Game Curmudgeons

Mutant Storm Empire (yes, the sequel to Mutant Storm, if you can’t guess somehow) is a new arena shooter available on Xbox Live Arcade. Taking a cue from Robotron: 2084 and Smash TV, MSE focuses mostly on blasting enemies in all directions at a quick pace. Carving out paths among swarms of enemies, blasting big bosses, and avoiding kamikaze death is the formula, and it’s held to fairly tightly.

Most of MSE is a room to room affair, 6 rooms per level, with 16 levels in 4 stages. 4 levels are an exception, and work more along the lines of a horizontal shooter. Rooms have obstacles, monster entrances of varying sorts, and sometimes hazards. It’s a formula that can get repetitive, and it does at points in MSE, but generally enemies and level layouts are fresh enough to keep players interested. Each level allows players to take 6 hits, and gives them a limited supply of ridiculously powerful super weapon fire, which can take a boss down in a split second on easier difficulties. Most stages have unique enemies to their environments, though individual levels often share certain types of enemies. Mid-bosses are fairly common, and levels generally end on a boss, with a big one at the end of a stage.

Mutant Storm Empire tries to set itself apart by focusing on combos and high scores. Killing a certain number of an enemy will result in a bonus to the multiplier, which is capped by difficulty settings, and resets when players take damage. Obviously this means the highest scores are possible on the hardest settings, but getting that level of combo is going to be extremely difficult. The system is a good attempt, but doesn’t always work, frankly. While in early stages, it’s easy enough to just shoot purple or green tanks, for example, going back and forth as the counter hits zero, later stage have enemies that fire projectiles which are counted as their own kind of creature. You may only need to kill two of a larger enemy type to get a combo boost, but it spits out clusters of small enemies, which you may have to kill 40 of to get a combo. Good luck getting that, since they’re coming in groups of 8, and form a shield around the tougher enemy and really attempt to guarantee you’ll hit one of them between killing two of the big guy.

The pacing is a bit slow, for my enjoyment. Usually games of this nature are frantic crazy affairs that leave you running on pure adrenaline and twitching, while MSE is a bit more tactical for those looking to rack up points, and a bit plain for those who don’t care. Then, there are the few levels which simply stream enemies at players, which are lots of twitchy fun, but likely to endlessly annoy people going for score as one stray shot will reset the kill count for the next boost. Either style of player will have fun, but the game doesn’t seem to find the right balance. Despite, it still remains a generally enjoyable festival of destruction.

Graphically, everything has a bit of a glow and feels more than a touch radioactive, which one would deem appropriate for mutants. There’s neither sense of setting nor scale, but there’s enough explosive prettiness to not be concerned with it, and usually plenty of enemies and projectiles to not stop and enjoy the sights. The audio is about the same. Lasers, pew pew, decent music for shooter background, and plenty of kaboom, and some sounds run through a few distortion filters to sound extra unnatural.

On the whole it’s not a particularly great game, but it’s fairly fun and tries a few interesting things. The difficulty is inconsistent as is the pacing, which takes away from things. Particularly of note, the fourth set of stages is absolutely savage in difficulty even on the easiest settings, despite the rest of the game having been a veritable cakewalk to that point. The levels which are a continuous sidescroll(of which there’s one per stage, where the level keeps moving and the player must stay between two laser beams for no apparent reason) are a bit harder, and a bit boring. The one on the fourth stage is controller-smashingly difficult and unfun, so much so I started to really wonder if I cared about finishing the game at all. I did, but it’s the kind of level that requires memorization or extra-fucking-sensory perception. The difficulty boost is right out of every 1994 arcade game, so if you’re okay with that, you’ll do fine with this.

Mutant Storm Empire gets 3 of 5 canes. Average shooter that will do the job if you’re hard up for an arena fix, certainly, but don’t expect any crazy Smash TV or Robotron action. If you crave combos and lots of targets, grab the demo, and you’ll know fast if you should make the purchase.

The bar has been raised.

