Prince of Persia

Posted by Sishu / at 4:56 AM / / 0 comments

Prince of Persia

• Ubisoft
• Ubisoft Montreal
• Fantasy Action Adventure
• Release: Dec 2, 2008 »
• ESRB: Teen

Prince of Persia

The Good

• Intricate level design
• Beautiful art direction
• Platforming is entertaining and looks great
• Cinematic combat moves are cool to pull off and impressive to watch
• Elika's presence leads to unique gameplay mechanics.

The Bad

• Really, really easy
• The new prince isn't a good leading man
• Some combat and platforming annoyances.

In many modern games, you rain death upon your enemies; how refreshing, then, that your main task in Prince of Persia is to breathe life into a darkening world. That doesn't mean that the forces of evil aren't on your tail in this open-world platformer, but the most indelible moments of this enchanting journey are uplifting, rather than destructive. Similarly, the latest iteration in this long-running franchise is a rejuvenation for the series, and it's an ambitious one, offering up a new titular prince and casting certain game traditions aside in favor of player immersion. And for the most part it succeeds, eliminating illusion-breaking mechanics like game-over screens and long loading times in the process. This re-imagining comes with a few caveats, however, and if you're a longtime series fan, you'll quickly discover--and possibly resent--that Prince of Persia is, far and away, the easiest game in the series. But if you can clear your mind and let the game's magic wash over you, its easygoing joy and visual beauty will charm you into forgiving a sprinkling of flaws.

Elika grows on the prince--and she'll grow on you.

In some ways, Prince of Persia represents a return to Sands of Time's storybook vibe, which had been somewhat lost in that game's two sequels. Yet our new hero isn't exactly Prince Charming, but rather a wisecracking nomad interested only in his donkey (named Farah, in one of several nods to previous games) and the riches she apparently carries. His royal status is referenced but never fully explored, though his companion Elika is clearly a princess, and as the game progresses, you'll become much more invested in her past than the prince's. Together, they seek to imprison the evil god Ahriman, who has been inexplicably set free by Elika's own father. To do so, they must restore a series of fertile grounds to their former fecund glory, thereby banishing the inky black corruption that has enveloped the land. Storytelling isn't the game's strong suit, and the dismissive, often unlikeable prince is hardly beguiling, a poor fit for the captivating journey ahead. Thankfully, Elika exudes enough charm for the both of them, and the relationship they slowly forge lends plenty of emotional impact to the game's final moments.

This relationship enriches the very core of the experience, given that Elika is not your standard game sidekick. She isn't just a helpless companion, but an important part of a number of gameplay mechanics. As the prince, you will pull off moves familiar to franchise fans: jumping, climbing, scaling, and wallrunning among them. There are also a few new acrobatics to play with, such as the aptly named roofrun, where the prince scuttles along the roof in a vaguely simian manner. But if the moves are familiar, Elika's presence enriches and enhances them. She will jump on your back as you scale across vines, reach for your helping hand as you climb, and perform an elegant pas de deux with you when you need to pass her on a narrow beam. In some ways, this relationship recalls that of Ico and Yorda in 2001's ICO.

While in ICO Yorda was totally dependent on her companion, here Elika is far more helpful to the prince than he is to her. She is, in fact, your constant savior, because she will not, and cannot, allow you to die. Should you fall, Elika will grab you by the wrist and whisk you to safety--meaning the last checkpoint. There is a checkpoint at almost every platform, so aside from possibly having to repeat a few seconds of gameplay, there is absolutely no penalty for plummeting to your doom. You will never see the words "game over," and you won't need to save and reload before difficult sequences. Nor will you need to ever puzzle over how to make it from point A to point B: Elika can fire off a magical homing orb that will show you the precise way of getting to your destination. Combined with simple platforming controls that require a minimum of key or button presses, these facets make Prince of Persia one of the easiest games you'll play all year.

En garde!

This ease of use makes each individual action seem relatively meaningless as you string moves together. For many, this will translate to a diminished feeling of reward; aside from a few exceptions, there is no sequence that feels remotely challenging, certainly not for players familiar with the old-school difficulties wrought by the early games in the series. Yet while the unique satisfaction of overcoming hurdles is missing, it is tempered by other kinds of rewards. The platforming is fluid, and seamlessly chaining a number of moves together is simple but visually appealing, making for some silky-smooth motion that you'll get a kick out of. To get the most out of it, however, you will want to use a controller. While the keyboard controls work surprisingly well for platforming, the numerous quicktime events aren't well suited to a keyboard, and the key prompts are more confusing when you aren't using a gamepad.

