Super Missed Opportunity All Stars - Wii

I rarely say many bad things about Nintendo on this site, mainly because they rarely deserve it. But in this instance I am so ashamed to be a huge Nintendo fan. Marketed as Mario's big 25th anniversary birthday bash, a culmination of Mario magic, 25 years of koopa stomping fun and what do we get? A lousy port.

Now, I'm not naive, I knew what I was buying going into it. I knew before I left my house to go buy this that in my SNES was Super Mario All Stars, still hooked up, still ready to play. However, I kept saying the extras would be worth it, the swath of history I will soak up will be well worth the $30 purchase. Besides that, my classic controller is way better than my old gimpy SNES controllers anyway.

There was a sudden air of doubt that fell over me however, as I made the transaction at Best Buy. A feeling of doubt so heavy, that I considered the $30 in my hand before sending it on it's way. One more look at Mario's glistening eyes on the box though was all it took for me to continue my transaction.

I went home with a renewed vigor that I had not made a poor choice. It was just $30 after all...just $30... Rushing through my door I immediately hunted down and unearthed my CD player that I haven't used in ages. I wiped the dust off, and plugged the CD in and cranked up the volume. Quickly, the room had filled itself with Mario ambiance as I then brought out the only other extra packaged within this milestone title.

The other item is a book, a sort of history of Mario. Now I have read and viewed MANY articles about the history of Mario over the years, even pseudo wrote one myself, I had anticipated this version hoping to learn many new things since it's from the mouths of the men who created it directly, no middle man. While the Mario music played in the background, I dug in. Each page contained a picture of a Mario game in the main series, and there are 10 in all. Below the box art are quotes from Iwata, Miyamoto, and Kondo capsulizing one distinct memory from the game.

These quotes were very short, and one sentence long...No interesting stories were told, and no fun insights on the game. No tales of trial and tribulation while developing it, no team quarrels, nothing...I would say there is more detail given from Punxsutawney Phil every groundhogs day than what this book contained. Sure, there were ancient early drawings of the game by Miyamoto and apparently they wanted to give Mario a weapon and have up on the D-pad be jump which was interesting and it would have been nice to hear their thoughts on that more, but no we just have to interpret that they chose not to do those things because they knew it would suck.

The quotes probably annoy me most of all. Iwata has nothing very interesting to say as he was never really part of the team that helped create these games. Miyamoto's quotes usually brought up one interesting challenge he had making the game, or something new he wanted to showcase. That was nice, but it leaves you wanting to know more. Kondo has the worst quotes of all as he literally repeats some of what he says between games. His early quotes are just him being annoyed with the tech limitations and how he got around them, and then after that he's just happy that he can do percussion...We get it Kondo, percussion is a great addition to music in gaming.

As I flipped the last page, I sat back and let the music from the CD finish. A song had just ended and I awaited the next tune. I awaited the amazing amount of percussion to fill the room that Kondo went on and on about...but instead I was greeted with a single noise. A Mario sound effect. Then I was greeted with another, and other, then the game over tune, and another sound effect. 10 sound effects later and the CD had ended. It was under 30 minutes long in total. So not only did they only use a fraction I can't even calculate on the game disc for 1 SNES port, they didn't even bother filling up the CD with more music. They used ONE song for each of the 10 main games. Why? They could have gotten away with 2 per game and still had CD space to spare.

So in UNDER a half hour I had gone through what Nintendo considers 25 years worth of Mario history. The extras were pathetic, poor excuses, an absolute shame. It's clear Nintendo doesn't care about Mario in the same way its fans do. I was born alongside this character, grew up with him on my TV, and while I had no hand in his creation I imagine I could have drummed up better extras within 24 hours of planning than the projected 25 years Nintendo had to plan this anniversary collection if they wanted.

The game itself is even more a slap in the face. Again, it's just a port of the SNES game which contains 4 games Mario 1-3, and Lost Levels which is the real Super Mario Brothers 2 that Japan got, but we just got Doki Doki Panic with Mario characters (our Super Mario 2). The sad thing is, Nintendo had released Super Mario All Stars + at the end of the SNES life. The "+" is in reference to the additional game of Super Mario World that was added into the collection. Did we get that port? Nope...no Mario World on this disc.

The game could have been so much more. It could have had Mario World, it could have had his Game Boy adventures of Mario Land. It could have had Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine with Wii controls. That would have been a great 25th anniversary, that would do Mario justice. Sad to say that Sega has actually outdone Nintendo at something. For Sonic's anniversary we got something pretty special. The Sonic Ultimate Collection on the PS3 or Xbox 360 contains 40 Genesis games, and most notably all the Sonic games. 40 games, and it is $20. Nintendo on the other hand gives us 4 games, for $30. The very idea that Sega managed to do something right over Nintendo boggles my mind and I never thought I would even say it. It's sadly true.

Maybe I'll live to see Mario's 50th anniversary and they'll celebrate it by making a disc with Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 on one disc, with a CD that contains two songs total, and a booklet with pictures of space in it. Get on that Nintendo, you got 25 years to make it happen!

*gets CD and plays the "game over" tune*

PS: I know the box art pic is in French, but that was on purpose. I don't understand French and I really don't understand this decision by Nintendo.

I've Been Digging Around...

Oh.

Hi there, I've been gone a while. That is because there is an indie game that has been taking the Internet by storm and that has taken my life over. That game is Minecraft.

If you have not heard of the game, allow me to enlighten you. The game started development in 2009 by Markus "Notch" Persson. Released to the public in a pre-alpha state, and having just hit the beta stage in December 2010, the game has hit ONE MILLION total sales just last month.

Now this popular game must have the sweetest graphics and you will need a high end computer to play, one might ask.

No and yes. The beauty of this game is the look and the feel of the game. It is a 3D open sandbox block game about construction and I could leave it at that because there is currently no story or goal to the game yet, but why has something so seemingly simple attracted so many fans?

It's the detail within the game. You start off plopped on a map during the day. The map in the game is randomly generated and infinate. Hope that you are spawned near some trees because that is one of the first things you need to harvest. Once you harvest the lumber, you can then craft it into wooden planks, and from there you can craft a crafting table.

From there you need to craft a wooden pick axe and find some coal to harvest to make torches and a small fort before the day is through because at night, zombies, spiders and other enimies will sneak up on you with little to no warning.

You continue a pattern of building during the day and digging during the night. You can find iron, gold, and diamond to craft with. and there are way more building materials than I would like to list on this blog.

You can also find Red Dust, which is used to make circuts and even make your own traps. The level of though that has gone into this game is insane. One can only wonder what will be added to the final version.

Speaking of the final version, Notch ended up forming his own company and hired people to help him develop the game.

The beauty of the game is you are in control of the design of the city and the what you want to add. It's even better when you log on to a multiplayer server. Getting to see and interact with others creations gives inspirations on what you can do.

What did I do last week? I make a hockey arena. The week before? A skyscraper. Before that? spent 6 days explore a cave system that was naturally formed under my city. What have I seen others do? Oh, how about making a Cake Dispenser of DEATH! (awesome I know)

While the game is still in development, Notch is giving a discount to those how purchase the beta. which I belive still clocks in under $20. This is $20 that will be well invested. So have fun and check it out. I got more digging to do.

Burnout Paradise - All Burnt Out

I just recently got into the racing game scene again thanks mostly to some killer Steam deals, (seriously if you're not using Steam and you are a PC gamer there is something very wrong with you). I used to play all manner of racing games, most of my N64 game library is racing games for some very strange reason.

Each new racing game I got though always seemed worse than the last. I was constantly disappointed with games like Top Gear, some RC Car racing game I got, and a few other racing sim games that I can't remember the names of at the moment. I noticed the only racing games I was actually enjoying were from Nintendo like F-Zero, Mario Kart, and Wave Race. That bothered me a bit and made me wonder if I actually like racing games at all or do I just like the wacky fun of Nintendo games instead. So through the whole Game Cube/PS2 era and even this current gen I didn't bother with any racing games for fear I would continue to be disappointed.

But I knew I loved the chase, perfecting time attack scores, edging out a narrow win on the final lap, and so on. All of those things I knew I enjoyed from F-Zero and Mario Kart but I could never find that satisfaction in any other racer.

Teleport to today and a lovely string of Steam deals that let me get Grid, Dirt 2, and Burnout Paradise all for under $25 total. I started off with Grid and immediately fell in love. I would do a review of Grid or Dirt 2, but those games are such a perfect mix of arcade/sim that it would just be nothing but gushing.

