Some people think '07 was unbeatable, what with Mass Effect, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Uncharted, Crysis, Final Fantasy Crisis Core, CoD4 and what not. It was pretty awesome, with critics and fans pissing their pants in unified glee. Most though it was gaming's best year ever.
Maybe it was, back then, but I would honestly say 08 topped it. The next-gen consoles really came into their own. So here's a little account of my year.
It started, obviously, with the gaming flood from Christmas. Had to get through all the games I bought for the Wii which was Zelda and Metroid and blahblahblah but what does that have to do with 08? That paved the way for the hypetrain. I bought a Wii for the sole reason of Super Smash Bro's Brawl, and it was worth it all the way. My DS entertained me pretty well over the year, especially with the new Zelda and the newest incarnation of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. The PSP really shined as well with Crisis Core (Square really bumholed the handheld market this year didn't they?).
Xbox 360 and PS3 really did kill it this year though. Fanboy wars raged in the hearts and minds of 4 year olds and retards everywhere.
The Xbox brought out Gears of War 2, Fable 2 (which disappointed me; will cover that later), and Left 4 Dead (PC had that as well, but as far as consoles go, it was a Xbox exclusive).
PS3 had it's fair share as well, with Resistance 2, Little Big Planet and of course Metal Gear Solid 4.
Multiplat was incredible as well, come to think of it. Fallout 3 was just amazing, CoD got an upgrade, or a downgrade, however you see it, Far Cry 2, Grand Theft Auto 4, Mirror's Edge, Endwar, Prince of Persia. . . great year. Even no-lifers got a chance to enhance their prescription with Wrath of the Lich King (I did ='[ ).
But 09.
Sweet Jesus. Heavy Rain, Alan Wake, God of War 3 (which is being showcased at this years VGA's on Spike TV - definitely go and check it out on gametrailers, December 14th), Killzone 2, Mad World, Final Fantasy Dissidia, Resident Evil 5, R.A.G.E, Borderlands, the new Fallout 3 DLC packs, the new GTA4 DLC pack, and of course Star Ocean 4.
It makes my groin tingle slightly.
By the way, Borderlands has over 650,000 unique weapons in the game, and a levelling system. Time to start stocking up on basic life provisions.
I'm not sure what Wii owners can do after Mad World though. Go watch an action film or something, I guess. . .
So if you can read this, then you know how to read. This means you must have seen the Konami flash page by now.
It simply says 'A New Metal Gear Is...' , and then has a strange little logo.
So, thats a power logo, remarkably similar to the one on the front of the Xbox360. Its very hard to see otherwise, unless your trying really hard to maintain your exclusive love for MGS because you get huge stiffy's over console wars. Regardless, it's similar, right?
Right. Now Konami knew this would happen. Either they intended it to happen because they really are bringing out a MG game for the 360, or they wanted to do it to piss people off. It's not unimaginable. Kojima did it with MGS4, what with the 'Warning; Only to be played on a Playstation 3!' messages on the loading screen.
We'll see when it's announced. Popular rumours are stating that it's actually Metal Gear Acid for the iPhone (Ac!d + iphone = on? Seems plausible), but nothing is for sure. We can only hope!
Microsoft, as we all know, are not real humans. They are in fact sentient robots created by the mad medieval alchemist Bill Gates, who created a time machine and is not in fact from our time. Once here he bought parts and used the Xtronium (an alien metal found only once in the world; Bill Gates killed all who knew of it except for me) to build the aforementioned Microsoft 'employee's. However the downside is that they are all heartless, emotionless, and bear all the creativity of a marsupial, as seen in the Customer Services department.
The robots were created for success, not innovation. This has led them to be victorious yet slightly empty. However Bill Gates has recently tweaked them to seek out innovation, and steal it, if recent rumours are to be believed. I so hope they are not.
Thats the rumour, anyway. And it seems reasonably well backed up as this interesting article
I have a problem. When something in a game or life is particularly brutal, like someone flying into a car or somesuch, I laugh. Weirdly. Like a little bitch giggle or a serial killer.
