Review: Kid Icarus: Uprising demonstrates well the strengths and weaknesses of the 3DS handheld. Fun game though for sure.

Many had forgotten all about Pit and his Kid Icarus franchise; it's rare for a Nintendo character to go so long without getting a new game, but Pit had been lying dormant since 1992. That changed with his role as a playable character in Super Smash Bros Brawl, something that undoubtedly spawned new interest in seeing the return of the Kid Icarus franchise.

It would make sense then that the Smash Bros series director, Masahiro Sakurai, was to spearhead the rebirth of the Kid Icarus series, and he's created a very hectic game. I don't mean that necessarily as an insult but people should know what they're getting into when picking this one up. The action is non-stop, as it jets from the starting line like a kid on a sugar rush and never lets up across its sometimes exhausting 13 hour campaign. Part rail shooter and part ground-based hack and slash...with shooting, Kid Icarus: Uprising is definitely something different, and though it's not without its flaws, it's still a 3DS game worth playing.

With a convoluted storyline involving gods and goddesses, humanity at stake and an underworld army, (and that hardly covers it) it can be a bit much to take in at times. Thankfully Nintendo did well with the script and voice acting, delivering a story that not only takes place while you play, but also within fully produced in-game cutscenes. The dialogue seems to be doing its best to capture the fun and goofy humor of a Saturday Morning cartoon, and some annoying jokes aside, it really works; this game can be laugh out loud funny, especially when it references itself (and other Nintendo franchises) in some pretty fun ways. The voice actors all seem to be having a blast bringing their characters to life, which is a good thing, because the character interaction almost never stops, even while playing.

Kid Icarus: Uprising has a lot going on. Between Pit and his friends and villains constantly chatting with each other and the barrage of enemies always right in your face, to a full blown orchestral soundtrack from Motoi Sakuraba (Star Ocean, Tales, Dark Souls) the kinetic energy here can be overwhelming at times, though thankfully the levels are kept short enough that you never have to play for too long at a time before the game saves your progress. Almost every level is divided up into two segments; a shorter on-rails flying section followed by a usually longer battle on the ground, often culminating in a boss battle. Rather than going with a difficulty setting, you pick your difficulty at the start of every level, betting more "Hearts" the higher you raise the challenge. Dying during the level then costs you hearts, and the difficulty reduces itself as punishment. Benefits to playing at a higher difficulty level include better treasures dropped from enemies, and of course the personal satisfaction of overcoming a tough challenge.

I'm a bit mixed on the way Kid Icarus: Uprising handles this. It's an inventive system and it can be fun to risk hearts to crank the difficulty up. On the other hand, dying does drop the difficulty back down, and you can't avoid this. So instead of getting to retry a particularly difficult part at, say, the 5.0 difficulty, you're re-trying it at more along the lines of a 3.2 unless you opt to start the whole level over again.

But that's really my only issue with the difficulty system; giving you such a wide array of challenge levels to choose from means that Kid Icarus: Uprising offers an experience that can be both relaxingly easy and insanely tough, and the ability to switch between these before each level is a pretty cool thing.

The levels themselves are all gorgeous, doing a great job at demonstrating the 3DS' visual capabilities and how much the 3D can enhance these varied environments and character models. I didn't notice much in the way of framerate issues despite the craziness constantly taking place on both screens, and load times are kept to a minimum. Each place you visit has a different look to it, and when you're talking about a Campaign with as many levels as this one has, it's definitely something Kid Icarus: Uprising's artists should be proud of.

In fact, there's a level of complexity here in all categories that you just don't see in many other games of this type. The amount of weapon customization is staggering, and there's no shortage of "achievements" to attain, weapons to collect, prizes to be given, and powers to equip. The game controls just like a dual-analog game without the 2nd analog stick, and while definitely not perfect, I have to give major credit to Sakurai and his team for creating a solution that works as well as it does here; essentially, the touch screen and stylus act as a 2nd analog stick, and as crazy as it sounds, in practice it works better than it has any right to.

Not that it's perfect. My hands often felt tired after only one or two levels of play, so this is a game I recommend playing in quick bursts rather than for extended play sessions. The issue isn't present as much during the aerial parts of the levels, which are on rails, as it is when on the ground, when melee attacking, dashing, shooting, vehicles, and camera control all come into play. It's during these parts where I felt the most exhausted, and I found myself wishing more than once that the game's ratio was more in favor of the air battles than the land adventures. Don't get me wrong, the land segments can be a lot of fun too, and though they're awfully tiring, there's nothing that I can find *wrong* with the controls during these parts, well, except the Dashing, which was just a bad idea that should have just not been bothered with.

All in all Kid Icarus: Uprising is a game that revels in its action; it aims to thrill and entertain you at every given opportunity, and like a Smash Bros game, completionists will find endless amounts of content here to explore and unlock. There's even an online multiplayer mode, and the action actually holds up pretty well, though long wait times for a match, including one instance of waiting nearly three minutes and then getting Error Coded out, took away much of my enthusiasm for exploring it more thoroughly.

It's rare that I say this, but (aside from the tiring controls) the only other major issue I have with Kid Icarus: Uprising is that it's actually a bit too long. It makes the mistake of fooling you with a fake out ending (even going as far as beginning the End Credits roll) and then pulling back the curtain and having the campaign continue...for another 6 hours. Though I'm sure it seemed like a funny idea when the writers came up with it, for me it ended up actually negatively impacting the game; you think the it's over, but then it's not, but then each level you get to now feels like the last one, and it's not, and each boss feels like it should be the final one, but it's not, etc. etc. etc. The constant thought of "is it over yet...?" that kept creeping into my head after the credits fake out made the second half of the story less enjoyable for me in a way that's tough to explain. I can't fault the game much for being too long, but I guess the complaint I'm looking for is that if a game really is going to be so long, its developers need to have enough fresh ideas to keep it from feeling repetitive. Uprising sticks pretty rigidly to its formula throughout, and as a result, the game, especially the ground missions, loses a lot of its freshness and instead begins to feel almost like a chore.

