Game Curmudgeons

God damn it, who did this?

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic wasn’t game of the year by any means when it came out in 2006, but it was pretty damn good anyway if you could look past the flaws or somewhat repetitive nature of the game. Of course, to look past those, you had to see something at all, and the game tended to drop to 15 FPS for no reason at all, but that’s another issue, now isn’t it?

Well, imagine all the good elements of the gameplay got cut in favor of a process so streamlined you don’t get to make any choices except “What class will you pick?” at the start. Oh, I’m sorry, did you enjoy how the PC version had three skill trees, letting you use big fucking weapons, staves, arrows, nasty stabby daggers, or flaming death from your fingertips? Too bad now. Not only are you shoehorned into the class of “warrior”, “archer”, “assassin”, or “mage” at the start, you don’t even get to choose how to level up within them. You get experience for killing things, and at a certain point you level up, getting the next skill in the line, whether you want it or not.

And to keep up with that theme of extreme linearity, levels have been shortened or simplified quite a bit. The opening level is, in fact, entirely different(save for some recycled voices and keys). The second level, which was previously an intense rush to figure out where to go while being attacked by an undead cyclops, is now a 2 minute affair that never fails to hold your hand. I can’t define everything that’s been changed, sadly, but I can say far too much in terms of design. This is the essence of dumbed down. You can’t even pick up another type of weapon now. Hey, did you happen to somehow find frost daggers? A bow which launches exploding arrows? Oh, I’m sorry. You’re a warrior. You only get to use the occasional sword you find.

Even for non-warriors, too much of the game comes down to smashing the attack button. The previous careful tactics allowed by the flexibility of the game are gone. No more warriors getting out a bow and arrow to hit a weak spot or trigger a trap to avoid combat. Now they just have to walk on into the fight. And archers who get caught off guard? Well, that’s too bad, they won’t be pulling out a nice dagger or staff for protection. Not that arrows matter. It’s apparent immediately that the hero weilds a 10 foot sword, at least when of the warrior class. It’s far too easy to strike targets that are clearly on the other end of the great hall you happen to be pillaging.

Of course, there are other things than gameplay. Graphics, for example, and sound. Both are terrible. Muddy textures, poor animation, unstable framerates. The sound? Also muddy and skipping heavily. I’m not sure if swords have collided or someone dropped the fine china half the time. Even the FMV cutscenes, which are ripped straight from the prior version, look worse off. Poorly compressed with bad framerates.

This is an absolute failure of a port. A game that was previously quite good, if flawed has been considerably downgraded over the last 17 months. All good elements of the original have been stripped entirely, leaving lackluster combat with poor collision detection, little strategy, and no variety. Far too often sections have been stripped from levels, and the new ones are simply awful. From the very beginning of the game, with the near total redesign to the end where the flexibility that made things so good has been removed, the whole thing is simply awful.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic:Elements gets 1 star, because even if you never get a chance, it’s fun to kill enemies with the environment, and certain moments still work well, and the story is still fine. Everything else, ugh. Ruined.

John Mullins would not be pleased. Neither would Raven Software, I’d imagine.

Soldier of Fortune:Payback has almost nothing to do with the previous games, and the entire list is as follows.

1. The Shop is still your outfitter.
2. You’re a mercenary.
3. There’s a system for enemy dismemberment.

I suppose we could count “It’s an FPS” as number four, but it’s not a good one, as much as I’d hoped it would be.
Graphically, Payback is pretty average. No nasty texture seams, nothing blurry or obviously low-poly. But nothing ever stands out, particularly very flat, artificial feeling buildings and enemies that never feel real. Lots of slowdown, for some reason, plagued the game, despite the fact it should be optimized fully for the console. Some texture pop-in is present as well, which annoys but is ignored by those of us who loved Mass Effect so much. The gore is over the top, and too much so even given the series roots. Previously extreme damage would remove limbs or decimate them, and that was certainly fun. However, now one low caliber pistol round blows an entire arm off, and it’s clear the game can’t decide if it wants to be tactical or arcadey anymore in looks or gameplay.

