Basement Couch

Video games should be fun

My RPG Diary: Final Fantasy X-2 (Part 1)

November 28th, 2011 · My RPG Diary, Reviews, Sony PS2

Dear RPG Diary,

I started playing Final Fantasy X-2 for the Playstation 2.

A bunch of guitar players on hover crafts are rocking out. A big headed guy wearing a hat of televisions starts playing giant, stone drums. I have no idea what is happening.

Yuna, a main character from Final Fantasy X, appears on the big headed guy and starts singing and dancing ON HIS HEAD. Mean while Rikku, another FFX character, is backstage killing guards as far as I can tell. Guards attack Paine for no reason. Maybe because they don’t recognize her from the previous game? The sometimes happen to new characters I understand. She also apparently kills them.

Rikku and Paine confront the pop star sensation Yuna, demanding that she give “it” back. Yuna came prepared though. She makes her backup dancers attack them!!

Since Rikku and Paine just tore they’re way through a bunch of professional security troops, whom I assume have years of training and experieince,you might think that the gaggle of backup dancers would be the end of the duo. But… a twist! They triump.

Yuna runs away, Rikku and Paine chase her, killing as many guards as they can find. Either for fun, sport, or actual physical need to kill something every second. They’re just employees of the venue Yuna was singing at, neither good nor bad. So killing a bunch of people just trying to do their job is probably a terrible crime. Fortunately the game calls them all “Goons” and the even more flattering “Shegoons” so it has made its opinion of these hapless mooks clear. Then… another twist! The real Yuna shows up.

THE REAL YUNA SHOWS UP WITH GUNS.

I remember in Final Fantasy X when she healed people out of the kindness of her heart. Now she mows down anyone without a voice actor…

Anyway, turns out the Yuna Rikku and Paine were chasing was actually some other lady named Lebranc. Let me summerize Lebranc: hilarious cleavage. Done.

You get what she stole from Yuna back (her garment matrix).You fight, you win, Yuna dances uncontrolably. I still have no idea what is happening.

Back on the ship which serves as the trio of gals homebase, you’re introduced to the crew of Sphere Hunters Yuna has joined up with because she “saw you in one of those spheres.”  Say, that’s a mysterious thing to say to yourself Yuna! Sure hope you let us in on who you’re talking about. Eh, maybe 25 hours of gameplay. No rush.

Yuna introduces you to the entire crew: Boy genius, some dude, bartender with a brain anerism, and Brother who is helplessly in love with Yuna. Yuna doesn’t seem interested in either recipricating his affections of letting him know it’s not going to happen which is kind of cold since this dude later jumps off their dumb crab/motorcycle airship to save her. And I don’t feel like that’s the first time that’s happened. C’mon Yuna, say it’s a non-starter and cut the boy loose before he falls stomache first onto a crystal. Final Fantasy worlds are filled with random crystals, it’s bound to happen sooner or later.

Anyway, they show up to a place they’ve got a sphere reading from thus: IT’S SPHERE HUNTIN’ TIME. But Lebranc and her weird manservants have followed them there. Also they have left traps to try and kill you. Looks like it’s a race to the top!
…

You win the race to the top.

There’s a giant spider there! BOSS BATTLE TIME. After beating the spider, you get the sphere, and head back to the ship. I STILL have no idea what’s happening. WHY DOES ANYBODY WANT THE SPHERE?

Thoughts: The graphics were a little dated and blurry to me on my flatscreen at first but I got used to it pretty quickly. The story makes zero sense so far and the character of Yuna has taken such a huge departure from the first Final Fantasy X game that it takes me out of things a bit. There does seem to be a decent amount of promise for the her new motives and charactizations to be revealed later on, so I’m curious to see if that pays off.

I love the combat system. It’s that familiar active time battle system most FF games have used with a lot of the fat cut out. The result is a mixture of Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy XIII combat systems that focus on strategy rather than economy of MP. There are no weapons or armor to equip, that stuff comes with the different costumes the characters wear. A character can change costume during their turn in battle at any time, which should provide a more frantic and specialized end game combat. Right now I only changed Yuna back and forth from the Gunner costume (range attacks) and her Dancer costume (Enemy De-buff spells like Darkness and Slow). Characters are constantly learning new abilities for each costume, as long as they are using that costume in battle, and the player can select which ability they want the characters to focus on learning. This means I can have Yuna’s Dancer costume and Rikku’s Dancer costume have completely different abilities. It’s still the beginning of the game though so I don’t know where my leveling will take these characters.

Summery: The story is a J-Pop fever dream and the game play needles all the right warm spots in my brain.

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Demolition – War is Hell is a First Person Shooter

June 15th, 2010 · Demolition, Reviews

Battlefield: Bad Company

  • The controls are loose and reminiscent of the other Battlefield games I’ve played.
  • NPCs’ dialogue add some character to the game and story, but seem to “break” the game a little bit during and right after combat.
  • The demo’s motives were sometimes a little unclear to me. This did allow me to figure things out on my own, but it also forced me to spend a lot of time dying. Whenever I come back to life at a save point, it takes me out of the World War II scenario, but that is a problem with all war games.

