Help! I’ve Been Shanked! (Shank Review)
I thought that "shanking" someone was a harmless prank, like depantsing or something of that nature. I was way, way off base.
Of course, "shank" is at its origin a noun referring to a certain section of an animal's body (the thigh) that will be butchered and then consumed.
Later, the word "shank" came to be used to refer to knives; specifically, knives made in prison by prisoners. Shanks and shivs wherever I go, oy!! The verb form of the word then referred to these prison stabbings. And more unsavory things can be drawn from looser interpretations of the word.
All of the above came as preliminary research before I booted up the game SHANK, released on PSN and XBLA from developer Klei Entertainment and publisher EA at the end of August. With nothing but research on the game's title as my backup, I still had quite a bit of surprise to go through.
Shank. Costumed. Killing dudes on a bridge.
Shank is a 2D, side-scrolling beat 'em up with a strong story-telling element. Furthermore, despite its simple cartoon-like animation, it is one of the most intentionally ultra-violent games out there. Fans of the old flash video series Ninjai will recognize the style almost immediately. Though, it should be noted, Jeff Agala's art style is different from the pseudo-anime of Ninjai.
Because I'm a story nut, I tried to ignore all the visceral action (minus 10 points for using the forbidden word) and instead soaked up the dialogue and the excellent flashback sequences. And though it's a great story, it is ultimately quite derivative. Many critics were quick to compare this game to the works of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino; this comparison is absolutely appropriate. Not just for the excessive gore, no. Shank's plot is a revenge plot. Ready for the spoilers?
Shank, the titular character, is a big muscular guy who worked in a crime syndicate, led by a man named "Cesar." Shank is a loyal follower, but one day he falls in love with a young lady and gets her pregnant. Cesar tells Shank he must kill the girl (as a rather sick test of loyalty), but Shank is obviously reluctant to do so. So Cesar sends 4 of his other high-level goons to kill the chick and Shank. They take care of the girl as expected, but after roughing up Shank they leave him to die in a fire. Never a good idea; of course he's going to survive and come back years later for revenge.
You just gonna leave me to die? At my own wedding? Wait, no, that would be too similar.
Points go to the scenario writer, Marianne Krawczyk (who co-wrote the plot for the GOD OF WAR trilogy), for a well-executed tale. But no points awarded for basically re-telling the film "Kill Bill" with a male protagonist. Seriously, the entire action of the game is Shank hunting down and killing the 4 goons, and finally, Cesar himself. I seem to remember Beatrix (spoiler?) doing much the same thing. The only difference is that in Kill Bill, you have a reasonably happy ending with mother and daughter reunited. In Shank's scenario, there is no reunion. Only revenge, more revenge, and finally, a man walking into the sunset, with no one to turn to.
As far as the game itself is concerned, I have some short praise and critique. I like that Shank is capable of performing a variety of attacks with each of his three weapon types (fast, strong, and ranged). He starts with just his "shanks" (the knives), a chainsaw, and pistols. Over time he also adds a katana, two machetes, uzis, a shotgun, and chains to the roster of weaponry. They can all be changed on the fly, and each comes with a change in delay and, usually, some special attacks. On Shank's end, the combat was well thought out.
Unfortunately, I cannot give that praise to the enemies and their AI patterns. Basically, the game plays like this:
1. Fight a ton of enemies thrown at you with seemingly no order or strategy.
2. Fight a gimmicky oversized dude who can only be beaten by paying attention for special button-triggered events.
3. Fight another ton of enemies.
4. Fight a more strategic boss (about Shank's height); win by dodging attacks and then countering.
Rinse and repeat.
It's fun to control Shank, but the repetition, even for a 3 hour game, does get old by the end of the first playthrough. You do need to play smart to win; some enemies are simply immune to certain types of attacks. And when you're in a large crowd, one of the best things you can do is pounce on a smaller guy (just to incapacitate him) and then while he's down, shoot enemies around you with a pistol. Interesting concepts, to be sure.
This is step 2 of the 4-step pattern listed above.
Outside of combat, the environments do lend themselves to some fun acrobatic work. Shank can run on billboards, swing on poles, climb walls, and come out of pretty much any sticky situation with weapons at the ready. Motion is swift, and the player has to keep up if they're going to survive. They are pit deaths and other one-hit environment kills throughout the game. Always gotta watch out for that.
A quick note regarding the music: it's good, and thanks to pressure from the fans, it's free to download.
My concluding thoughts are these: the game looks great, though I could do without the excessive blood and many, many decapitations. The game plays fairly well, but overstays its welcome even considering its short length. The story is cool, but a little too derivative for its own good. And, finally, I'd just like to state that I do not ever, under any circumstances, want to be "shanked." Whatever that means.
Played: 5 hours
Platform(s): PlayStation 3 (PSN), Xbox 360 (XBLA)
Price: $14.99
Besting the best? BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (review)
I love you, BlazBlue. I loved you last year when you first invaded consoles. I loved your music. I loved Rachel. And now, a year later, I love your sequel.
Yeah, that's right, sequel. All this time I thought BLAZBLUE: CONTINUUM SHIFT was little more than an expansion. Two new characters and some gameplay mechanics being balanced. Right? Wrong.
BBCS, like Calamity Trigger before it, has this extensive story mode to it. That's the essential difference between the arcade cabinet and the console port, right? You have this huge story that fleshes out the "main event" and all things leading up to it from the perspective of every playable character. Like that Faulkner book I hated reading in high school. For those among us who can stand the "graphic adventure / visual novel" non-game experience and enjoy it being juxtaposed to the fighting, The story mode of BBCS is fan-freaking-tastic.
"Teach me: Miss Litchi!" (boobie lady!) is back! The entire 8-part series from the first game is on the disc, as are 5 new episodes. Rejoice!
Every character comes with three endings, which can be compared to the film Wayne's World. There's the normal (bad) ending, the silly (Scooby Doo) ending, and the True (generally good) ending. This time around, you don't need to lose in every fight to get 100% completion of each character's stories (though *some* fights will require it), and there aren't any secret paths opened with Distortion/Astral Finish. Generally, it's easier to get around.
AND, most importantly, it is my opinion that the script and voice acting has improved (how? I don't know!). For people who really want meat behind their favorite playable character in a fighting game, BBCS offers it in spades. You'll know in full detail where each character stands in relation to any other character very well if you complete all story paths (as I did). That's very important, since things change pretty significantly from BBCT to BBCS.
Oh, and then there's the full plot arc. When we left off in BBCT, Ragna encounters Nu-13, shit hits the fan, and they fall in a cauldron together. If you achieved the "true ending" (finishing all character paths first) in BBCT, you learned spoiler***
Noel jumps in too, saving Ragna, and somehow everyone gets out unscathed. Except Nu.
