Muramasa: The Demon Blade impressions

So I've actually re-connected my Wii to my TV and turned in on for 3 days in a row now because Muramasa is kind of awesome. And kind of hard. The art style is spectacular. The sprites and backgrounds are all hand drawn and don't look like ass on an HDTV.

The art may look simple at first, but when you see it in motion and realize that there are several layers to each background, you begin to appreciate what the developers did. The combat is pretty simple on the surface too. It's all 1-button combat, and if you hold the A button down you can do special dash attacks. Your character can hold up to three different blades a one time and each blade has a different attack power and special attack. There are several different enemies you will randomly encounter while traversing the Metroid style rooms.

Another thing it has in common with Metroid is that different portions of each area can only be accessed after you get a certain sword that can destroy the barrier. The boss fights are completely old school and feature you learning the pattern of the boss and exploiting it to win. Some of them are downright frustrating, especially when you have a boss that can hover above you and randomly drop high damage attacks down on you. Also, even with over 1/3 of the swords owned and me being at a higher level than what the game is pacing me at, I'm never more than one bad encounter away from dying. This game is hard. If you land somewhere between two enemies at the wrong time they can hit you for a lot of damage fast. It's like Ninja Gaiden in that aspect where even the lowliest of enemies can kill you if you don't watch what your doing.

The story so far (of the one I'm playing apparently there's an alternate story path I have yet to start) is that some super badass samurai guy was dying and used some hidden technique to steal some girl's body to continue his quest to kill someone. It's very Japanese and the original voice language track is in tact with English subtitles all the way through. It's a very pretty game and it's really fun if you can get over the fact that you will die more often than you'd like (there are 2 difficulty settings one where you have to defend yourself and one where you don't and they can be changed on the fly - I'm playing it on the harder one). The death penalty isn't all that bad either. You usually just spawn one or two screens away from where you were at the worst. They also don't make you have to go through the whole "this is why I'm here to kill you..." business if you die and have to restart a boss fight either. Muramasa is definitely a Wii game that's worth it.

The Beatles Rockband review

One year later and here I am again gladly parting with $60 for a new Rockband game. The difference is this time I'm not just buying a new disk to put into my 360, I'm buying an experience. Not only is The Beatles Rockband an evolution of the franchise as a whole, but they were able to do so much more with the entire focus being on just one band who happens to be one of the greatest bands of all time.

The nuts and bolts of the game are all there. You play guitar, bass, drums, or sing in the same manor with notes or words scrolling across the screen and you are judged based on your performance. If you play drums you will notice that there are no longer any places for drum fills. Instead once you have enough overdrive the green column will glow and you can activate overdrive by hitting the glowing green note when it appears. I welcome this change as it keeps you in the song and doesn't allow you to limp your way through a hard song by not activating the overdrive. You will also notice that before and after the song you can't play around hitting random drum pads. I thin maybe The Beatles had some say in making sure no notes get played that aren't theirs.

What shows that Harmonix has grown are the changes they've made to the guts for this game. Difficulty is no longer an issue when trying to clear story mode. As long as you pass all the songs you can continue through to the end. Songs do not need to be unlocked. No fail mode is activated upon anyone choosing easy difficulty. There is an achievement menu that is accessible from several places in the game which tells you how far along you are toward getting certain ones and what you need to do to get others. Quite frankly, this is the most user friendly Rockband game ever.

As I stated, this game is The Beatles experience. The story mode is executed wonderfully starting you off in Liverpool in '61 playing the groups early hits all the way to the rooftop of the Apple Corp. building in '69 with all the haircuts and wardrobe changes in between. Every song in the game has its own background performance and for every one of the eight chapters the band gets a new look. Once you reach the three Abbey Road, the game really begins to shine as the music becomes more psychedelic so do the performances. For Yellow Submarine and Octopus' Garden, the band becomes submerged under water, Within You Without You has them floating through tie-dyed space, I Wan You (She's So Heavy) has them literally pulsing and vibrating toward the end of the song before the classic cutoff. You can get lost in the backgrounds and forget what notes you're supposed to be hitting sometimes.

Going a steap beyond making some cool backgrounds, you also unlock some cool photos of the band from throughout their career. Each one comes with a caption about what was going on with the particular song it unlocked with or that time in their career. After unlocking a certain amount of photos you get prizes in the form of videos of the band. One is an outtake from their first US tour, another a rehearsal for their 2nd appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. There are six in all and well worth it. Finally after clearing ever chapter in story mode, you unlock a challenge where you play a continuous set of music which will also unlock band photos if you recieve the full amount of stars.

This game is loaded with fun. There are 45 songs on the disk and if you have a 360 connected to the internet you can purchase the exclusive DLC track All You Need Is Love (all proceeds are donated to charity). There is also more DLC on the way in the coming months. I was a little upset at the fact you can't import the songs into Rockband 2 and vice versa, but in retrospect having this be a standalone game makes more sense especially after the Kurt Kobain fiasco that the Guitar Hero people are having. The people at Harmonix say that all future DLC songs will have their own unique backgrounds as well with $2 still being the price which is quite a deal considering what they're giving us. So yes I've bought three Rockband games in three years time, but every single one has been absolutely worth it.

Grade A-

Meta Grade 90

Criminal

For the past week I've been reading a series of comics entitled Criminal by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Sean Phillips. I picked up the first 4 volumes after Amazon recommended the series to me for my interest in Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets), and I have to say these are some of the best stories in comics I've ever read. It's very reminiscent of Frank Miller's Sin City (Miller even writes him an introduction in the 2nd volume) in that all the action takes place in the same geographic area in that hard boiled detective writing style.

Stories are either narrated by the author or the protagonist of the story line and each text box fills in all the minute details making every page more succulent than the last. There's the war vet who returns home after his brother turned up dead that can't seem to shake his daddy issues, the expert thief who's always been able to keep off the police's radar who gets sucked into a heist he can't make a clean escape from, and the son of a mobster's advisor who just wants to make his own way and live a crime free life. There are femme fatals, bullets, guns, American muscle cars making Bullet style getaways, and plot twists that you will never see coming - I guarantee you. There are no full page splash panels here.

The art in these books is there to serve the story only. Ever page is divided into thirds and the most real estate on piece of art will get is 1/3 of the page. That's not to say the art isn't great, in fact every panel captures the beat of what's going on in the story better than the best directed, best acted films of today. Aside from a fictional city, these stories take place in the real world and real things happen. There are no deus ex machina elements to complain about. No one is invincible, everyone is vulnerable and I have yet to finish a story without uttering "wow." Every volume is a self contained story so you can guilt free read an issue without worrying what will happen to so and so next month. The series is still ongoing though so you will be waiting on edge for the next volume to drop just like I'm waiting to get my hands on Mass Effect II this winter. Give this series a shot. You will not regret it.

Grade A-

Meta Grade 91

(While I love the series, I still haven't come accross any super awesome quoatable lines like Frank Miller's Sin City is full of. I guess "Worth Dyin' for, worth killin' for, worth goin' to Hell for, amen" and "It's time to prove to your friends that you're worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying. Sometimes that means killin' a lot of people" are hard to compete with.)

Asterios Ployp

Another comic I just completed is Asterios Polyp, written and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli. Feel free to read into the name, the author wants you to as there are several interestingly named characters throughout the book you'll run into. The book, named for its main character, is all about Asterios, his life, what shapes him, and what shapes us all. Asterios is a very successful "paper architect," meaning none of his designs have actually been built. We're introduced to him at his absolute lowest point when his apartment building is struck by lightning and he makes it out with only the clothes on his back and three items he couldn't leave without: an old watch, a Swiss Army knife, and a Zippo that's out of fluid. Asterios has a twin brother that dies in child birth who helps narrate from time to time and fill in pieces of his surviving brother's story.