A scene from Call of Duty: World at War

Always let someone else go first!

Call of Duty: World at War

  • Easily the most action packed.
  • In the Demo alone, you find yourself in a collection of different combat scenarios, each well crafted with different ways to confront them.
  • The prettiest of the three. As pretty as war can be anyway

A scene from Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway

The demo includes a pleasant walk through a field with dead bodies in it.

Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway

  • There is a greater strategic element in this demo than the others. You control your squad mates in a streamlined manner. They also are pretty dang smart on their own.
  • Controls feel muddy and slow.
  • The enemy soldiers don’t seem nearly as smart as your squad mates. Outsmarting them was never a problem since they always fell for the same old tricks.

The Winner – Call of Duty: World at War

The scripted events make the game the tighter than Battlefield: Bad Company, and the caliber of them was superior to that of Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway. Controls in Call of Duty are the most responsive without jumping the gun on you. Everything felt solid and had a nice weight to it, from the gun you’re holding to your footsteps. I’d put Battlefield: Bad Company at a strong second place though, and would not shy away from playing the full game. On the other hand, Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway was almost entirely not enjoyable to me. There are better war games than it, there are better shooters than it, and there are better strategy games than it.

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Demolition – Independently Adventuring

June 10th, 2010 · Demolition, Reviews

I look at three demos for indie adventure games. Then I choose a winner.

A scene from Time Gentlemen, Please. With Hitler and Dinosaurs.

This secene never happens in the demo, but I really wanted to show you guys the dinosaurs.

Time Gentlemen, Please! -

  • The self referential humor of the game is specially tailored for the demo. The characters make references to playing the full version.
  • The demo is for the second game of the two (They are bundled on Steam for 5 bucks, though you can get the first one for free off the Zombie Cow Studios website) so a lot of the intro is spent catching the player up. This also kind of spoils the entirety of the first game. Which stinks! At least I got to see a picture of a dude punching a T-Rex in a wheel chair, though.
  • Dialog is done entirely in text. It’s paced cleverly and well written though, so a voice acting isn’t missed.
  • The humor’s hit or miss. Most of it I thought was very funny, but there were some groan worthy jokes in the Demo.
  • The art design of Time Gentlemen, Please! is neat but a little too jagged for my tastes. Even during the demo I started feeling discomfort just from looking at it.
  • Puzzle solving doesn’t appear to be very difficult but Ben and Dan’s comments make every step entertaining.
A scene from Machinarium, where you must cross a drawbridge.

Look at how neat this looks!

Machinarium

  • There doesn’t seem to be any sort of narrative behind the events.
  • The game is structured into progressive “Levels”. Once you complete a level it doesn’t see like you’re ever to return.
  • The art style manages to be dirty and decaying while still charming and with personality. There is a painterly quality to it. And it looks like a better Tim Burton film than Tim Burton could ever make.
  • The puzzles are logical and require actual brain power to complete (a plus!). There’s a lot of experimentation to discover the specific string of events you need to create to complete a level.
  • I could see the lack plot-based motivation as something which would make Machinarium grow stale.
  • While the art design pops (Even the title screen looks awesome!) the music is incredibly boring.
  • You can earn a level’s detailed walkthrough by completing simple mini games. It helps make completing a difficult feel a little bit earned. …Even though you are totally cheating.
    A scene from Jolly Rover, on the deck of the pirate ship which takes you captive.

    Those ropes look great, but that dog looks ugly.

    Jolly Rover

    • Holy crap, this game wants to be Secret of Monkey Island !
    • The animations look pretty cheap. Particularly whenever a character speaks.
    • While backgrounds are nicely detailed, the characters themselves look like they were designed by second year DArt students.
    • The parrot gives you hints in exchange for crackers, and fortunately the demo has more crackers in it than you’ll ever need.
    • Puzzles are less about solving a problem with the given tools and more about discovering which action moves the plot forward. Some puzzles are just mean. Like when I had to open a wine bottle. The only way to do this was with the tooth of a random skull found in a dude’s yard. Secret of Monkey Island would have introduced you to a character with a spiral hook for a hand or something. You are not Secret of Monkey Island, Jolly Rover.
    • Voodoo, pirates, a unimposing main character, cooking, even the way text appears over characters head… pretty much every aspect of this game is ripped from the original Secret of Monkey Island. The only thing it’s lacking it Monkey Island’s charming puzzles.
    • The dog theme in Jolly Rover is interesting, but it doesn’t add anything for the plot or humor.
    • Sometimes the voice acting audio would be cut a half second too short, so it sounds like the actor’s microphones kept turning off. With the text above their heads I wouldn’t have know what they were saying.

