Pixel Theories | a gamer getting older...

Flight Control - Keepin it Simple.

 

Every so often a game sneaks under your radar.  It's generally under promoted, and comes in a different medium than your used to.  And upon discovering it, you rediscover your passion for gaming.  For me that game is Flight Control.

Developed by Firemint Studios for the iPhone, Flight Control puts players in the shoes of an air traffic controller for what has to be the busiest little airport in the world.  As jet planes, propeller planes, and helicopters make their way to your airport, you guide them with your finger to the appropriate runway or helipad.  Initially planes come with little frequency at the beginning, and as you successfully land planes they appear with greater frequency.  The game only ends when your aircrafts collide.

Though I haven't gotten very far, I find myself playing this game whenever I get the chance.  The simplicity enables me the freedom to play at odd times throughout the day.  It's not layered, sophisticated, or of great depth; it's simplicity boxed at ninety-nine cents and worth every damn penny.

Halo Wars is Not the Thinking Man's RTS

The first venture for the Halo series outside of the FPS genre is an RTS that doesn't stay true to it's form.  Unlike most RTS games, Halo Wars takes the basic RTS principles and dilutes the very nature of it's traditional structure.  Where most RTS games give you the option to micro manage and expand your base as you wish, HW gives you premolded bases and forces you to macro manage.  Where old style RTS's are a scalpel, Halo Wars is a broadsword, and it's the most fun I've had with an RTS on a console in a long time.

The best part of HW is the design of the missions.  Not one of the 15 missions of Halo Wars feels too belabored or overly intricate.  All optional objectives are straight to the point, players won't feel like they'll be sacrificing primary objectives to fully complete missions.  Granted advanced players with a clear schedule may be able to beat this game in a day, Halo Wars promotes a healthy challenge for the causal gamer.  And when you've beaten the game, collected all of the black boxes & skulls; you'll have more to do.  As the remaining black boxes will be unlocked as you win skirmishes on the maps that shipped with the game; which will eventually unlock more of the Halo Timeline.  Add that to trying to beat this game on "Legendary" and this game will have you playing for awhile.

Online HW takes quite a bit from it's cousin Halo 3.  Ranks and the TrueSkill ratings are similar to the model that has been honed from Halo 2.  Though I'm not a big fan of "superpowers," Halo Wars' balance is derivative of the rock-paper-scissors format.  It would seem initially that standard rush and counter-rush tactics are balanced enough that, other stratagems may be the key to winning a skirmish.  As I so humbly learned the first time I rushed a competitors base.  Plainly put, the game will offer more to those who play in 3v3 matches as opposed to 1v1 matches.

SPOILER ALERT

All in all, Halo Wars is a healthy update to the franchise.  Fans of the book will also enjoy some of the parallels that originate from the Halo literature such as the Dyson sphere that The Spirit of Fire ends up in halfway through the game.  A common thread that the big wigs behind the Halo franchise wanted weaved into Nylund's Ghosts of Onyx, and the legendary ending of Halo 3.  Additionally, a new cast of characters have not only been included to the cannon, but their phyrric victory inside the shield world has left them as a loose end which we can only assume will be further developed in a follow up game.  At the end of the day Halo Wars can only be considered a microcosm in the machine that is the Halo Universe, we'll just have to wait to see if Capt. Cutter and The Spirit of Fire spill over to share the spotlight that is UNSC Code Sierra 117.

EndWar suffers from over simplicity.

We gamers are a fickle bunch, we are mildly pleased one minute and utterly disappointed the next.

Back at the end of August at PAX I saw the demo of EndWar by Ubisoft's marketing reps and a member from the dev team from the Far East.  At that time I was impressed with the not only the voice communication, but the clever hud and unit management system built into the game.

Unfortunately since that time there has been no improvement upon the game's overall structure.  In a lot of ways EndWar is just as disappointing as Battlefield 2 in it's limitations.  For example, like BF2, EndWar only supports the "deathmatch" & "seige" modes throughout the Theater of War and multiplayer matches.  But this game's has so much more potential; it's fully capable of capture, search and destroy, demolition missions, etc.

