12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: September

September

HULK                                                                                        By Universal Interactive

My wife and I have recently been reading Peter David’s truly masterful run on the Incredible Hulk comic book that spanned nearly all of the 1990’s.  David’s writing is inspired and his treatment of the character shows a true appreciation for Stan Lee’s original creation.  Because of this, we both had a renewed interest in all things Hulk.  Thus, whilst scanning the racks at MUST HAVE MUSIC and MORE for this month’s game, the HULK game naturally stood out to us as a potential candidate.  The only drawback was that the game was based, and spawned, from the subpar 2003 Hulk movie, and there was an equal chance that the game would suck just as much as the movie did.  Examining the game case and manual provided some hope: the game did not follow the movie plot, but was more of a sequel!  Even so, there was no promise of a good game, but with our brains enswirled (yep, I just made that up) in Hulkitude (also mine), we decided to just go for it and see what shook out.

The game itself isn’t terrible, just repetitive.  You alternately take turns controlling the Hulk or his alter ego Bruce Banner.  The Hulk levels are pretty straightforward smash ‘em ups, with the occasional mild puzzle (and I mean mild) to solve.  Most of the time as the Hulk you fight off endless waves of bad guys while trying to pursue someone or escape the onslaught of gamma dogs and machine gun fire.  In addition to pulping bad guys, you can also wreck up the place something good because the environments are almost entirely interactive.  A nice feature, but much like punching guys with guns, it can get old fast.  The Banner levels attempt to be more inventive requiring you to use stealth to evade your enemies in direct contrast to the Hulk’s less subtle approach.  As a matter of fact, confrontation as Banner will almost always result in Game Over.  As Banner you must sneak your way around military installations while trying to achieve an objective like synthesizing a cure for your condition or deactivating security controls.  Parts of the Banner levels are kind of like the stuff you do in Red Ninja, only with less finesse and fun.  Also imbedded in the Banner levels are several sequence puzzles that you must unscramble in order to proceed.  These sequence puzzles are generally presented as security codes you must override.  The puzzles are simple, but each one has a time limit that usually means you’ll occasionally need some good old fashioned luck to solve it in time.

In both areas of the game the level design is fairly uninspired.  There are neat parts here and there that give the game potential, but all in all the game is ho-hum.  The Hulk levels are fairly mindless smash ‘em ups, which has the potential to be a lot of fun and very much in the spirit of the character, but the enemies are boring and repetitive as are the Hulk’s limited cache of attacks.  “Oh great, another soldier with an energy shield, first I’ll throw a crate at him, then I’ll pick him up and slam him into the wall.”  Repeat a hundred times…  The high points are all of the various walls and doors you get to smash through as you progress through the levels. The Banner levels provide a little more cerebral stimulation, but the execution is clunky and thus some areas become frustration fests where you begin to question whether or not it is really worth your time to try to sneak past those search lights again and again.  The basic game has a shot at being really fun and the idea of playing as both Banner and the Hulk fully captures the essence of the character, but the game feels churned out instead of crafted and the result is a little dull.

What is not dull is the graphics; I only wish I meant that in a good way.  Everything in this game is shiny.  And I mean everything.  From the Hulk’s skin to General Ryker’s suit, every single surface in this game is shined up to the max.  The cut scenes are the worst.  Everyone looks like they are made of jello in the sunlight.  I think they were going for a cell-shading effect, but the result is a glossy nightmare.  The in-game graphics are better and a have more depth and texture, but overall the game looks over polished.  And if the glare doesn’t blind you, the voice acting might just push you over the edge.  Much like the acting in the film it is based on, the voice acting in this game is extremely heavy handed.  Banner is just as maudlin and gruff as Eric Bana’s film portrayal.  I’m still not sure why he isn’t the Hulk all of the time, as angry and frustrated as he seems…  The rest of the characters are two dimensional and forgettable and I think we are all better for it.

At the end of the day, I will say that the HULK game is far better than the movie it is based on.  Maybe it is because my expectations were less, but unlike the movie I was able to lose myself in the Hulk parts of the game and just enjoy smashing stuff.  I wish the game had inspired me more and was better able to hold my interest, but that may have been asking more than the game was able to give.  At its heart the game has very good intentions, it just cannot seem to fully deliver on any of them.    That being said, I don’t think my five dollars were wasted this month as I was able to eek out at least five dollars worth of entertainment from smashing tanks and tossing oil drums at helicopters.  HULK has the makings of a great Hulk game, but it just wants to be a little more than it is. 

Next month, we enter the home stretch of the “12601” project with only three games and months left!  There are still plenty of…um…interesting games on the shelf, which ones will make their way into my home?  See you next time…

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: August

August

Legion:  The Legend of Excalibur   
Midway

Remember back when I foolishly thought that Mobile Light Force 2 was going to be a dungeon crawler ala X-men Legends?  Well, if I was disappointed back then, this month’s game more than makes up for it.  Legion: The Legend of Excalibur (Legion from this point out) is a fairly traditional dungeon crawler wherein you take on the role of King Arthur recruiting and leading the Knights of the Round Table through noble quests worthy of the son of Uther Pendgradon.  Along the way, you’ll rescue terrified villagers, defend besieged castles, and even seek out the Holy Grail.

