Happy 29th, [Prime Gnome]! May you ever roam free and stabbity. Enjoy Pooh and your Segway Adventure in Mouseland. Your weens miss you.
New Fallout 3 XBox Title Update – Do Not Want January 13, 2009
Why do title updates so regularly break the games they purport to update? I grabbed the Fallout 3 title update today (not that I had a choice) and now my screen turns purple randomly and I keep getting ported to completely different parts of the map with no notice. Folks on GameSpot and other forums claim the purple haze is a drug effect particular to Vault 106, but that doesn’t explain the porting.
Here’s hoping a fix is on the way, soon.
Happy Boxing Day! December 26, 2008
We’re recovering from all the holiday “joy”, and hope you are enjoying a long weekend.
Get anything nice?
5th Cell Scribbles For The Moon December 6, 2008
As promised, game developer 5th Cell announced their next DS game on Friday in an IGN exclusive. The game is Scribblenauts, an incredibly ambitious title that will have players scribbling words onscreen to solve puzzles in a platfoming-type adventure.
The level 5th Cell showed featured main character Maxwell scribbling the word “ladder” to make a ladder appear to scale a great height. I think I could easily spend a few hours scribbling “puppy”, “kitty”, “mouse”, and any other critter that came to mind, just to see if they’d appear. This would seem to fit with the game’s tagline of “Write Anything, Solve Everything.”
Check out this gameplay footage from 5th Cell, which is so entertaining I will even forgive them the horrendous error of writing “100’s” with an apostrophe.
For even more scribbly goodness, head over to IGN for their exclusive interview with 5TH Cell’s co-founder and creative director Jeremiah Slaczka.
Windows 7 Going Full Steam Ahead December 3, 2008
Microsoft is trying to put Vista behind them as quickly as possible. Or are they?
The Redmond, Washington-based megacorp just announced that the first beta for Windows 7 will begin on January 13, 2009. This would seem to indicate that soon V**** will be merely an unhappy memory, like Windows Me. But what is really under the hood of this “new” operating system?
According to the Computerworld blogosphere, not much. The current build runs as slowly as Vista – that is to say 40% slower than Windows XP. It is just as much as a resource hog, if not worse. Finally, 7 has a freshly muddled Graphical User Interface, as if you hadn’t just come to terms with the GUI-upending Vista. And don’t give the “it’s still a beta” story. From a kernel perspective, it’s not. What it is Vista Mk 2.
Bottom Line: absolutely dying for a new OS? Get yourself a nice pretty Snow Leopard.
Review: Chrono Trigger DS November 29, 2008
Can we come in?
In the Year of Our Ceiling Cat Nineteen and Ninety-Five, Square released a little game called Chrono Trigger. The story is simple – young adventurers save the world – but with a twist – by porting through time. Due to its epic nature, branching storyline, and multiple endings, Chrono Trigger is widely considered to be one of the best RPGs of all time.
Wikipedia rightly describes the Chrono Trigger developers as the “dream team” – Hironobu Sakaguchi, Kazuhiko Aoki, Kazuhiko Aoki, and composer Nobuo Uematsu. Yuuji Horii and artist Akira Toriyama. Masato Kato wrote most of the plot and composer Yasunori Mitsuda scored the game with Uematsu finishing it when Mitsuda became ill.
Art:
The art is classic Horii and Toryiama – anime figures, large foreheads, and bright colors. The DS version includes the well-received anime cutscenes from the 2001 North American PlayStation release, now without load times! Unlike the recent Final Fantasy remakes, however, the art hasn’t been given a total 3-D makeover. Instead, the sprites have been polished up a bit and given more fluid animation, but the original distinctive art style is there.
Gameplay:
Lots of screen real estate across two screens.
Like the original, Chrono Trigger DS uses an Active Time battle system, meaning that each character may only act when their timer is up. Different characters have different physical and magical attacks, including advanced physical attacks called “techs”. What Chrono Trigger added to the RPG genre was the concept of cooperative techs – combining up to three characters’ techs to create double or triple attacks. Notably, there is no apparent slowdown when using even the flashiest of techs.
The DS version has two play modes – “DS Mode” and “Classic Mode”. DS mode allows you to use both the touchscreen buttons for controls, and Classic mode is a play setup identical to the original SNES version. There are other features exclusive to each mode, such as a DS Mode option to toggle between ‘Walk’ and ‘Run’.
