It was nearly 3 months ago that Nintendo released its latest handheld, the 3DS, a more powerful version of their Nintendo DS with all new stereoscopic 3D capabilities.  I’m no techie, but I’d say graphically the system is on par with the Wii, perhaps better, which is what drew me in and I was able to convince myself that I needed to buy this thing.

I picked up Super Street Fighter 4 with my shiny new 3DS and looked forward to what the system had in store for me.  I wasn’t real excited to be picking up another copy of SF4, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.  I logged a fair amount of hours with it during my morning and evening commutes and found the portable take to be pretty satisfying.  I never did venture online, as that would most likely lead to frustration, and stuck with the single player experience.  The 3D offered nothing, even made the game worse, but I’m of the rare sort that didn’t pick up the system for its 3D capabilities.

I did tire of SF4 roughly after a month’s use and found myself ready for a new game.  Unfortunately, the 3DS library thus far has been putrid.  This is often the fate of early adopters but the 3DS seems especially barren when it comes to games.  Making things worse, the Nintendo eShop wasn’t ready at launch so there wasn’t even anything interesting to download.

It's been a long wait, but the wait is over June 19th.

Thankfully, this drought appears to be nearing an end.  The eShop finally launched this month with a free version of an enhanced port of the NES classic Excitebike.  I downloaded and can confirm it plays just as well as it always has but with some slight visual enhancements to the color palette.  The 3D effects are even adequate which is a nice surprise.  At the end of the day though, it’s still Excitebike, a 20 year old game that’s free for a reason.  Released shortly thereafter for the price of $5.99 was The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX which I also snatched up.  I had never played the Gameboy or Gameboy Color edition of the game (I have no idea why) so I was actually pretty eager to check it out.  It looks and plays the same, but has picked up a handy save state feature which makes it even more convenient, and offers a quirky off-beat adventure when compared with other Zelda games.  I’m not too deep into it, but so far I’m liking it.

The big game on the horizon, set for release this Sunday, is the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, arguably the finest video game ever crafted and the inspiration for this post.  I plan on sinking my teeth into that one and expect it will be an improvement over the Nintendo 64 original, I just hope I don’t suffer any Zelda burn-out by playing Link’s Awakening and Ocarina of Time so close together.  It’s the game that pushed over the edge when trying to make a purchasing decision on the 3DS and it’s been a long wait.

If that was the only game to look forward to though then things wouldn’t be much better.  The eShop is likely to continue to see enhanced remakes of classic games but that can’t sustain a system.  Thankfully, last week’s Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) had a lot to reveal about the 3DS, and these are the games I’ll be keeping an eye on in 2011 and beyond:

Star Fox 64 3D – Sure it’s another remake of an N64 game, but like Ocarina of Time, it’s a beloved game.  It’s also one I missed the first time around so I have some extra interest in it.  Unlike with most 3DS games, I can see the 3D effect actually adding something to the gameplay.  The very nature of the game makes it a good candidate for a portable system, and it promises to have enhanced visuals while retaining the tried and true gameplay.

Paper Mario 3DS – I haven’t been able to confirm if this one is a new game or a remake too, but from the little I’ve seen it looks all new.  The first two Paper Mario games, spiritual successors to the excellent Super Nintendo game Super Mario RPG, were addictive and unique RPG experiences.  Paper Mario 2 was a game I could not put down.  Super Paper Mario for the Wii, and the Mario & Luigi titles for the Gameboy Advance and DS, both have their merits but neither has been able to eclipse the original Paper Mario games.  The unique visual style could also make for an interesting 3D experience.

Resident Evil: Revelations – The first 3DS title from the Resident Evil franchise arrives this summer and is based on The Mercenaries mini game from the last few Resident Evil titles.  I never cared for them, or for Resident Evil 5 for that matter, because it focuses too much on action.  I like the methodical pace and creep factor of the original Resident Evil titles.  Resident Evil 4, probably the best in the franchise, struck a nice balance between action and survival horror.  Revelations looks to bring the series back to its roots with Resident Evil veteran Jill Valentine back in the lead role.  Can survival horror work on a portable?  We’ll find out, though probably not until 2012.

Kid Icarus Uprising – I don’t really know what to expect from this game, other than it’s the first Kid Icarus game since the NES days and that alone makes it intriguing.  The game looks gorgeous and has been in development for quite some time so there are no worries about a rush job.  It will likely offer a rich experience that combines traditional platforming with some on rails type of flying levels mixed in.

Super Mario 3D – It’s kind of a given that Mario will show up on a new Nintendo

Tanooki Mario is coming back!

console at some point.  It’s also kind of sad he’s rarely available for a system launch anymore.  Nintendo aims to make up for Mario’s March absence this fall with an all-new Mario adventure.  Super Mario 3D will attempt to combine the gameplay and presentation of the excellent Super Mario Galaxy franchise with old school Mario gameplay.  Look no further for evidence of that than with the return of the Tanooki suit from Super Mario Bros. 3.  The levels are also shorter with a clear path and all end with the familiar flag-pole leap.  It’s Mario, so it’s bound to be good.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 – Not to be outdone by his more famous brother, Luigi returns in his ghost-sucking franchise and was one of the surprises at E3.  Luigi once again finds himself in a haunted mansion and armed with his ghost vac and flashlight.  The cowardly plumber will also have some sort of Ghostbusters-like lightning attack to hold ghosts in place so he can suck them up.  Traditional Mario gameplay meets Ghostbusters?  I’m on board!

And that’s not all.  There’s also versions of Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. on the way.  There will probably be some Mario sports titles as well and maybe even a new entry in the New Super Mario Bros franchise at some point.  Best of all, most of these games are arriving in 2011 giving the 3DS one of the best lineups of any system this fall.  And the 3DS needs it because Sony’s PSP Vita is hot on its heels with some impressive hardware and software due for that one.  The spring has been lousy, but this summer and fall look to make up for it.

Heavy Rain (2010)

I had been meaning to play the 2010 game Heavy Rain for quite some time, but had yet to get around to it.  Part of me was hesitant about doing so because it had been compared loosely with those old point and click adventure games from the 80’s and those never appealed to me.  As a result, I put it off and never got around to purchasing it until recently when I saw it for 20 bucks at a local store.  Having just finished my first play-through the other night, my initial reaction is that this is one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever had with a video game.

For those unaware, Heavy Rain is probably best described as either an adventure game or a crime noir.  It was released for the Playstation 3 in February of 2010 to very favorable reviews earning an aggregate score of 89.3% on Gamerankings.com.  It does share some things in common with point and click adventures but not as much as I had been lead to believe.  For the most part, the player still controls an on-screen character through mostly conventional means.  The left analog stick changes the direction the character is facing and squeezing the R2 trigger makes the character walk similar to how the old Resident Evil games used to control.  The character can approach objects in the environment and some can be interacted with by pressing a button indicated by an on-screen icon.  Often instead of the button input being the typical “X” or “Square” it’s a direction on the right analog stick.

Visually the game is a mixture of average and exceptional. The exceptional part refers to the characters and the life-like way they're able to emote.

After that though the game gets less typical.  At any point in time, squeezing the L2 button will make a bunch of text pop up on the screen with one of the face buttons beside it indicating a thought.  Pressing the associated button will let the player listen in on the character’s internal thoughts.  This is sometimes used to help cue the player on what to do next but most of the time it’s just to add color to the context of the situation and enhance the experience.  Actions will play out on-screen and button commands will pop up that the player has to follow in order to progress, or not.  Often times inaction is also acceptable and even desirable as all responses will advance the story.  These scenes range from simple conversations to intense physical confrontations between characters.  For the conversations, missing a cue can lead to failing to pick up a piece of valuable information, while in a fight missing the cue or hitting the wrong button can lead to failure, including death.

That’s the basic gameplay and most of the scenarios occur in pretty small areas.  There’s very little running around and trying to figure out what to do next, the game just unfolds in scenes.  There are a couple scenarios where you’re asked to drive or shoot a gun but they handle like the other scenes, just with less reaction time.  I went with the hard setting which affects the type of inputs required.  I think the easiest setting mostly limits the commands to simple one button presses.  I was asked to do motions with the right analog stick, half-circle motions and funny “hook” motions.  Sometimes the game asks you to tilt the controller (like when driving) or jerk it in a certain direction quickly.  For the triggers and face buttons, some are simple presses, others require pressing and holding the buttons in a certain sequence or tapping rapidly.  Usually the required input corresponds with what the character is being asked to do on-screen and adds a surprising amount of depth and immersion for the player.  I was expecting the controls for this game to be a necessary evil to move the plot forward but they really add a lot to the experience.

Ethan Mars will be asked to do some very bad things if he ever wants to see his son again.

If the plot wasn’t any good though the controls would probably get old, but thankfully Heavy Rain plays out like a true crime drama.  The main protagonist and first character you’ll control is Ethan Mars.  After losing a son in an unfortunate accident Ethan finds himself in a state of severe depression and estranged from his wife.  When his son Shaun goes missing he finds himself at the end of his rope.  It’s soon learned that his son was abducted by the Origami Killer and Ethan must go through several trials sent to him by the killer in order to get him back.  Meanwhile, the local police have enlisted an FBI agent, Norman Jayden, to help track down the killer.  As Jayden, the player will use sophisticated equipment to play detective and try to find the killer while navigating through a series of red herrings and Jayden’s own substance abuse.  Local private investigator Scott Shelby is also working hard on the case and is the third character the player will control.  Shelby is a former cop working on his own leads to find Shaun.  Madison Paige is the fourth and final character the player gets to control.  She’s a journalist suffering from insomnia who kind of stumbles into Ethan’s life.  She’ll end up working with Ethan to try and find Shaun.  The Origami Killer slowly drowns his victims over a period of time, and depending on the amount of rain that falls, Shaun will die.  This adds a sense of urgency to the plot as the game bounces from scene to scene, character to character.

Some of the tasks the player will be asked to do can be described as atypical.

