Game Review: Mighty No. 9

As you may have noticed, I've taken a hiatus from the SDP over the past year.  I've kind of been focused on other projects, especially my other blog, the Sekai Ichi Japan travel blog.  But I've finally reached a point where I can put that on hold and return to this.  To herald my long-awaited comeback, I'll start off by reviewing a couple of games that came out just last year.  I've had these reviews in the oven for quite a while longer, but haven't found the inspiration to finish them until now.  Maybe I should have published these reviews when they were still relevant, but putting enough time behind me gives me the benefit of cooling down any passions that may influence my criticism for better or worse.  ...Sure, let's go with that.  Now with no further ado, I present to you...

Mighty No. 9

• Publisher: Deep Silver 
• Developer: Comcept / Inti Creates 
• Release Date: 21 June 2016
• Systems: PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, XBox 360, XBox One, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS
• Genre: 2D Action (Platformer)
• Players: 1 
• Cost: US$20

Yup, almost three years since its debut announcement on Kickstarter, Mighty No. 9, the second coming of Mega Man in-all-but-name is upon us. And seeing as how I wrote an editorial on this game, in addition to funding it when it was on Kickstarter, I feel an obligation to review the finished product. I endorsed said project back then, but in retrospect I'm not sure why. In that very editorial, I even said I had gotten bored of the original Mega Man formula embraced by its spiritual successor. In fact, I'm actually more of a Sonic and Legend of Zelda kind of guy. (Which explains why I took to Mega Man Legends the way I did; it's basically Zelda with guns.) My expectations weren't the highest, but thankfully I managed to stay out of the drama concerning its repeated delays despite the inordinate amount of money thrown at it by its backers ("Beckers", if you will).

Mighty No. 9 is a jump-and-shoot platformer developed by Comcept and Keiji Inafune, the co-creator of Mega Man.  In other words, Mighty No. 9 is a jump-and-shoot platformer developed by Comcept and Keiji Inafune, the co-creator of Mega Man, or at least as close as it can be without the keys to the licence.  In a world where humans and robots live together, a mysterious event causes robots across the country to go haywire, including the Mighty Numbers 1 through 8, created by Dr. Light Dr. White. But some robots were unaffected, like our player character: the titular Mega Man Mighty No. 9, a.k.a. the not-so-titular Rock Beck. And faster than you can say "soy un perdedor", Beck and Dr. White are on the case to, respectively, restore the mad robots and get to the bottom of all this. In case you haven't figured it out now, the plot is exactly like any given Mega Man game, with the names changed around a bit.

Beck needs to dash into enemies to finish them off.

And so is the gameplay: Beck jumps among platforms, shoots enemy robots, and collects special weapons from defeated bosses. But even this formula gets shaken up, ever so slightly, by Beck's new ability: the dash. This move can be used with the press of a button and is unlimited in use, so if nothing else it is deeply incorporated into the game's design. Dashing is used not just for platforming, but also for attacking: shooting enemies enough turns them unstable, at which point you can dash to finish them off, and get a temporary stat buff in the process.  These boosts not all that noticeable however, and something like extra health or ammo would be much more appreciated.

Sometimes, it's not even worth the effort, especially if an enemy you've just stunned is hovering over a bottomless pit or other trap.  Try tp give it the ol' coup-de-grace, and there's a good prospect that you might mis-time your dash back to the starting platform, and fall to your doom.  But the thing is, you're pressured to do this anyway, since dash-killing baddies right after you disable them builds up a combo counter, which leads to extra points, which lead to... nothing in particular.  So much for that, then.  You could say this approach does help the gameplay stand out among the many other Mega Man titles, but when you get right down to it, is it just extra busy work, when we used to be able to just shoot targets into oblivion? Yes, yes it is. But who am I to complain about new mechanics? Lord knows we had enough Mega Man sequels to prove that making so many games without such a unique selling point isn't the way to go either.  But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Of course, getting through the stages themselves is only half of the battle; the other half is knowing -- I mean, fighting the bosses. Like in Mega Man, Mighty Numbers 1 through 8 yield their weapons when you defeat them, allowing you to exploit the weaknesses of other bosses with them. Once again, this give the player the challenge of figuring out which boss is weak to which weapon... except not, because you can have the game straight-out tell you what their weaknesses are!  But the thing is, every so often, you have to hit them with a dash to finalize the damage you've just dealt, and if you fail that, they heal that chunk of health you worked so hard to chip off! There are even a number of bosses who possess instant-kill attacks!  Speaking of, there is no reason why spikes still need to be an instant kill, as they are in this very game. To quote the Zero Punctuation review of (the admittedly superior) Shovel Knight:

"We've got bottomless pits for a perfectly functional, if slightly ambiguous, instant kill; we don't need spikes muscling in on their turf! Five minutes ago, a bloke the size of a pregnant bus jumped down and hit me with the metal windsurfing sail that he seems to think is a sword, and it didn't even take off a whole health point. Now I'm being splattered across four dimensions because my elbow brushed against the stucco ceiling. I'm a trifle miffed! I think it's only an instant kill because spikes were an instant kill in Mega Man, but it was just as unnecessary then, too."

That may be true of both games, but you know what Shovel Knight has that Mighty No. 9 doesn't? Infinite lives! Let me quiz you readers on this topic:

Q: Where did lives systems in video game come from?
A: From arcade games, to let the next person in line play (and subsequently, pay) as soon as possible.

Q: Why do console games have lives systems?
A: Because they were ported from arcade games.

Q: Ah, but what if the console game in question was not an arcade port? Why would it have a lives system then?
A: ...I got nothing.

Dashing and precision platforming don't mix, especially when insta-kill spikes or bottomless pits are involved.

See, if you must include a lives system in your game, don't make it mandatory; just include it as an option, like Arcade Mode in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. (Incidentally, why haven't they ever brought Arcade Mode back to CoD? Was their Special-Ops mission mode from Modern Warfare 2 just so revolutionary that they couldn't look back?) And sure, losing all your lives just forces you to restart the level in question, not the whole game, plus you can set your lives to as many as 10 right off the bat. But that's just putting patches on the problem instead of addressing the root cause.

But even if the game did offer infinite lives, there's one more problem which grinds my gears. Each time you die, the game docks you a penalty of 3,000 points. And by the game's standards, 3,000 is a lot of points. This matters because you get grades for your performance upon completing a level. And if you get killed enough that your score ends up at 0, all you get is a meager finishing bonus and a D rank. I guess the idea is that you get better at the stage so you can do it without dying even once, but getting that D the first time around does not leave a good impression of the game, and could very well discourage players from trying them again.

Let's change the subject to something which doesn't cause frustration. In comparison to the old Mega Man games, which couldn't afford a detailed story due to space constraints, Mighty No. 9 does a great job in building up its setting.  The boss characters all have some sort of utility purpose they could have been used for before turning evil, a concept which hasn't been explored since Mega Man 1.  The levels all take place within appropriately-themed industrial sites throughout the USA, plus a level set in the White House, of all places.  Then again, this same level has you chasing down a sniper in a long, looping corridor without checkpoints -- but with more insta-kill spikes, of course -- so they might as well not have bothered.

The limited character animations make most cutscenes feel unfinished.

World-building is one thing, but the graphics which bring that world to life fail to impress.  Sure, a game like this doesn't need too many visual gimmicks to work, but it's still well behind the times. On the one hand, animations like Beck's walk cycle are expressive and bouncy. On the other hand, the animation in cutscenes is considerably more limited, as characters don't move their mouths when they talk! Like, at all!  Even Mega Man Legends, a game that came out two decades ago, animated the character's mouths, and that was just with 2-D textures!  And yet despite it all, the game is somehow a bit poorly-optimised.  Maybe it's just on the PlayStation 3 version I played, but there are quite a few instances of slowdown and frame-skipping.  One such instance even made me miss a ledge and fall to the death!  It's these sort of thing which gives the impression of a game that's only half-baked, and make us wonder where the heck all that money we backed it with went.