Mass Effect is a spectacular RPG/Shooter hybrid, with emphasis on the RPG, but no lack of quality in the shooting.

The plot is absolutely incredible. The graphics are stunning, the audio is simply amazing. The action is intense, dialog acted out brilliantly. The game is, as a whole, resplendent, a shining star in a vast sea of gaming, the large and, until the last few months, somewhat bleak expanse of the next generation.

Sure, it wobbles a bit, and there’s a flare or two which threatens to reach out and lick a planet, to extend this metaphor, but it never causes more damage than a bit of lost cell phone reception.

The basics of Mass Effect are that you’re a human, working for humanity’s interests in a hostile galaxy. Humanity’s first interaction with the galaxy’s other inhabitants of note was hostile, and a scant few decades later, nobody has forgotten what happened. Fortunately, you have a chance to change things by becoming one of the most powerful law enforcement officers in the galaxy, joining the most prestigious inter-species spec-ops unit in the galaxy, the Spectres. Spectres answer to nobody but the Council, the group essentially in charge of the galaxy. They’re given permission to do whatever it takes to accomplish a mission, and training to match.

Of course, this is a Bioware game, so things are going to get big, and players will need that training, in any class they choose of the 6. 3 primary classes are available, focused on combat, engineering, or biotics(read:psionic magic). Hybrid classes are available as well. All are good choices, though the primary combat class is by far the easiest to play the first time around, and it’s very satisfying. When things get bad, and an army of synthetic beings decides to start killing everything, and a rogue Spectre with the single most powerful ship in the universe wants to kill you, the ability to blast away at anything is very welcome. Sure, you have a nice spaceship and a troop carrier with a cannon, but the odds are certainly against you.

It’s hard to pin down what makes the game so special, as it’s certainly not without flaws. Textures load on top of each other prominently, meaning players see lots of low-res in conversations suddenly replaced with beautiful high-res ones. I have nothing against hi-res texture and in fact, encourage it, but the pop-in gets distracting, especially since it tends to happen during dialog and cutscenes.

Combat a bit uneven; often it’s stunningly easy, or controller-smashingly hard in a few sections, often right after a cutscene. Combined with the very sparse autosave, it can lead to some frustration for players who don’t save enough.

And as everyone knows by now, the menus are terrible. Can’t sort things, and in the buy/sell menu, you get stuck scrolling, one at a time, through 150 fucking items. I don’t know why the truly great radial menus for dialog and combat didn’t present themselves, somehow, in the rest of the game.

Allied AI has its problems as well. Pathfinding gets a bit rough at times, but most of the time, when you point the squad somewhere, they make it. Of course, if a door closes, they’re boned. For some reason the AI is completely unable to open doors. If a player is running through a hallway, and a door closes between him and the squad, they’re just stuck there until the player hits an elevator or certain spots in the game where the squad magically reappears.

God, elevators are slow. Elevators can, in fact, take longer to get you somewhere than using a transport terminal which skips right to the load screen, even if the place you’re going is exactly where the elevator would take you. Players spend much of the game exploring anomalies on uncharted planets, but they should have studied that one in the Citadel.

Framerates have a few big hits, mostly in the vehicular sections, but overall the game runs nice and smooth, and I never got killed by a lack of frames, and the cannon is pretty effective even when your aim is off, or you need to flush enemies from behind cover. Combined with a stupidly powerful machine gun, one can do a lot of damage to a lot of troops in little time.

And that, frankly, is the bad. The combat and driving take some adjustment, but once you learn that pointing in a direction will get you there(especially in the Mako, there’s no need for constant readjustment and course correction at all, just point and push forward generally), things are smooth. It sounds like a lot, and it looks like a lot, but once the game starts, it manages to melt away.

The combat is actually exciting. There’s not an under the hood system dictating everything. Skill points are there to help, but it’s still all about player skill, points just stabilize a weapon, or add damage or abilities with it. But a player who can’t aim won’t have much luck with a complete skill tree. The whole thing is very fluid, with players automatically attaching to cover and moving out when they point away long enough. Pressing the left trigger will pop out to aim, releasing will return to cover, which is essential against larger enemies or those with explosives. There aren’t a lot of sure things in space, but I can say with certainty that rockets are always deadly, and running out in front of enemies with rocket launchers is a sure way to die.

