Review: Rise of Nightmares (360) << Gaming Irresponsibly

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Review: Rise of Nightmares (360)

Sep 092011

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

There’s a lot of family games for the Kinect isn’t there? Well Rise of Nightmares, SEGA’s newest game, sure as hell isn’t one of them. RoN is a fun, spiritual successor to the beloved House of the Dead series and a good step forward for mature Kinect games in the future,

RoN starts with a young European couple trapped in a crazy castle that doesn’t look like a fun time at all. This serves as a tutorial level to get you used to the full body controls that the game uses, which I’ll talk about at great lengths in a bit. After fighting a couple of zombie-type creatures our young couple ends up in the what can only be described as a version of the trash compactor from Star Wars. Let’s just say things don’t go exactly as planned for our young couple.

Sexy Zombie Nurse is still oddly sexy, all things withstanding...

The game then picks up with a married couple of five years on a vacation in Europe aboard a train. Through a series of events your wife is taken buy a hulking guy that resembles the Nemesis from Resident Evil 3 and you go on a quest to find her and too find out just why the hell Europe has so many creepy scenarios (I’m making that last part up). Let’s be honest though, no one plays a “light gun” type game for the story. You play it to kill some stuff and have a good time doing it. So how does RoN handle this? Pretty well actually, but with just a couple of hiccups.

First of all the graphics are pretty good. It has that SEGA “look” to it which is actually kind of endearing and brought back a lot of memories of House of the Dead, which is a good thing. Even the scenery is not bad to look at, and I spent a lot of time bumping into it.

Rise of Nightmares uses a full body control method that works surprisingly well. Attacks are your standard fare of using your hands to punch/block. You will be picking up a wide assortment of weapons ranging from brass knuckles and pocket knives to scalpels that you can throw like ninja stars to even chainsaws (CHAINSAWS!). If you want too kick a zombie in the face, you kick. If you want to open a door you push on it (or slide it depending on the door) and pushing buttons or pulling levers is accomplished the same way. It’s all very intuitive and works pretty well. I’ll get to the couple of issues I have with the fighting controls in a second.

Movement is handled in one of two ways. The first way is the “On Rails” method. By raising your right hand the game will propel you in the direction that you need to head. This comes in handy if you get yourself stuck in a corner or if your legs are getting tired from kicking zombies in the face. The second way is by putting one foot in front off the other one. Depending on how far you put your foot out, the faster you will move. Now, don’t be mistaken, you will NEVER break into a full out run (which makes no sense considering the scenario) but you will move faster. Turing is handled by simply turning your shoulders left or right. This works, but it can be a little fickle. I had to fiddle with the turning sensitivity until it felt “right” but then it was better. I still found myself overturning a little bit but, being that your character is a closet drunk, I just called it character development.

GAH! PROBLEMS!

Now while the controls are good, there are a couple of things that can be improved on. First, when you put your hands up in the “fighting stance” you lock on to an enemy. That’s good until you find yourself surrounded or if you are locked on to someone that is a little further away from you than your closest enemy. To lock on to another enemy you have to drop your hands to your sides and lift them up again to re-target. Annoying, but when you get used to it you can get it done pretty quick. Secondly, there were a couple of times when the game detected that I actually wanted to walk backwards when I wanted to move forward. This usually happened after a fight when I was furiously kicking zombies (I like kicking zombies). And finally, this game can really be exhausting. My arms burn a little from punching, but a little exercise never killed anyone…right?

Overall I love Rise of Nightmares. It’s a fun game that shows what the future of Kinect action games hold. Hopefully the upcoming big games like Star Wars Kinect and Fable: The Journey take a look at what SEGA has accomplished and just make a couple of tweaks to improve it.

Graphics 80		Audio 80		Gameplay 75
Creativity 80		Execution 75		Offset 70

7.7

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

“Free” to Play: The future is costly

Posted by Halfazedninja No Responses »

Sep 012011

It might benefit you to buy some hats, you know, for your own saftey...

