Breath of Fire - Retrospective

Breath of Fire should come in a plain white box with JRPG stamped on it.
Not to call it a terrible game, but I can't remember the last time I was so underwhelmed and bemused by a game.
Well, maybe one time.
Breath of Fire follows such a generic RPG plot that you can almost play a drinking game with the number of cliches you find. Your character Ryuu is one of the last of a dying race *gulp* who is the only one that can defeat the big-bad. *gulp* You accomplish this by traveling all around the world from one town to the next *gulp* fighting progressively stronger monsters in each area *gulp* In most cases, you will be forced to solve the problem(s) of whichever town you visit before you can continue *gulp* Even while the evil dark lord is sitting in his tower brooding and listening to The Cure. Along the way, you must collect 6 McGuffins *gulp* (in this case Keys) in order to do.... something involving the goddess Tyr.
Honestly, I wasn't interested enough to care. After 6 shots, you'd be ready to pass out too.

Breath of Fire's only saving grace is the field abilities of the characters you acquire along the way, who just randomly HAPPEN to decide to tag along with you. This lends almost a metroidvania-like quality to the game, as your new abilities allow you to access previously blocked off areas. Bo can travel through trees unopposed and shoot his longbow and hunt roaming animals on the world map, Karn can pick locks and disarm traps and pitfalls, Ox can destroy walls and punch trees to collect fruit, etc. While this helps to give the characters much more identity beyond their in-battle skillset, it has the side effect of creating the most convoluted, twisted, backtracking, meandering, where-the-fuck-do-I-go-now? gameplay this side of Resident Evil 2. There are at least a dozen areas in the game where you have no choice but to talk to EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD and simply HOPE they're the right person to advance the plot. And if that doesn't work, it's time to go searching the entire overworld map for glyphs and icons you may have forgotten about and see if it's time to play with them. And of course, this is all BEFORE you get the ability to fly around the world as a bird.

Breath of Fire is also WAY too easy. I understand that the GBA version (Which I played) is of a lesser difficulty than the original SNES version, but it's a problem that still requires addressing. The encounter rate in the game is brutally high, oftentimes forcing you into a battle every 10 steps, and watch the screen-fade/monster-appear/battle animation/victory/screen-fade sequence every time. If you stop to fight every one of these battles, you will be unfairly over-leveled for most of the entire game, which rarely makes enemies any threat to you. With an encounter rate so high, the only way to catch your breath and actually figure out the labyrinthine dungeons to get anywhere is to use the "mrbl3" item to keep enemies away for 100 steps, and I have a sneaking suspicion that's exactly what the developers intended, since the mrbl3 is one of the dirt cheapest items in the game. There were at least 2 times in the entire game where I simply dropped 300 gold pieces (a pittance) on mrbl3 items to avoid random battles for the entire dungeon, and STILL took the boss out without breaking a sweat, despite not gaining any experience along the way or actively taking time to grind for levels. You can even set the game to battle for you, which makes an already passive activity even less engaging, and once you manage to get Ryuu's final dragon spell, there is NOTHING in the game that can stop you.

Even control is clunky and unresponsive in this game. Navigating menus is uncomfortable, and even though the game was designed for the SNES, the L and R buttons are never used at all to my recollection, even though it would be a VERY welcome option to use them to navigate between party members from the status menu.

The whole of Breath of Fire just seems lazy. I can cut it some slack for being a SNES era RPG with a limited memory capacity, but Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6 all came out on the same system, and they're all much better designed games with easier to follow, less-cliche storylines, more identifiable characters, and better music. The only tune I recall enjoying is the Big Fish music that plays when Gobi morphs underwater, and you almost never hear that anywhere else in the game.

The Good:

• Classic turn-based RPG style is familiar and easy to understand for veterans and beginners
• Field Abilities of party members add an interesting twist to an otherwise unremarkable game

The Bad

• Cliche and boring story
• Poorly presented plot-progression requirements
• Unbalanced combat/leveling system

The Burning Question

• When they named the minotaur character "Ox", did that decision take more or less time than deciding to name a dragon "Ryuu"?

The Defining Moment

• Watching the trailer for The Nutcracker 3D on youtube as the auto-battle took care of the final boss for me.

BioShock and Diablo 2 - Retrospective

You may feel cheated when I combine these games together into a single review, but when I stopped to think about it, they are actually very similar games. While they may follow very different control schemes, plots, storylines, are set in different fiction genres, and in fact belong to completely different game genres, the two games are actually quite similar in terms of basic thought processes.

You begin each game in a strange environment. People around you seem to have a vague idea of who you are, but you're more or less a stranger to them. However, they still need your help, and you are given a number of quests that you have to complete in order to progress.

As you play through the games, you will encounter various enemies. How you kill them is your own responsibility. The game does not discriminate against the way you choose to inflict damage, but certain enemies will be resistant or weaker to specific types of attacks. Switching methods of attack on the fly is key to defeating waves of enemies without too much headache.

When you kill enemies, they will give you loot. This loot is randomly generated and not fixed to any specific progression. Depending on what kinds of items your kills give you, you may choose to focus on a different method of attack; favor a different type of weapon. The difference between what weaponry enemies give you, what you choose to use, and what weapon is most effective against them is the general balancing act of the gameplay, mostly by choosing the most effective weapon for each situation, based on range, speed, strength, and ease of use. Necessity (or laziness), however, may tempt the player to focus on one or two main modes of attack, and only use others when absolutely necessary (or when bored).

The number of weapons you have access to in Bioshock is much, MUCH smaller than in Diablo, but the overall number of weapon types are more or less equal. Weapons can be infused with elemental properties: ice attacks will freeze enemies and make them easier targets, but fire and electrical attacks are also available. Certain enemies are much more vulnerable to particular elements, while others are resistant or even completely immune.

