The third time’s a charm
No one will deny that Microsoft has made tremendous progress going from the original Xbox to the current 360. Numbers-wise, they’ll likely outpace the original console by at least 10-15 million units and make more profit in the process. Their console has also managed to remain extremely relevant both in terms of software and hardware, despite launching a year before its competitors, and perhaps most importantly, the 360 has become this generation’s hardcore darling.
This is not to say it’s a perfect machine. But Microsoft still has room to grow, and as someone who would call themselves a fan of the company’s general console direction, I’d love to see their next console not only duplicate the multiple successes of the 360 but iterate on its success as much as possible.
The following article is a general bullet-point esque argument on what I’d like to see the next hardware shape up to be. More after the jump.
Review: A Planet Lost and Found
Capcom started off this generation strong, with early announcements of new IPs in Dead Rising and Lost Planet, and it was as if the hype for one title boosted hype for the other (both titles were also under the supervision of Capcom star Keiji Inafune). The two games were somewhat of a pair of twins, both action titles with impressive graphics, and with enough of an original concept in each of them to make them stand out on store shelves. And while both were instant hits in retail upon their release, Dead Rising managed to become a cult-classic in the minds of many, while Lost Planet seems to have become “just another shooter” that failed to hold onto a larger audience. Going into these games, I myself thought that Dead Rising would be my preferred title of the two as well, but after hours spent with each game, there’s practically no doubt in my mind; I’m in love with Lee Byung-hun. [Rest of the review after the jump]
Dusting up the Streets
Street Fighter IV is being released today and so far the reviews have been rather phenomenal. The game also seems to have been a bigger success than anticipated in the marketplace; 
Amazon is currently sold out on both platforms and some B&M have sold out of pre-orders as well. Even in Japan, where Street Fighter never had the same dominating presence as in the States, the game sold out easily in its first day on store shelves. This doesn’t necessarily mean the game will be a sales juggernaut, it could simply be exceeding their predicted numbers, but it’s a good sign nonetheless.
For this game to overwhelmingly succeed would be a great sign of life for the fighter genre, a genre that’s been struggling for many years. Even moreso, the game is a 2D fighter, the likes of which been in even worse shape over the past few years as the stronger pedigrees these days tend to be 3D franchises (Soulcalibur, Tekken, Virtua Fighter). Is it traditional 2D i.e. hand-drawn sprites? Not quite, but the remnants of that style remain in the game’s play-control. I haven’t played the game yet myself, although I’m eagerly anticipating the first chance I get. I unfortunately won’t be buying it any time soon (out of respect to my bank account), but I imagine the online scene will manage to sustain itself for some time.
I’ve been a supporter of the majority of the decisions Capcom made with this new Street Fighter, and I feel that they may be the developer who can give the fighting games a second wind if the game succeeds enough. The most important step they made was the 3D-over-2D engine. It does alter the general feel a little, but with a fantastic trade-off. The 3D engine allows the game a more modular structure that’ll allow it to be much more easily upgraded over the next few years. King of Fighters XII, still rooted in sprite-work however, will likely struggle with the same issues of cost and time that it has struggled with for years in iterating the franchise. People joke about the Morrigan sprite from 1995, but there’s a reason for that, and Capcom made an effective and smart business choice by going with this 3D engine instead. In addition I feel they were smart to bring the game back a little from the greater complexity of Street Fighter III. I like that series from the limited time I shared with it, but it was never as approachable as the flagship Street Fighter II series. I don’t know if I’d have as much interest in playing something like Street Fighter II HD Remix now as it feels a bit bare in terms of fighting systems, but Street Fighter IV may play the perfect medium between the two. I do feel for SFIII fans who were annoyed at the complete lack of III characters in IV, it’s unfortunately just another business choice they made considering how many people were turned off by the almost completely new cast of III. I don’t think the original World Warriors are as iconic as Capcom wants you to think, but they’ve all etched themselves into the memories of everyone who grew up playing this franchise. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of direction Capcom takes with the inevitable introduction of other characters (aside from the 12 original characters and 4 new ones, the rest have been a mix of Alpha and New Challengers for the most part).
