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Video games, PC games, or other interactive media that's currently caught my attention ...
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360)
I'm playing the new Batman: Arkham Asylum game on the Xbox 360, and I've been pretty impressed so far.This is a solid, dark treatment of the license, the full game is more polished than the demo (which itself was a good concantenation of a few segments of the game to show scope and diversity), the detective mode has been tweaked (and is pretty slick), the art direction is cool (and consistent), fanboy unlockables are solid and slickly implemented, and I like the progression, the open-endedness(ish)ism of the title. And (yay!) the video tweak settings let me brighten the game without washing out the graphics -- very important for playing on a projector.
Mark Hamill (who is the Joker) and Kevin Conroy (who is the Batman, at least until I am), are fantastic -- as is a lot of the primary voice acting (some of the secondary (like the guards) doesn't come close to the caliber, which is unfortunate). Good voice acting makes a game; bad kills it. This is stellar stuff.
And I like that there are subtle things like me being able to move Batman around during an in-engine cutscene, downed enemies are still breathing (they're unconscious, not dead), and the brief (at least one so far) first-person implementation (hey, you get it for free with the tech; might as well play with it; which most licensed fair refuses to do).
It's got a few shortcomings, but nothing that kills the game for me.
First off is I'm not crazy about the muscle-bound nature of ol' Bats -- feels a bit over-done, put - a -space -marine - in - a - batsuit. Also, the skinning of the game is a bit of a weird mix of shiny and muddy, but that's stereotypical of the Unreal Engine (right or wrong). Also, I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I game on a projector, and at that size Rocksteady's particular implementation of the third-person camera causes a bit of a problem with slight queasiness that most other games don't cause.
But overall, the game is solid, I'm enjoying it, kudos to Rocksteady for getting it right, and I'll be tooling through it for a while.
Labels: adventure, brawler, comic book, licensed, Xbox 360
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posted by Adam @ 2:10 PM
Friday, July 17, 2009
Conan (Xbox 360)
OK, Conan is an oldish 360 game, and I finished it months ago, but I've been meaning to write about it ever since. Reason for the delay is the final boss battle (more on that later).This a the kind of game that makes me irritated at game reviews/reviewers.
This is a solid licensed title that is ambitious and has so much going right for it, that -- especially given the stigma for a licensed title -- it's great.
Nihilistic Software should be commended shoving so much stuff into the game -- from the basic hack-n-slash to the much deeper combat and combo system, to entertaining and stretch Xbox Achievements (50 grapple kills, 100 dismemberments, etc.), to technical implementations like environmental cloth and destructibility.
Its tale is knit together by game writing great Susan O’Connor, and has a stellar score from Michael Reagan (Twisted Metal: Black, God of War / II, the underrated music from Brute Force, etc.).
Besides, the fact that you can pick this game up for ~$10 bucks anywhere should make it a no-brainer for Conan franchise fans.
Since few games are perfect, here are a few of the rough edges Conan does fall into: camera, platforming, polish, gratuitousness, and quick-times.
Camera.
Seriously, I have had very few good fixed cameras in third-person titles. When the camera is not good, don't make it fixed. Conan uses a fixed not-good third person camera.
Platforming.
I like platforming -- in platformers. I don't like platforming in third-person actioner titles. I'm fine with the puzzle mechanic, and lightweight platforming-esque maneuvers that complete said puzzles. But jumping from ledge to ledge with the above fixed-camera implementation? Anger-inducing.
Polish.
Like I said, kudos to Nihilistic for putting so much into the game. It does feel like in places the polish falls down, with unexpected clipping, some texture issues, etc. that almost made the game feel unfinished to me in places. That may be a horribly unfair assessment, and the reality is all games (unfortunately) have some level of bugginess and rough edges.
Other than that, a few of the environments feel a little bland -- and they feel that way because other areas (think a hall populated with rich props, interesting textures, cloth banners, etc.) are not bland at all.
Gratuitousness.
Some people are probably going to call prude on me for this one.
I'm not talking the violence (which most games let you dial down) -- I'm talking the topless girls you rescue throughout the game. It'd be nice from a philosophical level to be able to "turn off nudity" like you can "turn of gibs" in so many games (and hey, in essence it's the same mesh and animation sets across most or all of the girls, so it should be easy). There are some tween kids I'd say could play a game like Conan despite the violence, but I wouldn't endorse the title for that same demographic, because of its obnoxious titillation.
Quick-time Events.
Developers who use quick-time events, I am convinced, hate gamers. That's my bias, but other than Resident Evil 5 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance coming close to making not totally sucky QT events, I hate these things. What's worse than a cut-scene? A cut scene where you can't passively watch, and can't really control. The industry calls these "quick-time events".
And Conan? While most of the QTs are irritating, the final boss battle implementation is horrific. I finished the game months ago, and it's taken me this long to write the review, because the QTs in that fight pissed me off sooo bad -- and not in a Ninja Gaiden "this is hard and is kicking my butt and I am going to beat it" kind of way, but in a "you are f***ing kidding me? Another cheap interruption?" kind of way.