    The winner: Time Gentlemen, Please!:

    Machinarium had the better puzzles but I think I would get bored with the lack of plot quickly. Jolly Rover looks like it’s trying to be a larger scope adventure game, but misses the spirit and fun of the games it is ripping off. Time Gentlemen, Please! Admits to everything its ripping off with a bizarre plot and decent humor. Thus, Time Gentlemen, Please! Is the winner. It’s simplistic graphics may be hard to look at sometime, but it did a good job at constantly winning me back despite them. I WANTED to keep playing this demo, whereas I felt relief when the “BUY NOW!” screen for Machinarium and Jolly Rover came up.

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    iPhone Game Review – Dragon Portals

    June 8th, 2010 · Reviews, iPhone Games

    An example of gameplay in Dragon Portals

    All those colors are gonna be etched into your brain after playing this.

    In the spirit of Bejeweled and Zoo Keeper, Dragon Portals is a puzzle game where you most colored things a single space in an attempt to match three or more colored things. In the spirit of iPhone reviews, I’m going to talk about it.

    Let’s get the nitty gritty over with: Dragon Portals is fun. I’ve enjoyed it a lot. Whether playing it during long sessions while watching old Buffy the Vampire episodes or playing it during short bursts while waiting in the car to pick up someone. Dragon Portals can work with whatever amount of time I have to spare. So for the most part it really fits into my criteria for “THE PERFECT IPHONE GAME”. Furthermore, the gameplay is all achieved nicely through the touch screen and it is a game which is simple to understand but gets increasingly complex as the game progresses.

    Now, there are some nit picky things I should really get out of the way here.

    Firstly, the game has a plot. A puzzle game with a plot. Why? I don’t know. It really shouldn’t be like this. We have the technology for things NOT to be like this. What are we building schools for if we still have to have plots in our portable puzzle games?

    The Island Map used in Dragon Portals Story Mode

    Level names like "A Breath of Fire" are meaningless to the contents of the levels.

    The plot is, surprise twist, about dragons. I could tell you more but I don’t want to spoil your experience/this review by going into it deeper. Fortunately, you only learn all this by playing the game’s story mode, which is a series of levels, each slightly more difficult than the last. It’s a nice way to encourage improvement from the player but the game could have done a better job to add variety. As it is, the story mode feels like a very lazily thrown together feature. But Dragon Portals forces you to play this feature if you want to unlock all the power ups.

    In most modes you are able to pick three power ups. Some might just destroy “orbs” and collect points while others may save you in a tight spot when you’re about to fail. The game encourages you to try new combinations of powers and see what works best for you. The fact you have to complete 80 puzzles in the story mode before you have access to all the power ups is needlessly punishing the player. Content should be available. Not hidden.

    As far as the gameplay goes, the goal is to gain enough points to allow the dragons to enter their portals. The dragons are constantly gliding downwards and only large bursts of points will give them some more altitude. If the dragons ever crash, you lose. There’s also a Survival Mode where you try to stay afloat for as long as possible and an Islands mode (which is the same thing).

    You gain the necessary points by getting three or more of the same colored orbs in a row. The trick is, you are only capable of pulling orbs downward. It’s an interesting variation on the Bejeweled formula. There are also bonuses for creating strings of combos or for lining up orbs on two rows in the same move.

    An example of Power Ups being used in Dragon Portals

    Power Ups allow for some explodey nonsense.

    The more I played there better my eyes got at identifying areas I should focus on. I could really feel myself getting better at playing Dragon Portals. There’s a very nice sense of satisfaction behind this. This is because the game is mostly reactive. All you do is search for rows that will line up; make it happen. The game doesn’t allow for much more in the realm of strategy. So improvement comes in picking the best power ups for your play style and getting better at locating and identifying orbs to line up. I’m still getting better at it, but I like that I can say I DID get better.

    Dragon Portals doesn’t do too much new with the Bejeweled formula but it does enough to keep the formula fresh. If you want a puzzle game on your iPhone that more eye power than brain power, Dragon Portals has my recommendation.

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    Demolition – Steamy Indie Games

    May 25th, 2010 · Demolition, Reviews

    I look at three demos for indie games downloaded from Steam. Then I choose a winner.

    A screen shot of combat from Flotilla

    Simple graphics. Simple commands. Complicated number of missles heading towards your ships.

    Flotilla

    • Took a couple tries for me to get a handle on the turn based strategy. Once I understood the mechanics of a battle more, I understood what it took to win.
    • Slow moving space battle game with an emphasis on where your ships are facing (attacks to the bottom and rear are very effective.) I do mean slow. VERY SLOW.
    • Silly sense of humor. During a play through I was attacked by penguins, allowed a haunted ship to join my fleet, and got “space madness”.
    • Piano music plays during battles. This works with the slow pace of battles and adds a layer of “classiness” you wouldn’t expect during a battle against penguins.
    • Sometimes the camera spins around and shows you confusing angles of the battle field. This make it difficult when you’re trying to decide where to move your ships and who to attack. The only way to keep track of this is to memorize the enemy ships names at the beginning of the battle and remember who was doing what before your turn. An overhead map would have solved this problem.
    A screen shot from Quantz

    Drop stuff on stuff to do stuff. But only good stuff. Avoid doing bad stuff.