While Bioshock and Diablo both follow a more or less linear plot (You complete the same quests in more or less the same order in every playthrough) in Bioshock, every weapon and enemy you face appears in generally the same location every time, and in fact every map is identical to every playthrough. Every key item and weapon you find will be in the same location and found at the same point in the plot; in some cases these are even required in order to progress.

Diablo, however, gives you a wide selection of weapons. While any specific aspect of them can be simplified by attack speed, range, and whether it is used in one or both hands, these weapons are replaced with stronger varieties throughout the game, andyour choice of what you use is made more complex with the addition of magical modifiers. Magical weapons can be found that provide any number of bonuses, from increased attack rating, higher health and mana, elemental properties, and much much more.

Unfortunately, The majority of weapons you find will be completely worthless to you. Modifiers such as "low quality" "crude" "damaged" or "cracked" are just as common as an unmodified or "superior" weapon, and these weapons are generally not even worth picking up to sell back in town; they aren't even worth the space in your inventory. And even when you do find a magical item, odds are you won't be interested in the item's particular modifiers. But when you do finally get that perfect item you've been hoping for, it's one of the best endorphin rushes in gaming.

Replay value in Diablo 2 is made much higher than in Bioshock based purely on the sheer number of ways you can play through it. Every class has 30 skills, each of which has 20 levels of effectiveness. Since it's impossible to gain 600 levels, you will have to choose what skills your character will focus on for any individual playthrough. Multiply this by 5 classes (7 in the expansion) and the infinite number of maps that can be randomly generated, and Diablo 2 is a game that anybody can play through multiple times and never have the exact same experience.

But the burning question is: would you want to?

What Bioshock lacks in complexity, it makes up for in focus. While it doesn't do nearly as much as Diablo 2, what it does do is highly polished and enjoyable. It may not be as long, but the fact that it can be played through and experienced much quicker means the entire narrative arc can be enjoyed in a shorter amount of time, and gratification is easier to come across. The game is too short to become monotonous, and too focused to become diluted.

Diablo's enjoyment comes from the progression of your character and growing him/her based on your method of play. You become attached not only to your character, but even your items. You hesitate to throw away that awesome sword you found in act 1, that served you so well for two entire acts and matches your character's skills perfectly, even though it has been rendered obsolete by newer equipment and is taking up too many of your inventory slots. But eventually you bite your lip and sell it to the merchant with a heavy heart, replacing it with something that may serve you better, but has no nostalgic attachment... yet. But perhaps in time you will learn to appreciate this one just as much.

Which is a better game? Who can say. It's all a matter of how you play it.

Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - Retrospective

If you were to twist my arm, I could probably expand this list to a nice round 50, but I've already spent more time on this game than I should have.

30 things that suck about Majora's Mask:

1. The fish that constantly spawn just within range to hit you, and can't be killed without coming to a complete stop.
2. the slow as hell vertical movement of zora link underwater
3. the zora boomerangs that take 2 years to come back to you, leaving you unable to attack or even effectively move until they do.
4. the third combo attack of Goron Link and Zora Link, which never seem to hit anything, and takes 3 times longer than the other attack animations
5. that magical woosh animation that plays EVERY time you change your arrows
6. the inability to equip more than one type of arrow at a time (see #5)
7. jumping puzzles in a game with no jump button
8. the fish boss who stays stunned exactly 2 seconds less than is necessary to sink, attack, and get back to safety (see #2)
9. enemies that hit you with an inescapable 8 hit combo of 1/4 heart per hit, rather than simply dealing 2 hearts of damage to you
10. the lack of any type of camera control outside of completely recentering the camera
11. The lack of any way to center the camera if any enemies are in front of Link
12. the overly eager bank teller that looks like he's jacking off whenever you talk to him.
13. The unreliable "automatic" method of getting Epona to jump over a fence.
14. being told every time what every item you get in a chest does, including items that you pick up multiple times in every dungeon like keys and rupees.
15. The 4 pages of text that appears every time you talk to the bank teller, which inevitably leads to the player selecting the first option as a result of button mashing.
16. Getting a measly 5 rupees for putting 1000 rupees in the bank, which you generally only do when you're about to turn back time, forcing you to decide whether to deal with #15 again, or lose the 5 rupees.
17. the way rupees are never used to buy actual supplies, since bombs and arrows can be found in grass and pots all over the world, and thus just end up maxing out your wallet until you deal with #15 again.
18. Riding Epona. If you get near a wall. Any wall. At any speed. At any angle. Epona flips out and you have to wait 3 years to regain control.
19. Watching the same unskippable cutscenes over and over because you have to get a key item again.
20. Bubbles that curse you for too fucking long. Seriously, I timed it. it takes 60 seconds to regain the use of your sword. In game time, this is an entire hour.
21. that 1 second of ocarina time between when you can start playing, and when the game will actually start listening to the buttons you press.
22. inability to move up or down on the owl quick-travel map
23. how slow Epona moves, even with carrots
24. waiting for carrots to recharge.
25. Tingle. just... Tingle.
26. having to listen to Tingle's diatribe every time you want to buy a map
27. birds and bats that swoop down from above and behind link, which don't even deal any significant damage, but continually respawn.
28. that music that plays whenever an enemy is near that sounds like the trolley from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
29. how slow link walks when charging his spin attack
30. being unable to pause when any message is on screen, even messages that are unskippable, but do not pause the game.