For its part, Legion is a fairly complex game.  While the fundamental game play is pretty much the same from level to level, the level designs are dynamic and the variety of quests keeps the game fresh.  The introductory levels do not do the game due justice and if you are initially unimpressed by what the game is giving you, stick with it until Percival joins you on the Avalon mission.  Once you gain a few knights to aid you in your quest, the game’s true strengths become apparent.  Each character has different weapons and abilities and will bring their own unique flavor to your quests.  You can take control of the knights who join you (and sometimes it is almost a must), or you can just command them as the King of the Britons.

Game play is pretty solid and despite the instruction manual’s attempt to confuse you, the controls are pretty much pick-up-and-play with a few things to learn here and there.  Controlling each character gives you command of different abilities, strengths and weaknesses and there is enough variety to keep the game interesting depending on how you want to tackle a level.  Stamina stats keep you from using your heaviest attack incessantly, and the swarms of enemies require you to think out your approach to a given a situation.  Navigating the various menus is uncomplicated and keeps from making a simple crawler a logistical mess, a shortfall of the aforementioned X-men Legends game.

If Legion has problem areas they are minimal.  One thing that struck me was the difficulty.  The game isn’t terribly hard, but there are spots that seem insanely difficult.  They seem insanely difficult until you realize the games other major flaw: patience.  With flashbacks to Robotron: 2084, there are parts of this game where the enemies swarm you in what seems like an endless push guaranteed to send you to the game over screen.  However, all is not lost in such a situation.  When faced with overwhelming odds (like the castle siege in level 2) there is usually a place you can retreat to and let the enemy come to you in smaller bunches where you can knock them off with relative ease.  If you are really lucky, this retreat point will also be near a healer so that all of your knights will stay refreshed.  This strategy works for most areas where the game jumps up and bites you in the butt.  So the difficulty in Legion is kind of schizophrenic, but outside of that the game is pretty solid and a lot of fun.

Most of all, it passes the $5 test.  If you can find Legion: The Legend of Excalibur for five dollars, not only is well worth the coinage, it is a shame to pass it up.  If dungeon crawlers are your kind of bag, baby, then Legion is definitely worth adding to your collection.  I hereby declare this five dollar find a winner! 

Next month…Green…

A Closer Look at How the Game Genie Killed Difficulty in Modern Gaming

This is your password, good luck!

or “Why Modern Gamers are Sissies”

In my day video games were hard, seriously ball-busting hard.  We didn’t have endless continues.  We didn’t have fancy memory cards or hard drives.  If you were lucky, and I mean really lucky, your game MIGHT have a battery back-up, but most likely if you were going to be able to save your progress for later play you were going to have to enter a code and chances were damn good that said code was going to be roughly 45 characters long and the game programmers were wise-asses who used goofy-ass fonts that meant you had NO way of telling the difference between “0” and “O” and you better hope like hell you didn’t get confused and switch two characters, because if that code wasn’t exactly right you were screwed.  And most games didn’t have codes anyway so when that screen said “GAME OVER” you hoped and you prayed that they gave you at least one continue so that you could see what was on the next level.  And even if you did get that continue, you were going to have to start back over at the beginning of the very level that killed you.  But it was even money that “GAME OVER” meant “START OVER” and that you were looking at chucking another half hour into levels that you had already struggled through just to get your ass handed to you again by that same boss that just ended your run.  And furthermore this was a common occurrence since the difficulty of games was insane.  Lots of games had cheap, one-hit kills, hit points were a fairly new innovation and not at all easy to come by.  Level designs were insidious and usually ended in a boss fight that required near perfection to win.  And we didn’t have fancy internets or millions of strategy guides either.  If you couldn’t beat a game, you had to hope like hell that your best friend’s older brother was better at the game than you were and would tell you how to use the super secret attack to get past the final boss.  That was it.

But, at the end of the day, when you beat a game, YOU BEAT A GAME.  It was yours, you owned that game.  Why?  Because you invested hours, days, weeks, into that game.  You played every level inside and out, upside down. You beat every bad guy every way possible; you learned every secret, every trick.  You earned the right to say you beat that game and no one can say otherwise.  Beating the game meant something because it was something that required work, effort, and time.

Then came the Game Genie.  Apparently, the lazy, unskilled kids out there were getting bored with video games because they were too hard and they weren’t talented or patient enough to see the harder games through.  The result was the Game Genie, an insidious little device that latched onto your video game and went with it into your console.  Once inserted it would allow you to enter all kinds of nifty codes that would give you access to invincible modes, unlimited lives and continues, unlock all the weapons/items in a game, allow you to select which level to start at, and on and on.  Now the entire game was at your command, nothing would stop you from seeing that ending screen now!  And best of all, you didn’t even have to be good at video games, you just had to know which code to enter!