The Ninja Gaiden 2 demo made me make noises that scared my dog.
I'm getting the game tomorrow, and my dog will never see me the same again.
The World Ends With You is the latest handheld game to be released from the sacred fortress of Square Enix. The game sticks with the innovative trends of the Nintendo DS and offers a modern, fresh and stylish action RPG influenced heavily by Japanese youth culture. It’s been a while since Square have released an original new title. So does it hit the mark?
Story
Being developed by Square Enix, a deep and well thought out story is always an integral part of the game, and as usual to begin with The World Ends With You might have you a bit puzzled. Your main man or boy in this case, is Neku Sakuraba. Neku is a detached, self centred, antisocial 15 year old. He cares for nothing and trusts no one; spending most of his time in his own head, with just his music for company. Neku wakes up in the middle of a bustling high street in the Shibuya shopping district of Tokyo. With his mind wiped, all he has is his name, a black pin and a phone. A message on the phone reads:
"Reach 104. You have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure. - The Reapers."
Neku is part of a sinister, Battle Royale-esc, contest of life and death called the ‘Reapers Game’, which lasts for seven days, with trials being set each day for the ‘players’ to complete. To take on the challenge Neku is forced to make a pact with a girl named Shiki Misaki. Shiki is stylish, sociable and unlike Neku, realises the danger of situation. The pair is invisible to the general public; after a bit of playing around they realise the pin they started with can be used to read the publics minds, and more importantly, find what hunts them. Only together can the defeat the street lurking ‘Noise’, which vary from colossal bears, to rhinos, to porcupines (yes, porcupines, they piss me off to no end), to what I can only think to be tadpoles. But hey, cannon fodder ftw.
As of yet I haven’t fully completed the game for reasons I will mention below, but the story kept me involved and engrossed in the characters and their journeys. You watch as Neku and Shiki’s views on life change through the experience, which is highlighted the Japanese translation for the title of ‘The Wonderful World’. The combination of flashbacks and physic control give you freedom and the storyboard like cut scenes allow the story to develop as you continue to patch things together, with some plot lines and twists on the way that you would not expect but may be obvious to some.
Story: 9.0/10
Gameplay
When playing The World Ends With You, it is truly apparent is was built around what the Nintendo DS could do. In Square Enix fashion you have the free roaming aspect, which I will get onto in a minute, and from there you enter your battle mode. The battle mode takes place on both screens with Neku at the bottom and your second character at the top. Throughout the game you can play as several characters who accompany Neku, however controlling them is very similar.
Right, so bottom screen. This is Neku’s zone. Neku is controlled completely with the stylus; both movement and attacks. Throughout the game you will collect your fair share of pins all of which have different abilities that Neku can control. Depending on how special the pin is its maximum level and chance to evolve will be different. For example you could have 2 pins, both which fire a shock wave. One is not branded; this will probably only have a maximum level of 3, whereas a branded pin could have a maximum level of 6 or 7 with a chance of an evolution. When a pin evolves its level resets to zero but it doesn’t lose any of its power. If the pin is good enough, it will evolve again. Watching how the pins change and level up is a nice touch by Square and really adds an addictive Pokémon edge to the game.
As far as using the pins, you have 4 decks. Each deck can hold a maximum of 6 pins. You start with only two slots in each deck but as you progress you unlock extra slots. You can only take your currently equipped deck into battle. But any more than 6 would just be stupid right?
Depending on the pin, they usually require different moves with the stylus. The movements can vary from a horizontal slash to a tap or to a flick in the right direction. Learning about your pins is vital otherwise you could scratch all over your touch screen and nothing would happen. The stylus makes the Gameplay extremely smooth and easy the only problem comes when two pins have the similar movements; which is fair enough considering there are around 100 of these things. This problem is easily overcome with button mapping to the L or R bumper.