***spoiler end
In BBCS, the hinted-at villain (Hazama/Terumi) becomes a playable character and is, generally, the true villain, though by the time you reach the true ending in BBCS, you see that even he is a pawn to someone with more power and authority over the world. When you see who it is, you will pee your pants. I couldn't have guessed, only because I forgot about the character in question entirely up to this point. But those rabid fans who dig as deep into this as they do into, say, Battlestar Galactica, may be able to figure out what's coming before it hits them like a ton of bricks.
That's all I'll say about the story mode.
The "balancing" issues were mighty important. Let's face it: Jin, Nu, and Tager were overpowered. Arakune could be cheap given the right conditions. Carl and Hakumen were generally useless. Something had to be done about this. And generally, I think Arc System Works achieved their goal. I still think Jin is a little over-the-top in his power. All things being equal, a decent Litchi player is still prone to losing to a decent Jin player. You follow?
Oh, and Nu is gone. Though she is a downloadable character, her spot is essentially replaced by a weaker version of her: Lambda-11. Lambda has her own subplot in the story mode, and it's actually very interesting. Though it's mostly about sector seven scientist Kokonoe, the "Scooby Doo" ending for Lambda is actually bittersweet instead of off-the-wall hilarious. Robots make me cry.
So hey, how about those two new characters? We already mentioned Hazama. He wears a black suit, has green hair, and his movements in-game feel a hell of a lot like late '80s Michael Jackson. He's a smooth criminal, and he's got an ability that puts Scorpion's "Get Over Here!" to shame. Able to release up to 2 "Ouroboros" snakes at a time, he can latch onto the opponent, or to plain air, and then swing himself to the destination point. Handy, right? He also has daggers, and in his Unlimited mode he gets a circle of life-draining awesomeness around him. Makes for a hell of a fight on anything higher than "Normal" mode if he's your AI opponent.
Did I mention that this game is eye-gasm gorgeous? Because it is.
The other playable character is Tsubaki Yayoi. Once upon a time, we'd understand her to be Jin Kisaragi's girlfriend, and a good friend of Noel Vermilion during their school days. Today, she is a part of the NOL's "Zero Squadron," also known as the "Wings of Justice." Her job is to run around the NOL (Novis Orbus Librarium, aka "The Library") and assassinate traitors and defectors. We know even at the end of BBCT that Hazama has ordered her to hunt down both Jin and Noel. That is her primary motivation in BBCS, at least at the start. Outside of plot and motivation, her fighting style is ... slightly similar to Ragna. Though, she also has a shield-like thing that immediately makes me think of Sophitia from the SOUL CALIBUR series. However, she's one of these "I can do the same attack in four ways" kind of gals. Almost all her special movies can be performed with quarter-circles and then A B C or D. Of course, if you use D, you're using Seithr, which is gaged out very particularly for Tsubaki. It's not to be confused with the heat bar on the bottom. She has her own five-block bar which fills only when you hold D. So you hold D, then you do a special move with the D button, and it uses one of those five blocks. End result? Said special move is enhanced in one of a variety of ways. Her aerial attacks are especially deadly, or so I've found.
I noticed one thing about part of their "balancing" of characters: they changed the inputs for some special moves. It used to be easy as pie to use Rachel's signature attack "Sword Iris." Some exposition: Rachel can place up to three lightning rods on the field by shooting flowers out of a shape-shifting cat who turns into a cannon (I know, right? Isn't she the coolest character ever?!). These three lightning rods will all be struck with lightning, simultaneously, with the "Sword Iris" ability. If the opponent is standing near one or more of these rods -- well, as they say: MASSIVE DAMAGE. Sword Iris used to be accomplished with something like, down down B. Now it's something like half-circle back, forward, C. I don't have that exactly right, but the point is, it's a little harder to achieve. Being a career Rachel player, this is the one move that comes to my attention, but I did notice a few other characters having their special ability inputs tampered with between BBCT and BBCS. I guess that's all part of balance. That, and, reducing the amount of damage characters do. Or, in the case of Hakumen, increasing said damage. And explaining the freakin' Magatama system a little better.
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift is basically perfect. It is the 2D fighter. And for $39.99 (compare that to BBCT which retailed for $59.99 last year) it's a steal. Mind you that these days, BBCT will only by $19.99 at most stores, so you can get both games and sit through a hell of a lot of dialogue if you're into the story mode, like I am. But even if you hate story mode, this game is well worth the money just for arcade mode and online versus mode. The fighting is intricate, and button-mashing will get you nowhere against a player with the slightest amount of skill and knowledge.
BBCS's only flaw? EXPENSIVE DLC!! I'm all for adding characters via DLC, but don't dick with me. They've announced that 3 characters are coming, and they're $8 each. So far one is out: Makoto Nanaya. She's the third in a trio of gals that were friends in school (Noel, Tsubaki, Makoto). Makoto is a beastkin humanoid (half-squirrel). As a fighter, she's absolutely great. She uses her fists, and her "D" attacks rely on a small gage that fills and then re-empties quickly (like kicking a field goal in almost every football game ever). That's awesome, right? Well she's pretty cool. But she's eight freaking dollars! That's one fifth the price of the full retail game! And get this: no single-player arcade mode for her! What?! I wasn't expecting her to get her own story mode, though at $8, I almost find it warranted. But at a minimum, she ought to have an arcade mode where I play through 10 characters and get some basic exposition on her. Nope! She can only be used in multiplayer versus modes. That is weak sauce. Am I going to pay another $16 for Valkenhayn (Rachel's butler) and Platinum (some kid with multiple personalities)? Not bloody likely! I'll wait until they're included in the third game.
Oh oh oh, speaking of! BBCS makes no bones about whether or not there will be a third game. There will be. And it will take place in Ikaruga. Both BBCT and BBCS took place in Kagutsuchi, the "13th Hierarchical City." The next game will be in Ikaruga, the land of the ninja clan that Bang Shishigami belongs to. The game's story mode, and even the arcade mode, clues you in to the fact that this place is little more than rubble now thanks to a civil war that ended in some sort of horrific, worse-than-multiple-atomic-bomb-drop mass death. Whatever happened there has piqued the interest of all characters, good and bad, so that's where we're going next. I cannot wait, and they share as hell better make Jubei playable.
Before I forget, I should mention that Nu is also downloadable if you want her back from BBCT (I think she's like $5 instead of the standard $8), and that Mu-12, a character you'll meet in the story mode, is free but can only be unlocked by getting the true ending in story mode (or, I think, beating arcade mode with all characters). Either way, she's cheap as hell and totally worth it. While Lambda and Nu are essentially the same, Mu plays with a completely different weapon type and is almost unstoppable, especially in unlimited mode.
Oh oh oh! One last thing! Do you feel like you can't get into this game because the complex combos require all sorts of charts, graphs, and practice? They actually introduced a "beginner mode" that you can flip on that turns your assigned buttons into combos. So button mashing CAN work, if your opponent agrees to let you use beginner mode. Even then, though, you better know when to execute them or you're screwed.
