Beautiful Katamari

Beautiful Katamari is a prime example of what the tragic future of gaming will hold. While certainly pretty, the game lacked any innovation or real improvement beyond its predecessors. Lots of sequels fail to perfeorm to the standards raised by their prequels (coughHalo3singleplayercough). But this isn't the real tragedy in BK.

The fact that there is a downloadable level pack, that you have to pay extra for, that was already built when the game was released, is the real tragedy. The downloadable content doesn't even download the maps, they are already on the game disc, it just unlocks them so you can play them. The original game even comes with the extra achievement built in, one you can not get unless you purchase those extra levels. The argument could be said that if you don't want put pay for it, you shouldn't have to. But is that really fair? To have to pay extra for something we already bought?

To be so blatant that they want to just take your money with these levels that they are not spending 1 minute more of programming time on than they already had, really speaks volumes for the way corporations view gamers.

If you can swallow all the bile that this corporate strategy raises in your throat and actually play the game, don't block out any significant amount of time for it. The game is pretty, but short. You can finish it in a weekend. This title is just another over-hyped next-gen title that you should save your money on and just head to Blockbuster and rent for $8.

O Lumas

My initial review of Super Mario Galaxy consists, simply and predictably, of one word: "Fun"

It gets frustrating occasionally when you play the little bonus galaxies, the one when you roll around on a ball using Wiimote controls, for instance. At the same time, they're a nice break from the gameplay being a little on the easy side.

I can't confirm or deny the matter of satisfactory length at this time.

Answering the Call

Single Player: Superior to Halo 3.

While the length isn't much better, the depth of story-telling and variety of gameplay are clear deviations of the normal big explosion shoot-em-up. Which Halo is. There are several "Oh shit!" moments while Halo 3's ending didn't even deserve an "Oh snap!" While I love Halo and will still aim to get the achievements and finish my campaign scoring runs, I'm calling Call of Duty 4 the better game. The only problem is the lack of online co-op.

Multi-Player: Superior to Halo 3.

The class system is really well done. The class customization is cool and fun to tweak. The unlockables matter. Ranking is based on a point system instead of a Win/Loss ratio. Upgrading becomes, not only fun, but a little necessary. Meaning that striving to get a new rank is more than just wanting a new emblem next to your gamertag. The only upperhand(s) that Halo has on the CoD4 multiplayer is the array of online achievements and the splitscreen+live combo. That's it. I miss the option of playing online with someone sitting next to me. Sure, I hate splitscreen but that's fun. That was one of my chief complaints with Shadowrun too.

Buy it.

A Ninja's Guilty Pleasure

As much as I hate to admit it, I've always been into the idea of Naruto. After years of DBZ, the show's trite format bothered me a little bit, but the action is so good! Surprisingly, it wasn't playing an action game based in the Naruto world that sucked me in. I imported a couple of the Gamecube fighters and played their cheap 3d action, with their 1-button supers, so I've gotten the "OMG! IM PLAYIGN AS ROCK LEE!" out of my system. This game (Naruto: Rise of a Ninja) is a legit platformer. It's frustrating at first. I said aloud "It doesn't make any sense to not have a double jump." I was rewarded with a double jump minutes later.

SIDE NOTE: I don't understand why, in some games, you can double jump freely, then in other games your window to double jump is so small. This game is a good example, you can only activate your double jump while going up or during hangtime (the hangtime, by the way, looks forced and feels funny). If you've started falling, you missed your chance. I don't understand why a developer would choose to do that. If you're going to bend physics to your will, you might as well do it big.

I asked the game "Where's the sprint ability? This isn't how ninja run." After a couple missions you get the ability to sprint. Holding the Right Trigger you throw your arms back to your side and start sprinting. You can pull the Left Trigger to DRIFT and take sharp corners.

The game does do a few things that piss me off:

1. You can't swim. Whenever you fall in the water you lose a little health and Naruto says something hilarious (/sarcasm).
2. You're only allowed to punch/fight in the fight sequences.
3. When you get too close to an edge Naruto just falls. No balancing animation. No quick grab back on to the ledge. He just falls. A ninja would never make this mistake. Even Link saves from an accidental ledge fall.
4. The missions are super-simplistic. Coin collecting around town and the overdone "Go get that guy! (and fight all his henchmen that show up every x steps and get a little harder as you go)" mission are getting to the point of being unacceptable in any game.
   