Combat likes to show up when it’s unexpected, after cutscenes or dialog, though players can often manage to guide things toward or away from combat in conversation. Dialog, in Mass Effect, gets a huge upgrade from what gamers have learned to use. Up until now, with very small, rare exceptions, games with dialog options are long, ordered menus presented after a character’s lines are totally spoken, and reproduced word for word, but with little sense of intonation or emphasis. It was thorough, but dry and left players fretting over the best response.

No longer. Mass Effect presents summaries of player choices and the overall tone of what’s said. Generally, there are three responses on a radial menu, one for the higher, more righteous Paragon path, one neutral, and one for the rule-breaking, by any means necessary Renegade path. They may read as “Yes, I’ll gladly help”, “Yes, if I must”, or “No way in hell” to the player, but those choices may never actually be spoken. Instead, they become “Of course I’ll help you Chiala, nobody should be in that situation”, “I’m hesitant, but you need help, so I’ll do what it takes, Chiala”, or “Not a chance Chiala, you got yourself into it, you get yourself out.” Rarely even then is it so simply worded, but it can all be chosen before the last line is fully spoken. What that ends up doing is allowing players to pick exactly what they want to say, the dialog flows naturally, and is actually interesting. The game’s worst voice acting is “Really good”, so hearing your character speak is worth it, players don’t just mash the “skip dialog” button. Especially when guns might be drawn in the middle of things or threats exchanged. And for those players who have subtitles off(and they’re very unnecessary thanks to good audio balance and acting), if a dialog option isn’t chosen for several seconds, the last spoken line is displayed on-screen, as a reminder.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but frankly, it’s a god damn revolution. RPGs from now on absolutely need to have radial menus and summaries of dialog. It’s faster, it flows better, it makes every conversation feel like a cutscene.

The game’s audio is just stunning as a whole, with a beautiful synthetic soundtrack. It reaches for orchestral score levels, while maintaining a perfect 80s groove, pulled from sci-fi classics. The music fits perfectly in dramatic sections, or exploration. A lonely tune playing exploring a frozen, hostile world. And when action hits, well, again, it’s perfect. The music alone says “Lasers! Pew pew!”, and that, my friends, is something we need more of.

The graphics carry the style quite well. A combination of realistic humanoid models combined with some great sci-fi stylings for some of the more alien species and locations serves the game well. Faces are particularly well detailed, even those created by players in the very nice character creation screen. It’s much easier to make something which looks good and is suited to the player’s tastes, rather than the character generation as of late which tends to be a struggle to not make something horrible(Oh, I dunno, let’s say Oblivion). Aliens are creative, NPCs look good, and settings are great. There are two complaints I have regarding the graphics, and they are, generally, small. The level of detail on faces is high, but there are a few humans with shaved heads where there’s a visible drop in definition, even a change in texture from a wrinkled old man’s face to a taut, smooth bald head. Shading can look odd at times, sometimes appearing more as stippling than shadow due to the way it looks to affect individual pixels. Sparkles of light and darkness play on the surfaces, looking grainy and incomplete at points.

There’s a certain appeal to exploring the galaxy which is hard to quantify. When you drop down in a heavily armed armored vehicle on an unexplored planet with stunningly dangerous conditions outside, there’s a sense of wonder, even though the worlds tend to have some copy/paste features. Bases laid out the same or at least, amazingly similarly, and mines, for example, on lots of worlds. Sometimes it seems like there’s a company building generic pirate and space bases for deployment on remote worlds, but since there’s only a few companies making ships and armor, it’s not far-fetched to think of it that way.