The truly unique part of Heavy Rain is that there is no right way to get to the game’s conclusion, and no game over along the way.  Any or all of the characters could die over the course of the game, including Ethan’s son Shaun, and no two games will be the same.  The trials Ethan goes through are both trials of skill and morals.  Each completed one gets Ethan a clue to Shaun’s location.  Some are brutal and for me conjured memories of the movie Se7en.  The more that are completed the easier it is to find Shaun but some players may find certain ones abhorrent and refuse to complete them.  That’s understandable and know that it’s still possible to save Shaun without completing all of them.  Ethan may end up with enough information to figure it out or one of the other characters will come to Shaun’s rescue.  It’s also possible for all of them to figure it out, which is what occurred in my game.  I suppose that is the most desirable outcome.

I played this game straight-up, meaning no help or re-do’s.  There were a couple of scenarios that didn’t go the way I wanted them to but I resisted the urge to reset and go again.  I think this game is best played as if it were life or death, and in the game of life there are no extra lives.  There were a few moments I thought I really screwed up and was going to get someone killed but I was always able to wiggle out of it.  These moments of high anxiety are where the game shines brightest as I found myself really invested in what happened to the characters.

It’s not a real long game, maybe 8-10 hours each time through, but the pacing is spot-on.  The game started a little slow as the characters were worked into the plot but once it got going I didn’t want to put the controller down.  When I had to though, I found it hard to jump right back in knowing how emotionally taxing the experience was going to be.  This is a game I recommend players beat in 2 to 3 sittings, though if you can do it in one then more power to you.  The game does have a “twist” in the plot that some apparently did not care for.  I was neither shocked nor put off.  For a game that really tries to not be a game, the twist did feel a little cheap as the game did kind of cheat in order to make it happen.  I’d explain more but I don’t want to spoil anything.

Heavy Rain is the only video game I’ve ever played that transcends the genre.  That doesn’t mean it’s my favorite or the greatest game ever, but it does make it one of the most significant.  The argument of whether video games can be art is a fashionable one currently and for those on the affirmative side of that question Heavy Rain is probably the best thing going for them.  I do think it’s a title any serious gamer should play, and if you do choose to pick it up make sure you see it through to the end.

I posted a few weeks ago about the Mortal Kombat demo and came away mostly impressed.  Well the game was released on the 19th of April and I became a first day buyer.  Since then I’ve logged many hours with the release and have come away with these impressions.

First off, this is Mortal Kombat the way it should be.  It’s modernized for today’s audience but retains a lot of what made the franchise unique when it debuted nearly 20 years ago.  That is to say, there was an obvious style present in both how the game looks and how it plays.  Mortal Kombat has always differed from other games of its genre by including over-the-top characters with over-the-top powers.  Whether it’s Sub-Zero’s freezing powers or Liu Kang’s dragon abilities, there’s nothing realistic at all about the game.  And with today’s hardware this is magnified even more so.  The male fighters are hulking monsters and the women buxom and scantily clad and as the fights progress you’ll see clothing shred and chunks of flesh go missing.

Gameplay wise, all of the old moves are here along with some new ones.  The developers abandoned the multi-stance styles embraced by the more recent games which helps keep things loose and simple.  Some characters still have weapons, like Scorpion, but they’re integrated into his standard moves.  The X-Ray meter at the bottom of the screen functions a lot like Street Fighter’s super combo meter.  As it fills, the player can use it to enhance basic moves to give them added punch.  Or, the player can let the meter fill further opening up combo breakers at level 2, and finally X-Ray attacks at level 3.  I talked about these destructive X-Ray moves in my demo impressions, and the same criticism is still present though some of my fears were alleviated.  The moves are still ultra powerful, and most of them are fairly easy to land, but the AI is not afraid to use them which helps equalize things.  Really, my only major complaint is the unbalanced nature of some of them.  The characters that incorporate a teleport move of some kind into their X-Ray attack are at a far greater advantage than some of the others.

The basic gameplay still centers around super moves and combos.  The pace of the fights are akin to something mid tempo, and the best fighters are able to string together super moves with combos.  There’s also a grab button, and the franchise’s trademark block button as well.  Blocking is something that is beneficial to master given the abundance of characters with quick hitting teleport moves.  Also, most X-Ray attacks can be blocked as well, which is something that always seems to turn the tide of battle.

X-Ray attacks are quite brutal.

There are multiple game modes available to spend some time on.  There’s the standard ladder tournament that pits the player against seven fighters and three boss battles consisting of Shang Tsung, Goro/Kintaro, and Shao Kahn.  Shang Tsung is a regular playable character, so perhaps it’s a stretch to call him a boss, but he’s present in every ladder tournament so I guess that makes him a boss.  The second boss is random and is either Kintaro or Goro and both guys are as most remember them; cheap.  Neither is as bad as Kahn though, who’s quick dash attacks and ability to no-sell the moves directed at him make him extremely annoying.  He also has an attack where he throws his maul across the screen.  If it hits, the player becomes staggered and is left open to attack.  When Kahn is feeling especially mean, he’ll double or triple up on the attack and leave the player character helpless to do anything about it.  To beat him one typically has to resort to the old cheap tactic of launching projectile attacks.  Kahn will often pause to taunt randomly which helps.  After he’s defeated, the player is rewarded with an ending cinematic for the chosen character that’s narrated over.  These cinematics are done with still images which is kind of disappointing, and they’re quite brief and few are memorable.

If one wants to really experience the Mortal Kombat story, then the appropriately titled story mode is where to be.  Story mode is long, and takes the player through the whole Mortal Kombat mythos but with a new twist.  As the player, you’ll switch characters depending on the plot and have to take on 1 on 2 matches at times.  The story is campy, and some of the voice acting and writing is terrible, but it’s mostly a good time.  Some of the matches are absurd, but it’s beatable and you’ll unlock a couple of new characters along the way.

The other modes include a new tag match and the challenge matches.  The challenge matches are difficult and often contain gimmicks to make them even harder.  The tag match is a welcome addition, though it isn’t very flashy like a Marvel vs Capcom title.  As you play these modes you’ll earn “koins” that can be spent in the game’s bonus section, The Krypt.  There’s hundred of items to unlock here, but most of it is junk like concept art.  There’s hidden fatalities and extra costumes as well, but they’re harder to find.

By the end of most matches both characters will find themselves a bloody mess.

And fatalities are the name of the game when it comes to Mortal Kombat.  Yes, they’re a gimmick but they’re so much fun.  They’ve never been better too, and some of them are insane.  My vote for best belongs to Noob Saibot, but everyone will have their own favorite.  Each character has two, plus a stage fatality, and some of a third “klassic” fatality depending on where the game is purchased.  I bought the game at Best Buy and received Sub-Zero’s classic costume and fatality, the old head rip.  Babalities are also back and this time around they’re a lot funnier than the old ones as each baby will perform an action that usually results in crying.  It’s a humorous and non-violent way to end a match.

All in all, Mortal Kombat is pretty much exactly what I expected, and exactly what I wanted.  While Street Fighter will likely always be the king of the fighting genre, Mortal Kombat has its own niche and there’s no reason why people can’t be fans of both.  I plan to log many more hours with this one and maybe if PSN ever gets back online I’ll test my abilities against the rest of the world.  It’s not a flawless victory for Warner Bros., but it’s pretty damn good.

I woke up this morning and did my usual Saturday routine of grabbing some breakfast, a warm beverage, and sat down with my laptop to see what’s going on in the world.  I ended up at ign.com and checked out their review for the new Final Fantasy IV re-make on Sony’s PSP.  The game is yet another re-release of the Super Nintendo classic only this time with enhanced visuals and added content in the form of the episodic sequel released on the Wii from a year ago.  This isn’t about that particular game though, more about the comments made by reviewer Colin Moriarty regarding the quality of today’s Final Fantasy titles.  I both agree and disagree with some of the comments he made (which, to summarize, was that early Final Fantasy titles are the best and the present day titles subpar) but it got me thinking; what is the best game in the Final Fantasy series?

I have played most of the Final Fantasy games.  I haven’t played them all, and I can cite the ones I have never played as the original game, II, and the most recent Final Fantasy XIII.  I do not consider the on-line only games as being part of the same canon, but for what it’s worth, I have not played them either.  Of the ones I have played, the only one I never beat was the Final Fantasy III re-make on the DS (I still plan on doing so, one of these days), though I’ve never encountered anyone willing to argue that title is the best in the series.  I’ve also played many of the spin-off games, including the excellent Final Fantasy Tactics and the less than excellent Final Fantasy X-2.  Needless to say, I’m only going to look at the ones I have played and beaten and I’m not going to include the spin-offs, for as good as Tactics is, it’s just Ogre Battle with a Final Fantasy theme.

For my money, this becomes a contest between four games:  IV, VI, VII, and X.  Final Fantasy V is a lot of fun because of its job system, which was introduced in III and refined for V.  I had a lot of fun with that one on emulation before it was released in the US, and then again when it received a release for the Playstation alongside VI.  As fun as it was though, I couldn’t help but feel like the game’s plot was really chiche and the villain was not a viable threat, or even interesting.  Final Fantasy IX holds a special place in the hearts of many fans for its throwback approach.  Following three titles that blurred the line between fantasy and sci-fi, IX fully embraced that old fantasy feel of the first five titles.  One of the Playstation’s last hurrahs, it was a visual delight and the cast charming, but for me it doesn’t have the same scope as the premier titles in the franchise.  The item system also didn’t feel as if much time was spent on it by the developers to create a truly deep experience.

That said, the four titles I mentioned previously are the cream of the crop.  The fans of the other titles number far fewer than the ones for these four.  It’s time to take a look at each one…

Final Fantasy IV was released for the Super Nintendo in 1991.  It is not only note-worthy for being one of the best in the franchise, but also for the great confusion it caused gamers in the US when it was released as Final Fantasy II.  The true NES sequels of the original Final Fantasy were never released in the US, so Squaresoft decided to call IV Final Fantasy II in the states.  At the time it wasn’t confusing, but when Square decided to call Final Fantasy VII the seventh title in the franchise in all territories, American fans were left wondering how they missed IV, V, and VI.

