E3 2013: The Story So Far

So what do you guys think about E3 so far this year?

We're really only a day and a half into it, but we've already seen major keynotes and showcases from Microsoft and Sony (Nintendo declined to hold a major conference at E3 this year, opting instead to go with pre-recorded Nintendo Direct broadcasts), along with a few developers including EA, Ubisoft and Square Enix.

I'll be honest, a lot of what has been showcased at this year's E3 isn't really of interest to me.  Call of Duty: Ghosts, Gran Turismo 6, GTA V, inFamous: Second Son, a new Halo, Forza 5, Battlefield 4... As nice as they might look, none of these games really hold that much appeal for me personally.  I'm sure they'll be huge sellers and will make or break the next console generation, but I'm not going to buy a console on the basis of any of the above.

That said, chances are I will end up buying a console, and chances are it'll be a PS4.   There are a number of reasons for this, and not all of them are based on E3-exclusive information.  But I'll get to that in a minute.

Here are some of the things we've learned so far during E3:

 · Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, despite having a ludicrous title compared to past installments, actually looks pretty awesome (for those of you not in the know, Blackgate Penitentiary and Arkham Asylum are two totally different places.  Arkham is where the crazies go, while Blackgate is more your standard prison).  At any rate, some people have criticized Batman: AOB as appearing derivative, simply copying-and-pasting the format established by the previous two games, but I loved Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, so I have no real problem with this.  Plus, it looks incredible.  NEED MORE BATMAN.  (UPDATE 6/14/2013: Batman: AOB is the 3DS\Vita version.  The PC\console version is just Batman: Arkham Origins.  I knew this at the time, but somehow in my rush to get all of this down, I subconsciously crammed the two games together.)

 · Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which has been in development purgatory for some time, is now Final Fantasy XV.  I don't know anything more about it than that, but good GOD, I hope they go with a more open-world approach than FFXIII and FFXIII-2.  After logging more hours into Final Fantasy XII than I've every put into a game in my life (somewhere in the vicinity of 120 hours), I was absolutely crushed by my disappointment with Final Fantasy XIII: it was linear, boring and annoying all at once.  I wasn't the only one either.  So, assuming they make some much-needed changes in design, I am reservedly optimistic about FFXV.

 ·  Kingdom Hearts III!  Finally!  Oh my god give me Kingdom Hearts III and I'll be your best friend forever.

 · The games that I am excited about?  Besides the ones mentioned above, we've got The Order: 1886, Rain, The Witness, and Watch_Dogs.  The Order: 1886 looks like a steampunky third-person actioner; Rain is an indie platformer about an invisible boy who can only be see in the rain; The Witness is a Myst-like adventure game by Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid; Watch_Dogs, which I've been eagerly anticipating since I saw a tech and gameplay demo for it back in December, could be revolutionary, an entirely new type of open-world action game.

While not all of the above are exclusive to PS4 (in fact, I don't believe any of them are, with the exception of maybe one or two), THAT is a lineup of games worth my time and attention.

Other points of interest:

 ·  Mega Man is joining the Smash Bros. roster.  I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this - first off, Mega Man's previous foray into fighting games, with an appearance in Street Fighter x Tekken, was... less than dignified.  Secondly, while I've never had anything against the Smash Bros. franchise, I've also never really enjoyed playing it the way I've enjoyed any of the Capcom fighting game series.  I do like the cel-shaded look of the new Smash Bros. on the 3DS, however, so I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

 ·  In the New Super Mario 3D World, you can be a cat.  As in, you can get a cat suit that, I guess, gives you special cat powers?  My girlfriend would love this, if we had a Wii U or had any plans to buy one ever.

 · Fumito Ueda and Team Ico's The Last Guardian appears to be on hiatus, according to Sony president Jack Tretton.  This is unfortunate news, since as you are probably aware, Shadow of the Colossus is one of my all-time favorite games and The Last Guardian looked like it would be a worthy follow-up, but I suspect this isn't the last we've heard about it.  I'm actually really surprised to hear that it's been back-burnered, since a) I was under the impression that it was practically done based on various screenshots and gameplay videos I've come across, and b) there was a lot of positive buzz about the game leading up to E3, and everyone was expecting a formal announcement. (UPDATE 6/13/2013 - Ueda and Tretton have clarified that The Last Guardian is not "on hiatus" but simply not at a stage where they're ready to formally announce it.)

 · The sequel to Telltale Games' The Walking Dead, called The Walking Dead: 400 Days, has been announced for pretty much every platform imaginable.  In terms of visual style and gameplay, it looks pretty much like the first season (of the game - not necessarily the TV show) and you know what?  As with Batman: AOB, I am perfectly okay with that.  Don't fix what ain't broke.
(UPDATE 6/13/2013 - 400 Days is not a sequel to The Walking Dead, but rather a DLC pack with an entirely new story.  The official sequel to TWD is still forthcoming.)

 · There's a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past coming out for the 3DS, called The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.  It looks like a somewhat graphically-updated version of ALttP, but with the added mechanic of Link turning himself into a two-dimensional cave painting of sorts and moving along walls and whatnot.  I will play this game so hard.

