Wii U: Great fun missing a market

This past holiday season saw the introduction of the Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4) and the Microsoft Xbox One (XB1). This guy, however, bought neither. Instead, I went and bought The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD and Super Mario 3D World for my Nintendo Wii U. I've had it for over a year now and enjoy it immensely, however it seems the world doesn't agree with me...

This past holiday season, the PS4 and XB1 enjoyed a great holiday season selling 4.4 million and 3.1 million consoles in 2013 respectively (according to VGChartz, which should be taken with a grain of salt). These numbers are only from the holiday season, as each were released in mid-November. Meanwhile, the Wii U sold 3.2 million consoles over the entire year, even when having a price point below the competition. In addition, Nintendo just changed their Q1 2014 forecast from a nearly $1 billion profit to a $335 million loss after seeing sales tank much more than expected post-holidays. Overall, people simply aren't buying the console quite as much as hoped.

Now, full-disclosure: some people would likely call me a Nintendo fanboy. I grew up on a NES and later, an N64. I didn't own a non-Nintendo console until I was almost out of high school (PS2). Today I tend to enjoy most consoles equally, but it's still difficult for me to not get and enjoy Nintendo products almost immediately upon launch (to prove my resistance, I didn't get a Wii U until December 2012). Although this love persists, I do not claim myself to be a Nintendo fanboy simply because I also enjoy the other consoles as well (and even PC *gasp*). It comes down to one simple thing: very few things are more fun, and I mean pure-unadulterated-children-running-and-skipping-fun, than Nintendo games.

Sadly though 2013 simply wasn't a great year for Nintendo and the Wii U. The "Year of Luigi" (only took 30 years to celebrate the best brother a man could have) simply did not pan out. As someone with both a Wii U and a 3DS, I'll say it wasn't for lack of good games.

Instead of continuing talking about how unfortunate this recent turn is though, how about we focus on why I'd buy a second Wii U before a PS4 or XB1?

To begin, some people think the GamePad is a gimmick, but after using it I can say it's actually a great feature. It really is simply if the DS and Wii had a child. You get a touchscreen right in your hands that you can interact with directly and/or play on the TV. And then it also enables off-TV playing for most of the content: playing New Super Mario Bros U on the TV and someone wants to watch something else? Immediately play it solely on the GamePad and let them do whatever they'd like. The one missing killer feature is the ability to play DS games (or even 3DS) on the Wii U, similar to how they had the Super Game Boy for SNES or Game Boy Player for GameCube, but given their track record here I'm sure it's just a matter of time. If anything, the GamePad is before it's time; Android and Chromecast (or iPhone and Apple TV) will likely bring a lagless feature like this in the near future, and gamers will rejoice.

Next, the games are solid. People might find Mario games childish, but there's no negating the joy and fun that comes from playing one (which holds very true for Bros U and 3D World). NintendoLand is a solid launch game, introducing the features of the console in a new and exciting way. Wind Waker HD is the only current Zelda, however it's a beautiful remake of an amazing game (nothing quite as free-feeling as sailing). I'm sure PS4 and XB1 will get there, but at the moment there's nothing on either of them which excites me.

Overall, while I hope it's not true, if the Wii U is a swan song for Nintendo's home console business, it's one so beautiful I would truly openly weep.

DuckTales Remastered, Rewriting History

Back in 1989, Capcom released DuckTales for the NES. Whereas a lot of licensed franchise games exist only as a tie-in to make a quick buck, surprisingly DuckTales was a masterful game, being unique, fun, and challenging. So suffice it to say, DuckTales quickly became a hit.

In fact one of my earliest gaming experiences, aside from Mario, Zelda, and Tetris, took the form of Scrooge McDuck's pogo-ing and golf-swinging adventures. My family never even owned DuckTales, but my sisters and I still rented it over and over, continually trying to master the mysteries of Transylvania and the Moon. Given that the game came out when I was three, it's no surprise that said mastery never occurred (at least for me). However, the game left a lasting impression nonetheless.

That's why I was giddy to hear they were remaking the game for modern consoles.

Of course as my formative years were in the early 90s, DuckTales (and all of "Disney Afternoon"s great shows) had a large impact on me as well. I remember always wanting to keep up to date with the adventures of Scrooge and his grandnephews. This just goes to say that DuckTales, for someone my age, hits all the proper notes of nostalgia and childhood to forever occupy that warm, cuddly place in the heart where such things go.

That's why I've made sure to pay attention to the details surrounding the game.

And then, a few weeks back I was at San Diego Comic-Con and attended a panel held by Capcom and WayForward where they talked about making DuckTales Remastered itself. They went into their techniques for trying to be as faithful to the original game as possible while mixing the art up to look more like the TV show itself. I was really impressed at the lengths they went through, including an interesting technique of playing both the original and their remake side-by-side to ensure the controls are as 1-to-1 as possible.

That's why I purchased the game.

And now, lo and behold, I've bought it and played it, and you get to hear all about my thoughts on the subject.

The main thought: Woo-hoo!

So this game hits me in the feels. I didn't realize until now how much I actually remember of the original game. The remixed chiptunes themselves call up some deep memories and make me channel my inner 5-year-old. The only level I've finished so far is Transylvania, but I look forward to attacking the others one at a time. One of the best features of the original game is that, a la MegaMan, you can hit up the levels in any order you'd like. I am loving the voice acting as well, and am impressed by how many of the original actors from the TV show returned (the only ones that were replaced are sadly no longer with us). And the levels look so awesome and feel the same.

