Mass Effect

I've come a long way on the notion of shooting things.  I really preferred my games with more slashing and less shooting.  Shooting requires precision, patience, planning... slashing a sword only requires - well, slashing.  But I've found that I have increasingly and increasingly been evolving to enjoy active combat and a weapon that can aim.

The Mass Effect series were the games that put Bioware on the map: a space opera series about Commander Shepard, human extraordinaire, and his ragtag group of adventurers.  Having finally been re-released for the PS3, the time was ripe to play and enjoy the series.

The Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword

Skyward Sword takes place largely above the clouds.

Skyward Sword represents the first Zelda title for the Wii (as Twilight Princess was simultaneously released for both the Wii and Gamecube).  It also boasts itself as the first game in the chronology of over-arching Legend of Zelda story.

The game begins in Skyloft, a floating island town of bird-riding humans who are giving the bountiful land above the clouds as a gift from the goddess after her banishing of an ancient evil.  If you've played a Zelda game before you will not be surprised to discover that the banishment of that ancient evil has become slightly tenuous.  Luckily, you - Link - are the hero chosen by the goddess to protect the realm.

The titular sword, held skyward.

But before you go can do that, you have to visit some temples, pass trials, and otherwise prove your worth.  It's almost as if the entirety of the game is to complete quests to justify being selected as the chosen hero.  First you follow Zelda around, then you have to charge your sword with sacred flames, and complete some song.

Unfortunately, the variety of things to do doesn't correlate with an extensive world.  Outside of the above-clouds world of fractured, floating islands, only three worlds exist: a forest world, a fire world, and a desert world.  It feels very claustrophobic compared to Twilight Princess or even A Link to the Past.  Frequently, you are given reasons to revisit previous environments, sometimes under very thin pretenses.

The design of the game is a perfect blend of Twilight Princess' realism and Wind Waker's cell-shading.  Each world has a unique feel, especially musically.  

However, the design cannot cover up some of the game's biggest shortfalls.  I wish the worst I could say was that I was mesmerized into stupidity by Zelda's bangs, but it was far worse...

The first game flaw is the flavor of the month assistant, Fi.  While I have to accept the fact that Nintendo insists that its players are idiots and need an assistant to give guidance on every single facet of the game, I am greatly disturbed by the intense level of assistance that is constantly offered.  After learning about Zelda's next location, I can barely breathe before Fi errupts from the sword and says: "I'm 80% certain that Zelda is in this location, we should go there."

There are a lot of missed opportunities in Skyward Sword to establish some components of the overarching universe.  Story-wise, the game stands steady, but I'm disappointed at missed opportunities to add depth and explain the origins of long-standing Zelda characters.  At times, it almost felt like a game that was not designed to be a Zelda game, but was turned in to one.  Not that Nintendo hasn't done that before...

A Stalfos battle, requiring a specific Wiimote swing.

And finally, my misgivings couldn't be complete without commenting on the Wii MotionPlus motion controls.  The game boasts the use of MotionPlus in combat and solving puzzles, but in reality, it is an incredibly painful addition.  The Wiimote is critical seconds behind during combat situations, wherein almost every enemy has a motion-based defense, encouraging forcing the player to swing the Wiimote one direction or the other.

But if combat is clunky, it seems next to graceful compared to the Wiimote motion controls of the game's various mini-games.  Mini-games, and subsequent cursing at the world while playing them, are a staple of the Zelda world; however, these mini-games are rage inducing.  Not only must you contend with achieving scores that are nigh undoable, but you must also achieve those scores by using frustrating and inaccurate controls.

In spite of these shortcomings, the game is a lot of fun, albeit frustrating at times.  If you haven't grabbed it, check it out!

Link to purchase from Amazon.com: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword with Music CD.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (GOTY)

While everyone else is enjoying the fifth installment of The Elder Scrolls, Bethesda's ongoing, Game-of-the-Year winning, fantasy franchise, I'm just now sitting down with the The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition.  I was really shy from getting into the series, because I like my fantasy games like I like my sex life: turn-based and from a third-person perspective.  Just kidding:  I'm married, and no longer have a sex life.

Unlike the traditional genre staples, the Elder Scrolls series are fantasy games from first-person perspective, which dynamically changes everything when it comes to combat strategy, and gives the game an unsurprising sense of immersion.  The engine is painstakingly identical to that of the Fallout series, which makes sense, as the games are made by the same folks.