As you progress through the game and explore some of the more intricate environments, you'll find some truly impressive level design. Each area flows organically into the next, and while the overall design appears a bit more synthetic than it did in Assassin's Creed, platform placement and other architectural features don't seem overtly artificial. This becomes even more apparent when you begin to unlock Elika's various powers--though calling them powers is a bit of a stretch. As you unlock new explorable areas by collecting glowing orbs called light seeds, you will be able to utilize the various colored plates that dot walls and ceilings. There are four types of plates, and each kind initiates a high-flying feat. Red and blue plates are functionally the same (though visually unique), propelling you automatically toward the next plate or platform. Green plates turn you into a sort of Persian Spider-Man, causing you to quickly scale up walls and ceilings while avoiding obstacles. Finally, yellow plates initiate on-rails flight sequences that give you limited room to maneuver around obstructions, sort of like a 3D version of Nights Into Dreams, the Saturn platformer. Many of the sequences combining plate jumps and standard platforming are exhilarating, and the manner in which some of them utilize all three dimensions make the level design all the more impressive. And amazingly, the camera is rarely a liability, which is quite an achievement. Unfortunately, the flying initiated by leaping from yellow plates is a clear weakness. The constant camera movement and overwhelming visual effect used here make for a few annoying sections, and it is never clear whether you need to go left or right, up or down to avoid certain objects. Given that most of the plate-initiated bits are terrific fun, it's a shame these particular flights of fancy were so poorly crafted.

There is some combat, and while it's hardly Prince of Persia's focus, it looks mightily spectacular. You fight only a single enemy at a time, including the four main bosses, which you'll take on multiple times. Battles are on the simple side: you have four main attacks--sword, gauntlet, Elika's magic, and acrobatic vault--that you can string into various combos. Enemies can change states, making certain attacks ineffective, and there are some other occasional twists. Yet like the platforming, it is on the easy side; even if Elika is bound by corrupted tentacles or rendered unconscious, she's always there to pluck you from death's cold embrace should you miss an important quicktime event (of which there are many). But battles are still uniquely satisfying and look fantastic. The prince throws Elika into the air with ease, stringing throws, slices, and magic attacks together as the camera zooms in and out to showcase the slashes and backflips. The stringent enemy-focused camera and odd scuttling motions of the prince feel confining but work just fine in most of these battles, though they're a bit less successful during certain boss fights that require some environmental manipulation.

This high-flying combo is one of many visual treats.

Combat's not the only thing that looks spectacular. Prince of Persia is beautiful to look at, thanks to vibrant cel-shading and some sumptuous environments. Tendrils of corruption reach toward you as you navigate the cold, colorless caverns of infertile regions. The contrast between these areas and the beautifully lit vistas and thriving vegetation of healed locales is palpable, and the transformation of a fertile ground from darkness to light may remind you of similarly impressive moments in Okami. There are a few rough spots here and there, in the way of glitched animations and tiny frame rate stutters, but they barely detract from the lovely visual design. While there are some minor differences, all three versions look great and well represent the capabilities of their respective platforms. And all three feature the same lovely ambient music, which sounds more Persian than the very American-sounding prince.

Most will be able to finish Prince of Persia in around a dozen hours, though if you want to collect every scattered light seed and avoid quick travel (you can teleport from one healed ground to another instantly), you could add a few more hours to the total. But while a few unlockable skins may not seem like enough reason to return, this game is so enjoyable and delightful that you may want to return to it as you would return to a favorite fantasy novel or film. While its lack of challenge may lull fans, its ease of use will delight newcomers and draw in anyone who appreciates a touch of magic.

Mirror's Edge

Posted by Sishu / at 4:48 AM / / 0 comments

Mirror's Edge

• EA Games
• EA DICE
• Modern First-Person...
• Release: Jan 12, 2009 »
• ESRB: Teen

Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge offers occasional thrills, provided that you can look past some awkward stumbles.

The Good

• Flawless runs provide a total rush
• Clean, striking visual design
• Fantastic sound effects and music.

The Bad

• Frustrating amount of trial and error
• Cramped jumping puzzles trip up the momentum
• Combat and gunplay are weak.

Like its heroine, Faith, Mirror's Edge tries to hurdle some significant obstacles, but unlike Faith, it can't always make the leap. No doubt, this fascinating action platformer possesses its share of innovations, from a first-person perspective to a clean and crisp visual style, yet it looks to the past more than you may initially notice. This is a modern-day iteration of an old-fashioned platformer, in which you're meant to play and replay sequences of jumps, grabs, and slides until you get them perfect, or at least perfect enough to continue. But unlike its ancestors, Mirror's Edge is more about speed and momentum, and when you can connect your moves in a flawless stream of silky movement, it's eminently thrilling and satisfying. Unfortunately, Mirror's Edge has a tendency to trip over its own feet, keeping you slipping and sliding blissfully along, only to have a tedious jumping puzzle or hazy objective put the brakes on. Leaderboard chasers looking to set a speed-run record will find Mirror's Edge to be pure gold. Others will give up, alienated by the inherent trial and error of the game's basic design. At the very least, there's nothing quite like it, and it deserves a cautious look from anyone who appreciates games that hew their own path.

No matter how fast she runs, Faith can't always escape danger.

Faith is a runner, in more ways than one. In the oppressed society of Mirror's Edge, runners are an underground network of couriers, carrying sensitive information and documents from sender to receiver. The content of these messages is never clear, and it doesn't matter much; rather, the story's conflict revolves around Faith's sister, a cop who is framed for the murder of a mayoral candidate who promised to bring change to the totalitarian government and bring hope to the runners living on the fringe. Soon, Faith is running for a different reason: to uncover the conspiracy at the heart of the murder and clear her sister's name. The story is straightforward, but it's interesting enough to keep you involved, and though it ends with a sequel-hinting cliffhanger, it wraps up things enough to feel fulfilling nonetheless. More intriguingly, the story plays out between missions in stylishly animated cutscenes, as well as scenes within the game engine itself, which also look attractive but feature a completely different art style. Both types look good, but the disparity is a little odd.