I’ve been an MMO player since the original Everquest back in the Dark Ages (you know, before broadband). Back then paying a monthly fee for a game seemed borderline insane, until you actually played it. I was so enamored in the world of Norrath that I gladly forked over the monthly fee to continue the adventures of KariHari, the half-elf ranger. She was quite the bad ass by the way.

Through the years I’ve played many MMO’s ranging from the good (WoW and SWG before the NGE broke it) to the OK (DC Universe online) to the down right horrible (Enter The Matrix). All of these always came with a one month free trial (because, you know, the first hit is free) so you can try it out and see if you’d like it and, most of the time, you would play a couple of months before you decided to cancel it. This was how life was in the early days of MMO’s and everything was peachy.

When the original Guild Wars came out I was interested. An MMO without monthly fees? That might be worth checking into. It was fun but always seemed to be lacking a little something to me. Part of the fun of MMO’s, to me anyway, was meeting someone out in the wild and teaming up with them to overcome a threat that you couldn’t face alone. Guild Wars was missing that unless you were in one of their town zones. I played it, but not for too long.

The thing is that I felt, at the time, that the reason that Guild Wars didn’t hold my interest was because I wasn’t paying for it. I felt like there was really no reason for me to keep playing because I had nothing really invested in it. There was no sense of loss if I didn’t play but there was also no sense of accomplishment when I actually did something cool in the game. It was a weird type of Limbo for me personally.

Things have changed from then and now we are in the age of Free to Play MMO’s and I’m starting to notice a little bit of a problem with them. I’ve tried a few of these out and most of them follow the same pattern: start off with a few unlocked classes, work your way up the ecosystem and then find out…you need to pay for the good stuff.

You know you want the sparkly pony...

I understand that microtransactions are the new source of funding for MMO’s and I don’t argue the fact that they are a necessary evil. But I do think that real world money shouldn’t be the only way to advance in the game. League of Legends actually lets you earn some in game currency by, you know, actually letting you play the game and Team Fortress 2, which isn’t an MMO but did recently go F2P, actually has item drops that lets you pick up new hats and weapons while you play. Yes, both games do also have microtransactions, but you at least have an alternate way to earn the “phat lewtz”.

I know that Guild Wars 2 will probably have some type of microtransactions just because that’s the direction that the business is headed and the would probably need to do something like this to keep it financially viable. I just hope that they don’t nickel and dime us and turn this into another Horse Armor fiasco.

And I totally did buy the sparkly pony in WoW. Stupid shiny things that distract me…

PAX News: Dance Central 2 will let you do The Humpty Dance!

Posted by Halfazedninja No Responses »

Aug 292011

All the rappers in the top 10, please allow me to bump thee...

The past weekend PAX Prime 2011 was going on in Seattle. During the Harmonix “Reverse Q&A” Panel six new songs were announced for the upcoming Dance Central 2. Without further ado, here they are:

Bobby Brown – My Prerogative
Digital Underground – The Humpty Dance (YES!!!!!!)
Haddaway – What Is Love? (You better be able to bop your head, Roxbury style)
Kurtis Blow – The Breaks
Sir Mix-a-Lot – Baby Got Back (Booty Shaking at its finest)
Usher (feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris) Yeah

As the recent owner of a Kinect and the original Dance Central, this news pleases me. I may not be a thin man, but I can rock Soulja Boy like no ones business. I will be able to say the same for The Humpty Dance come the fall.

I Should Be More Excited For Skyward Sword, Shouldn’t I?

Posted by Halfazedninja No Responses »

Aug 222011

(Disclaimer: The views expressed here to not necessarily represent the views for Gaming Irresponsibly as a whole.)

I’ve been playing The Legend of Zelda games since the original back on the NES. The original game was unlike anything I had ever played before. Diving into dungeons, whacking enemies with my boomerang, getting lost in The Lost Woods (screw those woods, by the way), it was all just fun and innovative. When Zelda II: The Adventure of Link came out I nearly wet my pants with excitement. Zelda II was such a huge departure from the original Zelda that it blew my mind. To this day it actually stands as one of my favorite games in the series. Just as a little nugget about me, I still have both of my original Zelda and Zelda II game carts.

