Trailer: Resident Evil 6 “No Hope Left” Cinematic Live-Action

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Arleigh

I haven’t been as big a fan of Capcom’s Resident Evilsurvival horror game franchise (weird considering that zombie fiction and entertainment is like catnip to me), but the upcoming and latest entry in the series has me excited. Resident Evil 6 looks to return the series to its zombie roots after spending the last two titles veering away from it.

While the gameplay still looks to be just something upgraded and tweaked from games past the story itself looks like something that I would find interesting as it moves the danger from being localized to something more global in scope. I’m really hoping that this title brings me back to the franchise which was great in the beginning then began to lose steam and ideas in it’s latest offerings.

This latest trailer takes a page out of the Halofranchise’s marketing book by making it live-action. It might be only 90 seconds but getting a glimpse of how a world reacts to the onset of a zombie apocalypse makes for a nice, brief piece of entertainment.

Resident Evil 6 is set for an October 6 release for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows PC.

Video Game Quick Review: The Amazing Spider Man

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Leonard Wilson

Rocksteady changed things with 2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum. As a brand new IP, it’s starting to become the template for a few popular games. Beenox has noted that the game was an influence on their “The Amazing Spider Man” game, and it really shows. Eidos’ Hitman:Absolution will also be working off the same engine (if not a similar one).

Before playing Activision and Beenox’s “The Amazing Spider-Man”, you should first know that it takes place after the events of the Marc Webb’s film that opened recently. Playing the game will give away major plot points from the film, but visually, it’s quite a treat. Unlike the other Spider-Man related tie in’s, this game doesn’t feature the voices of the movie cast. I was kind of hoping that it would, really.

Activision, along with Treyarch, created all of the movie related Spider-Man games (which I’ve owned), and by far, I’ve always thought of Spider-Man 2 as the best game in the franchise. The control in that game, which allowed you to shoot separate weblines from each hand, was amazing. It allowed you to pull off some incredible turns mid-swing and if timed just right, you could pull off sideways swinging. Beenox decided to change the style of the game, focusing on more of a Parkour-style swinging dynamic. This adds two great touches:

The “Web-Rush” system allows you to pick predesignated places for Spider-Man to go at any time. Once chosen, the game will take the quickest route to that target, even if it means Spider-Man has to bounce from Building A, hop off the fire escape of Building B and flip over some cars to get there. The Web Rush system also works similar to Batman’s Detective Mode in the Arkham games, allowing you to lock onto targets of attack, object to grab and use against your enemies. In flight (or fall, however you choose to look at it), it slows down time to allow you to select your destination. It makes it all look very beautiful and stylish, but also manages to take away the effort required to make it happen. It’s not a terrible thing at all, but I suppose it could be compared to Assassin’s Creed vs. Mirror’s Edge. Both games have you climb a building. Assassin’s Creed uses one button to get you to the top. Mirror’s Edge requires a number of calculated button presses to do the same thing. The reward is different, and I tend to prefer the latter. Still, it’s very fun to use, especially in close quarter interior battles. You can leap backwards to the ceiling and then advance right back to the enemy with a button press.

The controls are incredibly easy to access. Climbing a wall is as simple as pushing against it, and you can alternate between climbing and “perching” against any sideways wall. This turns the camera back to it’s original state to give you an idea of where you are as you move.

The camera is closer to Spider-Man overall, so you get a better sense of vertigo during swinging. You aren’t able to do any acrobatics while swinging, but that free fall experience is still there. It’s definitely beautiful. You can literally spend your time swinging all across the city all day. Note that the map is condensed, compared to Spider Man 2, which also contained part of Queens. Considering all of the graphical data that had to be generated, I can understand shrinking the map.

Collector Fiends will love that there are almost 700 comic book pages floating around the city, similar to the feathers in the Assassin’s Creed games. Collecting enough of these will unlock actual viewable versions of classic Spider-Man comics. XP gained from collecting these, along with taking out bad guys via the main storyline or the random crimes that occur in Manhattan will allow to unlock new moves and stealth actions for the old webhead. At one point, you’ll also obtain a camera that will allow you to take pictures around the city. It would have been nice if there was a way to capture screenshots of yourself swinging, but I’ll take it.