In conclusion, Mighty No. 9 is basically this generation's Daikatana, for there are many coincidental similarities between the two games.  Both were developed by brand-new studios started by game designers with quite a bit of pedigree behind them.  Both were announced three years ahead of their eventual release, during which time their developments were plagued with accusations of mis-management amidst vast budgets, not to mention some insulting advertisements.  And when the actual games came out, their almost-admirable attempts at world-building were overshadowed by game mechanics which work against the player, graphics which seemed a whole generation behind the times, and were general disappointments at best.  Not to mention, they are both tangentially related to actually good games by developers who had their heads screwed on tighter.  For Daikatana, it was Deus Ex, by the "good" half of Ion Storm.  And for Mighty No. 9, that would be Azure Striker Gunvolt by Inti Creates, who coincidentally also did work on this game.  Perhaps I should review Gunvolt myself one day, but in the meantime, I think I've got the perfect tagline to describe this whole affair: "Keiji Inafune is about to make you his b!tch."

Suck it down, ladies and gentlemen.  But until next time, this is IchigoRyu.

You are the resistance.

Positives:
+ Promising world-building.
+ The bonus challenge missions.
+ Expressive characters and animations.

Negatives:
- The dash-to-kill mechanic is an unnecessary addition forced upon us.
- Relentlessly difficult, even without the lives system.

- Extremely basic graphics and sub-par optimisation.

Control: 3 spikes out of 5
Design: 1 spikes out of 5
Audiovisual: 2 spikes out of 5
Value: 3 spikes out of 5
The Call: 50% (D)

You might like instead: Azure Striker Gunvolt, Shovel Knight, Strider

Game Review: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

• Publisher: Konami 
• Developer: Kojima Productions 
• Release: PlayStation 3/PlayStation 4/XBox 360/XBox One/PC, 18 March 2014 
• Genre: Action (Third-person, Stealth) 
• Players: 1 (Internet ranking) 

Question: What constitutes the true play-time of a video game? Is it measured in the length of its canonical story campaign? Or should any supplementary modes be included as well? And where does multiplayer fit in to all this? Well, this conversation got a little more heated with the release of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, billed as a prequel to the upcoming MGSV: The Phantom Pain. In case you haven't heard, the main story mode and six side missions of Ground Zeroes run, on average, about fifteen minutes apiece. Oh, did I mention that Ground Zeroes is being sold at US$30? Yeah, and it was going to be $40 at first. That may not be as much as the standard price of full-budget video games these days, but for something of this length, I'd expect nothing more costly than a ten-spot, not something treated with the same fanfare and pre-release scrutiny as... well, The Phantom Pain, for example. By any reckoning, I deem this unacceptable. So much so, that my original concept for this review was just an empty page, nothing but blank lines, made purely out of protest. But then I actually played it, and... well, just read on for yourself.

Ground Zeroes takes place in 1975 at a place called Camp Omega, a clandestine American prison-camp in Cuba, which is most certainly "not" inspired by the real-life one at Guantanamo Bay. The place is being run by a villain named Skullface, so named because most of the skin had been burned off of his face in some earlier time, who is in contact with an offscreen shadowy figure known only as Cipher (a.k.a. Major Zero from MGS3). It is here that Snake, alternatively named Big Boss or, as I like to call him, "The Artist Formerly Known as Snake", must rescue Chico and Paz, two children* who tagged along for the ride during 2010's MGS: Peace Walker, and have somehow wound up in Camp Omega.  Actually, with Ground Zeroes being a direct sequel to Peace Walker, I'd advise playing that game if you want to understand even half of the plot. No seriously, it's really good. I recommend picking it up as part of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, which in addition to Peace Walker also includes the special editions of MGS2 and 3, plus the original games made for the MSX. So go do that. I'll wait.

*Actually, it turns out that Paz is actually 24 years old by the time of Ground Zeroes. You see what I mean when I said the Japanese have a [verb]ed-up understanding of age? Ah well, at least it takes the edge off of what happens to her at the end.

Everybody caught up on their Metal Gear lore now? Good, let's move on. You know how I warned you in the first paragraph that each of the game's missions lasts but a fraction of an hour? Well, that's because Camp Omega represents the entirety of the game's playable real estate. The camp's large enough; I'm no good with estimating distances, but it could comfortably fit a fair handful of maps from any given multiplayer shooter. And one of the ending cutscenes is a shootout on Mother Base (the offshore headquarters Snake and company built up during Peace Walker), and the player doesn't get so much as a quick-time event! Come on guys; I know this cutscene is in-game, so you've already rendered the area just to make that cutscene which was apparently so bloody important! Why couldn't you have used it for some additional missions to fill out the game with!?

And speaking of ending cutscenes, at some point Snake and company extract a bomb from Paz's guts -- without anesthetic -- only for her to wake up and announce there was another bomb in her body, presumably in her womb. Dramatic, yes, but what was the point of showing us the ordeal with the first bomb if she's just gonna blow up anyway and send Snake into a coma which lasts him through the start of The Phantom Pain? And Paz, darling, it's lucky you're over 18 or else this would be even more effed up than it already is, and it is already considerably effed up, if you haven't gathered. And that's not even considering the stuff that goes on in the collectible cassette tapes, if you ever bother to listen to them.

For the gameplay we do get, Ground Zeroes introduces a new mechanic to its stealth-action gameplay, and by "new", I mean "borrowed from Far Cry 3". You can tag enemies by looking at them through your binoculars, allowing you to track their movements, even through walls. I must say, it encourages more careful play, or at least tries to. And even if you do get spotted, there's another new feature (and by "new", I mean "it might actually be new in how it's used in this game") caled Reflex Mode, wherein time slows down for a few seconds and you have a last chance to kill or knock out the guy who spotted you before the alarm gets triggered. This last feature is optional, but you get bonus points at the end of your mission if you don't use this feature. Further new features (and by "new", I mean "recycled from Peace Walker") include a revamped Codec system, which eschews the traditional text-based cutscenes in favour of a few lines of context-sensitive monologue, without breaking the flow of gameplay. If you ask me, this is how the Codec should have been implemented from the start.

And of course, Ground Zeroes implements "new" features that are being picked up by every triple-A video game with a drop of shooter blood in its body. Snake's inventory is limited to a maximum of two long guns, a pistol, and four items (such as grenades, C4, and empty magazines), and he regenerates health automatically. It is possible for him to suffer more serious injuries, thus limiting his healing factor, but you can cure these with a button prompt, and there is no limit to how often you can do this, so what's the point? Snake also has a sprinting ability, but I actually liked its inclusion here. Not only does Snake run longer and faster than characters in other games employing the technique, but it's handy for getting out of undesired skirmishes. And with an open world sandbox to play about in, running away to a different portion of the map is a reliable way to hide when you get spotted. Although I couldn't help noticing that the timers indicating the duration of the various alert phases have been taken away, and have been replaced by mere captions.

If you need any proof that the eight-generation consoles are totally unnecessary, look to Ground Zeroes. Both the seventh-generation (PS3 and XBox 360) and eighth-gen (PS4 and XBox One) demonstrate impressive visual details. Any weapons and items in Snake's arsenal are shown strapped to his body at all times (their excuse for limited weapon slots?), and even jiggle about when he runs or sprints. In missions with rainy weather, the water sticks to people's clothes, including fluttering ponchos, with suitable realism. Pretty much the only difference between the two tiers is that the newer platforms run the game at 60 frames per second instead of 30, which is nice, but hardly a dealbreaker, I say. Or, you could just get the PC version, which is essentially the same as the 8th-gen ones, but for a platform you probably already own (assuming you've upgraded it in the past couple of years). Yup, it's never been a better time to join the PC Gaming Master Race (unless Origin or uPlay are involved). Also, the voice of Snake has been swapped from his longtime actor David Hayter to Kiefer Sutherland. What can I say other than, "if you liked him in 24, you'll like this."

This may sound weird given all the examples I've read of the video games industry screwing over consumers, but Ground Zeroes left a positive impression upon me. Maybe I'm just positively inclined towards the game since I borrowed it from the library (even getting all the PSN Trophies in doing so) without paying so much as a cent, but I do have other reasons. Open-world gameplay is a natural fit for the Metal Gear franchise, even if in this case the open-world is smaller than expected. And that being the case, I'm actually kind of excited for The Phantom Pain. I might even pick up that game when it comes out... okay, I'll wait for the reviews first. For now, I can't approve of what Ground Zeroes represents, but if you like it for what it is, I won't hold it against you. So I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I'm going to give it a base score of 80% (B), but you, the reader, get to subtract 5 percent from that score for every US$5 you spent on the game.

