Since it’s launch in mid November, over two million copies of Gears of War have been sold worldwide. Over one million people have also played the game online. With these numbers, Gears of War has become the fastest selling next generation game this year.
In other news, Epic has stated that their downloadable content will be FREE, as opposed to charging gamers little sums for little things on the Xbox Live! Marketplace. I fully support this idea.
A pretty funny TV spot for Far Cry Vengeance has appeared on the net [url=http://www.576konzol.hu/hir_reszletes.php?id=510]here[/url].
While this may seem funny, it probably is pretty sad that the game has received poor reviews everywhere. Is it just me, or is Ubisoft doing a poor job with their FPS games for the Wii? Red Steel was critically bashed, and now Far Cry. Ubisoft is a massive publisher and developer, and are known for their quality games. Wi(i)ll they improve with their Wii FPS games? Is the Wii the right console for FPS? Time wi(i)ll tell.
Slow paced, single player games played from the first person perspective are nothing new. This sort of game has a small but dedicated cult following amongst PC gamers in the US as well as console gamers in Japan. What is new for Sega and developer Monolith ([i]F.E.A.R[/i], [i]Shogo: Mobile Armored Division[/i]) is taking a chance to publish this game on a system that is becoming known for its fast action games and expansive multiplayer capabilities. There is no multiplayer. There is no downloadable content. Every character is middle-aged, unattractive, and surly. It’s a first person console game where firearms are used perhaps once an hour.
[i]Condemned[/i] and games like it eschew gameplay variety, multiplayer options, and fast action for one single conceit that maintains a visceral atmosphere. The rub is that the gimmick of the game is repeated with little variance until you reach the end. [i]Condemned[/i] is one of the few games of this kind that is so expertly paced that it remains enthralling from start to finish.
The gameplay conceit for [i]Condemned[/i] is straightforward: insane people surprise you by jumping at you from dark corners. You then bludgeon them to death with whatever’s available. Unlike most games of this kind, however, [i]Condemned[/i]’s settings stay rooted in reality. The more supernatural events that appear in the game are invariably hallucinations. Rather than a haunted house or secret laboratory, the levels are decrepit, realistic locations that have been abandoned by humanity. Instead of zombies, the enemies are the junkies, gang members, and homeless psychopaths who have made these places their home.
You control an FBI profiler named Ethan Thomas who is on the trail of a serial killer. The game’s introductory level has you get pretty close to him before something goes wrong, forcing you into a lone pursuit of Serial Killer X through the worst parts of an unnamed metropolis and its suburb. While a few types of firearms are present, the plentiful combat that ensues is comprised primarily of bludgeoning people with blunt objects. You are also equipped with a rechargeable taser that can stun enemies, giving you a chance to kill them easily or disarm them. You can also perform a defensive maneuver with any weapon to deflect an enemy’s attack.
The fun thing about [i]Condemned[/i] is that the multitude of melee weapons are taken from the scenery itself, Ethan (as well as any enemy) is capable of ripping up wooden boards, various pipes, even desk drawers to use as weapons, each with their own set of attributes. You will also be able to locate tools like a shovel or fire axe that can not only be used as weapons, but will function to let you break through a specific type of obstacle as well (the fire axe lets you destroy damaged doors, etc.). All of these items can be used by the enemies with equal effectiveness, which is part of why the combat is constantly involving. No individual enemy is difficult to defeat, but just like them, you can only make a few mistakes before running out of energy. The enemies themselves are an interesting group. Their AI is realistic in considering that each and every one wants to kill you. Since most will rush at you with melee weapons, you have to be careful not to be surrounded, as you can be overwhelmed very quickly.
In addition, for each group of enemies you encounter, there’s always one or two that are smart enough to hang back and ambush you or try to work their way behind you. This combined with very intelligently timed placement of new enemies into the levels keeps you constantly paranoid. The final touch is that, for the first time since classic Doom, you can try to hang back and let enemies from different groups do damage to each other. To counter these berserkers, some enemies are more passive and will walk around calmly unless you get very close to them, these being even more frightening since their lack of aggression causes you to often only catch brief glimpses of them in the darkness until you’re right on top of them.
Aurally, the game is flawless. The voice acting is done without a bit of camp and makes you pay attention to even the most minor of characters. The weapon sounds and the sounds of their impacting onto the enemies are especially impressive, giving you a great visceral feeling whenever you plant a sledgehammer into the side of an opponent’s skull.
The music is typically low and slow. Repetitive in a good way, it recalls the use of music in the Silent Hill series while still adhering to more traditional film score style rhythms and melodies. All these sound design elements combine to have you on the edge of your seat the entire time you’re playing. It’s very impressive given how slow paced Ethan’s movement and the pacing of the game in general is. The game is all about slow burn build ups to very intense encounters with enemies fully capable of killing you, and the sound only helps this.
The graphics, while also outstanding, are not without some issues. The most notable is that while the game’s engine (the same that powers [i]F.E.A.R.[/i], actually) presents incredible scenery, almost none of it can be interacted with despite the decaying surroundings. This lends a sterile feel to some of the settings that hurts the immersion and sense of dread the game is otherwise so great at providing.
