Classy Gamer

An adventure ends, another begins.

2010-08-13T21:35:00.004+02:00

As you might have noticed, I didn't write on this blog that much lately. The reason, besides the fact that my PC motherboard exploded and it took a bit to get back up to speed with my new PC, is that I'm partly closing the Classy Gamer adventure to begin another.

From now on, I officially join the team of This is my Joystick as a writer, so if you liked this blog, please bookmark their adress and come find my rants there :D

I have been pondering this decision for a long time, since being part of a team will allow me to work at my own pace and focus on interesting content for you to enjoy.

To begin this new adventure, you can enjoy my Hands on the Final Fantasy XIV beta. I hope you'll like it :D

GT5 and Head Tracking: a small innovation that might prove big

2010-07-04T15:24:00.006+02:00

Lately the media attention is all on "big" innovations like 3D gaming or advanced forms of motion control. When you browse a gaming site chances are that the first article you'll come to is about dark glasses, Kinect, Move, 3DS and similar features that are interesting, but that still didn't fully prove their actual contribution to the quality of gaming.

Today I'm going to talk about an "innovation", that for now didn't yet receive that much media attention, but might prove quite a big deal for gaming in the future: head tracking.

First of all, the term "innovation" needs mandatory quotes, as head tracking isn't completely new both in non-gaming applications (most webcams can do it, even if often in a rather unresponsive way) and in gaming. PC gamers have a few head tracking implements dedicated to gaming like the TrackIR. Unfortunately the high price (around 150 dollars) prevented them to become widespread. Similar tracking features have made brief appearences on consoles as well, thanks to the old EyeToy (and it's evolution, the Playstation Eye), but so far the technology allowed only for a few casual-oriented experiences.

Gran Turismo 5 will be the first core-oriented console game to introduce full fledged head tracking for the control of the point of view inside the cockpit.
Many won't probably realize immediately the importance of this innovation, but as someone that used the TrackIR for several years both on racing and flight simulations, it's hard not to be excited.

What head tracking does is simple and complex at the same time: it detects the position of your head in front of the sensor/camera, and moves the point of view in the game's 3D space accordingly. It seems simple so far, but it needs a further elaboration in order to work well.

Many people think that head tracking is unconfortable, because they envision it as a 1:1 movement, with the need to look away from the screen in order to actually look to your side or behind you. That's not exactly the case.
Gaming related head tracking is normally calibrated so that your movement is magnified. Just turning your head slightly to the right will result in an increased movement on the screen, allowing you to look fully to the side, for instance, without moving your eyes from the screen.
This video about the TrackIR shows very well how it works (and some of the possible future applications of head tracking in gaming).

A racing simulator like Gran Turismo is probably the best candidate to fully exploit the potential of head tracking. Many gamers often have trouble approaching racing games despite the fact that they know how to drive a car in real life. When the experience is transitioned to a TV in their living room, though, they seem to be unable to keep their car on the track or even perform that simple overtake that is a completely natural and common operation every morning while going to work in real life.
In most cases it's a matter of situational awareness. When you drive your car in real life, you unconsciously perform a wide range of movements with your head and eyes that increase your awareness of the space around you. In turn your body naturally reacts to your position in the space and makes driving your car easy.

When you overtake another car, you will instictively keep track of it in your field of view. When you approach a turn you will look towards the inside of the corner in order to let your brain naturally calculate the trajectory your car will follow. Your eye/hand coordination will do the rest of the work for you.
The main weakness of console racing games is that the movement of your point of view has to be controlled via the fingers, something that's almost impossible to do while manouvering since you're already plenty busy steering and shifting. Even if you're better than a piano-playing octopus and somehow manage to look around, control over the point of view is never precise enough.

Basically, no matter how engrossing and detailed the 3D view is, unless you're driving with an external camera (that still disrupts immersion), you will be limited to the flat "world" of your flat screen.
If you tried to drive your car in real life (seriously, do NOT try it, it's actually dangerous) without moving your neck and eyes at all, you would have a similar experience. It would be equally unconfortable.

Head tracking closes, at least in large part, the gap between the situational awareness you have while driving a car in real life and on your console.
It's actually quite funny to notice that, even while playing, most gamers naturally turn their head slightly towards the inside of turns. Obviously nothing happens, but they continue to do it anyway. It's a matter of istinct as your body tries to improve your situational awareness even when the game doesn't allow it.
With head tracking the game will actually respond to that, moving the visual slightly towards the inside of the turn and restoring the eye/hand coordination that happens when you enter and exit a corner in real life.

Overtakes (both overtaking someone and being overtaken), expecially during turns, are the primary cause of crashes during online racing. It's pretty normal. Two competitive dudes racing head to head on a narrow lane with different trajectories that are bound to meet somewhere is a risky affair by itself.
Imagine how much the risk increases if the two dudes are wearing blinders like horses.
That's exactly what happens while racing online without head tracking. You're wearing blinders.

This takes a lot out of the realism of racing online, since turns are, in real life racing, the most common spot in which overtaking happens.

With head tracking gamers will be able to increase their spatial awareness during overtakes tenfolds, and this will probably reduce the amount of crashes during online racing by a lot.
If you played previous racing games online you know very well that crashes are the most frustrating and fun spoiling part of the experience.

This, of course, without even mentioning the increased immersion, the ability to look around freely while driving, that will enable us to finally enjoy fully the beauty of the environment, of the other cars and of the cockpit. The ones wanting total realism could even turn off the hud, since they will have full access to the dials and indicators in front of them.

In the end it's easy to see the potential of this "small" innovation. I would say that for core gamers it could bring more to the table than actual motion control, 3D and all those "big" innovations the use of which seem to be often limited, at least for now.

Racing games aren't obviously the only games that could benefit greatly from advanced head tracking. If you watched the video I linked above about TrackIR, you probably noticed it already. Every game that involves a first person perspective (including first person shooters) would receive an astonishing improvement in situational awareness and immersion.

This is probably the best chance to turn head tracking from a "small" innovation into a "big" one. Gran Turismo 5 will be quite obviously immensely successful, and will very possibly contribute to "publicize" this feature to it's users, turning it from something kind of obscure and needing lenghty explanations like this article, into a commonly understood and appreciated feature.
The technology able to perform this kind of task is included in both Move and Kinect, thing that will possibly contribute to a widespread integration as well.

The PS3 has a little advantage, considering that the Playstation Eye costs, by itself, little over 30 dollars, and gamers that want this feature, but can't care the less about Move, can access it with a small expense. Kinect is a full package, and the entry price of (allegedly) 150 dollars might discourage more than a few (like the same price discourages many PC gamers from trying TrackIR). Also, Microsoft didn't show, so far, any interest in using this kind of functionality.

I was actually pretty disappointed when they shown the little Forza Motorsport demo at E3. It concentrated on the extremely awkward and imprecise operation of steering with a wheel that doesn't exist and didn't show the most natural and advantageous element that kinect could bring to the Forza franchise: head tracking. That's what I define a serious case of skewed priorities.

Anyway, we can definitely look forward to drive in Gran Turismo 5 while able to fully control the viewpoint with the movement of our head. Also, we can definitely hope that it won't be the last example of this very convenient technology in core-oriented console games. It might be a "small" innovation, but it's effects have all the potential to be big, and actually bring a sizable improvement to our gaming experience.

The worst limitation of Xbox Live is starting to surface

2010-06-25T19:12:00.009+02:00

Xbox Live is for sure a quite amazing service, and while some might argue (and I might agree, at least partially) that it is a bit overpriced, it's full suit of features makes shelling fifty dollars/euros a year a quite a bit less painful.

The full suit of services and the pay to play business model come, though, with an hidden burden that many don't immediately spot but that seems to be surfacing lately, mostly between developers.
Microsoft maintains complete control over the contents displayed and provided on Xbox live, and no external services may appear on it unless Microsoft approves them, creates a dedicated interface, and ultimately administers them at least in part.
This "total control" policy might be one of the worst flaws of the Xbox Live system and might become more and more prominent in the future.

One of the most shocking events of E3 has been Valve's very own Gabe Newell appearing on the Sony Conference stage to praise the PS3 and to explicitly say that the version of Portal 2 on Sony's console will be the best in the home console market. That's something shocking in itself, and almost unprecedented, as a developer openly telling the press and the public that a game will be better on a console than on it's competitor basically equals to spitting in the face of said competitor, risking to cause serious diplomatic problems.
While Newell has always been very outspoken (mostly against the PS3) it's hard not to see that such an explicit speech might hide serious problems with Microsoft's policies.

For further confirmation, let's read between the lines of what he said: "As an industry, we’re going through a transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, and because of that, the needs of game players and game developers are evolving. More specifically, it’s not just about chips for rendering pixels, or calculating nav meshes. It’s about giving gamers a complete, social, connected experience. By adopting an open approach to these challenges, the PlayStation 3 is going to excel in this area."

What Newell previously criticized of the PS3 had mainly to do with the complex architecture, that made developing for it (according to him) more difficult. In his E3 speech he didn't really praise the hardware of Sony's console. Quite the contrary, he made it clear that the issue wasn't there.
What he said is basically "Sony is allowing us to bring Steam on the PS3, while Microsoft is not, so Sony is now good, while Microsoft is bad". His issue is not with the hardware or the capabilities of the 360, but with the "total control" policy I described above.

As a further elaboration on this topic yesterday Eurogamer reported that Hiromichi Tanaka (director of Final Fantasy XIV) openly said that what blocked his game from appearing on the Xbox 360 is that "Microsoft (...) wants to have a closed environment for Xbox Live", preventing any form of cross-platform communication and play.
Yoichi Wada (Square Enix' CEO) as well expressed his desire for an industry that allowed developers to "freely design their business models", something that definitely clashes with the closed and controlled business model of Xbox Live.

It's quite evident that the previous experiment between Square-Enix and Microsoft with Final Fantasy XI (that did feature cross platform play and SE's own business model and interface in the form of PlayOnline) didn't go too well and one or both parties aren't willing to repeat it.

While the problem may seem marginal now, it might become more and more important in the future, especially since more parties expressed interest in building their own online services for their major franchises (Activision did for Call of Duty, for instance) and cross-platform gameplay, communication and features may become more important (this is something I always hoped for, myself), resulting in a lower degree of support for Microsoft's console and it's closed online model.

Electronic Arts' recently increased support for the PS3 and explicit serenade to Sony during the E3 conference might be at least partly linked with this issue as well.

Microsoft might be facing a serious dilemma: keeping their "total control" stance might cause them to lose an increasing portion of their third party developer support. This would be a quite crippling blow, given that Microsoft is, between the three first parties, the one that relies on third parties the most.

On the other hand, if they relent with just some of the most influential third parties, this might easily put them on a slippery slope, causing more and more developers to ask for concessions and resulting on a gradual but ultimately unstoppable loss of their "total control" over the Xbox live platform (not to mention a sizable loss of revenue, as more and more games would become available for online gameplay without the need of a gold membership, making it less desirable). It does seem like a lose/lose situation for them.

They might mitigate the problems by buying more developers and increasing their first party support, but it seems pretty much clear that they have an hot potato in their hands at the moment.
Personally, on the side, I still hope to see them relenting, at least for Final Fantasy XIV. As I said several times, a true cross platform approach to the game, available on all major platforms would definitely benefit both the game and the players, regardless of their console/computer of choice. It's definitely time for the segregation of gamers to their platform of choice to come to an end with the creation of a truly globalized online gaming environment.

The ball (or the hot potato) is definitely on Microsoft's field at the moment. We'll have to wait and see what solution they will come up with.

The Console War in Manga form

2010-06-16T17:06:00.007+02:00

With E3 in full swing, the console war has never been so fierce, with fan(boy)s all over the internet debating and quarreling about who won the show.

The conflict has become so heated that it's making it's appearance more and more often in various instances of the pop culture.
But after all the debating and the arguing, let's step away for a few minutes from the "serious business" to give a look at something a little more light-hearted.

The manga Mel Kano by Towa Oshima, is all about the increasingly popular online relationships between young Japanese people. In this internet-based setting, could the console war really not appear?
The whole chapter 16 (that you can read translated in English here) is about the conflict between the fanboys of two console developers named So*y and Nin*do. I doubt you need me to explain who those slightly censored names refer to.
Being set in Japan, Microsoft has a smaller role, but look towards the end of the chapter for a surprise :D

Give it a look if you want a bit of light-hearted fun after the E3 conferences marathon, or if you want to see a Nunchuk used as an actual Nunchaku. Hopefully you won't see yourself too much reflected in the characters portrayed. But even if you do, it's all in good fun, after all.

Sony keeps the best for last at E3

2010-06-15T23:21:00.009+02:00

Sony's conference started pretty slow, like each and every Sony conference at E3 in the last few years.
They've shown off some quite strong dedication to 3D gaming, but I'm still not persuaded at all about it's real strength. Sure, it may be a nice addition to the real big spenders (TVs and equipment to get the real 3D equipment are indeed a costly affair), but in the end I'm afraid that it won't touch most gamers with a "normal" budget, at least for a while. That, and the glasses.

The presentation of Move surprised me. What surprised me negatively is the absence of a bundle with two controllers. Why? Because some games actually seem to require two controllers for (which is in my opinion the major weak point of the hardware) , so such a bundle should be definitely justified, if not indispensable.

On the other hand, I've been surprised positively by the fact that Sony didn't just show the same launch games that they had already shown previously, but went beyond them, showing new titles. Sorcery is definitely interesting, not only in itself, but for something that I didn't expect to see at this stage of development: The response of the move was not just very precise, it was also apparently completely lag-free, something that I decidedly can't say about anything shown for Kinect or even in previous showings of the Move itself.

If such instantaneous and precise response will really translate into all Move-enabled games, the promise of meaningful core-oriented motion gaming might really be fulfilled. For someone like me, that's a bit impaired in aiming precisely with a joypad, this might really be a big deal.

Something that many people missed, partly because not everyone is as interested in marketing as I am, and partly because of what happened right after, is the partnership between Playstation Move and Coca Cola. While the average user may not be very interested, unless he happens to be one of the winners of the contest, this is quite a big deal from a commercial point of view. This kind of co-marketing can easily help the initial sales of Move soar above the competition, given the extreme popularity of the Coca Cola soft drinks everywhere in the world. By securing this partnership Sony managed to grant Move and the PS3 an enormous amount of visibility through the holiday season.

When people were starting to wonder about the lack of big announcement, the man that can only be defined as one of the biggest strokes of genius to ever hit a marketer's mind appeared on stage: just as Kevin Butler single-handedly saved the whole PS3 marketing, his funny appearance and speech kicked the Sony conference into high gear.

Something that personally pleased me quite a bit is that Sony decided not to move on from the PSP just yet. On the contrary, they shown that they're ready to increase and improve their support to their handheld console to face the challenge of the 3DS. The upcoming games library definitely looks great, and Sony seems to be catching a glimpse of what causes their handheld to be so popular in Japan and quite a bit less in the rest of the world: there are a metric ton of great PSP games in Japan, and just a fraction get imported in the west.
The montage was pretty heavy on Japanese games, with some great examples like Persona 3 Portable and Valkyria Chronicles 2. We can only hope that Sony will push on the accelerator, bringing many more to the west.
With a gaming library comparable to it's Japanese one, the PSP would really soar.

The announcement of a growing partnership with Electronic Arts didn't surprise me much. It seems that the HD gaming world is moving towards a bipolar future, with Microsoft allied with Activision and Sony allied with Electronic Arts.
Signals of this have been clearly visible in the air for quite a while, and seem to have been made more concrete quite solidly during this E3.
This might actually bode well for Sony, because while EA's raw power might be slightly smaller than Activision's, they worked very hard lately in stepping up their game. Quality-wise I can easily say that EA's games tend to be quite a lot superior to Activision's.

The collector's edition of Dead Space 2 is quite a great result of this "alliance". The HD version of Dead Space Extraction with move support is a strong selling point to the fans of the franchise that don't have a wii and missed it previously (and considering the abysmal sales, it's pretty obvious that there are many of them out there).

After the presentation of the partnership with EA, something that I would have never expected to see in this life happened: Gabe Newell appeared on stage to announce Portal 2 on the PS3 and to say that thanks to the Steam features that will appear on Sony's console, it'll be the best console version of the game.
Considering that Newell has been the most vocal and even "nasty" critic of the PS3, this is quite an U-turn for Valve, and something that seems to be promising for the future relationship between the PS3 and the primarily PC developer. Gabe looked quite nervous as he talked on stage. I would have too, if I was in the process of eating back my words in front of the whole world.

The subsequent showing of the trailer of Final Fantasy XIV was really beautiful, getting me even more excited for this title (even if I'll definitely play it on PC). Final Fantasy XI was a very solid game, but it had a flaw: it's soundtrack was quite far from the usual Final Fantasy themes.
Hearing something extremely similar to the theme of Final Fantasy VI playing during this latest trailer definitely struck a chord in my heart. You can already see the trailer at the official Final Fantasy XIV website.
To be honest, though, I still hope to see the game published on 360 as well. A big, varied community is exactly what games like this one need, and complete cross-platform gameplay across PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 could turn Final Fantasy XIV from a great games into a real AAA success with a sizable playerbase that will keep it running for a long time.

The biggest piece of news for me was (I doubt this will surprise my most regular readers) the announcement of Gran Turismo 5. On November the 2nd the world will end... Ahem... I mean that one of the most anticipated games of this generation will hit the shelves.
The trailer shown during the conference was probably the most spectacular between all the trailers shown at E-3. Words as "photo-realistic" or "lifelike" don't even start to describe the beauty of GT5. If it'll play as great as it looks, it'll be a surefire game of the year for anyone but the biggest Microsoft or Nintendo fanboys.

But it didn't end there, as Sony had two more surprises up it's sleeve. Infamous 2 looked really nice and hopefully will expand on the very promising beginning that was the first Infamous.

Finally, the new Twisted Metal was announced, and boy, it looks really fun. It was the perfect conclusion for a conference that started relatively slow but grew up in a great crescendo to an explosive finale.

The message of this conference is clear, and Sony fulfilled their promise. Their new attention to motion control not only won't shift the focus away from core gaming, but it will very possibly enrich it. The effect was exactly opposite to that of the Microsoft keynote, and the many that will feel betrayed by the overly casual approach of Kinect will have an easy time finding a new comfy home in the Sony camp.

Between Sony and Nintendo the confrontation is much closer. Nintendo shown a very strong line-up, supported by the 3DS, but their themes and genres were excessively monotonous. Fans of the old and abused Nintendo Franchises and/or of platformers with a lot of focus on cartoonish/childish graphics might see Nintendo scraping a close victory.

Sony, on the other hand, shown that they have quite a lot to look forward to for every kind of gamer. No matter if you love platformers or you prefer shooters or racing games, no matter if you like light-hearted games or deep and complex masterpieces. Sony has some great content in store for you. The same can't be said for Nintendo, that ended up catering only to their own usual crowd.

That's why, in the end, as far as I'm concerned, Sony comes out of E3 as the winner, with Nintendo as a close runner up. Microsoft is the true loser, with a quite shameful performance despite all the money they wasted hiring Cirque du Soleil, all their glitz and the pretty lame attempt to bribe the press with hundreds of free consoles.

Of course and as usual, your mileage may vary. As a closure to this long post, you can enjoy the spectacular GT5 trailer after the cut.

Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millenium Online trailer unleashed

2010-06-15T20:54:00.003+02:00

THQ introduced at E3 the first trailer of the Warhammer 40,000 MMORPG scheduled for released in 2010, dubbed "Dark Millenium Online".

The trailer, made entirely of gameplay footage, shows a lot of bolter action, with space marines, Nurgle demons, chaos space marines, heretics and Orks.
I have to admit that my Warhammr 40k fan heart jumped a bit, expecially at the sight of the massive warhound titan stomping around, that seems to hint that the game will have a truly epic scale.

We'll have to wait for further info, but I have a very good feeling about this. In the meanwhile you can enjoy the full trailer after the cut.

New Star Fox to be released on the 3DS?

2010-06-15T19:18:00.005+02:00

Nintendo's conference went pretty much as planned with a LOT of platformers (seriously, Nintendo needs to variate it's game portfolio a little bit. The 80% of the games shown at their conference were platformers), and a long and interesting part about the 3DS.
I'll let others give you the complete rundown, mostly due to my natural hostility towards platform games, but I can definitely say that this conference was much less boring and much more enjoyable than Microsoft's, with quite a lot of meat to the fire even for core gamers.

There was, though, a quite interesting detail that many might have missed: during the trailer that was supposed to represent the 3D capabilities of the 3DS, Nintendo shown quite clearly the image of an Arwing (the starfighter used by the Star Fox team) coming out of the 3DS screen.

I would say it's pretty much the official confirmation that a new Star Fox game is indeed incoming, and that it will be released on the 3DS.
This is sure to please the many Nintendo fans that were a bit disgruntled by the lack of any new title in the Star Fox franchise, while other franchises (Mario on top of them all) were receiving too much attentiontion and rehashes.

We'll have to wait for an official announcement, but yeah, Star Fox seems to be coming back, and it probably will in full glasses-less 3D.

The Xbox 360 E3 press conference fails to impress

2010-06-14T21:31:00.005+02:00

The lights just went out on the Xbox 360 E3 presser, and the worries sparked by the showy but thin on content Kinect presentation seem to have been confirmed. Actually even beyond what I expected.

I did indeed anticipate a quite sizable spotlight on Kinect, I didn't predict that actual core games would have received that little stage time.

The presser started slow with the announcement of a timed exclusive on the DLC contents for the Call of Duty franchise for the next three years. Nice for some I guess, but I doubt anyone was really there to see a Microsoft executive gloating about how they managed just another time to screw over everyone playing games on competing consoles.

Then Hideo Kojima appeared on stage. Everyone was bracing for a big announcement, an exclusive Metal Gear Solid game for xbox 360? A brand new game we never saw?
Kojima started speaking and basically went like this: "Hello everyone, I'm very happy to be here, let me introduce my underling. Bye!" And he disappeared, leaving me with my jaw dropping out of surprise as another Konami dude got on stage and started showing Metal Gear Raising.

The game looked pretty decent, but nothing groundbreaking was shown. There are a couple good news, though.
The first one is that it doesn't seem to be a Kinect title, like many feared, meaning that we will probably be able to play it with a normal controller, without waving our hands in the air like idiots. Kinect wasn't mentioned at all, and no Kinect logo appeared with the trailer.
The second good news is that there seem to be no timed Xbox 360 exclusive on the game, debunking a theory that seemed to be quite popular lately.
Hopefully everyone will be able to play the game at the same time, whatever their console of choice.

Finally they moved on to the exclusives: in rapid succession we saw Gears of War 3, Fable 3, Halo Reach and a new game from Crytek codenamed "Kingdoms".
"Kingdoms" was really the only new core-oriented exclusive announced by Microsoft at this E3 presser. There was absolutely nothing else, and what's worse, the short trailer presented actually shown nothing of the game.

Then they moved on to Kinect, showing how it'll let you speak and wave your hands around to control your xbox 360 (quite often to perform operations that are much more confortable and quick to be done with a single keypress), a Kinect-related deal to show sports on xbox live, and how Microsoft seems to think that they invented the webcam. "Look! It's following you around as you move!". My three-years old logitech webcam does that as well.

Finally they shown the Kinect-specific games line-up. And that's when things went totally as predicted. ALL of them are wii-like family/casual oriented showelware that has absolutely nothing to offer to core gamers.
The presentation was horribly cheesy and obviously staged (the little kid showing the Eyepet clone was really a sad show), and overally they failed to attract much else than big, gaping yawns.
The only one that seems to have some decent potential is the Star Wars games we already saw yesterday, but it won't be a launch title (it will be released in 2011) and it really doesn't seem much more than an on-rails third person shooter/brawler. Playing with swords with any kind of immersion really requires something in your hand, and Kinect lacks exactly that, between all things.

Following that Dan Greenwalt came on stage to drop the usual dribble about how his game is the best of the world, and to introduce what seems to be an expansion for Forza Motorsport 3 coming 2011 (it still had the Forza 3 logo, so I doubt it's a new game, also the visuals were the same as Forza 3). It featured a nifty mode in which you could walk around and inside a static Ferrari, which is nice car porn, but has really little to do with gaming. Then proceeded to show-off the game played with motion controls in what could be defined as nothing else than a pathetic slideshow with no real racing, as the demonstrator passed a long line of almost static cars on a road.