The events of the book take place out of order and cover three periods of his life. It reads like a Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) movie elegantly weaving between time, plots, concepts and emotions and the art while appearing simple on the surface, is the absolute correct choice to tell the story. Characters are broken down into geometric shapes, colors, outlines, and are even between worlds at times all relative to what is going on. The story is one that presents and challenges concepts and ideas. Aside from Asterios' "I'm always right" self obsessed attitude, you'll get to know his artist wife on some level, you'll meet a bombastic theater director, a meat-and-potatoes car mechanic, a self proclaimed goddess, a revolutionary, and several other characters, each with something to say. To say the story is a beautiful mess is to disgrace it as every word and illustration is there for a reason. Not one of them feels as if it doesn't belong or only exists to fill the page, and I wouldn't change a pencil stroke.

Mazzucchelli's artwork also managed to surprise me in that he knows how to use white space as good as any advertising copyrighter. Characters are pushed to the side to create a sense of chlostrophobia or anxiety, they are isolated on the page, they are larger than life and as small as an ant all at once. There is a section of this book where Asterios is thinking about his wife that can bring tears to your eyes. There are portions that will make you laugh out loud such as Asterios' opinion of why men don't make noise during sex and things that will seriously make you think like how Mazzucchelli was not only able to suggest that memories are a recreation of an event, but illustrate the concept in such a way that the entire presentation brings perfect understanding of what he is trying to express. No, this book is not a beautiful mess. It is simply beautiful. I've not come across anything else like it. This is probably one of the beast works of art that I will ever read.

Grade A+

Meta Grade 100

Back in action

So I've been gone for a bit which I apologize for. Having too much free time every day is actually quite worse than have little time to spare in a lot of ways. I haven't been wasting all my time and energy though and I will be retroactively reviewing the content I've been consuming. In fact two new articles about some graphic novels are going up minutes after this post is finished. I'll be at PAX this weekend in Seattle and I'll try to live blog it if I can get a decent connection. At the very least I'll post the messages I'll be sending to my e-mail stream on this site and my examiner page. Please do read my review of Asterios Polyp and buy it. You will not regret it. Other than that, please read on, and keep checking back.

GI Joe thoughts

The script for the GI Joe movie would have been awesome if they had removed GI Joe from it. Yeah it's cliched to death, but what big summer movie isn't these days? The whole Duke & Baroness story line needed to be dropped. The actual plan to take over the world doesn't come from Cobra commander, the soldiers who are supposed to feel no fear show that they're afraid, the special effects look bad like they belong in a high budget video game not a summer blockbuster the acting is as dry as a desert... on Mars, and not a single thing that happened in the movie didn't seem forced. You may question my statement about the script having the potential to be awesome. Well a movie about some terrorists that hijacked a bunch of warheads and a small outfit of commandos sent in to stop them could have been a cool action movie if done right. But this is the GI Joe movie so they had to find a way to explain people's backstories, and have pulse weapons and accelerator suits, crossbows with programmable arrows, nano machines, invisible camouflage, and people in weird costumes thought be be dead but not, and all races represented because even though they're real American heroes, they're not. Go see The Hurt Locker for some real hero shit. Stay away from this thing.

Grade D
Meta Grade 40

Fat Princess Impressions

I only played it for a few hours after downloading it. First off, don't even think about trying to use the "find a game" option. You will try to connect for about 5-7 minutes and be kicked out to the start menu over and over again. Go through the tutorial and create a game if you want to play online. It's push button to talk and when I was playing nobody was using voice chat at all. In my last game I was begging people to help me steal or princess back but nobody listened and we lost because of it. The online was super smooth for me with 0 lag and I exclusively use wifi for online games. There was absolutely no choppiness and people didn't pause and jump around all over the map.

It's a lot more than just capture the flag, though one of the play types is exactly that. You can also win by killing all the opposing team, or capturing their bases before time runs out. Ever class has two different weapons and ways to attack. Attacks can also be charged. You can choose the warrior class and charge head on, ranger to pick off enemies from afar, mages to use spells on enemies to deal damage and slow them down, priests to heal your team or drain the live out of enemies, workers who use resources from the map to upgrade hat machines and build useful items to help you infiltrate the opposing castle, and regular town people who can move the fastest to capture bases and collect items like cake for the princess. There is always something to do and you can choose a different class at any time by picking up a different hat.

The downside there is nothing built into the game to get people to work as a team. Since very few people are voice chatting, and even fewer are actually listening to the voice chatting people it's hard to organize a few people to help achieve a goal. I played on map for about an hour where the objective was to capture the princess and only myself and one other person actually tried to infiltrate the castle to get her. I single handily rescued her myself while the rest of the team was content to fight it out as I walked right past them with her in tow. The game has taunts assigned to the d-pad but it would be infinitely more helpful to have team messages instead such as "let's get the princess," "lets attack them here," "help defend this base," or any number of things that would get someone's attention.

Despite the teamwork issue, the game is a lot of fun and looks amazing in it's 1080p cartoony art style complete with lots of blood and gore. I expect the teamwork thing to improve slightly as more people get their hands on it and figure out what to do. It's also great fun seeing +10 above you head every time you take out an enemy or help build something. There is a single player mode as well which I haven't checked out yet so even if the online community goes away you'll still be able to enjoy the game. Is it worth $15... well I can't answer that just yet. If you've got money in your PSN wallet though, you could find way worse things to spend it on.

Hump Day review

The trailer really says all you need to know, but it's another of the 5 movies I saw last week. The movie keeps you laughing pretty much from beginning to end. A longtime friend shows up at his buddy's house at 2am wanting to catch up and needing a place to stay for an indefinite amount of time. Later they go to a party where after consumption of much alcohol the topic of Seattle's infamous free paper The Stranger and their porn contest, Humpfest, comes up. This actually does exist and there's still time to enter this for this year's contest. The two make a drunken deal to enter something that would surely be a submission the likes the paper has never seen, two straight guys doing each other. The bulk of the movie revolves around them trying to give themselves a way out of the agreement and psyching themselves up to actually do what they said they would do. The awesome thing about this comedy is that it's a situation where the actors don't really have to act to make it funny. The two lead actors have great screen chemistry and feed off of that energy to produce great comedy and great laughs. The woman who plays Ben's wife could have easily been a throwaway character, but she brought weight to her role and realness to the situation. I laughed all through this movie and found it to say a lot more about men dealing with their sexuality and homophobia than Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno.

Grade B
Meta Grade 85

Oh and The Stranger is an interesting paper. It actually is a great source for movie and restaurant reviews, but I think most of its funding comes from all of the adult services ads that take up almost 1/2 the paper, and they know it. It does have some good articles and it's got that magical price point of free so if you're ever in Seattle, you should definitely check it out.

500 Days of Summer review

At its core it's a love story about the one that got away 100% from the guy's perspective (which is easily inferred from the author's note at the beginning of the movie). Joseph Gorden Levitt plays the guy who gets the girl, Summer played by Zoe Deschanel, but can't manage to keep her. Zoe Deschanel doesn't really even have to act at this point in her career. She's young, beautiful, and has that quirky sense about her that makes you feel like she loves the band you love that only sold 1,000 records, and every outfit she puts on is the cutting edge of fashion that hasn't been discovered yet. The movie plays with this very much. The amount of fun they were having at IKEA makes me want to take every girl I'm ever interested in there for a date. In just about every mans life, there's some girl that really messes him up and the movie shows that guys fall hard. Levitt is able to portray the highest highs and lowest lows of this emotional whirlwind in a way that is not only comical but upliftingly and heartcrushing real. It's the movie that other romantic comedies wish they could be. It will make you laugh as much as it will make you cringe at something that happened between you and an ex in the past. It's eclipsed Garden State as my favorite modern movie about two people coming together.

Grade: A
Meta Grade: 90

Doom for G1 review

Doom is a game you've at least herd of despite whether or not you play video games. If you are a game player. It's a relic from the days when PC shooters were king, before having a story was a part of gaming, and before people figured out using a mouse with a keyboard was better for the genre. It's continued to reappear on different platforms throughout the years. Atari's Jaguar console was the first home platform to have it. I played it on a flight from Seattle to LAX on Red, Virgin America's in flight entertainment system. More recently, I picked it up on my G1 phone.