Positives:
+ The new tagging mechanic makes stealth gameplay more fun and satisfying than ever.
+ There's plenty of stuff to do if you stick around for more than one play-through.
+ Very impressive graphics quality, even on the seventh-gen (PS3/X360) versions.

Negatives:
- Excessively brief first-play length.
- Regenerating health and limited weapon slots.

Control: 4 prisoners out of 5

Design: 4 prisoners out of 5

Writing: 3 prisoners out of 5

Graphics: 5 prisoners out of 5

Sound: 4 prisoners out of 5

Value: 1 prisoner out of 5
The Call: 40% (F) to 80% (B) (80%, minus 5% for every $5 you spent on the game)

Dance Dance Retrospective: DDR 2010

Previously on Dance Dance Retrospective, there were DDR X2 for the PlayStation 2, and DDR Hottest Party 3 for the Wii. I thought little of them at the time, and still do, but their announcement earlier in 2009 came with promises of more advanced titles for the PS3 and XBox 360. Those, of course, never came to be... at least that year. But the following year, the seventh-generation consoles were finally (not including the Universe trilogy for XBox 360) graced with Dance Dance Revolution games to call their own: the simply-titled DanceDanceRevolution, which released first for the PS3 and Wii, with an XBox 360 port following shortly after.

And it sucked.

...

I assume. Yeah, as with the previous entries, I've yet to play this one, because it's not doing a heck of a whole lot to interest me. First of all, let's start with the title: no number, no subtitle, just "DanceDanceRevolution". I'd like to state for the record that I hate when people recycle a title with little to no changes when making a sequel to some form of media. I hate this practise so much that I might even write a top-ten list on the subject. To be fair, it is just one word in CamelCaps this time around, unlike the 1998 arcade game, its home port for Japan, and the 2001 home game which used a somewhat different engine. And yes, I guess they did it to ring in a new console generation... Oh wait, there was the DDR Universe series! ...Oh wait, that was an XBox 360 exclusive. Never mind. Meanwhile, over in Europe, the game was blessed with the subtitle "New Moves" on the PS3 and 360, and "Hottest Party 4" on the Wii. And I'm like, why couldn't you have done that over here!? *sigh* As it stands, I shall collectively refer to the new games as DDR 2010.

So enough about the title, what's the game itself like? Well, speaking at least for the "New Moves" versions, the interface colour scheme is dominated by reds and blacks, and the music-select screen brigns back the 5thMIX-through-SuperNOVA2 "music wheel" layout. Oh, and the rating scale is once again brought back to the old 1-to-10 standard. But not well, mind you. For example, the Basic chart for "Let's Get Away" is ranked a 4, but it's really more like a 2, 3 tops. After playing second-banana to the Guitar Hero / Rock Band duumvirate for some years, DDR 2010 attempts to incorporate some features from those games. "Groove Chains", or short sequences of notes that offer bonus points when completed without error, and "Groove Trigger", which you can activate at full health to get bonus points, both borrow elements of the Star Power/Overdrive systems from those rival games. In theory, I do admire these embellishments as attempts to liven up gameplay which has for the most part remained stale since 2001 (when they invented Freeze Arrows). But the execution leaves something to be desired. To use Groove Trigger, for example, you have to press Up and Up-Right or Up-Left immediately after, or flick the right analog stick on a separate controller. And the game still tallies the bonus points earned from these gimmicks separately from your base score (out of 1 million), so in the end it's kind of pointless.

Club Mode in the PS3 version.

DDR 2010 game lacks a Nonstop course mode in the traditional sense, but the PS3 and 360 versions do feature a Club Mode, which has you playing a random selection of 4 to 20 songs without breaks, and is the primary method of unlocking new songs. The only problem, at least for experienced players, is that it always starts you out on Beginner-level charts. The "Hands and Feet" mode from the later PS2 entries has been reincarnated as "Step and Move", which uses the dance pad along with the Move camera and wand (PS3 only). This time around, there are targets on all four corners of the screen, and you use your wand to trigger them for the appropriate note markers. From what I've seen of this mode, it has an unfortunate tendency of forcing you to twist your upper body at odd angles to hit the right markers, as if you were playing high-speed Twister with no tactile feedback. And you know that 8-panel mode that was teased in the 2009 trailer? Yeah, it's still in this game -- the new dance pads finally have eight panels, after all -- but like the Shock Arrows in DDR X, they're only used for a scant handful of Challenge-level charts. Meanwhile, the Wii version has carried over the Balance Board-supported Choreography Mode from Hottest Party 3.

Choreography Mode in the Wii version.

But if you were to ask me, and by reading this blog you implicitly did so, the make-or-break feature for any music game is, duh, the music. And it is in this arena that DDR 2010 sucks a fat one. Of the licenced songs chosen for this game, which would I characterise the whole thing with? "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train. "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. "Battlefield" by Jordin Sparks. And "Need You Now" by Lady Antebellum. You see the problem, don't you? If you're not familair with those songs, I'll give it to you straight: they're too slow and dull for a dancing game! Oh, and you read that last one right: there's now a country-western song in a Dance Dance Revolution game. A really good country-western song mind you, but not something I'd want to dance to. Okay, to be fair, there have been slow songs in the older games which I didn't mind, but those were Konami originals for the most part. And there are more... active choices in this game -- I guess I'd highlight "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga, "crushcrushcrush" by Paramore, "Rio" by Duran Duran, and "Venus" by Bananarama -- but the damage was done by the lower end of the quality spectrum.

As for the Konami originals, well, I guess they're okay; they're pretty much going through the same motions by now. For the bosses, there's another level-10 happy-hardcore song, and another "Evolved" song. Also "MAX 300" again. Oh right, I forgot to mention, there are 5 revival songs in this game, the other four being "Afronova" from 3rdMIX, "Sweet Sweet Magic" and "Tsugaru" from MAX2, and "Hana Ranman (Flowers)" from SuperNOVA. Plus, there are even more songs available as downloadable content: 30 songs across 6 packs, all revivals spanning the classic through the SuperNOVA eras. This arguably makes for the most interesting material in the game, but if that's so, it's pretty sad when you think about it. For one, you have to pay extra for the best content, and two, the best content is stuff you've already seen before. So is the 2010 DanceDanceRevolution the worst game in the series? It'd be hard to say that for certain, what with all those pint-sized spin-off releases Japan got back in the day, but at least among the full-budget, worldwide (at least for more than one region) releases, it'd be easier to make that accusation. And for what we were promised in 2009, it's easily the most disappointing.

Next episode is on both an arcade and a home game... I do hope this next installment of Dance Dance Retrospective will bring something more interesting to the table.

Indie-Cember: Papo & Yo

Papo & Yo 

• Publisher/Developer: Minority 
• Lead Designer: Vander Caballero 
• Release: 
• PlayStation 3, 14 August 2012 
• PC, 18 April 2013 
• Genre: 3D Action (Platformer/Puzzle )
• Players: 1 
• Rarity/Cost: DLC, US$15

It's curious how the video game creation market has been all but monopolised by certain powers. Namely, America, Japan, and Western Europe are the main offenders in this arena. Surely there are other corners of the world with stories to tell, no? I sure hope so, because I'm starting to notice the likes of Call of Duty over there portraying white America with an increasingly holier-than-thou attitude with each successive entry. It's not like the American way isn't worth defending, even vicariously through a digital power fantasy, but the more non-Western European-ethnics I'm given the opportunity to gun down, the more I want to distance myself from that paradigm. And that's not just me saying that: these thoughts are also echoed by a mister Vander Caballero:

When I was playing Call of Duty and you landed [in the Brazilian slums] with a shotgun and you were killing everyone, I was like 'Oh man, that's so impolite! That's so disgusting!' And it makes people afraid of the favelas. [1]

Who is Vander Caballero? He just so happens to be the lead designer of today's subject Papo & Yo, and it turns out that hails from Colombia. Although, his studio is based in Montreal, Canada, so partial credit there. Confusing the cultural potpourri even further, Papo & Yo appears to take place in Brazil, or some fictional counterpart thereof. Bear in mind the game's title is Spanish -- as in not the language spoken in Brazil. Yo soy confused.