I won't officially go on record to say I hated this game, but it did piss me off many, MANY times. This is the kind of game that was developed to sell strategy guides. In most Zelda games, you are given a full heart container after beating a boss, and there are heart container pieces spread all throughout the world for you to hunt for. Even if you don't find these heart pieces, you tend to have enough containers just from beating the bosses; 10 in Ocarina of Time, 11 in Link to the Past. But in Majora's Mask, since you have only 4 bosses, you would be forced to go up against Majora with only 7 hearts. This makes Heart Pieces a very important commodity and creates a meta-game out of hunting them down. In a way, this is very innovative for the series, which makes the game not only free roaming in terms of location, but even to an extent the order in which you do sidequests.

The only downside to this is that many sidequests are VERY cryptic in terms of how you have to do them. Perhaps the dozens of Gossip Stones around the world give insight into this, but even obtaining the Truth Mask in order to talk to them is a completely optional task. While having this many optional sidequests works in a game like Fallout 3 or Grand Theft Auto 4, Majora's Mask kills it with the addition of the running timer. With that timer always running, and the clock always counting down to the time you'll be forced to start all over. Couple this with the fact that many of these events are linked to a particular time, or even a specific time AND day, and it brings echoes of Night Trap in terms of exploration and memorization.

While I praise Majora's Mask for taking risks with a series that has, let's face it, grown very, VERY repetitive in its age, there are a lot of design choices that prevent it from being hailed as the best in the series.

That award still goes to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Okami - Retrospective

Stop me if you've heard this one. A wolf, accompanied by an annoying character that rides around on it, speaks for it, and taunts it repeatedly, runs around an ancient land, battling creatures of darkness in an effort to purge the shadows from the land. Along the way you collect new items and powers, that help you access previously inaccessible areas of what would otherwise be a truly free-roaming world.

Yeah, comparisons between Okami and the Legend of Zelda series (specifically Twilight Princess, also on my list) are inevitable. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Zelda's formula has been duplicated, copied, cloned, modified, and ripped off numerous times ever since it first exploded onto Famicom systems in the mid 1980's. You could even argue that Metroid, which came out 6 months later, even ripped off the concept, but in a side-scrolling presentation. Perhaps Metroidvanias should be called Metroidzeldavanias.

This style though, has proven to consistently yield extremely positive results. Games like Shadow Complex, which pay tribute to the style are excellent examples of what an unashamed clone can be. The Zelda and Metroid games are all among the highest rated of any game on the console. Even on the CD-I, the Zelda games hold the #2, 3, and 4 slots in popularity on Gamespot. Axis and Allies must be a pretty good game.

It's unavoidable to compare it to similar games, but even allowing for that, Okami is a damn fine game in its own right. I'm not going too much into the actual gameplay, because anyone reading this has likely already played the game, or at least heard enough about it. But for the uninitiated, you play as the goddess Amaterasu, who has come to Nippon in the form of a white wolf to fight demons. There's a deep story behind all of this about an evil eight-headed dragon named Orochi and a legend that goes back 100 years of a similar wolf fighting and defeating the same dragon, but in the end it all boils down to: "You're a god. Fight evil."

The thing that really sets Okami apart from other games aside from its Katsushika Hokusai visual style is the Celestial Brush mechanic that has you drawing representations of powers on screen in order to activate them. While this sounds fun in theory, it begins to get troublesome when you realize it's impossible for the game to walk the line between "simple" and "distinct" with all 13 powers' brushstrokes. I don't doubt the advanced technology that programmers must have pulled their hair out over when creating the Celestial Brush, but it's not perfect. You will end up using the same gestures for several different attacks, and others that use very similar gestures. The problem with context sensitive controls is you will almost always run into a time when the same context is happening simultaneously. This can result in creating a useless waterspout circle when you're trying to form a lily pad or gust of wind, or causing a trail of fire when you only want to use the slash ability.

The overall presentation of the game is enjoyable, and you can tell a lot of care and humor went into creating all of the memorable characters. If you can begin to actively HATE someone who doesn't exist, it's always a testament to the skill of the writers. One thing I could have done without, though, is the annoying nippon-ese that the characters speak in. It's okay for letting you know what a character sounds like, but it gets VERY annoying VERY quickly, especially when you don't want to skip the text because you actually want to read the story. This is actually a considerable detriment to the game, because I found myself skipping what I was fairly certain was a very well written story simply because I didn't want to hear the gibberish anymore and just wanted to get back to the gameplay. PLEASE, Capcom, put an option to turn the speech off in Okamiden, or omit it altogether.

Okami is a very good and very long game. This is the kind of game a kid who only gets one or two games a year could get for their birthday or Christmas and it would get them through many, many months down the road. If I were younger, I could definitely see myself devoting many weeks of my life to this game, seeking out every hidden bead, powering up every weapon, playing through multiple times to unlock every hidden reward and then looking back on the time with fondness 10 years later, just like certain gamers do now with games like Ocarina of Time or even the original Legend of Zelda. Okami is the kind of game that defines "instant classic."

The Good

• Classic Zelda-esque free-roaming/dungeon diving gameplay
• Unique Celestial Brush mechanic
• 40+ hour epic; very good value for the price

The Bad

• Game might be a bit TOO long for the average gamer.
• Nippon-ese gibberish gets grating after a while
• Celestial Brush is not perfect

The Defining Moment

• The second celestial brush appearing during the battle against Ninetails. I almost shit myself.

The Burning Question

• Okay, so what exactly is the point of the whole time travel subplot? I'm usually really good at figuring these things out, and I'm pretty sure it's explained somewhere else in the game, but the nippon-ese kept me from reading too much further into it.

Half-Life 2 - Retrospective

Sometimes I start wondering why I put myself through this ordeal. Games become more of a chore than something fun, and I begin to question why I even play them. Do other people find them fun? Am I just playing the wrong games, or am I just jaded? Am I not as big of a gamer as I've always considered myself to be?

Then I play a game like Half-Life 2, and it completely redeems my efforts. I'm fairly certain there's nothing I can say about Half-Life 2 that hasn't already been said a thousand times before by reviewers much more talented than I. But I can at least give my own praise to it. This game was absolutely incredible.