When the SNES came out and new Zelda game, A Link to the Past, eventually came out and I scooped that up immediately. Just like with Zelda II, the innovations blew me away. That entire game was a joy to play from beginning to end and I’ve played through it multiple times. There have been titles that have come out for Game Boy, GBA and and DS but I’ve never totally gotten into those.

Then came the N64 and the legendary Ocarina of Time. Is the game a classic? Yes, it may well be one of the greatest games ever made. It took me FOREVER to beat that game, mostly because of the freaking Water Temple (that place can go join its buddy The Lost Woods for all I care) and I loved every minute of it. Truth be told, I never finished Majora’s Mask because that game creeped me out a little. As a side note, if you’re bored and want to freak yourself out check out the story Majora on Creepy + Pasta. It’s a long read, has some videos and will mess you up for the rest of the day.

When Twilight Princess first came out for the Gamecube/Wii I was excited for it. But something weird happened a little bit into the game…

I just couldn’t get into it. I don’t know what it was about it but I just couldn’t.

I just recently got back to Twilight Princess and started it again. I’m not that far into in but I’m enjoying it, well, kind of. After playing for a bit I realized what the problem is. This is pretty much the same game I’ve been playing since the N64. The innovations that were made in the games from”back in the day” to the newer games just isn’t there. Wait, let me clarify that statement a bit. There are innovations, just not as many as the old games. I’m talking beyond the obvious graphic improvements.

Now Link’s “brother” Mario has always continued to evolve and every game feels like a new experience. Yes they all have the same basic premise, stomp goombas, stomp koopas, beat Bowser and wear funny outfits while you do it, but there is enough innovation in them to make every game feel different. The Zelda series isn’t like that though. They really do feel like the same game over and over. Why is that?

There are plenty of franchises that reinvent themselves. Some of them work out (Fallout and the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot spring to mind) and some of them don’t (I’m looking right at you Shadowrun). Now I’m not saying that Zelda totally needs to reinvent itself, I’m just saying a few things need to change:

1. Get Some New Locales

The starting village, Forest themed temple, Water themed tmplee (hate that one), Fire themed temple. We need some new themes. And with new themes bring new types of enemies.

2. A New Antagonist

You can’t tell me that Ganon is the only baddie in Hyrule. Hell even Mario fought a different big baddie in Super Mario Bros. 2 (Wart). Let Ganon sit a game out, or at least let him have someone over him that’s even more of a badass.

3. Use Your Words

For the love of all that is good and just, let some people freaking talk! And not just “HEY!” but everything they are trying to say. It’s the 21st century for crying out loud. Ideally I would like everyone to talk EXCEPT Link. I’d rather him be voiceless but give him some dialog choices. It worked for Dragon Age: Origins.

4. Multiplayer Is Your Friend

Answer me this: Why have a majority of the multiplayer Zelda’s been on handhelds? That makes no sense. Some of my best gaming experiences have been online with my friends. Now a co-op campaign wouldn’t make sense in the Zelda mythos, but a Four Swords type of game for a console? Yes, please.

The bottom line is that, as of right now, Skyward Sword is not a Day 1 purchase for me. I will check it out, it’s just not screaming out to me to buy it, especially with the amount of new games coming out this fall. I have no doubt it’s going to make Nintendo a butt-ton of money, but the money from me is just going to have to wait a bit.

WWE ’12 Roster List (mostly) Revealed

Posted by Halfazedninja 1 Response »

Aug 142011

Randy Looks Angry...