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Verdict: And that's too bad, because for the most part Kid Icarus: Uprising is not a chore to play. Sakurai has created a fun and frantic action game/rail shooter that demonstrates both the 3DS' strengths (awesome 3D graphics, more voice acting than I ever thought could fit on a cartridge, the handheld's 2 screens and analog thumb pad) as well as its major weakness (no 2nd analog stick). It's a game that's as exciting to experience as it is exhausting to play, but fans of action games who own a 3DS shouldn't miss out on one of the system's most exciting, content-filled, and funny adventures.
Presentation: Overblown story with no shortage of humor, drama, and entertaining voice acting. Manus are easy to navigate, short load times.

Graphics: Game looks great, especially in 3D, and the framerate rarely suffers.

Gameplay: Nearly perfect on rails segments mesh well with solid-but-not-as-good ground parts. Definitely a lot to see and do, though a little of it at a time goes a long way.

Sound: An epic musical score and quality voice acting; not much else I would want here.

Replay Value: Tons to unlock, as well as online multiplayer; this in addition to a 13-hour Campaign that actually may be two or three levels too long...

Overall: 7.5/10

(Note; my reviews go on a .5 scale)

New Reviews: New Super Mario Bros U shows its age but manages to be fun all the same

It seems that ever since 2D Mario was given its rebirth with New Super Mario Bros on the DS, people haven't been able to get enough of the ol' plumber. With the more linear approach of 2D gaming influencing even Mario's latest 3D outings, not to mention the immensely popular New Super Mario Bros Wii, Nintendo is well aware that they've struck gold and have enjoyed milking it for all it's been worth.

With the recent New Super Mario Bros 2 on the 3DS, however, (a game coming out less than a year after *another* Mario platformer, Super Mario 3D Land) which was greeted with solid sales numbers but not a ton of enthusiasm, it began to look like the creative well for Mario adventures was running dry. New Super Mario Bros U, following the numbered installment by just 3 months, only seems partially aware of this. Even while still playing it frustratingly safe in a number of areas, however, Mario's first HD adventure manages to be his best since Galaxy 2, and by far the most fun in the "New Super Mario Bros" series to date.

The storyline here once again involves Peach being in a state of peril; though this time, in a bit of a "twist," she isn't kidnapped; rather, Bowser has surrounded her castle, imprisoning her inside while throwing Mario and Luigi across Mushroom Kingdom, forcing them to make their way back.
No, none of this pushes the Mario storytelling envelope in the slightest, but Bowser's humorously designed minions, who you come across in the form of boss battles throughout each world, make for fun villains and all fight differently from one another. The minimal story present here is cute in the usual "Mario" way, while the world you explore is colorful and at times quite vibrant.

The gameplay is the same as sidescrolling Mario has ever been, with you running from left to right, jumping on the heads of enemies, picking up powers and 1up mushrooms, and looking for optional star coins to collect. It's still no Rayman Origins, but the levels are designed well enough, and there are moments throughout, certainly more than there were in New Super Mario Bros 2 or Super Mario 3D Land, of truly ingenious platforming.

Oddly enough, where New Super Mario Bros U sees its biggest improvement over other Mario games as of late is in its worldmap, which actually harkens back to the Super NES days. No longer do you simply move across a straight line in between levels, but now the world actually feels far more alive, brimming as it is with multiple paths, a vast scope, roaming enemies, and a real sense of place. When you descend from the Frosted Glacier into the Soda Jungle it really feels like it, and the seamless world does loads to add to the feeling of adventure that I've always found to be so lacking in the 2D Mario series. That you can sometimes choose which level to tackle, and with some levels containing hidden passages, it's totally possible to end up at the Rock Candy Mines before the Soda Jungle instead of after it, and it's things like this that open the game up and make the experience far more rewarding.

Throughout each world you'll come across Toad Houses, which allow you the opportunity to win items or 1up Mushrooms (these disappear once completed but reappear if your lives run out and you use a Continue) in simple mini-games that are easy to grasp but can be tough to master; no matter how many times you've done them, there's no guarantee that you'll win anything when you venture back to try them again.

New Super Mario Bros U, especially in its 2nd half, can present a good challenge. Even ignoring the Star Coins entirely (which can unlock additional levels upon the game's completion) you'll face some tough areas, something very refreshing to see after the almost insultingly easy Super Mario 3D Land.
That said, the challenge almost seems to come more from the game's punishment system than it does from particularly skillful level design. The way this game works, as with past games in this series, is that you only have the opportunity to save your progress after defeating a boss. You can Quick Save if you need to shut the game off, though when you load the file back up your Quick Save will vanish. Getting a Game Over sets you back to your last save point, and levels completed beyond that will have to be beaten again. The levels, too, only have one checkpoint each, so even simply dying can set you back a good distance depending on the length (and difficulty) of the level.