But enough trying to make sense of where Papo & Yo came from; let's look at it as a game like we're supposed to. Papo & Yo chronicles the adventures of a boy named Quico through a series of fantastical favelas in not-Brazil. Of the things this game does to spice up your journey, the first you'll notice is that to advance to new areas, you have to manipulate the environment. This activity takes the form of pushing switches or pulling levers, which cause events like stairs made out of white light to appear for you to climb up, or entire houses to fly up and out to a new location so you can use them as a bridge. One of its more memorable moments (or at least the one I spent the most time on) is when you move houses to form a tower, which you can lower and use as a bridge to find even more houses to extend the tower-bridge, and once it's long enough you can leave the section in the same manner. I simply loved this whimsical approach to making an adventure out of the ordinary, and is living (not literally "living", mind you) proof that just because one uses a video game setting based on the real world doesn't mean it has to stay grounded in reality. And while I'm on the subject, I simply have to give a tip of the hat to composer Brian d'Oliviera, whose soundtrack is appropriately whimsical and distinctly South American, and also happens to be the first game soundtrack I ever bought.

Further puzzle elements are introduced through new characters. First is an animate toy robot named Lula, who can trigger switches from far away, and even give you a hover-jump ability. Said hover-jump extends your lateral jumping range something useful, but doesn't do much for how high you can jump. And Quico's jump height, or lack thereof, was a real point of contention for me. Look, I'm not expecting him to jump several times his height like Mario. I mean, it worked in side-scrollers like Super Mario Bros. because verticality makes for more exciting 2D levels, and when you're in a 3D environment and you have the ability to walk around obstacles, it's okay to put that kind of realism back into play. But shouldn't he at least be able to climb up ledges or something?

After the first half-hour or so, you are then introduced to the Monster. Typically, he's a gentle giant simply on the lookout for coconuts to eat and places to sleep, and you can get him where you want to by manipulating these elements. They were even nice enough to add a thought-bubble so you know what Monster is focused on. But then frogs come into play, and hoo boy, now the game shows its true colours. See, Monster is addicted to frogs, and when he eats one, he takes on a fiery form and starts hunting you down. But the worst he can do if he catches you (outside of cutscenes) is to toss you around, giving you another chance to run away. That's right, Quico can't get hurt, not even from taking a long fall. I'm not saying that implementing a damage system would've helped this game in any way, or hurt it for that matter. But it certainly would make this otherwise kid-friendly game even more scary.

Although, when you take the game's backstory into account, it becomes a stretch to call it "kid-friendly". See, the game opens up with a dedication to Vander Caballero's family, with the exception of his alcoholic father who had abused some or all of them in some capacity. In real life, apparently. Occasionally, the linear level-to-level progression is interrupted by brief cutscenes depicting Quico and his father in some dark situations. And again, there's the whole business of Monster being addicted to frogs. So, put that all together, and what do you get? The Monster represents Vander's father! Don't worry if you couldn't figure it out by my description alone, the game is really, really not subtle about it. Which is not to say it doesn't have genuinely moving moments, but I've managed to finish the game in about three hours, so why bother spoiling any of them? (NB: There are collectible hats which you can... collect to earn a Trophy/Achievement, but for some reason they don't show up until you beat the game and play again.)

I should note that I played the PC port of this game, and as such this review has been shaped by that version. I understand that the original game for PlayStation 3 had numerous technical issues which were ironed out for the PC edition. We're talking game-breaking bugs here, like crashes, collisions, and other situations which force you to restart. However, I am unable to corroborate those claims, for the most part. I mean, come on, as a gaming platform Windows is about as stable as a house of cards. #PCGamingMasterRace  So either way, caveat emptor, I guess. But bear in mind: A) this is Minority's first game, and B) making a well-oiled machine of a game apparently came second to telling a great story, and you'd be surprised how rarely that is the case in gaming these days. That someone out there could manage to not only use such deep subject matter to base a video game around, but interpret it in such an imaginative way, is deserving of our utmost respect.

Positives:

+ An emotionally-charged story.

+ A whimsical favela-meets-glowing-sketches visual aesthetic.

+ A beautiful soundtrack.

Negatives:

- Not much in the way of challenge.

- Various technical problems in both the PS3 and PC versions.

Controls: 3 frogs out of 5
Design: 4 frogs out of 5

Graphics: 4 frogs out of 5
Audio: 5 frogs out of 5

Value: 3 frogs out of 5
The Call: 85% (B+)

---

[1] Orland, Kyle (2012-03-14). "Papo & Yo explores abuse, fear, and poverty through… block puzzles?". Ars Technica.

Game Review: Gal*Gun (First Impressions)

Gal*Gun (Demo)

• Publisher: Alchemist
• Developer: Inti Creates
• Release: PlayStation 3, 23 February 2012 (Japan/South Korea)
• Genre: First-person action
• Players: 1
• Rarity/Cost: Free

NB: I should note that the following text reflects not the full version of Gal*Gun, but a free demo available on the Japanese PlayStation Network store. It's possible for foreigners to create and use a PSN account, to not only buy the game but get its free demo, but it takes some doing. The late JewWario of You Can Play This has uploaded a video to instruct you on doing such, as a matter of fact, so go watch that. Oh, and the title is listed in Japanese, so search for "ぎゃる☆がん" ("Gyaru Gan").

Everyone done? Good. Now, on to the review, inasmuch as I can call it one.

A little Fun Fact about me as a gamer: I love light-gun shooters (Japanese-made ones, that is), as evidenced by the fact that I have an article tag for them. My favourite has to be the Time Crisis series by Namco, and I shall have to review them sometime. But stay in love with a genre for long enough, and sooner or later each new experience starts feeling like the last. Not to mention, a lot of these games are bloody short! Of course, that's because most of them are ports of coin-op arcade games, which are short by their nature of being designed to get players on and off as fast as possible, but still. So it's about time for some new blood in the genre, I say, and then along comes Gal*Gun, an Asian-exclusive PS3 game, providing a cute quasi-parody of the genre. Is it the new blood we need? Let's find out.

Gal*Gun started life not as an arcade game, but an XBox 360-exclusive from early 2011. However, somebody forgot to make a light-gun controller for the 360, so you have to play it with a traditional controller. Not that it's inherently a bad thing, I mean, a lot of these games have traditional controller support. Not very good traditional controller support, but hey, the spirit of inclusion is there. Besides, this version is region-locked against non-Japanese XBox 360s, and they made a patch to censor the panty shots... more on that some other time. But then along came a port for the PlayStation 3 a year later, bringing along with it Move controller support and the ability to play on non-Japanese consoles. But would you want to? Again, let's find out.

You play as Tenzou, an Ordinary High School Student who gets accidentally shot by a bunch of magical arrows by a cupid named Patako. Although according to the opening cutscene I don't think it was that unintentional. But anyway, Tenzou is blessed with super sex appeal, although he has to find true love before the magic's affect wears off, he'll be lonely for the rest of his life. Now, I actually had to find that last part off of the game's Wikipedia entry, because its story is presented visual-novel style in spoken and written text, which of course is presented entirely in Japanese. But the end result is that all the girls in Tenzou's school go crazy over him, and he has to fend them off with the use of Patako's Pheremone Gun. And I'm like, what is your problem Tenzou?  Why are you even fighting them in the first place? Aren't you supposed to find love before the day is out or whatever? Maybe you're one of the few among us who know the difference between love and lust; that's the best explanation I can manage.

Enemy "bullets", in the form of text characters, are easy to block.

But anyway, here's where you come in. You move a cursor with the Left Stick and press a button to "shoot" at girls, whereupon instead of dying they swoon with delight and disappear. It even does that Virtua Cop thing where the camera automatically zooms into certain targets. And you know how in most shooters you can deal more damage with head shots? Well to that effect Gal*Gun has "Ecstasy Shots", which are located around the front of their skirts (you know... where they hide their lady parts), and bring them down with one shot instead of the usual three or four. The girls' attacks consist primarily of launching various kana and kanji characters that drift lazily towards the screen, and you must shoot to block them or incur "damage", inasmuch as I can call it damage given the context of the story. But whatever it symbolises, if it falls to zero, it's Game Over, of course. However, unlike most shooter games, light-gun or otherwise, your Pheremone Gun has unlimited ammo; you don't even need to reload its magazine or anything. Combined with the lethargic sense of danger, and based on the demo alone, Gal*Gun shapes up to be an unfortunately boring experience. Maybe the pace picks up in the later stages of the full version, I don't know.

