Category Archives: Gaming

Game Review: Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds

Posted on by Semtex Skittle

The Bottom Line

It’s been over a decade (no, seriously! Marvel vs. Capcom 2 came out in 2000! It was on the Dreamcast!) since we last dropped into this remarkable franchise of fighting games. A lot of our favourite characters are missing, but the feel hasn’t changed.

Unfocused Ramblings

As usual, I like to begin these reviews with a boring story about my personal life. About ten years ago, a friend of mine owned the Sega Dreamcast. He never had a ton of games for it, and we all agreed that the controller was preposterously big, but it was probably the console that my group of friends and I played the most during that stretch. Because whatever we thought about the Dreamcast, and however few games there were on it, or however few my friend owned… he did own Marvel vs. Capcom 2. At this point, years later, I don’t even remember much about the fine details of the game. But I do remember its feel… and that feel has returned, to my hazy memory more or less intact, this year with the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds. So now that I’ve played it, and the excitement is all flooding back to me, the unfortunate truth comes out: for all of its selling points (and it has them to spare) this game is not as much fun as its predecessor.

It’s not. You may think it is, and you may even be having more fun with it now… but it’s a matter of circumstance. And this game is not as much fun as the last one.

Does that mean that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 isn’t a great game? No. Actually, I’ve been impressed by basically everything that I have seen from the new title so far. It has the same feel of the old game. That hyper-frenetic superhero/comic book/action game and so on action is quite intact. You still have the hyper combo bars. You still have three different characters who are flying in and out of the action supporting one another and generally causing some havoc. You can still fill the screen with blasts of energy and crazy attack schemes that seem like no one could ever possibly survive them (and be just as disappointed to see that your opponent blocked in time). In other words, they’ve done a magnificent job of recreating what made Marvel vs. Capcom great. So we can say that this sequel is a faithful one. So what’s the problem?

I’m not sure this game translates as well to playing against faceless strangers on the internet as some of the other fighting games that have come out over time. Of course, it’s not a different experience on XBox Live (or the equivalent service of your choice) but this game, unlike other games, is a more intense frenetic experience and should be less about a cold, tactical approach. To me, this makes it more fun to play with friends than in multi-player match-making. Ultimately, that’s subjective, and if you like fighting games you should enjoy the multi-player experience here as well. Of course, whatever I may say about frenetic superhero/video game combat, the more skillful players of fighting games will still maintain a big advantage in this game due to the huge variety of combos available, even if the move-sets of each character are relatively simple. A lot of universal concepts translate across all characters (such as chaining together flashy aerial or team combos, and the counters to those moves).

The game does offer some options to help teach people about the game-play mechanics. If your fingers aren’t made of steel you may get frustrated attempting to execute long multi-team-mate-extravaganza type combos, but the mission mode (sort of a training mode with specific objectives as far as moves) encourages you to explore chaining moves together (from the basics of knocking a foe in the air and coming down on top of them with a crushing blow all the way to the aforementioned 500000 hit combos). I suspect that if you explore some of these modes, and trouble to learn the moves of a few favourite fighters, you’ll quickly get the hang of winning in this game.

Oh, and don’t be overly troubled by the absence of some Marvel vs. Capcom favourites. I’m sure they will all be available through DLC sooner or later. What’s that, you say? They announced that Jill Valentine and Shuma Gorath will appear as DLC characters even before launch? Let the games begin!

The Big Question

What were they thinking, not including characters like Megaman X? Presumably they were already looking at the prospect of selling DLC packages… but there is an infinite pool of characters to draw on between Marvel and Capcom. It still feels a little cheap to have excised some of the staples that we’ve been playing with since the first installment in the series.

Overall Game-Play

It’s a seamless game-play experience that has more than its fair share of flashy effects and super-cool sets of moves. My one gripe with the game on the whole is the inconsistency in move-sets between the characters, where some of the characters have a huge variety of diverse moves that can work in every situation… while other characters… are basically stuck with a signature move or two and a series of button combos. I can see how the innate attributes of the different fighters necessitate some of this for the purposes of balance, but it’s a little disappointing to find out that a personal favourite character has a lackluster move set. I suspect that this will be the exception rather than the rule for most players, but I do think it’s worth mentioning.

