Chris Chester

Peter Jackson’s King Kong

January 10, 2006

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Chris Chester Make a comment! / Tweet it!

If there’s one thing that gamers have learned to avoid over the years, it’s the dreaded movie tie-in game. Usually, though not exclusively, releasing alongside the major motion picture, the movie tie-in game suffers not only from contractual obedience to the existing script and lofty expectations from excited movie-goers, but a traditionally truncated development cycle that emphasizes the punctuality of a title over its performance. The powers-that-be generally don’t care whether the game is completed, only that it make a presence in stores to capture the fan spillover from the movie. It’s an easy way to make a few bucks if the development costs are capped, but it generally does very little for the brand.

Every now and then however, somebody involved with a major motion picture actually takes the time and effort to shop their property around to a publisher and a development team that actually has a real respect for the medium. Peter Jackson, as it turns out, is one of these people. Entrusting his latest blockbuster to the Ubisoft team that handled development of the critically lauded Beyond Good & Evil, Jackson was virtually assured that the results of their labor would be of a quality befitting his vision for the film and franchise. We can tell you unequivocally that he made the right decision.

Kong is presented in such a way that nothing comes between the player and the action on-screen. From the moment you walk on the beach to investigate the horrific beastly shrieks emanating from the interior of the island, there is no narrator, no heads-up display, no ammo bars, no written mission objectives, and no life bar. It’s a completely engrossing and surprisingly intuitive approach to the first-person aspect of the gameplay. To call the segments of the game where you take control of Jack a first-person shooter would be somewhat misleading. While everything, including the dialog are presented in the first-person, and while there is a lot of shooting going on, it’s still a bit of a misnomer to lump it in with more traditional FPS offerings. You’re only allowed one weapon at a time in Kong, and new weapons and ammunition appear extremely infrequently. Instead, you have to make prodigious use of the throwing spears littered about the terrain, as well as using your smarts to outwit and elude your enemies, making the combat in this game feel almost like survival horror.

But while it feels like an adventure game in its scope, Kong is actually an extremely linear affair, with literally no chances for deviation. There’s usually only one solution to the puzzles that block your path, and if that was all there was to it, the game might very well seem like a bore. What makes the game so exciting and so tense is that there is nearly always some kind of imminent danger that makes otherwise mundane tasks like finding a stick or wading through a swamp feel like a battle for your life. Just like the film, the game is a constant battle for your life and reprieves from the insanity are few and far between.

You also get to take control of the game’s namesake at times, commanding the giant ape against Skull Island’s most formidable enemies. When you get to the Kong segments, the camera shifts back to a fixed third person, giving you full view of the action. Kong is pretty easy to control with melee strikes, grabs, and throws very reminiscent of old beat-em-ups like Rampage. There’s also quite a bit of jumping, as Kong often needs to swing about his jungle home to keep Ann, his damsel in distress, out of harm’s way. While fairly simplistic, the segments where you get to play the King himself are extremely fun and are very satisfying upon their completion. Like the segments with Jack, there is usually a palpable urgency to affairs, and you usually have both a physical and emotional incentive to dispatch your enemies as quick as possible. And really, what’s more fun than smash some dinosaurs, then swinging across the jungle with your favorite lady in your hand?

As was said earlier, the game is fairly linear, so it’s not terribly plausible that you’ll play more than seven or eight hours on one play-through. The game ends before its core gameplay mechanics lose their luster, and any additional gameplay would probably feel tacked on and unnecessary. Still, while the Skull Island segments exceeded our expectations for what a game of this sort could accomplish, the final level is a little bit disappointing. If you have yet to see the movie, don’t fret, because the specifics of the plot are considerably different in the game – though they still share several of the same set pieces. Even if you beat the game several times over, it’s still recommended that you go out and see the movie as well to get more of the motivation behind the characters, and to enjoy the emotional climax of the film that is lacking somewhat in the game.

The graphics in Kong are a sight to behold, and the other platforms simply don’t hold a candle to the high-definition brilliance of the 360 version. It appears as though Ubisoft genuinely put effort into optimizing the game for the platform, because everything from the lighting to the textures to the framerate are improved dramatically. There are still some things that could have used some work, like some plants that are a little under-realized, but it’s rare to even have an opportunity to focus on minute details like those when you’re about to be trampled by a stampede of brontosauruses. The sound is also fantastic, making excellent use of the 5.1 sound. The jungle seems to be teeming with life, both threatening and benign, and there’s never a silent moment that doesn’t carry with it a sense of foreboding. Naomi Watts, Jack Black, and Adrien Brody all show up in good form, as does Kong himself, whose ear-splitting roar will likely terrify the neighbors. The orchestral score is also fantastic.