The one thing that caught me off guard: when I started playing it the controls actually felt really weird and slightly off. I realized it was that I had "Hard Pogo" turned off. Basically, the old NES way of pogo-ing was considered too hard (good ol' NES games!). As such, they replaced it with a simpler mechanism. Well, once I turned "Hard Pogo" on, my hands knew exactly what to do. Surprising how long muscle memory can survive! It's amazing how easily I slipped back into the feel of the game, and how good of a job WayForward did at emulating the original moves.

If you have any nostalgia for the TV show or video game, you won't  go wrong with this game. Even if you never saw the show or played the game, it's an amazing platformer with a unique play-style that's worth a go. And if you have any youngin's around, get them this game and make them watch the show, as it surpasses most kids shows today by a mile.

Meanwhile, I hope to plunder the game of every last treasure as soon as I can get back at it!

 

P.S. Apparently Capcom sent out the original DuckTales on golden cartridges as a promotional package. Shut up and take my money!

P.P.S. If you'd find it interesting, Capcom and WayForward posted a video about their strategy for updating the art without leaving behind the feel of the original. A lot of this was in their presentation at San Diego Comic-Con (and other conventions as well), and it's a good take on what lengths people go through when they've fully invested themselves in making something be the best experience they can.

Re: Geek Week - Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

...continued from...

And for my final post celebrating Geek Week, how about this delight from PBS in the early 90's? I'm betting that you're already humming the theme just from reading the title of this post!


There's been rumblings that it'd return, and while it's not new episodes, I'll happily take a rebroadcast. This show had such a profound affect on me as a child, making me the trivia buff I am today. After all, you never know when a small piece of information about South America will be all that stands between you and the capture of a master thief!

I'll leave you with this. Sadly, while Lynne Thigpen as passed away, I'll always fondly remember her as The Chief.

And yes, this is from one of the video games, but she's The Chief no matter what medium!

Re: Sound and Fury

Sorry, I'm going to delay your regularly scheduled post in order to respond to !Blogger's comments.

1) Per my belief that the ending is not happy

I think it’s a bit harsh saying that there was no way the Synthesis ending was “happy”. Yeah, the Quarians get totally screwed, as do all the other survivors now stuck without Mass Relays, but the fact that the cycle of organic destruction gets broken via everyone becoming half and half synthetic/organic is a happy ending, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a fresh new start for the ENTIRE galaxy. That should be exciting!

I simply don't buy it. I too chose Synthesis in my game, and I see the ending as being just as unhappy as I initially said. The relays are gone, and as such so is the supply chain of the galaxy. Everyone left in the Sol System will now be fighting for scraps, with the same occurring in every other system.

To be honest, I was happier when I was under the impression everyone would die when the relays blew. I thought "that sucks, but it's sacrificing everyone so the cycle can finally end once and for all". That seemed like the best choice. I was much more disappointed with it when I realized the horrible truth of the situation: I had just caused the inevitable, painful death of everyone as they slowly ran out of food and supplies. But hey, at least Joker and EDI will have robo-babies, right?

2) Per the Extended Cut

Additionally to be clear – the Extended Cut DLC isn’t re-writing the ending; in fact BioWare said specifically that it’s not. The purpose is to create a bit of closure and answer a lot of the questions people had when the game finished up. The way they described it in their blog post actually has me very excited; I feel like they’re really trying to make people happy.

Yes, in my ranting haste I didn't handle the Extended Cut DLC paragraph well. The offending line is:

Now I don’t follow the crowd with their “rewrite the ending” gusto, as you can’t just change the ending to make fans happy; that’s one of the worst ideas out there.

Basically, that line needs to be moved/removed. It was not my intention to imply that BioWare was changing the ending. This line was my response to those fans who believe BioWare should change the ending. In other words, I think they're idiots.

3) Per the PA Report

Also, unrelated to your post specifically, you should check out the PAReport’s editorial on the ME3 panel at PAX; apparently everybody seemed to come away happy. That should mean something, right?
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/mass-effect-retaken-bioware-described-extra-ending-content-at-surprisingly-

What I notice most in that:

The panel pointed out that this content wasn’t in the game because they didn’t know fans wanted it. “The dev team stands by what was released in the core product, and we’re very proud of it. It was important though for us to listen to the community, and a lot of that feedback didn’t come until the game came out. Once we were listening we decided to include the extended cut. It wasn’t in the game because we didn’t know there was such a huge demand for it, to be honest with you.”

What content did they not realize the fans wanted?

“We want to give more closure about some of the questions you have,” Gamble explained, “and in general we wanted to give the players a sense of personalization with the endings. Many people mentioned that some of the choices they made in the game are not necessarily reflected in the ending scenes. We’re definitely going to focus on things like that. We want to make sure that when you see the ending of Mass Effect, you now have the information and context to be satisfied.”

So, the content they didn't know fans would want was specifically the content which showed the audience how their choices mattered. In addition, more information and context as to what exactly is going on at the end. I'm sorry BioWare, I don't buy it. You want me to believe that you created a game where personal choice is at the core of gameplay and story, and then decide the fans don't want to know how their choices are reflected in the ending scenes? That load of bullshit would dwarf anything you'd come across in Pamplona.