Stealth is a new factor in this game, a carryover from the Batman games. Spider-Man has the ability to now climb above and behind bad guys to web them up and get them out-of-the-way. It works to some degree, though some bad guys move in such tight nit groups that it’s hard to get them away from each other to take them out. You’ll be able to stealth eliminate two at a time (with an upgrade), but the rest of the group sees this, you’ll be under attack. Bad guys range from normal thugs to some monsters to even giant robots, which are pretty fun.

The problem with The Amazing Spider-Man is the same problem that plagued all of the other free roaming versions of the game. The mini crimes are so predictable and monotonous that you’ll probably end up getting bored doing them. They literally are all the same ones from the original Spider-Man game, though cleaned up a bit.The web swinging and comic page collecting will make up for it, but I’m not sure if any game developer can find a better way to make the city defending elements better than what they are.

Overall, The Amazing Spider-Man is a fun game to try out, and the reply value is okay in the sense that you can just pick it up and go, but like every other game in the series, it still requires a few tweaks. The game is available for all the console systems.

Battlefield 3: “My Life” Trailer and 12-minute Gameplay Footage

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Arleigh

One game which has been on my radar for months now and will be so for the rest of the year until it comes out in November 2, 2011. That’s a long time to wait for a game, but just looking at the footage and the trailer has sold me on this game. As much as I enjoy playing Activision’s Call of Duty series (both it’s Modern Warfare and Black Ops iterations) it will be nice to finally get something new to beat back that juggernaut.

One thing which the Battlefield games have always had above and beyond every other FPS shooters is the ability in multiplayer to not just be a boots-on-the-gorund grunt but also drive tanks and armored vehicles, pilot gunships and fighters. It looks like from this latest trailer (making great use of the song “My Life” from the Swedish band jj.) that driving tanks and piloting jets is still part of the gameplay.

For a game that’s showing gameplay footage at Pre-Alpha Stage of development this game looks beautiful. It’s only a wonder how it will finally end up looking when it’s gone gold and released to the general public. A general public with cash waiting to be spent with me one of said cash spenders.

Catherine: Trailer (PS3/Xbox360)

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Arleigh

Atlus is one Japanese video game company who seem to have gained quite the rabid and dedicated fan following despite never having released a game that sold in the millions of units. They’re titles are considered by gamers as being very “Japanese”. This is probably why those in the US and Europe who love their games also happen to be major fans of anime, manga and many other Japanese pop culture.

One game being developed and published by Atlus that was announced sometime in 2010 was the puzzle-platformer/action adventure game Catherine. Right from the get-go Atlus fans were clamoring for more info on the game and when it would be localized for a North American and European release. When the game was just weeks away from it’s Japanese release date news came down from Atlus themselves that there was no plans at the moment to release the game outside of Japan.

To say that Atlus fans were heartbroken would be an understatement. While they could still import the game that would mean higher price due to import shipping fees.

Fortunately, this stance suddenly changed and on March 1st of 2011 the company announced that they were officially releasing the game for North America and with a release date of July 26, 2011. This news was greeted with joy by Atlus fans and some grumblings from those who shelled out the extra cash to import the game.

Catherine is a game that one might call one with “adult” themes and subject matter. It because of this that some call it quite “Japanese” since they’re more willing to release games that are adult in nature without resorting to violence as the foundation. While the game is not one of those eroge titles (erotic game) it is one that should definitely be bought and played only by those who are old enough to buy M-Rated titles.

The game will follow the similar Japanese release pattern and come out with different covers for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. The game is still set for a July 26, 2011 release.

Song of the Day: Terra’s Theme from Final Fantasy VI (Uematsu Nobuo)

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Arleigh

For the latest entry to the “song of the day” feature I go back to my younger years. I’m talking about when I was still barely into my 20’s. My choice for the new song of the day is Japanese composer Uematsu Nobuo’s main title theme for the Squaresoft (before they became Square-Enix) fantasy role-playing game Final Fantasy VI.

The song is “Terra’s Theme” (in the original Japanese it was called “Tina’s Theme”) and starts off the game. The version above is the piano solo version which Square-Enix produced as part of the special “Final Fantasy Piano Collections” cd releases which took all the video game music for each game in the Final Fantasy series game and remade them into piano solo pieces. Uematsu’s original composition for Final Fantasy VI (also for most of the game’s in the series he composed the music for) were very heavily-influenced by classical music traditions and one can really hear it in this main theme.