Go get this game. Play it a lot. Be happy. But beware the DLC. It does not get to be a part of the perfect 5-star ranking! Makoto SHUN!!!
Played: 30+ hours
Platform(s): PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Price: $39.99
Microsoft wins the summer. Again.
(I wrote this last Wednesday — well before Microsoft's announcement this week that they're kicking off "Game Feast," another multi-week promotion with a killer lineup of games, at the end of this month. Over at Sony? Crickets. But hey, you get a discount on your PS3-protection plan if you sign up for PSN, so there's that.
Anyway, SUPER MEAT BOY, Twisted Pixel's very promising COMIC JUMPER, HYDROPHOBIA and the like are anchoring the Game Feast calendar. Just something to keep in mind as you read on.)
The Hotshots vs. the Icemen! Transcending history and the world, a tale of laser turrets eternally retold. (Uber Entertainment)
If a layman judged this summer’s video game offerings based purely on retail, he or she would be rightfully disappointed. As boxed titles go, the last three months have been dreadfully bare — typical for June, July and the first half of August, but disappointing nonetheless.
Remember the heady days of May, which gave us “Red Dead Redemption,” “Super Mario Galaxy 2,” “Alan Wake,” “Blur,” “Split/Second” and other blockbusters within days of each other? Since then, there’s been “StarCraft II,” and then there was everything else.
Fortunately, we’ve nearly turned the page on all of that archaic brick-and-mortar nonsense. With few exceptions, this summer’s best games have been downloadable — either exclusively or as a companion to their boxed cousins — and priced at $15 or less.
The results have been heartening.
Though I’m as console-agnostic as can be, Microsoft gets the gold star this year. Their third annual Summer of Arcade promotion packed a lot of polish and diversity into five timed exclusives, starting in July with LIMBO (reviewed in this space last month) and wrapping up last week with the sublime LARA CROFT AND THE GUARDIAN OF LIGHT, which I’ll discuss here shortly.
Summer of Arcade dropped a clunker in 2008 and 2009, and 2010 doesn’t buck that trend. CASTLEVANIA: HARMONY OF DESPAIR, with its charmlessly dated visuals and slipshod multiplayer getup, is to this summer what GALAGA LEGIONS and the remake of TURTLES IN TIME were to the summers before it.
But four out of five ain’t bad.
That isn’t to suggest that the PlayStation Network has been totally worthless this summer, despite Sony’s best efforts to make the thing unusable. PSN got a two-week jump on Xbox Live with the video game adaptation of SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD, a nostalgia-throttling 2-D brawler that owes more to Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comics than it does to Edgar Wright’s wonderful movie.
As of this week, that title is available on both services.
And DEATHSPANK, the silly-ish hack-and-slash from Hothead Games and Monkey Island co-creator Ron Gilbert, debuted in July on the Xbox 360 and PS3 simultaneously. That likely will be the case next month, too, when the game’s surprise sequel, announced just this week, hits servers everywhere.
Same goes for SHANK, the hysterically violent side-scrolling brawler unleashed on both services Wednesday.
It’s Sony’s lethargy about locking down down exclusives (not to mention those innumerable, lengthy updates that cut off your PSN access) that keeps the PS3 from being truly competitive summer after summer after summer.
Sure, they’ve got the bead on Q Games’ great Pixeljunk titles, and they’ll probably get the exclusive on JOURNEY, thatgamecompany’s follow-up to FLOWER. There are also those wonderful, barely announced oddities, like space-spelunker GRAVITY CRASH.
But four years after Sony launched PSN, it still trails Xbox Live and Steam as a destination for digital content. I’m not insisting that the company line up more exclusives, but until Microsoft stops throwing money at publishers, Sony’s going to have to find a way to get in the game.
That said, here’s my pick for the best downloadable title of the last three months:
LARA CROFT AND THE GUARDIAN OF LIGHT
Available only on Xbox Live until late September, Crystal Dynamics has put together an attractive, robust action-adventure title that borrows the twin-stick shooting of GEOMETRY WARS and the isometric perspective of DIABLO.
It’s an unsettling blend at first, but it grows on you quickly. Jumping feels great, the physics-based puzzles are satisfying to solve, and the shooting is legitimate fun — something that’s never been true of Lara’s TOMB RAIDER games.
The game also makes a great argument for abolishing the artificial cap on trophies and achievements in downloadable titles. As officially sanctioned Microsoft achievements go, LARA CROFT offers a handful of inventive challenges — catch your co-op partner with your grappling hook, beat a boss, jump off your partner’s shield — but they pale in comparison to a bevy of in-game tasks that reward exploration and reflexes with new guns and other goodies. Unlocking them all requires multiple playthroughs and a commitment of a dozen hours or more.
(Your partner, by the by, is an English-proficient, cartoonishly brawny dude native to the tombs you’re raiding. As things stand today, you can play him only as a local co-op partner, though Crystal Dynamics has pledged to integrate online co-op by the end of next month. Until then, so much for those co-op achievements!)
In other words, there’s more than enough content here to justify the full 1,000-point treatment. So how about it, Microsoft?
This article appeared first in the York Dispatch.
Review: ‘Singularity’ tears up space, time
You'll be facing all manner of mutated Russians in Singularity's many shiny, Unreal Engine 3-powered corridors.
As the MC of "Cabaret" once said, "You know the funny thing about Herman? There's nothing funny about Herman."
That basically sums up my feelings for SINGULARITY, a first-person shooter from veteran action developer Raven Software. The great thing about the game, released on HD consoles and the PC this week, is that there's nothing truly Great (capital "G") about it.
It doesn't aspire to some sort of literary permanence, a la HALF-LIFE 2 and its rudimentary multiplayer getup isn't the tent-pole spectacle of MODERN WARFARE 2.
Instead, Singularity revels in the silliest, schlockiest corners of science-fiction gaming, tasking your American avatar with an investigation of Cold War experiments on a secret island off the coast of Russia.
In pursuit of an edge over the tyrannical West, the Soviets in 1950s apparently created a time-space anomaly on said island, inadvertently mutating its inhabitants and screwing things up in 2010. Your character might or might not have participated, thanks to some time-travelling shenanigans. Awkward!
The game offers you the standard complement of FPS weaponry -- shotguns, rifles and explosive stuff -- as well as a few less conventional items. The Seeker, which you find only during scripted moments in the 1950s, lets you guide your bullets in slow motion; another gun fires darts that detonate a second after burrowing into their targets.
Each gun, save for an utterly useless pistol, is fun to fire, and all can be upgraded tokens you find hidden throughout the game.
But Singularity doesn't really take off until about 90 minutes in, when you find a mysterious robo-glove (called the Time Manipulation Device, or TMD) that lets you stop time, instantly age enemies by hundreds of years and, of course, throw heavy objects great distances.