The whole of the game puts you in the shoes of a field commander, tasked with facing multiple other field commanders from the EU or Russia.  Though the game won't let you devise too much of a strategy, as you only get to pick one of two potential battles even if you win or lose.  And those battlefields are selected for you.  To encapsulate the game as a whole: it feels as if you're constantly being proded to pick the lesser of two evils.  Real strategists wil be dissapointed as there is no option to be wildly creative or relentlessly methodical.

Furthermore, units under your command have no special identity other than call signs.  The closest thing you can do to specialize your units is to upgrade them; which is handled in something of an unique but absurd fashion.  Rather than upgrading individual units, once you buy an upgrade it applies to units of a particular rank.  So certain units won't be available for an upgrade unless you wrought them in the fire of war.  Of course these blanket upgrades impede you from having more flexibility from a certain type of unit.  Let's say that you want one tank unit to be fast and flexible, and you want another tank unit to be more powerful and defensive.  In EndWar this is impossible.

For some reason it feels as if the game was built with such a structured sense of rock, paper, scissors, that it never truly ever evlovled from that form of simplicity.  In a some respects EndWar feels more like a demo of voice recognition capability than a retail video game.  Granted the controls and mechanics are great, but in the end this game won't take long to master, it won't require much strategy, and may not have the difficulty to hold many gamers interest.

Bourne Conspiracy can't hide it's flaws.

It's not that I'm too disappointed, I just had more hope for an IP that had potential. 

The Bourne Conspiracy for the Xbox 360 is essentially a run through of the 2002 movie The Bourne Identity.  Why a different name, I'm not quite that sure.  Whatever the motive, it seems that the game as a whole was an opportunity to cash in on the trilogy before everyone moves on to the next big thing.

The game takes liberties with the IP.  Which is not that much of a surprise to those who've read the books.  Once again there is no mention of Carlos, and little focus on the foundation/creation of Treadstone 71.  While the movies don't follow the books at all there was an opportunity for Sierra to break some new ground with the IP, instead they played it safe and used most of the action sequences from the first movie as a foundation for the game and insight into the back story of Jason Bourne.

The real flaws in The Bourne Conspiracy rely within the decision not to invest heavily in the characters' assassin like approach to taking out targets.  In this story Bourne has no devices and little to no intelligence.  Instead of sneaking around enemies, you fight them head on; which for an assassin who's supposed to be "invisible" sounds...idiotic.  Most if not all missions put you in the shoes of a run-and-gun suicidal hero, rather than a methodical, cold blooded assassin.  This is a real disappointment, considering that Ubisoft has basically given out the blueprints on how to build a good stealth shooter with the Splinter Cell series.

Furthermore, the shooting mechanic is sub-par in comparison to todays FPS's.  There's no way to focus for head shots, instead you have to eye it with the over the shoulder camera.  Adding to the frustration, NPC's on the Assassin difficulty are not only marksman shots, but manage to hit you even when you're behind good cover.

The highlight of Conspiracy has to be the hand to hand combat.  While it can get repetitive, Sierra did an excellent job of making the user feel like a bad ass while going toe to to with cronies and villains.  With every landed punch and well timed shots you can increase you sense.  Bank enough of this hyper sense ability and you can perform environmental takedowns on enemies.  Some of these takedowns are straight out of the movies, others involve the environment and have a certain brutality about them that leaves the player satisfied.

Ultimately Conspiracy doesn't do enough well to merit a purchase.  The lack of content straight from the literature that spawned the television movie in '88 and the three movies of late is a complete oversight.  But if you're a fan of the Bourne books or movies and just can't get enough, then rent with a buyer beware like attitude.  As The Bourne Conspiracy lacks the depth and feeling to keep you coming back for more.

Alone in the Dark - Perfect title for Halloween

I know the game has been out for awhile now.  However, I felt for a special Halloween update I should be posting about a game that has creepiness.  Thus I give you this Alone in the Dark review, the series has had quite a few games before this latest rendition that was released back in June.  The game's overall composition is good, though some of the game mechanics are overtly flawed.

The game takes the view of a television miniseries, and every time you load your saved game you'll see a teaser comprised of the game's cutscenes.  It helps to draw you in to the story of Edward Carnby and the "path of light" story arc that drives this particular version of Alone in the Dark.

