Taito Legends 2 -- Day 2.

Still in 1981 with the next game on the disc Alpine Ski. We're moving away from the truly archaic into something only slightly archaic. We're able to display a few more colors on screen and we're getting better music and sound effects. The game has you controlling a skier in three potential events. I say potential events because a lot of people may never clear the first event of downhill skiing. The game is tough. You have merely the joystick to move your skier left and right and an action button. In the downhill and slalom events the action button will increase your speed. In the other event of the ski jump the action button will make the actual jump. In the downhill event you're out to make it down the hill while earning as many points as possible while avoiding numerous obstacles such as other skiers and trees and rocks and the like. In the slalom you're trying to ski through gates and hitting one of the gate poles will result in a penalty. In the ski jump you're out for the longest actual jump. The game makes an early attempt at factoring in momentum in the controls and the result can be a little bit frustrating.

 

We move forward a year to 1982 for Wild Western. The game has you as a sheriff on horseback trying to prevent a train robbery.  You have to avoid things like cactus and boulders while maneuvering your horse so you can shoot the bandits off their horses before they reach the train. You'll lose a life if three bandits board the train. The game employs a strange isometric angle that makes things a little more difficult than they need to be. Aiming suffers because of the angle.

 

Still in 1982 for the game Front Line. You're a lone soldier against an entire army armed with your machine gun and grenades. Your movement is with the left stick while you aim with the right. You'll have one button to fire the machine gun and another for grenades. You'll have to make your way up the battlefield taking out enemy soldiers and avoiding their bullets and grenades and strangely enough rolling boulders. Eventually you'll have the chance to enter your own tank and take on the enemy. Your tank only takes one hit and you'll have to hit the button to escape before it explodes. At the end of each stage you'll reach a boss battle that consists of a heavily armed fortress where you must avoid the fire coming your way and throw a carefully placed grenade to destroy the fortress. We're moving ahead slightly with better graphics and sound. We're fully out of the truly archaic level here.

 

We're moving to 1983 for Chack'n Pop. In this one you're a little yellow bird thing that needs to recapture a heart that has been put in cage on each stage. You can plant a bomb to your left or your right. There are enemies that spawn in each level that can be taken out by the bombs. A bomb is also needed to get the heart out of the cage. Not only do you have to get the heart out of the cage, you then have to get it out of the stage. Once a heart has been freed from the cage it moves to the exit which you must reach to end the stage. The bombs have a pretty large range. So much so that you need to be out of the way before they go off. Timing a bomb correctly to take out a creature is difficult. You only have a certain amount of time to clear each stage. The game is clearly a predecessor to Bubble Bobble. It's also pretty damn bizarre.

Suikoden V -- Initial Impression.

I've spent about four and a half hours with Suikoden V and a couple of things are clear. The game is taking a decidedly slow pace with the storytelling. The game has essentially been setting the stage of the world of Suikoden V the whole time. It's clearly going to be very story intensive, even by Suikoden standards. I've been in three or four quick and easy battles in that time so I haven't had enough experience with the battle system to get even an impression beyond knowing that the 2D six person battle parties of Suikoden and Suikoden II return. Gone are the 3D battles of Suikoden III and IV. The graphics are clean and sharp compared to those of Suikoden IV. The world is more detailed. The music instantly has that Suikoden feel. The opening full motion video sequence makes its welcome return after missing it in Suikoden IV. I'll have to play on to see what changes have been made to the Suikoden systems for this installment. Will I be able to get all one-hundred and eight Stars of Destiny this time around? Are there any cheap situations like Suikoden 2's Clive? Will the story live up to its predecessors? Which characters from other games in the series will show up? Lots of questions to be answered with more along the way I'm sure. Only one way to answer them...

Taito Legends 2 -- Day One.

Lunar Rescue hit the arcades in 1979. It's a little bit Lunar Lander and a little bit Defender before there was a Defender. You pilot a spaceship that exits a mother ship and must navigate down to the surface of the moon and safely land the craft on plateaus. You'll pick up a stranded spaceman who you then need to get back up to the mother ship. On the way down you'll have to avoid asteroids that are moving to the left and right across the screen. On the way up you'll need to avoid hostile aliens that are again moving to the left and right across the screen. You only have thrust to slow your descent while you're able to move left and right. On the way up you have thrust to speed your ascent while moving left and right and at the same time you can fire up at the alien ships in your way. The thrust and fire button are one in the same. The game is very archaic. It can display roughly five colors at once and contains no music and only minimal sound effects. This one truly represents the start of the industry.

