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Looking back at 2009 I’m glad that I put together my unofficial official game of the year list when I did. Dragon Age: Origins sounded like it should have been a contender from all the hype, and as it moved on to pick up honorable mentions and awards from other websites and publications I thought to myself, “You know, I probably should play this.”

I think I could have done without.

Bioware used up their free pass on Mass Effect when they released a game that had enough story to drag me towards the end, but no gameplay to support itself. Mass Effect suffered from terrible controls, long load times and a plethora of graphical problems. While Dragon Age doesn’t seem to struggle with load times as often as you might expect, it definitely has some serious problems in the other two areas. Collision detection is abysmal. Moving towards an enemy and pressing the attack button will work as often as not, depending on if you are faster than your party members. If they get there first expect to watch your team bump into each other as they try to move up to the enemy, getting stuck on each other in what is reminiscent of a bunch of angry shoppers pushing and shoving each other to get the final few items on sale.

Dragon Age has a nice touch when it comes to slaughtering big evil things. Every now and then when you strike the killing blow on something bigger than yourself it cuts to a slow motion sequence where you kick back and watch your hero decapitate or eviscerate an enemy in true badass style. Beware, then, of pressing the action button when this happens. Having accidentally mashed the “attack” button as it started my hero promptly engaged in conversation with another party member, leaving the character frozen in place and the slow motion effect active long after the enemy fell to the ground. I lost track of how many times the camera would focus in on a wall when I spoke to one of my party members, leading to abruptly ending conversations out of annoyance and eventually not bothering with conversations at all. Twice while speaking to a member of the party the voice acting simply didn’t cut in right away, so I was treated to several seconds of mouth animation — and then several more seconds of the speech I should have already heard.

The saving grace of Dragon Age is the sheer size of it. A story of epic proportions, Dragon Age offers you six unique origin stories as well as three customizable classes to culminate in an experience that might only be rivaled by Fallout 3 in terms of length. Writing and voice acting are one of Bioware’s specialties and it’s almost enough to make me want to go back and play through a second time.

Almost, but not quite enough.

Dragon Age: Origins is one of those games that probably would have gotten away with a lot more if I hadn’t gone into it expecting something fantastic. Much in the same way that I don’t like Fight Club because it had been hyped up far beyond what it actually is by the time I saw it, Dragon Age falls far short of the mark because of the hype.

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Man, everything about this game made me want to hate it, but the presentation of the story was so damn good.

So, inFamous. Here you’ve got your typical open world super-powered person game which wound up being released next to two other similar games (Red Faction: Guerrilla and Prototype), and critically has been lauded as the best of the bunch. I played Red Faction first and enjoyed it, but avoided most of the side quests and simply played through the story for the sake of playing through the story. I grabbed inFamous next because I had heard from places like Giant Bomb that the game was great. Not so much.

So inFamous sets you up in a quarantined city that exists on three islands, two of which are locked off at the beginning. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but you progress through a series of missions, choosing whether to act towards the greater good or for your own personal benefit all while growing ever stronger and eventually unlocking the second and third islands. The game offers fifteen good-or-evil side missions as well as a plethora of other side missions that remove territory from gang control on each of the islands, which are easy enough to accomplish but often time consuming and very annoying.

Each of the main story quests wind up offering you a good choice or an evil choice, and I went strictly good the entire way. Nevertheless after accomplishing some of these I was still awarded evil points, without much explanation as to why that happened. A good example of this was a mission where I had to traverse the sewers to restore power to an underground substation, fighting members of that islands local gang along the way. After completing the objective I had “become slightly more evil” despite there being no civilians or property down there to damage.

The mechanics are sort of off as well. Too floaty jumps and an obtrusive auto-grab feature leaves you frustrated when trying to jump from one close object another horizontally oriented. Often you’ll jump towards it only to have the character grab back on to the exact spot you started from.

The world isn’t built that well, either. Several times when climbing up a partially destroyed building I would find myself clipping through the building to fall through to my death underneath the world, or would find myself landing somewhere I shouldn’t have been and winding up in a much similar state. Too often I would get hit by one of the monorails circling the different islands and sent flying hundreds of feet to my death in the endless ocean below the map proper.

Yes, I had a lot of issues with inFamous. But the biggest redeeming factor for me is the story. I absolutely loved the story the game presented.

