Fallout Fall-out

I was very interested in Fallout 3 (the original is a long-time favorite), but now that I’ve veiwed the demo footage I’m very much underwhelmed.  They’ve taken a great deal of what made the franchise unique - a turn-based, tactical RPG - and turned it into a slightly modified FPS, a post-apocalyptic Oblivion.  It may be a fine RPG, but it’s not really Fallout.

New Quantum of Solace game video does nothing for me

Joystiq seems incredibly enthusiastic about this new footage, but after watching it I’m not even sure why.

I’ll stipulate that I played quite a bit of Goldeneye back in high school, and was also a big fan of Casino Royale, and even the new movie trailer for Quantum of Solace looks great. I also know that the CoD4 engine is quite capable, but most of what we see in the trailer looks, and sounds, rather typical to me.

The first thing I noticed is how poor the sound effect was for the automatic weapon that’s used in the trailer.  It sounds like a typewriter, honestly.  Obviously, this is something that can change easily, so hopefully it will.

Other problems include some jerky animations, a Daniel Craig model that looks sort of plain and lifeless, and the fact that it sort of looks like they’re making Call of Duty: Bond Edition. Just because you’re using the CoD4 engine does not mean that they should be making the game exactly like CoD4.  There are some, potentially, nice additions like a cover system and some 3rd-person camera switches, but the first person stuff looks straight out of CoD.

The game is set to release around the time of the movie, which means they still have a few months to go to polish things up.  Hopefully the game will turn out to be as good as Joystiq seems to think it looks right now.

It coulda’ been a contenda’

I’ve had Wii Fit for a few weeks now and, while I haven’t been able to keep a solid schedule for it every day (something I’m still struggling to do), I think I’ve used it enough to come up with an opinion about it.

My overwhelming response to it is that, once again, Nintendo really missed out on a golden opportunity here.  There are a lot of things to like about the game: the training instruction, the stat tracking, even some of the aerobics stuff, like running and place and hula hooping, is implemented fairly well.  The balance games that are provided are also enjoyable mini-games that show-off the abilities of the balance board. However, the game has two important problems: the lack of any workout “programs”, and the fact that it’s not really that fun for the things that really matter.

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GTA IV Over-Infatuation

What am I missing about this game?

I still have a ways to go with it, but I am over 10 hours in and I’m actually completely baffled that this game is still sitting atop Gamerankings.com as the best game of all time (actually the best 2 games of all time, since there’s a 360 and PS3 version).  This could still change, of course, but with over 30 reviews now in for the game, it will definitely be retaining a spot in the top 10 if not the top 5.  Typically, the course for these heavily hyped games is to get some really high early scores, and then later reviews tend to “backlash” against those scores to bring it down into a somewhat more “reasonable” range.

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GTA IV Quickie Impressions

I’ve just played a couple hours of GTA IV and thought I’d give some of my initial, brief impressions.