The titles main weakness is it's combat and driving mechanisms that comprise the bulk of the game.  Often when stopped by cutscenes where enemies will appear you'll become unarmed and switched to a 3rd person view, when you were previously in 1st person and armed with your magnum.  Additionally, when driving, you'll find yourself being hampered with curbs and small bushes even when your driving at high speeds.  Moreover, you'll probably find it difficult to control the car as it often feels like your driving on ice.

With that being said, the game does several things well enough to the point that it merits a playthrough, or at least an attempt at one.  First, AitD does a good job of telling the story of Edward Carnby and getting those who are unfamiliar with the previous games caught up.  Second, the sound/timing of scripted events is done to the effect where it isn't so much scary as it is creepy.  The mood and tone of AitD is capable of making the user feel anxious in certain situations, and cautious in others; which I would imagine is the greatest compliment that you could give to a Resident Evil clone.  Lastly, the television like approach to the game was so effective in ramping me up for the game that I'd like to see it applied in some other games, but definitely not all of them.

If there was a formula for AitD it would look like the below:

Resident Evil + Prince of Persia + (1/4 The Legend of Zelda) = Alone in the Dark

Essentially the game should last most veterans 8 to 8.5 hours.  Though in the last two chapters the pacing gets extremely slow and may push the average hours played to 10 to 11, based upon the some of the last missions.  If you can get over some of the niggly hangups and need a break from Fable II then perhaps you should give this above average title a shot.

Tiger Woods 09 - review.

This year's update to the golfing simulator drifts more towards simulation.  Tiger 09 keeps most of what's worked in the series, the Tiger Challenge, Career Mode, Challenges, etc.  Though this year's iteration includes the addition of the GamerNet Challenges, Club Tuning, Simultaneous Play, and a fully functioning interface for the XBL vision camera.

GamerNet challenges work as the challenges by any XBL user can update a challenge per the hole or course they have just played to XBL.  Points are based upon the degree of difficulty of the challenge, and are prompted when you are playing other game modes or at the XBL GamerNet challenge screen.  It's fun and addictive, but only after you leveled up your golfer, as most challenges are for the hardcore player.  Several challenges are based upon hole-in-one conditions, -18 on 18 holes, etc.  Thus players who either haven't completed the Tiger Challenge, or newcomers just popping in the disc may waste time heading straight to the GamerNet challenge.  However, after time challenges can be fun and rewarding when players choose challenges based upon the right criterion.

Another addition is Simultaneous Play within the multiplayer modes via Xbox Live.  This is a welcome addition, and dramatically speeds up multiplayer games.  Your opponents shots will be represented by streaks of color showing how and where there ball has been shot and is going.  Going this route makes the game more accessible to casual golf fans, and breaks the monotony of having to watch another player adjust his avatar's stance, club, swing, etc.

the last notable addition is the Club Tuner.  If your more likely to swing into a slice you can adjust your clubs to negate your natural swing so you can hit straight.  It's an nice little addition, but it may be overlooked or underused as the results don't feel exact.

This year, the putting seems criminal.  You simply get away with everything.  Most puts take little time or effort to setup and those who are unexperienced at Tiger will either do well to start off or be amazed by the simplicity of the putting.  Though later challenges get harder the overall putting on the default difficulty is too easy.

Moreover, EA Tiburon still hasn't nailed down shots from the sand, awkward shots or flops.  All of the aforementioned seem forced and unrealistic.  Yes this is a videogame - but it is still one that is at least attempting to capture reality and this is one aspect where the game fails.  When you land in the beach the ball is sometimes "repositioned" to a favorable spot for the user; thus eliminating a players' fear of hitting bunkers.  This is the same for lies where your at a steep incline.  Magically the ball gets repositioned to favor a good shot for you.  I sort of understand why they do it; complaints about difficulty and camera issues and such, but this is the forth iteration of Tiger on next-gen hardware and the problem should be addressed at the least.  Finally flops feel incredibly vulnerable to wind; almost so that the ball has no weight at all.  While I understand the lack of velocity or spin in a flop shot, it still feels like once you flop your ball it carries across greens like a leaf along the wind.