*Sniff Sniff*

You smell that? No, it’s not what The Rock is cooking…it’s Summerslam time! At a Summerslam event this morning THQ revealed the partial roster list for the upcoming WWE ’12 game. Well, I say partial but basically they’ve revealed 64 “wrasslers” with another 14 to be announced later. Most of these guys are no brainers but there are a couple of surprises on here, I’ll mark those off and talk about them after the list:

Alberto Del Rio
Alex Riley
Christian
Kelly Kelly
Layla
Maryse
Natalya
R-Truth
Randy Orton
Rey Mysterio
The Miz
The Undertaker
Wade Barrett
Zack Ryder
CM Punk
The Rock
Triple H
David Otunga
Sheamus
Mark Henry
John Morrison
Ted Dibiase
William Regal
Husky Harris (who?)
Daniel Bryan
Tyson Kidd
Vlasimir Kozlov
Santino Marella
Evan Bourne
Goldust
Mason Ryan
Michael McGillicutty
Yoshi Tatsu
Eve
Kane
Big Show
Kofi Kingston
Jack Swagger
Cody Rhodes
Dolph Ziggler
Chavo Guerrero
Drew Mcintyre
Ezekiel Jackson
Justin Gabriel
Heath Slater
Michelle McCool
Beth Phoenix
Sin Cara

Now this next group I’m assuming are the new batch of WWE Legends. Here’s where there are a couple of surprises…and two glaring omissions:

Arn Anderson
Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat
Animal (*)
Hawk (*)
Kevin Nash (*)
Booker T
Vader
Ax (*)
Smash (*)
Eddie Guerrero
Mr. McMahon
“Stone Cold” Steve Austin
Edge
Jerry Lawler

First of all, DEMOLITION and THE LEGION OF DOOM in the same game?!? My head might explode from the awesomeness. And the fact that Kevin Nash is on the list makes me very happy but I wonder if it will actually be Kevin Nash or Diesel (please let it be Diesel). Also I would love to see Scott Hall (Razor Ramon) show up. But there a couple of people missing from this list (that might be part of the 14 unannounced wrestlers that I’m assuming will probably be DLC) that should be on this list.

The first is one of my all time favorite wrestlers, Shawn Michaels. He retired last year and was put into the WWE Hall of Fame this year. The way it’s worked in past game that usually, once they retire or are put into the HoF, they are a show in for the game. I’m actually not that worried that he’s going to show up, I’m pretty sure he’ll be available.

The other massive omission is Macho Man Randy Savage. Savage died this year in a tragic car accident and I feel he should be honored in the new game. The only WWE game that he has been in is WWE All Stars and that game was kinda “meh”. Yeah, you can make him in every character creator they have ever had but it’s just not the same. So WWE ’12, I beg of you, let me snap into a Slim Jim for real.

5 Microsoft Games That Are Ready For An XBLA Remake

Posted by Halfazedninja No Responses »

Aug 092011

Microsoft Game Studios used to put out some really killer games a few years ago before they started scooping up other development houses. MGS really is more of a publisher now but they have some franchises that haven’t been seen in years that would be awesome to see again and XBLA is the perfect place to relaunch them. Here’s my personal top five of the games that I would love to see remade.

5. Rallisport Challenge

Keepin' It Dirty...

Realistic racing games aren’t really my thing. Games like Forza and Gran Turismo just lead to my virtual driver dying in a firey death. Rallisport Challenge 2 was more on the arcade side of Rally racing and was incredible. This was probably one of my most played games on the original Xbox, it was just really fun. The release of Sega Rally on XBLA a few months ago got my rally racing juices flowing but nothing quite stops that fever for me like Rallisport Challenge 2. And cowbell. You can never have enough cowbell.

4. Midtown Madness

PUNCHBUGGY YELLOW!

Speaking of arcade-style racing games, Midtown Madness was one of the first Open World Racers. Open world racers are a hard genre to get right but Midtown Madness nailed it. It was chaotic anarchy that was fun and fast paced. On top of all that it had one of the most fun vehicles ever:

Bam Margera would be proud

Awesome!

3. Crimson Skies

Highway to the Danger Zone Indeed!

Crimson Skies was a fun game. Set in a divergent timeline set after World War I, CS was like pirates in the sky. America has gone from states to pretty much individual countries and they are all either trading or at war with each other. Online play was awesome, but the franchise hasn’t been seen since the original Xbox. Why is that? This game would be a hit.

