Chaos Rings (iPhone) First Impressions

I've had the iPhone (currently iPhone 3GS) since near release.  The platform has put out nothing of interest to me gaming-wise other than bite-sized throw away games.  Sword and Poker was the closest thing to a game I would go out of my way to play.  It's surprising too, because the iPhone/iPod Touch is just begging for turn-based RPGs.  Instead, we keep getting action RPGs that necessitate crummy on-screen controls for fighting.  They are all too basic for my tastes.

Along comes SquareEnix with Final Fantasy I & II.  Two games I can't get back into, but I think we're on the right path.  SquareEnix's follow up?  Chaos Rings.  It's a match made in heaven.  Chaos Rings is a near-PSP quality, original RPG.  The story, characters, and development system are all unique.  The story, interestingly enough, appears to be broken apart by the pairs of main characters you select.  I assume it will require at least two play-throughs to put the whole picture together.

Movement on screen is through the use of an on-screen virtual analog stick.  That's the only use for the on-screen control and that's fine with me.  Random encounters were chosen inside dungeons as you move from room to room.  Puzzles break up the dungeons, basically locking off progress until you figure out how to slide boxes into place (sometimes more complicated than it sounds).  The battles themselves are classic JRPG turn-based.  You poke menu selection on screen and flick through lists as you would expect on the iPhone.

Characters grow through levels like normal, but their skill sets are determined by the monsters that they defeat.  You can equip DNA blocks from the monster (like monkey and elephant DNA).  First you equip DNA to a character, I believe up to four of them.  Then as you defeat more of a given type of enemy, you may learn new skills/abilities from them that get imprinted on the DNA.  It's a pretty cool system, if not a bit random in the way you learn them from fights.  The management of the DNA and which to equip is satisfying though.

During fights, you can choose to fight separate or as a pair, only ever two people in your party.  Pairs seem to do more damage, but a single enemy attack hits both of them.  I haven't found it useful outside of finishing off the last enemy from an encounter.  HP regenerates after every fight, so these random encounters are always dangerous.  Sometimes annoyingly so.  Your MP however does not regen and can only be refilled by finishing the dungeon or returning to the starting point (grinding basically).

Like I said, the graphics and presentation are top-notch.  It really looks close to a PSP game, plus there's a fair bit of voice acting.  It's also the first and only iPhone game where I've played with headphones or even actually had the sound on at all.  All in all, even at $12 (at the time of release), this is no brainer addition for your iPhone/iPod if you are looking for a real game or have been waiting for a decent turn-based RPG.

UFC 2010 Press Event Trip Report

It was a whirlwind few days as I flew across country to Vegas to play UFC Undisputed 2010.  Wednesday I spent the majority of the afternoon in the casino at The Palms.  I've been to Vegas a handful of times already.  The Palms is already a very small casino, relatively.  I'm usually lost all day in a Vegas casino, much less being able to see the way out like I could from just about anywhere in The Palms.  It was midweek and mid afternoon so it was pretty slow. Just to have fun, I made it a point to play different games besides the usual fun of craps and blackjack.  So I tried out Crazy 4 Poker, Three Card Poker, and Pai-Gow Poker.  They were all really fun table games and I ended up pretty much even.

We had a nice dinner with THQ over in Palms Place Wednesday night, then I went to the casino for a bit more before bed.  I don't play slots.  As much as I've watched people play, it just seems to never pay off and the since you aren't waiting on anything the pulls, and the money, seem to go fast.  The only one I've ever played with a serious investment is the $1 Wheel of Fortune.  On a $2 play, if you get Spin on the last reel, you get to spin the big wheel up top for up to $1000.  I've played maybe four or five times and always won money, but this trip broke the streak.  I didn't get a single spin all night.  Now I know how you feel Andrew.

23 hours awake from getting the airport until I crashed.  Thursday was another full day.  First thing was meeting downstairs for a healthy and energy filled breakfast.  From there we loaded up on buses and headed to The Ultimate Fighter training facilities.  The location of this place seems to be so secretive, so I figured it was out in the middle of the desert or something, but it was right around the corner from the Palms.  As a big fan of UFC (I actually watched UFC 1 on PPV), it was pretty surreal walking through those doors and onto the set of the TV show.

The place was smaller than I pictured but has everything you'd need to train.  We were set to work out for a few hours before a Q&A with some fighters.  Shawn Tompkins warmed us up with with some cardio and stretching.  From there I went to the boxing area for some circuit training.  Did some rings runs and hit the hand pads with a big time boxing trainer, whose name currently escapes me.  After my time in the ring, I went and worked the heavy bag with Carlos Condit and Todd Duffy.

Following boxing, I moved into The Octagon.  Yes, The Octagon.  Once I got over the awe factor it was time for an intro to Muay Thai.  Shawn Thompkins was the instructor, and he was very cool.  Sam Stout, big fan, was also around to help out.  Jiu Jitsu was the last station, and Marc Laimon was there to lead the way.  Helping out was undefeated UFC welterweight Johny Hendricks.  Marc showed us video and technique behind the kimura and kimura transition to arm bar.  We paired up and found out just how difficult it is to remember the seemingly natural progression of moves to lock in these submissions.

My partner had a hard time getting enough pressure on my elbow to make me tap to an arm bar.  I'm pretty flexible in my elbow and shoulder, so we asked Johny how he handles that situation.  So he was kind enough to oblige our question by quickly locking an arm bar on me, demonstrating how thrusting with the hips or moving the arm more over the thigh can seal the deal.  Indeed, I tapped!

After training, I said hi to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira who was also very nice.  About then I saw Frank Mir and then Forrest Griffin walk in.  Forrest was huge in person.  He honestly looked bigger than Mir.  The Q&A with this group was pretty awkward.  Only Frank, Johny, and Carlos seemed to have any interest in gaming.  The fighters hadn't played the new game yet, and the press didn't take the hint and move the questions away from the game and onto something the fighters could have actually answered.

After some lunch and a little reprieve, it was off the the Hugh Hefner suite at the Palms to play the game the rest of the night.  We got a good demonstration of upgrades from the previous version of the game.  I've got detailed hands on impressions of the game here on Gaming Age.  We played for about four hours and then we started a big 34-man tournament.  The prize?  An official UFC championship belt.  I'm proud to say I made it to the final match, but I'm sad to say I lost that last fight.  Dakota from Game Zone took home the prize when his Machida finished my Evans by TKO from strikes.  I nearly had a kimura completed mid first round, but once I lost it, the fight was pretty much over.