And so you run, across rooftops, through train stations, and along walls. As you run, you pick up speed and are able to string a number of moves together in rapid succession. You can slide under pipes, bound over railings, and leap across impossible-looking chasms, among other techniques. Of course, the most obvious twist in Mirror's Edge is that you do all of this from a first-person view, rather than with the typical third-person camera that we've come to expect. It's an interesting spin, if not wholly new, and it has a way of immersing you as you speed toward your destination. Actions such as balancing on a narrow beam, sliding under a ledge at top speed, and tumbling when you land a long jump are fun to execute and look neat, but it may also make you wonder how much fun it would be to see what Faith looks like when she pulls off these neat stunts, which isn't possible in this game.

Nevertheless, Mirror's Edge excels when you hit that snappy stride, and once you've found the best route through a particularly tricky scenario, it's exhilarating to rush through it without a care to weigh you down. But this doesn't happen the first time you do it, or even the fifth time. You will need to experiment and hone your skills, given that a simple mistake can send you plunging down onto the street below, or will at very least interrupt your stride. You're expected to play each level multiple times to learn the routes that best propel you along, which is great the 10th time around but is often an infuriating series of false starts, mistimed jumps, and full stops during the first few attempts. If you need a hand, you can hold a button to activate runner vision, which turns the camera toward your destination, but it's an imprecise solution that sometimes points you toward a short-term objective and at other times points you toward your long-term goal.

Geronimo!

Another inconsistently helpful tool comes directly from the game's impressive art design. Mirror's Edge is a game of visual contrasts, in which stark white environments contrast with vivid colors. It looks beautiful and clean, and it's a great way of demonstrating both the bleakness of an authoritarian society and the unique manner in which a runner would see the world--as an array of landing points and jumping opportunities. Important ramps, doorways, ladders, and other points of interest are painted in a vibrant red, which is an important visual cue in some of the broader levels. However, this element too is delivered inconsistently; in some cases, the red hue may not fade in until you are close to the pole or vaulting point in question, and in other cases, Mirror's Edge expects you to figure things out without this visual assistance.

For a game that relies on so much forward momentum, Mirror's Edge has a way of bringing the pace to a halt. Sometimes this is because of the nature of trial-and-error gameplay: fall, die, reload checkpoint. At other times, it's because you're faced with an intricate jumping puzzle that eschews the sense of speed entirely, such as one that has you descending into the depths of the water-supply system and then up again. These aren't bad, but they're not particularly engaging, either; you're likelier to feel relieved rather than fulfilled when you reach your destination. Or you'll be zooming along, only to find yourself in an elevator, reading the news crawl on the wall's electronic panel while the level apparently loads in the background. In all of these cases, you're torn from the experience and reminded that this is, after all, just a game.

Armed enemies further complicate matters. It's best to run right past them when possible, but their bullets have a way of bringing you to your knees as you rush around looking for the best escape route. Some foe-heavy scenarios are particularly annoying, such as a sniper-loaded sequence in the final level. You can confront the threat head-on in some cases, but it requires careful planning and excellent timing. You can perform some close-combat moves such as jump kicks and punches, but these are best when used as hit-and-run tactics; trying to engage in melees with more than one or two enemies at a time is a quick path to the most recent checkpoint. Conversely, you can disarm an enemy in a quick-time event, pressing the disarm button when your foe's weapon flashes red. If you want to hold on to it, you can fire off a few shots until the clip runs out. However, Faith is ultravulnerable to gunfire, and the gunplay is loose and unfulfilling. If you have trouble keeping things in check (it takes some split-second timing to land a pitch-perfect disarm), you can enter a limited-use slow-motion mode, which comes in handy and makes some of these action-focused moves look cool, though it ultimately doesn't add much to the gameplay.

If you can overlook the array of quirks long enough to find your stride, you'll want to check out the beat-your-record races and level speed runs. Both modes feature online leaderboards, and both cater to the players likeliest to get the most out of Mirror's Edge. In a sense, the single-player story is simply a practice run for being a virtual show-off, yet the players repeating these levels (who will learn them to perfection) are also the ones likely to see Mirror's Edge at its most thrilling. You will want to break out an Xbox 360 controller if you want to get the most out of the experience. The keyboard-and-mouse setup is decent but occasionally awkward, and it can't compete with the interesting (but intuitive) gamepad controls.

You'll be seeing red, both literally and figuratively.

The unusually crisp visuals have seen some nice additional touches on the PC, such as fluttering industrial plastic over a few doorways, and symbolic flags undulating in the wind. The audio also deserves high praise. Sound effects such as Faith's breathy heaves and plodding footsteps are authentic touches that heighten the sense of speed and tension. The voice acting is equally terrific, but it's the pulsing, driving soundtrack that impresses most. Its rhythmic flow augments Faith's most fluid runs, whereas subtle ambient chords fill in the silence during downtimes. The superb musical journey culminates in a fantastic vocal track that plays during the game's final credits.