If that sounds familiar, it's probably because you played BIOSHOCK or its sequel. Magic in your left hand, gun in your right, dispatch meanies as you please.
But where combat in BioShock and BIOSHOCK 2 never inched past serviceable, Singularity feels genuinely good. This is the DOOM of modern-day shooters, throwing plenty of ammo and nine or ten enemies at you at once. The game is not about conserving bullets; it's about shooting time-travelling zombies in the head and telekinetically chucking explosive barrels at them, counting your remaining health packs after the fact.
Puzzlingly, you're constrained here by the Halo Rule. Where Doom, QUAKE and their successors allowed you an entire arsenal of destruction, today's shooters limit you to only a handful of guns at once. This presumably is done in the name of realism -- how many rocket launchers, plasma rifles and BFGs can one man carry, after all? -- but when a game trafficks in the absurd with as much gusto as Singularity does, the size of your war chest seems like a silly place to draw the line.
Still, the fighting is usually very satisfying, particularly once you pick up the Deadlock power about one-third of the way through the game. The ability lets you create a sphere inside which enemies are frozen and bullets move at a snail's space. That trick, coupled with the sniper rifle's slow-motion zoom, lets you watch rounds actually rotate out of the chamber on their way to your target's face.
The single-player campaign (no co-op here), shiny and diverse though it is, lasts about eight hours on normal difficulty, and once it's over, you're at a crossroads. You could slog through the first hour or so again on the harder difficulty, armed with naught but your terrible pistol and dodging enemies who steal nearly all your health in one swipe.
You could try the game's two class-based multiplayer modes, which pack a few thrills but currently suffer from awful connection issues and terribly net code.
If neither of those sound appetizing, you're done. At $60 for the console versions (and $50 on the superior PC version, though the game performs like a champ on all platforms), that can feel like a tough sell. And that's totally fair.
But the single-player content here is as cheeky and exciting as FPS campaigns come today. Even though story isn't something you'll be quoting years or even days from now -- there's no "would you kindly" moment here, folks -- Singularity is packed with enough memorable sequences and tight gameplay to merit any action junkie's attention.
Confessions of a PixelJunkie
I'm a non-owner of an Xbox 360 and a cautiously optimistic owner of a PlayStation 3. Each console has had its ups and downs. If there's one thing Microsoft has done exponentially better than Sony, it's connectivity.
From the XBLA library (and the XBL Indie titles) to friend-making to most forms of match-making (I'm ignoring ODST here...), the 360 has outclassed PS3 in nearly every form of online content, be it in quality, quantity, service terms and conditions, stability ... Sony has a lot of catching up to do.
One thing Sony has over Microsoft is the development studio Q-Games. Based in Japan, but run by a Westerner (Dylan Cuthbert), the titles made by Q-Games are often international collaborative efforts. And though they've also done work with Nintendo (example: STAR FOX COMMAND), they are best known for the PixelJunk series: PSN-exclusive titles that hold strange commonalities.
According to Cuthbert, what groups the games together are "simplicity, familiarity, and originality." Though they may have some 3D games in the works for their second series of games, series 1 (labeled as 1-1, 1-2, etc) are all 2D games whose stark colors look beautiful in 1080p, and whose soundtracks will always hold your attention.
I have at least dabbled in each of the four PixelJunk titles, and have absolutely conquered one of them. I'd like to share with you my experiences with each of the existing titles to date, and lay out some of my hopes for future ones. Here we go!
PIXELJUNK RACERS
How can anyone understand what's happening here? Thank the PixelGods this series got better.
This is the only PixelJunk title I don't like. And I think most of the PS3-owning community is with me on this. It wasn't a strong start for Q-Games. Series 1-1 title PixelJunk Racers is not a racing game at all, but rather a strange "destruction derby" style game where your goal is to wipe everyone else off the track within a time limit. The controls are awkward, the top-down view is frustrating, and the "character art" (if you can call it that, for the anthropomorphized animals) nauseates me. Word on the street is that, like the other games' follow-ups, there is an update (1-1a) in the works called "PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap." I can assure you already that this is a lost cause. Let's move forward.
PIXELJUNK MONSTERS
This is why first impressions, while often valuable, shouldn't paint the whole picture. So Racers was a dud. We get it. But 1-2, PixelJunk Monsters, more than makes up for it. Monsters is a variant of the now tried-and-true "tower defense" genre. I won't explain the details of the gameplay, since you ought to be familiar with tower defense gaming already. The things I will comment on? Let's see...
First, the difficulty level. Technically there are three difficulties for each level (21 in the base game, another 15 added in 1-2a, "PixelJunk Monsters Encore"). Wanna hear the crazy part? Even at the easiest difficulty, you will struggle with this game in the later levels. I know I did. And I'm no slouch when it comes to tower defense. They made this game hard. Very, very hard. If you want to get all of the trophies for this game, expect to put 100+ hours in. (ed. -- I was going to flag this outrageous figure with some sort of objection, but ... you're absolutely right.)
Next, the aesthetic factor. Outside of Racers, I can give only extremely high marks to the visual and aural components of the PixelJunk titles. I daresay that these things are what make me a true "PixelJunkie." The art in Monsters is simple -- almost too simple. The backgrounds could be made in MS Paint (experts in MS Paint, mind you). The sprites (including your player-controlled sprite and the enemy sprites) are sufficiently detailed but don't pack a lot of animation. Again, simplicity is the key. It will never strain your eyes, which is good considering your critical thinking and quick execution skills will definitely be strained.
I don't care if you buy the soundtrack before or after the game. But do buy the soundtrack.
As for the music, composed by Japanese duo otograph (Takashi Iura and Sachiyo Oshima), let's just say it's awesome. Sony acknowledged its awesomeness and actually released the soundtrack, digitally, via PSN (see "Dive Into PixelJunk Monsters" on PSN). Twenty-four tracks of surprisingly catchy (and surprisingly tonal) electronic music. It's a total win. But, in my opinion, even this excellent album pales in comparison to what we'll be discussing next.
But before that! I should also mention that this is the only game in the PixelJunk series to date to reach the PSP. "PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe" includes all the content of "Monsters" and "Monsters Encore," plus more levels, art, music, etc. It's a nice deal for the portable gamer, or so I'm told. I'm not buying the game again when I already have it once on my PS3.
PIXELJUNK EDEN
Without question, without hesitation, without reservation, this is my favorite game in the PixelJunk series. This is the game that made me a PixelJunkie, that made me want to explore the other titles.
Before even getting to the gameplay, I have to gush about the art and music. The soundtrack, composed by artist Baiyon (real name Tomohisa Kuramitsu), is crazy-addictive. It's electronic, but more ambient electronic than Monsters' score. It is absolutely hypnotizing. Each of the 16 songs in the game (one for each stage, plus the "world map" music) have reached "must-have" status in my collection of game music. Even more important is how well the music blends with the game's visuals. And there's a reason for that...