Pretty awesome couple of days.  I absolutely can't wait for the game to release as that five hours of solo and multi play was a pretty big tease.  I'll hopefully have the pictures and video dumped from my camera so I can update this with some visuals tonight.

Update: One quick picture from my phone.  This was the view off the balcony.  I was playing by the fireplace and the bar around the corner.

I'm Off to the UFC 2010 Event

I'll be out for the next few days at the UFC 2010 event in Vegas.  I'll going hands on with the new single player career mode and enhanced multiplayer mode.  I'll have the report up on Gaming Age when I get back, and I'll hopefully have some video to put here as well.

New Screens and Trailer from EA's MMA

EA has released some new media in conjunction with the Strikeforce event on CBS this past weekend.  You can see the newest screens on Gaming Age, and I've linked the trailer below.  EA is showing off the fighters from the show.  The graphics aren't too bad, but the animation doesn't look all that great.  Of course it remains to be seen how it will play (a lot like UFC I would imagine).  It'll be nice to have two companies making a sports game again, which seems to be more and more rare.

Might and Magic Go MMO, Beta May 2010

Heroes of Might and Magic is a series of RPGs on the PC that blend strategy of world building with turn-based combat.  I've had a passing interest in the series and have played a bit of III, IV, and V.  Looks like the online (MMO) version of the game will be based on HOMM III with the updated graphics of V.  It sounds like it's going to be more than just an online game though, as they promise a persistent world with guilds and the rest of the trimming you'd expect from an MMO.  I'm intrigued at the thought of an MMO with a turn-based rule set.  We'll see how it turns out soon as the beta is coming early May 2010.

Mythos Pyromancer Class Announced, Release This Year

I've been following Mythos off and on since its inception.  It's an interesting history.  I first heard about the game around 2007 and remember it being developed by ex-Blizzard/Diablo team members.  At the time, that was an offshoot of Flagship Studios.  The game, also very much like Diablo from what I saw, went into closed beta soon after, but before open beta could ever occur, the company folded.  That team went on to form Runic Games and put out the excellent title Torchlight last year.  The rights to the game were picked up by Korean dev Hanbitsoft, and they've been working on resurrecting Mythos.

So, here we are now.  Mythos, published by Redbana in the US, has an expected release data in the US later this year, and the closed beta should be starting soon.  It looks like Hanbitsoft has taken the focus of the game to be more online (MMO) oriented.  From looking at the trailer though (below), it seems the core Diablo-like gameplay is completely intact.  Looks like another great entry into the genre, and one more thing that will help ease the wait for Diablo III.



Update: Screenshots

Yu-Gi-Oh TCG Finally Coming to XBLA

I can never figure myself out sometimes.  I rail on kiddie games like Pokemon, but I love a kid/teen trading card game like Yu-Gi-Oh.  I have a serious weak spot for card games, but there aren't that many that really last.  Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Marvel Vs. DC are certainly three long standing games.  Yu-Gi-Oh has really been the only one that's put any effort into bringing the card game to digital format though.

The Vs. game was awesome (PSP/DS/PC), but it was only Marvel cards and there's no sign of there ever being another one made, too sad.  Magic tried early on the PC and then went AWOL (minus a bad spin-off on the original Xbox) until Magic the Gathering showed up on Xbox Live Arcade.  The Magic XBLA game was a nice representation of the card game, but it was severely held back by having a very small card pool and lack of acquiring and editing decks.  The cards were also very basic, using mostly entry level rules and reactions.

Yu-Gi-Oh on the other hand has been putting out full-fledged games for years.  The games, mainly on PSP and DS have kept the series up to date with newly released expansions and rules.  They generally come packed with thousands of cards, which you earn buying in-game packs with in-game money (thankfully).  This is why I'm so excited about the announcement.  It'll be great to get these handheld games with the full rules and high resolution graphics on a current console.  I wish I had more details about the number of cards and how current the set list will be, but I'll be sure to keep my eyes and ears open.

N3II: Ninety-Nine Nights Screens

I was in the vast minority when it came to the first Ninety-Nine Nights.  You can find my review here on Gaming Age.  It came out in the infancy on the 360 and it struck a chord with me at the time.  The Dynasty Warriors port was crummy, and N3 looked like it really belonged on the system.  I'll have to check, but I think I got 1000 achievement points for it or at least close to it.  So, I'm really looking forward to the second one, and it looks like they've included online co-op this time around.  Here's some screens just released from Konami's Gamer's Night;

Lucha Libre AAA: Heroes of the Ring Screens

I have a few updates today from Konami's Gamer's Night.

I was once a huge wrestling fan (late 80's/early 90's), and certainly a big fan of the games as well.  Both the live action and the games have fallen out of my favor.  I feel like I still want to like wrestling, but the shows are lacking in content and the games are too arcade-y and have gotten extremely stale.  Chalk that one up to THQ having the WWE license wrapped up (Madden syndrome).

TNA was pretty weak as far as game mechanics go, so that leaves me with playing old Japanese Puroresu games like King of Colosseum 2 and Square's All-Star Pro Wrestling 3, which are still very excellent but now pretty dated.  Firepro Wrestling Returns on PS2 was also pretty good, but it's hard to play a 2D wrestler nowadays.

Back to the subject at hand.  I know very little about the gameplay in Lucha Libre AAA, but here's a batch of screen shots.  I love the Lucha style of wrestling.  The character models look decent enough in stills.  If the animation is top notch and the gameplay is solid, I'm on board.

Nintendo Doesn't Fear Apple Gaming (Pot/Kettle/Black)

Kotaku talked with Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America.  The subject, iPhone and iPad gaming treading on Nintendo territory.  Reggie says,

Apple "is not having an impact on Nintendo when you look at our business, our volume, our hardware, our software," Fils-Aime said. "I've seen data that suggestions that while consumers are constantly downloading Apps, they play with them for a few times and then they are moving on to the next thing.

