Today is October 18th, which means tonight at midnight, I'll be picking up my copy of Fallout: New Vegas and be saying goodbye to Halo: Reach and Metroid Prime (I powered it back up after my rant last week, for old time's sake) for a while. With a plethora of quests and new achievements to obtain, Fallout is sure to keep me busy for at least a week (until I get my hands on Rock Band 3).
Over the next couple weeks, you can expect to see a number of new reviews pop up here, as there are a number of great games coming out (just see my post a few scrolls down); games like Fallout and Rock Band, and if I manage to pick them up, you can expect Fable III and Force Unleashed II as well.
So you'll know what I'm up to if I don't make any posts. Anyway folks, have a great couple weeks!
Taking gaming to the next step...
10.18.2010
10.15.2010
Review - Metroid: Other M
Please note that OPINIONS and SPOILERS will be riddled throughout this post.
One main reason Nintendo has always been my favorite developer is because of one little word: nostalgia. I grew up on the Nintendo Entertainment System, you know, that big, gray brick that hooked up to channel four, and you needed to blow on the cartridges to make them work. Ancient, but effective in the entertainment department. I can recall countless hours spent with my brother playing games now considered classics: Super Mario Bros. (and the American sequel), Balloon Fight, The Legend of Zelda (and its sub-par sequel), and of course, Metroid. Even at that early age of six, I still enjoyed running around and shooting aliens, curling up in a ball and rolling aimlessly. I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't care; I just wanted to play games.
Fast-forward to 2003, when I finally got a GameCube. After playing through Super Mario Sunshine countless times, I decided to make my way to Blockbuster (a dead name these days, it seems) and noticed Metroid Prime. Knowing nothing about Metroid beyond trophy descriptions from Super Smash Brothers: Melee, I decided to take a chance and see if this game would bring back any memories of my younger days. Lo and behold, I was flooded with a wave of nostalgia, everything from the music to the downright unsettling environments. I couldn't put the game down.
Come to 2010, when Team Ninja shoveled out Metroid: Other M. It was clear that this was going to take the series in a whole new direction. Knowing this, I powered up the game expecting an exploration-heavy game of finding power-ups and expansions, much like every other game bearing the Metroid name. I was sorely mistaken. Other M is by no means a terrible game, but it certainly isn't the Metroid game I've come to expect.
First, the game is heavy in dialogue, something that has been almost entirely absent in all other games (in fact, I believe Prime 3 was the first to include spoken dialogue). While this isn't a negative addition, the voice acting makes it damn near unbearable. There's next to no vocal inflection, no emotion in the words they speak. Its just the same old speech cutscene after cutscene. It impossible to relate to the characters, which I suppose leads me to the next point: Samus.
Before Other M, players believed Samus to be nothing more than a silent bad ass bounty hunter (a female Boba Fett, if you will). Players could identify with her; they could imagine themselves behind the visor and put their own emotions in the game. Such a device is used in many games (Halo: Reach, Fallout, Pokemon); you're supposed to see yourself in the game, relate to the character and place your own image in as the character.
While its been known for some time that Samus was female, her silence made her "relateable." Other M blew this entirely out of proportion, giving Samus an understandable, but predictable personality. Metroid fans know how Super Metroid ended; the baby Metroid sacrifices itself so Samus can destroy Mother Brain. While Samus has always been portrayed as emotionless, Other M reveals that she felt a strong motherly connection to the baby Metroid, feeling depression and anger at her failure to protect the Metroid. She is later petrified at the sight of Ridley (an understandable reaction after seeing a nemesis once thought dead...twice, and not to mention she suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). However, these insecurities completely destroyed our image of Samus as a character, an image that cannot be easily rebuilt.
Thirdly, we'll look at the gameplay. I thoroughly enjoyed Prime's first-person perspective and was sad to see it go, but there was one absence that made the game saddening to play, exploration. Other M takes exploration almost entirely out of the picture. Outside of optional expansions, every item is automatically acquired. Actually, acquired isn't the right word, more like given. One of the greatest things about Metroid was it forced you to explore; it forced you to go out and wander aimlessly until you found the item you needed to continue. In Other M, Samus only uses her advanced abilities when her superior officer authorizes it (this ties in with her personality as well; she respects her superior officer to the extent that she will follow his every order and use her suits capabilities only when he authorizes it, even if it means burning to death since he didn't authorize her Varia Suit's extreme temperature resistance). When you need the Ice Beam, you'll get it; when you need the Speed Boost, you'll get it, when you need the Power Bombs (which is absolutely never), you'll get it. There is no finding items, there is no unnecessary exploration; it's the most linear Metroid game to date, and it sickened me to see Team Ninja abuse the series in such a way as to strip it of its most valued experience.
