There exist certain gaming franchises which become infallible with age.  Fans — their memories alight with nostalgia — look to recapture moments that defined their earliest gaming memories in modern generations.  This perfectly summarizes my experiences with Nintendo’s iconic green-tunic-ed Zelda series.  Some of my fondest memories include exploring the expanses of Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time and sailing aimlessly across the tranquil waters of Wind Waker.  Despite all that, I will be reviewing Skyward Sword as a stand-alone product, wiping away the thick nostalgia condensed on my spectacles.

Story & Tone

The tone of Skyward Sword is a cautious one, not quite as wholesome as a Sunday morning cartoon but clearly afraid to come too close to the maturity that was Twilight Princess. The game’s first boss broke the traditional boss mold of three-strikes-to-the-big-glowing-eye, which led me to believe the franchise wanted to move in a different direction. Then, almost as if it never happened, I was right back in a child-safe world with Nintendo written all over it. If only the game took a stronger stance to decide if it wanted to offer the nonsensical but cute atmosphere of Animal Crossing, or make a dramatic impact in the way that Twilight Princess attempted.

Being the first game in the Zelda series timeline, Skyward Sword has a lot to cover to lay the groundwork for future games while still providing a solid story of its own. Here the game mostly succeeded. It brought me on a journey that had me emotionally invested as I watched various obstacles come between Link and Zelda.  Despite the triteness of their situation, I could feel for Link and I wanted to reunite him with his childhood friend, Zelda. I also grew attached to the game’s bumbling would-be bully, Groose. He starts out as your classic jerk, but as his motivations are revealed and he becomes more involved with the hero, he in transformed into a source of loveable and welcome comic relief.

Don’t mind me, I’m not that important.

There were some loose ends I wish were tied up, however. Early on it’s made clear that Link and his uniquely red-colored Loftwing share a close bond, however this connection is never deepened or expanded upon to make the player feel attached to the bird. Ultimately the Loftwing becomes a simple vehicle that squawks. Missed opportunities such as this caused the game’s ending scenario to fall flatter than I’d hoped.

System

First I need to address my biggest gripe with Skyward Sword: motion controls.  The technology just isn’t ready for this ambitious of a game.  Enemies and bosses frequently need to be bested by executing one of several different blows aimed at a weak spot or opening in a target’s defense.  This is done by swinging your Wii remote in the designated direction.  For instance, swinging straight down in front of you would make Link (presumably) do the same thing.  I would say, with confidence, these controls functions correctly far less than they should.  Later in the game, when enemies begin to punish you for not attacking in the correct direction, this came to be a great source of frustration, making me bemoan removing my sword from its sheath.  And motions controls further invade other mechanics, such as swimming, to put a damper on everything from combat to simple exploration.

Swimming is as cumbersome as it looks

Onto the brighter side!  The player can upgrade nearly all of Link’s tools to vastly modify their medieval load-out.  You can acquire these upgrades by gathering drops from enemies or bugs scattered throughout the world.  I became quite partial to my bow and arrow, as its motion controls were the simplest.  Naturally, I upgraded my bow twice, so it could deal monstrous damage.  Then, to keep me swimming in arrows, I purchased an extra quiver.  My thirst for arrows remained unquenchable, so I purchased a second quiver and upgraded them both twice — resulting in a massive stockpile of arrows I could bring with me on dungeon crawls.  Such customization has never existed in a Zelda title, and I found the flexibility to be a welcomed modernization.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We can’t talk about Zelda unless we touch on dungeon design.  And it really does shine in Skyward Sword.  While initially, dungeons are somewhat shallow, they become quite complex and fun near the end of the game once most of Link’s tools are unlocked.  Dungeons themselves take on themes to further deepen puzzles.  Possibly the most innovative example of this is with area-specific time travel.  Please, spare me the Steven Hawking lecture and (in Navi’s voice) listen.  There exists within the Zelda universe a mineral called a Timeshift stone that, when struck, does what its name implies: shifts time.  One particular area is filled with the stuff and in a number of instances the solution to a puzzle is either forward, or backwards in time.  This means the player will have to think critically about cause and effect to solve puzzles.  I found this to be a very innovative mechanic that gave a new layer of depth to both the dungeon itself and the game’s depth of problem solving.  Another very memorable dungeon experience was on a revisit to a previously explored area.  Normally this is when most critics would begin to lament “lazy level design!”  However, when I returned I found the area entirely flooded with water, which created a visually pleasing and imaginative landscape.

Presentation

There were moments when I stopped to examine my surroundings in Zelda.  The game cleverly works within the limitations of the Nintendo Wii by causing a mosaic effect on items that extend beyond a certain distance.  Still, I would say Skyward Sword just manages to get by as a visually acceptable game in this generation, and that is due largely to minimalistic art direction.  The music is classic Zelda fodder: epic, energetic, and always enhancing the atmosphere right up to a awe-inspiring final boss stage.

Conclusions

Skyward Sword was an ambitious game, attempting to bring fans the most interactive and advanced Zelda experience to date.  It shook things up by allowing the player to customize their equipment to a level never before possible.  Innovative level design made for some memorable and enjoyable puzzles that were always more fun than frustrating.  But the technology of the Wii was clearly pushed to the limit, as graphically and functionally the game struggled to stretch its wings and fly.

A message bar appears saying I’ve been invaded by a Black Phantom.  My fingers rush to get the correct player-versus-player gear equipped.  I need to be agile but still provide some rigidity or I will surely buckle under the weight of any heavy weapon if hit.  I cast a spell that surrounds me with five homing orbs that will detect and strike my enemy once in range.  Then it happens.  My heart is beating.  Fast.  Cold adrenaline pumps through my chest.  Where could this Phantom be?  They could come at me from any direction…  Suddenly I see a red blur making its way towards me.  I lift my shield and we clash, trading heavy blows and dodging with lightning fast reflexes.  I’ve become a Dark Souls adrenaline junky, and once you’ve drank deep of its glory, no other game comes close.  Allow me to go over all the ways in which Dark Souls has managed to concrete its position deep within my Playstation 3 since its release.

Story – And the furtive pygmy, so easily forgotten

From Software provides the minimal framework for a story and lets the player fill in the blanks with subtle clues throughout their journey.  In this case, the story surrounds a world formally controlled by dragons.  Soon gods and humans appeared and their power increased to the point where they could challenge the dragons.  War between the two began and once the mighty beasts were more or less gone, their fire left the world as well, bringing darkness.  The darkness led to undead, many of whom were deposited in an asylum far from the survivors to spend an eternity going mad.  Your character just so happens to be one of the few who escaped the asylum.  Legend tells of just such a chosen undead who may be able to return fire to the world, casting the darkness out once and for all.

Everything aside from the above synopsis the player will have to absorb from the lore scattered throughout Dark Souls.  This includes a few NPCs who, given your involvement, will pop up from time to time and drop some clues.  Other hints can also be found in the humble item descriptions for the game’s numerous weaponry and armor.  These are the main ways the player will learn of the various factions that populate the world of the game.  There are no dense walls of text to sift through and bog you down, you must simply learn through osmosis.  After experiencing this method of storytelling I can say I am hooked; it keeps my momentum going, doesn’t affect immersion, and it leaves enough mystery so that I want to know more.