 

We move ahead to 1980 with Balloon Bomber but we remain pretty archaic. Again we're roughly limited to five colors on screen at once. You have to shoot the bombs that are being dropped by a biplane flying over. He's dropping them attached to balloons. They move left and right across the screen. You control an antiaircraft tank that moves left and right across the bottom of the screen. You'll want to shoot the bombs themselves. If you miss the bomb and hit the balloon the bomb falls to the ground. You can attempt to shoot the bomb itself as it drops but that's much harder done than said.  If the bombs hit your tank you're dead. If they hit the ground they leave craters that you can't pass. So a couple of missed bombs could very well have you trapped in a section of the screen trying to make sure you hit the bombs and not the balloons holding them. There is actually some cool strategy to this one.

 

We're still in 1980 and we're still well within the archaic with Crazy Balloon. Again we have the most minimal of sound and the ability to only display about five colors on screenat once. You need to move a balloon through a maze of thorns. You obviously can't come into contact with the thorns or you'll balloon will pop. This game is really freaking hard. The balloon sways back and forth. So you're moving a moving object through said maze of thorns with only a pixel's breath worth of space to get through in some instances. You only have the joystick to move the balloon and the control in the this version of the game is rather touchy making it even more difficult then it already is.

 

We move ahead one year into 1981 with Qix. You control a small diamond shaped marker with the joystick. You have two buttons, one for fast, and one for slow. They both draw a line as you move the marker. The object of the game is to draw in seventy-five percent of the playfield. You get more points for drawing slow than you do for drawing fast. Why the need for the two speeds? Because you're not alone on the playfield. As you're drawing lines that fill in when you connect and to other lines and close off a section there is the titular Qix moving about the playfield. The Qix is a wholly unpredictable mass of energy. It will continually change its course. You can't let your unfinished lines come into contact with the Qix. It's actually difficult to think beyond avoiding damage with the marker. You're not used to having to consider the line being drawn. Also on the play field are two moving Sparks that can only travel along the lines. This game is hard as hell but entirely awesome. It's one of the most original games ever produced.

Taito Legends 2 -- Initial Impression.

I'm going to have to start a major RPG here shortly or I'll never get out from behind that backlog. And I'm just going to have to force myself to do it. Never a good thing. Before that though I'm going to get started on something that'll be complimentary while playing an RPG. And that something is Taito Legends 2 for the PlayStation 2 via the PlayStation 3. Taito Legends 2 is the second collection of Taito arcade games with the first being the aptly named Taito Legends. The disc contains thirty-nine arcade games ranging from 1979 through 1997 and covers a multitude of genres. How many of these have you heard of? Lunar Rescue, Balloon Bomber, Crazy Balloon, Alpine Ski, Qix, Front Line, Wild Western, Chack 'n Pop, The Fairy Land Story, The Legend of Kage, Kiki Kaikai, Bonze Adventure, Insector X, Kuri Kinton, Nastar Warrior, Raimais, Syvalion, Cameltry, Don Doko Don, Violence Fight, Football Champ, Growl, Gun Frontier, Liquid Kids, Super Space Invaders '91, Metal Black, Arabian Magic, Grid Seeker, Dungeon Magic, Space Invaders DX, Darius Gaiden, Elevator Action Returns, Gekirindan, Space Invaders '95, Cleopatra Fortune, Puzzle Bobble 2, Ray Storm, G Darius, and Puchi Carat...

The Second Xbox 360 Goes Down for the Count -- Microsoft Pinches Pennies.

My launch Xbox 360 lasted roughly thirteen and a half months before the GPU overheating issue claimed its life. About four days ago I was playing some late night Texas Hold 'em on my second Xbox 360 when the game froze with the telltale graphic distortion of the GPU being overheated. But it was only after five minutes of having the system on. Deep down I knew what I was in store for but secretly hoped against hope it was otherwise. Yesterday it froze five minutes into Phantasy Star Universe again with the telltale graphic distortion. My original Xbox 360 died a long slow death over about ten days with the freezing happening quicker each time. It never actually reached the point of the dreaded three red lights of death. After the Phantasy Star Universe freeze I got up to restart the system only to be met with the three red lights of death. I've immortalized the experience here.

So I got on the phone to Microsoft via India and jumped through all the hoops to find out what I knew was going to happen. The second console came with a ninety-day warranty which I was now of course no longer under and not the one-year warranty that new systems have. Which means I'll be footing the bill of $139.90 this time around. Unlike last time where Microsoft paid for everything for the out-of-warranty system. What's happened between the two instances? Apparently the deluge of broken systems has forced Microsoft to hold firm and force those people who are out-of-warranty to pay.  I do understand their position although it does severely piss me off. The third console will be coming with the full one-year warranty should I need to go for Xbox 360 number four. If that's the case, hopefully I'll at least have it happen before the warranty expires. Hopefully... When will it be your turn?

Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition -- Final Opinion.

Straight to the point with this one, if you've already played Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube or PlayStation 2 then Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition is not worth the double-dip. The new controls don't really add anything new to the experience. It's the exact same game as before. The controls have an initially steep learning curve but once you've gotten past that they perform admirably. Does slashing with the Wii Remote to slash with your knife really change things? No. It doesn't. In fact I preferred the more controlled feeling of holding C and hitting A to slash with the knife. Does the seemingly point and shoot controls help the aiming? I bet most people believe that to be the case. But it's still the same motions as before with the wrist instead of the thumb. You're not lessening the amount of metal capacity needed or the physical movement of the process. It's the same.  And it feels the same to me. So it's not worth it in my book. If you've never played Resident Evil 4 before than I'd recommend Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition as the actual gameplay is still fun and there is a lot of game there to be had.  All of the modes of Resident Evil on the Gamecube return with the added extra content of the PlayStation 2 version. The largest chunk of new content comes in the form of the Separate Ways game that's unlocked after completing the main game. This mode took me five hours and was surprisingly well thought out. It didn't actually feel tacked on. It does indeed add some insight into the story of Resident Evil 4 if you care about such things given the decidedly corny nature of the series storytelling. It added a substantially sized new area to the game and a couple of decent new boss battles. In spite of the flaws in the presentation with the widescreen and high definition issues the game still provides the great core gameplay.  But as I've double-dipped I'll be giving Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition a 7.5.

Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition -- Initial Impression.

Resident Evil 4 originally came out on the Nintendo Gamecube in January of 2005 and it artistically saved a franchise in trouble of imploding. It topped many people's Game of the Year listings for 2005. And many would argue it as the best game on the Gamecube entirely. Strangely enough though the game didn't come close to its potential in sales on the system. It's safe to say it tanked. Maybe people were tired of Resident Evil or maybe they didn't believe the hype or maybe it was doomed because it was on the Gamecube. Nobody really knows. Whatever the reason it sparked Capcom to port the game over to the PlayStation 2. Back when it was a Gamecube exclusive series creator Shinji Mikami even claimed he would cut his own head off if the game ever showed up on any system other than the Gamecube. He was that sure of it. In bringing the game to the PS2 Capcom decided to add some extra content to try and make it worth it to Resident Evil fans to double-dip with the title. The PlayStation 2 version of the game sold a little better than its Gamecube counterpart but still failed to meet its potential in sales. Now here we are in June of 2007 with Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. This is the Gamecube version of the game with the added PlayStation 2 bonus content and newfangled Wii enabled controls. I always wanted to try out the bonus content added to the PS2 version and the game's relatively budget price of $29 and the potential of the Wii's controls has caused me to double-dip with the game. A few things are initially apparent. First off, the advertised widescreen isn't truly 16:9 and that just outright sucks. If your TV is correctly displaying in 16:9 then you're going to have black bars on the left and right sides of the screen. If you're saying your widescreen TV doesn't have the bars, it means your TV is auto-filling the screen by stretching the picture and making the image quality even worse. And worse it is. On the Gamecube Resident Evil 4 was easily one of the most impressive games visually up to that point. Two and a half years later and through Nintendo's own Wii Component Video Cable on a high end HDTV the game looks like crap. Every jagged line leaps off the screen. Dithering can be seen all over the place. As for the controls, you'll need some time to come to grips with them. They're not instantly friendly. I'm not sure yet if they're an improvement or a hindrance. Only time will tell if the extra content and the new controls were worth the double-dip with Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition.

Rainbow Six: Vegas -- Final Opinion.