Stay in cover too long, and enemies will charge you. Step into the open, get blasted by an RPG. It’s hard to make the right move without already knowing where enemies are, and that’s not to mention the way they tend to spawn behind you, and how bad the AI is. Silently spawning behind you, they’ll walk up and melee you often. The rare times they flank you, they still don’t shoot, they run up and melee. It seems the only time they ever shoot is from your front, or above you on a rooftop. That is, when they shoot instead of just charging ahead and beyond you. Yeah, that happens too.

The game never really becomes intense, just annoying sometimes. Manning a machine gun is almost suicidal, enemies seem to have pinpoint aim when you’re on one, and good luck getting a hit on them. They seem to take less damage from .50 cal round than a Beretta to the hand. Fortunately it’s easy to let go and duck behind cover to regenerate health, but it shouldn’t be such an effort to mow down enemies in a game that’s all about blasting people into teeny bits.

The audio at least was good enough. Weapons do sound good, and the explosions are pleasing to the ears(even though grenades do fuck all against most enemies). The voices all come across clearly, and the acting is fine. Sadly, the audio just can’t carry the game’s lack of entertainment value.

Lots of weapons that you’ll barely get to use, lots of mods you’ll never use for them, and a lot of slogging about defines Soldier of Fortune:Payback. It’s a long way from the creeping around subway tunnels of the original, or even the hazmat assaults of the second. The multiplayer has dropped out severely and the GHOUL engine is looking pretty poor these days. It’s gone from intricate details like slicing off someone’s earlobe with a good shot to a head or arm blowing off with any damage in that general area.

Soldier of Fortune:Payback gets 2 out of 5 canes. It’s not an awful game, but it’s certainly not good, and the novelty wears out fast, even as short as the single player campaign is.

Ah, Birdman. Possibly one of the worst superheroes ever, now working as a somewhat less terrible lawyer. Still not good, still reliant quite often on dumb luck and Avenger as he ever was.

So, how’s the first video game (that I can recall, at least) featuring our winged failure? Well, it’s about like everything he does. It’s a half-hearted effort that has moments of genius, and plenty of “eh.” In reality, the game could have been five episodes of the show to begin with, and it often feels they shoehorned it into the Ace Attorney framework. Phoenix Wright he ain’t, but he tries.

The whole thing is a little clunkier, and the humor is different (though up to the standards of the show certainly). The animation is slightly below show quality, which isn’t high to begin with. The vast majority of the visual elements are recycled, but it wouldn’t be true to source otherwise. And to keep things just as true to the show, the voice actors have all returned (with the exception of Colbert, who’s stand-in does a pretty good job anyway).

A definite upside is that the major points are all done in FMV. Dialog, events, character interactions. There’s text to be read while examining areas and going back over testimony, but having the majority of the game animated and a lot acted, it adds a ton to the authenticity.

The investigations and court cases are funny, certainly, but weak. While it works in televised humor, the somewhat non-sequitur presentations of evidence require some real leaps of logic. And sometimes an eye to spot tiny, almost invisible items in the game to advance. While it’s hilarious when it happens, getting there, well, frustrating. Add to the fact that pressing most statements only gets a canned response of the “No, no need for that” variety, and it feels like the wrong kind of low budget, and the content is very, very limited.

It took me about 5 hours to play through the game, with two very short chases, and three longer ones. None of any real difficulty, and none I put too much effort into. For those who blast through Ace Attorney games (if you’ve already beaten Apollo Justice, for example), this one will take all of two hours. Slower players won’t get more than eight. A lot funny, not a lot of content.

Harvey Birdman:Attorney at Law gets 2.5 out of 5 canes. At $40, it’s too expensive for a budget game, which it clearly is. If it hits XBLA or drops to 20 dollars, it’s a good laugh, but you’d be better to spend your money on the DVDs of the show. Damn fine rental, though.