And even with the repetition, you’re roaming all over space, doing your thing. Every planet you can reach has, at the very least, flavor text. Many can be surveyed for side-quest items, or landed on. Even some asteroid belts have pieces of side-quest gear attached, be it minerals or artifacts lost in debris. Large areas can be explored when a planet can be landed on, though some planets only have a few items, while others are gold mines(or plutonium, platinum, lead, aluminum, or a host of other metals you can find for experience points and credits).

Mass Effect captures the feeling of space opera perfectly, happily taking influence from classic movies, books, and games. There are certainly flaws, but once you’re into the game, they’re mostly forgotten. It’s an amazing experience, and as is usual for Bioware, the experience is what you remember afterward. And just to encourage you to do it again, achievements earned in game do more than give points to the gamerscore, they give actual in-game bonuses. More health, more ammo, or unlocked skill trees for new characters, regardless of class. Higher levels to cap with and start at even. It takes the idea of “New Game +” to a great new place. The combat is fun, the story is great, and it’s all extremely memorable, and begs for the sequel to hurry up.

Mass Effect gets 4.5 of 5 canes. The menu problems really are awful, and the elevators are a big distraction, even if the conversations taking place during the rides are nice. If Bioware takes the chance to patch the menus to something useable, it just might push the game’s score to the fifth cane. As long as you can tolerate some bad menus, there’s an amazing game to be had here, and every 360 owner should have it.

The galaxy is a big, big place. And when you can explore this much of it, things take a while.

The general policy here is to get to the end of any game with a linear objective, and to get a significant dose of sandboxes and sports games.

Well, there is an end goal to Mass Effect, and there’s a lot of sidequest. I’m at 22 hours, and I believe I’m halfway done at most. It’s not too early to recommend the game, however, and this is the point where I do so.

In summary, the game is awesome. I’m going to go over my weak points, in a nice bulleted list, so you know what to watch for, because the rest is just great.

• Loading. Lots of it, and if you’ve been playing for a while and your Xbox is getting hot, you’ll see more of it. It’s never a long load, often just a little 2 second popup. But god damn, elevators are slow. So very slow, and a few times I’m sure that if I could have taken some sort of stairs, I’d be there already. Upside is elevators often have sounds playing that are relevant to dealings in the area, or even galaxy.
• Combat can be really hard at points, and is tricky to get the hang of at first. It’s best to think Rainbow Six:Vegas, frankly. The control is a bit different, but the idea is the same, even if it’s a bit simpler, or seems such. Taking cover, directing the squad to points, and occasionally using a grenade to clear enemies, that’s what keeps you alive and gets combat won. Rambo usually gets killed in this game, but the game DOES allow for sprinting from point to point, and bashing anyone in the way.
• Textures pop-in a lot, but it’s not usually notable unless in conversation with a character still wearing a low-res skin.
• Once in a while, frames drop, this usually is worse with a hot Xbox. Only at one point have I consistently had a bad framerate due to a vey high number of enemies and NPCs in that exact location.
• The AI pathfinding can have a few quirks. Allies can’t open doors that close between them and you, but will magically teleport back to the player at certain points. They sometimes have issues in combat, like trying to steal the spot you’re using for cover, or getting caught in the open. Otherwise, not too bad, and they’re perfectly capable of shooting things and not dying too much.

That’s the big stuff. The rest, it’s great. Once you’ve got combat down, you’ll feel like a bad motherfucker, even specializing in pistols(and for a while, I had a much easier time finding stronger pistols than sniper rifles). There are a few spots that can result in death several times until the player figures out what’s the right way to handle a situation, but they’re extremely rewarding, and for people who just hate dying in combat, the game’s easy settings are very forgiving.

Go on now, go buy Mass Effect. It’s absolutely outstanding and a brilliantly refined and polished game. And expect to replay it, because there will be plenty of times that make you say “Oh, damn it, I wish I had that character with me!” when things turn a certain way, plotwise.

Continuing with the previous theme, Mass Effect is pretty god damn awesome. Tiny nitpicks are the worst of my complaints(and so far, they’re all featured on Penny Arcade). The game likes to load. A lot. The loading screens tend to be very pretty though, full of nice graphics and sound. Nothing more than a few exquisitely animated frames with sound effects, but I can’t complain at all about them. The elevators, well, they’re slow, but often provide audio that reflects recent player achievements, or has information opening new missions.