Graphics

It’s not visually breathtaking, but it has a certain (and to my mind, incredibly appropriate) style, and you won’t be disappointed by the attack animations. A ton of unlockable artwork accompanies the game in addition to the rendered character models, and there’s a lot to like with the visuals in this game. More important than the overall graphical presentation is probably the tightness of the experience, which doesn’t seem to have any glitches or bugs to it.

Sound

An upbeat main soundtrack accompanies unique themes for every fighter in the game as well as for the mighty Galactus. You’ll likely recognize a lot of the music as remixes on songs associated with the character in question (for example, Chun-Li’s appearance in a bout is accompanied by an overclocked remix of her battle theme from Street Fighter II) and you’ll probably come to appreciate a few favourites. I didn’t find the score forgettable which is a point in its favour. Obviously there’s not a ton of room for mood music in a fighting game, so the character themes and menu themes are essentially it. As for the voice acting, I haven’t encountered any voices that send me to my knees screaming at the heavens, and I take that to be a good sign. For a handful of bonus points, if you have some good surround sound and bass, you may be blown out of your seat by comments from Galactus, who addresses Thor with a hearty “If you are a god… then what shall we call Galactus!?” and other fun-loving quips.

Dead Island: Official Announcement Trailer

Posted on by Arleigh

The zombie fps survival game that seem to be blowing up the interwebs with it’s “official announcement” trailer was a title that was initially talked about several years ago when Valve’s Left 4 Dead first came out and become a massive hit. Zombies were back in force in gaming (not that it really left) and every no-name studio was announcing a zombie title to try and take advantage of the sudden craze for the walking dead in games.

Techland was one such studio and their title was to be called, Dead Island. It was to be a first-person shooter for the Xbox 360 and PC. Set in an unnamed resort island, the game was received by the gaming community who followed such news with some interest. That interest soon waned when nothing new and concrete about the game came out in the last couple years. It’s now 2011 and, after a couple brief tidbits about the title in 2010, it looks like the game is going to be a reality (fingers crossed).

The trailer has been getting major praises since IGN first premiered it. People were soon hyped to see the game become a reality. Those who still were guarded with their reactions still thought the trailer was well-done and, some even said, it was artfully done. One thing that seem to have everyone in agreement is how heartbreaking the trailer ends up being once the whole sequence plays out. It’s true what some have said. Children always seem to be taboo as zombie chow in films and most games (novels have been more ahead of the game when it comes to children becoming zombie food) and it looks like Techland decided no one will be safe in this game.

I, for one, have been one of those who have been following this title since it was first talked about years back and if this announcement trailer really means the game will be made then my faith in the title has been rewarded.

I sure hop it doesn’t suck….

Source: IGN

Song of the Day: Suicide Mission from Mass Effect 2 (by Jack Wall)

Posted on by Arleigh

The news about Clint Mansell being brought in to compose the score for the upcoming Mass Effect 3 rpg from BioWare has me listening through the score from the previous two games in the series. To continue the jonesing I’m getting from this news I’ve chosen track 25 from the Mass Effect 2 soundtrack to be the latest “Song of the Day”.

“Suicide Mission” comes into Mass Effect 2 around the beginning of the third and final act of the game when the player has gathered and assembled his team of rogues, assassins, berserkers and all sorts of undesirables to make that final jump through the Omega 4 Mass Relay. This track brings together the main theme from the very first game with the brass heavy and hopeful sound of track 5, “Normandy Reborn”, in the second game.

I sometimes just reload the save prior to the jump through the Omega 4 just so I can listen to this particular track of the soundtrack and see the visuals accompanying it. If I don’t feel like replaying that part of the game I’d just reload right before the end credits begins and just enjoy listening to it.

“Suicide Mission” just brings an epic sound to the game and anyone who has played it knows how it brings to rise goosebumps upon hearing it. For those who haven’t played the  games this piece of music just brings to mind some of the best in epic, orchestral scores.

