Post 31: TGS

Damn, I haven't written a post in awhile.  Additionally, it's going to be sparse in the next week or two as I'm getting married to the love of my life on Saturday and will be spending copious amounts of time with her.  For today, however, I wanted to briefly go over some of the cool things that were at the Tokyo Game Show in the past few days.

New Excitement.  Gotta love New Sensations too.

My favorite of the TGS?  Steel fucking Battalion.  I believe that I've already commented on how this game had a huge-ass giant robot controller when it came out for the original Xbox and it was glorious.  Painful, but glorious.  Nothing beats controlling a giant robot with your body via the Kinect.  This system has allowed for the creation of games that have never before been controlled with the body, and it shines the most at events like this one.

Without the white hair, he just looks funny.

Devil May Cry.  That's all we really need to hear.  The franchise is awesome and the plot of the games consists of a half-demon half-human hero with dual pistols and an array of bladed weapons saving the world again and again.  Capcom has always done a wonderful job with this series and I'm anticipating an exceptional return with the newest.  From what I understand the game takes us back to Dante's past when he was younger and more unbalanced.  It sounds like the game is going to be a wonderful, intense ride through this fun character's history.

Another highly anticipated title that's similar to Devil May Cry's style of gameplay is Ninja Gaiden 3.  Hayabusa's back in a big way.  The stylish ninja is slowing down a bit.  Instead of the super-high paced action that we saw in the last couple of games, it appears that this third installment will instead focus more on developing the character and connecting them more firmly with the player.  Besides DMC, this game has some of the most stunning visuals during combat that I saw in all of the trailers I had a chance to look at from TGS.  Also, who doesn't love ninjas fighting huge robots?  There's nothing better.

The last game that I wanted to talk about is Street Fighter X Tekken.  I have some reservations about this game.  I can't see the super fast controls of Street Fighter meshing that well with the slower pace of Tekken.  Also, in my mind, I've always seen Street Fighter as more of a quirky set of characters rather than a more serious take on fighting games that we have previously been privy to with the Tekken games.  I'm anticipating that this game will be little more than a novelty, similar to the Marvel VS Capcom series.  However, the developers contend that the cooperation between the two teams has created an experience worth purchasing.

In any case it appears like the Tokyo Game Show didn't have much to offer that E3 hadn't previously debuted, but it's still a good time.  The cosplay, the merchandise, the demos, the trailers, the artwork, everything is all part of the experience.  And guess what?  TGS is even open to the public after a period of time.  If I'm ever in Tokyo at the same time as this is going on I'm fairly certain that I will be there every single day that I can, and if you've already been able to go, well, good for you, ass.  I'm not jealous or anything.

Post 30: Video Game Violence

Keeping up with the Dead Island theme for this week, I wanted to just shoot out a quick blurb concerning some of the buzz around the first trailer.  Yes, I know this debuted some time ago, but I'm just seeing some of the stories now so bear with me.  NPR commentators believe that the trailer went too far with the death of the little girl, but you should check it out yourself.  I agree that the trailer is shocking and disturbing, but it's nothing that the world hasn't seen before.

The most recent Dawn of the Dead began with a little girl turned zombie.  This one wasn't killed, mind you, but it evokes some of the same raw horror.  As it turns out this same piece of trailer is very, very interesting to some Hollywood parties. A Dead Island movie would have a great audience as long as it stayed true to the heart of the game.  Like the Resident Evil franchise, though, you also have to be careful about recreating characters that gamers know and love because it can easily backfire.

My real quandary with people who have issues with graphic violence in video games is that it's all been done before on TV or in movies and when it hit there, there was little to no regard to it's horribleness.  Only when it hits a console does the attention of the Jack Thompsons of the world get captured.  I agree that interactivity with violent acts may be more harmful to the psyche of a young child than that of a cartoon, but that's why there are ratings.  It's up to the parents to keep content like Dead Island out of the hands of their seven year old children, and don't give me that "the ratings are confusing" bullshit because they couldn't be any clearer.  All in all, the ratings system and parents should work together to ensure that the appropriate content for all ages reaches it's intended audience.  As for Dead Island, yes it's horrible, but it's a survival-horror game and tries to bring the experience of a zombie movie to your console.  To do that it needs to shock and awe with an audience that's rightly aged for it's violence; one that has a separation of reality and fantasy.  As for Jack Thompson, well, he can just go shove it.

Post 29: Dead Island Revisited

A still from the gruesome trailer that NPR has labeled uncomfortable due to graphic violence.