Throughout the game you will encounter countless complex bits of dilapidated furniture, rubble, and other wonderfully rendered signs of stagnation, but you won’t be able to walk within two feet of it. This problem is made worse by the sheer darkness of the game. At first it works great in conjunction with your ever-present flashlight at setting the mood. On subsequent plays through the game though, the quality of the shadows, subtle use of color and light, and texture quality in general will make you instinctively want to explore every nook and cranny of the game world, only to learn that the game simply won’t let you.
The end result is that while the game looks marvelous and instantly atmospheric, the cost of these looks goes hand in hand with the game’s biggest flaw, the “exploration.”” You come equipped with some pretty high tech evidence gathering equipment, and using it at the right moment is the main way to advance the game’s plot and allow you to progress. You have next to zero control over the equipment though. When you enter an area where evidence is present, you get a que to hit the attack button to bring up which ever forensic tool is appropriate. You then line up the tool with the evidence and press the right trigger again. You’ll then get some dialogue explaining what you just found out.
The result is that you play a detective who does no detecting. The only time evidence ever appears is at points that advance the plot when searched. You have no control over which tool to use when, making the information gathering aspect of the game completely brain dead. This leaves you with every little incentive to play the game more than once. There are a few unlockable galleries and summaries of the plot, but most of these will be revealed after a single play through the game, leaving you with nothing left to due but earn some more Gamer Points.
Despite these flaws, the game is definitely worth playing. It provides a no-nonsense, visceral descent into horror accomplished on atmosphere alone, the game earning what few cheap scares it does pull on you. It is also, despite being a launch title, a showcase for the XBox 360’s graphical prowess even now.
In the Before Time — the Long, Long Ago — gaming consoles had a launch title packed in with the system to really show off the new system’s capabilities. Many of you may be too young to remember August 1991 (if you were even [b]alive[/b] then… man, now I feel old), but that’s the last time I personally remember this happening (SNES and [i]Super Mario World[/i])… until November 19, 2006, over fifteen years later. In order to better “sell” its unusual new “Wii” console, Nintendo resurrected this now-defunct practice by including [i]Wii Sports[/i] in the North American product; Europe/Australia would also receive the title as a pack-in, but Japan would not. (Although it was the [url=http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/famitsu/japanese-wii-sales-figures-219253.php]top selling piece of software[/url], narrowly edging out [i]Wii Play[/i], which North America has not yet seen as of this writing; [i]Zelda: Twilight Princess[/i] was behind them by around 30,000 units.) [i]Wii Sports[/i] is at first glance a glorified tech demo, but upon closer inspection, it is five very simple versions of popular sports with three additional mini-games (“training exercises”) for each. Each of these games puts the Wii Remote’s abilities at the forefront rather than providing an EA-like recreation of the sport — I’m sure [i]those[/i] will come later (and indeed, a Wii-specific [i]Madden[/i] title was also available at launch, while Tecmo is bringing a more fleshed-out golf game soon).
The first thing the casual observer notices about [i]Wii Sports[/i] is the decidedly lackluster visual presentation; what are these blocky piles of basic, untextured polygons doing on my new console!? First of all, those are known as Miis, and they’re the Wii equivalent to online avatars. You create them via the Wii’s Mii Channel, and then you select the one you want to use when you play the game. And secondly, [i]Wii Sports[/i] isn’t about the visuals (although they are quite nice in some areas, like the water on Golf), it’s about the gameplay, so shut up and strap that Remote to your wrist.
With that out of the way, the opening screen presents you with seven options, which I’ll tackle from top to bottom:
[list]
[*]Tennis — use the Wii Remote to swing your racket in doubles play for up to four people, one remote per person (although one person can control multiple Miis onscreen). Play one set, best of three, or best of five.
[*]Baseball — comes in two flavors: batting and pitching; batting is as simple as in real life, while pitching combines a throwing motion with the Remote’s buttons for specific types of pitches. Three innings, and there is a “Mercy Rule” in effect if necessary. Play alone or against a friend (who will need his/her own Remote).
[*]Bowling — ten frames of you versus the pins. No power or spin meters here; everything is handled by the Remote and your natural swing. It can accommodate up to four alternating players using only one Remote or however many remotes you happen to have available.
[*]Golf — take your driver, iron, wedge, and putter on your choice of a three-hole sampling (in three levels of difficulty) or the full nine-hole course. Like Bowling, you don’t have the old crutch of “swing meters” here. Also like Bowling, up to four players can alternate using however many remotes you have handy. (Easter Egg — compare these holes with those of the NES’s [i]Golf[/i] title!)
[*]Boxing — the only [i]Wii Sports[/i] event to use the nunchuk attachment, which represents your left hand as the Remote subs for your right. Throw combination punches while dodging your opponent’s — or friend’s (who will obviously need his own Remote/nunchuk combo) — blows.
[*]Training — initially five single-player mini-games (one for each event, although all of the Baseball exercises are batting-oriented), you unlock the other five simply by trying out the first ones you get, and then the final five for trying those.