 

Mass Effect 3 to have a Clint Mansell score

Posted on by Arleigh

Some major news on the video game front was reported today. One of the most critically-acclaimed video game franchises of the last five years will have an award-winning music composer creating the score for it.

The game in question is the third (most likely final entry in the current trilogy) game in BioWare’s Mass Effect rpg franchise. The composer is one Clint Mansell. He is the same Clint Mansell who has created some of the most evocative film scores for the last decade and most of it for Darren Aronofsky’s films (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan).

Mass Effect 3 will be Mansell’s first foray into video game music composing. This is great news for fans of the franchise. It lends an even more cinematic flair to a series whose musical score were already great to begin with.

EA and BioWare are definitely pulling out all the stops to create a worthy finish to this trilogy. I already know that I will be getting the game and I will definitely be buying the soundtrack once it’s up for sale (I already own the first two that were composed by Jack Wall).

Source: The Quietus

PS: Here’s two pieces of music so people understand why I thought the first two game had awesome scores and Mansell being brought in for the third means awesome just went up to 11.

Mass Effect

Mass Effect 2

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Debut Trailer (VGA Exclusive)

Posted on by Arleigh

Ok, first we get the debut trailer for Mass Effect 3 which will consume my life and time when it comes out. Now I find out that the one game series which has also consumed my life and time in the past is also coming out around the same time as the aforementioned title.

What do I speak of?

I speak of the game which, in my very honestful and truthiness opinion, is the Lord of the Rings of fantasy gaming rpgs. It is The Elder Scrolls series and this game marks the 5th entry in the series which will followed other entries in the franchise like Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. This franchise has spanned over a decade in gaming history and I expect nothing less than a new game from this series eating up close to 1000 hours of my life before I finally stop playing it to try something else.

And just like it sci-fi epic cousin in the Mass Effect series it is I who will be savior of the realms and kingdoms from whence this fantasy franchise lives in. While I may not be saving the galaxy it’s still no easy feat to save a fantasy kingdom full of lovely maidens and grateful millions.

Sidenote: Lisa Marie must be wondering what the hell I’m talking about with these last two blog entries.

Mass Effect 3 Debut Trailer (VGA Exclusive)

Posted on by Arleigh

The one game which I am willing to kill for to get my hands on the moment it comes out in time for the 2011 holidays is from video game developer BioWare. BioWare created a scifi-rpg franchise four years ago which has consumed my life everytime a new one in the series comes out. First there was Mass Effect then just this past January was it’s bigger follow-up Mass Effect 2. It looks like Mass Effect 3 will once again consume my time and life in the end of 2011.

From the look of the trailer the foreboding scenes in the end of the last game will culminate in the extra-galactic terror machines called “The Reapers” heading for Earth to once and for all stop the race who spawned the one man who dared challenge it’s millenia-long cyclical harvesting of all organic life from the galaxy. The fact that I am that human  who stops them has no bearing on just how awesome this game franchise has been.

It will be the final game in this series as announced by BioWare, but I won’t be surprised if the universe created by this franchise continues on using a different name with a new set of heroes and villains. In the end, this game and any that follow it up will have one thing in common. A galaxy to save, a game as close to cinematic as we’ve ever seen and me as it’s savior.

 

Quickie Review: Centurion (dir. by Neil Marshall)

Posted on by Arleigh

I’ll outright say and admit that one of my favorite filmmakers has to be British-filmmaker Neil Marshall who burst into the scene almost a decade ago with his genre mash-up werewolf film, Dog Soldiers. Since then he has come out with a film every couple years which follows what’s becoming a trademark style of his.He would take a well-worn and used genre and mash it together with a few others to create a film that’s wholly his own. He did this with his follow-up films in The Descent and Doomsday. Now it’s 2010 and we have his latest film and it follows his usual style. Centurion is an adventure, chase and men on a mission film that doesn’t reinvent the genres it’s smashing together but instead embraces their traditions and creates a rip-roaring yarn which moves at a frenetic pace with characters who grow and expose their motivations as the film progresses to it’s bittersweet finale.