The challenge, therefore, can actually be more about returning to the part where you died to try it again, something which increases the tension but can also be a source of frustration. I find myself preferring the method used in Rayman Origins, which does away with Game Overs entirely and is incredibly liberal with its checkpoints, while at the same time isn't afraid to hammer you over the head with skillfully designed, *difficult* platforming. I guess my complaint is that NSMB: U's platforming itself isn't, for the most part, incredibly tricky, with the difficulty mainly coming from the punishment for messing up, not the platforming itself. (Though this does change towards the end.)
Frustrations with the save point system aside, my biggest problems with the otherwise fun New Super Mario Bros U are more in what it doesn't do than what it does.

It doesn't have online play; 5 player co-op is nice but when my friends and I get together to play video games it's usually for faster-paced experiences like Smash Bros or Mario Kart. So with its inexplicable lack of an online mode, New Super Mario Bros U's multiplayer mode is entirely lost on me.

The game limits the Nintendo Network features to the Miiverse system, with the game essentially begging you to comment on levels that it sees you dying on frequently, comments which are then displayed to others who reach the same point and find themselves struggling as well. It's...an interesting idea in theory, though what it basically amounts to is seeing a bunch of demented-looking Mii faces with text bubbles popping up on your screen every time you die. This is something that can be turned off, though for what it's worth, the feature can at least be unintentionally hilarious; I routinely cracked up as I imagined the Miiverse moderators having to spend their days reading through these incredibly shallow comments, while at the same time wondering why the minds at Nintendo thought it would be a great idea to proudly showcase to you the quotes of people complaining about their game. Needless to say, online play would have been a far better use of their system's features, especially for a game that places so much emphasis on its multiplayer.

It doesn't innovate; even the biggest milestone for the NSMB series to date (the expanded worldmap) is just a feature brought back from before 2D Mario was so simplified for the masses. The platforming is Mario through and through, and with games like Kirby's Epic Yarn and Rayman Origins reminding us what awesome things can be done with 2D platforming, it's disappointing to see the game design play it so safe.

It doesn't change the music; the soundtrack here sounds like it was composed for a DS cartridge, a decision made even more baffling by the orchestrated soundtracks of the Mario Galaxy series. The tunes here aren't awful, but they feel so bouncy and interchangeable that many fail to stand out. This was most noticeable to me when I reached the Sky levels, whose deep backgrounds and epic scope were just begging for something so much more than "doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, Bah Bah!"

It doesn't provide a fresh world; Mushroom Kingdom is now in HD, but surprisingly little has changed. The backgrounds look great and have a real sense of depth, but with very few exceptions do we get visuals that feel truly new. Trine 2 and the upcoming Rayman Legends simply demolish every single aspect of New Super Mario Bros U's visual presentation.
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Verdict: New Super Mario Bros U is the same 2D Mario that you've come to expect, though with some fun twists. Solid level design, colorful HD visuals, a far more explorable world map, and a good bit of challenge help to ensure a fun Mario Bros game, one that definitely feels like what the New Super Mario Bros series should have been to start with. Where it disappoints is where it fails to innovate, and where it fails to advance what's very quickly becoming a stagnant series. Still, it's impossible to deny the fun I had while playing this, and while it doesn't do much of anything to take advantage of the system it's on (with the Game Pad features mainly restricted to offline multiplayer play) it's a good title to pick up with your new Wii U.

Presentation: A great world map that's a step up, minimal but effective (for what it is) storyline, no load times, and the usual Mario flavor.

Graphics: Colorful visuals and some great art direction limited by a native 720p resolution (why, when Rayman Legends runs in 1080p and looks loads better?) and a lack of inspiration. How about we leave Mushroom Kingdom entirely for the next 2D Mario game, Nintendo, and really go on an adventure?

Gameplay: This is a Mario game. One that has a healthy dose of challenge and fun and varied boss encounters. Not much that's new, but a lot that's fun.

Sound: Effects haven't changed. Music sounded dated in 2006.

Replay Value: Believe it or not, getting to the end took me around 16 hours, which is pretty great for a 2D title. Collecting star coins (3 per level) unlocks additional levels, plus there's the whole Challenge Mode to enjoy as well.

Overall: 7.5/10

(Note; my reviews go on a .5 scale.)

New Reviews: Epic Mickey Power of Illusion (3DS)

A few years back there was a good bit of excitement over Disney's decision to revive Mickey Mouse's video game persona, this time in the form of an epic adventure headed up by industry vet Warren Spector. Epic Mickey was the end result, a game that I found to be such a disappointment that it really damaged my hopes for Mickey Mouse's video game future.

Epic Mickey 2 was released this year across all platforms, and though I have yet to play it, the game looked to me to contain all the same flaws that made the first one such a chore to play, so I haven't yet gone out and bought it. The one bright spot, however, was the 3DS version; Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion went a different direction entirely, taking the form of a 2D sidescroller meant as the spiritual successor to the Sega Genesis classic, Castle of Illusion. It was this version that I looked forward to, and without hesitation I picked it up and immediately dove in.

And the verdict? Well, "okay" is at least better than bad, right?

Let me start from the beginning, though. Power of Illusion is a far more straightforward game than its console brothers. You move Mickey from left to right across some gorgeously rendered Disney worlds as he takes out enemies by ground-pounding on their heads, the goal being to free Minnie Mouse and other Disney characters from the mysterious castle they've been imprisoned in. There's no "good/evil" mechanic, there are no in-game fetch quests, and there's no co-op play.

And, at first, it's decent enough. The sound effects and art style had an immediate "Genesis" vibe for me, with the 3D effect adding real depth to the backgrounds and creating environments well worth venturing through. The music is far better than what I can remember from the Wii's Epic Mickey game, featuring suitably epic tracks but fitting the environments far better. And there's something undeniably fun about spotting various Disney characters hidden throughout the levels and rescuing them. Doing so creates a room for them in the Castle, a static map you can explore between levels. In this network of rooms, you can take on missions from the newly-rescued characters, missions which always seem to involve visiting another character, highlighted on the map with an exclamation point, and talking to them. It's simple and not particularly challenging, but compared to the endless series of item hunts and fetch quests required of you in the console Epic Mickey games, it's unobtrusive and addictive.