Enter Burnout Paradise, a game that I have oddly logged more time into than either Grid or Dirt 2 and yet I feel it to be quite inferior to both of those.

Graphics:

Not too shabby in the looks department. The cars are shiny, sleek, and overall very pretty. The landscape could use some work although I can't run this game at max settings so that could be my fault. It just seems to lack decent lighting effects all around, though, again that could just be my mid-range computer. What is dumb is I can run Grid and Dirt 2 at max and they look way better than Burnout...optimization EA...optimization...

Sound:

This game has a very large selection of music, mostly stuff I hate, but all of it is quite fitting for this game. Many times a song will pop up at the most opportune moments and makes me smile like crazy. Like if I'm in a mission where I have to wreck X number of cars I'll get some awesome Beethoven track to go with it perfectly.

The car noises themselves aren't as apparent, at least not when compared to Grid or Dirt 2. I don't sense the "umph" in these vehicles as much as I think I could have with some proper effects. No matter, the sounds of cars smattering together are pretty good though.

Gameplay:

I admit I really should have looked into what this game was before buying it a little better. I was not aware in the slightest that this game is an open world, free roaming racing game. I really wish I had been aware though, because this is really not the type of racing game for me.

The setup is you're the car in one large city, and you travel to intersections which all house an event of some kind. The events are, standard race, stunts, marked man, and crash other cars. There are a TON of events, but the main issue is each one is essentially the same after a few hours of play. Where in most racing games the variety comes in the courses you get, Burnout has one course, a large city. The gameplay itself is very good. The cars go very fast, fly far, and you get crazy awesome boosts and crashes are satisfying.

The city is covered in ramps, and you can do extra things like hunt down and destroy billboards, or find all the hidden areas and extra cars, but that tends to get boring. Again the main issue I have is the severe lack of tracks as I was not aware what type of game this was going in.

Let's break down the events for a moment. In the standard races there are many starting points, but only 5 total end points. So you will see the same checkered flag over...and over...and over...The only upside is you can choose how you get there and what streets you take and what shortcuts you want to use. The game gives you suggestions, and honestly what the game says to do is usually always the best route. Following the path you want though can become annoying as you constantly have to pause the action to check your map...lame!

What is worse, is in the marked man event you get the SAME 5 end points, they never change. In marked man cars are out to kill you and you have to get to one of the 5 end points before you die 3 times. It's fun...but again it feels exactly the same as a racing event minus the AI blood-lust with the exact same 5 end areas.

The wrecking cars event is probably the most fun though. It's stupidly simple to wreck cars and always satisfying. I have no issues with this honestly. Except that I always won it so early and the game doesn't stop until the time runs out even though you reached your allotted wreck amount. So I end up pissing away two minutes actively avoiding cars, because wrecking them GAINS you 10 more seconds!

The worst events are the stunts. You have to get lucky to win these I think. The scores you have to set are SO high after a while, and the time you get is VERY small. You have to chain your stunts for the entire amount of time to win really. But the problem with doing that is how easy it is to wreck in this game ruining your combo. The issue with chaining a combo is you have to maintain stunts consistently, or use your boosts. Of course, doing this makes you drive recklessly, and at high speeds cars tend to pop out of nowhere effectively ending a combo.

There are certain stunt areas though that make getting a high score REALLY easy as it essentially sets you right in front of multipliers and super jumps in one long strip. Other stunt areas leave you with next to nothing, and often I find myself hunting down that long strip of awesome wasting half my timer in doing so. Thankfully, as long as you maintain a chain without wrecking the timer is meaningless. You can stay on 0:00 forever really as you get a "Final" streak if you will, to get more points.

Doing events allows you to increase your license and get more cars essentially. The goal, I guess, is to get the best license possible. Each license has an incremental goal. At first you have to succeed at a few events of your choice then you upgrade. Then the events reset so you can do them again for your next upgrade, however you have to do more this time. So not only do you end up racing to the same checkered flag ALL the time, you end up doing the EXACT same events over and over again.

Conclusion:

Now I won't lie when I say I did have fun with this game. It is the kind of game that made me do that thing where I'm like "Just one more event then I'll quit," except I wouldn't quit. But it has an empty sort of fun to it. While playing I would stop and reflect on what I'm actually doing, and realizing I've "been here, done that" a good dozen times and try to understand why I'm still doing it. Just because I have 13 events left for the next license? What for? New tracks don't unlock, there are only a few more cars left to get, and what happens when I do that? I looked into it...nothing happens. You get the best license...and that's it. Game is done. And it doesn't even take all that long to do. Maybe 12 hours or so of grinding the same events constantly and that's it.

I mean the game is even shorter if you're not a tard like me and kept playing. You do a few of each event, jump a few things, hit a few billboards...crash a car or two...and then that's it. You have now experienced everything Burnout has to offer save for unlocking all the vehicles. That's why I say I got an empty feeling playing the game after an hour...because I've done it all already and yet I'm still doing it.

Is that the mark of a good game, or me feeling guilty that I paid $14 for a game that only took me an hour to really do what I wanted in it so I kept playing anyway knowing there weren't any more goals to set? I don't have an answer to that, but it is a functional game in its own right. Sadly though it really feels like a chore doing the same events over and over for seemingly no real reason chasing after some vague goal that barely exists.

*just one more event*

The Witcher Review

The Witcher 2 is nearing its release so I figure I should get my thoughts out about the first game that I just started playing again a few weeks ago. I obtained it on a steam deal for $6.00 and I must say...I feel quite ripped off.

The Witcher is everything that is wrong with Western RPG development, and doesn't do what Western RPG's do right either. It is possibly the worst game I have ever played in my life and I don't say that lightly. There are only a handful of games that I haven't completed on the account of I hated it. The Witcher not only joins that elusive club, but is probably its new king.

From the setting, to the battle system, to item management, characters, enemy behavior, spells, crafting, and especially the quests themselves, the Witcher manages to get every single one of these wrong.

Graphics:

Going into an RPG I care about this the least of all. But the Witcher doesn't disappoint in being flawed so hard that even I can't ignore the issues it has in the graphics department. Firstly, for a next gen title of its time, it looks really bad. Look no further than the main character himself. No detail to be found, and the hair....oh the hair just stands out like a sore thumb. Not since Vaan's abs in Final Fantasy 12 have I ever not been able to ignore a character feature before for just how bad it looks. It sticks out long, no texture, just white draped over his head like someone forgot to finish it...ugh!

And the NPC's are worse in that there are MAYBE 6 different models? You see the same character model everywhere unless they're a main character with lines. You have one dwarf type, one fat merchant, an old guy, hookers, and some sparse peasants and kids. I was always one to joke and comment about Oblivion re-using character models like crazy, but the Witcher goes overboard here.

Sound:

For me it's important for an RPG to have not only good voice acting, but a great soundtrack. The Witcher has neither. The voice acting is muted and uncaring. The main character Geralt is expressionless, never getting angry or sad, and simply never caring at all. Why is he even ON this quest? He doesn't give a shit ever and neither does the voice actor.

The music is less poor, but still terrible. The main theme plays way too much, and I think mainly because they didn't have enough money to pay for a variety of tunes. The other songs drain on you since the game makes you spend too much time in one area too long.

Story:

I actually began playing this game the moment I got it from the Steam sale which was about a year ago now. The story is a bit hazy for me so I took a look at the wiki to refresh my mind. Sure enough the wiki highlights just what is wrong with the plot perfectly enough. Geralt is a Witcher, loses his memory after awakening from death...(Jesus?) and generally heals people that can't be healed by normal means...(really...Jesus?). He's held up with a band of other Witchers who allow themselves to be robbed by a Mage and a pack of thugs.

How the sequence plays out if I remember correctly is just god awful. They had every chance to stop them from stealing their shit, but they don't and instead talk with them...at length...while they're stealing shit...and they go through a portal and oooohhh no....couldn't stop them....*snaps fingers* Shouldn't have been talking with them all that time...

So the quest for the game is to...get your shit back and probably Geralt's memory in the process, but really who cares (read character section).

As I said I didn't finish this game, but I can't really comment any further on the story either. Even though I plugged maybe 20 hours into this shit-fest the game NEVER brought up any key story points from then on! Oh, except for Geralt fucking anything with two legs, which hilariously if you read the Wiki plot synopsis it DOES actually mention every time Geralt is to be fucked in the plot...why? Probably because that's the only interesting thing going on while he's fetch questing....oh yes....there's fetch questing more than I have ever, EVER seen.