While the piano solo version is quite a haunting melody which gives some clues to the character of Terra Branford. The two versions below are the original video game music which is really a well-done MIDI file to allow it to be encoded into the game cartridge when it was first released for the SNES system. The other one is a live recording of Uematsu himself conducting an orchestra. While all three have become one of my favorite pieces of music of all kinds (not just video game music) it is the piano solo which solidified “Terra’s Theme” as one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.

Terra’s Theme (Live Orchestral)

Terra’s Theme (Original Video Game Music)

Review: Suikoden V

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Arleigh

Konami’s Suikoden series has been a fixture in the Playstation console systems since the PS1. While not as graphically beautiful as Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy series of role-playing games, Konami’s own Suikoden rpgs more than held its own in complexity of character development and storylines. These two factors have become something the Final Fantasy rpgs have really lacked since Final Fantasy VII. I would even say the Final Fantasy series hit its high-point in Final Fantasy VI and has been downhill since. Not so with the Suikoden series. From the beginning the series has beautifully combined characters and storylines to create a game that still uses the basic stats and experience mechanics of most Japanese RPGs but with a unique brand of npc recruiting and a wholly realized complex world which grows and reveals itself with each successive game in the series.

In 2006, Konami released Suikoden V in North America and there were some trepidations on how well the game would turn out. The previous game in the series, Suikoden IV, was abit underwhelming in its execution. A rarity in the Suikoden series in that the game was just ok; with some fans calling it awful. But even Suikoden IV still played better and its story less cliche than most rpgs coming out of Japan. Suikoden fans needn’t have worried about this latest entry in the series. Suikoden V doesn’t bring anything new or innovating in terms of graphics to the genre (but then these games never has in the past) but what it did was bring back the series to the high-standard of character development and storyline the series was very well-known and critically-acclaimed for.

Set six years before the events which played out in Suikoden I, Suikoden V takes places in the Queendom of Falena whose current Queen has in her possession the Sun Rune. The Sun Rune is one of the 27 True Runes which makes the backbone of what makes the critical events of the Suikoden Universe so unique to the role-playing genre. Queen Arshtat rules Falena with the Sun Rune but events prior to the beginning of the game (told in flashback) has set into motion a dangerous game of political machinations and powergrabbing between two powerful groups in the Houses of Barows and Godwins with the Sun Rune in the middle of it all.

The player is given control of Queen Arshtat’s only son to figure out just what sort of secret plans either Houses has in store for the Royals. Accompanying the player are Arshtat’s sister Sialeeds, his bodyguard and lifelong friend Lyon, and Georg (a familiar face for those who have played the previous games in the series). As the game’s story unfolds the complexity of the power struggle between Barows and Godwins and those of the Falenan Royal Family becomes more than a struggle for the realm of Falena but for its ultimate survival as something powerful and beyond human comprehension has slowly influenced those in close proximity. There’s moments of extreme sadness and ultimate sacrifices and love. Machiavellian plots and counterplots from both the protagonists and antagonists keep the player guessing as to how the story will play out. There’s also betrayals and genocidal actions which gives this entry to the series the dark edge the previous fourth Suikoden lacked.

Unlike most JRPG’s (Japanese RPGs), Suikoden V doesn’t have an end-of-the-world storyline but one which stays regional, but makes the plot no less epic and actually gives the game more freedom in how the story unfolds. The game’s story has to rank up there with Suikoden II‘s as one of the best rpg storylines ever and only lags behind the second game due to that game’s having a brilliant and memorable villain in one Luca Blight. The main characters and most of the 108 Stars of Destiny characters were well-written with their own distinct personalities and motivations for joining the fight. The dialogue during the game is mostly done through text with each character show in anime-style profiles. The cutscenes on the other hand uses voice acting which for a rpg was done pretty well with voice actors who actually gave each character voiced a distinct personality. It would’ve been nice if Konami had included the Japanese voice-acting in addition to the English translation. It’s a minor gripe, but nothing that takes away from making Suikoden V such a great game.