(UPDATE: 6/15/2013) I realized that I didn't say much about Nintendo the first time around.  This is because honestly, there wasn't much to say halfway through the Expo, and there still isn't much to say now. 

I'm not sure if Nintendo knew what was coming with this E3 and just decided to stay out of the way of Microsoft and Sony, or if they decided on a lesser presence because they're still stinging from the Wii U sales debacle.  The fact of the matter is that the Wii U has been a major problem for Nintendo: awareness is nowhere near what they need it to be (a significant number of consumers think the Wii U is a regular Wii add-on, to the point where Nintendo send out a recent press release on the console recently), the architecture is a generation behind, rivaling the PS3 and Xbox 360 rather than the new generation, and developers aren't interested in making games for it until sales pick up. 

Nintendo had a rocky start with the 3DS too, and numbers have picked up on that as the company's moved past the back-patting novelty of the (admittedly very cool) glasses-free 3D feature and started focusing on third-party, and first-party, titles.  Right now with the Wii U, they're behaving the same way: fixating on the tablet controller, which is in no way as interesting as the 3DS' 3D feature, as if this is a good enough reason to invest in the console. 

I have some basic problems with the Wii U: the name is stupid, for starters.  I want an aerodynamic controller, not a tablet.  And I want a console with the processing power to rival a PS4 or an XBONE.  I'm not buying a console just for first-party titles, even if they are well-developed.  It'll be interesting to see how Nintendo digs themselves out of this one.

Although it sounds like Microsoft may have done the job for them: this article at NintendoLife indicates that Wii U sales on Amazon have spiked from #243 to #50.  Microsoft's loss in Nintendo's gain, I guess?

And now onto the main event: the Xbox One (which everyone is hilariously calling the XBONE) and the PS4.

There's been a lot of debate about who "won" E3, and there's no doubt in my mind that it was Sony.  A lot of this actually has to do with pre-existing factors that both companies brought in to the Expo: the Xbox 360 and the PS3 both have built-in fanbases that conform, or at least appear to conform, to certain characteristics.  Xbox fans are seen to be your typical "Bro" - they're the fratboy who plays multiplayer Battlefield or Halo and curses out their teammates.  PS3 fans play JRPGs and indie games like Journey - they come across as more intellectual and sophisticated, more willing to take a risk on new properties and genres.

Now, let me make something clear: I'm not saying this IS the case, or that I think all Xbox owners are fratboy douches and all PS3 owners are artsy intellectuals.  What I am saying is that this is the perception amongst a lot of people, from the gaming media to the developers to Microsoft and Sony themselves. And while there's a lot of cross-over amongst upcoming games (both Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy XV look like they're getting simultaneous releases on the XBONE and the PS4), there's still this idea amongst consumers that they're joining a tribe when they buy either a PS4 or an XBONE.  And frankly, there are two types of hardcore gamers: the ones who exclusively buy the big-budget titles like Battlefield 4 and GTA V because they've had luck with those franchises in the past and there's a high degree of polish in the new entries, and the ones who are on the lookout for something new and exciting and progressive and novel.  And simply based on track record, Sony has offered more of the latter, while Microsoft has offered more of the former. 

So why does this matter when so many of the announced titles are non-exclusive?  If I can play Kingdom Hearts III on either a PS4 or an XBONE, why would I learn towards the PS4?  Well:

 · Price.  The PS4 is is going to sell at $399, while the XBONE will be $499.  Sure, the XBONE comes bundled with the Kinect, but I've never been all that impressed with either the functionality or the implementation of the Kinect, and I don't see myself playing a lot of games that are built around a motion-sensing mechanic.  Besides that, if I have the option to play the same game on either system, why would I opt for the more expensive one?

 · Used and Shared Games. Microsoft really dropped the ball on this, with an overly complicated and consumer-punishing system designed to appease developers.  So basically, IF the developer even allows game loans or used-game sales (and really, how would that be in any way in their best interests?), the consumer has to jump through multiple hoops and agree to multiple conditions, and even then the game may not be sellable.  Sony, on the other hand, has said straight out that there no restrictions on selling your used games or lending them to your friends. 

 · Always On\DRM\Privacy.  I admit that this is kind of a hot-button topic for me, as I've been anti-DRM since it was introduced.  The fact is that Microsoft and Sony both made a statement regarding DRM with their new consoles - for Microsoft, it was that they were moving towards it and thus placing their developers' interests over their customers, while for Sony it was that they were rejecting it and thereby putting their customers first and foremost.  The XBONE requires an always-on internet connection, and the Kinect camera must be powered on before the console itself will power up.  Understandably, some people are getting up in arms over this, as it indicates the potential for the invasion of privacy or the reliance on an outside resource being available.  What if Microsoft's servers get hacked and get taken down in a DDoS attack?  What if you live somewhere that doesn't offer reliable or fast internet? 