Combat is NOT a snooze affair like Jade Empire’s could be. Players won’t get the equivalent of Storm Dragon(a fighting style that stunned the majority of enemies opening them up for easy big damage attacks, followed by another stun, etc.), and making a bad move can prove highly fatal. Charging into a room, not knowing where cover is, or just sloppy positioning of teammates will get you killed, particularly when fighting a boss battle or side quest. Combat is, in a weird way, realistic. It’s not hard to compare to Rainbow Six: Vegas when playing, though R6 didn’t have long distance hacking or psionic attacks. Cover, teamwork, and judicious grenade use, along with a good choice of weapons, go a long way still, and taking a rocket to the face can put you all the way back.

Of course, when you pull off a really dangerous assault through a nasty enemy infested room, bunker, cave, or what-have-you, it feels so good.

Tomorrow, some thoughts on uncharted worlds and exploration, along with the most un-rollable troop transport ever.

I should have put up some Mass Effect impressions by now, but I just spent the last 24 hours with the vomiting and not being able to sit upright. Right now the most basic of video games is prettymuch beyond my grasp(so is typing right now), but for those waiting, the first impression is “God damn, this is great.”

So there you go. When my mind and body return to some sort of proper function, as neither is working at full capacity alone, much less in sync, I’ll have more.

According to Official Xbox Magazine, the next update for the dashboard will include a hell of a feature.

Downloadable Xbox games, for 1200 points(aka, $15). The list as of now includes: Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, Fable, Burnout 3, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex, Halo:Combat Evolved, and my personal favorite of the list, Indigo Prophecy.

If you haven’t played Indigo Prophecy(also known as Fahrenheit) yet, do it. It’s an amazing adventure game based on QTE action sequences, and interactions using the analog sticks to replicate motion. While the storytelling gets a touch disjointed or jumps once in a while, it, and the and characters, are sheer genius, making the game a must own.

It remains to be seen if Fable will be the original or director’s cut, but hopefully the latter.

Now if only they’d add Beyond Good and Evil to the list, and give me some software compatibility for Steel Battalion. I can buy the Xbox-USB adapter myself, but damn it, I spent $200 on that game!

Big update! The latest news release puts Psychonauts on the list for full games. Good stuff, that.

Ace Combat 6:Fires of Liberation(actually it’s the seventh game, but hey, it’s better than Dark Forces 4:Jedi Knight 3:Jedi Academy in terms of titling) is a (fairly unrealistic) flight combat sim, trading accuracy in flight models, ammo counts, and sheer durability for raw action and excitement. And damn it, it works.

AC6 tells the story of several people caught up in a war of aggression, on both sides. The player, while instrumental in every mission, doesn’t actually get directly involved in the story, as has usually been the case for the games. The player flies missions, blows things up, and the game follows characters who have to deal with the repercussions of it. While the voice acting can be a bit rough, and the mouths rarely line up right, there’s a surprisingly strong story to be found, especially as things begin to come to a conclusion. It’s too bad it couldn’t be explored in more depth.

Back to the gameplay, AC6 is based in the air, usually blasting other fighters from the sky, or bombing ground targets. Most missions feature some of each, letting players choose to focus on certain missions within the missions. Instead of just one uber-goal as previous games have had, many stages are split into phases, with simultaneous missions occurring, picked and chosen by players as they feel like it. They don’t stop, but it’s easy to focus on one, and the radar can highlight targets for specific missions. Rarely will any of those feature purely anti-air or anti-ground objectives, but they tend to be biased toward one side. There are a few mixed missions, but they’re uncommon, overall, which is fine. Before flight, players pick a plane(which they earn with points for good performance) and a special weapon(three per plane, also earned via points). Special air to air missiles, air to ground/sea missiles, or bombs are what to expect for the most part, with some planes having more of some categories.