The ruins of New Londo, one city whose story will slowly be revealed to the player

Gameplay – Chaos+5

The game begins at character creation.  The player may choose their character’s gender, appearance, and starting class as well as a gift: a new feature unique to Dark Souls (a gift is an item to give you a slight leg-up out the door).  Pre-set appearances can be selected or the player may dive in further to adjust everything via an array of sliders.  While faces look better than in Demon’s Souls, don’t expect to make America’s next top undead model — the system is just not that robust.  Likewise, don’t expect your jobclass to weight heavily on the game, you’ll have tons of customization at your disposal.

There are a massive number of weapons and spells in the world waiting to be discovered, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.  Some have long reach but are slow and heavy, others are lightning fast but require intimate closeness to your enemy. What you can wield depends on your stats, but it’s best to try as many as you can — with so many armaments you’re sure to find one that agrees with your playstyle.  Speaking for myself, I experimented with loads of weaponry and was pleased to find many with unique move-sets allowing for richer strategies and  deeper customization.

Slain enemies reward the player with souls, which are the game’s currency used to buy items, spells and level up.  An update to this system involves an item called “humanity” which is either added to the players inherent humanity count or kept as a consumable item.  Humanity can be earned via drops or, rarely, by killing enemies.  Having a high humanity score increases your drop rate meaning walking around with humanity bears great rewards. However, if the player dies, in addition to dropping any amassed souls they also drop their humanity.  That means if you die again before you can reach your luminescent soul blob, you not only lose your souls but your (inherent) humanity.  It’s a terrible feeling, but this system really helps when seeking rare drops, a large bone of contention for many who Platinumed Demon’s Souls back in the day.  Souls and humanity become increasingly easy to find as you advance in the game, meaning the sting of losing them becomes less severe over time.

Bask in the warmth of a bonfire

The world is more or less open, with certain sections being unlocked as you play further into the story.  Scattered throughout the world are bonfires which are pivotal to your progression.  By resting at a bonfire, you are setting a checkpoint you will return to if and when you die.  This is also where you can level up and increases your various statistics.  Resting at a bonfire will reward you with a small bit of the bonfire’s essence in a flask which is the main method of healing.  You must budget your healing, or estus, flasks between bonfires, adding another layer of strategy.  You may also burn your humanity at bonfires allowing you to revive to a human form (rather than the wrinkled, discolored undead appearance) or kindle the fire, causing it to yield more estus flasks.  Exploring in human form also allows you to be invaded by other players (and NPCs) or summon others to help you on your quest.  In other words, humanity is the lifeblood of the game’s multiplayer — more on this later.

As with Demon’s Souls, the difficulty comes mostly in keeping a cool head under pressure.  Enemies will overpower or outnumber you.  Bosses will deal crippling damage.  You will be challenged.  If you panic you will most likely be quickly defeated, but with each subsequent attempt you will come closer to achieving the lucidity necessarily to defeat enemies you never thought you could.  And this is an amazing feeling.

Multiplayer – A Dark Phantom Has Invaded Your World

This is one of the game’s most impressive aspects.  Generally the inclusion of online functionality in most story-driven games feels like botched surgery.  Not in Dark Souls.  The creators cleverly use the world’s various factions as vehicles for different modes of multiplayer role play.  With each faction having a different role in the world, players can decide if they would rather assist in co-operation either by summoning players to help them defeat a boss, or requesting to be summoned by those who have yet to defeat a specific boss.  Alternatively they may invade or hunt down those who’ve wronged their faction.  There is quite a lot of depth, and unlike the predictability of the game’s engine, multiplayer experiences are always unique, extending the game’s already healthy shelf life.  This is the ultimate culmination of solid story and a multiplayer experience in one RPG package.

Presentation – A land of grey crags, archtrees, and everlasting dragons

Dark Souls has the most consistent and hauntingly beautiful yet frightening atmosphere of any game I have played in recent memory.  Nothing in the game’s massive world seems out of place, everything feels intentional, and it all contributes towards the overall package delivered to the player.  That package is a clear message that this is an uninviting world with a deep and twisted history.  If you want to survive you must carve a place for yourself.  Thankfully it never lays the medieval lingo on too thick, always maintaining a serious yet  mysterious tone.  The music equally reflects this gravity, especially when it’s time to fight a boss and a Gregorian chorus rises up in thunderous unison to set the mood.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Conclusions

Dark Souls built heavily upon the already impressive package that was Demon’s Souls.  The result, however, is capable of standing alone, boasting a deeper level of challenge and combat, immersive and expansive open world, and always intriguing lore.  All this is accompanied by what I consider to be easily the most engaging multiplayer experiences I’ve had on my Playstation 3.  The rumors of Dark Souls’ difficulty are true, but they pale in comparison to the rewards awaiting patient gamers within.

In my freshman year of college I bought Disgaea: Hour of Darkness on a whim. The cover art and character designs blew me away.  That would become the first title in which my hour count plunged deeply into the triple digits.  I had never experienced a game with so much to do, and I was hooked.  Now, after some financial turmoil, Nippon Ichi has released Disgaea 4.  Do they still have what it takes to churn out the hour-sponges, or has their winning formula dried out?

Story – Iwashi

Disgaea 4 follows a vampire living in the Netherworld named Valvatorez.  His current position in the highly vertical heirarchy of the underworld is Prinny Instructor — in other words, he’s at the bottom.  Valvatorez quite literally trains the penguin-shaped scum of the netherworld how to take abuse — a thankless job if ever there was one.  It wasn’t always like this, though.  He was once a great tyrant, feared by both human and demon.  However, at some point he made a promise to stop drinking human blood, thus becoming considerably weaker and easier to push around.  And when Valvatores makes a promise, he keeps it.  After adopting his new role, Valvatorez and his companion Fenrich notice all is not right in the government of the underworld.  With corruption rearing its ugly head, the gang head off on a journey to investigate.

If you forced me to use one word to describe the story in this, or any Disgaea, that word would be bittersweet.  The series is known for a sharp wit and off the wall jokes.  For instance Valvatorez, unable to drink blood, maintains a portion of his strength by eating sardines.  He is on a vendetta to spread his wealth of knowledge about this modest fish in the hopes that others can be made aware of its greatness.  I learned a lot about sardines.  An awful lot, and Valvatorez’s enthusiasm for the fish was consistently amusing.

So if humor is the sweetness in the bittersweet, the bitterness can be found in each character’s backstory.  While not revealed immediately, the game’s light humor is beautifully dusted with clues to some sad past.  In this manner, the gravity of each helping of bitterness sneaks up on the player until a carefully calculated moment.  While this formula is consistent, through well… nearly every NIS title that comes to mind, it is still executed just as masterfully as the game’s trademark humor.  Still, I would like to see NIS lean on this story mechanic less…  I realize there are constraints from working within a humor-based story, but that is not an excuse.