To a degree the side missions are required, as they help net you the points necessarily to unlock new areas of the castle, but you can also spend points to "upgrade" the characters' rooms; adding more personality to each with every upgrade, something which winds up being a fun little distraction. It's the little things that you'll find yourself thankful for, because like with Epic Mickey, it's the core gameplay mechanics that drag the whole thing down.

As you progress through the levels you'll see no shortage of enemies to take out, but the ground pound, which requires you not only to jump but to hold the A-button midair, can wind up messing things up for you, especially if it bounces you too high off the defeated enemy and into a hazard above. To compensate, developer DreamRift has given you the "Epic Mickey" Paint and Thinner moves, though here it doesn't seem to matter much which one you fire at the enemy. Your amount of paint and thinner is limited, however, and doesn't fire particularly fast, making it ineffective when surrounded, something that becomes all too common and a source of much frustration in the game's later stages.

Another feature has you using the touchscreen to trace the outlines of various objects to bring them to life, all while rating you on your accuracy. It's a cool idea in theory, but in practice it's beyond clunky; bringing up the "draw" screen not only freezes the action and interrupts the pace, but you're then forced to sit through the unskippable animation of Mickey actually using the paint. With boss fights that demand you bring this screen up constantly, it doesn't take long at all for this to come across as tedious.

The power ups you can gain access to don't provide much help, though there are several to be unlocked, if you so choose.

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Verdict: All in all, Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion is a game that, like with the rest of the Epic Mickey franchise, was developed with great intentions. Here we see an attempt to create a sequel to the iconic Castle of Illusion and World of Illusion games which played such a large role in my Sega Genesis gaming growing up. It's been a very long time since I've played those games so it's tough for me to remember why they worked and why Power of Illusion doesn't. But though the platforming feels uninspired almost from the start, the graphics, music, and atmosphere kept me going full speed, well, until the frustrating trial-and-error gameplay that defines the final levels shows up. Meanwhile the attempts to merge this with the world (and flawed gameplay concepts) of the Epic Mickey series feel tacked on and wind up being a bit of a pain.

If you want to play a Mickey Mouse sidescroller again, Power of Illusion fits the bill in the sense that we've been waiting a long time for it, and believe it or not I spent over 8 hours playing it. It's just too bad that flawed gameplay concepts and frustrating final levels show up to ruin the nostalgic fun.

Presentation: All-text story sequences continue to feel like a step back, and though the characters have their charms, their dialogue feels bland. A hub world Castle (of sorts) provides some fun character interaction between the levels.

Graphics: The game definitely looks the part, with colorful and very detailed foregrounds as the 3D adds depth to the back. (New Super Mario Bros 2, take notes.) Some framerate drops later on.

Gameplay: Your average 2D platformer at heart, with some last minute frustrations and under-developed ideas leaving a mark.

Sound: Music is epic. Effects are great.

Replay Value: There are plenty of additional powers to unlock should you want them, and upgrading your teammates' rooms is a fun bonus. Game took me a little over 8 hours according to my 3DS Activity Log; not bad for a game that many deemed to be "too short."

Overall: 6.5/10

(Note; my reviews go on a .5 scale.)  

Blog Post; When box art becomes a big deal

I had this post in mind about a week ago, with lots to say and a clear direction planned for this topic, but then the tragedy struck in Connecticut and I lost my enthusiasm for it. Not that I should have; the two are definitely not related, (despite the media's ever-present attempts to link video games and shootings) but I just couldn't justify, on a personal level, making a post on something as "created" as video game bo xart in the wake of such real pain. My heart goes out to all who were affected.

But now it's been a week, and now I feel I can go back to doing..well, this. So let's get to it.
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It may have been a long time coming, but after lighting up the gaming press for what has been years at this point, the 3rd installment in the Bioshock series (and the 2nd one with series creator Ken Levine again back at the helm) is almost here. With that comes the marketing, which of course will attempt to sell the title to as many people as possible, and with that comes, yes, the box art. And Bioshock: Infinite's boxart was hit with immediate scrutiny among the series' passionate fanbase.

*The Issue*

I don't think there's much doubt that Levine saw it coming. Though the box art itself definitely isn't badly-done, the image conveyed is one at odds with the very artistic way the series has presented itself previously. Bioshock is a series set in an incredibly cool setting with a great sense of place, and this has always been conveyed in the game's marketing. Infinite's boxart, instead, simply features the main character, gun clearly visible, looking off to the side as if willing himself to appear as badass as possible for the camera. Not much else is there to convey Infinite's new setting, its retro theme, its other characters, or even a level of mystery; there's the main character, there's the gun over his shoulder, and there's the fire behind him.

The reason I think this has struck such a nerve is because this past console generation we've seen the price of game development rise with the more advanced hardware, and as a result, larger audiences became a requirement for games to become profitable. In some cases this only applies to the marketing, in others, like the disaster that was Resident Evil 6, it seeps into the gameplay as well; the idea that a game needs to look and play like a Hollywood action movie for it to interest the masses. Bioshock is not that game, but it has box art that seems designed to be interpreted that way. With Bioshock always wearing its "individuality" on its sleeve in the face of the industry's increasingly mainstream methods of promotion, it's easy to see why its fans would feel betrayed by such a Hollywood-looking cover.