Baiyon did the game's art as well.
So yeah, this Baiyon fellow is a large part of what makes this game awesome. It sucks you in. Play for too long and it might give you a headache. But this game gets ridiculously high marks for aesthetics. Color is extremely important in PixelJunk Eden, and the monochromatic, or low-count multi-chromatic, layouts of the stages in Eden will be burned into your retinas after only a few plays.
This game is more beautiful than you (understand).
Now let's move to the gameplay. All of the PixelJunk games build on already-established genres in gaming, but Eden goes the furthest. At first glance, one might say "this is a platformer." Specifically, a 2-D platformer collect-a-thon. But no, it turns out it's much, much more than that. First of all, the sense of scale in this game is crazy. You play as a tiny little pollinator called a "Grimp." It's your job to plant seeds and make flowers grow. So you "collect" pollen by breaking little round spores and then the even tinier pollen units can be collected and will flow towards a designated spot where the seed can be planted. Once filled, touch the seed, and a plant grows. Now you can move up (or left, or right, or occasionally down) by jumping around.
The grimp also has a small spiderweb that allows him to do a number of things. With it he can spin in a circle and collect pollen. He can also use it as a way to boost a jump in any given direction, or to simply hang down to get a better view of what's below (the camera is fixed). That's what I was getting at with sense of scale. Sometimes the camera will zoom out if you spin in a circle long enough, but generally, the camera stays centered on the grimp and you have to memorize what is around you, because the size of these stages is usually *enormous* compared to the size of the grimp. From what you can see on the initial screen, you may go up as many as 50 times the height of what you see at first. When you reach the "top" of a level and then do a free-fall to the bottom, it's insane to witness just how long it takes to reach the floor. Imagine all the progress you've made!
The end purpose of growing all these flowers is to find "Spectra." Each Spectra adds a flower to the world map, which allows you to reach more levels. Now, each time you enter a level, you end your play time after collecting the required number of Spectra. Each level has 5 Spectra, and you have to play through the level 5 times to get them all. First entry: you need one Spectra (Spectrum?). Next entry, two Spectra. So you eventually reach five, and that means you really collect 15 per stage (1+2+3+4+5). It's a lot of repetition, but you can add to the replayability yourself by trying to get the Spectra in different order, take different paths, pollinate different areas, etc. Only a few of the levels are strict in their linearity.
I got all 75 Spectra in PixelJunk Eden (including 1-3a, PixelJunk Eden Encore, which adds stages 11 through 15). After doing all this, I got a bonus skill for my spiderweb ability. Now I could actually shoot the web to latch onto plants, as compared to the original usage where you must already be firmly affixed to a plant and then create the web. This adds a whole new sense of fun and absurdity to the game.
Did I not mention this game is beautiful? I think I did. But I'm saying it again. This game is beautiful. Each level has a very unique feel, thanks to the art and music. It's a must-have. Thanks a lot, Q-Games, for turning me into a PixelJunkie with this title.
PIXELJUNK SHOOTER
1-4 is the most recent game in the PixelJunk series, having been released in late 2009. It's also the most complex as far as gameplay goes, because it's not merely a shooter. The control scheme for your subterranean vehicle is akin to GEOMETRY WARS (or, for you true classic gamers, ASTEROIDS). But you will equip different attachments to your ship to overcome different obstacles, with the end goal of rescuing stranded scientists. Depending on what you do (or don't) do in those stages, the scientists can be killed by water, lava, or other hazards before you can rescue them. Like Monsters, the difficulty level in Shooter is very high.
The fire and ice ball just got a whole lot puzzlier. Yes, I said puzzlier.
Visually, the game boasts more stark, monochromatic influences, much like Eden. Orange, blue, and white are probably the three most dominant colors, though lots of neon-tinted colors throughout the spectrum make their way into the game. As for the soundtrack, it was handled by a team named "High Frequency Bandwidth," made up of Alex Paterson and Dom Beken. It's not the best soundtrack in the series, but it will grow on you if you continue to play the game.
I think, as a combination shooter-puzzle-adventure title, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better downloadable game. That is, if you're willing to put up with the challenge. For perfectionists, you can do a lot more than just "clear" the stages. You can try to rescue all scientists, find hidden bonuses, and complete areas within certain time limits to earn more trophies. There are also enemies, and even boss fights, and how you handle them will also determine trophy collection.
While many have already declared this game the best PixelJunk yet, my personal opinion is that Eden is superior to Shooter if only because I'm into artsy-fartsy games. Get over it. You can like 'em both. I know I do.
---
For the future, there is plenty on the horizon. A PIXELJUNK SHOOTER 2 title has already been confirmed; whether or not this will be like the Encore titles and appear as 1-4a, or as a fully separate title, remains to be seen. There are rumors of a 1-5, PIXELJUNK DUNGEON, in the works as well. What kind of game this would be, who knows. If it's an RPG-style dungeon crawler, I will wet my pants.
Cuthbert has also talked about a second series of PixelJunk titles (2-X) that would all be 3-D instead of 2-D. As long as they continue to hold to their quality standard (minus Racers) I'll be plenty pleased. The PSN library may be sorely lacking in quality titles that XBLA has, but this is more than a consolation prize for Sony owners. This is something you can get sucked into. Something you can get *addicted* to. See for yourself: become a PixelJunkie.
Review: ‘War for Cybertron’ has real spark
Like every playable Transformer in "War for Cybertron," Bumblebee has a retractable melee weapon. Duh.
After umpteen efforts across a variety of platforms, the Transformers finally have a game they can be proud of. Free from the narrative shackles of a TV show or movie cash-in, developer High Moon Studios has built a sturdy shooter and terrific multiplayer experience in “Transformers: War for Cybertron,” out this week on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
The game is set before the events of the 1980s cartoon, giving you one company’s look at the civil war that ravaged the Transformers’ home planet and sent the dastardly Megatron and the heroic Optimus Prime into deep space. They’ll eventually scrap in our solar system, crash-land on Earth and take a 4-million-year dirt nap before waking up in 1984.
But as “War for Cybertron” begins, Optimus is not yet a “Prime,” a title bestowed upon the leader of the Autobots (the good guys). He’s not even a proper truck. Because the robots haven’t yet encountered our 18-wheelers and Volkswagen Beetles and whatnot, they transform into space-age versions of the same things. Optimus, for instance, is a strange sort of hover-barge.
The narrative is strung together over 10 missions (five each for the Autobots and Decepticons), which can be tackled solo, cooperatively or competitively. The levels are beefy, occasionally overstaying their welcome but never leaving you with less than your money’s worth.
There are collectibles to hunt down, of course, and a handful of inventive achievements will give you a reason to go through some of the stages a second time. But by the time you’ve cleared the single-player campaign once or twice, you’ll be glad to say goodbye to it.
Not because it isn’t good, but because the multiplayer is so much fun.