As a retail package, King Kong is a difficult sell. It’s retailing for $60, with less than ten hours of gameplay and somewhat limited replayability. Gamers on a budget may take exception to this kind of information and avoid the game altogether. In terms of judging its viability as a gameplay package however, it’s hard to deny the game’s appeal. It’s a blockbuster movie, shooter, survival horror game, and amusement park ride all wrapped into one. On its own merits it’s a fantastic cinematic achievement and exceptional precedent for license-based games. Don’t let the price tag scare you – do what you have to do to at least give the game a shot.

Score: 85%

Project Gotham Racing 3

January 10, 2006

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Chris Chester Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Any console-maker worth their salt will tell you that one of the main ingredients for the successful launch of a new console is a showcase title – a game that is not only exemplary on its own merits, but which takes advantage of those facets of a console which are unique. It’s one thing to list new and improved features on a piece of paper, but it’s another entirely to be able to point to a specific game in order to let skeptics experience what your nifty new console brings to the table. The Nintendo 64’s controller probably seemed silly until people started playing Mario 64. The Xbox probably looked unwieldy until Halo jumped off television screens. PGR3, probably more than any other launch title, demonstrates what the 360 experience is about. With tried and true gameplay, a startlingly slick presentation, and seamless online integration, PGR3 seems to be a sign of things to come from the 360.In terms of fundamentals, very little has changed from Project Gotham 2 to Project Gotham 3. The basic gist of the game is that you start with a not-so-good car, perform in a series of races and challenges to earn cash to put towards new cars, which in turn give you an edge on further races and challenges, and so on and so forth. Ultimately, you wind up in an elite series of races driving extremely high-performance cars against rather stiff competition. PGR3 does differ from its predecessor is that the lowest class of cars have been cut off entirely, bringing the total car count somewhere closer to 80. The cars you start out with are, in comparison to what you see on the street, pretty high performance vehicles. This does cut the length of the career mode down a bit, as you can accrue a respectable amount of credits in a short amount of playtime – giving you access to cars like the Enzo Ferrari, which you can use with a good degree of success even up the game’s last events. Still, there’s a significant chunk of gameplay to be had, and it’s a real challenge trying to get the higher levels.

The gameplay itself will be familiar to most – it tends towards the simulation side of the racing spectrum, and it can be extremely punishing to gamers who have grown a little too accustomed to Ridge Racer, Burnout, or Need for Speed. Unlike those games, PGR3 requires extremely judicious use of the power and e-brakes. Skilled players will be able to whip around turns with the e-brake, but even preemptive use of the power brake is extremely effective in competition. Most of the cars, by virtue of their high performance, are RWD – so effectively controlling oversteer and managing your tire traction are just as important as hitting your corners at the right angle.

One of PGR‘s biggest shticks has been the emphasis on style. Players are rewarded for risquA

Need For Speed Most Wanted

January 8, 2006

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Chris Chester Make a comment! / Tweet it!

The Need for Speed series is one that has deviated quite a bit from its earliest roots. While the series actually originated on the 3DO, it really started to hit the mainstream in a big way with the third game in the series – Need for Speed Hot Pursuit. Doing away with the simulation aspects of the game, reintroducing police chases as a major part of the experience, and giving the game an adrenaline shot of action – Hot Pursuit made quite prodigious use of your scorching fast Voodoo 2 card at a lovely-looking 640×480.
When EA’s marketing department later decided to use the lauded series as a vehicle to take advantage of the new car modding scene, it marked a sickening turn in Need for Speed fandom. Instead of racing kick-ass stock muscle cars through cop-infested speed traps, you were racing unintimidating punks in riced out neon-colored go-carts. Some might have thought that the series was lost to the mainstream and their bright green Honda Civics, but with the release of Need for Speed: Most Wanted, it becomes apparent that that isn’t the case. Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a marriage of the Underground style and the classic Hot Pursuit gameplay. You play a fairly stereotypical street racer, who in the opening of the game puts his ride on the line in a pink-slip race against the game’s villain, Razor. Consistent with his villain status, Razor has his thugs sabotage your car before your big race, and right at the clutch moment in the race, it gives out on you. The cops pick up your sorry car-less ass and run you through the ropes. When you finally emerge, Razor has used your car to get to the top of the Blacklist of street racers, and you’re left with squat. The basic gist of the game is that, starting with a kind of crummy car, you work your way back up to the top, rising in the ranks and getting new and more tricked out cars as you go.