Mirror's Edge is many things: invigorating, infuriating, fulfilling, and confusing. It isn't for everybody, and it stumbles often for a game that holds velocity in such high esteem. But even with all of its foibles and frustrations, it makes some impressive leaps; it just doesn't nail the landing.

Undead Knights

Posted by Sishu / at 2:58 AM / / 0 comments

Undead Knights

• Tecmo
• Horror Action Adventure
• Release: Sep 29, 2009 »
• ESRB: Mature

Undead Knights

Adding zombies into the mix isn't enough to revive Undead Knights from its stale, typical hack-and-slash action.

The Good

• Interesting premise
• Amusing zombie-toss multiplayer mode.

The Bad

• Tedious gameplay and level design
• Environments only get remotely interesting toward the end of the game.

These days, if you want to create instant fun, it seems as if the solution is to "just add zombies." Undead Knights for the PSP, from publisher Tecmo, takes this philosophy and runs with it by injecting a healthy dose of reanimated rotting corpses into mundane, screen-filling hack-and-slash action. The idea of transforming hordes of enemies into your own personal army of shambling doom is an intriguing one, but in the case of Undead Knights, the end result is little more than a Dynasty Warriors-style game sauteed in extra zombies.

You play as one of three pallid, undead warriors hell-bent on revenge. They were once loyal knights serving under King Gradis in the kingdom of Cavalier, but because the knights suspected the king's beautiful (and overly buxom) new queen of foul play and witchery, they are murdered at the behest of the king. After their deaths, a mysterious being known as "The Beast" offers to revive them as undead and grant them the power to turn their enemies into zombies under their control. Though there's a twist or two thrown in for good measure, the plot mostly serves as a straightforward excuse to make a soldier-slaying and zombie-making mess.

Yes, you can turn this big lug into your very own pet zombie.

Undead Knights attempts to play up the drama with cutscenes, but a few strange elements make it difficult to take the presentation seriously. The major enemy characters in the game are voiced-over with dramatic acting that is appropriate for the game's fantasy medieval setting, but your characters sound like rejects from heavy metal and punk rock bands. The dialogue is scripted to match the voices; thus, your enemies speak lines that are--again--appropriate for the setting, but your own characters will throw in vulgarities for no other purpose than to titillate the player (or perhaps the writers), and no one's mouth moves at all during spoken lines. The only explanation for this odd mixture is perhaps that the game is going for unintentional humor.

Thankfully, none of these odd decisions get in the way of the gameplay. On the field, your characters can slash, jump, evade, and grab. Grabbing an enemy turns him into a zombie; grabbing a zombie allows you to either throw it or smash it into the ground for an explosive attack. There's a delay--determined by how strong he is--from when you grab an enemy to when he's fully converted into a zombie. This encourages you to weaken said enemy enough to the point where you can instantly convert him. With each successful conversion, you fill up a meter under your health bar that, when full, allows you to unleash a devastating combo attack that renders all victims zombies. Beyond this, though, there's little technique you'll actually need to employ. Because you're likely to be crowded by a mass of soldiers at most points during combat, you'll be just fine if you mash on the weak attack button for a few swings and then repeatedly hit the grab button.

Having the zombies on your side is advantageous because they'll keep lesser enemies distracted, but their most notable use comes when you have to overcome obstacles. You can command your zombies to destroy archery towers, as well as siege machines and barricades. Comically, you can also throw them onto spiked wrecking balls so that they roll into enemy forces, and you can command them to form a bridge across chasms. If you've ever craved a game in which you can walk across the backs of undead minions, then this is it. Once the initial glee of controlling an undead army dies down, however, the game's tedious pattern becomes painfully clear. Most of the level design boils down to fenced-off kill rooms, so more often than not, you'll simply enter an arena-style environment, slash at soldiers, convert as many zombies as you can, and then hold down the R button to command them to wreck something. Occasionally, larger and more powerful enemies will visit to make things interesting (at which point you'd best employ your special attack), but it's not until the last one-third or so of your playing time that things get really challenging and the whole repertoire of enemies comes at you supplemented by multiple traps, such as land mines, cannons, and spike traps.

You're encouraged to slaughter as many enemies as possible while completing each chapter as quickly as possible because the game ranks your performance and awards you dark energy with which you can upgrade your characters' abilities. Sadly, the list of upgrades isn't exciting: All you have to look forward to is maximum health, increased attack power, two combination attacks, and a few peripheral abilities and buffs. There aren't any new weapons to discover. There aren't any magical abilities or new special attacks to learn. What's most disappointing is that the possibilities for powerful, inventive, or even amusing new zombie techniques are never explored.

You'll be hard-pressed to find another game that lets you walk across the backs of your zombie servants.

The zombies themselves are almost all the same--shirtless blue-bodied detritus--which makes sense because a great majority of the enemies are the same armored soldiers differentiated only by the colors of their smocks. With a few of the larger executioners and monsters thrown into the mix, combined with some of the more detailed fortress environments, Undead Knights looks decent enough. The frame rate never bogs down to unplayable levels, so some of the flatter character models can be excused, given that you might see dozens of enemies on the screen at once. Again, though, it's not until much later into the game that you'll see anything more interesting than rocky paths, dirt trenches, or the inside of a stone fortress. (One embarrassing note: Enemies will spawn out of thin air, sometimes right in front of your face.) The music fares slightly worse because it consists almost entirely of wailing electric guitars churning out angry yet generic riffs that all start to sound the same by the third hour. All told, the presentation is almost as tedious as the gameplay.

