“Fear is the mind killer.”

I have to wonder what it must be like in Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s (creator of Rez and Rez HD) day to day life. Does he hum little notes and beats as he brushes his teeth and mimic cymbals crashing when he spits? One might think so when you look at his track record of game development. The majority of his games having a strong musical theme makes evident that music is more than just a passion of his. It’s a part of him.

The original Rez was one of his earliest well-known and well-received game projects originally released for Dreamcast and Playstation 2 and Rez HD is an updated HD widescreen version of the original with 5.1 surround sound and customizable in-game color schemes and sound effects.

Also included are a few Xbox 360 Live features such as achievements, online leaderboards and shareable, savable replays. It is worth noting that although a non-HD mode is included, my non-HD television had no problem playing HD mode in a letterboxed format.

Rez HD is styled graphically with intentionally simplistic vector and flat-shaded graphics used to render its 3D environments. If you recall the classic arcade games BattleZone or Tempest, try imagining expansive yet slightly more graphically enhanced environments and objects. Now add a bit of artistic heart, intentionally inspired by painter Wassily Kandinsky, and you have a pretty good idea of the look of Rez HD and it’s cyberpunk cyberspace atmosphere.

There is a simple beauty that comes about from the culmination of the various primitive polygons, lines, colors and very rare textures that will bring about a nostologic feel to many older gamers and at least a slick pseudo-futuristic vibe that even younger gamers may appreciate, even if they aren’t quite sure why. Each of the 5 main stages have their own unique visual theme, level layout, enemies and bosses (not to mention soundtrack as I will mention later in this review).

The story of Rez HD is fairly straightforward at first with the concept of hacking into a futuristic “supernetwork” known as the K-Project in order to keep a valuable AI named Eden from shutting herself down due to her being overwhelmed by a constant stream of information being fed to her. Without spoiling anything, I feel it safe to say that players will find themselves being intrigued by an unexpected depth to the eventual progression of the storyline and it’s conclusion.

Even after completing the game one may still be a bit confused but careful analysis can lead to some surprisingly interesting conclusions. That said, it should be understood that the storyline is not extremely complex or detailed, at least as I understand it, but considering the rather arcade-like gameplay the story depth that is to be found is quite welcome.

This leads me to the gameplay which is essentially a rather straightforward on-rails shooter. Anyone familiar with the Panzer Dragoon games should know what to expect although Rez HD is somewhat more simple. You have no control over your avatar’s movement even slightly, while hacking the K-Project, and your only defense against incoming attacks is attacking enemy viruses first or attacking their actual attacks.

You have one main weapon that allows you to lock on up to 8 targets at once and unleash your attack as you let go. Power-ups can be attained to boost the strength of you avatar effectively acting as your health as well as overdrive power-ups that allow you to fire an onslaught of guided attacks on all visible enemies. While rather simple, the gameplay’s complexity is somewhat elevated by fairly well-designed levels, enemy spawnings, and boss battles.

As I mentioned before, music is a big part of Mizuguchi’s games and Rez was one of his first well-known examples of his love of making music through gameplay. Possibly Rez HD’s most notable (no pun intended) aspect is the fact that many in-game actions have a specific note, beat or sound sample that corresponds to the overall slowly-developing beat of each stage of the game.

Each stage has it’s own musical track with unique samples and notes and you essentially compose the stages soundtrack as you lock on to enemies, attack, hack and so on. It’s a great feel to be partway into a stage, have a nice beat kick in and launch attack after attack all the while being rewarded with custom music timed specifically to your actions.

The game also allows you to have not only the player’s controller but several other 360 controllers vibrate along with the in-game action as well. While some may make immature jokes about such a concept, I do not believe it to be intended as they may think.

While I don’t necessarily agree with the hype I’ve heard others spout about Rez HD, I do believe it is a great game worth owning especially for the price you can get it on Xbox Live Arcade. I imagine it’d also be a great game to fire up at a party. While it may not be two player, you and your friends can take turns supplying your get-together with not only music but a little visual ambiance as well.

2 Comments »

Valve Software is best known for Half-Life and Half-Life 2, which are both revered as some of the best first person shooters ever made. In October 2007, Valve released The Orange Box, a long awaited compilation of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, the second episodic expansion to Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, a team-based multiplayer shooter, and arguably the oddest of all, Portal, a first person puzzle game.

Developed by a group of former students, Portal is the shortest, sparsest, and least hyped part of The Orange Box, but it is in many respects the best. Portal blends humor and mind-bending puzzles into one of the best games of 2007.