Final Fantasy IV is the rare game where the player starts off playing as the villain.  The main protagonist, Cecil, is a dark knight who has committed unspeakable atrocities.  As someone who likes anti-hero characters, this gave the game instant appeal for me.  Of course, Square doesn’t keep the player in the role of the villain all game and Cecil eventually has a re-awakening.  From that point on, he has big purple hair and refers to himself as a paladin.  Lame.

The game was the first to introduce the Active Time Battle system, which made the game feel less turn-based.  It was also the last title to let the player control a party of five.  The gameplay is pretty much classic Final Fantasy.  There are summons, white magic, black magic, ninjutsu, and other familiar attack types.  Characters adhere to one strict class and become more powerful as they gain levels.  The game is very linear, and features a traditional good vs evil plot.  Atypically, the game feature space travel and the final dungeon is housed on the moon.  There’s very little in the way of customization, which must have seemed like a radical departure for Japanese fans going from III’s job system to this one.  Pre-programmed plot events dictate who will be available as a party member and who won’t where as future titles would often give the player a choice of who to send out into the fray.

Despite it’s limitations, the story is a memorable one.  It’s engaging watching Cecil sort out his emotions.  The plot events, while linear, allow the game developers to script some memorable action scenes.  The script is also surprisingly whitty, though some of that is due to the game’s original poor translation making the phrase “spoony bard” a popular one amongst gamers.  In typical Final Fantasy fare, the true enemy is revealed late in the game and takes away some of the excitement of the closing moments.  Nonetheless, the re-released PSX version contains a challenging and rewarding end boss fight (the US SNES one was dumbed-down) and the experience is overall a memorable one.

Final Fantasy VI also received a numeral change when it was originally released on the SNES in the US as Final Fantasy III.  Final Fantasy VI has also been re-released several times by Squaresoft over the years but has never received a sequel or a remake, despite being often cited as the best of the series.  Released in 1994, it represented an obvious visual upgrade over the two previous titles.  It also opted for a steam punk type of setting over the traditional fantasy one and is really the only title in the series to not feature a true leading role.  This is quite appropriate considering VI has the largest cast of available characters in the series totaling 14.

Outside of those differences, the core gameplay sticks to what Final Fantasy IV popularized.  Each character has their own specialized class that draws from popular character classes of the previous games.  There are some notable departures such as Edgar’s tech abilities and Relm’s drawing ones, but for the most part every character fits into the traditional mage, monk, warrior mold.  The plot is pretty interesting, and features the player as part of a resistance movement to take down an evil empire and introduces one of the most memorable villains of the series, Kefka, who’s one sadistic bastard.

The game is fairly linear, though once the player reaches the world of ruin it becomes more open-ended.  At that point the player can choose to track down more party members and scour some dungeons or go right after Kefka.  There’s also a moment where the player can lose a party member permanently, which is kind of cool even if it’s easily avoided.

Spells in this game could be learned by anyone, though certain characters were more well-suited for magic than others.  Magic was learned by attaching an esper to a character and as battles were won AP was earned which went towards learning spells.  The better spells naturally took longer to learn.  The espers also served as the game’s summons and could be called upon once per battle to unleash havoc on the opposition or bestow beneficial effects on the party.  Their use in that regard was nonessential, but the customization abilities were quite enjoyable.  This customization allowed the player to assemble his or her favorite party any way they wanted to.  The game did expect the player to use everyone at least a little bit though as certain dungeons would require up to 3 parties of 4 complete.

Final Fantasy VII was the first title in the series to be released in the US with its proper name.  It was also the first Final Fantasy game to not be released on a Nintendo console with Square electing to go with Sony’s Playstation due to its use of CD’s rather than a cartridge medium.  This allowed Square to include FMV sequences and true orchestral quality audio.

Final Fantasy VII is without question the biggest release in the franchise’s history.  Met with unfathomable hype, it was finally released in 1997 and met with much praise.  It was also big, encompassing three discs and taking most gamers over 40 hours to complete.  It’s 3D visuals were somewhat blocky at the time, and have not aged too well.  The battle graphics were much better and the CG sequences, at the time, jaw-dropping.  The dialogue was also more mature, especially whenever Barrett spoke, and the mood of the game was a bit darker than previous titles.

You can't have a blog post about Final Fantasy VII without including a shot of the most famous death in video game history.

The setting was again more of a tech heavy one as opposed to a traditional fantasy one, and this time around there was definitely more of a sci-fi element.  The esper system was gone and replaced with the materia one.  I’m still not exactly sure what materia is, but it was equipable like the espers and granted the character the ability to cast spells.  Each piece of materia has five levels and AP was earned to increase those levels.  These levels were denoted by stars on the menu, and the level determined how many times a spell or summon could be used in battle.  When a piece of materia maxed out at level five, it could be used an unlimited amount of times in battle and would spawn a level 1 duplicate.  This made leveling up unique pieces of materia (such as most summons) vital to create a super party of characters.

Each character now could only be equiped with one piece of armor and one weapon, and these determined how much materia a character could hold.  Some weapons and armor contained materia slots that were linked together, which could be exploited to great effect in battle.  Some of it was simple, linking the fire materia with the “all” materia turned the fire spell into an attack all spell.  Or you could join elemental materia with attack materia to grant that attacks elemental properties to an ability like mug.  Magic based materia often lowered base attack power when equiped, this discouraged players from turning their brutes into a jack of all trades.  And like with VI, certain characters were just obviously more well-suited to using magic than others resulting in greater damage from spells and summons.

The summons were a true spectacle of the time as using one initiated an FMV sequence where the summoned monster would unleash an awesome attack.  These did grow tiresome though after awhile, particularly the ultimate summon Knights of the Round, which was the best way to attack the game’s hidden bosses but lasted several minutes.  Future games would wisely introduce a way to skip some of these more over-the-top animations.

The plot of the game involved a struggle between the game’s main protagonist Cloud, against his former idol Sephiroth.  Cloud begins the game as a moody brat but becomes more likable as the game progresses.  The player is able to watch him grow into a leader.  There are also several flashback sequences, and one very notable death, along the way.  The look of the characters would prove quite popular, and the success of the game would eventually lead to several spin-offs and pseudo-sequels though it has yet to receive a true re-release or remake.  Due to its great success there’s been a bit of a backlash movement against the title by some fans since this was the jumping on point for many.  The success of VII proved to Japanese developers that RPG’s were viable in the States and the release of following titles became events as opposed to just another release.  To this day it is still one of the more dynamic released in the franchise as the materia system granted a great amount of freedom and flexibility to the user second only to the job system of earlier games.

Final Fantasy X marked more firsts for the franchise, most notably the first title for the Playstation 2 and the first to feature fully voiced characters.  These two things resulted in a gorgeous looking game with a more engaging set of characters.  The main hero, Tidus, winds up in a foreign land through supernatural means and ends up joining up with a band of heroes on a sort-of pilgrimage.  The voice acting is pretty solid, though some people find certain characters off-putting.

There were other firsts though, and one was a big departure for the series; the removal of the overworld map.  In past games whenever the player left a town or dungeon they would end up on a big map screen.  From here certain vehicles could be used liked the airship or a chocobo.  Now everything was linked together removing this map screen.  I remember at the time such a concept was hard to fathom, though I suppose for new-comers to the series it was completely logical.  The end result was uncomfortable for the purists, but ultimately created a better visual experience for the player and the world felt more intimate.  There was still an airship, but now the player didn’t pilot it freely and instead just used it as a means of quick travel.

The summons in this game played a bigger role.  Only one character, Yuna, could actually summon them now and when doing so the summoned beast was a playable character.  The other party members would be removed from battle temporarily as the summoned monster took over for a couple of rounds often culminating in the use of one awesome attack.  Characters leveled up via the sphere grid, where abilities and magic were learned.  As characters gained sphere points they could move along the grid and unlock abilities.  This allowed for a lot of customization, but like in previous games certain characters were naturally pushed in a specific direction.

The battle system received it’s first major overhaul since Final Fantasy IV.  Now the order of attack was displayed in a corner and this could be affected by certain spells and actions.  It added a more strategic element to the approach for the player though it admittedly made things easier knowing when the enemy was going to attack.  Party members could also be switched in and out of battle at any moment which was pretty neat, but also made it so that the player could go through the game barely touching certain characters.

The plot was definitely more melodramatic this time around with an obvious focus on the relationship between Tidus and Yuna.  There’s a bit of a tragic element thrown in, and I enjoyed the ambiguous ending.  The high production values enhanced the quality of the story, and Blitz Ball may be the best mini game in any Final Fantasy title.

Those are the contenders for best Final Fantasy.  My run downs, despite totaling 2600 words, are actually pretty brief and do not come close to touching upon everything these games do well and not so well.  It’s actually a pretty hard choice, and I began writing this with one title in mind but am finding myself changing my mind.  Regardless, for me this is actually a battle of two and not four.

Final Fantasy IV is a landmark title for the franchise due to its inclusion of the ATB system and impressive narrative.  The following titles really were just taking what IV did and adding to it right up through Final Fantasy IX.  As compelling a narrative it possesses, I did note that it’s a bit restricted which brings it down a bit.  Perhaps some of that is due to hardware limitations but so be it.  It’s also strictly a linear experience and represents the least customization for the player.  For these reasons, it is clearly not the best of the best.

Final Fantasy X is sort of a re-defining for the franchise.  It took that old ATB system and thew it out and gave the player a truly epic experience.  The sphere grid gave the player a lot to tinker with but did away with some of the more fun aspects of older games of finding new spells and abilities about the world.  Like IV, it too is quite linear and the path for most of the game is pretty clear.  It possesses another one of those villain-swaps at the end that derail some the game’s momentum, and though a great game, it ultimately falls short of the immortality other games in the series have achieved.  Though I will say, it does not deserve to be lumped in with the less than stellar Final Fantasy XII and XIII.