The game is the exact same as it has ever been. You start at point A, explore the level killing several demon sprites along the way until your reach point B and the game tells you how well you did based on the time it took, how many kills you got, and how many secrets you found. Then you're transplanted to a new level to do it all over again. This game was made before developers made shooters that gave you the ability to look up or down. It was when on screen targeting reticules were optional instead of standard features. It was before cover systems, and circle strafing was nigh impossible perform.

The version available for free on the G1 is the exact same game. It's actually a little surprising how well it works on the phone. It uses WASD for forward, backward and strafing with the tracter ball for looking like all modern mouse and keyboard shooters. This more modern control scheme makes it feel much easier to play and the G1 version controls are superior to the version I played on that Virgin flight. It runs much smoother on my G1 than the computer I played the original ran it several years ago. The sound effects are all there and provide a bit of nostalgia. There really is nothing bad to say about the it as it is a very well done port. The only drawbacks to it are the limitations of a game that is now over 15 years old. It's definitely worth a download.

The inevitable open world game comparison article.

So now that I've completed all 3 of the big summer open world games, I have to say that Red Faction is the best of them. It sort of has everything I liked about inFamous and Prototype but Red Faction has much better execution overall.

When you do a side mission in inFamous the baddies wouldn't spawn in that area any more, but you did sort of do the same missions over and over again. I liked the idea that Prototype wanted you to do skill based side missions, but you didn't really gain anything from them aside from EP which could be better farmed elsewhere in the game. In Red Faction everything you do has an effect on the environment and how you are perceived. There are no elements of the game that seem out of place. It understands what it is, knows where the fun is, and gives you complete access to it. At the start of the game they give you a sledge hammer and swinging that damn thing never stopped being fun whether I was rushing down EDF troupes or a tank, or trying to destroy a 5-story building with it because I ran out of remote charges.

Of the three main characters Cole, Alex, and Mason, Mason was the most likable. He was just a guy who went to Mars to be a minor and got thrown into the revolution after his brother was killed. He feels very grounded in the games reality and his actions fit with what that person would do under those circumstances. inFamous had moral choices built in so you never really do get to know the real Cole, but the glimpses you get from him show that he is conflicted about what he should be doing even when the game isn't asking you to choose good or evil actions. Alex isn't really a character and Prototype doesn't let you get to know the person your controlling. It doesn't even allow you to control the amounts of collateral damage you're inflicting when on mission.

There were several moments in all three games where you do something that makes you feel really awesome and powerful. For me in inFamous it was when I climbed to the top of the tower build by the Dustmen. Figuring out how to get up there was great. Also jumping off the roof of a building and hovering over to the middle of the street before dropping 20+ stories to the bottom setting off a huge electrical charge that blew up any vehicles and enemies in the blast area was very satasfying. In Prototype, I loved duking it out with the military and infected in the middle of Times Square. In Red Faction, looking at a giant structure or infiltrating a military base and figuring out how I wanted to destroy it to rubble, and then doing it exactly as I planned was the most awesome thing I've ever done in an open world game. Chasing down a tank that's running away from you and your sledge hammer while yelling "that's right you better run" at the screen was a close second.

Combat wise, I loved fighting the enemies of inFamous with both sets of Cole's powers. There's something to be said for being able to shoot lightning bolts from you hands, throw lightning grenades, and summon a giant lightning bolt from the sky and control its path toward a giant group of enemies. Having three different sets of enemies occupy each area of the city was cool and you had to engage them differently. They were also intelligent enough to do things like hide behind cover and flank you when you were trying to hide. You have some great skirmishes, and enemies didn't continuously spawn for hours on end like the do in Prototype. There's something to be said for beating the enemy so bad that they have to leave and regroup, or are forced out of an area. Prototype doesn't embrace this concept and enemies continuously come until you flee the area and hide from them. You fight the same character models all the time and they never change up what they do to make you think about how to engage. You will actually see the same character animations over and over throughout the whole game and the combat is pretty much a never ending slaughterhouse for Alex until you get tired. Once they engage you, you had better be prepared to fight all out too as there is no escalation. There is only enemies not knowing where you are or every enemy in the game is coming after you. Red Faction handles enemies similar to both games. The do spawn out of nowhere sometimes, but if you beat them all down, it'll be a while before they show up again, if they show up at all. There is a learning curve to the combat though where you have to break from what you normally would do in other games and charge in head on for some up close and personal melee kills or set traps for your enemies with remote charges or some of the other toys they give you to play with in the game. The enemies are intelligent and will do try to outsmart you. There is an escalation to how they engage you, and they do become stronger and get stronger weapons throughout the game to use against you. No two battles are the same in this game.

There was a lot of fun to be had in all three games, but Red Faction Gureilla never seemed to get old. Prototype and inFamous let you have super powers which every kid wants, but Red Faction's here's a hammer now go wreck stuff approach is akin to what happens when you buy a kid a shiny new toy and the kid has more fun with the box it came in. Who needs fancy powers when you have a sledge hammer?

Shift review

Clever and fun are two words that should mingle more often when It comes to video games. Shift for iPhone manged to bring the two together to make a great platforming puzzle game that is a must play.

On its surface, Shift seems like any other side scroller with pits to jump over and doors to get to but after the first few levels the real fun begins. The game is in black and white, and you control a figure running through the environment trying to get to a door. At any time you can press the shift button and flip the orientation of the stage and run on the underside of the platforms. The game is also timing you and you can check your clear time against others who have completed it online.

Shift has a feel that is very similar to Portal. It even makes a reference to the game early on. What Portal did was give you new puzzles every level that basically taught you what you needed to clear the final level of the game. This game does the same thing with the puzzles you get early on teaching you how to control your fall or to spot certain oddities in the environment that you'll have to use later. There are also a few humorous little text boxes scattered throughout the levels that remind you that you are being timed, and give you a hint as to what to do.

Every puzzle in this game is solvable with a little thought. I never was stuck for more than 3-5 minutes my first time through it. You'll want to play it again and again to see how fast you can get through it. I can't wait to see the next game from these guys.

Grade A

Meta Grade 93

Zombieville USA review

Zombieville USA for the iPhone allows you to fight hoards of zombies without having to fight iPhone controls. Now if it could only get you to exercise...

Zombieville USA is a side scrolling action game that makes iPhone controls work. You touch the arrow on the right to move right, the arrow on the left moves you left, and you tap the space in between to shoot. Zombies come from both sides of the screen or raise from the ground and you kill them before they kill you. There's something to be said for simplicity. Every zombie you kill gets you cash to buy upgrades with when you reach the end of the level. There are quite a few weapons available and more powerful versions unlock as you purchase what's available. You can also tap on the front doors of the houses you pass to hide in them as well as search them for more ammo and cash.

What this game has in variety of weapons, it lacks in variety of enemies. You will kill many of the same zombie over and over but as the levels increase the zombies will magically be able to take more damage without warning or them giving any indication that they've leveled up. Simply putting a different color shirt on the newer more powerful enemies would have done the trick. It would also have increased the tension because you'd think "man I've gotta get past 4 of those red shirt guys" instead of wondering how many bullets they can take at the beginning of each level. I was surprised with how well the game was able to pull off the feel of tension. You constantly have to watch your ammo while deciding whether or not to try to run or kill more zombies for more cash for the end of the level upgrades.

If you've got a couple bucks to spend and you like side scrolling games or zombies, this game will appease you for a bit, but it's not exactly anything you're going you'll be super looking forward to playing.

Grade C+

Meta Grade 70

Star Defense review

There's been a seemingly endless pile of tower defense games that has accumulated in the past couple years. Star Defense is one of the gems that shines brighter than the rest of the pack.

Within a years time I've defended forests from monsters by placing towers in bushes, a town of ninjas from invading orange blobs, and have stopped several geometric shapes, pirate ships, tanks, and all sorts of invading attackers from breaking my shields, doors, or whatever their goal was. It's hard to make the genre of tower defense seem new and fresh. Star Defense from ngmoco has you protecting a series of planets from alien invasion. It's in fully rendered in 3-D and you will constantly be rotating the planets to place towers and modify your defenses against the invaders. It is the same thing every game in the genre does, but it does manage to breathe a bit of life into the genre.