2. MechWarrior

Heavy Metal

If there’s one thing that’s always awesome, it’s big ass robots. MechWarrior brought you infinitely customizable robots in droves and put you into combat with other big robots on and offline. MechWarrior: Lone Wolf was the last game to come out from this universe and that was one the original Xbox. The recent XBLA release Trenched got my in the mood for Mechin’ again and I’m half debating on picking up Crysis just for the Living Legends mod. I’d say it’s time to bring it back.

1. Shadowrun

Technology + Magic = Win!

When I talk about Shadowrun I’m not talking about that failed experiment that MGS put out for the 360 a few years ago. No, I’m talking about the pen and paper RPG but, more importantly, the RPGs that were one thee SNES and Genesis. When “Shooter-Run” came out on the 360 Microsoft said that it was to “introduce the franchise” to a new generation. Well the game wasn’t well received (who would have thought that when you take an RPG and turn it into a Multiplayer only FPS) and Microsoft dropped the it. If MGS could pull it together they could make an awesome RPG in the old SNES style as an XBLA release and revive it. And now that Shadowrun just came out with a new edition of he PnP game, the timing couldn’t be better.

Why Nintendo Could Pull a Sega and go Software Only

Posted by Halfazedninja 6 Responses »

Aug 062011

How Awesome Would This Be?

Old Man Alert Incoming:

Any of you youngsters out there remember when Sega made actual video game consoles? No? Well let me spin you a yarn about a time of days gone by…

Sega had a good run with consoles in the late 80′s/early 90′s with the Master System and later on with the Genesis. I was always more of a Nintendo type of kid back in the day (especially when The Wizard came out! Super Mario Bros. 3 for life!) but the Genesis won me over when the original Mortal Kombat came to my living room (Protip: ABACABB). Aside from the Sega CD and 32X, which the latter of the two really wasn’t that good, Sega had a “surprise” launch of the Saturn. As it turns out, launching a console by surprise five months before the launch date doesn’t work that well for sales, so the Saturn struggled. That was followed by the Dreamcast, which was awesome, but didn’t really catch on like it should of (even though it was ahead of it’s time with many things including online play) and by 2001 Sega decided to become a software only company.

So where am I headed with this? For some reason I’ve been playing a crap-ton of the original Super Mario Galaxy lately and I’m loving the hell out of it. That got me thinking about Nintendo developed games in general. Nintendo’s first party games generally sit on the fantastic side of the fence with titles like Mario, Zelda and Super Smash Brothers but, hardware wise, sometimes they are a little behind the curve.

Now I’m not talking about their handhelds. As of right now they are in the lead with that but, I think, that may change next year. I’m talking about their home consoles. The original NES and the SNES were two of the best systems ever but Nintendo kind of started stumbling with the Nintendo 64. By the time the N64 was coming out it was in competition with the Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn. Both Sony and Sega had switched formats to the more cost effective CD-ROM format but Niintendo stuck with their tried and true cartridge format. Because of that N64 games tended to be and average of $20 more expensive, had some serious hazy visuals and gave birth to one of the worst games ever made that’s not named E.T.: Superman 64.

Then came “the little lunchbox that could, the Gamecube. I owned a happy lunchbox of fun and that system had some seriously awesome games. The Metroid Prime series, Mario Sunshine and Eternal Darkness. Holy crapsticks Eternal Darkness. That game would mess with your mind in real life. When you go to save a game and your system screws with your mind and tells you that it’s DELETING your save? Yeah, that is a scream inducing moment.

So what was the Gamecube’s problem? Lack of a DVD drive and a lack of third party support mostly. And those cute little minidisks.

And then along came the Wii. I will say this for the Wii, it got people up off their asses and moving around playing games. It ushered in the age of motion control but a lot of people thought it was a pretty bonehead move not releasing an HD enabled system in the age of Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. And, again, a lack of a DVD drive was a little surprising too. And do not get me started with their “online” system and those “friend codes”. Worst online idea EVER! At E3 this year Nintendo announced the WiiU which is, well, we don’t exactly know what it is. It’s a new system with a tablet controller and that’s about all we know.

But wrap your head around this picture for a moment and tell me that you wouldn’t lose your mind if you say this on the shelf:

OMGWTFBBQSAUCE Drool....

