Gamesugar

November 5, 2010

Review – Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage​

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 6:53 pm

Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage​
In many ways the Eighties were a simpler time, when a man could wander the post nuclear apocalyptic landscape secure in the knowledge that the good glowed with blue auras while the sinister shined red, and acupressure specific fist attacks created a reality where if someone screamed “WATTA!” after hitting you, well, you were probably already dead. At least that’s what Fist of the North Star taught me, my first taste coming via the anime that joined Akira and Fighting Seizure Robots in painting my earliest imaginings of what an incredibly cool place Japan must be.

While many years of studious effort to understand the culture that produced such offerings since then has yielded successful addictions, there are still many things about Japan I fail to understand.

Koei is one of those things, a company that I am aware makes videogames every year, but which I have never had much luck in grasping the sensibilities of. In many ways, Fist of the North Star strikes me as an attempt to rectify that situation, applying the Dynasty Warrior trope to a manga series rather than whatever a Dynasty Warriors game is typically about.

It all seems to revolve around the Japanese word “Musou,” which gets poorly translated here as something akin to “The Only One,” or “Without Equal.” My understanding of Koei’s use of the term is a series of games where waves upon waves of enemies come to kick your ass and in turn have their own kicked.

Given the subject matter of Fist of the North Star and Kenshiro’s lonely quest across the wasteland, this all seems like a workable arrangement. And the results are not entirely unsuccessful given the amount of fun I’ve gotten from the release, but there are limits and obligatory missteps, nagging bits of bad-habit design lingering from the past like phantoms in the code; stubborn, unbending, unchanging code.

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November 4, 2010

Return of the Review – Vanquish

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 5:15 pm

Vanquish
In my capacity as a Sugarperson, I really only serve two functions: sometimes I manufacture prettiness in an effort to make it appear that the site was not, in fact, designed in my basement, and other times I play games, and then I tell you about them. This is one of those times. As tasks go, it is not the worst one could hope for. In fact, the only way it could be better is if it caused the numbers on my bank account to increase, or perhaps if writing overly long sentences made me irresistible to nerd girls.

Vanquish is a game that, upon playing, I was compelled to fulfill this second duty; to write words and deliver them to you, so that you might understand their meaning. Accordingly, in addition to our regular review of Vanquish, I am here to provide a rare second opinion. Let’s begin: if anyone tells you that Vanquish is not worth playing, your duty is clear. Cut this person out of your life forever, as this person is a liar who wishes only misfortune upon you. If, after taking this action, you still doubt the value of Vanquish, I suggest the following: visit youtube, and search for “Casshern.” When you come to the inevitable realization that “There should be a videogame of this,” return here, and I will present to you, Vanquish.

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October 29, 2010

Review – Dead Rising 2

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 9:06 am


In playing open-world games, perhaps the quintessential dilemma is to what extent it is necessary for a game to push players to explore what it offers, and at what cost to player freedom–where at one end of the spectrum the player becomes bored and complacent, and at the other, the game is no longer open at all. I have found it can be far too easy to become mired in endless side-quests and irrelevant mini-games, thus losing a sense of progression and purpose, and while it’s certainly true that the player is ultimately responsible for utilizing the game assets, it is also fair to say that the game is responsible for presenting these assets in an engaging way.

Dead Rising 2’s solution to the problem is to grant the player freedom, but with consequences—the same as you find in the good, old fashioned real world. This is achieved chiefly through demanding that the player manage his or her time. Unlike, for example, Red Dead Redemption, where you could conceivably hunt bounties for a month before choosing to start the next plot event, Dead Rising 2 is characterized by a ticking clock, and story events that occur at specific times on that clock—whether the player is ready or not.

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October 26, 2010

Review – Costume Quest

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 7:23 pm

Costume Quest
I’m doing my very best to wear out the word nostalgia while writing reviews this month. Mind you, I’m not complaining that so many releases seem to be tapping visuals and controls that take me back to those earliest memories of clutching a controller in my hands – and began the era of my parents trying to wrench them away from it to occasionally get some fresh air.