Which leaves two, Final Fantasy VI and VII.  On one hand, there’s VI with its engrossing story and great cast of characters and truly memorable villain.  On the other, there’s VII with it’s massive scope, excellent materia system, and stellar production values (for their time).  For me, it really is an either or type of argument.  I enjoy both immensely.  VI is easy to get into as the first part of the game keeps throwing things at the player and moves at a rapid pace.  The story is easy to follow and the gameplay is tried and true Final Fantasy.  It does perhaps prove a bit too easy, and as great as Kefka is, he goes down with a whimper in the end.  VII has a more convoluted narrative that gets murky at times but for those willing to dig deep it proves quite satisfying in the end.  The characters all have distinct personalities, despite numbering fewer than the 14 present in VI.  For my money, the materia system is still my favorite in any Final Fantasy, just narrowly beating out the job system from V.  It keeps the customization without making every character feel the same.  And while it does not take a great deal of skill to finish the game, beating the hidden bosses requires a great deal of savvy and a huge investment of time.

In the end, I don’t know that I truly prefer one over the other.  Both are great, near flawless experiences.  The strengths of VI are unique to VI, as are its faults, and the same can be said of VII.  Despite both being Final Fantasy titles, it really does feel like comparing apples and oranges.  I can conceivable pick one today, and tomorrow feel like my opinion has changed and writing this has made me want to play through the both of them all over again.  I set out to pick the best one though, and I’m not going to wimp out after over 3200 words.  So with that said, gun to my head, the best title in the Final Fantasy franchise is…

Final Fantasy VII.

And the winner is...

Where were you today?  Anybody who is anybody was at their favorite place to pickup video games to snag the brand new Nintendo handheld, the 3DS.  See what they did there?  It has two screens, like the DS (Dual Screen) but now it’s in 3D!

I’m actually not sure what kind of hype has been generated by this device.  There was a line at Gamestop this morning when I arrived to pickup my reserved piece of hardware, but not a huge one.  The associate claimed the store had sold out roughly 80% of their allotted stock through pre-sales and anticipated a day one sell out.  It’s in their best interest though to drum up interest in a product so I don’t know how much of that was embellishment.

The Nintendo DS has been a really popular system, the best selling handheld of all time, and the country seems to be nuts over this 3D thing.  The launch lineup stinks though, and I haven’t seen any commercials running on television.  Also, the price is pretty steep ($250, which is more than a Wii) and the economy is still lagging.  March has always seemed like a funny time of year to launch new hardware, but it seems fairly standard for the handheld market for some reason.  Maybe with spring beginning companies think people will want to get outside and bring their games with them.  At any rate, smarter people than me are making these decisions.

Not only does it play games, it also functions as a very expensive paper weight!

At first, I was going to bypass the 3DS as I’m really not the target demographic.  I don’t play a lot of portable games and I could not care less about 3D.  Actually, I kind of hate 3D when applied to films.  I consider it a useless gimmick.  There’s nothing gained from it and the films cost even more to see.  However, the 3DS does present a significant upgrade in terms of power over the existing Nintendo DS.  I’m not going to list out the specs, but if the DS was some where around the graphical power of a Nintendo 64, the 3DS is closer to a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360.  It’s actually the most powerful console released by Nintendo when one considers that the Wii is actually rather under-powered.  It isn’t quite up to par with the big home consoles (more on that later) but the upgrade over the DS is quite obvious.  I ended up getting bit by the technology bug, and all of a sudden found myself wanting this thing so I threw my DSi onto eBay (FYI – you’ll do a lot better with eBay than you would trading in your old handheld to Gamestop) and put the proceeds towards a 3DS.

An open view of the 3DS with a fully extended (giggidy) stylus.

The 3DS is a bit thicker than the DSi, comparable to the Gameboy Advance SP.

I took a lot of photos (which probably is obvious by now) of what is essentially a shinier DS.  The 3DS is a bit thicker but actually slightly smaller than the DSi (and quite a bit smaller than the DS XL).  It comes in two colors, black and aqua, and I opted for the more masculine black.  The glossy finish makes it appear like more of a toy when compared to the matte finish of the DSi.  I prefer the matte but I’m not really complaining.  The base is actually a graphite color, which I never noticed in the press release images and it’s kind of cool.  The traditional clamshell design is back and it’s appropriately snappy.  The top piece is just slightly larger than the base, which makes it easier to open.  The button layout should be pretty familiar.  It’s the typical Super Nintendo button layout of A, B, X, Y, L, R, start, select.  A ‘Home’ button has been added which brings the system from a game right to the dashboard and there’s a Wi-Fi slider switch on the right hand side.  The biggest addition is obviously the slider on the top piece for the 3D effect.  Here you can slide it all the way down to shut the function off or adjust the intensity.  The other big addition is the new analog slider which will presumably be the preferred method of game control.  The slider has a smooth concave design and nice resistance.  It’s bigger than the Sony PSP analog nub and the concave design is much better than Sony’s textured convex one.  The stylus returns for touch screen control and is telescoping this time around.  This allows it to be housed vertically within the system like the original DS, but can extend to the size of the DSi’s stylus.

The 3DS comes with a lot of manuals.

The two screens are where most of the 3DS tech resides.  The smaller, bottom screen is touch sensitive like the DS, but it’s received a boost in resolution.  The larger top screen is where the 3D effect is used.  The picture is nice and bright and though the resolution is better than the DS, it’s not anything mind blowing.  The system comes with a 2 GB SD card pre-loaded which looks like it will be used as a memory card would be.  Game data is stored to it as well as Mii data.  The 3DS dashboard is very similar to the one on the DSi and Wii.  It’s simple and easy to navigate.

The charging dock.

The 3D effect works and actually works pretty well.  It’s glasses-free which means it is a bit rigid in terms of what angle the system is held at and distance from the face.  The system can no longer be held vertically as the 3D effect only works when it is held horizontally.  I don’t really anticipate this adding much, if anything, to gameplay but if 3D is something you like the 3DS does deliver.  And if it’s something you don’t care for it can be shut off, which will also extend battery life (the effect is created by running two screens, one on top of the other, which naturally puts more of a strain on the battery).  I did not find the 3D to be too uncomfortable, though after playing the AR Games my eyes did feel a bit strained and I was happy to put the system down.

Get used to this sight, it's a 3DS charging.

I already mentioned the stylus and SD card, the other things included in the box are a charging station, AC adapter, numerous manuals, and some cards for the pre-loaded AR game.  The boost in power of the 3DS comes with a price in terms of battery life (and the previously mentioned $250 sticker).  I haven’t fully tested it out, but with the screen at the default level of brightness and both 3D and Wi-Fi enabled, the battery life supposedly tops out at less than 4 hours.  This is a far cry from the 8-10 of the DS and makes the system far less portable than its predecessor.  It’s kind of interesting considering Nintendo for years refused to add a backlight to the Gameboy’s screen because they felt battery life is the most important part of a handheld.  Apparently there has been a change in philosophy within the company.  I actually prefer this approach, though I must confess less than 4 hours per charge is pretty disappointing.

The charging station is supposedly the make-up for the crappy battery.  Once plugged in the 3DS can be simply placed on it for charging.  A full charge takes roughly 3 hours (according to the manual) and the station will automatically shut-off once the 3DS is fully charged to prevent over-charging.  The system can also be charged the traditional way of just plugging it into an outlet via the AC adapter.  Presumably there will be a market for third party add-ons such as car chargers and extra battery packs.

The 3DS comes with a colossal manual that I admittedly did not read much of.  There’s also a couple handy quick start guides (I say a couple because there’s a french one and a spanish one too) that tells you pretty much all you need to know.  There’s no extra stylus or pack-in game, but there is some software pre-loaded onto the 3DS that is arguably better than any of the games you’ll find at retail for the time being.

Face Raiders. I know it's blurry but at least this gives you an idea of what the flying face helmets look like, only when they come at you they're coming out whatever background is in your camera's sights. So if your 3DS is aimed at a toilet, they'll come busting out of there.

3DS games are basically the same size as DS ones, only they have a little nub to prevent people from jamming them into the old hardware.

The first game I tried out is called Face Raiders.  The 3DS contains 3 cameras, two rear facing and one front facing, and uses them all for this game.  First, you use the front facing camera to take a picture of yourself (or if you prefer to photograph someone else, you can use the rear facing cameras) and watch as the game puts it onto some weird flying helmet.  The system was able to tell me after I snapped a picture of myself that I was a young adult male.  Pretty smart, but when I took a picture of my cat it came up with all question marks.  The game itself uses the rear facing cameras and the 3D effect to make it look like you’re being attacks by these weird flying faces.  They’ll cause your environment to “break” and try to kiss you for some reason.  Apparently you do not want to be kissed by your evil doppelganger or weird cat monster, so you shoot them as they approach.  Sometimes bombs will pop up that you can acquire and use to clear the screen.  After awhile, a boss head appears that continues to summon the smaller ones until you blast it straight to Hell.  The whole time the 3DS is forcing you to spin around in 360 degrees to find the enemies as they attack you.  It’s pretty neat, though I couldn’t help but wonder how someone confined to a bed or wheelchair would be able to enjoy it.

The included cards for AR Games. They come housed in a sleeve similar to what most gift cards come in.

The other pre-loaded game is called AR Games and uses the cards I mentioned.  The 3DS comes with six cards, a question mark block, Mario, Link, Kirby, Samus, and some Pikmin.  The system uses the rear facing cameras once again and focuses on the question mark card and creates the environment it lies on into a game.  There’s an archery game where the terrain fluctuates forcing you to hit stationary and moving targets.  A pool type of game where you strike a ball and try to get it into a goal in one shot, a fishing game, and some gimmick stuff.  The character cards are one of those gimmicks where placing the card beside the question mark card makes them “come to life” as three dimensional characters you can pose and take pictures of.  It’s stupid, but the other games are kind of cool.  They are a bit glitchy though and numerous times as I was trying to move around to get a better angle at a target (or the boss dragon monster that rises out of the card after so many targets have been cleared) the system yelled at me that it lost the card in its camera (the question mark card has to be visible at all times).

3DS cases are a bit slimmer than the DS ones.

The interior of a 3DS game case, pretty exciting.