Full review is happening, after the jump...

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Zelda, half of the titular princesses.

Released in 2006, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a desperate chance to save the dying Nintendo Gamecube.  While available for purchase on the 'cube, TP found its primary success on the newly arrived Nintendo Wii.

Zelda games are on par with with the Mario Bros. franchise for the well over-used, but I'm happy to report that TP is heads and tails one of the best Zelda games released.

For starters, Twilight Princess delivers an engaging story that is otherwise lost on other titles in the franchise.  The environs are teeming with life, and everything contributes to a well-rounded, purposefully constructed story.

But okay - yes - first we finish 3 tiny dungeons and then expand to whole world to battle our way through 5 more.  Each dungeon contains a specific item that alone can be harnessed to crush the dungeon master, freeing a sage to lock away evil, blah-blah-blah...

What sets TP apart (besides its gorgeous and detailed environment), is the clever twist it takes on the old favorite.  All of the puzzle-based delights are still there, but the robust world of Hyrule delivers opportunities to enhance outside-the-dungeon puzzles.

For the most part, external, world-based pursuits are for collectibles, which TP delivers in spades.


Firstly, with the piece of hearts now split in 5 instead of the usual quarters, there are 45 piece of heart containers to collect and enhance your life bar.

An additional 24 golden bugs can be collected for rupees and to increase the wallet size.

You can fish (which is especially interesting, considering the impending doom).

And finally, in the style since The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, there are hidden enemies to destroy, called Poe's.  Beating one will yield one of 60 Poe's Souls.  Retrieving 20 nets you the fourth bottle, and all 60 gives you access to an endless supply of rupees.

So besides the main story, there's plenty of derping around to do.

Link atop Epona, trusty steed and world traversor.

However, the game is not without its faults.  For starters, there is my typical waggle complaint.  The sword is controlled by a shake of the Wiimote.  It's mostly responsive, but has cost us a wine glass due to my over-enthusiasm.

Using the Wiimote to aim items is also frustrating, because of how far away my couch is from the Wii-sensor.  I don't think our couch is overly far, but - apparently it IS!

All in all, the game is excellent, and makes me excited for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Statistics

If you click it, you can actually read it.  Data in the jump.

I like statistics, so when I learned that I could get some gameplay information from the Wii, I booted the old baby off to take a look at what I had played.

Donkey Kong Country Returns

You've got to feel bad for Donkey Kong.  The dude was originally cast as a barrel-chunking overlord of a world created of platforms, ladders, and sentient flame.  Later though, DK gained more independence as a go-kart racer, and had his own series of platform games on the SNES called Donkey Kong Country.

Simian miscreant, or domestic violence intervener?

Donkey Kong Country (and its two follow-up iterations) were never bad games, and in fact, represented a good deal of my childhood play-time on the SNES.  The graphics (courtesy of Rare) were crude in today's gameplace, but state of the art when the game was released.

The game focused on DK's loss of his banana stash, because he likes to eat bananas.  So, you know, there was a plot-ish.  Akin to "Save the princess."  In case you were to ask why, the game would glare at you and shout "Because I said so!" and hurtle you into a mini-game.

But games are more sophisticated now, like Donkey Kong Country Returns, which subjects you to some storyline where the volcano on Kong island is inhabited by bad mojo, and the chieftan of bad mojo steals all of your bananas.  Bad mojo chieftans, as we all know, are in constant need of a steady flow of potassium to continue their malicious operations on islands inhabited by Kong on his relatives.

Okay, so the game isn't going to win story of the year, or anything - but we didn't really expect it to.  I craved some 2D, beautifully rendered, platforming!  Donkey Kong Country, the Return of the Jedi was sure to please.  Nintendo practically wrote the book on what a 2D platformer needs to be successful.  But wait, what's this - to kill enemies, I must ... waggle?

Like a hooker clinging to the testicles of a customer who refused to pay for services rendered, Nintendo wants to force every single one of its game experiences to use the motion controls that made the Wii so famous.  Nevermind that when using the nunchuck accessory that I have like 12 buttons, only the joystick, A, and B buttons are used for moving, jumping, and grabbing respectively.  If you want to do your super-neat DK roll, you have to waggle the damn Wii-mote while pushing forward.  Didn't push forward correctly?  You'll ground-pound, or ... blow air?

