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Super Meat Boy: A Love Letter to Everyone … Except Dr. Fetus

Jared Newman — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:00:00 +0000

One of Super Meat Boy’s most delightful flourishes is the way it ushers in each new batch of levels with the music from Dramatic Look. Why this allusion exists is anybody’s guess, but it epitomizes how Super Meat Boy, at times, wants to be about anything but itself. And for the most part, that’s okay.

Foremost, Super Meat Boy is platform-jumping masochism, a test of timing and accuracy as your protagonist leaps from wall to wall to save his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the evil Dr. Fetus. Along the way, he will be hacked up by circular saws, splattered by rockets, eaten by monsters and sizzled by lasers, always producing a splotch of blood and raw meat. Some of my fellow journalists are posting their final body counts to Twitter as perverse badges of honor. Mine? 4,396 deaths with a 75 percent completion rating. It is a fact that Meat Boy won’t prevail on my Xbox 360 without being butchered at least 5,000 times.

Trial and error is usually a pockmark on game design, a sign that developers can’t clearly communicate challenges and goals to the player. In Super Meat Boy, it’s part of the fun. After dying, the game barely gives you time to think before Meat Boy is back on his feet at the spawn point, so you can keep plugging away without letting frustration fester. When you do nail every jump, it’s a top-of-the-world feeling that lasts for maybe five seconds, until you’re on to the next level.

The trouble with Super Meat Boy’s learn-by-death pattern is that eventually, it starts to feel like a grind. To the game’s credit, each successive area brings new types of obstacles, but the game never deviates from the formula of brutally difficult platform jumping. And it probably shouldn’t. I just wish Team Meat had done more to stimulate the player along the way.

The groundwork is there. Super Meat Boy takes great pride in being a meta-game, constantly sending out props to other indie game makers, and to platform gaming’s roots. References to Ninja Gaiden and Street Fighter abound, and I particularly liked the levels named after King of Kong’s rival players. Maybe it’s coincidence that Super Meat Boy shares an acronym with another iconic platformer, but the game is, on some level, Super Mario Bros. stripped of the candy coating. Meanwhile, a parade of indie game characters, like Tim from Braid and Commander Video from Bit.Trip Runner, appear as unlockable characters with special abilities. Other independent game makers lend cover art to Super Meat Boy’s bonus levels, which are all presented as 8-bit games within the game. At times, Super Meat Boy feels like little more than big wet kiss to Team Meat’s heroes.

My beef is that, somewhere in the reverie, Meat Boy himself takes a back seat, and that’s a shame. For goodness sakes, the game stars a slab of raw meat with a Band-Aid girlfriend and an antagonist named Dr. Fetus, who is, well, a fetus in a monocled jar with a suit and top hat. This is a dark humor goldmine, and the animated shorts that grace the beginning and end of each chapter only scratch the surface of what’s possible. I wanted to see more of these characters, more of their world and more of the humor that makes Super Meat Boy such an entertaining concept in the first place.

In the absence of these things, Super Meat Boy is still a joy to play, especially in those fluid moments of perfection when your meaty protagonist seems like a Cirque du Soleil reject. With extra-hard versions of every level, characters to unlock and, at least on Xbox 360, a delivery system for more free levels, chances are you’ll get more meat than you can chew out of this $15 (but $10 for now) download.

Super Meat Boy was reviewed for Xbox 360 with a download code provided by the developer.

What’s the Deal With Minecraft? Or: Minecraft’s Subtle Message

Jared Newman — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:36:10 +0000

MINECRAFT REVIEW, BLACK OPS TIPS - You might say that Minecraft hit the big time today. Featured in a Penny Arcade comic — amusing even if you haven’t played the game — developer Mojang Specifications will surely reap thousands of new sales, despite the game’s alpha status and $9 price tag.

I’m fortunate enough to have been in on the joke — I use that term intentionally, and I’ll explain later — for a couple months now. I’ve dabbled in mashing mountains, cutting down trees and slaughtering a variety of fauna, all in service of building man-made structures in an otherwise pristine natural environment.