The only actual game I purchased today was (duh!) Super Street Fighter 4.  I say “duh!” because all of the other games are either mediocre or terrible.  It’s really not saying much when a two year old game is far and away the best available for a brand new system but that’s how it is likely to be until at least the fall when the Ocarina of Time remake hits stores.  Nintendo does have three first-party games at launch; Pilot Wings, Nintendogs + Cats, and Steel Diver.  Pilot Wings is basically a glorified tech demo and probably just as dull as the ones released for the SNES and N64, respectively.  Nintendogs is basically the same as the previous ones, only with better graphics and in 3D.  Steel Diver is kind of a throwback game.  It’s a left to right shooter where you take control of a sub.  Supposedly it’s not bad, but kind of ho-hum and would have probably been better received as a cheaper downloadable game.  Apparently the third party publishers were not interested in capitalizing on the lackluster offerings from Nintendo as their titles are spectacularly bad.  Aside from Street Fighter, there isn’t really anything of interest that I’m aware of.  EA has a version of Madden available that’s supposedly rushed and terrible.  They also ported The Sims 3 over so if you have yet to experience that maybe it’s a worthwhile investment.  There’s a couple of racing games and some generic platformers as well.  The best may be Super Monkey Ball 3D, it’s probably just like the previous ones so if you want to experience that franchise again go for it.

My Mii.

I actually own Street Fighter 4 for the PS3.  I never picked up the “Super” version that came out last year that featured additional characters because I was never interested (I’d just end up using Akuma anyways).  It’s a good game with a nice visual style that lives up to the Street Fighter name.  It’s just that it’s been available for home consoles for two years now, so there isn’t much new to be experienced.  The 3D effect does little for the game because of its perspective.  There is a 3D mode that I haven’t tried because it places the camera over your character’s shoulder, which sounds awkward.  It’s this lack of newness that almost lead me to pick up a 3DS without even bothering with any games.  The 3DS is fully backwards compatible with the DS library, so I’d be able to play the DS games I still have until a worthwhile piece of software came out but I caved at the last minute.

I tried to take some pictures of SF4, but they came out blurry. If you really want to see the game there's about a million high quality images online somewhere.

So now that I have Super Street Fighter 4 3D what do I think?  Well, it’s pretty much the same experience as the console version, which is to say it’s a very good fighting game.  I tried initially using the analog slider but found it to be too imprecise for a fighter and switched over to the D-pad.  The D-pad is of the same quality as the DS one, just placed lower on the console.  I found it a little uncomfortable after one trip through arcade mode so it’s probably not the best game for long stretches of play.  Since the system is limited because of the button layout, some commands have been moved to the touch screen.  On “Lite” mode, moves can be stored here.  I played as Ken and the default settings were to have his super combo and ultra combo mapped to the left side, and his heavy hadoken and heavy hurricane kick (I’m not going to try to spell out its Japanese name) were mapped to the right.  The face buttons default to the same layout as the home console version, which is they have the light and medium attacks and the heavy ones are mapped to the shoulder buttons.  I found trying to perform a heavy hadoken the manual way near impossible as it’s just too awkward to make a quarter circle motion with my left thumb and hit the left shoulder button at the end so the touch screen move was welcomed.  The ultra combos require all three punch or kick buttons to be pressed, which is nearly impossible on the 3DS, so I was happy to use the touch screen here as well.  The “Pro” control mode allows you only to map attack buttons to the touch screen, including L+M+H commands, if you find having actual moves too easy.  I can see that working fine, but since smudges on my touch screen drive me nuts I’ll probably stick with Lite.  I also re-mapped the buttons so that the medium attacks were on the shoulders and the heavy on the console’s face.  This made it possible for me to execute EX moves and also kept the light attacks on the face to execute quick throws.

Akuma vs Some Red Guy

I’d say overall the control scheme works well enough.  The D-pad can be a bit cumbersome.  While I found it easy enough to perform quarter-circle motions, the more complex ones, such as the dragon uppercut, were far less responsive which again makes the “Lite” control mode a bit more desirable.  The graphics are very nice looking, the fighters anyways.  They’re obviously not as detailed as the ones featured on the home consoles, but the reduced screen size makes it hard to notice.  The backgrounds suffer though as basically all of the background animations have been removed.  I can live with this, but it would have been nice if Capcom had adjusted the appearance of the backgrounds to better conform with this approach as it just looks weird to see onlookers frozen in place.  There is a pretty robust online mode and if someone is nearby with a 3DS and a copy of the game they can challenge you.  Also, if you have a buddy who doesn’t have a game they can download a demo of it from your 3DS, which is pretty cool and a feature I hope a lot of games make use of.

Super Street Fighter 4 is a solid game, but I do long for something better for the 3DS.  For now, the system receives a grade of incomplete.  The tech is certainly nice, and the look and feel of the system is in line with previous models, it just lack quality software.  In time, that will most definitely change since Nintendo is bound to unleash various Mario, Metroid, and Zelda titles.  There’s also a system update on the horizon that will grant access to an online store and internet browser.  I’m not sure why both weren’t ready for launch, but just like with everything else, it’s on the way.  The store promises to have both original titles as well as 3D remakes of classic Nintendo titles.  Of the announced ones, I’m most looking forward to the 3D version of the Gameboy classic Link’s Awakening, as I’ve never played it and always wanted to.  The Ocarina of Time remake will undoubtedly kick ass, and the Super Mario Bros. title is apparently some kind of Super Mario Bros. 3 tie-in which has me all kinds of excited.  In conclusion, the 3DS is pretty cool even if the whole 3D thing isn’t really your bag, but it’s safe to hold off for now until the good software starts coming out.

Mortal Kombat!!!!

As some of you may or may not know, Warner Bros. has a new Mortal Kombat game coming out this April for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.  The new game, simply titled Mortal Kombat, is an attempt to bring the series back to its roots while still maintaining some of the modern touches of the more recent titles.

The demo was released a week ago for those who subscribe (and pay extra money) for Sony’s Playstation Plus program.  For the rest of us, it was unlocked this past weekend for a free download.

First, some background.  When the first Mortal Kombat game dropped in the early 90’s I begged my parents for a Sega Genesis for Christmas so that I could experience it in it’s uncensored glory.  One of the neighborhood kids got the Super Nintendo version that fall when the game was released and my friends and I spent many afternoons playing it, but always dreaming about getting our hands on the much hyped Genesis version.  It was rumored that the Genesis version of the game contained a code to unlock the censors put in place by Midway.  Nintendo, wanting to keep its family friendly image, had the developers replace the blood with gray, misty, sweat.  Many of the signature fatalities were removed, including Sub-Zero’s head rip and Kano’s heart pull, and even certain simple moves were removed because of the violence factor.  It was lame, and to a group of 10 year olds it was extremely lame.  We wanted blood!

The problem was, nobody had a Sega Genesis.  Before Mortal Kombat, the Genesis was the system kids received when the stores were sold out of Super Nintendo.  Sure it had some cool games, like Sonic the Hedgehog and Outrun, but it was kind of clunky and the controller only had three buttons.  Plus, the SNES had better graphics and all of the big Nintendo franchises everyone grew up with.  I had just received a Super Nintendo the previous Christmas, so getting my parents to give me a Genesis seemed like a long shot at best.

In the end, my parents proved themselves awesome that Christmas and got me the Genesis II and grandma took care of the rest with a copy of Mortal Kombat.  I remember calling my best friend at the time, Saad, that morning to see if he knew the blood code.  He didn’t, but he called around for me and eventually was able to produce the code and directions on where to enter it.  That code, ABACABB – Get over here! – proved a success and I was soon reveling in bloody goodness.  It was probably the next day I had my buds over, none of them were fortunate enough to get the Genesis+MK combo for Xmas, and we began a ritual that would last months.  We just played that game constantly and over time we figured out the various fatalities (I wrote them all down in the game’s instruction booklet, these are the kinds of things kids today don’t have to do thanks to the internet).  To this day, my favorite is still Sub-Zero’s.

Mortal Kombat (2011)

Now, almost 20 years later, I find myself getting excited over a new Mortal Kombat game.  I actually wasn’t even all that excited until I played the demo and found it to be a very satisfying experience.  The demo includes four characters: Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Mileena, and Johnny Cage.  You select a character, difficulty setting, and then the game pits you against each one.  After the fourth character is felled, the demo teases a Goro fight before going into a trailer hyping the full version of the game.

First off, the game looks pretty nice.  That’s kind of a given in this day and age but I like the character designs.  They stick close to the original designs of each character while adding a modern touch.  Sub-Zero’s costume is given some armor and nice textures, while Scorpion’s takes the skeleton imagery from his Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 appearance and builds on it.  Mileena is absurdly sexy and curvaceous while her costume is sort of a hybrid of her original MK2 look and her MK3 costume.  Johnny Cage’s costume differs very little from his MK2 appearance.  The graphics are fully rendered in 3D, but the game is strictly a 2D fighter.  For anyone that played the 3D fighters in the series’ past, this is a welcome move.

The classic special moves are all here from Scorpion’s spear to Sub-Zero’s freeze blast.  Though while the early games were methodical and special move oriented, this one is pretty fast and if you can’t string combos together you won’t last.  I first tried out my old standby, Sub-Zero, but found his special moves kind of slow and switched to Scorpion, my consistent backup.  I liked him so much that I haven’t even tried the other two, though I plan to.  Scorpion moves quickly, like all of the characters, but his moves work well with my style.  His teleport punch is still present and can be done while airborne.  I found it the perfect counter anytime my opponent tried a projectile attack.  Most of his combos leave the opponent momentarily stunned and wide open for his lack grab move or demon fire.  And his fatality, where he slashes his opponent up with his sword, was pretty damn cool.

I was able to breeze through the four opponents on the Medium difficulty setting, but received a healthy challenge when I bumped it up to hard though I still managed to get through all four without using a continue.  I am not at all concerned about the game being too easy though, because the next Mortal Kombat game that is too easy will be the first.

The game, despite my overall good impressions, is not perfect.  Scorpion’s teleport punch is very effective, perhaps too effective.  The game also has a special attack called an X-Ray that is initiated after a meter is filled.  This meter is not hard to fill within a round, and the move is executed just by pressing two shoulder buttons simultaneously and does massive damage if it connects.  Scorpion’s is a teleport attack and really easy to pull off.  I think the move is intended to give a player who’s getting beat a last resort option, but I found myself using it to finish my opponent off when it got down to about a third of its health.  I felt a little guilty using it, as I’d wager I was successful with the attack 4 out of every 5 attempts.  It might not be a bad idea to tone it down for the final release.