Ah, cell phone games. I admit, I usually don’t like you. You control poorly and my game gear has more power and is less prone to crashing, plus it’s so much easier to install.

But damn it, when Bookworm goes mobile, I have to reconsider my opinion on the format.

Bookworm is a simple enough game. You have a set of tiles, you form words by connecting tiles, those disappear, new ones fall in from the top. Spelling big words gets bonuses, small words result in burning tiles, which will destroy one tile under them until they hit the bottom. If not used by then, game over man, game over! For a change of pace, there’s action mode, where you have constantly moving burning tiles, meaning quickly making new words with those tiles is priority.

Yes, it’s classic, simple PopCap. Very classic, really, as it first came out in 2003. It’s refined, it’s fun, it’s addictive, and holds up very well thanks to the predictive text input the game allows, particularly useful with action mode. While players can use the keys as a cursor, it’s a bit slow, cumbersome, and definitely a liability in action mode. Single or multi-tap input is available, and for those who live by text message or instant messenger(like myself), it’s wonderful. Single tap wraps around the potential words you’re forming, at least that are possible within the letters available, and one can scroll through the options with the # and * keys. It’s a little cheaty, at points, when multiple combinations show and reveal easy answers, but it really speeds up the game and makes it feel natural. Of course, for those with too much money and a full keypad built into the phone, the game will take that input too.

That’s just about all there is to Bookworm. Special bonus tiles give more points and can delay burning tiles by using special combination words earned by long words. Burning tiles are bad, and to be removed ASAP. More combinations for long words start to show as levels advance, but so do burning tiles. It’s a trade off!

Bookworm is a simple game, easy to pick up and hard to put down. If you don’t mind some massive battery drain, it’s an easy purchase. Go ahead, try it. Aside from less sound effects and visual effects, it’s the same game, and will keep you playing a long time.

Bookworm for mobile phones/PDA/Blackberry gets 4 out of 5 canes. A few more bells and whistles, video and audio effects would have been nice, but the core game is strong and addictive as ever. Really, I’ve worn my battery out three times today.

Blood! SO MUCH BLOOD!!! Action has come in heavy doses lately, here’s the roundup of what’s good, what’s bad, and what you should know about it all.

Virtua Fighter 5- As long as you’re not entirely new to the series, you can probably tell already if it’s worth having. It’s all about detail and realism(well, Kage-Maru is an exception, but hey, he’s a damn ninja). Defense is key, as is learning an individual character, and how their martial arts style works best. It’s not a game friendly to newbies, and it’s not an easy game by any means, but it’s incredibly rewarding to learn 5 stances(or in one case, over 100), a very large set of attacks, and use them to crush people in a super stylish way. Jeet kun do, lucha wrestling, pancrate, kickboxing, judo, and drunken boxing are among the great list of styles used in the game.

Graphically and aurally, the game does very well. Meaty smacks help to sell heavy impacts, all characters have appropriate(though sparse) voicing. Characters and environments are highly detailed, though there’s an unfortunate overabundance of shine. VF5’s fighters have a definite glow about them, and the more skin is visible, the more it turns into a blinding reflection. Some clipping issues and a few relatively minor collision detection issues pop up. I’ve never seen a clear connection miss, but a few times something that barely missed will register as a hit, and some animations, usually throws, suffer from space between the hands of one fighter and face/body of another, as if the force is being used.

Still, complaints about looks aside, the game is excellent, but takes dedication and has a very steep learning curve. It’s incredibly deep and if fighting is your bag, this one will last a long time.

Virtua Fighter 5 gets 4 out of 5 canes

Dragon Ball Z:Tenkaichi 3- Holy crap, another DBZ game that doesn’t suck! Don’t count on that too often, but it’s not going to hold much appeal outside of the DBZ fan base. Tenkaichi 3 is a relatively shallow fighter with a fun story mode(though prone to being extremely frustrating, and to those who don’t know the story already, the mechanics of waiting on a character switch can be extremely frustrating), and some good extra modes, such as character building and tournaments which will grant points for yet more character building.