What I hear from that: BioWare didn't want to delay the game to deliver a solid ending. So instead they delivered an incomplete game initially, planning on adding the ending the audience wants (or even needs) a few months later. That makes me mildly sick, simply because I didn't think BioWare would pull such nonsense. Oh wait, that's right, EA's the publisher. Suddenly the world makes a little more sense.

Sound and Fury

Avast, ye mateys! Thar be SPOILERS ahead!

Mass Effect 3 is a great game. Or so I keep telling myself.

Why wouldn't it be great? It's improved the combat system again. Equippable weapon upgrades returned, but without the inventory nightmare of Mass Effect. The AI was intelligent and challenging; I'd just breezed through the last two on Veteran and this one, on Normal, was at least an order of magnitude more difficult.

I enjoyed the game, really I did. Right?

There was so much good to it. It starts off a lot darker than the other two. Don't get me wrong, none of them have been happy games. But this time the beginning is impressively powerful simply in how quickly everything goes to hell. You start fighting for Earth almost immediately, being overrun by abominations created by the Reapers. Not to mention that cheap shot of a scene, when you're watching the kid get rescued, only for his shuttle to get blown to smithereens as it tries to escape.

Then in the first mission you find out that Cerberus, the people you spent the entirety of Mass Effect 2 helping, have gone off the deep end and are now abominations of their own. And again what a cheap shot, having you reconnect with Ashley (or Kaiden if you kept him alive instead), only to "kill" her at the end of the first mission. Of course, she wasn't killed, but I actually thought the developers did her in. Toying with us: uncool, but it worked to pull me straight into the game.

Again, I liked it. So why do I feel like I have to convince myself of that?

I mean the entire game you come across someone new fighting off the Reapers (and normally losing). Yet you spend the majority of your own time bringing people and species together. You come across each and every one of your old teammates from the first two games and help them out. Those who survive the meeting will join you directly or help you indirectly. Even if they die though, each one does so honorably and without regret (unless you've been Renegading it up, tsk tsk tsk).

Mass Effect 3  manages to effectively tie up each storyline and give an ending to each character's subplot across the three games; that's a lot more than you normally get from a standard JRPG, whose subplots often meander to a random and unimportant end.

Working your way through, you finally cure the Krogan and bring peace between them, the Turians, and the Salarians. And hell, if you play your cards right, you not only stop the war between the Quarians and Geth, but even unite them with a common goal. You can even give the Quarians their homeworld back after spending 300 years in exile. Sure the galaxy's being destroyed, but for once in these games things seem to be going your way! You're bringing all the races of the galaxy together to fight as a united whole! This is a word I try not to use, but this time it fits: Mass Effect 3 is simply epic.

[caption id="attachment_1046" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Legion! NOOOOOOO!"][/caption]

So seriously, what's not to like? Oh yeah... that's right...

Remember how I mentioned that Mass Effect's biggest trick to being immersive was that you weren't just playing as Shepard, but rather Shepard was an extension of yourself? And Mass Effect 2 continued it by having clear ramifications for the choices you made in Mass Effect? That's something Mass Effect 3 tended to stumble over.

Remember choosing between Anderson and Udina for who'd serve on the Council? Doesn't matter, Mass Effect 3 has Udina on the Council. To be fair, Mass Effect 2 more-or-less ignores the possible-destruction of the Council in Mass Effect; however even then at least your Anderson/Udina choice stuck.

And remember saving the Rachni Queen? Well too bad, no matter your decision you'll still have to fight your way her again as she's been enslaved by the Reapers. The difference: in one case she's real and will help you when you save her; in the other case she's a fake Queen that'll turn on you. Of course, you could just kill her either way. Not a real big payoff for that choice, is there?

Oh yeah, and the Geth Heretics? Did you rewrite them in Mass Effect 2? Too bad, the Quarians and Geth go to war anyways, and the Geth accept the Reapers help.

Seriously, is there any major difference from any choice you made in the previous games? The majority of decisions only affected how many "points" you get to put toward the endgame. Everything comes down to a number, and it feels like game-changers were little more than a number to add up. Karma's a bitch, especially when she doesn't seem to exist.

The worst offender of this was the ending of the game. Not even the choices you made in the current game seemed to matter. It came down to a single decision between 2, possibly 3, choices. Now, I wasn't surprised Shepard would die; it was pretty obvious from the beginning. But having everything you did come down to this one choice? That's just lame.

Another reason not to like it? The dialogue of the ending was a huge problem; it was clunky and did an awful job of explaining what was happening.

For instance, Mass Effect 2: Arrival taught us that destroying a Mass Relay wipes the star system that contains it. In fact, that's exactly why Shepard was imprisoned in the beginning: his decision to destroy the Mass Relay had killed 300,000 Batarians. And then the "Catalyst" tells you that each choice has the added bonus of destroying all the Mass Relays? I took that to mean the galaxy's screwed no matter what I do; Earth and all the other major systems will be wiped out in the explosion. Apparently, that's not what it meant. But wait, in that case why was the Normandy running away from the blast? It's mind boggling.

Worse than that, think of how screwed all the fleets around Earth are. When it dawned on me that my character destroyed the Mass Relays, thus cutting off a huge portion of the Quarians from the homeworld they just reclaimed, I was damned near heartbroken. That is not a happy ending in any sense of the word.