System – Hi-tech Bribery

Online functionality is more involved than ever, but still the player is just as limited.  I could upload one of my characters to participate in other player’s dark congress assemblies.  If my character was bribed, I could even collect the bribes after the fact.  But I would like to see this go a step further, allowing me to directly affect another player and witness that fact.  I want to be the one who votes.  I want to decide if the bribe I received was good enough.  These desires could easily be game breaking, and perhaps they are, but what I really want is to feel like what I am doing with any online functionality matters.  And I did not feel that way in Disgaea 4 at all.  Upload of player data controlled by the game’s AI is not my idea of successful online functionality.

Most of Disgaea 4’s strategy RPG mechanics are making a return from past iterations.  You still have your base panel, geo blocks and throwing systems.  There are some new features such as the ability to fuse two monster characters into one, much larger, monster.  Oh, and the discipline system, sure to make you blush and laugh uncomfortably.  Ultimately however, if you spent hundreds of hours in Disgaea 3, odds are very good you will spend hundreds of hours in Disgaea 4 essentially doing all the same things.  Let’s face it, grinding is what sucks up the most time, and where grinding is concerned not much has changed.  That’s because  Disgaea 4 is built heavily off the shoulders of Disgaea 3 in terms of system with little in the way of innovation.

Presentation – Moving on up

Visually the franchise has made enormous strides.  Sprite appearances were overhauled resulting in possibly the smoothest most detailed ones I’ve ever seen.  The lush dialog art becomes animated during event scenes, further validating the game’s place on a current gen home console.

Conclusions – Secret Ingredient

If I were a chef and my sous-chef presented me with a bowl of Disgaea 4, I would probably say they did very well but lose points for playing it safe.  The presentation was spotless; in fact, they were a huge improvement.  The execution, while containing some new techniques, is largely nothing new.  Overall the taste is… quite familiar.  Sous-chef Nippon Ichi, I’m afraid this dish needed more heart and less leftovers.

For more of my thoughts on Disgaea 4, please listen to my recent appearance on the PSNation podcast.

It didn’t take long for Atlus’s Catherine to generate enormous hype among gamers.  It boasted two qualities we see rarely these days: originality and a desire to show the player something new.  Not an alien at the barrel of a gun, not even a litany of number-saturated menus.  Catherine looked fresh, and alluded to topics generally reserved only for more mature media: sex, commitment, relationships, and the future.  Yours truly became quite swept up in the hype as well, covering its development closely and writing my own speculations at length.  After months of anticipation, I have finally experienced Catherine.  The only matter left to discuss is whether or not it lived up to my expectations.

Story — On The Edge, Edge, Edge Of My Seat

Catherine is about a guy named Vincent Brooks.  He is on the cusp of adulthood: just starting the 9-5 life, still drinking and reminiscing with his friends, all the while in a somewhat serious relationship.  He is content to let things stay the way they are.  But his girlfriend, Katherine, is not.  She knows she is at the age where important life decisions need to be made.  Is this the person she wants to marry?  Does Vincent want to marry her?  What about children?  And so Vincent’s life of complacency is thrown upside down.

The stress from being forced to make these decisions causes Vincent to look for an escape.  He finds it at the bottom of a glass; staying out late drinking with friends.  One night he stays until all his friends head home, leaving him to wrestle with his problems alone.  To his surprise, a girl in white presumptuously takes a seat next to him and begins to chat.  Her name is Catherine.  The hours and drinks melt away.  Catherine seems easygoing and makes it clear she just wants to have fun.  This resonates with Vincent and the next morning he is rudely awoken with Catherine in bed next to him.  In looking for an escape from his problems, he has done the unthinkable: cheated on his girlfriend.

Soon he begins having horrifying dreams in which he and hoards of sheep are forced to climb an elaborate tower or face death.  In the real world, young men begin dying mysteriously in their sleep, their faces contorted in fear.  Vincent begins to wonder if his mysterious dreams have a connection.  If that weren’t enough, he must also navigate the treacherous terrain of maintaining relationships with two women.

If this synopsis doesn’t make you squirm, then you are a stronger person than myself.  And this uneasiness is where Catherine’s story succeeds: it presents the player with real life stresses — ones that most people can surely relate to on some level.  Possibly the biggest factor in the game’s realism is its cast of developed characters.  I couldn’t help but see a bit of myself in Vincent especially.  Am I the same cowardly, complacent, lazy, indecisive mess?  At times it sure feels that way.  Even his current place in life was all too familiar.  I work the 9-5, drink with my old friends from high school when I can find the time, and still don’t have a clue what to make of my future.  It’s strange seeing the flaws of real individuals in video game characters.  But I like it.  In this way Vincent is the ultimate anti-hero in that, despite (or perhaps because of) his numerous vices, you can see yourself in him.

Catherine’s story may be a bit of a boys club, however.  I found myself very much invested in the protagonist and his friends.  Their conversations were so real — I even found myself thinking about them during real life late night chats with my friends.  ”It’s just like in Catherine“, I thought.  But this feeling I fear may not be one that female gamers will share, for women are little more than a decision to be made in Catherine — and a relatively black and white decision at that.  I would love to have seen this game with an option to play as Katherine in a similar situation as Vincent to round out the genders.  If the same level of realism could be captured in her… that would have been a real breakthrough for the medium.

Gameplay — Here Lies Some Dualshock Controllers, Goddammit

The player advances in Catherine’s story through a series of days in the life of Vincent.  The passage of time follows a daily pattern :

First is the story sequence.  This generally takes place during the day and consists of cutscenes which are either animated:

or in stylized CG:

Both feature great art direction, color, and style. The duration of these scenes never became so heavy-handed that I felt like I was bogged down in cinematics; rather, they advance the story at a decent pace.

Next is the bar sequence at Stray Sheep.  This is how Vincent ends his waking hours: drinking and talking with friends.  This part is my favorite due to the variety of activities, and relatively laid-back atmosphere.  You can order drinks and knock ‘em back which earns you fascinating cocktail trivia.  I’m not exaggerating, either: some of these facts will change the way you think about booze (if you think about it at all).  You can converse with your friends, fellow bar patrons, or Stray Sheep employees.  The more you do so, the more involved you become in their lives and ultimately their future.  Some of these characters have really interesting and sordid backstories which inspired me to chat with them whenever possible.  You can also play an arcade mini-game which mimics the puzzle portion of Catherine, but in a retro style.  As time passes, patrons will come and go and you will also receive texts which you can either ignore or carefully populate a response to.

Replying to texts from the game’s leading ladies (among other actions) alters Vincent’s alignment.  This will cause a gauge to appear on screen to show his current standing.  You won’t find out what the gauge means until after finishing the game, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a gauge at all.  Your alignment is used to help generate one of 8 possible endings.  Depending on your alignment at certain points in the story, Vincent will behave differently.  This feature felt a little tacked on; just a way to encourage replays for a relatively short game.  However, I admit to having only played through once — perhaps on multiple playthroughs this system’s value becomes more apparent.  i doubt it.