The game tends toward some button mashing as the mechanics for throws and guarding can be complex, but a very simple, intuitive combo system captures the feel of the show, as do the many power struggles which rely in spinning the right stick around rapidly. Most characters play in a very similar manner, with some having stronger energy blasts, stronger punches, or better speed, which makes it easy to pick up a new character, but not much in the way of variety. The game’s pacing is much like the show. Flurries of frenzied action, punches, fireballs, followed by someone being out of energy, or both fighters, meaning lots of yelling and groaning until there’s enough power for another set of big attacks or transformations.

The character models are very good, and the voice actors from the show provide the voices, in English and Japanese. Mountains explode during battles with yelling and grunting, craters are formed, and in general, it’s just true to the series and movies as can be, without taking 30 minutes to charge up a special attack.

For fans of the show, it’s an easy purchase, and it’s a good game for casual fighter fans. For people who want a highly polished deep fighter with lots of special attacks, there are better options.

DBZ:T3 gets 3 out of 5 canes. Fun, but shallow, and some major frustrations.

Smackdown Vs. Raw 2008- SvR 2006 was fun, with good stories and decent gameplay. SvR 2007 was limited in terms of story, but excellent gameplay, and marked a time when wrestling games could go mainstream. Unfortunately, SvR 2008 dropped down a notch on both elements, despite adding several good new ideas.

The upside of the game is that there are now 8 styles, each character having two. They grant unique moves and abilities, such as automatic dodging of grapples, viscious flurries, and high flying attacks. And of course, the wonderful hardcore superstar abilities to demolish opponents with tables and chairs, and to get an instant full special meter when someone starts bleeding. ECW wrestlers make plenty of appearances in game, but players are limited to Smackdown or Raw superstars for career mode. Career mode itself is extremely repetitive, and fairly buggy. Storylines rarely deviate, and either the player’s choices have no actual consequence, or they’re mislabeled constantly. And they are, certainly, mislabeled often. Career choices pop up asking “Who do you choose?”, when it’s picking a partner, an opponent, or a style of match. Often the wrong text will pop up, meaning you pick the opposite of what you want with no indication until it’s too late. Once, rather than the choices regarding the next match, I was presented with the next three lines of dialog from the announcers.

There is a stunning lack of polish with this installment of the series, and a complete lack of testing outside the ring.

Inside the ring, things have been simplified and at the same time, complicated horribly. The plethora of grapples has been severely cut down, resulting in four total holds of varying utility. Characters get a grapple for their main and secondary styles, and two ultimate control grapples. Four attacks are available for the main and secondary styles, but it’s profoundly difficult to know whether a grapple has taken. Ultimate control grapples have two or three attacks, normally, but they’re easily escaped and ineffective until midway through a match. The system feels sloppy now, and far too limited.

The new struggle submission system is a good idea in theory, but doesn’t have any player skill involved for the person trying to escape, and not much for the one applying the submission. Both players hold the right stick out. That’s it. To not lose grip, the one applying the pressure can let go, and press again with better grip to do more damage. The one receiving the pain just sits there, waiting. The game has, on the whole, dropped to button mashing and no finesse.

Graphically, the character models are good, well detailed, but never seem to actually touch each other, there’s a perpetual floating space with grapples and throws. Sure, punches don’t land in real wrestling, but you still have to actually grab someone to throw him. Hair clips poorly and seems to be made of three polygons for the longest hair with lots of transparency. Faces and body parts clip through parts of the ring fairly often as well. Before and after matches, the same select few cutscenes play, with appropriate characters selected(though the names can be wrong at points). Divas suffer terribly in the sequence they’re featured in, with animations and textures that make them look like anime clowns.