Continued...

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: July

Twelve Months, Sixty Dollars, and one Playstation2…

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!
 


July

Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano                                                              
Valcom

In the modern era, there are two kinds of racing games:  simple, fun games for everyone (kart racers and the like) and complex, hardcore racing games that are only for those who are totally into racing.  Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano is the latter.  I am better suited to the former.  Complex, hardcore racing games demand at least a rudimentary knowledge of how racing cars work, things like gear shifting.  They require finesse, and understanding of car handling, and other car-knowin’ stuff  that I ain’t got.  I knew within 5 minutes of “playing” Alfa Romeo that this game was not for me.  I made just such a comment to my wife and the conversation went something like this:

                                               
Me: This game sucks!
Her: No, it doesn’t, you just aren’t any good at it.
Me: No, this game sucks, it’s too hard to steer, you have no control going around corners, the car sucks.
Her: It might help if you used the brakes.
Me: It’s a racing game, you don’t use brakes, you go forward, fast and you win.  No one ever won a race using the brakes.
Her: You might also consider down-shifting.
Me: Down-what?  What the hell is down shifting?  You just hold down the accelerate button and let off just when you go around curves.  There’s no shifting.
Her: Yes, there is.  In games like this you have to drive like it’s a real car.
Me: Nuts to that.  This game sucks and I’m going to go write my review and tell everybody that this game sucks.
Her: Maybe you’re not qualified to write this review…


And it pretty much was downhill from there.  I’ve not played much Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano since that conversation.  My wife continued to play for another half hour or so, but her car kept exploding just as much as mine did.  She still defends it, and I guess she is right, to a point.
Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano is probably an alright game if you are big into Gran Turismo or racing games of that ilk.  The game seems to have some depth, from what I read in the instruction manual. Both you and your car gain experience points for doing well in races and you can use those points to improve your driver stats and your car’s components. There are different challenges to take on and cars to win, plus you have this bizarro "Tiger" power that enables you to roll back time about five seconds during a race in case you need to correct a fatal error or salvage a cheap win by an opponent. Had it been more user friendly, I might have been able to get into this game, but as it stands, I pretty much gave a five dollar bill to a crackhead and said “have at it.” (not sure how much crack $5 buys these days, but all the same).  There is a "quick play" mode that is more fun, where your car doesn't explode after a few collisions, but that is not enough to prop up a game billed as a "racing RPG."

If anyone wants a barely re-used copy of Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano, leave me a comment and I’ll send it off to you for the low price of $5 and you can try it for yourself.  I’ll even cover the shipping.  I promise this will never make it back into my PS2.

Girl on Girl Games: Barbie

Girl on Girl Games: Barbie for NES

Barbie in full early 90's regalia

It would be pretty easy to dismiss as a standard girl game but for one thing:  this game is not terribly easy. Barbie is only a girl game because it is themed in accordance with the Barbie doll franchise. Underneath the veil of pink emblems, charm bracelets and shopping malls, it's really just a standard platform-er, with all the usual trappings.

Barbie takes us on a trip through Barbie's dreams, most of which center on her plans for the next day. While she's not exactly planning to turn the world upside down with her daily errands, they seem like pretty reasonable errands for a teen-age doll in Southern California. She needs to go to the mall and buy a new outfit, go swimming, have lunch at the soda shop, and then meet Ken at a party. Barbie recounts all this to us as she nods off to sleep reading a book about mermaids.

She may be a vapid blond doll, but at least she's reading a book. Enjoying it, even!

As previously stated, the game works as a standard platform-type. You play as Barbie (who is very obviously a pixelated doll) in the game. Her sprite is very tall and thin, and is always depicted in different outfits appropriate to the venue. For example, in the first level, she's wearing a plain athletic top and pants, but after the first mall level, she picks up a new ensemble (the one from the title screen). During the soda shop level, she wears a poodle skirt and sweater. And so on. Complaints about this should probably be directed to the doll line rather than the game about the doll line--after all, Barbie is a fashion doll. Why wouldn't she have lots of clothes in a game?

More after the jump!

A Closer Look at Muscle March for WiiWare

A Closer Look at Muscle March for WiiWare

Some video games are all about strategy, be they puzzle games, turn based battle games, or what have you.  Some video games are about precision asking you to make the exact right moves at the exact right time or else.  Then there are games that all about action, full-on in your face, guns blazing, fire pits roaring action.  And then there are games about muscles.  You heard me.  Muscles.

Yeah, you heard me.  Wait until you see this...

