October 2010

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

October 18, 2010

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Shawn Vermette Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West might possibly hold the distinction of being the only video game in existence that is based, albeit loosely, on a novel. Journey to the West is considered to be one of the great novels of Chinese literature and Enslaved takes it, places it in a post-apocalyptic America, and succeeds beyond what you might ever have believed it would. 

Being based on a book, one would think that the story would be one of the focal points of the game, and you’d be right. The game follows Monkey, the main character, and Trip on their escape from slavery to freedom. Unfortunately for Monkey, his journey takes longer than Trip’s, as upon escaping from the slave ship, he is outfitted with a slave headband by Trip and forced to help her return to her home, 300 kilometers west of their location. Despite his initial resistance, Monkey soon employs all of his prodigious power and leaping abilities to assist Trip in her journey to the west. The story is very compelling and is assisting greatly by the action and atmosphere.

The combat in the game has a fairly visceral feel to it. Throughout the game you’ll fight against mechs of varying types and sizes. Leftovers of a long-ago war, they are simply fulfilling their programming-kill any humans they see. Utilizing a nifty staff weapon that has both melee and ranged attack modes, you’ll find yourself hacking, and blasting, your way through all sorts of mechs. You have the ability to block as well, but you’ll rarely use it except when you are surrounded by a bunch of mechs. You’ll also be able to upgrade yourself and your staff with new and improved abilities throughout the game by collecting tech orbs. By itself, the action would get stale over the course of this 10 hour game, but Ninja Theory did a great job of breaking up and pacing the action. Breaking up the action is tons of platforming and scaling of buildings, crevasses, and all sorts of towering environments. It has very rigid platforming, it isn’t possible to miss a handhold, but I quite enjoyed that about the game. Rather than needlessly making the platforming difficult, they decided to make it into more of a puzzle where you have to find the right path up or down and then moving on to more story and action. There are also many set-piece sequences, fast-paced chase and rescue sequences and various other experiences to break up the combat. All of it is thrilling, and all of it is very well paced.

Visually, Enslaved is stunning. Sprawling, open world environments are beautifully and colorfully rendered on your screen, while the animations used for the characters are all believable and add to the attachment you’ll begin feeling for them.

The sound design is also very well done. The soundtrack is great, adding to the atmosphere and feel of the game. The voice acting is also very well done. The script is great and the voice actors genuinely make you feel an attachment to Trip and Monkey. The cutscenes really shine as well. The banter and emotions displayed during them complete the feeling of being part of the story and relationship between Trip and Monkey.

The only real complaints I have with Enslaved are the camera and the controls. Sometimes the controls get finicky, and while the camera does a good job most of the time, sometimes it gets in the way of the action. Overall though, these are fairly minor complaints during the scope of the game.

There are very few action adventure type games that I can remember feeling the desire to continue playing even after having beat them, the last one being Uncharted. Enslaved, despite its 10 hour play time, is another one that I would play through again. The story, the sounds, the script, the visuals, and the action beg to be experienced again.

Pros: Visuals are stunning, soundtrack is great, voice acting is terrific, combat is satisfying, set-pieces are epic

Cons: Camera sometimes gets in the way, controls can be finicky

 

Sid Meier’s Pirates! (2010)

October 18, 2010

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

I love Sid Meier’s games. Civilization is a long-time favorite, and Railroads! is always a good time. Pirates! is another favorite of mine. Sadly, the Wii version showcases the game’s age and the motion-control minigames don’t add enough to the title to warrant an additional purchase.

First, Pirates! is no longer an attractive game. The graphical presentation is a downgrade from the PC version that was released back in 2004. Sound effects and music both hold up in the Wii port, and the gameplay is largely as you remember it from any other release Pirates! has seen over the years. You’ll take your pick of five difficulties, five eras, and four nationalities. After that the story begins, the crew mutinies, and you’re in charge of a ship. From here your destiny is up to you. Do you chase rival pirates and steal their treasure? Do you take the governor’s daughter to a fancy ball? Or do just sail around the world map and take in the scenery? Whatever you choose, Pirates will give it to you. 

If you choose to pursue a romantic relationship then you’re going to spend a lot of time playing the dancing minigame which highlights everything that is wrong with so many ports to the Wii. Motion controls are shoehorned in and they lessen the experience. Dancing on all platforms is a rhythm-based minigame but only on the Wii is it painfully unresponsive flailing. No matter how much you think you nailed that simple move (flick the remote up, down, left, or right) your flails will match your pirate avatar’s and both of you look and feel foolish at the end of the sequence.

