August 2007

Project Sylpheed: Arc of Deception

August 7, 2007

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Justin Last Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Project Sylpheed is hard. And unforgiving. Despite these two things, however, it’s also very replayable and rewarding. It’s not uncommon to fail the same mission segment three times and think to yourself “just one more time; I think I’ve got it this time!” Project Sylpheed walks a fine line between challenging and frustrating, but it always lands on the challenging side. Missions are difficult, but they’re not cheap. You can win, and the computer isn’t cheating. If you failed a mission then it was your fault and you can eventually beat it by getting better.

There’s a story here, but it’s secondary to the space-borne dogfighting. Suffice it to say that the main character has blue hair, and the officially recognized government’s forces (of which you are an unfortunately named member – Katana Faraway) is trying to squash a rebellion called ADAN. The story doesn’t matter. Enemies have red trails, and friendlies have blue trails. Shoot the enemies; don’t shoot the friendlies. Everything else is secondary, and that’s okay because the dogfighting is just that good.

The left stick steers, the left bumper fires your Delta Saber’s primary weapon (homing missiles are always a favorite), the right bumper fires your nose weapon (a machine gun, for instance), the right trigger controls your throttle, A targets the nearest enemy, X cycles your primary weapons (you’ve got three), and the left trigger, if double-tapped, will cut the engines. Double-tapping the right trigger gives you a short hyperspeed-esque boost, while holding both at the same time matches your speed to you targeted opponent. This one small feature makes dogfighting an absolute blast because it’s possible to concentrate on targeting, weapons, shields, and the radar without also worrying about whether you’re slowly catching your prey or losing him.

Fighting against similarly-sized fighters is as frantic and stressful as it probably ought to be. And it should be that way. Your enemies are outfitted with weapons similar to yours. You’ve got homing missiles, rail guns, a nose-mounted machine gun, and just to put you at a little bit more of a disadvantage you’re usually got a giant ship to defend all while the enemy fighters pelt you with their own homing missiles and rail guns. Missile lock means just that. If somebody’s got a lock on you and your out of chaff then you can pretty well count on getting hit. They are homing missiles, after all. Maybe you should have been paying closer attention to what was behind you.

If Project Sylpheed has a shortcoming, though, it’s the way in which missions are implemented. This isn’t a game that you can pick up, play for 20 minutes, save, and be on your way to the movies. Most missions have several segments, and the game’s difficulty ensures that you’ll be trying segments of later missions – of which there are 16 – multiple times. This is all well and good if you’ve got three hours to dedicate to space-borne combat, but there are many of us for whom gaming happens in 30 minute chunks. If you’re a 30 minutes at a time gamer then Project Sylpheed isn’t really for you unless you don’t mind replaying mission segments. Even though the mission is obviously broken up (it goes so far as to brief you again, update your objectives, and flash “MISSION RESTART” on the screen) the player is not allowed to save until the mission is completed, and it’s frustrating because if you fail a single segment you’re allowed to replay just that segment. There’s a checkpoint there; you just can’t go back to it after turning off the game.

Finally, the achievements in Project Sylpheed are just that – achievements. There are a couple that will be doled out as the player progresses through the game, but most require a replay and subsequent mastery of a level. And I like that. It will mean something other than “I bought and completed this game” when your gamercard shows “PROJECT SYLPHEED, 1000/1000” (I’m looking at you Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Movie of the Game and TMNT). Project Sylpheed is hard but rewarding, and if you’re itching for some space combat then picking up this game is a no-brainer.

All-Pro Football 2k8

August 7, 2007

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Ed Zitron Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Usually, when writing a review I at least attempt to write some kind of lazy pun, an innuendo maybe, possibly even a joke at the expense of the developer. Well guess what, fact fans? The joke’s on me. I paid my sixty dollars for a game much akin to playing NFL, without the players, through a wet, stinking hankie.

It’s so easy to pick holes in Madden games these days, for the shoddy animations, for the lazy development, for all of these things – but it’s 100% definite that 2K Sports, for the mere reason they’re not EA – will get away with all of the hideous mistakes that make up All-Pro Football.

While many will understand this review as hateful – please, dear reader, retread those steps and realise it is out of disgust.

Lacking an NFL license, 2K have decided to let the user create their own team out of a stable of former players, who it would only be necessary to name if it made any substantial addition to the game. These players, instead of having stats, are ranked either gold, silver, or bronze, and have a selection of titles (Brick Wall meaning “DEFEND GOOD” and Laser Arm meaning “THROW GOOD”, and actually meaningful ones such as “signal stealer” allowing you to see what play the other team is making) that strive to create a difference beyond “throwing: 99.” You’re allowed 2 gold players, 3 silver players, and 6 bronze players, and the rest are chosen for you.

This would have a semblance of meaning if these numbers were constant with the other teams, but they’re not – their numbers of gold players fluctuate between 1 and 5 – and to top it off, you can only play as your created teams. Essentially, if your team sucks, or you happen to go against one that doesn’t, you’re at a remarkable disadvantage – and there’re no trades, sonny, so don’t even expect to change your team at all over the woefully featureless season mode.

This would all be at least bearable if it wasn’t for the fact that the entire game plays awfully. This is the epicentre of my disgust towards 2k Sports. It feels as if the entire experience has been created by people who had no knowledge of American Football. The speed and contact of NFL (sorry, just “Football”) are lost upon this game – Quarterbacks throw in slow motion, big plays feel like they take a minute each, and games drag on like a dying dog.

Even more obtrusively are the hilariously awful cutscenes where players taunt eachother (once again, like Blitz) – and in the same jerky, awkward way that the rest of the game plays. To add insult to injury, the game is packaged inside an awkward, garish clunky UI. Just dandy.