The funny thing is we've heard this before.  It came from the mouths of Microsoft and Sony executives when talking about Nintendo.  You could replace Apple with Nintendo and Nintendo with Sony/Microsoft, and I've heard this quote before.  Also,

"If our games represent a range between snacks of entertainment and full meals depending on the type of game, (Apple's) aren't even a mouthful, in terms of the gaming experience you get."

That's really worth a laugh, because that is truly the knock that Microsoft and Sony have on Wii games.  It's amusing to see how defensive the companies can get when it involves someone else's success.  The best part is, they're all right in a way.  Nintendo was hugely successful with the Wii, but it didn't really affect the success of the 360 or the PS3.  The core gamers still supported the new systems, while the Wii captured a new audience.  I think the same thing is happening here.  Apple has gained yet another new audience, but I don't think it's by sacrifice.  I don't believe people are standing in a store holding an iPhone in one hand and a DS in the other trying to make a choice.

LTTP: Tales of Vesperia Playthrough

Finishing Final Fantasy XIII has left me wanting more RPG gaming.  After a few days respite, I was ready to dive into another game.  With nothing pressing, I had anything new plus my entire, scary backlog to choose from.  I'd like to play through Assassin's Creed 2 and Uncharted 2, but I was really still in the mood for an RPG.  Mass Effect 2 is a decent candidate, but I have yet to finish ME1, and I've lost my save.  So, even though I haven't been a fan of past games and have only played them briefly, I chose Tales of Vesperia.  A game many proclaim one of the best RPGs of the generation.

I'm but a mere 5 or so hours into the game.  I absolutely love the artwork and presentation.  I'm not a huge anime fan by any stretch, but I love the art style.  Voice acting is good so far.  I really dig Yuri as a character and his voice actor.  Not a whole lot going on in the story yet, and I haven't expected much.  The systems are also still unfolding.  I can cook now, but not much else.

For all the reasons listed above, I'll be continuing with the game, but it's more in spite of the combat system, certainly not because of it.  I've never like the action oriented, button-mashy feel of the battles from past Tales games, and this is no exception.  Your party's actions are totally out of your control as everything occurs in real time.  There's some rudimentary party AI settings you can mess with, but ultimately when a fight starts both sides run at each other and a blur of swords and skills erupt.

I know there are still some of the extra pieces of the combat system are yet to be opened, but I can't see right now how it's going to make much of a difference.  It just feels like a poor man's fighting game inserted in the middle of a cool JRPG.  And it's a mix of the battle systems and character development systems that attract me to the genre in the first place.  Looks like I'm headed towards some skill upgrades, equipment crafting, and of course the cooking.  So, there are other things to keep me involved.  It just remains to be seen if I can tolerate the combat for 40 hours.

Fist of the North Star Dominates God of War III (Japan Sales)

Media Create Sales are out for last week in Japan, and it's very interesting to say the least.  Fist of the North Star from Koei sits in the #1 position with 385,000 copies sold on the PS3.  God of War III enters the charts at #6 at 43,000 sold.  I guess the Japanese gamers are bigger fans of anime history than Greek mythology.

That said, I'm very much looking forward to Fist of the North Star coming here to the US.  I have a soft spot for the Warriors series of games from Koei, and I remember the animated movie fondly.  I'm also pretty sure one of the first games I owned on the Genesis was a side scrolling Fist of the North Star game (what was that called?).  The clips I've seen of this new one look very appealing.

Resonance of Fate Quick Impressions

I'm through the first few chapters of Resonance of Fate and really unsure of what I think of the game so far.  It's not bad by any means, but it's not really pulling me back in the way I'd hoped.  It's funny too because as the battle system was described, I thought I'd be more inclined to like this game over Final Fantasy XIII.  Turns out the battle system is really complex yet somehow simple and repetitive at the same time.

I'm completely disengaged from the story, if there is one.  So far I don't know a thing about my party, why they act, or what purpose is moving the chapters forward.  The graphics are kind of a turd.  I love the concept and some of the environments, but everything looks low res.  The shadows are a jagged mess too.  The character designs are pretty cool and the attention to detail on the models are really the saving grace.

As for the gameplay, it'd be impossible to sum up all the system involved.  Regardless, battles typically devolve into running a path past an enemy with a machine gunner and then follow that up with a run past the same enemy with a handgun.  Positioning is important.  Unavoidable enemy assaults are frustrating.  I fear that the rest of the game is going to play exactly the same since I'm not sure anything new will be introduced.  There are no spells or skills to speak of.  So really, you can upgrade weapons for more power and recharge time and characters develop passive skill like +% chance to pierce armor or % chance to do 2x damage.

The overworld where you move between towns and dungeons is a fun little puzzle in itself.  You earn energy hexes as rewards and you can place them to unlock previously inaccessible areas of the map.  They may also uncover treasure as well in certain spot.  There are also terminals that you can connect with the correct colored hexes that grant party buffs in any areas connects by hexes to that terminal.

I'll give it a few more chapters to see if triggers something positive for me.

Final Fantasy XIII Review Posted on Gaming Age

I finished the game on Sunday with around 52 hours on the clock.  The review was posted on Gaming Age today.  As you can tell from the text and the score, I was really impressed.  Writing for Gaming Age can sometimes be a tricky proposition.  We are just gamers like yourself with lives outside of the gaming industry, not truly professionals.  This means a 52 hour RPG is going to take a bit longer to get a review out than, let's say, someone at 1up or IGN.

The best I can do is throw up some first impressions and maybe even updated impressions on here as I play along.  So, one of the hardest things to do is not review a review or not make statements about the current mood in the NeoGAF game thread.  I tried to talk about the pacing of the game without debating the opening week uproar over the "OMG linearity" and "the tutorial is 20 hours long!"  Hopefully the review stands on its own and will better stand the test of time because of it.  If I ever debate anything the community or press is saying about a game, that's what this space is for :)

Backbreaker Gets a US Release Date - May 25th

I was suitably impressed with the concept of Backbreaker when I first saw it demoed at E3.  I was equally excited about another company taking a stab at football, since EA's Madden has had a crushing vice grip on it for far too long now.  Madden needs competition in the worst way.  Unfortunately, the recent videos of the game in action don't look nearly as promising as the tech demo did.  I applaud the effort to take the physics of the game to the next level, and I will certainly try the game this summer.  Does anyone think this has a chance if a 2K football game (All-Pro Football 2K8) flopped as hard as it did?