From what I’ve seen, the only blatantly disappointing aspects of the game lie with Capcom’s lack of dedication towards single-player modes. There is no dedicated single-player mode ala Weapon Master (from SCII) or the World Tour mode from Capcom’s own SF Alpha 3. Just straight up arcade, which is also the only way to unlock characters from what I’ve heard (this rings too familiar of playing through MvsC2′s Arcade mode again and again and again as it was the only realistic way of unlocking characters). In fact I just finished unlocking the last 3 characters in my save file the other day, after 7 years. Unlocking won’t be anywhere near that bad in SF IV, but Capcom should make it more flexible. Finally there’s no create-a-character mode despite that mode’s growing popularity in fighters. Can’t say I was expecting it, but it would’ve been a nice addition. For Capcom to add in more single-player functionality as DLC would be a little useless, considering most of these modes are there mostly to gain familiarity, but if they do make other versions (Champ, Hyper, etc.) for retail in the future, they should really keep these kinds of additions in mind.
It’s going to be interesting to watch how IV fares up in the long run compared to III. With this game, it feels like Capcom is once-again placing Street Fighter as a brand and they’ve given it a pretty decent marketing campaign. The Collector’s Edition comes with a new anime movie, UDON is doing a 4-issue length comic sub-series based on the new characters, and Capcom is doing the most work it’s done in a while to give the game it’s own visual feel (with the ink splotches that are added in battle for aesthetic affect, accompanying cutscenes for the arcade mode, the previously mentioned 3D engine, fancy super and ultra combos, etc.) In contrast, Street Fighter III wasn’t marketed well and not easily available to the average gamer. All three versions were ported to the Dreamcast, but the only other way to play the games were on the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for PS2 and Xbox. Even there, III wasn’t the main feature (Third Strike was put in to complement the SFII Hyper Fighting portion). It was also in arcades, but by the late 90s, arcades were already long in the tooth. In contrast most every other Street Fighter affiliated franchise was all over the place: SFII was ported to just about everything, Alpha saw games on Saturn, PS1, DC, and even GBA, and the Marvel vs. Capcom series was similarly treated. To be fair, III has long-earned itself a special place in the underground fighting game scene, but Capcom never quite gave it a chance to be a mainstream success. It’s pretty clear they’ve learned from their mistakes with their positioning of IV, most telling is the port to the HD-consoles just a few months after the arcade release (and with a few additions to boot). Hopefully it works out well for them.
I’ll bookend this with an excerpt from James Mielke’s review over at 1up. As you can see, he’s more than faithful in what this new entry could do for the franchise:
In my opinion Capcom and DIMPS have done an amazing job with Street Fighter 4. It’s obvious from front to back that the people working on this game knew the legacy they were contending with, and found the guts to finish this project with conviction. This is no mere copycat; this is a proud new addition. It’s a bold, confident fighter that celebrates its heritage while bringing fresh, new ideas to the table, arriving in a remarkably complete package that — if this were the last Street Fighter to ever be created — earns its rightful place in the series’ canon. It’ll be great to see the tournament-quality matches that arise from this fourth iteration (as well as the crazy exploits that only the best players can discover), and the future innovations it will awaken in Capcom. In all, it’s a fine return to form from the masters of the genre.
Thoughts: Does GTA deserve GotY?
When I look at the list of nominess from all the big sites-GTA has won GotY so far on GameTrailers, Spike, GiantBomb, and surely more to come-I realize that I missed out on a ton of the big hits from this year. It seems wrong to say that perhaps GTA doesn’t deserve the big award (considering I didn’t play a bunch of the competitors) but it wouldn’t feel right to say it deserves it either.