As a fan of racing games, I found it extremely underwhelming. First of all, no self respecting gamer will ever chose to control something requiring as much precision as a "simulative" racing game with just his hands held in front of himself.
It's obviously less precise than a controller or an actual wheel, having nothing in your hands when driving is anti-immersive, and holding your arms in front of you like that for long periods of time is going to cause plenty muscular fatigue.
There's nothing you need less, while doing something challenging, then your muscles starting to hurt and lose precision and quickness of motion.

Finally, the game shown absolutely no head tracking capabilities while driving, thing that, given that it's one of the features that will be included in Gran Turismo 5 and that it's the only actually useful application of motion control to racing games, proved to be really disappointing.

Finally, what's obviously Microsoft's idea for a big surprise was dropped. The fabled Xbox 360 slim really exists, in a nice imitation of Sony's announcement of the PS3 Slim. The problem is that the announcement didn't really come with what actually made the PS3 slim into a big success. The price drop.
The only thing similar to that is a discounted pricetag that will be applied to older xbox models that will be phased out, until they're gone.
If you are one of the few that uses a wireless network to play online (bad and laggy idea, but some can't draw a cable from their router to the console), then the built-in wireless will be a nice addition, and the removal of one of the worst xbox 360 hidden costs.
Otherwise, the new slimmed-down console offers really nothing interesting, besides a slightly weirder design that kind of reminds the Alienware style.

The whole show proved to be so underwhelming that Don Mattrick had to actually encourage the audience to applaud at the end, while announcing that every single one of them would be gifted a free Xbox 360 slim. Such an open act of press bribery is already quite frown-worthy, but seeing it fail was actually even more sad.

In the end the whole press conference left me really unimpressed and actually worried about the future of gaming. Microsoft has grown to be one of the biggest "powers" in the gaming market, but their idea of the "Biggest gaming conference in the world" (as proudly announced on the Xbox.com website) seems to be only one new exclusive game dedicated to core gamers and a whole bunch of yawn-inducing shovelware that would be better placed on the shelves dedicated to the Wii.

I somehow expected it to be bad, but this bad? Not really. Maybe if you love (watching) sports you'll be more excited than me, but in the end Kojima's appearence seemed to me to be the very symbol of this E3's Xbox 360 presser: "Nothing to see here, bye bye".

Raising an eyebrow at Kinect

2010-06-14T16:48:00.005+02:00

The much anticipated (not really) project Nat... ahem, Kinect presentation is now behind our backs, and there are a few conclusions to be drawn.

First of all, it seems that Nat... ahem, Kinect's target is largely unbalanced towards the casual gamer. It's not unexpected, as Microsoft seems to be aiming more at putting a finger in Nintendo's pie than into finding a real way to improve gaming across the board.
The presentation was basically a very spectacular set of smoke and mirrors, purposedly aimed at wooing the uneducated masses, with little or no attraction towards the actual core gamer (besides the Star Wars game, that will probably suffer from the lack of... you know... an handle to grip on, something that lightsabers tend to actually have).

The gaming press reacted predictably, with open criticism, scorn and not very veiled sarcasm, in what's probably one of the most overwhelmingly negative press coverage seen in the gaming market during the last few years. Reactions in gaming-related forums and chatrooms (not to mention local gaming shops) has been similar.
Besides a few exceptions, pretty much everyone seems to be laughing in Microsoft's face today.

It's to be said that the initial reaction to the Nintendo Rev... ahem, Wii, was partly similar, with a sizable part of the hardcore gaming press and enhusiasts pretty much mocking the weird remote-waggling thing that Nintendo was showing off at the time.
After that, though, the device got offered to the casual playerbase and it resulted in the humongous sales we see every month when the charts are released.

There are, though, quite a few significant differences. When Nintendo announced the Wii they used no smoke and mirrors, no showing-off of artistry. They weighed their whole marketing stunt on their games. They got journalists to play with the Wii over and over, and let the actual "fun" speak for itself (more or less the same approach that Sony is using with the Move).
On the other hand Microsoft seems to be trying to give journalists and enthusiasts as little "hands-on" time and solid performance data as possible. A video even demonstrated that the latest gameplay footage was actually pre-recorded to improve the perceived reaction time and performance.
Also, the Wii had a sizable price advantage over it's competitors, which helped quite a lot in making the system desirable to the "mom that wants to buy a console for her kid, and will just look for the one that costs less".

On the other hand, for the moment Kinect seems to involve a sizable amount of smoke and mirrors, with little being shown of the games and mostly in a very much controlled environment, while it seems unlikely that it'll have any pricing advantage over the competition. Quite the contrary.

Of course, despite this initial hiccup, Nat... ahem, Kinect, can still be a success, even a major one. It will all depend on Microsoft's ability to charm the masses with their marketing stunts (and Microsoft's marketing power isn't something to be dismissed easily). The Cirque du Soleil one is just the beginning.
It remains to be seen, though, if marketing stunts alone will be enough to persuade the biggest part of the casual market, that probably already owns a Wii, to fork the money for a new console that ultimately doesn't offer much more than HD graphics on top of what the Wii already does (and the graphics of the Kinect games we saw before was really nothing to call home for).
Graphics haven't been a strong deciding factor so far in the success of the Wii over it's competituon. Why should they become one now?

Most hardcore gamers, that are normally the ones that care the most about graphical shine, seems, so far, largely unimpressed, if not downright hostile to the idea of Kinect, even more so after yesterday's presentation.

Not everything is said and done, though. Microsoft still has a presentation left (in a couple hours), and they might as well surprise us by lifting the smoke and mirrors and showing us a decent line-up (even just a few would suffice) of quality-driven core oriented games with Kinect control in an environment more appropriate to a core audience, without charming but completely useless Cirque du Soleil dancers crowding the stage. It's a solid possibility, and we'll soon see if it'll be realized or if we can write off Kinect as something that's "just not for us".

There's just one final factor that makes me wonder. If Kinect is aimed to the uneducated masses, why was the name changed? When aim for the mass market, the very first rule is to give your product a recognizable, easy to remember, easy to pronunce name (it's really basic marketing). "Natal" fit that rule perfectly.
Kinect, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. It's hard to pronunce, hard to remember. Some would define it downright cacophonic, with it's horrible clashing of consonants.
Even journalists, with all their press kits, are already starting to misspell it as "Kinetc" or even "Kinetic" (personally, I misspelled the name six time through the article, and had to correct it). This might prove to be an hindrance to the mass appeal of the product.

As usual, we will have to stand by and see, but so far, I have to say that I'm unimpressed. Microsoft's Smoke & Mirrors approach, the lack of an actual controller to grip on, the somewhat unreasonable space requirements and my repulsion for the idea of looking unbelievably stupid while I play, seem to label Kinetc as something I'll pass on.
We'll have to see if Microsoft will be able to change my mind later today or before November comes, and more importantly, we'll have to see if they'll be able to sway the masses, whose opinion counts a lot more than mine.
I have some solid doubts even about that. What about you?

Gran Turismo 5: will the customization options surprise us?

2010-06-12T15:58:00.004+02:00

GT5 Customization
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Today sony released a new trailer for Gran Turismo 5. Quite obviously, most people just noticed that it didn't include a release date (it's always amazing how shallow gaming journalism can be, isn't it?).
I wonder if someone was that silly to really expect an announcement on that before E3...
Anyway, there was another quite interesting detail, besides some really amazing suspension rebound effects that by themselves made the trailer quite spectacular to the eyes of a racing fan like me.

At the end of the trailer, in the usual "it only does everything" features scroll, the following was displayed: "950+ Cars, Online Play, Career Mode, Drifting, Rally, Damage, Customization".

Basically nothing has been said so far about the car customization options included in the game, and such options have never really been a big selling point of the Gran Turismo franchise, especially visual customization, that has been basically absent since Gran Turismo 2.

It's quite surprising, then, that Sony would advertise "customization", as one of the main features of the game, even if in a very subtle way with the features scroll.
This leads me to wonder if GT5's customization options will be one of the big surprises Sony will deliver at their E3 presentation, maybe even some nifty visual customization features.
It wouldn't be that farfetched, after all.
Sony seems to have acquired a taste for user created content, shown quite clearly in releases like Little Big Planet or Mod Nation Racers, and that kind of options normally add a lot especially to online gameplay, that's seemingly another big focus of Gran Turismo 5.

That's why I wouldn't be that surprised to see Yamauchi-san on the E3 stage showing off some nifty visual customization options included in the game.
Granted, it may never happen, and for now it's just my speculation based on a blue word scrolling at light speed in a trailer, but come on, a game with Gran Turismo 5's graphics and richness in content paired with Forza 3's visual customization?
I don't know many racing fans that wouldn't drool on that.

You can see the trailer after the cut:

Video Games | Gran Turismo 5 | E3 2010: Exclusive Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Yakuza 4 to be released in the west in spring 2011, hostesses are in

2010-06-08T20:57:00.005+02:00

Yakuza 4
Picture uploaded by Abriael

A few days earlier than what I predicted (I was expecting the announcement at E3), Sega announced that Yakuza 4 will be released in the west in spring 2011.
They also specified that the hostesses that were missing in the western release of the third game will indeed be present in the fourth chapter, thing that makes us hope that, this time, the game will be completely uncut.

Besides that, unfortunately, Sega seems unable to learn from their errors, as they are again releasing an installment of the Ryu Ga Gotoku series more than one year after it's original Japanese release.
There's no game on the market that should require one whole year to be localized. It's that simple. Again they will release the game when it'll be already old, giving up a sizable amount of sales in the process.
Again Sega demonstrates that they really aren't interested in turning the Yakuza franchise in a worldwide success.

But in the end, let's be happy with the good news. At least we're getting the game, even if unbelievably late, and hopefully we'll get it uncut.

Mount & Blade Warband review: a sandbox wet dream

2010-06-07T18:02:00.008+02:00

Nowadays most media coverage is focused on console games and titles released by big name publishers. It's not surprising, then, that many gamers completely missed the release of a PC game published by a small independent Turkish developer: Mount & Blade: Warband.

It was back in 2001 when Armağan Yavuz and his wife started to work on the original Mount & Blade in their own garage. During the following nine years the game has grown into a niche with an extremely dedicated fanbase, not to mention a very creative modding community.
The studio (Taleworlds Interactive) grew as well, while still remaining pretty compact, and the help of an actual publisher, the small but very productive wargame publisher Paradox Interactive improved the production values, leading to the release of Mount & Blade: Warband at the end of march, this year.

Mount & Blade: Warband is a mix between a RPG and a strategy game, but is also unique in many ways, so it's not easy to make it fit comfortably in a single category.

The game is set in an alternative continent named Calradia, but that's as far as the "fantasy" goes. This is the first thing that makes it unique. There is no magic, no enchanted swords, no elves, no monsters and no orcs. The setting is a gritty and realistic middle age where the only form of power lies in steel, gold and the relationship with the nobles of the land.

The continent is populated and ruled by six realms: The chivalric Swadia, the norse-like Kingdom of the Nords, the Slavic-inspired Vaegirs, the mountain-dwelling Rhodoks, the mongol-like Kergit Khanate and the rich Sarranid Sultanate, that resembles an Arabic realm. Each of those powerful factions has it's own culture, architecture, rulers and it's unique troops, creating a rich and varied universe to play in.

The story is absolutely essential, if not non-existent. You're a random dude (or dudette), and you have to make ends meet in this world. Besides a very compact initial quests that will teach you the basics, you're on your own. This is what I meant in the title: Mount & Blade Warband is basically the wet dream of every sandbox fan.
There's no overall storyline to bind you. You can be a trader, a bandit, a mercenary, a tournament champion, become a vassal for one of the realms or create your own. You can decide that you don't like one of the rulers and lead a rebellion to put a different claimant on the throne. You create and shape your own legend according to your taste and without any restriction.

Whatever role you chose, you're still not bound to it. Tired of being the vassal of a king? You can renounce your oath (and any fiefs you've been assigned, of course), and swear allegiance to another faction. The claimant you put on the throne is no more of your liking? You can rebel and create your own empire, starting a quest to conquer and unify all of Calradia.
Trading is getting boring? You can start hunting other caravans to rob them of all their goods, or travel from city to city looking for quests and missions to earn money and glory.
You can even fit multiple roles at the same time, playing as a mighty general in time of war, and as a caravan master when there's peace, or a myriad of other combination's.

The world itself is living and breathing dynamically around you. Every faction has, besides it's king, twenty feudal lords with their own personality and quirks. Some are honorable and will remain faithful to their king unless the situation is really dire, some others will switch faction according to the balance of power several times during the game. Some will even join you as your vassals if you manage to become king yourself.
All of them will move in the world according to their own interests and missions, fighting in wars and tournaments, courting ladies, administering their lands, and interacting with you on several levels.

There are also several ladies, wives, daughters and sisters to the lords, that normally do what noble ladies did in the middle ages. They attend feasts, act as gossip hubs, and can be courted for love or politics. All of the characters are related by a quite complex family system, that will play quite the role in the game. You can marry a lady to enter the good graces of the lords she's related to, or have to persuade in several ways a particularly stubborn lord if you want to marry his daughter that you happen to like more than the rest.

Obviously, if your character is a female, she can court (or be courted) and marry one of the lords themselves. This is only one of the differences that characterize the game as a female Warband leader. It's the middle ages, and women aren't exactly treated as equal, so the game is openly more challenging if played as a lady.
While this might for sure stir some feminist hearts out there, it's quite realistic, and the disadvantage isn't so overwhelming to make it frustrating or less fun. On the other hand, managing to raise to power despite the difficulties of being born with boobs tends to be quite rewarding.

The political game is actually frighteningly complex, especially considering the sheer number of actors in play. Kingdoms will go to war with each other according to or independently from your actions, will gain and lose territory, and the newly acquired fiefs will be given to one of the lords or to you, if you managed to earn the respect of your king and your peers.
When you're a king yourself you'll have to weigh the relations between the lords under your rule carefully. Assigning a fief to the wrong lord can upset the others, while giving it to the right one can increase the respect you receive from your subjects considerably. Often there won't the a "right" or a "wrong" choice, but you'll have to tread carefully to keep a balance between your vassals, making sure that the ones you upset with a decision will be happy about the next, without starting to harbor desires of rebellion.

The same can be said about the world's economy, that is completely dynamic and governed by supply and demand. Caravans will move from city to city and will dynamically alter available goods and prices, making thriving as a trader quite a challenging and interesting enterprise.

What I'm referring to as "fiefs" are basically the hundreds of cities, castles and villages scattered on the continent of Calradia, and that act as quest hubs, military bases and markets. Every single one will have it's own peculiar look and it's permanent inhabitants. No village or city in Calradia looks the same as the others, and the same goes for all castles. This is obviously quite important even during sieges, as every castle and city has a different setup for walls, towers and access points. Each siege has it's unique tactical quirks that a good general will have to learn and exploit.

The heart and soul of Mount & Blade Warband is, obviously, your Warband itself, that will evolve from a ragtag mercenary company to a full fledged army counting hundreds of individual soldiers. In the most advanced stage of my latest play through I had about 220 soldiers under my direct command, without counting the garrisons of my fiefs and the troops under my vassals.

Your own character is the center of your army. He will progress in the usual RPG way, with levels and skills, becoming more and more powerful. You will be able to buy new pieces of armor, weapons and warhorses that will raise your combat effectiveness. Obviously you will also be able to fully customize his appearance with a complex slider system that loosely reminds that of Oblivion.
There are no classes in M&B Warband, and while a few decisions on your character background will have a marginal impact on your initial skills and stats, you will be completely free to chose the way you want to skill up. You might decide to invest everything you can in strength, agility and combat skills in order to create a powerful hero able to cut a bloody path in the middle of an enemy army, or to shape him as a great leader that will be able to field more soldiers at the same time, or an archer that can stand back and chose his targets by killing just the most powerful enemy commanders and units. The possibilities and combination's are near endless.

Besides you, the most important part of your warband are your heroes. There are sixteen of them scattered around Calradia, and you can recruit some or all of them. Each of them has his or her own unique looks, personality and story and they progress in the same way as your character. You can freely give each of them a role, thanks to the "party skills" system. Basically some of the skills like tactics, surgery and quite a few others can be delegated to your heroes, letting you invest on other skills. This will turn them into specialists that will benefit the whole party, for instance by healing your men faster after a battle, or saving some from death, turning a mortal wound in one that will just require some rest, or again lowering the prices in marketplaces and so forth.
Of course your heroes can also grow into powerful warriors in their own right, forming the elite of your army.

Again, relationships play an important role, and your heroes will interact with each other, often with conflicting personalities that will force you to juggle between them to avoid them leaving your party, or to wait until your leadership is high enough to keep them in check. If you like looting villages and slaughtering peasants, maybe it's better not to hire the most soft-hearted ones.
For sure keeping your party united and effective is a quite challenging work of balance in itself.

The lowest level of your warband are your rank and file troops. You can travel from village to village recruiting volunteers, that will provide cheap but low level infantry, or you can visit taverns, where you will be able to hire costly but higher level mercenaries.
You can pretty much hire every single unit in the game, independently from your affiliation (or lack of thereof), to create the army you like the most. You can even recruit, for instance, the peasant women that you rescued for some bandits (or the bandits themselves). Initially they will be weak, but will ultimately evolve into powerful female knights.
Every basic troop can level up, turning into a more advanced version with better equipment, and eventually specializing in areas like archery, heavy infantry or cavalry.

While this isn't the only game that allows you to lead a large army (most RTS games do) , M&B Warband is unique in the fact that you lead your army from the ground level, and every soldier (friend or foe) has an unique face and combination of armor/weapon, making them recognizable on the field. You don't see them as "units" but as individuals, with a quite impressive visual result. The engine that "creates" the soldiers is actually very advanced and it saves them between battles.
If one of your soldiers has a certain combination of equipment, a beard and a big mustache, he will retain those features until he dies or he levels up. When he levels up and evolves into a more advanced class, he'll still retain his facial features, while his equipment will change to reflect his new status.
You will lead an army of individuals as an individual yourself, which adds a lot to the immersiveness of the game. That's something that no strategy game, and ultimately no other title can offer. The fact that every soldier of your army will carry your chosen emblem on his shield (emblem that you can easily replace with a self-drawn one with a bit of Photoshop skill) makes your army feel even more unique and "yours".

While exploring the continent of Calradia, you will move your character on a 3D world map, in real time. Time, though, will only progress when you're actually moving, so while you're stationary the game will automatically be paused in order to let you consider your next moves. Whenever you enter a city, town or castle, the game will change to a full 3D third person view (you can also switch to first person) with only your character, allowing you to explore the settlements and interact with the NPCs, accepting quests and so forth.

Whenever you encounter an enemy army/warband (whether it's an enemy lord with his retinue or a band of outlaws) the game will generate a randomized map based on the features you were traveling into, including mountains forests, hills and rivers, and the battle will begin. Again, the visual will be in full 3D, with the ability to switch dynamically between first and third person view. You can set the number of troops included in each battle in the game's options, in order to best fit the processing and graphical power of your PC. While the game allows natively for up 150 soldiers on a single battlefield (which is already quite a lot), there are third party tools to easily change that to up to 1000. Personally I run with 400 with no big slowdowns on an average machine, which makes for extremely entertaining and massive battles.

The combat might remind Oblivion at first sight, but it's actually much more complex and fun. Combining the direction of the movement of your mouse with the pressure of the left button will allow you to strike in four different directions. Left strike/slash, right strike, overhead strike and thrust (only with weapons that actually allow thrusting, it'd be nonsensical to thrust with an axe for instance). Right clicking will instead block with the shield. When you're not using a shield, you'll have to manually chose the direction of your block, moving the mouse in the same direction from which the strike is coming. But this is not all: physical interaction between weapons and shields is fully simulated, so striking and blocking is not limited to the above mechanics. It's possible to block an enemy weapon with timing and skill, by striking it with your own as you prepare your own slash. The shield also offers passive protection, so if an enemy hits your shield, the blow will be bounce off regardless if you're actively trying to block or not.
This means that a shield carried on your shoulders will protect your back even if you're not using it.

Shields come in different sizes. Obviously a bigger shield offers a larger area of protection, but will also be slower to use.
While using a shield is the easiest way to defend against enemy blows, it prevents you from using two handed weapons. In addition to that, blocking too many blows (especially from axes) will cause your shield to break, becoming unusable and forcing you to block manually with your weapon if you want to survive.

Different weapons also have a different reach. With a longer weapons you can hit opponents farther away, but you will be disadvantaged if they manage to close in on you. Your weapon will in fact hit for it's full damage only near to it's maximum reach, inflicting less and less damage the nearer your opponent is. If an enemy is too near it's entirely possible that a long weapon won't inflict any damage at all, since you lack the room to actually swing it against him, adding a further tactical level to the combat system, as you have to chose the weapon with the right reach to fit your personal fighting style and the situation.
For instance, during a siege it's better to wield a short axe than a longsword, especially if you plan to be on the forefront of an attack, because you will find yourself pressed closely against the enemy, unable to swing a longer weapon.

Add to this a quite realistic ranged weapon system that includes several kinds of bows, crossbows and thrown weapons (darts, axes and javelins), the ability to perform feints and to kick your opponent, and there's no doubt that Mount & Blade features the most extensive, realistic, complex and eventually rewarding weapon-based melee combat system I've ever seen in a video game.
Seeing a duel between two master swordsmen in Mount & Blade is an impressive show. You can get a more effective taste of the basics of the M&B warbaband combat system by watching this video on youtube by Reapy.

From a game named "Mount & Blade" you can obviously expect a complex and satisfying mounted combat system. While riding an horse you can access all the moves described above, and you can also deliver the most devastating attack available in the game, the couched lance.
As you ride on fairly level ground you will gain speed, and if you have a lance you will be able to couch it under your arm, in order to steady it for an attack in a straight line. Anyone hit by such an attack will be instantly killed.
Obviously this kind of attacks is quite situational, given that it requires level terrain, a lot of space and good timing. It also requires the physical conditions for it to work. If your target is on horseback and moving fast away from you, your couched lance will inflict much less damage or none at all, since the strength of such an attack is entirely based on the difference in speed between lancer and target.

When facing mounted enemies you can also chose to realistically kill the horse (which is a bigger and easier target), and then deal with the unhorsed opponent later, or let your soldiers deal with him. We can only hope that the virtual animal-huggers at PETA won't ever take notice of Mount & Blade: Warband, because it's sure as death and taxes that a game in which killing horses is not only allowed, but actually advisable and rewarded would cause them to get their panties all bunched up. Aiming for the horses has been a real military tactic since when mounted combat was conceived in ancient times up to world war 2, so I guess rising a big stink about it would only show a big degree of silliness, but would anyone be surprised if that actually happened?

If you thought that playing FPS shooters was challenging, forcing you to execute precise and well timed movements in order to hit your targets, you might want to think again. The challenge given by simply aiming and firing a rifle is nothing compared to the complex "art" of sword fighting implemented in Mount & Blade: Warband. Let's not even talk when you're riding an horse and you're trying to effectively hit someone that's riding one as well.

Don't worry, though, while the system is definitely challenging to master, the game provides some aids in order to lower the level of difficulty for the ones that prefer a more relaxed gameplay. The system in itself, moreover, is quite intuitive, pretty much natural to execute once you learn the basics, making for an extremely enjoyable and rewarding experience.

Being thrown into a Mount & Blade: Warband field battle is something no other game prepared you to. FPS/TPS games and Oblivion-like RPGs have a much smaller scope, and are normally much more "Orderly". A field battle is something entirely different. You are in the middle of hundreds of warriors hacking at each other, with arrows flying around you from every direction, with only your shield and your situational awareness separating you from certain death.

On top of it you have to give orders to your troops, preventing them from dispersing on the battlefield while running after routed enemies, and generally keeping a tight grip on the situation. It's messy, as a medieval battle should be, but also extremely fun and exhilarating.

Sieges are even more chaotic. As an attacker you'll have to climb a narrow ladder towards a breach in the wall, or use a siege tower in order to reach the defenders, with clouds of arrows slamming against your shield and a porcupine of spears and blades aimed to your face from above. It's quite intimidating at first, and sometimes you'll find yourself quite surprised at the fact your survived (if you did survive, obviously, thing that's definitely not granted). As a defender you'll have to valiantly stand on the breach, hacking away at the seemingly endless waves of enemies trying to overwhelm you and your soldiers, for an equally intimidating experience of virtual carnage.