    Quantz

    • Fun 3 dimensional puzzles where the focus is to remove all the colored orbs by getting 4 or more in a row. Like Snood or Puzzle Bubble. The addition of chaining combos through fireballs adds depth and the need to plan ahead.
    • All the modes are basically the same thing except for Puzzle, which are one and done challenges with specific criteria.
    • Nothing in the demo felt all that challenging but I can grasp how the game will become more difficult as new shapes replace the cube you’re placing the orbs onto.
    • The new age music in the background was a little much.
    • Definitely addictive.
    A screen shot of Beat Hazard gameplay

    This enemy was created by your Limp Bizkt discography.

    Beat Hazard

    • A twin stick 2D shooter. The levels are generated by the songs on your computer.
    • I don’t know what goes down in the full game, but being forced to run through my entire file directory just to pick a song I like is a hassle in the demo. There should be a random play option and a system which keeps track of what songs generated your favorite levels.
    • The shooting is competent but it’s nothing we haven’t see before for better and cheaper.

    A screen shot of warlord owls from Flotilla

    They'll attack in the dead night. Because that's when they're awake.

    The winner: Flotilla

    The personality and endless armada building wins me over. Quantz is a close second, it has got a great presentation and a pretty unique way to display its puzzle, but the puzzle itself is too derivative of other games. I’m bitter towards Beat Hazard because I had to dig through my songs until I found one that I wanted to try. Then that level wasn’t very good anyway. If it had a faster, better interface for playing to my own music (You know, the concept the dang game is built around) it would be in second place. Regardless, Flotilla’s deceptively complex strategy game with penguins in space wins this round.

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    Heavy Rain – I can barely choose what to get for lunch

    May 21st, 2010 · Reviews, Sony PS3

    Ethan from Heavy Rain

    Ethan spends most of the game getting beaten up and being sad sack.

    “Everything is a quick time event!” That’s the easiest way to explain Heavy Rain’s game play. Brush your teeth? Quick time event. Play with your kids? Quick time event. Escape from a burning building before a bomb goes off? Quick time event.

    Everything, from the action packed to the mundane requires your attention and participation. I’m going to be honest here, you’re going to hate this about Heavy Rain during the first two hours. The beginning of Heavy Rain is some of the most boring gaming you’ll have to do for a while. At least the first six hours of Final Fantasy XIII had monsters to fight. The first two hours of Heavy Rain is all helping your kid do his homework and cooking him dinner. You’ll doubt yourself. I promise you during the one and a half hour mark you’ll wonder “Is this all Heavy Rain is?” and consider stopping. But have faith. After this slow start the real game will pick up.

    The real game is awesome.

    Heavy Rain gets a lot of mileage out of its quick time event schtick. A great deal of craft went into making it immersive. When choosing what to say the options float around your head. The more impulsive the decision the larger and more in focus it appears. This means you can go with your gut and act on impulse or risk taking a longer time to think about your options. And sometimes you’ll just hit the wrong button by mistake. In real life, people say things by accident sometimes. Heavy Rain not only simulates conversation. It simulates every stupid conversation I’ve ever had.

    Another example of the immersion is the combination of buttons you must press to complete certain tasks. An easier one like climbing up a muddy hill might take several buttons on the controller which can all be reached by a single finger. More difficult tasks like escaping from being tied up require your fingers to contort uncomfortably across the controller. This is really effective with adding to the tension.

    The characters’ walking around looks ridiculous in Heavy Rain, though. The character only moves forward if you hold the R2 button. You steer them with the left control stick. This has the effect of making every character move like an indecisive robot seconds after some of the most expressive motion capture performances I’ve ever seen in a video game. There had to have been a more elegant solution. For a game so focused on story and characters performances, I’d expect publishers Quantic Dream didn’t want this strange juxtaposition of human and robot either.

    Norman Jayden in the middle of a fight with a suspect.

    Heavy Rain's fight scenes are incredibly impactful as characters scramble to stay alive during a quick time event.

    What really won me over with Heavy Rain is how dang intense it can be. The game offers little mercy if you screw up a quick time event or take too long to make a decision. So I was constantly on edge about getting someone killed because of a mistake. And I DID make mistakes. Plus, the game only lets you move forward, always auto-saving what you last did. So this isn’t like when you are in a difficult part in a game and you can reload to try again if you die. In Heavy Rain if a dude shoots you or you fall off a bridge or get hit by a car you are DEAD. Dead for perms’. Thus, when a do or die situation comes up it totally knocks the air out of my chest, whether I survive or not.

    For example, at one point I was tied up in car with a knocked out passenger that was sinking in a river. It totally sucked! I had to do difficult combinations of button pressing and some quick decision making if I wanted to get myself or the passenger out alive. After that portion of the game, which you may or may not experience during your own play through, I had to put the controller down and walk away. I had to let myself unwind.

    It was awesome.