Gameplay:

Fetch Questing:

So the gameplay...err...I mean Fetch Questing of this game is trash. You sword fight by clicking on your enemy, then timing further clicks highlighted by the sword icon to increase your combo. That's it! Oh, yeah there is magic too...that's the right click. Magic varies from stunning enemies...to stunning a group of enemies...to setting them on fire...or casting a protect spell.

But the combat is so incredibly basic it doesn't allow for any strategy to develop at all. If you're weaker you lose, stronger you win, the end. You can't guard anything you want, dodge anything you want. All you can do is stand there and either get beat up, or beat things up. The game gives three stances, strong, fast, and group. You pick strong stance to fight...strong things....fast to attack...fast things....and group to attack....many things...What imagination employed here!

Leveling up involves going to a fireplace to meditate and place skill points where you want. Traditional things here, nothing special, moving on.

So outside of battling what actually takes up ALL your time in this game? Why fetch-questing of course. Fetch questing of the HIGHEST order, the worst kind of all. These are the kinds of fetch quests that BREED more fetch questing. What's worse is they are ALL boring, ALL tedious, and ALL encompassing of what you do in this game.

I will take an actual in game scenario and describe it to you. Let me know if you think this is fun:

In one quest you have to find this one chick in a hospital during the day to get her to do an autopsy, she tells you to meet with her in her house at night. Please note how HORRENDOUSLY tedious it is to change to night as you have to find a fireplace and there's only one and it's on the other side of town. Then travel back to her house which is guarded by an old lady who has random things to say and over half of them AUTOMATICALLY sends you back out of her house for NO reason. Once you MANAGE to get in and talk to the chick upstairs she agrees to do the autopsy...but you're not done. You have to learn about how to do an autopsy first and find the gravedigger....but the gravedigger doesn't show up at night! So you have to change it back to daytime....(note I gave up researching autopsies as I couldn't figure out how) then you find the gravedigger and ask for the corpse you need....except he wants Dwarven Booze first....which you get from the tavern. Travel to the tavern and buy some Dwarven Booze (though none of the liquor is labeled "Dwarven Booze" you have to make a shitty guess or buy all the booze). Then return it to the gravedigger who gives you the corpse. You then meet the chick who now wants you to go to the hospital at night (GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!!!) ....find fireplace, make it night now...and THEN do the autopsy.

Was that fun? Did you enjoy that? I hope you did because the above describes EVERYTHING you do in this game from start to finish. Below is a rough chart describing quests in this game:

"I need a rare flower" "Well sir you've come to the right place....except I need "X" thing first. Go see "X" guy to give me "X" thing." You meet "X" guy. "Hello, sure I'll give you "X" thing as long as you give me "Y" thing. To get "Y" thing go kill 10 "X" enemies." Kill 10 "X" enemies. Give to "Y" guy who gives you "X" thing. Give "X" thing to "X" guy who gives you a rare flower.

(note the above scenario does not include switching from night to day, or dying from encountering enemies you're not supposed to fight yet...)

Oh right! Did I mention that at any point in the game you will come accross enemies you're not supposed to fight yet? I didn't? Well in this game you will often come across enemies you can't defeat, die trying, and have to start from wherever you saved last to continue the fetch quest. My personal experience with this occurrence was as follows:

"Oh look, a giant red plant. I have defeated the giant green plants this should be no troub-LEWTFBULLSHITISTHIS??" .....*dead*....

So there you have it, The Witcher. Enough fetch questing to choke a horse (which you don't get in the game) and WTFBULLSHITISTHIS moments where you die immediately.

The worst part about this fetch questing is how you are often not told what to do. For instance in the example I mentioned, you are NOT told the gravedigger can only be found in the morning, or how to start the quest the chick cannot be found during the night in the hospital. You are not told where to get Dwarven Booze, and you are NEVER told where the research materials for autopsies are. Many quests like this you have to make shitty guesses.

What's worse is ONLY the main quests have a tracking marker on the map and even the tracking marker is bullshit. It will point you to a place, but often not update appropriately causing you to flounder around the red dot until you come to your senses like me and shut the damn game off.

Inventory:

So...much....shit. There's SO much shit in this game. 95% of the shit you get is ingredients to make MORE shit. Pretty much just potions to heal or buff stats, nothing special. What is retarded is you have to go to a damn fireplace every time you want to make something. WHY? And your inventory fills up VERY quick, so why can't I just make shit on the fly to get more space?

But really, everything gives you something. Plants that grow, enemies defeated, bushes, mushrooms, hundreds of types and sizes. Ridiculousness. And you always have to either find a fireplace to clear up inventory, or an innkeep to store your shit, or a merchant to sell your shit. Oh, the WORST thing is you have to find the RIGHT fatass merchant to sell specific things. Like a flower merchant won't buy Gold Rings you find, or the Tavern will ONLY buy your food and booze. That is ANNOYING. If I want to turn a profit on my collectibles I shouldn't have to seek out every single merchant in town to do so.

Oh, and the worst part about your inventory is you can only carry 3 weapons. You can never sell weapons without actually removing them from some of your slots either. So turning a profit off weapons is nigh impossible because you don't have inventory space to carry shitty ones for selling. You literally end up dropping weapons and picking up better ones on the go without being able to reap money off an old one.

Characters:

If you haven't stopped playing yet, and actually want to see who you're fighting for well then meet Geralt, your hero the Witcher.

Geralt is the only character you get to relate with outside of a slew of side characters that come and go as the game goes on. Geralt has no memory, rose from the dead, but unlike Jesus he's an asshole. Not just an asshole, but one that fucks every female he can. Any time you have a conversation with an NPC chick you will see and option to fuck her, and sometimes it is done on accident. Once, I banged a chick not knowing that would be the outcome of the option "how are you today?"*cue porno music* So this is the hero, this is the guy, an apathetic monotone amnesiac nymphomaniac who can't block attacks...Really, that's it. That is Geralt, that is your hero...

Conclusion:

I couldn't continue this game for any reason. The fetch questing, the constant fuck scenes, the incompetent battle system, gathering of ingredients to make potions that I NEVER gave a fuck about, the abominable and unforgiving night/day system, the inventory...nothing was fun about this game. Not one thing kept me those 20 hours save the idea that something interesting MIGHT happen, but it never did. I don't care if the game somehow got better in the story department later on, dealing with those fetch quests wasn't worth it, and will never be worth it. The story would have to change the very foundation of my moral fiber to swath through the unending number of NPC characters I have to barter with each and every quest.

You know how in most Zelda games there is a fetch quest? A quest where you trade random shit to different NPC's like 12 times until you end up with either the greatest sword or armor in the game? Those are fun for two reasons. First, you get something amazing at the end, and second...you do it ONE FUCKING TIME. Not through the whole game, but ONCE! The END! Here's the BEST SWORD IN THE FUCKING GAME for putting up with our stupid fetch quest bullshit. But in the Witcher? Here's 150 Orens (money) for that hour of running around we made you do...uh...thanks?

*100xp for fucking a whore*
(I only wish I could obtain xp that way)

Zen Pinball Review

As a kid I used to see arcades nearly everywhere, in malls, just down the street, various arcade cabinets in Pizza parlors and restaurants, Chucky Cheese, and so on. Walking in you would hear various noises, screaming kids, music from rhythm games, ski ball, "hadoken!", or my personal favorite the sounds from the pinball tables. They drew me in every time, the lights, the bells and whistles, crappy voice overs when you did something well.


Even when I was too short to actually play these games I knew I loved them. They were so simple in concept yet so complex in execution. One silver ball, two paddles, and an endless score cap, this was the ultimate test of skill and endurance and it was alive. Not housed in a digital realm like the video games I was used to, not bound by lines of code, nor a set boss attack pattern to remember, these games were in reality boasted high speeds and ate money like nothing else. Legends were born and died on the high score board, initials were more than just people, they were gods!

Enter the future, where arcades are dead and pinball machines are relics of a forgotten past. Here we have Zen Pinball, an indie studio pinball game that came out some years back and their more recent affair Marvel Pinball. It has been quite a long time since anyone took on the virtual pinball world which took over from the arcades in the 90's. There was a long era of gaming where you couldn't go two months without another virtual pinball sim game, and more recently we would see maybe two or three a year all lackluster, all rather terrible. But Zen studios breaks the mold, they go full force, balls forward if you will. They GET Pinball, and know what makes it so great.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt these are my favorite downloadable games on PSN. Probably because I have a bias toward pinball in general as my above gushing of its history in my youth suggests, but also that these games from Zen are just really, really well made.

