earlier levels. Typically, you’ll run out of money before you run out of pods.
There’s not much here that TD fans haven’t seen before. You’ve got your basic machine guns, anti-air, mortar, lasers, and support towers, all upgradable up to 5 times. Upgrades are shown by the actual tower taking different forms, so you’ll need to memorize those to keep track of which ones have been upgraded how much. This can be a bit frustrating as the changes can be very minor so you end up being better off selecting the tower to see what level it’s at. One handy addition though are the ‘Command Skills’. Utilizing these will give your towers a boost in one of three categories: Damage, Defense, or Credits Gained. These are a great addition as I can’t tell how many times I’ve said “I wish they would do just a bit more damage!” or “I need some more cash.” Additionally, you can pick two at a time lowering the advantage of each, but giving your picks a hair of oomph.
To complicate matters, you’ll only be able to build your towers on certain surfaces. Place them on overlooking cliffs, and you’re pretty safe against most bugs. Place them on the flat plains however and they’ll be susceptible to attacks from the ground forces. In the later levels however, no tower is completely safe as certain larger foes will shoot projectiles to take down your defenses… and herein lies one big issue with the game.
Savage Moon does an OK job introducing you to how to play through the first three levels via a bunch of onscreen text (a narrator would have been nice), but then lets you fend for yourself figuring out what each tower does, which towers have been added to your arsenel, where they are in the build order, and what the different enemies can do as they’re coming at you. Once you figure all that out on your own, you’ll still need to determine how you’re going to lay your towers out. This truly leads to a lot of trial-and-error gameplay.
Maps are laid out in a multitude of different ways and while there’s isn’t a set path for the bugs to attack in, they usually head down the shortest, most unobstructed route. The ground based bugs will come out of cave type structures while winged beasts will fly in through beehive looking capsules. The game sports plenty of different maps for a $10 title (12 in all), but the environments are nothing spectacular.
When all’s said and done, Savage Moon does what it sets out to do. Provide a challenging tower defense game on alien terrain, allowing you to blow up tons of insects by various means. While I fear that it’s difficulty curve will throw off some TD novices, those willing to put in the time will certainly get their money’s worth. With 12 maps, trophy support, and a challenge mode that pits you against a never ending flood of creatures, there’s plenty to do in this downloadable title making it worthy of purchase for anyone looking to scratch the TD itch.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
The Good
TD Vets will get quite a challenge
Great looking tower designs that upgrade beautifully
You certainly get your money’s worth with the content
The Bad
Maps are pretty bland and presentation is mediocre
Steep learning curve will put off many people
Could have used another round of tower balancing
The Ugly
Sometimes overly frustrating trial-and-error gameplay can sour your experience