Last is the action portion of Catherine, which takes place in Vincent’s nightmares.  Here you will begin by tackling a map consisting entirely of blocks which you must climb quicker than the rate at which they are collapsing below you.  Some blocks can be moved to eek out a foothold allowing you to advance.  As you progress up the tower, new layers of complexity are added to this simplistic formula.  Soon there will be blocks that explode, impale you, ones that propel you, etc.  Not paying attention to a single step could mean certain death (requiring you to start over entirely unless you reached a checkpoint).  Upon clearing a level, Vincent will arrive at a hub where we may interact with other sheep, some of whom the player may recognize from the real world.  Finally, you will answer a rather personal question (not recommended in front of a loved one) before being rocketed to the next level.  On each night, the last floor will also include a boss who can either kill Vincent or manipulate the map — or both.  Yay.

This is a good time to discuss Catherine’s difficulty.  I completed the game on normal, and I am darn proud of that.  More than once the devil on my shoulder suggested bumping it down to easy.  ”Just clear the story, what do you care!?” But my resolve remained stalwart.  That should be an indication that this game… is hard.  Old school hard.  Various NPCs help out by providing techniques, and there are checkpoints scattered throughout levels allowing you to maintain a bit of a foothold.  Still, what it really boils down to is cold memorization of levels.  By the end-game, luck starts to become more important with blocks that randomly generate requiring lightning fast decisions and no small amount of frustration.  I turned this game off out of anger at least once, and I am normally a pretty laid back dude.  So if you have a spot in your backyard where you bury the shattered remains of Dualshock controllers, you may want to buy some Valium before sliding Catherine into your disc tray.

Presentation — TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 5… R-R-R-R-R-REMIX!

Catherine is the first HD game by Atlus, and it feels like an HD game.  They did a great job capturing the anime aesthetic with modern graphics — surely a difficult task to accomplish.  The art direction and character design is cohesive and reminiscent of a modern day fusion of Eastern and Western pop cultures.  The score (bundled with the game if you pre-ordered — thanks Atlus!), a blend of famous classical works remixed by Shoji Meguro, serves as perhaps the best symbol for a game breaking into new technology while maintaining old school roots.  This is one tidy, well put-together package.

Conclusions

I thought Catherine would change gaming in a big way — I was fairly convinced of it, in fact.  But the story became shaky by the end — I suspect this was when the faulty alignment system began deciding my ending.  And the difficulty drove me to longing for an end out of frustration rather than a genuine desire to witness my ending.  In some ways, however, it did trailblaze.  I can honestly say that never before have I played a game with conversations and characters as identifiable as those in Catherine (if you’re a dude, bro).  Also, the game is dripping with style, from its simple UI to its sweeping soundtrack.  But isn’t this something we’ve just come to expect from Atlus rather than something new?  Catherine may not have been the revolution in gaming I had hoped, but it was still one memorable climb.

I have written reviews of other anime series NIS America has localized (1,2), and each time I champion the fact that I am not an “anime person”.  I don’t go out of my way to look for anime, licensed or otherwise — same for manga.  But I daresay NIS may be showing me that there is some hope for the medium.  One of their newest titles, Katanagatari (literally: Katana story), was released last month and I have been given the pleasure of reviewing it.

Let’s start with the tangible: the packaging.  As with every series NIS America has released to date, in addition to the DVDs you get a bonus art book and a sleek box to store it all in.  For the first time however, the bundle includes format options: both standard DVDs and Blu Rays are included.  Odds are good that if you support NIS America, you own a PS3 — meaning you can watch it in its full stupefying beauty.  No ghosting or interlacing issues here — no, this is easily the best quality NIS America has given us.  Which is nice, but I can’t help but feel somewhat slighted with their previous series released in only DVD format (for essentially the same price).

Now let’s move onto the anime itself.

Premise

The story begins with a bit of feudal history surrounding a once heroic bloodline exiled to a small island off the coast of Japan.  There we meet Yasuri Shichika, the current head of the Kyotoryu style of sword fighting and his sister Nanami — the only living members of the exiled bloodline.  Shichika has been on this island alone with his sister his whole life, so to say that he is out of touch with society is an understatement.  He has no concept of the value of everyday commodities and finds the taste of saké to be revolting.  He and his sister are essentially hermits living off the land in peace — a luxury afforded to few during this period of Japanese history.

The title’s leading duo — they are in love. Seriously.

One day a boat arrives carrying with it a clumsy young strategist employed by the reigning shogunate named Togame.  She has taken it upon herself to try and acquire twelve legendary katana, each forged by an expert swordsmith.  The power contained within these blades could be used to either fuel or quell an upcoming rebellion against the shogunate.  The only problem is that once a skilled swordsman comes into contact with one of these blades, they are overtaken by a desire to wield it — perpetuating its rampage.  So how do you pry a sword from the hands of a swordsman without using another swordsman?  Well, it just so happens that Kyotoryu sword fighting is the art of unarmed swordfighting, making Shichika the ultimate tool for helping to collect each weapon.  With Nanami’s blessing, the two head back to the mainland on a quest to collect these legendary katana.  This blend of history and fiction is not uncommon in Japanese media, but in my opinion it’s successful at creating an exciting landscape of different situations and characters.

Tone

Katanagatari has an engaging episode formula.  Since the series is 12 episodes long and there are 12 katana total, each episode will revolve around the lore and current possessor of one of the legendary blades.  The idea of good and bad is nonexistent: just because someone happens to have one of the 12 blades, doesn’t mean they are evil — it’s not that black and white.  The blade owners, like our protagonists, have their own interests and reasons for what they are doing and this aspect of their characters is well developed.  So much so that often times I found myself not wanting the heroes to fight the sword’s owner — I didn’t want there to be a winner because that meant there had to be a loser.  The fact that all the characters were painted in such a way is a real credit to its writing and character development.

One complaint that may turn some away is that the show gets a bit wordy at times.  I pride myself on an exceptional attention span and comprehension, but even I found myself nodding off during some especially lengthy ninja soliloquies.  Considering the number of characters whose motives and backgrounds need to be established, it makes sense.  It’s like building the pyramids: they’re a work of art but damned if it didn’t take some labor to get them there.  In my opinion, the payoff is worth a bit of yawning.

Presentation

NB: Japanese audio only with English subtitles.  Volume one contains episodes 1-6 (of 12).

In the mass of anime out there, homogeneity weighs the medium down like a brick of depleted uranium.  The only thing rarer than a creative story concept is a unique aesthetic.  Katanagatari boasts both of these.  While facial features are simplistic, this is balanced with elaborately flowing costume design.  Lush dramatic scenery with rich textures can stand on its own in the stead of character engagement.  The colors and textures make you feel like you’re reading a sumi-e scroll, updated will all the modern trimmings.  Being able to experience all this on Blu Ray, well…that is just worthy of awe.

Don’t believe me?  Take a look at the Japanese trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Conclusions

I can say with no hesitation that I must have volume 2 of Katanagatari.  The exceptional development of the characters has caused a deep investment on my part — not knowing what becomes of them is too painful to consider.  This combined with awe-inspiring visuals, unabated by format restrictions (Blu Ray: “DVDs lol”), results in a truly valuable package.  If you can get past the pricetag ($55.99) and some epic gabbing, I assure you that Katanagatari will be one unforgettable series.