Tiger 09 is really good.  Actually it is one series where EA continually improves upon the latter version.  It's just that where 9 is good it could be great, but perhaps that's just what they want to feel; and to get us to purchase next year's game.

The problem with Too Human.

 

It's very simple.  Too Human is a game that's been in development for the last nine years.  That's 7 years longer than the normal development cycle of a game with this depth or focus.  But therein lies the problem, Silicon Knights, a former Nintendo owned developer, has had a tumultuous past with the hardware companies. 

Initially the game was supposed to release on Sony's PS2, then after a falling through with Sony, SK moved the game over to Nintendo's GameCube.  Then with deadlines quickly approaching for their parent company Nintendo, the Knights shifted their manpower towards releasing Eternal Darkness and Metal Gear Solid:Twin Snakes.  In the shift Too Human was put on the back burner, and after the release of the two titles, Dennis Dyack ended his company's contract with Nintendo and looked for a new sponsor.  And eventually Microsoft Games Studio answered the call.

In addition to it's sponsorship problems, Dyack and the Knights have had problems on the software front as well.  After filing a suit in July of 2007, against Epic Games over disputes about a lack of support for Epic's Unreal 3 Engine; Epic followed by counter suing.

SK has had an interesting if not, muddled history in the industry and Too Human is reflective of that fact.  The game is based upon the legend of Baldur, one of the lesser known gods of Norse mythology.  Which may be the problem, you see when you have a character that no one knows you have to establish some form of a background or origin for that character.  However, Silicon Knights has gone with the "amnesia" aspect to Baldur's story, thus you are seeing everything as Baldur sees it.  This approach, doesn't end up paying off, you'll figure the story out half way through the game, though you'll still be confused by some of the game's tangent plot lines.

Furthermore, nothing is explained by the science-fiction twist on Baldur's story.  Are the devs trying to hint at some form of cyclical evolution, or are we simply being told a story in a different light.  Dyack and the Knights never touch on this at all within Too Human.  To gain a better understanding of the game you could've watched the five part dev diary on XBLM.  Which in it features the dev's home of St. Catherine's, Ontario, the employees of the Canadian dev, their wacky inter mural program, and the the mockumentary "The Goblin Man of Norway."  Which after watching you understand two things: 1) this is a variation of Baldurs story via cyclical evolution where at one time humans stood alongside gods at our supposed technological peak.  And 2) if SK had put as much forethought into Too Human as they had with this mockumentary this game could have been much improved.

Too Human boasts a lot of stuff you seen in other games: skill trees, armor variants, runes, weapon customization.  The compilation of just about everything that you could think of within the RPG/action-adventure chimera is part of Too Human's problem.  There is a lack of focus/scope within this game that has the user at a disadvantage from the time they start the game.  There is no tutorial, there is little explanation of how the skill tree works, or powers that are within the tree will function.  I have invested 20+ hours in the game and still don't fully understand the importance, or lack there of the game's charm mechanic.  These are serious issues that only new eyes to the game could address.  And in a nine year on and off again dev cycle, could've been easily dismissed, but that's really no excuse.  If you're going to tout you're game as "there's really nothing like it out there."  It would probably serve your purpose to have tutorials, or at least better descriptions of how the game's mechanics work.

Add that to the game's slippery combat mechanism, often your character, regardless of class is hacking through metal goblins or trolls.  There is no feel of organics to Too Human.  Slicing, hacking and bludgeoning mechanical opponents feels the same as it does going up against the undead.  Moreover, levels within the game feel unbelievably long, though the game does feature alternate game paths, which all lead to the same boss battles, these levels are far too long.  The formulaic hack, slash, explore, repeat, starts to feel laborious during the last level of the game.

And as players finally start to get the gist of the game and the story improves to the point where it carries the dreadful gameplay, the game ends.  It's unfortunate, but games with oddly long dev cycles like Too Human, face an uphill battle, especially with the turmoil and hype that this game had drawn.  If this game had been released back in 2000/2001, it could've won GOTY.  Now it's just another game that lacks an identity.  And in that need for definition, it disenfranchises players from what it could have been and where it still has yet to go.