Nintendo's Next Portable System is the 3DS

Nintendo announced a successor (term to be taken loosely) to the DS (or is that DSLite, or DSi, or DSiXL?). The temporary name "3DS" has been bestowed upon it.  No, that doesn't mean it's going to have three screens instead of two.  Nintendo states that, "games can be enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses."  And that it will also be fully backwards compatible with the current DSLiteiXL library.

This is where we are all supposed to make Virtual Boy 2 jokes, but somehow Nintendo has been pulling these gimmicks off for a good while now.  This seems like a bad idea to me, but you have to put me in the category of people that think the current 3D graphics are so badly blocky that they could poke your eye out.  Now you're going to put them on a 3D screen where they MAY ACTUALLY POKE YOUR EYE OUT.

Snowblind Studios Behind the Next Lord of the Rings Game

Warner Bros. Interactive announced a new game from Snowblind Studios, Lord of the Rings: War in the North.  I'm a big fan of Snowblind's previous games, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and the Champions of Norrath games.  They really know how to do Diablo-style action RPGs for the consoles.  I expect that this will be built along the same lines.  We can definitely use more co-op games like these on the current generation of systems.  It's too bad the release date isn't until 2011.

New EA MMA Trailer

I have to say, EA's MMA is looking pretty good by this new trailer.  The recent screen shots don't do it justice.  I'm a big MMA fan, and was hugely hooked on the UFC Undisputed demo.  Unfortunately the rest of the full game wasn't much better than the demo itself.  Nearly everyone played exactly the same, and the fight outcomes were nearly all identical.  The ground moves while far ahead of the old UFC games, were still a repetitive with generally the same transitions.  I'm fully on board with competition and can't wait to see what EA's game can offer.

Power Gig: Rise of the Six String Trailer

The music game market is kind of stagnating right now.  One thing that I loved about Rock Band when it first came out was certainly the addition of the drums.  While not replicating a full set, the basic fundamentals of playing the instrument was correct.  It also translated to the real thing.  I can attest to that.  The guitar is another story all together.  While undeniably fun, there's nothing about playing a plastic guitar in game that will provide any benefit (other than desire) to learn to play a real guitar.

I reviewed a guitar from Fretlight for GA, and it didn't really fit the bill either.  They were making that guitar before the popularity of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and they thought it might appeal to the gaming crowd.  Unfortunately the ideas didn't really mesh.  So, enter Seven45 Studios with their new game, Power Gig.  The controller for power gig, as you can see in the video below, is a real electric guitar that has Rock Band-like buttons on the fret board.  The guitar and game have two modes, a classic press the game button under the strings mode and a play with actual chords mode.  It doesn't sound like the developers are confident that this will help teach you guitar the way it's implemented, but I do think that the door is wide open for someone to capitalize on this open market.

<Insert witty comment about how ridiculous these people look here.>

Are We Ready for 3D Gaming?

CES 2010 showed us that consumer electronics were taking 3D visuals seriously.  GDC 2010 confirmed that it may be a real possibility for the future of gaming too.  Eidos announced that the Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY edition will be coming stateside like we suspected.  The game will come packed with four extra maps and include an option for 3D visuals with the packed in glasses.  I'll certainly be taking a look at it when it's released, but I really have no idea what to expect.

I've always written off 3D as a gimmick for movies and theme parks.  I'm dating myself here, but I remember eagerly anticipating the couple times a year broadcast TV would show a 3D movie.  I was little, but I think we got our glasses at the corner store with the TV Guide.  Later on 3D shows became an integral part of all the Florida theme parks.  None of those were particularly impressive.  Generally things that poked out of the screen to scare or amaze you looked out of focus.  With blockbuster movies now taking a chance on 3D, my level of skepticism was still very high, but once I saw Avatar and Alice in Wonderland in IMAX 3D, I think I'm a firm believer.  So bring on the games, movies, and new TVs (and more comfortable glasses please).  I'm optimistic and ready to try.

Might and Magic Clash of Heroes Goes HD

You may have seen the preview on the GA main page.  This is pretty big news.  I don't know how well Clash of Heroes sold on the DS, but it deserves a large audience.  Capybara has such talented artists, and the screen shots look awesome for the HD systems.

The game is a natural evolution of Puzzle Quest.  The combat system is much deeper and the world/story elements are far more traditional.  It really does feel like an RPG with tactics/puzzle based battles.   It's too bad that the original design was for high and narrow visuals (2 DS screens), so it does look a bit cramped on widescreen HDTVs.  Regardless, I can't wait to get a hold of it this summer.

Final Fantasy XIII Updated Impressions

I'm a little over 10 hours into the game now, and I just found out that I'm doing it wrong.  Gripping desperately to the old idea of turn-based combat, I immediately switched the ATB gauge to Slow before starting the game.  I figured that was my only hope for a short breath during combat to figure out what I wanted to do next.  "It seems weird that I can't get many 5-star results even when my only choice is the default attack," I whispered to myself.  Well, it's not weird, it's intentional.  I gimped myself!  The target time is not readjusted by the game for a slow ATB gauge.  At least I figured that out now instead of when I might be fruitlessly farming for components later.

I couple of things I'm real happy about that I didn't mention yesterday are the Crystarium and the Datalog.  Granted, the Crystarium isn't much more than the Sphere Grid from FFX, which wasn't the greatest tool for character development, but in the Crystarium you've got basically six Sphere Grids per character.  So you not only have choices with a single branch, but also which branches to develop in which order.  Even though a character's alternate classes might be far weaker than the main, at least there's a choice to play that way (for the truly hardcore runs).

There are certain tertiary things that FFXIII does that should be standard in every RPG.  The first is the most basic, allow for cutscenes to be paused and skipped.  Pausing a cutscene is still overlooked by some games and is a must for people with family or friends.  The second is providing a detailed recap of the story.  FFXIII tucks this away in the Datalog along with a bunch of other great information, like the bestiary and information on races, people, and lore.  The entries for each chapter of the story serve both to better understand the sometimes confusing nature of the party's motives and dialog (I know, they wouldn't need this if the dialog itself provided a better understanding) and to give your brain a refresher when coming back to the game.  This is crucial when you pick up an unfinished game months later.  The only thing missing is the ability to replay scenes from the game, a la God of War, assuming that doesn't come later.