Now we get to my most hated part. As I mentioned before, there's one thing that keeps me coming back to Nintendo franchises year after year: nostalgia. I wouldn't have even guessed I was playing a Metroid game if the word itself hadn't been in the title. Sure, there are a few classic enemies, and they attempted to recreate the side-scrolling in some areas, but beyond these little nods, there little to no connection between this game and the others in the series. Most notably, there's rarely any classic music. While the soundtrack is fitting, its all original; there's no remixes of old tracks and the classic appearance fanfare is only played when continuing the game (its completely absent from the game's start, something that angered me to a large extent). Music is perhaps the quickest way to achieve nostalgia, and it appears to me as if Other M threw all the music in the corner and ignored it.
And finally, apart from the visual and audible parts of the game, we find ourselves at control. We once again see Team Ninja attempt a bit of nostalgia by utilizing the Wii Remote on its side like an old school NES controller. While this doesn't impair gameplay to the point of unplayability, I do feel it doesn't do the game any justice since it becomes cumbersome quite fast. Basic movement and attacks can be performed from this position, however, if you ever expect to fire a missile, you'll have to point the remote at the screen to switch to a first person view, aim at what you want to shoot, lock on by holding the B button, and then hold down the A button long enough for the game to know you want to shoot a missile. This wouldn't be much of a problem if you didn't need missiles all the damn time! If it can't be killed with normal beam weapons (and late game, it appears your Plasma Beam can't kill anything), then you need to retreat, re-align, and the switch perspective and fire a missile; by the time the missile fires, you've already taken all the damage you could have avoided if they had simply put in a toggle button (like the classic games did). It wouldn't have been much trouble and you'd probably still have people playing this game in a few years.
The Verdict
Needless to say, I was thoroughly disappointed in Team Ninja's attempt to continue the series. Their story driven take on the franchise has almost effectively ruined my opinion on the bounty hunter. Despite all of these shortcomings, however, I will say that it is at least worth one playthrough for the die hard Metroid fan, because even if the game did neglect its older roots in some places, they did acknowledge them in others, such as enemies (there are a number of familiar bosses to be fought). It just isn't worth the fifty bucks to see Ryu Hayabusa in a Varia Suit complaining about how her father-figure doesn't respect her. When I want a good Metroid game to play, I'll stick with the tried and true Metroid Prime.
10.10.2010
The Fall Sequel Extravaganza
The fall season is usually the time when all the best games come out. We'll just take last year for instance; Assassin's Creed II, Modern Warfare 2, Left for Dead 2, some other random game...2. It just tends to be a glorious time for video games, and it seems the trend will continue this year as well with such an anticipated lineup of video games; Fallout: New Vegas, Rock Band 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Fable III, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, etc. There are just too many to list, so let's examine based on the ones I am anticipating more than the others.
Rock Band 3
Certainly my most anticipated of the lot, as anyone who has played video games with me knows my love for the Rock Band series over the Guitar Hero series, everything from the game itself to the instrument peripherals (say what you want, the Rock Band instruments are lighter, quieter, and easier on the fingers and eyes), and unless you've been under a rock for the last few months, you should know the newest rhythm-action game will include a keyboard peripheral (which can be used as a key-tar if you so choose, which I would) so you rock out on the ivories, an addition that I'm sure will quickly replace drums as my favorite instrument. While adding the keyboard to the band, it also include vocal harmonies (introduced in The Beatles: Rock Band) to the main series. No more are the days were one person sits out while four other play (or you could just have more multi-tasking). Still, all the features above pale in comparison to what Harmonix is promising this time around: the Pro-Mode. If you don't know, Pro-Mode is supposed to be the bridge that links fake, plastic guitars to the real deal; that is, when you play in Pro-Mode, you're essentially playing a real guitar/bass/drums/keyboard.