In Portal, you play as an unlucky test subject of an AI gone mad. Forced into experiment after experiment, your only choice is to navigate deadly obstacles with the portal gun, or as it’s formally called, the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.

The gun fires two linked portals: what goes into one comes immediately out the other. The concept is difficult to grasp at first but is incredibly freeing, and it leads to some of the most imaginative gameplay in any genre, not just the first person puzzler, a category that Portal practically invented by itself. Jumping in and out of walls and floors, maneuvering energy balls into generators, and dropping boxes onto turrets is an exercise in quick thinking and timing.

While solving puzzles, you are taunted, encouraged, threatened, and lectured by GLaDOS, the only speaking character in the game aside from a few turrets and one of the best written characters in a videogame in a long time.

The rogue computer is reminiscent of a malevolent HAL 9000 or SHODAN crossed with the dry wit of a comedian, and the expertly acted voice that ping pongs from threatening to manic serve as a perfect complement to the puzzles.

If anything, the writing sometimes overshadows the gameplay, especially in earlier levels, where once the basic concept of portals is grasped, the difficulty stays at an unduly low level for too long. Valve purportedly tested Portal over and over again to make sure players never got stuck, but this diligence may have paid off too much, and most gamers will find themselves wishing that Portal was a little harder.

Bonus maps and challenges similar to the achievements available on the XBOX360 add both time and difficulty to the game for those willing to attempt them, but Portal still suffers from being short and easy. With the exception of GLaDOS’s monologues, the graphics and sound are sparse.

Whether this effectively recreates the feeling of a test chamber or simply annoys you depends on your aesthetic sense as much as it does the game. For what it’s worth, the clean white walls and gray and white tiles benefit from The Orange Box’s updated version of the Source engine, which adds motion blur, depth of field, and other fancy things to keep the game looking fresh, if not appealing.

The music fades into the background as you concentrate alternatively on GLaDOS and the puzzles, and it sets the mood well, but the ambient soundtrack pales in comparison to the song that plays over the end credits.

Composed by nerd and humorous songwriter Jonathan Coulton, the song became an instant classic, and whistling the tune in a room of gamers can elicit an impromptu performance. Full of black humor and a few in-jokes, the credits are a perfect example of what makes Portal great.

This small addition to The Orange Box, now available as a standalone game on Steam, tries something different, succeeds wildly, and earns itself a place in gaming history. It is a must-buy, and while even the bonus maps and a second playthrough may only last you a few hours, user created maps are already available. Either way, Portal is a classic that no gamer should pass up.

1 Comment »

Though Portal is only one-fifth of the Half-Life 2 collection The Orange Box, it’s arguably the best part of the package, and certainly one of the most memorable gaming experiences of its year.

As Portal begins you wake up in a sterile cell, surrounded by surveillance cameras and bullet-proof glass. Feeling much akin to a lab rat, you are greeted by a female synthetic voice that politely starts giving you instructions and informs you that a portal will be opening shortly.

Said and done, an orange-rimmed, flickering oval appears out of the blue on the wall in front of you. Not having a great many options, you step through the portal out into a hallway, and take an elevator to the first testing chamber.

The first few testing floors mainly serve as an introduction to portal technology, and after passing through a few of them, you will be rewarded with the very premise of the game: the portal gun. With this handy tool you can create your own pair of portals that will let you bypass large distances.

In through one portal and out through the other, no matter where it is. With you becoming better equipped to navigate the chambers, they become increasingly complex and dangerous as you go on; all while the computerized voice gives you occasional advice and cheers you on.

Though it may share the first-person perspective and the graphics engine (and even the actual game world) with Half-Life 2, Portal is not a shooter – it’s actually tricky to label by traditional means, but we would call it a puzzle/adventure game. The portal technology itself is a lot of fun to use.

Not only do objects move through portals, they also retain whatever physical properties, such as velocity, that they had when going in. If you place one in the ceiling above you and one on the floor right below your feet, you will be falling forever, or until you decide to move one of the portals.

If you place them on walls opposite of each other, you can look through one and get an illusion of endless distance, seeing yourself from behind, looking through a never-ending series of smaller and smaller portals. Fun as the portals are though, this wouldn’t amount to much more than a gimmicky and well-done puzzle game if there weren’t more to it.

After awhile, the dryly humorous synthetic voice that guides you along develops into a great character of its own right, and as you make your way through the chambers, the game will take on a more psychological and slightly disturbing nature.