Nintendo would have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making the move to a third party developer. Their games already print money without breaking a sweat, they just would be able to reach more people. If they made the move, imagine the online capabilities. No more Friend Codes! A better online system, with voice chat! Not to mention the improvement in the graphics. The Legend of Zelda would look amazing! Imagine all of the other possibilities:

Animal Crossing Online with 8-16 players in a village. Havoc and hilarity would ensue…

Mario Kart Online with real time trash talking!

Online, 4 player co-op Super Mario Bros. Nuff Said.

Online Mario Party would probably have many scream inducing moments…

Online Pokemon battles with real time updated stats and chatting!

Nintendo would be making money hand over fist if they made the move to third party developer. They just have to have enough vision to see that this would be the way to go.

Five Things That GTA V (when it’s announced) needs to do to compete with Saints Row

Posted by Halfazedninja 6 Responses »

Aug 042011

SUPER DYNAMIC FUN TIME!

If I had to pick a favorite genre of mine it would have to be open world games. The fact that you can be dropped into a virtual world and play it as good (or evil) as you’d like is a very appealing concept. When it comes to some modern day mayhem in a virtual world no games do it better than the Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row series.

I recently started playing both GTA IV and Saints Row 2 again in preparation for the upcoming Saints Row: The Third and I realized something surprising. I actually found myself enjoying Saints Row 2 a whole lot more than GTA IV. That’s not to say that I don’t like GTA, I love both of them. But when you’re playing them side by side it’s a very eye opening experience.

So what does Grand Theft Auto, the grandfather of all open world games, need to do to remain in competition with Saints row? I’ve narrowed it down to five things that I think Rockstar Games needs to do for Grand Theft Auto V, when it’s officially announced that is.

5. Bring The Funny

Grand Theft Auto always had it’s tongue firmly planted in it’s cheek in the early days with everything from the names of the cars to the names of business to, in the recent games, the radio station and commercials. But with GTA IV things started to get a little more gritty and real. There are still funny parts but it’s more of a “real world” look at things.

Saints Row, on the other hand, takes everything and ramps it up to the redonkulous. The writing is spot on, my buddy and I crack up at a lot of the comments made in the game and SR is personally responsible for me calling Wendy’s “Freckle Bitches” for he last few years. Plus, you have to respect a game that has individual groin hit animations for EACH WEAPON IN THE GAME. Immature? Yes, but it’s fun. And isn’t that what games are about?

4. Co-Op Campaign

Bad Looking MF'ers

Blowing up stuff is fun, but blowing up stuff with friends is funner! As fun as GTA’s campaign is, it was a little lonely blowing up Liberty City on your own. Saints Row 2, on the other hand, let you start the game in co-op from the first mission. Your partner may not be in all of the cutscenes but they are right there next to you on all of your missions. Having a friend experience your triumphs (and failures) in any co-op game is what makes the co-op experience awesome. This is something that GTA V needs to do to stay relevant.

3. Fix The Controls

Is that a gun in your pocket...

Targeting and controls have always been a challenge in 3D worlds and holy crap does the GTA series has had a notoriously horrible targeting system. GTA IV’s was ok and fixed some of the problems from the earlier GTA games like GTA III and Vice City. Auto-Locking on a target can be good, but man, did GTA have some sticky targeting situations. Saints Row opted for an open targeting system that worked a whole lot better.

Targeting aside, the car controls may have felt realistic but man did a lot of cars feel like tanks in GTA. Even the sports cars didn’t control as tight as they should of. Yeah they stuck to the ground when they needed to but it still just didn’t “feel” right. All of Saints Row cars handled the way they should: cartoony and over the top. I’m generally not allowed to drive though, I like to flip cars…

2. Pick a Graphic Style

Chillingly Accurate

This is one area that I’m really not concerned, I know Rockstar is going to step up to the plate, but it’s worth mentioning. L.A. Noire showed what kind of tech Rockstar is now packing and holy wow is it impressive. Saints Row does go for the cartoon-like graphics but L.A. Noire went for ultra-realistic and it worked well. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the direction GTA is headed so it will be a nice contrast to SR’s style.