*A Good Response*

 

And it shouldn't be a surprise that shortly after the pic of the box art hit the 'net, Ken Levine was ready with an explanation and the solution of an alternate cover.

 

"We went and did a tour… around to a bunch of, like, frathouses and places like that. People who were gamers. Not people who read IGN. And [we] said, 'So, have you guys heard of BioShock?' Not a single one of them had heard of it. Our gaming world, we sometimes forget, is so important to us, but… there are plenty of products that I buy that I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. My salad dressing. If there’s a new salad dressing coming out, I would have no idea. I use salad dressing; I don’t read Salad Dressing Weekly," Levine explained. "I don’t care who makes it, I don’t know any of the personalities in the salad dressing business. For some people, [games are] like salad dressing. Or movies, or TV shows. It was definitely a reality check for us."

 

"I wanted the uninformed, the person who doesn't read IGN… to pick up the box and say, okay, this looks kind of cool, let me turn it over. Oh, a flying city. Look at this girl, Elizabeth on the back. Look at that creature. And start to read about it, start to think about it. [But] We had to make that tradeoff in terms of where we were spending our marketing dollars. By the time you get to the store, or see an ad, the BioShock fan knows about the game. The money we’re spending on PR, the conversations with games journalists--that's for the fans," he said. "For the people who aren’t informed, that’s who the box art is for."

 

Before I get into my own opinion on this, I have to give credit to how Levine and 2k Games are handling this issue; a reverse (fan-chosen) cover will be provided, while others will be available soon to be printed out, and by addressing the controversy, he put at least my mind at ease regarding the game itself. I think it's always nice when developers engage with the fan community and show that fan input matters to them, and I definitely believe he's sincere in this gesture.

 

 

*But the wrong decision*

 



That said, I still think 2k games and Take-Two Interactive made the wrong decision in going with this cover, even with the fan service they've offered since. I'm not sure which frathouses they got into to ask about the Bioshock series, (a concept that seems a bit strange to me, to be honest) but I've had college friends who were by no means video game enthusiasts who heard of, and played, Bioshock. I'm not saying that the series is Call of Duty-huge, of course, but it's definitely a well-known and respected property, and I don't think you have to pander so hard like this to a demographic who likely would give the game a shot anyway, as long as the other marketing (such as TV commercials, etc.) was effective in making the game look like the event that it is. In a sense I agree that marketing to the mainstream should be a priority, as this game looks excellent and an excellent game can certainly reach a wide variety of people if they give it the chance.

 

But Bioshock is simply not Call of Duty, regardless of the box art they choose. It's far too artsy of a series to ever score Halo or Call of Duty numbers, and I don't think an "uninformed" audience will be swayed to learn more about the game by this box art, which makes it stand out far less on a shelf than it deserves to. And frankly, the big difference between video games and salad dressing is that salad dressing doesn't often cost $60 a bottle; I think most people already know what game they're getting before they even get to the store. And I don't feel that those who would be pulled into a game they haven't heard of by its box art exist in a significant enough number to warrant sacrificing the game's originality (in its marketing) to appeal to. To me it even comes off as a missed opportunity to make a statement to the industry that an artsy game can sell well without having to pander so obviously to the mainstream.

 

*And that's that*

 

 

But that's it; in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal. The cover will be reversible, and even better, it's going to be this gem that we can swap the official cover out for;

So all's well, though it does make for good discussion. I think I'll end this semi long-winded blog post by saying that it's my hope that next gen, we'll see far less of this going on. The industry's in a transition period, for sure, and the future's uncertain. But there has to be a way to grow the gaming userbase without the industry Hollywood-izing itself. I truly hope we find some sort of balance soon that makes everyone happy.





Spike TV 2012 VGAs....

I've gotta say............they were pretty good. 0.o

Review: Resident Evil 6 is so content to be so mediocre.

I’m convinced that video games are an art form. There are some developers out there, many, I’m sure, who love what they do, who take pride in their work, and who try their best to deliver an artistic vision to the screen. I get that it isn’t always easy, especially in an age of rising development costs and increased pressure to deliver that “blockbuster game of epic proportions,” but I have to believe that it still can be done.

Resident Evil 4 came along a few years back and truly revolutionized both the survival horror and action genres, creating a compelling and brand new experience that, yes, was more accessible to a larger demographic, but one that still retained much of what made the series what it was and brought it into the modern era. With the departure of series creator Shinji Mikami, the Resident Evil series has since switched gears in a major way, sacrificing almost all of its horror and exploration elements in favor of what I can only call straightforward action.

Resident Evil 5, though I wasn’t happy with the direction it had taken, was still built with the strong gameplay foundation introduced in its predecessor, managing to stand out from other action games as a suspenseful, not to mention well-made, installment that brought the long-running story arc started with the first game to an epic close. But this is where my support ends, because while Resident Evil 5 won me over despite my misgivings, Resident Evil 6 starts out as a trainwreck and gets only marginally better. It’s a game that was clearly developed with the goal of selling as many copies as humanly possible, one that borrows so much from the Call of Duty template but does it all so poorly that the result’s rarely more than a chore to play.

In Resident Evil 6 you pick from three separate campaigns (a fourth is unlocked upon completion of the three) all featuring different styles of gameplay. There’s Leon Kennedy, whose campaign is theoretically the most reminiscent of the series’ survival horror past. Chris Redfield returns to shoot one enemy after another while fighting the worst cover system known to man, and newcomer Jake Muller has some stealth segments and a couple of action scenes so jaw-dropping in their stupidity that even the biggest Michael Bay fans will be left shaking their heads. I won’t spoil who the fourth playable character is since the game keeps it a secret, though most fans will probably assume it from the start.