In most games in this genre you always have full view of the map, your towers, and the incoming enemies. The planets you have to defend in this game are spherical or cubical orbs that do not allow full visibility of the entire map at all times. The enemies have a set path which makes it easier, but you will not know what's happening on the other side of the planet while you're viewing or placing towers on the part that is in view. They've limited the variety of towers and the number of times you can upgrade a tower to help with that. Taking into account the topography of the planet and the range of every tower is vital in this game. You are basically setting up the best defense for every area of one planet and moving to the next section returning to make minor updates.

If you like tower defense, you're going to love this game. In addition to the campaign mode, there is a challenge mode which will update you high scores on your Facebook page or Twitter feed. There are also achievements that will have you replaying portions of the game a few times if you feel the need to collect them all. The music is excellent and has a nice ambient feel to it that fits well with the setting of the game. If you own an iPhone you will no doubt be bombarded with an endless selection of tower defense. This is the one to play.

Grade A

Meta Grade 90

... And we're back!

It's been a while, I know. The thing about moving is you always find out you had way more stuff than your originally thought and finding something to do with all that stuff is a long painstaking process. I'm pretty much settled into the new place now. Well, as settled as I can be considering I no longer live in a major metropolitan area and I'm over 2 hours away from indi films and fish tacos. Oh and my new full time job is freelance journalist which pays absolute crap. Thank god I can get some unemployment for the meantime-in-between-time to help with expenses. Speaking of expenses, my car just broke down again yesterday. I have no clue what's wrong with it. I just paid $650.00 to get it fixed Tuesday and I have a feeling whatever it needs now will be over a grand. We'll see how it goes. More reviews are to come.

Tetro - Beautiful tortured art

Occasionally I leave a movie theatre and a thought will go through my head that sounds like “I’m glad to have lived to experience this movie.” Tetro was such a film. It plays out like an opera with music, dance, and a tragic story. Filmed in the backdrop of Buenos Aries in black and white with a few sections in color, it is art, culture, and emotion beautifully wound together and speaks to the audience the same way that Van Gogh’s Starry Night captivates its onlookers.

The story begins with a Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich), a young man looking for his brother Tetro (Vincient Gallo, Goodfellas) who left for a sabbatical when he was just a boy. He left behind a letter for him promising that he would return for him and that he would understand someday. He finds his brother, a tortured artist, who no longer wants anything to do with his family. He agrees to let the brother he’s abandoned stay with him for the 5 days it will take to fix the engine on his boat, but keeps all his motives to himself. Tetro’s wife Miranda (Maribel Verdu, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Pan’s Labyrinth) takes an interest in Bennie as she knows very little of her husband’s past only that he is a very tortured artist who harbors resentment for his family. Much happens in their short time together as Bennie learns about the life his brother is living now while he and Miranda try to piece together brother’s secrets.

The story of this family is Shakespearean in its conception and execution. It is something you would expect to see on stage but performed for the camera in such a way that makes film seem fresh and vibrant again. Frances Ford Coppola uses the sequences of color and dance to express everything that his characters are thinking and feeling and to tell the story without so much as a word being spoken. The passion of the actors in the main story matches the elegance of those in the dancers and the two weave gracefully through a story of trust, betrayal, love, art and beauty.

So many filmmakers are able to interweave black and white film with color and make it into an art form. Coppola makes it seem almost simple which is a testament to how much he knows what he’s doing. The last film I can think of that did it so well was Edward Nolen’s Memento. This is a movie you absolutely cannot look away from. It subtly and gently pulls you in without you noticing you’re on a hook. It makes me appreciate everything that has come before it and everything that will continue to come from this medium.

Grade A+
Meta Grade 100

It's their livelihood to care

Within the time span of one week I was able to review and revisit Punk Justice because the developer released an update for the game that made it better. Patches are nothing new to the world of video games, in fact PC gamers have been enjoying them for years as their gaming platform of choice most likely has an internet connection of some kind. Getting the latest update for a game like Left 4 Dead or Team Fortress 2 is as routine as an anti-viral update. It's a rather new addition to console gaming and portable gaming now that Apple and Google have thrown their hats into the ring.
The thing of it is, the people charging you $60 per game seem to be getting it the most wrong and the plethora of developers making games $9.99 or less for the iPhone and Android operating system seem to get it the most right. Last year Rockstar released a special edition of Bully for the 360 that had a horrible bug that caused the game to crash often. It was just shy of unplayable until and update was released for it. More recently Terminator Salvation was released for the PC and the retail copies of the game didn't allow you to install it making the game absolutely unplayable. Meanwhile a game like Dropship for iPhone which I picked up for $0.99 has had numerous updates that make the game better and more. A few days ago Star Defense, which was just released earlier this month received an update that adds a new mode to the game with several other welcomed features.
The other thing that the little guys get right is telling you exactly what is in the update. Every time I turn on my 360 or PS3 and a game tells me there is an update available, I'll download it but often times I have no clue what I'm getting unless I had prior knowledge. It's true you can go the the developer's website and read what the contents are, but why not just give me a pop up screen telling me what you are adding or fixing? For the G1 and the iPhone when there's an update available I'm told exactly what is in the update before I download it. It's nice to not be in the dark about whether or not a particular bug is going to be fixed when you download an update. I wonder how many Gears of War 2 players actually visited the site to find out what all bugs of the many that were in that game were fixed. Secondly, often times when new features are added to a console game there is a fee attached. This is especially infuriating when the features you pay extra for are on the disk the game comes on like the alternate costumes in Street Fighter 4, or the new recent Wolverine DLC level. When something is added to an iPhone game, it's free and it feels like the developer is putting it there because they want you to have more fun not make more money off you.
Aside from the fact that I know the developers of these games care about their product, it's also their livelihood of the small iPhone/Android developers to care more about their product and to continue to make it better after its release. One thing Ngmoco has mastered is not only making a good product, but continuing to iterate on it and make it better by tweaking the difficulty, adding content, and making the overall user experience better. They know that if you buy one of their products and like it, you will be more likely to buy another game made by them especially when the barrier to entry is $10 or less. I probably wouldn't have considered buying Firemint's Real Racing if I haddn't wanted to see what else they've done since I had so much fun with Flight Control. With every update I download for these games it's like the developer is sending me a note that says "hey, I care about my product and I want to make sure you're having the best possible time with it." The only console developer I've seen actually get it right is Criterion with Burnout Paradise. They gave their players free content updates for over a year and when the introduced paid content made sure it that the people who didn't buy it were still able to play with those that did. Valve has also set the bar on the PC side for delivering high quality content to their users for free of charge.
It all boils down to brand loyalty and the little guys know that you will come back if they've done right by you. Some of the big guys get it and some won't until they've destroyed the reputation. I didn't mind spending a little extra for the SF4 costumes even though they were on the disk because I would have had to pay extra for them on the Japanese arcade machine anyway. I did mind and refuse to buy the Soul Calibur 4 content because there was no precedent set up by an arcade release of the game and it just didn't make any sense to me. In this new world of constant updates it's going to be very clear who cares about you and who is just trying to squeeze a few more bucks out of you.

Punk Justice for iPhone review

Punk Justice offers a few nice touches to the genre but the novelity wears off quickly.

I’m a huge fan of fighting games so when I came across Punk Justice for the iPhone I was anxious to see what people were trying to do with the genre on the platform. Punk Justice is more like Punch Out!! than the 2D or 3D fighters I’ve come to know and love. It has a static camera placed behind the character you control with your opponent facing you, and has two buttons on either side of the screen that allow you to punch or dodge in that direction. You have a stamina bar that allows you to continue punching and a power bar that when depleted you predictably get knocked out and lose. There are combos and hitting the punch button while dodging will result in a stronger punch being thrown. There are also challenges thrown into the fights like having to KO your opponent within a certain time limit or only giving you the ability to dodge for a certain amount of time before you can throw a punch.