The audio is poor. Characters are almost entirely mute, superstars speak three lines throughout the entire career mode. JBL has taken his new announcing spot, but rather than being given original dialog, he’s re-recorded most of the dialog from last year that wasn’t formerly done by Taz. Only a few new pieces with he and Michael Cole are done in story mode, and it’s clear how poorly JBL’s dialog was fit in, like placing the wrong piece into a puzzle by sawing the edges until they’re close enough. A few generic grunts are in place during matches, and while the sound effects are authentic(and when hitting someone with a ring bell, hilarious), it just can’t make up for it.

Smackdown Vs. Raw 2007 caused me to spend many a night without sleep, wrestling away because it was so damn fun. Not this time.

Smackdown Vs. Raw 2008 gets two canes. It’s only going to appeal to WWE fans, and given the lack of variety and story quality, maybe not them. A severe lack of depth and a lot of glitches bring the title down. It’s playable, and some fun can be found, but it doesn’t last long.

Alpha Prime-Moving away from fighting to the FPS genre, we hit Alpha Prime. This budget shooter is available on Steam for 20 dollars, which is about the right price point. There’s some solid FPS gaming and some good map design with this title, and it’s a good first outing certainly. It’s marred, however, by very generic enemies and rather ineffective weapons compared to what enemies dish out. While I have the same chaingun, mine does very little damage and is highly inaccurate, but an enemy can kill me in a second if I make a bad move, particularly due to the warm-up time. The shotgun is extremely underpowered and slow to fire, and takes 3 or 4 point blank shots to kill enemies. Grenades are very powerful, but hard to use, and the flamethrower, while fun, is too slow killing to be much use.

The game is apt to hide enemies behind doors, slightly offset, so when players walk in they’re dropped to a very low health amount rapidly, and as such, the game is very reliant on quicksaves, and many points can be highly frustrating. To help make up for it, lots of health dispensers and packs are scattered about. There’s also some bullet time type functionality, though in reality, it’s just a little more time to aim. Weapons still fire slowly, enemies still do big damage.

The game makes use of an interesting concept of long distance hacking. Within a certain range, players can look through security cameras, overload electronics to damage/kill enemies, or use vehicles/equipment. When it works, it’s great, but there’s not enough use, especially when it could be used to prevent a lot of ambush situation.

Graphically the game is toward the high end of the last generation. Special effects aren’t terribly special, but there’s certainly no issues with them. When something blows up, it blows up well. Models have good textures, and I’ve never been busy counting jagged polygons during cutscenes.

The audio, however, leaves a lot to be desired. With one exception, the voice acting is terrible, and sounds like it was recorded by the designers in studio, and is on par with most mods. The weapons have a high pitch and sound tinny at points, or just plain weak. There’s very noticeable gaps over radio communication in game, when the message is full of static, but between lines of dialog, perfectly quiet. And the robotic enemies just doesn’t sound threatening. They sound like kids stomping on an old metal jungle gym.

Other small bits, things lost in translation, show up, but don’t really damage the game. It’s just strange, for example, to read “You picked <item>” whenever you get something.

Alpha Prime gets 3 of 5 canes. It’s thoroughly average and has some major moments of frustration, but a few good ideas keep it interesting.

Timeshift-Much like the movie Jeepers Creepers, for the first half, you’re entranced. Then the second half starts, and it’s all right down the shitter.

Timeshift has bland level design and bland colors, but good weapons and, hey, time manipulation. That’s always fun. The combat is fun, the AI is competent, and while you’re fighting through a ruined city, things are really good, though there’s a high amount of gotcha kills players have no chance to react to. Again, quicksave is your friend in this.

Time based puzzles, combined with physics elements, provide some fresh ideas, though they start to wear out quickly due to repetition.

Good graphics, decent acting, and nice special effects hold the game up for 7 hours. For the next 7, new enemies which are completely unfun, bad driving sequences, and lots of cheap deaths suck the fun right out of the game. Overpowered enemies, and enemies with their own time manipulation ability ruin the experience of being a time-skipping bad motherfucker who kills in the same amount of time other men blink.