    As for the story, it’s not a perfect tale. Thinking back on it now I can see some plot points which were never concluded. For the most part, though I really enjoyed it. The twist towards the end totally got me and turned out to be a very emotional scene. The Origami Killer’s motivations and past make him an interesting serial killer. He’s not just the dude from Saw with a little boy fetish.

    Though he does set traps… and he does like little boys…

    The voice acting fluctuates from distractingly strange to pleasantly new. Most of the voice actors in Heavy Rain speak English as their second language. This is particularly awkward with main character, Ethan. He enunciates words pretty dang strangely sometimes. But, as a huge bonus, the use of foreign actors means you won’t be able to recognize a single video game voice in Heavy Rain. There’s no Nolan North, there’s no John DiMaggio, there’s no Mark Hamill. It’s all new voices, which helps the experience feel more cinematic and fresh.

    Scott Shelby from Heavy Rain during a convenience store hold up.

    Scott Shelby is really good at calmly talking to people who might kill him.

    The characters of Heavy Rain are pretty good too. My two favorites were Scott Shelby, the P.I., and Norman Jayden, an FBI agent dealing with a drug addiction. That’s another great thing about Heavy Rain, you get to decide how your characters act. I liked Shelby because of how soft spoken and wise he was. If you play Heavy Rain you may make him a total jerk. You may even still love him! Everyone gets their own personalized Heavy Rain story, which is special to them. All the characters will be special to you as well.

    Except for Madison Page, she’s basically there to be naked and remind you of the uncanny valley.

    Speaking of which, let’s talk graphics.

    These character models are amazing. Faces look like normal faces thanks to the publishers insane amount of facial scanning. Even side characters in the game are people pulled off the street to have their faces scanned for Heavy Rain.

    Heavy Rain is one of those games like Shadow of the Colossus which people will continue to reference in years to come. Its achievements in story, immersion, and choice mechanics will be held up in reverence to the non-gaming public as evidence of the medium’s validity. But in the end, that’s all nonsense. Just play the game. Just enjoy the game. Because you should. And you will.

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    Final Fantasy XIII – Crystals and gunswords and chocobos, oh my!

    May 4th, 2010 · Microsoft XBox 360, Reviews, Sony PS3

    A cutscene from Final Fantasy XIII featuring Lighting

    This is the face Lightning makes when she is falling from the sky while shooting you with her sword gun. Take note.

    Final Fantasy XIII is an interesting phenomenon in video games. More often than not people recite their list of complaints about the game, but when you assume they didn’t enjoy it they jump to FFXIII’s defense. I’m no different. I loved Final Fantasy XIII and it’s currently my second favorite game in the series (Final Fantasy X for the numbah one spot!). Yet, whenever I talk about it I seem to focus on the game’s failings. How slowly it introduces new mechanics to you. How the story is told without explaining the world the game takes place in. These are the points I like to focus on when discussing this innovative and beautifully rendered game.

    I’m letting you know this so you don’t mistake critiques for banishment. ‘Cause Final Fantasy XIII is pretty awesome.

    For the most part, I enjoyed the characters of FFXIII. My favorite characters story wise were the world-weary airship pilot, Sahz, and the untamed but pragmatic, Fang. Everyone had their own goals and history. So appropriately all the characters respond differently to one another. The first half of the game’s story has fun with the pairing of different characters to see the conflict. For example, Hope blames Snow for his mother’s death and wants to kill him. But when they are forced to work together to escape enemy forces Hope has to angrily follow the oblivious Snow’s lead.

    These mix ups of characters also force you to learn new strategies during combat. Each character is naturally good at certain roles. Learning what roles compliment each other for the first half makes the second half the game possible for the player to complete.

    Final Fantasy XIII’s story of a government using propaganda and witch hunts to keep its people under control is pretty good. Plus, the world of Final Fantasy XIII is 100 percent unique and unlike what you’ll find in other RPG’s. Though sometimes stuff just seems to happen in the story for little reason than to keep things moving forward. Also, the typical cheesy anime-battle-monologues are here in full force to earn our groans.

    A cut scene from Final Fantasy XIII with Snow

    That's right Snow, feel bad! I think you're DUMB!!

    My biggest complaint of the narrative is the character of Snow. We’re introduced to Snow as a cocky rebel trying to save everyone. Then he gets a bunch of people killed. He feels bad about it for a second, then goes straight back to calling him self “the hero” and putting people in danger. I spent most of the game hating his doofy grin. Also, he’s in a relationship with Lightning’s younger sister Serah. Serah’s age is never stated so… if I’m to go strictly on appearance… I’d say she’s 14. Snow looks like a 28 year old. This makes all their romantic scenes more yucky than anything else.

    A screen capture of Fang being protective of Vanille.

    Fang's older-sister like relationship with Vanille is a large element of Final Fantasy XIII's story

    Snow’s idiotic creepiness aside, this game has a lot of girl power. Lightning and Fang are two strong, capable women who are never bogged down by a romantic subplot or flaunting of their sexuality. They are both just really cool ladies. Strong female characters is a growing trend in the Final Fantasy series and I hope to see it continue.