Of course you can also chose a more laid back approach, standing back with a ranged weapon picking out enemies from afar, while your soldiers bear the brunt of the melee. But that tends to cause more losses, given that your soldiers will normally be less armored and resilient than you.

Ultimately, battles in M&B Warband are between the most exhilarating and epic experiences I ever played on a video game. While RTS games like the Total War series did simulate engagements of massive proportions, you always find yourself quite detached from the scene. In M&B Warband you're there on the field, at the head of your troops and surrounded by the enemy. You're not just a deus ex machina moving nameless units, and this contributes enormously to the sensation of immersion.

As you ride at the head of several tens of knights towards a wall of pikes you'll feel like Theoden in The Return of the King. Standing in the middle of the breach fending off hundreds of attackers in a sea of blood (and there's quite a lot of blood in the game. As the killing progresses, your weapons and armor will progressively be painted red) will make you feel like Balian defending Jerusalem in the finale of Kingdom of Heaven. It's not easy to describe it with words, as a simple write-up will always be underwhelming compared to the actual experience.

There are also smaller engagements, as you may be ambushed by bandits as you enter a city, or maybe you will disguise as a staff-wielding beggar to infiltrate an enemy castle and release a prisoner (Robin Hood definitely inspired this one).

There are also tournaments and jousts to partake in. Every city you can visit has it's own unique style of tournament, with different sets of weapons and rules. Sometimes you will be pitched in a battle royale against several opponents, sometimes you will have to fight in team-based engagements, other times you might find yourself in one on one duels with horse and lance.
Given the smaller scope of tournaments compared to bigger battles, and to the fact that you'll have to fight with different weapons, they tend to be quite fun, and a good way to add further variation to and already extremely rich gameplay.

One of the most fun elements is that your companions will join tournaments as well, and you'll often find yourself fighting against them. Nobles and kings of the realm in which the tournament is held will also often join, allowing you to beat the crap out of that annoying lord that really doesn't want to let you marry his daughter.

As you grow in power as a vassal of a king you will eventually receive towns, cities or castle to administer, giving you sources of revenue to maintain bigger armies, and getting you more deeply involved in the political game. Seeing your banner flying from the wall of a major city is definitely a quite empowering sensation that will make you feel like you're actually gaining more influence on the world of Calradia.

Eventually you might end up creating your own kingdom, and that's when the political game will hit you in all it's complexity. You'll find yourself approaching the various lords in order to gain their support and their armies to your cause, sending your heroes as emissaries to the other kings to offer truces and ask for their acceptance as a fellow ruler.
Whether you'll play the imperialistic ruler focused on expanding your borders at the expense of the others, or the conservative king that will try to keep a good relationship with his neighbors (or a mix of the two) is your choice, and it's a very fun and interesting one, bringing a whole new level of strategy to an already rich game.

The game's graphics are a bit hit and miss. It's pretty obvious that some textures (especially for the lowest tier troops, even if the upcoming patch is going to replace many of those with new ones) have been ported directly from the original Mount & Blade, and their quality definitely isn't top notch, also some of the animations are a bit clumsy. That's more or less what you would expect from an independent developer with an art team that counts only four people. Considering that, as you can see from the pictures included in this review and from this extensive flickr gallery, the visuals of the game definitely perform more than decently, especially considering that the engine needs to show hundreds of soldiers (and their horses) of the screen without causing a meltdown in your video card.

That said, the game really shines in some details, like the modelling of castles and villages, that aren't just beautiful to see, but also show the level of research done by Taleworlds to create their living and breathing medieval world.

Their attention to detail shows in the little things. Something that always bothers me, for instance, is that in most fantasy/medieval games, when not used shields seem to be randomly glued to a warrior's back, often badly placed because the model is not exactly designed to be placed there (Dragon Age Origins is a good example of this). In Mount & Blade Warband shields have a cord that goes around a warrior's chest to hold them in place.
Small details like this are scattered everywhere in the game, and show that a small developer with limited resources can often put more attention in designing their games, than bigger ones with budgets many times larger.

This said, again, while the polygon count had to be necessarily kept down, and some sub-par textures can easily be spotted on some soldiers, large battles are quite the spectacular sight.

The soundtrack is more or less what you would expect from a game like this. You definitely won’t hear the Berlin Philharmonic, but the music tracks do a pretty good job at underlining the middle ages atmosphere. They tend to become a bit repetitive after a while, but that's mostly due to the game's incredible longevity. Even the best soundtrack of the world would become boring after 200 hours of gameplay.

Combat sounds work pretty well. I found the clashing between swords especially pleasing to hear, alongside the impact of arrows and bolts on your shield.
Combined with the spot-on animation that accompanies it, you'll often find yourself sinking your head between your shoulders during sieges, while tens of arrows are flying your way and battering on your shield.

There's also a lot of shouting, quite realistically. Maybe even a little too much, and during the most crowded battle scenes and sieges you'll very possibly find yourself toning the volume down to avoid waking up your neighbors.

Unfortunately there's no speech besides a few taunts when you encounter some bandits. All dialogue is displayed the old fashioned way, with good old text that you'll have to read. Again, this is unfortunately the toll you have to pay with low-budget independent projects like this one. It doesn't really bother old gamers like me, but younger ones used to the fully voiced script of newer games might find themselves a little disoriented.

One of the biggest selling points of Mount & Blade: Warband is it's longevity. Going from the very start of the game to the complete conquest of the world can easily last you 150-200 hours, and the re-playability value is extremely high. There are so many things to do that you'll probably find yourself creating several characters, allying with different factions, making different choices and so forth. I don't think it's far-fetched to say that M&B: Warband has the potential to grant the player thousands of hours of entertainment, and I mean just with single player dynamic campaign.

On top of that M&B: Warband has two elements that increase it's replayability even further: Mods and multiplayer.

Most of the game is stored in "modules", that include most of the parameters, the graphics, and the elements that you see when you play. This makes modding and tweaking the game quite easy, and generated a very active and creative modding community. The original Mount & Blade, based on the same structure, already has hundreds of mods that completely change the game and it's settings, letting you range from World War 2 to the Napoleonic Wars or fantasy settings. That modding community is gradually moving to Warband, and there are already quite a few very interesting modules out there, with many more in the works.

Multiplayer is a new element in Warband, and allows you to play in several game modes that range from team battles to sieges against human players. The servers vary in size, and the biggest ones have room for up to two hundreds players, letting you experience the thrill of extremely big battles even in a multiplayer environment.
There even are "user created" multiplayer events like formation battles, in which players fight in massive organized battles that tend to be extremely fun and quite realistic.

That said, one of the biggest selling points of M&B: Warband's multiplayer is the combat system. Given how much skill and strategy are involved in the complex system of attacks and blocks, dueling against other human players tends to be an extremely thrilling and exhilarating experience, that no shooter game can really offer. As I said before seeing two skilled players trade blows in this game is a quite unique experience in the field of gaming.

Add this to the longevity of the single player mode, and you'll find yourself spending less than 30 dollars for a game that can easily keep you hooked for a few years.

Unfortunately a few flaws can be found in the game's presentation and UI.
The text scroll during battles is definitely oversized, with the "killspam" messages often overtaking a sizable part of the screen and looking extremely clumsy. Luckily this can be modded, and the problem is easily solved by reducing the size of the font.
Still, I'm quite surprised that the developer didn't put an option in the game itself to change this, because the default font seriously looks quite bad. You can easily see the difference by looking at my flickr gallery, where the earlier pictures have the default font, while the ones coming after them have the modded font. It's an easy mod to apply, but that's something we shouldn't need to mod, really.
Friendly troops are normally differentiated from the enemy by an icon over their head displaying your banner (or the banner of their lord, in the case of joint battles). This is quite an immersion killer, and an experienced player will learn to distinguish his troops without external help. Luckily this can be completely deactivated in the options menu, but I can't help but think that there could be better ways to distinguish friendly troops without recurring to such an invasive method.

A last quite glaring flaw is hidden in the random map generator, that works well as long as you're fighting on a plain or on rolling hills. The problem becomes apparent when you chose a mountain area as the stage of your battles. The difference of elevation between the peaks of the mountains and the lowest areas tend to be too extreme, creating overly rough terrain with extremely steep slopes that have little to do with realism and tend to ruin the fun of the battle. Think the uncharted planets of the first Mass Effect on steroids and you'll have an idea of what I mean. Cruising on those with the Mako was a pain, and crossing the mountainous areas of Mount & Blade: Warband on horseback is equally a pain.
Obviously the problem can be avoided by avoiding such areas, but sometimes it isn't possible, turning the subsequent battle in a chore.

Mount & Blade: Warband is not a perfect game, as it often suffers from the low budget and the undersized development team, but it's still a completely unique experience, something that you can find nowhere else in the gaming market. It also offers more gameplay than most games out there, even and especially those high-budget games that get most of the media attention.
If you're tired of elves, magic and orcs, if you like the middle ages, if you love sandbox games, if you're looking for the most entertaining and challenging melee combat system in gaming, or for some of the most epic battles to ever grace a computer screen, then you owe it to yourself to give Mount & Blade: Warband a try.
The easiest way to get it is on steam. Seriously, it's worth every penny.

Kevin Butler hints to Gran Turismo 5

2010-05-17T22:41:00.007+02:00

In a new commercial dedicated to Mod Nation Racers released today, the hilarious Playstation face Kevin Butler, after trash talking and eventually getting owned by a gloating Jack Tretton, drops the following line: "That is if I'm not too busy with my next project: let's just say it's a little racing game that rhymes with Man Furismo Jive".

The hint to Gran Turismo 5 is completely obvious, and seems to indicate that an announcement of the release date of the massively awaited and massively delayed racing simulator by Polyphony Digital may really be imminent (my prediction is that it'll be one of the biggest Sony cards at E3).
The line is actually open to interpretation. Did he mean his next project as a fictional VP, or his next commercial? If he meant his next commercial, then it's very possible that the fabled release date could be quite a lot nearer that many expect, since you don't normally make a commercial for a game that's still several months away.
Are we going to see Kevin Butler owned by Kazunori Yamauchi anytime soon?
One thing is for sure, Sony would do better to have Kevin Butler host their presser at E3, it would definitely make for a much more enjoyable presentation.

As usual, we'll have to wait and see. It's not that we aren't used to it by now :P

See the full commercial after the jump:

Kazunori Yamauchi 4th in the Nürburgring 24h race after overtaking 114 cars

2010-05-16T14:15:00.011+02:00

Kazunori Yamauchi, CEO of Polyphony Digital raced across yesterday, last night and today in the prestigious and incredibly heated Nurgburgring 24 hours endurance race as part of Team World Car Awards, driving the #72 Lexus IS-F (SP8 class) alongside Peter Lyon, Hideshi Matsuda and Owen Mildenhall. .

After round 1 of qualifying with a wet track that obviously produced mediocre lap times for everyone, things started to look dire, as Yamauchi's Lexus suffered from problems to the fuel pump requiring it to be changed, forcing the team to skip qualifying round 2 when the track had dried up. This potentially disastrous occurrence forced the team to start the race in 174th overall position.

Yamauchi and his fellow drivers, though, didn't give up and prepared for a difficult uphill battle. The team immediately looked fast at the start of the race, and started to climb up the rankings. Slowly but surely, during the best part of two days and a night, they overtook a total of 114 cars.
They staged and won many heated duels, like the one around the half of the race against the only Audi R8 in the same class: #49 Alexander Krebs' R8 (quite appropriately, Forza Motorsport 3's cover car is an Audi R8).
In the end they finished this epic race in 60th position overall, managing to grab a 4th position between the twelve teams in their class (In this kind of competition cars of different classes race all together, but have separate rankings due to the obvious differences in power) and brought home a shining performance in conditions that seemed desperate.

It was truly an epic race, for Yamauchi's team and overall. I can't wait to relive it in Gran Turismo 5 (the Nurburgring has been confirmed to be included in Gran Turismo 5 in all it's three incarnations: Nordschleife road track, F1 circuit and the 24 hours track that is an extremely challenging combination of the other two). Also, Congratulations to the other Lexus from Japan, #50 Gazoo Racing LFA, that managed to win the class after an equally epic climb through the rankings. As both Yamauchi's #72 and Gazoo Racing's #50 passed the finish line, the commentator of the race appropriately talked about an historic result for Toyota and Lexus, and Yamauchi-sensei was part of that history.

Again Kazunori Yamauchi demonstrated that he's not just one of the best racing game developers in the world, but also a top class driver in the real world. Let's hope to see him at E3 to finally announce the official release date of Gran Turismo 5!

You can see a couple more pictures of Yamauchi's #72 here and here.

Kazunori Yamauchi is racing right now in Nurburgring 24 Hours

2010-05-15T23:37:00.038+02:00

Right now the creator of the Gran Turismo series, Kazunori Yamauchi, is undertaking the titanic endurance challenge of the Nurburgring 24 Hours race, as part of Team World Car Awards, driving the #72 Lexus IS-F (sp8 class).

The race didn't begin well, as the team missed the dry qualifying round and started 174th in the rankings. At the moment, after nine hours on the winding Nurgburgring track (that by the way will appear in Gran Turismo 5 in all it's three incarnations, road track, F1 circuit and the 24 hours track that's a combination of the other two), Yamauchi's car is now 88th (and 6th in it's class. In this kind of competition cars of different classes and power race all together, but have different ranking boards) after working it's way up through the rankings almost costantly in what seems to be an almost heroic ride to get back towards the front.

If you want to cheer for Yamauchi-sensei or simply follow the race you can load this url: http://24h-rennen.de/livecast/live_01.asx in media player to see a live stream (in german), follow an english radio coverage on radiolemans.com, a live rankings stream for the sp8 class here (and a more up to date but less flashy one showing the general rankings here), and Lexus Europe twitter page for further news. I will update this post myself if anything significant happens.

Go Yamauchi-Sensei! Show em that there's a game developer that can drive something else than a console :D

Update 1: almost 10 hours in. #72 has dropped slightly, in position 90, still 6th in sp8 class. The 5th ranked in the same class is now #71 Audi RS4 (Ironically Forza 3's cover car is an Audi), of KIWI Team Nurburgring, now ranked 78th. Will Yamauchi's team manage to overtake it?

Update 2: 1:10 AM local time. Yamauchi's #72 is climbing the rankings again, now in position 86 while the #71 Audi has dropped in 79th. There are only six cars between them, and an overtaking in 5th class position seems possible!

Update 3: 1:37 AM local time. It's pitch dark and #71 Audi slowed down considerably, completing lap 55 three and a half minutes slower than Yamauchi's #72 Lexus. Now #71 is 80th. Yamauchi's Lexus is 82nd, gunning in for the kill! Only one car in between, Go Yamauchi-sensei! :D

Update 4: 2:03 AM local time. Something must have happened, as Yamauchi's #72 completed lap 56 in 22 minutes, taking 12 minutes longer than it's usual pace, and now dropped in 94th position. Trying to find out what the problem is.

Update 5: 2:21 AM local time. Whatever happened (I couldn't find out for sure, but it's probably just a long pit stop and driver change) yamauchi's #72 is back running, completing lap 57 in 10:48 and back up in 91st position. Unfortunately now it'll be a climbing battle to catch up to #71.

Update 6: 3:00 AM local time. We're past the 12 hours points. Yamauchi's #72 is climbing ranks steadily as it's now in 81st position again. #71 is almost one lap ahead though, in 71st position. Will Yamauchi's team manage to catch up again to their closest opponent?

Update 7: 3:42 AM local time. Yamauchi's #72 seems to be struggling gaining positions at the moment, hovering around 83rd with average lap times around 10:40. However, it suddenly just posted a very fast 65th lap, with a great lap time of 10 minutes and 9 seconds. Did the new driver finally start to push it?

Update 8: 3:58 AM local time. Yamauchi's #72 finally managed to ovrtake #71 and is now in 75th (5th position in it's class)! The car is being very fast right now. The driver seems to have gotten used to the track and is posting regular laptimes under 10 minutes and 15 seconds.

Update 9: 4:42 AM local time. Yamauchi's #72 is now in 72nd position (still 5th position in it's class). The team managed to overtake more than one hundred cars in little less than 14 hours! This almost feels heroic, and honestly I can't wait to recreate this epic race on Gran Turismo 5. Let's hope they'll announce a close release date at E3.
In the meanwhile the pace has slowed a little bit because of an incident on the circuit.

Update 10: 5:18 AM local time. 10 hours to go. It's finally dawning and some blue is now visible in the sky, It's also extremely windy. The pace is going to go up soon as soon as visibility increases. Yamauchi's #72 is still climbing the ranking, now 69th. There are now only six cars between it and it's most direct competitor in 4th position in the sp8 class: #49 Alexander Krebs' Audi R8. Yep, Yamauchi's car is now pursuing relentlessly Forza Motorsport 3's cover car.
But as a further spin, give a look to it's picture at the top of the windshield. Notice anything? Yamauchi's #72 is pursuing Forza 3's cover car, sponsorized by GT5 :D
I'm sleepy as hell and this funny details keep me awake.

Update 11: 5:40 AM local time. The sky is much brighter now. Yamauchi's #72 went for a pit stop, and momentarily fell back into 88th position overall, also overtaken by #74 Gentle Swiss Racing Aston Martin N24 (mind you, I just noticed that basically all the cars have the GT5 sponsor on the windshield, pretty cool), that's in the same class. But as many other cars entered the pits the following lap, #72 went back to 68th position, overtaking #74 again and with the #49 R8 still leading it in 60th position. Will #72 manage to grab 4th position for it's class?
This is my final update for the night. I need some sleep, but I will come back as soon as I slept some to cover the finale of the race. Gambare Yamauchi-sensei!

Update 12: 1:30 PM local time. I'm back reporting. Yamauchi's #72 and just overtook #74 Aston Martin during a pit stop for both cars, and is now in 4th position for ir class and 62nd overall, with #74 following suit in 63rd. one hour and an half to the end of the race. It seems it'll be a duel for class 4th place!

Update 13: 2:00 PM local time. Only one hour left! Yamauchi's #72 is solidly in 4th position in it's class and 60th overall, with #74 fallen down to 81st position, class 4th place seems secure, but everything can happen in this kind of race!

Update 14: 2:30 PM local time. Yamauchi's #72 is still 4th in it's class and 60th overall. Only half an hour to go!

Update 15: 3:00 PM local time. This 24 hours-long drama comes to an end! Yamauchi's #72 grabs 4th place in it's class and 60th overall, after starting in a very difficult situation and overtaking 112 cars! Glorious!

White Knight Chronicles 2 might be between Sony's cards at E3

2010-05-14T19:20:00.003+02:00

White Knight Chronicles 2
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Every May people speculate wildly on what each first party developer will bring to E3. Everyone knows that Natal, Move and the 3DS will probably have most of the spotlight (unfortunately) this year, but can those new shiny pieces of hardware support by themselves the whole event?
I personally doubt it. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will probably try to bring as many additional cards as possible to enrich their hand.

Lately we've seen quite a slew of news and rumors on White Knight Chornicles 2, including a potentially groundbreaking one about the second chapter including a reworked and updated version of the first, to provide a sort of reboot of the series and to ease the approach of new fans to the franchise.
This is almost unprecedented, and would demonstrate a strong will from Sony to give the saga a second chance to success.

Thinking about it, it isn't really surprising. The first White Knight Chronicles received a quite mild critical reception (not from me, you can read my review here) despite how innovative it was compared to the usual JRPG, and sales weren't exactly top notch, even due to an extremely late western release that came when the hype was already almost dead.
Despite that Sony provided a lot of support to the ones that bought it, updating the game regularly and even providing free new quests in the latest few months. It's quite obvious that they still think that the franchise can be successful, and aim to capitalize on it.

Following the latest news it's actually pretty evident that Level Five and Japan Studio are striving to revolution every single element of the first game that wasn't received well. A completely revamped combat system, more focust on the battles between knights, a storyline with a more epic feel and a solid conclusion.

That's why I wouldn't be surprised if Sony brought White Knight Chronicles 2 as one of the cards between their hand at E3. The effort they're making in revamping the franchise seem to be definitely worthy of an AAA game.
The worst problem of the first game was timing, and this time around timing would be perfect. With an anouncement of a western release coming at E3 (more or less a month before the July 8 release in Japan), possibly slated for the holiday season or even earlier, with the confirmation of the inclusion of the first game in the bundle, some spectacular Knight combat footage (and maybe a confirmation of the possibility of customizing your own knight, that seems to be probable at the moment), might hit big in a market that definitely needs a new solid JRPG.

Obviously this is just speculation, but there are a lot of elements that seem to fall into place extremely well. In the meanwhile, you can enjoy the latest trailer released two days ago, that shows the first brief glimpse of the new Moon Princess knight in action (towards the end). It's after the cut.

Yakuza PSP new five minutes trailer released

2010-05-13T17:43:00.005+02:00

Black Leopard Yakuza logo
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Sega released a new five minutes trailer for the upcoming PSP yakuza ba game named Kurohyou: Ryu Ga Gotoku Shinshou (Black Panther: Like a Dragon New Chapter), slated for release in Japan on September the 22nd.

The trailer, voiced by Takaya Kuroda (voice actor of Kazuma Kiryu), shows a long sequence of the game's cutscenes, drawn with an art style very similar to that featured in Metal Gear Portable Ops.

It outlines the backstory of the main character, Tatsuya Ukyou, grown in the wild street of Kamurocho knowing nothing but violence. His life is changed forever when he kills an high ranking member of one of the families of the Tojo clan. From then on his only way to continue living is as a fighter in the underground arena that appeared in all the previous Yakuza games.

At the end of the trailer there are quite a few in-game combat sequences, that display the usual brutal moves that the series got us used to, exploration sequences showing areas of Kamurocho that will look very familiar to the ones that played the previous games.
It also shows some of the "Hostess" gameplay (the part that was partially cut from the western version of Yakuza 3), that will retain a strong presence in the PSP chapter. A quite peculiar detail is that Mika Tsuchiya, one of the hostesses of the Flawless club in Okinawa during Yakuza 3, apparently moved to Kamurocho, and will make an star in this new game.
Also, the club in which Tatsuya goes to have fun seems to be Marietta, which is the one that the player gets to run during a quest in Yakuza 2 (unless Sega just recycled the graphics assets, that are obviously quite compatible between a PS2 game and a PSP one).

You can see the new trailer below. I have to say I am pretty excited about this new chapter of the series, even if I still have mixed feelings about the main character, that as of now doesn't seem to have the brooding charisma of Kazuma Kiryu. Let us hope to see it released in the west before the next geological era, and most definitely let's hope it'll be uncut this time around.

Yakuza 2 RetroReview: two Dragons for an epic game

2010-05-05T03:23:00.027+02:00

Ryu Ga Gotoku 2
Picture uploaded by Abriael

About one week ago I reviewed the first chapter of the Ryu Ga Gotoku series, A.K.A. Yakuza. The second chapter, Yakuza 2, was released in the west without any promotion and so late after it's it's original release in Japan (a whole two years later), that it was almost completely ignored.
I actually remember walking into the local Gamestop about a year and a half ago, well into the current generation, and randomly giving a look to the shrinking PS2 area (that I didn't visit regularly anymore) of the shop, completely oblivious of the fact that Yakuza 2 was to be released, and just finding it there, unannounced and unexpected. Even at that time, I used to follow the gaming news regularly. This blog was already well underway by then, but the release of Yakuza 2 was advertised so little that even I didn't know anything about it.

I wouldn't be surprised, then, if the vast majority of the ones that will read this review completely missed the game. Hopefully this will serve as a little guide for you to decide if it's worth it to go back a generation and try Yakuza 2 out.

The story is set exactly one year after the first Yakuza. Kazuma Kiryu has taken upon himself the responsibility of taking care of Haruka, and is now living a peaceful life. Unfortunately the internal struggle happened the year before has left the Tojo clan weakened, and the relationship with the more powerful clan Omi, based in Osaka, is becoming tense. If a full scale war between east and west were to happen, the Tojo clan would be obliterated.
Terada, the new chairman of the clan, decides to ask for Kiryu's help, in order to establish a truce with the Omi clan and give the Tojo some time to recover.