On that note: there'll supposedly be a free "Extended Cut" DLC to explain this better. Now I don't follow the crowd with their "rewrite the ending" gusto, as you can't just change the ending to make fans happy; that's one of the worst ideas out there. However, I also don't see how this extension will help. I see it doing one of two things; it will either add confusion to an already insane ending, or it will oversimplify the ending and prove that it is just as stupid as the audience has assumed. Neither of these will improve the situation. It's like nervously explaining a bad joke; they should just move on and act like it never happened, we'd all be better off.

Unfortunately, I'm not nearly done. I was also disappointed at the number of missed opportunities that felt foreshadowed. The Keepers could've easily have been important again; hell, there's that one that keeps getting in your way at the docking bay. The writers completely dropped all the dark matter foreshadowing in Mass Effect 2. There's the matter of Shepard's dreams which could've had a lot more done with them. And even a bit of foreshadowing about how dead Shepard actually was between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. All of these could've really easily been taken advantage of, but none were. Instead, we were given a random ending. I had seen nothing in any of the games leading to that point which fell in line with the Catalyst's nature or reasoning. As such, since they ignored their own foreshadowing, they left it with an ending that felt completely out of place and painfully absurd. Sure, that's an easy way to have a twist, but it'll also immediately alienate those following the story.

[caption id="attachment_1056" align="alignleft" width="288" caption="The writers told me I had to let you win. But I'll make sure you don't like it!"][/caption]

And to top it off, here's a quandary for you: the entire point of Mass Effect is to prevent Sovereign from activating the Citadel as a Mass Relay from dark space. So, if the Catalyst controls the Reapers, and it was in the Citadel the entire time, why couldn't it have just activated the Mass Relay when Sovereign attacked the Citadel?

It's insane to think there was this super-intelligent older-than-dirt AI living in the Citadel and yet it somehow didn't win? This is almost a subversion of the Gambit Roulette, as the apparent trilogy Bigger Bad implies it's so intelligent to be damn near omniscient, and yet it can't stop a single human. If it's really done this for millions (perhaps billions) of years, why does it let Shepard stop it? Everything that happened should've been playing directly into the Catalyst's hands (so-to-speak), and yet it seemed to have no control over anything. At the very least, it's decision to simply give up when Shepard reaches it makes zero sense. Can we say "boss fight"?

Speaking of which, and this is more of a non-storyline gripe, but where was the freaking final boss fight? Why didn't the Catalyst fight me? It should've at least tried to stop me, right? Hell, I took down a Reaper earlier, but I don't even get to do that again? We all know Harbinger deserves it! Even Mass Effect 2 had the shitty Human Reaper fight. Did they just forget about it? And no, shooting the Illusive Man after 15 painstaking minutes of TRYING TO WALK 5 FEET is not a "boss fight". Though I will admit it was nice to make Martin Sheen shut up.

So this was an epic game that fell apart amazingly at the end. Up to that point, I was loving the game. It had everything. Sure, it didn't play nice with the decisions I'd previously made, but I didn't care, I was saving the universe!

And then came the end, after which I only had one thought:

...it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

But I'll still tell myself it was an awesome game as maybe, with the right amount of willpower, I can forget everything else and simply remember the following: I honestly enjoyed the game.

The Weight of the Galaxy

The third and final installment of the Mass Effect trilogy came out  last month. If you're anything like me, you've known this for quite some time; any mention of it had you salivating like Pavlov's dog. But it wouldn't be enough for you to just play it. No, you'd need to once again fully immerse yourself in this universe.

The best way to do that? Start a new character and play through the first two, in order, back to back. And that's exactly what I did.

Mass Effect itself is one of the best games I've ever played. To get it out of the way, let's first talk about its problems: the battles are clunky, the AI is stupid, and the equipment system is tedious. Ok, done, let's talk about the rest of it now.

I should note: a lot of this was influenced by a stellar post over at popbioethics. I don't fully agree with the post, but it makes a lot of good points.

To begin, Mass Effect is one of the most true role-playing games out there. They did a great job of supplying a system where you always have multiple choices, and depending on what you do has definitive ramifications down the line. And it's not just whether or not you complete a task, but often how you complete a task. Which gets me into the reputation system: are you a just, lawful hero, or a ruthless, chaotic anti-hero? Your decisions affect what's available and how you're treated. This allows it to be extremely immersive; you're no longer watching a movie with some interaction, you are instead crafting the main character to such an extent that they become an extension of yourself.

Next, the environment: instead of a universe where humanity is the status quo, Mass Effect throws you into one where humanity is brand new on the scene. Humanity's viewed as a second-class race, not important and still too focused on its own insignificant problems compared to the issues affecting the galaxy. It's not dystopian: there's a galactic government which oversees most of the "civilized" areas of the galaxy. But it's far from utopian, as the highest power of the government, the Council, is shared by three races, the rest of which are vying for inclusion in that elite club.

Not only that, but as popbioethics pointed out, this is a universe where things have gone horribly wrong. One race, the savage Krogan, is on the brink of extinction thanks to two of the Council races, the scientific Salarians and the militaristic Turians. That happened after the Krogan extinguished the bug-like Rachni on the Council's behalf. Meanwhile the technological Quarians have been evicted from their homeworld by the Geth, an AI race and the Quarians' former servant cyborgs. Then there's the Batarians, a race which still thrives on a caste system and slaving.