So, all that sounds fantastic, but there's one little thing that's really holding this game back: cost. The standalone game costs $60, as per the usual. This time around, there's only one bundle available which includes the new keyboard for $150. While that's a good thing for those that already own instruments, it kind of screw over the new players, who will need to shell out $60 for a guitar, $100 for a drum set, and $20 for a microphone. Now, let's look at the aforementioned Pro-Mode. As I mentioned, it is essentially a real guitar part, which requires a guitar that has 6 buttons across 17 frets, totaling 102 fret buttons on the controller. Now, this is something I feel needs to be included with the bundle, but as it seems, the industry wants to use the opportunity to take more of your money by charging a hefty amount for these peripherals. Then again, I suppose a high price tag is more caused by the fact these Pro instruments can support MIDI outside of the game, much like the Ion Drum Set could support an electric drum brain. Despite the costly investments, Rock Band 3's features are sure to draw in many suckers (myself included) who will happily pile hundred of dollars into these instruments just so they can pretend to be rock star.
Fallout: New Vegas
I can't put into words how much I am anticipating this game right now, second only to Rock Band 3. I absolutely fell in love with Fallout 3 when it released in 2008 (having never even played or heard of the Fallout franchise until I did, something I quickly corrected there after). Beautiful visuals, exciting gameplay and an involving plot with Liam Neeson as your father; I mean seriously, how could this game have been any better? I have honestly played the hell out of that game; I've finished every quest, found all possible unique weapons, downloaded all five add-ons and unlocked all the achievements. So naturally I would be psyched up for the spin-off title when I heard news of it.
The first thing that grabbed my attention was the location: New Vegas. Now I may not be a genius (in fact, Firefox's spell checker had to correct my spelling of "genius"), but New Vegas is obviously Las Vegas, and a post-apocalyptic atmosphere mixed in with the chaotic, unscathed Sin City would provide nothing but fun for a gamer. From the integrated virtual gambling to exciting and exotic weapons to the wide, open explorable wasteland, New Vegas is surely going to be an absolute blast.
While the core gameplay is ultimately identical to Fallout 3, New Vegas takes the apocalypse one step further by including a Hardcore Mode, which will make the game all the more realistic. While most video game characters (Link, for instance) can carry 9,001 metric tons of equipment without a problem, New Vegas' Hardcore Mode prevents amazing feats like that. While Fallout 3 had the encumbance system to prevent you from lugging around 20 sets of Power Armor as well as an armory of weapons, small items like bottle caps and ammunition (among several other items) did not contribute to your carried weight; Hardcore Mode changes that. Don't expect to carry around 27,487+ microfusion cells, 248 missiles, all while wearing Power Armor that weighs 25 pounds, and a whole grocery isle of canned beans. This kind of realism provides the kind of challenges gamers like me enjoy undertaking.
Fable III
Now I'm just going to say this, and as I do, I'm going to hold up this fire-proof shield : the first two Fable games were great in terms of gameplay; easy controls, friendly interface, and a fairly easy-to navigate menu. When it comes to features, they both had great features and implemented them well and the plots were involving and easy to follow. However, I will admit to the fact that they both had issues that dragged them down the meter, and that fact is broken promises, and lots of them, and its because of that fact that I'm a little skeptical of the third installment. There were so many features that Lionhead had planed to include in both Fable and Fable II, but were cut due to time constraints and while the games still sold and reviewed phenomenally, we all know now that they could have been just that much better. In spite of the few promises they've already broken about Fable III, I just have this gut feeling that I'll still be at my local GameStop at midnight on October 26th getting my own copy (as well as my Rock Band 3 bundle) because as I said at the beginning, the first two games were great, and I'm sure the third will satisfy most of the franchise's fanbase.
Now, as far as the other games I mentioned go, they just don't interest my as much as these three. Call of Duty: Black Ops is certain to achieve success with its own fanbase and while I've tossed around the idea of picking it up, I know I'm still a Halo player at heart and I'll just find the latter to be a more enjoyable experience on my part. And Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is another I'm anticipating, but that was never a franchise that warranted a midnight pickup. I'm sure it will hit its high mark, release and expansion, and quickly find itself in our 'Games I'll Probably Only Play Once' section along with Crackdown 2 and Metroid: Other M.
Rock Band 3
Certainly my most anticipated of the lot, as anyone who has played video games with me knows my love for the Rock Band series over the Guitar Hero series, everything from the game itself to the instrument peripherals (say what you want, the Rock Band instruments are lighter, quieter, and easier on the fingers and eyes), and unless you've been under a rock for the last few months, you should know the newest rhythm-action game will include a keyboard peripheral (which can be used as a key-tar if you so choose, which I would) so you rock out on the ivories, an addition that I'm sure will quickly replace drums as my favorite instrument. While adding the keyboard to the band, it also include vocal harmonies (introduced in The Beatles: Rock Band) to the main series. No more are the days were one person sits out while four other play (or you could just have more multi-tasking). Still, all the features above pale in comparison to what Harmonix is promising this time around: the Pro-Mode. If you don't know, Pro-Mode is supposed to be the bridge that links fake, plastic guitars to the real deal; that is, when you play in Pro-Mode, you're essentially playing a real guitar/bass/drums/keyboard.
