Playstation Minis - a few quick hit reviews

So recently, I picked up Playstation + for a few months on something of a whim. I wanted to transfer some save files, there were a few deals that caught my eye, so basically I did the 'responsible' thing and spent $17. Given the headaches I got from trying to re-up my Xbox Live Gold account recently (more on that soon), I figured maybe I would get something more out of this.

So far? I've been pretty pleased with it. I've gotten a handful of free games, and it's exposed me to some Minis I probably wouldn't have tried otherwise. Here's a quick rundown on the recent ones I've taken a shot at:

Street Smart - okay, this game is clearly an older titles made before more notable 'beat 'em up' titles. This was probably an arcade cabinet game and not something designed for the PSN by any means. The title is pretty much throwaway. I played through it once. Very simple one on one fights against 8 opponents across the country with very basic attacks. I kept thinking it was meant to be a quarter eater. 1/10

Alien Zombie Death - This is a fun and simple game, but really only in limited doses. It's a very basic shoot 'em up style title with pretty cool visuals. It's a very basic 2D shooter where you use square and circle to shoot to a side while you move about taking on hordes of aliens that continually fly at you. It's nothing fancy, but considering Minis are lower budget games that are usually designed to be 'quick fixes', this one was decent. 7/10

Speedball 2 Evolution - I kept thinking of the old Genesis game, Mutant League Footbal. You have a couple of teams that can score points for disabling opponents, hitting various targets in and around the arena, and for scoring actual goals. High score wins at the end of the timer. The premise is not bad, but the execution is a bit lacking. The graphics aren't bad, but players are completely nondescript and it's hard to tell one from another. Also, what could be sports title with a bit of strategy usually devolves into just beating up players from the other team with slide tackles because you'll earn more points that way than if you try to actively score. There are some cool RPG-like elements where you are in a league, with prize earnings, that you can put into your players to better them. Still, there's a lot to learn right off of the bat, and the after a few games I grew a bit bored overall. Not a bad effort, just not a great one either. 5/10

Age of Zombies - Yup, you can tell a couple of these titles were acquired around Holloween. Anyway, this is another shooter style game, but with more of a twin-stick/Smash TV feel to it. The game is pretty accessible, and there is a lot happening on the screen at once. I actually liked little touches like the voices and the music for different time periods. Sure, the game is not terribly deep, but for a quick fix pick up and play Mini? This is just about perfect. 8/10

1000 Tiny Claws - Here I've saved the best for last. This is a cool little game where you run around using a sword to knock bugs off of the flying platform you are on. There's openings in the platform, at the edges of the platform, and you can power up a special attack or just whack them until they're on the back, waiting to be knocked off of the edge like little (okay, sometimes big) crawling hockey pucks. The story is a bit ridiculous and the game's actual controls could be better. It would likely have felt better using the analog stick and not the D-pad, but it's easy to pick up and play, great in small bursts and is so far my favorite of the Minis I have gotten to play.

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Gaming Thoughts... 8/7/11 - Console Wars - PC

What is the top gaming system in our household? This is very subjective obviously, but after quite a bit of thought - I have an answer.

This is just a bit of an opinion - but I've had a few people ask me: what's your favorite system?

That's a good question, especially since we have 3 DS's (2 lites and a DSi), a PSP, Wii, 360 and PS3. I have a PC as well that I use as a gaming machine. Now, for overall utility, my PC wins hands-down, because it plays games, movies, browses - the whole 9 yards. It's not my favorite gaming device though. I'll go some pros and cons to each -and mind you this is only my opinion - but here it is. To keep the posts from getting too obnoxiously large, I'm going to break this down into a series of posts every couple of days, one post per system, until I'm done.

PC: It only does everything. Sure, I'm stealing Sony's PS3 tagline here, but in all honestly it is true. As a gaming machine though, it has some setbacks. I play on a smaller screen than my 3 primary consoles, and it is definitely not the best system for multiplayer locally. There's a very big disconnect on this machine - it's "my" system, and sometimes the kids use it, but it's definitely not a social gaming system for my family the way the Wii is, for example.

It can be as powerful as I like, but there's a significant cost factor involved as well, and while it's good, it doesn't always produce the best framerate and sound (since I'm also not set up for surround on this machine). Another bit of a strike is that nothing has resale value. Now, the flip side to that is I get games for it more cheaply than any other system as well (thank you Steam!).

I'm relatively new to PC gaming, at least this 'generation'. I played plenty of games on an older machine about 10 years ago - Magic: The Gathering, Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft and plenty more - but I went years without playing games on weak PC's (with the very notable exception of World of Warcraft) until my wife bought me this new one last Christmas, and I have found a ton of games since.

Favorite Games for the system so far:

- King's Bounty: Legend
- Defense Grid: Awakenings
- Star Craft 2

Pros:

- It does everything - I use it for online games, free games, web browsing is best supported here
- MMO's - games like World of Warcraft just don't work as well on consoles it seems
- Cheap games - there's a back catalog of games that is huge. Newer games are cheaper, and older games are much, much cheaper than most of what you find on consoles

Cons:

- Expensive. Performance costs more than on consoles
- Not always ideal for local multiplayer
- can't trade/sell the games

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Marvel vs. Capcom 3 - Playstation 3 review

So, I did something just a bit out of character and picked up a brand new game on release day. That doesn't happen often. Usually I try to be a bit more frugal with my purchases and wait until they're used at Gamestop or something. However, there was the perfect storm of having a couple of beaten games waiting to be traded in, a good deal at Gamestop where they were handing out an extra 50% on all trade-ins and the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on Tuesday. I like my fighters. I'm not especially great at them, but they are a lot fun in my opinion.

I played part 2 a ton in the past, and have been looking forward to part 3 for quite awhile now. The premise is pretty basic stuff. There's a large pool of fighters from both the Marvel and Capcom universes, and you put together teams of three to duke it out in Street Fighter-like fashion. It's all very over-the-top and people looking for a solid storyline need not apply. However, if you enjoy a fast-paced, balanced fighting game with a good number of characters to pick from, this might be the game for you.

For those familiar with Street Fighter or Marvel vs. Capcom 2, you will find that the controls are a bit different. Instead of buttons mapped for various strength punches and kicks, now they are simply mapped for power to the face buttons - light, medium and hard with a fourth 'pop up' button for attacks meant to pop your opponent up into the air. The shoulder buttons are used for things like calling in a special attack from a team mate, or swapping out your character for another one on the squad. As the combat progresses a power meter slowly increases and allows you to pull of big attacks that can rack up the hits and damage.

There are some online modes - ranked or unranked matches against people and there is a lobby system where up to 8 people can occupy a virtual room and you take turns playing one another in a sort of 'winner stays' style you might see at an arcade. There is a story mode, though it's really little more than characters talking at the beginning of rounds as random combinations of characters are pooled together and increase in difficulty on your way through several matches culminating in a big end fight against Galactus. Whichever member of your team that deals the killing blow is the one whose ending you get to see, which consists of a few static images and some text overlay with music.

There are also mission modes, which try to teach you how to do combos and learn a player's moves in a sort of stage-by-stage training progression. There is also the requisite training mode, where you go against a computer opponent you can help tailor to specific situations. So, with this game having been hyped up quite a bit now, what are my thoughts?

Graphics - 8:

This is not the most technically amazing game. Backgrounds look good and are heavily animated, though sometimes you don't even really get a chance to sit back and enjoy them as you're participating in the frantic fights themselves. Characters remind me a bit more of the chunky style used in Street Fighter 4 than the prior Marvel vs. Capcom game, which does a good job of making the game look like it is taken from a comic book or cartoon. Still, the game is loaded with vibrant colors, explosive-looking super attacks and the framerate doesn't tear as it moves along at a smooth clip.

Sound & Music - 8:

The music matches the feeling and tempo of the game itself, and the voice work is decent - what there is of it. It generally consists of a few one-liner comments between the lead characters right before the start of a match. The sound effects are pretty solid, with a variety of tones and special effects. It's not going to blow you away with surround sound technical proficiency, but it's not going to make your wife complain about hearing nothing but gunfire and explosions either.

Gameplay - 9:

The game feels like it has been slowed down from part 2, but I think the game actually plays better for it. It is still very fast-paced, and you don't feel like you can take any 'time off' in most matches. One of the keys is to always be moving. Seems like any time I try to stop and 'think' - either cpu or human opponent drills me. The game is best played instinctively. The controls feel pretty good - some of the super moves can be a tad difficult to perform under duress, but most are just fine. Throwing out my fireballs or doing dragon punches all come very naturally after years of playing Street Fighter games. The menu is nothing special to look at, but it gets the job done. The roster of characters also feels very well-balanced. In my online matches, I saw almost completely different characters every time. That's unusual in my experience, and gives me the impression that people can find favorites and play them while not feeling like they are hurting their odds of success.

Intangibles - 7:

The game is a lot of fun. You're going to spend most of your time fighting and that part of the game is nice and tight. There's also a fair amount of unlockable content - including 4 fighters (that were probably a bit too easy to unlock as I got them all in about my first 40 minutes of playing). There's a lot of characters here, but like 20 less than in part 2. I've seen that bother a lot of people, but honestly I'm good with it. The characters feel a lot better balanced than in the later iteration. Plus, most of the characters feel unique from one another. Sure, you might use the same move input, but that same control scheme might make one character do a rising uppercut and another character launch a flurry of missiles. That's a far cry from version 2, which had several characters who felt exactly the same, just skinned differently. There are 2 additional characters coming out for download soon for purchase (or for free if you bought the special version of the game). There are some omissions that fans will consider glaring, and a few added in who just seem goofy or out of place. My youngest wanted to know where the Fantastic Four were at, and I admit a few favorites of my own like Psylocke and Cyclops were nowhere to be found. I suspect we'll see a bit of DLC come out - already Capcom has announced some new costumes. I'm rather hoping for more modes or characters though than outfits. I also can't help but think that given Capcom's history, that there will be a super-duper-shiny-edition that comes out in about a year, though nothing's been announced that I'm aware of.

So, why this score? Well, the game does get some demerits. It seems like there should be some more modes for one. Also, while there is a fair amount of bonus content to unlock, none if it is terribly compelling. You can look at 3D models of characters, or get new titles or icons for when you play online. There's also a fighter's card that keeps track of your record, stats and playing style, which is cool - but it comes at a bit of a cost. This extra content and this card seem to force the game to do a lot of saving, which is not a super quick process. It's not a huge deal, but when you just really want to get back into a match and hit someone, waiting for the profile to save can be at least mildly annoying.

Also, the online lobby sounds good in theory, but there's a lot of sitting around. It would be nice to actually spectate the people who are fighting, but I didn't see a means of doing so if there is a way. Also the single player ranked matches are hit and miss. My lag time was good in all but one match, which is huge for a game like this built on twitch reflexes. But, a lot of times it just does not come back with a match. Tonight for example, I only got to fight 4 times out of 13 attempts to find an opponent, and I left my settings wide open to have as many options as possible. Considering the game's recent release date and popularity, it sure seems like there should be plenty of people playing right now.

Overall - 8:

I've sunk in probably around fifteen hours so far overall, and have unlocked over half the trophies. I've beaten the game now with about 1/3 of the total cast of characters. I've enjoyed the game quite a bit - and so have my younger two children. There is a simple mode to the controls I did not really talk about much because I only used it for a few fights. The idea is that it can help you perform some techniques that might otherwise be too complicated for the player. It's nice to see my daughter be able to use moves that she normally would only see once in a blue moon by complete accident. Some people worried that making special moves a single button press would give an advantage to these players, but I don't think that's the case. From what I have seen of it so far, it lets them do things they normally would not be able to consistently, but it does take away from their flexibility. I think someone on the normal controls has a better repertoire to react with for given situations during a fight, so skill still tends to win out more often than not. The key is, the younger kids are having fun with it, and so am I. There is a lot of addictive fun to be have with this game, and its broad cast of characters really helps with the game's appeal as well.

More Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds Videos

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Gaming News and Notes from 9-1-10

I commented on the increase to Xbox live costs the other day, but on the other side of that coin Nintendo is lowing the cost of their DS Lite and XL's - the latter of which is kind of surprising given how little time it's really been on the market. There's been a lot of speculation about when the Nintendo 3DS will be coming out - with most of it saying early next year. Still, this reported price drop does have people wondering if perhaps Nintendo is aiming for a last moment push before the holiday season. Considering how the units being shown at the last few conferences have been fully functional, it would appear the hardware is there. Probably the biggest concern is the launch lineup and if it is ready to be put out there yet.

Borderlands was a very popular and well-reviewed game - and sadly one I haven't gotten around to playing yet. Still, this Game of the Year edition with all of the extra content may be just the reason to pick it up for the first time.

Castle Crashers is making its way to the Playstation Network. It's late to the game in arriving - it's been out on the 360 for quite some time now. But, this was a well-reviewed game and a favorite of my kids'. I've had a couple of playthroughs on it as well with my kids and overall it was a pretty cool game. If you haven't had a chance to play this one on the 360 yet, it may well be worth a peek if you're a ps3 owner.

Last but not least, the Playstation Move is a peripheral I've been curious about, and though I'm unlikely to pick one up, at least out of the gates, I have been watching for news on it. Well, IGN gave me a lot of news on it today. They've posted quick blurbs saying that they were using the device for a while now, but today they had a chance to actually review it and their launch titles. What were the results?

The hardware fared good, scoring an 8.5 - though I suspect it would get mixed results in my house because the camera would be pointed right at the window as a backdrop for the players, which could affect sensitivity.

Sports Champion came in at a decent 7.5 - not breaking any new ground, but as Wii has proven a variety of sports mini games can prove entertaining.

Eyepet was one that I thought would really appeal to 1 or 2 of my kids, especially my youngest daughter. With the 8.0 score it ranks as the highest of the release scores from IGN and looks to ooze cuteness if that's your thing.

Kung Fu Rider did not hold up nearly as well, getting a 3.5. The visuals scored well, but the controls and gameplay apparently were quite poor.

Racquet Sports did not fair much better, with it's 4.5 score.

Back to the 3.5 range for Tumble.

Then they dropped some preview impressions on High Velocity Bowling and a Tiger Woods game.

Overall, the technology seems decent, but the launch titles seem to leave a bit to be desired. One of my primary concerns with Move and Kinect are that they feel like addons. The Wii has the motion controls enabled for almost every game, and while they're not always well implemented by the developers, the developers know that every Wii owner has already got the potential to utilize these controls. This encourages development using motion controls. However, if the Move and the Kinect do not make big sales right out of the game, will developers make games for these peripherals knowing that maybe only a small percentage of the PS3 or 360 market can even play the game? That makes the launch titles very important and it would seem that the Move's launch set is very questionable. The next several titles that are released for the Move could very well make or break its early success, so we'll have to wait and see.

PlayStation Move at IGN.com

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Am I back? Time will tell - also: Spider-Man game review

So, it’s been about 6 months since I last did anything with this site. I’ve been thinking on and off about what, if anything, I’d like to do with it. My initial notion was to put in a bunch of reviews flashing numbers in categories and adding some flashy video and image pieces to it. However, currently – I have almost no visitors. Somehow, the hours of recording, editing and uploading with a really, really bad computer did not seem worth it. 

 So, I’ve decided to try a bit of something else for now. My wife (who has a very popular blog that mine could only hope to imitate if my views multiplied by… well, about ten thousand) will give me some pointers to hopefully increase potential traffic. And by increase I’m hoping for more than just… her. So for now, what am I going to post? 

Well, still game news and rumors (I did like 2 whole of these but I think they’re interesting for gamers), brief reviews (think descriptions of the game and impressions. Maybe I’ll come up with some magical number at the end of the review to represent how I liked it. Maybe I’ll address magic 8-ball. We’ll see how that pans out). 

Anyway – let me know what (if anything) you think – I’m certainly open to longer, more detailed reviews complete with media – but there’s got to be some demand for it, otherwise it’s just not really worth the effort. 

So, why I don’t start this off with a small review of a Playstation 3 game one of my co-workers loaned me, call Spider-Man: Web of Shadows I noticed a trend when I looked this game up at one time – it got critically panned by most sites like IGN and Gamespot, but player review scores came out much higher on average. So which category do I fall into? More the player one – but really closer to the middle I guess. 

Good points: animations are good, I like the customizations, there’s some replay value here (4 different endings based on your decisions), some cool characters and the open world play is fun (and very much reminds me of the Spider-Man game I played on Playstation 2 years ago and enjoyed. 

Bad points: Graphics don’t always look clean during fast movements, and you’ll be moving around quite fast while web-swinging around the city. Side missions are pretty repetitive. Spidey’s voice actor kind of annoyed me for some reason. 

 Overall, most review critics were scoring this game between 5 and 6. Most sites I saw with reader reviews were coming out around an 8. I’d probably setting around… *shakes the Magic 8-ball: Absolutely! Apparently this is not going to work for review scores. So for now, I’ll throw out a 7. It was fun, which is the key – and there’s replay value. But it could have been better with just a bit more attention to the finer points like voice and graphics. Anyway – I’m hoping to build some steam and throw out more random gaming notions on a fairly regular basis and see if it sticks. Hope you’ll join me!

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 PS3 and Xbox 360 review

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a very intense; rewarding gaming experience that is built around multilayer but still has a solid, if short, campaign mode. The action maintains a usually brisk, object oriented pace that helps to advance a storyline that I personally thought was only average. Shooter games are not my favorite genre. My first one was probably Doom on the computer, and over the years I have played plenty that were entertaining (F.E.A.R, Battlefield: Vietnam, Star Wars Battlefront, etc) – but I enjoyed the prior Call of Duty games enough to want to give this one a try. It is available on both the PS3 and 360, but I played it on the latter system.

With record-setting sales since its release, it is safe at this point to call the game a marketing and sales success (with a combination of ads, packaged deals and so on) – but is the game fun? In a word, yes. With shooter games being near the bottom of my preferred genres (sports, RPG, fighting games tend to round out my favorites), that makes Modern Warfare 2 stand out even more.

Graphics – 9.5:

I’m stingy with perfect scores, but this game comes close. The amazing environments are detailed and immersive, but more impressive is just how much is going on at all times without slowdown or graphic tearing or pop-in. I have some screenshots and also have some video footage. The screenshots are pretty but the game in motion is more impressive.



Sound & Music – 9:

Quality voice work, plenty of explosions and surround sound gun effects really help to draw you into the game. The surround sound is actually quite useful as well, often giving you an indication of where the threats are at, even if you cannot see them at the time. The music was also pretty good throughout. Very few of the themes really stuck with me afterward, but none of them did anything to pull me out of the experience either.



Gameplay – 8:

Aiming is easy, shooting at targets is not a problem. Sometimes terrain could be a hassle when it did not seem like it should have been, but overall the game was responsive, menus were easy to navigate and the lack of slowdown during the game kept things feeling fluid. While the game seems to do all of these things pretty well, it never felt like there was something amazing to put it over the top either. Most of the controls, content and so on feel familiar to fans of the series.



Intangibles – 9.5:

The campaign mode is entirely too short. However, the multiplayer is where this series lives and dies, and on that front the game is incredibly solid. The maps are enjoyable, the team sizes felt about right to me, lag was almost never an issue and the leveling-up aspect intrigued me most of all (it just appeals to the RGP gamer in me).



Overall – 9:

Not my favorite type of game, I’ve been over that. Some of my friends though consider first-person shooters their absolute favorite type of game and those friends have been playing online pretty much non-stop since the game’s release. One of them never even bothered to play the campaign mode, and just went right into the online matches. So, if that is your type of game, then Modern Warfare 2 will probably fit the bill as well as any game out there currently. There’s some language, plenty of killing, lots of weapons and more which makes this game a questionable one for children, so parents should be warned that it does come with an M rating for Mature 17+ suggested.

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Soulcalibur IV PS3 review

I figure for my first game review on here, I’ll go ahead and post up a game that I’ve had for some time. However, when I was playing around with some capture software I had, I was able to make some videos of gameplay. This gives me an excuse to put up images and video content and test out some of my blogging options here.

Soulcalibur has been around for awhile, but I didn’t really get to play the initial iterations more than a few times here and there. Some friends had it, and I would play when I came over to watch the NFL on Sundays, but it was never a series I owned. However, the hype about Soulcalibur IV kept increasing as it came closer to release date, and I was in the mood for a fighting game at the time, so I picked it up on its first day out. This also happened to be one of my first Playstation 3 games. I picked it up on the Playstation 3 for a couple of reasons – my library of games for the PS 3 has always lacked compared to my Wii and Xbox 360, and the PS 3 version had Darth Vader and the Xbox 360 had Yoda. The idea of being a large Sith warrior won out over a green puppet in my mind, so PS 3 it was.

Graphics – 8.5:

This game has excellent graphics, and even though the game has been out for over a year now, they hold up quit well against any of the more recent fighting games to come out as well. Characters are fluid and detailed, with a wide variety of animations that compliment the weapon and fighting styles very nicely. The frame rate holds up well, even during the most heated exchanges. I also found most of the backgrounds to be quite nice. Some are more animated than others, but overall they are very well done and fit the themes of the game. The cut scenes also deserve a nod. They are not the best I have ever seen, but they look better than most games.



Sound & music – 8:

The voices sound good and appropriate for the characters, and the music is good overall, with a couple of levels standing out as excellent. The appropriate sounds for strikes and moves are all there, though the game does sometimes sound a bit repetitive but this is a common trait with just about every fighting game. You get that sound of a character screaming for one attack, or the sound of a staff swinging and you tend to hear it over and over again. The announcer’s voiceover kind of cracks me up with its overly serious tone. Nothing wrong with it – it just makes me chuckle now and then.



Gameplay – 8:

Fighting games are made or lost right here. You have to feel that the controls are responsive due to how fast-paced the action is, but you need more than a few combinations to help keep things diverse. Some games you can button mash through, and this is one of those. There is nothing inherently wrong with this – it makes the game more accessible to a larger number of people. Compared to a game like Street Fighter IV though, where precision is everything and button mashing is sure to get you killed, Soulcalibur does feel a bit easier and an inexperienced player is more likely to get a lucky win in with this sort of control scheme. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but something to keep in mind. I played quite a bit online and overall I found that the game handled pretty decently most of the time, though it could sometimes take forever to find a match, and then they had a tendency to be over very quickly.



Intangibles – 9:

The game has a huge roster of characters. If that is not enough for you, there is a character editor/creation screen with a fair number of unlockables as well. I am a big fan of character customization, so this appealed to me quite a bit. There are several modes as well between arcade, storyline, online and the tower modes (one is an endurance test and the other a collection of preconfigured conflicts that have unlockable content for meeting certain criteria). I think that out of my PS 3 games, Soulcalibur IV is my most heavily played.

Soulcalibur IV intro

Overall – 8.4:

I do not have any particular nostalgia over this series – this is the first of the Soulcalibur games I have owned to date. However, the wide assortment of characters and considerable replay value has made it arguably my favorite Playstation 3 game to date. The inclusion of Star Wars characters was odd, and the storylines make very little sense, but generally you get a game like this for the fighting content, and there is plenty to be had in Soulcalibur IV. It is rated as Teen, so it is recommended for people thirteen and older. There is a good deal of violence and a couple of women who seem to have misplaced the majority of their outfits, but I do not recall any gore or swearing (though the ESRB did flag it for mild language) so keep those factors in mind if you are considering this game for a child. Considering that the game has been out for over a year now, it can probably be acquired used pretty reasonably as well.

Soulcalibur IV-combat

Hopefully you liked this first review. In the future, the videos will likely be smaller, but a bit less blurry as well, and the images if clicked on will show at a full size if you want a closer look at them.

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