Graphics:

I have played probably every digital pinball game in existence at least on the PC and really dated titles on the NES and handheld systems and Zen/Marvel Pinball are the best looking pinball games I have ever seen. The ball is shiny and reflective, the boards are vibrant with color and lights, and the ball itself zooms with a tail to help track its movement and speed. Every table has a theme and the graphics reflect that theme all the way down to the paddles you use. From V-12's engine, to the red planet of the Mars table everything looks fantastic. There are some MINOR moments of frame hiccups when big events happen on a few tables, but it really doesn't hinder play as the ball is usually out of play during these sequences.

Also, I really love that they allow you so many options on these tables. You get 7 different views of the table to pick from, and you are allowed to show the score or not of everything you hit on-screen. So if you hit a ramp or anything you'll see a number like "5,000" in yellow pop up. Some people hate to see this some like it, but Zen let's you pick and that is quite rare in this day and age of gaming.

Sound:

The music for these games go from terrible to amazing and the voice acting is always bad, but really that's just a mark of a great pinball game to me. The music isn't that important though as Zen allows you the option to insert your own music to play during these long sessions of pinball madness. The sounds of the ball hitting things on the table is perfect, and hearing the ball roll around gives weight to it as well.

Gameplay:

Ah, the most important part of any virtual pinball game is how it plays. I have played so many I can tell the immediate pitfalls developers make. Many make the ball too floaty, have bad camera selections, targets that make the ball drain to the side immediately without fail, and just plain awful graphics.

Zen makes none of these mistakes. They clearly made a "video" pinball game though, and I am fine with that. The physics aren't perfect, but they are consistent. They made a fast and tight pinball game with many unrealistic tables. Tesla is a good example wherein one mission the ball becomes magnetized and sticks to other balls causing a whirring of Tesla science! Or the mechanics of the table in general where suddenly you're not using flippers but magnets to bounce the ball around.

Practically none of these tables could be played in real life, but that's exactly what makes these games fantastic video pinball games. Purists harp on how video pinball games should be as close to real life as possible, and to that I argue why? Why make something real life already has? That's kinda the point of video games, to be imaginative and fun. Let me tell you, these tables are not short on imagination. Every table presents new and fun challenges to overcome. Difficult shots and tight timing are paramount in every table. Learning every nook and cranny is very important to last and reach a new high score.

Comparisons:

If you're on the PSN though and you're wondering which set of tables to get either the Zen original or Marvel tables I would of course urge you to get both but here are the differences. The original tables come with 4 initially, V-12, Tesla, Shaman, and El Dorado. All are great, and this game has MANY DLC tables Street Fighter, Ninja Gaiden, Earth Defense, Mars, Excalibur, and Paranormal. These are also all great tables, and you can't get them through the Marvel pinball package.

However, the old Zen tables are not presented nearly as well as the Marvel tables. For one, you have to be online to see your scores, you only get ONE high score instead of the usual top 10 scores that I am used to for pinball, and the loading is atrocious. I mean it takes a solid minute to load up a table on this game. Marvel doesn't have these issues. You get a top 10 local leader board, also your online friends combine to form what is called a "hero" score. The higher scores you and your friends have all add up to give you a personal hero score. Ultimately the more friends you have the higher your score, but your personal scores matter too. It's an interesting concept and something that wasn't employed in the first game.

On the Marvel side you get 4 tables and DLC is incoming. Wolverine, Spiderman, Ironman, and Blade are the first 4 and all of them are great. My favorite is the Wolverine table so far though. This will probably be the set Zen supports in the future as we'll see Captain America, and probably the Hulk tables soon. Either choice is a good one, but I do prefer the new interface of the Marvel tables.

The best part is what a value these tables are. I remember paying $9.99 at Best Buy for the last PC pinball game I ever got called Fantastic Journey. It was ONE table...and not a very good one either. With Zen you get 4 tables for $9.99, and the DLC tables are only $2.50. For me, I put countless hours into each one, lost days at a time to just the Tesla table alone. The value is astounding if you're a pinball nut, and won't break the bank if you're casually interested.

So don't hesitate to give these a try if you've ever been interested in pinball or disappointed by years of crappy digital pinball offerings of the past.

*lock is lit!*

Game Companies or "Game Companies"?

A recent article on IGN.com sparked my curiosity on marketing and shift in business interest in this current generation of gaming. Between the PS3 and Xbox 360, recently we are being told that these systems are NOT gaming consoles but are instead "something more." More specifically both consoles are trying to become the centerpieces of the family entertainment center through increasingly more and more complex add-ons and marketing.

The reasoning behind this is simple and no more noteworthy than a fast food chain offering a new sandwich with "apple wood bacon" or "mountain jack cheese." Will the sandwich taste incredibly different than what was offered before? Doubtful. But the goal is clear, to draw in new customers, and clearly members of the gaming community are being told again and again that we are not worth it anymore. Our community is too small to keep up with the ever expanding game industry it seems.

With the additions of Kinect and Sony's Move, gamers of yesteryear are becoming all but obsolete as gaming companies strive to collect anyone remaining no matter what demographic category that person falls into. Both companies following in Nintendo's footsteps have realized the gaming community as it was, was far too small and largely unprofitable. Once Nintendo opened the floodgates of the market to nearly any demographic, Sony and Microsoft took note and are now scratching and clawing their way to appeal to those new groups as much as humanly possible.

The question, and problem I'm dealing with is will this lead to the downfall of gaming as we know it? It's really looking that way. Both Sony and Microsoft are outwardly against calling their machine a gaming system all of the sudden. Not more than 3 or 4 mere years ago they were fighting tooth and nail at how many exclusive games they had, and which system had more power and how the Blu-Ray format would fail. On and on they went, but here we are in 2011 and all they can argue about is who got Netflix and Hulu on their system first. Which has an internet browser, and which can play Blu-Ray movies. Which system can be voice activated and sans a controller.

These are not gaming movements by any means, and profitability will drive their futures. Is it more profitable to produce games like Dead Space, or video chat apps for Kinect? That's what developers will ask, and are asking. The answer if obvious for anyone following the likes of Nintendo and Pop-Cap games. But it's further escalated when these two companies are now trying to take over the hub of entertainment itself.

What's worse is consumers are buying into it and wasting their money. A decent PC off the line at HP or Dell can do what any video game console can do and much more. However, PC's don't advertise themselves like game consoles. HP or Dell won't say our PC is not a PC like game companies say our game system is not a game system. I believe that's what irks me most about this recent marketing affair. They are going so far to stray away from the idea that the PS3 or Xbox 360 actually plays video games, they almost seem to cringe at the idea that they do in fact play games.

I think the main issue I take from this is not only the idea that I and my fellow gaming community cohorts are no longer required, but the idea that Sony and Microsoft are falling into a shallow place of a cliched phrase "Jack of all trades, masters of none." Currently, both systems house credible third party titles that further push the boundaries of gaming any way they can but it's becoming less and less prevalent over the years.

Developers are closing their doors faster and faster, changing names, merging with larger developers, and normally making one game then vanishing forever. Many of them now are profiting through games on Facebook, or cell phone games to outweigh losses through making big budget games. The day is coming when these developers no longer see the need for the big budget title at all, and that may be coming sooner than we think.

Not to mention gaming is getting more and more dependent on sequels as companies become more wary on what games will bring a return and what games won't. After Nier and The World Ends with You Square openly said they would not be doing any new IP's in the forseeable future as both games sold poorly (but both were infinitely better than Final Fantasy 11, 12, 13 and 14 combined). They also just approved future game names such as Final Fantasy 13-2 and Final Fantasy Type-0, Type-1, and Type-2. What the holy hell is this? How far into sequel and prequel naming do we have to get to before people realize these games are terrible now?

Beyond that we're into so many new iterations of Call of Duty and Rock Band, and World of Warcraft expansions that they stopped numbering them all-together. Most games of a series have reached the 5's and 6's and those numbers are growing fast. Soon there won't be any creative eye driving gaming, there will only be one game to classify a genre much in the way EA did with Madden in the football sim game genre. You better love Call of Duty, because soon that may be the only series able to financially hold it's own in the first person shooter genre in the future.