Though it can feel a bit like a checklist (gradually unlockable abilities, a la “Modern Warfare” and “Blur”; a cooperative mode that pits players against waves of computer-controlled enemies, a la every modern shooter), High Moon pulls off the online component with panache.
The class-based competitive multiplayer, with its points and levels and challenges, is a serious timesink.
So “War for Cybertron” has the game part covered. But be honest, you’re here for the license. So how good is the Transformers part?
Pretty great, actually. The voice cast is superb — faithful to the franchise’s roots where it matters (Peter Cullen as Optimus) and fittingly histrionic elsewhere, too. Megatron is still a screeching nihilist bent on getting his way; Optimus, in Cullen’s rumbling baritone, still gives long-winded speeches about honor and sacrifice. It isn’t SAG Award-caliber stuff, exactly, but it’s more or less what you remember from the cartoon.
The sound effects work deserves special mention, too. Transforming is a crucial component of the game, and the accompanying rattle in “War for Cybertron” is rapturous. It blends the cartoon’s classic “ruh-rut-Rut-RUT” with a more sophisticated hydraulic whine, admirably approximating what an alien robot transforming into a jet might actually sound like.
The same goes for the game’s substantial library of weapon noises, from the heavy thud of a laser gattling gun to the sickening, satisfying crack of truck-on-robot violence.
The visuals, though solid, don’t always fare as well.
Giantbomb.com lists 91 games powered by Epic’s flexible Unreal Engine 3, and “War for Cybertron” is one of the most unremarkably shiny among them. If you’ve played “Gears of War 2,” “Mass Effect 2” or any other shooter from a third-person perspective in the last few years, you’ve already seen the best of what’s on offer here.
The problem is rooted mostly in the game’s title and setting — the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron. Per franchise lore, the entire planet is one big robot foundry, and a Transformer in its own right. I think. That means everything is metallic, angular, mildly reflective and a little boring.
It’s not that any one part of the game looks especially bad; in more than a few instances (the levels that involve low orbit, open air and lens flares, usually), it actually looks very nice. But if you’re tired of corridor crawls, this isn’t going to change your mind.
In some ways, though, keeping the action on Cybertron makes a lot of sense.
By setting the game before the events of the TV shows, High Moon wasn’t beholden to the burdensome, muddled, often pointless history of whatever the Autobots and Decepticons did on Earth.
And because Cybertronian environments are understandably built to spec for these enormous machine-people, the game steers clear of the scale issues that have plagued the franchise elsewhere (Is Optimus as big as an Earth tree or an Earth building? If Megatron turns into a big Earth gun, why is he as tall as Starscream? Such are the things that keep me up at night).
Fortunately, the character models themselves look quite good, each with their own glowing and moving parts. Some of the Decepticons can be tough to tell apart, as is the case with Michael Bay’s live-action “movies,” but by and large, the Transformers are sharply-designed bits of engineering.
Also worth noting — each robot credibly collapses into its vehicle form. Unlike the movies and cartoons, all of the interlocking pieces appear to end up somewhere in “War for Cybertron,” even if they don’t.
Though not without some issues, including a few day-one bugs that have yet to be ironed out, this game is easy to recommend. The online community is there, too, so you won’t want for teammates.
If you’re looking for something to string you through the summer, you could do much worse.
This article originally appeared in the York Dispatch.
Review: ‘Joe Danger’ brings the pain
Here’s a rare, unsolicited peek into the seedy world of local newspaper video game coverage — I don’t get much free stuff, and there’s zero institutional support financially, so every game you see discussed here is something I purchased out-of-pocket.
I’m more than happy to do that, of course, but I won’t intentionally purchase something I suspect to be bad.
So when I enthuse wildly about games week in and week out, as I’m about to do with British developer Hello Games’ first title, know that it comes from a sincere place.
“Joe Danger,” released last week exclusively on the PlayStation Network, is a bright, side-scrolling motorcycle action game that draws heavy inspiration from last year’s “Trials HD.”
Like “Trials,” “Joe” is split into dozens of easily digestible levels that require precise handling, a certain amount of patience and a willingness to hammer the restart button over and over again.
Both games become very challenging very quickly, asking you to rotate your avatar just so in mid-air or to pass under certain obstacles at low speed, lest you bounce about and inadvertently clothesline yourself. But where “Trials” became unmanageably, controller-chuckingly difficult about halfway through, “Joe” never feels as grueling.
Thanks to its cheery attitude and the ways it measures your progress, you’re more likely to smile when you flub a trick, land on a strip of spikes or plunge headlong into one of the game’s many shark tanks. And when you finally do nail a tough track, “Joe” is all the more rewarding for it.
Some of the levels can be cleared in a single run, but most pack so many objectives that you’ll be forced to finish them multiple times. Exploration will net you hidden stars and other trinkets scattered across three very separate lanes, a la “Excitebike.” Because you can change lanes only at prescribed switch points, and because the game frequently forbids you from backtracking, you’ll almost certainly miss a few items on your first go.
Fortunately, the game is built with that in mind. If you’ve found a level’s hidden stars but haven’t managed to sustain a trick combo all the way through, for example, you’ll get partial credit — usually enough to advance.
But if you’re a compulsive collector who doesn’t move on until all of a level’s quests are satisfied, be prepared for the long haul.
This is where I collapsed with “Trials.” Though I had unlocked the bulk of that game, I refused to advance to a given stage until I earned a gold medal in the one before it. That meant mastering an incredibly sensitive (and occasionally quirky) physics system and memorizing every ramp, wooden plank and pile of tires.
“Joe” is much more forgiving in that respect — you don’t have to lean halfway back and turbo-tap the gas to scale a nearly vertical rock face, for example — though it’s no slouch in the dexterity department. Every one of your fingers will be assigned to one or two buttons to manage boosting, ducking, jumping, flipping and tricking, and though that feels daunting at first, it becomes second-nature soon enough.
The busy controls also create some of your most memorable spills. As I write this, I’m still stuck on a stage that needs me to simultaneously boost and jump off a ramp (the square and x buttons), stop my momentum and move backward in mid-air (L2), pull off a backflip (left thumbstick) and grab trick (L1) to restore my boost meter, land on both wheels and turbo under a gate.
I can do it slowly if I set my mind to it, but to clear the level in the prescribed time, I have to do it quickly and flawlessly.
I had messed it up 46 consecutive times before I left for work this morning (like “Trials,” “Joe” helpfully keeps count of your screw-ups), landing on my neck or rocketing into a wall, and it was hilarious every time. That’s the distilled essence of a great action game. Even dying is fun.
I’ve spoken here only about the single-player career mode, but “Joe” also packs a suite of online and local multiplayer options, and its sandbox mode features one of the easiest track creators I’ve ever had the joy of using.
You can exchange user-made tracks over the Internet, though the game sadly lacks a marketplace where you can upload or download standout levels. Unless you have friends playing the game online, you’re out of luck.