There is no explicit point to Minecraft. The game sets you free in a randomly generated world of stone, sand, water, grass and trees. This forms the raw material for towers, tools, weapons, armor and food. You don’t need any of this stuff. The game will let you survive with nothing, provided you can avoid the threatening creatures that come out when the sun goes down.

Inevitably, you will build, not because you have to, but because you can. Heck, for $9, it’s your right to start plowing into the landscape. My particular idea, early on, was to hack up a sprawling network of islands and create a massive sand tower. It is, I think, a beautiful structure, with windows to let the light in and little lookouts on the top of each corner. When it was finished, some five hours after I started, I scrambled to the top and admired the view, looking past the nearby islands I’d flattened.

Then, I started thinking of what to build next, along with which animals I’d have to kill and how many countrysides I’d have to destroy. That’s about when I stopped playing Minecraft.

I’m not self-righteous enough to say that my interest in Minecraft waned because of some moral conflict. This is, after all, a video game, and I’ve done far worse on other virtual playgrounds. But I did get the joke, which is to say I completed the game.

Minecraft is a commentary on human behavior. It puts you in a sandbox with unlimited power and one condition: To create anything, you must destroy something else. It’s a lesson on natural resources, which might seem painfully obvious if so many other games didn’t stuff players with unlimited ammo and health-restoring chicken hidden in trash cans. It is a beautiful model of humanity’s need to destroy and rebuild.

That message is never forced on the player. It’s implied in the system Minecraft creates. And when the revelation strikes, as you’re digging into another mountain, chopping down another tree, butchering another cow, the joke’s on you.

God of War III Reviews: Perfect Scores and Cliché Abound

Benjamin Opal — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:57:24 +0000

The recurring theme in reviews of God of War III, released today for the Playstation 3, is “epic,” a word that’s often tossed around when a game’s scale is too large for more descriptive words. Normally, I’d expect more caution with this sort of thing, but it appears that God of War III has left several reviewers gasping for adjectives, only able to communicate in cliché how good the game is.

Destructoid’s Nick Chester notes that “epic” is an overused word, but then says God of War III “truly redefines ‘epic’ in shocking and unexpected ways you may not have thought were possible.”

In fact, from start to finish, the game never really lets up. It’s full of more “holy crap” and “seriously, did that just happen?” moments than any game in recent memory, pushing the boundaries of both violence (yes, Kratos is at his most brutal here) and presentation.

The Telegraph actually begins its God of War III review with the dictionary definition of “epic” — itself a cliché in writing.

It’s an overused adjective, isn’t it, ‘epic’? Especially in video game critique or in those bullet-point lists that pop from the back of the box in a snazzy font.

…

God of War III is taking the word back for itself. You want to claim your game/film/novel is epic; you’re going to have to go through Kratos, who will likely tear your arm off and beat you to death with the wet end, given that he’s the angriest man in the history of everything.

And here’s a bit of somber enthusiasm from Computer and Video Games, reminding us that God of War III is essentially a souped up version of its predecessor, but not particularly upset about it:

There’s not a great deal that’s new here – it’s essentially GoW II on crack, but this nevertheless sets the mark for all-out action brawlers with unrivalled brutality, gore and epic scope.

Not everyone relied on the same old words. 1UP notes that God of War isn’t everyone’s bag, but still felt the game is A-grade material:

Chances are, if you were bothered by things like the button-pressing minigames, the puzzles, the linearity, etc. in previous God of War games, God of War 3 isn’t going to change your mind. And if you loved them before, get ready for an incredibly well made follow-up in that same template.

Judging from the long list of perfect scores at Metacritic, critics are not bothered by button-pressing minigames ad linearity, as long as they’re presented in epic fashion.

Heavy Rain Review, Spoilers and All

Jared Newman — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:38:50 +0000

If the headline isn’t an indication, this Heavy Rain review is full of spoilers. The decisions you make in the game, and their consequences, deserve an open discussion. For a consumer report, go to Metacritic or Gamespot, or take my spoiler-free endorsement: Heavy Rain, despite its numerous flaws, gets into your head, if you let it. Players who look for cracks in the structure or plot will be disappointed with the finished product, while those who suspend their disbelief and invest themselves in their characters will be rewarded in ways that make most games seem childish and pointless. Spoilers begin in the next paragraph. You’ve been warned.