Even without playing the first game, I was able to be immersed into the sequel right off the bat as you're introduced to the unashamedly Orwellian City 17. Faceless masked guards will abuse their power, forcing you to throw trash away for them, whacking you with a laser-powered nightstick if you get too close, as annoying-as-sin flying cameras blind you if you do something as unthinkable as go exploring off the beaten path. This all does well to set the atmosphere for what can only be described as a truly cinematic experience.

Every mission in the game feels so distinctly different from the last, you start to wonder whether you're actually playing the same game. It's an excellent testament to the versatility of the Source engine and the talent of the Valve game designers. In one mission, you find yourself crawling through an underground railroad of back alleys and train graveyards, in the next you'll find yourself riding a one-man hovercraft through toxic sludge in an attempt to avoid a helicopter, and in another you'll find yourself arranging turrets to defend against a wave of spawning soldiers as you wait for a can-not-possibly-be-any-slower platform to reset itself.

Half-Life 2 straddles the amazingly thin line between physics puzzles and FPS action, with even touches of squad-based shooters, pokemon, tower defense, and Boom Blox mixed in. Level design follows a mantra I like to call "If you can do it, you probably should." You're never led through a level by any artificial means, instead the game expects you to explore and find your own path. While there is generally only one correct linear path through any particular level, it usually feels like you are free to go anywhere. This illusion of free will is a perfect metaphor for the game's oppressive government regime.

Other less tangible features like the game's sound, music, and voice acting are all top notch. When I told my mom I beat the game, she commented that she was glad she wouldn't have to hear the subwoofer anymore for every explosion. There are a lot of explosions in the game. Character design, dialogue, and storyline are all excellently handled, with a number of memorable characters that rival any summer blockbuster. Half Life 2 is a multiple oscar-award winning action movie or best-selling novel in video game form.

While no game is perfect, Half-Life 2 comes damn close. The largest problem is the plot progression of the game. In general, it feels pretty much like the storyline is only there to lead you from one level to the next. The phrase "When suddenly..." does indeed come to mind. You're hoping to go to the next area, when suddenly, something happens and you have to find a new way to get there. The game plays this trump card just a little bit too much. Also, while most people will get a kick out of the technobabble of the game, it feels like it's there to mask the fact that NOBODY knows what the fuck is going on. Your companion may tell you WHERE you need to go, but if you want to know WHY, you're probably going to have to consult the Combine Overwiki.

The only other problems I would be able to bring up would be minor nitpicks. There are occasional glitches that ruin immersion, a slightly high difficulty spike in the middle of Nova Prospekt that I needed to cheat to pass, and there are a number of times I would have paid money for an objective arrow, but all of these are very minor compared to the absolute greatness of this game.

Anyone who thinks that video games are a waste of time, a stupid hobby, or not art, I urge not to bother with Katamari Damacy, Echochrome, or Braid. (Actually, no. Braid is still fucking awesome) Instead, play Half-Life 2. If you're losing faith that the game industry has anything more than space marines and World War II on its mind, play Half-Life 2. This is the kind of game that every other game wishes it could be. Fuck Metroid Prime. Half Life 2 is the Citizen Kane of gaming.

The Good

• Puzzles make excellent use of the Havok physics engine.
• Weapons are versatile and feel different enough from one another to avoid feelings of redundancy.
• Level designs feel natural and varied, with dozens of noticeable locations and settings.
• Every god damned thing I haven't mentioned yet.
  

The Bad

• Many enemies can be annoyingly difficult to kill. Mostly the small ones. Oh, and Striders. I fucking hate Striders.
• Overall storyline is seems to rely too heavily on "When suddenly..." plot twists and story progression.
• Squad mates don't do shit except get in your way.
  

The Defining Moment

• Spending an hour and a half killing Antlions, only to suddenly have them on your side, then discovering that they're better teammates than a human squad.
  

The Burning Question

• Seriously, Gordon Freeman can't climb a chain link fence?

Gun - Retrospective

I really liked this game. Unlike most of the other games I've completed during this blog, Gun was one in particular that I enjoyed from beginning to end. It never got boring, and in fact left me wanting to play more of it even once it was over. This was in part due to its short length; I just didn't want the game to end!

Gun's strongest point is its spectacular storyline and voice acting, sporting such talent as Thomas Jane (The Punisher), Lance Henriksen (Millennium), and Ron Perlman (Hellboy). While it sounds cliche, the story literally had me hooked and playing the game from beginning to end almost non-stop, and I don't even watch westerns. See that jump from 37.2% to completion? That's all in one day, bitches!

That's not to say the game isn't without it's flaws. I won't comment on the difficulty, since I was playing the game on the easy setting, but the game world is considerably smaller than other games of the genre such as GTA or even Simpsons: Hit and Run. But this is occasionally a good thing when your horse arbitrarily disappears after completing a random side-mission, leaving you forced to hike back to the nearest town on foot. However, it does leave you realizing that you will be revisiting the same locations multiple times for different reasons, whether they be bounty hunting, pony express message delivery, searching for hidden gold, or progressing the storyline.

Unlike other GTA clones, Gun uses a refreshing mechanic normally reserved for action games. Known to most people as "bullet-time," The Quickdraw system lets you slow time and automatically target your enemies to quickly dispatch them. This can be lengthened by doing special feats like getting head shots, disarming enemies weapons, knocking enemies off of their horse, or trampling them with your own. While the Quickdraw mechanic is a life saver when you're surrounded by bandits who want your blood and money, switching between targets is a tad finnicky. Targets are always defined as being either left or right of your current lock-on, even if it is quite clearly above or below. So you will often find yourself pressing right to aim at the nogoodnick below the one you just killed. Additionally, moving targets can force the crosshairs to lock onto them more than once, so it can sometimes be difficult to aim at exactly who you want to kill.