    The fun of the game comes from the combat system. This time around instead of choosing your characters’ moves, you’re choosing from a playbook of “paradigms” you customize. For example, let’s say you’re against a tough boss. You start out a paradigm where one character is a healer, another is a tank drawing the boss’s attacks, and the third debuffs the boss. Once the boss is as weak as you want him to be you might switch to another paradigm. This one where one character strengthens your team with buffs, as another one continues to take the boss’s attack, and your third character uses magic spells against the boss. Finally, you might switch to an all out attack of the boss, using a mixture of physical and magical attacks.

    A sample of Final Fantasy XIII's combat system

    It may look familiar, but it's a whole new ball game.

    Combat is just like that… only MUCH faster! You’re going to be changing between paradigms almost every ten seconds to stay ahead of the enemies. When people complain about the auto-battle function it’s because they haven’t reaches this part of the game yet. The paradigm system is what creates the mixture of strategy, prioritizing, foresight, and reaction which makes Final Fantasy XIII’s battles so much fun.

    Square Enix is kind of a big deal in the video game CGI ultimate fighting circles. It gouges, it bites, it obliterates your television with stunning visuals. There are many beautiful moments of this game, but the one that sticks out most to me is an extended fight scene on a race track. It’s an awesome movie quality action scene the game only lets you see after 35 hours of play time. Dang!

    Speaking of hours, Final Fantasy XIII is looong. In a time where RPG’s usually take about 30 hours tops, FFXIII drops a 50 hour epic dookie right onto your lap. You’re getting your money’s worth with this title.

    People joke that this game starts at the 25th hour mark, where it finally opens up. That is a lie. Final Fantasy XIII never really opens up. It’s always super linear, even if you’re on a huge plain filled with wild animals, there is only one thing for you to really do and that’s move towards the highlight point on the map. Some people might rebel against this linearity but I enjoyed it. It kept the story and the character development focused.

    Another complaint of the game is the manner it tells the story. There is no real introduction to the world of Cocoon and Pulse. In order to understand what the characters are talking about a good chunk of time needs to be invested in the game’s menu reading up on the history of the world. It’s a pain, and this definitely could have been handled more elegantly.

    I think that is my major frustration with Final Fantasy XIII: some things could have obviously been handled better. The game is a big achievement in pushing the JRPG genre forward, and yet again proves why Square-Enix is king, but it has these strange gnarly cracks in it’s sheen. They don’t ruin the experience, but it’s bewildering why they are in such an otherwise highly polished game.

    If you’ve been on the fence about this game, I hope I can convince you to play it. I’m not going to say “Play through the first 5/15/25 hours and then see if you like it” that many fans are demanding of it’s critics. That’s a gross waste of time to judge a game. Anyway, no game should take 5 hours to get to the part that wins you over. But I hope my praise of the entire experience is enough to get you to start playing, because it’s really dang fun. Honestly. Final Fantasy XIII probably won’t win over any haters of the JRPG genre, but it is a reward of something new and invigorating for those of us who still love stupid spiky hair and one winged final bosses.

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    Bully: Scholarship Edition – The worst time in a boy’s life can be the most fun

    April 20th, 2010 · Microsoft XBox 360, Nintendo Wii

    A screen capture of Jimmy in a fight during Bully: Scholarship Edition

    Jimmy is not the best at making new friends

    Remember when everyone was upset about this game being a “Columbine simulator”? Hah! I spent most of my time acing math tests and keeping the school safe in Bully: Scholarship Edition. Now, I can already hear you asking, “Math tests?” Those are optional, don’t worry. But, if it were up to me playing this game wouldn’t be.

    That’s right. I’m a video game fascist.

    Let’s get the mucky stuff out of the way first. This game? Super janky. Bully: Scholarship Edition could have benefited from an extra year of polish. Granted, it was already two years old when it came out for the 360 and the Wii, so I can understand the need to rush this game onto shelves. I’ll even apologize for the game further by saying: Even though the game’s programing can be deeply flawed at times, it never stops being fun. You may even have more fun because of these flaws. Aw… that’s not true. Actually, you’ll probably start swearing like I did and then restart the mission.

    A screen capture of Bully: Scholarship Edition featuring Jimmy in the middle of Chemistry class

    You can chose to go to or avoid classes, which operate like minigames. Completing them earns you skills and items.

    But… see that? See right there? Right there in that last sentence, that’s going to be the theme for a lot of this review. “Frustration followed by perspiration.” A lot of this game will make you pull your hair out. The controls are sometimes wonky, the missions can be broken, and the NPC’s will often ruin the game’s narrative with their behaviors (A dude I had just helped turned around and socked me in the jaw once). And yet you will still keep playing.