I have managed to work my way through the offline story mode, the online co-op story mode, and the online terrorist hunt mode of Rainbow Six: Vegas. What started out as a shiny glow around the game has now dulled and faded away. It's still a good game. But the flaws are there. The game seemed to have ironed out most of the flaws inherent to the genre. Things like the cheap spawning of enemies right on top of you. Enemies shooting through corners. Enemies with intermittent accuracy. The more you play the game the more you'll see of these flaws as they're all there. And it seems to be some of the game's modes fair better than others. The offline game seems to be rather stable. The online co-op mode starts to see some degradation. The online terrorist hunt levels seem to see the game break down the most. That's where it gets really bad. Especially the spawning of enemies right on top of you. I was hoping this generation was going to be the one where they fixed some of the issues that have been plaguing gaming the last couple of generations. They need to use that extra memory and load in every single enemy within a stage with the initial load. They all need to be in there and active. Instead they're continuing to fill the memory with graphical touches. They're making sure that the statue in the corner you don't look twice at has the most amazingly shiny and reflective texturing. It results in this ridiculously cheap spawning of enemies. Stop pushing the graphics and try working on the AI for a change? You know, improve the gameplay maybe? The game would be amazing if things like the spawning of enemies and their accuracy were just a tad bit more fair. The game's graphics are great. Maybe too much so. The game's sound design is awesome. A great use of surround sound. The music that cues in with the action is great. The environmental noises are great. Even though they're often annoying sounds like car alarms and the like, they're exceptionally well done and really put you in the moment. The voice acting is decent enough. Stereotypes abound. The story is standard stuff here and entirely irrelevant. The game plays the best with other people. The offline mode tends to lean towards boring with your AI teammates doing most of the work. The online modes are fun in spite of the cheap flaws. It's well worth playing even with the bits of frustration. I'm giving Rainbow Six: Vegas an 8.

Tomb Raider Anniversary -- Final Opinion.

Nearly eighteen hours of gameplay later and the credits have rolled on Tomb Raider Anniversary. The Tomb Raider Legend engine allows for the same improved controls and new moves as applied to the original Tomb Raider. Gone are the original's tank like controls. There is hardly any go forward, stop, adjust so you're lined up just perfectly, and make the leap. Now it's entirely more fluid. All of that is done far more on the fly. It's not so start and stop anymore. And as in Legend, it's a great thing in Anniversary. In the original if you weren't lined up just perfectly you were going to be falling to your death. Tomb Raider Anniversary allows for a little imprecision. If you're close enough you can still grab on to that ledge or handhold. You'll be prompted to quickly press a button as a saving grace. The same sort of aspect has been applied to the cutscenes. You'll have to go through quick timer events we've all come to know. Crystal Dynamics has done the smart thing and actually mapped the actions to the controls for these scenes. In other words, it's not just some random buttons to press for the scene. If Lara needs to jump, then it'll be X, if she needs to fire her weapon it'll be R1, if she needs to roll or dodge it'll be the circle button. All just as she would normally control. You'll instinctively know what button to push based on the onscreen action and you'll never be tripped up. That's the best thing about it. It feels natural. It doesn't feel there just to trip you up as most quick timer events happen to do. The game walks a fine line incredibly well. It manages to feel just like the original Tomb Raider while being fresh and new at the same time. The level structures all feel familiar. You know you've been here before. But you also understand that things have been changed around to fit in Lara's new Legend moves like the grappling hook and all it allows. Everything has been changed because of it. From structure to puzzles and boss battles, yet it feels like you're playing the original Tomb Raider. The boss battles are the most obvious in how they've changed. Especially the human ones. No longer just shootouts and more quick timer events. The story has also been considerably changed. It's far more fleshed out and full. What was inferred has now been driven blatantly home. The puzzles are still fiendishly fun and clever. The action improved. The graphics are a mixed bag. They look great for a PS2 game. But having played Legend on the X360 and knowing what could have been makes the graphics lamentable.  The sound design is nothing short of awesome. The sparse use of music throughout most of the game helps create a great sense of isolation that feeds into the exploration of the tombs. And the music spiking into play with any sort of combat helps provide a sense of urgency in the matter. The best part of the original game has been preserved within Anniversary, and that is that sense of exploration. It's more about exploring and the puzzles than it'll ever be about the combat in the original and Anniversary. It's easy to lose yourself in the exploration and puzzles and that's a great thing. I'm giving Tomb Raider Anniversary a 9. Now bring on the sequel to Tomb Raider Legend, and make sure it's back on the X360 or the PS3.

Rainbow Six: Vegas -- The Human Factor.

I've managed to play through the co-op story mode of Rainbow Six: Vegas. I played through the game with Magus and have come to find out how important the human factor actually is within the game. Co-op mode is good fun. The game plays out like a more controlled SOCOM. Same essential concept. In the co-op mode you have other living players along for the ride and you work together to get the job done. However in the offline single player game you're saddled with two AI teammates. They perform better than the AI in SOCOM, but they're still not all that great. They're entirely schizophrenic. Either they're taking down hostile targets with amazing precision or they're entirely inept and just let the enemy walk up and kill them. There isn't any in between.  The offline story mode degrades into essentially just ordering your team around and having them handle most of the duties. You sort of take a back seat. Especially on the realistic difficulty which borders on stupid cheap. When the AI is being inept it's a dose of frustration. When they're actually doing what they're supposed to be doing, it's actually a dose of boredom. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make it through the offline game. I'm essentially just chasing achievements at this point. I might not have the patience for it.