This Tuesday I went to see Tekken Blood Vengence in 3D. I was intrigued by the film due to its close relation to the games, which are the only fighters I enjoy. Not only does Blood Vengeance sport the same CG style used throughout the most recent Tekken titles, but many of the game’s voice actors were brought on board to further establish a cohesion between the two. Finally, Dai Sato of Cowboy Bebop fame was enlisted as a writer. Yes, for a video game film, Tekken Blood Vengeance certainly seemed to have its act together. So how was it?

Premise: There Are Iron Fists, But No Tournament

Whomever came up the the premise for the film wisely avoided making it a straight translation of the game. Each game basically features a tournament in which people from all over the world beat each other up for control over one of Japan’s largest corporations.  The ending (or winner) is usually open to interpretation — something difficult to execute in film.

Rather, Tekken Blood Vengence takes place between the last two games (Tekken 5 and Tekken 6), as a side story:  The warring members of the Mishima bloodline are scrambling to gather data on a mysterious high school student named Shin Kamiya.  Eventually, Kazuya’s lackey Anna recruits plucky schoolgirl Ling Xiaoyu to attend a private school in Kyoto.  The mystery student also attends this school and Anna wants to use Ling to gather intel.  There, she meets up with and befriends robot wonder-girl Alisa. Ultimately, the two form an alliance.  Their goal: to solve the mystery of Shin Kamiya and end the reign of terror caused by the Mishimas.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The film’s first trailer

This creative side story allows the film to sidestep any concrete facts established by the games and still exist alongside them.  This is a fabulous idea and one that more films based on games should mirror.  My only complaint with this formula is that of Tekken’s vast cast of characters, few made their way into the film.

Tone: Moar Panda!!!!!!!!!1 Less Devil X (

One of the reasons I play Tekken is because it is actually pretty damn funny.  It may be hard to look past all the rippling, tattooed, aura-engulfed muscles — but I promise you the game has its knee-slapping moments.  Thankfully, this humor is also pleasantly a big part of the film.  By the end, running jokes were rampant and had the especially… vocal audience laughing out loud.  I particularly enjoyed the repeated but unnecessary appearances of Lee Chaolan whose complete lack of understanding the film’s events proved far too humorous.  Likewise Ling’s pet, Panda lightened the mood considerably by… well, being a panda.

Towards the end, the film became too ambitious — a common flaw in Japanese cinema.  It was clear the writers knew we were watching Tekken for epic fighting scenes.  While that may be true, the fighting quickly escalated to the point of absurdity, where several mythical and completely fabricated beings were drawn into the earthshaking action.  This was where my attention started to grow thin as the story which brought us to this point grew less and less relevant.

Finally, a bit of unnecessary fan service blotched a few scenes.  Xiaoyu is one of my favorite characters of the game.  In addition to having a complex fighting style, hailing from China, and being obsessed with amusement parks, Xiaoyu is also cute.  It was clear at certain points that the film was more interested in making it clear to us that she was cute.  For instance, a lengthy post-shower scene in which Ling is wearing nothing but a towel stretches on longer than necessarily.

Presentation: Effortlessly Painful

The graphics of the film are brilliant and easily on par with other full CG films such as Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children.  The fact that the first trailer was shown about 6 months ago makes the whole process feel fairly effortless.  No visible eons of production, no talk of hundreds of man-hours or complex hair graphics engines — just a nicely polished visual product.  The choreography for some of the fight scenes was just astounding, blending in actual moves from the game and always treading the fine line between bad-ass and over the top.  Althought I admit, as mentioned earlier there were times when this line was crossed and quite literally shot in the face with a laser beam.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the film’s more successful fight scenes

It’s time for me to bemoan the film’s voice dubbing.  I hate doing it as much as I am sure you hate reading it, but at times… this shit was painful.  I appreciate that the English voice actors who worked on the game were brought on for this project, but since I always play the game in Japanese, this gesture was lost on me.  Thankfully the actors for the two main heroins (Ling and Alisa) were easily the most skilled; however, the entire Mishima family needed some serious re-tuning.  Finally, it seemed any attempt to sync a character’s mouth movements with their dialog was too much of a hassle which messed with my immersion.  I would strongly recommend the original Japanese option if/when you nab the Blu-Ray.

Conclusions: Zai[BATSU] (maru!)

I enjoyed Tekken Blood Vengence for the most part.  It felt like a true, albeit unimportant part of the Tekken universe.  It may have been marred by a couple over-the-top, yawn-inducing fighting scenes, but the humorous interaction between the less serious characters proved captivating.  The graphics were gorgeous and true to the game, even if the voice acting didn’t reflect this.  While it won’t win the coveted “best movie based on a game” award, it certainly won’t be filed among the litany of other gaming movie embarrassments that Hollywood has shat in our general direction.  The blu-ray hybrid featuring both Tekken Blood Vengence and an HD version of Tekken Tag Tournament will be available this November.

My history with Pokémon goes back nearly as far as my history with video games. I still fondly remember the glorious day in which I acquired Pokémon Red and the long summer spent mastering it.  Hell, that was over 10 years ago…  There is just something about Pokémon that makes it memorable — the interaction with friends, picking your starter, and other familiar elements that permeate each generation.

Does the newest addition to the franchise, Pokémon Black & White, promise to be the memory-maker I have come to expect from one of my most beloved series?

Story

The story for most Pokémon titles is simple.  You are a new trainer who is on a quest to earn their eight gym badges and beat the Elite Four, thus becoming the very best.  Sure, from time to time someone will say, “Wow, you really blahblah know how to blahblah love and understanding.”  But generally you feel rather ordinary and your journey only slightly extraordinary.

Black & White is different right off the bat.  First off, you have friends in this game, rather than rivals.  They each have their own personalities and (despite being somewhat underdeveloped) do help make a game with a silent protagonist feel more alive.  They pop up randomly to do battle with you, give you a tip or an item and vanish back on their own journey.  Likewise, the game’s gym leaders have much more of a role in the world of the game.  You help them take care of their respective cities and at times they help you along your journey.  You get to know the various gym leaders in this way. By the end of the game, they don’t feel so much like an obstacle that once blocked your path, but a true ally.

While we are on the topic of allies, I must mention the enemy of the game: Team Plasma.  Generally the enemies in Pokémon games feel flimsy.  They have a bunch of Zubats and Ratatas and somehow I am supposed to be afraid that they are going to take over the world?  Is that what they wanted to do; take over the world?  Hell, I don’t even know — their goals were always rather unclear.  Why did they want that Slowpoke tail again?  Well, the goals of Team Plasma are anything but flimsy: they want to drive a stake through the world of Unova, separating people and pokémon once and for all.

Team Plasma actually had me questioning the ethics of pokémon training.  Is it wrong to fight creatures against one another for personal gain and to seal them up in a computer when they aren’t needed?  Still, the thought of a world where no one could be a pokémon trainer just seems too much like… reality.  I had to prevent that!  My special world filled with awesome creatures felt threatened — for the first time.  As my motivation became clear, I was more inspired to finish the game.