The gameplay mechanics returns back to the 6-party formation from the first three games in the series. There’s still the usual co-operative attacks when certain combinations of characters are put in the battle party. The co-op attacks could involve just two characters all the way up to six characters combining to create devastating non-runic attacks. There’s also co-op attacks between characters using runes. These combined runic attacks are some of the most damaging attacks in the game and allows the player a reason to actually bring a balanced party of 6 characters that’s made up of fighter strong in physical attacks and those adept in runes. The newest change in the battle mechanics occur in the war battles. Gone is the turn-based system that’s worked well in the first four games. Suikoden V‘s war battles now takes place in real-time which makes for much more hectic battles. The player must constantly know where each of his units are and how they’re stacked up against the opposing forces.

Suikoden V is a great game and also brings the Suikoden series back to great form after an interesting but lackluster attempt at innovation with Suikoden IV. This fifth entry did everything right in what made the series great. It had a great and compelling storyline with complex and distinct characters. Suikoden V misses surpassing the great Suikoden II in greatness just due to that game having certain classic and memorable characters. This is an unfair comparison but something that still puts the second game ahead of V, but just barely. That shows just how great this game really is. Already announced by Suikoden’s creators that V will be the last Suikoden game for this current generation of Playstation console system. While the title hasn’t made a return to consoles that’s not handheld if this was the last game in the series then it was a proper send-off.

Quick Take: Halo: Reach

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Semtex Skittle

Sometimes, a full review isn’t terribly useful to people. Quantitative numbers on Halo: Reach from me aren’t particularly likely to sell more copies of the game. But I do think this game is worth discussing; it’s important, in a way. So here’s some thoughts, for which you are most welcome to join me.

Halo: Reach

I was only peripherally aware that Halo: Reach was launching. I mean, it wasn’t marketed, and it’s only a small-time game series… okay, no, of course, I was suffocated by the news. And I was as excited as any casual fan of the series. The problem is… I’ve never been a casual fan of the series. I’ve played thousands of games of Halo between Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and of course, Halo 3 (I only got Halo ODST because it was bundled for free with my new XBox Arcade), and that’s the telling point for me. By the time Halo: Reach came out, I wasn’t as excited for it as I should have been. I didn’t have it pre-ordered, I wasn’t enticed by the Legendary Edition (although I’m not much for collector’s editions of any kind). And the reason why is very simple, and it’s ultimately the most important thing that I can tell you about this game.

I already knew what to expect, and I wasn’t as excited as I used to be. Were you?

By now, Halo fans know exactly what to expect. The game is based around the balanced trinity of grenades, guns, and melee attacks. It is not a cover or tactical shooter, but rather a fast-paced action shooter with players protected by regenerating energy shields. In most ways, the popular multi-player shooter was defined by Halo: Combat Evolved. The graphics are an improvement, the features have expanded, and this is the biggest and best game that we’ve yet seen in the Halo universe. Bungie is run by very intelligent people; the fans don’t want the wheel to be re-invented. They want a new release that fixes perceived problems with previous titles, hands over a whole new slew of maps, re-imagines some of the weapons while leaving other fan favourites in place, and adds a couple toys that we haven’t seen before. In a lot of ways, Halo: Reach is like Madden 11. If you change too much, then you’re not playing Halo anymore, and then what’s the point? Bungie themselves obviously understand this; to go in a new creative direction, they must create a new series.

So what’s my bottom line with Reach?

Well, like all of the Halo titles, it has a surprisingly meaty single player experience. I know that people look at you funny if you even mention the story of Halo: Combat Evolved, but there’s more there than you might expect. It’s at least as elaborate as the story in any Call of Duty title. And the storytelling is done partially through the environments we travel through. Bungie has done a consistently good job of creating beautiful environments scored by epic music. The locations and places are familiar, and yet somehow very alien. It’s an excellent narrative when you bring everything together, complete even with single moments that make you get the tingles. For my money, Halo 2 was the weakest single player campaign, but the story bridged between the set-up in Combat Evolved and the conclusion of Master Chief’s story in Halo 3.