Unfortunately a group of killers was waiting in ambush, and manages to kill Terada right in front of Kiryu, that decides to go back to his old clan in order to avoid it's destruction.
A war between criminal organizations is about to start, but a smaller but no less deadly battle of wills and muscle between two dragons is also ready to begin. Kiryu, the Dragon of Dojima, will find a worthy opponent in Ryuji Goda, the Dragon of Kansai.
What Kiryu doesn't know, though, is that the Omi clan and Ryuji Goda aren't the only threats to his former comrades. Forces much more ruthless than the Osakan yakuza are stirring even beyond Japan's borders.

This already complex setting is just the tip of the iceberg of an extremely deep and emotional story, that will dig into Kazuma's past and will bring old and new friends and enemies together in a frightening power struggle that will put the survival of Kamurocho and the future of the Japanese underworld at stake.
If the story behind the first Yakuza was already quite the masterpiece, it evolved into something even bigger and better in Yakuza 2, featuring several plot twists, most of which completely and utterly unpredictable, but falling perfectly in their place like Tetris tiles, building what's one of the best crime stories ever born from the gaming industry.
Tense moments alternate with moving scenes and comic relief at a perfect pace, carrying the player along on an emotional roller coaster that never disappoints.

The strongest point of Yakuza 2 are most definitely it's characters. Old acquaintances like detective Makoto Date, Goro Majima (probably one of the best characters in the series) and Yayoi Dojima get more time under the spotlight and a deeper emotional connection with the player.

Compared to the first chapter of the series, Yakuza 2 benefits from two very important new elements. While in Yakuza the main "villain", Nishiki and Kiryu's love interest Yuki, played roles that in the end proved secondary, watering down the emotional effect a little bit, this doesn't happen in Yakuza 2.

A new love interest appears, Kaoru Sayama, an osakan detective whose position as a female cop gives her a much more active role during the game. So active that she will often fight alongside Kiryu.
While a policewoman as a love interest for an ex Yakuza might sound cliched for some, her role is definitely different from what one might expect, and despite partly fitting into the "tsundere" stereotype, Kaoru is an extremely deep character, not to mention a charming counterpart to Kazuma, helping the player build an extremely strong emotional connection with the couple. Female gamers will have absolutely no problem relating to her, making Yakuza 2 a game that can be fully appreciated by players of any gender.

Even the main villain, Ryuji Goda, is much more active and charismatic than Nishiki was, playing as a perfect polar opposite to Kazuma, but showing depth in emotions and feelings that one wouldn't expect from him.
Despite being enemies, between him and Kiryu there's a genuine, solid feeling of respect, and while their confrontation is inevitable, one can easily wonder if they could have been friends if the circumstances were different.
He's not your usual mono-dimensional villain and will probably attract many sympathies between the players.

Of course such a strong supporting cast wouldn't be complete without a solid hero, and Kazuma Kiryu, just as he did in the first game, easily delivers. Looking at most brooding silent muscular heroes the gaming industry got us used to, they normally tend to come out as a bit flat in their characterization and feelings.
On the other hand Kazuma is deep and complex. He's the silent type, but he's not afraid to show emotion as a lover, as a friend or as a quasi-fatherly figure when he's with Haruka. As his past gets revealed bit by bit, it's almost impossible not to form strong emotional ties with him, probably stronger than those created by most other characters in the history of gaming.

Moving forward to the graphics, we have to take in account that Yakuza 2 is a game released in 2006, and as such it's most definitely not as advanced, technologically, as more modern games.
Despite this, it's one of those PS2 games that definitely benefits from being played on a backwards compatible PS3 if you're the lucky owner of one. Compatibility is 100% perfect whether your console does it via hardware or software, and the game looks quite sharp thanks to the upscaling and smoothing done by the PS3. Built-in Widescreen and 60 Hz support help further in closing the generational gap at least a little.

The game's cutscenes, mostly rendered in real time, are a shining example of beauty. Thanks to an advanced (for the time) facial engine and a peculiar filtering technique, they can easily compare with today's games, and in many cases surpass them. You'll be hard pressed finding many characters as expressive as those in Yakuza 2 (unless you're playing Yakuza 3 or 4, of course). This definitely adds to the depth of the story, as the feelings and deep emotions felt by the characters can be easily read on their faces even before they speak.
In addition to this, the advanced camera cuts and photography have very little to envy to sanctioned film-making, making Yakuza 2 a game that can single-handedly obliterate foolish standpoints like that of Roger Ebert, that deny that video games can be art.

During gameplay graphics become a little more blocky, suffering from a less than stellar texturing that can be defined more or less average for it's age. It still delivers, though, especially due to the extremely detailed environmental design that characterizes the series, bringing the district of Kamurocho to life. The same has been done with the new Osakan fictional districts of Sotenbori and Shinseicho, inspired by the real districts of Dotonbori and Shinsekai, and that create a nice contrast with Kamurocho, showing a completely different style and bringing on a realistic comparison between Tokyo and Osaka.

In addition to this, every district is designed with several light conditions to represent different times of the day, and different weather conditions, including rain and snow (It's Christmas, after all).

One of the aspects I criticized the most about Yakuza 1 was sound, due to an extremely monotonous ambient track that plagues the game quite horribly. This flaw has been partly corrected in Yakuza 2, as more variation has been added, and a more subtle mixing helps the repeatitive spoken sentences blend more with the background sound. While there's still almost no music during exploration gameplay, the quality of the soundtrack has been improved a lot, especially during cutscenes and during battles. Most of the story-driven moments are even more compelling thanks to an extremely fitting music score.

Voice acting is in Japanese, with english subtitles, and the game benefits a lot from that. It definitely helps conveying the deeply Japanese atmosphere and the cast is absolutely top-notch. The beautiful bass voice of Takaya Kuroda complements the looks and character of Kiryu perfectly, something that Darryl Kurylo could never accomplish in the first Yakuza.
Hidenari Ugaki is equally awesome in the role of Goro Majima. His sudden transitions between his normal clownish mood and the few moments of deadly seriousness will send chills down your spine. Even a famous actor like Mark Hamill (that played the part in the english adaptation of the first game) simply lacks the vocal tools to compete.
The same can be said about the rest of the cast. In the end, when videogames are concerned, Japanese voice acting simply has no rivals in the west, and the Yakuza series is a perfect example of this.

Gameplay is a direct evolution of what we have seen in the first chapter of the series. You can freely explore Kamurocho, Shinseicho and Sotenbori sandbox style (even if you're not allowed to freely move between them until the last few chapters), doing the many (over 100) sidequests at your own pace or progressing with the main story.

Unfortunately exploration is still a bit flawed by the fixed camera angle, but the loading time between the various screens have been reduced a lot, turning into little more than a small stutter. Still not perfect, but definitely much, much better than in the first Yakuza game.

The side quests vary a lot in style and many of them give you further insight on the secondary characters and on their life, completing quite beautifully the story and turning the virtual representations of Osaka and Tokyo into living and breathing entities, with many citizens that go on with their lives despite the struggle happening in the background.

Character progression is more or less similar to that of the first title, with an RPG-like experience system that will allow you to allocate points into three statistics (soul, mind and body), that will in turn make you stronger and unlock techniques that you can use against the enemy.
You can also unlock several techniques through events in game and sub-quests, creating an extremely deep arsenal of moves usable during battles.

Combat is where Yakuza 2's gameplay truly shines. The addition of a target lock system, of a freely rotating camera and of the ability to suddenly change the direction of attack helps in making the whole process much more natural and fluid. The absolute wealth of combos, parries, counterattacks and definitely brutal Heat Action moves, both unarmed or using one of the hundreds different weapons (from knives to swords, passing by shotguns and improvised weapons like neon signs or tables), creates what's probably the best and deepest combat system ever seen on the PS2 and one of the most fun overall. You can even perform tag heat action moves with several secondary characters.
There are so many ways to brutalize your opponents, that you'll find yourself hard pressed to remember them all.

In-between questing, exploring and fighting, the player is also granted a whole slew of minigames that make for a quite big slice of additional gameplay and are one of the staples of the series. Yakuza 2 includes Shogi, Mah-Jong (probably the only instance of the actual game ever published in english. The usual pairs matching game that uses the same tiles isn't actual Mah-Jhong), Baccarat, Roulette, Black Jack, Cho-Han (betting on dices), Slot Machines, UFO-catchers, Bowling, Indoor Golf, YF6 (an arcade game that features beam-saber fighting), a massage minigame, and few more minigames related to host and hostess clubs.

If you wonder what you missed in the shameful cut of all the hostess club-related content in Yakuza 3, Yakuza 2 will let you catch at least a glimpse of it.

You will be prompted to please (and date) ten hostesses (nine plus a secret one), you will be able to manage a whole hostess club by yourself, deciding the style of the furniture, the price of the menus and so forth. You will be also able to get Kazuma to play the host himself for once, trying to please the ladies that will visit the host club Adam.
It's actually a quite nice insight in the world of host clubs (and believe me, you'll notice that it's not all glitz and fun as many would think). In addition to this it'll let you "experience" that awesome moment of absolute Japanese crazyness called the "Champagne call". If you don't laugh at that one you're seriously made of solid ice.

The localization is again one of the weakest points of Yakuza 2. While not as weak as in the first chapter of the series, because of the original Japanese voice track that at least avoids the trap of a poor voice acting, the translation is just another example of the fact that Sega West's team of translators should probably go work on cooking manuals or something else as far as possible from videogames. The Japanese voice acting and the English subtitles often don't match, and even a superficial knowledge of the Japanese language will let you understand that the subtitles include parts that simply shouldn't be there.
Cultural issues are also present, with a deep "americanization" of the dialogue, with awful extremes as the police officers cracking down on a case of financial fraud called "feds" (Since when the FBI has any authority in Japan?).

One of the worst aspects of the localization is that the translators fell into the common (and noobish) mistake of translating all the characters talking in Osakan dialect with hillbilly-like slang speech. That kind of speech gives an obvious idea of ignorance to the reader, that in the end finds himself with an entire city full of hillbillies, while actual Oakans have obviously nothing to do with widespread ignorance, grammar mangling or american hillbillies.
The funniest part is that Kansai-ben (the group of Kansai dialects that includes the Osakan one) is what gave birth to Keigo (the most widespread Japanese formal way of speaking). Translating it with hillbilly speech is an unacceptable misrepresentation of the general cultural level of the people of Osaka.
To put it down simply, it's a shameful and unprofessional mess.

Yakuza 2 is a very, very solid title that corrects most of the flaws of it's predecessor. Laying on the table 80 hours of gameplay in an average playthrough (during my last attempt I reached an 83% completion in 86 hours, leaving behind some of the most difficult challenges), it's clearly an example from which many game developers should learn in an industry in which "meaty" titles are becoming more and more rare and far between.
The story is simply fantastic and will easily see most players moved to tears or laughing at several turning points. The cast of characters is equally top-notch, easy to relate with and displaying a degree of humanity and realistic feelings that's very seldom found in video games.

I honestly have to chuckle at the press raving about some of the latest story-driven (and while good, extremely short) games like Heavy Rain or Alan Wake, like they were the second coming of Christ and something unseen in the gaming Industry. Games like Yakuza 2 featured quite more involving and moving storylines and deeper characters already four years ago, while still including much, much more playable content.

If you want a deep, emotional, moving and complex crime story with great fighting, a lot of enjoyable content and a superlative cast, you simply cannot go wrong with Yakuza 2, despite it's (few) flaws, and it's age.
On the other hand, some developers should feel a bit of shame about their 5-8 hours-long games sold for sixty dollars.
Ultimately, Yakuza 2 is a shining but forgotten diamond in the rough that has been ignored far too long by the general public due to a bad release timing and an absolutely insufficent promotion. If you missed it, you should definitely try to get it at least preowned. Unless your whole idea of gaming relates to mindlessly pulling a trigger and shooting aliens in a storyless rail-fest, you won't be disappointed.

New to the Yakuza series? You can order Yakuza, Yakuza 2 and Yakuza 3 from Amazon.com.

At long last Mechwarrior 4 is back, and it's FREE!

2010-05-01T00:27:00.009+02:00

Mechwarrior 4
Picture uploaded by Abriael

After a wait that lasted more than one year due to legal complications, the long awaited day has finally come. Studio MekTek finally managed to re-release one of the best Mech Combat simulators ever seen on any platform, Mechwarrior 4.
Not only the game (originally released in 2002) is a true gem that no similar title released after it could ever equal, but it's now completely free for everyone to enjoy.

All you have to do is to go to the MekTek website, download and install their proprietary client, go on Available games and select MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries. The client will download and install it for you and will also keep it updated (since MekTek plans on supporting it further).

In the years the game has received several improvements and additions, that are all included in this shiny package: Several new mechs and weapons have been added, the online gameplay has been revamped and rebalanced, and support for higher resolutions has been enabled.

Initially the download will probably be a bit slow, given that it's torrent-based, but don't give up, it'll speed up after a few minutes. If you missed the game back in 2002, but even if you already played it, this is your chance to relive one of the most glorious science-fiction franchises of the gaming industry (and that includes video games, board war-games and RPGs).

EDIT: at the moment the MekTek site is being hammered by thousands of download requests, so if it appears down, just retry later :D

Ace Combat X2 Joint Assault: New Trailer, Screenshots and info

2010-04-30T21:11:00.010+02:00

Ace Combat X2: Joint Assault
Picture uploaded by Abriael

As the Japanese release date (July the 22nd) approaches, Namco Bandai released a new trailer, a new batch of screenshots and information about the newest PSP chapter of the Ace Combat series, Ace Combat X2: Joint Assault. You can see the screenshots in this Flickr gallery, and the new trailer at the bottom of this post (after the jump).

The most juicy piece of information is definitely the multiplayer mode, that not only will allow up to eight players to duel in the virtual skies both via infrastructure and ad-hoc connection, but, for the first time in the series, will include a four-player cooperative mode during the campaign. This explains the "Joint Assault" title. The ability to play a flight combat game alongside three other friends definitely seems a lot of fun. We can definitely hope to see an home console-based Ace Combat game featuring the same option in the future (Namco Bandai just trademarked the title Ace Combat: Assault Horizon)

For the ones that found the previous Ace Combat titles too difficult (if someone like that actually exists), there will be two control options, similar to those seen in Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces. The Basic control option will just allow the plane to tilt to a limited degree, more or less like it does in After Burner, with the screen always remaining parallel to the ground. Also, neutering the analog stick will result in the plane automatically resuming level flight.
The Expert control option will instead allow complete freedom of movement, with the ability to do complete loops and barrel rolls, and will not include any flight aids. It will also let the player see the action from inside the cockpit to increase immersion.

Also, by pressing triangle, the player will be able to activate the a tracking camera that will move the view automatically towards the targeted enemy, and will follow it automatically.

Personally, I can't really see the utility of the basic control scheme, since I found such an option absolutely frustrating and boring in all games that featured it, but I guess there has to be a few people in the world capable of appreciating it. I don't know who they are or where they live, but they have to exist, since developers continue to offer dumbed down controls for their sake.

Namco Bandai also confirmed the existence of the usual Ace Combat gigantic enemies and between the screenshots you can see quite a few pictures of the titanic flying fortress "Spirdas". Some of the screenshots also show four players fighting against it in co-op mode.

We also got a nice overview of the story of the game, that, as we already knew, will be set in the real world instead of the usual fictional world that characterized the previous chapters of the series. Looks like Project Aces is going back to the ancestral Japanese cliche of an attack on the home country, reminiscent of the old glorious Godzilla movies.

The protagonist of the game, that as usual will not be shown or characterized, but will just act as a subjective and silent point of view, belongs to the Antares Squadron, part of a private air force named Martinez Security.
In the year 20XX, a disastrous world-wide crisis has left the global economy wounded, and military corporations are gaining a strong footing in several regions.

As Antares takes part to it's first joint military dill, a mysterious military group named Valahia, apparently formed by ex communist and middle-eastern mercenaries, stages a strike on Tokyo with an astonishing show of force. The scenes of the destruction of the Japanese capital are shown everywhere in the world, causing a new wave of terror.

The purposes of Valahia are unknown, as much as how they managed to gather the military power and equipment that they used against Tokyo, but the attack isn't just an isolated terrorist act, as the mysterious organization starts to wage a full scale war even in Europe and in the Middle East.
As the flames of war threaten to spread to the whole world, the IUPF, a multi-national security force that incorporates Antares organize to stage a counter-strike, oblivious of the economical interests that might run deep behind the curtains of the conflict.

Besides the story, Namco Bandai also elaborated on some of the characters that will drive it:

Frederick Bulford: the 52 years old commander of the Martinez Security M42 Squadron. He used to be part of the Air Force (presumably the US Air Force), but has retired due to problems with his superior officers. After moving to Martinez, he trained several ages, and became extremely respected even between his former colleagues.

Milos Suleimani: the 37 years old commander of the 1st wing of the M42 Squadron, known as the "Rigel Team". Usually cold and stern, he's an extremely capable fighter pilot, respected by the members of his team. He seems to be more interested in money, than in killing the enemy.

Nicolae Dimitrescu: 47 years old and commander of the forces of Valahia. He formerly a member of the secret police of an ex-communist nation (presumably Romania, given his name). He lost his family and was forced to leave his country during the revolution that overthrew the regime. He created Valahia using personnel from the middle east and central Asia, in order to take revenge against his former country.

Andrea Olivieri: 63 years old. He's the CEO of Olivieri Life Insurance, Inc. He grew up as part of a poor family of immigrants, but managed to build a global corporation in the span of one generation. Due to the financial crisis, the bombing of Tokyo and the rapid expansion of war damage, his company is earning huge profits.

This is it, for now. We'll have to stand by for further information but the elements for a very enjoyable chapter of the series seem to be there. In the meanwhile you can watch the new trailer below.

Missing Shogi from Yakuza 3? Try Shogidokoro

2010-04-30T06:50:00.005+02:00

Shogidokoro
Picture uploaded by Abriael

More or less everyone knows, by now, that several pieces of content have been (quite foolishly) cut from the western release of Yakuza 3. Between such content, Shogi is one of the minigames (or better sub-games, since it wasn't "Mini" at all), that I will miss the most, having played it as part of Yakuza 2 for quite a while, finding it a very interesting diversion that added several tens of hours of gameplay to the game.
Unfortunately, according to Sega, it doesn't "resonate" with the western audience, since, you know... the western audience (at least according to Sega) is stupid.

For the ones that are unfamiliar with the game, this wikipedia page explains the basics quite well.
Being more complex than western Chess due to some interesting mechanics, like the ability to drop captured pieces back into the game, Shogi is a delight for the brain, and a true treat for truly hardcore gamers.

So, now that Sega has left us orphaned of this lovely treat, what should we do, besides trying to find a copy of Yakuza 2?
We can play with Shogidokoro.

Shogidokoro is not exactly a game by itself. It's a Windows-based graphical user interface that can load several shogi-playing engines and let you play against them, let two engines play against each other and even let you or your engine of choice battle against other humans or other engines online (quite obviously, an engine is a program that will play shogi).
This means that, in order to play, you will need Shogidokoro itself, and at least one engine.
The best part of this all is that both Shogidokoro and one of the most popular engines, Spear, are free. You can go directly to the Spear homepage and download it. You will also find the instruction on how to download and install Shogodokoro.

The graphics aren't exactly the best you'll ever find in a game. They're indeed quite simple, but the game is deep and extremely fun. It doesn't only require intelligence and tactical thinking, but also quite a lot of imagination and ability to adapt to different situations. I'd dare say that it's quite a lot more stimulating and imaginative than western Chess.

The combination between Shogidokoro and Spear actually forms a very deep and complex program, with strong analytical tools that will help you learn and get better quite fast (even if, due to the amount of imaginative thiking required, playing against skilled humans is always better).

Instead of wasting your money with overpriced gimmicks like Brain Trainer and similar, give Shogi a try. You can be sure that your brain will stay trained and young even without the help of Dr. Kawashima.

Vanquish: New info gameplay and story revealed

2010-04-28T06:19:00.009+02:00

Vanquish
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Today Sega revealed on the new official site some new information about Vanquish, the upcoming shooter developed by Platinum Games and scheduled for release on PS3 and Xbox 360 this winter.

The most juicy piece of information is probably the background behind Vanquish's story that has been described in detail.

Providence is an american space colony, built with the shape of an immense cylinder to capture the energy of the sun. It's basically a gigantic power plant that sends energy back to Earth.

Unfortunately the station has been hyjacked and the power plant has been turned into a weapon of mass destruction. The enemy used the amplified microwave energy to irradiate San Francisco causing the dead of half a million people in an instant.

At the same time in Washinghton the American government received an official declaration of War from Russia. An oganization managed to stage a military coup in Russia and is now demanding an immediate and unconditional surrender of the United States. In case of a refusal New York would suffer the same fate as San Francisco.

As America faced it's moment of greatest peril, a savioir was chosen. Sam Burns, a war hero that experienced three conflicts and was awarded with the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star. The fleet on which he's stationed is already approaching Providence.

Burns was sent from the D.A.R.P.A. (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), an organization controlled directly by the President and by the Secretary of Defense, with the apparent mission of testing the new ARS battle suit, but now he has received a new task, to be a hero.
It's only a matter of time before the "Star of Russia" will eventually strike on New York.

The battle for the destiny of the United State has begun.

While the story doesn't seem exactly the most original to ever grace the gaming industry, it still has potential to deliver. What definitely delivers are the new screenshots that have been released with it, that you can confortably browse in this flickr album.

Sega has also given quite a few snippets of juicy information about the gameplay, focused on the used of the ARS (Augmented Reaction Suit) system battle suit, the most advanced combat armor ever built by the Hewytt Ayumi Aerospace (this is the best translation I could get of the name, but the final one could be different). The suit has a battle potential comparable to that of the most modern combat vehicles, and it's built with carbon nanotube filaments, creating a material more resilient than steel but just slightly heavier than air.

While the game is a shooter, the ARS has extreme close combat abilities, and this will allow the player to engage the enemy in melee, with punches and kicks. It's also able to enter a "Boost" status in which movement speed, agility and mobility will be greatly enhanced in order to dodge bullets, dash between obstacles and approach fights tactically by dashing behind enemies to attack their weaker backs.

In addition to that, under certain condition the suit will enter an "Augmented Reaction Mode" during which the flow of time is slowed, reducing the speed of the enemies and their attacks (basically Bullet Time). A combination of the use of the Augmented Reaction Mode and the Boost mode will be possible in order to defeat the most powerful enemies, some of which will be of gigantic proportions.

That's all for now. I have to see that while shooters aren't my favourite genre, Vanquish definitely looks sweet, and while it seems to feature gameplay ideas that aren't exactly new, their combination could prove the true selling point of the game. We'll have to stand by for new information that will probably come soon, given that the scheduled release window isn't that far.

PS: After the cut you can see the Debut trailer of Vanquish, released a couple months ago, in the case you missed it. An interesting fact about it. It's been directed by Alexei Tylevich of Logan Production, that handled the opening movie of Metal Gear Solid 4. Sega sure seems to be pulling out the big guns for this game.

The Famitsu Controversy Part 2 - Hypocrisy

2010-04-27T07:40:00.003+02:00

Famitsu
Picture uploaded by Abriael

A few days ago I wrote about the controversy stirred by Kotaku over the review of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on the Japanese magazine Weekly Famitsu.

To recap for the ones that missed it, Famitsu has a Tie-In deal with Konami, that will result in the magazine making an appearance in MGS: Peace Walker as a in-game item. Also, Famitsu reviewed the game and gave it a 40/40 perfect score.
Kotaku evidently took offense at that, and Brian Ashcraft posted an libel-bordering and sensationalistic rant titled "Do not trust this magazine's review scores", pretty openly accusing Famitsu and Konami to have an undercover deal in order to promote the game with a perfect score.

Looks like both Famitsu and Konami didn't like the article, which isn't surprising, in journalism throwing wild defamatory accusations without a shred of proof is called libel, and it's obviously a bad, bad thing. This not even mentioning that intentionally bashing the credibility of a competing publication is absolutely wrong both under an ethical and a professional point of view as I already illustrated on my previous article on this subject.

As Brian Ashcraft himself denounced in a pretty clumsy attempt to give further ground to his unproven accusations, both Konami and Famitsu wrote a formal letter of protest to Kotaku Japan and Konami withdrew the invitation to a PR event for the launch of Peace Walker.
A reaction that I would define quite mild, considering that libel can easily lead to lawsuits.

This is the point where a professional journalist should swallow his pride, understand that he scattered accusations around without a shred of proof, admit he was wrong, apologize and move on.