So my friend Chris comes over to the house one night last month and amidst our various goings on about how hard it is to find Atari 2600 games in the wild anymore and which NES games are worth $5, the boy says to me “Have you seen that Muscle game for the WiiWare yet?”  Obviously I had not.  So we pull up the trailer for said game on the interweb and oh my dear lord.  One cannot describe what bombards the senses next, so I’ll not try.  Instead, I’ll allow you to judge for yourself.  Here, take a watch:




What the hell was that?  That my friends is the greatest game for the WiiWare yet.  Yes, delete Mega Man 10 and that new Blaster Master game and make room for Muscle March.  The game is insane.  Pure Japanese insanity in all of its glory.  If you thought Katamari Damacy was a head trip you ain’t seen nothing yet. Imagine Katamari, but with nothing held back.  Nothing.  I think that trailer is proof enough.

The premise, if you dare say the game has one, is centered around a group of extremely zealous body builders who are incensed because people keep stealing their protein powder.  The protein nabbing invariably results in a madcap chase wherein the body builders pursue the perpetrator through cities, jungle villages, space stations and even the heavens themselves!  The protein thief will stop at nothing to escape and this means crashing through anything standing in their way, walls, doors, subway cars, forests, asteroids, you name it.  If the body builders are to nab the protein bandit, they must follow suit, literally.  Each time the perp smashes through something they do so in a very specific pose.  The body builders must mimic this pose or be knocked out of the chase.  That’s it.  Run fast enough and pose correctly and you’ll eventually have an opportunity to tackle the vandal and retrieve your precious protein…or will you….

Honestly, the game is ridiculously simple.  Too simple to be as damn challenging as it is.  When you break it down, the game is essentially Simon Says with poses instead of colors.  There are only four poses to play with and all you have to do is copy the fleeing criminal’s pose as it goes through the wall.  It is just that easy, and yet, it’s not.

The game is dizzying.  From the stereotypical J-Pop music to the absurd environments the game does not allow you to concentrate for a single second.  The backgrounds are just plain crazy.  Nevermind the fact that your chase will have you defying gravity, running through all kinds of buildings, subway cars, jungles, mines, space ships, and so on, as you bust through these surroundings there are innumerable distractions screaming for your attention all over the place.  Most of these distractions are in the inexplicable form of cardboard cut-outs of people and animals that are hopping and gyrating about as if they were on popsicle sticks and being puppeteered by hyperglycemic eight-year olds.  Just don’t pay them any attention. In the immortal words of Happy Gilmore when the “earthquake” rocks the miniature golf course, “how the hell am I supposed to do that?”  It will take a strong mind, but it can be done.

And it isn’t just the backgrounds that will have your mind reeling.  The action gets to be intense.  The chase starts out brisk, but manageable.  As you get closer and closer to the protein bandit, the speed of the chase ramps considerably.  Considerably.  The farther you get in the game, the faster you are going to have to react and match poses or be eliminated.  There are times when instinct and luck will benefit you more than reflexes.  That said, the game gets tough, fast.  And if you get too good at the main game, you can always try your luck at the endless chase game variation where you just run as fast and as long as you can.  Of course, that also makes very good practice for the main game.

That is all there really is to it, but let’s call a spade a spade, you’re not going to buy this game (for a paltry 500 Wii Points) for its complexities and depth.  If you’re looking for Final Fantasy XIII, it ain’t here. No, you’re going to buy Muscle March for the head trip, plain and simple.  This is a zany game all about the laughs and absurdity and the “what the frok was that” factor.  The game play is nothing special, but the game is. Muscle March is funny AND fun.

We’ve been playing the game for some time now and I cannot seem to rescue the protein from the Muscle Mech character to save my life.  And yet I keep trying.  Look, I’m not a big downloadable content guy, I think you know that.  I enjoy the Mega Man games and the Virtual Console has finally allowed me to play Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, but all in all, I’m not over the moon about downloadable games the way most people are.  I would not tell you to make Muscle March your next video game purchase if I wasn’t absolutely certain that it would blow your mind.  I’ll not waste your time with more of my nonsense this month, just go play Muscle March and try to reconcile its madness with your rational, sequential brain.

I’ll see you back here next month when I’ll tell you how we got where we are today and why we are worse for it…

Girl on Girl Games: Introduction

Ok, so every once and a while, people start talking about video games and gender roles. They discuss whether or not violent tendencies are reinforced in males, and so on... and then they begin turning a hard eye toward a genre known as "girl games". You've seen them; usually pink, often sporting a "z" where an "s" rightfully belongs, and always based around a stereotypical female pursuit, like fashion, unicorns or baskets of kittens. Because games of this nature can be so irritating to many independent women, it is easy for them to overlook a wide sector of gender neutral games, which I call "games", and announce for all to hear that "girl games" are what they want us to play!

Dead or Alive, while once a rather unique fighting game, is now built on the wobbly foundations seen above.

Let us be completely honest for a moment. There are some pretty stereotypically male games out there, which, I believe are just as ridiculous as the so-called "girl games." Why doesn't anyone get worked up over this? Because it's too easy to catagorize all games without pink labels as "male" games--and we can overlook garbage like rasslin' games, hunting games and games about ladies with huge tits. Those, naturally, are not aimed at the lowest common male denominator. Right.