The pressure of the target time started to wear me down last night.  Even though 5-star ratings aren't necessarily important in every fight, and the components this early aren't that incredibly important anyway, I still feel like it's hanging over my head every fight.  I'm adjusting my mindset to it.  I realized that there's just as much strategy in this battle system as in past games, it's just a different goal.

Instead of strategizing to kill the enemy with the least amount resources used and damage to my party, the strategy now is to kill the enemy in the shortest amount of time.  It's almost like a puzzle with every new encounter.  Winning with barely any health left is an acceptable term in order to finish the fight a couple seconds quicker.  Things like, don't buff just to become invincible if that time would have been better spent attacking for a quicker kill. Time is always on the mind.  Switching gears has taken a little time, but I like it nonetheless.

I took a few battles and completely disregarded time so I could experiment with different Paradigms and the effect of skills on different enemies.  I noticed things like Sazh's Firestrike (physical) doing about the same damage as his Fire spell (magic) against a neutral enemy even though his magic stat was a dozen or so points higher than his strength.  I love understanding the calculations behind the scenes in games like this, so I was happy to find this Game Mechanics FAQ which explained that Firestrike has a built in 1.2x damage multiplier.

My only real gripe right now is that the game appears to dictate that you use the Auto command if you want to ensure the best ratings.  Unless you're fighting something for the 10th time in a row, the AI will always know the correct pattern of skills to put on the ATB and far faster than I can come up with it.  It can take me a second or two to evaluate whether an AoE attack would hit if I targeted a specific enemy (Will he move by the time it fires? Is he really close enough?), when the AI will know in microseconds.  I can certainly get 5-star ratings picking my own abilities, but it irks me to know that the computer is better at it than I am.

Quick edit:  I just remembered a couple of flaws in the partner AI that really bug me.  They never use a partial ATB gauge.  I often want them to throw a one bar heal on themselves and a one bar heal on me, but I have to wait for two full ATBs to get the same effect.  Also, it's painful to have a debuff on a character and watch them not use the counter buff to wipe it away.

Final Fantasy XIII First Impressions

The wait between games seems to get longer and longer, but finally the day is here.  Final Fantasy XIII released in North America and Europe.  I've managed to put in about four and a half hours so far today, which puts me somewhere near the end of Chapter 3.  I wanted to put some thoughts down here before I hunker back in for the rest of the night.

To be honest, my expectations for the 13th installment of the series were at an all time low.  I've commented on it here before, at least in part.  It just seemed that all the decisions they were making were wrong, wrong, wrong, but I have to say thus far everything feels right, right, right.  At no point yet have I felt like I wish things would move faster, and I'm definitely itching to get right back to it.

The first real addition to the gameplay comes in around 3 hours 30 minutes, Paradigms and the Crystarium.  Even before that, there was plenty to keep me engaged.  I was honestly interested in how the story was unfolding, why the characters were involved and what was the overarching mission for the plot line.  There was even a pretty emotional scene in those first few hours, something I have't felt in an RPG in a while (ever?)  Perhaps it's bump in visuals, as we're nearing movie quality at times.  The story, and therefore the gameplay, jumps between characters and parties often in the beginning, which really works to keep things fresh.  There are enough cutscenes interspersed to keep a nice balance between fighting and storytelling.

Gameplay choices I knew I was going to like were just as good as I had imagined.  HP being completely restored after each battle is a wonderful thing.  Now an individual battle that isn't a boss can actually be interesting.  I've actually used potions for the first time since Final Fantasy went 3D.  Characters running around the battlefield in real time gives the game a Grandia feel, which can only be seen as awesome.  The reason it's important in XIII is the impact on area of effect attacks.  This also involves timing.  If an enemy is running in for a melee attack, you might want to hold that AoE attack a little longer until he wanders back close to the pack.

Choices that I was really concerned about have not bothered me so far and in some cases been quite enjoyable.  Without a doubt, my biggest gripe going in was over losing control of your party, a trend in current gen RPGs that I wish would go away (note to devs:  you can save yourselves a lot of programming time by not having to cram in AI where I don't want it).  At least they've completely taken away the ability to switch the controllable party member completely.  Now I don't have to stress about when, if, and how to change characters in real time.  Now I can concentrate on my job within the party completely.  Paradigms also add a whole new level of strategy that I thought would be missing without full control over the party.  Similar in ways to FFXII but without the crummy MMO-style combat.

The other thing was the emphasis on cinematic combat and therefore on speed.  Even using the "slow" setting for the ATB, combat is still blistering at times.  Even the end of battle ranking, which dictates the reward, is based solely on speed.  It's here where I'm still feeling a bit rushed.  I'd like some optional pauses during combat to let me gauge the best target for each attack, to better plan my attack string, and to analyze the best choice for a Paradigm Shift.  I feel like they really just want you to use Auto-Battle for your main character and just let the game play itself.  I vehemently protest against that.

Ultimately, regardless of going in with low expectations, I'm in love with the game so far.  It really feels like Final Fantasy and not a spin-off, knock-off, or even a completely non-traditional JRPG, all things that had run through my mind.  Certainly goes to show, opinions can't truly be formed unless you spend time with a game first hand.  Off to play, will check back soon.

Activision Couldn't Appear More Evil

The latest legal battle between Activision and Infinity Ward studio heads, Jason West and Vince Zampella, really takes the cake.  Mind you this is opinion of course without knowing all the facts of the situation, but on the outside looking in, it just looks like Activision trying to screw a couple of guys out of a whole lot of money.  At the same time Activision is trying to hang on to the Call of Duty franchise, which West and Zampella state they are in sole ownership of.

This once innocent publisher put out games that pushed the envelope on the Atari 2600, like Pitfall, Chopper Command, and River Raid.  Now they can't seem to escape the image of a money hungering beast.  Selling the soul of the Guitar Hero franchise (Harmonix) only to hand it off to a talented group of skateboard game developers (Neversoft), all along claiming Rock Band to be a rip off.  They've swallowed up mid and upper tier publishers like they were plankton (Vivendi, Blizzard, FreeStyleGames, Bizarre).  All while led by a man that can't keep himself out of controversy.  He's only interested in franchises that "have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million franchises".  In other words, exploiting you.

