October 2008

Valhalla Knights 2

October 28, 2008

PSP / Reviews / by Justin Last Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Valhalla Knights 2 took the standard RPG checklist and made sure to check off absolutely none of the items listed under “requirements.” Combat is dull where is should be visceral. Dungeon design is bland where it should be interesting. It is easy to get lost because there isn’t a competent map system to aid the player. Lots of time is spent traipsing from town to dungeons because teleport spells only work one way and only one quest can be taken at a time. And the whole experience is dull because where there ought to be a gripping story there is a tacked-on excuse to go dungeon-crawling.

The story is light. Years ago two factions warred, and now you have taken up with one side. In order to win you’ll need to clean out dungeons. A tacked-on story is forgivable when combat mechanics are interesting and enemy design is high caliber like Monster Hunter 2 Freedom. Melee combat works well enough but boils down to “run up to enemy, mash attack button.” Playing a caster should be more interesting and strategic, but battles are so frantic and spells are buried under so many menus that you’ll spend more time dead than not. Thankfully, you’re not in this alone. You directly control one character (a warrior type if you want to live) and allow the AI to control up to five teammates. Your soldiers will follow orders and preset behaviors well so it’s in your best interest to set up a healer and an offensive caster for the AI to control since AI friendlies can bypass the menu system and fire off a heal spell much faster than you ever could. Since everything is so fast there is little time for strategy which just makes the entire affair seem generic and shallow. If combat were slowed down Valhalla Knights 2 could be a very strategic game, but as is there’s just not time to think about what you’re doing.

Valhalla Knights eschews fast travel to locations you’ve already visited for a more traditional “you’ll walk there and you’ll like it” system. The argument “it adds to realism” could be made, but I don’t play RPGs for realism. I play them for fun, and it’s just not fun to walk past the same location time and time again because your teleport spell only works one way. It shouldn’t be hard to keep a bi-directional portal open, even if it closes after the second use. You’ll also get lost a lot because the in-game map is very zoomed in, and you can’t pull it out enough to really get a good idea where you’re going. If you’re going to have to walk the very least Valhalla Knights 2 could do is supply you with a decent map. Sadly, all you’ve got is – maybe – a 20 foot radius around your current position.

Valhalla Knights 2 isn’t particularly pretty to look at either. This, again, could be overlooked if the combat were fun, but when added to shallow, uninteresting combat bland dungeons and low-res monsters are all the more noticeable. There’s really no reason to pick up Valhalla Knights 2. It will frustrate you because it’s maddening to see a game fail so spectacularly when with just a few tweaks it could be fun.

ESRB: E10+ for Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Mild Language, Violence – if Monster Hunter 2 and Final Fantasy are okay then Valhalla Knights is appropriate
Pros: AI teammates obey orders
Cons: Shallow combat, no fast travel, bad map, impossible to effectively play non-melee characters
Plays Like: any number of dungeon crawlers, but less fun

Wii Shop Channel Updates – 10.27.2008 (Strong Bad Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands, Art Style: ROTOHEX, Earthworm Jim)

October 27, 2008

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

This week’s additions to the Wii Shop Channel are packing all sorts of awesomeness with the addition of the 3rd episode of the Strong Bad episodic title, Baddest of the Bands, as well as the Genesis version of Earthworm Jim. Another original title dropping this week for WiiWare is in the form of Art Style: ROTOHEX.

Baddest of the Bands features everyone’s favorite star on a journey to win the Battle Royale of the Bands. Art Style: ROTOHEX is a new puzzle game that sounds 1 part Tetris and 1 part Hexic HD. Earthworm Jim is well… it’s just pure awesome. Hit the jump for the full descriptions of this week’s releases. READ MORE

Dead Space

October 27, 2008

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Michael Walbridge Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Much of the commentary on Dead Space focuses on its mentors or inspirations– a shame considering it’s a bit of a step forward for games as an immersive and engrossing experience. Those with fine taste or a large mental catalog of movies and games may not be able to help faulting Dead Space for “lack of originality”, but originality was not EA’s intention, nor should it be the litmus test by which it is judged. Dead Space is a game about aliens, space, blood, rescuing, surviving, weapons, and ships. How much room for originality is there in such conventions in the first place?