Gameplay

Pokémon Black & White take a number of steps to prevent the player from feeling “RPG fatigue”.  You know that feeling where you just can’t put up with one more random battle let alone another dungeon (relevant)?  Thankfully, the game has very few maddeningly complex dungeons.  Also, nearly every dungeon or route will have an NPC which (if you beat them in a battle) will heal your team free of charge.  This not only saved a massive amount of time but allowed for speedy and efficient leveling.

Another improvement is the removal of a heavy emphasis on HMs such as Cut and Flash.  You still need them to pass certain points, but this happens far less frequently than in past titles.  TMs have also been massively improved: they are no longer single use items.  This allowed me to tailor my team for certain situations.  For instance, if I had a TM for a move that would be effective against a certain gym, I taught it to as many pokémon as I could.  This is in contrast to what I used to do with TMs: save them and never use them, ever.

There are also a few changes which feel rather tacked on, such as triple battles.  After double battles, triple battles just feel like the obvious direction to go, and aside from having to take range into consideration, they bring very little new to the table.  Now, I bought Pokémon White — the Black version, in contrast, has rotation battles, which are really more interesting in my opinion as they actually feel like a new way to battle.  Both battle types, however, happen far less than standard one-on-one matches.  I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a single gym which challenged the player to become familiar with one of the new styles of battle, making them feel that much more tacked on.

Multiplayer functionality feels polished yet confusing.  Having to register a friend via your pal pad (and have them do the same for you) and then enter a specific trade room to trade with someone via wi-fi is a chore the first time around.  Once you get it down, it isn’t bad.  Trading with someone locally is a breeze, and you can access your full roster including all your boxes from the trade menu which is a huge time saver.  Expect a slightly steeper learning curve than you should have to put up with, but once you know the lay of the land there is a lot that can be done with the game’s multiplayer features.

The post-game is always important to me for a Pokémon title.  I want to have tons to do after beating the game, and for the most part I wasn’t let down.  There are a number of new towns the player can visit after the credits roll, and along the way you’ll encounter some high level trainers who offer a decent challenge.  Pokémon from other generations will start to pop up in the wild and you can even trade them from past games as well.

However, I was disappointed to finally arrive at White Forest (an end-game area unique to Pokémon White) and find it totally empty and thus useless.  I was promised I could catch a number of low-level pokémon from past generations here, but may have actually arrived too soon.  The residents populate the town based on the number of days spent on your journey, and they are the deciding factor in what wild pokémon you can find.  White Forest aside, Pokémon Black & White has tons to offer players after the main story is bested.

Presentation

The graphics in Pokémon Black & White don’t stray too far from other Pokémon titles on the Nintendo DS.  In-battle sprites move, which is nice, and the cries of this generation of pokémon sound really great — almost like real animals.  The game also experiments with different angles, having the camera pan around or zoom in and out rather than only offering a static top-down perspective:

This is a first for the series and it did make the world feel more convincing.

After sending out your pokémon in battle, the screen zooms, bringing the defending pokémon into clear focus, but sadly pixelating your pokémon’s sprite:

This bothered me for the first few hundred battles, but was soon forgotten as an issue. Still, it felt like the developers couldn’t be bothered to either make separate back-sprites or find a workaround.

Conclusions

The Pokémon Black & White experience feels very user friendly.  I never felt as though I was trudging through the game, or that I needed to take a break out of frustration.  No, rather the story eased me along and kept me pleasantly engaged — more so than any other Pokémon game has.  Meanwhile, certain aspects from past games which had provided monotony in place of challenge were either eliminated or tweaked in the player’s favor.  All in all the game is a pleasure to play. I would recommend it to anyone from a hardcore RPG gamer to even those squeamish about the commitment that comes with RPGs.  I am confident that Pokémon Black & White will have a place in the hallowed walls of my fondest Pokémon memories.

I had a brief but violent love affair with LittleBigPlanet when it was released back in 2008.  Playing the game with friends proved to be immense fun, albeit somewhat repetitious.  It didn’t take long for the whimsy to wear off and we all moved on to other games — thus growing away from LBP, leaving it abandoned like some forgotten club house.

Naturally, I was less than optimistic that LittleBigPlanet 2 would provide an experience more engaging than its predecessor.  Still, the fond memories of that forgotten club house were enough to inspire me to give it a chance.

Gameplay — Grapple Hooked

The basic mechanics of the first LittleBigPlanet are all present in the game’s sequel.  It is a side-scrolling platformer at heart; featuring different dimensions which your customizable sack-person can traverse to avoid obstacles and progress through a level while collecting outfits, stickers, and objects to be used in character customization, level decoration and creation respectively.  There is also an online community where players can upload their custom levels built in an included level editor.  All of this can be said for both LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2.

So where did the sequel innovate? Well, let’s start at the beginning. Right after the brief install I was instantly prompted to load my file from the first game which would grant me access to all the goodies I earned long ago.  This was a very pleasant surprise as I didn’t need to start the game with a bare-naked sack, exposed to the elements.  In the process of getting dressed the controls came flooding back.

The first few levels introduced me to the grappling hook, which extends your sackboy’s reach and allows them to swing over, under, and around obstacles:

I can easily say that the grappling hook is one of my favorite additions to the game, and whenever I have the pleasure of zipping through a level with one, it’s hard not to feel a sack-like exhilaration. I thought the grappling hook was the game’s overhaul, and I was relatively pleased with that thought.

Soon I was introduced to the grabinator, a pair of gloves which allowed me to lift anything that wasn’t bolted down (including other players!) and toss away.  Next, a helmet which launched cupcakes (yeah, I am serious), then a variety of animal-themed vehicles — every world had its own unique mechanics, which were often layered over existing ones as well.  Any monotony that existed in the first game was successfully shattered and replaced by excitement as to what the gimmick would be in the next level.

The seamless online functionality made playing with friends a pleasure.  I could log in, check who among my friends list was on, and invite them to my world quickly and easily.  A simplified text chat allowed basic communication, however I usually relied on Skype to communicate.  Playing the game with friends is definitely the way to go, but if your friends aren’t online (or you don’t have any) you can hop into someone’s game with their permission.  There was one issue a friend had which would consistently make them unable to play a level with me.  The cause is still unknown, but seems rare as it was only this individual.  Minor connectivity issues aside, multiplayer is an intensely enjoyable experience in LittleBigPlanet 2, whether you’re in the same room or on the other side of the world.

Presentation — Snappy Dresser

If you sat LittleBigPlanet 2 next to its predecessor, you would have a hard time telling them apart graphically.  The only difference is the inclusion of brief cutscenes at the beginning and end of each world.  What I do appreciate about these cutscenes is that they are skillfully voice-acted: a first for the series.  The numerous actors definitely succeed in bringing their respective caricatures to life.  My sack-person was also featured prominently in certain scenes, allowing me to look at my zany outfits from different angles and feel more as though I was a part of the story.

Next, I must praise the game’s soundtrack, which feels like a warm patch-work blanket of very different songs tailored to fit the game.  Somewhere in the bizarre array of genres and styles there is a cohesion that ties all the colorful elements together.  I wish I didn’t spend so much time shouting at friends over Skype — this soundtrack deserved more of my time!