• It seems quite a bit like past GTA games, although with perhaps a bit more focus and (obviously) better graphics and technology. Liberty City does feel more “alive” than the cities in previous games.
• Because of the first point, part of me wonders what all the hubbub is about, as it (at least initially) seems more evolutionary than revolutionary.
• On the other hand, I’ve only just started, and I am interested in seeing where things are going.  As several reviews have mentioned, Niko does seem like a more likable character than the ones from past GTAs, the story is well-told, and a lot of the problems with the gameplay from past iterations (for instance, targeting) have been tuned. The huge improvement in graphics also seems like it helps make the game a lot more interesting as well.
• It appears that some real “decisions” will need to be made in the game which may affect how things happen down the line.  These could provide some interesting developments.
• Does the fact that the game contains so much random STUFF actually make it that much better to me?  Do I care that I can go bowling, play darts or pool, watch TV, surf the Internet (which I haven’t done yet), get drunk, and go on dates, etc, or are they just wastes of time? The extremely positive reviews (including now 2 perfect 10’s from two reviewers not really known to give them out) seem to view these as huge assets, but I’m not sure if I care that much about this stuff yet.  Getting drunk and having to drive home was pretty funny, but is that really interesting more than once?  Obviously a lot of care went into creating so much detail for the game, and it certainly helps with the immersion, but I’m not sure how long I’ll spend browsing the in-game internet or watching TV.  I suppose I’ll see.
• Along with this, I haven’t spent really any time just going around punching and shooting people, trying to get my “wanted” rating up, as it seems like everyone likes to do when they get their hands on the game.  I tend to like the story and missions better, which could explain why I may not have all that much patience for a lot of the “extra” activities in the game, but again, we’ll see.
• I very briefly tried out multiplayer and to my pleasant surprise, it was a blast.  I didn’t even try out anything that interesting… just a quick game of Deathmatch and it was pretty fun. Here’s a brief recap of some of the things I was able to do in Deathmatch: Smash another player into a wall with a vehicle, cap a driver in the head as they came at me attempting to run me over, blew up a car passing by with an RPG (which creates EXTREMELY satisfying explosions).  All in all, it was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to trying out some of the other game modes.

More impressions as I progress through it.

The 360 Needs a Good Kart Racer

Look, I’m a big Mario Kart fan, and the latest is no exception.  They’re a lot of fun to play even in single player, and a blast in multiplayer.  But as the console world evolves, so must Mario Kart.  The latest in the series, of course, has online multiplayer, and while it’s still fun to race online, it could be a hell of a lot better.  In short, as far as online multiplayer games go, Mario Kart Wii fails to do some of the most basic things right, things that have been done (well) since the last generation.  To give you an idea of how stupid the online implementation of Mario Kart Wii is, here are a few snippets of IM conversation between Geoff and I while playing our first “Friend” game:

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Resident Evil Rorschach Tests

It appears that the Resident Evil 5 trailer controversy has returned.   I’d suggest you read the entire Multiplayer Blog interview with N’Gai Croal before commenting, since it provides a lot more context for the discussion and can do a better job summarizing the debate than I’m about to.  I’ve got a few additional points to add this time around.

The crux of the debate, as I see it, is whether or not the RE5 trailer is racist or uses racist imagery in order to promote the game.  The evidence cited by Croal and others:

“[They’re] sort of being, in sort of post-modern parlance, they’re sort of ‘othered.’ They’re hidden in shadows, you can barely see their eyes, and the perspective of the trailer is not even someone who’s coming to help the people. It’s like they’re all dangerous; they all need to be killed. It’s not even like one cute African — or Haitian or Caribbean — child could be saved. They’re all dangerous men, women and children. They all have to be killed. And given the history, given the not so distant post-colonial history, you would say to yourself, why would you uncritically put up those images?”

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Might as well face it I’m addicted to Picross

I’m not sure exactly when it was that I first heard of Picross DS.  Sure, it’s been out for awhile, but I don’t think I was really paying close attention to it’s release.  So perhaps it was in one of N’gai Croal and Stephen Totilo’s exchanges.   Or perhaps I was just looking into well-reviewed DS games and saw this strange entry in the higher ranks of IGN.  Whatever it was, I became curious about it, but I just wasn’t convinced of its greatness.  Certainly, the screenshots look pretty bland, and the concept seems just silly and boring.  I figured it was just another “casual” game that would bore me to tears after just a puzzle or two at a time, like Sudoku sometimes does now.

So, while I was curious about it, I never picked it up.  I looked at it on Amazon, and occasionally I would see a new copy floating around Gamestop, but I just never pulled the trigger.  I figured that I could just wait until it’s at $10 on clearance, or on sale used somewhere or whatever and that I could pick it up on the cheap (yes, even cheaper than it’s already low $20 price point).  But, a funny thing happened: I stopped seeing the game altogether.  Amazon stopped selling it direct from their store (it now sells from Target through Amazon), new copies were nowhere to be seen at my Gamestops, and I never saw a single used copy.  That has to be a good sign, right?  If there are no used copies to buy, that means people are keeping their copies of the game, meaning they must like it, right?  Obviously, I could’ve used Ebay, but used copies would often sell for nearly the same price as new ones, and despite my curiosity, my uncertainty in the game made the commitment to buying something on Ebay too much of a hassle.