...or the genre will be reduced to an Iphone app where you click on your friends and a video pops up of them pretending to be shot...then you see a "+10" added to your score.
^^^patent pending^^^

*Change is scary...ever see Lincoln on the penny? His eye is following me!*

Vanquish Review

Vanquish is a hard game to review. The score can vary wildly on perception. For instance, if your perception of a good video game must include multiplayer/be longer than 5 hours/have some co-op/has a cohesive story/likable characters, then Vanquish is probably not a game you'd want to throw $60 at.

However if you love heart stopping, break neck speed action games with flawless mechanics and a perfect interface then Vanquish has that in spades.


Story/Characters:

This game is the very definition of Japanese developers trying to have a plot/characters that appeal to western audiences and failing miserably at it. The main character Sam Gideon just got a cool new suit from this professor dude and they're looking for any excuse to test it out. Luckily, the Russians attack America with a super space death ray, they threaten to use it again unless America surrenders, and bamph we have a mission!

Other characters of note are the main villain who has a super suit as well, the American president (who is female and apparently has no advisers around her somehow), a chick that sends you maps and provides intel (I seriously forgot her name, lol), and one gruff war veteran with an arm cannon called Burns.

Sam is the exact kind of character Japanese developers will think western audiences will love. He smokes, he's defiant, and goes out of his way to save everyone. Sadly, there's really nothing else to him. He has no memorable lines, and never says anything funny or witty. Everything he says is to service the further progression of the game and that's it.

**spoilers***
The story itself is so super basic it makes Mass Effect look like it was penned by Stephen King. Not that I expected an actual story, but it would have been nice to feel involved in it somewhat. The game provides the usual Japanese twist of "oh I'm actually EVIL! and not on your side at all! (Burns)" and it comes off just as believable as any Metal Gear game which is not at all, in the slightest.

The worst part is how Sam reacts to this as after Burns makes an attempt on his life, Sam's only concern is Burn's continued safety after he has been riddled with Sam's bullets...and this is ALSO after Sam's dejected reaction to Burns killing off an entire squadron of his own marines because they had to lock down that area of the space station due to a breach. A sensible act by Burns, but Sam's "gotta save em' all" attitude abhors this action. But it's ok Burns, Sam is like a puppy and will stop hating you immediately.

Dear Japanese Developers,

Americans do not understand how a person can suddenly care about the person who just tried to murder them two seconds ago. We much prefer to kill the fuck out of them without remorse; dirty traitorous bastards.

PS - We also don't allow Presidents to be alone in a dark room making sinister deals with Russians after a full scale attack. Seriously, after something like that the President would be lucky to take a piss on their own.

**end spoilers**

Gameplay:

Let's be honest, the story doesn't matter, the characters don't matter, the logic doesn't matter. In a game like this the gameplay is all that is important right? I guess I'm having one of those moments where I want cake and be able to eat it too. This game can be closest compared to Gears of War in terms of gameplay and while that game severely lacked in story and characters too it was at least comprehensible and was somewhat engaging. You felt something in Gears rather than nothing which is the case with Vanquish.

But where Vanquish excels is in gameplay and makes Gears of War look like an old man on crutches. Really though, Vanquish is Gears of War on crack essentially. You get to use cover every five feet, the aiming/shooting is the same and so on. What makes Vanquish as good as it is though is the ability to rocket slide and go into bullet time which combined makes for some awesome amount of addictive fun. The bullet time is no gimmick either as you are penalized for overusing it. Your suit can give out and leave you vulnerable and without rocket slide, a slower dodge roll, no more bullet time, and an increased chance of dying. So it's really fun to use these options on the fly, and with this game you are ALWAYS on the fly.

The interface is another aspect I'd like to point out. It's downright flawless really. Usually I have two or three issues with how the control scheme is for a game but this one does everything very well. There is just ONE gripe I have and that's trying to revive allies. You do this with Square/whatever it is on xbox. But that same button also puts you into cover. So if an ally dies near a wall good luck reviving him, chances are you'll butt hump the wall a few times before you do.

My biggest gripe with the combat though is the melee attacks. The issue here is they use up your suit juice like slowing down time and rocket sliding does. And it would be fine if it used it incrementally like the aforementioned suit juicing abilities do, but when you hit ONE dude with a melee attack all of the sudden you're overheating immediately. WHY? It makes melee attacks completely useless. You may as well forget you even have that button honestly.

Online/Multiplayer:

As mentioned before, this game has no multiplayer and that may be an issue for some people. But I mention it has online because what this game does mainly is allow you to rack up high scores and see your rankings online. So it's a glorified arcade style "lol I have more points than you do" competition. But I put this in my review because I would like to tell you how awful it is. Just like in Bayonetta another Platinum game, you absolutely cannot see your rankings online. They just don't work, they will not appear no matter how much loading occurs. Not for me at least. I can sit there for hours on both games and nothing will ever show up. How hard could it possibly be to create a functional ranking system?

I have Zen Pinball an indie pinball game on the PSN its ranking scoreboards work perfectly. Ninja Gaiden DS has one, it works perfectly. So the fault cannot be on my end as I have countless games with online rankings and can view all of them except Platinum's games.

Lastability:

Make no mistake, this game is 5 hours long tops. I beat it in nearly under 4 hours. For me the game is fun enough to warrent multiple playthroughs on many difficulties, but that varies by person. All it has other than that are challenge rooms to play, of which from what I can see there are only 6.

Final Thoughts:

I grew up in an era where games were 8 levels long and you paid $50 for them but if the game was fun enough that didn't matter. However, gamers expectations have changed over the years and while I still consider this game to be worth it, many will not. So, for Vanquish's sake what they've done here is essentially a disaster not allowing for co-op or any sort of multiplayer or not even making the game longer or adding additional bits of fun. This is literally a bare bones game with 5 Acts, that's it. It screams rental and while I'd suggest to buy it if only to prove to the Gears of War creators that rehashing gameplay and not evolving to Vanquish standards isn't something gamers are going to accept anymore, I can't with a clear head recommend purchasing a game any normal gamer would play once then move on.

*Rocket slide > Rocketman*

Tigger the Highlander

This has nothing to do with video games. But in a podcast Kyle and I did once we made reference to Tigger being a Highlander of sorts, below is the fruit of our random banter.

What is a Video Game?

A while back I defended the notion that video games are indeed art. However, I have noticed that in my posts I often poke fun at and even coined a term "Cagms" to video games that I do not classify as video games. What makes these games less than what I perceive are actual video games? And am I right or wrong in my assessment?

What a video game is:

A video game as defined by webster "an electronic game played by means of images on a video screen and often emphasizing fast action." Ok, so by that definition anything played on a screen with a user interface must be a video game. But what about emphasizing fast action? Chess and Solitare can be played on a computer are they video games? Does their board game origin nullify any chance of them ever being called a video game? And does their lack of "fast action" dictate they can never be video games? Personally I would consider Chess more of a video game than Solitare or even the "Cagms" I make mention of. Simply because it defines the idea of strategy in a 1 vs 1 competition. Because it can be played in real life or on screen is irrelevant to me, the game itself has tiers of skill involved and isn't mindless repetition. So I guess my definition would have to include that "lack of mindless repetition," clause.

I don't care for the definition as defined by webster, but who am I to define something? At its core that is what a video game is defined as, right down to those lazy flash games that are programmed as a lame college project. Even those horrible item finding games old women buy for their computer to pass the time would be called a "video game."

What video games should be:

I believe there should be a classification for "Cagms" which are video games created for the casual video game player. It would separate at least to some degree what video games are and what they should be. They shouldn't be "Cagms" and it's unfortunate the industry has come to rely on these.

Here is where it gets interesting however. I consider a "Cagm" to be Bejeweled, however I do not consider Tetris or Dr. Mario to be cagms. Why is this? Both are puzzle games, both are meant for the player to seek a high score, both employ pretty colors with bright lights and sounds, so on and so on. Let's take Tetris for example. In Tetris the goal is to get as many lines at the bottom of the screen as you can with the pieces you are given. In this game you are given many choices and chances to plan ahead. You always get to see the piece you'll get next and in some cases you get to see many pieces ahead. Will you plan to stack your walls tall in hopes of achieving a Tetris or is the speed too high and you need to just make quick choices? These are the levels of thought Tetris allows. Bejeweled on the other hand is completely random. The pieces do not come down in any specified order, you cannot plan ahead in any way, there are no levels of thought to it whatsoever. You seek out pairs of 3 colored gems or more for a minute and see what your score is at the end.

This is probably best compared to a real video game by the name of Yoshi's Cookie. In Yoshi's Cookie you have to pair up 3 or more of the same cookie. You are given a static board and only get a certain number of moves. You have to carefully utilize all of your moves to clear the board. THIS is a puzzle game, this is a real video game, it makes you think!