From starting out hanging out with your best friend, to losing and then reforming a relationship with your girlfriend, to running errands for a possible FBI agent, to taking on other super-powered characters and discovering the twist at the very end of the game inFamous had me ignoring many of the side missions to simply push the story along. Not because I wanted to finish the game and put it back on the shelf, but because I had developed an interest in the story in a very bad way and needed to see it through to the end.

Get this game. Rent it, buy it, trade for it. If you have a PS3 you would be doing yourself a disservice by not taking the time to finish it. Go into the game expecting it to have a janky quality, but temper that with the knowledge of an excellent story to discover for yourself.

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Fans of the Twilight series, rejoice! This movie will deliver exactly what you’re after from a Twilight movie — sparkly vampires and werewolves are not a rare commodity in the second installment of Twilight. But for the rest of us like the experience is more like the morning after a night of hard drinking: sitting through New Moon leaves you with an an awful headache and the taste of vomit in your mouth.

Throw out everything you know about Twilight. Forget the legions of brainless, screaming fans. Forget the equal numbers of disgusted haters. Forget the fact that the “vampires” sparkle. Forget absolutely everything you love or hate about the Twilight series when you read this next line.

New Moon is a bad movie.

As is often said on the internet, “I’m no expert on [relevant topic], but…” I’m no expert on the making of films, but with an estimated budget of $50 million one would think the creators of this piece of film could get a few things right. The werewolves, for example, look terrible. Like they took an old-school robotic wolf puppet and modeled that in CG and said “Yes, this fits our vision.”

Thankfully the werewolves in this film are afflicted with Incredible Hulk syndrome, and while there are plenty of shots of them shirtless their pants somehow always survive the change from man to wolf and back again.

A large chunk of the movie is told through voice-over in the form of Bella writing to Alice Cullen, who we are to believe is her dearest friend in the world; the only person who truly understands everything Bella is going through. While everyone else seemed to accept this quickly enough, I was left confused. Having never read the books my only frame of reference for the relationship between Alice and Bella was the previous movie where the vampire girl had half a dozen lines, none of which promoted anything in he way of character development.

The few times you see Bella’s school friends leaves much of the same impression. There is a shot near the beginning of the first day back to school, where all of her friends are totally stoked to see her. Then the next time Bella hangs out with one it’s a complete 180. Apparently Bella has been spending all her time with the vampires and her friends don’t really see her as a friend anymore. But when did that happen?

There are several points in the movie where Bella is engaging in potentially life-threatening situations (motorcycles, cliff-diving, etc) and sees some kind of vision of Edward when she does. But is it really him, or is it a ghost, or a fantasy, or a memory, or some kind of hallucination? The movie manages to get across that he isn’t actually there, though he somehow offers salient advice to whatever situation he might be in.

It’s points like these that make New Moon a bad movie. It’s a bad movie because instead of adapting the book to the best of it’s ability it is an obvious cash grab. Shirtless wolfboys and brooding vampires are what the fans of these movies expect and hey, the movie delivers at the expense of acting, story or character development.

As a short aside, while I was sitting in the theatre jotting notes about this two girls were sitting next to me. At one point one of them looked over and said “What are you writing,” in a completely serious tone. Having heard all about those fucking crazy Twilight fans I decided to play it cautiously. “Twilight review,” I replied. “Oh,” she said. “It better be a good review.”

Needless to say, I assured her it would be a good review. I’ll say it right now, I’ll lie to avoid getting stabbed by a teen girl.

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Now that I got my impressions of Valkyria Chronicles out of the way in my previous post I can get down to the gritty business of offering up an actual review on the game.

Valkyria Chronicles is played between a cross of a tactical map and a third person mode you enter when moving your troops. The tactical map offers you a top-down view of the entire arena, complete with icons for the different troops on your team as well as troops for the enemy forces, assuming you have somebody who can see them.

The troops consists of five different types:

• Scouts; they have basic rifles that don’t pack much of a punch, but have a huge amount they can move per turn. They’re good for running out, spotting any potentially hidden enemy troops and running back to safety all in a single turn.
• Shocktroopers; they have an average amount of movement — you’ll probably be sending them directly at the enemy anyway. Armed with machine-guns, they make up the bulk of your offensive force against everything except tanks.
• Lancers: These guys are big, armored, and slow. These guys are equipped with anti-tank rockets and are ideal for taking down tanks.
• Engineers: These guys have almost as much movement as scouts and are similarly equipped, with the exception of a special “repair tool”. They automatically refill any ammo any of your other troops have used just by walking close to them, and can use their repair tool to fix up barricades, disarm landmines, and repair tanks. The downside is two or three shots will kill them, so it’s best to be extra cautious with them.
• Snipers: They are what the class implies. Next to no movement, next to no health, but armed with sniper rifles that can take an enemy soldier down in one well placed head-shot.