So, on a random whim while on a trip to a Target in a city I only visit on occasion, I checked their “bargain” titles game rack only to find a single, brand new copy of Picross DS right there in front of me.  Hoping that, because it was on a bargain rack, perhaps I had finally found my deal/steal that I was looking for, I snapped it up.  Of course, it was the standard $20, but that didn’t stop me at that point.  It had been so long since I had seen a copy of the game, I figured it was probably time for me to give it a shot.

And now, I’m hopelessly addicted.  I have no idea why I find the game so damn engaging, but I do.  There are elements to it like Sudoku, which as I mentioned, I like, but find can get frustrating and tiresome.  With Picross I’ve found myself losing hours at a time doing puzzle after puzzle.  It even has some “Brain Training”-esque features that test you in different ways on a daily basis. I haven’t even tried out the Wi-Fi capabilities yet (which, I think, allows me to download new puzzles).  All in all, it’s an extremely solid package.

Unfortunately, like Sudoku, my enjoyment of the game, at least in extended sessions, will probably decrease over time.  But for now, I’m quite content to let my addiction go untreated.

Problems with SSB: Brawl online?

I’ll try to have more impressions up later, but is anyone else having major problems with getting into an online game of Brawl?  I’ve managed to get into a single game with only 1 other person, and that lasted all of 2 matches.  Most of the time, whenever I start up a game I end up spending a few minutes in the “practice area” while all 3 extra players are at “seeking”.  It eventually times out and I’m thrown back into either the main menu or the menu where you pick team or standard battle.

This is the first Wii game that I’ve tried an online component for, but I’ve never had a problem with any other kind of online multiplayer game, whether PS3, 360, PC, or even the DS.  Is the network just so overloaded that it can’t even match me with a single other person?  If this is what I have to look forward to for what should be one of Nintendo’s premiere online titles, you can count me out already.

GOWCOO Impressions

So I picked up Chains of Olympus yesterday, which has been my first chance to really play through the God of War franchise by myself.  COO has been the subject of some handwringing in the industry, with Gamespot’s 8.5 review being called out as a sign of “bias” by Sony fanboys amid a ton of overheated opinions.  Even GameLife’s Chris Kohler didn’t love the game.  So who’s right?

I’m going to split the difference and say both of them.  COO definitely “feels” like a God of War game; the controls are great, and really capture the original game’s combo strength and battle system.  Although a slight grain to the image lets you know that you’re playing this on a portable system,  the graphics are incredibly solid and at times even rival the PS2’s more recent iterations.  It’s true that there aren’t as many amazing set pieces or boss battles as in prior versions; at the same time, though, I never felt like the game was dumbed down for the PSP. 

So why my ambivalence?  I think part of it is the price tag.  COO is MSRP’d as a premium title, and will cost you $40 at most retail outlets.  While production values are indeed high, you’re just not getting enough of an experience in an action title to compensate for the stiff entry price: something like FF Tactics is pretty scalable, and will give you a lot of gameplay for your dollar.  But all signs indicate the COO is just (as Kohler puts it) “really, really short.”  You’ll enjoy every minute of it, but you’ll probably finish the game wishing it was 50% longer.  In the same vein, I’m not willing to penalize COO simply because it doesn’t do something “new,” as not every game needs to innovate to be good.  But innovation in some way might have distracted me somewhat from the length.

In general, I would compare COHO to Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters.  R&C was a scaled-down version of a popular franchise, and it was excellent.  It gave you the R&C feel in a bite-sized package.  So does Chains of Olympus.  But it doesn’t necessarily feel like a great value, because of the pricing and the basic structure of action games, and that’s going to turn people off.