That’s a relatively minor gripe, though, and among consoles, it’s something only “LittleBigPlanet” has started to figure out. “Joe Danger” is one of the best games available on Sony’s online service, and it should appeal to gamers and Super Dave Osborne fans everywhere.
This article originally appeared in the York Dispatch.
Some Thoughts On God Of War III's … Music?
We're typically not a game music-centric kind of site here at the olde G-Saur. Yet, I, Patrick "The Gameodactyl" Gann have devoted many long hours studying the music written for videogames. VGM is my bread and butter, and the number of games I've bothered playing because I first enjoyed their soundtrack would likely surprise you. Heck, it might even surprise me.
Now I've planned from day one to play GOD OF WAR III. I just got a little sidetracked with SHIREN THE WANDERER, SAKURA WARS: SO LONG, MY LOVE, FINAL FANTASY XIII, and other games. So, to psych myself up for and motivate myself to play GoW3, I thought "hey, why not digest the soundtrack first?" That might just be the medicine the doctor ordered to get me in the mood to finish out the trilogy!
Now, people who bought some insane collector's edition got a "God of War Trilogy" soundtrack. I didn't spend the money on that, though I'm sure it's well worth the money, because all three games have great music. No, what I have in front of me is the specific God of War III Original Soundtrack, published by Sumthing Else Music (catalog # SE-2080-2). Let's dig in, shall we?
The OST has 24 tracks on it and runs slightly under 60 minutes. Composers include Gerard Marino (the "main" composer of the GoW series), Jeffa Rona, Ron Fish, Mike Reagan, and one of my personal favorite Western composers, Cris Velasco. Marino handles most of the big, epic, "main" themes (including some re-working of older material), while the rest of the team handles the "day-to-day" music. That is, if you can consider any events in GoW3 as being "day-to-day" or "normal."
Despite having five composers, there is a very strong cohesision found on this soundtrack. Where does that come from? I would argue it comes from working with the same pallette: that is, the same engineers, the same musicians, etc. For this project, everyone worked with Skywalker Session Orchestra at Skywalker Sound in California. Some additional work came from the Czech National Symphony Chorus, but for the most part, it was the same group of musicians in California. This album is 100% recorded music, streamed (as compared to "sequenced") in the context of the game. It uses all the same tools and in many ways feels the same as a film score. When you have a big-budget game, I guess there's no reason *not* to go all out with large orchestras and the assuredly-pricy Skywalker Sound studios.
I'd like to provide a couple examples of tracks that I think stand out on the soundtrack. One of them, the longest track on the disc, is "Tides of Chaos" (track 12). This is a Marino track, and it makes excellent use of all the same instruments we hear throughout the soundtrack. Various forms of "click-clack" and "boom-boom" percussion (I don't feel like getting technical), the Czech choir, the tense whining of strings, and the ever-powerful high and low brass. I'd say this is the most representative sample track of the lot.
After this definitive track, there's a trio of Cris Velasco pieces. Among them, my favorite is "The Muse's Song" (track 14). The female solo vocalist adds a lot of power and depth to the recording. The Near-East instrumentation, including the recorders used by snake charmers and string instruments that are in the same family as the sitar, all add authenticity to the sound. But it can't be good if the melody isn't good. That's always been my stance. And I think there is certainly a charming melody during the melodic sections of this short (2 minute) piece.
Without question, this music is bound to impress the listener more in the context of the game's visuals and story arc. Nonetheless, as a stand-alone, it has the same power as many film scores out there. It doesn't have a lot of emotional resonance, but considering the nature of the game, I don't think I was ever expecting that. If you're into high quality orchestral scores with a flair of ethnic/world tastes, I submit to you that you may want to check out this album. It's a perfect companion piece to fans of the game. Now I just need to go and find out if I'll be a fan of the game myself (considering my track record with the previous titles in the series, it seems bloody likely!).
Let FFXIII be FFXIII
(first person to name that reference gets a hug)
I'm not sure I need to contribute anything about FINAL FANTASY XIII in print, given that I'm going to try to conscript Benji, who has finished it, to write a review. I expect we'll be discussing it on the podcast pretty exhaustively Sunday, and I'm only about halfway through, and the Gameodactyl has talked at y'all about it twice now.
I mean, I've spent all this time with GOD OF WAR III (wow) and COMMAND AND CONQUER 4 (weird) and the CHAOS RISING expansion to DAWN OF WAR II (awesome), and for diversity of coverage, I should be talking about one of those, right? Or at least playing something different, like RESONANCE OF FATE or METRO 2033 or something?
Naw, because I've got some strong feelings about FFXIII. But I want to spare you guys some of the redundancy, so we'll do it in Kotaku-style love/hate bullet points.
DIGGING:
- Battle-to-battle immediacy: For better or worse, Toriyama-san and company ruthlessly stripped out much of what makes a JRPG a JRPG. In the "better" column, I would file automatic post-battle healing and the dizzying speed at which your earnest retards do stuff while in combat. These are improvements Square Enix should keep.
- Abolishing MP while keeping magic relevant: Though it takes some of the mystique out of your casters' abilities, getting rid of magic points was a masterstroke. In FFXIII, everything hinges on "staggering" your foes, at which point they take much, much more damage. An enemy's stagger gauge is filled by "ravager" (mage) attacks, but it'll drop precipitously unless you're simultaneously pelting him with "commando" (fighter) attacks. It's a neat way to give players a reason to spec out a magician later in the game, when most Final Fantasy titles become about making all of your dudes super-strong, super-versatile super-fighters. Hell, Yuna was my tank by the (very, very) end of FINAL FANTASY X.
- Mostly lovable cast: With the exception of Hope — the bratty, girly product of a pretend broken home — the galoots you steer through FFXIII's corridors are a likable lot. In the first hour of the game, I thought I'd hate Snow, who rolls up the sleeves of his trenchcoat and is Cocoon's equivalent of an Ivy League cheerleader. But at hour 20, he's become my favorite Final Fantasy character since Dagger. Just a determined, sympathetic do-gooder who wants to help his friends. That he's the best-written of several speciously scripted characters helps his standing somewhat. I'm also down with Lightning, who's just hard-edged enough to be a badass. She kept punching Snow early on, which confused me, but it makes a certain sort of Final Fantasy sense now.
- You're asked to kill God, basically: We've talked about this theme on the podcast before, and it's hardly unique to FFXIII (XENOGEARS says "hi"). But any game that asks you to flip off the man in charge earns easy points with me.
- Looks awesome: I mean, really awesome. The game's Cybertronian eidolons are the most rewardingly flashy summons of the series, and almost every environment is drop-dead gorgeous.