The cross-promotional outing of the Cabbage Patch Kids on the Colecovision.

Let's face it: those steaming pink piles of ribbon and rainbows are very easy to target. Those are not for burly men with tattoos. They aren't even for skinny men with antique furniture collections. Those games are for little girls who (of course!) aren't any good at playing video games. This is where the gender debate turns ugly. "This is what they expect our daughters to play?" Sometimes this collective female voice harkens back to the very beginnings of "girl games" and blame them for impacting generations of girls.

Just one problem with that: many of these games suck, or are percieved to suck, and no one plays them. And with a few notable exceptions, especially with the advent of the all-gender-popular Nintendo DS, they aren't very popular. Even among girls. The games are too easy, people complain. They aren't relevant, they cheapen the potential of girls... you get the drift. Because games like WWE Smackdown vs. Raw really help Johnny realize his full potential.

In short, I've decided to play some girl games. Yes, I dare say, I'm going to try to play all I can find. Because it's too easy to glibly dismiss these games as mere garbage, to read that a game is about glitter hairspray and determine that the game has no value, sight unseen. In the interest of fairness, I'll be reaching as far back as the Atari for vintage girl games and looking to the most current contributions whenever possible.

Why, you may ask? Because I am (or was) the main target demographic for these games. I'm not a child any longer, but I still remember what it was like to play video games back then. I truly don't believe all of these games are terrible...and I definitely don't believe all of them are as detrimental to girls as we all fear. Oh, I've no doubts that some will curl my hair--figuratively, that is (unless the game is about curling hair.) But I think many more can be relegated to the heading of "harmless".

Yes... Even this kind of thing.

In this series, I will examine a different "girl game" every few weeks (to the extent of my patience) and attempt to assess its potential dangers, values, and basic fun factor.

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: June

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!

June

Gladius
Lucas Arts

This game just kind of showed up on the shelves at MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE over the course of the past couple of months and I considered it for May, but my guy there said it was pretty involved and I knew I would be traveling so I decided to wait.  It turned out to be a good decision.  For you see my friends, what we have here is a steal.  An honest to goodness, steal.  Gladius is worth every penny of its original MSRP, and I know in 2004 someone bought it from Blockbuster for $20 I have the receipt (to the right), heh.  So the fact that this bad boy can be obtained for a mere Lincoln is truly a crime against high quality video games everywhere.  Especially when another local second hand is asking $19.99 for the Wheel of Fortune for the PS2.  What the hell?

Well, while Gladius is no Wheel of Fortune, what it turns out to be is one incredibly deep and fun turn-based strategy game.  Closer to what the original Dungeons and Dragons role playing game was founded upon (wait, WAIT, come back, I realize that I just made reference to the three most socially awkward words in the English language, but I promise I’m going somewhere good with this, just hang out a second), Gladius makes use of real role-playing elements like customization and character building and blends it with a well crafted, turn-based battle system.  The result is a strategy game that requires intelligence and cunning and ends up being a great deal of fun. (see, if I had left out those three difficult words, you’d be thinking about how great this game is and not worried about telling your friends you actually like this game, stick around I promise the game is sweet)

Gladius is a game all about combat, most of which is meted out in various arenas scattered throughout the land.  You command a “school” of fighters who travel throughout the region contesting in these arenas to improve their prowess and win fame and glory for their kingdom.  When the game begins you may chose to fight for the Kingdom of Imperia (think Romans) or the Kingdom of the Barbarians (think Barbarians or “Fringe Peoples” if you are caught up in post modern political correctness).  Whichever you select, you will start with two warriors from that kingdom from which to build your school; ultimately you will be able to support twenty warriors!  The remainder of the game is all about battling it out in the various contests across the land, constantly improving your characters abilities and equipment and recruiting more and better warriors to your school.  There appears to be some manner of plot that is centered around an evil being and the Kingdom you chose to represent, but honestly, that seems more like the trappings of what is expected from adventure games like this and less like an integral part of the game experience.  Oh sure, there is a world map to explore, “random” encounters to engage in , and side quests to help you increase your might, but make no mistake, this game is all about the battling.

Gladius is also all about the time commitment.  Don’t expect to pop this game in for a quick ten to fifteen minute play.  It’s not going to happen.  This game wants most of your Saturday afternoon and all of Tuesday night.  It took me about an hour and half to work through the tutorial levels and really get my school off the ground.  From there, however, the entire world opens up and you are literally free to explore the land and construct your adventure however you want.  The game play is engaging enough to make you want to invest whole chunks of time into it, so don’t worry about the game becoming more like a job.

If you are like me and these kinds of games tend to suck you in (I spent  72 hours straight playing Might and Magic VI back in 1998 when it first came out, but I had a girlfriend at the time and she played it with me, believe it or not), then taking home Gladius for $5 is like finding that rare Oreo that has the double stuffing in the regular pack.  But even if you cannot find it for the steal I did, you should still have this game in your PS2 collection.  I doubt you’ll have trouble finding it for more than $15, and you are going to get every penny’s worth of fun from it, and more!