When Heavy Rain asked me if I’d swallow a bottle of poison to save my son, I paused and put down the controller. I wondered, how important is this father, Ethan Mars? He’s basically been a ghost since his first son died in a car accident, anyway. This seems like a fitting end to a life that no longer has purpose, except to save Shaun.

But I like Ethan, so I weighed the options. My other characters are doing a good job of tracking down the Origami Killer. There’s a pretty good chance they’ll find Shaun even if Ethan doesn’t drink the poison to get the full address of where his son is held captive. And besides, I didn’t complete the previous trial — kill a man to learn more of the address — because let’s face it, Ethan’s not a killer. How do I even know that three quarters of an address will be enough?

Fuck it. I unpaused the game, grabbed the bottle and chugged down its contents. Ethan was meant to do this.

As a whodunit mystery, Heavy Rain fails. It’s full of plot holes and smacks of countless “serial killer with a cause” movies. The identity of the Origami Killer — private dick and playable character Scott Shelby — is so arbitrary that the killer could’ve been any other character, and the 10-or-so hours before the big reveal wouldn’t have needed any modification. For a lot of people, this plot twist ruined the game.

Fortunately, Heavy Rain’s not really about solving a mystery, it’s about making decisions and living with them. The game’s tagline isn’t “Who is the Origami Killer?!?” It’s “How far would you go to stop a killer?” If you’re willing to honestly ask yourself those questions and make decisions based on your convictions, Heavy Rain leaves a lasting impression.

Most modern decision-based games handle moral choices in a completely different way. In the Mass Effect series and Fallout 3, your options are polar opposites (or an ambiguous “neutral” option that accomplishes nothing). Jail the alien or take a bribe. Free the slaves or join the slave drivers. Initially, how you play depends on the role you desire for your character — same as Heavy Rain — but before long, morality breaks down into currency, rewarding you with new powers or abilities depending on how heavily you lean one way or the other. Decisions no longer stand on their own merits. They’re just resources to be farmed in pursuit of a goal.

Heavy Rain has no resources. Your decisions don’t add up on a meter that you can quantify. The game consistently wades into grey area, and thrives on uncertainty. Does the tone you choose for FBI agent Norman Jayden matter when responding to his hard-nosed local detective partner? Probably not, but it helps establish the character as the player sees fit. It builds a bond.

When your choices do change the game’s outcome, a “right answer” doesn’t necessarily exist. You can orchestrate a kiss between Ethan and journalist Madison Paige, but for me it felt awkward at such a crucial time, so I declined. This prevents the characters from getting together in the endgame, but Heavy Rain never suggests you made a wrong turn.

As fellow journalist and GamerCrave contributor Sinan Kubba suggests, it’s a directorial moment where you decide what’s best for both characters, but I don’t think that forces the player to detach emotionally from them, as Sinan argues. A good director will sympathize with all the actors and feel an emotional obligation to guide them. As I said above, some players will make that investment. Others will not, thinking of the game only as a challenge to be won. You can probably tell which side of the fence I fell on.

How did I get swooned by Heavy Rain to the point of cheerily overlooking its flaws? For starters, the game’s life-or-death quick time events won me over. I’m not in the camp that believes responding to button prompts is worthless, and Heavy Rain is proof. If your heart wasn’t racing while Madison tried to escape the masked intruders in her apartment, there’s not much that video games can do for you. And yes, those mundane tasks of shaving and changing a baby’s diaper weren’t necessary to the plot and don’t bring you closer to the characters, but they are a form of tutorial, training you for the moments when your character’s life is on the line. I was glad to have them.