If you have friends, you can play the game with them.
Then you won't have to worry about having friends anymore!

There are things to collect, which is kind of a fun part of Donkey Kong Country games, but the game play was severely wounded by the inclusion of needed waggling.  The platforming was a huge step back, as well, in my humble opinion.  There was very little strategy involved, and it just wasn't very fun to play.

Okay, it does look good.  I mean, this is exactly what I wanted in looks.  You know, Super Mario Galaxy 3, pretty much.

If you were looking for a game on the Wii that you could play as Donkey Kong for, you may as well just dust off Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which offers way more DK technique and a myriad of better control options.  Or, wait for the next go-kart, party, or olympic sporting game that Nintendo's over-used, tie-wearing mascot could be crammed into next.

Catherine: Again

Despite my post last week about not getting into Catherine, I found playing it again, out of some weird want for it to better.  What's the deal?  It's like a drug...

Dell Drama

Strictly speaking, in the world between the glorious elite of gaming and the unfortunate slugs of console gaming (best illustrated here), I am squarely in the latter category.  Instead of a keyboard, I prefer a controller, which with 18 some buttons is confusing enough.  But let it not be said that there are games that I like to play on a PC: Minecraft, Sims 3, Civilization, Plants vs. Zombies, etc. as well as a slew of Flash games that are constantly available on the Internet.

Unfortunately, my computer (to borrow my French roommate's current favorite English idiom) has bitten the dust.  After a year of faithful service, it seems the motherboard has gone kaput. 

In most circumstances this would be a lamentable time, but my husband wisely invested in some sort of protection plan from Dell which promised "next day service."

Our experience with the warranty was not virginal.  This very computer had some sort of keyboard/monitor/I-can't-even-remember-what problem before and the issue was resolved professional and efficiently, making us happy in our decision to go with Dell for our laptop needs.

This experience has been anything but... with over ten phone calls to Dell customer support (which provides quality support like a cat would make a quality surgeon), resulting in confusion not only over when our "next day" service would account for a technician being able to fix the problem, but indeed wether or not a part was actually in stock (dissenting answers from both sides were abundant). 

So, considering all those systems in the house capable of playing video games, I really must give a shout out to Nintendo, whose products have rarely faltered (excepting in those cases wherein blowing the cartridge fixed whatever malady had presented).  Despite its apparent lack of appeal to the "mainsteam" gamer, I've never failed to put in Super Mario Galaxy and have results.

With any luck, I'll be able to explore Minecraft 1.7 (with PISTONS) before long, and hopefully with fewer crashes...

inFAMOUS



Main character Cole, being titularly infamous.

As part of Sony's Welcome Back program, one of the games I picked up was inFAMOUS, a sandbox, free roaming game where you play Cole, a courier who unknowingly unleashed a massive electronic explosion and is now a superhuman with electric powers.  The game's story unfolds as you explore Empire City's three districts, restoring power, taking back the streets from hoodlums, and uncovering the mystery of the explosion that leveled a few city blocks. 

The game is from Sucker Punch, of Sly Cooper fame, and it feel very similar.  On other games, this might be a bit of a bad thing, but for Sly and inFAMOUS, the balance works excellently!  The third-person camera is mostly cooperative (as it was, except for exceedingly painful moments in Sly) and the addition of electronic powers fits nicely.  There's cover, which I despise, but if you go headlong into a bulletstorm and die, the game is mercifully forgiving, starting you at the beginning of missions or in a convenient spawn location.

Considering it was on the docket as a free game, I wasn't sure how well, altogether it would frame up, but I was pleasently surprised at the length, depth, and altogether enjoyment I got out of this game.  More (and spoilers) after the jump.

Dead Money DLC Now Available (!?)

Pardon the interrobang, but SERIOUSLY?  How come I have to find out about Fallout: New Vegas DLC: Dead Money from Twitter?  How pedestrian!  Bethesda should just implant a small device at the base of my skull, so there wouldn't be any kind of delay with this sort of thing.

Edit: By the gists of the review I just read, I added the want tag to this DLC.  It sounds buggy as hell, but I hadn't expected anything different.

Fallout 3

This weekend, we did quite a bit of spring cleaning. It was reminiscent of my last bout with spring-ish cleaning (it might have been winter-break-ish), that had me taking quite a haul into the local GameStop for trade-in credit. I ended up having an absurd amount of money, and I preordered Bioshock 2 with it, but I also picked up a couple games, and among them Fallout 3.