Once they’re out in the fray, there are two main things to focus on. Locking onto a target(much easier with ground targets), and not getting shot(much easier with air targets). Going in a straight line is the easiest way to get blown out of the sky, except at extreme speeds some of the later jets are capable of, but even then it’s not safe, and those speeds are only for escape or rushing to a target in order to save a group(usually, of ground troops) being decimated before a mission is completed.

Even on low difficulties, there’s a tangible sense of pressure during combat. Rarely are players left to their own devices, unhindered by enemy fire, though they can order wingmen or squads to cover them. Constantly adjusting flight paths, sweeping maneuvers, and in the case of bombing runs, high altitude dives are extremely important, as is controlling speed and altitude for certain weapons which take those factors into account to determine the damage spread. Stand-off dispensers have more powerful, concentrated blasts at slow speed, for example, but can do moderate damage to a long line of enemies at speed. Another weapon which fragments in mid-air will determine spread by altitude, decimating things when fired close to the ground, or dropping a lot of damage over a massive area when fired from 40,000 feet.

It’s not terribly complex, it’s hard to stall, it’s easy to just rocket forth and pull crazy maneuvers, and you’ve got 40 missiles which are perfectly functional on all targets. Add in special weapons which can come in large numbers and are extremely damaging, and the intent is clear. The player is a flying death machine intended to destroy all in his path. After a mission is finished, it just ramps up with support. Instead of just calling a wingman, any spare troops will come to your side, not just friendly aircraft. Calling for cover will result in friendly units crushing anything that’s targeting you, with extreme prejudice. An allied strike will result in bombers, ground troops, and even ships firing on targets. Calling in an artillery barrage from an allied cruiser is the sort of thing more games need, especially when it saves a mission from failure.

Of course, with all the firing being done, at you and by you, taking damage or running low on weapons is inevitable. Fortunately, AC6 has chosen to make it so there’s not a single level where you can’t return to base to resupply and repair. It’ll take you out of the action for a few minutes, meaning some losses for missions and escorts, but you won’t die and have to start over. Some maps have friendly airstrips(or you can take them over with the help of ground troops), allowing players to choose to land on them and never leave the mission area. It’s risky to land in fire, and difficult, but is the most efficient method by far. Of course, just taking off can be a real hazard as speed is low and enemies are plentiful, all too eager to put a missile in your afterburners as you start gaining speed for lift-off. But it sure is exciting, and it makes missions much more fun when players can just let loose with a Caligulaic orgy of destruction, dropping daisy cutters and shrapnel from upon high, unleashing lead into anything visible. If you can see it, it’s almost certain you can make it explode, be it on the air or ground.

And destruction is beautiful. Photorealistic at some points, frankly. The smoke trails left by missiles, the fire of a blast, even the way you feel it through the controller when a big bomb goes off under you, it’s amazing. This is a game that leads to a feeling of total immersion in combat, which is wonderful, the adrenaline just never wears off in a fight. You just get more of it at higher difficulties.

The visuals are mostly superb. Cutscenes look wonderful, planes look absolutely real, most terrain too. The only exception is that some of the ground textures are rather low resolution, or have features not reflected by the game(buildings that don’t stand, for example). The ground is, essentially, a big google map. Cities and major features actually get buildings, which are great to weave in and out of in combat, and excel at protecting tanks from your bombs and missiles. But actually getting that kill is oh so satisfying, no matter how often it’s done. But when you see a building or feature on the ground texture, yet not representing, it tends to stand out. In the middle of combat though, it disappears fast amidst the amazing sky

Audio hits the spot as well, unsurprisingly. The music is excellent, and the rest, well, it sounds like it should. Roaring afterburners, powerful blasts, and lots of swooshes. Beeps, warnings, and radio chatter stand out and work well, as they should. A good sound system really adds to the experience for AC6. And the sound of a flak gun as you fly by will really jolt players from any sense of security, if there aren’t already constant warning beeps for missiles keeping them nervous.