I also don’t buy the idea that Heavy Rain needed to be the exception to shitty video game narrative. Again, Heavy Rain isn’t about untangling the mystery, it’s about the first-hand experience of decision and reaction. Heavy Rain is close to “playing a movie” as any game that draws heavily on film, your precious Uncharted and Gears of War included. Somehow those games’ half-baked plots are excused on one hand, but their cinematic experiences are praised on the other. And yet Heavy Rain is a target.

The reality is that any video game can be picked apart for all the stupid things players choose to slide under the rug. Just watch Ben Croshaw skewer the most critically-lauded games on Zero Punctuation and try to argue with any of his points. Personally, if I can accept that eating potato chips and beans recovers health in Bioshock 2, I can write off Heavy Rain’s logical inconsistencies in order to enjoy what’s really important.

Because of this, Heavy Rain stayed with me. After the credits rolled, I scrambled onto Twitter to see if anyone was talking about it. I brought up Ethan’s pivotal scene over dinner with my fiancée – not a discussion she’d normally tolerate. Normally, beating a game is like coming down from an adrenaline high. Getting through Heavy Rain is like leaving a session with a shrink. How much you glean from the therapy is your call.

Final Fantasy XIII Reviews: The Hardcore Weep

Benjamin Opal — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:11:44 +0000

There’s no question that Final Fantasy XIII is a beautiful, dramatic affair, but according to reviews of the game, released outside of Japan today for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, it’s also a departure for the series. The verdicts aren’t much different than we heard in December, when Final Fantasy XIII was released in Japan: Open worlds, mini-games and exploration are hacked away in favor of eye-popping cutscenes and fast-moving narrative. Whether that appeals to you depends on personal preference.

Wired’s Chris Kohler, for instance, found Final Fantasy XIII to be dull, despite its beauty:

Once the game gets to this fully operational status, the battles become much more interesting. But it takes around 20 hours, prior to which the game is boring as hell. Final Fantasy XIII ramps up achingly slowly, only giving you two characters at first, and limiting the roles and characters you can use. For much of the time, you’re just watching the game play itself.

PC World’s Matt Peckham defends the game’s streamlined approach:

Why cut that stuff? Because trawling for shallow chitchat and to identify weapon-armor-item stores is frankly–hands over ears, hardcore fans–down-tempo and disruptive. As well, because Final Fantasy XIII’s major narrative plays out over a brief span in story-time. Sandwich an entire world to explore between the major plot beats instead of toward the end and you compromise your ability to establish then maintain brisk pacing.

I don’t doubt that the game will sell like mad, as it did in Japan, and validate Square Enix’s approach, but that’s of little consolation to people who view Final Fantasy in a particular way.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Reviews and the COD Comparison

Jared Newman — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:42:06 +0000

Forget a straightforward Battlefield: Bad Company 2 review; you’re probably wondering if the game’s better than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The game was released today for Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows, so let’s give in to temptation in this review roundup and get right to what the critics thought.

1UP’s Thierry Nguyen believes that developer DICE flaunts both its similarities and differences with Modern Warfare 2:

The daring comes from a mix of sly dialogue moments (disparaging remarks get made about snowmobiles and rifles-with-heartbeat-monitors), to copy-and-paste jobs of COD situations (using air support while cornering a villain in a safehouse, a vicious firefight aboard an airplane, providing support as either a sniper or a helicopter gunner). Though, for the latter, it seems to be … a “we’re not copying, we’re doing it better” moment.

EuroGamer’s Dan Whitehead reckons that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 wins on plot, at least:

Unlike Modern Warfare 2′s disjointed compilation of set-pieces, Bad Company 2 plays like a whip-smart Shane Black script from the late eighties. The razor-sharp quips are delivered with some superb voice acting and subtle deadpan animation, and the result is a game that will have you laughing out loud even as you’re gripping the joypad for dear life.

At Ars Technica, Ben Kuchera seems inclined to favor B:BC2′s multiplaye, saying this is where the game “finds its voice”:

Where Modern Warfare 2 focuses on kill streaks, Bad Company 2 makes it clear that you are one soldier in a larger battle. You gain points for killing the enemy, and as a Medic you gain points for healing or reviving the other soldiers on your team. From taking objectives to acting as support for your teammates, everything you do to advance your side’s cause will gain you points.