Among all this, the most advanced technology in the galaxy is the Mass Relay: a mass transit device which has allowed space-faring races to traverse the galaxy instantaneously. Without these, colonization and expansion would be slow-going and extremely difficult. Unfortunately this technology has only been co-opted by each race, as it was seemingly left over by the Protheans, an extremely advanced race that went extinct for unknown reasons 50,000 years earlier. So it's also a galaxy where all races have come to depend on a crucial piece of technology of fully foreign design.

And yet there you are, you little human, with your human problems, trying to understand the chaos which is the Milky Way.

Of course, the game doesn't tell you all of this at once, it's introduced to you as you work your way through the main plot. You start with a simple mission: examine and retrieve a Prothean artifact found on a human colony. Of course what seems simple is anything but (like every other RPG out there). Instead by the end you're in a battle for the survival of all civilized life in the galaxy.

Your villain? Saren, a rogue "Spectre" (special agent for the Council, think Trevelyan from Goldeneye), who is for some reason working with the Geth and travels in a giant dreadnought of unknown design called Sovereign. As you work through the game you realize Saren is controlling people with Indoctrination and wants to learn as much as he can about the Protheans.

[caption id="attachment_1059" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="That's no ship. It's a Reaper!"][/caption]

But wait! Sovereign's not a ship, it's a Reaper! And the Mass Relays weren't left by the Protheans! They were left by the Reapers to control the technological paths each race would take when they were discovered! The galaxy is a giant trap, and the Reapers want to kill us all! OMG! THE CITADEL IS OUR DOOM!

Yes, that's pretty much how quickly everything spirals out of control: The Citadel, the center of galactic civilization and also thought to be left behind by the Protheans, is actually Reaper technology as well. In fact, it's a Mass Relay itself; it opens to the space between galaxies, where the Reapers are waiting to begin their assault on the civilizations of the Milky Way. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, don't let the Reapers invade the galaxy and kill everyone!

Trust me, it's a powerful storyline, with betrayal, intrigue, and action. Plus tons of sideplots to fill out the fictional universe. Overall, this is a decidedly one of my favorite games.

Then came Mass Effect 2, a game which you start by dying. That's right, Bioware wasn't pulling any punches; they kill you off within 5 minutes. Of course you don't stay dead, but it gives the plot a reason to take your character somewhere he'd never be otherwise: in the hands of a terrorist organization called Cerberus. There were a few missions involving their inhumane operations in Mass Effect, but this makes you one of them. Your goal: stop the Reapers' plans, again. And that's exactly why Cerberus brought you back. Overall though, this is a pretty nice twist for the second game, as it puts your character in a place they shouldn't be, yet the events make it believable he would be there.

The second game improves on all those things that made the first one annoying: Fighting is much simpler and more streamlined. They tossed the crappy inventory altogether. And the AI really improved a lot.

Even better, they didn't lose much at all. I won't go into plot details on this one, mainly because this post is huge already and touching the awesomeness in chapter 2 *cough*Legion, Thane, Grunt, Samara, Garrus, Tali, Zaeed, Kasumi*cough* would make this post be 3 times longer.  The missions are still great though, the plot has just as many twists and turns, and overall it's still a great game. My one problem with Mass Effect 2 when compared to Mass Effect: the enemy Harbinger (another Reaper) just isn't as cool as Saren. Plus the final battle with a "Human Reaper" was just lame (someone had a bad trip when they came up with that idea).

Again though, Bioware delivered what they'd set out to deliver, a game which was more fun and more engrossing than Mass Effect: and lost none of the charm.

Oh look, it's the end of the post and I didn't get to talk about Mass Effect 3. Darn. I'll have to get at it another time, I guess.

Batman The Animated Series, The Game

 The post last Friday was supposed to be on this topic, but to really show you why this game spoke to me, I had to first explain what it was about the show that made me love it. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can move on to the topic of the hour.

Batman: Arkham Asylum came out 2 years ago, and it encapsulated the Batman world extremely well. It was a perfect match to the world of The Animated Series. They had writers from the show, the same voice actors, kept it just as dark and foreboding as any game set in Gotham should be. Nothing was better than walking down the halls of Arkham, occasionally being taunted by Mark Hamill's Joker, never knowing what villain would take a run at you next.

I'll admit, the game wasn't perfect. The story was great, and so were the characters. And I loved the sneaking gameplay, which is exactly what Batman should do (there was little better than watching your antics freak out the enemies). But the gameplay also had a major flaw: the combat system. It was slow and tedious, and as multiple major boss fights were just "fight a lot of enemies at once", this could make it really drag on. I only remember Poison Ivy and Scarecrow being different, but they still weren't anything special. It can make you question continuing to play, when you have to fight 20 enemies using a system that feels unresponsive. Of course, the rest of the game was way too awesome for it's own good, so there was no way I'd stop.

Of course, the other reason why this post is today: the sequel, Arkham City, comes out tomorrow. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't planning on buying it.

What? I don't want to miss out on Harley and Joker's taunting. Or Strange's machinations. Or Two-Face's revenge. Or Catwoman's...well, you get the point.

And to end this on a note of awesomeness, I present to you the Batman: TAS theme over Arkham Asylum/City Gameplay:

Re: 80710A06

On one note, I was wrong. Netflix wasn't blocked by not being able to sign in (though I did get regular interruptions where it was trying to sign me in).