The game did have its share of amazing for sure: it was successful in all its flashiness, did a great job at capturing the various parts of New York City, had some well-done setpieces to give the action some flavor, and there was witty dialogue mixed in throughout. I remember those amazing setpieces well (like the assault on the construction site, or the abandoned building on governor’s) but what about all the hours of gameplay that surrounded these moments? Much of it was shallow, sometimes pointless, and other times boring. It was as if Rockstar North was so obsessed with placing the player in the shoes of a real life gangster’s day-to-day that they perhaps forgot that the gangster’s life is full of tedious, uneventful BS (which they captured). And as is probably the reality, the majority of time is spent performing those uneventful activities as opposed to all the “glamourous” stuff spread throughout.
GTA occasionally feels like an art house game with how guided it is by a single vision, but like many art house productions, it gets ahead of itself. One of the biggest disappointments I had with the game is the in-game radio, which in previous titles was often fantastic. But with IV, the developers went so obscure and experimental that I would switch from station to station and find nothing that I liked. It may have given the game some “underground” value but what about the rest of the population who loved all the cheesy hits in Vice City? There’s not a single Top 40-ish station in the game and that is a major false step. And then there’s the driving model, which the player will eventually adjust to but then come back later and hate it all over again. Would it have been such a failure to go with more conventionally accessible controls such as the Burnouts, Need for Speeds, PGRs, etc. rather than the “baby the brake button” style that we see in IV? As to what they were thinking ending the game in New freakin’ Jersey when the game is inspired by New York City? I’d really love to know.
For all its finer points, the game was set out too much to impress on production values and experimentation with the III formula rather than impress with the sheer fun of the overall gameplay (which is what fans of the III-based games originally loved the games for). I imagine Rockstar has a lot of work to do in recapturing all the mindshare they’ve lost, but in reality, I don’t imagine they really care what the people who “didn’t get it” really think.
I just had one of those moments (fighting game talk, you’ve been warned)
For the first time, I looked at the puppeteer instead of the puppet and I felt enlightened. I jumped back into Soulcalibur IV after some time away and while my main attraction was to beef up my multi-skills, I thought I’d return to the single-player to flesh out my moveset a bit.
The problem with the IV single player is that the main mode, Tower of Souls is it’s ridiculously difficult near the end, nigh impossible for probably 95% of the population without looking to outside help. I myself got stuck months ago and basically gave up on it, and after jumping back in, I quickly remembered how frustrating it was (there were moments where I was about to crush the monitor. Good times). It’s due to the seemingly omniscient AI that always appears to know what I’m about to do and when, and exactly the right move to counter-act it.
I once read somewhere that it’s not a great idea to practice on the computer in order to build your overall ability. At the time it seemed a bit strange, who better to practice on than one of the most difficult opponents around? But today helped me realize a few things about these AIs, especially in comparison to playing with real, live people. People make mistakes, and they make a lot of ‘em. When the enemy AI buckles, it’s probably part of their programming to occasionally do the wrong thing or to lose control in certain situations. They can also dominate at the flick of a switch. Take any move that a real person might have trouble with, there’s a good chance the computer can block it no problem (the Siegfried 3-hit rush for instance). And being able to detect your button presses, they know exactly how to counter every situation. But that’s all they know.
What I think that person was getting at is, a real player is infinitely more possible to predict than an AI. Will the real player get the block in, will they fumble it, did they see it coming, maybe they already have my strategy all figured out? A person may not have the raw precision of an AI, but there’s much less programming going on in there. And this is where the epiphany basically came in. For the longest time I was trying to overpower the computer through sheer force and being turned away again and again. It wasn’t going to happen. But then I began to notice that they never quite took control of the battle. Instead they’d come right up to me and wait to react to me so they could dominate, but being a bunch of thinking transistors and what not, they could never take a smart initiative. They could block and block all they wanted, but they had no preparation for when they were right up against me (after blocking)–and then came the throw.