In the name of convention, then, the game starts with a small rescue crew composed of a computer specialist , three soldiers, and an engineer; they are investigating the USG Ishimura, a planet-drilling ship that has lost its ability to communicate. You play the engineer, Isaac Clarke, who is soon predictably separated from the rest of his crew in a typical “we’re all going to die” kind of situation. You are tasked with assisting the rest of the crew get off the ship while they investigate what exactly happened. Assistance is dangerous and Isaac must fight off hordes of extremely gross and nasty creatures with excessive amounts of flesh, blood, exposed body parts, and sharp points.

Other tired conventions set in quickly; the plot is dragged out through repeated quests where Isaac must use his engineering abilities to press buttons and fetch important ship components. And not too far into the game, you will gain the ability to predict when you will be attacked and even how severe the attacks are likely to be.

Gore and shock may be traditional horror tactics but rarely, if ever, have they been so well-executed. The ends Isaac can meet are numerous and varied, even if most of them come from trudging through hordes of enemies with power guns. The gameplay here is not supreme, but it doesn’t detract from the experience. The controls take some time to get used to: three often-used moves are done by pressing the left trigger and another button, and there are no options to change them. Those who are FPS or survival-horror purists may fault Dead Space for not doing the combat according to their respective forms, but Dead Space is good enough to warrant its own standards. The lower the lighting, the higher the volume, and the more important the scene, the less likely you are to notice. The numerous zero-gravity spaces are golden and highly polished; they will literally make you sick and challenge your sense of gravity; sometimes it will take the utmost concentration to figure out or remember which way is up, and some people will get utterly lost. Dead spaces which drown out the noise and give you a time-limit on your air supply are also tense; it’s shocking the first time you see a huge…thing that’s always been summoning shrieks, wails, violins, and brass suddenly not have any sound accompanying it.

The ending and backstory are kind of clichéd, though the expected plot twists aren’t. Without giving it away, I’ll simply say that the story heavily borrows, but does so intelligently. And the bosses, while not challenging, are highly memorable. Dead Space may not scare as much as some people like, but that is only the truth for those who have developed a strong resistance. To all but the most hardened and critical, Dead Space is thrilling.

ESRB: M for language and extremely bloody and gory violence. This is the kind of game you take extra precautions not to let other people see, especially if they are young or squeamish.
Plays like: nothing like it; best summarized, it’s an adventure/survival horror with third-person shooting, weapons, and viewpoint
Pros: Very well-told story; high production values; engrossing; cool weapons; unique zero-gravity and dead space sequences are nerve-wracking
Cons: Some clichés and repetition; easy bosses but difficult simple tasks; influences and scares are sometimes so obvious it may distract experienced gamers or horror buffs

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway

October 27, 2008

PC / Reviews / by Michael Walbridge Make a comment! / Tweet it!

There has been about a decade of realism-oriented World War II shooters, so anything new in such a narrow category and for such a specific time period should be held under severe scrutiny. “What’s new?” is a fair question to ask, especially if the game is part of a franchise. Brother’s In Arms: Hell’s Highway comes three years after the last entry in the series, so it’s fair to expect there to be some large differences to justify a return to the format.

Sadly, the changes are not enough to warrant this an improvement, at least not for a three-year-wait. In this edition of World War II you are still Sergeant Matt Baker; you dropped in Germany during D-day and are now assisting in Operation Market Garden, a massive airborne directive that largely ended in disaster. You must command your unit and help them survive until they can reunite with larger forces.

The storytelling here is ambitious as before, continuing in the style of Hollywood soldier movies. Baker starts the game mourning over a soldier who dies in conversation, while a fellow sergeant urges him to move on. The story then rewinds by a few days and builds up to the beginning, which replays again, adding poignancy to Baker’s idealism and zeal for reducing casualties. This struggle is examined from a variety of safe viewpoints to illustrate the different reactions and philosophies soldiers adopt in understanding war. The writing is professional and the acting and character direction is an ambitious attempt to get the player closer to the characters. There are too many for you to get attached to many of them but Baker, which is problematic because Baker’s sorrows come as a result of mistakes of these characters that don’t have enough time to be fleshed out. Had the cast been a little smaller, the story may have been more engrossing, but as it is it feels incomplete. The graphics are more detailed, but the scenery is not complex (the hospital level is a great exception), and the faces seem mask-like. The models look like highly-detailed puppets.