Unfortunately this isn't the case and the grasping at straws gets absolutely desperate: "Waaaaah they responded on the same day! They must have decided together to bully Kotaku! Waaaaah! Conspiracy!"

Good morning, Mr Bashcraft. Welcome to reality. Publishers and journalists TALK to each other. You probably talk to publishers daily, don't you? When one of the two parties saw that libelous article, it's pretty obvious that they called the other to let them know that some site was slandering them. There's really nothing weird and no chance of a conspiracy in that. So it's pretty obvious possibility that a response was issued on the same day and, surprise surprise, was received on the same day.

One of the most funny parts is how Ashcraft talks about writing to Kotaku Japan (that is owned by a different company than Kotaku, and just translated and published the article), comparing it to "shooting the messenger".
Too bad that Kotaku Japan isn't a "messenger". They willingly published an article that at the very least bordered libel. No matter where it was originally written, they decided to do so under their responsibility. If you publish an article, you're just as liable as if you write it.
It's probable that neither Konami nor Famitsu even noticed that the article was just a translation of what it appeared on Kotaku. The two sites being owned by different companies is a marginal detail. They have the same name, and Kotaku Japan lives mostly on articles translated from Kotaku. To an external observer they are the same entity, so it's natural that they just wrote to the apparent Japanese counterpart.

But there's one more little, but not so marginal piece to this absolutely hypocritical puzzle.
Mr. Ashcraft in his first article mentioned how Famitsu should have "offered a full disclosure" (but what is there to disclose? The tie-in is public knowledge, they went as far as going on stage in a press conference to announce it) accompanying their coverage of MGS: Peace Walker.
So, according to Kotaku, Famitsu is unreliable because they didn't write a full disclosure about the Tie-In deal between Famitsu's publisher Enterbrain and Konami.

Too bad that Mr Ashcraft forgot a couple little details (besides the several advertisement deals that involve themes that turn Kotaku in a whole big adboard for this or that game quite often):

There's absolutely no full disclosure about any tie-in on Kotaku's very positive review of WarioWare: D.I.Y. None that would even slightly hint to any promotional deal between the site and Nintendo.

But surprise, surprise! A few days later Kotaku announced the fabulous contest Master WarioWare: D.I.Y., Make Us a Game, Win a HUGE Prize, prompting readers to create a Kotaku-themed minigame using the Nintendo's little platform, and offering "HUGE prizes" sponsorized by... Nintendo.

But this isn't all:

There's absolutely no full disclosure about any tie-in on Kotaku's extremely enthusiastic (even a little too enthusiastic in my honest opinion, since they basically avoided mentioning all the flaws of the game besides a very minor one) review of Forza Motorsport 3, nor on the just as enthusiastic and quite frequent follow-up coverage on the game.

But surprise, surprise! Kotaku's sister blog Jalopnik, part of the Gawker network (that publishes Kotaku as well), has a Tie-in with Forza 3. They helped choose the cars in one of the Forza DLC packages with an extensive voting event called "Forzalopnik", and VIP players of Forza Motorsport 3 received a Jalopnik-themed car delivered in game directly by Turn 10.

Yet, there's no full disclosure on this on Kotaku's articles about Forza Motorsport 3.

I rest my case.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Online - New browser game announced

2010-04-26T06:22:00.014+02:00

Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Picture uploaded by Abriael

The most loyal followers of this blog probably know that seeing me even slightly excited for a browser game is a rare occurrence, more or less as rare as snow during the summer.
Well, looks like it just snowed: today the Japanese developer GameOn published a juicy press release announcing a deal with the manga and novel publisher Tokuma Shoten, paving the way to the development of an online browser game based on the Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu) saga.
The most hardcore anime and manga fans probably already recognized the name. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the most prominent, deep, poetic and long winded space opera ever published in Japan. Counting 10 novels, 9 short stories, 11 manga volumes, four anime series for a total of 110 episodes, two theatrical animated movies and 53 OAVs, it's rightfully seen as as the premier masterpiece of Japanese science fiction, often compared to Star Wars and Star Trek.

The saga focuses on the space faring war between the Galactic Empire and the Free Planet Alliance (at least initially) and more prominently between the two military geniuses Reinhard von Lohengramm and Yang Wen-Li, staging the classic conflict between dictatorship and democracy. A very peculiar trait, though, is that the narration doesn't take a moral stance and doesn't pinpoint an "evil" side, treating the two factions equally, and focusing more on the personal stories and feelings of the several tens of characters that orbit around the two leaders.
Besides featuring some of the best starfleet battles ever seen in animation (or on film), it definitely reaches an almost unparalleled pinnacle of depth and complexity between any space opera. If you're curious, the whole saga is available fansubbed. Watching it all will take you quite some time. Very well spent time, I might add.

For the moment nothing has been disclosed about the gameplay. The only known detail is that Legend of the Galactic Heroes Online (the name is tentative) will be a browser-based game, and as such no client download will be needed.
The most interesting fact, though, is that the press release explicitly states that GameOn isn't aiming just to the domestic Japanese market and that the service will be offered worldwide. Looks like even us western-based gamers will be able to enjoy it. No release dates have been given yet.

Yakuza RetroReview: yes, the first one

2010-04-25T14:49:00.006+02:00

Yakuza
Picture uploaded by Abriael

If you have followed this blog before, or the gaming press in general, you know about the western release of Yakuza 3 (and the controversy involved). It's very possible that you missed the previous chapters of the series, and you might be wondering if it's worth playing them before starting the third game. This is exactly the purpose for this little retro-review.

One of the first hurdles you might find, if you'll want to play this game, is actually finding a PS2. Yakuza works with no problems only with the first rare models of the PS3, the American 20/60 Gb models with an hardware retrocompatibility chip. If you have an European 60 Gb or an American 80 Gb with software retrocompatibility, then the game will freeze twice during the story making progression impossible.

The story sees Kazuma Kiryu returning to Tokyo after spending ten years in jail. A decade before his childhood friend Nishiki (Nishikiyama in the original Japanese script) killed the chairman of his Yakuza family, and Kazuma decided to take the blame upon himself. As a result he was expelled from the clan and convicted.

Kazuma finds his old home in turmoil, with the former chairman of the Tojo clan assassinated and ten billion yen stolen from the clan's coffers, resulting in an internal power struggle that sees a largely changed Nishiki as a main player. On top of it all Yumi, the girl he loves, went missing and is nowhere to be found.

To complicate further an already complex situation, Yumi's niece Haruka is being targeted by several members of the Tojo clan that seem to think she's the key to find the stolen ten billions. Kazuma still feels honor-bound to his old clan, and to his foster father, Shintaro Fuma (the original name is Shintaro Kazama), head of the Fuma family and one of the leaders of the Tojo clan. His old ties will lead him to investigate on the mysterious chain of murders and to protect Haruka whatever the cost.

This is, of course, a simplified version of a very complex story, probably one of the most complex and involving I've seen in a game. The story and the characters are definitely the strongest point of every Yakuza game, and the first chapter is no exception. Every single character, even secondary ones, is characterized with utmost detail, with a strongly defined personality and a past that can be explored through several subquests.

It's very easy to feel emotionally involved by Yakuza's story, even thanks to a decidedly cinematic approach. I have to admit that there have been a couple instances in which I even shed a tear or two.
While many compare the Yakuza series to the Grand Theft Auto series, the characters of Yakuza are still criminals, but they are decidedly more refined and easier to relate to, compared to the absolutely brainless and flat-lined thugs that you're forced to play in any GTA.

Delving further into the technical aspects of the game, we have to obviously consider that it's been released in 2005, so the graphics aren't exactly up to par with today's games.
The textures are sometimes quite muddy and blurry, and aliasing is very evident, especially on a modern LCD screen. Don't get me wrong though, the game doesn't look bad, it looks pretty decent for it's age, but don't expect miracles.

One of the best aspects is environmental design, with the Kamurocho district designed in utmost detail despite the low resolution. I already described in a previous article how Kamurocho is strongly inspired by the real Tokyo district of Kabukicho, and this inspiration is already evident and very pleasant to see in Yakuza. Of course this Kamurocho is inspired by the Kabukicho of five or six years ago, so it's partly different from today's district, but it's actually very different to see how it evolved through it's representation in the whole Yakuza saga.

The area in which the engine really shines are the cutscenes, rendered in real time and featuring advanced facial animation and filtering that brings forth a level of detail and expressiveness that can easily rival with many games of today and just as easily surpass them. This helps a lot in bringing the characters to life and in making them extremely easy to relate with.

The soundtrack is a little sparse, as there's no background music while you walk around Kamurocho, but the tracks that play during fighting scenes, and events are quite nice and appropriate, especially during cutscenes, where they underline the story perfectly.

The sound effects are actually quite hit and miss. While the basic fighting sound effects do their duty, the environmental sounds you'll hear during your explorations shows that budget was probably running low when Sega came to that area of the production. The basic buzz is extremely repetitive (basically a 5 second clip that repeats over and over), and there are just a few additional spoken lines (in Japanese) amateurishly slapped over it again and again. After a few thousand times, when you'll hear someone on the streets repeat "anata!" or "Namakura desu!" your ears will be just about ready to explode.
Also, only the cutscenes are fully voiced, while the rest of the script is just text underlined by a few generic spoken sentences. Pretty normal for 2005, but someone might find it unpleasant in 2010.

Gameplay definitely suffers a bit from the hardware limitations of the PS2 and the old age of the game. Walking around Kamurocho you will move from one semi-static camera to the other (like in the God of War series), with no ability to control the angle. What's probably the most annoying factor is that the transition between each camera takes about a second and definitely disturbs the pacing of the game. Of course you get used to it after a while, but it'll definitely make for a rough impact if you're used only to today's games and their dynamic cameras and smooth transitions.

Besides a few initial sections in which your exploration will be limited, Yakuza can definitely be defined a sandbox game, as you will be able to move freely around the district and tackle sidequest and minigames in any order. In that the structure isn't much different from Grand Theft Auto titles.

What differs radically from Grand Theft Auto is combat. Whenever you encounter an enemy (and you'll meet many) the perspective changes and you enter a sort of limited area that you can't run from (you're blocked by walls of spectators cheering for the combatants) , and in which you'll have to battle through a complex brawling system more similar to beat-em-up games, and that features tens of different combos paired with a wide variety of real or improvised weapons like swords, knives, pipes, baseball bats, golf clubs, neon signs, chairs...
This is actually one of the most interesting aspects of the game, as the variety of attacks and weaponry definitely creates one of the deepest fighting systems in a game of this kind. It's not quite as deep as in it's sequels, but still pretty much unrivaled elsewhere.

As you fight your "heat" gauge will fill up, and once it's filled, you will be able to use several "heat action" moves, that will allow you to beat up your opponent in a particularly brutal (like smashing their face against walls or comparable solid obstacles) and cinematic way. Often those moves are completed by quicktime events that will allow you to cause further damage. Yakuza may be an old game, but it's fighting system is definitely as fresh as ever.

The only problems are that the camera is still fixed and that there's no auto-targeting, forcing the player to turn Kazuma towards his enemies manually.

As you fight your way through the game, Kazuma will gain experience that you will be able to allocate into three statistics in a simple RPG-like mechanic, allowing you to increase your lifebar and to learn new moves and combos in order to beat your enemies into bigger puddles of blood.

I already mentioned minigames, that are one of the trademarks of the series. As you wander Kamurocho you will be able to play baseball (or better, play in the batting cages, that are a peculiar Japanese entertainment center in which an automatic machine throws pitches and players have to hit them), gamble in two casinos that feature Baccarat, Roulette and Black Jack, play with UFO catchers in Sega centers and with Slot Machines. You will also have the chance to romance six hostesses through a cute dating minigame (one of the elements that was cut from the western edition of Yakuza 3), in which you'll have to guess their tastes and please them in order to win their favors. There's also a minigame based on a massage parlor in which you'll have to use your button pressing ability to show your manliness to the masseuse by not falling asleep under her ministrations.

The first Yakuza is the only game of the series to be fully voiced in English, and localization is actually the weakest area of the game. Voice acting is average at best, with only the main characters that can be classified as pretty good, while the rest of the English cast is quite poor.

The main problem, though, is the translation. Unfortunately this is a common problem to Sega games, as the western branch of the company seems to be absolutely unable to find an even remotely professional translator for their games. It was a problem in 2005 and it's still a problem now, as the quality didn't increase even in their latest productions. While many other developers evolved in this area, Sega didn't manage to, or simply didn't care.

The English script not only features some changed names (for some obscure reason, since Japanese names have been replaced with just a little simpler Japanese names), but in several instances simply doesn't reflect the original script, with voice actors that say completely different lines compared to their Japanese counterparts.
Another issue (that was reiterated, even if just in text form, in the following chapters), is the excessive use of profanity that has no equivalent in the Japanese original as heavy cursing is very rare in the Japanese language as a whole.
Strongly American swearwords like "Motherfucker" have absolutely no place in the localization of a game based in Japan, with Japanese characters and with a strong Japanese flavor, no matter what social class they belong to. Translating "Oyaji" (which is simply a slightly derogatory and overly-familiar way to say "old man") as "Stupid old fuck" is something that would see a translator kicked in the face and out of the office in any professional environment, but unfortunately not at Sega.
I understand that the game is based in the criminal underworld, but making the characters talk like American "gangstas" is a radical misrepresentation that turns the script into an awkward mess.

Ultimately, despite it's flaws that are mostly due to it's old age and mismanagement of the localization by Sega of America, Yakuza is definitely a game worthy to be played, especially if you want to build your attachment to the characters that you will encounter in the subsequent chapters of the saga. I can definitely tell you that, while Yakuza 3 can be enjoyed by itself, playing the previous games will multiply such enjoyment ten fold. An average playthrough with all the sidequests will last for about fifty hours, making for a very meaty production from which many game developers (and their six hour bite-sized games) should definitely learn.

What about Yakuza 2? I can already tell you that it's even bigger, and that it solved many of the problems of the first game (including the PS3 backwards compatibility). You can definitely expect a retroreview on this blog soon.

New to the Yakuza series? You can order Yakuza, Yakuza 2 and Yakuza 3 from Amazon.com.

Gamer Segregation: It's about time to do away with it

2010-04-24T18:18:00.005+02:00

Gamer Segregation
Picture uploaded by Abriael

It's now official. After being able to play Starcraft for years with and against players from all over the world, fans of the series will find themselves segregated in their own regional Battle.net communities. You're European? You might as well make sure that your American friends are on MSN or Skype, because you won't sure be able to play with them on Starcraft 2.

Wings of Liberty, of course, is only the latest example of that nasty thing that I define "Gamer Segregation", with several games that limits the ability of their players to enjoy an online match with their friends that happen to live across a pond.

Blizzard was already a major offender, with their World of Warcraft players neatly split by region, but many other MMORPG developers did the same: Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Aion... The list could go on much longer than that.

We live in a globalized world, and communicate in a world wide web, with the ability to make friends with people from all over the globe, meeting different cultures and ways to play games. Isn't that the best thing about playing online? Being able to meet and interact with gamers that we we'd never have a chance to encounter otherwise? Coming into contact with different cultures that will broaden our horizons?

Unfortunately several developers seem to think that such things have no value, as they continue to drop barriers on this globalized online world, preventing their users from playing with a sizable percentage of the friends they happened to make over the internet.
This gets even more problematic when regional servers are handled by third parties that don't have direct access to the code, and have to wait for the original developer to move in order to solve the slightest issue. The obvious (and nasty) result is that players find themselves not only segregated in a sort of online ghetto, but also having to bear a lower quality service, often for the same price.

I can't even count the times in which I had to go to the trouble of importing the American version of a game in order to play with my American friends and avoid being stuck with a third party that would have given me a worse service.
That, of course, implied having to chose some of my friends over the others, which isn't exactly a pleasant part of the whole procedure.
Whole glorious guilds have been painfully split when they happened to move from a game with world-wide servers to one with regional communities.

Normally such developers tend to bring server stability and latency as an excuse (when the real problems are the usual, money and organization). Those excuses don't fly anymore, they stopped being valid years ago.

Nowadays the quality of phone lines is so varied across the globe that one's connection with a server located in the next town could easily be worse than with one located in a different continent. Further proof of this is that game with world-wide servers already exist and thrive with no peculiar lag problems.
Most RTS don't have separate regional servers, and work with no connectivity problem. The same can be said about many MMORPGs, not to mention console services like Xbox Live.

It's obvious that connectivity problems due to location are pretty much a thing of the past, so why do developers continue to segregate their players in their own regional ghettos?
Personally, I find this extremely annoying and unacceptable in today's globalized online world.

One of the most shining examples, that every developer out there should watch and learn from, is Final Fantasy XI, that features not only world-wide, but also cross-platform servers, a feature that will be inherited by Final Fantasy XIV. No matter if you're Americam, European or Japanese. No matter if you play on PC, PS2 or Xbox 360, you'll be connected to the same servers, and you'll be able to play and interact with your friends, whatever their nationality and platform of choice are.
I can only look forward to the day in which every game will be like that, allowing us to relate with different people, different cultures and different ways to see gaming.

Trinity Universe official western website launched

2010-04-24T05:48:00.002+02:00

Trinity Universe
Picture uploaded by Abriael

NIS America launched today the new western website for their upcoming JRPG Trinity Universe, scheduled to be launched in June 2010 exclusively on the PS3, both in Europe and in the US.

Trinity universe is a crossover JRPG jointly developed by Nippon Ihi Software, Idea Factory and Gust and featuring characters from the Disgaea series and the Atelier series, but sporting a completely original gameplay and combat system.

The story can be played from two different perspectives, that of the Demon Dog King Kanata and that of the Valkyrie Rizlea, whose profiles, alongside a brief overview of the story, are the only elements available on the new website for the moment.

With the western release of Trinity Universe following closely Sakura Wars: So Long my Love and The Last Rebellion, NIS America demonstrates again that they fully intend to target the western market, but just as Atlus USA does, they don't want to do so by purchasing western studios, but by bringing over their own best titles, retaining their original distinctive Japanese flavor.

That's refreshing for sure, and other Japanese companies should definitely learn from NIS and Atlus. Yes Sega, Square Enix, Capcom and Namco Bandai, don't look the other way, I'm talking about you. Watch and learn.

You can see a trailer of the game after the jump :D

New Project K teaser video. Official site opens.

2010-04-22T15:51:00.007+02:00

Project K
Picture uploaded by Abriael

The new official site for Project K has been opened today by Sega as part of the Ryu ga Gotoku (Yakuza) portal. The site includes very little at the moment, but it already confirms that the main character of the PSP title won't probably be Kazuma Kiryu. What's most interesting is the short teaser video included in the website, that you can see after the cut.

It's always interesting to see that, while western analysts like Michael Patcher already label the PSP as a dead console, it's software line-up becomes stronger by the day, with plenty new core-oriented titles announced often.
Looks like game developers don't share Patcher's views.

Edit: On a side note, a new Ryu ga Gotoku official Youtube channel has been opened yesterday even if, at the moment, it includes video clips from Yakuza 4 only.

You can see the new teaser video after the cut.

The Famitsu Controversy

2010-04-21T17:40:00.006+02:00

Famitsu
Picture uploaded by Abriael

The Japanese weekly magazine Famitsu has given a perfect score (40/40) to Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and people are already up in arms about it. Why? Because Famitsu has a tie-in with Hideo Kojima's upcoming PSP game and the magazine appears in the game.

Kotaku even went as far as writing an heated and article titled "Do Not Trust This Magazine's Review Scores" that could be only defined as bordering on libel. This, of course, isn't even the first time that the American website slings mud at their Japanese colleagues. They have published several articles (like this one) in the past with that sole purpose, for some reason that I personally fail to understand.

Is it because they normally give more attention (and higher scores) to Japanese games and less to western games? I wouldn't be surprised, since for a western-centric site like Kotaku this must be a serious affront.

On a side note, I find it really funny that Kotaku and many other websites posted several articles denouncing how MGS: Peace Walker has several instances if in-game advertisement, when such deals are very, very common in the western gaming industry, so much that there even are several agencies dedicated just to deal with that. But that when that happens in a western game, it seems to be unimportant. When it happens in a Metal Gear game looks like it's "big news".

Anyway, if it wasn't sad enough to see gaming journalists slinging mud at their colleagues ("you should trust us! Not them!"), it's downright shameful that Kotaku isn't even alone in this crusade.

So what should have Famitsu done? They shouldn't have reviewed at all one of the most awaited (and best looking) incoming games for PSP because they have an advertisement deal with Kojima Production? Or maybe they should have automatically given it a lower score to avoid being criticized by Kotaku and by the other western "me too!" journalists that will follow? I don't think so.

So why should we "not trust" Famitsu's review scores? Because they have advertisement deals with game developers like Kotaku suggests in this article?

This kind of argument honestly makes me laugh. I worked in the gaming press before, on print magazines, and I'm sorry if I'm about to let out a terrible secret, but this is something that's common to every single gaming publication in the world, printed or online, Japanese or Western.
Every gaming magazine makes more money with advertisement deals than with newstand sales, this is even more true with gaming websites (like Kotaku), since their only source of income is, surprise surprise, advertisement.
I'm sure you noticed when they put up those nice cute themes that basically splatters a game all over their front page. It's hard not to notice. That's how they make their money to buy groceries. Writing is not their little hobby as bloggers, but it's a well paid job, and their salary is basically paid by the game developers that put their promotion on their websites (or on their magazines, for the printed press).

The gaming press has always been saturated by this kind of "underground commerce". Exclusive previews, costly or extravagant giveaways from developers, exclusive covers, advertisement deals and so forth. Game developers do their best to sway the opinion of journalists (and often they even go as far as explicitly asking to trade higher scores for favors and exclusives) and journalists are, more often than not, quite happy to give in. The few that aren't willing to, are going to get in trouble with their publisher/editor in chief quite quickly. There's no thing as a truly "independent" gaming publication.

So yeah, sorry if I let the cat out of the bag (I would actually be surprised if many didn't know already), but gaming journalism, just as much as any other field of journalism that's based on reviews and opinion pieces on commercial products, has always been, is and will always be largely a matter of give and take.

No matter if a publication is Japanese or Western, no matter if it's printed or online. As long as advertisement deals are in place, there is a lot of potential for little (or big) deals and exchange of favors. Even just receiving fancy review copies with lots of swag and niceties can sway the opinion of a reviewer, let's not even talk about advertisement deals worth tens of of thousands of dollars.

Do you really think that Japanese publications give higher scores to Japanese games because they're all bribed, while western publications give higher scores to western games because they're all righteous and fair?
Japanese publications give higher scores to Japanese games because Japanese developers spend much more in advertisement on Japanese magazines (and spend very little, in comparison, on western magazines/websites), while western publications give higher scores to western games because western developers are more prodigal in their promotional spending on western magazines/websites. Those that receive more, give more. Give and Take.

Should you trust Famitsu's review scores? No more and no less than the scores and reviews you read on your average magazine/website that happen to come from the west (or any other Japanese one). As long as there are advertisement deals, review copies, exclusive previews, favors and such, no one is "clean". It'd be a good idea for Kotaku to drop the "holier than thou" attitude. Their salaries, their nice swag and the shiny gadgets they can fill their homes with, come from game devs just as much as everyone else's in the gaming press.

That's why people should make their own opinion. Don't trust Famitsu? Sure. Actually, don't trust anyone. Kotaku included. Don't trust even me, I'm not paid and I don't get review copies or swag, but I'm biased anyway, like everyone else out there.

My interview with Cheryl Olson

2010-04-21T16:13:00.003+02:00

As part of my starting collaboration with This is my Joystick, I interviewed Mrs. Cheryl Olson, one of the two writers behind the book "Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do", that that debunked many myths about the effect of violent games on children, and that built new bridges between gaming and parenting.

Personally, I think that her views are definitely worth a read. Not only she takes a much more logical standpoint to parenting in relation to videogames than most of her colleagues, politicians or the media, but she expresses it in a way that it's very, very difficult to argue. She's not pro or against games, but she "defends" gaming better than most gamers or gaming journalists could do.

Give it a read, you can find it on This is My Joystick.

The Sky Crawlers Review: a misplaced beauty

2010-04-18T18:47:00.001+02:00

Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Like most core-oriented titles on the Wii, The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces has been released at the end of last year in the US and a few weeks ago in Europe basically without any kind of promotion, coming under the radar of many gamers that would have been, otherwise, interested in playing it.
While not surprising, given the platform, I found this quite disappointing, considering the scope of the production and the teams involved: Project Aces (Ace Combat) for the gameplay, and Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell) for the animated cutscenes. It's obvious that better promotion would have given this game the attention it deserves.