It may sound cliche, but it was almost Matrix like. Instead of seeing the opponent as someone I had to beat, it became a computer program I simply had to outthink. And somewhat amusingly they began to fall like dominoes (I ended up getting a few perfects on the floors above the one giving me all the problems). They may have all the movelists programmed into their faux players, but that didn’t mean they could figure me out. Once I found a way to exploit the AI, I could exploit the hell out of it, unlike a human player who could learn to handle the situation. I could telegaph its strategy from a mile away and that AI transformed from a over-the-top force to a plaything for my amusement. When playing against the computer over and over though, you end up getting programmed yourself on how to punish, but to punish a “dumb” AI that’ll never be able to properly compete. You yourself don’t become a more competitive force, you just become what you need to be to beat that computer.
This isn’t really going anywhere, but it was pretty amazing realizing how I could now figure out the opponent down to the few patterns it was using but they could never do the same towards me. A good player won’t be thinking in patterns and programming, rather they’ll take chances and do things you would never expect. The Virtua Fighter series is known for its outstanding AI programming, that AI is all based on the actual fighting styles and approaches of real players, same with Deep Blue back in the day.
To wrap up, I bet a lot of gamers who played Street Fighter II back in the day could recall how if you beat M. Bison on the first round, he’d become relentless the next and go apeshit on you (as if his programming jumped a few notches). He was frustrating as hell, but the fact that you could predict this would happen every time showed how simple it all really was. Unlike M. Bison, a normal person could have their good and bad days, but nothing is like a player when they’re on one of those good days.
Audio Diary (Press A): The Fallout from Bioshock
There is extremely little of anything spoilerific in this post so don’t worry about that. It is essentially a review/final thoughts.
Bioshock was a game that deserved to succeed whe n it did. As a shooter with a little more brain behind each pull of the trigger, it rose above the sea of other shooters that were coming out around it. It was also a pretty tightly wound package, you weren’t going to find any sniper levels or shitty car controls level inside the game. 
And with its unique aesthetic, it wasn’t a safe product to be putting out on the shelves. Bioshock deserved its at the time success, although I can’t say it deserves a spot among games that should absolutely be remembered 10 years from now.
I think just about everyone who played the demo was impressed. The left-hand/right-hand approach was too clever for being so simple and it seemed like there was so much to take in. Hacking and adventure portions also helped to break up the up-close combat. But then when you get around to the whole game,you start to realize the other secret about Rapture, there’s really not much else to it than those parts I told you about. I actually spent most of my time with the game about 6 months ago, saw the big reveal/twist, and promptly stopped playing, only to pick it up again and finally beat it just now.
I read from a blog Jeremy Parish posted a while back that when the developers were concepting the game, the gameplay took center stage and the storyline just kinda grew up around it. It’s a little strange since I’d imagine without the story aspects prodding you along, the game would’ve fallen on its ass in retail. The gameplay really doesn’t do the story any favors and actually at times, I felt a disconnect between the overall story and what my avatar was doing in my wanderings around Rapture. There’s all these interesting characters that you hear about in the audio diaries, who’ve done terrible things behind closed doors and you want to really see these faces while playing through the game. But first here’s a bunch of gunner splicers to get in the way and hold you off for a few minutes. And then some spider splicers, and a turret, etc. When you finally get around to meeting a few of the characters (you won’t meet all of them), it’s like you’re in Oz since they end up being extraordinarily ordinary, you fight them much like you do any other bad guy. Except they have a ton more health, which just ends up making it frustrating.
The battles around Rapture actually have a real sense of random encounters to them, and in traditional random encounter strategy, by the end of the game you’re so tired of trying to spice up the battles on your own that you just attack the crap out of everything. Most plasmids aren’t that functional and most feel awfully close to another despite having very different properties (having the enemy run around with their ass on fire vs. electrocuting them, they’re both essentially a stun in the end). And since switching from a plasmid to a gun isn’t as fluid as it could’ve been, by the latter third of the game I’d just about abandoned my left hand and simply sprayed everyone with my machine gun or shotgun. It wasn’t much fun, especially since later enemies are mostly just the same guys from the beginning with a lot more health, no new patterns or anything to refresh your approach towards them. Even the Big Daddy battles, which start out amazingly intense and compelling, can for the most part be finished with some well-placed, high-octane blasts later in the game. Your left hand will be scratching your own ass in the meantime. The most ironic thing here is that the Big Daddy battles are almost completely optional (I think one is required) so some players might not even see the most exciting parts of the game if they choose to ignore these guys.