ODST took things to another level, adding more characters to the dynamic. We saw real interaction between characters, even if the player’s character, the rookie, is the typical “strong, silent type”. Reach, I think wisely, took its cues from ODST. We’re treated to an entire cast of powerful Spartan soldiers in their powered armor, with disparate personalities and motivations that make them interesting to us. But Reach also taps into something that we haven’t seen before in the Halo universe. Reach is a prequel. It’s a historical event in the universe, and we already know how things turn out. Disastrously. So woven into the narrative of Reach is a sense of despair. The Covenant is overwhelming. Each move the Spartans make seems like it could be the tipping point, but we’re always knocked back down by the inevitability of it all. It’s rather sad.

Now, from a gameplay standpoint, I had my problems with Reach‘s single player mode. I thought it went on ages too long (although, for me, it seems that I just don’t love Halo the way I used to) and grew tedious. But the narrative quality of the single player was good; far and away better than contemporary rivals like Call of Duty: Black Ops. It took a little time for me to digest the experience, but in the end, I thought that Halo: Reach was definitely worth playing, and makes a fantastic capstone to a series that has really been revolutionary in terms of a genre that is now one of the biggest around.

Oh, and the multi-player is good. I didn’t focus on it here, though, because as I said in the open, it is exactly what you expect. There are new wrinkles – and they’re good ones! – but all it boils down to is this: Do you still love Halo? Then play on!

Review: League of Legends

Posted on January 2, 2011 by Semtex Skittle

The Bottom Line

A top notch multi-player experience sometimes marred by its terrible community.

Unfocused Ramblings

When a friend of mine first told me about League of Legends during its Beta period in 2009, my interest was piqued, but I’d been drawn in by World of WarCraft, and it wasn’t until early in 2010 when I finally took the time to download the free client and begin playing League of Legends with my friends. I wish I hadn’t waited. Even years after I stopped playing WarCraft 3 or The Frozen Throne for their own merits, I had continued to occasionally play a game or two of Defense of the Ancients: All Stars. As powerful as the World Editor was in WarCraft 3, there were still always going to be limitations on how far Defense of the Ancients could progress solely as a custom map within a game published by someone else. The natural evolution of course was for some of the developers of Defense of the Ancients to go to work for Riot Games to produce their own title; an experience totally under their control but based on the same style as the wildly successful custom maps that preceded it.

If you liked Defense of the Ancients, the odds are pretty strong that you’re going to love League of Legends. It incorporates most of the things that made Defense of the Ancients great, and eliminates some of the inherent weaknesses of working within a real-time strategy engine. After all, WarCraft 3 is designed to have a little inherent command latency, and the engine itself limits what kinds of spells and special powers (as well as the physical skinning of) any and all heroes. Moreover, the core game-play statistics can’t be changed for the benefit of a single custom map (obviously), so League of Legends is a much more polished experience. Now we have Ability Power as a core game-play stat to increase the power of spells and helping to balance the scales between powerful physical damage heroes and heroes with ridiculous spell abilities in the late-game, among a thousand other things.

Okay, for the rest of you who didn’t waste many hours of your lives playing Defense of the Ancients, what is League of Legends? It’s a duel between two teams of either three or five champions supplemented by a limitless army of minions. Each champion is a heroic figure with five unique special abilities (as well as a variety of “core” game statistics, like movement speed, attack range, damage dealt, total armor, etc.) and your objective is to breach the defenses of the opposing army by knocking out their defensive towers to gain access to their base, and ultimately, to destroy the opposing Nexus, a capitol building, which ends the game in victory. Your Champions gain experience points to progress through 18 levels (at each level gaining or improving one of their special abilities) as well as harvest gold pieces which are used to buy items that enhance your Champion in various ways. Along the way to victory or defeat, obviously, you will be opposed by the Champions of the other team, controlled by other human beings. They represent your true opposition, and you’ll have to overcome them if you plan to win the day.

Playing matches levels up your Summoner (that is, the personification of the player) and allows you access to a tree of “Masteries” which offer little bonuses to various things that your Champions can do, as well as access to customizable “pages” of Runes. Each match you select a Rune page from your book, which provides fully customized benefits to your Champion such as increased Mana regeneration, a higher chance to dodge enemy attacks, and more. Your multiplayer games also net you access to “Influence Points” which can be used to buy new Champions as well as Runes inside of the League of Legends store. You can download the client and play the game for free even to this day, but Riot also allows players to purchase “Riot Points” from their store which can be used to purchase champions, alternate skins for them, and other bonus content within the store as well. New content is added very frequently, and the product is at a consistently high quality, which really speaks well of Riot Games and its staff of developers.