Undead Knights offers you three difficulty levels from the start, allowing you to go through any of its 20 chapters on "Hell" difficulty if they get too boring. It also has its own list of achievements (dubbed Revenge Titles) that unlock for such things as throwing a certain number of zombies, turning a certain number of soldiers or larger characters into zombies, destroying a certain number of structures, and the like. They've been given amusing names, too, with some favorites being "Boom Goes the Dynamite", "Tenacious Z" and "World's Greatest Boss" among others. The game allows you to revisit any chapter to improve your rankings and throws in three multiplayer modes for good measure as well. These are actually more interesting than the main game: One mode has you throwing zombies at a second player to see who can score the most hits; another has you racing through several areas before fighting to the death; and the last one is a token Survival mode. The amusement of chucking corpses at each other or pummeling each other after a race isn't necessarily worth playing through six hours of the single-player game just to unlock every multiplayer map, but it's nice to have these options.

There's nothing entirely terrible about Undead Knights, except for maybe the soldiers that infinitely spawn out of nowhere. It's just disappointing that the action remains so simple and unremarkable when many similar games exist for the PSP. This is especially true when you consider that creating a zombie army--its one leg up on such games as Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi--doesn't let you do anything much more exciting than demolish an iron gate.

Naruto Legends: Akatsuki

Posted by Sishu / at 2:53 AM / / 0 comments

Naruto Legends: Akatsuki

• Namco Bandai Games America
• Namco Bandai Games
• Adventure
• Release: Oct 6, 2009
• ESRB: Teen

Naruto Legends: Akatsuki

Naruto's latest outing is yet another simplistic, mediocre brawler.

The Good

• Good voice-overs and music
• Akatsuki mode is fun
• Lots of customization
• Plenty of unlockables.

The Bad

• Lousy camera and lock-on system
• Same story you've almost certainly seen before
• Shallow fighting system
• Lackluster graphics.

The Naruto series is enormously popular worldwide. Given that, it's no surprise that fans of the spiky-haired blonde ninja-in-training would love the chance to actually play him in a video game. Unfortunately the history of Naruto games is one that consists primarily of a string of mediocre-at best titles. Still, hope springs eternal and with each new Naruto game released, there's always the chance that this one will be that ultimate Naruto game that you've been waiting for. Alas, Naruto fans will have to keep waiting because Naruto Shippuden: Legends: Akatusuki Rising, the latest in the series, is yet another sub-par brawler that seems to re-tread the same ground with similarly pedestrian results.

Combat amounts to little more than mindless button mashing.

The "haven't we been here before?" quality begins with the game's storyline. It follows the Kazakage Retrieval story arc in which Naruto returns to his village after a few years absence to meet up with his teacher and some old friends. Of course, it wouldn't be a day in the life of Naruto if something horrible didn't happen so that Naruto and his pals could bust out their cool ninja moves. Sure enough, when a couple of Akatsuki's followers manage to capture Naruto's friend Gaara, it's up to Naruto and his friends to rescue Gaara. If this sounds familiar, it's because it is familiar. It's pretty much the same story arc featured in Ultimate Ninja 4: Naruto Shippuden. Fans of that game who are hoping for a different perspective on the Naruto story based on the title (perhaps delving into the history and rise of the popular Akatsuki villains) will actually get a bit of fan service through the Akatsuki mode. This mode allows you to play as the bad guys capturing Sand Village and is a nice addition to the game. Unfortunately, you'll have to trudge through the same old repetitive story to get to it and the actual mode isn't that long.

The heart of the game takes place in the Scenario mode, which is a linear series of missions that follows the storyline of the show. As you complete missions in this mode, you'll unlock others things to do. These include the Mission mode where you can go on stand-alone missions that are rated in terms of difficulty to help the citizens of Leaf Village and the Survival mode where you'll have to defeat a certain number of enemies. Items, skill scrolls, and money acquired in these missions can also be used in the games store to kit out the many unlockable ninjas you can use. This level of customization and unlockable content is one of the game's biggest strengths. Put simply, there's a lot of game in here, and if you're a completionist looking for the kind of game where there's always another glittering prize on the horizon, Akatsuki Rising has you covered.

Unfortunately, getting there means that you'll have to slog through acres and acres of mindless button-mashing beat-'em-up combat. The key difference between Akatsuki Rising and previous Naruto games is that combat has been made a bit simpler by putting all attacks and counters on one button: the square. Most of the game is spent mashing that single button and repeatedly throwing the same combo on a mindless group of enemies. Counters are performed by pressing any button when being struck by an enemy, which means you'll often counter without realizing it. This can mess up your combo if you are struck by another opponent, and your target lock will switch away from the opponent you were attacking. Given the clunky method for switching between target-locked opponents and the occasionally wacky camera, it can make fighting against groups harder than necessary. That's somewhat ironic considering the simplicity of actual one-on-one fighting. The result is a system that starts out modestly enjoyable but eventually grows weirdly dull and frustrating at the same time.

Akatusuki mode is fun, but it's short and not enough to save the game.