Timeshift gets 3 canes. At the start, it was a 5 cane game and the quality dropped perfectly proportionately to time played, and was a 1 at the end.

Conan-Whee, another God of War clone. I wasn’t that fond of God of War anyway, to be honest. This does a good job of imitating the style with its own Conan twist.

First off, the story is very true to Howard’s world. Giant guys with big swords? Check. Evil sorcerers? Check. Naked chicks chained to various objects? Oh, very, very check. Ron Perlman and Claudia Black put in excellent performances, and help sell the story very well.

Gameplay revolves around brutalizing enemies, stealing their weapons to use two-handed and large weapon styles(both of which have advantages and disadvantages), and hacking up anyone in your way. Occasionally a puzzle is thrown in, but it’s never complicated and killing people tends to be the answer to them.

Graphically, mixed bag. There’s somewhat of a comic book style. Characters have a bit of a halo effect, popping out vividly against the muted backgrounds. Textures are good, well detailed, but unfortunately they stretch like goatse at some points. When Conan kneels and spreads his knees as he sits, for example, rather than dangling down, his loin cloth streeeeeeeetches accross the gap to stay firmly anchored to his knees. As people turn or move tattoos or other marks stretch and distort, and the detail suddenly isn’t so appreciated.

The sound is supreme, and some masterful foley work has been performed here. Every clash of steel, every breaking barrel, every shattered jug and snapped bone is a treat. The acting, as noted earlier, is great, and the characters are all believable. The music is, like the rest of the game, big. Orchestral scores, heavy on the bass, extra forboding as needed.

The game’s weaknesses are the standard genre weaknesses. As the game goes further on, many attacks become useless, leading to repeating the same combo over and over until an area is clear. Some enemy types are highly unbalanced and difficult to damage at all, and used with regularity, especially at the end of the game, when enemies that knock you down or send you flying off cliffs to instant death are common. Boss fights are massive enemies with no clear weak points and not much of a hint as to what to do, leading to big frustrations.

Conan gets 3.5 out of 5 canes. An above average brawler that gets far too repetitive and draws a lot from a game that isn’t that super amazing to begin with.

Assassin’s Creed- This one has been eagerly awaited since E3, 2006, and with good reason. While the devs don’t like it being called a spiritual successor to Prince of Persia, it’s hard to avoid the comparison with the free running and some of the combat elements.

Most of AC is running from rooftop to rooftop, climbing tall buildings to get a better view and finding intelligence on one’s target. Killing guards, helping out fellow assassins, pickpocketing people with information, beating up despots, and killing a lot of guards to help out citizens, who reward you with big strong guys who’ll brawl with guards, or monks and scholars to blend in with and get to guarded areas.

The free running is stunningly smooth. It’s easy to climb walls, make big jumps, dash along support beams and essentially to do all sorts of crazy acrobatics with no effort. It’s an extremely seamless experience, and a hell of a lot of fun.

When you’re not dashing about with people commenting that you’re a lunatic and if you fall, they won’t help you, and that you’re acting like a child, you’ll be hearing a lot of “Die, infidel!” and fighting guards. The combat system is just fucking brilliant, and designed toward realism, without killing the game. Countering attacks is the main method of killing, and striking enemies who are showing fatigue or fear when there’s an opening. Enemies tend to attack one at a time, though rarely the one you’re looking at. Some complain about this, but it’s the more realistic method, and more fun with this style of game. Guards that attack at the same time are just as likely to hit each other at the player, and it certainly is helpful when it happens. Combat isn’t just swinging a sword and a number being taken off an invisible counter. Enemies genuinely react to blows and situations. Kill a lot, some may run away in fear. After being blocked repeatedly, some will get tired and run out of breath, becoming easy targets.