Unlike Punch Out!! the characters are all pretty much on the same note. The skins for the characters changes, but other than tweaks to their speed or power they throw the exact same punch. Also there is no telegraphing what is to come. They’ll go into a punch animation and you have a split second to guess which direction to dodge before the hit lands. Quite often you’ll eat a few punishing hit strings from a mistimed dodge. There are a few different backgrounds, but after 5-10 minutes you’ve basically seen all the game has to offer. The game is fun for a few minutes but it’s not the sort of app you’ll be in a rush to return to.

Grade D+
Meta Grade 40

Let's talk DS-i for a bit

Since its release in April of this year I've been waiting for a good reason to justify my purchase of the console and still haven't gotten one yet. I was on the fence about it for quite some time. I never upgraded to a DS Lite from the chunkier clam shell version I bought back in '04. When the DS-i was announced, I was intrigued because it offered better amenities than the DS Lite, a faster processor, cameras, downloadable games, an SD card reader, and would be able to work on my secure Wi-Fi connection. All of these were reasons for me to update but they weren't good reasons. Yes, the screen is bigger and brighter. Yes, I can take goofy pictures of myself and make them goofier. The question is where are the games?
When the DS came out it launched with a ported version of Super Mario 64 which is still my favorite Mario game - and it was able to fit on a tiny little card and be carted around anywhere I went. It was something I could show my friends and say "look at what you can do with portable games now." Making the DS-i Ware store exclusive to this console I was excited thinking that it would be similar to the app store for iPhone but with a greater percentage of quality games since proper developers know how to make a decent DS game. So far Nintendo has been content to just sell us $2.00 chunks of DS games they've released and there are only three games that are actually games on the console. As if that's not bad enough they want to throw salt in the wound by releasing clocks and calculators with Animal Crossing and Mario themed skins.
I wish we could return to the old days when companies delayed releases of the new consoles a few months to ensure there would be some good games to play on them when they were available for public consumption like the North American release of Sega's Dreamcast. The free 1000 DS-i points I received for buying and registering my system remained unused until the release of Mario vs Donkey Kong last week and while it's actually a decent game to play, I'm not running to show my friends that this is what they can do with portable games now. I'd rather show them Real Racing or Star Defense for iPhone. I thought it would be a good product to recommend to at least the people who have a 1st generation DS but I can't say that now. A year from now it could be a different story but there is no reason to buy this thing. I wonder how long it'll be before there's a good enough reason to spend my remaining 200 DS-i points?

Some PS3 cleaning

There was some error in Prototype that kept telling me I didn't have 700 megs of space for the install that drew my attention to the fact that while I did have well over the required amount of space for the game, I only had about 4 gigs of the 80 (read 74 usable) left as free space. I deleted my Ninja Gaiden Sigma install which gave me over 10 gigs and the game installed obviously, but I didn't think the hard drive would fill up so quick with just game installs and DLC. I think RE5 and DMC4 were the biggest offenders with over 4 gig installs. MGS4 was also a big offender. Surprisingly with all the DLC Burnout has released (I own Party, Cops & Robbers, Legendary Cars, Toy Cars, Special Cars, and the new Big Surf Island) it's under 3 gigs.

Rockband Unplugged reviewed revisited

Some feel that I may have judged the game too harshly with my score of D- considering several other reviewers at other outlets gave it higher scores and more praise. Even I had to think about it for a bit and ask myself if I really disliked the game that much. I spent some more time with it this weekend and for those who were expecting a dramatic change of heart, I'm sad to report that I still don't think it's a good game.
First of all, it is not because I'm bad at the game. I've been able to 5 star a few songs on expert and clear the setlist on hard difficulty. There's only one music game I fear. The reason I don't like the game is because it takes the fun out of just playing the song and losing yourself in the music. When you start out playing the guitar part you're use to that rhythm and pacing, then the game takes those notes away from you after playing the phrase correctly and makes you play something else. It's really distracting when you're playing the vocal part of a song like Everlong just as it picks up with "and I wonder, when I sing along with you" and you're ready for the "if anything will ever feel this real forever" but instead it makes you go play the drums or bass track instead. If you've ever played Dance Dance Revolution on a controller you know that you can have much better transitions from one part of the song to the next without the experience being jarring to the senses.
Secondly this is a Rockband game on a platform that not only has the ability to connect to the internet through wifi but also other devices through ad-hoc so there is absolutely no reason for you to not be able to play with at least one other person.
Lastly, I cannot understand why they thought it was a good idea to punish you with removing sound from the other tracks which makes it harder for you to get the one you've missed a few notes on back on rhythm. I play the drums on expert in the console version of the game. If I miss an entire section of notes it does not remove the guitar track, but in this game if you miss one note in a phrase you will likely lose the music for the track you're playing but another one as well.
In the end all of this is subjective and it is my opinion that this is a bad game. It's not going to put me off Rockband for good or detour me from purchasing The Beatles: Rockband or Lego Rockband later this year. It's just not my bag. The score I gave it last week stands.

Zombie Run review

If you've been wanting to experience what the zombie apocalypse would be like first hand without the risk of having your brains eaten, Zombie Run gives you that chance. The game available through the Android marketplace (for the price of free) drops you into a zombie apocalypse using the phone's google maps functionality and GPS features.

Chose from 4 levels of infestation from controlled outbreak to total pandemic, the speed of your flesh craving enemies (rated from Night of the Living Dead to 28 Days Later), and finally a destination on your map. The game will show your location and populate zombies around you for you to avoid as you try to reach the destination you've set. Red zombies know where you are and will continue to chase after you. Green zombies are not yet aware of your location, but will join in the hunt if alerted to some ripe brains being in their vicinity. The object of the game is to reach the destination you've set for yourself before they do.

This is a great game to play if you've got an errand to run or just want a bit of exercise. The maps feature is great for putting your destination marker in the exact location you want to go. There's a great Vietnamese restaurant about 9 blocks from my house so I set it to a late local infestation with zombies moving at 5mph and made my way. As I began my trek the phone began to vibrate letting me know where the zombies were and I'll tell you my pace picked up quite a bit and I even found myself jogging through a couple stretches along the way. If you chose 28 Days Later (which are my favorite zombies) speed setting, you had better be prepared to RUN because just like in the movie, they are fast.

Zombie Run is surprisingly fun and you'll have a great time with it provided you aren't opposed to looking slightly crazy in public sometimes. There are some drawbacks though. You can't set a destination by entering an address so if you want to go someplace in particular you have to drag the map around and zoom in and out until you find where you want to go. You can play while driving, but stop lights can be instant death and pulling out your phone to pause and un-pause the game every time you come to a stop isn't recommended when you live in a state where you can't talk/text and drive. I wish the game used the phone's camera system to place the zombies into the environment when viewing in camera mode, or something else cool like this, but it's a free app so I can't complain. Other than that, get ready to smile a stupid grin while running from imaginary zombies.

Grade B
Meta Grade 83

Space Ace - It's always about a girl

Twenty some years ago when my love for video games was just beginning there was this one arcade game I couldn’t get enough of. It was Dragon’s Lair and I used to beg my mother to take me to Show Biz all the time so I could play it. My pre adolescent self loved seeing the cartoon on screen and wanted to keep it going as long as I could. Space Ace is the 2nd game that team made, set in the future and every level had two separate branches the action could take.

While Dragon’s Lair was basically a collection of short scenes with a big finish, Space Ace is more like an episode of a cartoon played from beginning to end. It tells the story of Dexter/Ace, trying to rescue his girlfriend Kimmy from the evil Borf who shots Ace with his ultimate weapon, the infanto ray which turns Ace into his childhood self. During sequences you can energize and return to Ace and take a different, more gun ho path through the segment, or continue to play Dexter and play a less combat scenario.