In addition to your health meter, there's a heart-shaped meter which you can fill up multiple times with successful hits. Once it fills at least one, you can hover your cursor over a girl and press Triangle to enter what's called "Doki-Doki Mode". As the setting shifts to a different plane of existence or something, you move your cursor between various pre-set points along the girl's body, and press the fire button/trigger to, I don't know, poke her there or something, filling up a separate meter on the left. But you have to do it before your heart meter runs out of juice and you get kicked back out to the main game. And you can't just button-mash your way to success like in the main game; as you place a hit and the girl, ahem, "reacts", you can't fire again until her animation completes. This partial denial of input makes for a truly boring, tedious diversion. So anyway, assuming you manage to complete this mini-game (don't forget to press Triangle again to deliver the, ahem, "finishing blow"), and do you want to know what the reward for all that was? A bomb, inasmuch as I can call it a bomb. All the girls on-screen, ahem, "cleared out" simultaneously. And I'm like, *why* couldn't I just launch a "bomb" instantly when I press that confounded button!?

The Doki-Doki Mode takes way too much time to get through.

If I ever purchase the full version, I'll make a part-two of this review, but the demo hasn't given me much to be excited about. Let me put it to you this way: this isn't a game that should make you buy a Move system if you don't already own one. Rather, if you don't already own a Move system, then give this a pass. The unorthodox setting is cute, either in the sexualised spirit with which it was intended, or in its camp value for attempting the former and failing. But as a game, let alone a light-gun game, it's rather boring and slow-paced. Maybe the full version ramps up the challenge something decent, but otherwise I can't quite recommend this game, inasmuch as I can call it a game.

Control: 4 Ecstasy Shots out of 5
Design: 2 Ecstasy Shots out of 5
Graphics: 5 Ecstasy Shots out of 5
Audio: 3 Ecstasy Shots out of 5
The Call: 3 Ecstasy Shots out of 5 (C)

Game Review: SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

>>> NOW LOADING

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team
Release:
XBox 360: 14 November 2006
PlayStation 3: 30 January 2007
Genre: 3D Action (Platformer)
Players: 1-2

Okay, by now, if you're a repeat visitor of this blog (in which case WHY HAVE YOU NOT SUBSCRIBED YET), you may have noticed my running gag of mentioning the sad fate of the would-be video game Mega Man Legends 3. Subsequently, if you haven't yet Liked the Facebook group GetMeOffTheMoon, the movement to revive development of Legends 3, you have no soul. Now, I can't remember any specific links to this, but on said page I have also read about a (considerably smaller) movement to plead of Sega to make a Sonic Adventure 3. What if I told you we already have a Sonic Adventure 3? And what if it was so bad you might disregard it and resume petitioning for a real Sonic Adventure sequel? Such is the sad fate of 2006's SONIC THE HEDGEHOG for XBox 360 and PlayStation 3. (NB: From here on in, I'm writing its title in capital letters to differentiate it from the Sega Genesis title, since PSN does the same.)

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Running from a killer whale. Deja vu.

There is a plot to be had, in which a certain Princess Elise is kidnapped by Dr. Eggman (whoa, encroaching on Bowser's territory there), who seeks from her something called the Flames of Disaster. Time travel is also involved. But let's put that aside for the moment and examine the first levels of the game. From an urban hub world (which by the way, is easy to get lost in with the little-to-no guidance you're given), you transfer to Wave Ocean, set on a beach, cliffs, and wooden walkways, capped off with a chase from a killer whale. Sound familiar? That's because this concept was copied directly from the first level of Sonic Adventure! And multiple other settings, such as the snow world and the volcano, appear in Sonic's story in a similar order as their Adventure counterparts. This being the case, I would totally not be surprised if Sonic Team revealed this to be an attempt at making an HD remake of Adventure. Unfortunately, they left Adventure's (admittedly vast) room for error unimproved whilst fouling up in nearly every other conceivable aspect.

Like the Sonic Adventure duology, the single-player mode is broken up into three stories, each starring a different hedgehog. Sonic gets one, Shadow another, and the third stars the newcomer Silver. The majority of levels are no-frills 3D platforming, your objective being to reach the end of each level, somehow surviving every obstacle to come your way. The levels feature your standard array of loops, spikes, dash pads, and checkpoints, as seen in Sonic Adventure. It's too bad the control scheme and movement physics are still poorly-suited for a 3-D platformer. Like for example, and for the record this problem has been around since Sonic Adventure, if you turn whilst running, your player character will not lose momentum. As the Sonic franchise had yet to overcome its crippling addiction of adding new characters for each new outing, every so often you'll tag with characters like Tails, Knuckles, Rouge and Blaze, to clear passages as them and help out the main character. They all have unique mechanics, i.e. Tails can fly and throw fake-ring bombs, but these tend to backfire. For example, in the case of Tails, the flight controls are even more twitchy than those on foot, making landing on a precise spot a tense chore, and whilst you can aim projectiles, there's no cursor for doing so, adding an unwelcome and unnecessary bit of guesswork to the matter. At least the Knuckles treasure hunts of Adventure/2 are a thing of the past.

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This format extends to all three campaigns, Sonic, Shadow and Silver, but with their own separate twists. In some parts of Sonic's levels, you are "treated" to high-speed chase sequences, and I mean "treated" with the thickest sarcasm I can muster. In these auto-running passages, Sonic must dodge all obstacles, from enemies to lowly rocks and trees, lest he take damage and lose either rings or a life. This wouldn't be so bad, except the controls are so touchy that even keeping a straight course requires nerves of steel. In a more sensible control scheme, pressing Left or Right on the joystick would make Sonic strafe in that direction whilst still facing the same way, but as it's implented here, turning left or right means literally turning your course left or right. If you're on a walkway trying to collect some precious rings or a 1-up, but touching the guardrails on either side will hurt you, you can see why this would be a problem. The Sonic Unleashed engine shows how this mechanic could be done right, so at least we can't say Sonic Team doesn't learn from their mistakes.

Silver the Hedgehog can control objects with telekinesis -- and break the physics engine doing so.

Meanwhile, Shadow can hop into armed vehicles when available (Dangit Sega, we're trying to forget Shadow The Hedgehog!). Silver, being gifted with psychic powers, can maniplate objects with telekinesis, and throw them back at enemies and other targets. You think I'd find that awesome, but my experiences controlling Silver have left me coloured unimpressed. See, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG incorporates the Havok physics engine, made famous by Half-Life 2, a game I really liked. But SONIC THE HEDGEHOG turns that asset into a liability, because collision detection is constantly on the fritz, and coupled with the stiff and unruly camera and the hyped-up control sensitivity, makes for unnecessarily challenging movement. Whilst collision issues have been around since Adventure, what's new here is that there are all manner of physics glitches brought upon by the Havok engine, as implemented in this game. One example has Sonic doing trip-attacks atop a crate, causing the box and Sonic to inexplicably rise up in the air. See the video below for this and other examples.

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And now to discuss what is perhaps the game's most infamous iss--

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--ue. You guessed it: the loading times. It's not that each bout of loading is incredibly long -- most individual loads take but twenty seconds apiece on the PS3 version -- but that they are frequent and horribly inefficient. For example, take the case of an early boss fight against Silver, which takes place in a section of one of the overworld towns. The current state of investigations seems to indicate that when loading this fight, the entire town is sent over from the disc, despite the fight taking place in a relatively enclosed space the size of one city block. Or take the numerous side-missions, triggered by speaking with people across the overworld. Whilst only a handful are required to complete the story, they'll get on your nerves, and here's why:

1. Talk to the person.
2. 20 seconds of loading.
3. Read a line or two of non-voiced text, vaguely describing your objective.
4. 20 seconds of loading.
5. Play the mission.
6. 20 seconds of loading.
7. Read a line of non-voiced text, confirming your success or failure. If you won the mission, your results and rewards are also displayed.
8. 20 seconds of loading.
9. Return to the town. If you failed the mission, repeat from step 1.

Are you wondering why there's so much loading before steps 3 and 7, if nothing much is happening? Again, it is highly likely that the game is reloading the entire town during these steps, even though you're only waiting to read a line or two of text -- without even voice acting! What they should've done is display these minuscule monologues on the loading screens, thus knocking out any excuses for reloading the world for a scene that only lasts for mere seconds. But what do I know about big-budget game development? I'm sure Sonic Team knows something I don't about how to go about these things, given the time and effort they spent on the project -- oh wait, they crammed to put it out for Christmas and the PlayStation 3 launch. Let this be a lesson that cram schedules will get you nowhere. It backfired for the Atari E.T., and it backfired here.