The game also suffers from occasional glitches. In addition to the CRASH I got a few days ago, my game doesn't display any ammo or clip animation for the final shotgun upgrade, which led me to believe it had infinite ammo until I ran out.

Despite its flaws, short length, and smaller scope, the Gun IP is a strong newcomer entry into the sandbox genre. I look forward to seeing how the rumored sequels fare against similarly themed Red Dead Redemption from genre juggernaut Rockstar.

The Good

• Fantastic storyline
• A+ voice acting

The Bad

• Comparatively small map
• Short storyline with not enough side-missions

The Ugly
Defining Moment

• Running around shooting buffalo and sheep with exploding bow and arrow after completing the story missions. POP!

The Burning Question

• Why do I have less to say about good games than bad games?

Kill.Switch - Retrospective

I'm probably not going to go as in-depth into this game review as I have with others. For one thing, it really didn't last long enough for me to really find it memorable. An 8 hour timestamp tends to do that. But for as long as it did last, I did enjoy it. To a point.

The first issue I'd like to bring up is something I've noticed in a lot of recent video games, mostly ones that are based around real-world situations like Kill.Switch, Call of Duty, Splinter Cell, or the previous bane of my existence, 24: The Game. What on earth happened to calling guns what they are? In Wolfenstein and Doom, you had pretty standard weapons and they were called rather universal names: Pistol, Shotgun, Chaingun, Rocket Launcher, Plasma Rifle, Flamethrower, etc. The only exception to the rule was the BFG-9000, which gave an excellently ominous and mysterious feel to the weapon when you read about it and finally found one buried in the lava in Pandemonium. But Kill.Switch, like so many other modern games, uses this naming convention for every weapon in the game. Why do you have to call it an MCRT 300 or M1 when you can just as easily say Sniper Rifle or Shotgun?

Kill.Switch also very much lacks variety in its weapons. You basically have a shotgun, a sniper rifle, a grenade launcher, and then 7 different kinds of machine guns that all use different ammunition. This is really the only distinguishing characteristic between these guns; the fact that enemies drop ammo depending on the weapon they're using. So it's in your best interest to use the same gun as they are. With the exception of the first 3 I mentioned, all guns feel very similar to one another, with minor differences in accuracy, recoil, and clip capacity.

Kill.Switch's story is forgettable to say the least. The premise of the game involves a controller taking command of a field operative via a neural uplink. This means you are controlling a soldier, being controlled by another person, who is in turn being controlled by you. Gameplay-wise this, of course, means absolutely nothing. While the plot involves a rogue agent trying to use the main character as an instrument to start a war and then profiteer from the arms rush, the missions really don't get any deeper than "Go here" "Get this" and the occasional "Kill this person." And that's really all you need to enjoy the game.

For what it's worth, I did find Kill.Switch quite enjoyable. You literally can not just run right out into the open or you will be torn to ribbons within a matter of seconds. The entire purpose of gameplay is based around finding and utilizing waist-height and head-height cover. You can lean around corners or over low cover in order to fire, Which is also the only time you can use the scope on your weapons, but you can aim your crosshair at any time, whether hiding or exposed. You can also blindfire without exposing yourself, which greatly decreases your accuracy, but allows you to remain safely out of harm's way. This engine is very well done and makes most levels very systematic to complete, which is a plus for people like me who prefer a slow methodical approach to war than an overzealous twitch-laden trigger-fest.

However, the engine is not without its flaws. There are many times when the game's idea of "cover" will not agree with the enemy placement, and you will find yourself having to choose between not being able to hit anyone from a semi-exposed position, or being able to hit most of the enemies, but being fully vulnerable yourself. You can also only turn a limited amount in any direction while you're using cover, so many times you will be forced to completely reposition yourself to hit a target that is just out of range. Additionally, the location of the crosshair and your character's ability to actually hit that target are two different things. Often you will be able to see a shot in third person mode that you can't see in first person scope-mode -- The trajectory that actually matters.

Despite its incredibly short length (As I said before, I was able to beat this game in under 8 hours) Kill.Switch is an enjoyable playthrough, although these days it is forgotten in favor of other games that use cover like Gears of War or Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, but Kill.Switch was one of the first to use the cover system, and if you like the newer games, it might be worth it to you to check out the system in its infancy, especially if you can find it in the bargain bin.

The Good

• Fluid integration of the then-innovative cover system.
• Clever AI that will use cover as well.
• Grenades actually feel necessary to complete certain levels rather than superfluous.
  

The Bad

• Too short: only 5 scenarios of 3-4 sections apiece, plus a 1-section training arena.
• Insubstantial plot and pointless neural uplink story premise.
• Weapons are not very memorable.

The Defining Moment

• Throwing a flash grenade around a corner to blind an enemy, then diving over a tripwire and meleeing the guy in the face. Sweet!

The Burning Question

• Okay, what is with the dot in the title anyway? It's always shown as in online listings as "Kill.Switch" with a period, but my punctuation knowledge tells me it's an interpunct, and should be "Kill·Switch."

Chrono Trigger - Retrospective

Ask any Square Fanboy their top 5 Super Nintendo RPGs and you will inevitably hear Chrono Trigger at or near the top. For what it's worth, I did enjoy the game, and I can see where the game earns its "masterpiece" title. The graphics are impressive for its time, the combat system is somewhat unique, and it deals with a subject matter that rarely gets old: Time travel. However, there are many points in the game that shocked me not for what happened in the game, but for didn't happen. The game is given numerous opportunities to shock the player with an jaw dropping plot twist, but never pulls the trigger.