 · Function.  The Xbox One has been presented as a sort of all-in-one device: a gaming console, a media center, a video editor, a whatever-the-hell-the-Kinect-is-for... But you know what?  I already have one of those, and it's called a PC.  Seriously, I know I might be in the minority here, but I have my desktop computer hooked up to my TV running the free, open-source media center package MediaPortal, along with menus for all of my regular PC games, hookups to streaming video services including Netflix, and so on and so forth - if I buy a console, I'm buying it for one reason, and that's to play games.  The problem with Microsoft's approach here is that it's a mark of their losing focus, and potentially allowing the primary function of a gaming console to fall by the wayside in the process.  The PS4 has no such issues - you never get the sense that Sony is getting distracted from the whole point of a console and trying to offer everything under the sun.

 · Region-locking.  The PS4 is region-free, while the XBONE is locked to your region.  Why does this matter?  Well, to begin with, it's just another example of Microsoft levying restrictions against their customers.  More importantly, though, it means that someone in the UK can order a game that is maybe exclusive to the US and have no problems playing it on the PS4, while XBONE owners are limited in terms of what they can play and where they can buy it from.

With all this in mind, it's really no surprise that a lot of people feel that Sony won E3 - even Sony themselves know that they knocked it out of the park.  So are these are downsides to the PS4?  Well, for starters, if you want to play multiplayer, you have to sign up for Sony's PSN+ service, which is about $60 a year, or $5 a month.  I personally don't care about multiplayer, so I probably won't sign up for PSN+ (unless other reasons to do so compel me to change my mind).  This falls in line with my earlier statement regarding the Xbox vs. Playstation tribes, though - If the XBONE's one saving grace is that it offers free multiplayer, then it's going to attract a certain type of gamer.

Ultimately, Microsoft has dropped the ball time and again over the last few weeks since they first announced the XBONE, and Sony has been there to pick up the pieces.  Xbox fanatics are already popping up to defend the next iteration of their preferred console and the company that's bringing it to them, and I'm sure these gamers will be first in line to buy the XBONE when it's released, but objectively speaking, I don't know that it will be enough to turn the tides for Microsoft at this point.  Sony won the battle, and possibly the war, by doing something incredibly sneaky and underhanded that no one really ever considered doing up to this point: actually listening to their customers and then giving them what they wanted.  And that's going to make them a hell of a lot of money.

Triptych: The Fall Of The 11th

"Doctor Who 50th Anniversary" (t-shirt) by David Johnston

"Sensei Who" (t-shirt) by Eozen

"Chibi TARDIS and Dalek" (t-shirt) by Jeff Pina

So that season 7 finale of Doctor Who, hey? (NOTE: Spoilers are contained below! If you haven't watched the finale episode yet, stop reading!)

The Top 12 Games of 2012

(Sorry for the delay in getting this posted... It's been an insanely busy month, but I finally got a few hours today to get this compiled and out the door!)

There were some pretty huge releases in 2012: Far Cry 3, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and presumably some other games that were not triquels. Other websites have cornered the market on singing the praises of the same handful of big-budget, high-profile studio games, so I'm not going to do that (additionally, I have not played most of those games). Instead, I'm going to take a look at the 12 games I did play this year that made an impact on me personally, that said something about the state of gaming this year, or that otherwise deserve attention.

Hit the jump to see the full list.

Review: The Dark Knight Rises

"The Dark Knight Rises" by Ben Whitesell

So I went to see The Dark Knight Rises, finally. As an end to the trilogy, I thought it performed more than adequately; as a Batman movie, I found it slightly underwhelming and, more than anything, populated with some very odd (though not necessarily negative) creative and narrative choices.

Any discussion of The Dark Knight Rises has to look at how it fits in with the first two films in the trilogy. Batman Begins was a revelation when it came out in 2005: there had never been a superhero movie that dealt with its subject matter in such a direct, gritty and realistic manner. Nevertheless, it was still a comic book adaptation, and while Christopher Nolan brings heavy overtones of the crime, drama and thriller genres into the mix, it can't escape that. At the end of the day, the release and rounding up of criminals from Arkham, the sinister and yet somehow comical treatment of the Scarecrow and his fear toxin, and the fight between Batman and Ra's al-Ghul on the train as it hurtles towards Wayne Towers are all traditional superhero movie trademarks. Batman Begins may be more graphic novel than comic book pulp, but it is still very recognizably a Batman movie, for better or for worse.

If Batman Begins shows what could be done by approaching comic book source material from a mature and even-handed perspective, The Dark Knight proves that something truly great could emerge from the same. The Dark Knight is a crime thriller masterpiece that ranks alongside Heat, The Untouchables, and Once Upon A Time In America in terms of scope, character portraiture and directorial brilliance. Heath Ledger's Joker is one of the finest cinematic villains in history, and Aaron Eckhart manages a genuinely grotesque and sympathetic Harvey Dent\Two-Face. Bale's Batman is no longer simply the tried-and-true millionaire orphan turned vigilante; he's presented as a virtually unstoppable wunderkind, a one-man army, reliant on military tech and invasive cell-phone monitoring software to wage his war against crime. The film deals with so many themes that it's impossible to identify them all here: chaos vs. order, law vs. anarchy, vigilantism and perception and identity, to name a few. On a more surface level, The Dark Knight is just plain cool, filled with jaw-dropping effects and consistent levels of action, and is highly quotable to boot.