Neil Marshall will always be known to fanboys and the action crowd even if the elites of the film industry continues to dismiss the man as nothing more than competent filmmaker. In Centurion he shows that he could work within a traditional sword and sandal story and still show his signature style. We have it’s main character of Roman centurion Quintus Dias (played with a subdued and introspective seriousness by Michael Fassbender) who gets captured by the Picts of Britain during Rome’s occupation of the island. Unlike most Romans captured by the guerilla-warfare conducting Picts, Quintus has learned to speak Pict thus has become a valuable capture. But his loyalty to his Empire and its people dashes the hopes of the Picts ever learning anything from Quintus and decides to play some sport with him as the hunted prey.

It’s during the hunt for Quintus by a band of Pict warriors that he stumbles upon the Roman Ninth Legion led by General Titus Flavius Virilus (Dominic West). Once freed from his captors and hunters, Quintus is more than happy to rejoin his fellow Roman centurions in their hunt to once and for all destroy Pict leader Gorlacon (Urlich Thomsen) and his Pict army. To aid them in their search for this enemy army is the mute Brigantes scout, Etain (played with silent fury by Olga Kurylenko), who knows the lands where the Picts hide and do their hit-and-run raids.

It’s once the whole Ninth Legion has been led into the thick forests by Etain that the trap was sprung with Etain herself the catalyst for what amounts to as the massacre of the Legion. It’s this event which Marshall in his own way tries to explain one of history’s mysteries: The mysterious fate of the Roman Ninth Legion. Historians have never agreed as to why the Legion disappeared from Roman and historical records and Marshall’s film is one theory.

The rest of the film has the handful of the Legion who has survived trying, at first, to free their general from Pict captivity and when that mission fails with deadly results the remaining men who has chosen to follow Quintus try to make a run back to Roman lines. On their heels like a she-wolf leading a pack of wolves is Etain whose thirst for vengeance for what the Romans did to her (raped her as a young child and cut out her tongue in addition to wiping out her family and tribe) pushes her to get these Romans with near-supernatural drive. It’s rare to find a film where the main villain is a woman, but one whose abilities surpasses that of the men she’s hunting and whose motivations make her more than a tad sympathetic to her cause.

Centurion does action well with sequences involving a jump off of a steep cliff and into the river below to last stand inside an abandoned Roman fort. Marshall knows how to stage and shoot these scenes so we never lose sight of where the participants are. Most filmmakers nowadays try to hide their inability to choreography action sequences by using quick cut editing, hand-held camera jittery viewpoints and, at times, just shooting it from a distance. Neil Marshall doesn’t do anyone of these gimmicks and tricks which just shows that while his hybrid style in terms of storytelling might be new and refreshing he still embraces the traditional ways if it serves his films properly.

The acting in this film was quite good from not just its leads in Fassbender and Kurylenko but from everyone. This film’s ensemble cast includes veteran British actors just as Liam Cunningham, Paul Freeman and David Morrissey. Other supporting players such as Imogen Poots, Urlich Thomsen and Dominic West do a great job in the limited roles they’re given. The fact that Kurylenko utters not one word in her scenes yet commands each and everyone she’s in shows just how well Marshall can direct not just action pieces but how to direct his actors in doing their jobs.

This film doesn’t do anything to reinvent the action genre that is it’s foundation, but what it does is show that action films sometimes could be just as good when it’s filmmaker leans on practices from traditions past. Outside of the CGI-blood used to show the brutality of the fights and deaths this film is quite lacking in the CG department. Shot on location in the highlands of Scotland and studios near and around London, Centurion is quite a throwback to the sword and sandal films which dominated the film industry during the late 50’s and most of the 60’s. Marshall’s latest will not win any mainstream awards, but the genre crowd will definitely embrace it as something that will entertain and thus welcome it with cult status.

Homefront (Xbox360/PS3/PC)

Posted on by Arleigh

While most first-person shooter games tend to bore me there are a few which have caught my gaming fancy and continue to play to this day. Usually it’s either the latest game from Microsoft’s Halo franchise or Activision’s Call of Duty series. I tend to have less excitement over upcoming new FPS games and will wait until people who do love them actually give me a thumbs up or thumbs down on a particular title before I try it.