The game started off by lulling me into a false sense of epicness with the brilliantly written leene/marle quest. But then it degraded into a simple episodic. For the first half of the game, nearly every quest you do is self-contained and unrelated to the quest before it or after it. This style continues throughout most of the rest of the game; You find an area with a problem, you fix that problem, then move on to a new area. The locales and characters are all different enough so this doesn't feel very monotonous, but it is awfully shallow.

There were multiple times when playing the game that I thought I was sensing a devastating plot twist, gearing up to be blown away when it finally happens... only to be disappointed when it doesn't. The first time this happened was when approaching Magus to prevent him from summoning Lavos. You find out that Magus is trying to summon Lavos to destroy him, but is unsuccessful regardless of whether or not the party interferes. Now, tell me this isn't a much more dark and epic plot twist:

The party prevents Magus from summoning Lavos, but then discovers that he was trying to summon it in order to destroy the monster. By defeating Magus, the party THEMSELVES are responsible for Lavos destroying the world. Magus would have done it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.

Another time the game disappointed me was during the Dalton thread. Dalton has stolen a FREAKING TIME MACHINE! and all he wants to do with it is fly around the world as a king on some sort of airborne throne? What kind of evil overlord sets his sights so low? In my director's cut, Dalton would have taken the Epoch and used it to travel through time and rewrite history to make himself into a god. It worked for Kefka. This would have also done well to add several hours to an already short game.

Chrono Trigger is an RPG that tries to do too many things at once. It tries to have humor, irony, slapstick, plot twists, epic storylines, and even boasts 12 unique endings. But it tries too hard to cover so many bases, it simply stretches itself too thin to be effective. The game is 50 feet wide, but only 3 inches deep. I can only hope Chrono Cross is more my speed.

The Good

• Excellent music. Some of the best ever from the 16 bit era.
• Simple but satisfying combat that uses position as a legitimate tactic.
• Perfectly balanced enemies and skills reduce the need for grinding to almost nil.

The Bad

• Meandering storyline that defies all rules of the hero's journey.
• Lack of character development for all but a few party members.
• Frustratingly non-epic
  

Defining Moment

• Chrono dying. Not because of how unexpected it was, but because it was the ONLY plot point I had managed to avoid spoilers for all these years.

Burning Question

• Why is Marle doing Fire Sword on the cover of the game box with Chrono? Marle is an ice tech user.

Super Mario Galaxy - Retrospective

This game was a very mixed blessing. It starts off simple enough and never really gets ridiculously hard. You can easily obtain the minimum required 60 stars before the game hits the infamous "Stops being fun" wall. However, it suffers from numerous design choices that seem arbitrary and capricious. The first of which is the evil, satanic, posessed camera.

During the height of 2D gaming, the camera was a non-issue. You never even thought about it; the game showed what was on the screen and you could see it. The closest thing we had to the camera being an enemy was scrolling levels where you could get crushed behind walls, and leaps of faith where you can't see the landing. But with the onset of 3D games, the camera suddenly became a living entity. Super Mario 64 knew this and not only anthropomorphised the camera as the oft-underrated Lakitu, but gave the players full control over where it pointed. For some unknown reason, this control is missing from Super Mario Galaxy. Suddenly, full 360 degree control of the camera becomes the exception, rather than the rule.

The most frustrating aspect of this limitation is that it comes with no reason or logic behind its constraints. You will want desperately to turn the camera around in order to search for hidden ledges or line up a particularly difficult jump, only to be told "bernp!" by the sadistic little camera icon on the top right of the screen. Why? It's not like there's a tree or a wall in the way. It's just empty air! Other times, the camera will immediately swoop around to give you a different viewing angle when you're in the middle of crossing a narrow platform or trying to stick a landing. The player can usually use the C button to recenter the camera, but this too has a strange path of logic when it comes to where it believes "centered" to be. This can often mean looking up at the ground. Timed levels and Luigi's inherent lack of traction only magnify how frustrating the worst parts of the game can be.

Another issue present in this game started to develop in Super Mario 64, and continued in Sunshine and Galaxy. This is not a problem with the game itself, but the direction of the series in general. While it is not necessarily a bad thing, it is misleading. The problem comes from the concept of powerups. Super Mario Galaxy boasts numerous "powers" including Bee Mario, Boo Mario, and Spring Mario (One of the lamest powerups ever, by the way) as well as the Fire Flower, Ice Flower, and everyone's favorite, the invincibility star. While these powerups do change the way Mario moves and grants him new abilities, as well as new limitations, it's all simply a tease.

Look back in Mario's history, back to the original Super Mario Bros. How many ways were there to defeat Bowser at the end of World 1-4? If you were small, you could jump over him or run under him and grab the axe. If you were big, you could try to jump through his barage of hammers, or even simply run through the lizard directly. If you were Fire Mario, you could stand back and take him out with a few well-placed projectiles of your own. Or, if you were lucky enough to find a star near the end of the level, you could kill him that way. Super Mario Bros 3 took this idea and expanded on it even more, giving you frog suits, tanooki suits, hammer bros. suits, raccoon mario, fire mario, even super P-wing mario. The game simply gave you a goal, and didn't care how you got there.

Now look at Super Mario Galaxy. Almost every level has the exact same path through it. You solve the puzzles on one planet, or find your way through a maze or platform gauntlet in order to get to the fling star and jump to the next planet. Every powerup you recieve is only there to help you solve a puzzle. Every boss has a single correct method to defeating it, with one or two minor variations if you're lucky. Strangely enough, the flat world of Super Mario Bros. gave you more freedom than the free-roaming 3D environments of modern Mario games.

The next Mario game should get back to the series' roots like New Super Mario Bros. on the DS did. Give Mario a goal and let us find our own way to get him there.