Despite several setbacks, including an issue with profane and inappropriate comments included in the code of the game, Dead Island manages to be a well put together game. The issue can be found in the archives of my blog, but it has little to do with the game's overall playability so I won't dredge it up again.  I simply want to attack the meat of the game rather than it's construction problems; I'll leave that to the media.

Zombie hugs are some of the least gratifying.

The game's premise is that a zombie infestation has occurred on a resort island.  Players choose from four characters, each with their own specific set of skills.  There's a tank, a gun-expert, a throwing-expert, and a bladed weapons specialist.  No matter who you choose, the story remains consistent.  In fact it's so consistent that if you are logged onto Xbox Live and you are "near" someone in the story, they can join your game and insert themselves in to help you or for you to help them.  It works both ways, not much unlike a bisexual.  In any case, this is majorly annoying for those of us that just want to game by ourselves for an hour or two.  It's like some jerk-off knocking on your door and letting himself in whenever the fuck they want.  Luckily, you can change the options here and adjust it to your liking.  There are sometimes, however, that you will want someone to join you, like in a heavily infested area, and in those times it's acceptable.

Machete: 1 Zombie: 0

The idea is to try and survive on the island so that an escape plan can be put together.  Of course, the only obstacle between you and sweet, blissful escape is an entire resort of zombies and idiot survivors that need your help.  You progress in the story, and in areas on the island, by completing main and side quests.  For completing these quests you earn experience, level up, and gain skill points to spend on the skills unique to each character.  This type of gaming setup is very reminiscent of say the Diablo series or Borderlands.  In fact, Dead Island may as well be Borderlands on an island.  The main differences are that you're up against zombies, you're on Earth, and there's an emphasis on melee combat.  Let's talk about the combat while we're on the subject.

It's like a Zombie bug zapper.

As I stated, the combat is focused on melee.  To that end, there are two types of weapons, blunt and bladed.  Whichever you decide upon is usually based on which character you chose and how you want to develop your skills.  All of the weapons you find have a chance of being Common, Uncommon, Rare, Unique, or Exceptional with each category being more powerful than the last.  Add to that a weapon modification system a la Dead Rising 2 and you've got yourself one hell of a good weapons system.  So at this point it's a typical first-person hack and slash, but you've got some choices in combat.  You can take the time to focus on a particular limb and break it, or cut it off depending on the weapon type, or just go all out and waste your stamina on the whole thing.  Either way it makes for a good time as you hack limbs and bust heads.  Even when guns become involved, I have no problem saying that the combat system is excellent.

I don't know why this is here.

The quests are a bit broken and cause some confusion on my part.  There is a difficulty value for every quest, but it seems like it's arbitrary.  A quest may say hard, but you breeze through it like it's very easy.  I'm not sure what determines the difficulty, so this may just be a misunderstanding from my perspective, but it's a point of contention that I had to bring up.  Another issue is the pathing for the quest trails on the map.  If you go a way different from the path on your mini-map it corrects the trail.  This is great if you're an idiot, otherwise it just pisses you the hell off.  One time in particular I was traveling through a bazaar and the end comes out into a car.  There was plenty of room to move over or to the left of the car, but the pathing told me to go around to the right and out to the left again.  This happens constantly and I find myself backtracking or going off the path just to reach my destination.  You'd think it wouldn't be too hard, just get from A to B.

My final complaint about the game is based upon the realism.  I love the graphics, plot, and almost everything else about this game, but it comes across as too real at many times.  You run out of stamina a lot.  Stamina is tracked with a bar.  Once the bar runs out, you slow down and can't attack or jump until you regain it.  That's fine, but it happens way too fucking often.  The horror aspect of the story is wonderful and I actually get scared sometimes when playing alone, but some of the roars and moans are just disturbing and even annoying after awhile.  Despite all of the realism that makes me angry, like people who sell weapons and items jacking up the prices to a ridiculous plateau, the worst of all is the fact that the zombies can utilize weapons.  For instance, I was just running away from a few zombies to get some distance on them and shoot them down due to damage suffered from a close encounter.  With normal zombies that's no problem, they shamble over to you and you cut them down with bullets, game over, but of course here that's not the case.  I got away and took down two of the remaining three, but one of the fuckers threw, yes they can use and throw weapons, a wooden plank at me and killed me.  Talk about being pissed the hell off.  If you're going to have attention to detail and realism that's fine, but at least be fucking consistent.  Zombies cannot use goddamn weapons they're brainless, alright?  BRAINLESS.

Bonus Retro Game of the Week: Ghostbusters II

Indeed.