The story is set in an alternate Europe, during an unspecified time frame. In that era war is a thing of the past, but it's still part of human nature, deeply embedded in the very core of the human soul.
That's why, in order to remind the value of peace to the people, a mock conflict is staged between two corporations, Rostock and Lautern, and fully televised for everyone to see almost like it was a sport.
Professional pilots fight each other to the deadly end in bloody dogfights for the enjoyment of the masses and the prosperity of the corporations involved, ensuring that the aggressive instincts hidden in the hearts of the civilians remain satisfied and dormant.
The level of cynicism reaches a climax as a partly failed genetic engineering project creates human beings with the looks of children that appear not to age and die of natural causes. Named Kildren, they are enlisted as pilots and simply reproduced when they die, pushed back into the grinder of the mock war in an eternal cycle of death and rebirth.
The main character, a normal human that bears the call-sign "Lynx", is a recruit of a Rostock squadron as the first Kildren are introduced into the roster and will have to cope both with the events of the war and with the impact with those new and unsettling colleagues.

This extremely unusual setting, originally featured in a series of novels by the Japanese writer Hiroshi Mori, gives the game an extremely surreal feel, but at the same time amplifies it's emotional impact, in a shocking allegory on the meaning of war and of the aggressiveness of human nature.

Just like in every Project Aces game, the main character is never really shown or characterized and never speaks (something that I personally resent, but this is strictly a matter of taste), so the camera is mostly aimed at the other characters that live and fight around him. The attention focuses especially on the point of view of the first female Kildren, Maumi Orishina, whose infatuation for Lynx and his unparalleled skills as a fighter pilot risks to turn into a dangerous obsession.

The story of The Sky Crawlers is most definitely a tragedy (something that sets it apart from the usual Wii title), and a pretty difficult one to relate to as well. It's so surreal and filled with unrequited feelings that you will probably either click with it automatically or hate it.
Personally, I'm in the "love" camp, as I found it deep and very inspired, especially paired with the animated movie, of which I'll write extensively later, and with which it forms a complex and simply brilliant diptych.

Technically, the game isn't for sure a gem of graphical prowess. I would say that Ace Combat 5 and Ace Combat Zero on the PS2 looked quite visibly better than this title, with richer environments and more detailed planes. Even with your Wii set to stream at the maximum resolution of 480p, the aliasing is very evident, the low-res textures are pretty blurry and the models are visibly blocky.
Luckily this is offset by an absolutely masterful art direction and mechanical design. The planes, partly inspired by historical and experimental fighters and bombers of World War 2, are some of the most brilliant and lovely I've seen in a game, beating quite easily their more modern counterparts of the Ace Combat series.

Unfortunately they truly show their full camouflaged splendor only when statically displayed in their hangar, while the actual gameplay will require a bit of imagination in order to fully appreciate their sleek designs.

The cutscenes, on the other end, are visually very appealing. That's not surprising since they've been produced by one of the most critically acclaimed anime studios in Japan. The world of Sky Crawlers has been recreated in astonishing detail, with a lovely retro style that recalls the forties, but still includes some evident elements of modernity.

One of the biggest problems of the game is that many players will feel like turning off the console as soon as they take control of a fighter. Project aces bravely tried to devise a clever control scheme to fully exploit the motion controls of the Wii, too bad that they failed miserably.
Already during the (horrible) tutorials most players will find the woefully imprecise control scheme completely frustrating and falling very much short on what's needed to pilot a plane during a dogfight. The Nunchuck used as a cloche has an enormous dead zone that will require you to hold it almost horizontally in order to force the plane to turn. Let's not even talk about climbing, that will prompt you to bend your wrist at painfully unnatural angles.

That's why I immediately dropped the Wiimote/Nunchuck combo, and picked up my old trustworthy Gamecube controller, that turns the control scheme into something very similar to an Ace Combat game, and gives a much better and intuitive feel to the game. There still are a couple problems, like the rubber awkwardly placed on the D pad, or the viewpoint that requires a bit of finger-dancing on the controller, but nothing major.

An important piece of advice is to immediately set your control option as Expert, since otherwise you won't be able to roll your plane beyond a certain extent and you won't have access to the rudder control, making for a very, very awkward experience.

The developers themselves seem to have realized the poor implementation of their control scheme, and implemented a system named "Tactical Maneuver Command" as a piloting aid. By following a plane long enough the TMC bar will fill up, allowing you to press a button and send your plane somersaulting right on the enemy's tail. The longer you let the bar fill, the better your final position will be.
There's also a manual version of the TMC, that lets you select one of several preset aerobatics and will perform them at the press of a button, which tends to be very useful to suddenly change direction for an air-to-ground attack or to get yourself out of a desperate situation.

While the TMC system reeks of autopilot, and many will argue that it dumbs down gameplay, making it considerably easier, it has a few merits.
First of all, it's extremely cinematic and visually appealing. While not everyone will care, seeing your plane dance into the sky like a butterfly to place itself behind the enemy is a very fulfilling experience.
More importantly, though, the planes of the Sky Crawlers lack any kind of guided weaponry. There are no homing missiles for you to fire and forget, and killing the enemy requires you to get him into your cross hairs each and every time, thing that can be quite a lot harder than what many gamers are used to with the Ace Combat series.
This not to mention the fact that the enemy will often use the same maneuvers on you.

In the end, despite the TMC system, I found The Sky Crawlers to be more or less as easy/difficult as the previous AC games (while it's obviously easier than a simulator like Il-2 Sturmovik). The TMC replaces guided missiles, and everything balances out. If you'll approach Sky Crawlers expecting an easy game, some of the missions against enemy aces, even just on normal difficulty, are going to make you think again.
I had to retry the last mission of the campaign a few times, thing that's pretty unprecedented, for me, in any AC game. Especially if you aim for an S rank in order to unlock all the content you'll find yourself hitting the "retry" option quite often.

Ultimately, flying and fighting in The Sky Crawlers (provided that you don't use the awful Wiimote/nunchuck combo) is a very fun and fast paced experience. The TMC combined with manual controls make for a deep and complex control system that will be easy to learn but hard to master, and will probably satisfy most core gamers looking for a challenge.

The second big problem you'll notice is the menu design, that's one of the most convoluted and badly implemented I've seen in my life. You'll need to input four commands just to restart a mission (Are you sure? Are you sure that you're sure? This your last chance to change your mind, are you still sure?), saving and loading are made into a chore and so forth.
By the love of all that's holy, why the hell am I prompted to play the tutorial before every mission of the story mode? And the tutorial is actually the default option, forcing me to purposely move the cursor in order to continue. I might be about to play the very last mission on my fourth play-through and the game will still try and get me to play the tutorial.

Unfortunately there's no online gameplay option, but there's quite a lot of planes, special weapons and paint schemes for the planes to unlock, some of which accessible only during subsequent playthroughs, giving the game a pretty decent replay value.

The music of Sky Crawlers, composed by Kazuhiro Nakamura (Tales of Innocence) is actually one of the best parts of the game, with tracks that go from epic to fast paced and adrenaline pumping, underlining every situation in the game almost perfectly (this is one of the best examples).
Voice overs are also quite well done, for once fitting the characters nicely, trying to reproduce the peculiar Japanese voice acting style both in the cutscenes and in the frequent banter during missions, that's a trademark of Ace Combat games.

Ultimately, sky crawlers is definitely a good game, with a deep and complex story and fun gameplay quite unique on the Wii.
The biggest problem is the choice of platform. Given that the motion control scheme is absolutely worthless, and motion control is the only redeeming feature of the Wii, it's pretty hard not to wonder about how it could have played and looked with the graphical and processing power of the PS3 or the Xbox 360 (or both).
Even just imagining Sky Crawlers with the graphics of Ace Combat 6 (released on the 360 almost three years ago), shows an enormous difference with what we actually have in front of our eyes.
It's not even just a matter of graphics, as the processing power of an HD console allows for better AI and more enemies on screen, making for a quite broad divide even related to gameplay.
This nagging feeling can spoil the experience a little bit, and defines The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces as a misplaced beauty. A game that's a very valid experience in it's own right, but could have been much better if Namco Bandai didn't (quite foolishly) try to capitalize on the popularity of the Wii making a game that has really nothing to do with the target of the console and doesn't even use it's motion controls decently.

If the Wii is your platform of choice, or the poor placement of the game isn't a problem for you, then Sky Crawlers is a rare gem that shouldn't really be overlooked. In any case, even if you would have preferred to play it on PS3 or Xbox 360, I'd still advise to give it a try. The engrossing story, the beautiful soundtrack and the fact that we didn't have a new Ace Combat game in a while, make for a worthwhile experience, even if a little stained by regret.

The Sky Crawlers Movie

The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces is the prequel of an anime film by the acclaimed director Mamoru Oshii and Production I.G, featuring an impressive soundtrack by Kenji Kawai.
The movie is set a few years after the game, when the Kildren almost completely replaced human pilots in the mock war between Lautern and Rostock, that continues unperturbed to perform it's "social" role.
A few of the characters of the game appear in the movie as well (I won't tell you who and in what form, to avoid spoilers), including the protagonist, even if you won't imagine in what role. I'll give you an hint, look for the black cat emblem :D

This time around the main character is Yoichi Kannami, a Kildren stationed at the same Rostock airbase that we see in the game, and that will have to deal with the war itself and the acceptance of his own nature as a Kildren, destined to die in battle only to be recreated in an endless cycle.

The movie, that won several awards, between which the Future Film Festival Digital Award at the 65th Venice International Film Festival, is in my opinion one of the best anime ever produced, featuring incredible visuals and an engrossing story that complements perfectly that of the game. It will give you a broader insight on the world of Sky Crawlers and on the nature of the Kildren.
In addition to that, it features what I would define as the best aerial dogfight scenes I ever seen in a movie, both animated and live.

I'd advise watching the movie after playing the game, to enjoy the story in the right order. In any case, if you like one, you'll enjoy the other almost for sure.
Note: The two pictures above are obviously from the movie, not from the game. You can probably use them to imagine what the game would have looked like if it was on PS3 or Xbox 360.

You can buy the The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces and the the Sky Crawlers movie (Blu-ray
or DVD) on Amazon.com.

Yes, video games can be art.

2010-04-17T21:22:00.009+02:00

Pixel Mona Lisa
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Roger Ebert, film critic at the Chicago Sun-times, is known amongst gamers because of his iron-clad and honestly pretty antiquated standpoint that Video games can never be art.

Yesterday, responding to a conference held by Kellee Santiago that shown how games can indeed be art, Ebert wrote a lenghty blog post to restate his views and try to invalidate Ms. Santiago's.

It's quite convenient that Ebert chose, between the multitude of examples brought by the gaming industry, Santiago's conference in order to reiterate his points. While Ms. Santiago put in a good effort, I find the examples she brought are a little shaky and overdone, especially Waco resurrection.

That's why dismantling her points is easy pickings for a seasoned journalist like Mr. Ebert.

Unfortunately for Mr. Ebert, though, his own standpoint is just as easily picked apart: he's a film critic, and he obviously thinks that film is an art form.

Then why can't video games be art? They use exactly the same canons of expression and just add interactivity.

Film = visual art + music + storytelling + acting
Video game = visual art + music + storytelling + acting + interactivity

We can easily notice that the only difference between the two media is interactivity. Does Mr. Ebert think that interactivity alone is enough to make videogames less of an art form than movies?
That's pretty far fetched, given that interactive art is a sanctioned and actually very interesting form of art.

So games are, exactly like movies, a composition of several forms of art, quite often, as opposed to what Ebert says, just as advanced as their counterparts appearing in an actual movie.

Is the soundtrack of Dragon Age: Origins less compelling and emotional than the music in Battleship Potemkin? Is the storytelling in a Metal Gear Solid 4 less involving and complex than what we can see in The Bridge on the River Kwai? Are the characters of Valkyria Chronicles less deep and interesting than those of Letters from Iwo-Jima? In what form would Mass Effect be inferior to Blade Runner? Why would Yakuza 3 be considered less of a form of artistic expression than Kikujiro by Takeshi Kitano? Of course there are variations according to taste, but it's easy to see the trend (I purposely picked games that are quite mainstream, without going to look for obscure, purposely artistic productions).

Movies and Video Games can even be integrated in a wider form of storytelling. Mamoru Oshii's Sky Crawlers is a clear example, with the Wii game serving as an almost indispensable prologue for the animated movie, that won an award at the Venice International Film Festival in 2008. It's quite difficult to fully understand the movie without playing the game, and vice versa.

In the end the concept is pretty simple:
If film is art, video games can be art.
If video games can't be art, film isn't art.

Ultimately Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. Video games are product of deliberately arranging elements and most definitely affect the senses and can generate plenty emotions.

I understand that "old" film critics like Ebert are so absolutely frightened by the growing popularity of gaming over filmed media, that they actually feel compelled to try and "shoot them down" in an attempt to protect their own job and popularity.
I'm sorry, though, but negating the existence of art in the gaming field is a serious delusion, akin to the delusive behavior of those that, in the past, negated the validity of movies as an art form in order to try and support older and more critically accepted forms of art.

Can video games be art? Of course. Are all video games art? Nope, exactly like not all movies are art, not all books are art and so forth.

I'll conclude by answering a question that Mr. Ebert asked in his post: Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?

Why were scientists and astronomers so intensely concerned that Earth be defined as circling around the sun and not the other way around (enough to face endless trials, imprisonment and worse)? Simply because it's true, Mr Ebert. Do we need any other reason?

New Hexyz force trailer released by Atlus

2010-04-15T20:29:00.000+02:00

Atlus released just a few minutes ago a new trailer for the PSP RPG Hexyz Force, that will be released in the US on May the 25th.

The new JRPG, released in Japan at the end of lasy year, features two separate storylines and high quality anime cutscenes. It'll definitely be a good appetizer for an hot summer for PSP owners, with the upcoming release of Valkyria Chronicles 2 and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
While big-mouthed analysts like Michael Patcher love to predict it's demise (and have done so for years now), Sony's portable seems to be well set to deliver more great core games for us to enjoy.
Who's surprised?

Yakuza 4 sold big in Japan, more anti-japanese games nonsense ensues

2010-04-14T16:42:00.004+02:00

Yakuza 4
Picture uploaded by Abriael

If you followed this blog for a while, you probably know that the Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku series is pretty great, sporting different, but definitely worthwhile gameplay, an astonishing wealth of content, an awesome story and extremely likeable characters. Many improperly compare it with Grand theft Auto, but I would go as far as saying that Yakuza games (while sharing the crime and underworld theme) are more enjoyable thanks to the characters that, while having their share of shady dealings, aren't completely dumb as rocks like the average GTA protagonist.
Kazuma Kiryu is a deep, easy to relate with and compelling character, while Nico Bellic, Luis Lopez and Johnny Klebitz are just run-of-the-mill thugs with a lot of brawn and a brain as big as a hazelnut.

It's not surprising that, where well marketed, the Yakuza series sells well, and in Japan Sega knows how to promote it's games: big billboards, commercials everywhere, tie-ins, even themed limos cruising around Tokyo. Some may argue that the series sells well in Japan only because it's Japanese, but personally I'd say it's very easy to see the potential even overseas.

In any case, Yakuza 4 instantly jumped to the top three between Japan's best selling PS3 videogames of all time, selling 526,093 copies in less than a month and ranking third behind Final Fantasy XIII and Metal Gear Solid 4. Quite an achievement for Toshihiro Nagoshi's team and a testament to the series' quality.

Unfortunately it seems that the reactions to such news aren't all positive. Ben Reeves of Gameinformer seems to be quite cross with the Japanese, that dared to appreciate the last chapter of the Yakuza series. As he reported the news, he finalized his article with: "That’s right, the third best selling PS3 game in Japan is Yakuza 4. Japan is weird"
Weird, huh? I find this comment much weirder to be honest. Personally I'd define quite refreshing the fact that there's a country in the world in which the charts aren't topped by extremely disappointing and lackluster shooters like Modern Warfare 2.
But yeah, God forbid people actually liking a game in which the protagonist isn't the usual big bald space marine on steroids fighting the next improbable danger for the human race, or some Marvel super hero clad in a ridiculous costume, with a personality as deep and compelling as a puddle on the street after five minutes of rain.

I'll be honest: every time I see a further example of the rearing negativity bias against Japanese games that some western journalists seem to love to display, I have to spend a minute facepalming.
Unfortunately this kind of bias normally goes hand-in-hand with utter ignorance. Mr. Reeves very well demonstrates how much he knows about the series he's talking about since, while writing about Yakuza 4, he uses pictures from Yakuza 3 both in the article itself and in the blurb on the front page of the site.
But what can we expect from Gameinformer, that published what's probably the most nonsensical and simply misinformation-ridden review of Yakuza 3? Laughable sentences as "trounced by a title as old as Grand Theft Auto III" simply show that the reviewer probably didn't play beyond the first hour so of the game, if he opened the box at all. Without even mentioning, of course, the fact that the intention of trying to pass the supposed "western counterpart" as better is completely evident.
But after all, why am I surprised? Here in Italy we're plagued by Gameinformer too, given that everyone that gets a Gamestop card receives the translated magazine for free (at least we don't have to pay for toilet paper). Reading it is an endless source of sheer amusement and laughs at the local Gamestop, given how misinformed and random the writers are.

Maybe some wannabe "journalists" should buy a bit of professionalism at the local pawn shop before going around writing that a country is "weird" because they happen to prefer a (great) game over your usual run-of-the-mill shooter.
Personally, I wish the west was a tad more "weird" as well. We'd sure get a more varied and interesting gaming market.

If you still didn't get Yakuza 3 (and believe me, you're missing out), you can purchase it from Amazon.com.

Need for Speed: World - Beta Hands On

2010-04-11T18:40:00.003+02:00

Need For Speed World
Picture uploaded by Abriael

The Need for Speed: World Beta 3 ~~ends today~~, after five days of intensive online racing, and here I am, with an extensive report on what Electronic Arts let us test of their upcoming MMORPG during this closed beta phase, including an high resolution eight minutes movie and a truckload of high resolution pictures.

First of all, let's get something out of the way: if you're looking for an hardcore realistic racing simulation, Need for Speed: World may not be for you. The franchise is taking a step back from the semi-simulation approach of Need for Speed: Shift, and going back to the extra-fast but totally arcade-ish approach of Carbon and Most Wanted. If you prefer a realism, then you might want to move to my coverage of Gran Turismo 5 and Forza Motorsport 3.

As soon as you enter the game for the first time you're prompted to chose a nickname and an avatar (from a quite limited list of portraits, for the moment) and to buy your first crappy car between the Tier 1 rides, that at the moment include an hideous Dodge Charger, a Mazdasped 3 and a Mitsubishi Eclipse GT.

After that, you're immediately thrown into the arena. There's no tutorial in the beta, so even just finding some of the controls (E to watch behind you and H to go back to the safehouse, for instance) takes a little bit of effort.
A full-fledged tutorial, though, may end up being superfluous, since the game's basic controls are very, very simple. Shift is completely automatic and the cars are very, very docile. If you hate Spinning during a corner in more realistic racing simulations, you'll love NFS: World, simply because traction control is almost magical, and you can't spin even if you try. I actually found the control scheme more akin to Grand Theft Auto 4 than to anything else.

This actually can be seen as appropriate. NFS: World is a racing game, but will also be a free to play MMORPG, and most of the people attracted by that kind of playgrounds are used to play with a keyboard, not with a joypad, or even less with a wheel. Keyboard control is very well implemented, and you'll basically never feel the need of a more precise analogic control of the steer and the gas (you aren't going to step off the gas often, anyway), and while the game will ship with native support for an Xbox 360 controller, using cumbersome implements like a wheel and pedals definitely seems like unnecessary overkill.

The Beta 3 only includes a fraction of the world that will be implemented at release. We only have a single city, but even with just that, the world is expansive and fun to freely explore just by driving around aimlesssly, dodging other cars and chatting away.
The environments are quite varied, ranging from a Chinatown-style district, to an industrial one, a campus, a downtown area full of skyscrapers and a Casino and entertainment district. There even is a golf course hidden in the woods around the city.
The most important elements are, of course, the roads, and even here there's a lot of variety: highways, cobblestone city streets, alleys ridden with trash and crates, winding hairpins, dimly-lit tunnels and even countryside dirt roads.

One of the most fun features of the racing environment are some big destructible elements like road signs, donut-shaped decorations over shops, steel pipes-holding scaffoldings, statues, gas stations and similar implements that you can hit with your car, causing them to collapse/explode in the face of other drivers (or the police) on your tail. In the industrial district you can hit a metal scaffolding that will trigger a chain reaction resulting in a whole flaming funnel collapsing on the road. Fiery death!

Obviously a MMORPG needs a much bigger world in order to keep gamers entertained for a long time, and the developers promised that the final product will include an area many times larger, but in the end I can safely say that the city included in the beta easily kept me entertained for five days without any boredom, and there sure are small areas that I still missed.

The presentation looks quite a lot less shiny than what you can find in single player or limited multiplayer games like Forza 3 or Need for Speed: Shift.
Expecially the visual damage modelling is, at the moment, very rough, with just broken windshields and scratches on the car's body, made with an outdated bump mapping effect that actually looks quite nasty.
This said, the graphics do their duty, despite the polycount of each single car and expecially some elements of the environment seems to be quite low.
We can't expect too much from a MMORPG, as it's fantasy/sci-fi counterparts clearly demonstrated. One thing is having to display eight cars on a closed course; a much different task is a free-driving MMO environment with the engine that needs to be able to display several tens of player-controlled cars at once, possibly without causing your video card to melt in your computer's case.

Don't get me wrong, though, as you can see in the gallery the looks of Need for Speed: World can definitely be quite nice, even thanks to a fairly good texturing work that balances the lower polygon count. You just to need to keep the context in mind and avoid comparisons with the aforementioned games that, while being still centered on racing, basically belong to a different genre.
The positive side of this is that, even on my PC that I didn't update in a while (I still have a Geforce 9800 GTX) I can run the game at a 1920x1080 resolution and maximum detail with no visible slowdown even in the most crowded situations.
If World of Warcraft thaught us something about the average MMORPG player, this would be that a game running well on low to medium spec PCs is a very good thing.

While there are no "canon" quest givers like in any usual MMORPG, there are several races scattered around the city. You can either drive to one or simply click on it's icon on the map to join it from your current location. As soon as there are enough players taking part in the race you will be automatically teleported to the start line.
Alternatively you can opt to play the race solo, against seven AI opponents. Definitely less challenging and less rewarding, but it sure represents an interesting option for the ones that find the competition a little too stressful. It's basically the whole concept of PvP and PvE shifted over to racing. You can have "Player vs Player" races or "Player vs Environment" races and progress through the game even sticking exclusively to one of the two options, or mixing both according to your mood.

There's no rubber band mechanic (a common balancing mechanic in some racing games, that slows down cars ahead and makes cars in the back go faster) that I could notice, but there are several power-ups that can help balance the races. Besides the obvious NOS, one of the most interesting ones is the Traffic Magnet. As soon as someone activates it, the driver in the lead will draw the NPC traffic around it like a magnet, and will have to concentrate not only on driving, but also on avoiding suddenly crazed family cars out for his blood. While many between the "purist" drivers complained, I find this little caveat quite interesting, as it helps balancing races and makes staying in the lead from beginning to end a little more difficult. Mind you, avoiding the incoming traffic isn't all that hard anyway.

When you complete a race (whether it's PvP or PvE) you will be awarded some prize cash and reputation points according to your final standing. In addition to that you will be prompted to draw a "lucky card" that will award you further cash, reputation points or "charges" for your power ups.
Reputation points basically work like the usual experience points in any RPG (I always love how MMORPG developers bend over twice in order to find them new and possibly original names). As you accumulate them you will raise in level, gaining access to new and more powerful cars, higher-tier events and new skills that will make your NOS last longer, give you better sprint-starts and so forth.