The DS version adds some new dungeons, including the Dimensional Vortex and Lost Sanctum. The first of these is only available when player’s complete the game, and leads to a new, fourteenth different ending. The second is another endgame dungeon for folks who love to grind their way up as high as they can.
Finally, the DS version offers an unneccessary arena system. Apparently believing that all JRPGs must have a Monster Hunter element to them, Squeenix makes this feature available the first time you save the game. When you enter the arena, you get the option of controlling a small malleable creature known as a Smidge. You can send your Smidge to any of the seven periods of time to train them, and then you can battle other trainers, er, players, via DS wireless.
Overall:
Useless arena aside, this is a very faithful translation of a beloved original. Like Dragon Quest IV, the source material still holds up over a decade later, and the DS developers respected that fact. As a result, like Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger on DS is an excellent game with everything you remember and nothing substantially screwed up by modernization.
For being an amazing RPG now available in pocket-size, Chrono Trigger DS gets 5 Weiners out of 5.
Review: Fallout 3 November 11, 2008
There is a Fallout fever in my house. The Weiner Daddy is playing on 360, I’m playing on the PC using both keyboard and mouse and the Microsoft game controller. We’ve been playing since the game was released on October 28th, and neither of us is anywhere near completing it. I will also note that neither of us have encountered any of the nasty bugs reported by Kotaku, but these are known issues, so your mileage could vary.
Theme:
Welcome to post-apocalyptia, children! The theme and setting are the same no matter which version you choose. Fallout is set in an alternate history universe full of retro-futuristic kitsch and post-bombing hell. Imagine the American 1950s, only with 22nd century laser and gene-mapping technology. By the time you are on the scene, the bomb has long since dropped. It’s 200 years later, you are ready to crawl out of your sealed Vault and see what’s what in the ruins of Washington, DC. The Capitol Wasteland comprises a HUGE area, and the sidequests alone can take you hours upon hours. Unlike Bethesda’s Oblivion, however, you can and will want to get back on track with the main quest eventually.
Welcome to the world of yesterday
Art:
Think bleak. As befits the setting, the Fallout 3 world is full of brown, grey, and yellow. Unlike the repetitive trash-strewn levels of Hellgate: London, the environment of Fallout 3 is huge and fairly varied. When does Bethesda reuse something in the game, they are doing it on purpose. Think all those tract-home shells look alike? That’s the point. All of that suburban sameness makes it much more powerful the first time you see the ruins of the Washington Monument or the Capitol Building.
The character models are straight out of Oblivion, albeit with different clothes. The facial mapping and details are improved from Bethesda’s RPG, but the idea is the same, with the PC having the edge over the 360 in detail. Enemies vary, from mutated critters to raider gangs to super mutants. The critters are pretty much all the same, but the raiders and mutants are varied. If you look closely you can see the attention to detail, as most of the humanoids’ armor is actually pieced together bits of the trash strewn across the Capitol Wasteland.
Gameplay:
It is here that the PC and 360 versions diverge. Fallout 3 is not a shooter and it is not a full-on action RPG, but is something of a chimera of the two. After fighting with the mouse and keyboard for over 20 hours, it is clear to me that Fallout 3 was designed for a controller. Even the lowest mouse sensitivity option will swing your view way wide of the enemy in front of you. Lockpicking is nearly impossible to do without failing a few times, due to the twitchy nature of the PC controls. My experience was vastly improved when I used a gamepad on my PC.
Combat is its own strange bird. On the shooter side you have the option to take a first-person view and use your weapons as you see fit. On the ARPG side you have the V.A.T.S. system; action points-based pause-and-play combat. Contrary to popular belief, you can’t really play Fallout 3 entirely as a shooter or entirely in V.A.T.S. Most of the time you’ll use V.A.T.S., then try and duck and cover while your AP recharges to use it again. Why? Because the FPS perspective doesn’t work that well. The target reticule is small and inaccurate, and there is no lock-on. This is true in both the PC and 360 versions.
Use V.A.T.S. to shoot the junk off his trunk.
Searching for and picking up items must almost always be done in first person view. The “target boxes” for small items, such as stimpaks, is ridiculously tiny, and unless you’re nose-to-nose with them, you may not be able to highlight them to grab them. This is a little better on the 360 version, but here again the PC version suffers from poor mouse control.