The Dragon’s Lair/Space Ace games basically invented what we now refer to what the developers of Shenmue coined QTEs (quick-timed-events) where you had to press the direction or a button within a certain time window to advance the game. There is no gameplay involved other than pressing the appropriate button at the right time to keep the action going.

The iPhone version was created from the HD master and looks better than it ever has, excluding the full 1080p Blu-ray version of course. A slightly transparent control pad appears on the bottom right corner of the screen and the shoot/energize button on the bottom left. It has three difficulty modes just as the original did and also gives you the option for infinite lives as there are no check points. The easiest setting will actually highlight the button you need to press so you don’t have to learn by trial and error as I did decades ago. It doesn’t really seem like a game at that point, but sometimes you just want to see show and not have to memorize everything.

This game really isn’t for everyone. Some argue that it really isn’t really a game and I admit that my love for Dragon’s Lair 1-3 and Space Ace is aided by nostalgia for the games. There is no doubt that it is a part of gaming history and several other developers have used aspects from it in their games. The folks over at Quantic Dream the development team behind Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit are doing a lot of interesting things for the upcoming Heavy Rain, my most anticipated game that of the year, and they owe a lot to Space Ace in particular as it was the first to offer branching paths during the scenarios. I’ve bought this game twice already and now I’m pleased to have it in my pocket.

Grade B
Meta Grade 80

Prototype impressions

Like inFamous, I spent a lot of time with this game and lost a bunch of sleep too. Unlike inFamous, I don't think or don't know if I advanced the story all that much or know what my motivation really is, but it's still too early to call.

What I like about it is that you are in New York. Running through Central Park does give off a similar vibe of what that place is supposed to look like especially if you've ever been there. There are also a few other recognizable buildings and climbing to the top of the Chrysler Building and looking down at the boroughs in the distance is epic. People and vehicles react to you. When you're barrelling down the street in oncoming traffic cars try to swerve out of your way and if you nudge or bump into people they'll yell at you. If you attack someone with powers everyone runs away in horror and tries to stay the hell away from you for an extended period of time. The most awesome thing about the game though is that every character model is playable. Alex has the power to morph his body into the appearance of the last person he absorbed from the business man in the expensive suit to the diva girl in the cashmere sweater and Uggs.

The parkour in the game doesn't really feel like parkour. Alex will jump and flip over obstacles but he doesn't grab ledges, shimmy, or swing. You just hold R2 and he runs up a building, or he can spiderman style crawl along the side of it. The powers are fun to mess with and fighting assault teams, helicopters, tanks, and monsters all at the same time is cool, but the constant respawning makes if feel like you're not really having much of an effect. The other thing I don't like is how some of the power upgrades are split up. I'm fine with having to buy a special attack or power with EP (the game's upgrade commodity) but being able to throw something while sprinting should not be something I have to spend EP on. inFamous spoiled me a little as well as got did power distribution so right and let you preview what the upgrade was before you spent your XP on it. All games should adopt that system.

The story seems interesting. It's told in flashbacks and they do the Metroid thing where you start nearly all the way leveled up then spend the rest of the game learning the powers you used before. From what I can tell there are no side missions. There are events you can do to gain more EP like racing from rooftop to rooftop withing a certain time limit and GTA rampage style missions, but nothing that supplements what you are doing. The main story missions are long though with multiple checkpoints. You'll start by having to find someone, then infiltrate a military base, then destroy the base, then destroy the the new weapons, then destroy or evade the enemies tracking you.

Bottom line for now is the game is really fun and has some epic battles. As far as a comparison to inFamous, it's still to early to call, but I think inFamous may be the better game. You motivations are more clear in that game, you can actually affect the environment, and there are no constantly respawing enemies. I should have a full review and a full comparison write up posted by the end of the weekend.

The Hangover - I guess I did do that

We’ve all woken up one morning and couldn’t quite remember what we did the last night. Some of us have even found ourselves in a strange and unfamiliar place when this happened. Usually you have a friend or an acquaintance that can give you a play by play of what you did and how messed up you were, but what happens when you friends are just as clueless as you? Oh, and that weird location, it’s Vegas.

The Hangover takes that scenario to the extreme, and when you think they can’t go any further, they do. Four friends take a road trip to Vegas for a bachelor party and pledge to have the time of there lives over Jager shots. The next morning three of them wake up together in their hotel suite amidst the remnants of what looked to be one hell of a party that includes a live chicken and a tiger in the bathroom. Once they get some of their wits about them the realize their friend, the groom to be is missing and they set out to find him by trying to piece together whatever they did the night before from the clues they have around them and what people they’ve ran into tell them. This includes a trip to the hospital, a wedding chapel, a call girl’s apartment, the desert, and of course a police station.

The humor in this movie is that of extremes. For example when the group finds their missing car and hears someone beating on the trunk from the inside they find not their friend but a naked Asian man who jumps out and attacks them with a crow bar. It’s fun to watch what will happen next and try to piece together what exactly did happen to them, and a feeling of genuine concern for the whereabouts of their friend does come across rather well. At no point in the movie does anything feel forced, appear out of place, or to be just there for a cheap gag. Every action advances the story and there is humor in it that serves the story. You’ll have quite a bit of fun with this movie, and stay for the pictures during the credit sequence. They’re well worth it.

Grade B+
Meta Grade 88

Real Racing - True Advertising

Firemint, the developer behind Flight Control, has created the best racing game you can buy for your iPhone. Real Racing which was released a few days ago and was completely off my radar is the most fun I’ve had with a portable racing game since Burnout Legends for the PSP. It’s silly how good this game is.

It has the look, feel, features, and presentation you would expect to find on a console racing game all represented on your iPhone. There is local multi-player (wifi connection required), on line ranking, on line leagues, time trial runs can be uploaded to YouTube. There are three car classes all with multiple cars in each class and over 50 events to choose from.

The game gives you a few control options. Steering can either be done tilting or by touching the screen. I’m usually not a fan of accelerometer steering, but it works well in this game. You can have manual control over accelerating and breaking or the game can take control of one or both of those for you depending on how comfortable you are with the controls. A break assist feature to aid with cornering is also present with tunable sensitivity. You will be cornering a lot as the tracks are full of bends, twists, and straights that you’ll want to revisit over and over trying to shave fractions of seconds off your best time.

The graphics, music, and sound effects are phenomenal. As I said, it looks as good as any PS2 racing game. There are a lot of jaggies on the track edges, but that’s really being nit-picky considering this is an iPhone game. The in game music fits the genre to a T and you also have the option of playing your own music if you like. The sound design is what really shines as it feels as if you are in the race with the left and right channels creating the illusion of surround sound. This is most apparent at the beginning of a race when the camera weaves through the line of cars at the start line.

This is a full featured racing game. There is no mistaking that it is not only the best racing game on for the iPhone, but probably the best game on the platform as well as far as features, length, replay value, and overall fun that’s packed in. Firemint believes that downloadable games are the future and they’ve shown with this game and their last effort that they can bring pure quality to medium. Real Racing will run you $9.99 and believe me when I say it’s worth every penny considering it offers more features and more fun than any most PSP games that cost 3 times as much. I’m looking forward to what they have in store for us next.

Grade A
Meta Grade 98

Rockband Unplugged - don't plug it back in

Did I mention that I have over 450 songs in Rockband? It was a close 2nd for my pick for game of the year in 2007 and I do have 4 sets of plastic drums in my house. All that being said, I really, really tried to like Rockband Unplugged for PSP but the game makes it rather hard.

The core structure of the game is the same as the console versions. Notes scroll down and you have to hit them in time with the music to get a combo going. The difference here is that you are responsible for all 4 tracks at the same time. The instrument tracks are divided into phrases and when you combo a phrase correctly that one instrument will play by itself for a short time while you jump to another instrument's phrase. If you've ever been to a circus and seen the guy running back and forth trying to keep 20 or so plates spinning on sticks, that's basically what your doing in this game. When you're able to combo everything all the time it works great, but if you get a little off beat and miss a few notes the game not only punishes you by removing the audio from the instrument you're playing, it also removes the audio from ones you're supposed to be playing had you completed the phrase correctly. It is possible to lose audio from two or all three portions of the song while you're trying to get one instrument back on rhythm. This is a humongous problem because (and anyone who plays in a real band will tell you) when someone can't find the beat in the middle of the song and the bass or drummer is also off beat, it's incredibly difficult to get back on beat even if you have the notes in front of you.

