Wario Land: Shake It! -- Shakey Control In the Wii Generation.

Wario Land: Shake It didn't get any fanfare at Nintendo's abysmal E3 conference. It wasn't even shown in a B-roll capacity. Hell, it wasn't even mentioned at all. Animal Crossing and Wii Music are their seasonal focus. Shake It is a very good game, it might be a great game. It deserved more. We, the core gamers, deserved more. Especially considering this is our kind of game. Shake It! is a 2D platformer of old. Along the lines of Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog with some added Wii Remote functionality. But even the presence of Wii Remote gimmickry can't detract from this game. And that's mainly because the controls are pretty much perfect. Wario runs and jumps and does the old time butt bounce attack and the rushing shoulder charge attack. He can pick up enemies and throw them just like Yoshi from Super Mario World 2, only with more control. The Wii Remote's tilt and shake functions are put to great use. And that's mainly because there isn't really any allowance for error. The remote isn't going to flake out on you because the designers have seemingly not allowed it to happen. There isn't any pointing in Shake It!. Only the aforementioned tilting and shaking. Wario has a ground pounding punch attack that's tied to shaking the remote. Other functions like swinging on poles like a gymnast  or shaking coins from bags or health giving garlic from enemies are tied to shaking in a context sensitive way. The same applies to the titling functions. Tilting allows Wario to aim where he throws the enemies or it'll move vehicles like a hotrod or submarine. The remote handles these without fail. Something you can't really say about most Wii titles. Wario Land: Shake It's controls are impressive. Everything is as fluid and responsive as the best 2D platformers from the 16-bit heyday of the genre. Now the question becomes just how good a game is Wario Land: Shake It? Next time...

Wario Land: Shake It! -- Initial Impression.

Well this is it. My one Nintendo Wii game for the holiday season 2008. You would have thought Nintendo would have seen this coming. I mean they essentially shot their active intellectual property load in launching the Wii. You would think someone would have looked ahead at the schedule and realized that there would be nothing to offer core gamers in the all important holiday season. Maybe they did. Maybe they thought third party console support would fill the holes. Given the fact that they haven't had decent third party console support since the 16-bit era I doubt that's it. Maybe they just don't care about the software they're selling while they're still moving hardware like they are. Maybe they expect the Nintendo DS to pick up the slack. Maybe they're just caught with they're pants down. Yeah, that's the one in my opinion. Wario Land: Shake It! is the next proper entry in the Wario Land series which started out on the original Game Boy. Wario himself started in the Mario Land games as the villain before rising to become the lead and morphing the series into Wario Land in the third entry. Wario Land: Shake It! is the first effort of Good-Feel which is headed up by Shigeharu Umezaki, an ex Konami employee. Umezaki had his hands in various Konami titles like Castlevania, Life Force, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, and Contra. So what we have here is an old school 2D platforming game in the hands of someone with considerable industry experience in said genre. I'm expecting an old fashioned fun platforming romp. A game straight out of yesteryear, with added Wii Remote gimmickry. Hopefully it's of the far more functional variety and not just tacked on because it's the Wii. As always, time will tell.

Yakuza 2 -- Final Opinion.

Sixty hours and forty-six minutes was my after the credits cleared save file time for Yakuza 2. The original Yakuza took me roughly thirty-five hours. You can see the considerable difference in content. In both a larger main story and in a game packed to the gills with side missions and mini-game content. You could probably play through the story in under twenty hours if you just ignored everything else there was to do in the game. So how does Yakuza 2 measure up? Graphically it's much the same game with a little clean up here and there. It's a great looking game for a PlayStation 2 title, but it brings with it all the limitations of the PlayStation 2 itself. They did manage to improve the loading times considerably. The combat is almost entirely the same. It was lauded as much improved and new but that's not really the case. All the team did was balance the game by moving the order in which you earn moves around. And they started you with the ability to kick behind you right off to deal with being mobbed. The combat is still a blast, and it's as vicious as ever. The music is still a great mix of score and rock that really fits the mood. It underscores the drama of the story and provides you with great music to fight by. Something that probably isn't easy to pull off but Yakuza 2 manages it perfectly. The voice work here is great. Not only that it's in Japanese, but that it's clearly well done and appropriate. Japanese voice work tends to be cartoony to me. It always seems a tad over the top. Not so here. Everything feels dead on. The story of the original Yakuza was written by a famous Japanese author. The sequel was as well. It clearly shows that the games were done together. Well, not only because that's the known case, I mean they had the much larger sequel to a massive project out within a year, but because again everything just fits here. Except for a bit of chapter twelve where the game just takes a tiny misstep into inappropriateness. But it immediately rights itself and continues on toward the finish. And what a finish it is. Yakuza 2 has a genuine holy shit moment of a plot twist at the end I didn't see coming. And I was picking off what's what and who's who throughout the game. I had it all pegged until then. And that's great. Yakuza 2 is much improved over the original game in almost every respect. The only flaw I have with Yakuza 2 is probably in theamount of extra content crammed in there. It approaches overkill. And I'm not all that thrilled with how the completion aspect handles them. What counts for what isn't the most balanced system in the world. But those are minimal complaints at best. Yakuza 2 remains a must own PlayStation 2 experience.  I'm giving Yakuza 2 a 9. Now bring on Yakuza: Kenzan and Yakuza 3. And would you kindly be quick about it SEGA? No need for years in between this time around.