    That’s because these bad elements, though big and bright, are not parts of Bully: Scholarship Edition’s soul. This game has SOUL. I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun controlling a character than I did with Jimmy Hopkins. This is a kid I know. I’ve hung out with him. I know how his head works. I’m a little put off by his rebellious acts but I appreciate that the dude won’t let anyone pick on innocent kids. He’d rather they try picking on him. In fact, he’d love to see them try.

    Other characters are all pulled from equal sources of reality and satire. The student cliques the preppies, the greasers, the nerds, and the jocks all have some strange stabbing truth to their over-the-top behaviors. For example, even the nerds eventually start to pick on people in the game. Jimmy steps in to take them down a notch after defending them for most of the game. Teachers also range from normal educators to aggressively evil authority figures. At one point a teacher is fired because he hit on a female student. Bully isn’t making big statements about human nature, but it is saying SOMETHING.

    The art of a loading screen in Bully: Scholarship Edition with Jimmy and Gary

    The loading screen's art captures the tone and characters of the game expertly.

    Let’s not forget the best character in the entire game though. The character even better than our protagonist Jimmy. That’s right, I’m talking about Gary. Gary. Gary is a character I loved to hate the second I saw his condescending face. The instant I heard his flaunting voice. He is one of those kids who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. I knew kids like him! It’s great to see that demographic represented and it’s great to have this level of distaste for it all over again. The only bummer was the dude only existed during the first and final quarters of the game.

    Game play is almost an after thought for this Bully: Scholarship Edition. The real stars of the show here are the story and setting. Bullworth Academy, where the game is set, is a fully realized world on its own. There is a clear artistic vision reaching through every little nugget of Bully. The way the campus looks, sneaking out late at night to do missions, skipping class to do bike races in town, it all fits together to give Bully its feeling.

    The Wii’s version uses the wiimote to pretty decent effect. This game may have my favorite use of the Wii’s motion control, actually. For instance, with combat, the right handed wiimote controls your right fist and the left handed nunchuck control is for your left fist. This makes punching a digital jerk in the face pretty dang satisfying. Aiming for weapons like your slingshot and for items like your camera is also done through the wiimote. This feature is definitely not perfect, as your aiming reticule can freak out and twitch towards the sky or ground during high tension moments, but it’s a difficultly I’m willing to tolerate.

    And tolerate I did! The controls were like a jungle cat, constantly lurking in the tall grass, waiting for the best opportunity to pounce on me and muck up my day. These controls are nature’s ultimate predator.

    Jimmy from Bully: Scholarship Edition in the middle of a bike race.

    First thought I had: "Why isn't Jimmy wearing a jacket? He must be cold!" I have become my mother

    The graphics have aged poorly. There are some rocks that aren’t rocks at all. They’re cubes. A lot of this can be blamed on the Wii’s low graphical powers, but even a lot of 360 shots I’ve seen look like they came from last generation consoles. It’s hard to fault the game for this since it technically IS a last generation game (Bully was originally released on the PS2) but it will bother modern sensibilities. So, if you find the past generations graphics barf inducing, steer clear of Bully. For your carpet’s sake.

    Visuals and controls aside, Bully’s one of those shining gaming experiences I always hope for when I start a new game. With all the activities, relationships, and just becoming familiar with the landscape I really did feel like I had completed a year of school by the game’s end. You know, in a good way though. Not in a “Oh crap, how am I going to get into college now?” way. This game is in my opinion the best game Rockstar Games has ever made. After Jimmy helps a drunk Santa Claus while dressed as a ninja, that may be your opinion too.

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    inFamous – The Electric Slide (Boogie Woogie Woogie!)

    April 12th, 2010 · Reviews, Sony PS3

    A screenshot of inFamous

    Tips for Living in the Big City: Riding the side of the train instead of inside it makes it easier to throw bombs made of pure electrical energy.

    This is the Grand Theft Auto I always wanted to play. Ease of movement across the city, evil cult enemies instead of policemen, the ability to be the good guy… This game did everything to the GTA formula I wanted done to it.

    Unfortunately, many of my complaints with the GTA series also exist with this game. Innocent people love to jump in front of your character, Cole, all willy-nilly during battles. I like to play these games as a good guy, so it breaks the illusion if I keep accidentally shooting pedestrians in the head while trying to save their butts.

    The illusion is further broken by inFamous’s karma system. Karma in video games are a well known joke. The idea that somehow, how mean or nice you are will effect what color of lightning you can shoot, is pretty nonsensical. Nonsensical for people who can shooting lightning at least. Plus, since you can only get the strongest good/bad powers by making strictly good/bad decisions, the actual moral dilemma a player might be able to milk from these scenarios is bulldozed over by the quest for stronger abilities.

    A screenshot of inFamous, Cole grinding across powerlines with evil powers

    Tips for living in the Big City: Avoid the bridge's rush hour traffic by destroying it with your horrible ungodly powers and grinding across the power lines instead.