Capcom’s approach seems to have been to please everybody by featuring four different styles of “Resident Evil” gameplay and cramming it all into one, but none of it feels even vaguely reminiscent of the series’ past. Leon’s adventure may see the return of zombies and dark environments but like with all the campaigns in Resident Evil 6, a waypoint is always on screen to let you know where to go and how far you have to go to get there. The game is so scripted that at times it even dictates whether you can use the “run” button or not. Exploration is virtually non-existent, with no chance to venture further than 3 feet off the designated path before hitting a dead end, and backtracking is in all cases impossible. If this isn’t enough guidance for you, a mission objective constantly appears to let you know what you need to do, and by holding the left bumper your character will physically turn and face the appropriate direction as an arrow appears on screen to tell you exactly where to walk. It’s a game that’s afraid to even for a second let its gameplay prevent you from continuing your journey to the next waypoint, where even more mind-numbing action scenes and endless QTEs await.

It goes without saying that a game so obsessed with playing itself for you wouldn’t be too well thought out, and Resident Evil 6 can’t even be enjoyed as a guilty pleasure because of its frustrating mechanics in all campaigns. Leon’s actually happens to be the worst, with environments so dark and dreary-looking (thanks to an ineffective brightness adjust menu) that it’s hard to see much at all, let alone a train barreling towards you in a subway tunnel as you rack up what feels like your hundredth sudden death due to poor lighting and an even worse camera.

The other characters fare better but not by much, presenting a handful of fun moments to experience but still handicapped by the core mechanics. The stop-and-shoot aiming system from the previous two games is now gone, replaced by a run-and-gun style that would work far better if aiming wasn’t so difficult and ammo wasn’t such an issue. The reticule jumps around, the laser targeting system is not easy to see, and far too often clip upon clip of ammo flies right past your targets. And though it feels like you collect plenty of ammunition as you venture through each stage, hardly a minute goes by without enemies ganging up on you, and you’ll hear the “click” of an empty gun at the worst possible times.

As if to make up for this, Capcom has placed a heavy emphasis on melee attacking; though it gets the job done, it’s far from a fluid combat system, and I felt pangs of frustration every time an enemy grabbed hold of me, forcing to mash buttons in a QTE to shake him loose. Resident Evil 6 also gives you the ability to cover, though it’s essentially unusable. You can take cover behind “select objects” but the game doesn’t seem to want to let you actually shoot from this cover, making me wonder, more than once, why they even bothered with it. This is especially annoying when zombies with guns….sorry, when the J’avo, begin firing at you the second you step into a room, giving you no choice but to run around chaotically as you attempt to punch and kick them into oblivion while digging into your collection of green herbs.

The inventory system, which you access in real time (ooh, scary) is too small for a game that places so much focus on shooting; you can’t have it both ways, Capcom. In a survival horror game your limited inventory’s a challenge that has to be overcome. In an action game it’s a frustration and little else, and that’s where Resident Evil 6 stands. The developers pummel us with action as if afraid our attention spans can’t handle even a second of downtime, but then they don’t give us the ammunition in great enough amounts to make gunning down the zombies enjoyable. Enemies don’t react satisfyingly to your damage and bosses have no HP meters, so it can be tough to know whether your bullets are hitting your foes at all, let alone damaging them.

There isn’t even a sense of skill advancement to keep things interesting. Resident Evils 4 and 5 both featured a leveling up system that gave you the chance for character growth. Resident Evil 6 features one as well, as barrel after barrel that you break open and enemy after enemy that you take out all drop Skill Points (instead of ammo) that you can use to level your character up. Problem is, the cost to upgrade your stats is so steep that it almost never happens; I leveled up no more than five times across all four campaigns, and actually, I think that’s a generous estimate.

But it’s all in the service of the story, I suppose, as a cutscene happens nearly every two minutes. The story has ambition and the way the four campaigns intersect can be cool. But the characters are so overpowered that they feel like superheroes, and that they’re facing down an entity known as the C-virus and a villain named “Simmons” with completely straight faces makes it difficult to take any of it even remotely seriously. In Resident Evil 5 I remember being impressed by the quality of the cutscenes but here they’re simply a blur of kinetic action. Surrounded as they are by the exhausting nature of Resident Evil 6’s gameplay, I became numb to it all incredibly quickly. We’re also in very familiar territory at this point. Resident Evil 5 wrapped things up so nicely, but here everyone’s back to repeat themselves yet again, with another virus outbreak and the once-mysterious Ada Wong coming to the rescue so often that it actually becomes annoying.

The four character structure also means that you have to watch the same cutscenes and even fight the same bosses more than once, sometimes in the same exact ways that you fought them previously. Even the game’s final boss is nothing more than the same boss you fought as another character hours ago, and it wasn’t a fight that I was particularly eager to re-live, either.