GamePro’s Mitchell Dyer sums it up nicely:

With Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2 being regularly victimized by bugs, glitches, hacks and other exploits, there’s an opportunity for another game to come in and do some real damage. Bad Company 2 definitely has the necessary chops to give the current king of, well, modern warfare, a run for its money.

When it comes to Battlefield: Bad Company 2 vs. Modern Warfare 2, I don’t see anyone saying one is clearly better than the other, but there seems to be lots of enthusiasm for DICE’s latest creation. It’s ready to go toe-to-toe with last year’s blockbuster and even surpasses it in some ways. The game may not rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a week, but it’ll be worth you’re money if you’re into war shooters.

Aliens vs. Predator Reviews: A Polarizing Game, Indeed

Benjamin Opal — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:17:22 +0000

You’re going to love Aliens vs. Predator, or you’re going to hate it, say a handful of conflicting reviews of the game, released today for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Aliens vs. Predator puts you in the role of both the eponymous creatures, plus an unfortunate human caught in the middle of their interstellar war. The result is a shooter that could cure your nostalgia for the original Alien and Predator films, but it could bore and frustrate you. PC Zone calls the game “deliciously gory, unwaveringly confident and spectacular fun,” and a “brilliantly authentic and cinematic experience.” But GameSpot says “three mediocre games are jammed into a single package,” and “the result is still mediocre.”

What’s the beef? Crave Online’s Erik Norris says Aliens vs. Predator starts with a bang thanks to eerie presentation and a heart-pounding marine campaign, but it all falls apart the deeper into the game you get.

Basically, [Predator] melee combat feels reminiscent of a boxing game’s fighting mechanics, but without the same sense of depth and diversity. I found myself hammering on the light attack button and occasionally throwing in a heavy strike to finish off my foe over and over again.

…

I also had a hard time getting the Alien to do what I wanted in combat, usually resulting in my death. If the only weaponry an Alien is going to have is its claws and tail within close proximity, then I should feel comfortable getting the jump on a target, not terrified. I just never felt comfortable playing as the Alien in AvP.

IGN UK’s Martin Robinson acknowledges the clumsy controls, but gleefully enjoyed the carnage anyway:

For the Predator, it’s a stealth that’s powered by gadgetry: the famous cloak is bolstered by a variety of vision modes to stalk down prey from the heights he’s able to reach, and when it comes to the kill he’s not under-equipped either.

…

The Alien gets the most creative options, using its tail to poke someone’s eye out, thrust down their throat or give them a vanilla decapitation depending on which mood takes them.

It seems that Aliens vs. Predator definitely has problems, in that it lacks the professional polish of a AAA-title. If you’re a big enough AVP fan, the flaws won’t matter much. If you’re just looking for a good shooter, and you’re not bleary-eyed with nostalgia, there are plenty more fish in the sea.

Bioshock 2 Reviews: Cynics Swayed, but Masterpiece? Maybe Not

Jared Newman — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:47:47 +0000

Bioshock 2, released today for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC, is getting good-to-great reviews. I’ve kept the game at arm’s length because I have this thing about video game endings where I just want them to end, already, and Bioshock’s conclusion was poetic enough that it could’ve been a great send-off for the literary-minded first-person shooter. But once my current plate is cleared, Bioshock 2 seems worth a second look, still with a grain of skepticism. Here’s a change of heart from GamesRadar:

First, a confession. We thought BioShock 2 was a mistake. … While we desperately wished to revisit the haunting underwater dystopia of Rapture, we suspected that doing so would ruin, or at least diminish, the thematic significance of the initial trip. To us, BioShock was one-of-a-kind, not one-of-a-franchise.

Well, you know what? We were wrong. Somehow, with less than three years of development time and without the direct involvement of creator Ken Levine, the BioShock team has pulled off another masterpiece.