If anything, The Dark Knight Rises bookends the trilogy by really showcasing The Dark Knight. It has more in common with Batman Begins, in that it has a very comic-book feel to it, as opposed to The Dark Knight's hyper-realistic crime drama trappings. Selina Kyle and Bane somehow seem less epic than the Joker and Two-Face; this was always going to be Nolan's difficulty in a followup to The Dark Knight, and he acquits himself with a certain amount of grace, but the two characters simply don't carry the same weight in the film-world that Nolan has established in the series.

"Donkey Rises" by BazNet

Plus, as I said, there are some strange creative choices that were made here. Some pay off, some fall short, and some still have me trying to wrap my head around them. For example, the vast majority of the film takes place during daylight hours. This really threw me off. Batman is typically associated with darkness and the night, and seeing him trading punches with Bane during the day felt wrong, somehow. One might choose to look at this way: the first film took place during dusk, the second film almost entirely at night, and the third, at dawn. This is what I assume Nolan was intending, but no matter how you break it down, a guy running around in a bat-suit in broad daylight is a lot less impressive than it is in the middle of the night.

I think the most surprising thing of all is just how little of Batman there is in the movie. Bruce Wayne doesn't suit up until at least 40 minutes into The Dark Knight Rises' 164 minutes running time. His re-introduction, after four years of real-world time and eight years of Gotham-time, is well-executed, showcasing the Batmobile, Batpod and new vehicle The Bat in one extended, exciting chase sequence. Then he disappears for a while, shows up and punches a few more guys, tracks down Bane, fights him, and then... disappears until the end of the movie, practically. Without going into enough detail to spoil anything, it's not like his disappearances aren't justified, within context, but the end result is still a Batman movie with a very limited amount of Batman to show for itself.

If there is a central theme to The Dark Knight Rises, it's that of pain. Suffering is Bruce Wayne's primary role in this story. He is wracked with guilt and regret over the death of Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent, and has sequestered himself from the world for the past eight years. He is a man consumed by pain. Bane, for his part, sees pain as a necessary part of growth, and he does not hesitate to inflict it on everyone around him, including Batman. It doesn't quite resound with the kind of impact Nolan seems to be going for, unfortunately; Bruce Wayne's tribulations in the latter half of the movie not only take him out of the heat of the action for a very long stretch, but also don't quite work on an emotional level. I watched him suffer, heal and rise victorious with a dispassionate eye; I never really felt invested in the process.

"Pixel The Dark Knight Rises" by Munty

I don't want to give the impression that I didn't love this movie. I loved it. Not as much as The Dark Knight, but a lot more than just about every other movie I've seen so far this year. Take Tom Hardy's Bane. If not for Heath Ledger's historic turn as The Joker in the previous film, I would have been blown away; as it is, the Bane of The Dark Knight Rises was a far cry from the venom-enhanced Mexican wrestler of the of the comics. If the Joker was a force of chaos, anarchy and manipulation, Bane comes across as a master strategist and terrorist, a man with genuine ideals who happens to be both an extremist and an iconoclast. His version of chaos differs from the Joker's; the Joker wanted to destroy for the sake of destruction, but Bane wants to raze civilization to the ground with the express intent of starting anew. He is a populist and a revolutionary. Hardy's decision to voice him like an old, white aristocrat was brilliant and clever. He has more conviction than anyone else in the entire trilogy besides, possibly, Michael Caine's Alfred and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake, and he has the intellectual resources to see a plan executed. On a somewhat tangential note, I find it interesting that Nolan has presented central villains in all three of his Batman films which are writ-large corruptions of traditional criminal tropes: the Scarecrow is a secret psychopath, taken to cartoonish extremes; the Joker is a perverted take on the mobster and crime boss archetype; Bane is a terrorist with the personality of a cult leader.

Looking at this escalation of antagonist types, Nolan's choices fall into place a bit more than if they're simply taken on their own. It's hard to imagine any other classic Batman bad guy taking Bane's place in The Dark Knight Rises, and while we're always going to wonder what Christopher Nolan might have done with the Riddler or Oswald Copperpot or Mr. Freeze, chances are that one of those villains would have felt like a step backwards (I personally would have loved to see some of the second-stringers of the Rogues Gallery showing up, namely Deadshot, Hush or Black Mask. Oh well, it's not like Warners is going to let this cash cow go, even if Nolan is no longer on board. So there's always hope.)

All in all, The Dark Knight Rises completed the trilogy in a satisfactory fashion, even if it didn't rise to the dizzying heights of its predecessor. I'm looking forward to watching it again - at home, with subtitles on, so I can catch some of the more muffled of Bane's lines.

Nintendo 3DS, or: This Is Officially The Future

Sometimes you just have to buy a thing.