Do enough shit around one of three major cities(Jerusalem, Acre, or Damascus), and assassinations open up. While killing these targets is rather the goal of the game, it’s actually among the weaker sections at points. Planning a route, getting into an area quietly, and making the kill are fun, but there’s a lot of hassle. Beggars just won’t stop bothering you, for example, and as much as I loved hurling them into a wall, guards get mad, and if they’re already suspicious from having seen a few of their friends knocked off, they’ll charge right over to hack my head off. Crazy shirtless assholes are wandering around the cities as well, and unlike the beggars, I can’t just ignore them. I get too close, they shove me into a crowd, and guards blame me.

When you get to the kill point, a long, long cutscene starts, and it stops you from getting to your optimum planned position usually. And in one instance, when you can get there, it won’t trigger the cutscene. Stabbing people in the neck is extremely fun, but there’s a lot of hassle in the process, and it’s not all fun. The game definitely gets repetitive, and some things, like assassin helper missions, end up forcing you to listen to the same speech over and over again.

The graphics? Fucking stunning, quite possibly the best of the year. This is what I expect when I hear next-gen graphics. Every character looks absolutely real. The animation is smooth, amazingly so, and interactions always line up right whether it’s walls, enemies, or beggars being hurled.

Sound is top notch as well. Most of the acting is very good, though hard to hear at a few points. Metal scrapes and falling rocks are the most common sounds, and they’re completely authentic. They’re so authentic they’re easily taken for granted, in fact. Most players are so absorbed they don’t even realize that yes, that rock hitting the wall sounds like it should.

A few other things bring the game down. For one, the story is told in a very disjointed way, due to reasons that are spoilery, you probably know anyway, but that I’m not going to say. Beyond that, always with the long runs throughout Maysaf, where you start and prepare for missions. You must travel all the way from the sanctuary to the city gates, then, a total of four times, you’re forced to endure The Kingdom. It’s a very large, very boring, very annoying nexus area where guards are always hostile. You’re on horseback for most of it, except when a guard knocks you off, or you have to climb a building to get a piece of the map revealed. The combat on horseback is terrible, and I recommend avoiding it at all costs. Really. Just run right past the guards. Don’t bother to hide or anything, just run to the next checkpoint, and as soon as is possible, skip directly to the cities. Once you’ve gotten to each one once, you can warp right over.

Assassin’s Creed gets 4 canes. Some repetition brings it down, as does The Kingdom and horse combat, along with other annoyances like crazy medieval shirtless dickweeds and beggar women who won’t shut up and get the fuck out of the way. Fortunately, the latter is a 5 point achievement for throwing enough of them around, so it’s safe to unleash your inner Ike Turner.

The Simpsons Game-Great production values, great writing, bad gameplay. Excruciatingly bad platform brawling, very often, struggled through to see the next cutscene which will be completely hilarious, or just to see some great gaming parodies.

Honestly, that’s it. It’s a game about gaming, with some great writing that will keep you laughing the whole way. Comic Book Guy points out video game cliches, EA gets mocked in its own game, and the feel is perfectly Simpsons. But the platforming and fighting are terrible, and frustrating. Expect to die over and over, spend a lot of time getting back from checkpoints, and trying to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to do next, especially with a terrible camera system. And again, like so many brawlers, by the end of it extremely difficult enemies with little weakness are hurled at you en masse, sucking what fun there was right out of the gaming sections.

The Simpsons Game gets 3 canes. It’s hilarious and would be better served as a movie or episodes of the show rather than an actual game. Rent it and blow through it over a weekend, it’s fairly short anyway.

That’s it. 8 reviews of varying length and quality, much like the games themselves. I’m now going to pass out, and if you don’t like what you see here, you can lump it! Or comment, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong, that works too.

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.

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.

I don’t like sports games. I don’t like sports. Or reviewing sports games for that matter.

Well, as far as sports and the games go, there are two exceptions to each. Boxing and Fight Night Round 3 hit the spot for me. And so do hockey and NHL 08.