So while your slashing away on your bottom screen your top screen is controlled by the D-pad or A, B, X, Y for the lefties. The top screen requires as much skill as the bottom if you want to be successful. In a similar way to Dance Dance Revolution you have to lay out combos with your D-pad, each combo finishes with a different symbol and aligning these symbols correctly from right to left increases your fusion level. When high enough this releases some awesome attacks. My only tip is once you have unlocked higher fusion levels, be patient and collect enough fusion for the UBER attacks. You will see what I mean… With jumps, counters and blocks the top screen still keeps you watching, however if you like to focus more on Neku the computer takes over on the top screen. However you won’t be seeing your fusion very much if this is the case.
The last note about the battle gameplay is the combo ball. Depending on who attacks first a green ball is passed from one screen to the other. Whoever has the ball does a lot more damage; batting it back and forward is tricky at first but is the key to a successful fight. Overall the battles take some getting use to but once you know how to allocate your time to either screen effectively the game is fast paced and addictive as hell. The wide variety of noise make you think about how to fight, and the boss fights even more so, with a wrongly equipped pin the difference between success and failure
Enough about the battles, this game has way too much too it. To stop me giving away too much I’ll make a list, I like lists: · Free roam. Shops! Lot’s of shops. Top up on your top brands, depending on how ‘cool’ the clothes and pins you wear are you will reap the rewards or the pay the penalty. The more you shop the more the shop owners like you, giving you new products to buy and new abilities. Food shops allow stats to be boosted, only a certain amount of food a day though. Don’t want Neku getting fat! · Collecting goods and materials. Trade in for unique pins or uber clothing. · Unlimited enemies. If you love collecting and levelling you will be hooked. HOOKED. · Mingle Mode. You can set up your own shop, sell your stuff to your friends. It’s all good. · Ten Pin Slammer. A mini-game which you play in the story and you can buy with in game money (don’t worry not a lot) you can play against the computers or your friends. With specific pins made just for the game. Setting up your deck is essential. · Difficulty settings. The harder you play the less life you have. But more reward. · Save whenever you want. I like this function on anything portable means you can pick it up and play for even 5 minutes and keep the story going.
Depending on your play style you could rush the story in 10 hours. Personally my play through looks to be around 25 hours, but to fully complete the game you will be looking at close to 50-60 hours. Square love the replay value and so do I, with the in depth noise library and pin collection you might never get everything.
Only niggle, one save file per card? No issue to me but sorry Ryan you can’t play.
Gameplay: 8.7/10
Presentation
Having played on all the latest consoles from the PSP to the Xbox360 it is clear that the DS is at the back of field as far as graphics are concerned. But Square Enix has produced a vibrant and aesthetically pleasing product against the technical limitations that were thrown at them. The Japanese art style is done perfectly; the characters and their surroundings are full of colour and style, and generally the game just feels stylish. It’s a cool game to play. Which is understandable considering most of the game is about wearing the most fashionable clothes and using the top brand pins.
The ‘Noise’ for the most part look bad ass. The Japanese art style really played an impact on their creation; graffiti and tattoos styles cover parts of their bodies and in some cases replace their limbs with tribal looking claws. The character models aren’t bad either, with smooth movement and attack sequences, you forget about the HD graphics people are raving about on the next gen consoles. My only complaint is that the models don’t change. In my opinion when a game has customisation options, I LOVE it. The levelling system in The World Ends With You functions well; rather than a level requirement to wear a better items of clothing it all comes down to your Bravery stat. But my only criticism is that when you equip a new item of clothing it would be cool if your look changed in response. But if that’s the only issue I have with the presentation of this game then I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
Music in the game is a funny one. There’s no doubt The World Ends With You has a terrific soundtrack with Japanese tracks ranging from Urban to Dance to Jap-Rock but for the first few hours you play the main game with one track. There is still an alternative track for battles and cutscenes but the first track (Underground) stays with you for way too long and believe me sticking on your mp3 player makes the experience a lot more enjoyable. However, once you make your way to the first record store and stock up on tunes (with over 30 in the whole game) the music is a joy to listen too and keeps you wrapped up in that warm Japanese blanket.