Of course we couldn't have a true Need for Speed game without the police. While the player-driven police events promised by the developer aren't available yet in the beta, butting heads with the cops is as fun as ever. At the moment they're not very smart, allowing you to speed past them undisturbed and just acting as driving land-mines. As soon as you touch one, you'll immediately turn into an enemy of the people, and you will be ruthlessly chased by a varied list of police and FBI vehicles. They will even lay raodblocks in order to try and stop your flight.
You can be definitely aggressive in your fight against the law, hitting police cars and sending them crashing against walls, or even better using the destructible environment in order to crush them mercilessly.
Otherwise you can simply outrun them until they give up or chose to be stealthy and look for one of the many hiding spots in the map, that will immediately stop the chase.
The more damage you will cause to the state by maiming it's police force, the more reputation points you will earn.

While this mechanic is undoubtly a lot of fun, I'm a bit dubious about it's implementation. It basically encourages you to run into the police instead of trying to avoid them, which is definitely the opposite of what any street racer would do. Of course this problem will probably disappear when car damage will be implemented (at the moment it isn't). I'm pretty sure many will refrain crashing their costly Lambo against two-ton police SUVs when such an action will actually have detrimental consequences.

Car physics are, during this stage of the beta, still a little all over the place. While I definitely don't expect perfect real-world physics in a game with such an arcade-ish approach, I seriously hope that the final product won't reward wall riding like it does now, and that collision behavioir and detection will be improved. If you give a look at the movie embedded at the end of this preview you'll probably notice what I mean.

Car customization has always been one of the strongest points of the Need for Speed franchise, and while the beta still lacks the ability to purchase tuning parts and the lovely cosmetic morphing system of the previous NFS titles (both will be implemented for the release), it already gives us a glimpse of what will come with a wide variety of car and rim paints and allowing us to create complex vinyl decorations in order to look truly unique.
The vinyl system, while suffering from a pretty nasty lag spike when changing between the still limited vinyl sets (and that hopefully will be corrected soon), is more or less similar to what we saw with amazing artistic results in other games, including Forza Motorsport 3. The ability to use a mouse is, obviously, a great boon to it's versatility, as opposed to having to use a joypad, and I really hope to see a lively car painting community when the game will be released.
The developers should learn from past games, and make sure that the most proficent painters will be able to share their masterpieces through some sort of paintjob market, giving them a steady source of in-game income and less patient/artistic types the ability to sport some nice art on their cars.

Actually I wouldn't even be opposed to letting people charge real life money for their paintjobs (given that the game will have a cash shop anyway), maybe paying a "tax-like percentage to the developer. This would create a thriving Second Life-like economy, that would definitely draw a lot of skilled content creators to the Need for Speed: World community.

The potential for visual customization of the cars may really be one of the major selling points of this game. MMORPGs are edonistic, social environments, where being able to have unique looks is something valued almost above all else. The NFS morphing system and the vinyl system together can easily ensure that no car in NFS: World will look like any other. And while this is something not entirely new in more limited online games, such a customization freedom is basically unprecedented in MMORPGs, where it can really be exploited and enjoyed to the fullest, given the higher population.
Looking completely unique between eight people in a race is great, but looking unique between thousands in a persistent online world? If that's not something to look forward to, I don't know what could be.

One of my main gripes about the game is actually indirectly linked to visual customization and is the same I have with Eve Online. While it's great to customize your car to the extreme, the lack of an actual human avatar other than a static portrait risks to make interaction a little impersonal, and this, in a social kind of games like MMORPGs can be a quite serious flaw.
CCP Games is finally solving the problem in Eve by working on allowing human avatars to populate space stations and finally interact face-to-face. EA should probably look into doing the same with NFS: World, maybe down the line (it's probably too late to implement something that extensive in time for a Q1 release). Replace Eve's space stations with those underground garages that are so dear to street races all over the world, add some club lights, a dance floor and lots of room to park the cars, and you'll have a nice social HUB that will allow the players to meet, socialize, and simply have fun oustide of the racing main course. Variety is, after all, the true spice of all MMORPGs.

In conclusion, Need for Speed: World definitely still needs a few rounds of polishing and a lot more content to be a real hit, but at the moment it's already viciously addictive, especially thanks to the easy and intuitive gameplay and the extensive visual customization. We'll have to see how it'll shape up in the incoming months and if EA will manage to cash on the franchise's popularity.
For now you can enjoy the eight minutes gameplay montage I made and embedded below (Hope you'll Enjoy the classic Eurobeat music by Dave Rodgers. While I'm not normally a dance fan, there's no better driving music than this, as the Initial D anime demonstrated), and the 376 screenshots I posted in this flickr gallery.

EDIT: The beta has been extended another couple days, now ending on tuesday. Thanks go to cryeR for letting me know.

Sakura Wars: So Long my Love released in Europe

2010-04-09T23:56:00.002+02:00

Sakura Wars: So long, My Love
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Kept pretty much under silence, the Wii version of Sakura Wars: So long, My Love, has been released in Europe. Unfortunately European gamers will never receive the PS2 version, but this is much better than nothing. A reminder is warranted, because almost no effort has been done to promote the European release, resulting in many having absolutely no idea that the game would have reached this side of the Atlantic.

The Sakura Wars (or Sakura Taisen) series is an absolute classic between fans of Japanese gaming, and while we had to wait five years for this game to be released in a language most of us can understand, I would venture to say that it's definitely worth the wait.

Fourteen years have passed since the series first debuted in Japan on the Sega Saturn, and we always had to play it in Japanese or miss out. Now we can only thank NIS America for allowing us to play this little jewel, once again demonstrating that at Sega West they really have no idea of what kind of great games they have in their Japanese library, and that would be very much appreciated even here.
Luckily we have companies like NIS and Atlus, that tend to have much better taste, and quite often give us treats that otherwise we would never get to enjoy.

Anime and Manga fans will also definitely enjoy this game, given that the character design is handled by Keisuke Fujishima, well known for masterpieces like Oh my Goddess! and You're Under Arrest, obviously in addition to being the character designer behind the Namco Bandai's Tales series.

This title also finally strengthens the library of games appealing to hardcore gamers on the Wii in Europe, after the recent (even if very late) release of The Sky Crawlers, Red Steel 2 and waiting for No More Heroes 2, The Last Story and Zangeki no Reginlev.
At last it's time to return my Wii to active service, after it was demoted for more than a year to serving as a cute but pretty useless blue table lamp.

Starcraft 2 priced $60, Special edition $100

2010-04-08T19:29:00.002+02:00

Starcraft 2 Cash Cow
Picture uploaded by Abriael

When the PC edition of Modern Warfare 2 was priced $59.99 at launch, some argued that it was an one-time experiment. Other argued that Activision was trying to raise the bar of the prices of PC games.
When Ubisoft's Assassin's creed 2 followed suit with the same pricetag (and draconian DRM, but that's a different story), people started to worry quite a lot more.
Unfortunately for us gamers, looks like the experiment was a success, and apparently it wasn't an one-time issue. As Starcraft 2 finally approaches it's long, long awaited (almost fabled) launch, it's retail price has been set at $59.99 for the standard edition and $99.99 for the special edition. And that's for just one-third of the Starcraft 2 offering, by the way.

One may easily argue that the special edition, while much more pricey than almost every other PC special edition out there, sports a thick artbook, a soundtrack CD, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a flash drive with Starcraft and Brood War pre-loaded inside, a WoW pet and a few in-game gadgets, therefore it includes enough value for the price (for the ones that play World of Warcraft and don't already have Stacraft and Brood War), or almost.

On the other hand it's the standard edition that comes with a price point that sounds pretty outrageous.

The only cost-related advantage of PC gaming is that the price of games is reasonably lower than that of console games, that normally hovers around 60$, while the average PC game sells, in it's standard edition, for between 40 and 50 Washington-faced bills.

Why is it so? Because PC is a free platform. No one "owns" it and as such developers don't have to pay any kind of royalties to Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo. On the other hand, publishing a game on a console costs the developer an average of $7 in royalties.

Unfortunately looks like someone at Activision Blizzard (And I'm pretty sure that many have a good idea of who that is), thinks that the smoney saved by producing the game on PC, instead off being reflected on the retail price, is better allocated in his own fat pockets.

Of course some may argue that the game will be great, and as such the price is warranted. But there are many great PC games out there, and they don't cost 60 bucks, as their publishers are dececent enough not to arbitrarily charge us for royalties they are not paying.

Food for thought.

New Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker trailer introduces the cast

2010-04-07T19:55:00.002+02:00

This morning Kojima Production released the new trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The clip introduces the rich and quite varied cast of the game, that once more shows that Peace Walker has been developed as a full featured Metal Gear Solid game more then as the typical "watered down" portable experience.
While quite obviously I would have preferred MGS: Peace Walker on a home console, I can say that this chapter of the saga seems to be shaping up as a true bridge between the features of HD consoles and the portability of the PSP.

Hideo Kojima himself, during a press conference this morning, made a quite bold statement: "In the near future we'll see games that won't be dependant on the platform, Gamers should be allowed to take the game with them to their living rooms, on the go, when they travel, in any place they are and whenever they want to play it. It should be the same game and the same experience.”. Personally, I can't say I completely agree, as portable consoles aren't yet even near the same experience and performance as their big sisters.

Obviously it'd be nice to have the same game play on a portable console, and then on an home console with the graphics adapting dynamically to the hardware, but honestly it seems a technical nightmare to pull off and quite a radical vision.

It remains to be seen if this declaration of love for portable gaming was Kojima-sensei's prediction of the future, or more simply a personal wish.

Back to the trailer, though, it's quite noticeable that the cast, this time around, will include more ladies than usual, as a probable tribute to the fact that portable gaming is very popular between girls in Japan.
The music is quite epic and definitely helped building my appetite for the game. I'm really hoping to see a complete soundtrack available in the west soon.

You can preorder Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on Amazon.com.

Blu-ray vs DVD: Is it only a matter of disc swapping?

2010-04-07T02:58:00.008+02:00

Blu-ray vs DVD
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Final Fantasy XIII brought a lot of discussion between PS3 and Xbox 360 fans, since the use of three DVDs on Microsoft's console forced Square Enix to implement an higher compression of the assets, resulting in lower resolution.
The rivalry between the two fanbases, of course, brought the confrontation to extremes, making it more a matter of pride than an actual technical comparison between the two media, often shifting the focus away from the pros and cons of the solutions implemented on the two consoles, and their actual impact on gaming.

The Blu-ray discs used by Sony's console have a capacity of 25 GB for single-layer discs and 50 GB for dual-layer discs (used more rarely). This is obviously a quite sizable advantage over the DVD-9 used by the 360. More disc space means more and higher resolution assets for the games, less compression and the ability to store even the biggest games on a single disc.

Something many don't know is that the original capacity of DVD-9 (8.54 GB) isn't even used fully by the 360. A sizable area of the disc's surface is in fact occupied by the copy protection system, leaving about 6.8 GB of usable space.
This makes the difference in capacity between the two media even more extreme.

But let's not write off the DVD just yet. There are more factors in play that pure capacity.Sony's console has a 2x Blu-Ray drive, able to stream 72 Mbit per second (equivalent to 9 Mb/s). This is actually a relatively slow reading speed, only partly compensated by the fact that the it's speed is Constant Linear Velocity (CLV), meaning that the reading speed is the same whether the information is being read on the inside or the outside of the disc.

On the other hand the 360 benefits from the maturity of the DVD standard, sporting a 12x DVD drive, that reaches 129.6 Mbit per second (equivalent to 16.2 Mb/s). Again, there's a little caveat, since the DVD spins with Constant Angular Velocity (CAV). This means that the DVD drive reads the data at a variable speed depending on how far this data is located from the outer rim of the disc. Only the data situated near the outer rim will be read at the maximum speed listed above, while the data recorded near the inner rim will be read at a speed that's approximately half of the maximum, that would be 64.8 Mbit per second (8.1 Mb/s).

Given that the most frequently accessed data can be purposely stored on the outside, though, it's easy to see that the the DVD-9 is considerably faster than the Blu-ray. It's slower than the rival only when reading the innermost area of the disc.

Obviously Sony had to work a solution for this problem, or their console would have found itself crippled by the slow speed of it's optical drive.

They actually came up with two:
The first solution is pairing the Blu-ray disc with a Hard Disk, and that's why no PS3 model was ever released without one. By installing part of the most frequently accessed data on the Hard Disk, that has a much faster streaming speed, the console can compensate for the lack of speed of the drive. This, of course, brings a disadvantage, those mandatory hard disk installations that many users bemoan. Especially paired with the small hard disk that some older model of the PS3 sport (20 GB), they can become a problem quite fast.
Luckily the PS3 supports any generic 2.5" Hard drives, making changing the disc with a bigger one a relatively cheap solution.

The second solution is to redundate the most frequently accessed data on the Blu-ray disc itself, allowing the drive to access it faster by minimizing transitions between the different areas of the disk. This solution removes the need of an HD installation, but of course lowers the capacity of the disk, while still maintaining a considerable capacity advantage over the DVD-9's 6.8 usable GB.

In the end we are left with 15-50 Gb of storage space for the PS3, with a potential mandatory HD install in tow, and 6.8 GB of storage space for the Xbox 360 per disc.

The difference in storage space between the two media is often negligible, especially with smaller games. Most shooters and action games (genres that are the Xbox 360's bread and butter) are relatively small and short, fitting snugly in the DVD-9 with no trouble at all, rewarding the cheaper and faster solution adopted by Microsoft.
On the other hand we're starting to see more and more games that fully utilize the storage space of the PS3, sporting less compressed music, larger textures, more complex models and generally spectacular graphics. Uncharted 2 (that utilizes 25 GB), God of War 3 (35 GB) and Final Fantasy XIII (PS3 version, using 37.6 GB) wooed pretty much everyone with an impressive graphical presentation never seen before on the rival console.

Obviously many argue that the difference isn't that extreme, and games on a single DVD still have very viable graphics, so in the end it all boils down on how high you set your personal bar and how important ultra-detailed graphics are for you.

Moving on to the issue described by the title, the main argument in favor of the DVD-9 is that developers can simply print their games on multiple discs, effectively removing the space limitation.
According to that argument, the only problem resulting from such a solution is forcing the user to swap discs once in a while during gameplay. If it was truly the only one, that would be a quite negligible issue (more or less as negligible, in my opinion, as the forced HD install in some PS3 games).

Unfortunately things aren't always quite so simple, as there are some less known but much more critical issues laying in ambush under a multiple disc solution.

First of all, when putting a game on multiple discs, a developer has to make sure that all the assets needed at all times will be on every single disc. This means that character data (textures and models), recurring sound files and basically everything that accompanies the player from the beginning to the end of the game, needs to be placed on each and every disk. This adds to the overall disk space needed by the game, making the 6.8 GB of available space per disk even more restrictive.
Obviously this means that each and every area that has to be revisited during different discs has to be redundated as well, unless the developer wants to force the player to swap the disks over and over when moving from an area to the other, like happened with Star Ocean 4 on 360. Swapping disks once or twice, as said before, is a negligible issue. Swapping them multiple times becomes increasingly more annoying.

The data related to an area tends to be very sizable, because it includes the geographical data, all the textures, all the characters, all the enemies, their effects, every relative sound files and so forth. That's definitely not small.

That's why developers are often forced to make longer games (JRPGs for instance, especially when the assets are very big in order to ensure a better graphical presentation) that have to be split between multiple discs almost completely linear, or at least many areas need to be closed off as the story progresses to the next disc.

This is where the true limits of the DVD-9 lie, as the format effectively limits developers in their ability to freely determine the story flow and continuity of their games, having to constantly work around lack of space and the borders between the discs, preventing the player from going back after moving on.

Ever wondered why the only non-linear area of Final Fantasy XIII is made to fit snugly into a single disk on the Xbox 360 and the rest of the game is 100% linear? Now you know.

Now you also know why large games that allow completely non-linear exploration and returning to each and every visited area like White Knight Chronicles are, at the moment, only possible on the PS3.

Obviously a developer can increase the number of discs further, in order to have more space to redundate more areas and assets, but this creates more fragmentation, and consequentially needs even more redundation, in a vicious circle that puts the software houses in a tight spot. A spot that becomes even tighter if you consider that Microsoft's policies contribute to make things worse, forcing third party developers to pay higher (some say prohibitive) royalties to put their games on more than three discs.
That's why basically no game goes over that limit, and that's what forced Square Enix to compress the data for Final Fantasy XIII so much that higher resolutions couldn't be supported.
The only instance of a game going over the three discs limit is Lost Odyssey, that being published directly by Microsoft didn't have the Royalties problem.

Is there a solution to this problem? Of course there is, and it's the same Sony used to solve the problem of the slower speed of their BD player.

That solution is the use of the Hard Disk. Now that Microsoft is releasing their 250 GB they could consider the option of allowing developers to implement mandatory installations for their games.

Developers would be able to install at least a sizable part of the data that previously had to be redundated on the Hard disk, nicely turning the space limitations of the DVD-9 into a non-issue.

While doable, this solution poses quite a few problems mostly related to PR and marketing. Microsoft kind of put themselves in a bottleneck when they released the entry-level Xbox 360 arcade promising that an Hard Disk would be never mandatory to play Xbox 360 games.
Taking that back would definitely give an hit to the public image of the company, and would reduce the value of the cheaper Xbox 360 arcade deal, making it less desirable to the customers, since it wouldn't be able to play every game on the market. In the most extreme case it would possibly force Microsoft to discontinue the model.

The millions of users that have an original 360 with only 20 GB (like me) would find themselves only in a slightly better position, as mandatory installations would quickly deplete the available hard disk space.

On top of that, the ever exaggerated price of the Xbox 360 proprietary hard disks would make upgrading a quite costly issue.

Basically Microsoft has two options: swallowing their previous word and getting out of the cul-de-sac they put themselves in with the lack of HD on their arcade SKUs, or living with the limitations of the DVD-9 for the rest of the generation.

Personally, I'd vouch for the first option. After all most of the games that would need increased disk space are hardcore games, and not many hardcore gamers would every buy an Xbox 360 without a Hard Disk. The users of the arcade SKUs probably aren't part of the target of such games. In my opinion the advantages would clearly outweigh the disadvantages, removing a limitation to Xbox 360 development that will probably become more and more evident in the future.

Obviously, I'm quite sure that many will disagree with such a notion, but after all the decision is not mine. We'll have to see what will happen in the months to come.

Another problem related to this issue is that the limitation don't affect only the users of Microsoft's console, but also PS3 users.
While exclusive PS3 gamers can and often will fully use the space available on the Blu-ray, very few third party multiplatform developers will ever bother to make a separate set of assets for the PS3 version of their games (understandably, it would raise production costs a lot), ending up with most of the space on Sony's discs left unused.

At least with Final Fantasy XIII Square Enix did make a version of the game with bigger assets to better use the potential space of the Blu-ray, but it's quite difficult to completely dismiss the nagging doubt that the game could have been very different (and much less linear) if the flow of the story didn't have to be adapted to the 360's multi-disk setup.

In the end, obviously, most of this boils down to personal preference.
People that aren't interested in long winded storylines and ultra high-definition God of War 3-like graphics and high-fidelity sound won't care, and will be definitely content with what the DVD-9 offers. Others would probably like to see this limit overcame, in order to give more creative freedom and room for expansion and evolution to their favourite developers.
In the end this kind of decisions will be taken by the powers that be, and a revelation might come any moment or never. Unfortunately we can only wait and see what E3 and the following events will bring.

Japanese mangaka rips CNN a new one over Rapelay controversy

2010-04-06T01:06:00.015+02:00

CNN and Rapelay
Picture uploaded by Abriael

CNN is well known in the US and overseas for being very keen on stirring controversy. Quite often unwarranted controversy.
A few days ago they covered the erotic games niche in Japan, with particular attention to the game Rapelay.

To put things in perspective, for the ones that never heard about it, Rapelay is a game released in 2006 (yes, I know, CNN seems to be just a tad late to the party, isn't it?) by the Japanese software house Illusion. It was for sale exclusively in Japan and it's been long since retired from the shelves and removed from sale.
The game was centered on fictional rape of three fictional female characters, making no mystery of the aberrant nature of the act.
Of course it's sale has always been restricted exclusively to adults. While it's indeed available on the internet, defining it's diffusion as "viral" is definitely a sensationalistic exaggeration, as it's impossible to find if not searched for purposedly (viral content is, by definition, so widespread that you're going to bump on it whether you're looking for it or not), and even then, one must go through quite a lot of trouble to finally manage to track a real copy and download it.

The late-to-the-party coverage from CNN caused, of course, quite a lot of controversy, stirring reaction from many, especially on the internet. Despite that, though, looks like the network wasn't satisfied, and covered the game again.
Mind you, Ms. Cheryl Olson, writer of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do commented in a very intelligent way, telling that these kind of games tend to be absolutely ignored by kids that would receive an harmful effect from being exposed to them, until the media and politicians give them publicity.
Obviously the unsurprisingly biased anchorman Mike Galanos, showing a quite annoyed face, proceeded to ignore her remark and shifted the topic on how terribly dangerous games are, and finally rudely interrupted her as soon as she started to elaborate too much on views that weren't instrumental to his videogame-bashing agenda.
The accompanying article written by the journalist Kyung Lah, completed the picture with a pretty misinformed philippic full of mostly outdated anti-Japanese stereotypes and misinformation.

Two days ago the Japanese mangaka (author of Manga comics) Takeshi Nogami wrote an open letter to CNN in which he stalwartly defended his nation and culture, countering the misinformation spread by the network.

Here are a few interesting excerpts:
"I have seen your news report that tries to stir up fear, prejudice and misunderstanding. I have no connection with the spiffy hentai game featured in your report, I am sorry to say; however as an author of Japanese hentai manga, I think I am well qualified to object to the views you present.

As this objection had to be put together promptly, precise data will be presented later, but it is a fact that in this 21st century, we Japanese enjoy one of the most safe and peaceful societies on Earth. Naturally, that is not to say that our society is without problems, but to be honest, I frankly do not think that you are the ones to tell us.

Men and women are equals in politics and in the law. Your society and ours are no different there. Moreover, the crime rate statistics for both general crime and sex crime in Japan are, with all due respect, several times lower than in the United States. Did you, for instance, fear for your safety while walking the streets of Akihabara, or Ikebukuro (holy ground of hentai books for women)? They're probably many times safer than the streets of New York, let alone those of the suburban housing districts around. (And guns are illegal, too.) Furthermore, in our Akihabara and Ikebukuro, there is no persecution of men or women alike, or of sexual minorities like homosexuals. We all live together in peace, expressing ourselves freely."

"Is hentai detrimental to the upbringing of children? Yes, it some circumstances it may well be the case. It certainly true, for instance, of that game you reported about. I am an average citizen with a younger sister and two nephews; I can relate to your concerns. And precisely as such, I beg to differ with your argument.

Those products are developed for rational adults. You surely don't believe that a rational adult would be influenced by such a game into committing rape, do you? Of course, in Japan, both that game you reported about and the hentai manga I draw are only distributed and sold under strict age restrictions to adults.

That your children might obtain such materials on the Internet is a trouble for us as well. Those are pirated copies. We would be grateful if you could let families and schools issue proper warnings to children. And would it be too much to ask that appropriate age restrictions are put in place in stores in your country so that the rational adults can buy legitimate copies?

By the way, in the proud Japanese traditional popular art of ukiyo-e (woodblock prints from the Edo period), there were many works with sexual subjects, called shunga. You did like these too, didn't you? Well, we are their successors. We make works of art. Let me say that again. It is just art. I assume that you are capable of distinguishing fiction from reality like we do. Are you not?"

I don't think I need to add much to what Nogami-san said. It makes perfect sense.

Since he didn't have the time to add firm data on the rate of sexual crimes in Japan, I will lend an hand: According to CEASE (Coalition Educating about Sexual Endangerement) the United State have the world's highest rape rate (at least between countries that publish such statistics), twenty times higher than Japan's.

This study from the Pacific Center for Sex and Society of University of Hawaii is also interesting, as it demonstrates solidly how the availability of certain questionable material in Japan has absolutely no impact on the rate of sexual crimes, that continues to decrease.

The western media, especially in the US, has a well documented history of portraying Japan as the enemy, never missing any chance to show the most aberrant aspects, often misrepresenting them in order to portray the Japanese society as perverted and twisted. This attitude is mirrored quite evidently by part of the western gaming press, that often handles Japanese games with open contempt and an evident negativity bias.

But as a final note, let's go back to CNN. Both articles linked above are penned by Ms. Kyung Lah, born in Korea and, by her own declarations, maintaining a strong Korean identity.

Isn't it very convenient that one of CNN's main correspondents in Japan is Korean? The relationships between Korea and Japan have been historically very bad, and for Korean children is quite normal to learn to hate Japan and the Japanese when they're very little, as part of their culture.

