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*