(final note: I must tell you that this game also sucked my wife in and she has spent more time than I have playing it!  Say that about Dungeons and Dragons! Ha!)

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: May

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!

May
 
One Piece: Pirate’s Carnival  
Bandai Namco

Why are these games always so poorly executed?  Why?  I mean, Mario Party is an amazing game and a consistently fun franchise, but no one else seems to be able to get the formula right.  Long time fans of my Closer Look article will fondly remember my treatise on Sonic Shuffle for the Dreamcast.  Well, One Piece: Pirate’s Carnival is no Sonic Shuffle, but it’s no Mario Party either.

Before we get too far into all of this, allow me to mention that I have virtually NO knowledge of anime whatsoever.  If you have been reading this from the get-go then you know that I am roughly familiar with Robotech and I have seen Akira and maybe two episodes of Dragonball Z (in which Goku ran across clouds for nearly thirty minutes), but that is about it. So when I picked this game up, I had no idea that it was based on yet another widely successful anime program.  Furthermore, if I am to understand the game’s interpretation of the show, it’s some kind of Gilligan’s Island gone wrong with tentacled pirates and giant, flesh-eating rabbits and something called Jugons.  But I don’t think knowing the content of the program really helps untangle what is going on in this game.

Much like Mario Party, One Piece: Pirates Carnival (OPPC) is a board game that is constructed of a barrage of mini-games, events and other party-game bric-a-brac.  Characters vie for control of a gridded game board by taking control of certain squares on the board.  Taking control is achieved by battling the other players in various contests and succeeding.  Success will not only net you the square up for grabs, but it will also net you other squares in classic Othello fashion.  At least that part is simple.  Playing the main game makes sense and seems doable.  However, to play the main game you must constantly engage in the mini-games.  To be fair many of the mini-games are quite playable and fun, however the ones that are not are nearly incomprehensible.  It seems that the most playable games are the ones that are rooted in games I already know: Concentration, Seek & Find, and others.  One of the better games asks you to take a periscope and hunt through a crowd for someone called “Panda Man.”  Good luck, turns out “Panda Man” is a bare-chested man with heart tattoos on his pecs and a panda mask.  Another game I enjoyed was Kung-Fu Jugon Battle, in which the object is to “have the fewest jugons at the end of the match.”  Hilarious jargon aside, basically you just have to push (fight) all of these strangle little walruses into your opponents part of the playfield while they do the same to you.  These parts of the game are very fun and engaging.  Heck, even the snowy mountain climb where you have to show your respect to bears by bowing is interesting once you figure out what the point is.  (Fail to show proper respect and you’ll get a lecture from the bear, I promise.)

It’s the games that are very hard to understand and thus play that create speed bumps in the enjoyment of the overall game.  Some games have baffling objectives, like the one where you have to catch food the opponent characters throw excepting that they rarely do and while you wait everything else in the world is also happening.  Other games are simple, but nearly impossible to execute: a certain stilt battle game comes to mind.  This means that some mini-games will be competitive and others will be incomprehensible messes and you’re ultimate success will be given partly to chance.  I am sure that most of the games can be tackled with enough experience, but games like this need to be instantly accessible to pretty much everyone and not require dense study to master.  That is the nature of the party game, particularly if they are going to be played by casual gamers.
The other major stumbling block for OPPC is the story.  For whatever reason all of these party games feel the need to clutter up what is otherwise a board game with some manner of asinine story.  It’s a board game.  The story is: TAKE TURNS, TRY TO WIN THE GAME. THE END.  That is all you need.  I promise.  But no, OPPC makes a half-assed attempt at giving the characters things to say and do before and after every single game event.  Every single game event.  And they aren’t quick little quips, they are oft lengthy diatribes about being “merman” or cooking or something else irrelevant to anything at all.  Compound that with absolutely ridiculous load times for each diatribe and you end up with a game that takes nearly two hours, half of which is “story.”

All in all, I paid $5 for One Piece: Pirate’s Carnival and just playing the game once pretty much means I got my money’s worth.  I don’t think I’ll be playing it regularly and if a party breaks out in my living room I’m pretty sure this won’t be what causes it. If you are a big One Piece fan, then you will probably have fun checking this out just by virtue of you know what is going on and who these characters are.  If you are not a One Piece fan, just go get Mario Party 50 or whatever and be done with it.