While Costume Quest wants for the word nostalgia, the digital release hits a different pocket of memories with the childhood recollections of suburban existence. In time for Halloween, the game revolves around that one magical night each year when we stumbled from house to house collecting the candy needed to fuel a power fantasy preceding those offered by videogames, imagining ourselves to be the very characters we tried to mimic beneath an awkward mix of plastic and cardboard.

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October 25, 2010

Review – Quantum Theory

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 2:29 pm

Quantum Theory
Quantum Theory isn’t the worst game I’ve ever played.

If that line doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement toward the positive however, that’s probably because it’s not.

There’s an early sequence during the player’s rampage through an ominous tower filled with evolutionary chaos, where a cinematic break is required to introduce the largest example of greyish-blobbish indistinguishable enemy yet encountered. The creature materializes from a swirling cloud and kills several smaller enemies before kicking the player back into the game to suddenly deal with this escalation of battle, only to find 4-5 quick shots that would dispatch any normal enemy also enough to stop this beast dead in its tracks as well.

Much ado about nothing seemed to sum up the experience. Yet somewhere in that moment I found words to summarize my time with the game, the distinct feeling that the development team begrudgingly finished this title for release with the collective battlecry “MEH” heard ringing around the office.

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October 21, 2010

Review – Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 6:43 pm

Kirbys Epic Yarn
As the puntastic title suggests, immense amounts of yarn were spooled and stitched together to form Kirby’s long awaited return to proper console platforming. And as far as visual / narrative gimmickry goes, you’d be hard pressed to find a better example of a game that brings back the tactile feel of a classic franchise whilst presenting an entirely new aesthetic to capture the eyes, mixing new and old ideas that preserve plenty of the old time Nintendo charm that keeps me coming back.

Kirby’s a critter of simple pleasures, and this latest adventure matches that philosophy by turning the WiiMote sideways to wax a bit nostalgic on straightforward NES styled controls. The simplicity of the game leaves me feeling far less words are required than usual, though I could certainly go on about Kirby’s cute abuse – his excited arm flailing animation for example is cuter than a basket full of baby bunnies.

All the same, the depth of the stitch work that creates the visuals deserves some words, as does the way in which the game weaves together a toybox of ideas that is simply a pleasure to play with.

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October 20, 2010

Review – Vanquish

Vanquish
The squad of marines pushed forward as enemy grunts shimmered Soviet-era red from cover points along the hillside. At the peak, a giant robotic crab tossed wreckage indiscriminately, forcing me to rush between cover while pumping bullets into robotic soldiers never shy about disregarding their own safety to invade my personal space.

Quick melee attacks cut them in half easily enough – the trick is in making sure to finish the job, least their broken carcasses scurry along the ground hoping to detonate as close as possible.

About halfway up the hillside, a tower collapsed and spread more debris and smoke over the battlefield while a horde of enemy reinforcements broke through an opening to thwart my advance.

All that cover may make it seem worth stopping for a smoke break until the dust settles, and Sam Gideon is always willing to steal a few puffs whenever the moment presents itself, but sitting to wait the war out from a safe vantage point is rarely an option. Momentum encourages players to keep moving with a beat that begins the moment Sam crashes aboard the orbital space colony at the center of a fresh Russia vs. America conflict, and Vanquish uses every last enemy capable of carrying a weapon to keep your ass moving.

The achievement for surviving the first stage of the invasion is dubbed “Space Normandy” for good reason. Platinum Games has married the gritty realism of battle typically assigned to games based on the Second World War with the anime lasers and sheen of influences like Neo-Human Casshern to create a third-person Sci-Fi D-Day.

Along the way it becomes clear that the rumored irrelevance of Japanese videogame design continues to be greatly exaggerated, with Vanquish offering a level of exquisite mathematics that make trigger fingers tingle with a workout unmatched by heavier North American releases.

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