The single player campaign is rather short, clocking in near 3 hours for veteran players, and is intended to be replayed to unlock more planes and paint jobs for them, at higher difficulty levels, but it’ll only appeal to collectors. Any plane bought, or weapon, can be sold back for the same amount it cost, meaning fancy new jets often just mean letting go of an older one that’s not going to have any use with the replacement. For obsessive collectors, though, there’s plenty to get, despite the fact I can’t help but feel there are fewer options in this game than previous ones.

Multiplayer is a good diversion, but not as fun as the single-player. The mode I had the most fun with, siege(an attack/defense map), rarely has players, and has one map. Most of the games I played were team deathmatch, sometimes with a special plane on each side that assists radar lockons, increasing in efficiency with more kills by the team, resetting when shot down. The matches are a good pace, though difficult since it takes more weaponry to get a kill than in SP. They also tend to frustrate with unbalanced scores, leaving team players behind. Points are only scored for the kill, making players who attack from a range to pepper enemies and soften them up will get no points at all all too often, or those who do most of the damage with a set of missiles and have someone finish a target with a machine gun get no credit. It’s also impossible to see who’s speaking when in lobby or game. Xbox live games need, absolutely need, to show who’s talking so you know just who you can’t stand and should mute. A fast way to mute players as well, is needed, and lacking in most games, forcing people to view gamercards. Sadly, AC6 isn’t an exception to this either. Not that you’ll know who’s being muted unless you see someone join a server and notice their annoying chatter at the same time. Multiplayer mode also lacks any readouts on the planes. You can fly anything you bought in campaign, but unless you’ve got the stats memorized, you’ll probably fly the F22a Raptor like everyone else does. The MP game is dominated by certain planes and missile types, and as such, can wear out fast. It’s a good attempt, but lacking. Strong, objective based gameplay would have really hit the spot, and hopefully will next time around.

Ace Combat 6 makes some big steps forward overall, not just graphically, though there is a distinct lack of length, and a need for more mission variety. AC0:The Belkan War and AC5:The Unsung War both excelled in this, but not 6. A lack of air-to-ship missions disappoints, and there’s not many assaults on enemy strongholds. While this is in keeping with the game’s story, they were always my favorites, followed by air-ship assaults. A few more specific enemies would have been great as well. One particular squad shows a few times, but doesn’t end up becoming distinct like the squads in Zero did.

Ace Combat 6:Fires of Liberation scores 3.5 out of 5 stars. It’s an excellent flight combat game, marred by a lack of variety, and definitely hurt by a lack of length. It gets repetitive fairly quickly, but despite, manages to stay fun most of the time, excepting for a few frustrating moments. For anyone hard up for a flight fix, it’s an easy purchase, for the rest, it’s a great rental.

For the last 8 years, Tony Hawk has been the only name in the video skateboarding game. Arcade-style gameplay taking the basics from real skateboarding but to an extreme level was the start of the formula, which has been refined over the years and generally improved upon(with the unfortunate exceptions of THUG2 and Project 8, which left a lot to be desired).

Now EA sports has made an entry, and rather than compete to top Tony Hawk, they’ve chosen to take a new, hardcore simulation route. Some major innovations are present, but they’re not without their share of major problems.

skate.(yes, that’s how EA chooses to spell it) focuses on the career. Completing challenges like photoshoots, races, and competitions opens up bigger and better venues. With some time and practice, players go from skating a small park to the X Games and beyond, or will, eventually, if they don’t throw the game out the window for the ridiculous difficulty cliff. This is no curve, this is a 88 degree incline that should come with climbing equipment and a bungee cord for the controllers that will inevitably be hurled at certain points of the game.