Artistically, the game is all over the map. The sound is excellent. The music is the licensed soundtrack from the Naruto anime series and is used very effectively to punctuate the action. The character voice-overs are well done, which is an especially impressive feat considering how many untranslated Japanese terms the English voice cast had to incorporate into the dialogue. Graphically, however, the game could use some work. The characters and enemies translate well into 3D-animated models, but the environments they're traipsing through are the kind of blocky, flat, low-poly worlds that wouldn't be acceptable in a PlayStation 2 game. Landscape colors seem oddly muted and the level design apparently draws its inspiration from the square corridors of the original Doom base on Mars.

In the end, the biggest sin Naruto Shippuden: Legends: Akatsuki Rising commits isn't that it's a particularly bad game. If all you're looking for is some mindless button mashing and lots of unlockables to hunt down, this game will do well enough. The worst thing about Akatsuki Rising is that it's the same mediocre game Naruto fans have been playing in every one of the roughly 16 million Naruto games that have been released. There have certainly been exceptions (Ultimate Ninja Storm comes to mind), but Akatusuki Rising isn't one of them, and it seems like the Naruto faithful deserve better than this one.

Loki: Heroes of Mythology

Posted by Sishu / at 11:25 AM / / 0 comments

Loki: Heroes of Mythology

• Dreamcatcher
• Cyanide
• Action Role-Playing
• Release: Oct 2, 2007 »
• ESRB: Mature

Loki: Heroes of Mythology

Loki may be awfully late for the party, but this Diablo derivation is a solid rip-off with great game mechanics and atmosphere.

The Good

• Outstanding atmosphere in four different campaigns
• Impressive straightforward clone of Diablo game mechanics
• Great monster variety.

The Bad

• Never strays from familiar territory
• Extremely tough on the easiest difficulty setting.

Somebody needs to tell Cyanide that it's a little late in the day to be ripping off Diablo II. That seven-year-old action RPG provides the template for Loki: Heroes of Mythology, a derivative hack-and-slash that brings nothing new to the genre. Still, being late for the party is the only major strike against this game. Even though the Diablo formula may seem awfully ho-hum these days--especially in this case, since Titan Quest covered the mythological-heroes shtick over a year ago--good mechanics and great atmosphere make up for the lack of innovation.

Despite the title, Loki has an equal-opportunity philosophy when it comes to ancient mythology. You choose from male or female warrior and mage characters from the Norse, Greek, Egyptian, and Aztec traditions and engage in four different lengthy campaigns that can be played solo or with up to six friends in cooperative mode (although there is no matching server, so it can be tough to hook up with fellow players). Things start off with you playing errand boy for the three principal gods in your pantheon (a lineup that includes heavy hitters such as Athena, Isis, Tyr, Quetzalcoatl, and the like), but then move on to you defending a collection of multicultural divinities that looks like an old United Colors of Benetton ad. The end goal is to defeat the machinations of the evil Egyptian god, Seth, who has defied divine rules and crossed into other mythologies in the standard megalomaniacal bad-guy quest to take over the universe.

Hacking through yet another pack of those pesky half-naked Amazons.

As this hook-snouted deity is also apparently a big fan of all things multicultural, you face a hodge-podge of monsters from across the entire mythological spectrum. But each of the four campaigns is based on the character battling beasts from his or her own milieu. So the Greek warrior begins by cutting down hundreds of Amazons, centaurs, and harpies, for instance, while the Norse fighter slaughters beasts of the North like bears and wolves, the Egyptian sorcerer battles desert creatures such as giant scorpions, mummies, and scarab beetles, and the Aztec shaman fights jaguars and giant tarantulas.

All of them look great (although, oddly enough, the same can't be said for the four heroes, who are thin mannequins who move in a slightly herky-jerky fashion), and are accentuated with creepy sound cues. Many of these sound effects, such as the hissing of vipers, are so effective that they give the game a menacing vibe that usually isn't present in speedy, action-oriented RPGs. Some monster types are relatively generic and can be found across different levels, although these creatures are often given differing characteristics based upon their location. Birds of prey, for example, look like eagles in the forested Greek missions, while in the Egyptian desert levels they appear as scruffy vultures. The monster variety in Loki is quite good--even though you still wind up killing so many birds, beasts, and living fauna over the course of the game that the proceedings can get rather monotonous in spots (Amazon lancers? Again?!).

Additional atmosphere comes from music and level design that really plays up the four mythologies. The original score is fantastic, immersing you in each of the four cultures through tunes that perfectly evoke the setting and time. All are decidedly spooky, too, specifically the Greek and Egyptian scores. They wouldn't be out of place in big-budget horror movies about Medusae and mummies. Visuals tie into the music for the most part. The Egyptian campaign is particularly effective, as it takes you into desert wastes and forbidding tombs, although the snowy wastes of the Norse missions and the jungles of the Aztec escapades are almost equally evocative of ancient myths (the Greek settings go a little too heavy on generic fantasy forests). Cyanide apparently uses a random level generator to mix things up, though, which makes your travels look a little mundane after a while. You encounter a lot of the same terrain, and outdoor maps often seem to be laid out on a template. You generally get a single road leading from point A to point B along with a lot of scrub brush to both sides that is packed with enemies.