What a game should be and what it shouldn't are what I describe above as one example. While that describes basically all casual games wherein none of them offer any levels of thought, planning, or strategy there are other games that I do not even consider video games.

World of Warcraft:

To me, World of Warcraft is not a video game. It is a fully interactive social network like Facebook. That's all it is. Nothing about World of Warcraft makes the user think about anything, you stay within the confines of your group, run around and play your role as Barbarian, Paladin, or whatever you may be. You grind constantly, and endlessly. Grant you there are worse players of this "game" and better players, but what it boils down to is ultimately who wastes more time on it. The more time you put in the game the better equipment, spells, and money you will get. But you cannot play this alone. You cannot conquer the toughest bosses without a large group of people. It cannot stand on its own and if the servers ever die it can never be experienced again.

But ultimately, what makes this a non video game to me is that this game is the epitome of mindlessness. Never before have I seen something that can shut off brains quite as well as this. I thought Diablo 2 was bad but apparently this is far worse. I do not have much to say on the matter as I have never touched it myself. I have only seen friends of mine and their friends fall victim to this plague. You may wonder why my opinion matters at all if I've never played it. Well, I'll tell you just why I've never played it.

#1. It's not a video game
#2. Endless fetch quests is not fun
#3. Grinding for levels/gear is not fun
#4. Douchebags inherit the "world" of warcraft
#5. It's a fleeting thing. It will die off eventually.
#6. Absurdly high monthly payments
#7. Battle system has no depth and you basically watch it play out
#8. Again the people on this game are nuts, ever see them at comic con or a Blizzard event?
#9. Playing this usually means you have no time for actual video games
#10. It's not a video game

Arguably one could point out that I spend way more money on multiple games than if I just played World of Warcraft. But that's just it, why would I ever want to just play World of Warcraft? It's a terrible game that I don't even classify as one. Of all the reviews I've written on seemingly fine video games with many inherent flaws, this one takes the cake as not only does it contain every flaw I abhor about today's western development of video games, people love it. Yes, I hate that 13 million people actually give Blizzard money for this tripe.

2 or 3 million people might agree that Mass Effect was fantastic and while I'd argue that they are wrong with valid points I could at the very least understand where they are coming from, and they would have valid points on why it wasn't a bad game. World of Warcraft doesn't have this ability. It's bad through and through. It excels at nothing other than forcing the user to grind away hours of their life. The only reason people play this is because of the mindless constant rewards and social aspect of it.

Conclusion:

This wasn't an article meant to ridicule World of Warcraft. There are plenty of casual games like this that hide themselves under the guise of being a real video game. That is the most notable one however. And some people who play it will actually consider themselves a "hardcore" gamer for playing it. All those people are, are addicts and not in the fun way.

Video games shouldn't be mindless. They should encourage new ideas, new methods of interactivity, fun challenges based on some fundamental game design. It is a shame a large portion of the industry relies on popular opinion for the sake of making a quick buck but I can't blame them in the end.

World of Warcraft and Bejeweled are just the beginning of a wave we're seeing now in western game science that understands how the human mind functions to get people to keep playing. The human mind doesn't like dying over and over again in real video games like Ninja Gaiden or Castlevania. I would much rather die 100 times in a row on Ninja Gaiden just for that one moment where I succeed. Those moments will always be with me, and nothing in World of Warcraft can replicate those feelings of excitement and triumph. No, these challenges are discouraging for the average person. Instead they prefer to see the ever constant rewards of World of Warcraft and Bejeweled where you're never EVER reprimanded for a bad choice or wrong click. They are the equivalent of hiring a cheap prostitute. She'll reward you as long as you pay for her, but at the end of the day what did you get out of it, where's the sense of accomplishment or fulfillment?

Definition:

With this rant I believe I can come up with some semblance of how I feel a video game should be defined. It goes as follows: Video Game: "A game that is played on a video screen offering challenges for the user to accomplish with a degree of strategy/skill and choice implementation employed ultimately fulfilling the user with a sense of accomplishment. Also, the game shouldn't suck ass!"

*Video games: They shouldn't suck ass*

DMC - Dante Must Cry

Last week or so Capcom announced they are rebooting the famed Devil May Cry series. Without even looking at pictures or videos I was immediately disappointed. I also immediately laughed my ass off. For those unfamiliar Capcom has seemingly been trying to steer away from the events that occurred in Devil May Cry 2 where at the end Dante rides into hell. Every DMC game since has been a prequel, and even focused on a different character entirely. It's just very amusing that Capcom has found a brand new way to avoid DMC2 (the most hated in the series) and where the character Dante went from there. But a reboot? That is going way too far.

Why Capcom NEVER should have done this:

#1. Devil May Cry is a wildly popular series, and while it isn't their #1 seller it still holds its own water pretty well. DMC4 sold extremely well, better than most of the DMC games. It was released on the Xbox for the very first time as well. Firstly, why would they introduce a new audience to Dante and his antics and then just wreck him outright for a reboot? It doesn't make any sense to do this. Now for Xbox fans anyway, all they will know of the Dante of old is what they saw in DMC4 and now this new DMC game. If they weren't already confused about what is going on, they SURE will be now.

#2. The story of DMC was never finished, period. For the most part, Devil May Cry has revolved around Dante and his dysfunctional family for story purposes. We learned of his mother in the first and third game, and see him confront his brother in all three. Throughout most of the first game he's upset with his father Sparda whom he never really got to know. Players of the series eagerly anticipated Dante finally confronting Sparda in the Demon World where Dante presumably goes at the end of the second game. It was assumed that we would then finally get to play DMC in the Demon World in the next game and possibly seeing Sparda. However, Capcom apparently wanted nothing to do with what happened after DMC2 as 3 and 4 were both prequels. And now any hope of ever having a Sparda boss battle is completely gone.

**Edit** Ok there is some conflicting reports that Sparda died and was locked away in the sword of the first game. Makes sense, I didn't pay attention all that well. However, what is conflicting is whether he actually died or not and knowing these stories of Demons and mythological figures it's easy to bring Sparda back whenever they want even if he was confirmed dead. The point is the DMC story was pretty interesting albeit lacking much like Capcom's other series's. I would have liked to see some conclusion to it. **

#3. The look. View any game forum about this subject right now and you will see essentially no one praising the new look of Dante. The consensus is he looks like a crack head, or some sort of junkie. He doesn't appear to retain any of his snarky wise-cracking ways either. While it's way too early to tell for sure, the fact is the look was altered for the worse, and for the wrong reasons. According to the lead director of the game, Dante was altered to appeal to a younger audience and was meant to look like a pop star. Note he also claims they designed the new Dante model after himself (the director)...ugh. In any event, that is just plain stupid to do. Why appeal to a "younger" audience when you have nearly 3 to 4 million current devout followers of the main series? Don't you change something up when shit quits working? I guess not if you're Capcom...

#4. There's no gameplay footage yet, however from the trailer I am already disappointed in the action. It appears slow and lethargic. In a cutscene with Dante I expect to see stupidly over the top action. With this, he shoots his pistols very slowly, there's no ninja like flipping, and his snarkyness is replaced with putting his cigarette out in an enemy...Again it's too early to tell, but I do not like what I'm seeing...and I think I know why.

#5. Ninja Theory, that's why. Ninja Theory is the developer of this reboot, and they suck. Flat out, from history, they suck. Heavenly Sword blew chunks, that's who is making this game. The makers of Heavenly Sword. There's a reason Bayonetta was as flat out amazing as it was and that's because it was behind the guys who did DMC3, the very best DMC game. Knowing who is behind this new game I am astutely aware that it has a very high chance of being terrible.

Conclusion:

I just don't get it. I understood when Capcom rebooted Mega Man in Mega Man X. The main series was losing steam with each new release, so it made sense. This doesn't make sense at all. Capcom is only doing one thing, which is losing the support of people who followed this series. Will they gain that "younger" audience on what is essentially an adult rated game? I somehow doubt it very much. Luckily I know enough about the game industry and who makes what to know that Bayonetta is the new Dante, and I greatly look forward to Bayonetta 2.

*Dante wears high heels now and kills things with his sexy long hair*

Mass Effect - Mass Garbage

Yeah, I am behind. Bite me.