The other huge problem that game has is the way it's played. When you play the guitar part you're thinking about what the rhythm of the guitar is, but as soon as the phrase is finished you have to immediately switch the rhythm of what you were playing to another instrument which makes it quite easy for you to lose the overall rhythm of the song and end up in that awful situation I described above.

I have major issues with this game. For one when you are playing the console version and you miss a few notes, the game doesn't punish you by removing the rest of the song until you get back on rhythm. The main mode of this game feels more like a bonus challenge mode of the game that developers would drop in saying "see if you can play every instrument now" while if you want to just play one track the entire song you have to go into the extras menu and play survival mode. The other thing that is wrong with this game is the lack of multi-player. Rockband is a game about where everyone can get together and have fun making fools of themselves and they've completely removed that aspect from the game. Last time I checked all PSPs are capable of both ad hock and wifi infrastructure. There is no reason why it shouldn't at the very least have a mode where two PSPs can link together through ad-hock and play a song together.

There are some good spots in the game though. You are still able to create and customize your 4 band members. I'm surprised by how many options were kept in the game. World tour mode is done the exact same way it's done in the console game and manages to give you the same feel of its big brother when it doesn't make you want to toss you PSP across the room. The track list is great and features songs I'm still waiting to show up in the console version like Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down and Would by Alice in Chains, and ABC by the Jackson 5. It's a shame they're all in a game I don't want to play much more. I couldn't possibly recommend buying this game though which is unfortunate because some very talented music savvy people made it. I hope there's a sequel that can fix the issues I had with it. The track list is the only reason it doesn't get an F.

Grade D-
Meta Grade 33

Ever wonder what it’s like to work as an air traffic controller? Flight Control from Firemint gives you a taste of what it’s like by putting you in charge of an airport landing field. There are three static maps; one a standard airport, a Hawaiian air field complete with pontoon planes, and a Navel cruiser. Planes approach the air fields from every direction and you have to draw them a flight path to the proper runway while making sure to avoid any mid air collisions.

The game is deceptively simple, but requires a lot of strategy to keep advancing. The planes and runways are color coded so you know what goes where. Jets are faster than propeller planes and helicopters are very slow. But then there’s 747s which are bigger and faster that you'll have to make room for while more and more planes keep coming in. Eventually you’re being swarmed with planes you have to direct and re-direct while collision courses you have to sort out come out of seemingly nowhere and much fun and laughter ensues. Reaction time is critical as well as being able to think critically when you’re drawing those paths.

The game is also full of style. The music chosen for it as well as the art carry that feeling of nostalgia for the way air ports and air travel used to from the muted color pallets to the uniforms the stewarde... er flight attendants wear. Scores can be uploaded so you can see how you’re doing against everyone else and it tracks you stats like how many planes you’ve had on screen at once or what plane you’re most likely to crash. It’s easy enough for anyone to pick up and play and the challenge will suck you in and keep you up at night trying to land that one more plane. If you’re afraid of flying though, you may want to forget this game exists though.

Grade A-
Meta Grade 97

What I'm playing this week

My iTouch and G1 are overflowing with apps right now. I’ve got Star Defense from ngmoco and Space Ace from Digital Leisure for iPhone, I’ve got Cestos and a few tower defense candidates for my G1, and I’ll definitely be playing some Rockband Unplugged all this week now that the game is out and I can say goodbye to the demo. Then there’s the stuff I’m still playing like King of Fighters ’99, and Street Fighter Alpha 1&2 which are all available for purchase through PSN and fit nicely on my PSP memory stick. Expect reviews for Space Ace and Star Defense shortly.

You can also check my personal blog for a review of Prototype which is also out this week and the inevitable comparison between that game and inFAMOUS that I’ll no doubt be writing. Both of those articles should be up later this week.

Scribblenauts - you'll need a dictonary for this one

Every now and then something truely from left field comes along and gets us all interested. Scribblenauts is that game. The more I read about it the more I want it in my hot little hands so I like several others can attempt to beat the games dictionary by typing confusion, or absinthe, or serendipity with the hope that it will magically represent what I've asked of it in comical fashion. It's something else to look forward to this fall. Check out 1Up's interview with the games creators.

Stick Wars - Stick it to the stick man

I was a little busy this weekend, but the cool thing about iPhones is that they’re just about always in your pocket when you find yourself waiting in line for something or waiting for a movie to start. I spend some time with Stick Wars this weekend which is a defense game that puts you in more direct control of your fate.

God is the role you play in this game more or less and you have a wall to defend. Enemies advance towards it trying to destroy it and you can pick them up and flick them into the air killing them instantly. There aren’t really any levels in this game, just and increasing amount of units and more difficult unit types. Some enemies you’ll have to tap first to make them drop what they’re holding before they can be tossed or slammed to the ground. You can also capture some enemies and make them fight for you, training them to either carry bombs, become archers, or wizards. These units will allow you to fight some enemies that you can’t kill from touching or flicking. You’ll need money to do this which you earn by (you guessed it) killing those stickmen who just won’t seem to stop attacking your wall.

The game is competent at best. The location and basic structure of the game never changes which a game like Plants vs Zombies can overcome by making you think about your strategy, but the only strategy involved in this game is be fast with your finger and have a the counter to the approaching unit that you can’t flick. It’s fun in five minute bursts but there is really no reason to go back to it especially when there’s stuff like Geo Defense and Vanguard Storm out there.

Grade C-
Meta Grade 47

Uncharted 2 multi-player beta impressions

The first Uncharted was graphically the best looking game on the PS3 and arguably the best looking current-gen game period. I spent a lot of time with the multi-player beta for the sequel and let me tell you, it’s no slouch either. The environments are just gorgeous from the way the moonlight hits the pools of water collected in the crevices of the highly topographical Plaza map, to the tropical Village map full of rooftops and vegetation. No other console multi-player map feels like it’s had this much attention to detail paid to it. The character animations for Nathan Drake and company are also some of the best in the business as well. It embodies that Indiana Jones feel off a hero without catlike grace who’s just barrels in head first to get the job done.

Currently deathmatch and plunder (that’s Uncharted speak for capture the flag) are the only two verses modes that can be selected, and there’s a co-op mode allowing 3 players to team up to advance through 3 sections of a level. Both of the verses modes also come with a leveling system. You get gold for however many kills you get with bonuses for taking out multiple enemies at once or using melee attacks and after you collect enough gold you advance a level. There are boosters as well you can assign to your character which will give you things like more bullets per clip or increased accuracy when firing certain types of weapons. As mentioned, the levels are very topographical but also quite vertical and a bit of platforming can be done on them. I’d have liked to see a more platform friendly level than what they’ve put out, but they may be holding that one for the full release. There were still many locations you could climb to and attempt to snipe the other team.

The main gripe about the first Uncharted was it took way too many bullets to take an enemy down and I’m sad to report that’s still an issue here. It isn’t that bad in the multi-player verses, but playing the AI opponents in the co-op section you’ll put 20 AK-47 bullets into someone before they drop. This is kind of a shame as the co-op is well paced, quite fun and challenging. Enemies come at you from every direction and you always have to be on your toes. When one of your team members is injured you have the option to save them Gears of War style, or let them die. They’ll re-spawn if enough time passes, but if you fail to complete an objective, you have to restart from the last checkpoints. You only have three chances per mission, so it’s in your best interest to work as a team and keep everyone alive.

This beta has me excited for the full version which will be out this fall. Despite the hit detection issue with enemies not wanting to die when you pump them full of bullets, the Uncharted series is still king of the mountain as far as action platformers goes. It eats Tomb Raider’s lunch and out Indiana Joneses Indiana Jones. Whether or not the game needs multi-player is debatable, but the feature is beyond competent and offers a nice alternative to the Halo, COD, Gears, and Killzones of the world. Let’s just hope that when the full version does come out it takes at least 10 less bullets to drop a hostile.

