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November 8, 2012

Review – Zone of the Enders: HD Collection

Review Zone of the Enders HD Collection
Animation studio Sunrise lends some love to see this HD revisit for Zone of the Enders open with a fresh and lengthy montage for the robotic space opera. Stirring early anime memories is a sweet touch here, since Zone of the Enders aimed to create a videogame channeling that spirit when it first released for the PlayStation 2 back in 2001.

The added attention is also a promising touch, considering Konami hasn’t been entirely on the ball when it comes to HD revisits, contributing to an environment that leaves me hesitant to review any of them without the time and means to stress test and analyze the effort frame by frame.

But if the Silent Hill HD Collection left a bad taste in your mouth – and it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t – there’s relief to be had in the revelation that Zone of the Enders hasn’t aged all that badly considering that videogames age approximately ten times faster than most domesticated dogs, which perhaps aided the effort here.

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November 5, 2012

Demo Report – Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Demo Report Metal Gear Rising Revegeance
The Zone of the Enders HD Collection hit retail shelves last week, harkening back to the golden days of the PlayStation 2 – all the more so for the demo disc it includes with a fresh look at Platinum Games’ spin-off from the Metal Gear franchise.

The short demo offers a different trip from the one appearing at E3 earlier this year, beginning with a new optional VR tutorial, which attempts to ensure players get familiar with the game’s blade mode before stepping into the game proper.

Holding down the left trigger on the 360 controller, the right analog stick can be rotated to see the angle of a potential slice, engaged by letting go of the analog stick for a precise single strike. This proves useful for slicing cardboard enemies in training, but in the field, getting Zen with hitting the analog stick repeatedly to unleash a fury of slices comes in handy for quickly dispatching the Gekko’s that appear.

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October 23, 2012

Review – Silent Hill: Book of Memories

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:04 pm

Review Silent Hill Book of Memories
Living up to its name, the Book of Memories allows those that possess it to change the memories of others, essentially warping events in their favour to gain anything their little heart’s desire. Since said book arrives from the twisted town of Silent Hill, the consequences are inevitably twisted as well.

Changing memories in your favour comes at the expense of someone else’s good fortune. At least, I think that’s how this works.

After an initial delivery from a familiar postman, narrative depends on snippets of text, which during the first level detailed one person’s troubles at work, eventually leading to my own character getting a promotion because of said woes by the level’s completion. As with Silent Hill: Downpour earlier this year, the series seems continually flustered in the attempt to capture the essence of minimalist story telling that has made previous entries in the franchise successful.

The less-is-more approach here feeds detachment from events and characters that players have no emphasis or opportunity to make a connection with, which severely hurts the grind of play the game offers as the main course.

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June 13, 2012

E3 2012 – Hands On with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance E3 2012
Despite being the only Metal Gear title without the word Solid since the original two MSX releases that gave birth to the franchise, Solid is the first word that came to mind after playing through the E3 demo for Platinum Games’ and Kojima Productions game with the strange name I’ve come to love.

The second word was relieved.

I was relieved to find that Platinum Games’ had found the means to balance their distinct brand of third-person action with the original premise of the Rising trailer first seen at E3 2010. No one is going to be accused of reinventing the wheel here, and as suspected, the spirit of Platinum’s Bayonetta and Vanquish shine strong in the offering, but said offering seems poised to deliver another solid action title from the developer, and fans of those previous efforts can expect the same level of chaotic polish they’ve grown accustomed to.

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June 12, 2012

E3 2012 Interview – Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate

Castlevania Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate E3 2012
For the second year in a row, Konami got a jump start on E3 with their pre-show, which offered up a much anticipated extended look at Platinum Games’ Metal Gear Rising: Revengence.

The broadcast also delivered a cinematic trailer for the sequel to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, giving players a glimpse of Dracula pummeling an entire army and the nod that this next release would center around exploring the character who has provided the foundation for the series as a rather one-sided villain to date.

On the floor of E3, I managed to nab some hands on time with a more portable release in the Lords of Shadow Franchise as well with Mirror of Fate for the 3DS, entering an expansive castle that brought back some fond memories of a series that has had a rather extended break from portable hardware.

After whipping through some skeleton enemies and a rather large adversary that required some skillful dodges on my part, I was offered the chance to sit down with Konami’s Dave Cox and MercurySteam’s Enric Alvarez to talk more about Mirror of Fate and the Lords of Shadow franchise. One of the most important notes from the outset of that talk was that Mirror of Fate is not an attempt to continue the 2D stream of portable Castlevania releases, but rather an effort to bring the Lords of Shadow experience to the 3DS.

Since it’s always best to hear straight from the developer behind a title, I’d like to offer up the opportunity for you to hear the entirety of that conversation for yourself, which you can both stream and/or download below.

[podcast]http://www.gamesugar.net/podcast/e32012/castlevaniae3.mp3[/podcast]

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March 19, 2012

Review – Silent Hill: Downpour

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 8:52 am

Review Silent Hill Downpour
While the Silent Hill Tourism Board has long since given up hope, the collapsing town still attracts a few lost souls each year as stray individuals find themselves wandering the misty streets and confronting truths they’ve worked hard to suppress.

I suppose Silent Hill is a bit like the town Freud might have built, where the subconscious takes physical shape and the only way to survive the demonic torture chamber unleashed is to shine light on the darkest recesses of the mind, exposing what visitors have failed to resolve on their own and desperately tried to bury.

The earliest visits to Silent Hill began with physical searches, whether it was Harry Mason searching for his lost daughter, or James Sunderland chasing the chance to see his wife again. That latter search set the bar for a series about people burdened by the past, forced through a cathartic process while wandering those streets. It’s a legacy that frames Silent Hill as a twisted parental hand that isn’t really trying to kill people, but rather, attempting to heal them.

Silent Hill is a psychological meat grinder, with people going in one end and the crank slowly turning to show the raw meat at the heart of each. It isn’t surprising that the premise has created formulaic entries in recent years, such as 2008’s Homecoming, which seemed to create a patchwork quilt from previous releases. But 2009 saw the release of Shattered Memories, which attempted to include the player in the analytical process, and regardless of your feelings toward that release, that experiment created a Silent Hill title that was unquestionably unique.

There are times that Downpour appears to bridge the gap between those points, mixing familiar mechanics and mind games to find brief moments that feed on the player to create some space for empathy with the trials of convict Murphy Pendleton. But as the truth about Murphy comes to light, the complicated narrative misses any opportunity to truly create a character that earns enduring sympathy or comprehension.

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March 2, 2012

Snake Eater 3D – The Good, The Bad and The Boss

Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D
In deciding which Metal Gear Solid title to port to another platform, Metal Gear Solid 3 stands as the most viable choice. The story of how Big Boss became the world’s greatest soldier serves as the founding narrative for all future events in the series, providing loving bits for fans while creating the most accessible entry point for those not familiar with tactical espionage action – though it helps that the original Metal Gear Solid would require a far greater overhaul to become eligible for such a trip.

Metal Gear Solid 3D sits alongside four other releases of the game – 3 on the PS2 and most recently within the Metal Gear Solid HD collection for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. With that in mind, it seems more sensible to sort out the good and the bad of this latest 3DS version rather than rambling on about one of the most narrative rich releases in gaming and sticking a number to it.

It might also help sort out whether you’re better off spending the equivalent of what the HD collection costs to get your mitts on only one of the titles that release offers, which presents a pretty tall hurdle from the outset.

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