So, all that sounds fantastic, but there's one little thing that's really holding this game back: cost. The standalone game costs $60, as per the usual. This time around, there's only one bundle available which includes the new keyboard for $150. While that's a good thing for those that already own instruments, it kind of screw over the new players, who will need to shell out $60 for a guitar, $100 for a drum set, and $20 for a microphone. Now, let's look at the aforementioned Pro-Mode. As I mentioned, it is essentially a real guitar part, which requires a guitar that has 6 buttons across 17 frets, totaling 102 fret buttons on the controller. Now, this is something I feel needs to be included with the bundle, but as it seems, the industry wants to use the opportunity to take more of your money by charging a hefty amount for these peripherals. Then again, I suppose a high price tag is more caused by the fact these Pro instruments can support MIDI outside of the game, much like the Ion Drum Set could support an electric drum brain. Despite the costly investments, Rock Band 3's features are sure to draw in many suckers (myself included) who will happily pile hundred of dollars into these instruments just so they can pretend to be rock star.
Fallout: New Vegas
I can't put into words how much I am anticipating this game right now, second only to Rock Band 3. I absolutely fell in love with Fallout 3 when it released in 2008 (having never even played or heard of the Fallout franchise until I did, something I quickly corrected there after). Beautiful visuals, exciting gameplay and an involving plot with Liam Neeson as your father; I mean seriously, how could this game have been any better? I have honestly played the hell out of that game; I've finished every quest, found all possible unique weapons, downloaded all five add-ons and unlocked all the achievements. So naturally I would be psyched up for the spin-off title when I heard news of it.
The first thing that grabbed my attention was the location: New Vegas. Now I may not be a genius (in fact, Firefox's spell checker had to correct my spelling of "genius"), but New Vegas is obviously Las Vegas, and a post-apocalyptic atmosphere mixed in with the chaotic, unscathed Sin City would provide nothing but fun for a gamer. From the integrated virtual gambling to exciting and exotic weapons to the wide, open explorable wasteland, New Vegas is surely going to be an absolute blast.
While the core gameplay is ultimately identical to Fallout 3, New Vegas takes the apocalypse one step further by including a Hardcore Mode, which will make the game all the more realistic. While most video game characters (Link, for instance) can carry 9,001 metric tons of equipment without a problem, New Vegas' Hardcore Mode prevents amazing feats like that. While Fallout 3 had the encumbance system to prevent you from lugging around 20 sets of Power Armor as well as an armory of weapons, small items like bottle caps and ammunition (among several other items) did not contribute to your carried weight; Hardcore Mode changes that. Don't expect to carry around 27,487+ microfusion cells, 248 missiles, all while wearing Power Armor that weighs 25 pounds, and a whole grocery isle of canned beans. This kind of realism provides the kind of challenges gamers like me enjoy undertaking.
Fable III
Now I'm just going to say this, and as I do, I'm going to hold up this fire-proof shield : the first two Fable games were great in terms of gameplay; easy controls, friendly interface, and a fairly easy-to navigate menu. When it comes to features, they both had great features and implemented them well and the plots were involving and easy to follow. However, I will admit to the fact that they both had issues that dragged them down the meter, and that fact is broken promises, and lots of them, and its because of that fact that I'm a little skeptical of the third installment. There were so many features that Lionhead had planed to include in both Fable and Fable II, but were cut due to time constraints and while the games still sold and reviewed phenomenally, we all know now that they could have been just that much better. In spite of the few promises they've already broken about Fable III, I just have this gut feeling that I'll still be at my local GameStop at midnight on October 26th getting my own copy (as well as my Rock Band 3 bundle) because as I said at the beginning, the first two games were great, and I'm sure the third will satisfy most of the franchise's fanbase.
Now, as far as the other games I mentioned go, they just don't interest my as much as these three. Call of Duty: Black Ops is certain to achieve success with its own fanbase and while I've tossed around the idea of picking it up, I know I'm still a Halo player at heart and I'll just find the latter to be a more enjoyable experience on my part. And Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is another I'm anticipating, but that was never a franchise that warranted a midnight pickup. I'm sure it will hit its high mark, release and expansion, and quickly find itself in our 'Games I'll Probably Only Play Once' section along with Crackdown 2 and Metroid: Other M.
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