On another note, all my personal data has been lost by Sony. To any identity thieves out there: you can have my identity, I hardly want it myself. If you happen to come across the identity of someone awesome, say who owns an island and has no need for a job, can you send it my way?

What will I be doing tonight? Keeping a watchful eye on my credit card and changing all my passwords...

80710A06

So for those not paying attention (also those having no reason to care), right now PlayStation Network (PSN) is down, and has been for many days. PSN is how PlayStations verify themselves to Sony, allowing online play and other connected functionality. Now, anyone who has a PS3 has probably run into a standard maintenance shutdown of PSN anyways. It happens, you live with it. Only it's not down due to any technical issues; this time it was attacked. (Rumor mill is anonymous, but that's just rumor, who knows?)

Personally, this doesn't get in my way much. I don't normally play video games online anyways. But I do still use it for one major thing: Netflix. That's right, these jerks have made me watching Netflix on my TV a bit more difficult, and that shall not stand. After all, what am I without my leisure time.

[caption id="attachment_691" align="alignright" width="191" caption="You may take our lives, but you may never take ... OUR LEISURE!"][/caption]

Now, I'm not saying that Sony isn't stupid for tying Netflix to a PSN account. After all, I can still use the browser. It could be some business deal which ties Netflix's hands though, licensing and such. Really, I'm just getting to the point that I'm not a fan of Sony themselves.

But I simply don't understand this. There's no way to profit from this attack. (Maybe make Sony lose face and try to short-sell some stock?) Revenge doesn't really fit. If anything, it's just an annoyance to the general public. As part of that general public, I take offense.

The attackers of this, just know, I'm putting you on notice. No one attacks my leisure time and gets away scot free. I've given a good 5 minutes towards damning you. So, take that. Yeah, not much you can do about it, is there? How's that feel? Jerks.

Meanwhile, I guess I can go outside and do something in the blinding sunlight...

HUGE SUCCESS

For those who have been living under a rock, four years ago Valve released a game called Portal. This game was groundbreaking: a mind-bending First Person Puzzler, all centered around the idea of creating portals connecting two points in space.

But Valve didn't stop there. The game was already new and fresh, but they decided to sprinkle in an interesting story, one which fits our mute hero well. It's very difficult to create a story which requires next-to-zero interaction from the protagonist rather than just moving forward, but they managed it. The whole time in the "testing environment", a disembodied voice gives hints, help, and provides comic relief. Only to pull the twist once you reach the end: the cake is a lie.

That disembodied voice isn't so disembodied as you thought, and it turns out she's a passive-aggressive machine bent on testing subjects for her own amusement (when she's not releasing deadly neurotoxin).

All in all, the puzzles stay fresh, and then applying them outside of the standard environment makes the final areas memorable. I recently re-played the game and still enjoyed it thoroughly.

Of course, the real reason for this post: now there's a Portal 2! So much science to do, so little time.

A Really Long Satuday

For the past seven years I've taken part in an (unaffiliated) Georgia Tech Band tradition: Get A Clue.

What is Get A Clue (or GAC, as we in the know call it)? Well, it's a day filled with reckless driving, possible trespassing, and some intellectual pursuits thrown in for the hell of it. I believe the proper term is that it's a "Treasure Hunt" game: Get Clue, Solve, Find Location, Lather, Rinse, Repeat. The trick is that the locations can be anywhere within a 40 mile radius of Georgia Tech campus. Also, it starts at about 9 AM on a Saturday, and you'll be lucky to be done by midnight (this year, we didn't finish till 3 AM).

What do you win? First place gets...

*drumroll please*

To run the game next year!

Second place is "The Real Winners"; they're team smart enough to beat everyone else and also ensure they don't have to run next year's game! It's a coveted position, the running for which causes the accidental first place (no one wants to come in last, even if it is for nothing).

Why do it? It's just great fun. Spend a day with friends driving around the city solving clues. Sure, those friends rarely do it a second year in a row (and those who do forget how long of a Saturday it really is). But once you get going, you wonder why you don't do this everyday? And then once you pass around 11 PM, you remember just how tired you get when you've been solving clues all day and have who-knows-how-many left to go.

The other part of the fun are the yearly themes. I've played it with themes ranging from "Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse" to "Where in Atlanta is Carmen Sandiego?" to even "Corporate Espionage". I stole the image at the top of this post from this year's theme: "CSI: Atlanta", complete with tracking down the notorious "cereal killer". Yes, that's right, all victims were dressed up as cereal mascots, including the hooker ("When they're dead, they're just hookers") in Las Vegas dressed up as a bunny while turning tricks (get it?).

Was returning to Atlanta for a weekend to do this worth my time? Probably not, given how busy I was. Did I enjoy it anyways? Hell yes. And made sure I got to see all my friends and family while there as well. Good trip, will have to do it again next year.

P.S. Talk about Scheduler keeping me on my toes, it keeps reposting this even though I never wrote it...

It's About Time

In case you were wondering what prompted my latest rewatching of Back to the Future, it was my having bought the new Back to the Future: The Game on the PS3.

Initially, I was unsure about this game. Yes it was made by TellTale, who seem to have the art of Adventure Game down to a science (after Sam and Max and Monkey Island). But still, it was a game based on a movie franchise, and those rarely live up to the source material.

Though this one was helped that it didn't try to recreate the movie (aside from a few great beginning scenes). It's not based off of any one movie (that'd been done to death), instead it was a new story taking place after the events of the films.