Therefore, this weekend I joined the ranks of Early Adopters and helped myself to a Nintendo 3DS.  On one hand, it was hardly an impulse purchase: I budgeted around the $250 price-tag, and I'd been considering buying one for at least two weeks prior. On the other, though, given the lean launch-title roster and the fact that I already own a DSi, it seemed like an indulgence more than anything.

This is the fundamental obstacle Nintendo is faced with right now, having saturated the market with new editions of their handheld console: The original DS was released in 2004, the DS Lite in 2006, the DSi in 2009 and the DSi XL in 2010, almost exactly a year to the day prior to the 3DS' release date.  These are all essentially the same device, with the exception of (primarily) cosmetic alterations - the DS Lite was smaller, the DSi XL had considerably larger screens, and so forth - but in basic form and function, every system released under the DS banner has operated in an identical fashion.

The Nintendo DS is the best-selling handheld of all time, which may be accounted for by the near-yearly re-launches of the system.  There has always been a shiny new version of the DS on the market, boasting a flashy redesign and extraneous "features", and each release has been accompanied by a potent marketing campaign. 

What's strange about this is that Nintendo has earned itself a reputation as an innovator in the current gaming industry.  Motion control with the Wii, the eponymous dual screens and touch-screen of the DS, and other intuitive, player-immersive features have made Nintendo an industry leader (heck, even the light gun that came with the original Nintendo Entertainment System was astonishing in its day).  From an empirical standpoint, they have introduced new ways of gaming to players which have subsequently been aped by their competitors.  So there's this strange duality to Nintendo, where on one side of the coin they regularly alter the face of videogaming with their clever and brilliantly-implemented ideas, and on the other side, they are content to slap a new coat of metaphorical paint on their existing devices and repackage them as the latest and greatest.

All of this is to make the point that the 3DS straddles the line between these two facets of Nintendo.  It most certainly is, at heart, just another Nintendo DS with all-new bells and whistles, but one of those bells and\or whistles is so revolutionary it almost validates the hefty price tag.  Not to mention the fact that the hardware is, allegedly, souped-up and next-gen (Nintendo has not officially released specs on the 3DS).

I'm not going to lie: the 3D feature of the 3DS is impressive.  It's so novel I couldn't NOT own one.  Even if the market saturation backfires and the 3DS ends up a casualty alongside the Virtual Boy and R.O.B. The Robot, it's going to look good doing it.  But for the average handheld aficionado - especially the younger set, who are simultaneously more concerned with the immediate wow factor and harder to keep interested, in the long run, than grown-up nerds - it's a tough sell, especially considering the DSi XL is only a year old and there aren't a ton of device-specific games that take advantage of the feature just yet.

Here's my run-down of the Nintendo 3DS, what was promised, and what we actually got.

Would You Kindly Pick Up That Shortwave Radio?

Abra Macabra 9 by ~betteo

This past weekend, I suddenly found myself with a plethora of free time, as the Heather Monster was running amok in Mexico and we had a sudden, unexpected snowfall (not a substantial snowfall - this is the Pacific Northwest, after all - but enough of one that nobody, myself included, felt like venturing out of their cozy little abodes.) So I decided that I would do something I'd never gotten around to doing in the past: finally finish BioShock.

(Please note that this entry will not shy away from spoilers, so if you don't want any of the major plot points of BioShock ruined for you, you may want to skip it.  I repeat: only click through to read the rest of this post if you have either finished BioShock already, or you plan never to do so.  Consider yourself warned.)

One-Line Wonders: Ah! MADNESS.

Oh, right -- I have a blog. Huh. Forgot about that.

Actually, no I didn't. I just haven't had time over the last few months to keep it updated as regularly as I'd like, despite my best intentions. I could go into all the extremely boring real-life, grown-up things that have been taking my attention away from Apocalypse POW!, but you'd find them extremely boring. So instead, let's focus on a topic that is relevant to everyone's interests: the games I've been playing, instead of updating here. That's right, it's time for another installment of One-Line Wonders.

Transformers: War For Cybertron (PC, Wii, PS3, 360, DS)

Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 7.5/10
Design: 7/10
Semi Truck Trailers Vanishing Post-Transformation: 0
Peter Cullens: 1

If the whole point of Transformers is that they're robots IN DISGUISE, TF:WFC seriously drops the energon ball -- despite some fairly solid squad-based gameplay, I'm not really that interested in Bumblebee and Ratchet transforming into Cybertron-style vehicles and zipping along overwrought, Michael-Bay-ish purple Cyber-avenues.

Optimus, pre-Prime. So young and fancy-free.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS)

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 6.5/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Design: 7/10
Monsters Fought To Reach Level 25: Roughly Five Billion
Interest In Alchemising New Items: 1.75/10

I'm apparently the sole dissenter on this, but DQIX fails where DQVIII succeeded: instead of offering a compelling, consistent storyline with well-designed NPCs and teammates, it seems to have been designed with the MMO crowd in mind and is far too open-ended and arbitrary, from its multi-player structure to its all-too-frequent non-random monster encounters to its spawned dungeon (or 'grotto') architectures.

Seasaurs: Not Metal Slime Kings.