Is it any surprise that Resident Evil 6 is devoid of scares? Any attempts made to establish atmosphere are crushed by an overbearing musical score that even from the start menu feels like “too much”. This is the least scary and least suspenseful numbered Resident Evil we’ve seen yet, and again, this would be disappointing but not a game-breaker had the central gameplay been any good, but sadly, nothing Resident Evil 6 attempts to do it does well. The QTEs aren’t fun, the shooting isn’t fun, the combat’s clunky, the cover system’s garbage, the storyline’s been done better, the leveling up’s been done better, the inventory’s been done better, the interface has been done better…it’s all been done better, not only by the same series, but by almost any action game that you can pick up off the shelf.
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Verdict: Clocking in at 25 hours, Resident Evil 6 really might be the biggest Resident Evil to date, but it’s also the dumbest and most mind-numbing. A mildly interesting (at best) storyline is placed front and center amidst weak gameplay and action that kicks off from minute one and doesn’t let go. What Capcom doesn’t seem to understand is that there’s a point when endless action stops being exciting and instead becomes a drag, and that point was reached for me far before I finished my first campaign. And then I had 3 to go. Resident Evil 6 just isn’t much fun to play; indeed it’s a game so eager to play itself for you that you’re barely in control at all. Instead you’re left to do little but tag along for the ride, allowing yourself to be hit over the head by action scenes so dumb and senseless that they have no basis in any sort of reality, not even in Resident Evil’s reality. In trying their best to make a Resident Evil game for the masses, Capcom has instead created a Resident Evil game for nobody. It does nothing to set itself apart, making no attempt to forge its own way or do anything original with its formula. It’s eager to imitate Call of Duty, to grab your attention and to sell copies, but it does nothing to deserve the big sales it will likely receive.

Presentation: A story that can be interesting one moment and stupid the next, with a plot twist that should be outlawed at this point and with action that never ends. Minimal HUD appears to be an attempt to immerse you further in the game, but then the waypoint that’s on screen for 100% of your playtime kind of defeats this purpose. Some glitches.

Graphics: A few gorgeous areas along with some ugly ones and NPC characters who look like leftovers from House of the Dead: Overkill. A mixed bag that doesn’t feel nearly as impressive as Resident Evil 5 felt a few years ago.

Gameplay: Tries to do so many things but fails to do any of them well. Game’s little more than an exercise in following the arrow while taking out endless swarms of enemies with mediocre mechanics as QTEs constantly crash the party. Vehicular scenes are sloppy, the few puzzles included are lazy and feel out of place. No exploration at all, and little opportunity to have a say in anything happening around your character. Game insults your intelligence at every turn; at one point a mission objective appears at the top of the screen to tell you to (in these exact words) “figure out the puzzle”…just in case you were confused about what you’re supposed to do when you reach a puzzle in a video game.

Sound: The voice acting’s pretty good despite some bad dialogue. Music, though, is so loud and over the top that even the game’s rare attempts to establish genuine atmosphere are crushed by an orchestra on steroids. Occasionally a familiar Resident Evil sound effect will make an appearance, though that feels almost like salt in the wound at this point.

Replay Value: Co-op play, Mercenaries mode, multiple difficulties on multiple characters to play through, emblems to find, skills to unlock…lots to do, though after the final credits ended I had no desire to do any of it.

Overall: 5.0/10

Play Resident Evil: Revelations instead.

(Note: My reviews go on a .5 scale. This is a review of the Xbox 360 version.)

Review: Though I'm glad I was given the chance to play it, my final verdict on the Last Story is far from a recommendation.

It was, in many ways, a momentous occasion. With the years of speculation, hope, and then ultimately disappointment, Nintendo of America’s handling of The Last Story has been nothing short of tragic. Courtesy of Xseed Games, however, the latest RPG from Final Fantasy creator (and arguably the father of the modern Japanese RPG) Hironobu Sakaguchi was finally allowed to reach North American shores, serving as a symbolic farewell to the Wii system. Xseed, well aware of the built up demand for this title, packaged it with more care and in a more elaborate casing than I’ve ever seen, and as I took the game from its seal, I felt like I was holding something truly special.

And then I played it.

Well, okay, to be fair, The Last Story does begin with promise, though unfortunately that promise is never realized. This is a tedious and unadventurous journey to nowhere: an adventure so forgettable that I could feel it fading from memory even as I was playing it. I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to try The Last Story for myself, but my verdict is far from a recommendation.

One thing immediately clear to me was that this is not a game meant to be played on an HDTV. Though the Wii’s unquestionably not a system designed with HD gaming in mind, many of its games look nice in 480p, including Xenoblade, the other JRPG we had to fight to receive. The Last Story’s visuals, on the other hand, don’t survive the jump. Even with Component cables the presentation’s muddy, the colors washed out, and the jaggies seem to be everywhere. By no means am I picky about graphics, but The Last Story simply looks ugly, at least, on an HDTV. I can’t speak for how it looks in Standard Def, but I definitely recommend playing it that way if you have the choice, though unfortunately the frequent load times and heavy slowdown won’t be fixed.

Distracting visuals aside, I was initially prepared to enjoy this game. It begins the way many great JRPGs do by throwing you into the heat of battle, giving you a taste of what appears to be a fun combat system. Shortly after this opening mission you find yourself in a packed tavern in the middle of Lazulis City, a bustling and atmospheric town that feels like it’s just waiting to be explored. The scenes that follow, including your introduction to the rest of the cast and the chasing down of Calista, a character who initially bears more than a passing resemblance to Dagger from Final Fantasy 9, have a great sense of humor and demonstrate Nintendo of Europe’s superb localization effort. Things seem to be great as you prepare to set off on your adventure, and my hopes were incredibly high. But then, well…