Community — Turbo Slapper

One of the main selling points of LittleBigPlanet is its level creation features, which, when coupled with an online community, allows one to either upload their custom levels for others to play or play levels created by others.  I prefer the latter as I generally don’t have the time to make my own levels.  Working four jobs all located on increasingly steep hills covered in snow will do that do you.

I spent a solid weekend with friends playing and replaying many of these levels and can say that the level of creativity and ingenuity out there is astounding and, frankly, a bit uplifting.  The fact that gamers, just like me, can create something which can be enjoyed by others, rated and organized on a massive level speaks volumes about the current state of gaming.

My only complaint is that loading time for the larger and more involved maps was at some points unbearable.  At least twice I decided to avoid a stage due to overly long load times.  Most stages did require a healthy wait, but again this was rarely unbearable.

Conclusions — Journalistical

While many of the core elements of LittleBigPlanet exists in LittleBigPlanet 2, the sheer number of new mechanics and gadgets breathe life into what was comparatively a stagnant platforming experience.  Because of this the offline/story mode is massively improved with a focus on innovation rather than repetition.  This also provides a much better baseline for players to begin to create their own levels meaning more variety online.  LittleBigPlanet 2 may look otherwise, but it is a whole new game; one which has entertained me and my friends for hours, with the promise of many more to come.

Image credits

It’s hard to find time to play games when you work full-time, freelance and try to maintain a steady drawing schedule.  Gone are the days of RPG grindfests, where I could easily spend hours leveling up the hourglass used by my favorite Patty in Phantom Brave.  Since evolving into a productive member of society, any standard RPG couldn’t hold my attention long enough to beat them.  It is disheartening to play a title for two hours and feel like you are getting nowhere.  Fortunately, this is where puzzle games started to fill in the gap.  Short and sweet, it was satisfying to start and finish a title in a span of about 20 hours.  So I became that guy.  The robot-guiding, metchsteek-counting, portal-jumping that guy.

So it was no wonder that when Capcom sent us a copy of Shu Takumi’s Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Roy pawned it off to me.  He shucked the package like an ear of corn, glanced at its contents and immediately put it into my extended paw.  I swapped out my copy of Unwound Future in my Chocobo-case-clad DS and started the game that night.

I was hooked, you guys.

I honestly can’t remember that last time I have been so engrossed in a title.  The cleverly scripted characters, the peppy music, the intriguing game play with its mystery-laden storyline — all of it kept me sucked in for hours at a time.  Where normally I would play a little bit of Layton in the mornings before work, I found that I could not do this with Ghost Trick.  It kept me wanting more.

Story

Questioning the motives of the desk lamp

To start with, you wake up as a departed soul with no bearings on who you were in your past.  A helpful possessed desk lamp gives you some idea: you have just died, and in order to solve the mystery of your death you have until dawn before you cease to exist.  You also have the inexplicable ability to possess and manipulate objects — a unique ability that not every soul has.  Combined with the ability to manipulate time — where you can traverse back to four minutes before a person has died — you find yourself to be a pretty powerful little soul, capable of nudging and push-pulling fate until death can be avoided.

Over the course of the game, you find clues about yourself (only going by the name Sissel), and the group of people who have had an indirect hand in your death.  The chain of events turns out to be much bigger than initially thought and a web of mysteries embedded into other mysteries leaves you hanging up until the very end.  The diverse cast of characters propels you through each chapter of the story, including blue-colored baddies, a crackpot police squad led by a dancing detective, and an overly helpful Pomeranian that greets any guest — even those brandishing guns — with an unbridled “WELCOME!!”.  The colorful bunch twirl, dig, jump and bark their way into your quest to solve the mysteries surrounding your death.

The clear star of the show

Some of the characters die several times, at which point you must save them again, gain more information, and continue on your way until another point where you find that they have not been able to survive a giant swinging turkey leg to the head.  Thankfully the robust storytelling combined with the evolving game play make Ghost Trick anything but tedious.  In a game where the player will find themselves repeatedly playing out the same four minutes over and over to solve a puzzle, mixing it up with generous amounts of cut scenes is greatly appreciated.

What was that noise?

Mechanics

With the help of the player’s trusty stylus, a Ghost mode can be activated through which the player can freeze time and see which objects have the ability to become possessed  The upper screen acts as a handy guide that explains whether the object is capable of moving or not.  Once the desired object is possessed by dragging Sissel’s core to it, the player can go back to present time and press the Trick button to activate whatever abilities the object has.  A series of such possess-and-trick actions can cause a chain of events that will prevent a death from occurring.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As the game progresses, the puzzles become harder and can involve some serious timing skills.  There are some points where the player must possess, trick, and possess another item while the initial trick is taking place.  Some of the puzzles, when contained within the four-minute time frame before a character’s death, require you to excruciatingly wait until the very last second to pull off a chain of events.  Other puzzles can be found within a puzzle that is already taking place.  Yo dawg and Inception references aside, I found that there were many ways in which the game broke its own boundaries and expanded upon the loopholes and rules in which the Ghost world abides by.  These elements made for a rewarding gaming experience.

Downsides

Due to the nature of the game, one will find themselves repeatedly playing a scene over multiple times.  Many puzzles contain a “save” point of sorts where after an action has been completed, a “fate change” occurs.  The player may then choose to re-start the puzzle after the fate change and bypass playing it from the beginning.  Despite this helpful option, there are some cases where the player has no choice but to tap through dialog scenes at the start of each puzzle.

It's only funny the first couple times you read it

Likewise, sometimes the player must read dialog a second time when they are changing things up in the past in order to receive additional information from the ghosts viewing the event unfold.  In a game where puzzles revolve around timing, it can become frustrating to have to read through dialog without an option to skip or cancel.

Another complaint — albeit a minor one — is that there is no way to explore the entire room in Ghost mode.  Whereas the game encourages you to view your surroundings and explore, this can only be achieved during present time.  I often found myself trying to move around a room while in Ghost mode in order to get a better grasp of what could or couldn’t be possessed.

One last (possible non)issue is the challenging nature of the game itself.  The puzzles were satisfying for what the game was trying to accomplish — a fast-paced series of interlinking events that move the player through a story that takes place in a single night — but I do feel as though they could have been harder in some instances.  That being said, I won’t deny that there were one or two puzzles that had me seriously stumped.

Possessing a T-shirt

Overall

Take it from that guy — Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is an addictive, funny and stylish game that DS players should add to their repertoire.  Its fresh look and innovative storytelling will leave you guessing until the very end.

The game crashed moments after I installed Fallout: New Vegas on my PS3 and created my character.  With Bethesda’s track record I half expected and feared this, groaning at the thought of having to review a buggy game. What follows are my thoughts on Fallout: New Vegas in its current state; I will omit anything pertaining to the obvious duty of a developer… maybe.

Story – Heartache by the Numbers

Fallout 3’s story was written by Bethesda, who had no hand in the original Fallout titles.  In contrast, New Vegas was written by Obsidian, which included some remnants of Black Isle Studio (the series’s founders), who promised the game would feature a much more traditional and enjoyable story for Fallout fans.