>>> NOW That's enough, this loading joke has gone on long enough.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG is one of the most offensive video games I have yet played. True, there are games out there that are quantifiably worse, not to mention intentionally offensive, but SONIC THE HEDGEHOG specifically offends my sensibilties as a gamer. And it's not like there aren't good touches here and there, like the purchasable and upgradable Custom Actions. And it's not like I don't want this to exist, I want it to be better. I mean, just a few little tweaks here and there could've been applied to make the final product passable, perhaps even good. First of all, trim all that fat off of the loading times. Make a control scheme that doesn't feel like you're sliding on ice. Give us a better indication of what to do next in the overworlds, or axe them completely. Not to mention, throw in a metric butt-load of extra testing time. ...Shoot, that's a lot of stuff to fix. On second thought, just scrap the whole thing and give us Sonic Colors.

Positives:

+ The upgrade system.

+ A few cool environments.

+ A decent soundtrack, par for the Sonic course.

Negatives:

- Awful 3D controls.

- Broken physics.

- Horribly inefficient loading.

- Inane story moments.

- Basically an even-worse retread of Sonic Adventure.

Control: 1 Chaos Emerald out of 5
Design: 2 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Graphics: 2 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Audio: 4 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Value: 2 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
The Call: 25% (F)

NB: I should note that my experiences playing SONIC THE HEDGEHOG were based on the PlayStation 3 version, which followed the original release on XBox 360 by a couple of months. Despite the extra time, the PS3 port is somehow worse. Loading times are several seconds longer on the PS3 than the 360, and despite the eventual support for Trophies on PS3 games, the counterpart Achievements from the 360 version were never patched into the other one (and I know for a fact this has been done). This is cause for concern on the matter of the collectable Silver Medallions. These unlock nothing within the game itself, but find them all in the XBox 360 port, and you win an Achievement for it. But without a corresponding Trophy, the Silver Medallions are worthless.

Game Review: 007 Legends

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed Mega Man Legends and its sequel. And now for something completely different.

007 Legends

• Publisher: Activision 
• Developer: Eurocom 
• Release: 
• PlayStation 3 / XBox 360, 16 October 2012 
• Wii U, 11 December 2012 
• Genre: 3D Action (First-person shooter) 
• Players: 1-4 offline, 2-12 online

Funny thing about Mega Man Legends 3: even though I've been raising such a stink about how it was cancelled ever since I heard of its untimely demise, I actually don't have much of an emotional investment Mega Man as a whole, apart from re-discovering how much of a great sequel the second Legends game was. As a matter of fact, my favourite fandom is James Bond, and you should know that by now, seeing as how I devoted 24 reviews last year to all its films (that matter). As such, I waited eagerly for the 2010 Goldeneye remake on Wii, and my expectations were met, on the whole, but there's frankly no need for me to review it when its follow up is so similar. Replace the self-contained plot of Goldeneye (either the N64 or Wii one) with a buffet of neo-retro film reboots, and you get the follow-up Activision and Eurocom pulled off for 007's 50th anniversary, known as 007 Legends.

Given its role as an anniversary milestone, Legends's storyline is more or less a tribute to Bonds past. The settings are re-imagined excerpts from various films, one for each actor who played 007: Goldfinger (from the Sean Connery era), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (George Lazenby), Licence to Kill (Timothy Dalton), Die Another Day (Pierce Brosnan), and Moonraker (Roger Moore). On the whole it's a fine selection, I will admit, however the incorporation of Die Another Day in a retelling of other Bond stories is redundant, seeing as how the film itself is a re-hashing of the franchise's famous moments. With or without that choice of source material, in terms of storytelling, this may not have been the best way to go about things. Unlike, say, Goldeneye (either one), which had the time to build up a plot and the antagonist's reasoning behind setting it into motion, each of the five stories in Legends relies on awkward info-dumps to explain everything. If you've never seen the movies in question, you may get left in the proverbial dust. The environments capture the essence of their silver-screen counterparts with a modern flair to create a very slick aesthetic worthy of the 007 legacy. It's too bad the characters' stilted facial animations and the terribly dodgy shadows have to negate those graphical strong points. A handful of actors from those films have returned to provide likeness and voice talents; however Bond himself, here modeled after Daniel Craig, has received a sound-alike voice actor, and not a very good one at that. Dude, mister Goldfinger is about to cut you in half with a frickin' laser beam, you think you could at least sound scared?

Say what you want about Moonraker, but it makes for a fun level.

But despite all the fanservice, there was one thing that totally soured the experience for me: the levels they divided these scenes into are too dang few and too dang long. There are only eleven levels, and the majority can last a half-hour or longer. As discussed in my review of Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, having to invest more time on a level diminishes its replay attractiveness. But it gets worse: because of these larger levels, the loading times average around one minute a pop*. And if you need to re-start from a checkpoint, due to death or choice, that's another minute's worth of loading headed your way! Now, compare that to the Call of Duty games, which only waste a few seconds of your time on reloading levels, and there's no justification other than Eurocom sucks at optimisation. Dangit man, if you're going to imitate something that's already been imitated to the detriment of the industry as a whole, at least imitate it properly!

So enough about what 007 Legends is; what does it play like? There's a reason I brought up Call of Duty a few sentences ago, because apart from the horrendous loading times, it follows the same basic gameplay precepts of said franchise. Regenerating health, limited weapon slots, aiming down sights, unskippable cutscenes with quick-time events, and all those other things that have made first-person shooters less than fun. "But wait", you say, "aren't you forgetting its more innovative features?" And to that I say: be patient, you. The Classic health system from Goldeneye (either one) marks a return, only this time you can opt to use it on any difficulty level, not just the hard mode. Which is good, because I've never been too keen on the concept of regenerating HP, with or without the benefit of superpowers to explain it. Granted, I will take advantage of it if provided, but if the consequences of your actions (read: damage) are automatically nullified, it takes away from the challenge, and challenge is the reason we play video games on the whole, no? And because of how long the levels are, you can find not only body armour but health packs in the Classic modes. A welcome concession, although this should've been taken as a sign that the levels should've been broken up better.

If there's anything that separates the 007 games from the post-Modern Warfare Call of Duty model, even under Activision's tenure, it's the stealth segments, and Legends adds a few "refinements" to the formula. A meter will pop up around the centre of the screen pointing to guards and indicating their states of alertness (see also: Far Cry 3). I would call this helpful, but when you can stand ten metres in front of a guard and it takes him a couple of seconds to even walk over to check it out, well, this game can only support so much willing suspension of disbelief. Oh, and let's not forget about the gadgets! In many missions, Bond gets to use a laser watch and a pen that shoots tranquiliser, shock, and distraction darts. Sure, it's fun to use them all to carve out different paths through the stealth sections, but I for one couldn't help thinking about how the recent films tended to shy away from this sort of techno-gee-wizzery. Canon? What canon?

I don't see how lasering a guard helps, but it works wonders on cameras.

In the interest of cinematics, you'll also get into fight scenes where you flick the analog sticks up or down to throw punches. All the correct moves are identified with on-screen commands, but at the same time your foes leave their own visual cues as to their weak points. As a result, once I got used to this mechanic, my thought process turned to, "Okay, I get it, you can remove the training wheels now", never to cease. Furthermore, Legends attempts to bridge the gap between multiplayer and single-player experiences by incorporating features from the former into the latter, namely by a separate experience-point system, and weapon attachments you can purchase with said points. And in lieu of the time trials from Goldeneye (either one), many levels also feature bonus trials which can be performed on top of your other objectives. There are still time trials, yes, but also stealth trials, target trials, and elimination/specialist trials, which require you to focus on using one particular gun. These can be fun, but again, I'd be more inclined to take them on if I didn't have to spend so much time just finishing the level, to say nothing of the loading times I'd incur if I had to re-play any parts.

Speaking of multiplayer, if you're considering purchasing 007 Legends for its online multiplayer component, don't bother. Yes, it's the traditional level-up-and-unlock-weapons-and-perks gadgets routine that has become another consequence of Call of Duty's dominance of the first-person shooter genre, and I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't hooked onto this sort of thing to some degree. However, I've only been able to find public matches in the traditional Team Conflict mode, or if I'm lucky, the Legends mode, a free-for-all where you play as classic Bond characters. Having all those other fun modes like Golden Gun and Escalation but no one to play them with is a darn shame. Oh well, at least there's always split-screen...