The story is clichA

Ridge Racer 6

December 9, 2005

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Chris Chester Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Over the years, the world of racing videogames has expanded to include a number of different sub-genres that lend themselves to a specific style of gameplay, and cater to a gamer of a specific taste. The Project Gothams and Gran Turismos are vaunted as the pinnacle of racing simulation, games like Need for Speed Underground are for the Fast and the Furious crowd – with their neon lights and shiny rims, and so on. But those are just a flash in the pan compared to the most enduring type of racing game there is – the arcade racer. At the forefront of the arcade racers today is the Ridge Racer series, which has for years delighted gamers with its simplistic and easy to pick up style of gameplay. It’s only appropriate then that Namco released its newest entry to the series alongside the Xbox 360, in direct competition with the newest Project Gotham and Need for Speed games. While it’s certainly not the top contender for the racing throne (which would arguably go to PGR3), it’s an absolute delight for longtime fans of the series, and newcomers who are looking for an easier bit of gaming goodness.The easiest way to describe the Ridge Racer gameplay, as it differs from other racing games, is that Namco could have done away with the brake altogether and the game wouldn’t play a hair differently. To win races you have to have the pedal to the metal at all times. Negotiating turns isn’t a matter of nursing the e-brake to get good angles around turns; it’s about ridiculously dangerous high-speed traction-losing drifts. No matter how sharp the turn, all you have to do is quickly let off the gas, throw the wheel to one direction to initiate a skid, angle the front of your car towards the exit of the turn, and throw on the throttle again. At no point does the brake ever come to the equation.

In addition to giving you the ability to keep up your speed around turns, drifting also fills up your three nitrous bars, which can be used to give you a burst of sustained speed. The faster you move while you’re drifting, the more nitrous you get, so a common tactic is to nitrous on a straight-away right before a sharp turn, and use the added speed to rebuild your next burst much more quickly. In the higher classes of cars, this turns into something akin to a combo system. Since those cars negotiate the distance between turns much more quickly, you can start linking those drifts together for maximum nitrous gain. It’s a difficult feat to manage, but by the time you get up to the top races, you’re going to need every trick you can get to run a perfect run.

One unfortunate consequence of the arcade style is that the physics can be pretty unwieldy. As far as being able to pull off impossible turns, this doesn’t seem like a very big problem because it’s so fundamental to the gameplay, but it’s not without it’s side effects. The most obvious is the ridiculous way the cars handle colliding with different things. One you’ll notice almost right away is the pinball effect that cars have on each other. Your car will almost be moving more quickly than your computer opponents, especially at the beginning of the race when you’re trying to work your way to the front of the pack. The problem is, when you rear-end a car going more quickly than they are – you essentially switch speeds. They get a speed boost equal to the distance between your two speeds, and you get a hit in speed to the same amount. This is a bit of a boon for the online component because it means that people can’t maliciously try and spin you out, and it also allows you to steal speed from opponents by having them rear-end you when you’ve taken a hit in speed, but it adds another layer of problems at the higher-levels, where the game demands perfection.

The majority of the racing in Ridge Racer 6 is done in the World Xplorer mode. You’re given a fairly robust-looking map, full of numbered races. In order to get to the more difficult races, you have to create a path of completed races. It’s not a linear path, of course, as races branch out in various directions making a sort of maze. Difficulty is measured by the height of the race on the map, and the class is determined by how far to the right of the map it is. You can unlock new cars by completing all the races around empty areas in the map, or by completing the last race in a specific class. There is an air of addictiveness about it, as a new unlockable car is always only a few races away. You even have the ability to string a series of races together, so you don’t have to keep going back to the menu each time. There’s a lot of racing to be done, with over two hundred races and four classes to finish, including special unlockable races once you complete the first one hundred or so.