The engine is almost good. You see, the animations are fantastic – even if it feels wrong, it looks right, and that’s the first time anyone can say that about a football game in a long time. The graphics don’t feel quite right, though. Players seem squashed, everything seems a bit jagged, and players’ eyes gawk awkwardly out of the front of their heads.

In fact, if you need to understand this game, just think “awkward.” That’s about right. Everything about it is awkward. Nothing feels right, from the god-awful physics, to the peripheral addition of classic players.

It remains to be said whether or not this game was played – not tested, but simply played – by anyone who had touched another NFL/FL/Football/game before release. Even with the speed tweaked to “fast,” nothing works right. It’s not maladjustment because of however many years of Madden games, it’s a simple failure on the part of 2k Sports to get it right.

Do not buy this game. For $60 you could buy anything – be it another game, or simply as many dead salmon as you could fit in your car. Either would be a finer choice.

Any of you who ever call a Madden game lazily developed have new proof that EA are not the bane of all existence. Congratulations, 2k, you have out-done yourselves.

Xbox 360 $50 Price Drop Confirmed

August 7, 2007

News / by Chris Rasco Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Microsoft announced yesterday that the retail price of the Xbox 360 had been lowered by $50 to be effective on August 8th. This is sure to irk any customers that purchased consoles over the weekend.

The price drop was announced to coincide with EA’s upcoming Madden NFL 08, which is set to be released next week, as well as to prepare for the holiday lineup. It’s August, are we already thinking about the holidays?

This now puts the Xbox 360’s different SKUs (I’ve always wanted to work that into a post) at the following price points:

Xbox 360 Core: $279.99
Xbox 360 Premium: $349.99
Xbox 360 Elite: $449.99

Microsoft also announced that the upcoming Halo 3 Special Edition Xbox 360s would be carrying a retail price of $399, the previous price point of the premium console. Matching accessories will also hit store shelves in September.

Bomberman Live

August 7, 2007

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Mate Bors Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Despite entertaining a game called Bomberman Act Zero, Bomberman Live is the first real Bomberman game to grace the Xbox 360. When it was announced, I was quite happy that a real Bomberman was finally being released for my favorite, and currently only, console. As I waited for it to finally finish downloading, I had nostalgic thoughts about how much fun I had playing with my friends on the N64 back in the day. My expectations were high. In light of this, how did the game fare?

The game offers eight maps, and five game modes. The game modes depend on the level. Some levels don’t offer the same modes as others, to put it simply. These modes include: Arena Feature, in which you need to avoid the traps of the specific level; Zombie, in which you are immortal, and your goal is to paint as many tiles your color as you can; Paint Bomb, which is the same as Zombie, but once you die, it’s game over; Bombing Run, which is standard play, but much faster, and last but not least, Classic Mode, which I’m sure needs no introduction.

Some new features include power-ups and customization features of your Bomberman character. The powerups are standard stuff: increased speed, more flame, and so on. The customization of Bomberman probably seemed like a cool feature to add, but ended up being gimmicky and useless. The other people can’t really see what you look like, and I doubt they really care. This is Bomberman, not World of Warcraft.

Single player, for me at least, is just practice for online play. Bomberman was MADE to be played with other people. I highly suggest testing yourself on single (or local play as it’s called in the game), then go straight to multiplayer. In the end, Bomberman Live is not only loads of fun (especially on Live), but cheap, so I can only urge you to do one thing: buy this game!

Hot Brain

August 7, 2007

PSP / Reviews / by Paul Bishop Make a comment! / Tweet it!

I have been waiting for a good brain training game to come out on the PSP since Brain Age debuted on the Nintendo DS. Little did I realize it would just be a doppelganger with nothing new to add. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of worthy things in Brain Age to take note of and use, but some of the exercises just seem like blatant rip-offs such as the math problems of people coming and going from a house (Brain Age) or a boat (Hot Brain). Be that as it may, Brain Age won’t be coming to the PSP so Hot Brain will have to do.

You are invited to the Hot Brain institute to take part in exercises that are designed to raise the temperature of your brain. You see, as Professor Warmer tells you, the more you think about an exercise the more blood flow is created which increases the temperature of your head. And the more the blood flows the smarter you can become. So who wants to become smarter? I know I do, and it has been shown that playing these types of games can boost our cognitive abilities. See Mom, games do make me smarter.

What seem like standard homework questions, based in this timed format test your mental reflexes as you work through the exercises. The more you work, you open up harder levels of difficulty, the more you get right, the hotter your brain becomes. There are several categories of questions ranging from memory of sequences to concentration which are each presented in three types of formats. For example, sequences can either be performed as a progression of shapes or as directions for a cab to take through a city street. Some are more visual while others are more intuitive, it’s interesting just to see where you fall in the spectrum. You can practice all of these individual exercises or you can go straight to the master test; this uses one of each subcategory to score your overall brain temperature, with each exercise progressing from easy to hard.

Overall the graphics and play seem a little dumbed down for the PSP, and the load times seem to take longer than one would suspect for such non-invasive play. Fred Willard voicing the Professor is an excellent addition to this game as his dry wise-cracks goad you along and remind you that this is for fun. The tests are interesting and wide-ranging enough for me to perfect my lacking areas, while having a good time trying to best my own scores. If that isn’t enough for you then you can utilize the PSP’s wireless capability to go brain-to-brain with a friend and really kick some gray-matter.

Despite being a copy of another title, it is a copy of a successful one that serves an important purpose for young and old alike. For me, personally, it really did feel like I was getting my brain working, and I can definitely see the benefit of continually doing these exercises.

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