On top of these different classes, your main character is what the game calls a Tank Commander. Your Tank Commander drives around in a specialized armored tank and has the ability to issue orders to your troops at the cost of turns per round, though it’s very easy to play through most of the game without ever issuing a single order. The start of the game has you fill your squad up with twenty members, chosen from a large roster. This is where the RPG aspect of the game takes over; each individual has specific traits as well as likes and dislikes.

Different soldiers have traits, both positive and negative. Some soldiers have area specific traits, where having them placed in their preferred terrain can activate a boost in accuracy or damage, while putting them in terrain they dislike activates a decrease in performance. On top of this, they can have likes or dislikes in relation to other soldiers — A soldier might enjoy another soldier’s company and will perform better to impress them, or they may dislike another soldier and perform worse due to focusing their ire at them. These, plus a number of other traits all factor in to your decision for who will join your squad.

Once you’ve decided on who will fill the ranks of your squad you participate in a large number of battles that fill out the game’s story mode. While most of them are rather straight forward (You start here, your enemy is there. Move up and take their base) there are a few that toss convention out the window and make a tactical game that much more tactical.

The game doesn’t have much in the way of real problems, so much as annoyances with the game mechanics. For example, you can be controlling a Lancer and aiming at a tank dead on, but some combination of factors kick in with the end result being their rocket soars clear past the tank, wasting the shot and his turn. When the enemy troops are moving the game cuts to the third person mode, showing the viewpoint of the soldier with the best vantage point, but more often than not the view is obstructed by a building or debris, leaving you staring at nothing and missing out on where the enemy is, which can prove to be a serious problem if you aren’t used to the tactical map.

On the flip side, the game has an incredibly engaging story packed with characters you find it hard not to feel something towards. The basics of the gameplay are easy enough to handle that you won’t need to understand the nuances and quirks of your squad right off the top, leaving you with a satisfying mix of progression and discovery. Stumbling on some of these during my play through was incredibly rewarding, and opened my eyes to several tactics I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. On top of it all the game has a great soundtrack the likes of which you may come to expect from a top tier Japanese release.

The game is a fantastic way to waste a day or two, so if you see a copy make sure to snatch it up. You won’t be disappointed.

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The “World of Warcraft” of casual games in terms of addictiveness has arrived on the XBLA and anybody who has played any of the iterations will not be disappointed. What makes this version of the smash hit from PopCap different from every other version to date is the multiplayer features it includes.

Peggle as a game is simple in premise. You control a pinball launcher sitting at the top of the game board, populated with blue and orange bricks and pegs. The object of the game is to hit every orange brick and peg on the board before running out of shots, in order to complete the level and move on to designs of greater skill.

continue reading…

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Boy, is my face red. After the terrible experience that was Battlestar Galactica on XBLA I didn’t think there was a space based shooter on the marketplace that could satisfy my urges for mayhem and destruction. My hope for being able to jump in the cockpit of a nice little fighter and blast my way through several levels of eternally spawning enemies seemed so far away…

Then I found Aegis Wing. Here we have a 2-D sidescrolling shooter that satisfies those needs. With normal and insane modes, it appears to be nothing more than your average XBLA title — until you factor in one key bulletpoint: it’s free. This totally free title on the Marketplace offers all the features of a normal game. Several levels of play, two difficulties, upto four player co-op, and a number of interesting power-ups in the forum of health and weapons. Blast through the levels on your own or partner up with friends or randoms over Live — it doesn’t matter. The game is fun.

Aegis Wing is fun and free, so go grab it if you don’t have it and enjoy some mindless shooting. It’s leaps and bounds better than some paid titles on the Marketplace.

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( I know this was supposed to be up Saturday but we had some technical difficulties over the weekend, and as my brain is wired to get these up on Saturday I plum forgot. )

Yessss, it’s time for another exciting XBLA Saturday segment, and it’s actually going to be a current title! How exciting, right? Almost as exciting as the name of the title implies? Just look at it; Death Tank. It sounds fantastic, and the early videos only makes it seem that much better.

If you’ve seen the videos, you really don’t need to play the game. It looks so promising and.. I..