Ghostbusters II is a unique specimen.  Not only is the movie vastly different from the first, but the games are also vastly different from the first and from each other.  I'm not going to judge the movies again, I already did that, but I do want to talk about the games.  My first complaint centers around why there are different versions of this game.  If you look at the first Ghostbusters game across all of the platforms it was the same game, Sega Master System, NES, the Atari, and the home computers of the time all had the same cross-platform game.  That makes sense and even fits the profile of cross-platform games today, though there are some minor differences.  But why did there need to be four different versions of the game across each platform?  The reason to make all of the games the same is to allow all gamers to be able to have the same overall experience no matter what system they own.  That way, when a developer makes a game, they don't have to specify a platform or waste time creating a different game for each console.

What a beast.

Let's start into the games with the Atari 2600 version.  Activision was lined up to develop a version of Ghostbusters 2 on this console to match up with the original game's release. Unfortunately, by 1989, Nintendo and Sega were already dominating the market and relegating Atari's old consoles to the dust heap of the video gaming age.  Sales were already too slow for Activision to even think about continuing development on a game for this dinosaur.  Oddly enough, a British gaming company eventually released the game in Europe.  Due to some licensing issues, Ghostbusters 2 for the Atari cannot be released onto the anthologies that come out from time to time.

Ah yes, low-resolution PC glory.

The PC version of the game was released though, and it looks something like the pic on the right.  It looks like Ray is being lowered into a river of Spaghetti-Os.  The game here consists of several arcade screens haphazardly jumbled together in chronological order according to the progression of the movie.  The first level is Ray being lowered to the slime.  During his descent he needs to collect health, ammo, and the slime scoop for collection purposes.  Along the way, the player will need to dodge and battle ghosts that try to collide with Ray and cut the rope he's connected to.  The second level is the march to the museum.  You control the fireball on the torch, however that's supposed to be working now, and the goal is to protect the statue as it continues along the path.  The final level of the game, that's right there are only three damn levels, pits the player against Janosz, Vigo, and finally the possessed Ray.  Oddly enough, there are some versions of the PC game that actually include another level from the movie scene that takes place in the courthouse.

This is just disturbing, like a Ghostbuster bukkake.

The most well-recognized version of the game was created for the NES.  It's a classic side-scroller where you dodge obstacles, shoot enemies, and drive the Ghostbusters hearse across New York in an attempt to stop Vigo.  Each level has the player get from point A to B using their slime pack, yeah not the proton pack which would be more fun in every circumstance, to eliminate enemies.  The only issues that I really have with this game is that the gun controls are sticky and the game is way too fucking monotonous.  Each movement of the gun feels like you need to crank the d-pad hard enough to break it and every single level of the game is the same.  Either you're driving the car or your dodging shit on foot.  There are no bosses, no bonus games, and no variety whatsoever.  Lame as shit, moving on.

The Genesis is where it's at.

The final version of Ghostbusters 2 is on the Genesis.  Just to be clear, this isn't based on the second movie, but rather the first it's just the second game that Sega released of Ghostbusters and came out around the same time as the others Ghostbusters 2 games.  All that means that it gets lumped together with other games that are way below it's own station.  To be honest, this game is little short of perfection.  It brings together great controls, good action, and Ghostbusters goodness.  It goes back to that simulation idea of the first game, but it does it on a scale that only includes earning money and using it to buy upgrades.  The gun controls are not stiff and feel almost as fluid as Contra.  The idea is to clear each level of the mini-bosses and boss ghosts to earn money, buy upgrades, and get to the next level.  Each level is non-linear and acts much like a maze that gives you multiple paths to each room and powerups along the way.  The Genesis Ghostbusters is by far the best, even through today.

Each game is decent in it's own right and time period, but the main problem is the version issue.  Activision made some stupid decisions concerning their wasted time and efforts on each platform.  Today companies are streamlined and market-conscious enough to realize that creating several versions of one game across all platforms doesn't provide the gamer with the best experience.  My suggestion to 3rd party developers is to develop the game for the end-user not for individual consoles.  Ghostbusters 2 should have been developed across all platforms in the same fashion as Ghostbusters on the Genesis.  Each system could have handled the improvements save for the Atari.  Instead we get a confusing mess of ridiculous version retardation.

Post 28: Tokyo Game Show

So I've been really wrapped up in Dead Island, which I purchased this last weekend, and haven't had time to finish my posts on Ghostbusters.  I may just end up saving Ghostbusters 2 until this weekend on my normal Retro Game of the Week day.  Whatever, I'll figure it out.

Also since I've been so involved in my new game I haven't had time to compile an actual post, so I'm going to leave you with this.  Take a look at all the funny people in Tokyo dressing up and being crazy.  Enjoy.