There’s one game which has caught my eye and part of it is due to the interesting story the game will be built around. A speculative fiction the game will revolve around and it’s the occupation of the US by a Greater Korean Republic in the year 2027.

Yes, you read that correctly. The US in this game will be invaded by a unified Korea (with the North in control) after many years of economic downturn has finally collapsed the US economy in addition to the world itself experiencing the first stages of post peak-oil. This setting has a major Red Dawn feel to it and it’s not surprising since the person who came up with the story for Homefront is none other than John Milius himself who wrote and directed the film.

While details on the gameplay looks to keep to the usual FPS gameplay standard the plot and some of the single-player campaign tweaks has made me decide that this game will be something I need to play. This time the player will play an American playing as a guerilla fighter in the Korean-occupied US. Civilians as collateral damage is suppose to play an integral part in how the game unfolds in the single-player campaign.

The multiplayer will include the usual point system earned to buy newer and better gear and weapons. Unlike the two franchises previously mentioned the points earned can also go towards bigger ticket items such as helicopters, tanks and other vehicles.

Here’s to hoping that there’s a fancy swag-edition of this game and that publisher THQ and the game’s developer KAOS Studios get creative with said limited swag-edition.

Song of the Day: Transcending Love (by Michiru Yamane, Takashi Yoshida, Masahiko Kimura, Keiko Fukami)

Posted on by Arleigh

I am what you would call an avid gamer. I’ve been playing video games since I was a wee lad and marveled at the Atari 2600. I moved from that system through the many systems after it to my current one which is my Xbox 360.

I’m an equal opportunity gamer in that I will play any type of game at least once no matter the genre. In the end, the one  genre which I will always gravitate towards and I consider my first gaming love are role-playing games. I especially have a special place in my heart for Japanese role-playing games. It’s music from one of those Japanese role-playing games where I have chosen the latest “song of the day”.

The latest song chosen is from the Konami-published role-playing game series called Suikoden. This particular song comes from the third game in the main series, Suikoden III, and is the opening theme for the game. The song’s title is “Transcending Love” and is one of my favorite piece of game music ever produced. The song even gets a well-animated anime opening sequence which shows characters and events from the  game but doesn’t show too much about who they are and what the plot of the game is all about.

The song is part of a soundtrack which includes several Japanese game music composer that figuring out who was responsible for this particular song would be difficult to do. I’ve decided to just credit all of them for what I consider one of the best game opening themes and music ever composed.

Dragon Age 2

Posted on by Arleigh

In the winter of 2009, BioWare released a new rpg franchise to bookend their massively successful and critically-acclaimed scifi-rpg series Mass Effect. This new franchise was to be fantasy-based and would take the same deep and complex storytelling paired with morality choices that all past BioWare rpgs were well-known for. The game was Dragon Age: Origins and it did quite well that the company quickly began on creating the follow-up.

The game was a success, but not without some gripes from critics and players alike. While overall the game delivered on the experience BioWare promised it had some gameplay and visual failings which kept the game from becoming one of the great ones in 2009. The combat mechanics was not as intuitive as most gamers were used to. It played more like early BioWare games where commands for types of attacks were given but players had no control on how the attack were performed. There was also some major graphical issues in the game even on some high-end gaming pcs which ran the PC version.

Despite these flaws the game did entertain and gain quite a following. It’s no wonder that BioWare is ready to release the sequel, Dragon Age 2, a little over a year since the first game. This sequel will have BioWare addressing the very flaws gamers had with the first game. The combat will be more geared more like an action rpg with a streamlined control system. The company has stated that the look of the game will surpass that of the original now that programmers have had a better look at the PS3 and Xbox 360 systems. The game will also have a storyline which will span 10-years with the player’s character affecting how the world in the game changes depending on actions and decision played throughout.

Like its scifi brethren, Dragon Age 2 will use players’ saved completed games of the first title to tool and alter this sequel for that particular gamer. There’s one major change to the gameplay which may make some players unhappy. A player will not be able to choose their character’s race class. No more dwarf or elf characters. This sequel is strictly a human affair.

Until more videos of actual gameplay come out these CG-animated trailers will have to whet the appetites of rpg gamers everywhere.