You will come to notice cracks in the polished façade of the sterile, science-lab like rooms you pass through – signs that others have been there before you, and that some things may not be what they seem.

If there is a downside to Portal, it is that it’s short. At 5-6 hours or less depending on your puzzle familiarity, you can readily complete the game in one sitting. However, brilliant writing and design make it feel just right, and it seems to come to and end just about when it’s supposed to. Adding on more hours wouldn’t really have served to make the game any better.

It should say something about the quality of Portal though, that even with its modest length, it would make the Orange Box worthy of purchase by itself.
Half-Life? You’ve played other games like it.
Team Fortress? Been there.
But we dare say that you have never played a game quite like Portal before. It may only be a couple of hours long, but they will rank among the most refreshing and witty hours you have invested in gaming for a long time.

So do yourself a favour and give it a shot. If you’re anything like us, you will find that trigger-happy little robots who attempt to kill you on sight, as well as weighted metallic cubes with pink hearts printed on them; are both eminently lovable.

No Comments Yet »

Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment
Developer: Flying Lab Software
Release Date: January 22, 2008
Genre: MMORPG
ESRB Rating: Teen (Online content not rated by the ESRB)

When something finds success with an audience or brings great innovation to the table, you can bet others will stand up and take notice, perhaps even borrowing a few elements from that product. Imitation is after all the sincerest form of flattery. Video games are anything but an exception to this rule.

All one need do is look at the dozens of Dragon Warrior clones on the NES in Japan, the sea of imitators that followed in the wake of Pokemon’s success, and more recently the swell of FPS and tactical shooter games on consoles, coming largely on the heels of Halo’s success.

MMORPG’s were certainly crying out for some innovation, and not just in any one area. The genre had been, and continues to be, saturated with copycat games that generally all look the same, play the same and sound the same. Innovation has slowly crept into the genre though, and one of the first areas this has been seen is in the settings, which ultimately leads to new ideas and innovation in game-play.

Fantasy is of course the dominant setting, with two general styles, the American and European medieval fantasy style, and the Asian anime fantasy style. Recently we’ve finally seen a break from the endless fantasy, with first science fiction settings popping up, and lately the more modern style settings seen in superhero games.

Only recently have we seen the pirate theme enter MMORPG’s. Spurred no doubt by the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie trilogy, games like Tales of Pirates, Voyage Century Online, Bounty Bay Online and Pirates of the Caribbean itself in online form, have all popped up in this vein. Which brings us of course to Pirates of the Burning Sea.

As someone who’s played many MMO’s both old (Tibia, Runescape) and new (LotRO, WoW, FFXI), I was definitely looking for a change from the tried and true. I had also tried Tales of Pirates previously of which I had heard good things, but quickly dismissed it as yet another Asian item mall MMO (which I’m not fond of, and which sadly seems to be the future of MMO’s) with a shoddy translation (seriously, how hard can it be to hire a good English translator?)

There’s absolutely no excuse for releasing a professional game with such shoddy writing, especially one produced by an American company, and yet every Asian MMO does it. Even the English websites are cluttered with broken English). Granted I may not have given Tales a fair shake, but there’s plenty of other quality games and only so much time to play them in.

PotBS has some nice features that make it an interesting experience and let it stand out in the crowded MMO genre. One of the most important elements to a game where you’ll be doing a lot of battling is the combat engine. PotBS has an incredibly fun ship-to-ship combat system that requires a fair degree of skill, instantly setting it above the many mindless point and click games.

This makes combat not only fun, but PvP more interesting as well, as levels don’t play nearly as significant a role as they do in most MMO’s. You also have melee combat, which while not quite as good as the ship battles still suffices, and nation wars.

The game begins rather unlike other MMO’s as well by completely outfitting you with a ship, crew, and supplies, with nothing but the wide ocean blue in front of you. No hacking slimes up for hours just to get out of your birthday suit.

The economy is nicely player-driven at this point, with the ability to buy and sell anything in the game through the requisite auction house system. Even better is the crafting system, which is not restricted by race or class, and operates much differently than most crafting systems. By acquiring building plans you can have a crafting building constructed, be it a forge, shipyard, etc.

These can then be used to produce the items they’re designed for. When your items are complete they must be travelled to and personally delivered to whichever port you plan to sell them at, which brings the risk factor of losing them on the choppy seas into play. This is a nice element and adds a unique twist to crafting.

Sadly it’s also rife with many of the complaints that surround a majority of MMORPG’s. The quests are not very interesting and don’t elicit much excitement, the game is somewhat repetitive and the story is transparent. The dialogue at least has some flair and is well written.