I'm not really a huge first-person-shooter (FPS) kind of guy. In general, it scares the crap out of me when all of a sudden there's a huge monster on my side eating me, and I move the wrong way and end up wasting a clip of hard-to-find bullets into the ceiling. My only real experience in the genre was Goldeneye for N64, and I'm afraid I never really played another since... However, after picking up, and playing the hell out of, Bioshock, I was willing to give another one a shot.

Fallout 3 had received rave reviews, and was even the Game of the Year. I was only a couple years late to the party (typical, actually, for my gaming habits).

The Fallout series is set in a distopian future, wherein conflict over resources between the United States and China culminates in nuclear conflict. Fallout 3 is set in the Washington, DC Metroplex, now called The Capital Wasteland, which has been savaged by nuclear fallout. Those that survived the rain of atomic fire did so in underground vaults.

I was immediately impressed by the immersion. I felt part of this unknown world, and had a lot of drive to explore every nook and cranny of my "home," Vault 101. The game sends you eventually out of the vault, and the Wasteland is magnificently huge, and overwhelming. The game certainly gives me some options on where to go and why (there is a general, large story arc), but it's entirely possible to do almost whatever you want. This is a great deal different from most of the games I'd played to this point, where you could take two hallways down to the same path, but didn't have an entire world to distract you between objectives.

Unfortunately, my first playthrough was slightly downhill from there. My inexperience with basic concepts of aiming, and over-utilization of V.A.T.S. (a system in which the game will aim at, and shoot, enemies for you; but is limited by your Action Points), led to early death at the hands - or rather, the mandibles of a town-full of fire breathing, giant, radiated ants.

I gave up on the game from there, and resigned to play other games in my queue. However, the draw of the initial immersion, stilted by ant-death, still tugged at my core. I put Fallout 3 back in, turned the difficulty down to psychotically easy, and gave it another go.

I'm really glad I gave Fallout 3 a second chance, which it richly deserved. My own ineptitude was really no reason not to play what a lot of people had agreed was an awesome game. While not granting you to shoot lightning out of your non-dominant hand, this FPS did have quite a few RPG elements: as you best enemies, or complete quests, you gain experience which increases your proficiency with weapons, or stealth, or communication, or ability to maintain armor. Before long, I started getting the knack of the system and was able to mow through the previously feared Fire Ants with a Minigun.

You can develop into quite a badass in the game as well. This only makes sense, seeing as your father is voiced by Liam Fucking Neeson. Your proficiencies are never really game breakers, but the basic travel and exploration become a little less terrifying when you know you can riddle a Super Mutant full of bullets before he even gets within swinging distance.

The game has a system of Karma. Doing good things, like saving slaves, increases your Karma, whereas stealing things or massacring an entire town-full of people. Karma does determine which ending is revealed to you, as well as trophy acquisition. I have been conditioned by society to play nice and not murder and steal from every NPC I come across, so getting the "evil path" trophy was a bit of a challenge.

Fallout 3 has great replayability. I have long since received a platinum trophy in the game. It's my fifth playthrough, and I'm still noticing aspects I hadn't before. A lot of the initial "what's over this hill" exploration fantasy is done, but it's still just as exciting to play through the main story and myriad of side quests.

The Game: Fallout 3.

The Cost: Available for XBox360 and the PS3, used for about $15. But do yourself a favor and go ahead and get the Game of the Year edition, which has all of the DLC included. It'll only set you back a couple extra dollars.

Worth It? I've played the game all-the-way through four times. Each playthrough probably took between 30 and 40 hours. The net result is about $0.15/hour of entertainment.

Best Parts: The replay value is astronomical, and the game is incredibly immersive and engaging.

Worst Parts: It can kick your ass if you're as green to FPS games as I am. Consider turning down the difficutly until you get the hang of things.

Overall: Fallout 3 continues to reign as one of my favorite games, if you have any interest at all in exploring the war-torn D.C. ruins, be sure and grab this gem and give it at least one playthrough.

Bonus! Zack Finfrock, who I find to be amazingly attractive, did a fan video set in the Fallout universe, which is great for a chuckle.