It’s hard to put too much description into a sports game review, admittedly. It’s hockey. It’s really good hockey, with a lot of options.

I’m going to assume you know how to play hockey. If you don’t, you’ll learn, because I’m not going to take the time to explain that the game is basically two teams trying to slap and object with sticks into a net. Okay, I just did. Done. Onward with the worst review ever.

NHL 08 handles mostly on the analog sticks. Left stick covers the body, and the stick handling is on the right. The system responds well to pressure, with a full 360 degrees of movement and varying intensities to boot. Light pressure results in slow movement, or a stick moved ever so slightly in the direction pressed. This means players can make gentle movements and truly maneuver across the ice, deftly weaving between defenders, and puck handling is tremendously improved, especially in regards to dekes. Subtle movement now is given its proper place on the ice, and it’s wonderful.

The rest of the game is on triggers. Passes, fancy maneuvers, poke checks, and changing the controlled player, all of those are on the back. Nothing essential to gameplay(just helpful) is on the face buttons, or d-pad. For those who want to get deeper, the d-pad allows manual line changes , and the face buttons change the offensive/defensive strategy, or hook/tie-up players, or slash/start fights. Seeing as those buttons are more likely than not resulting in a visit to the penalty box, they’re not used often, and the placement is just fine. Out of the way enough to not get hit accidentally, close enough to smack someone in the face with a stick when it’s deserved. Or not. Whenever you feel like it, really.

The on-ice gameplay is excellent. It’s not perfect hockey, obviously, little details aren’t present yet, but it’s by far the most authentic experience that won’t require you putting on skates and colliding with people. The players all are modelled very well and are extremely recognizable, particularly for some of the…less charismatic skaters. Hockey isn’t a game for the beautiful. The AI does a spectacular job learning what you do in a game, where you tend to skate, how you pass, where you shoot from, and will counter. NHL 08 really raises the bar on sports AI, and adaptability is key.

Between the ice, you can do fuck all and opt to just play quick matches, or something that matters, mostly in career or creation mode. Creation mode gives infinite points and leeway to create a customized player(stats, equipment, everything but looks really), or create a custom team by setting colors on several models of RBK Edge gear(the official new uniform system for the NHL) , then drafting players to the team within the salary cap. The team can be played in career mode(though another team must be dropped), or quick offline games.

The meat of the game is, of course, said career mode, which lasts for a decade. In that time you’ll (hopefully) win all sorts of trophies, create some great players, win a few stanley cups, and generally beat some asses. Trading players, managing lines and rosters, and editing plays for custom teams is the summary of what players will do when not on the ice, and doing it properly will make or break a season. Beyond that, setting training regimens, managing the budget, and just keeping the team happy will be the focus off-ice, to improve performance on-ice and win more games.

The online gameplay matches that of the offline, with updated rosters to match current trades, and player leagues, but it never surpasses offline gameplay, at least one on one. Online co-op, however, is great, though it should be known I have a soft spot for co-op in general.

The game is simply good. Good graphics, great audio presentation, from the yells on ice to the commentary, meaty thuds and smacked pucks, with a few yelps and grunts in between. The motion is fluid to match, and it all flows extremely well.

There is, unfortunately, one huge annoyance. EA Trax. Hockey games, sports in general, should not be filled with emo or indie rock. Hip-hop, hard rock, punk rock, those all work for sports, but not emo or indie. Luckily, one can turn the music off, or play his/her own.

That aside, the rest of the game is strong. Graphics can be better, but they’re pretty good, the audio is great, and the game is really, really fun, even if not the deepest thing in the world. It’s a major evolution in terms of hockey games, even from last year’s very impressive NHL 08, and it’s been very much needed in a genre sorely lacking.

NHL 08 gets 4 out of 5 canes. It doesn’t excel in every area, but it’s all good, and the on-ice action is amazing. Turn off the EA Trax, turn up the DethAlbum, and show someone the glass, up close and personal.