Personally I doubt that, given her heritage and cultural identity, she's the best and most objective person to judge any aspect of the Japanese society, culture or media.
Ultimately, while games like Rapelay are definitely not my cup of tea, nor a cup of tea I approve of, I have to agree with Nogami-san. As he quite rightfully stated, CNN is in no position to give lectures on the Japanese culture and gaming industry. Maybe it would be smarter and more coherent of them to give a good look in their own backyard instead.

Hardcore gamers unite against the casual blight

2010-04-04T17:47:00.009+02:00

Hardcore Epic Win
Picture uploaded by Abriael

When Zynga (A free casual games developer that created Farmville, Mafia Wars and other very lackluster but popular Facebook applications) was included between the 64 developers qualified for the March Mayhem Developer's Showdown organized by the Escapist Magazine, many wondered what the criteria for such a choice was.
All the other developers taking part in the competition were core developers, or at the very least developers of high quality commercial games for which the player has to pay.

It's pretty obvious that a developer of free browser games can count on a massive number of casual users (some say 80 million), that obviously dwarf the numbers of the followers of any core developer out there. On top of it, Zynga's games are based on Facebook, and given that The Escapist has Facebook Connect enabled, Zynga's fans were literally two click away from voting, while voters that didn't use the social network had to go through creating an account.

Many argued that Zynga wasn't in the same league as the other participating developers, and they had an unfair advantage regardless of quality (or lack of thereof).
Such concerns proved true as the contest started, with Zynga's admins spamming their whole userbase shamelessly in order to rally votes and gain undeserved victories round after round, eliminating NCSoft, Infinity Ward, Rockstar North and Square Enix.

As they reached the semifinals, they finally faced Valve, one of the most respected and historically relevant game developers of the industry.

Valve immediately took the lead by a couple thousand votes, as the loyal followers obviously voted for them with no hesitation. Then something strange (but not unexpected) happened: several thousand votes for Zynga started to downpour on the poll, overtaking Valve easily. The administrators of the casual company had again unsheathed their secret weapon: Spam.

As they repeatedly begged their millions of casual gamers on Facebook for votes, Zynga managed to keep Valve behind pretty much constantly. Every time Valve managed to overtake them, a couple thousands of fresh votes for Zynga appeared.

That's when core gamers from every corner of the world decided that enough was enough.

The usual rivalries that normally divide the core gaming fandom were put aside for four days, in an unwritten truce that rallied everyone under Valve's flag. The pride of the hardcore gamers was at stake.

From then on, a truly epic battle started, with Valve and Zynga overtaking each other over and over. Despite facing a seemingly endless horde, the core gamers campaigned for Valve basically everywhere: on Twitter, on Facebook, on Youtube, on fan forums and even on the official forums of their favourite developers. No matter where, anywhere there were gamers the call to arms sounded, and while wave after wave of rabid Facebook casuals crashed on the poll, the core gamers held the line valiantly.

Even on the thread dedicated to the other semifinal, a very heated confrontation between Bioware and Blizzard, that was almost a battle of philosophies that generated flame after flame basically everyone still answered to the call. Valve had to win.

In the morning of the fourth day, as the smoke cleared, the Valve flag was still standing, encircled by thousands of beaten virtual farmers.
Valve was finally leading solidly by about 2500 votes. Despite having faced millions, the hardcore gamers were still standing, bloodied but unbowed, as the first glimpse of victory finally revealed itself to their tired eyes.

A few hours later the battle came at an end, as the hordes of virtual farmers retreated beaten and broken to go back to plow their Facebook fields, the hardcore gamers stood victorious on the field of glory, after an epic clash that probably will go down in history.
Never before the hardcore gamer community had locked arms and joined hands so evidently and solidly, repelling the casual blight with unbending will.

As the day of the epic victory of Hardcore gaming over casual entertainment comes to an end there's a message for everyone to hear: The press may be saying again and again that the era of casual games may be dawning. They may be saying that day in which hardcore games will disappear into the the night is coming, but today is not that day. Today we won and justice has been restored in the gaming universe.
No matter what they say. Hardcore gamers won't ever go down without a hell of a fight.

Also victors of the day were the Bioware fans, that managed to gain a solid victory against the rivals rooting for Blizzard, again demonstrating that a smaller but more dedicated and loyal fanbase can beat the partly casual-oriented behemoth.

But in the end, the true victor of the day is Hardcore gaming, so cheers, battle brothers!
We held the line, and now we get the spoils. Let us burn the virtual farms, crush the casual weaklings, see them driven before us and joyfully hear their lamentations. Victory is ours!

Tango is recruiting. Mikami collaboration with Hideo Kojima and Suda 51 hinted?

2010-03-31T18:07:00.006+02:00

Mikami Project
Picture uploaded by Abriael

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the teaser site opened about a misterious "Mikami Shinji Project". Today the countdown reached zero.

The new site seems to be a recruitment page for the new Tango studio opened by Mikami. You can also play a small and rather gory flash game in which you can cut Mikami's head (after he performed Harakiri, that seems to be the theme of the page), and try to send it flying as far as possible. But here things become more interesting: the little game shows both Hideo Kojima and Suda 51 hidden around the field. Is this a hint to a collaborative project between the three acclaimed developers?
Mikami himself wrote on his personal twitter page that he's going to work on his new project with his "best friends".
Obviously three giants of the Japanese gaming industry joining forces in a project to take on the world would be something to look forward to. Unfortunately no further info is available at the moment.

During the minigame, by the way, you can read: "not in Japan? No problem!" Probably hinting at the fact that recruitment is also open to western developers.

Yakuza 3: visit the "real" Kamurocho

2010-03-31T07:47:00.005+02:00

Kazuma visits Kabukicho
Picture uploaded by Abriael

One of the most impressive aspects of Yakuza 3, and of the Yakuza series in general, is the extremely realistic and detailed depiction of Kamurocho, the fictional Tokyo district in which most of the series is set.
Its cheap glitz, made of overlapping neon lights and alluring signs and its sprawling crowd worthy of a city that never sleeps really give the sensation of wading through a similar district of the Japanese capital.

The reason for such realism is to be found in a very simple concept, the same that Rockstar applied while creating Liberty City.
While Kamurocho is indeed a fictional district, it recreates quite faithfully a real district of Shinjuku (one of the major commercial wards in Tokyo): Kabukicho.

Of course there are differences, given that recreating a district of a city perfectly, especially in a game with this kind of theme, would be a licensing nightmare. Still, It's almost impossible to miss the similarities, starting with the map: the similarity in the layout of the streets is almost impossible to miss.

Kabukicho is a very popular red-light district in Tokyo, completely rebuilt after it was destroyed during the bombing of the city in 1945. Despite what the name would led us to believe, there's no Kabuki theater there. The one that gave the district it's name was supposed to be built after the war, but the project was canceled due to financial problems.

After the war the district grew quickly, initially due to a strong influx of Chinese workers, that soon were replaced by the Yakuza, that established one of it's most important commercial strongholds in Kabukicho, controlling a large percentage of the business establishments until a few years ago, when the police started to control the area more sternly, even due to a renewal project named Kabukicho Renaissance.

Despite this, even now Kabukicho is filled to the brim with all kind of businesses and attractions, including the most "adult oriented" ones like love hotels, night clubs, strip clubs and the infamous hostess bars and massage parlors that Sega foolishly decided to cut from the western edition of the game.

The similarities between Kamurocho and Kabukicho are obviously not limited to the streets layout. If you happen to visit Tokyo, and take a stroll through Kabukicho, you'll easily notice that the looks and the feel are very much the same.
But since going to Tokyo isn't exactly cheap, let's take a virtual tour with the help of our friendly neighborhood Google maps (luckily enough, the pictures used for Google Maps were taken in 2009, which which is the same year as the Japanese release of Yakuza 3). You can find it after the cut (click on "Read More >>>" just below). Please give the Google maps windows time to load in order to see them correctly. They'll show the map for a little bit, then a black window, and finally the correct 3D view.

One of the most iconic landmarks of Kabukicho is the torii-shaped entrance gate that can be seen at the edge of Yasukuni-dori (Renamed in the game as Showa Street). While the shape of the gate is slightly different, it's still very recognizable, alongside with the right. If you look carefully you'll even notice a (differently named, of course, loan agency to the right of the gate itself both in the game and in the real world. You can click on the Yakuza 3 pictures to see a bigger version, or on the small square on the top right of the Google maps window to see it full screen. Also, by holding your left mouse button anywhere on it and dragging around, you can move the camera. By clicking on the arrows on the street you can also walk around and explore by yourself. Nifty, isn't it?

Let's turn around for a moment and look at the view of Showa Street/Yasukuni-Dori. Notice anything familiar?

The overall looks are most definitely similar. Some details are 100% identical. The street has the same central division with trees and hedges, on the left of the street there's the same rounded building, and on the right you can easily notice the same red cube with the big "GAME" lettering (which is actually interesting, since that's the logo of Taito's game centers. You wouldn't expect it to appear in a Sega game).

Let's move on to Ichibangai-dori, renamed in the game as Tenkaichi Street. The overall look is definitely similar, and while the signs are different, the materials used with the buildings are the same.

We're still on Ichibangai-Dori/Tenkaichi Street. Notice anything? Same building, slightly different color scheme, same fishes painted all over.

As we proceed into Ichibangai-Dori/Tenkaichi Street, we reach a crossing. The buildings are very recognizable, but we have a funny discrepancy. If we look to our left in Kabukicho, there's a restaurant belonging to the Matsuya chain (the one with the orange circle with two smaller yellow and blue circles in the logo) and a McDonalds. In Yakuza 3 the Matsuya restaurant is still present, due to a tie-in deal with Sega, while the McDolands is replaced by a less iconic "Super Burger". The difference is that their position is inverted. On the left of the picture you can notice that the popular Ice Cream chain Häagen-Dazs has been replaced with a less recognizable (but virtually yummy) ice cream shop named "Gelateria Kamuro".
As a quite humorous note, the logo of the McDonalds replacement Super Burger is a burger with a crown. Burger King anyone? :D

Moving towards the end of Ichibangai-Dori we reach what's probably the most recognizable building overall. The Koma Theater, well known as a landmark of Kabukicho until last year, when it's been demolished (now it's being rebuilt). The equivalent in Yakuza 3, Kamuro Theater, is basically identical, down to the font and the general shape of the logo. It's interesting to see how the Yakuza series will remain as a testament of one of the most well known, landmarks of Shinjuku, that will never be the same.

Turning around we can notice that the CineCity Square (renamed in the game as Theater Square) is just as identical. It has the same shape and materials, the same central street light, even the same railings running around it. The similarities are even functional, as in the game you can access a Bowling alley at the back of the square, and as you can see if you squint your eyes, there's one in the same position even in real life.

Going further north we reach the crossing with Kabuki Hanamichi-Dori (renamed in the game as Shichifuku Street). Turning east at the crossing we can see that the street has the same look, with the same line of trees on the left and an absolutely identical building on the right. If we look further right and raise the camera a little, the building on this side of Ichibangai-Dori/Theater Avenue is 100% identical. The signs have exactly the same shape, same with the arch-shaped decoration over the signs, not to mention the metallic vent on the corner!

Going back into the district behind the theater (an area that in the game has been used for the Millenium tower, so it's different from the real life district), we reach another of the main streets of Kabukicho, Central Road. Nakamichi street in the game is a very close reproduction. The same trees on the side of the street, the same cube-shaped street-lights, with the same flags hung from them, the same brick benches. Both in the game and in reality the street is paved with cobblestone and the sidewalks are paved with terracotta tiles. There's even the same closed-off store on the right (with the same green and white stripes)! It's just one step short of photo-realism.

Walking down the street the feel is very, very similar, until we reach again the crossing with Yasukuni-Dori and turn around. On the left the facade of the building is covered by a fake rocky surface, and this detail is reproduced in the game. On the right, we see the Don Quijote discount store, that thanks to another tie-in deal with Sega has remained identical (and usable) in the game, signs included.

Going back into the district on Sakura-Dori (renamed in the game as Pink Street, Sakura means "Cherry Blossom", and cherry blossoms are pink), we can see that there's another gate, even if this time it has a different design, but the brick building on the right is identical. Going inside the street you notice that the feel is the same, and you can see the same green metal street lights.

Moving further west through one of the side alleys, we enter Azuma-Dori, where we can see the back of the imposing Shinjuku Ward offices. of course it's perfectly visible even in the equivalent street in Yakuza 3, Senryo Avenue.

This concludes our virtual tour between Yakuza's Kamurocho and it's real counterpart, Kabukicho. Of course there are many, many more similarities than the ones I shown on this post, but listing them all would take ages. You can have fun finding more, even thanks to the countless pictures you can find on the web. A source of really stunning pictures is this gallery on the spectacular Shibuya246 blog (since you're there, give a look to the top left of the third picture, surprise surprise!).

Looking at the comparison shots it's pretty obvious to see how much effort and passion the team led by Toshihiro Nagoshi poured into this game, that's truly a gem between the many that have been released this past month. I find Sega's representation of Kamurocho even more spectacular than Rockstar's Liberty City (while smaller). If you still didn't get Yakuza 3, despite the completely unacceptable and foolish cuts that Sega West decided to plague the game with (and a pretty shameful localization), you really should. There isn't another game like this on the market, unfortunately, and good sales will possibly encourage Sega to give us Yakuza 4 before this geological era ends, possibly uncut. If the demo is a good example of the overall quality, it's leaps and bounds better, and abundantly able to compete with anything the western industry has to offer (and completely trounce a large percentage of it, quality and content-wise).

If you ever go to Tokyo, pay a visit, but be careful, if Kazuma Kiryu comes out of a side alley, don't pick a fight with him. He'll stomp all over your face!

The Male Gamer stereotype

2010-03-28T15:27:00.006+02:00

South Park Gaming
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Once upon a time (in a far, far away realm) female gamers were a rarity. Now they are a marketing tool for attention-whoring gaming sites. No day comes to pass without a more or less opinionated and more or less stereotyped article on "girl gamerz" is published somewhere on the net.

While it's great that the female audience is opening up to gaming (it's actually been doing that for years, bloggers just didn't sniff the business before) and that writers are striving to dispel the myths and stereotypes on gamers that happen to come from Venus instead of Mars, this trend often turns into delirious pseudo-feminist rants drooling hate and spite, as the authors heavily rely on the opposite stereotype: The overweight, sweaty/unwashed/unshaved, basement-dwelling, forever-single, sexually-deprived male gamer.

One of the latest examples of this trend is this chaotic rant on GamesRadar.com, that ends up being the perfect example on how using the male gamer stereotype in order to dispel the female gamer ones deprieves an article of any hint of credibility.

I'm perfectly aware that ladies gaming on Xbox Live (that happens to be home to a very juvenile average audience, not just male) often get harassed by other players that happen to more or less loosely fit the aforementioned stereotype. Does this means that all male gamers are like that? I dare say they are a minority. A vocal and visible minority, but still a minority.

Since the percentage on recognizable ladies on Xbox Live is still relatively small, it's pretty obvious that the equally small percentage of actual foul-mouthed basement dwellers will home on them like a Sidewinder missile, ending up being pretty much visible, compared to the vast majority of gamers that will treat a girl with the default courtesy. This without even mentioning that those insult-drooling rude gamers you see out there will be probably just as likely not to differentiate at all between male and female gamers, as they proudly display their stupidity to everyone they come across, regardless of gender.
But while no one will write a ranting article if a male gamer repeatedly teabags another man while brutally trash talking him, ten equally hateful pieces of "journalism" will spawn if the same event happens to a female.

Personally I find extremely funny how some writers apparently strive for gender-equality in gaming, and then complain when such an equality is actually applied. Mind you, I personally hate trash talking and goading during an online gameplay, but regardless of the gender of both the victim and the perpetrator.

That's why I would like to extend a word of encouragement to all the aspiring writers (male or female) that want to elaborate on the Venus-born side of the gaming environment: stop trying to fight a stereotype with another stereotype. The gaming environment is packed full with well groomed, socially acceptable, polite men that are perfectly able to track the route from the basement to the front door of their home. Only a vast minority of the Gamestop (or any other gaming store) employees will naturally point their female customers to the Nintendo area of the shop. The era of the "girl in the store!" alarm call in gaming-related retail environments is long, long gone.

Of course the bad apples will be more visible and will stand out (like all rotten apples in any environment), but the gaming scene isn't even nearly as hellish for gamer girls as some writers would like us to believe.
Sure, some miscreants will always be around to annoy legit gamers of both genders, but that's why the "Mute" and "avoid" functions have been implemented in most online gaming environments. I use them extensively, you can as well.

If you really want to write an article about female gamers, try to be constructive instead of caving into equally silly stereotypes and creating further boys vs girls divides that are barely justified in third grade. A good example is this article on GamingAngels.com.
See? It's constructive. It doesn't rely on blanket-bashing male gamers in order to push the "Girl gamers are uberz!" message.
It's not that difficult, really.

New trailer and info about Hexyz Force unveiled by Atlus

2010-03-26T19:42:00.008+01:00

Hexyz Force
Picture uploaded by Abriael

I already wrote about Hexyz Force when Atlus unveiled the game for the first time, and by then this PSP JRPG was already showing quite some promise. Now that the game is set to be released in the US on May the 25th, Atlus is trickling down quite a bit of information and media for our enjoyment.

Today they released a new gameplay trailer, that you can enjoy below, and a nice set of information about the itemization system.
Hidden basically everywhere in the world you can find several items named Forcefacts. The magical properties of the Forcefacts can be utilized in a fusion process through the powers of the pets of the two main characters, Ralu and Ulu. Through that process, you can obtain several different weapons named Spirifacts, and other pieces of equipment that will let you tailor your equipment according to the situation.

Personally, though, one of the things that I find most annoying in JRPGs (and RPGs in general) is the mindless hunt for chests. Luckily Hexyz Force will let us have an easier game with that, via the Force Scanner. During their adventure Levant and Cecilia (the two main characters) will find items that will allow them to scan the surrounding area, marking the chests on the map for easier finding.

At the moment the game looks certainly polished, with very nice 3D graphics and anime cutscenes, more or less similar to the level we saw on Level 5's Jeanne D'Arc. The ability to see the story from the two opposite point of views is also a quite interesting treat.

If you're interested you can already preorder Hexyz Force via Amazon.com.

White Knight Chronicles 2: New Information and screenshots unveiled

2010-03-26T05:11:00.007+01:00

White Knight Chronicles 2
Picture uploaded by Abriael

Level 5 has kept a strict embargo on information about White Knight Chronicles 2, scheduled for release in Japan this summer. Today, at last, they released a whole slew of screenshots (that you can enjoy in high resolution in this flickr album) and several new pieces of information that we can add to the puzzle of what we already know.

In the sequel of White Knight Chronicles, the Magi have founded the empire of Ishrenia anew, and they have started a bloody civil war to unite the continent under their flag. Not only the kingdom of Balandor (setting of the first game) is involved, but also it's old enemy, the Duchy of Faria.
The Farians, a race very similar to classic fantasy elves with horns, appeared in multiple instance in White Knight chronicles, but none of them was playable or even played a major role during the game. This created one of the most prominent complaints between the fans, since in a world in which there evidently are several races, the only playable characters were all humans.

This is going to be changed in White Knight Chronicles 2. Part of the story will be set in the Dukedom of Faria itself, and at least two of the playable characters will be Farians, and not just any Farian.
Between the information released today, Level 5 has introduced the new Farian Characters: Princess Miu and General Skadain.

Princess Miu (voiced by Kugimiya Rie) is the fifteen year old granddaughter of the late Duke of Faria (the one that died at the beginning of the first game) and the hope of her country. She has a gentle heart, and doesn't like fighting, but she's dragged into the civil war by the events, forced to escape her own Dukedom to avoid being assassinated. This will cause her to meet with Leonard, given that, quite obviously, one princess wasn't enough for our young hero.
She lives with an inferiority complex towards her grandfather, as she's persuaded that she'll never manage to become as good as he was at governing.

General Skadain (voiced by Fujiwara Keiji) is a Farian veteran and Hero. As Miu was forced to escape, he followed her in order to protect the heir to the throne. He's cold and silent, and normally doesn't express his feelings, but he's extremely loyal to the princess.

Also more information has been given about Faria, that has remained pretty much marginal through the first game. It's described as a prosperous country located to the west of Balandor, mainly surrounded by forests. The Farians revere their trees and build their homes around them, having developed a lifestyle and an artistic style very similar to classic elves. The government is, at the moment, held by the four lords of Laureus, that were supposed to act as regents before the coming of age of princess Miu.
A three concept art drawings of the Dukedom of Faria have been released between the new pictures.

Quite extensive information on the evolution of the combat system has also been unveiled. One of the main complaints about the first game was that the combat system was slow, and Level 5 listened to feedback: in White Knight Chronicles 2 the attack gauge will fill much faster, and new actions like "charge" and "dash" have been added, creating a much active combat experience.

In White Knight Chronicles battles were mostly evenly split between attack and defense, but the addition of new weapon skills (peculiar to each weapon) and a heavier focus on timing, with the introduction of counterattacks and new defensive actions will make the character roles more defined and the fighting more dynamic and varied, but more tactical at the same time.

Many new monsters have been introduced, and the concept of resistance and weakness has been expanded, making having the right weapons and attacking with the right elements crucial. Even the change of weather and the seasons will influence the battles.

As a final little bonus, in one of the new screenshots, there's an unknown green knight clearly visible on the left. While no specific information has been released, my speculation is that what we're seeing is the first picture of the newly-implemented player knights, that the player's customized avatar will be able to transform in. While we still don't know if such knight will be customizable, I definitely hope so, since that possibility would allow a whole new level of awesomeness to the game.

In any case, if Level 5 will really manage to solve most of the problems that generated complaints between the fanbase, as today's information seems to reveal, given the quality and the scope of the first game, PS3 owners seem to be in for quite a treat. We can only hope that, this time, Sony will localize and publish the game in the west before this geological era ends. What about a nice Christmas gift for the western JRPG fans, Sony? :D

Source: 4Gamer.net

If you didn't try White Knight Chronicles yet, you can purchase it on Amazon.com. You can also read my review here.

Yakuza 4 ships 500,000 copies in a week. Series breaks 4 million

2010-03-25T07:23:00.013+01:00

Yakuza 4 ships 500000
Picture uploaded by Abriael

While in the west Sega has been busy maiming Yakuza 3, the series is breaking sales records in Japan. Sega just announced that during it's first week of sales more than 500,000 copies of Ryu ga Gotoku 4 (Yakuza 4) have been shipped. In just seven days the game outsold Yakuza 3 that, according to Weekly Famitsu sold a gand total of 499,436 copies before the end of December. Looks like the popularity of the series is on a solid climbing trend.
On top of this, the announcement mentions that the series (including all four games) has sold more than four million copies worldwide.

We still don't have rock solid sales data about Yakuza 3 in the west, but this should be enough proof, for Sega, that the series' potential is worth quite a lot more than the meager budget used for the launch of it's western editions. Given a proper promotion and a decent localization (without cuts), it's quite safe to assume that a solid title like Yakuza 4 could sell very well even in the west, finally awarding Kazuma Kiryu and his companions the wolrdwide popularity that they deserve.
Of course this means that Sega West should actually put an effort into it, instead of dooming themselves to failure with questionable marketing and non-existant promotion. Maybe they should give a good look to what their Japanese colleagues do, and start putting some of their marketing budget where true talent is, instead of wasting it all on promoting mediocre games like Alien vs Predator.

Source: Gpara.com

The new Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker trailer is all kinds of awesome

2010-03-24T00:47:00.006+01:00

Today Kojima Production released a new trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Peace walker, featuring Paz, a character that Hideo Kojima himself (in his personal twitter account) introduced as symbolizing Peace. Paz is shown singing her theme song "Love Deterrence"(sung by the popular singer and voice actress Nana Mizuki) in a surprising solo performance that one wouldn't expect from a Metal Gear game, but that ends up being beautifully fitting, and simply all kinds of awesome.

The game looks more and more like it will push the boundaries of the PSP platform to unprecedented levels, looking more like a full home console AAA title than a portable one.

We can just hope that Kojima Production won't follow the footstep of Square Enix, and that this beautiful song will remain in Japanese even in the west, instead of being replaced with a much duller english one.

You can already preorder Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker on Amazon.com