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (DS)

Graphics: 6/10
Sound: 6/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Design: 8.5/10
Objects That Can Be Fired At The Enemy During Tank Battles: Catnip, Chili Peppers, Yourself
Other RPGs Spoofed: Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, Harvest Moon

Another entry in the Dragon Quest franchise, this one is incredibly fun, humorous, and full of series in-jokes that only a die-hard fan will get (you play a BLUE SLIME, for chrissake; you encounter tanks (TANKS!) based on familiar monsters from the DQ canon; you even rescue Morrie from DQVIII (in slime form, of course) which allows you access to the Tank Masters tournament) and, while aimed at a slightly younger crowd, is a worthy addition to the Dragon Quest universe.

Yes, that tank is a giant Slime. Yes, that's awesome.

Space Invaders Extreme (DS)

Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 8.5/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Design: 8/10
Epileptic Attacks Per Second: 2.25
Idea Of What Is Going On Here: None

I picked this game up with a certain amount of jaded cynicism -- I mean, Space Invaders? Really? -- but then I played it for five seconds and my mind was literally blown.

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE EFF IS GOING ON

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (DS)

Graphics: 7.5/10
Sound: 6/10
Gameplay: 7.5/10
Design: 7/10
Hipsters and/or Cultists Populating Tokyo: 8,000,000
Number of Games in the Shin Megami Tensei Series I Have Not Played: 23

Like one of my all-time favourite DS games, The World Ends With You, SMT:DS is an unconventional RPG in a contemporary urban setting... But unlike TWEWY, the squad-based combat and "Devil Auction" gets dull in a hurry, and it's fallen out of rotation for me.

Yeah, WENDIGO. We don't like your kind around here.

Singularity (PC, PS3, 360)

Graphics: 8.5/10
Sound: 8.5/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Design: 7.5/10
Timelines Altered: 1 (so far, but it was a doozy)
Freaky Ghost Children Encountered: One Too Many

For every original concept in the FPS genre, there are ten run-of-the-mill entries, but thankfully Singularity is not one of them: the time-shift between 2010 and 1955 concept is artfully executed, and the whole Soviet-environment-with-horrible-monsters thing works surprisingly well.

If Bioshock was inspired by Lenin rather than Rand, and did away with that whole "underwater" gimmick.

Five-Minute Impression: Silent Hill - Homecoming

I have always been a pretty huge Silent Hill aficionado.

Moreso than Resident Evil or F.E.A.R., Silent Hill has always been my go-to survival horror series of choice. Unlike either of those two franchises, the Silent Hill series puts you in the shoes of someone who is both inherently inequipped to deal with the insane shit thrust upon them, and also a character who is integral to the narrative right from the start. The horrific and often traumatic world of each Silent Hill game is a direct product of the main character's own history and psychological state - and despite the fact that the odds are stacked against me from the start, I'm always sucked into the details. I'm not just an unlucky individual who found myself in a harrowing situation: I am somehow linked to the proceedings, and over the course of the game, I'll find out why.

I played the first three Silent Hill games back-to-back and each installment solidified my growing fervour. When I got around to playing The Room, some two years later, I appreciated the more immersive engine and the attempt to shake up the gameplay structure, but ultimately never got further than about a third of the way through it - I found it too difficult, even for a Silent Hill game, to get my bearings. And then some time passed before I was in a position, timewise and hardware-wise, to tackle the fifth entry in the series, Silent Hill: Homecoming.

Like the title of this post implies, I haven't played through that much of it yet - more than five minutes, admittedly, but less than an hour. And what I've experienced thus far has been simultaneously impressive and disappointing.

I love that your introductory level in the game is, in effect, a nightmare. I love that your character, Alex, is thrown immediately into the abandoned, effed-up Silent-Hill-hospital environment without any context or explanation, and is given a number of clues pertaining to a much larger mystery than you'll ever have the opportunity to solve in the span allotted to you. The structural design is clever and subtle and immediately familiar to anyone who's played a Silent Hill game in the past. And most likely terrifying to anyone who hasn't.

And I'll go even further and confess that the family theme, in particular the brother relationship, at the heart of Silent Hill: Homecoming is particularly engaging on a personal level. Silent Hill has always played up the family thing, but in the past, it always revolved around a daughter or a wife or a parent. It usually worked, but I'm finding myself especially drawn into this complex filial intrigue between Alex and his younger brother Josh (and it doesn't hurt that my own youngest brother is also named Josh. Spooky.)

So. It's appropriately spooky, it's well-written, it has a hook that grabs the player right away, and it employs a number of themes that are both compelling and feel like a natural progression for the series.

On to the bad.

This game is buggy beyond belief. So buggy, in fact, that every single time I have STOPPED playing it thus far has been due to a crash to desktop. Despite any number of patches and tweaks that I've hunted down and applied, it's the same thing over and over. Along with this, I've had to deal with control-scheme problems (no matter what I do, I cannot seem to map a key to move backwards) and glitches with both cutscenes and savegames.

And that leads me to my biggest frustration with Homecoming: the sheer lack of available save points.

See this?  Yeah, you won't see much of it in Silent Hill: Homecoming.