[*]Fitness — put your training to the test in three randomly-selected exercises (or in some cases, slight variations) to measure your “Wii Fitness” age (similar to your “Brain Age” on the DS title of the same name). You get measured in Speed, Balance, and Stamina, with the best score being an age of 20; younger players will not receive accurate results, although there’s a good chance that older players will experience some wild fluctuations as well. You can do this once per day per Mii.
[/list]
The individual events keep track of your rating, awarding you with “Pro” status once that rating breaks 1000 (and taking that title away if you dip below that threshold).
Greatly adding to the atmosphere is the Wii Remote’s speaker, which will emit the crack of a bat, the whistle of a golf club slicing through the air, or the sound of a tennis ball striking your racket right around where you would expect to hear the sound normally. The other sounds aren’t much to write home about, but the crowd does make some appropriate groans when you wind up just missing a putt or cheers after an intense series of volleys. The announcer’s brief comments (“Nice spare!”) are somewhat obnoxious but easy enough to ignore.
Undoubtedly, the real strength of [i]Wii Sports[/i] is how easy it is to literally pick up a Remote and start playing. There is a very brief adjustment period, with one of the hardest lessons apparently being to [url=http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/]take it easy and don’t actually let go of the remote[/url]; the second important lesson is to heed the warnings about having enough space around you. After that, it’s completely intuitive and highly responsive… with perhaps one exception.
This brings me to the complaint portion. Each individual event has at least one problem that I noticed. Let’s run down that list again:
[list]
[*]Tennis — you don’t move your Mii at all; it chases the ball on its own and usually does a good job, but your strategy can become limited because of this. Also, you cannot play singles games. It seems difficult to control the ball as far as aiming is concerned, but that may just be a reflection of my actual skill. Your Mii automatically pre-determines whether it will swing a forehand or backhand depending on which side of it the ball is landing and not how you actually swing the Remote. Finally, good luck having enough physical space for more than two players if your Wii is in a room anything like ours.
[*]Baseball — as mentioned, you just bat and pitch, not unlike [url=http://www.partyoutfitters.com/itempics/games/PITCH-~1.JPG]an old mechanical arcade machine[/url]. Fielding and base-running are handled automatically (again: fairly well, but not always perfect), and there are no base-stealing or double plays. Batting results feel random, but again that may just be my skill talking.
[*]Bowling — while keeping track of your ranking is nice, I would have appreciated the game keeping track of my average as well. No option to play multiple strings. (Nitpicks; it’s almost impossible to screw up Bowling as long as your physics are sound.)
[*]Golf — four clubs (or if you prefer, three clubs and a putter) and nine unchanging holes does not a golf game make; it’s almost a tease. Very tough to judge how fast/hard you need to swing; while somewhat inherent in the play mechanics, this is something real golfers don’t have to consider as heavily due to having a (much) wider selection of clubs with more varied ranges. Greens can be hard to interpret with the topography-style map, and overall putting feels awkward. Like Bowling, a measure of my handicap might be appreciated.
[*]Boxing — perhaps the most frustrating event, as the Remote doesn’t seem to accurately be able to sense all of your movements; whether this is a factor of the game itself or the way my wife and I throw punches is hard to determine, but I know we aren’t alone in experiencing this. It may also be a factor of our sensor bar being located under the TV rather than on top of it, although given that there’s a setting for this in the global Wii Options it shouldn’t be a problem. Throwing specific punches is also difficult, which will [i]murder[/i] you on one of the training exercises (and as a result, jack up your Fitness score whenever that event comes up) and make fights against higher-ranked AI opponents frustrating.
[/list]
With those problems out of the way, however, what remains is a very solid gaming experience. Some of the training exercises are flat-out awesome (Bowling: Power Throws come to mind immediately) and are great for quick workouts while actually (theoretically) developing your skills in the game. The word “workout” in that previous sentence is meant literally, by the way; I’ve built up legitimate sweats during extended Tennis and Boxing sessions, and while I’m definitely no athlete, I’m not grotesquely out of shape either. Perhaps most importantly, [i]Wii Sports[/i] is a blast to play with friends and family — and anyone in the family old enough to swing a baseball bat should be able to enjoy this game. In the end, that is what the Wii is meant to do, and [i]Wii Sports[/i] passes that test despite all of its shortcomings.
One final note regarding our Snackbar ratings as it applies to [i]Wii Sports[/i]’s unusual pack-in status: If you own a Wii, you most likely already own this (unless you are Japanese or hypothetically bought a system without the pack-in — say, years after I write this), but it’s getting a “Purchase” score just in case. As I mentioned, better and fuller versions of these sports/games will inevitably become available, but those are for a different audience; [i]Wii Sports[/i] isn’t trying to cater to the sports fan, it’s catering to the gaming fan — and more importantly, the “non-gamers.” Right now, there is no better demonstration of what the Wii is all about than [i]Wii Sports[/i].
At first blush, Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam for the Nintendo Wii may seem like a throwaway title. It certainly doesn’t stack up to the other next-gen Tony Hawk entry, Project 8. While Project 8 perfected the traditional mechanics of the seriesA