Ubisoft DRM Falters and All They See is Success

Joystiq scrounged up this bit of info from an Ubisoft twitter:

"Servers were attacked which limited service from 2:30PM to 9:00PM Paris time [8:30AM to 3:00PM ET]," 

"95% of players were not affected, but a small group of players attempting to open a game session did receive denial of service errors.

 That's great.  Once again a case of the lawful gamers being punished for the actions of others.  Penny Arcade put it perfectly when they pointed out these awful cyclical events.  Publisher creates some outrageous DRM that puts restrictions on a game that you have less and less rights to, and pirates continue to crack those DRMs causing the companies to create even harsher restrictions.  Ubisoft's current version requires a constant internet connection.  Well, there goes the ability to play Assassin's Creed 2 on a gaming laptop on road trips, flights, or anywhere else there's not easy access to the net.

PS3s Simultaneously Stop Working Around the Globe

The image above is what greeted me after a long weekend of manual labor.  I sat down in front of the PS3 ready to give Heavy Rain another shot.  The system couldn't connect to the network, which was odd since it was working elsewhere in the house.  No big deal, I didn't need to be online.  Started Heavy Rain.  Registration, trophy, game will quit...WTF?!

I was just talking about my frustrations with Heavy Rain, so I immediately thought something else was wrong with it.  Took it out, put it back in, restarted the system without the network cable and ended up with the same result.  Really?!  I can't play the game at all?  That's when I noticed system time was off: 12/31/1999.  Well, I wasn't using the network to set the time.  Maybe it was just off.  It was worth looking up the error code online.

Boom!  Tons of hits right away.  I hopped over to NeoGAF and really got a sense of scale on the situation.  Global meltdown.  Nearly every non-slim PS3 in the world was unable to play games or connect to the Playstation Network.  Wow.

The GAF think tank has some pretty good theories since we aren't hearing anything substantial from Sony yet.  Today is March 1st, and the operating system may have made a mistake and assumed this was a leap year.  If it went to the calendar to set the date to 2/29/2010, that date would not be found.  It appears this all started around midnight GMT as well, which lends to a calendar/date bug.

Just how is Sony going to resolve this though, if it doesn't fix itself (which doesn't look likely)?  Once they fix things on their side, will we be able to reconnect to the PSN to get a firmware fix?  Will this even be fixable by firmware?  What about people with no network connection to their PS3?  Mail out discs with a firmware update?  Is that possible?  Jim suggested that we should all be sent new PS3 slims, and I've heard that seconded by many of my friends as well.  It seems a fair solution :)  Lots of questions to be answered and the only word out of Sony so far is that they are aware of the problem.

This is a pretty monstrous event if you ask me.  Will be back with updates as they occur.

Update already: Sony has spoken up on their Playstation Blog.  So, the problem is as suspected.  Don't turn on your system...too late for that.  Problem should be resolved within 24 hours, but no mention on how easy rolling out the fix will be.  Looks like people who turned on their system could be looking at some data loss or corruption, not good.

Update 2: It looks like Sony worked real hard *wink* to get those system working again at exactly 24 hours, *cough* fixeditself *cough*

Heavy Rain Wows and Whoas

I picked up Heavy Rain right away, since I'm done with White Knight Chronicles and FF XIII isn't out yet.  My wife showed some interest in wanting to play through together, so that was extra motivation.  I have to say I'm really impressed with it so far, and it's not the kind of genre I'd think I'd enjoy given that there's not much action to it.  I guess you'd describe the game as an interactive movie/drama, kind of reminds me of old school choose your own adventure books.

Right away you can tell the production values are through the roof.  Attention to detail in scenery, character models, expressions, emotions, and most importantly direction and cinematography.  It sucks you in really quickly too, in that you don't really feel like you are playing a game but are more a part of the story.  It's a lot like a good movie in that regard.  I'm not very far into it yet, so I don't have a lot to say about how it progresses after the first few chapters, but I'm definitely hooked.

It's a shame though that such an excellent game is marred by some pretty horrendous bugs, hence the groans you might be hearing all over the internet.  I was certainly disgusted enough the other night to put it away for a couple of days.  There's been lots of talk of freezing and save corruption bugs, but mine came in the form of audio bugs.  Well, to be fair, one of them was my fault I guess.

When I moved the PS3 to another room, I hooked up the network and optical out for audio, two things I wasn't using the first night I played.  The game downloaded and installed a sizable patch.  Afterwards, I had no sound in the game, but I had sounds in the menu.  I could hear it through HDMI, but not through optical.  I was out of my mind for a good 45 minutes, before I finally saw some mention of DTS 5.1.  My Dolby headset does not support it, yet it was casually checked in the PS3 system menu, which I guess made the game try to use it and resulted in no sound at all.

With that out of the way, I was tired but ready to play.  My reward?  Every 15-20 seconds the audio in the game would cut out, like it's skipping or seeking.  I gave it a good 5 minutes or so to go away with no avail. Completely unplayable since at the least it was annoying and at worst it completely broke the immersion.

I'm ready to go back and see what I can do to fix the problems, like reinstall, try without the patch, etc.  Things I shouldn't have to do but will in order to play the game.  They also need to figure why some of us are getting load times that are easily over 3 minutes in length when others are in the 15-30 second range. My editor at Gaming Age, Jim, suspects it's the space left on your hard drive (very little for me) and the developer seems to concur.

Remote Play for PS2 Games on the PS3/PSP

The PS3 and PSP offer this really awesome technology called Remote Play.  Remote Play allows content to be played on the PS3 (games, movies, music) and streamed onto the PSP remotely.  For games, you can use the PSP controls to play while the video is streamed back to you on the PSP screen.  You might not have ever heard of this, and for good reason.  Sony isn't doing crap with it.

This unofficial listing shows there are hardly more than a handful of PS3/PSN games playable via remote play.  BlazBlue works and works really well.  It's such a convenience to be able to leave the PS3 and screen and play your game elsewhere.  If you're into two generation old games, every PSOne game is playable this way, but what I really want is all the PS2 games.

I figure I have limited time in front of the PS3, but I have other time where mobile gaming is a possibility.  If I could play PS2 games through the PSP, I think I could seriously put a dent in my PS2 backlog (looks at a pile of unfinished RPGs).  Unfortunately Sony thought backwards compatibility was a non-factor for gamers and pulled it out of hardware shortly after release.  So here I am with a PS3 that can play all my PS2 games, the ability to remote play stuff on the PSP, and absolutely no hope of it ever happening.  That is, until I saw this...