GameSpy’s Anthony Gallegos didn’t grant Bioshock 2 a perfect score, but appreciated that Bioshock 2′s morality system is more fleshed out than the first game:

This time around, though, things get more complicated: Instead of merely choosing to save or harvest the Little Sisters (harvesting yields more genetic material for you to use), you can choose to adopt the children, acting as their stalwart protector and defending them while they gather precious resources… and then saving or turning on them at the last minute. It boils down to a small change in the process, but the additional interaction makes you care that much more about your choices… and makes you that much more of a bastard if you kill the Little Sisters after gaining their trust.

1UP’s Justin Haywald notes little changes to the gameplay, such as weapons that can be upgraded, plasmid powers that evolve more substantially than they did in the first game, and the ability to wield plasmids and weapons simultaneously. His conclusion: “For the most part, all of the changes make both the combat and gameplay better, but it’s hard to feel like you haven’t done it all before.” Haywald also confirms what I feared about the game’s revisit to Rapture: “BioShock felt like an introduction not just to an underwater city, but to a maniacal philosophy and alternate history. BioShock 2 feels like a solid but plain knock-off of that world.”

VideoGamer’s Tom Orry came to a similar conclusion, noting that Bioshock 2′s story “isn’t as interesting or as clever as that of the first game,” though he liked the gameplay and thinks Bioshock 2 has the best shot at pulling you away from Modern Warfare 2:

If 2K had managed to tell a story that equalled or bettered that found in the original, we’d have been left with an unquestionably better experience, rather than just a more exciting, smarter shooter.

The pattern here? Bioshock 2′s action has been refined, as it should be. That’ll satisfy people who weren’t wowed with the first game’s story, and didn’t see anything special in the gameplay. But if you came to Bioshock 1 for director Ken Levine’s grand philosophies on egoism, you won’t be quite as stimulated. Oh, and critics are willing to forgive a tired story for improved mechanics, as proven by Bioshock 2′s Metacritic score of 89.

Mass Effect 2 Reviews: Game of the Year Chatter Starts Now

Jared Newman — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:52:55 +0000

Mass Effect 2 is out today, and if the reviews are spot-on, Xbox 360 owners and PC gamers would be doing themselves a disservice by not picking it up. We’re not even through January, and some critics reckon they’ve got a game of the year on their hands. “So, Mass Effect 2 is easily my favorite game on 360, probably my game of the year, and in my top 5. Yep. In January,” Mitch Dyer, who writes for GamePro and Official Xbox Magazine, wrote on Twitter. My buddy Eddie Inzauto, director of GamerNode, has been raving about the game for days. Formal reviews are just as bubbly.

“It may only be January, but Mass Effect 2 is already a serious contender for game of the year,” Greg Howson writes in The Guardian. “Despite all of the ways Mass Effect 2 is more engaging to play and explore, after 35 remarkable hours it was the characters that stayed with us,” writes Games(TM). “Game of the year in January? Oh, go on then.”

The game wins on its combination of decision-based storytelling and straight-up action. Both of these aspects were refined from the original game, placing more emphasis on duck-and-cover shooting without sacrificing the character building you find in an RPG. What most impresses me is the separation of your “Paragon” and “Renegade” meters — measurements of morality — into two separate gauges rather than one slider. That means your decisions allow for a more complex character than in the first game.

So, is there anything wrong with Mass Effect 2, which has a score of 97 on Metacritic? Howson complains of some technical issues, such as long load times and hard-to-read text. GameSpot says scanning planets can be tedious, and notes that there are some glitches and bugs, but doesn’t get into specifics. But when a game spins a great yarn and provides lots of trigger-pumping action, those nags are easy to overlook.

Bummer: Dark Void Reviews Hint at a Flop

Jared Newman — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:35:03 +0000

Chalk it up to the preview effect, but I had high hopes for Dark Void, out today for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. When checking the game out at a media day in Los Angeles and talking to executive producer Morgan Gray, there seemed to be great potential in combining the bygone era of aerial dogfighting with the Gears of War-style duck-and-cover combat that everyone wants a piece of these days. Alas, Dark Void’s jetpack-enabled adventure isn’t getting the love from critics. Almost uniformly, they acknowledge a good seed of an idea is dragged down by derivative design, a confusing plot the glaring omission of multiplayer.