Ship-to-ship combat is simple. Approach any ship you see and engage in battle. There is strategy involved, but it is fairly light. Ensure that you have more crew available than your enemy and choose the right type of shot to tear up the hull, shred the sails, or think out the crew available to the opposing captain. You’ll only want to ravage the hull for so long though – a sunken ship is impossible to plunder. This means that most ship-to-ship combat ends with a duel between you and the enemy ship captain. Dueling, like dancing, is bogged down by unresponsive motion controls. You’ll wave the remote to move your sword and the buttons to jump, duck, and counter. On paper this sounds like a good way to handle sword-fighting with the Wii remote, but sword slashes don’t always pick up properly and when the motion controls do work there is a noticeable lag between your motion and your pirate’s attack in-game. If you eventually win your opponent will fall off of the ship and her bounty is yours.

There are two minigames exclusive to the Wii version. Bombardment starts when you try to enter a port owned by another country that you’re not friendly with. This, in stark contrast to the dancing and sword-fighting, actually works well. You point the Wii remote at the screen and use it as a reticule for your ship’s cannons in order to blast your way into town. The second new minigame is lockpicking which you probably won’t see a whole lot of since it is only available after you’ve been arrested. You’ll tilt the remote to move your pick into the proper position, but the catch is that you don’t want to be caught by the patrolling guards. It works well, and it makes sense within the context of the game, but unless you’re a terrible pirate you won’t get arrested a whole lot.

Pirates! is a classic, and everybody ought to play it, but they shouldn’t be playing it on the Wii. Unresponsive minigames absolutely kill the fun of the game since they plague the two things you’ll be doing on a near-constant basis – dancing and swordfighting. If all you want to do is sail a boat on the Wii then Pirates! isn’t a bad buy, but if you want to actually take part in any piratical activities then you should pick it up on a platform without motion controls.

Pros: Two new minigames

Cons: Unresponsive dancing and swordfighting minigames

 

Snackbar Speculator: Death of the arcade

October 18, 2010

Features / Speculator / by Shawn Vermette Make a comment! / Tweet it!

This week we discuss price drops, holiday sales, and studio closures.

Current score

Andrew Passafiume: +300

Graham Russell: +109

Eric Schabel: +65

Shawn Vermette: +165

 

PSP Go price to drop to $200 before Thanksgiving

Gamers have almost universally shunned the PSP Go since its release last fall. Partly due to the fact that it had no UMD drive, thus making for more expensive games, and partly due to the fact that it was priced at $249, $80 more than the PSP-3000. The pricing situation may soon be alleviated though, as rumor has it that the price of the PSP Go will be going down to $200 before Thanksgiving.

Andrew: I’m surprised the price hasn’t dropped sooner, or it won’t be dropping even more. I don’t think they are selling particularly well and I doubt the price drop will help any, but it’s definitely something I’m surprised didn’t happen sooner. 90%


Graham: Look, the PSP Go was a failure, and Sony knows it. They’ll drop the price to get rid of stock at some point, but announcing a price drop during the holiday season would just be a reminder that there’s this horrible thing in a time where their reputation is key. It’s hard to say, so I’m punting.  50%

Shawn: Considering the cool reception of the PSP Go and the fact that it has now gone an entire year without a price drop tells me something is afoot. Sony hates price drops on their hardware, but unless they’ve entirely given up on the PSP Go, it is certainly time to drop the price on it. The real question, to me, is whether they’ll drop the price of the Go or the PSP-3000. Both need one, but does Sony even care anymore? I’m gonna say yes, they do. 70%

 

Krome Studios closing its doors

Krome has faced tough times recently. It used to be Australia’s largest independent developer, boasting a staff of over 400. However, at the end of last year, they laid off staff at all three of their studios. Then in April, they laid off more staff, and then a couple months ago they laid off even more staff and closed one of their studios entirely. Now, it is rumored, thanks to Twitter, that Krome will be making one final round of cuts soon. This round, however, would also result in closing their last two studios entirely.

Andrew: Considering how poorly Game Room did for Microsoft and how it was barely even supported with actual arcade games after it launched, this is really not that surprising. I’m not sure how the other Krome developed games have done, but the results of what happened with Game Room, the studio being shut down wouldn’t surprise me. 95%

Graham: This all happened pretty quickly. Game Room was supposed to be a cash cow, keeping on going for years with little fanfare but a lot of money. It didn’t work out that way, and the all-eggs-in-one-basket thing they’ve been trying lately isn’t a great approach when that happens. Are they dead? Yeah, they’re dead. The real question is whether they’ll close or just fade away into some other company so we can’t really call them gone. 90% 

Shawn: It’s unfortunate that a studio could fall so far so fast, but it’s hard to keep an independent studio open when none of your games the last couple years have sold particularly well. Probably the best game they’ve worked on since 2005 was The Force Unleashed for the Wii, PS2, and PSP. That simply isn’t enough to keep you afloat, as we’ve seen this year. I don’t know if they’ll close both of their studios in the near future, but it sounds like they are definitely close to having to do that. Especially with no games even listed as coming soon on their website.  60% 


Wii to outsell Xbox 360 and PS3 again this holiday season

Ever since the Wii released in November of 2006, it has been the top selling console during the holiday season, November-December, each year. This year has been the worst year yet in terms of Wii sales, comparatively, as the Xbox 360 and PS3 have outsold it for half the year. Can Nintendo finish the year strong by continuing their run of ‘winning’ each holiday season?