NOT DIGGING:
- Buddy system: FFXIII has an in-game tutorial that teaches you how to use items. I'll summarize that lesson in five words: SELECT "ITEMS," USE "PHOENIX DOWN." But no, the game interrupts a battle to offer you a one-minute explanation of said feature. That's the ethos that guides the first 20 hours of the game. You can't select your party members, your level-building is capped, you mostly get only two characters at a time, you can't pick your dialogue, and you never, ever will stray from the beaten path. It's impossible. In FFXIII, you can't take a piss without somebody "offering" to undo your fly.
- All alone: For the first six or seven hours of the game, your five (later six) player-controlled characters are just about the only people you'll meet. Your villain is a nebulous geezer who occasionally issues some calamitous edict through Fal'cie Public Radio, but if you want to learn anything about his lieutenants or the soldiers dogging you down every lushly decorated corridor, you'll have to dig through the game's terrible "Datalog," which keeps track of every single enemy and plot development. (Related: What the hell is with the notification markers? Does the items menu really need my attention every time a bad guy drops a potion? Really?)
- Leveling malaise: My biggest complaint about FINAL FANTASY XII is the retrospectively awesome fact that any character can be anything. In FFXIII, each character initially gets a set of two or three specialties, but later, with enough grinding, anybody can be anything. MAKE UP YOUR MIND, GAME. Either my dudes have pre-determined classes, or they don't. Do not tease me with Hope's awesome boomerangs -- the only awesome thing about him -- and then take them away for the next two-dozen hours.
Long story short, I like, but it has some truly vexing issues. Real head-scratchers. But I'm on track to finish this one, and I can't say that of XII or FINAL FANTASY X-2 (which I loved but eventually became intimidated by, such is its breadth; same director, infinitely more customizable -- weird).
A hit, a rogue, and a book: an introspective look at my gaming habits
So, as you may have read if you've been following the posts on Gameosaurus, we took a break from our weekly podcast, and will soon be slowing down recordings. There were a number of reasons for it, but chief among them was this: I, the Gameodactyl, was awful at keeping up with our self-imposed schedule.
We planned on discussing a book, Steven Johnson's 2005 Everything Bad Is Good For You, on last week's podcast. The idea was actually mine. A friend of a friend suggested the book to me after I recounted an embarrassing story, when I got into a debate with a theology professor about the pros and cons of gaming in the spring of 2005. I was so psyched about the book that I ordered three copies and demanded that we discuss it on a recent podcast. And of course, the only guy to not read the book in time is yours truly.
The hit.
We will be discussing the book in further detail in our upcoming podcast, as all of us have now read it. It wasn't at all the book I expected it to be. The subtitle of the book suggests that popular culture makes us smarter, and for some reason, I was expecting it to also address how it makes us "better" in a more well-rounded sense. But no, the argument has everything to do with cognition and intelligence. Johnson addresses the "moral degradation" arguments, and actually does a half-decent job, even though he relegates that argument to only a mere ten (or less) sentences of the book.
I'll talk about this more on the podcast, but suffice it to say, the book was marvelously eye-opening. For years, I've been lying to myself about why I enjoy games. The determinist argument Johnson provides is too compelling to be false. In short, the "reward" system of the brain is the reason games are popular. The positive side effect is that they teach us how to think: pattern recognition, systems analysis, etc. But the reward system is what brings us back for more; it's much the same experience as food, sex, exercise (for habitual athletes, not noobsauce weaklings like myself), or drugs. The "seeking" function applies especially well.
More importantly, Johnson argues that the content is secondary, perhaps even tertiary, to the gaming experience. And here's where I've been lying to myself. I've enjoyed RPGs above all other genres for years, and I've told myself and it's primarily because RPGs were the text-heavy story-centric mammoths of gaming that I enjoyed them most. I appreciated the plots, the character development, etc. Story is what kept me coming back for more.
The rogue.
In truth, while some RPGs have had decent stories, none of them can compare to literary classics. Ever. They're different forms, and games simply cannot afford a strong story. I hate admitting that. but they're right. And the last two weeks of gaming prove it.
The two games at the top of my list to play right now are FINAL FANTASY XIII (duh) and SHIREN THE WANDERER (huh?!). Here's the really cute part. FFXIII has been out for about 9 days now, and I'm 2 hours into the game. Shiren, the rogue-like game with a challenge level rivaling DEMON'S SOULS (another Atlus publication), I've sunk nearly 50 hours into. I haven't told anyone until now. Granted, I've had it since the end of February, but that is still a ton of time to put into a game that is so short.
When you start a game on Shiren the Wanderer (a Wii-exclusive game and third part of a series that generally hasn't seen the light of day in North America), you can play on Easy or Normal. Easy gives you the rogue-lite option: when you die, all you lose are the things you found in that particular dungeon. It's a restart, but it's not a real loss. There are over 20 dungeons in the game's main plot, and none of them exceed 30 floors. Play on normal, and you get a true "rogue" experience. While you do retain experience points and levels, you will lose all items, save those you kept back in a storehouse. I chose to play on normal, and that's been what's killing my time.
I'm at the end of the game, and due to my own compulsive behaviors, I won't stop playing the game (or write the review for RPGFan.com) until I reach the ending. The other day, I built up fantastic equipment, with a lot of good fortune and skills that I've picked up while playing the game), that afforded me the opportunity to reach the final boss. If only I'd read a walkthrough to know that the final boss had two forms, and I should save all my big guns for the second form. I didn't come with enough defense or restoratives, and I died. Ridiculous sword and shield equipped on Shiren that took 8 hours to create? Gone.
So why do I go back? It's the whole reward-center thing. I know how to make that sword again, and with luck, I might even make something better this time around. I've learned the tricks, the exploits, the nuances of the system in this game, and I'm excited to conquer it. And while this game has a much stronger plot than almost any rogue-like in the world (including previous Shiren entries), in truth it's little more than a quirky re-telling of some Japanese folklore. If I actually was drawn to games for their story-telling, wouldn't I just throw Shiren out the window and get started on FFXIII?
You see, I started FFXIII, and while I am annoyed with some of the characters already (see: Hope), I am definitely interested in the sci-fi/dystopian plot. I'm definitely attracted to it. But the battle system? At least from the start, there was nothing to learn, nothing to master. Everyone agrees that game has a slow start. So hey, it doesn't have me hooked. But some poorly-selling rogue-like RPG on the Wii has me hooked? Madness. Except, according to Johnson, it makes perfect sense.
The book.
So that's where I stand. when Podcast-recording time comes, I hope to be done with Shiren and ready to get back into the game that's a best-seller due to strong branding and eye candy. I hope to thoroughly enjoy it, as my fellow G'saurs apparently have. But we'll see. In the meantime, I think I will now be approaching each game I play with a totally different outlook, and it's thanks to Johnson's book.
(Also, I really want to read Johnson's latest, The Invention of Air, which focuses on the points of agreement and tension in science and religion in the last few hundred years of the Western world. Has anyone read it? Does anyone have any other recommendations for reading?)