See, where Conan is strong is its implementation of combos (X+X+X+Y, for example). But to make the final boss quick-time events "harder", devs decided to shrink the time you have to hit the button that you're supposed to mash. Problem is, if you're in a combo, it has to finish out before it registers the QT button, and usually stomps on it. This is maddeningly infuriating, and made me almost hate the game, even though it was just that last, bad implementation that soured me.
Devs: Quick-times are bad. Stop using them. Thank you in advance.
Anyway, pick up the title if you can. At sub-ten-bucks, it's a fun, brainless brawler at the least, and a deep combo license treatment for franchise fans in the extreme.
Labels: adventure, brawler, hack-n-slash, licensed, Xbox 360
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posted by Adam @ 5:26 PM
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Ninja Gaiden II (360 demo)
I so dig Ninja Gaiden, so I was stoked when the demo for Ninja Gaiden II finally came stateside (last? WTF?).The demo gives that sense of amazing ninja bad-assery, which is great, but ...
This may be the worst third-person camera ever. I'm hoping it's just an artifact of the demo, though.
Labels: brawler, hack-n-slash, Xbox 360
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posted by Adam @ 8:53 AM
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (Xbox 360)
I downloaded and played through the Spider-Man: Friend or Foe demo on the Xbox 360, and the title has promise. It's kind of a mish-mash of brawler and super lightweight Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.The demo has co-op, and Venom and the Green Goblin are co-playable with Spidey, so you get to try out how they play differently, and tag out as you like.
The combat is super basic, but engaging enough.
On the usability side, the camera is fixed and problematic. I found my self jumping off of a building unintentionally because the camera didn't switch, the level design wasn't intuitive, and the game transition didn't happen to show me where I needed to go.
The game AI isn't bad during combat, but during exploration, my AI squad partner (Venom at the time) jumped off a building a couple of times. Flying partners probably don't have that same problem.
Also on the basic usability side, while I like using the left and right bumpers to cycle through Spidey's powers, it should not stop when I get to the "top" or "bottom" of the available powers -- it should cycle to the next power (interestingly this is regular gripe of mine for a lot of Activision super hero games, MUA and X-Men Legends included).
But I wonder if the biggest problem is the hodge-podge treatment of the license. The intro plays almost exactly like the intro of next year's animated series. The Green Goblin, New Goblin, and Spider-Man's own costume are from the films. Venom and some of the tie-togethers (Nick Fury, Iron Fist, etc.) seem pretty comic-friendly. So, what is it? Is it going to draw in fans of all of those mediums, or disenfranchise each?
And while Spider-Man's voice work is very good, Venom's felt a little off. But I'm biased.
Guess we'll see. I'll be renting this first when it comes out, to see how much more polished it is than the demo -- entertaining as it is.
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posted by Adam @ 2:21 PM
Friday, April 13, 2007
Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia (Xbox 360)
I've been playing the Xbox 360 demo for Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia, and it's a fun little romp.I've been looking forward to this title for some time, and it delivers on a bunch of fronts -- funky style, fun with stereotypes (the nerd, the goth chick, the slacker, and the Valley Girl), comic book sensibilities, decent physics, and creative gameplay.
The demo's a bit limited in the gameplay area, but I get a sense of it. Interestingly, the trailer shows a lot more fun stuff (vehicles, transformations, etc.) that seem like they would have been better picks for the demo. There are, however, tastes of some of the context sensitive "traps" you can kick off (and get caught in, if you're careless), and those are decent fun.
The demo does have online and offline co-op and adversarial arena, which is cool. I want to put the demo through its paces with 3 friends, and see how it plays out.
I'm not real stoked about the camera, which is fixed, and not very "smart" -- it wouldn't shift when I got boxed into a corner. There's a needed concession for on-screen multiplayer, but some cameras and levels in this genre are implemented better (like Hunter: The Reckoning or Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes on the old Xbox).
There were also a few too many cheap deaths -- getting boxed into a corner with no weapons or ammo, and not being able to slip out or jump over baddies is irritating (but, that got to be less of an issue the more I played).
Control is a little wonky, and I hope the full version lets me switch my assignments -- mainly the left and and right thumbsticks for move / turn (and I'd like to move jump back where it belongs on the "A" button). Also, the dodge mechanic didn't seem to work at all.
This title will fill a nice needed niche in the co-op multiplayer space, but (for it's sake) I wish it were priced more cheaply than the $59.99 MSP standard for new Xbox 360 titles, since it's possible it will get looked over amid other April / May offerings. A $40 or $50 price point would likely move significantly more units.
But, overall, I'm still looking forward to Monster Madness the first week of May. It'll also be out for the PC the same date, and PlayStation 3 (in theory) in October (which is probably the launch window for which they were aiming last year, but who wants to compete with Gears of War?). I'll probably end up renting it, first, since the GameStop bonus beanie hat isn't enough to get me to purchase it outright.
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posted by Adam @ 9:12 AM
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