Presentation: 9.2/10
Conclusion
The World Ends With You really is a great game. All I can is buy it. The amount of play you get from just the small card is insane. The fights are fluid and enjoyable, the game is in-depth and well designed, the story is well thought through and immersive and the whole concept is unique and beautiful. The game is a masterpiece, so buy it.
So a boy wakes up on a Saturday morning and learns that Rock Band was released yesterday for the Xbox 360. Being a huge fan of anything that combines music and computer games I was well up for getting it. So, I phone Game. Turns out the full kit will cost me £180...
In America they can get the full kit for £100. I mean I know their economy is crashing and VAT plays a part however that is too much. play.com have the full kit for £100, being based in Jersey they can dodge VAT, BUT without the game?!? Sorry, the only way I can even think of affording it is if I trade in most of my games. So sod it.
For those of you familiar with the awesome Oddworld series get ready to lead some blind people off a cliff and watch some gimps slap each other to death again; it's back.
For those of you not familiar, go away.
Seriously. You have missed a total classic. It began (I believe) as a 2.5D (kind of) side-scrolling platformer, where you play as Abe; a kind of... humanoid thing belonging to a race whose name I cannot remember. Whatever. Generally you have psychic powers and have to lead similar gimp-men to safety, or slap them for a laugh. Aforementioned psychic powers can either explode green-men-with-gun's brains or control their minds. Though whenever I did this I found myself forcing green-man to kill my fellow gimp-men. Because it was funny.
Click here to view the news on it's latest incarnation.
Also, heres an example of why the game rules if you haven't seen it. It won't make sense but it is funny.
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture Publishers: Rising Star Games Genre: Action Platform: Nintendo Wii Release Date: 14/03/2008 Rating: 16+
No More Heroes is a light-sabre-slashing (the game calls it a 'beam katana'; I sense a lawsuit) satire marathon from the troubled minds behind Killer7, the schizophrenic, manga shooter that received awards not only for it’s quality, but it’s strangeness. Goichi Suda (or Suda51) has once again returned with something you’re not going to understand, but you’re definitely going to enjoy.
Story
You play Travis Touchdown, egotistical moron and proud owner of a light-sabre won in an online auction. Travis then enters what appears to be a (bizarrely) legal Assassin ranking system. The game starts just after Travis Touchdown’s rise to Rank 11, and your mission is to take him all the way to the top. Along the way you’ll meet 10 of the most deranged individuals the world has ever known and battle them to the death in hyper-climactic boss battles, ranging from elderly women with giant death-ray’s to samurai schoolgirls. No More Heroes is always funny, constantly engaging, and incredibly well written. It’s difficult to talk more about the story without giving away one of the intentionally-typical and often hilarious plot twists, which are some of the most memorable moments of videogame stories to date. Not to mention weird.
Story: 8.5/10
Gameplay
Watch a couple of gameplay clips of No More Heroes and cynicism sets in; all too often a game developer will either play it safe and keep the Wii controls restricted to button mashing, or go all out in a blaze of stupid glory and turn a potentially good game into a waggle-festival. Thank the lord that No More Heroes has finally nailed a formula, then. The main stages of the game involve clearing hundred’s of weak minions before standing off against a ranked assassin. Travis swings his laser sword with the A button, with repeated presses chaining together massive and impressively agile combo attacks, while B will inject your sword combo with a quick punch or kick. Travis can lock on with Z, or slash wildly for more group-orientated destruction. It’s not quite as simple as that, though – when an enemies life bar is empty the screen will darken, enter slow-motion and a giant arrow will flash up. Slash the Wii-mote in the direction the arrow is pointing and the fun really begins. Travis executes an awesome deathblow attack, sending men, limbs and blood flying. The combat gets deeper still, with chargeable light-sabre strikes and wrestling moves (which also use the Wii’s motion controls) spicing up the action into something delightfully original, but most importantly, fun. Far too often gamers will accept something that simply isn’t fun just because it’s the next sequel in their favourite franchise, or is exceptionally good-looking. No More Heroes’ combat sections will make you cackle with sadistic glee, be it finally taking out a complex boss and reaping the cutscene-kill reward or cleaving through a swarm of lackeys.