The Big Question

Aside from ‘why did it take even this long to create a title like League of Legends‘ ? The question absolutely must be: Where do we go from here? It’s a common theme amongst my game reviews; I know. It’s an important question, though. League of Legends is an impressively complete experience. The developers have adequately explored core game-play mechanics, and the game and its objectives themselves are somewhat non-negotiable. Obviously we can continue to enjoy new Champions and Items eternally, but this isn’t truly a source of growth. A third question might be, “where did all the trolls come from” ? One thoroughly maligned aspect of League of Legends is the community, many of which are players that came from Defense of the Ancients, who are a surly, foul-mouthed lot. It’s hard to defend the community, and people with a thin skin might want to avoid this game.

Overall Game-Play: 9.0

The game play very occasionally suffers from graphical or camera glitches. Since they’re always correctable (if only by recalling to base in some cases) it’s not a game-breaking problem, but it’s also the only real criticism I have for a game-play system that is very tight for the most part. Because the interface is designed intentionally for the player to command only their own Champion, you don’t end up targeting another unit and losing control of your hero (as could happen frequently within the WarCraft 3 engine). The four ‘active’ hot keys are consistent amongst every Champion (Q, W, E, R, matching the skills from left to right on your interface) and aren’t competing with internal game commands (as occasionally happened in WarCraft 3). In addition, there’s no inherent latency, so commands are executed crisply and cleanly (barring lag, of course) which makes so-called ‘skill shots’ (that is, abilities which must be aimed and strike the target to take effect) much more common and much more use-able than they ever were before.

The match-making system, champion selection screens, and other framework for the game also deserves a notable mention. Although it’s gone through a couple of iterations by now, the system works very well. New users will learn their way around quickly.

Story 6.0

Although the game obviously has no single player aspect to it, the creators still actually took the time to create a world in which the game is set. Each Champion comes with their own piece of back-story that fits into a larger overall narrative about a world in turmoil, the various nations within, and their larger-than-life heroes – who obviously bring their talents to the institutional League of Legends to test themselves against other such powerful figures. It’s obviously not a focus of the title, but the story is cohesive, and to my mind, appreciated. It’s nice to have a little understanding of who my favourite Champion is, how s/he gained their powers, and what their goals are. Of course, it’s all just fluff, and you can ignore all of the story elements of the game and never miss a beat in terms of game-play.

Graphics 7.0

The graphics are of the cell-shaded variety and look very nice. The most impressive graphics are, of course, the skins of the Champions themselves. Given how many custom looks are available for your Champions and the sheer number of Champions that now are available in the game, I have to give a little nod to Riot. Of course, there’s no real place in the game for incredibly flashy or ultra-realistic graphics, so you won’t see anything in-game that’s going to blow you away. That having been said, all of the models are nicely crafted, and the game’s graphics definitely have a polished feel. The graphical performance is smooth and doesn’t break, and the look and ‘feel’ is consistent across the character models despite their diversity.

Sound 7.0

The sound in this case comes from combat and spell sounds, a relatively quiet announcer (who nonetheless is unfailing in her ability to identify key gameplay situations), and a simple score. Oh, and the unique voice acting for every single one of the League’s champions. Obviously this last part is what you’re going to deal most with, as your Champion responds to everything from you initially selecting them before the game begins to moving about, attacking, or casting spells. We’re not treated to an epic score in the background that fires our passions as we play, but the sound, like the graphics, is a polished effort that doesn’t disappoint.

Multi-Player 9.0

Well, in this case, there is literally no single player aspect to the game, so I suppose this could stand as an overall score for the title. Personally, I find little to complain about. The most important thing for you to know, though, is that Riot is dedicated to keeping this game updated, changing, and improving. I touched on this briefly in my open, but it’s important to expound on the point. Riot patches League of Legends frequently, tweaking abilities and items in order to provide the most balanced experience. Just as importantly, the stream of new Champions is very steady, which ultimately is the only method by which the game can expand. Obviously, there’s not much (if anything) that is going to change about the way the game is played from start to finish, so everything is in the details here.