While the story was good, I found evidence of a shoddy foundation.  The player assumes the role of a post-apocalyptic courier who is in the process of delivering a mysterious parcel when he or she is shot in the head and left for dead.  A doctor in a local town patches you up and you set out on your quest to kill your attempted killers.  Fair enough.  However, I was taken a bit out of the experience when I could ask everyone and their uncle “Who are the NCR?” and “Who is Caesar’s Legion?”.  Right, I have been unconscious for maybe 24 hours at the most, but as far as I know I am NOT an amnesiac.  So why have I not heard of the two most powerful factions in the West?  I understand that this is a means of presenting these factions to the player’s new eyes, but it could have been less lazily handled.

Factions play a big part in the story.  Nearly all factions are depicted as not being entirely good or evil, forcing the player to actually think about who to side with and weigh some serious shit.  You have the NCR (New California Republic) for instance, who want to turn the Mojave into a policed state, and have been the cause of a massacre or two.  However, they have taken great steps to settle things down, improving the lives of many wastelanders.  I did like this since most decisions in games are pretty black and white: do you want to side with the obviously good guys, or have a laugh at siding with these jerks (p.s. you should probably join with the good guys).

At times, the factions/decision-making aspect feels a bit heavy-handed.  This brought about some anxiety when it came time to make the final decisions, which led me to put things off as long as possible.  This issue could lie in how I approach games.  Either way, it’s worth mentioning that I felt less than comfortable about being thrust in the middle of such an epic struggle, but perhaps that was the point.

One of the most welcomed story-driven features of New Vegas is the improvement made to companions.  In Fallout 3 you could recruit companions, but they were essentially a walking pile of unwieldy code which could help shoot things and occasionally spit out a one-liner.  In New Vegas, each ally has their own quest, which offers up a hearty bit of background on the individual.  My first companion for instance was Cass, a hard-drinking shotgun-wielding caravan driver.  She is a woman who has had her share of hardships, which she explained to me quite poetically while hunched over a bar counter.

With a bit of digging, we learned together that there was someone to blame for her most recent bad luck.  This put me in a position to allow Cass to seek revenge, or handle things diplomatically.  All companion quests will present you with a similar forked road, which not only will ultimately improve the character’s abilities in different ways, but affect their lives post-game.  Upon beating Fallout: New Vegas you’ll learn what becomes of each companion whose quest you completed.  I honestly enjoyed this more than learning what became of Vegas itself because of the attachment these quests gave me to each character.

Gameplay – I Could Make You Care

The core gameplay in New Vegas is identical to Fallout 3.  The player can still utilize VATS or attack in real-time with their equipped weapon and explore the world in both first and third person. There are, however, a few minor updates which make gameplay more realistic, balanced, and challenging.

Ranged weaponry now has a “true iron sights” option, which I turned off after about 2 hours of play.  This feature was touted as being what FPS players wanted.  I guess they want to have a quarter of the screen blocked by a hunk of metal.  I found aiming down the barrel or hip-shots to be much more effective, especially when some fast moving creature is charging you.

The biggest way that difficulty has been altered is how damage is calculated.  Now enemies throughout the wasteland have varying armor values referred to as DT (damage threshold).  Different weapons will be more or less capable of punching through armor.  Smaller calibers of ammunition in particular will have their damage reduced dramatically by armored units.  To compensate, there are now different varieties of ammunition — a feature returning from Fallout 2.

For instance, my favorite rifle, the Brush Gun, can be loaded with three varieties of the same ammo, standard .45-70, hollow points, or semi-wadcutters.  Each has a purpose.  Hollow points are extremely effective on enemies which lack armor, such as your standard hobo or critter.  The modified wadcutters tear through armor very effectively at the expense of the rifle’s condition, meaning you would want to limit their use to only when absolutely necessary.  The player must be aware of their target, their weapon, and their ammo.  This definitely adds a welcomed layer of strategy and realism to combat in New Vegas.

Weapons can now have up to two add-ons attached to them which alter them both physically and how the perform.  These add-ons can consist of a scope for a rifle or modified frame kit which decreases the item’s weight or something entirely unique to a world of made up weaponry.  This feature extends the usefulness of a number of weapons and is awesome for anyone who digs customization (who doesn’t?).

Another feature which was touted before the game’s release is the optional hardcore mode.  In this mode the player is required to drink water, eat food, and sleep.  Your limbs are also harder to put together after they have become crippled.  I had thought this mode would really change the experience, but for the most part it just gave me extra errands to run.  I basically would go to a doctor between quests and have myself patched up for the extremely modest price of fifty caps (the game’s currency).  Likewise, being able to dunk your head in any of the 6,000 toilets and tripping over food essentially eliminated any challenge.  Ultimately increasing the game to hard proves much more challenging than the slight modifications hardcore mode brings.

Being able to gather from a variety of plants and craft consumables are two features which I believe were included to accent hardcore mode.  In actuality, I felt that these elements brought more to the table on their own by making the world more realistic.  For instance, after getting Cass as a follower she told me she could cook me up some moonshine if I got the necessary ingredients.  After picking some corn I found in the wasteland, finding some yeast, a mutfruit and a battery she cooked it all up in an empty whiskey bottle for me.  Creating something from the fruits of a world is a nice step towards making it feel more real.

One element that removes the immersible aspect of a video game is an invisible wall, and Fallout: New Vegas is filled with them.  I can’t tell you how many times I was following a quest marker up a mountain only to find that this particular mountain had an invisible wall.  It may have looked as though a toddler could crawl right up it, but alas, I had to find another way.  These walls essentially block off a third of the game’s map:

Everything you see in gray on the outskirts of the map is inaccessible, and thus pointless to even have on a map, other then providing false hopes.

Presentation

As I have mentioned the game has its bugs.  The one which I find most irritating is a sudden drop in frame-rate when exploring the expanse of the mojave.  One of my favorite things to do in Fallout is to just wander the wastes, so this problem (which is not always present) is quite annoying. Another issue is freezing.  The game literally locks the system up, forcing me to get up and restart my PS3 manually. I realize how lazy that complaint makes me sound, but gaming is how I unwind, and having to get up periodically and wait for the game to load back up is a pain.

Another (albeit rare) issue is that textures will randomly simplify to the point where you could be playing Doom:

IMAGE CREDITS

My faith in the game is further shaken upon seeing the impressive things fans have done with the GECK (the game’s editor) in the short time since the game’s release.  You can view a list here or peruse the Nexus; either way it won’t take you long to realize that some of these mods should have been thought of by the paid developers, and not by the fans who are having fun.

Conclusions – One For My Baby

Despite all my gripes, I am still playing and enjoying Fallout: New Vegas.  I suppose that is because everything that I loved about Fallout 3 is in New Vegas: an expansive world to explore, tons of items and quests, and a fascinating post-apocalyptic setting.  Had all this been put into a more fleshed out package both in terms of usability and a more solid feeling story, New Vegas would have been worth the hype.