Oh, and when Travis shouts something about a shortcake or a brownie or something, everyone else on the screen dies. Honestly.
Let me elaborate. After every killing blow, slot reels spin at the bottom of the screen. If they line up, Travis goes into Dark Side mode. Depending on the reel that lined up you'll get a number of different head-popping frenzy attacks, from throwing energy balls that literally disintegrate people to instant kill slices. It has to be seen to believed and then laughed at, so here's a quick video from Gametrailers.
Unfortunately, you have to take the good with the rough. Not content with just an action game, Suda51 decided to implement a free-roaming aspect. To justify this, each ranking battle has a pretty high price, and the only way to earn the money is to cut grass. No, I’m not joking. After an epic, tense boss battle, your thrown back into your motel room in the fictional town of Santa Destroy, where you inevitably find yourself catching kittens, picking up scorpions and filling up petrol tanks all for the love of money. Fortunately these part-time jobs only have to be finished once, and you can then move on to higher paying combat missions. However it still breaks up the atmosphere and provides a boring, grinding aspect to the game. It’s not that there isn’t much to do in the city; you can ride around on your motorcycle, do jobs, dig for coins or explore alleyways for clothing and Lovikov balls, which can be traded for new combat techniques. It’s just that none of this is all that fun, and seems like filler in the already short (10 hours, roughly) game. In the end the game has pretty major flaws, but it’s simply so likable and so fun that your memories of it will always be positive ones.
Gameplay: 8.9/10
Presentation
A Wii game is never going to be too incredible on the visual side of things, considering it’s beefy competition in the Xbox360 and PS3. Or so we thought, until games such as Metroid Prime Corruption and Super Mario Galaxy came out. While the Wii doesn’t have the graphical power of it’s expensive peers, Wii games can still look great if the art is good. Metroid Prime was fantastically realised despite not having the processor power behind it, and No More Heroes is another one of those gob-smackingly stylish games. Blood is a bright scarlet, spurting out generously if you so much as tap someone on the shoulder, and death animations are some of the most brutal around. All this violence could make a game a bit too morbid, but No More Heroes carries it all off with a manga/cel-shaded feel making sure that the violence never becomes disturbing. In fact, it plays out with an Ichi The Killer or Kill Bill style, with the massive amounts of blood and light-hearted violence becoming humorous. Bizarrely, Suda51 decided to censor all the blood in the European and Australian copies of the game. Now correct me if I’m wrong but Goichi Suda was reported to have said he was trying to ‘make the game more violent than Manhunt 2’. This probably got a lot of peoples attention; to then censor it only in Europe and Australia (It was Suda’s choice, not any rating organisation) is, lets be honest, incredibly bloody stupid. If you’re lucky enough to live in North America or Japan then No More Heroes is one of the best-looking games on the Wii. If not, it’s still original, but not nearly as memorable.
The audio of the game is done well with top class voice acting for all the characters, and battle grunts are a particularly entertaining highlight. Dialogue is pretty well written with some sidesplitting lines later in the game, but it won’t win any awards. Neither will the music, which is never prominent enough to interrupt the visual spectacle in combat but will definitely annoy you in places. The samey J-pop fits in well with the games aesthetic, but it isn’t necessarily pleasing.
Overall presentation in No More Heroes is about as entertaining, exciting and original as it comes and currently a great eye-opener to the Wii’s potential.
Presentation: 8.0/10
Conclusion
No More Heroes has some absolute genius sides to it, mastering the control scheme of the Wii-mote and delivering visual splendor on a cinematic standard. Unfortunately some incredibly frustrating flaws mar what could have been an absolute classic. Suda51 has announced his desire to create a sequel, but nothing's concrete yet. All I can say is if Suda can straighten out some of the creases, he’ll have a masterpiece on his hands.
Ryan McGuire; 17 year old pontificating, drumming, writing, gaming and failing extraordinaire.
OhK.O's the gaming blog, Veni, Vidi, Sod It is a tad more personal.
.png)
.jpg)