Yakuza 2 -- Submitting to the Side Missions.

Yakuza 2 kicked off my holiday season. It's the first in a litany of titles coming in the next few months. See, the plan was to buckle down and finish Yakuza 2 in a week and then go right into Star Wars: The Force Unleashed or Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen. The Force Unleashed arrived yesterday. Dragon Quest IV arrives tomorrow. And Wario Land: Shake It! and Kirby Super Star Ultra are next Monday. With LEGO Batman that Wednesday, and Sonic Chronicles and Silent Hill: Homecoming the following week. And that's just my September. Don't even get me started on October. The problem is, I'm just now into chapter seven of Yakuza 2's sixteen chapters. That's right, I'm not even halfway through the game as far as chapters are concerned. I've put in just over thirty hours into the game thus far. Yakuza 2 is a massive game. It's packed to the gills with side missions. So skip them some of you might be saying. I can't, because for the most part they're awesome. They are technically optional, but they offer up so much of the game's character, charm, and humor. Plus they're exceptional sources of money and experience. Not to mention the inclusion of the completion entry in the menus. A catalog of everything there is to see and do in the world of Yakuza just waiting there to be filled in. Yakuza 2 is demanding that I not shortchange it by the very nature of how fun the game itself is. And how rare is that? So I'm going to abide and not shortchange it. I'm going to take the time it needs to get it done in the way the game deserve. Schedule be damned.

Viva Pinãta: Trouble In Paradise -- Pester Me No More.

Viva Pinãta is a game, unlike Animal Crossing. What does Viva Pinãta have that Animal Crossing does not? The answer to that is threat and a sense of purpose. In Animal Crossing you just go about your exceedingly boring lives without concern or any discernible goal. Viva Pinãta is very goal orientated, so you're always focused. The game doesn't tell you what you should be focused on, it leaves it all up to you. But it provides enough things to do in its very Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon interconnected ways to always keep you focused on your particular goals. And that alone is brilliant. But Rare takes it one step further with the inclusion of threat and annoyance. So while you're focused in on your goals the game continually throws a little danger and annoyance your way. Adds in a little chaos. The game's bad guy is Professor Pester. He's just your typical cartoon villain. He wants all the candy and he's out to get it. He'll enter your garden once a day after you've reached a certain level. He'll come in and browse around until he finds the pinãta he's looking for. Usually one of the more valuable ones filled with more candy. He'll proceed to kill it unless you somehow stop him. It's a pretty major threat. You can't get a pinãta back that he's killed without rebuilding it exactly and that can be a lot of work. There are numerous ways to stop him. They range from creative garden design to pure bribery to fighting back with certain pinãta species. The professor also employs what are called ruffians. They'll periodically enter your garden and cause you some annoyance. They can't instantly kill pinãtas like Professor Pester, but they have a variety of ways to annoy based on their type. Some will cough up sour candies that will make your pinãta become sick. The sickness can lead to death if you don't get them the medical attention they need in time. Other ruffians will throw dirt around messing up or otherwise altering the landscape of your garden. They might destroy flowers, trees, or bushes. They can get into fights with pinãtas themselves or start fights between pinãtas. The game goes further still with the addition hostile plants and pinãtas. Sour pinãtas will enter your garden based on your level and essentially do the same things as the ruffians. You'llneed to figure out what it takes to tame each of the sour pinãtas and turn them into tame residents of your garden. The weeds will plant and sprout themselves and fast rates compared to other plants. They'll mature and again attempt to wreak havoc in your garden. An unchecked weed will soon multiply and unchecked weeds will soon overrun your garden. Simple diligence and awareness is normally all it takes to combat each of game's threats. It amazes me to see the reactions to people who have come into the second game without playing the first one. A surprising amount of those people are freaking out over the game's actual game aspects. You know, win, lose, that sort of basic thing that actually makes games what they are. I've seen multiple screen shots of gardens overrun with weeds. Or posts bitching about how Pester killed their most favorite pinãta. It's these very aspects that make Viva Pinãta what it is to me. I've gotten to the point in the game where Professor Pester is now a non issue. In that time I've only lost one pinãta to him. And it was totally my fault in that I wasn't paying attention. He comes only during the day. Once a day. So you know to look for him then. Once he's been taken care of you're free to do whatever until it's that time again in game. I have only one sour pinãta left to deal with. And the ruffians have been dealt with. I'm at the point where I can start knocking off my goals. And once that's done, I'll be able to set up my ideal garden. Rare is aware of the nature of this and even goes so far as to offer up a for fun only mode with zero threat. Of course you can't earn any achievements in this mode. And people are actually bitching about that. If you don't want any game to your actual game, then I'd suggest playing Animal Crossing. But for the rest of us who actually like our games to have actual game to them, Viva Pinãta will offer you just what you're looking for. And I'm sure as hell am grateful for that.

Yakuza 2 -- Initial Impression.

It has begun. That snowball on top of the hill has been set in motion. There's no going back now. The expanded holiday season is upon us. There is a game to buy and sometimes two or three every week it seems through Thanksgiving. Next up for me is Yakuza 2 which is obviously the sequel to the original Yakuza, one of the PlayStation 2's better titles. Having just recently replayed Yakuza to get the completed save file onto the virtual memory card on the PlayStation 3's hard drive I'll be playing the game on said system. What's immediately noticeable about Yakuza 2? The voice work is all in the original Japanese. The English voiceover was left out. While SEGA is claiming it's a reaction to the fan outcry I'm more inclined to believe it's a money saving issue. While I had no problems with the voice work in the original, if fact I believe it's an example of the best in the industry, the original Japanese does indeed lend a sense of credibility to the overall immersion of the game's world. So for, having played merely through chapter one of sixteen, the script seems toned down as far as the number of expletives are concerned. What's also readily apparent is that the world of Yakuza 2 is just as engrossing as the original. It's good to be back. It's good to get down and dirty again in this gritty version of Japan.

Too Human -- Final Opinion.

I had hoped to earn the last achievement in Too Human before coming to a final opinion on the game but it looks like it's just not meant to be. I've completed the game with forty-nine of fifty achievements. I'm missing the one for a complete seven-piece epic armor set. In previous entries I've essentially covered the controversy surrounding the game, the great loot system, and the functional controls and the subtleties of the battle system. So what's left to talk about? The answer to that question is balance. And that's Too Human's only real fault. The game is incredibly unbalanced. It all comes down to polarity enemies and the roll of the dice. When you load up a level you're taking a roll of the dice as to what enemies will show up as far as polarity goes. I mean, there's always going to be a troll there, and goblins there, and a spider there and a leader there in their same spots. But what is going to be different is the enemy polarity. Certain enemies come in different flavors, they can be shielded, or explosive, or ice, or poison, or time based. And it's in these combinations and the fact that the enemies scale to your level where the game's balance goes to hell. My main character is a commando. There are certain polarity enemies that I just can't damage worth anything. My bullets do the bare minimal in damage, my grenades to nothing, my ruiner and finishers do nothing, and my sword attacks are a joke because if I get anywhere within its massive area of effect I'm dead in one hit. And this is at the maximum character level of fifty, with the epic rifle for a cybernetic commando. In other words, my class and alignment's absolute best weapon in the game. To the point where it will take me ten minutes to whittle the health down of a troll. Ten minutes might not seem like a lot. But if it's surrounded by thirty tough enemies and I'm not in a big open room but trapped in a corridor with the door shut behind me you're starting to see how messed up and unfair it gets to be. There has been much ado about Too Human's story and graphics. I find them both to be adequate. The graphics chug in the cinema scenes and the facial models aren't the greatest looking things ever produced but they get the job done. In combat, Too Human looks much better. The story is an interesting bastardization of Norse mythology set in a sci-fi future world. It's told in a out of order fashion thatwon't sit well with some people. You only really start to make the connections and get it all in subsequent playthroughs. One time through and you'll likely be left unsatisfied. And it's the setup for a proposed trilogy, it established the characters and world and some history and little more. The music is actually very good but in my opinion suffers from trying to so be Halo's score. Same juxtaposition of rock and cinematic orchestral score. The voice work is very good all around. When Too Human works, it's great fun. But when Too Human doesn't work on account of balance you'll want to pull your hair out. It provides fun and frustration in equal doses. I'm giving Too Human 7.5. I'm looking forward to the sequel and its rumored four-player online co-op, and its hopeful balance adjustments. The Too Human trilogy stumbles a bit coming out of the gate, but it still has the potential to finish up a real winner.

Viva Pinãta: Trouble In Paradise -- Initial Impression.

Just before the coming storm what should I be doing? I should be knocking off some Xbox Live Arcade and Virtual Console titles. That would be the wise thing to do. But no, not me of course, I'm going to add a major time sink right into the middle of everything. That time sink is Viva Pinãta: Trouble In Paradise. The game is the sequel to Viva Pinãta on the Xbox 360. The garden pet simulation title with surprising depth from Rare. What am I expecting from this one? More of the same honestly, and that should be enough. As long as all the charm and depth of the original are retained. We'll see if they've pulled it off. And we'll see if playing the game now proves to be an unwise decision.

Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty -- All In One.

I've completed Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty. Once again developed by Insomniac Games, the title is a series first in that it's being offered as a download only title in North America via Sony's PlayStation Network. Japan and Europe will be getting retail versions of the game.  The game goes for the asking price of $14.99 and offers up roughly a four hour experience. I've had a PlayStation 3 since a few months after launch and this is the first title that's compelled me to make a purchase on the American PlayStation Network. Quest for Booty is the bridging segment between Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and its upcoming sequel due in Fall of 2009. The big question here of course is it worth it for four hours of game at fifteen dollars? The game itself is all Ratchet without Clank as anyone who has completed Tools of Destruction will know the why of all that. Losing Clank takes away from the core gameplay mechanics. All of his abilities are naturally no longer there. They've compensated this by giving Ratchet's wrench some new abilities. They've also limited the number of weapons. And have shortened the time needed to level them up considerably. Of the handful of weapons you'll have access to, you'll only be able to level each one twice. They've removed the skill points and gold bolts and there are no further new items for use. So there is very little to do besides go straight through the game with next to no incentive for replaying the game. The overall size of the game is roughly one large planet from previous games in the series. The gameplay is still sharp and the controls are still silky smooth. The game is as gorgeous as Tools of Destruction. The humor is still exactly the same and everpresent. The voice work is still top notch. The overall challenge is rather easy on the middle of three difficulties. The story itself is good enough. The problem with the game is that it really feels like a shell of what a Ratchet & Clank game is supposed to be. It leaves you wanting more, which is its sole purpose really, but it's not exacltly in the best way. It's tough to fully recommend Quest for Booty based on the size versus price issue. If you're a big fan of the series, well you'll need it. Those looking to jump in here should probably look elsewhere within the series. I'm giving Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty a 7.

Castle Crashers -- All In One.

As we're in the calm before the storm I've been lazily drifting between a few titles. There are the nightly sessions of Phantasy Star Universe going on more for the conversation and checking in with friends than the game itself at this point. We're just awaiting the end game there, and that final achievement before putting Phantasy Star Universe to bed. I'm still firing up Too Human to do a run or three for the remaining pieces of the seven part epic armor set, and that final achievement associated with it. And we've also been spending time with Castle Crashers, the latest effort from The Behemoth, makers of Alien Hominid. The Behemoth sprung up out of Newsgrounds, an online community of homebrew game creators working with Flash. The Behemoth managed to get a real game to market with Alien Hominid. It was later ported to Xbox Live Arcade. Alien Hominid was a visually impressive 2D beat 'em up that catered too much to the egos of the most core gamers. In other words, it was stupidly way too hard to be any damn fun. Castle Crashers is another extremely visually impressive 2D beat 'em up born of Flash and released on Xbox Live Arcade. Did they learn their lesson with Alien Hominid? It seems they actually did. Will wonders never cease? Castle Crashers is actually fun. However it's not a flawless experience. The biggest complaint is probably the worst offense common to the 2D beat 'em up genre, and that's having a tough time lining up on the correct plane to engage the enemy. Castle Crashers is exceedingly sensitive about it. Even though you're standing right next to something with your weapon animating through said object you're not connecting and you'll find yourself having to continually adjust your positioning. Another issue I have with the game is in its experience system. Leveling up in a beat 'em up is not exactly new. It's been around since River City Ransom. Doing this online is rather new. So the question of how to handle this comes into play. I'm not sure the system they've employed works best. It's to each his own, and that might sound fair in theory, but button mashing wins the day in practice. A shared team experience would have been better suited for online in my opinion. Those two complaints aren't enough to truly dampen everything else Castle Crashers has to offer. It has a gorgeous visual style, exceptionally well done music, an offbeat and lowbrow sense of humor, and a decent character building aspect, in a rather sizeable main quest bolstered by an urge to collect every last weapon and animal helper. As of this entry, the game is plagued by a mess of connection issues that The Behemoth and Microsoft are aware of and currently working to fix via patch. Once that's been applied, it should be smooth sailing. Castle Crashers is a major improvement over Alien Hominid. I'm interested to see what they do next and hopefully whatever it may be is a further step in the right direction. I'm giving Castle Crashers an 8.