Maybe these are just unavoidable staples of the MMO genre, as very few companies have been able to best any of these complaints. The game world is also fairly large, with a lot of travel time involved and many missions requiring you to criss-cross the globe, which may be a positive or negative depending on your preference.

Graphics are top notch, and as the game largely takes place at sea, you can bet a lot of attention was paid to the water effects, which are beautiful. The music is enjoyable swashbuckling fare, not incredibly memorably, but a good complement to the setting.

All in all, PotBS shows a good deal of innovation and can be a blast to play. It has not left many of the MMORPG genre’s more irksome qualities floundering, but has at least sunk a few of them.

News: A recent patch has added a new character class to the game, the buccaneer. The buccaneer functions mainly as a support class, with the ability to buff allies and debuff enemies, making them quite useful in PvP battles.

No Comments Yet »

Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Ready at Dawn
Release Date: April 15, 2008
Genre: Action/Adventure
ESRB Rating: Teen

Okami is one of the more unique games you’ll ever come across, a broad mix of genres and innovative play mechanics with a stunning graphical style and setting unlike anything yet seen.

Okami takes place in a mythical feudal Japan, a world that is slowly being consumed by the demon Orochi. The lands have been reduced to wastelands, the sky has turned perpetually dark, rivers have dried up, and plants and trees have withered away.

The only hope for this dead world is the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, reincarnated as a white wolf and accompanied by her zany sidekick Issun. Ama has a relatively straight forward task ahead of her. Use her celestial brush to restore the Guardian Saplings to life.

You’ll travel the lands speaking to the denizens of the world and taking on quests on their behalf, restoring landscapes to life, feeding wild animals and stomping on Orochi’s minions, all in an effort to curry favour with the inhabitants of this surreal world, and further your goal of reaching the Saplings.

Ama’s brush has uses beyond just the ability to heal the environment, including being a powerful tool of destruction in battle. By calling up the parchment, Ama can draw a variety of symbols that will have effects on her enemy, such as slashing them in half, blasting them with winds, drenching them in water, and much more.

To power her brush though, Ama needs celestial ink, which is where the favour currying comes in. For every deed performed or citizen aided, Ama will receive an amount of praise points that can be used to power up her stats and make her stronger, including giving her the ability to hold more ink.

Ama can also engage enemies in standard combat when running low on ink or for a change of pace. She can be outfitted with a large arsenal of weaponry, from giant swords to magical whips, and many weapons have two different attacks. She also has a number of spells at her disposal.

The game world is large, with numerous places to see, people to talk to, quests to complete and things to restore. You have relatively free reign over where you wish to travel, though you’ll be promptly trounced if venturing too far off the beaten path before Ama is upgraded enough through stat building.

Okami is a beautiful game, a graceful and elegant mix of cel-shading and a water colour look similar to Saga Frontier 2. This beauty and tranquility is brilliantly displayed in the many landscapes, especially after their restoration, as colours spring forth in vibrant hues, blossoms swirl and dance around the screen, and water flows gently onward to some distant point.

Areas not yet blessed by Amaterasu’s brush are desolate and barren, with muted and dark tones and an overall sense of foreboding. Amaterasu herself moves with the grace and fluidity of a wolf, both literally and figuratively.

The music further enhances the beauty and setting, with subtle strings accompanying you on long treks, and thumping drums get your blood pumping for battle. Okami has its own version of Simlish, as characters talk and carry on with garbled, incoherent gibberish that is both amusing and somehow fitting.

The Wii controls are hit and miss. As might be expected, drawing on the parchment with the Wii-mote is fast and intuitive, much more so than it was on the PS2 with the analog stick. Standard combat on the other hand can cause difficulties and headaches, with Ama performing the wrong action, or doing nothing at all. As the difficulty is rather low these flaws can be somewhat forgiven, but the learning curve for combat is much steeper than the PS2 version’s was, with no option to swich to the classic controller.

Okami is a wonderful experience that fans of good gaming will surely enjoy. If you didn’t catch it on PS2, you shouldn’t pass up this second opportunity to be transported to its world.

News: After the closure of Clover Studios, developer of the PS2 version of Okami, the reigns for the revamped Wii version were handed to Ready at Dawn, makers of the recent PSP game Gods of War 2. Many of Clover’s former employees are not at Platinum Games, which has just inked a 4 game deal with Sega to develop games across multiple platforms.

No Comments Yet »