A Closer Look at the Evolution of the Instruction Manual

A Closer Look at the Evolution of the Instruction Manual

Read the Damn Instruction Manual!  Used to be, you never had to utter these words.  Once upon a time, the instruction manual that came with your brand new video game purchase was at least %50 of the enjoyment of the game, more if you bought games in the Swordquest series…  The instruction manual was not only your guide to how to insert your game cartridge into the cartridge slot on the gaming console you have been the owner of for several months as if you just found the thing on the street this morning and thought “what the heck, let’s take this in the house and see what happens.”  The instruction manual opened the door to the world of the game (and heck, video games in general) and helped create a mystique about what adventures awaited you inside that little plastic box.  It also gave you something to look at while your obnoxious cousin dominated the game even though he said he’d never played it before.  The instruction manual used to be an integral part of the gaming experience.  Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?

Often these days, the instruction manual is that piece of colorful filler paper tucked behind that warranty card, that in-house game catalog, and those three postcard-size ads, two for games you already own.  Besides, who needs to dig through all of that nonsense anyway?  Nowadays the manual is as superfluous as the comparative simile.  Thanks to the advent of the in-game tutorial, chances are pretty good it has been a while since you’ve seen an instruction manual.  Most games feature an introductory level that in some way introduces you to the basics of the game play, either overtly or in the more well-crafted games, subtly.   And now Ubisoft is looking to put the final nail in the Instruction Manual’s coffin as they recently announced that they plan to stop producing manuals altogether! Because technology has allowed us to “jump right in” to our newest purchase, we no longer spend much time with any of the peripherals that come with the game, if they even come at all.
 
This fact has become more pertinent to me most recently when playing the X-men game for the NES for last month’s Closer Look.  I was struggling with the game, as you might imagine or can relate to, and was reaching a frustration point, when I realized, “hey, this game has a manual, maybe there is something in there that will help me out.”  It was then I realized that the manual was not obvious to me at the start.  After fetching the manual for X-men, I started thinking about the good ol’ days when the manual was an intrinsic part of my video game experience.  Thus, this time around, I thought we’d all take a good hard look at the evolution of the video game manual, why it came to be and where it might be going.

For me it all started with the Atari 2600 and something I’m going to call the golden age of video games and their manuals.  The early video game manual was as much a part of the video game experience as the game itself.  Where else are you going to learn about the world of Mazeon circa Astro Date 3200, its deadly inhabitants the Automazeons and their nefarious commander, the aptly named Evil Otto?  How else will you learn about Old Man Graves and his strange connection to a shattered urn?  Certainly not by popping Berzerk or Haunted House into your VCS.  Nope, back in olden times, video games were all action.  If you were looking for story, you would only find it in the instruction manual.  And what a story you might find!  The tales found in instruction manuals from the golden age are rich and well written and smartly craft the backdrop for the action happening on your TV screen.  Take for instance this brief sample of text from the aforementioned Haunted House manual:

“To this day, no one has had the courage to go into the mansion to search for the pieces of the urn.  It is common knowledge that the ghost of old man Graves still haunts the mansion. Some of the neighbors claim to have seen lights flickering in the windows.  Some say that they have heard eerie sounds, doors slamming, and heavy footsteps.  Some even claim to have seen shadows running through the mansion.”
Not too shabby for a video game manual, huh?  And that’s just a sample of the whole story! 
Oh, the hours I spent reading and rereading those manuals, soaking up all of the words and the excellent art!  That’s right, video game manuals used to feature more than text and screenshots!  The illustrations from the Atari manuals, while a bit dated, are still masterpieces of video game art!

And this creative effort is not contained solely within the pages of the manual itself.  Some games from this era also featured peripherals in addition to the instruction manual to help heighten the experience.  Games like Yar’s Revenge and those in the Swordquest series were also accompanied by full color comic books chronicling the adventures that were being lived out in the games.  Much like the manuals, these comics were not quick and dirty afterthoughts, they were well-crafted pieces designed to be enjoyed and savored as much as the games.  Heck, some games ended up not being half as good as their manuals! (looking back at you Swordquest!)

As time rolled on and the level of complexity in games increased, the instruction manual took on an all-new, all-important role:  strategy guide.  Currently the term “strategy guide” means a separate peripheral that is priced at about half the cost of the game itself and, depending on the publisher, contains anywhere from %50-%100 of the vital information needed to get the full experience from the game.  This wasn’t always the case.  Long ago in the age of the Nintendo Entertainment Center, “strategy guide” meant the last 5-8 pages of the instruction manual that provided either a walkthrough of the game’s first level, or maps, or just general strategies for playing and succeeding at the game.  The instruction manual for The Legend of Zelda (LoZ) is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Not only did the back of the manual provide a step-by-step guide to completing the first labyrinth, but the game came packed in with a second strategy guide/map to help you get even further in the game.  All of that at NO EXTRA CHARGE.  Get out.  No, I’m serious.

The good people at Nintendo were no idiots.  They realized that their system was ushering in a new era of games with game play that far surpassed what most previous systems could attempt.  Thus, adapting the instruction manual to be both instructional and insightful was the next logical step in the evolution of the booklet.  So in addition to containing instructions on basic game play and expositional story, the manual now served as your guide to discovering everything a game had to offer.  Even games that didn’t need full strategy guides featured hint sections or advanced strategy sections.  These were extensions of pre-existing “helpful hints” sections from the previous era of instruction manuals.