1. CUSTOMIZATION!

Why So Serious...

The GTA series crafts a narrative around a central character and you know what? It works. The Saints Row series does the same thing but let’s you customize your guy (or girl as of SR2).But that’s not all it let’s you customize. You can customize your cars, safehouse, gang hideouts and even your gang itself. Let me tell you, you have not experienced the hilarity/terror of two hot redheaded chicks driving a minivan full of purple ninjas wielding shotguns and uzis.

That is really the next step that needs to be taken in the GTA series. Customization lets players feel like they really have themselves invested in the story and lives of THEIR characters. So let’s see if Rockstar institutes any of this in the eventual Grand Theft Auto 5.

Will the PS Vita Eat Away at Nintendo’s Handheld Market?

Posted by Halfazedninja 1 Response »

Aug 012011

Two Systems Enter, One System Leaves

So Nintendo announced a drastic price drop on it’s newest handheld, the 3DS. Now it’s been no secret to anyone that the 3DS has failed to print the amount of money Nintendo thought it would but an $80 dollar price cut is a pretty bold (if not drastic) move, isn’t it? The 3DS only came out five months ago after all. Nintendo says the price cut was to boost sales but, I feel, it was for a whole different reason: the looming shadow of the PS Vita.

We all know that the PSP didn’t eat as much of Nintendo’s lunch as Sony would have liked. Where the original Nintendo DS had a lit of fresh experiences (and it’s share of crappy shovelware ports), the PSP was home to an awful lot of lesser PS2 versions of a lot of games. The lack of dual analog sticks really hurt a majority of the games on the system but, graphically, the PSP had the DS beat. A lot of the games looked awesome, especially titles like Ratchet and Clank and God of War.

Full disclosure, I’ve owned a several Nintendo DSs and PSPs because a lot of times there was really nothing to hold my interest on either system for very long. I don’t take a lot of road trips and that tended to be the only time I would play either of them. My daughters LOVE their DS. But they have very little interest in a 3DS. When I asked them why they told me that there was really nothing on there that was really interesting to them other unless a new Mario game wa coming out on it soon. And right there is the first problem with all of Nintendo’s systems.

Nintendo has always relied too much on their heavy hitters. I’ve saved Princess Peach way too many times over the course of my life (with no action at all thank you very much) and, lets be honest here, pretty much all of the Zelda games since Ocarina of Time have been very similar (with the exception of Majora’s Mask. That friggin game is creepy). Now these franchises have made Nintendo zillions of dollars over the years so I see why they stick with them, but they really have just been rehashing the games over and over.

Now when the 3DS was first announced, I was intrigued. 3D without glasses? I really could care less about 3D but I figured if anyone could make it work it would be Nintendo. They were showing some pretty cool demos too like Metal Gear Solid 3, Dead or Alive Dimensions and KID ICARUS (I was VERY excited for that one). The graphics were pretty, like Gamecube/Wii quality, and it looked fun. So what happened?

First came the reports of it messing with the eyes of kids under six. That was a big PR blow that was followed by the fact the with the 3D effects on the battery life was bad. Isn’t that something that should have been worked out before launch since, you know, the 3D is a big selling feature? And when the system finally launched it really didn’t light the world on fire like it was supposed to. Nintendo said it was a smooth launch, but I think that was code for “You can walk into any store and buy one now, no lines no wait.”

So what makes the PS Vita so special? First of all, before we get into the cool things, what is with the name? PS Vita? It sounds like a dietary aid or a vitamin. Was PSP 2 taken, really? C’mon now Sony…

But PS Vita it is, and it looks amazing! First of all it’s graphically on par with the PS3. Did you see the Uncharted: Golden Abyss video? No? Well look here:

Tags: GameTrailers.com, Uncharted: Golden Abyss – E3 2011: PS Vita Gameplay Walkthrough HD, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Did you clean up the drool? Good. Secondly the system has a lot of interesting things going for it. Dual Touch Screens depending on the situation, dual analog sticks (THANK YOU) and Six-Axis motion? Good stuff. Now when this was officially announced at E3 I was expecting a $350-$400 price tag because Sony does tend to overcharge for their product at first. What they said next shocked me.