The multiplayer online component supports up to 14 players in a race, but defaults to a more realistic 8. There’s nothing to stop you from picking the maximum number, but racing games are of the sort where even a hint of lag can ruin the whole experience. You earn points for winning races, and the game keeps track of the overall points leaders. A neat little nuance included with this is that higher ranked players will be put in the starting positions further to back, adding another layer of challenge. It’s a nice touch. In addition to the traditional online component, you can compete in a global time attack mode that tracks your times and ghosts over Xbox Live. A leaderboard is kept for every vehicle/track combination, and the competition is extremely fierce. You can download the top players’ ghosts and race against them to try and figure out and improve on their lines, but the vast majority of guys at #1 are there for good reason.

Ridge Racer 6 is nowhere near the graphical behemoth that PGR3 is. The cars are very sharp and well modeled, the backgrounds are scenic and interesting, and the game blows by at a blisteringly fast and remarkably consistent framerate. Still, it seems at times like it could have easily have been done with near-equal success on the original Xbox. For one thing, the road textures are very subtle to the point where there don’t seem to be any, and the cars themselves look a little too smooth and shiny. And not only do the cars not have a dynamic damage model, but they don’t even include a token aesthetic damage system – your cars are essentially invulnerable. Having it on HD is nice, but far from mandatory. The added visual fidelity comes in handy for deciphering the degree of turns in the distance, a well as giving added sharpness to small details like the burnout marks on the asphalt that usually indicate a turn can only be negotiated with a drift. You won’t suffer any for having an old CRT set though, which is good to see.

The presentation is pretty slick, if a little sparse. The menus have a lot of loading, but they are aesthetically cool as well as intuitive and to the point. The sound effects are pretty subdued and underplayed, as is the generic techno which seems to fade into the background of your mind as you get a really into an intense race. The only thing that really stumps this trend is the announcer, who chimes in rather persistently every time you or the people around you do anything right/wrong. It’s easy to see how he could get on your nerves, but his encouragement is actually rather helpful at times, though it may just be a matter of taste.

Realistically, very little of the series’ gameplay dynamics were changed for Ridge Racer 6. The nitrous system is an evolved form of the one found in the PSP version, but beyond that, it is still a good old-fashioned Ridge Racer at heart. It’s an extremely fun game to just pick up and play, and once you get a little ways into the World Xplorer mode it starts to get extremely addictive. So if you find that the other racing games really aren’t doing it for you and you’re looking for some simple arcade fun, there’s no alternative. Ridge Racer 6 goes highly recommended.

Score: 83%

NBA Live 06

December 6, 2005

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Chris Chester Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Ever since 2K Sports and Visual Concepts released NBA 2K for the Dreamcast, EA has been fighting a losing battle for supremacy in the battle to be the best basketball game on the market. For years, the 2K series has continued to attract an audience of gamers who demanded that their games not only looked like they were worth the price of admission, but played that way as well. Over the last few years, EA Sports has been taking strides to bring the Live series back from obsolescence to a position where it has really begun to compete with 2K in its feature set, and not just in the brilliance of its graphical presentation.

NBA Live 06 for the Xbox has been pretty well received this year – the Freestyle Superstar System, the Dunk Contests, the depth of the Franchise Mode, and smooth online play contributing to a game that both casual fans of the sport and hardcore fanatics alike can sink their teeth into. The potential for the Xbox 360 version to soundly deliver on the promise of its cousin was enormous. Sadly, as with the rest of the EA Sports lineup, NBA Live 06 is a pretty spectacular let-down not only as a launch title, but as an indicator of the series’ direction for the future. The most glaring omission is in the area of gameplay modes, with Live sporting a quick game feature, a single-season mode, and single online games. That’s it. No franchise mode, no online leagues, no dunk contests, and none of the fun little extra gameplay modes that have come to be the standard in sports games today. Really, the only new part of the game is the ability to practice your jumpers in an empty hanger before going to the main menu and when the game is loading. While fun in itself, it doesn’t even begin to excuse the fact that EA is charging $59.99 for what is in practical terms, half of a game.