Aside from that though, I came away very encouraged.  I suppose this is what a successful demo strives to accomplish as I went into it not planning on making the purchase when the game gets released to seriously considering it.  I’d be even more likely to get it if I hadn’t just spent 60 bucks on Marvel Vs Capcom 3 a few weeks ago.  The game doesn’t come out until April 19th so I’ll have plenty of time to experiment further with the demo and come to an ultimate conclusion.

Mass Effect 2

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the few video games I was excited to play was Mass Effect 2.  I don’t own an Xbox 360 so I had to wait until the Playstation 3 version was released this past month to experience the game.  I’ve had it for a few weeks and just finished my first play through last night so I figured I would post my impressions of the game.

Overall, my experience was a good one.  Bioware is a pretty consistent developer and when it tackles an RPG you kind of know what you’re in for.  Ever since Baldur’s Gate on the PC their RPG’s have taken the same path.  Sure the perspective has changed from an overhead view to a behind the character view, and with Mass Effect the genre has switched from medieval fantasy to sci-fi space opera.  The only real difference is the switch from primarily close-quarters hack and slash combat to gun play.  In Baldur’s Gate/Neverwinter Nights/Dragon Age combat is done via clicking the mouse or pressing an attack button with little consideration for the player’s dexterity with a controller.  This may seem like a small thing, but in ME the player actually has to aim the weapon and weather you hit or miss is entirely dependent on you, not some behind the scenes calculations done by the game.  Even in those older games if you chose to go with a bow and arrow instead of a sword the only thing you had to do was click your mouse over your intended target and the game did all of the work.  The approach of ME would be considered a more action based approach and one that I favor.  The old method worked well when the games were trying to emulate a Dungeons & Dragons experience but are kind of dated now.  At least now when I miss a target I know I missed the target.

Because of this approach to combat, the leveling system is rather simplistic.  In other games as your character advances in level you’re usually given a pool of ability points that will improve your character in one of 8 or so possibilities.  They’re pretty generic across all games, usually Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and so on.  In ME2 there

You have the option to recruit several squad members in Mass Effect 2. Some of them are displayed here, left to right: Thane, Miranda, Shepard, Grunt, and Jack (Subject Zero).

are no such statistics and instead your character starts off able to put ability points into his talents you select at the start of your game.  The talents available depend on what class you go with.  I always prefer stealth and assassin type characters so my Commander Shepard is a male Infiltrator.  As such he began the game with access to two ammo types, a tactical cloak, incinerate, AI hacking (ability to commandeer robotic enemies), and the generic squad leader type of thing.  Later in the game, you get the ability to add another talent dependent on if you do your squad members’ specific loyalty quest.  This adds another possibility depending on whom you recruit.  I went with the fortification talent which allows my Shepard to increase his defense for a short duration.

I mentioned my Shepard is male and had I wanted it to be so he could have been a she.  This has no effect on gameplay outside of the romance options.  It’s become some-what common in Bioware games to give the player a possible romantic interest

Play your cards right and your Commander Shepard can get laid, though don't expect to see anything more beyond this, you pervert.

in each game.  Usually they’re pretty liberal and give you male and female options no matter what gender your character is but here it’s hetero all the way.  Yes, there is a pseudo lesbian relationship should you choose to pursue it but it’s basically a one night stand type of deal and I don’t think it is something that will carry over into Mass Effect 3.  As far as I know, the female Shepard has two choices for a boy-toy, Jake and the alien Garrus, while a male Shapard gets his pick of three lovely ladies in Miranda, Jack, and Mass Effect 1 holdover Tali.  Tali is the alien option if that’s your fetish while Miranda is the babe and Jack is the hardened but secretly vulnerable option.  I went with the babe and romanced her throughout the game giving me a corny sex scene to enjoy before the final mission.  And in case you’re wondering, no, you don’t see anything beyond what’s present on daytime television.

Anyways, the bulk of the game is spent on your ship the Normandy as you traverse solar systems in search of quests.  The main objective is to assemble a crew, acquire what is called the Reaper IFF, and complete the “suicide mission” to take out the enemy.  The main story-line only consists of about 4 missions and, if you wish, the game could be completed fairly quickly.  If you go the speedy route though you risk failure as it is entirely possible to beat the game but have your Shepard meet the reaper as a result.  The opposite is also true and that suicide label they place over the fateful mission can be brushed aside.  In my first attempt I lost one squad member during the final mission.  It occurred off-screen so I re-loaded a save and changed my team around until I was able to keep everyone alive and have a nice clean save to import into Mass Effect 3.  The survival rate depends on if they’re loyal to you and how you deploy them.  You’re given decisions such as picking an engineer for a specific task and someone to be a squad leader for a secondary strike force.  Choose someone not fit for a given role and they run the risk of dying.  Also, while you and two squad mates take on the final boss the rest of your team is left to hold position.  There’s a random chance the less hardy characters will perish during this, which is what happened to me.  So I put the character who died into my squad and re-played the final boss fight and was able to achieve the “perfect” ending.

If the game had sucked, I would have never made it that far and thankfully the game is a lot better than suck, it’s pretty awesome.  While the version I played was released this year, I still consider this a 2010 release.  Given that, it’s probably my second favorite game from 2010 behind only Red Dead Redemption.  They’re both totally different experiences though so it does little to compare the two.  ME2 is pretty

Shepard has access to biotech powers, though what powers you have depends on your character class and how you invest your squad points.

simple in its execution.  You always lead a team of three and you have free choice over who is in your squad (unless you’re doing a character specific loyalty mission, then that character needs to be in your squad).  You only can play as Shepard but you can issue commands to the other two in your squad.  The commands are pretty simple but get the job done.  You can tell them to stay close or go ahead and give them specific places to stand.  You also have access to their weapon and tech wheels and are able to micro-manage fights if you desire.  I was a mostly hands-off squad leader when it came to weapons, but I would direct my squads bio-tech powers where necessary.  For the most part the AI is competent, though they’re not afraid to cross in front of you when you’re firing which can get annoying.  Especially when you’re trying to score a head-shot with a sniper rifle.

The tech powers I’ve alluded to function like magic in other Bioware games.  Some are even just like old spells such as incinerate, which is basically a fireball.  Whenever a character uses one there’s a cool down period of a few seconds where no other tech powers can be used.  The ammo powers do not apply and they last until you switch them out.  I was quite fond of my Shepard’s cryo ammo, a cold based attribute that would freeze enemies after a few hits.  I’d equip that to my sub-machine gun, which was by default adept at cutting through armor, and enjoyed great success that way.  My Shepard also had a cloaking device which made him invisible for a quick duration.  This was good if I found myself getting blasted and needed to get away.  It’s best use though is that when firing from a cloaked position your attack goes up, especially if you invest enough squad points to max it out (20 squad points are needed to get an ability to level 4, the highest it can go).  By the end of the game I was using my cloak as an offensive weapon, constantly cloaking and firing my sniper rifle to score 1-hit kills on most enemies.

The sniper rifle was easily my favorite weapon and preferred method of combat.  It didn’t work well in close-quarters but that’s a given.  The only downside is the best sniper rifle available to me can only hold 13 shots maximum, so running out of ammo was a constant annoyance.  In this game you don’t necessarily use ammo, instead you gather cooling clips that cool down your weapon.  It functions the same as ammo though.  Enemies drop these clips but not always, so you never had to buy ammo but running out mid-mission does occur.  The second best sniper rifle is a semi-auto gun that can hold 50-something rounds but it’s counter-balanced by its weakness against armored foes.  This isn’t a drawback early in the game but by the game’s end most enemies are shielded in some way.  You can outfit Shepard with pieces of armor that increase ammo capacity but usually only by 5 or 10% making it ultimately not worth it.  I’d rather equip something more beneficial.

The DLC (included with the PS3) allows your Shepard to reconnect with Liara from the first game. If you romanced her in the first game and do not pursue a relationship in Mass Effect 2 you can presumably pick up where you left off with her in Mass Effect 3.

Shepard has four weapons at all times and the ones available depend on Shepard’s class.  My Shepard had a standard pistol (I assume all have this no matter the class), a fully-automatic machine gun, a sniper rifle, and the heavy weapon slot.  The heavy weapon is common to all Shepard’s and what’s available depends on what you’ve found or invested in.  I mostly stuck with the collector particle beam.  All of them are potent though, and you have to find special heavy ammo to use them on any given mission.  This encourages you to only use them when absolutely necessary.  Other weapons in the game include shotguns and assault rifles, which my Shepard could not use but certain squad members could.  Each weapon category has 2 to 3 options that you find or purchase over the course of the game.  Each one has 4 upgrades that increase damage output or ammo capacity.

Shepard can also customize his armor.  There are full outfits available (such as the Blood Dragon armor if you have a Dragon Age save on your machine) or just pieces that can be mixed and match.  Early in the game the outfits are probably the way to go, especially if you have access to the Dragon armor, but once you’ve compiled enough pieces you’ll probably want to mix and match.  You can also customize the color and details of the armor for a unique look.

Equipment and upgrades can be found or purchased.  The game’s currency is credits, and you find credits during missions and are awarded credits for completing missions.  Upgrades can be researched at the Normandy and consume resources.  There are four resource types in the game that can be found during missions, but in order to get all of the upgrades you’ll have to mine for them on planets.  The mining mini game is boring but ultimately not very time consuming.  I was able to stockpile more than enough of each of the four resources to research everything I needed to.  As you add crew members they’ll give Shepard suggestions on upgrades that you can research.  Researching the available Normandy upgrades leads to a better survival rate during the last mission.

Your crew can be as big or as small as you want it to be, it’s your choice.  I chose to recruit everyone and complete each one’s loyalty quest.  Having a loyal crew member gives them access to their best abilities for you to invest squad points in and also

In addition to playing well, Mass Effect 2 is visually impressive.

gives them a second attire.  If you want to pursue a romance you also need that individual to be loyal to Shepard.  There are a couple of moments in the game where your loyalty to certain crew members will be tested.  Choose unwisely and you will lose the loyalty of a crew member and the chance for romance.  An un-loyal crew member is far more likely to perish during the game’s final mission than a loyal one.