During the intro nightmare sequence, I came across at least two - always situated along my path of progression, right out in the open, and typically in a room that I could easily make my way back to if real life intruded.

After that sequence, we're treated to a cutscene, a (very) brief opportunity to run around Alex's hometown of Shepherd's Glen, and then another cutscene which explicitly instructs you to get thyself to a particular nearby location. There are no apparent save points either during this short Shepherd's Glen sequence or in the location you, the player, naturally make your way to. In fact - unless you do some online investigation and discover that there is, in fact, a save point in a random innocuous building nearby following the second cutscene - you're treated to at least half an hour of puzzles, fights, further expository cutscenes, and obligatory exploration before you're given the opportunity to save again subsequent to the nightmare.

All of which would not be nearly so aggravating if the game didn't have the face-clawing tendency to bork itself back to the desktop at random intervals.

This is disappointingly poor game design on a couple of levels. First of all, these bugs shouldn't exist in the first place. There's a reason why QA testers are listed in the credits of every single game ever released... It means that a developer has run their game through the gauntlet, so to speak, before they felt confident enough to release it to the public. And yeah, glitches and bugs are a fact of life. You can't predict with 100% certainty how your game will play on any one randomly-chosen person's system. But if, post-release, it becomes apparent that it's going to be a problem, you figure out why and you address it in a patch. Which Konami has yet to do, and likely, at this point, will not even bother with.

But you know what? Let's say that's the case: your game turns out to be laden with unexpected problems, but you simply aren't in a position to tackle them. Here's a thought: give the player the option to quick-save. Seriously, why this is not a standard option in every single game released right now is a mystery to me. By and large, we all have lives and may, despite all reluctance to the contrary, need to unexpectly quit the game and deal with some banal responsibility. Even if Homecoming had been the recipient of rock-solid coding and never, ever crashed, quick-saving would be a necessity. And because it isn't rock-solid, it's that much more of a critical issue.

Sad to say - since Homecoming really does have so much to offer in terms of narrative and concept - but given my ongoing frustrations regarding phenomenally poor design choices and recurring gameplay bugs, I may not bother returning to it anytime soon... If ever. I mean, at some point, I'm going to stop fighting against the obstacles and turn my time and attention to Bioshock 2, Resident Evil 5, or another one of the dozen games I've put on the back burner just so I could give the latest Silent Hill entry a fair shake. I'm a patient man, but this is just getting ludicrous.

Scott Pilgrim Levels Up

It would be overly simplistic to state that Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim is a comic series about videogames... But on the other hand, it's not NOT about videogames, either. Games are just one of a number of themes woven into Scott Pilgrim that make my nerdy little heart race with glee every time I read it. There's the fact that Scott and his friends are (mostly) Torontonians, so there's any number of casual shout-outs to daily Canadian life (Scott regularly wears a t-shirt emblazoned with the CBC logo, for example.) Or the whole struggling, self-important indie band thing, as epitomised by Scott's band Sex Bob-Omb or rival band The Clash At Demonhead, amongst others. Or the near-constant stream of pop-culture references - Amazon.ca, Trainspotting, The Shins - that never come off as forced or overly cute.

But this is a blog about videogames, and if there's one thing Scott Pilgrim's got in spades, it's videogame love.

To date, O'Malley's released five of his intended six-volume Pilgrim opus, charting Scott's epic quest to defeat his girlfriend Ramona Flowers' seven evil ex-boyfriends (I'm wildly speculating here, but presumably the final volume will come out concurrently with or just prior to the theatrical release of the movie adaptation this August - but more on that in a sec.) In both concept and execution, it's pretty much a comic-book translation of the definitive videogame storyline: the hero must tackle and beat X number of level bosses, go up against the Big Bad, and win the heart of the princess in the end. It sounds incredibly precious, and make no mistake, it is - but O'Malley knows what he's doing, and over the course of the five books to date, he's thrown so many curveballs into the proceedings, and dealt with so many identifiable, grown-up trials and tribulations (like scraping together enough rent money to hang onto your shitty apartment for another month, or navigating awkward and often soon-to-fail relationships) in an admirably deft and even-handed manner, that it's anyone's guess where the story will end up.

Of course, at heart Scott Pilgrim IS about videogames, and there are clever little touches throughout to remind the reader of this fact. Besides the band names, the ex-boyfriends literally drop coins (actual pocket change) and items after they're defeated, and characters transform from average 20-somethings to cartoonish, insanely skilled fighters at the drop of a hat. They operate within a universe that's half-reality, half-videogame, and Scott himself is the quintessential videogame protagonist. And in a weird way, all of this makes perfect sense and actually lends the book a kind of heightened realism (at least for colossal nerds like me): how many times have I gotten through a rough day at work by thinking of it as XP grinding so I can eventually level up, or justified dropping $100 on a textbook by looking at it as providing +1 to INT?

Yeah, it's nerdy. Laugh all you want, but you do it too - we've all been deeply influenced by a lifetime of growing up playing videogames. And the great thing about Scott Pilgrim is that he doesn't just think this way: this is the way his world actually works.