When you actually get into a game, it becomes pretty clear that EA took this roughshod, half-assed approach with their gameplay as well. While the game is technically proficient at conveying to the player a basketball experience that appears not unlike the game shown on television, the controls are lifted straight from the 05 version of the game. Veterans of the series will feel right at home with the controls, but anybody that’s played this year’s version on another platform will feel how grave an omission the freestyle superstar controls are. As it plays today, 06 for the 360 requires a lot more patience than is normal for a game of this type. The freestyle control stick doesn’t have the punch it had in earlier versions of the game, so getting a line to the basket on anything but a fast break necessitates a crafty use of the passing game to create separation. You can quickly access plays with the d-pad, which is helpful against stubborn human opponents, and is necessary against the computer on the harder difficulties.

Trying to play the post game is an exercise in patience, because the default sliders will have the refs calling fouls all over the place. Normally this would be a boon to your scoring potential, but EA has inexplicably implemented a new free-throw system that seems as much a matter of chance as anything else. Instead of the cross-system that they’d had for years, you now have to pull down on the right stick and quickly push it up with the appropriate rhythm. The only problem is, there is no feedback to tell you how close to accurate you were – beyond the fact that you just shot a brick with your best free-throw shooter. With a lot of patience, you can work your way up to about a 50% chance to make a free-throw, but even then it seems as much a matter of chance as anything.

On the defensive side of the ball, you don’t really get a lot of new tricks to work with either. As with the offense, you can call up defenses and double-teams using the d-pad. On their own, your teammates aren’t much help blocking lanes to the basket, so you’d better get used to being able to read plays yourself. Rebounds seem like they are as much a matter of chance as a roll of the dice, so even if you’re controlling your point-guard when somebody puts up a shot, have him run in and take a crack at it – he may have as good a shot to pull down the ball as your center. It’s not advised to take control of a big man in the paint anyway, because it’s inevitable that you’re going to get yourself into foul trouble. In fact, it would be wise to turn down the foul sliders considerably, because otherwise the pace of the game slows down to a crawl, especially in the last few minutes.

The online play seems like a cursory addition to the game, only giving you the option of playing single inconsequential exhibition matches against friends or strangers. The games are not lag-free, and seem to suffer from more framerate issues than the single player does. This is most noticeable when you go to take a jump shot; sometimes what appears to you to be a sure-basket will sometimes miss rather jarringly. It’s a matter of chance how laggy the game you end up in really is, but the difference feels much more pronounced in Live than in other games.

Now, to give credit to where credit is due, NBA Live 06 for the Xbox 360 sports a presentation that is fairly spectacular with the right hardware. The player models are extremely refined and sharp, the courtside graphics are nuanced and well textured, and the players all seem to glean with a perpetual coat of realistic looking sweat. You lose quite a bit of detail between the close-ups and the gameplay, but the game still manages to look really terrific in motion. The animation is mostly motion-captured, so while it looks extremely life-like and refined at times, you can see some pretty jarring transitions between different animations if you’re attentive enough. The stadium backdrops are pretty spectacular, especially when the game transitions from the loading screen into the middle of the arena with the crowd roaring. 5.1 surround sound systems will be put to work with Live 06 – and the ambience created is something that’s really fun to experience.

This is all assuming you’re playing on a HDTV with 5.1 sound system, of course. Playing on a regular tube television after experiencing the game in HD is extremely jarring – the first time this phenomenon has been noted in a 360 game. While it’s understood that games are supposed to look a lot better in HD, it doesn’t normally come at the expense of players with less expensive hardware. The fonts in Live 06 were clearly made with only HD in mind – so the main menu and in-game text is all but unreadable on most CRT televisions. The in-game camera also seems geared towards those with bigger sets, as it never really zooms in to follow the action, leading to some rather embarrassing mistimed shots. The announcers will actually make fun of you if you go for a dunk too early due to lack of depth perception, which only adds insult to injury.

In the end, NBA Live 06 feels more like an elaborate tech demo for HD televisions than it does a complete gameplay experience. Lacking all the gameplay modes and tweaks that one would expect from a yearly release, this version of the game is incomplete. The best advice we can give is to download the demo for free off of Xbox Live to impress upon others all the cool visual stuff the Xbox 360 is capable of, but when everybody else goes home, you’re far better off firing up the Xbox version of the game, as it represents what a full game should really include. Or better yet, take a look at the 2K series. While it may not have that EA Sports shine, at least you’ll get the full gamut of gameplay modes. And maybe, just maybe, if enough people vote against Live 06 and the other EA Sports titles with their wallets, they’ll actually do us the favor of finishing the games before they release them next year.

Score: 65%

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →