Lost Planet: Extreme Condition -- Final Opinion.

It took me roughly ten hours to complete the eleven missions that comprise Lost Planet's single player campaign. In those ten hours and eleven missions I found exactly what I was looking for from the game. As I stated in the previous entry I was expecting a great looking game with some good run and gun 3D action versus a whole lot of space bugs on a frozen planet with a massive hunk of the typical Capcom story cheese. Well, the game is certainly good looking. From the world to the characters to the enemies the game isn't hard on the eyes. There are some wonderfully pretty explosions in the game. The game also features an epic score of the cinematic variety. No complaints there. The action is really solid, just be sure to turn off the aim assist. You have a wide and interesting array of weaponry at your disposal. In both the on foot and mech based varieties. The game is a mix of standard run and gun shooting interlaced with some mech combat. The gimmick here is the extreme condition of the planet you're dealing with. Just picture Hoth infested with giant space bugs and you'll get the idea. The game employs a shielding system. As long as you maintain your shields then you can't die. The shields in the game are based on the planet being so cold. You need thermal energy to survive. So as you're going along you need to collect and maintain your thermal energy levels. Thermal energy just so happens to be inside the billion space bugs you'll be fighting your way through. So it really doesn't become much of an issue. The game also features some really good boss battles. In fact they're probably the best part of the game. Each one an epic battle of survival. As for the story, well that's a huge helping of cheese, even by Capcom's standards. It's the story of an attempt to colonize a frozen planet and the race to terraform it between some space pirates and an evil corporation all the while dealing with the billion space bugs. And it's cheesy, although I did find the ending curiously touching. Lost Planet features a full-fledged online side. All the standards deathmatch variants are present. Lost Planet was exactly what I wanted and a good game to pick up at $19-$29. Kenji Inafune can't seem to do anything wrong these days. I'm looking forward to the sequel Lost Planet: Colonies. I'm giving Lost Planet: Extreme Condition for the Xbox 360 a rock solid 8.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition -- Initial Impression.

Next up for me is a bit of action in the form of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition for the Xbox 360. The game hit the Xbox 360 in late January of 2007 and here I am just getting to it thirteen months later. The game is Capcom's second foray into the current generation of consoles and their second Xbox 360 title. The game became a critical and sales success just like their first effort Dead Rising. Capcom seems to be embracing the current generation and reaping the rewards more so than their Japanese brethren. Capcom's embraced western design principles and have successfully employed them. Something the rest of Japan has just now begrudgingly gotten around to admitting they might need to do let alone successfully employed them. Let's see if Lost Planet is as successful as Dead Rising was in my eyes. I'm expecting a great looking game with some good run and gun 3D action versus a whole lot of space bugs on a frozen planet with a massive hunk of the typical Capcom story cheese. Lost Planet seems to come with a notoriously hard reputation. Hopefully it's not too frustrating. Time will tell...

Professor Layton and the Curious Village -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the Nintendo DS. The game is the fourth adventure title I've played on the system. We've had Trace Memory, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and Hotel Dusk. I can safely say that Professor Layton and the Curious Village is the best title out of the bunch. Although that might not be saying much. The story of Professor Layton is well done, if a tad too obvious. You'll know exactly what it's about and what the secret of the village is, and also what the Golden Apple turns out to be just about a little over halfway through it. The gameplay here is entirely in the puzzles. There isn't really anything else. The game is going to depend on what you make of them. And again the puzzles are brainteasers that make you feel like you're right back in school doing homework. The game could be hell for some people. It took me a while to get through the game even though my clocked time was just nearly thirteen hours. And that's because I played the game in essentially sound bite fashion. A little here, a little there. The game became too much like the homework of old for me in long stretches. But this really can't be that much of a complaint considering that the game is designed for a portable system. It does play perfectly for those who can only grab a little time here and there throughout their day. The graphics are great, such as they are. The game uses a clean art style. The controls work perfectly, again, such as they are. There isn't a lot going on and the game is controlled entirely by touch with the stylus. The writing recognition programming works rather well and only hiccups once in a while. The sound and voice work is rather good, although the music is repetitive and there are too few tracks. The animation for the full motion video sections is quite impressive for the Nintendo DS.  Overall I'm satisfied with Professor Layton and the Curious Village. But I'd only recommend the game to those who are serious fans of brainteasers. I'm giving Professor Layton and the Curious Village an average 7.5.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village -- Riddle Me This.

I have put in about five and a half hours into Professor Layton and the Curious Village. I've solved roughly forty-five puzzles thus far. Every puzzle found up to my current position within the game. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is an adventure game with a strong edutainment vibe. The game follows the story of Layton and his apprentice Luke as they search for clues in an ever broadening mystery. The gameplay however amounts to puzzles. Nothing but puzzles. As you move about the village of Mystere you'll be tapping away with the stylus. Tapping here and there and everywhere looking for hint coins and puzzles. As they're both everywhere in the game. You'll tap a chair and get a puzzle or tap a character and they'll give you a puzzle. There isn't any rhyme or reason to it. The game features a character named Granny Riddleton who happens to have a shack where any missed or unsolved puzzles will end up. You can go to her to find anything you've missed. That's just how stuffed anywhere and everywhere the puzzles are. The game keeps a running tally of the puzzles and certain instances of the story will require you to have solved a set amount. So you don't need to solve them all to get through the story. Each puzzle has a set reward called picarats for  being solved based on the difficulty. So you might find an easy puzzle valued at ten picarats, or a rather tough one valued at fifty picarats. If you get the solution the on the first attempt you'll get the full reward value. If you're incorrect and need to try again the reward value drops with each wrong answer. The game also keeps a running total of your picarats with the promise of something good happening when you earn a certain amount of picarats. Some puzzles come with rewards beyond the picarats. You might find gizmos or pieces of a torn up painting or items of furniture. There are three areas in the in-game menu where you can assemble the gizmos and the torn up painting and place furniture in Layton's and Luke's rooms. With the furniture you're trying to appease the tastes of each of them. All three offer the promise of something good happening upon successful completion of each one. The puzzles themselves are representatives of classic brainteasers. They run the gamut from riddles, to geometry, to optical illusions, to logic puzzles, to spatial relation and slide puzzles. For the most part the puzzles are decent fun even though they'll remind you of being back in school. The problems come in from really poor phrasing in what they want from you. More than a few of the puzzles are poorly written. This only leads to annoyance and frustration. The game offers a hint system. You can buy a hint with a hint coin. One coin per hint. Three hints per puzzle. Another problem here is again the poorly written hints sometimes offer no help. And when I'm saying the game has poorly written puzzles I'm not referring to the translation. This game received the same highly professional translation from Nintendo that they've given all their games in the last few generations. The problem is the puzzles themselves. As of right now this is a slight annoyance and I'm not sure if it's going to grow into something more than that. I'll just have to play on. And maybe the story will make the difference. Maybe the mystery turns out to be something great. We'll just have to wait and see.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village -- Initial Impression.

I'm jumping over to the Nintendo DS for my next game. It's going to be Professor Layton and the Curious Village. It's the first in a series of three puzzle games based on the Japanese children's books called Mental Gymnastics from Akira Tago. The games are Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Professor Layton and Pandora's Box, and Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel. The games are collections of puzzles loosely tied to a story. The puzzles are from a wide selection of classic brainteasers. I'm not entirely sure how much game there is going to be. Hopefully the story and characters add some charm and the brainteasers are more enjoyable than the scam of learning by the pure repetition of tasks that is Nintendo's Brain Training series. In that one, you're just improving your "brain age" by getting better at the tasks themselves. You're learning the tasks. Professor Layton should actually require you to actively think about the solutions. I've played through the introductory chapter which amounts to seven puzzles out of the supposedly one-hundred and fifty reported to be in the game. My initial impression is surprisingly strong at the moment. The game is clearly going to hinge on the strength of the puzzles themselves. Hopefully the game manages to stay in the sweet spot of challenging without straying too far into simplicity or frustration.

Neutopia II -- All In One.

I've completed Neutopia II over the last few days. I've been playing the game via the Wii's Virtual Console. The game takes roughly ten to twelve hours. About the same as the original Neutopia. It's pretty much more of the same, with the standard sequel improvements. Slightly better graphics, mostly in the animation of the enemies,  make the game's art style easy to look at. A stronger narrative wherein you're looking for your father who has gone missing during what appears to be the return of Dirth from the first game. They've added new weapons that add a little spice to the combat. The puzzles remain largely unchanged from the first game. Nothing new, just more of the same. You're still pushing rocks and burning bushes and all the other original Zelda type actions. Neutopia II came out a year after the original Neutopia and it is regarded as the superior game in the series. I'd pretty much agree with that sentiment. Just don't be expecting any drastic changes. The game is an overall tighter experience than the original. The best improvement being a more focused path through the game than the pure wandering of the original. I'm giving Neutopia II via the Wii Virtual Console some seventeen years after originally playing the game a 7.5.

Phantasy Star Universe -- Dancing the Phantasy Star Universe Update Shuffle.

I am sort of intentionally zoning out and not starting anything new. It doesn't mean I'm not playing anything though. As always, I'm eternally plugging away at Phantasy Star Universe. I'm now a few hours short of fifteen-hundred hours spent in the game. That's far longer than the time spent with any previous entry in the series. And with all the content yet to come, I won't be stopping anytime soon. We're in the middle of sorting out an update issue. Apparently a needed title update for the Xbox 360 version of the game is bugged and couldn't be released. This caused the Xbox 360 update to be canceled last week which resulted in a shift in content for the servers in the west. The PlayStation 2 and PC users got the content and the Xbox 360 fell behind. So SEGA set about correcting the title update and have submitted it for approval to Microsoft. It wasn't done in time for this last maintenance period. SEGA did however update the Xbox 360 servers with the content that isn't tied to the title update. So we've gotten some balance and drop rate adjustments and a new trade mission as well as the next chapter in the story missions and a bunch of new casino items. They've also sort of put up what's called the Guardian's Boost Road Mission. It seems the GBRM are partially tied to the title update. As a result all progress in the GBRM will be reset come next week's maintenance period. The GBRM is a very cool idea and will be great fun once its fully implemented. Each month SEGA will create a road comprised of missions on a particular planet. The more you travel this road, the more you level certain bonuses, up to fifty percent. So you'll get bonuses like increased drop rates and increased combat experience and increased photon art experience. Beyond that, there is the chance of finding a rare mission along the road. A mission called Forest of Illusion which actually is Phantasy Star Online's forest area. This mission has even more chances at rare enemies and items. Plus the extremely cool PSO all over again factor it provides. It's February so that means Valentine's Day decorations and rare enemies with rare drops to hunt. We're at the level cap so all we're really doing is hunting rares and working on our photon art levels. We know of three or four more free missions on the way, a couple of major events, and the final boss and the story yet to come.  We're hunting eleven star weapons and rares at this point in the game. They'll go all the way to fifteen stars. There is a lot left in the game. And we'll continue plugging away.

Gears of War -- Final Opinion.

Magus and I have completed the five acts of Gears of War on the hardcore difficulty level. We're going to be going after the insane difficulty level, the thirty cogs, and the co-op achievements. So we're at least going through the game once more. The game is gorgeous in a truly shiny next generation sort of way. The rain effects in act three are nothing short of awesome. The enemies are also rather graphically impressive, especially the larger varieties. The star attraction of the game though has to be the co-op gameplay. It's really rather fun but it does come with a certain level of inherent frustration. Your character is responsive for the most part but occasionally it just doesn't do what you want it to do. It just happens to occur most in the heat of battle. The game has issues deciding if you want to roll or if you want to take cover. And breaking from cover with some sort of grace takes a little bit of skill. There are other little annoyances like not being able to jump over obstacles without crouching for cover beforehand and certain enemies getting far too lucky with splash damage. Another plus in Gears of War happens to be the story and characters that are

augmented with great over the top voice work. I'm not sure how intentional it all is, because it really could go either way, but Gears of War plays out as a wonderfully campy comedy. The banter between the squad members is just so silly that you have to laugh at it, and that works great for the game. The game is a graphic showcase, has a great comic flair, and features co-op combat that is fun and lag free. Gears of War is really good as a co-op experience. I don't think it's necessarily entirely filling though, it's more like Chinese food. Really good, but you're hungry again a couple hours later. I'm giving Gears of War a 9.

Gears of War -- Initial Impression.

Next up for me will finally be Gears of War for the Xbox 360. I say finally because I've actually owned the special edition of the game since its launch in November of 2006. And well, here we are in February of 2008. Something else took precedence at the time and then it just fell by the wayside. Magus and I intended to start it with the co-op mode numerous times but for whatever reason of he was in the middle of another game or I was when he was wrapping one up it just never worked out. Tonight we finally got it going. I'll be playing through Gears of War exclusively as a co-op experience. And we've started in on the hardcore difficulty. We'll at least be playing through it once more to get all the collectibles and the reasonable achievements. From what I seen so far we're in for a graphically impressive title with some serious camp value in the voice acting and story. I was rather impressed by the fun first boss battle as well. The controls seem functional with a slight learning curve in leaving cover in a controlled fashion. It seems like we're in for a fun time. Time will tell.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The game has a few things going for it. The graphics are indeed really impressive. Especially in the water effects and rain and in the creation of a lush jungle.  The characters models all animate extremely well with great fluidity. Almost too well, as that results in the typical loose control that comes from heavy animation in character models. The game provides some mild exploration in trying to find the sixty-one hidden treasures spread through the game's twenty-two levels. But this really means going off into the corners and checking every bush and rock and whatever for treasure. You're never going off the linear path of the levels. You're always guided along even in-game by a hint system. They hold your hand all the way. The game also features a few puzzles. None of them should stop you dead. They're really rather easy if you pay attention to Drake's diary. The answers are always in there. You just have to have decent powers of observation. The game's combat is all stop-and-pop. In other words the game employs a cover system from which you protect yourself from incoming fire and lean out or over to fire back. The enemies don't just sit there waiting to be shot. They duck down and take cover themselves and move around when shot at providing tougher targets. They'll try to advance on your position and will try to flank you and the whole nine yards. There is a lot of combat to be had. The game is brimming with combat. The story and characters of Uncharted are quite strong. It's all very well written. Except it borrows too heavily from Indiana Jones with a little bit of Romancing the Stone thrown in. It goes beyond little jokes like the parachute being labeled with the label 'ND' and the like. A race to a weapon before God treasure, Nazis and U-boats, making it up as you go along, rivals and colorful friends, smart and capable damsels in distress, and even the Grail diary, it's all in there. The characters are full of character and are impressively voiced. It's all well done, if not very original. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a good solid game. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm giving it a rather solid 8.