Is Sony's Motion Controller Going to Make it a Wii Port Machine?

Industry Gamers talked to Rob Dyer, SCEA Vice President of Publisher Relations, about Sony's position in the motion controller space.  A fitting topic given my post from yesterday about Natal pricing and the prospect of three console with motion controls.  There were some choice quotes here that give off some mixed signals from Sony.  Dyer said,

"From a third-party perspective it's easier to develop for, you can use the same code base that you currently use for PS3 or 360 or even the Wii in order to get a motion controller game out."

This to me screams, "Hey, crappy Wii shovelware developers, come do the same thing on our box.  It's easy!"  But when confronted with that very question, Dyer responded,

"I can assure you that's not what you're going to see. The fact that we use a camera changes everything. I think the press has forgotten that Sony has been using a camera [for a long time]. This is now our second iteration of it. We know what the consumer wants with regards to using a camera and whether they want something in their hands or not."

Really?  The camera changes everything?  I mean, it sounds like he's saying that proudly.  The Sony cameras have been a total failure.  We got some games that slightly resembled the full body block breaking game from Natal, the ability to video chat in a game, and the closest thing to an actual use with the card game Eye of Judgement.  If anything, after two iterations, you should at least have an idea what to avoid (hint: everything you've tried with it so far).  He added,

"I think there are some games that are purpose built not to have a motion controller and there are some games that are purpose built that would be better with a motion controller. Having been on the publisher side and having made Wii games, the problem a lot of the time was because you had that Wii remote from the get go you felt like if you weren't using it, were you really making the right kind of game? I think that's been a problem for a lot of publishers. Can I make a game that's compelling using this motion controller? And if you can't then just make a great game without it... I think people had a problem doing that on the Wii."

So then that makes me think that he really gets it.  Sure, there may be a place in the market for this peripheral for a few games completely dedicated to using it.  But I certainly would hope that the Final Fantasy, God of War, Ninja Gaiden, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted type of games would never even consider this as an alternative to the controller.

I've always hated when people trying to put down video games say things like, "Why would you play video game basketball when you can go out and play the real thing?"  That isn't even worthy of a response.  But I now have to wonder, what kind of advancement to gaming does emulating an action with your body bring?  Going through the motions without the tactile feedback and immersion just doesn't seem worth sacrificing really good simulation of the same thing.

Fear for the Future of the Game Controller

News over the weekend says Michael Pachter, video game industry prognosticator, predicts that Microsoft's Natal for the Xbox 360 will be price at $50.  We've been hearing about Natal and Sony's wands (Arc?) for a while now.  We know what they are likely to be capable of, and we now know a ball park figure for what one may cost.  It's a bit late to ask the question, but does anyone else think these are a joke and at the same time afraid of the influence they may have on future consoles?

I don't try to hide the fact that I have no love for the Wii, due in no small part to the controller that's forced onto nearly every game.  It doesn't mesh well with any genre I'm interested in playing, which is no small number, and it looks horrible compared to games on the other platforms.  It's only use currently is an 80's VHS workout tape replacement for my wife.  But, since it sold so incredibly well, Microsoft and Sony felt compelled to join the party.

Both companies have hinted that this will be a longer console life cycle, and these new peripherals will be like rolling out the next generation of their consoles.  The longer console life cycle part I don't have a problem with.  Sure, I'm a bit of a graphics whore, but I can appreciate waiting if the technology isn't going to provide a big enough bump up from what we're currently playing.  What I don't buy is that these new input devices are ushering in a whole new generation of games.

Again, I don't dispute the success of the Wii.  They accomplished what they set out to do, create a console that appeals to non-gamers.  Success!  My mom owns one.  So, are Natal and Sony's wands supposed to be the ticket into that new market?  Is that market already saturated by the Wii?  I know neither one appeals to my mom, since she already has a Wii and never uses it.

I'm what I think of as a core gamer.  I'm involved with the industry.  I own many generations of consoles and games.  I buy and play many games on a regular basis.  I play with a standard controller.  Am I wrong?  Am I no longer the core gamer, or the core audience as the console manufacturers see it?  Because if they think I'm still the core gamer/audience, then they certainly aren't appealing to me.

My own experiences tell me that I have no interest in replacing button presses with waggling a Wii remote.  Games on the Wii that take true advantage of the wiimote have generally been gimmicky mini-games or games that end up unappealing to me regardless of the controls.  For Natal, do I really want to control a game by relying on a camera to pick up my motions?  At best, there will be a new genre or two that are created that do an awesome job at taking advantage of the unique Natal controls (see: Steel Battalion).  At worst, it's an invitation for a bunch of crappy games where you use your body to block or hit things on the screen.



What's the appeal of pretending to hold steering wheel in the air and press imaginary brakes?  It's a technical achievement to get those motions turned into game controls, but just because someone figured out how doesn't mean it's a good idea.  I've played Forza and Gran Turismo for a few hours at a time sitting in a racing cockpit.  The thought of holding my hands in the air and foot off the ground, even for less than an hour, sounds maddening, much less for a full gaming session.  This is assuming that the precision of the controls will be any where near good enough to satisfy gamers looking for more than a gimmick to show off to friends.

At least with Natal and Arc, the consoles has already been established and sold with a regular controller.  No developer will be forced to design around these new inputs.  That gives me hope that one could avoid these additional peripherals and never be impacted negatively.  What I fear is that Sony and/or Microsoft would replace the controller with one of these new devices in their next console.  That would pretty much guarantee me a handful of years to catch up on my backlog.

Are Video Game Publishers Entitled to Money After First Sale?

This is becoming a bigger and bigger issue as of late.  Sony's SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 for the PSP ships with a voucher that enables online play.  Once the voucher is redeemed, that game cannot be played online on anyone else's PSP.  This means you can't trade the game, lend it to a friend, or buy it used and still have access to the online mode.  UNLESS you pay another $20 to Sony for a new voucher.

This is only the latest report.  Publishers have been trying to figure out a way to make money off used game sales for a while now.  EA also took this tactic with their sports games and only made roster updates available for new copies of the game.  No voucher, no roster updates, unless you paid EA money to get access to the updates.