Mass Effect the perennial Western RPG experience of 2007 (or they would have you believe) was supposed to be a game changer. It was supposed to usher in a new breed of "path" choosing or create endless scenarios for the player to experience hence the name Mass Effect. I do not understand the hype that this game pulled, I do not understand its legion of devout followers, I do not understand how this game escapes the endless hate that Final Fantasy 7 receives daily. This game is honestly terrible in nearly every way possible. Let's review.

Battle System:

If I can praise Mass Effect on one thing it would be the battle system...but I won't. Honestly this was the most tolerable aspect of the game, but also the least praised among fans. The battle system is simple run and gun 3rd person perspective action. You get 4 types of guns Pistol, Machine Gun, Sniper, Shotgun and infinite ammo for everything. The pistol is immediately worthless because you have infinite rounds of Machine Gun ammo and it usually does more damage per shot anyway. The shotgun is very situational and there's few instances where it's useful over the machine gun. The sniper rifle is also VERY situational as 90% of the game takes place in tiny hallways. So...effectively you get one weapon, the machine gun.

You get powers to utilize if you go the Bio route but...really almost no one plays the game like this. Literally they did a statistic on this and only 20% of players EVER opted to go anything but the soldier class. Besides your AI partners normally make for better Bio attackers anyway.

What makes the battle system terrible though is how stupidly easy it is. The AI is dumb as a log, sometimes they don't move or do anything and you can just stand there and shoot them all day. Your partners AI is also stupid and often they'll rush into battle without your say and die immediately. But that's ok because the game is so easy you don't need them. Really no normal enemies ever present a challenge. If you find cover they will never pursue you, they rarely deal effective damage, and your machine gun is accurate enough to pick off all offenders in the area with efficiency. On top of that you have skills that make you even stronger with shield boosting and an ability to just keep shooting and never stop.

The only time you can ever die is when the game decides to be an ass monkey and glitch you. I fought a boss battle who had Bio powers and I was winning consistently, but two times in a row she lifted me and tossed me in some unmanageable area where I could not escape. The character cannot jump, or warp out or anything so I had to reset this BOTH times. The last time I just ran away into a more open area just so the game wouldn't glitch me out again. Wonderful programming.

The most laughably easy parts of the game is when you're in your vehicle. That thing is deadly. You get infinite rocket shots and it nearly always kills everything in one hit...Oh and by the way I played this game on PC, so mouse control improves my accuracy 100%.

Item Management:

I figured I would take a moment on how awful the item management in this game is. I must admit for a long time in the game I was pretty lost on how to use the item screen effectively...then I realized there just wasn't a good way to use it effectively at all. When trying to replace weapons you have collected with better ones it becomes a tedious chore. The menu does not organize what you've collected in some sort of manageable order like most attack or most accuracy, so you have to select EVERY weapon you pick up and compare it to the ONE character you have selected. You have to do this for ALL three characters and that's just one of four weapons. And you pick up a fuck ton of weapons in this game. It's rare you actually get a better one though. But it's consistently annoying to see worse weapons all the time.

What I hate most about this is you have a limited inventory. Eventually you have to delete out or (reduce to omni-gel) every shitty item you get. The worst part though is every time you go to pick up a new item all it shows you is the name of it...So how am I supposed to psychically know if the Avenger 6 is better or worse than the Waveblaster 7? Oh, and my inventory is full right? So I have to go to the inventory, delete something, pick the weapon back up and....oops, it's shit... Waste of time! I hate it so hard.

Music:

There is none...that's what's wrong...

Ok to be fair the music flares up now and then during battle, or maybe on the way to battle but it has a Batman Arkham Asylum problem where it basically hardly ever shows up. But unlike Batman even when it does show up it's not even any good. I was physically startled to hear music in the end credits.

Story:

This is what everyone praises...somehow. I do not understand how this aspect of the game gets praise. The story hardly exists, it's barely there and it's full of holes. Alright, so you are a veteran space marine of some kind moving up the ranks. You go out on a mission with this creepy guy named Saren and presumably he dies in the mission (I think it's been a while since I did the first mission). Later it's discovered he's alive and is the cause of a bunch of evil shit, namely searching out these beacons of untold cosmic horror. No really, your main character touches one of these things and he is imparted the wisdom of untold cosmic horror and the entire game is you figuring out what those images mean...

So you're tasked with having to find and kill Saren and discover why he's being all evil...and what the untold horror is. The main game is about 7 missions long and it takes roughly 10 hours to do it all. Not only can I call this the shortest RPG of all time, but I don't think it even qualifies as one. Oh, but you have 30 to 40 meaningless sidequests to partake in...they can shove it!

***Spoilers***

You track down and kill Saren and stop his evil plan of unleashing the evil machine things. Seriously, that's it. There's an evil band of "unstoppable machines" that live on the outer edge of the galaxy who's sole purpose it is to wipe out all living things in that galaxy and then retreat into hibernation waiting to do it all again. Oh and they are called "reapers," lol get it, do ya get it? But you stop them from even coming through the warp gate thing Saren was trying to open in the first place, so the entire story boils down to you killing one dude. Ok, there is ONE Reaper that remains in the galaxy as a sentry of sorts named Sovereign. But he's a pussy bitch and dies in a cutscene.

So WHY are they unstoppable? The game never says why. It makes no sense as we clearly see one of them go down like a pussy bitch. In Halo their alien thing that wipes out all life makes sense. The Flood is just infinite, they never stop coming. Makes sense why they whoop ass. For a cliche' story like this where machines wipe everything out, this has to be the worst one I have ever heard. It never even plays out, you learn nothing. And at the VERY end your main character says "We have to get ready, the Reapers are coming!" HOW are they coming exactly?? I just fucked up their sentry and closed the gate allowing them access in. How pray-tell are they coming? Did the sentry even have a chance to give word to the other reapers to come? I don't think he did. THIS MAKES NO SENSE!

Game over....

Fuck you game.

Characters:

I saved this for last because I wanted to discuss the "choices" aspect of the game too. First the characters. You get two interchangeable speciesist (racist) human characters male and female. The game lets you decide which one to kill off later but it's meaningless as they're both basically the exact same. Then you get an assortment of alien characters. A spock-like female alien who's super intelligent yet socially awkward (you get to bang her). An alien chick out to check out and collect a bunch of alien technology. You literally hear nothing from this bitch after you get her. I honestly forgot she existed after a while. And two other alien guys one who has a dark brand of justice and the other who's way more down to earth.

Ultimately none of them really matter. The spock alien and one of the humans are the only characters the story likes to focus on, but it's terribly rare. So how is there ANY character development in this game at all? Your character likes to play 100 questions, that's how! He will ask literally anything and everything in this game and respond with your brand of neutral, good, or evil responses. What you say means nothing at all in the end. Nothing changes. In quests your wordy options just decides whether you kill everyone or you don't. In either case the missions get solved one way or another.

But for the character development I couldn't be more annoyed playing 100 questions. What's your favorite shoe? Where do alien babies come from? Do you have a story to tell? He literally asks that once I swear to god. "Do you have a story to tell?" I expected the response to be, "Well Bioware decided that I don't...nope just a worthless NPC right here. Sorry to disappoint." HOW is this good character development? I get the same shit reading the manual which gives the summary on the characters in any other RPG.

What irritates me most of all is your character is described as a seasoned veteran who has been on many other worldly missions right? Ok then why is he asking EVERY alien he comes across about their culture, history, backgrounds, what they do at the Citadel, what is the Citadel, on and on and on. He knows dick! Seasoned veteran? No, seasoned retard.

I get it's for the player's benefit but then WHY have the story make him out to be some weathered warrior if that's the case? Just let him be a newbie so we can be a newbie with him. It detracts from the game when I set out on a mission supposed to be Mr. Know-it-all and I don't know a damn thing about anything. I half expected him to ask a few aliens how they breathe...though he does ask the Spock-chick how they breed (seriously) so I guess that's close enough. And you get a long winded explanation of how they fucking breed with any species they come across...in DETAIL. It's so lame it hurts.

Choices:

Didn't know I'd go on that long about characters so I separated this. I'll make this brief. Choices in this game don't mean dick. You get essentially two of them. Which human do you want to kill and if you want the good ending or bad ending. Other choices in the game boil down to you ending conflicts in either violence or peaceful talks. Sometimes the choices you pick don't make any damn sense and I'll use the last one as a prime example.