Overall:
Don’t let the PC control issues dissuade you. Fallout 3 is a fantastic game. It is engaging, fun, and deep. You will care about your character. You will care about some NPCs and want to kill others. You will make irrevocable choices early on that will truly affect your game path and the game world. Evil is as viable a choice as good, and your experience will differ greatly depending on which path you take. You can get through the main quest in about 10 hours, yes, but if you do, you’re missing the point. I didn’t miss it at all, and I’m wondering how I’m going to balance playing more Fallout 3 with the release of Wrath of the Lich King on Thursday.
For being an excellent and engaging game with real consequences and deep story branches, I am giving Fallout 3 five weiners out of five.
Fable II Review, Part II October 30, 2008
Araan rides again.
What could make me revisit an established score? How about a show stopping bug and a horrible gay stereotype? Oh yes.
One of the good things about Fable II is the sheer amount of variety and content. If I had waited to review the game until I had met every single person and played through every single scenario, you’d be looking at Fable III before getting my score. In the last few days I’ve explored the more “adult” side of the game, and I’ve found two serious issues.
First, I’ve discovered that if you save & quit in the presence of your adoring wife, once you log back in she will immediately divorce you. That’s happened to me twice. Not acceptable, since saving and quitting from your safe home is a logical and common occurrence.
Second, the game features a horrible gay stereotype. All of the male prostitutes are overweight, bearded, and wear leather harnesses and chaps. I wouldn’t complain if there were more than one variety, but with the single model it’s just a great big ugly S&M show. What happened to the other models that were in the concept art shown at the Game Developer’s Conference? The fact that art like that at the right existed tells me that Lionhead made a conscious choice to belittle and mock gays.
These two things are indicative of serious issues in the deep game, and both of them disgust me in different ways. As such, I am revising my score to give Fable II Three Weiners out of Five.
Peter Molyneaux Needs to Shut His Damn Mouth Parts V and VI October 10, 2008
- Why am I a moron??
I didn’t realize this was going to be come a regular series, but so be it.
First, instead of fretting over having Fable II not become the laughingstock of the industry, Peter Molyneaux is fretting over the casual/hardcore divide. Of course, Fable II, which is all things to all people. Molyneaux is unhappy that Fable has been “pigeonholed” as an RPG, just because it has quests, leveling, character development, plot, etc. Poor, Peter Peter crow eater.
Second, if you ditch your dog in Fable II, you’re a terrible person who is going directly to Hell. Now I love me some animals, pups especially. That being said, I don’t like being made to feel guilty by games. Petey-boy says he decided not to have a dog disattachment option because “I wanted people to realize this dog loves you.” Of course, the first time you fight with the dog around he gets hurts, so that’s love, right?
That being said, Gabe and Tycho, I love you.
Preview: Professor Laytonmania October 3, 2008
A typical "Curious Village" puzzle.
People love puzzles. Japanese people doubly so (see Brain Age, SuDuKo, Go, etc.). Thus, a few years ago Level-5 rolled up all the puzzles they could find in one tidy package called Professor Layton and the Curious Village. The DS title featured Layton, a natty professor, and Luke, his apprentice, solving puzzle after puzzle in order to unravel a townwide mystery. Curious Village landed Stateside about a year after its Japanese release, much to the delight of brainfreaks everywhere.
The Curious Village sold over 700,000 units in Japan in 2007 and was the top selling game for the Nintendo DS in the United States in the first three weeks after its release, so you know there are sequels.
The first sequel is Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box. This time Layton and Luke are off to visit the Professor’s mentor, who sent them a letter about a mysterious box. This title, released in Japan in November of 2007, features three distinct areas, including a train and two villages. There are also new meta-games including collecting items to exercise your hamster and brewing the perfect cup of tea. The game sold over 800,000 copies in Japan as of July 2008. The U.S. port of Pandora’s Box was confirmed in February 2008, and U.S. gamers are expecting to see it here sometime in November 2008.
Brain game or train game?
This has not kept Level-5 from going full steam ahead with Professor Layton 3, however. They recently released a trailer for Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel. This time Layton travels to future London for unknown reasons. You can check out the trailer here (in Japanese):
The Weiner enjoyed Curious Village. Some of the puzzles, such as obtaining 4 ounces of water with only a 3 ounce and 5 ounce glass, are classics. It was a thrill to solve piles and piles of these chestnuts. I wonder, however, how many more old saws they can haul out. Are there enough classic puzzles for three games? If not, are there enough new puzzles and variations to keep things interesting and challenging? We’ll have more on this when Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box and Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel are released in America.
Playing With My Weiner 