24 The Game - Retrospective

This game will go down in infamy alongside Super Mario Land 2 and 8 Eyes as "games that have caused physical damage to my property." Super Mario Land 2 cost me a Game Boy and 8 Eyes cost me an entire laptop hard drive. 24: The Game cost me... A frying pan.

The game can be described in 2 words: Frustratingly addictive. Or maybe addictively frustrating. Missions run the gamut in length from 3 to 25 minutes, so they don't take that much investment to play through... If you're lucky. If not, you will find yourself staring down the exact same mission over and over, each time wanting the last 5 minutes of your life back. You forget everything else, including pots of water boiling on the stove, because you can't let the game win like that. This game will suck out your soul and force you to go through hell in order to get it back.

As a fan of the series, I figured this game was a must-play. In a way, it is, because the story presentation is very well done. In fact, everything that isn't an action sequence is a fun distraction, but the on-foot and driving missions are mediocre at best, and unplayably annoying at worst. The controls are a mess, with completely different context-sensitive actions sharing the same button. If you're standing a few inches off the mark, you'll end up punching a surrendered assailant instead of checking a dead body for ammo, and thus hurting your mission percentage.

24 does do a few things right. The lock on system feels very natural for a third person shooter and makes it easy to pinpoint your weapon and go for the headshot, but switching targets is unresponsive, like all the other controls. The hacking and computer simulation missions are an enjoyable departure, and the interrogation missions are probably the best parts of the game. But these oases are few and far between in a desolately mediocre desert.

24 is not a terrible game, but it is terribly mediocre. The highs and lows of the game average out to a fairly unremarkable playthrough. As a third person shooter, it has almost no staying power. The only way I can reccommend this game is if you're a hardcore 24 fan and you have the patience of a saint.

The Good:

• Storyline by the actual show's writers and cutscenes done in the show's style truly sell the game as part of 24 canon
• Voiceovers by the actual 24 cast.
• Computer scanning minigames and interrogation missions are fun, albiet brief.

The Bad:

• Crippled and unresponsive controls make playthrough needlessly frustrating.
• Mission objectives are often unclear, forcing the player to rely on trial-and-error in order to complete them.

Defining Moment:

• The game says "Your car is on fire, press Δ to exit" but your passenger says "Don't leave me, please!"

Burning Question:

• See January 12, 2009

Paper Mario - Retrospective

Many people consider Paper Mario to be the sequel to SNES masterpiece Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The game was developed by RPG juggernaut Squaresoft, so not only is Mario RPG touted as one of the best SNES RPGs ever, but also one of the best Mario games ever. Paper Mario was Nintendo's attempt to build upon the established Mario RPG format. Without Squaresoft's hand in the development, the core gameplay and feel of the game is very much altered from its predecessor. This doesn't make the game bad; just different.

Paper Mario picks up the torch by using the same revolutionary attack system SMRPG introduced: Timed Hits. By pressing the attack button at the right time, you could increase the strength of your attack, or decrease the amount of damage you took from enemies. This seemingly simple idea was nearly unheard of in 1996, but it makes combat a much more active experience. Instead of simply inputting your commands and waiting for a minute or so for the actual battle to play out until you get another turn, you had to actually provide additional input as the combat ensued. This kind of system rewards the player just for paying attention to the game they're playing.

Unlike SMRPG, Paper Mario is a much shallower game, both in complexity and story. This makes Paper Mario an easier game to comprehend, but leaves a lot to be desired for players who loved the depth of SMRPG. The story revolves primarily around Mario, with only passing footnotes on his 8 companions. Paper Mario is very linear, especially by other RPG standards, which makes story progression easy and straightforward, but also painfully predictable. As you might have gathered from my previous posts, I was practically able to tell you the whole story before I was even a few hours into the game.

Paper Mario is not without its charm, though. The Action Attack system is more versatile and easier to use than in SMRPG, and the Badge system lets you customize Mario's abilities to match your play style. Additionally, the characters and story scenarios range from dryly comedic to hilariously memorable. It also marks the first time, to my knowledge, the word "murder" is actually used in a Mario game.

Paper Mario is a fun and satisfying romp, but gamers looking for a hardcore 100+ hour RPG will have to look elsewhere. Paper Mario is likely intended as an introductory RPG, similar to Quest 64 or Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. It gets gamers interested in core RPG mechanics like HP, magic, and experience points without making it an overwhelming situation. This makes the game an excellent gift for RPG fanatics trying to get their friends or family into RPGs, but series like Final Fantasy or Tales are too complex.

Paper Mario is available on the Wii Virtual Console for 1000 Wii Points.

The Good

• Memorable characters and dialogue
• Princess Peach sub-missions add a break to the more action-oriented Mario gameplay

The Bad

• Formulaic and predictable story
• Too short for the player to really get time to appreciate the interesting characters
• Too easy for any experienced player to find challenge.

Defining Moment

• Mario being accused of murder
• Guessing correctly that the final Star Power attack would be called "Star Beam"

Burning Question

• Does "The game was fun and all, but seriously Square. Give us back Geno and Mallow!" count as a question?

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - Retrospective

I LOVE THIS GAME!

I was first introduced to Puzzle Quest a year ago during my time working on The Spiderwick Chronicles at Vivendi Games. Some of us would play it on the testing consoles during lunch and breaks. I'd never seen anything like it before, but I was intrigued. I got the game as soon as I could spare the money from my paycheck.

Puzzle Quest is amazingly addictive, just like its forefather Bejeweled, but Puzzle Quest takes it to the next level and adds an amazing level of strategy to the game. The game really shines when you're low on life, planning every move several turns in advance, trying to prevent your opponent from matching those last few skulls it needs to kill you while simultaneously trying to gain enough mana to turn the tables.