$250 for the Wi-Fi version and $300 for the 3G version (over AT&T’s network). Wow Sony, way to make your price competitive! Good on ya!

Before the 3DS price cut it was at $250 dollars for a “gimmicky” system. No thanks. But $250 for a handheld system that has the power of the PS3? I’ll take three of them, thanks. No, seriously, I’m buying three of them.

After seeing ModNation Racers and Little Big Planet on the PS Vita, my girls looked at me and said “I know what I’m asking Santa for!” They have converted. And if Sony can turn my little girls who play Mario all day, every day into Sony lovers than I think that Sony may be doing something right with the PS Vita.

Review – Fatal Seduction (360)

Posted by Halfazedninja No Responses »

Jul 312011

Fatal Seduction is a new Xbox Live Indie Game that is, in a word, disturbing. That’s not to say it’s bad, it’s quite the opposite really. It’s just that the subject matter is something that really hasn’t been tackled in a game, as far as I can tell, and Silver Dollar Games nailed it.

Creepy Chalkboard drawings are creepy...

Let me start this off by saying that, as far as creepiness in gaming goes, there are two things that freak me out. The first is spiders and the second is creepy little girls. I still haven’t gotten more than thirty minutes into F.E.A.R. (the original one) because Alma scares the crap out of me. The story of Fatal Seduction is that of eight year old Emily Ritter. Emily’s mother died in a car accident leaving her alone with her father (who I really was hoping would be named John but that wasn’t the case). Emily’s dad eventually starts dating again and, around that time, an angel comes down and tells Emily that demons are in the women and that she is tasked with destroying them…with a big kitchen knife. What follows is a disturbing tale of of what looks to be a deranged serial killer, in the body of a deluded child, that believes she is doing the right thing.

The first thing to talk about here is the presentation. The game presents itself as a series of pictures as Emily is telling her story to her Doctor in the Asylum on a chalkboard. Every now and then a photograph will float by, usually of her next victim, but for the most part you are watching a story being drawn while Emily narrates. The narration of these acts by an eight year old is a little terrifying, but not as much as the childlike pictures that accompany the story. The game does autoscroll at it’s own pace with chalkboard drawing of Emily and the demons that she’s fighting. The drawings support the story well and really help you delve into the madness that is Fatal Seduction.

The pace that the story plays out does suit the game well. You will finish this game within about a half an hour but the really big drawback is that Fatal Seduction really has zero replayability. It just wouldn’t suit this type of game anyway with the general flow of the story but it is kind of a shame that this is really kind of a one play pony.

The audio is really just the conversation between Emily and the Doctor but it’s very compelling. There is various audio of news reports of the various killings but, for the most part, it’s all Emily talking. There’s also a little bit at the end that I am totally NOT going to spoil here with a nurse and the doctor that may be a hint towards a sequel which is something I would LOVE to see. Also, in regards to the end of the game, it will drop your jaw and have you scrambling for your computer or smartphone and hitting “the googles” quick. It’s a move that would make the producers of The Blair Witch Project proud.

I will say that I haven’t really delved into the world of XBLIG much other than Cthulu Saves The World and Fireplace (which I break out at my Christmas parties for the Yule Log effect) but there is a lot of creative games but this may be one of the most creative ones I’ve played. Fatal Seduction grabs you from the opening narrative and doesn’t not let go until the final word is spoken. I literally put my controller down after playing and had to just take a step back and think about what I just played. I’m pretty sure that’s probably due to the fact that my daughters are only a couple of years older than Emily and it kind of sent a little chill down my spine. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Creepy Little Girls Are Creepy.

Overall I would recommend that you give Fatal Seduction a spin. It’s not going to take you that long to get through it but it’s going to be a trip that you’ll be glad you took.

Graphics 80		Audio 80		Gameplay 60
Creativity 90		Execution 80		Offset 80

7.8

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A copy of this game was provided for review purposes.