Since 007 Legends does so may good and bad things at the same time, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. But then I realised... The over-long levels? The slavish adherence to other games' customs? The blatant disregard for canon? ...This is Activision's answer to Goldeneye: Rogue Agent! And as I recall, that game didn't turn out so well for EA, who only put out one more underwhelming 007 title before surrendering the licence. What's more, the case of 007 Legends may be one of history repeating: after its underwhelming retail performance, it was de-listed from various download services, and developer Eurocom was shuttered after almost 25 years in the industry. Under other circumstances, I'd react with shame, but hopefully this will give the James Bond video game franchise the chance for a fresh start. (At the risk of starting a flame war, might I suggest Infinity Ward? At least they can do loading right.)

Positives:
+ Brilliant set designs reinvent the source material.
+ The freedom of stealth sections.
+ The single-player upgrade system.

Negatives:
- Poor story integration.
- Too many generic first-person shooter mechanics.
- Long loading times.*

Control: 4 martinis out of 5
Design: 2 martinis out of 5
Audiovisual: 3 martinis out of 5
Value: 2 martinis out of 5
The Call: 55% (D+)

So that's my review, but before I go, I'd like to indulge in a little editorialising regarding the game's downloadable content. Two missions based on the new movie Skyfall were made available for free upon the film's release. In the case of North America, this was three and a half weeks after Legends came out. The two levels are on the short side, and only cover the first act of the movie, not even mentioning its main villain. Now, one thing I noticed is that the download size of this "update" was a paltry 100KB*; in other words, it was more than likely a file to unlock content already on the disc. As someone who has witnessed the tragedy of "disc-locked content" in games like Capcom's Street Fighter X Tekken, this should've sent up a red flag in my head. But if ever there were a proper excuse for disc-locked content, this would be it. One, delaying access to the Skyfall content until the movie was released curtailed the possibility of unwittingly walking into spoilers (not that the levels spoil too much about the film anyway). But most importantly, it's free, so any fears about being coerced into forking over more than the game's purchase price are moot. But just as a warning to game developers everywhere, and Capcom, do NOT pull this [noun] on us again. (NB: Also rendering this point moot, the Skyfall levels are available out-of-the-box in the Wii U port, since it was released after the film.)

*Marked observations are based on the PlayStation 3 version.

Game Review: Mercenaries 2

Mercenaries 2: World In Flames

• Publisher: EA
• Developer: Pandemic
• Release: PlayStation 3, XBox 360, PC, PlayStation 2: August 2008
• Genre: Action (3rd-person shooter)
• Players: 1 local, 2 online
• Rarity/Cost:

The original Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2005, PS2 / XBox) was a rather underexposed title which nonetheless grew on me as one of my favorite games of its console generation.  Basically, it went down like this: picture a wide-open sandbox game like Grand Theft Auto III, only set in a war-torn North Korea.  You play as one of three mercenary soldiers working for a private military company, and your goal is to bring the nuclear-armed Korean generalissimo to justice.  All the while you'll have to gain intel and profits from multiple factions who have nothing in common except their desire to see the regime disappear.  And beyond the ordinary cars and guns you'd expect from its contemporaries, tanks, helicopters, explosives and airstrikes are in frequent supply.  Playground of Desctruction deserves a separate review somewhere down the line, but here's my short take on it.  It may not be as polished as the output of Rockstar North (the house that built GTAIII), but when it comes to straight-out fun, I prefer my open-world games set in a legally-defined war rather than a civilian-time life of crime.  And it's Teen-rated; I don't know about you, but that's a bonus in my book.

Fortunately, they found fit to maks a sequel: 2008's Mercenaries 2: World In Flames for PlayStation 3, XBox 360, and PC.  A port for PlayStation 2 was also released at the same time, but it departs substantially from its bigger brother and, again, merits its own review.  The plot this time around pits your PMC against Ramon Solano, an IT billionaire in Venezuela.  In the game's tutorial mission, he hires you to free a friend, General Carmona, from prison, but instead of paying you, he tries to have you killed.  In the meantime, he installs himself as the country's president with the general's help, but his days are numbered when your mercenary of choice decides to launch a campaign against the double-crosser.

If a soldier finishes reporting to HQ, your standing
with his faction will suffer.  (PS3 version shown.)

Obviously, you're not gonna do it alone.  Along the way you'll recruit a helicopter pilot, a mechanic, and a jet pilot who each provide you with valuable services, but you'll never get much done without taking on some work.  The factions you'll be making deals with include an American oil company (Universal Petroleum), a ragtag band of communist guerillas (People's Liberation Army of Venezuela), a group of Jamaican pirates, and returning from the first game, the United Allied Nations and Chinese armies.  You'll have to balance your relationships with each of the five factions.  If you destroy assets (soldiers, vehicles, etc.) from one faction, you'll improve standing with its rival (UP vs. PLAV, Allies vs. China), but if someone successfully reports you, your standing with the target faction will go down.  Or if all else fails, bring out the big bucks and just bribe 'em.  There are many side-quest activities to pursue (destroying target buildings, capturing HVTs, collecting spare parts), but if you ignore them, you'll doom yourself to a far shorter campaign than in the first game.

It wouldn't be a Mercenaries game without the ability to call in airstrikes and support whenever you need them, and World in Flames does not disappoint.  The problem lies in how you acquire them.  Unlike in the first game, where you could place orders from your PDA no matter where you were, this time around, you have to buy them directly from one of a faction's shops, and add the goods to your stockpile.  Then, you have to collect oil and spend it in order to call in your new toys.  Wait a minute...  Venezuela, oil, America against China... any more political and they'd have to use real world leaders!  (And wouldn't you know it, the "Blow It Up Again" DLC expansion does something like that.)  On the plus side, your helicopter pilot has the ability to pick up any of the frequently-found oil tankers and even airstrike ammo you find lying around, as well as airlift you directly to any outposts you've unlocked (provided you're in good standing with their owners).

Fuel tanks like these can be stolen, adding to your stockpile, or just make a big boom. (PS3 version shown.)

In a game where so many things go boom, you'd expect the physics engine to be up to snuff, and it pretty much is.  You know how you could destroy almost everything in the first game?  Well, now you can take the "almost" out of the statement.  Out of all the video games I've played in my life, it's so nice to have one where you can knock down trees instead of them staying firmly rooted in the ground!  The AI, on the other hand, has made no improvement.  In one mission where I had to call in a strike team in order to capture a building, I threw the smoke grenade on the ground only for - twice in a row - the helicopter to land on the roof of a nearby building and the soldiers to fall to their deaths.

If you've read all this and wish you could have a friend share in the fun, you're in luck... sort of.  Mercenaries 2 supports online co-op on both the PS3 and 360.  It's drop-in-drop-out, meaning that anyone can jump into your single-player game at any time and quit whenever they (or you) wish.  Unfortunately, there's no in-game support for voice or even text chat of any kind, so it gets all the more frustrating when your partner starts destroying things they're not supposed to or just stands around doing nothing forever.  "But wait," you say, "I can't get the game to run when I'm signed in, so does that mean EA shut down the game's servers?"  No, but the truth is more complicated than that, which is why I present to you an...

Important Notice:  The PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 versions may not run if you try to play whilst logged into PSN/XBox Live, because the game gets stuck at the "Connecting to server" message, and doesn't even error out over time.  Contrary to popular belief, the cause of this has something to do with the Terms and Conditions; EA must have updated them somewhere along the line, but never patched their new location into Mercenaries 2.  Fortunately, there is a way around this.  What you need to do is buy, rent, or borrow any EA-produced game released before Mercenaries 2 (August 2008) that still has online features up and running.  Compatible games as of the time of this writing (December 2011) include Need For Speed Carbon, The Orange Box, and Battlefield Bad Company.  All you need to do is accept the Terms and Conditions from one of these games, and you're all set to go back to Mercenaries 2.  Oh, and the PC version's servers have officially been shut down, and the PlayStation 2 version never had any online features to begin with.

Edit 20/Jul/2012: Rumours exist that as of earlier this year, this bug has been fixed.  I for one am not in the mood to test this for myself, at least not until I get the remaining online Trophies, but that's great to hear all the same.  Lord knows I need some good news for once.