Puzzle Quest is also a blast to play against friends. Unlike Pokemon, you can scale yourself to the level of your opponent, making combat less of a math problem and more of a fair measure of skill and strategy. My only regret is getting the DS version, which has no online play capabilities save for wi-fi battles against people in the same room as you. If I want to play against my friends from the comfort of my own home, I'm going to have to install the PC version and play through the game all over again. Not that that would be a bad thing.

Puzzle Quest is probably one of the most enjoyable games I've played in a long time. But it relies critically upon the backbone of the core bejeweled-like gameplay. If for some reason you can't stand match-3 puzzle games or RPGs, there's a chance you won't like Puzzle Quest. But for the rest of you who want something addictive that you can play for 10 minutes or 5 hours, Puzzle Quest is an absolute must own for any system you have.

The Good:

• Amazingly addictive core match-3 puzzle gameplay.
• Multiple classes and spells add high replay value even after completing the game.
• Monster capture, spell research, and item forging puzzles add fun modifications to the main gameplay paradigm.
• Memorable characters and dialog make the story worth continuing.

The Bad:

• Level cap of 50 is too easy to reach before the end of the game, but experience uselessly continues to increase. Why not a more logical cap of 99 or 100?
• If you set up your skills and equipment correctly, the enemies offer no challenge to completely annihilate. Not even the final boss is much of a challenge.

Defining Moment:

• Buying the game for my mom, and discovering that she plays it even more than I do.

Burning Question:

• Why the $#@^! is there an entire western continent that you never explore? What's the point?

Metroid Prime Hunters - Retrospective

The Metroid series has always been one of my favorites from the gaming universe. I'd heard a lot about the game from friends, and even though it was a launch title for the DS, I never got around to playing it until just this month.

Overall, I found the game enjoyable, but it lacked the level of polish that the other Prime games have. While some of this can be attributed to the smaller screen and lack of processing power on the DS, the rest is actually a fundamental flaw with the game itself.

There are a total of 3 bosses in the entire game, 2 of which you fight 4 times apiece. While the bosses change slightly each time in order to seem harder, the learning curve built into the game doesn't adapt as fast as the player; Every version of the boss is actually slightly easier than the one before it.

I admit I'm not the greatest gamer in the world, especially when it comes to FPS games. Even so, I didn't run into any points in this game where I simply could not continue due to difficulty. On the one hand, this was helpful in keeping me interested in the game, but I can't help feel like better players will end up getting bored quickly.

But no reviewer worth his salt will talk about Metroid Prime Hunters without mentioning the multiplayer. This is where the game truly shines. Some would say it's the only reason to actually own the game. In a way, I'd compare it to Super Smash Bros: Single player is fun for a while, but multiplayer is fun forever. But as a primarily solo player, I can't help but think the game would benefit from being able to play as the other 6 hunters in the regular story mode.

The Good:

• Shockingly good graphics and online gameplay for a handheld title, especially an early generation DS title.
• 6 new bounty hunters vastly expand the game universe.

The Bad:

• No way to play as the other 6 hunters outside of multiplayer.
• Controlling the game on a DS Lite results in cramps in the left hand after only a few minutes of intense combat.

Defining Moment:

• Finding out I beat Slench 4 before Slench 3, and discovering that it was actually far easier than Slench 3.

Burning Questions:

• So, the great power in the Alimbic cluster was just a big powerful monster that killed everyone?
• Why doesn't Nintendo make a sequel to this game for the Wii with online play? It could easily be their answer to Halo. They could have multiple story lines for each of the 7 hunters, essentially septupling the single player mode's life.

Final Fantasy IV - Retrospective

Final Fantasy II was one of my favorite games for the SNES. I never beat it as a kid; Not until years later when I played the translated Famicom version on an emulator. Final Fantasy IV is a classic-era RPG in all respects: Travel through dungeons, visit towns, fight monsters to gain levels, rinse, repeat. There isn't any chocobo racing, no monster breeding programs, city development simulators, or card battle minigames; Just pure RPG goodness from start to finish.

I already HAVE racing games and card battle games for my DS; I don't want to have to master an entire new game mechanic just to find some special items. This is how Final Fantasy VI shines compared to so-called modern RPGs. There is nothing extraneous to take away from the simple joy of watching your characters grow from weak young adventurers afraid of floating eyes to nigh-godly heroes that can dispatch 25-foot-tall killer robots with ease.

If you're used to RPGs with lots of go anywhere/do anything wide-open gameplay, there is a good chance you will find Final Fantasy 4 very limiting. But for the rest of you who are just looking for an excellent story perfectly told, (With freaking amazing music) Final Fantasy IV may be the answer.

The Good:

• New updated 3D graphics, cutscenes, animations, and voice acting (Edge sounds exactly like he should.)
• Improved translations, especially over the original North American Final Fantasy II release (Edward is still a spoony bard.)
• New game mechanics add replay value and emergent gameplay to the standard game. (The mapping tool, while a cheap game-lengthening device, is still a satisfying way to get free items.)

The Bad:

• Some of the new features seem tacked on and too time-consuming to be useful (I summoned Whyt a grand total of once during the entire game)
• The opening montage of cutscenes, while impressive, is unrepresentative of the actual in-game graphics, and even the in-game cutscenes. (Cocktease!)
• Almost NO new areas to explore. (There's an entire second moon out there.. Optional super-hard dungeon, anyone?)

Defining moments:

• Being able to play as Golbez, (albiet as a child) and learning just how the schism between he and Cecil came to be.
• Learning I'd been pronouncing FuSoYa wrong all these years.

Burning questions:

• What exactly DOES Yang do inside the Tower of Bab-Il control room to stop the cannons?
• Anybody else want to see Rydia and Edge get together? They make such a better couple than Cloud and Aeris. At least they're both, you know, alive.