The very real problem with Bioshock is it commits what I’d consider a cardinal sin of video games. It just isn’t that much fun for a lot of the time. Despite the seeming kitchen-sink range of options in guns, ammo, and plasmids, most of it will never be practical for progression so you’re much more limited than they’d want you to think. Now that I’m finished with the game, I might be having more fun than I was in the last few hours. No longer needing to scrounge around for bullets and chips and all that stuff, I just go wherever I want, do whatever I want, avoid all the idiots along my path, and have a good time. I’m also reading some FAQs about the characters along with story analyses and it’s almost painful how much more interesting it all seems in the FAQs than within the game.
Bioshock would’ve surely been a better game if it was more focused on isolating the player, so they can crawl around, take in the environment and those few encounters with those story characters would’ve been that much more impactful. Instead it seems like they’ve been locked away in a vault and some mindless enemies have taken over the joint, they’re now the show. I’ll be expecting more next time Mr. Levine.
Reaction: Dead Space demo-”Good show” EA
I’ve kept the skate. demo on my 360 HDD for nearly a year now but I can’t say I’ll do the same for Dead Space. There were three immediate red flags about the demo that warned me it would be a sloppy job. 1. It was terribly small for such an important game (less than 400 megs) 2. Given a subtitle of “Dismemberment” and 3. It was released a few weeks after the game had already been out.
From what I can tell, EA was basically releasing a “proof of concept” stage in lieu of a more traditional demo approach but they still could’ve done a way better job than this. You’re immediately dropped into the game with a lazy controller layout screen to get you “familiar” and a brief comment from an audiolog telling the player character to dismember enemies if they want to survive. And that’s about it. Without being able to look at the layout again (it’s not in the options menu), I couldn’t figure out how to reload (Aim up+A, so simple!), and didn’t even realize I could switch guns till after I had died a few times. They also don’t tell you about the inventory aspect that allows you to refill your health partially. IT’S LIKE EA IS DOING A META-COMMENTARY ON HOW IT MUST FEEL TO BE DROPPED INTO AN UNKNOWN AND HOSTILE SPACE. A DEAD SPACE.
As to the dying? Well in addition to not telling you how to do anything, you’re also brought into a room and immediately swamped with multiple enemies-and from multiple sides-who will more than likely kill you. By the way I might as well tell you that your health is a bar parallel to the character’s spine, the demo left that little part out. The room is ridiculously tight so you can’t run away forever (and it seems you have to fight to progress anyway). After the 5th or 6th time, I got past all the bad guys, you’re told to go somewhere else. When you open that door, a humongous creature is waiting for you and instantly kills you. And then it ends.
A trained player could likely finish this sequence in 2 minutes to give you an idea of it’s lenght. With what this demo presents, I might be better off going to someone who’s played the game already and asking their opinion rather than judging it based on the demo. A good amount of people may be completely turned off by the immediately ridiculous difficulty that is presented to them, although I’m sure the full game is more appropriate about scaling it up. And it fails to convey any of the themes the greater game presents like isolation or terror. Instead, all I felt was frustration. The demo simply gives me no idea at all of what to expect from the entire game.
In a world of kiss-ass journalism, I’m going to say it straight. What the hell were you thinking EA?
#2 – Devil May Cry 4
Not wanting to try and revolutionize the genre like both DMC1 and 3 arguably did, Capcom decided it instead would try and combine the best of both worlds to their ability. For the most part, I thought they succeeded. DMC4 wasn’t as inherently exciting since it wasn’t as fresh an experience as the previous two games were, but it helped show that their was a lot of life to the 3D action genre and that the games weren’t a one-generation wonder.