I’m sorry, I just can’t do this. You broke my heart, Death Tank. You show up out of nowhere and you looked so good, and then you decide you’re worth fifteen bucks? I could look past that if your gameplay didn’t continuously reward the winners, and if your power-ups weren’t so ridiculous. How do you expect me to love you if getting losing one round almost always means I will continue to lose?

I guess I understand. Listen, it’s cool. We can just be friends. I had my fun with your 60 minutes of full gameplay demo, but we just weren’t meant for each other. I’m just gonna go home and have a nap, and then see if Worms will take me back.

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Another board game turned XBLA title, Catan brings the best of card based resourse management to the console. Any game is played between two and four players, and takes place on a fictional island divided into hexagonal tiles, each containing a resource type and a number. Players take turns placing two settlements and two road pieces down on the board, and then take turns rolling a set of six-sided dice. If there is a settlement touching a tile that contains the number rolled, the owner of that settlement gains that resource.

The objective of the game is to collect the different kinds of resources (brick, stone, wheat, and sheep) which are used to purchase different pieces. A player can buy road, settlement, and city pieces, as well as development cards. By placing down roads and settlements a player can earn victory points, and the first player to reach ten points wins the game

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The game itsself is easy to learn, but surprisingly difficult to master. Given that the layout of the board is different every time, a skilled player can utilize their roads to block off other players from expanding to needed resources or create a monopoly on a specific resource, forcing the other players to offer deals in order for them to get their much needed resource.

Playing against the AI is a good way to learn the nuances of the game,  but playing against real people brings a whole new level of strategy to the game. Sadly, this is one game that seems to have unfairly fallen by the wayside, and a lack of local multiplayer means you can’t get a few games in with your friends.

The game is sitting at a cool 800 Microsoft Points and while the game is worth every point in terms of gameplay, the difficulty in finding play online should warrant a price drop. If you enjoy the board game titles on XBLA give this one a shot.

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So here we have a unique game on the XBLA, in the sense that there is no real objective to it except to make your way up the build order. The game has no combat, no objectives, and minimal micro-management. Weather doesn’t affect anything, time has no meaning, and resources are infinite. Despite the lack of a driving force I found myself putting the controller down several hours later, wondering exactly where my evening had gone.

You start off by selecting either a stock ‘giant’ character from the game, or using your own NXE avatar. Following this, you assign tiny little villagers — the Keflings — to tasks such as harvesting stone and lumber, with which you use build structures from blueprints. Repeat this a few dozen times and you read the end of the build order, and can set out to move buildings and design your own little world.

The multiplayer is much the same — you can host or join a game online, and instead of building everything yourself you team up with other players in the game. The downside is that communication with other players is severely limited, so it is far more likely that you’ll get in each other’s way.

What it boils down to:

• It was the first game to use the NXE avatars
• Following the build order from start to finish assures several hours of gameplay
• The repetition makes it easy to get into a routine and presents a relaxing atmosphere

If you’re looking for an experience different from everything else on the Arcade, think about picking up A Kingdom for Keflings. Grab the trial — the game is identical to it the whole way through. If you find yourself wanting more then grab the game.

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Do you like frantic combat? Do you like generic weapons and power-ups that really add nothing to the gameplay? Maybe you’re a fan of a badly designed half top-down and half over-the-shoulder camera? No? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Battlestar Galactica on XBLA relies on the name alone to sell it — and after picking it up I can understand why. The game consists of a handful of levels, loosely following the early plot of the re-imagined series. Your ships are picked for you depending on the level, tossing you into a few different models of Vipers, a Raptor, a Cylon Raider and the Blackbird. The final three examples each take the spotlight for a single mission during the campaign, and despite having the opportunity they present for innovative gameplay, every mission comes down to the same thing — see Cylon, shoot until dead.

The camera angle they went with feels like they couldn’t decide if they wanted a top-down shooter or something different, so instead they decided on “all of the above” and stick the camera somewhere above and behind your ship, leaving you with the experience of dragging your head along the ceiling. It has the added bonus of making it difficult to see anything on your screen until you are almost on top of it — leaving you to rely almost solely on your radar to pick a target.

I can’t even say whether the multiplayer makes up for everything the single player experience lacks, since it has been impossible to find a single other person looking for a game, let alone finding a full death match to participate in.

To add insult to injury the game is priced at 800 Microsoft Points, and I wouldn’t even recommend it at 400.

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