Co-op is another story.  while playing with a friend via XBL.  The enemies will rival that of the player with the higher experience.  So if you're a level 10 and your friend is a level 45, all enemies will be around that 40-48 level.  And you will quite literally be "up shit's creek without a paddle."  As every time you spawn you'll get hit once, maybe twice, and you're dead.

While I can't full on recommend Too Human, you should still play it for what it worth.  Because to be frank, there will be a second and third iteration.  And the difference between games 1 to 2, and 2 to 3, will probably be excellent examples in what to do wrong, and what to do right in game development.

Xbox Live's Summer of Arcade - The review

Xbox Live's Summer of Arcade is over, and with it the end of summer itself, or at least here in the Pacific Northwest.  Essentially XBL's SoA was a five week stint of releases to the XBL Arcade, download and play the trial or full game, and get entered into a drawing for a windfall of 100,000 to 4,000 MS points.  Suffice it to say the bulk of the games released were worth DLing; and a few weren't.

Geometry Wars 2

Really enjoyed the first title.  Though I approached the follow up with trepidation.  Initially I enjoyed the demo, though it wasn't exactly a good preview of the full title.  Thus with only one mode available to test drive, I never downloaded the full game.  However, Metacritic is showing a score of 90 for the title.  Which is good, and right now it stands as the 13th best game available for the 360.  In the end this title is a split decision.

PT: PASS
The Industry: BUY

Braid

You've either played Braid or you haven't.  That sounds like a simple assessment, but the game is either worth the 15 bones to you or it isn't.  The largest complaint of people who haven't played Braid is the price tag.  They're concerned that the game may not be worth 1200 MS Points, and that it the game's puzzles could be solved within the better part of the day.  And they could be right.

I breezed through most of Braid within seven hours in one sitting.  At the end of the day I was only missing four puzzle pieces, but even if I had found them all in the that one sitting it wouldn't have meant that I have dominated the game.  Braid is one of those rare games that keeps on giving long after you've completed your initial run through of the game.  The game boasts five speed runs that are unlocked after you've completed the game, in addition to secret stars hidden throughout seven levels within the six worlds, not to mention the game's alternate ending.

Braid is an adventure that's worth the fare, but you can only find that out for yourself when your ready to pull out your wallet.

PT: BUY
The Industry: BUY

Bionic Commando: Rearmed

I'd been waiting for this game since it's announcement.  Fortunately for me, GRIN the Dev behind the remake did anything but disappoint.  BC:Rearmed boasts a complete overhaul of HD quality graphics while keeping true to the mechanics of the original 1988 NES game.  In addition, GRIN added a new mechanic for the game's hacking system, a multitude of challenge rooms, and an awesome remixed soundtrack.

If you've never played the original, you should know that it was altered (Capcom replaced all Nazi emblems and most of the references) before it's US release.  The original game has an intriguing background that is reflective of one of the many NES games that have had mysterious references that could be seen as either too political for children, or just flat out offensive.

BC:Rearmed is the perfect plat-former for the Gen-Xer's that have been waiting for a game that gives them that warm and fuzzy nostalgic feeling.

PT: BUY
The Industry: BUY

Galaga Legions

Wasn't impressed with the demo, and honestly there were several other arcade titles that I'd like to see updated and released to the XBLM besides Galaga.  Granted it's a Namco property and they were bound to put it up on the XBLM at any some point.  They've done three iterations of Pac-Man and Galaga Legions is the second iteration of Galaga.  It's just unfortunate that it had to be a part of this promotion.  Legions just doesn't hold it's weight in comparison with these four other titles.

PT: PASS
The Industry: PASS

Castle Crashers

A long awaited title from the The Behemoth developers finalizes the Summer of Arcade.  Put on display at last years PAX; Castle Crashers garnered a lot of attention, that was followed by disappoitnement when The Behemoth announced delay after delay.  So it wasn't much of a shocker when the game launched that it had some connectivity issues and bugs.  It is possible that you may not experience any of the aforementioned, and if you do it's probable that you won't be too disappointed.  Simple fact is that Castle Crashers is a fun hack and slash in the same vein as Double Dragon and Fatal Fury.  Though this game has more humor and a longer shelf life.