Kirby's Epic Yarn

I remember when my co-worker Josh and I first heard about the new Kirby game planned for the Wii (it was amid a series of other announcements Nintendo made). We were fairly excited; Kirby games have always been a source of pleasant platforming. And, the title even promised great things: Kirby’s Epic Yarn. It would be epic, right?

Josh picked it up to play before me, and promptly brought it to my desk and disgustingly tossed it towards me. “You can play this, if you want,” he said, looking at the game box as if instead of Kirby’s Epic Yarn, it actually read Sing-a-long with Justin Beiber. I couldn’t figure out his revulsion, so I asked what was wrong with it.

“You don’t eat people.”

WHAT? What do you mean, you don’t eat people? You’re Kirby. That’s what you do. Making a Kirby game where you didn’t eat people is like making a Sonic game where you don’t run. I had to see it for myself, so I launched my Wii in the first time in months and it updated for three or four hours while I read the manual suspiciously.

There was no mention of not eating things, but I figured it was a lie. Written materials often lie.

The updated Wii was finally ready and I started the game. There was a story introduction – and let me go off for a second here – there are games in which story is important, and highly contributes to my love of the game. Platformers are typically not the medium for that. I don’t care about Mario saving the princess. She will get kidnapped again, and I’ll be off to find more fucking stars to save her. This isn’t Bioshock. I don’t care how coins got into these weird yellow blocks with question marks. The mechanics are designed for fun, not for an overarching purpose.

Anyway, there was a story. Its purpose was to tell us why you can’t eat people (spoiler, it’s because you are turned into yarn). So now, not only am I kind of upset that I lost a few precious minutes watching a story that I cared about, but I really hate the story because it represents a loss of the entire gameplay mechanic the name Kirby on the front of the box had promised.

The game itself is fun enough. You jump onto platforms and there are puzzle-like moments where you have to do one of three things to proceed. Each level challenges you to collect a certain number of beads, which are scattered throughout the level and also dropped by unraveling yarn enemies. However, I can’t shake the feeling that pushing the 1 button (you hold the Wiimote sideways) should cause Kirby to eat someone.

And before I continue to criticize, I will say it’s got a stunningly fun style to it. It reminds me greatly of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. The game’s fabric motif opened a lot of design opportunities, and they were well taken care of. The Wii has a limited capacity with graphics, and this game embraces it, rather than fighting against it.

However, the game gets monotonous in its simplicity pretty quickly. As a nod to this, additional challenges are unlocked if you are able to decorate the apartments of other residents of this yarn-filled existence by collecting trickier to get items from the levels. However, the decoration concept is wasted and introduces further levels of childish gameplay. I wish it’d just give me the additional challenges.

I made it through the first few worlds, each of which culminated in a “boss battle” which involved employing one of two or three strategies. I became disenfranchised, and haven’t played it since. In the end, I just felt as though I was playing a game that was excellently designed and crafted, and then slapped with an intellectual property to garner sales. And my feeling isn’t far off from the truth; according to an article discussing conversations between the development team and Nintendo CEO, Satoru Iwata:

One of the big revelations from the column is that Kirby's Epic Yarn originally wasn't a Kirby game. Good Feel developed the game with the desire to try something new, and so they started from zero. The Japanese name for Kirby's Epic Yarn is "Keito no Kirby," or "Kirby of Yarn." Instead of this, the game was originally set to be called "Keito no Fluff," or "Fluff of Yarn" and would have starred a character named Fluff in a world known as "World of Yarn."

The greatest weakness of the game, in my opinion, is the very thing the development team felt they needed to secure a character with more recognition. How disappointing, as this likely delays having a new actual Kirby game, wherein the gameplay mechanics we love will finally return.

The Game: Kirby’s Epic Yarn

The Cost: Should be easy to find at Gamestop for around $30-$40. A new version will still set you back $50.

Worth It? For non-Kirby enthusiasts: It’s a fun platformer, and would probably be a hoot for kids (there is co-op play, which I didn’t review), but why not spend it on a better game, like Super Mario Galaxy? For Kirby-enthusiasts: purchasing this game probably has the unintended cost of weeks of therapy, buy Kirby Superstar Ultra for $25 instead.

Best Parts: Design. Collecting beads is disarmingly addictive, since the game judges you at the end of every level based on your success in doing so.

Worst Parts: Kirby not being able to eat people and have their powers.

Overall: Playing this game was like getting a chocolate éclair from the donut shop, getting home to eat it and realizing it isn’t filled with custard.