Rookie Nero’s adventure more than impressed me with his Devil Bringer mechanic, despite having only 1 weapon at his control. I admittedly stopped right at the infamous switch between him and Dante and didn’t pick up the game again for a few months, but this was a premature decision on my part. Dante’s quest was a step back to some degree (since Nero made chaining enemy combos much easier and fluid), but given some time, he was still a load of fun to play. Sure you were going through the exact same levels as Nero, another major complaint, but any DMC fan should recall that both the first and third title had a decent amount of repetition themselves, only just given a face paint. Both characters had a unique feel to them, and I don’t think any fans of the franchise expected them to both feel relevant and worthwhile, but that was the ace Capcom really pulled off in this game.
In my opinion, the franchise hasn’t lost a step in terms of how exciting the games are to play. And I think with this game, Capcom may have finally captured a unique aesthetic and style for the series. Yuji Shimomura’s cutscene direction also blew me away when most swordfighting action in film these days is just plain boring to watch (*cough* Advent Children). Most importantly, the enemy design has made a fantastic recovery since 3′s weakly done “7 sins + some chess pieces” style. Capcom wasn’t in a position where they could please everybody since 3 created some fractures among what the fans wanted, but with the direction they took, I thought they did an excellent job.
Will I be expecting a fresher game the next time around? Most likely, but my ambition for the next title hasn’t suffered 1 bit. Just…just rethink the music for all of us please.
[Screen from TeamXbox]
Reaction: Left4Dead Demo
I’ve been in eager anticipation of Left4Dead for as long as I can remember and everything about it pointed to me liking it. Co-operative, a zombie/survival horror affair (although it was difficult to tell from footage whether it’d be scary at all), Valve was sponsoring the title-they later bought out the developer, always a good sign-, and Valve has been pretty successful with everything they’ve done even if it didn’t involve Half-Life. Team Fortress 2 was one of the most enjoyable pick up and play experiences I’ve ever had with a game, and while I’ve yet to give Portal a full run-through, there was more than enough lavish praise given to it last year.
In the past few months my interest has waned however, as the in-game footage came off as repetitive, predictable, and majorly lacking of that Valve polish. Now I can’t give my impressions of the PC version as it could very well play out like a different game, but for such a unique premise, the 360 version hasn’t done much to impress me. First off, the controls seem almost randomly assigned (LB is crouch, B is reload when just about everyone uses X, I can’t remember what RB does if anything). More importantly, the gunplay neither feels satisfying nor do I feel like I’m fully in control. Say what you want about duel analogs, but they’ve certainly felt sharper than this. Isn’t this game a shooting affair? The explosives usually don’t seem worth going out of the way for as well.
Now if I were to post this on GAF, sure as hell first thing they’d ask me is what difficulty I’m playing on. Some would say anything but expert isn’t worth playing on. In addition, one run through on difficult can play easy as day while the next is a pain in the ass with everyone going down left and right. Is it all in my head or is the AI director maybe too wavering for it’s own good? The demo is easily more entertaining when everyone is struggling as it forces the players to do things outside of shooting another zombie, maybe protect a friend about to be attacked or revive a teammate. So basically from what I’ve gathered, the game is more entertaining when your teammates are incompetent or rookies? Just play a single player round with the overly diligent team AI and you’ll see how uninteresting this game can be. I know the AI director is supposed to arrange the game to be as flexible as possible and keep the player on their toes, but is fighting the Tank at this point in a level really that much more interesting than the other time you fought it? Unfortunately it’ll still attack you roughly the same way and a change of scene can’t completely change the experience.
I won’t dismiss Left4Dead just yet, the PC version could be a whole other animal, but I can’t quite see this game sitting next to the other Valve masterpieces when we all look back 5 years from now. There’s plenty of potential here and the title seemed able to innovate, but when the core game just doesn’t come off too fun, it’s hard to see any lasting significance.