I haven't gotten too far into it (only like 25% through the story that I followed), but I'm saying it's worth renting right now. At its core it's a well-made ninjaish platformer with semisweet 3d fighting action and fun to do jutsu techniques. You might not appreciate it as much if you have no investment in the Naruto world. Don't get me wrong, I hate Shonen Jump as much as the next semi-elitist, but teenager ninja-training action is a force that I simply cannot deny.

Quickie: Stranglehold.

It's a waste of the Unreal engine. Short of its few "That was sweet!" moments, the game's not worth playing. Definitely not worth buying. If you're really into Max Payne or are interested in short lived, mindless, occasionally frustrating fun, you might as well play Stranglehold.

Worth playing. Maybe just the demo because it will cover the best part(s) of the game.

Does anyone still read EGM?

I hope not.

Well... the Cutscenes Sure Seemed Eternal

You know, I really wanted to like Eternal Sonata. I really did. It had an interesting premise, a really interesting set of ideas for the battle system, no random battles, and it was touted and reviewed very well.

I'm not sure what game those reviewers were playing, because it obviously wasn't the same one I picked up for EB. Anyone who downloaded the demo from XBLA has literally seen all the tricks that this pony has to offer. When I played the demo and got tired of fighting the exact same enemies over and over again, I thought to myself, "This is only the demo, they obviously are just cutting corners and only doing 1-2 monsters per area to save time." Nope. Throughout the entire game, there were literally only 2 monsters max per area. Don't give me the argument, "There can be up to 4 because the monsters change depending on whether they are standing in the shade or the sun!"

Even if we were going to agree that 4 monster types per area was an acceptable amount, they are literally standing in the exact same spot. EVERY SINGLE BATTLE. There are two iterations of each battle, one with 3 monsters, and 1 with 2. They stand in the same spot, the only thing that varies is if they are on the right or the left. But, you know, I'm an accepting guy. They could do only 4 monsters per area if they spent the rest of their time developing a variety of monsters. Nope. Easy route there too. Set number of enemies, colors and stats are the only things that change. I know most RPGs fall prey to this shortcut, but in ES this is extremely exaggerated, there were about 10 enemy types for the entire game.

Maybe if the combat had been more entertaining this wouldn't have been an issue, but it was just the same. Smash A, get your combo meter as high as it can go, hit Y. Thats what combat was most of the game, the only time you had to pay attention to combat was when you hit party level 6 and they started moving the buttons around on you, then you had to pay attention to do full team combos. Also, it is absurd that in a game in this age, you can pick your special moves by how many hits they have. That's it. More hits > all. The only reason to change your specials were if you earned one with more hits.

Just like the combat and enemy encounters, there was no variety in the rest of the game. You follow an extremely linear path all the way to the *gasp* twists at the end that led up to the amazing twist ending that really doesn't make any sense. It was like they got to the end and thought "Wow, I didn't think we would get this far, let's just do... THIS!" And just threw in some random story twists.

If you played the story through and skipped every cutscene, you would probably have about 15 hours in the game. This is really poor for a JRPG so they decided to stretch stuff a bit by adding increasingly longer cutscenes. There are literally 30+minutes of story between chapters. I'm not kidding. Every chapter included a story about Chopin's life that if you skipped, you skipped the plot crucial character dialog, which was also mind-numbingly long.

Maybe I am not being fair to this game. It was pretty looking. It does offer a replay mode (same enemies but harder and no increased rewards, all you get is a chance for the last 600 something achievement points).

It would have made an amazing early PS1 game. But, for a game of this caliber to be sold on XBOX 360, where they have a FPS with a story that was better thought out and more varied combat, it really is just sad. Take my advice, play the demo, you'll get a better experience out of the game because there are no cutscenes. Ignore those reviews, advertisements, and recommendations from really misguided friends. Save your $60 or use it to buy a good game like Bioshock.