The loyalty quests were pretty much universally entertaining.  Some are better than others, but they all provide insight into the character’s history.  You can also speak with your crew members at any time on the Normandy, but some are more tight-lipped than others.  Getting them to open up is when the loyalty mission becomes available.  Your Yeoman, Kelly, will also inform you if someone wants to talk to you.  Some loyalty missions can be failed, and doing so will prevent that character from ever being loyal to you, so be careful.

If you lose the loyalty of a crew member you will need a high paragon or renegade score to win their loyalty back.  Whether you are high in one or the other depends on the choices you’ve made throughout the game.  In general, paragon choices are more honorable and heroic, while renegade ones are ruthless and bad ass.  I went the renegade route.  These two roles should not be confused with good and evil, though there is at least one choice that I can think of that could qualify as such.  Nonetheless, the choice is yours.  You have a meter for each that fills as you make choices dependent on that role.  They are independent of each other though, meaning if you do something to increase your paragon score it will not decrease your renegade score.  For the most part, it doesn’t matter which one you’re high in so long as you have a high score in one, though I did find that I could not win Tali’s loyalty (after losing it) with a max renegade score but could do so with the character of Legion.  This leads me to believe if you lose Tali’s loyalty only a high paragon score can win her back and maybe the inverse is true of Legion.  Certain crew members seem to respond better to renegade vs paragon.  Grunt is a good example who seems to value the directness and toughness of a renegade Shepard.

Ultimately, I had a really good time with this game.  It took me just over 40 game hours to beat it but it didn’t feel that long.  I played on the normal difficulty setting and found it to be a suitable challenge.  Certain areas were harder than others but nothing overwhelming.  The hardest areas were just the ones not geared towards my style of play, such as areas with swarming melee enemies better suited for a shotgun wielding Shepard.  I died here and there, but the game’s auto-save is pretty generous so dying was rarely frustrating and often just pointed out that my approach was wrong.  The biggest flaw this game has is a minor one, the load times.  The load times are too long for a game released in 2010 and too frequent, especially on the Normandy.  Changing floors necessitates a lengthy load which gets annoying.  They’re probably 25-30 seconds in length, which doesn’t sound like much, but is noticeable.  I never saw mention of the loading times in reviews so I assume the length is pretty consistent across all platforms and would be longer if you chose not to install it to your hard drive.  The game also froze up on me maybe half a dozen times, which is unusual for my PS3.

Jack is one of the more interesting characters. She's a psycho who prefers tattoos over clothing.

I enjoyed the combat in the game and also the supporting characters.  The combat gave me a suitable number of options when approaching a given situation, though I would suggest a greater variety in abilities for the sequel.  The same can be said for the available weapons.  The characters are well done from an aesthetic standpoint and a personality one.  The two downloadable ones are noticeably less interesting than the ones created for the game initially but that is to be expected.  The character of Zaed, for example, is a throw-away.  Some abilities and strengths overlap amongst the characters which makes many of them interchangeable.  I assume that was the goal but I wouldn’t mind seeing a greater variety here as well.  The voice acting is very good for each one as well.  The odd exception is the voice actor for Shepard (the male one, at least) which is pretty spotty.  I assume that’s because they tried to make him kind of neutral sounding, except when picking an obvious renegade or paragon option, but it is distracting and could be improved upon.

Mass Effect 3 has vaulted to the top of my list for most anticipated title of 2011.

Mass Effect 2 may not have reignited my passion for video gaming but it did at least create an interest in this series.  It’s both a refreshing and familiar style of gaming for Bioware and one that I found more entertaining than Dragon Age.  I’m looking forward to Mass Effect 3 and am quite eager to continue my Commander Shepard’s journey.  I don’t know where it will lead but I’m sure I’ll enjoy the ride.

The flagship title for the past several years of WWE centered video games.

I thought about making this title “The State of Wrestling Games” but what would be the point?  The Fire Pro series has been shelved, and THQ has exclusive rights to the WWE, which pretty much has a monopoly on the wrestling world.  Yeah, there’s that organization called TNA floating around but it has done nothing to even dent the WWE behemoth.  Plus I never played the lone TNA video game, though I heard it was pretty terrible.

By default, this ends up being a topic on WWE related games.  Now, I posted at length about my current WWE and wrestling related affections earlier.  Which is to say, while I enjoy the spectacle and talent it takes to produce a fun night of professional wrestling, I am not an active fan of the WWE.  I also mentioned in that post, as well as others, that I still find the video games appealing, mostly because of their create aspects and because the gameplay usually delivers an overall solid experience.

Unlike the NFL or MLB, which used to have multiple publishers putting out an annual game, the WWE (or then, WWF) always had one publisher working on their games.  Early on it was Acclaim which produced the bulk of the 8-bit and 16-bit games like “Superstars” and “Royal Rumble.”  During the Playstation dominated era, THQ, together with Japanese developer Aki, emerged as the big play-maker in the wrestling video game world with their hits based on the WCW brand, “World Tour” and “Revenge.”  This prompted the WWF to ditch their longtime partner and switch to THQ.

Initially THQ maintained the same strategy with the WWF that it did with WCW,

Acclaim was never considered a great publisher, but they can at least take credit for popularizing the create a superstar mode, first introduced in WWF Warzone.

which was to use different development houses for the different platforms available.  For the Playstation, the developer Yukes was used which had a successful Japan only series under its belt called “Toukon Retsuden” while Aki was left as the Nintendo 64 developer.  Yukes was given the Smackdown title, while Aki would go with a PPV name for its game, “Wrestlemania 2000” and the following “No Mercy.”  This approach created a sort-of false competition.  While THQ ultimately won no matter which game consumers sided with, there was a great debate each year over which title was superior.  Both were  very different experiences.  The Smackdown series was faster with more animations present despite being on the inferior Playstation hardware while the N64 games were more methodical and featured the tried and true WCW game engine.  Despite not being a very realistic (and I know how silly that sounds on the surface given that “real” is hardly the way most would describe the world of pro wrestling) experience in-ring, the N64 games were given the label of being a simulation based experience.  The Smackdown series was viewed as a more arcade experience, meaning it was more about entertainment than authenticity.

For many fans, WWF No Mercy is still the benchmark for all wrestling games.

I was a Playstation guy so naturally my bias was slanted towards the Smackdown series.  For me, after spending many many hours with the WCW games, it was a breath of fresh air.  The first game was unrealistically fast, but the approach was more appropriate in terms of emulating what was seen on television.  In the N64 games, just about every move was preceded with a tie-up, meaning the two wrestlers grappled each other’s shoulders and would execute moves from there.  While a fun and useful gameplay mechanic, it didn’t look realistic.  At the same time though, in a Smackdown game a guy could get blasted with a steel chair and then get right back up.  Slow moving characters like Mankind zoomed around the ring and practically ran up the turnbuckle.  The N64’s more methodical pace, while too slow for some characters, was more authentic.

Regardless, I do feel both titles helped push the other.  When it was announced that “No Mercy” would have a ladder match, Yukes responded by not only adding one to their game, but also added the Hell in a Cell match and casket match.

After “No Mercy,” THQ dropped Aki in a cost-cutting move.  THQ gave Yukes the Playstation consoles as well as the Gamecube for their games.  For the Playstation 2, the Smackdown brand was continued while the Gamecube had a Wrestlemania based series followed by the “Day of Reckoning” series.  The Gamecube games tried to emulate the Aki developed games and while the early titles were dismissed, the “Day of Reckoning” series was mostly well received.  Anchor was given the Xbox and made two lackluster games released under the Raw subtitle.  Again, to cut costs, THQ consolidated everything under Yukes after a few years and decided to focus solely on the Smackdown game, now titled Smackdown vs Raw.

This is how it has been for the last few years and will likely continue, with occasional off-shoots like “WWE Legends” or the upcoming “WWE All-Stars.”  To say things have grown a bit stagnant would be an understatement.  While there was never true competition at the publisher level within the WWE games (though there certainly was when WCW and ECW were viable brands), there was at least some at the developer level.  Now that Yukes focuses mostly on one game released across all consoles that sense of competition is all but gone.

I have not been an annual purchaser of the Smackdown vs Raw brand, preferring to

Considered by many to be the finest entry in the series, WWE Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain introduced a more simulation style of gameplay while still retaining some of the speed that gave the previous games their identity. This one helped erase the stain of developer Aki's departure from THQ.

take a year or two off because each installment is usually pretty similar to the previous one.  Even with that approach, there’s still a lot of of stagnation from one release to the next (that I play).  I’m going to now focus on this past year’s release, the 2011 version of Smackdown vs Raw.

From a gameplay perspective, it is unchanged.  The only change I can notice is that some moves have been removed, and some new ones added.  It definitely does not feel balanced as more moves were removed than added.  And given the storage capacity of today’s disc mediums (especially the Playstation 3’s Blu Ray), there doesn’t seem to be a logical reason to remove any moves unless of course it is just to re-introduce them in a later game as something “new.”  Match-wise, I do not see any additions here either.  The last new match was added a couple of year’s ago and was the Inferno match, which to put mildly, sucks.  Smackdown 2 added a casket match, which no longer exists (admittedly, it was terrible), while the first game introduced the “I Quit” match which was actually pretty interesting and I don’t why it was ever removed.  The special referee match is also gone which allowed the player to play as a wrestler serving as a ref.  If for nothing else, this match should still exist for story-line possibilities  in the game’s story designer.  One of the cooler matches the series added was the Buried Alive match.  In this match the combatants brawled in a no holds barred setting, with the ultimate goal being to get your opponent into a casket on the stage and then bury them.  It was a suitable replacement for the casket match and one that actually worked well.  There was a gameplay mechanic that let the user perform a “casket finisher” which was the only thing that needed refinement.  Which is to say, they just needed more finishers animated so that nearly everyone wasn’t just performing a powerbomb.  Unfortunately, the match no longer exists.