Unless you've been living in a Hutterite colony for the past year and this is the first opportunity you've had to escape the watchful eyes of your elders and get onto the internet, you're probably aware of the upcoming adaptation of Scott Pilgrim, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which - barring global catastrophe - should hit theatres August 13th of this summer. Edgar Wright (who, besides having directed Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, was the co-creator and director of the brilliant nerd-love British series "Spaced", which if you haven't seen... you should) is directing, lovable geek George-Michael Bluth is playing Scott Pilgrim, John McClane's daughter is playing Ramona V. Flowers, and the likes of Brandon Routh, Chris Evans, and the incorrigable Jason Schwartzman have been cast as various Ex-Boyfriends (the screenplay was penned by one Michael Bacall who, despite having no major studio credits to his name thus far, is following up his Pilgrim script with a fictional adaptation of the documentary The King of Kong for New Line Cinema - good enough for me.) And it was, appropriately enough, shot in Toronto, which makes it one of the few high-visibility American films I can think of both filmed in and unabashedly set in a Canadian city (seriously, can you think of any? At all?)

There are a ton of movies out this year based on both comic books and videogames. On the one hand, we've got Iron Man 2, Kick-Ass, Jonah Hex, and The Losers, while on the other, there's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Resident Evil: Afterlife, not to mention the rumoured Mortal Kombat remake. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World stands as the only adaptation slated for 2010, however, that falls comfortably into both categories, and frankly (based on the admittedly-miniscule amount of information that's trickled out thus far,) it's probably the one film I'm most excited about, in a cautiously optimistic sort of way.

AND, because the world apparently is a beautiful place, Ubisoft Montreal is currently developing a videogame adaptation of Scott Pilgrim. Whether it'll hew closer to the film or the graphic novel (or equal measures of both) remains to be seen, of course, but in an interview with Comic Book Resources, Bryan Lee O'Malley has gone on record to state that it'll be a classic, retro side-scroller beat-'em-up.

Just as it should be. A videogame based on a movie based on a comic book inspired by videogames? It's almost enough to make a guy religious.

***

All five volumes of Scott Pilgrim are available in paperback from Amazon.ca for $11.26 each (Canadian funds). That means you can get all five for around $60 Canadian, including shipping! That's how much you spent on Brütal Legend! This is a much better investment, trust me.

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (Vol. 1)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Vol. 2)
Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness (Vol. 3)
Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (Vol. 4)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe (Vol. 5)

One-Line Wonders: B:AA, SH:H, Cogs, KH:358/2D

Today marks the debut of what I hope to be an ongoing column. One-Line Wonders is my attempt to cut back on my usual word-salad approach to blogging and review a handful of games in a single sentence (or equivalent.)

So without further ado, here are your One-Line Wonders for Tuesday, January 26th, 2010.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC, 360, PS3)

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Design: 9/10
Batarangs: ∞
dB of vocalised alarm expressed upon the unanticipated appearance of Killer Croc when attempting to open an entirely mundane, though mercifully locked, door: 77

I never realised until THIS MOMENT just how utterly devoid of meaning my life was without the ability to hang upside down from a gargoyle, silently pick off an escaped convict, and then observe from afar as his cohorts discover him and absolutely lose their shit in unbridled terror.

One quickly learns that the goal of Batman: Arkham Asylum is not survival, but how best to screw with otherwise calm and collected individuals

Silent Hill: Homecoming (PC, 360, PS3)

Graphics: 6.5/10
Sound: 7.5/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Design: 7/10
Pyramid Heads: 1 (to date)
Duration between end of intro cinematic and start of gameplay to realise you are indescribably fucked: 10 seconds

It may be a rehash of every entry in the franchise to date, but if nothing else, Silent Hill: Homecoming has the dubious distinction of making me lose control of my bowels more quickly than any other game I've ever encountered (critical moment of bowel-loosening: Pyramid Head, in shadow, dismembering someone on the other side of a locked door before you've even managed to extricate yourself from they gurney you were strapped to during the intro.)

Silent Hill's legendary toilet stalls return in full force

Cogs (PC)

Graphics: 4/10
Sound: 5/10
Gameplay: 7.5/10
Design: 8/10
Steampunk appeal: 9.5/10
Severity of curse-word obscenity prompted by the first dozen puzzles: Impolite even within sea-faring company

Why is this game so hard, goddammit?

I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days (DS)

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 7/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Design: 7/10
Days that are actually playable: less than 358
Bars of sea-salt ice cream eaten by Roxas: 8 million

The foundation is there for this to be a watershed entry in the Kingdom Hearts series, but recycled music, enemies, characters, worlds and weapons, along with a bland and uninspired storyline, trite, tedious cutscenes, and the game's tendency to abruptly skip over weeks of unplayable days at a time makes it feel like a hugely wasted opportunity - and maybe just a phoned-in contractual obligation on Square Enix's part while they invested the bulk of their efforts into the far-superior Birth By Sleep.

Ah, the Rocky Expanse, from Disney's classic nature film The Suicidal World of Lemmings... My childhood nostalgia has been fulfilled