Tomb Raider Anniversary -- Initial Impression.

I've also started in on Tomb Raider Anniversary for the PlayStation 2 via the PlayStation 3. Tomb Raider Anniversary is the retelling of Lara Croft's original adventure using the Tomb Raider Legends engine. So you're back trekking through Peru and Greece and Egypt with better controls and refined puzzles and more moves and abilities. The original Tomb Raider was a success beyond the tits because of its true sense of exploration coupled with isolation and in spite of its awkward and stiff controls. Crystal Dynamics is going to attempt to do for the original what Tomb Raider Legends managed to pull off for the series as a whole. It's going to breathe new life into something rather dead.  I have played through the first two levels and I have to say I think Crystal Dynamics is on the right track yet again. We'll have to see if they can fully pull it off on the other side of course.

Rainbow Six: Vegas -- Initial Impression.

I'm a little late with the initial impression for Rainbow Six: Vegas on the Xbox 360. These impressions are for the online story mode co-op missions as that's all I've played of the game thus far. I resisted playing this game for the longest time. I dismissed it as being like the previous Rainbow Six games I had demoed on the Dreamcast.  One-hit-kills and overly tactical to the point of almost being turn based gameplay with retarded AI to deal with in both the enemies and your NPC team members. But after seeing numerous people on my buddy list continually playing the title I had to reevaluate the game. I am initially very pleasantly surprised at what I've found in the co-op mode at least. I would describe it  as a far more controlled and working SOCOM style game. It's far more assault than it is stealth. Which is a plus these days with the glut of stealth gameplay out there. The game initially comes off as very good looking. The sound design comes off as amazing. The gameplay seems solid with far less glitchy AI behavior, although some glitchiness has arisen. Is it enough to derail what seems like a rather good game? Only time will tell...

Resistance: Fall of Man -- Final Opinion.

Oops, forgot the middle section it seems. Resistance: Fall of Man can be summed up in one word. Solid. All of the aspects of Resistance are well done. They just don't exceed in any way. The graphics are crisp and clean and well lit.  Not a lot of fumbling around overly dark corridors here. The level designs are predominantly linear without any running around wondering what to do. The few switches in the game are always for the door right in front of you. No flipping a switch only to be left wondering what the hell that did. The weapons are actually quite toned down from what one might expect from Insomniac, the makers of the Ratchet & Clank series with its insane array of weapons. You get all the essential types here from standard and alien versions of the machine gun. A standard shotgun. Alien rifles that shoot through objects and gain more power the more objects they travel through. You have standard and alien grenades. You have the standard sniper rifle. The weapons are also very solid without exceeding in any real way. The controls of the game are handled well. No complaints there. The story is told mostly through narration between levels. So you get a concise and clear understanding of what's going on at all times because it's all spelled out for you. The story is interesting and by-the-numbers. It too is well done without exceeding in any particular way. The sound and music are again well done. Good voice acting and battle sounds with affective music. Everything is well done with Resistance. It's a good game. It just somehow doesn't cross over to being a masterful game. I'm giving Resistance: Fall of Man an 8.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney -- Final Opinion.

With some effort I've managed to make my way through Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney's final case. My advice for anyone considering playing this game would be to suspend disbelief entirely. First off all, don't actually expect much in the way of actual gameplay. It's far more a graphic novel than a game. It's all about the stories. The stories are actually anime style comedies. The humor level is decidedly corny and goofball. The characters are anime style stereotypes. The characters react with different versions of the spit take over every other line throughout the entire game. If you find this level of humor to be funny then you'll love the time spent with the game. If you're expecting something more, then you're going to be sorely disappointed with the game. I found myself a little disturbed by the world of Phoenix Wright. A world I sure as hell wouldn't want to find myself in. A world where trials are rushed through without due process. Where the prosecution is allowed to hide evidence from the defense. A world where witnesses are shown to have lied and where the judge allows them to amend said testimony therefore erasing any lie and now validating the testimony. The game seems to write the rules as it goes along to create twists and turns in the story for the sake of drama. I found that aspect more than a little annoying. It's all going to come down to whether or not you're bothered by the inconsistencies and how well you appreciate the humor. I happened to have issues with both. I'm giving Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney a 7.