Why do video game publishers feel they are entitled to additional revenue after the first sale when that's not the case for other industries?  Movie and music companies aren't getting a cut on used sales.  I'm pretty sure Nike isn't getting any extra money from the shirt I gave to Goodwill.

Let me quote you something from the Wikipedia article on first-sale doctrine:

The first-sale doctrine is a limitation on copyright that was recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908 (see Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus) and subsequently codified in the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 109. The doctrine allows the purchaser to transfer (i.e., sell or give away) a particular lawfully made copy of the copyrighted work without permission once it has been obtained. This means that the copyright holder's rights to control the change of ownership of a particular copy end once that copy is sold, as long as no additional copies are made. This doctrine is also referred to as the "first sale rule" or "exhaustion rule."

Game publishers are obviously fighting this, but they don't have my support.  Some are rationalizing it as digital rights management (DRM), as in Sony's SOCOM case, but the $20 charge reeks of money grubbing, not piracy prevention.  Punishing the honest consumer for the action of pirates is wrong.  I don't have the answer for illegally downloaded games, but it's not to charge every new user of a legitimate game an extra fee.

We all know where this is headed, digital distribution.  The publishers want to cut out Gamestop and the used game sales, as well as keep a tighter grip over legit copies.  Ubisoft has gone so far as to make Assassin's Creed II (PC) unplayable without an internet connection, a constant connection.  As in, it will actually boot you out of the game if it detects network loss.  Then what do we get for our troubles?  We get no physical copies of games, manuals, and boxes.  We get the inability to loan games to friends, rent them from the store, or sell them when we are done.  And, if there's no plan for the publisher going out of business, possibly the loss of the game forever.  Sign me up! </sarcasm>

Last Remnant Fell Into Middleware Trap

As reported on 1up, Square Enix CTO, Julien Merceron, admitted the traps they fell into with using the Unreal Engine as middleware for The Last Remnant.

One of the traps with middleware is that some game teams believe that, because they got this middleware, maybe they need less programmers on their team, or maybe they don't need that many skilled programmers. Sometimes middleware is just something that a studio or a game team is going to use because they don't find the right people.

A lot of press was pretty hard on the game for poor performance and framerate, but nothing could have saved the game from the technical mess that was its combat system.  I honestly wasn't distracted by the technical issues.  The randomness of the combat is what killed it for me.  You could never count on what battle choices were going to be available from one round to the next, and most importantly, even though you could see a tactical view of the engagements, you could never count on actions being taken in any particular order.  This completely stripped the game of strategy.  You couldn't make the smart decisions about which group to attack because you didn't know if they were going to be locked in engagement or not by the time their arbitrary turned rolled around.

Playing Titan Quest Again

My local group of friends and I love co-op games.  We used to have a standing night to play Xbox games together (like Unreal, Crimson Skies, and Mech Assault).  Now we've all got families and other excuses, so outside of the occasional MMO, we just don't game much together.

I think we've found a common ground this week though, Titan Quest.  It's a game type we all love, has simple support for multiplayer online, and it's cheap.  Not to mention it's a great game with a huge depth of classes and abilities.  Solo, I've never finished the campaign, much less taken on the higher difficulties.  I plan on testing out the multiplayer server tonight, figure out which mods to use, and try to narrow in on the class I want.

Bayonetta Contest T-Shirt Get!

Yes, I am one of the lucky (skilled?) 500 people to get the Scarborough Fair t-shirt that Penny Arcade had made up to support their old school contest.  In a nod to 80's Atari high score competitions, where people would snap Polaroids of their high scores and send them to magazines, the goal was to complete Bayonetta on hard and snap a pic of the ending screen.  Of course nowadays that has to be confirmed with checking your achievements as well.  Awesome game and shirt (I'm wearing it today!).  Thanks to Penny Arcade for the contest.

White Knight Chronicles Progress

White Knight Chronicles is still soaking up all my game time since I'm on deck for the review.  It's been a bit of a disappointment.  My expectations were rightfully high since the first time we were shown the gameplay trailer before the launch of the PS3.


The character models and environments are comparable, but that's about it.  The gameplay is not nearly as engaging as it looks in that video.  The animation is way dumbed down as well.  It's not that it's a bad game, it's just completely average.  The online portions offer some hope to the dragging single player, but you have to play through the story to unlock the online quests.  If I wasn't constantly and completely starved to play RPGs (and reviewing it), I probably wouldn't bother.

Plants Vs. Zombies Already #1 in iPhone App Store

There's an incredible amount of hype behind this game.  The gaming world collectively groaned when the delay was announced, and much rejoicing has been had since it's release a couple of days ago.  Having played the first quarter of the game myself, I have to wonder what all the hullabaloo is about.  It's a good game for sure, but it's still just a nicely made tower defense game, of which there are many.  If you all want to make a stink over an iPhone game, at least make it over Sword & Poker.

Final Fantasy XIII Director on Western Reviewers' Slant

This bit of news hit particularly close to home since I'm handling the FFXIII review for Gaming Age.  While Final Fantasy XIII is still receiving very good review scores across the globe, a CVG article points to this quote by director Motomu Toriyama:

 "We think many reviewers are looking at Final Fantasy XIII from a western point of view. When you look at most Western RPGs, they just dump you in a big open world, and let you do whatever you like... [It] becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when you're given that much freedom."

So, first let me say that I agree.  Perhaps I'm in the minority of westerners that like linearity in my RPGs, but I hate thinking that I may have missed something in an open world game.  Covering every square inch of the world to make sure that doesn't happen ins't exactly the best use of my time either.

What's more of an issue for me is the implication that the concern is that high for reviewers over how linear an RPG may be.  I think back to the press as a whole as they reviewed Mass Effect.  I remember multiple outlets making remarks along the lines of, "The story and atmosphere are amazing.  The combat...meh, but the atmosphere and writing!"  Sure enough after two attempts at playing through the game myself, I just can't get past the "first person shooter wrapped with a few RPG elements" type of gameplay.  Why wasn't that more important?

If anything, the combat in FFXIII sounds like a total step in the wrong direction, and I'd expect that's what the complaints would be about (they certainly were on NeoGAF).  We're playing games here, right?  We're not watching movies or reading books.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe there are a number of people that don't care that much about the combat system and character development systems in RPGs.  Reviews scores over the last few years would confirm that.