Let’s step back a bit though and I’ll explain how The Last Story works. The gameplay’s divided into two categories; town and combat. Lazulis City is where the game’s exploration elements are most prominent, as you can wander around, chat with locals, buy and upgrade equipment, do battle in the Coliseum, and take on sidequests. The city’s got atmosphere to spare, with its narrow winding roads and many different neighborhoods, and it would make a great town in any RPG world, but in The Last Story, it *is* the world. Outside the town you’re almost always battling through linear levels in areas that are somewhat varied but feature little in the way of personality; it’s like Final Fantasy XIII, except without the beautiful graphics and the strong combat system. But I’ll get to Last Story’s combat a little later. The big issue I have with this game is that neither the town gameplay nor the action gameplay is satisfying, either on their own or together. Lazulis City’s got plenty to do but little incentive to do it. With no Quest menu to give you easy access to the sidequests you choose to take on and with a map that’s not the most helpful thing in the world, there’s just not much fun to be had here. When Xenoblade offered you sidequests it did so in a way that wove them seamlessly into the rest of the game, and you couldn’t walk through town without opportunities for side missions presenting themselves at every given opportunity. The Last Story instead requires you to seek out the sidequests, and given how bland most of them are, it doesn’t seem to be worth the effort. As far as story-related content in the city is concerned, it’s very little in number; story-wise, you have precious few adventures in the city streets, and though you can choose to warp back to town at many points throughout the game, the rest of the cast basically just sits in the tavern and does little else. The final few hours of the game give you no ability to return to town, further cementing The Last Story’s place as more of an action-driven dungeon crawl than anything else.

Outside the city, combat’s the main focus, and it’s another aspect of The Last Story that shows initial promise but falls victim to poor execution. In some ways it’s similar to the MMO combat system seen in games like Xenoblade but with more of a focus on individual battles. You and your teammates all have a certain amount of Lives, and when a person’s lives run out they can no longer be revived. Though you control only Zael, the main character, you can dictate certain commands to your allies, such as telling them to use a certain magical skill, and commanding them decreases the charge up time they’d spend to use the spell otherwise. There’s a cover system in place, and you’re given some cool moves, like the ability to dive from behind cover and fly right at the enemy, the ability to block and even counter-attack. Items that you find in chests throughout the environment or bought in stores can be used to upgrade your weapons, either in town or from one of the salespeople you’ll encounter elsewhere.

When fighting against basic enemies the combat system works and proves to be a good bit of fun. When more skill is required of you, though, is when things get ugly. First and foremost, far too many moves are mapped to the A-button, so the button that allows you to dive away from en enemy’s move can also cause you to stick to the wall in a cover position. Whoops. (And that’s just one example.) Adding to your frustrations, your AI allies have so little intelligence that they need to be revived constantly, and the more advanced combat tactics such as “diffusing” magic circles and commanding your squad mates are very poorly explained to you in various video tutorials and never come off as intuitive or natural. It’s a combat system that tries to do far too many things and would have been so much better if it focused on less. Boss fights are often repetitive and can drag on forever; an initially clever chase through a mansion loses its fun after about the 12th time you’re forced to run back to the living room to grab more special arrows to fire at the boss. No “retry” option is offered for if the fight isn’t going in your favor; instead, you can load up the most recent (and pointless) “Checkpoint Save” which often sets you back at least one load screen and a cutscene, which you can fast forward through, but not outright skip. Collision detection needs a lot of work, as your (or the enemy’s) weapons never seem to have problems hitting their target through the solid walls which are *supposed* to be providing you cover. It becomes a complete chore to play.

Though there’s no shortage of cutscenes, the story told is as uninteresting as the world it inhabits, and though the characters all make a great first impression, the game gives them nothing to do and they fade into the background very quickly. The plot involves an ascent to knighthood, an invading enemy force called the Gurak, a bland love interest, a powerful object, and lots of battle scenes that aren’t nearly as epic as they think they are. The cutscenes are okay, demonstrating some good character animation but not much cinematic flair. The well-written and acted dialogue is frequently undercut by a pointless narrator who has such a love for stating the obvious that it becomes laughable. Things get a bit more interesting towards the end but by that point the game’s jumped the shark to such an extent that it doesn’t redeem much at all. For the most part you’re watching characters you don’t care about trying to protect a world you barely get to know in scenes that have been done better in countless RPGs.
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Verdict: When The Last Story was in development, Hironobu Sakaguchi was quoted as saying that this would be his final game. Though this was later revealed to be a mistranslation, I can’t help but think how awful it would be if the guy who created some of the most memorable experiences in gaming ended up going out on this note. This is an RPG with no sense of adventure, with little new to offer story-wise, with a flawed and frustrating combat system, and with visuals that just don’t look good on an HDTV (even for a Wii game). It all starts with such promise, but in the end The Last Story comes off as a failed attempt to re-invent a genre that I wish people would stop trying so hard to re-invent.

Presentation: A forgettable storyline that goes through the motions like they’re being read off a checklist. It’s amazing that a game this short has as much filler as this one does. Load times aren't too long but they show up at the worst places. Menus fairly clunky, bad tutorials. City is bustling, areas outside it have little to offer.

Graphics: Play this one in Standard Def if you can, as the decent art direction and great character design is otherwise ruined by the game’s awful look on an HDTV; even the CG cutscenes only manage to look “okay,” which has to be something of an achievement. Lazulis City looks good, that’s about it. Some slowdown during the busy battles can be distracting.

Gameplay: Lazulis City is awesome but not all that compelling to venture through. Combat starts off nicely but tries to do too many things and gets frustrating fast. Weapon upgrading is shallow, more advanced battle tactics feel unrefined. Bad collision detection, repetitive dungeons and boss fights.

Sound: Incredible voice acting that’s some of the best in a Japanese game this generation and great sound effects. The music, though, is among the blandest I’ve ever heard from Nobuo Uematsu. Aside from the relaxing music of Lazulis City, hardly a single other song stood out to me.

Replay Value: 18-24 hours is what the main quest takes, though I wanted it to end about halfway through that. You can theoretically spend more time doing sidequests and other things.

Overall: 5.0/10