Somehow, I was good through the WHOLE fucking game and I managed to pick the evil ending! How I managed to do this I can only leave up to the idiot programmers. The choice is either 1. To protect the Citadel Council (politicians that undermine you at every opportunity in the game) at all costs. Or 2. Kill the reaper as fast as humanly possible to, I believed, save more lives. The evil ending was 2? HOW, WHY??? The council are assholes, worthless alien beings who hate the fuck out of you. Why would I risk more lives to save a group of politicians? WHY? So I didn't, and now I'm evil. OK GAME WHATEVER YOU SAY.

But that's it! Where's this "Mass Effect" they spoke of? Where's the branching paths? For a game with ONLY 7 goddamn main missions you'd THINK they could have made 5 more assuming you made rippling choices in earlier missions actually causing a...oh I dunno... a BRANCHING path!? Of course not.

Conclusion:

The whole game reeks of laziness to me. Why call it Mass Effect, tout the ability to branch out and change things when you never honestly change anything meaningful ever? A game with only 7 or so main missions never even gets time to develop itself. I remember when the game began and I was appointed to kill Saren. Seemed simple enough honestly. I really assumed that would be mission one and then I'd learn all about the evil machine things and fight them. But no the ENTIRE game was just me going to kill ONE evil dude, who by the way was never evil in the first place. Nooooo he's just under mind control! *gasp!* So you never even fight anything worthy of being called a villain in the first place. Lovely.

I got Mass Effect 2 sitting on the back burner and I'll get to it...in 3 years or so I imagine.

*going to take a Mass Poop now*

JRPG's vs Western RPG's

A recent article by legendary Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune discusses the current troubles of the Japanese market and its place in the state of the gaming industry today struck a cord with me and inspired this little piece. Keiji expresses his worries about how Japanese game designers go about making games, and he is worried they are making them "too Japanese." His fear is that Japanese developers are being left behind and are not appealing to all markets as Western developers are innovating and captivating the gaming audience at large.

Keiji's worries are well warranted as these days Western developers have pretty much taken over the gaming industry from Japan on a software level. Games like Halo, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Grand Theft Auto are more household names than Mega Man or Final Fantasy. While the Japanese aren't doing terribly, there is reason to worry.

But the question I guess is, what are Western developers doing right to capture this audience? What are Japanese developers doing wrong? Well the answer is more convoluted, long and boring for this article so instead I wanted to focus on Japanese RPG's and Western RPG's. We'll see the innovation and failures of both.

Western RPG Success:

1. Reaping the Rewards

What games like Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Oblivion, and to an extreme degree World of Warcraft do very well is create a slew of "fetch quests" for the player. I call this a success because the human mind loves to be constantly rewarded and quickly. Look no further than the success of Pop Cap games like Bejeweled. These Western RPG's are chalk full of tiny fetch quests and maybe 8 main quests. The idea is to get the player to keep playing and reaping small rewards. And they will too.

While I absolutely hate this fact, that's just how people are. They will praise a game like Mass Effect as such a wonderful game when it only has maybe 6 main quests and 30 to 40 little side quests each being no different than the last. Despite the complete lack of attention to the game's story, oh but those 30 to 40 mini quests were just so damn wonderful...

I used to be one of those people. I would play Diablo 2 at all hours of the night simply killing Mephisto over and over and over, hoping to get some magical awesome item. What's worse is after I collected everything Mephisto could possibly drop...I kept doing it. Why would I do this? The addiction of seeing my rewards is why. I'm glad I asked myself this. I haven't touched the game to this day.

2. "Path" choosing

One thing classic JRPG's never did, or never even attempted was giving the player choices. Western RPG's have pretty much always done this, even back in the days of old point and click games. While I still feel these path options are weak at best, only Western developers are actually trying it. People seem to love it too even if the differences are absolutely negligible like Mass Effect. Fallout 3 and Oblivion do better jobs at this though, and you can actually kill off important characters if you want, and even level entire cities. That's about the best I think this "path" choosing will ever hope to get.

The closest JRPG's ever get to this idea is multiple endings. A lot of JRPG's have multiple endings, but how you acquire them never made any damn sense. Most of the time you had to do random things like find the secret sword, or not pay attention to certain character in the main story, or don't die x amount of times, or DO die x amount of times. Western RPG's multiple paths and endings always made sense. Killed the female lead because of a bad choice? Ok bad ending. JRPG logic was more like, didn't buy the female lead flowers at the beginning of the game? Well she turned evil now and burned down the mana tree, too bad for you.

3. Action

Western developers have taken note, turn based combat isn't fun anymore. Or at the very least, those games don't sell well anymore. I can't name any Western RPG that employs turn based combat. Every one of them now is either first person combat or some hybrid of pausing the game to choose a set of actions which will play out as you watch. Everything happens in real time with these games though and that has been a huge success for Western RPG's. I can't tell you how many times I have heard the complaint of turn based systems and how it ruins the "realism."

Japanese RPG's: What they still do well:

1. Story/Pacing

In most cases, JRPG's still have a better handle on character development and spacing out when to employ story elements in their games. I hear the argument all the time that JRPG's only use cookie cutter characters, long swords, emo heroes, bla bla and so on. And while that is largely true, that isn't where my argument comes from, and that has nothing to do with the technical aspect of how a story is presented. For instance, western games like Mass Effect and Fallout 3 spend a lot of time...ignoring the story they set up entirely. Just flat out ignoring it until maybe mid-game and of course the end. But there is usually 10 hour periods where the story doesn't even rear its little head.

That's what Japanese RPG's do far better, they keep the player involved with the plot. They keep up the pace set from the start and characters are constantly evolving and interacting. And of course there are many JRPG's that don't abide by this, but I can't name a single Western RPG that does this at all.

2. Characters

I still believe this is a reason JRPG's are still purchased today. Generally speaking Japanese characters are simply more interesting. Western RPG's are way too into "creating your own character" so they never end up being interesting...ever. From Mass Effect to Oblivion and Fallout 3 the main character of the game is horribly boring and flat. Chrono Trigger's silent protagonist had more character in his little sprite animations than nearly all Western RPG main characters combined.

But what of side characters? Well this is where the argument just becomes opinionated, but I honestly feel there is no difference between the two. I think Western RPG's tend to do a better job at hiding their archetype characters whereas JRPG's shove them in your face. But either way, both genres employ tried and true character types which always results in a band of unlikely heroes out to save whatever it might be.

3. Music

Ok, this one might be heavily opinionated but I can't hum a tune of any Western RPG I have ever played. Oblivion came the closest to having interesting music but it doesn't hold a candle to any JRPG. I honestly feel Japanese developers care about the music score in their RPG's and I feel that is very important to set the mood of the game. Playing through all of Mass Effect, Fallout 3, and many other Western RPG's I barely remember hearing any music at all. I can't see how JRPG's could lose this category at all.

The only issue with this category is I do not believe sales are affected positively or negatively on a good musical score. I do think it gives a boost to the story and atmosphere though so perhaps on some level that helps. I know I have purchased a few RPG's because Yasunori Mitsuda has done the score or Nobuo Uematsu, but I'm sure I am in a small minority.

Conclusion:

It is painfully clear that the successes of Western RPG's outweigh what JRPG's still do well. What also hurts is JRPG's lack of innovation. For American gamers anyway, JRPG's are all the same. They all have save the world plots with character archetypes, big swords, goofy hair, inane convoluted storytelling, and overly complex battle systems. This is where Keiji is worried, lack of evolution. Western developers have discovered what works and what doesn't whereas Japanese developers are still stuck in believing a good RPG for instance absolutely needs a young spunky annoying female character that doesn't wear much clothing.

This is what Keiji is warning about and he is right. Final Fantasy 13 may still have sold rather well, but not nearly as well as it should have. It did noticeably poor in Japan which is a little startling. But it was a bad game through and through. It didn't even do what JRPG's do well either. What is funny is the game was trying to be progressive and captivate a wider audience, but instead all it did was slap the face of hardcore fans by being dumbed down, and ignored by people who still don't care about the series. It pleased no one ultimately.

Personal Thoughts:

I still prefer JRPG's, and I really want to disagree with Keiji. While I understand JRPG's need to be less Japanese to sell well in the states, that is what I enjoy about them. If they can just be themselves and not force in newfangled ideas that they think will work we won't get FF13 ever again. What came of their experimentation was neither Japanese nor Western, it was just plain awful.

What I hope doesn't happen is for JRPG's to stop being JRPG's all together. I can see it happening too. The last thing I want is for every RPG to make me go on meaningless fetch quests for 30 hours and then tell me why the bad guy is evil at the very end of the game so I can kill him...(Mass Effect)

*Stay tuned for a Mass Effect review...I really want to rip that game a new one*