 






From that point, video game manuals sort of peaked a bit.  The era of the SEGA Gensis/Saturn and the Super Nintendo didn’t really see too much innovation in the evolution of the manual.  Game complexity increased a bit and manuals got thicker to accommodate a greater density of instructions.  Some manuals were simplified as in the case of Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Genesis, while others nearly tripled in size to fully explain the intricacies of the game play, see Jet Grind Radio.  But all in all the manual itself was coasting along just fine through the Silver Age of video gaming.

Titles like the epic Final Fantasy VII featured instruction manuals that were a synthesis of the old and the new.  The FFVII manual featured a whopping 65 pages that ran the gamut from basic controls to menu screen organization and even a mini-walkthrough of the first section of the game.  Like video gaming, the instruction manual was at its height.

As the modern era of gaming was being ushered in, developers didn’t seem to really know what to do with the instruction manual any more.  Some developers just stuck with the format, providing guidance on how to play the game and explaining what the different game modes were all about.  (see Super Monkey Ball)  The advent of the strategy guide at the middle and end of the Silver Age, pretty much meant the demise of those sections of the manual.  Why would a developer put such information in the back of a free booklet when they could turn around and sell you another booklet for more money?  Likewise, the capability of coding in-game tutorials into the games themselves meant that there was less need for reliance upon the printed manual to fill that role.  The story was also being told through the game itself now, so paragraphs or pages of exposition were no longer a necessary feature either. Thus, game developers started getting a little more creative with their manual design.

Take the manual for Shadow of the Colossus, an incredible game.  Using screenshots from the game and lots of moody pencil sketches, they manage to take two pages of basic control instruction and turn it into 31 pages of manual.  Very cool, but very unnecessary.  Particularly since the game features what amounts to an in-game tutorial anyway.  To be honest, I think I looked over the manual all of once, maybe twice and that was to see if it made any mention of collecting lizard tails or eating fruit to increase your stamina and power.  There is none, despite the fact that these are vital aspects of game play.  I guess I should have bought the strategy guide…  So with no idea of what to do with the seemingly obligatory manual, the people at Sony decided to get a little artsy.  Mixed results.

Looks great, but a whole page for Running?

Now with the modern era in full swing, the instruction manual is even more of a lost soul.  Some games have sparse manuals (Cooking Mama Cook Off) that pretty much pay lip service to the elementary purpose of the document, while others keep the tradition alive by still presenting the manual in its full glory (Okami).  That said, chances are pretty good you haven’t opened an instruction manual for a modern game, or maybe any game, in a long, long time.  And if the people at Ubisoft have anything to say about it, you may never again!

 







In a move Ubisoft is calling “eco-friendly,” which I think we all know is bullshit, the game developer is stopping altogether the production of printed manuals to be inserted into the game packaging.  Instead, Ubisoft games will feature in-game digital manuals that will serve the same function.  First of all, in no way shape or form do I buy the notion that Ubisoft’s cessation of printed manuals has anything to do with their concern for the environment.  This is an economic move, pure and simple, and I think they insult the intelligence of everyone by saying otherwise.  I mean seriously.  I will be interested to see if Ubisoft also does away with those paper advertisement inserts as well…
But secondly, and more importantly, are we now seeing the next step in the evolution of the instruction manual?  I think we could very well be.  If you follow the progression it only makes sense for this to be where the manual’s evolution leads.  Initially, the limitations of video game technology demanded that a separate instruction sheet be sold with games so that people would know what to do with this new fangled “video game tape” they just purchased.  As video games became entrenched in the culture and increased in complexity, the manual evolved to go beyond basic instruction and became a resource for getting the most out of a game and understanding its depths to the fullest.  After a strong lifetime in the Silver Age, the manual’s evolution stagnated.  Technology and the growing video game economic market was leaving it behind with the development of strategy guides and in-game tutorials.  Thus the instruction manual of the modern age had become irrelevant filler paper that took up good space where ads could go.  As we develop newer and better video game technology that can play Blu-Ray movies (for some reason) and browse the internet (as if I don’t have a computer that does that…), the need for a paper instruction manual does seem to evaporate away.

So I guess we are looking at the next generation of instruction manuals: the digital age.  It may make sense and it may be the natural progression of things, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to miss my outdated paper instruction booklets.  It makes me sound old, but I wonder if the kids of this and coming generations will ever really appreciate the glory that was to be found between those magic pages.  Printed instruction manuals may be transitioning into the annals of video game history, but they are an integral part of its origin and I think there is certainly something about them that old schoolers like myself will also always remember fondly.
So if you have the means and the opportunity, for the love of all that is good in the universe, one last time maybe, READ THE DAMN MANUAL!!! While you can….


I’ll see you back here next month when I jump back into the games and show you what I just picked up off the WiiWare…