PT: BUY
The Industry: BUY

The Bottom Line

Xbox Live's Summer of Arcade delivered in 3 out of 5 weeks for me.  Luckily Braid, Bionic Commando:Rearmed, and Castle Crashers are excellent digital titles that will deliver long after the summer will be over. 

The drawing is September 17th!  Good luck to those of you who entered into the drawing all five weeks!

PES 2008 is Almost a Masterpiece

The Good

+ The AI learns your tendencies through the length of a match and season.
+ More licensed teams and leagues.
+ Edit mode is back in 2008
+ New User Interface, includes supporters reaction to a team's success.

The Bad
- Old kit editing system is out and new scan/vision editing system is in.
- XBL matches suffer from serious latency issues.
- Challenge mode is out.
- No editing options within Master League.

Should be added for next year.
> Licensed Premier League, J League, Bundesliga, and MLS.
> Cloth mechanics.
> Revamped editing system.
> Challenge Mode.

I started playing Pro Evolution Soccer/Winning Eleven back in 2001,  before then I had played a number of EA soccer/football games that had some resemblances of reality.  But when I first played PES (which it is now called on both sides of the Atlantic) I realize that to succeed in the game that I would have to think realistically about how to advance the ball, when to sub players, and how to attack with the talent that I had on the field.

This is the reason why so many gamers around the world play PES.  If you get caught in the habit of slide tacking on every offender, or long-balling the pitch you will simply lose every match.  It takes a well balanced attack, as well as a rigid trap defense to win.  In addition, you will have to sign talent to match your play style, if you're aggressive, then you will probably need to sign Mid's and Fwd's capable of attacking from long range and getting creative with the ball.  If you're a little more conservative, you'll need to sign a great Sweeper, and a lot of above average Mid's.  The game is different based upon the reactions and strategy of each player, unfortunately there aren't many games you can say this about.

I am not going to go into much depth of what's in the game every year, i.e. Master League (D1 & D2), Cups, Training, etc.  There are plenty of other review that will cover this BS.  What is missing is one of my favorite modes, the Challenge mode.  This was of great resource for me, because the Challenge mode was a way for decent and average players to get better.  By focusing on the challenges, in a mini-game format you were able to take more free kicks, PK's and crosses in two hours than you would if you played the game for a week.  Thus improving your potential to score in game on the aforementioned.

What's also missing is the old editing system.  Which was similar to the Forza Motorsport system on the original Xbox.  Layers of shapes and colors,  could help gamers edit the generic teams to look like those of the Premier League, Ligue 1, and the Bundesliga.  What replaces the old editing mechanic is a kit editing system that utilizes the 360's vision cam to take pictures and lay them over the the front and only the front of the jersey's.  It's not nearly as flexible as the old system and further more, trying to take pictures of kits on you LCD screen or even printouts leads to the fading of colors and some pixelated final products.

My last negative will focus on the inflexibility of the Master League.  Though I really can't remember if you could back on the PS2, there is no option to edit your players/team within the ML.  So any new transfers will not be able to edited at all, and new players (the generically generated youth of 17 y/o's that will populate the game every year) are also off limits.  So the only way to edit players that you know that you'll trade for is in the Edit mode before you start you Master League.  LAME!

I emphasize the bad, because this was supposed to be the revamped PES of the shell of a game we had to play last year.  That game had no edit mode, a lackluster UI, and a overall graphical resemblance to the game released on inferior platforms.  My overall appreciation of the game is positive, but this is another iteration that has only been made and can be played by true soccer fans. 

The AI is the real highlight of this year's PES and is the only reason I bought a copy this year at all.  Over the last couple of years I would find Strikers that were tall and fast who could head the ball to the back of the net.  In addition, I would sign about three top level Mid's to get them the ball, and lastly sign two experienced defenders to help the Keeper guard the box.  The result was my complete domination of the game, we're talking 5-nil wins on a consistent basis here folks. 

What I have noticed this year is that I need to switch the field, try a few long balls, and organize center and wing attacks just so I can get my strikers the ball. This year's iteration of PES is a truly maddening experience that you could only describe as entertainingly addictive.  Though I can't whole heartedly
recommend the game to first timers because of the learning curve, this years PES is a revelation of future things to come.