Smackdown vs Raw 2006 introduced the Buried Alive match. Despite being well received it has vanished from the series.

A match that has never worked well is the tables match.  And since the tables match is still fairly common for the television product (unlike the previously mentioned buried alive match) so it has remained in the games for awhile now.  Early on it was even worse, the matches would usually last about 30 seconds as it was fairly easy to put an opponent through a table.  Now it’s more challenging.  If you manage to get a table set-up and perform a move that would put an opponent through it (like a suplex, for example) the table will often buckle but not break if the opponent hasn’t been significantly weakened.  The AI will often reverse other moves designed to put it through.  What annoys me is that the ability to stand on a table has been removed from both the weapon-based table (found under the ring or laying at ring-side during a tables match) and the announcer’s table.  The announcer’s table is more annoying because that one is big, normally allowing for both wrestlers to stand on it at the same time.  In past games it was possible, but no longer.  It’s a fairly common site at a pay-per view event to see a wrestler go through an announcer’s table (usually spanish) but in the game it can only happen via a top rope move.  Superficial complaint?  Of course, but if it was possible last year why isn’t it this year?  The game used to have a few stock animations for the regular tables for this, usually powerbombs and piledrivers with a few special moves thrown in.  At least now it is possible to perform standing moves beside a table to put someone through, but if my character does not have a directional based finisher (as in, one that allows the user to control the direction the opponent is being thrown as a result of the move) he can’t use it to put someone through a table.  This means no Rock Bottoms through the table, or Stone Cold Stunners, or the majority of created finishers.  My favored created wrestler has what is basically “The Dominator”* as his finishing move, which is one that most would think would be something that could be easily performed through a table, but no luck.

*For those unfamiliar with the former WCW and Attitude era WWF/E wrestler Faarooq, The Dominator is basically a side powerbomb.  Instead of the opponent landing on his back, he lands on his stomach/face.

A feature added in 2006, GM mode, is also no longer present.  A suitable replacement has never been introduced.  For those that skipped that version, the GM mode gave the user control of one brand, Smackdown or Raw, and put it in competition with the other brand.  You created the card for each event and were allowed to cultivate rivalries between wrestlers that could be monitored.  Keeping a rivalry going as long as possible made the crowd more interested leading to a bigger payoff in the form of ratings when the two combatants squared off.  Keep a rivalry going too long though and the crowd would get bored with it.  You could simulate everything or actually play the matches which gave you a chance to affect the outcome.  It was a fun mode but was over once you beat the other brand over the course of a year.  Ever since experiencing it I wanted the developer to take it one step further.  Perhaps the WWE balked on such an idea, but I wanted it to be a realistic portrayal of the actual television product.  Meaning it could be scripted, instead of existing in the “kay-fabe” world.  You would operate as a director, perhaps to give the mode a plot set-up you would be Vince McMahon’s hand-picked commissioner/GM/whatever challenged to generate better ratings and attendance for the product.  You would still have to manage superstar personalities and egos.  Perhaps Triple H doesn’t want to lose to Chris Jericho, which makes him unhappy leading to a subpar performance and bad matches.  You would have to somehow placate his ego to make him happy again.  Happy wrestlers mean more inspired wrestlers which lead to better matches and better fan reactions.  Not only would you pick the card and winners and losers, you would also have story-lines to choose from.  Maybe Big Show is injured and needs some R&R, so you pick the “run over by car” plot to get him off TV for a few months.  And then when he comes back he gets to seek revenge on his mystery attacker.  The mode would basically combine the GM mode with the story designer mode, it would just add goals.  It could even keep the Smackdown vs Raw angle and give you control over only one show with Vince wanting to see which show could get the best ratings.

In older games you could do stuff like climb the Titantron, create your own title belt, or ride the Undertaker's motorcycle. Not so anymore...

This is the part where  I nit-pick the current game even more.  As I mentioned before, I love the create aspects of wrestling games.  Naturally, I use almost exclusively created wrestlers so anything that makes my guy more authentic is awesome.  The ability to use custom soundtracks for entrances was a great addition sparked by the addition of hard drives in most consoles.  Now any song I can think of my guy can enter to.  This year’s game attempted to let the user create an entrance movie from clips and stock animations.  The clips can be from a saved match.  This sounds good, but doesn’t work very well.  For one, the clips all have to come from one match and you have to either manually save them after a big spot or pick from the highlights the game selects after the match has concluded.  You can’t mix and match the two.  Being limited to one match makes the resulting video look redundant.  My guy is just beating on John Cena in all of his clips.  There’s no logical explanation for this limitation other than THQ/Yukes is lazy and/or greedy.  It’s also buggy, as in my only attempt all of the clips I saved resulted in my character appearing as a sort-of mashup of his various different attires.  His body is his default attire, but for some reason his head ended up as his attire 3 head.  Considering it was a pain-staking process to create the spots and save each one down, I never tried it again.  He has his own entrance video, it just looks pretty stupid but I guess it’s still better than seeing the generic WWE logo on the big screen.

Another thing that disappoints me is the underwhelming story designer.  On the

One of the biggest complaints early on with the Smackdown series was the inability defend belts at any time. This would eventually be rectified but has since been removed once again. Fans have stated it's an important feature, but Yukes seemingly doesn't care.

surface, the story designer sounds like something that was created just for me.  As a kid, I like many others, would create story-lines in my head and play them out endlessly.  Usually this resulted in me creating a PPV card for my various rivalries to be settled.  Now I can make this come to life.  The only problem is the small amount of animations at my disposal.  I have so far only made one scenario (“Masked Kane Returns” on the servers) and it takes place over a year.  By the end of it I felt like I was all out of animations to use and had already re-used several.  In THQ’s defense, I made my story linear meaning I omitted the branching category of animations but even there, there aren’t a lot of variety.  Specifically speaking, there needs to be more “attack” animations.  Say after a match, I want Kane to run in and chokeslam Edge, I can’t do that.  I can have him run-in and punch him or hit him with a chair, but he can’t perform his finisher.  A simple “finisher” animation where the character runs in and does his finishing move seems like an easy thing to code.  There needs to be more match-interrupting attacks too, there are basically two.  I need my guy to get screwed out of a few matches, how about one where he gets hit with a title belt or the opponent uses the ropes for a leverage pin?  Maybe a crooked ref moment a-la Survivor Series ’97?  There needs to be more beat-up animations as well.  I want to have a guy taken out of commission for a month or so, my only options are the chair beating or car rundown.  A simple “throw through table” would work, or con-chairto (guy’s head gets smashed between two chairs).  Adding on this premise, an animation that puts a guy in a wheelchair or on crutches would also be effective for when he comes back, is searching for his mystery attacker, etc.  This may seem like a lot to ask, but the truth is that Yukes didn’t really add anything to this mode from year one to year two, which is unacceptable.  I’d like to create more scenarios but I don’t know if I can do so without feeling like I just created the same thing.  The creator also really needs more ways to end a match.  Right now, the person playing is told what needs to happen in order for a match to be completed.  There are people who are really good at the game, and it’s also not the hardest game ever created, so simply stacking the decks in the AI’s favor to make the player lose is not feasible.  Plus, if I want them to lose they’re told so before the match begins, which isn’t much fun.  The alternative is to have a match end once they’ve inflicted a certain amount of damage on the CPU controlled wrestler(s).  Then an animation can be triggered showing the player get screwed out of a win.  I want more options to end a match.  Say I schedule a Hell in a Cell match, how about the match ends when both opponents are on top of the cell after the AI wrestler has taken X amount of damage?  A cut-scene could then trigger where someone gets thrown off the cell and is hurt so bad the match ends.  Or in a ladder match there could be an option for the match to end just before the player removes the belt/briefcase from its hanging position over the ring.  This could again trigger some sort of cut scene where the player is forced to lose.  In the end, the player still has to “win” the match and as the creator I get to insure that the script continues on the way I want it to.

At the end of the day, THQ only cares about making money. As long as people keep buying their WWE games they'll continue to add and remove features, only to bring them back and re-sell them as "new and improved," to screw consumers out of a worthwhile gaming experience.

As someone not interested in the TV product, I don’t really care who is on the active roster.  I do care when some guys are just hastily added.  For last year’s game, my ire is directed at Yukes and their version of WWE Legend Stone Cold Steve Austin.  I would like to create a scenario centered on him, but his character is so terrible I’m not sure it’s worth it.  And he’s terrible strictly because Yukes is lazy (and they used a horrible actor to motion capture his entrance).  For one, he has only one attire which is his standard black boots and black trunks.  Ever since 1997 Austin has always entered the ring at least sporting his trademark vest.  Not present.  Backstage he would usually sport denim shorts and a Stone Cold t-shirt of some kind.  In any story I create for him he’ll have to wear his black trunks and black boots, and only that regardless of his environment, which will look pretty dumb and redundant.  Am I nit-picking?  Of course, but if Yukes is going to take the time to add the character at least do it right, or don’t do it at all.  Why would I ever pay money to download additional wrestlers if the ones in the game are this shoddy?

This post turned into more of a rant than I anticipated.  Truth be told, I’ve spent countless hours with WWE games over the years including the 2011 version, but I am nearing the point of burn-out.  Without real change for next year’s game I don’t see myself buying it.  And that goes for the following year.  I do not regret my most recent purchase but it certainly hasn’t turned out the way I had hoped, but unfortunately it mostly turned out the way I expected it to.  I was mostly drawn in by the scenario editor, but knew it would be severely limited (you also pretty much can’t make one where a created wrestler is the focal point, since it limits you to how many times a created wrestler can be used – it’s stupid) and would only scratch the surface of what I wanted it to be.  Perhaps the genre is just dying a slow death.  If only the Fire Pro series could get some funding for a big, over the top, release.  At least with Fire Pro the gameplay is there, it was just alway lacking the bells and whistles.  I can deal without big entrances and that sort of crap, but how about simple chair shots and tables?  Nope.  Wrestling fans still gobble up the latest game but I am left to wonder if wrestling fans will ever get the game they truly want, let alone the one they truly deserve.  Smackdown vs Raw has become the Madden of wrestling games, much to the delight of THQ, and much to the ire of fans across the globe.