Quests themselves are more varied, however, as they're drawn from specific myths. You check out what rival gods are plotting for Athena, explore the tomb of Seth, rescue Odin from the clutches of Fenrir, and so forth. Storylines aren't really developed, though. Generally, you just walk over to the deity of the moment, who's typically loitering around the hub of each campaign as if waiting for a bus, and take your marching orders. These orders always involve straightforward objectives like looking into some sort of mystery, such as seeing if Seth's body remains in its sarcophagus, investigating the deadly machine that Minos seems to be constructing, or going out to murder some deadly threat like the Medusa.

Regardless of your goal in Loki, you always get there the same way--by bloodily slaughtering an endless horde of monsters. This Diablo-styled theme was old when the world was young, but Loki still manages to mostly pull it off by sticking to the template. The only serious annoyance is extreme difficulty even on the easiest "mortal" game setting. Enemies are so numerous in spots that you need to wage a war of attrition to make it through many maps. You start off by killing as many monsters as you can before succumbing to their crazy numbers, then respawn at the start of the level and repeat. Over and over again. Many levels require seven or eight instances of this frustrating wash, rinse, and repeat cycle. Even worse, there are moments when the game engine can't keep up with the number of monsters onscreen. In some of the Greek forest missions, for example, the combination of dozens of flying foes and the heavily treed landscape turns the game into an instant, unplayable slideshow. Thankfully, these slowdowns are rare.

Mummies haunt the tomb of Seth in the Egyptian part of the campaign.

Despite the overall difficulty, everything moves along pretty quickly. Even though you have to repeat yourself a little too often, you still easily get into a killing groove balanced just about perfectly between addiction and monotony. The only thing that slows you down is the regular 20-second or so wait after battles to regenerate health and mana. As with every other good action RPG ever made, you know that you're just clicking mouse buttons over and over again, but the pace of combat and the collection of magical weapons and other goodies (the usual assortment of swords, armor, and potions, with some cultural characteristics tossed in mainly to differentiate one style of clothing from another) is so speedy that you can barely bring yourself to stop playing.

Character development is an equal mix of the simple and compelling. Leveling up is a quick process of assigning points to attributes like strength and vitality. Added special battle abilities are gained with points earned every time you max out your faith bar. Basically, this lets you suck up to your three principal gods and take on combat buffs like Thor's Bull's Charge and spells like Ra's Fireball. The whole faith system is actually laid out in a very similar fashion to the skill masteries in Titan Quest, although the number of options here are even more varied. You're generally stuck on a linear path when picking abilities, however, so this doesn't afford a great deal of character customization.

All told, Loki is one of those rare, totally derivative pleasures. A game that will inspire a lot of déjà vu but very little boredom.

The Godfather

Posted by Sishu / at 11:45 AM / / 0 comments

The Godfather

• Electronic Arts
• Headgate
• Historic Action Adventure
• Release: Mar 21, 2006 »
• ESRB: Mature

The Godfather

The Godfather is a great addendum to the film and a fun and lengthy game in its own right.

The Good

• The game makes great use of the film license
• Plenty of challenging, multitiered missions to keep you busy
• Fun combat and interrogation system
• You can explore a great-looking, expansive map of 1940s New York, with no load times
• Good music.

The Bad

• Heavily recycled character and vehicle models, as well as building interiors
• Occasionally glitchy and stupid artificial intelligence
• Unstable frame rate.

The Godfather is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. So when Electronic Arts announced that it was making a game based on the license, it made sense as a business venture, but it also seemed like a risky move to adapt such a beloved and well-known story to a video game. Luckily, that risk paid off. The Godfather is a satisfying, lengthy adventure, and more importantly, it remains faithful to the classic film while managing to create a compelling story of its own.

Even though you play as an all new character, the game still manages to stick closely to the events in the movie.

The Godfather puts you in the role of a peripheral character that didn't appear in the film, but nevertheless played a critical role in the story. While the character is by no means an official write-in from Mario Puzo or Francis Ford Coppola, he manages to mesh fairly well with the rest of the story, a large part of which is taken directly from the film. When you start the game, you can create a mobster using customization tools similar to those found in the EA Sports games. You then begin the game and watch your father get gunned down in the streets by rival mobsters. Flash forward a few years to the wedding scene from the opening of the film, and your mother is asking the Don to take you under his wing and offer you work. As we learned from the film, no Sicilian can refuse a request for a favor on his daughter's wedding day, so the Don sends the imposing Luca Brasi to look after you and teach you how to be a mobster.

You start off as an unofficial enforcer for the Corleone family, which means your job is to muscle merchants into paying you protection money. You do this by simply walking into a store and talking to the owner. Usually the owners won't simply give in, but you can intimidate them by smashing up their stores (or their faces) until they start to see things your way. Once you take over a business, you get a payout each week, and there are dozens of shops you can shake down all throughout the five areas of New York. Some stores are fronts for illegal rackets, such as brothels, gambling dens, and illegitimate importing operations, and you can buy out these rackets to further increase your weekly income.