So what makes skate. skate.? Aside from the punctuational clusterfuck it causes, the control is focused on the analog sticks to trick, using a gesture system. Unfortunately, when it comes to intermediate, let alone advanced tricks, the arcane symbols one’s thumb must produce can be more difficult to achieve than Black and White’s most complex “Fuck you creature, stop eating my worshippers” command ever was. While every trick is, in theory, unlocked from the very start of the game, doing anything beyond a pop shove-it isn’t likely to happen intentionally for some time. Even a proper ollie at speed can be a challenge, often resulting in leaving the ground by three inches or launching eight feet into the air with no apparent reason what made the difference.

skate. is entirely reliant on planning ahead. Kick to build up speed, crouch and prepare the ollie, then launch into the air and pump for extra height off pipes, carefully flick the right stick and use the left stick for any body movement, and, hopefully, land. That isn’t so bad, usually. The problem is that it’s INCREDIBLY easy to bail before you even start a trick. Many goals are in areas full of pedestrians, and a slight bump will kill your speed or knock you right off the board, as well as knock the pedestrian over, leaving them in the way when you try to line up again for a trick. Not just that, but any little upward change in height will hurl you away from the board. Street curbs are vicious foes which MUST be manually ollied over, and often that attempt will end up in a grind. Which itself can lead right to a bail if you didn’t ollie high enough due to not having prepared long enough, hit the stick fast enough, or just coming on too straight when you didn’t intend to grind at all. All the bailing that will be done, and it is an exceptional amount, can turn incredibly frustrating, especially when there’s no apparent reason for it. skate. has a long way to go for user friendliness, helping players over small obstacles rather than expecting them to have ESP in order to do anything other than faceplant.

Despite the frustrations, competitions are a lot of fun. They’re hectic and among the few times the game feels truly improvised, as the vast majority of goals are pre-planned to a good extent. Most of the time, players are racing other skaters in what’s called Deathracing. Sadly, it’s nowhere near as exciting as Futurama’s Deathrolling. It’s an exercise in repetition, memorizing the course and going as fast as possible through it. Unfortunately when everyone basically moves at the same speed and it’s hard enough to just stay on the board, the event doesn’t work. Other common goals are photo or video shoots. Photo shoots have a specific place you go to, pull off a trick or two with given conditions(certain tricks, scores, objects, etc.), and move on. They’re usually in high traffic areas or simply hard to reach spots, further adding to the frustration of what should be a simple trick. Video shoots are certain conditions and goals, but the player picks the spot and has a certain amount of time to achieve them in. It’s an idea that sounds good, but too many goals need very specific locations to pull off.

Unfortunately, skate.’s control is just too unwieldy most of the time. Complex inputs combined with precarious balance don’t mix well for many complex tricks, especially anything with a grab or rotation. If it has both, be prepared to suffer. The analog control is a great idea, but it’s too loose still, and too random for most thumbs. That, combined with the difficulty of simply moving forward without falling, is enough to cause many to quit the game prematurely. On top of that, akward camera angles(a very low camera placed close to the board and off to either side) really cause trouble when it comes to judging distances and positioning relative to objects.

The game’s presentation outdoes the actual skating by far, despite the camera complaints. Though textures can look a bit blurred at times, most of the world is crisp and clear, and skaters(both original and pro) are easily recognized. The settings are great, with a real feel for each neighborhood being present. Boards look great and well worn in some cases, as they should. The audio is up to snuff as well, featuring, I can’t believe I’m saying this, good music from EA Trax. Really. It’s good. That’s not a joke. Besides the music, which isn’t heard terribly often by default, the sound of the boards and impacts resulting from failing at there use excels. The rough rumble of rolling over concrete, squeaks and scrapes as wheels slide against hard surfaces, and meaty thuds help to immerse the player in the fictional city of San Velona.

Of course, audio and video don’t make up for bad gameplay, and there’s just too much of it in skate., despite the potential that’s there. In the end, it just isn’t fun. It’s slow, overly deliberate, and frustrating as hell. The game desperately needs fine tuning and a coat of polish despite the best of intentions, and as much as Tony Hawk can learn from it, it can learn from Hawk in terms of accessibility. Specifically, seriously, stop making me bail from the slightest things. I know in reality a curb can throw you, but this isn’t reality. Reality isn’t always fun.

skate. gets 3 out of 5 canes. It’s not bad, but it’s not good. Hardcore sim gamers can find a lot to love here, arcade gamers can find a lot to loathe.