Two time periods are visited: 1986 and 1931. Same characters still, you have to deal with the bully Biff in 1986, and then his incarnation in 1931. Similar plot lines: Marty discovers something is wrong in 1986, and gets pulled into another adventure to find Doc Brown. Same Hill Valley even; part of the charm of the original films was only slightly changing the town to fit the timeline. Here, nothing changed from the Clocktower down to the local haunt on the corner, only 1931 that "local haunt' is now a soup kitchen. This is how Back to the Future gets you: things are different yet eerily similar. It's the same feeling of nostalgia one gets when they visit somewhere from their past only to realize all the small ways it changed.

Next, they managed to reach that good level of fan service seen in the sequels, while maintaining new story. So you're not surprised to first meet Arthur McFly (1931's George) in the soup kitchen, or to see Kid Tannen (1931's Biff) kick him out with the standard "I thought I told you never to come in here" line. This time though, Kid Tannen is Hill Valley's Al Capone, and Arthur is his accountant. And 1931 isn't far enough away to escape from the standard characters: Doc Brown is there twice, as himself from 1986 and a teenager version from 1931. Now you've got a story set up for standard Back to the Future mayhem.

Overall, this game was great. A new story, with the same feel and same characters as the movies. The voice acting is superb: Christopher Lloyd returns, and A.J. Locascio manages to sound exactly like a young Michael J. Fox, enough so to fool anyone who didn't know better. The only downside was some control issues and framerate drops. The latter was survivable, but the former becomes a major pain when running back and forth through areas, adjusting to the camera only to find out apparently the controls didn't want you to (if you play it you'll know what I mean). These are small hiccups though in the overall game, and the story and fun of it will most likely keep you going (it did for me).

Of course, all of this is only about the first episode "It's About Time", as TellTale likes to release episodically. The second, "Get Tannen!", releases tomorrow on the PS3. If they can maintain the quality, or even improve it control-wise, then this game will go on to be one of my favorites.

Nothing New Under the Golden Sun

The first Golden Sun game was released just under a decade ago, and last year it got threequel treatment with Dark Dawn on the DS. So how could I, someone who remembers the original and it's sequel with great fondness, not give this new one a try? (the answer: I couldn't)

Let me preface this with: in the end, I enjoyed this game.

Overall the game is much the same: turn-based fighting, djinn unleashes and summons, a djinn-based customizable class system, different magic spel-*ahem* I mean forms of Psynergy, and takes place in the "flat" world of Weyard. You're on of the few in the world who can use these powers, and you go around saving people who are so lame they can't save themselves (seriously, I'd think one vicious sneeze could wipe out half of Weyard's population).

Its new weapon system was intriguing: instead of a single always-possible unleash, each weapon had a multiple unleashes which you slowly learned via killing enemies. As such, as you stuck with a weapon it'd get more and more powerful, up to where it would nearly always unleash.

Also, there were more types of weapons (bows, e.g.), and which type you had on a character could make a difference. If you stuck with one type, you'd find later weapons had already unlocked unleashes on them for those characters only, which was a big help as to deciding who gets what. I'm not clear on the determining factors with this, but it's possible once a character unlocked an unleash on a type of weapon, it was unlocked on all weapons of that type (some were shared, such as Critical Hits). Either way, this added an interesting twist on equipment, though all the other items were your standard Golden Sun fare.

Also, Psynergy was much less limited in range in this one. Instead of having to stand at most one-away from something, you had a much larger area to target (yes, area, not just up-down-left-right). This allowed for slightly more room in puzzle design, and was a good idea in the long run.

Now, with the opening to this, you'd expect this to be a very critical review. And you'd be right.

So, to the guts of it: What went wrong?

First off, it was way too easy. The other two weren't necessarily tough, but this one was a cakewalk. The hardest part of this game was the fact that I once absentmindedly shut it off without saving. That's right, it wasn't I died somewhere and had to try again. No bosses got in my way. No, I got in my own way. I haven't given the end-game dungeons a shot yet though, but at that point it's too little, too late.

Something that made it easier: In this one, you don't lose a turn if the enemy you targeted died before your attack. That's right! No more lost turns! Awesome! Except, no. I know, everyone just gasped that I'd call this a bad thing, but hear me out. While I admit this annoyed me in the earlier games, I didn't want to see it go. Many things annoy me, but this was an annoyance which forced me to be more strategic with what I did. Others will claim it was a bug in the other games, should've never been there. I think this argument is like saying it's a bug that a Bishop can only move diagonally in Chess. In other words, it's not a bug, it's a rule you have to play by. Overall, every time I was annoyed it was only because it made me pay attention. How dare they?! Obviously, I didn't want to play, I just wanted to run around! Well good, because this time they removed it and all I had to do was attack-attack-attack, win, occasionally heal all, and then go again. Oh wait, that's right, that's called boring gameplay.

What's more, this game felt like it was missing out on fights in general. I remember the others feeling like a fight every few steps. This one you could run through whole dungeons and get fought once. WTF is up with that? This is an RPG, the purpose is to fight.

While on dungeons, they were freaking short. I know The Lost Age greatly lengthened them, and some were just awesome in both size and enjoyment. But this one seemed to regress to even smaller dungeons than were in Golden Sun. Maybe it was because of my next point?