Back, of course, is the series’ tactical gameplay. It is Brothers in Arms as usual, and not much has been done to improve it. The enemy soldiers have bad aim on the harder of the first two difficulty levels, and your allies are even worse. You can’t depend on them for anything but distraction and for blowing up sniper and machine gun nests with the bazooka. (That is one change; your squads have different roles, and some of them can blow up the cover.) The experiences vary; there are parts where Baker must go solo, as well as a couple of tank levels and one sequence where he must use a sniper rifle to protect a civilian. There is also a level where he loses all his weapons except his pistol. These variations are solidly executed but the core gameplay doesn’t feel too different.

The German squads respond to strategy, but in a highly predictable manner; Gears of War does this better. Most of the levels were bland and used nothing but corridors, vast open spaces, or parallelogram-shaped spaces with boxes and drums. These levels, the poor aim of the soldiers and the terrible grenade system, which I could never figure out how to use effectively, make only two strategies viable. Unless you’re using the bazooka, your soldiers will very rarely kill other soldiers, only distract them.

You can either be patient and pick them off, or you can flank and kill them all from behind or the side where they are exposed. It was incredibly difficult to get a team to flank the enemy without losing the soldiers; I eventually grew frustrated and just used my team to pin them down while I did all the killing. It isn’t hard to get through the game and the monotony is only broken up by the deviating levels and the splendid acting.

If, somehow, it’s your first time playing a World War II shooter and you like soldier stories, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway commits no major mistakes. For those who have been here before, even if you haven’t played a Brothers in Arms title, it will feel like more of the same. The multiplayer is practically nonexistent, with no players on the Gamespy network, and doesn’t play very well anyway. Even if you wanted to play this one just for the story, you can skip this one and not regret it.

ESRB: M–gory, bloody, lots of bad language.
Plays like: a previous Brothers in Arms, only with minor changes that do little for it
Pros: Not cheesy, respectful of the war; original and different story
Cons: Unoriginal, combat doesn’t feel authentic like in many other WWII titles, bland and predictable levels

Mario Super Sluggers

October 27, 2008

Reviews / Wii / by Justin Last Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Mario baseball on the Wii should have been a sure thing. Take one part Wii Sports baseball and one part Mario Superstar Baseball, bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, and rake in the cash. Sadly, what we got was a less challenging version of Mario Superstar Baseball with a bad single-player camera and motion controls with no good alternative.

Unexpectedly, Mario Super Sluggers is defined by its motion controls. Swing the Wii remote like a bat to swing, lift and flick forward to throw a pitch, and shake the remote to run faster around the bases. The nunchaku is optional but recommended to players that want any control over their outfielders. Those that play with the remote only aren’t left out in the cold though. The AI will take care of the fielders for you, but be warned – it’s pretty conservative. For those that prefer a less arm-wiggling control scheme the Wii remote can be held sideways, but it’s a tough scheme to pick up since you can’t use it in the tutorial, the d-pad is nowhere near as responsive as the analog stick, and button functions are double up – the biggest offender being “advance base” and “sprint.” A control scheme without motion controls is nice, but enabling the GameCube controller would have been much better.

Mario Super Sluggers is best experienced in competitive exhibition games. Players with good chemistry can drastically alter how any given play goes down from denying your buddy of a home run by allowing your fielder to jump off of a buddy’s shoulders to having your on-deck batter distract the defense while you’re up to bat. If you don’t have a buddy nearby, exhibition can also offer a decent challenge with the difficulty ratcheted up.

Mario Super Sluggers’ most disappointing change is the loss of the single-player challenge mode. The name remains, but instead of squaring off against different teams you’ll just wander around different stadiums and compete in short challenges like complete a double play. For a casual audience these challenges are appropriate, but those that came from Mario Superstar Baseball are going to be disappointed by the reduced difficulty in a mode with the word challenge in the name.

Mario Super Sluggers drops the ball in a few places. Environments feel uninspired, and none of them feel as well-designed as those found in Mario Superstar Baseball. Star power animations are short and bland, usually featuring nothing more than a quick orange or red flourish. Worst of all though is the single-player pitching camera view that can’t be changed. The camera sticks behind the mound throughout the pitch making it nearly impossible to gauge where the ball is when it crosses the plate. Despite these shortcomings though, Mario Super Sluggers manages to be a fun, if simple, arcade baseball game. Just don’t go in expecting as deep an experience as Mario Superstar Baseball, and you’ll be ready to have a good time with some friends in exhibition mode.

Plays like: A cheaper version of Mario Superstar Baseball that has motion controls this time

ESRB: E for Comic Mischief – Mario is appropriate for everybody

Pros: Fun in multiplayer

Cons: uninspired arenas, bad pitching camera, no good conventional control scheme

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