Extorting businesses and taking over rackets isn't all there is to do, though. There are plenty of story missions that you'll pick up as you play. Some missions are taken directly from the movie. You'll have to drive the Don to the hospital after he's gunned down in the street, travel to Hollywood to reenact the famous horse head scene, plant the pistol for Michael Corleone to use to off Sallazzo in the diner, and more. Most of the scenes are very faithfully re-created for the game, and it's great to be able to take part in some of the most memorable moments from the film, such as Sonny's ambush at the toll plaza and the assassinations of the Dons intercut with scenes from the baptism of Michael Corleone's niece. In fact, the best part of The Godfather is that it handles the source material respectfully and manages to offer enough new content to feel like more than just a by-the-numbers adaptation of the movie.

Helping to keep the game faithfully tied to the movie is the accurate depictions of the Corleone family members. With the exception of Michael, all of the characters look and sound just like they did in the movie. The voice acting is mostly excellent, with the exception being some of the stock characters that populate the city beyond the Corleone compound. The music is taken directly from the movie, and while you'll hear the main theme a few too many times throughout the game, the music adds a nice touch of authenticity.

This game borrows heavily from GTA, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

In addition to the characters, the city of New York has been carefully rendered in detail, and you can spot specific scenes from the film as you travel the streets of Little Italy, Brooklyn, Midtown, Hell's Kitchen, and New Jersey. The city might be a bit too accurate, though, because some of the streets are confusing, making it a hassle to get around town. There are a lot of interiors in the game as well, which you can freely enter without any load times. Unfortunately, most of the interiors are heavily recycled, so you'll see the exact same bakery, hotel, flower shop, and mob-family compound several times throughout the game.

The Godfather borrows heavily from the Grand Theft Auto series of games, so you can expect the same senseless violence and absurd mayhem those games are known for. You can steal cars, run down pedestrians, shoot people at random, and evade the police. As you commit crimes, your heat gauge increases, and anywhere from one to five badge icons will appear on the screen to indicate how badly the cops want to take you down. It's easy to avoid the police for the most part, and you can bribe them if you don't feel like a chase. If you don't bribe them, they'll try to run you off the road, but the cars handle so well in the game that you can deftly weave through traffic to avoid being caught. If you are caught, you're simply killed, which isn't such a big deal, since you get revived at the nearest hospital for a small fee.

You might as well get used to it though, because you'll die often in The Godfather. Some of the missions are quite difficult, usually because you have to face dozens of mobsters all by yourself. It also doesn't help that a single round from a shotgun can take you down in an instant. You can find health tonics from time to time, but you'll need to take cover and plan your attack wisely if you want to live.

You never know when a mob war will break out, so it's best to carry plenty of weapons with you at all times.

The gunplay in The Godfather is simple but effective. You can lock on to enemies with the press of a button, and you can duck or back up against a wall for cover. If you want, you can switch to free aim mode, which controls a lot like your standard first-person shooter, where one stick controls your movement and the other controls your aim. The guns in the game range from a .38 special revolver to a tommy gun to a snub-nosed shotgun. There's also a variety of other weapons, including Molotov cocktails, sticks of dynamite, and lead pipes. All of the guns can be upgraded two times at back-alley arms dealers. You can carry all of these weapons at the same time, too, effectively turning you into a one-mobster army. There are several scripted execution moves as well, and you're rewarded for your brutality in the form of respect.

If you prefer to get your hands dirty, you can simply beat the life out of anyone you encounter. You lock on with one button, and then use the right analog stick or mouse to throw punches, slam opponents into walls, or even toss them off rooftops. You can also strangle your enemies and perform neck-breaking execution moves.

Combat is fun overall, especially because you're given a healthy set of options when it comes to executing people. The artificial intelligence is fairly good for most of the enemies. They'll often run for cover, team up on you, and duck behind objects. Occasionally, though, you'll run into some glitchy or just plain dumb enemies. Sometimes an enemy won't be facing you, but somehow he'll be pelting you with lead. Other times, enemies will simply stand around as you blast them, or they'll draw weapons and then put them away for some reason. Despite the infrequent AI oddities, the combat in The Godfather is a bloody good time.

As you indiscriminately waste people, extort businesses, and complete missions, you'll earn respect points. When you earn enough respect, you level up so to speak, and you can distribute skill points to learn new abilities and improve your stats. You can level up fighting, shooting, street smarts, speed, and health. These bonuses, along with the upgraded weapons, help tremendously later in the game as the missions become more difficult.

As much as we hate to say it, it seems obligatory at this point, so here goes: This is an offer you can't refuse.

The game looks slightly better on the Xbox than the PlayStation 2, but the PC version looks the best thanks to some higher resolution textures. The controls are best suited to the dual analog control scheme, and using the mouse and keyboard on the PC is awkward at best. The PC version does support USB gamepads, which is a big improvement over the standard control scheme. Aside from the controls, the PC version has a slightly less steady frame rate than the console versions, but all the versions do suffer from occasional choppiness.

With the sheer number of businesses to extort and missions to complete, you can easily spend 20 hours working your way up through the ranks and eliminating other families before finally becoming the Don of New York City. You can unlock bonus clips from the movie by collecting 100 film reels that are scattered throughout the city, so there's definitely plenty to do in The Godfather. If you're a fan of the film, you'll appreciate the way the game pays tribute to the movie. Even if you've never seen the film, the satisfying combat and challenging missions make this game worth playing.