Rehashed puzzles, if you can call them puzzles at all, occurred way too often. It seemed odd to come across unique puzzles in this game. When you did, such as in the Watchtower and Yamata, it was great. When you didn't, such as the very end of the game, it was less than stellar.  And by that I mean it just plain sucked.

About Psynergy, why didn't they take advantage of using the same names from previous game? Why "Sense" instead of "Mind Read"? Or "Search" instead of "Reveal"? Or "Crush" instead of "Pound"? Not to mention many of these took more time to do then wanted: "Reveal" was instant; "Search" took 5-10 secs to finish, which is a lifetime when you're doing nothing. Then, such as the The Lost Age somewhat suffered, there were some which were horribly underused: "Track", "Sense", "Whirlwind" (what happened to blowing away leaves?). In fact, giving a "solve this puzzle for me" Psynergy ("Insight") was just lazy. They did add some new interesting ones, like "Grip".  But at the cost of losing "Hover" and "Sand"? Lame.

Also, where were the bosses? By the numbers, there were more in this game (in-story and extra) then there were in each of the last two, but in that case why did it feel like there were none? I think it has to do with the short dungeons. Most didn't have a boss; I wanted to kill the golem in Yamata, but it didn't get up to fight me. That alone could've made the game feel longer and more full.

Note that now I go into some story details. Not much, but if you don't want to know of it go ahead and skip the next two paragraphs.

So, here goes. As for the story, I'm still somewhat confused. As we know, in the original "Golden Sun" the baddies are just after power. Not necessarily purposefully hurting people, but apathetic to everyone else. Of course, we learn that they weren't after power (other than Alex), but happened to be trying to save their village. But it's ok you killed them, because they were assholes (and there was much rejoicing). Although, such as in the The Lost Age where Felix "plays" into Alex's hands by doing the right thing, this whole game you play into the baddies' hands and you aren't doing it for any necessarily noble reasons. The difference is that these guys apparently just want to kill everyone. It's not even really like you have to save the world: you let who-knows-how-many die just to save two prisoners. Then, in the end, the baddies try and stop you from ending the calamity, only to admit they were going to end it after you deliver your final blow. I'm trying to understand the point of it, but from what I can tell you release a catastrophe and then destroy it, for no real reason beyond someone "forced" you to. That same someone who was going to stop you from ending it, just so they could end it. But there's nothing to be gained by a specific person ending the calamity other than the end of the calamity itself, so what does it matter who ends it? If you think about it even more, the plan was around for a couple decades too, as one of the heroes wouldn't even exist if not for this "master plan"! Man, it'd suck to find out you were only born so your father could use you twenty years later.

Oh wait, but then there's a cliffhanger! Good, because all that stuff they talk about for the first third of the game gets dropped as soon as the baddies show, only to reemerge right at the end of the game with the ever annoying "The End?" (no one likes that question mark, it's just obnoxious, do they think you really care at this point?)

The rest of the issues were small recurring annoyances: same weapons from the old game, with only a few new ones; removed shortcuts on menus such as djinn "set/standby all"; why were there even touch controls?; annoying inventory (one of the few poor uses of the dual screen); permanently-missable items and djinn; no minigames or real sidequests (not till the game is over, at least); forgettable music; tiny world (I thought the map was getting bigger, not smaller); having to leave Champa while forging (why not immediate? a.k.a. BORING); so much not available till right at the end of the game.

But I digress.

I know I ragged on it a lot, but as I mentioned when you started this article so very long ago: I enjoyed this game. I don't know if it was out of nostalgia, or because it really was fun, or even possibly from a tiny bit of masochism, but I enjoyed it all the same. And that's with still zero clue what they were thinking with the end of the story.

All in all, this game almost lived up to the original two, but not quite. It tried to fix unnecessary things while leaving those needing the improvement stagnant (or worse), but it was still enough to enjoy. It's still worth playing, if you have some time to kill. And if you liked the others, you'll like this one as well.

As for a rating, I'd give it a solid 7 out of 10: good but with flaws. Only it was half a game, so it gets a 3.5 out of 10. We'll see if its certain-to-be sequel will raise that a bit.

Further down the spiral.

This post has nothing to do with Nine Inch Nails. Except for that sometimes I feel like there are a few being pounded into my eyes.

For those of you who don't know, for a while (8 months! apparently) I've been "playing" a Passively Multi-player Online Game appropriately named PMOG. This guy, Justin Hall has made a name out of playing with the internet freely (both as in "without bounds" and "without cash"). He slapped together GameLayers Inc. in order to turn his thesis into a reality. The result is a FireFox extension/website combo dedicated to watching what you do and rewarding you for it. Oh, sometimes you can try to blow up your friends and stuff.

PMOG has been around in some form or fashion for roughly a year or so now, and they're in their second Beta (after having left beta). They're dedicated to making the game more friendly to the masses with new tools, a new toolbar, and new artwork. Unfortunately, when desperation for new users kick in, you end up looking at companies who have lots of users, such as Zwinky:


You can see from the news post, the new artwork isn't exactly well received by their current user base, and the PMOG forums themselves echo this response. This is the point where the eye nails kick in for me. I've been a bit critical of a lot of the decisions made by GameLayers, and this is no exception. Unfortunately, it seems that in their latest push out of obscurity, I disagree with nearly every decision they make. It's not personal, I just wonder how far down the spiral this game will go before I have to stop riding.