    Since I played this game as a good guy, whenever Cole was faced with a decision between the right choice and the ridiculously evil choice, it felt wrong that my good guy character would even consider the evil choice. “Let’s see… I can help this guy, ooor… shoot him and rob his corpse.” My dude’s been doing nothing but charity work for the past ten hours! Why does he still consider murder and grave robbing an option!? An option every time!? These problems kill the narrative a little bit for me. Which is a shame, because the game’s plot is pretty decent.

    The game’s story, even with the good and bad choices, remains pretty linear (further invalidating the need for the karma system). There are some pretty good twists, characters have different agendas and pull Cole in multiple directions, and it manages to complete its story while setting up it’s sequel in a big way. Other action games could learn something from this.

    Since this is an open world game, glitches are too be expected. One time I arrived at a boss fight, but the boss decided not to show up. It was rude of him! He invited me there and everything! I had to restart the mission to get the booger to show up. Glitches like this and the Cole’s sometimes wonky climbing controls keep this game from being perfect.

    But for the open world, super hero action game it is… it’s pretty dang close to perfect.

    The electrical powers are great. Most of them work as replacements for “gun” and “hand grenade” but you eventually get to create an unstoppable rolling wall of lightning falling upon your enemies. That really doesn’t have a weapon allegory. Maybe “chainsaw”? Nah, doesn’t work.

    You continue to gain new abilities throughout the game, but you’re most likely going to stick to using the first couple you learn (“gun” and “grenade” for example). Moving across the city gets super fun once your character gains the electrical grinding and hover abilities. Thankfully this is pretty early in the game. These powers are a welcome substitute for the vehicles of other open world games. Why would you want to steal a car and drive on overcrowded roads when you can just hop up a building and grind across the city’s power lines instead? Trick question, you wouldn’t!

    Not to mention other blogs I write on Basement Couch, but daaang this game feels a lot like the Vertigo comic series DMZ. The city’s unrest and isolation during continuing disasters works as a unique backdrop to Cole’s own journey. Live action TV broadcasts you come across through the game add to the flavor of the game. These quick bursts of cable network news and pirated TV broadcasts make this feel like a fully realized world.

    I probably spent more time than I should have collecting all the bonus items strew across the city, but Cole’s radar made the blue and gray icons impossible for me to ignore.

    A screen shot of Cole climbing very high in inFamous

    Tips for living in the Big City: Nothing to do on a Saturday? Make your own fun by climbing up the ruins of a local skyscraper.

    The city itself is beautifully rendered. Sure, the NPC’s walking the street will collapse from illness, moan then get back up and walk away like any good glitchy open world game, but dang if I didn’t give myself honest-to-gosh butterflies jumping off some high buildings.

    There are a lot of open world games these days, and they all feel like a GTA game deconstructed and rebuilt around a new theme. InFamous feels different. It feels like a GTA game was taken to the next level. It feels like GTA+. If the idea of GTA with super powers and zero need to buy ammo for you gums appeals to you, check out inFamous.

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    My week in pixels (04/08/10)

    April 8th, 2010 · Chit chat, My Week In Pixels

    I’ve had at least two energy drinks ever day this week! At this point, I feel like my veins are pumping corn syrup. Mmmh, corn syrup.

    Aw no… is this what does it? Is this how it finally happens? I never thought I’d become a self-vampire because I drank too much Monster.

    I always thought it would be because of snake bites.

    What I played this week:

    I’m more than half way through Final Fantasy XIII. Once that game opens up at the 25th hour, it loses some steam for me. The plot is still solid enough, but the characters are the only ones who know what their goal is. I’m totally out of the loop. I’m just taking them to the point on the map marked with an X. Any who, originally I was excited about the tiny bonus quests scattered throughout the world and I had honorable dreams of completing ALL of them. That attitude quickly devolved into completing none of them. Forward and onward!

    The World Ends With You has started to click with me! I just had to find the leveling aspect of this RPG to enjoy it. Now that I feel my characters getting strong the game feels less like a minigame with a story. Speaking of the story, you’ve got to be willing to happily groan at some troupes of anime to enjoy much of this game. I am willing to do that. You may not be. It’s not all happy groans and roses though. The World Ends With You has some issues for me on the game play side but I’ll talk about them more later.

    I started playing Bully on the Wii again. I did this in hopes of finishing the last fourth of the game this week. Though that may make it sound like Bully is a chore to play, I really dig this game. It’s got all the fun of Grand Theft Auto’s open world with a heavy dose of levity and atmosphere. I was playing it tonight with the window open while my character sneaked around campus during curfew and felt totally immersed.

    Things of Note:

    WonderCon was this weekend! Apparently, the only thing video game related that came out of it was a bunch of videos of people playing Just Dance on the Wii. So, you know, not a big convention on the digital entertainment side.

    Oh! Wait! The iPad came out! Plus the iPad store already has some games, most of which are iPhone games at higher resolutions.

    Hey! I review iPhone games! Will I be getting an iPad for reviews? Nah, don’t count on it. But, looking at some of the games that came out for the iPad, I can imagine playing Real Racing or Plants Versus Zombies on that bigger screen to be crazy fun.

    That’s the closest thing I can do to a review right now.

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