IGN UK’s Kristan Reed says we’ve seen this all before:

From the easygoing quip-laden banter between the accidental action hero and his former love interest, to the cover-based combat (in the jungle, no less), and the introduction of platforming elements, Airtight Games’ love-affair with Naughty Dog’s superb series couldn’t be more apparent. It’s an approach that backfires immediately, with bizarre, stilted animations and clumsy attempts at lip-synching giving the impression of a project which has struggled at the most basic level to match-up to the standards you expect from a modern action game.

MTV Multiplayer’s Jason Cipriano spoils the whole darned plot, not that you care:

At the end of the game the story becomes so convoluted with flashbacks and predictable plot twists that you’re likely to not care … but it doesn’t stop there. The game then goes on to directly tie the Watchers to the Fascist uprising of World War II. That’s right, the Nazis were getting help from a banished ancient civilization in a parallel universe.

VideoGamer’s Wesley Lin-Poole hits it on the head:

We can’t think of another cover-based third-person shooter that allows you to fly away when the going gets tough. Dark Void is a new concept at a time when sequels are the norm – and that should be applauded. It’s a shame, then, that things haven’t quite worked out as they might have done.

Despite the bad rap, I’m hoping Dark Void gets a second chance. Capcom seems behind the franchise, with the retro Dark Void Zero, and even flawed original IP can come back to achieve brilliance (see Assassin’s Creed). Don’t count out the jetpack just yet.

First Heavy Rain Review Drops a 9 out of 10

Jared Newman — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:31:52 +0000

The first Heavy Rain review is in, and although the game’s not due out until February 23 in North America, we can breathe easy knowing the Playstation 3 exclusive won’t likely be a colossal critical failure. Official Playstation Magazine has given the “interactive drama,” which follows several protagonists as they track a serial killer, nine points out of 10.

Put gaming conventions aside, go in with no expectations other than this is something new and massively good-looking, and you’ll be rewarded with a unique experience that lurches between genius and madness, manages to be genuinely emotional, and that you’ll be bursting to talk about with your friends.

OPM may have knocked off a point for Heavy Rain’s voice acting, which wasn’t pitch perfect but is far more demanding than a film given the amount of dialog needed for a lengthy game with multiple outcomes. The graphics, however, are stunning. “From the desperation that clings to Ethan’s every gesture to the can-do peppiness in each step of Madison’s walk, the animation is glorious,” says the review.

“This is a game you need to play and will want to have an opinion on. It’s also one we recommend without any reservations,” the review concludes. If you haven’t already, check out some screenshots while you wait. [via CVG]

Final Fantasy XIII: Reviews Good, Sales Record-Shattering

Benjamin Opal — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:44:35 +0000

It’s a good day to be Sony, with news that Final Fantasy XIII set sales records for the Playstation 3 in Japan. After day one, the game had moved a million units, and by week’s end, 1.501,964 units were sold, according to Media Create. Japan’s previous best-selling PS3 game, Metal Gear Solid 4, has moved less than half as many copies in its entire lifetime. The takeaway is that people are buying FFXIII, and by extension the Playstation 3, in droves. On the week, PS3 sales jumped to 237,086 units, from 75,086 units the week earlier. All of this bodes well for FFXIII’s March 9 release, both for the PS3 and the Xbox 360. But has the game been as successful critically?

Early Final Fantasy XIII reviews are solid, but not perfect. Wired’s Chris Kohler is most critical, writing that the game’s lavish and lengthy cut scenes come at the expense of actual gameplay, which favors linearity instead of branching paths and side-missions. Famitsu denied the game a perfect score (a big deal if you consider that Bayonetta, Dragon Quest IX and Monster Hunter Tri), praising the game’s visuals but questioning its linearity and lack of gameplay surprises. Electronic Theatre, however, raved, calling the game a “system-seller.” Looking at those Media Create figures, there’s no denying that. [Media Create via Joystiq]

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