Seeing as how I've spent exponentially more time with Mercenaries 2 than any other game on my new PS3, I'll let you guess how much I like it.  But critically, is it better than the original Mercenaries?  There's not much World in Flames adds to the formula that makes it more exciting than Playground of Destruction, and what changes have (or haven't) been made tend to fall on the side of annoyance.  At the end of the day I'd prefer more mechanics to have carried over from the first game, but what we've got is still perfectly satisfying for anyone with a hunger for open-world gameplay.  Grand Theft Auto IV may be a more well-oiled machine, but I'll be darned if Mercenaries 2 isn't more fun to drive.

Graphics: 4 airstrikes out of 5
Sound: 4 airstrikes out of 5
Control: 3 airstrikes out of 5
Design: 4 airstrikes out of 5
The Call: 80% (B)

Next Episode:  You know the worst manga I've ever read and reviewed?  They made a sequel!

Game Review: Sonic 4 Episode I

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I

• Publisher: Sega
• Developer: Sonic Team / Dimps
• Platform/Release:
• iOS (DLC), 7 October 2010
• Wii (DLC), 11 October 2010
• PlayStation 3 (DLC), 12 October 2010
• XBox 360 (DLC), 13 October 2010
• Genre: Platformer
• Players: 1
• Cost: 
• iOS: US$7 (as of August 2011)
• Wii, PS3, 360: US$15

I may have a lot of ideas stored up in my head about what I want to review in the near future, but it can be a tough job deciding what to bring out next.  A Twitter post from the Video Game Critic website's feed helped matters this time around.  On the whole, I love this site; in fact, I would like to place an independent plug for it right now.  (I can has affiliate?)  But one tweet from whoever is running the site put me on the warpath:

"I am reviewing Sonic 4 (Xbox 360). It's a good-looking game but the people who complained about the terrible physics were 100% correct!"¹

I'm gonna have to stop you with a pre-emptive review of my own.  See, what I do on the SDP is not just re-iterate the seemingly questionable decisions made by entertainment producers, much less treat them as absolute evils like everyone else does *ahem*, but research them and explain why they did what they did.  That is what I plan to spend much of my review for as I cover Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1.  Also note that I am basing my review mostly on the iOS version, which for the most part plays identically to its console brethren, although I will note differences as I come across them.


Ever since it was announced about a year ago, every little decision has been met with scrutiny, and the reactions were mixed between those who couldn't care less, and those who did care and those took it with more than mild disapproval, who sadly seem to be the most vocal demographic on the Internet.  (Allow me to redirect you to the ending of my Twilight saga discussion.)  And we're talking about mostly cosmetic differences: Sonic's build, eye color, using the name Dr. Eggman instead of Dr. Robotnik, and the decision to use 3D character models instead of sprites.  Even though everything done since Sonic Adventure reeks of newness to me, for the most part I couldn't give a [noun].  But we'll start with the thing which I feel most strongly about people hating on: the physics.

The above video, by TsukentoX on YouTube², is one of the more civil discussions about the physics.  Let's examine the points he made:

1. If you jump or drop off a cliff without holding left or right, you'll lose all lateral momentum and drop straight down.  Not much of an issue if you play like me and hold the D-pad down most of the time.
2. When going down a hill, you can come to a complete stop by letting go of the D-pad.  Not so in the Genesis or Game Gear series.
3. Perhaps the biggest, if most well-documented foible, involves how you go up quarter- and half-pipes.  You used to be able to hold Down and roll back and forth to build up momentum, but not so here.  This time around, you have to hold Left or Right to run up the wall.

I suppose you should know the reason, or at least a possible reason, for all this.  Sonic 4 was co-developed by Sonic Team and Dimps, who did the Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush series after Sega went third-party.  And let's face it, next to their 3D console compatriates, these were some pretty darn good games!  Well, at the very least, producer Takashi Iizuka is aware of the physics matter, and explained it³.  Long story short, they based it off the Sonic Rush engine, which allows for tricks like running up walls and ceilings, thus explaining the third issue I listed.  But was the Genesis engine really ideal for everything we needed to do?  I'm (passively) ordering you to take a step back and evaluate the virtues of both engines for what they are, not by other's standards.


So, on to more positive matters.  Your price of admission nets you twelve acts across four zones, five separate boss stages, and seven Special Stages.  You'd think you could blow through this quickly, especially since the game saves after every level, and you select levels at will from a menu instead of having to go through the whole thing in one sitting like in the old days, but there's still lots to do.  Clearing a stage once unlocks its time trial, and finishing a level with 50 rings lets you get into the Special Stage.  These play out like they did in the first Sonic the Hedgehog, where you follow a rotating maze to the Chaos Emerald within, except this time you spin the maze itself around instead of controlling Sonic.  Oh, and not only do you have to steer clear of exit gates, you're on a time limit and must collect bonuses to extend your stay.  Despite the added challenge, the difficulty curve on the Special Stages is sensible; the first couple can be cleared in one go, whereas the last few will take potentially dozens of tries.  This time around, you can pause and restart as many times as you need, as long as you don't get kicked out immediately.  It might seem like a game breaker, but trust me, you'll appreciate it on the later Special Stages, if only to save the trouble of getting to them again and again.


While everyone else complains about the things that make Sonic 4 different from the Genesis trilogy, I'm more concerned with the things that are too similar.  Specificially, the level themes are repurposed from the first two games.  Splash Hill and Lost Labyrinth are Green Hill and Labyrinth (uhh... I can has effort?) from Sonic, while Casino Street, Mad Gear, and E.G.G Station are Casino Night, Metropolis, and Death Egg from Sonic 2.  Umm...  There's a difference between making people remember the good old days and just being lazy.  But not all of the throwbacks are bad; the music is done using Genesis-style synth instruments and brings back the tunefulness which made the original soundtracks so memorable.  In fact, the only thing they (intentionally) brought back from the newer era was the mid-air homing attack.  It is truly one of the better things they could've added, as it is useful for getting a quick running start.  Yeah, that's how I roll, bite me.  But look at it this way: what if Sonic 4 had been released immediately after Sonic & Knuckles?  Would it have seemed like a more natural progression then?  This has happened before: Sonic 2 added the standing spin dash to Sonic's movement arsenal, and people seemed to like that.


So please, instead of looking at Sonic 4 based on what they added to the mechanics of the Genesis trilogy, try comparing it to everything else that's come out since then.  There's no 3D camera to wrestle with, no treasure hunting, no fishing, no guns, no vehicles, and certainly no human/hedgehog relationships.  In fact, even though it's not a 3D-based game, I'd say they avoided all the pitfalls I discussed when I put the franchise in Game Rehab.  I do acknowledge its issues, minor as they come across to me, but if you're gonna completely trash the game because of them, the only Sonic game you deserve to play is the 2006 one.  Yeah, I just broke you.  Hopefully it will help you to realize that Sonic Team is good again, regardless of which direction they're headed in.


On one final note, I'm going to award separate ratings to the different versions of the game.  The PS3 and 360 versions come out on top by being the most fully-featured.  The Wii version lacks achievements or trophies (yeah, I'm a convert to the church of achievements).  While the iOS version is cheaper than all the rest (I got mine on sale for $3), using a virtual controller on the touch screen of your given device is not as precise as having a physical D-pad and buttons at your fingertips.  Also, the iOS port replaces two of the acts with ones that were cut during development of the console editions.  The 100,000-point challenge in Casino Street Act 2 is stupidly repetitive, but the mine-cart ride in Lost Labyrinth Act 2 is nice compared to other times I've played through this sort of thing.  At least there are no instant-kill traps you have a fraction of a second to react to.  (Taz-Mania says hi.  Steel yourself for a review of this mother soon.)


Control: 3 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Design: 3 Chaos Emeralds out of 5 (PS3/X360/Wii) / 4 Chaos Emeralds out of 5 (iOS)
Graphics: 4 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Audio: 5 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
The Call: 75% (B-)

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¹"Video Game Critic".  Twitter.  30 January 2011.  http://twitter.com/#!/videogamecritic.
²TsukentoX.  "Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I Physics".  YouTube.  13 October 2010.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyzC3Rse5Gg.
³Takashi Iizuka.  "Picking Up Speed".  Nintendo Power Holiday 2010: p.19.  Print.