Andrew: Wii sales have been steadily decreasing throughout the year, but Nintendo usually has a great holiday, so it’s hard to say. With how well Microsoft has been doing, we might see them finally trump Nintendo with the release of the Kinect, and you never know what could happen with Sony. It seems likely that Nintendo could win, but this year is not as likely as the last few. 65%

Graham: That all depends on Kinect, doesn’t it? I mean, the core isn’t even close to embracing it (though Dance Central may make a few converts), but if this becomes the new little-kid-at-Christmas system, it has a chance of topping a Wii system that has already sold to everyone and their mother. I’m still giving it more than even odds of hanging onto the crown, though. 70% 

Shawn: I think that the huge titles coming out this month, and next, will do a lot to improve sales of the Wii this holiday season. True, there’s no Mario game this year, but I would think that a new Kirby game, and new Donkey Kong game, and a new Goldeneye would do wonders for the system’s sales. I certainly won’t predict a new sales record, like last year, but I do think that the Wii will bounce back and lead the holiday season again. 80% 

Kinect launch lineup announced

October 18, 2010

News / by Shawn Vermette Make a comment! / Tweet it!

It’s been a long time coming, but Microsoft has finally unveiled the launch lineup for the Kinect. Microsoft is calling 17 games launch titles, though only 12 of them will actually be available on November 4th. Of the rest, two will be available on the 16th and 2 on the 18th with the last one releasing at some point before the end of November. A full list of the titles is listed after the break. READ MORE

Dead Space: Ignition

October 17, 2010

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Andrew Passafiume Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Dead Space: Ignition is a downloadable prequel to Dead Space 2, taking place right before the events of that game and showing what happens to the spaceship that protagonist Isaac Clark is sent to investigate. This prequel is created purely for the story, and is almost an interactive comic with a “choose your own adventure” style of storytelling. It’s a shame that the actual game is full of tedium and frustration. 

Let’s start with the presentation, which is, at best, pretty poor. The comic-book style looks awful, and the “animation” does not look proper at all. Sure, it’s a motion comic, but the terrible look of the characters does not work well with how everything moves. The voice acting is equally as bad, with cringe-inducing performances that really take you out of the “horror” experience. The story itself is decent, but the “branching paths” don’t offer anything new or interesting from one another.

The gameplay is a collection of three hacking minigames, none of which are at all compelling or well-designed. They feel more like chores than anything else. If I were an actual engineer on this ship and playing these minigames (or performing these hacks) was my job, I probably would have quit after the first day.

The first minigame is “Trace Route,” which has you guiding an electrical signal through a fast moving obstacle course. It’s almost like a race as you try to get to the end before the other signals do. You have access to power-ups as well, some that speed you up and others that slow down your “opponents,” but most of them are never worth using. The game itself controls rather sluggishly; you never feel like you have precise control, which leads to plenty of frustration, especially considering how fast it all moves.

“System Override” is the second minigame, and it is the worst of the three. It’s not at all challenging or fun to play. Think of it as a reverse tower defense game, as you are sending out viruses to destroy the protective anti-viruses and get them from one end of the grid to the other. You have four different “unit” types, but there is absolutely no strategy involved. I found myself spamming two very specific units until I won, and I usually did without much trouble.

The final, and best, minigame is “Hardware Crack.” This one is definitely the most traditional of the three and feels like an actual puzzle. You have two (sometimes three) different colored lasers and you redirect these various lasers into their respective exit points before the time runs out. It can be challenging, but like the other two, it’s pretty dull and never actually gets that interesting. Once you get to the later puzzles, you just stop caring altogether.

This downloadable prequel is only $5, but even that price is too high. You get some unlockables for Dead Space 2, including a new suit for Isaac, after you finish the game, but they are just not worth the frustration. Even if you are the world’s biggest Dead Space fan, it’s hard to recommend this poorly-designed mess of a game.

Pros: Decent story

Cons: Awful presentation; none of the mini-games are compelling, only frustrating or boring

 

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