Plants vs Zombies - Shotguns down, shovels up

Who needs shotguns when just a few plat seeds, dirt, and water will provide your home with the ultimate defense against hoards of brain craving zombies? The people at Pop Cap are helping to re-educate everyone who has ever seen a zombie movie with Plants vs Zombies. It is not a tower defense game sort of the same way that Vanguard Storm isn’t a tower defense game. You have a house with a front yard, back yard, and a roof. Zombies want to come in and eat your brains, and your superior gardening skills have to keep them out. To do this, you are given several different types of plants to place across your lawn which attack the approaching hoard of zombies. All the while you need to collect sunlight which is the game’s commodity that allows you to purchase more plants or other items you receive as a line of defense.

The game does a good job of making you think and adjust your strategy. During the night the isn’t any sunshine so you have to plant a certain type of mushroom which gives you sunlight quicker than your average sunflower, but will only give you a small amount at first before maturing. When you fight on the roof you can’t use normal pea shooter plants because of the shape of the roof so you have to manage the smaller spacing with catapult plants. The many types of zombies you are facing must also be addressed or your entire line of defense could get wiped out in one wave. There are also several mini-games that help you get more money to buy power-ups and new types of plants of your crazy next door neighbor. You even get to play as the zombies on one of them. Pop Cap has a great since of humor and it really shows in this game as if the dancing zombie (straight out of the Thriller video) who calls up backup dancers from the dead wasn’t enough, there are also little tidbits that make you snicker like the message you get when you click on help from the main menu.

For a $20 PC game(or $10 if you can catch a good Steam sell), it packs a lot of fun and has great replay value as there is no way you’ll figure out how to optimally use every plant on your first try through it. The many levels are fun little puzzles and more challenging than they appear at first glance. The mini-games will also have you scratching your head as to how to solve them. It shows that the folks who brought us Peggle have way more to offer. I can’t wait for a portable version.

Grade B+
Meta 87

Oregan Trail - Die of Dyssentery again!

Apple hooked a bunch of us when we were young. I distinctly remember being in 3rd grade and turning on a monochromatic Apple II machine and booting up Oregon Trial with several classmates looking over my shoulder as I gave it a try. I don’t think anyone in the class was able to complete the game. We could all shoot bears, deer, and squirrels with expert accuracy. A few of us were able to float down a river or two before everyone died of dysentery or some other disease. We couldn’t stop playing it though no matter how many times we tried and failed.

I downloaded the new version of the game off the app store the other day and took it for a spin. Graphically it’s worlds apart from the game I played in 3rd grade but it’s still very much the same game. You chose your character class, a wagon, what month you’ll begin your travels in and set off down the trail. This one is a little more educational and a bit more game-y than before. You’ll run into a young Custard, congressman Lincoln, and a few other historical figures. You’ll learn just a bit of history along the way as every loading screen (and there are a lot of them) has an interesting tidbit about the journey and time period on it. You’ll also play some mini-games such as hunting (which is still pretty fun and simple), repairing your wagon, and panning for gold. Floating down the river is just as hard as it ever was as well. The games are sort of challenges giving you goals to meet and grading your performance. They’re easy enough for any kid to beat, yet still challenging enough for seasoned gamers to have fun at.

The entire journey can take a couple hours to complete, but has an abundance of checkpoints that save your progress so you can put it down without worrying if your family will be raided by bandits in the middle of the night. I wish there was a little more education packed in though as you will see the same blurb pop up on a loading screen more than once. This is an educational game after all. It succeeds in being faithful to memory while giving the game the upgrade it needed to exist in this day and age and works quite well on the platform.

Grade B-
Meta Grade 78

Geo Defense - I think, therfore I can play

I like using my brain and when you come across a tower defense game made by a game developer named Critical Thought Games, you know you’re not going to be able to randomly throw up a bunch of towers and coast through every level. Geo Defense is the tower defense game for people that want a challenge. It’s the best one I’ve played since Q Game’s Pixeljunk Monsters and the awesome thing about Geo Defense is that it’s always in my pocket.

For the most part, it’s the same tower defense game we’ve all seen before. There is a beginning and end to every level and enemies travel along a set path to the end and you place units which can be upgraded along that path to stop them. What makes this game a gem is that you really have to think about where you’re placing your units. The laser cannon for example works best when it’s able to fire across a straight. If you place it in a location where it can’t be it’s most effective, you will likely lose. Every unit has optimal locations to be placed which you need to discover. Some levels restrict the type of units that can be placed to prevent you from placing multiple overpowered towers (like the Tesla Towers in Field Runners) and make you concentrate on how to effectively place what you have to win.

While the game makes you find the optimal tower placement locations, there is more than one solution to every map. This is one of those games like Punch Out!! where you can (and will) fail over and over yet you will come back for more because it’s just a puzzle you haven’t figured out yet, and once you do you kind of slap yourself on the forehead and exclaim “why didn’t I see that before.” In a world now overrun with tower defense games, on a platform overrun with tower defense games, this game shines brighter than all its rivals. There are over 34 levels of brain bending challenges to attempt and you’ll have fun trying them all.

Grade A
Meta Grade 93

Abduction - The cows are coming back

Abduction is a fun little time waster for those that have that other cool phone, the Android equipped G1. It’s played using the tilt controls of the phone. You are a cow. There are several platforms floating above your head. There is a flying saucer way up in the sky above you have to reach to clear the level. Once the game starts your begins jumping constantly while you tilt left or right to control which platform it lands on to continue going up. There are “power-ups” that can give you more or less platforms, extra lives, or make the platforms crumble beneath you. There’s nothing else to it but that. It is integrated with Score Ninja and has online ranking so you can see how well you’re doing against everyone else. It’s great fun if you’ve got a bit of free time on your hands and since it’s played entirely with tilt, if your on a packed bus or train, you can still break it out without accidentally throwing an elbow at an unsuspecting passenger.

Grade B
Meta Grade 83

Sway - A new way to fall off platforms to your death

Sway is a great looking game for iPhone with a great platforming technique, but it suffers from bad play controls. You play the part of a frog who’s friends have been locked up and you need to rescue them and put your world back together. There are many levels each with their own challenges. You have to swing from platform to platform using the touch screen to swing left and right and gain your momentum. Therein lies the problem. To spin your character, you have to put your thumb/finger on the screen and rotate him around blocking your field of view. Also the game doesn’t give you any indication of when to release to actually make the jump or how far your character will jump. It’s a trial and error nightmare. When spiked blocks are introduced it becomes even more frustrating as you immediately die if you make contact. It’s an awesome effort by the developers and I hope they make another game with improved controls but if you like your iPhone and don’t want to break it in a fit of rage by throwing it across the room, you should probably leave this one alone.

Grade C-
Meta Grade 50

Crystal Defenders: Vanguard Storm - What Would Boby Fisher Do?

If you like chess, tower defense, and Final Fantasy then you should give Crystal Defenders: Vanguard Storm for the iPhone/iTouch a look. It’s a difficult one to explain but basically you are placed on a squared board with a string of enemies on the left and your units on the right. The board is split in half and you cannot cross the line but the enemies can. The enemies advance toward the right and if they can make it across the line and to the end of your side of the screen you lose. Your units can only attack in certain directions, for example an archer can only shoot diagonally and a soldier can only attack squares immediately in front of it. You do not get to choose which units to deploy, but in between waves sometimes you are given a choice of an aid unit to join you in your fight.

The game makes you think a lot about strategy and how to best deal with the approaching enemies. You are under a time limit and if you lose a unit, you’ve lost it for the remainder of the wave so you have to consider unit strength and location vs the enemies and who should attack who. There are 10 levels each with unique waves of enemies and there are level bosses as well. It's more of a thinking man's game, yet easy to master and lots of fun.

Grade A-

Meta Grade 89