u l t r a m o o k i e

It is always about redemption.  Whether it takes six episodes or just one fantastic game, it is always about redemption.  By green-lighting the huge multimedia project (game, book, comic) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, George Lucas maybe asking us Star Wars fans for redemption.  After all, he messed things up completely when he released Star [...]

It is always about redemption.  Whether it takes six episodes or just one fantastic game, it is always about redemption.  By green-lighting the huge multimedia project (game, book, comic) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, George Lucas maybe asking us Star Wars fans for redemption.  After all, he messed things up completely when he released Star Wars Episodes I, II and III.

I finished The Force Unleased last night and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the story — which was not penned by George Lucas, though from what I read Lucas had a good deal of say in what happened in the story.

The gameplay was a bit of a mixed bag, so I am glad that the story was so strong that it carried the game along to the end.  There were some serious twists that came out of nowhere for me and the ending was very satisfying.

The game’s story was so engaging that my wife actually got into it.  “I knew he would do that!”  She exclaimed once.  “Of course that happened he is a Sith!”  She blurted out another time.  And this is from a woman who is by far not a Star Wars fan.

For the story alone, I would recommend this game.  Be forewarned though, there are some very frustrating bits about the game.

SPOILERS AHEAD

This is your warning.  Do not read any further if you plan on playing the game.

Going back to redemption:  There are a lot of plot points in the game that feel like Episode IV, V and IV plot points.  The story itself is one that follows the basic Darth Vader arc — a guy that embraces the Dark Side, then figures out that things aren’t what he wants them to be, sets out to fix things and eventually redeems himself.  This is not a bad thing, but it did feel oh-so-familiar.

Lets start with the good stuff (outside of the story):

• The Force:  I loved how they amped up the Force powers for the game.  It just feels so visceral when shocking a Storm Trooper.  Force Repel has a rewarding “woosh”.  And I just loved Force Gripping a Storm Trooper and throwing him down a canyon — priceless.  All the Force powers just feel powerful and that is very cool.
• Make Your Own Character:  The experience and upgrade system of the game makes it very playable.  I can upgrade the powers that I want, I can upgrade my moves and I can upgrade my skills.  I love being able to build my own character as I progress through a game.  After finishing the game, I took my more powerful character and played the first level again.  Storm Troopers that took multiple slashes of my Lightsaber to kill the first time around were now butter to a hot knife.
• Special Moves:  There are some pretty wicked special moves that are activated with specific on-screen led button pushes.  I particularly like the one where I can cut an AT-ST in half.  Whoa, cool!
• The Graphics:  The graphics are pretty fantastic.  There are times when the graphics suck bad (the Wookie level felt really flat).  But, otherwise the graphics in the game are fantastic.
• The Sound:  This game sounds awesome, especially when played with a 5.1 surround setup.
• The Twists:  The twist where Vader takes his Lightsaber to Starkiller was quite shocking.
• The Rebel Alliance:  Showing how the Rebel Alliance was formed, especially showing how it was formed by Vader and the Emperor, was something I never would have thought up.  And after it was revealed, it’s something that makes complete sense.
• The Length:  I played the game on Apprentice level (the easiest one) so that I could see the story.  It took me just shy of seven hours to finish.  This was with me half-heartedly looking for the extra stuff hidden throughout the levels.  Some may say this is a short game, but I think it is just right.  I am going to go through the game once again on the next difficulty level using my more powerful Starkiller — I want to find more of the hidden stuff throughout the levels and see how powerful I can make Starkiller.  Maybe it is just me, but I don’t like 40-hour games.
• The Cinematics:  The kinematics are very well-done.  What really helped them was the wide array of facial expressions that the characters achieved.
• The Cameos:  Obi-Wan and Darth Maul!  Holy crap!  Darth MAUL!  That was awesome being able to fight Darth Maul.

The Bad:

• The Camera:  The game camera and lock-on system sucked in wide open spaces (and there’s a lot of them).  Trying to activate Force Grip on something usually doesn’t work because the system doesn’t know what to lock onto.  This is tres frustrating.
• The Jumping Puzzles:  Oh come on LucasArts.  Jumping puzzles are such a last century Tomb Raider gameplay mechanic.  The junk world was particularly bad with jumping puzzles.
• The Star Destroyer:  This sequence could have been one of the coolest video game sequences ever.  But, it fails because of multiple things.  First, the onscreen control guides are flawed.  The don’t tell you the right thing to do most of the time and the way the controls look onscreen are different than what should actually be done.  Second, wave after wave of Tie Fighters gets old really quick.  To make matters worse, the stupid Star Destroyer moves back into its original position when you let go.  WTH?  There are no words for how much I hated this sequence and how sad it makes me feel that a potentially awesome sequence was completely ruined.
• Special Moves:  Ok, while the special moves are cool, there aren’t enough of them.  What I mean is that in one long sequence, there are four Rancors to kill.  The ending special move on each one was exactly the same — leading to my wife asking, “How come you keep using the same move on those things?”  There are also special moves for killing off Jedi and fighting Darth Vader and the Emperor.  The only issue here is that I had to concentrate on the lower part of the screen to see which button to push.  This distracted from watching the cool moves being done.
• The Moves:  There is a laundry list of moves that can be unleashed by Starkiller on normal enemies.  The problem is that they are usually a long string of button pushes that need to be memorized.  This means that the game is a lot of button mashing when there are many enemies on the screen.
• Extras:  There are not many extras outside of being able to play key cinematics, look at concept art, and watching some trailers.  I would love to see an online aspect to the game.  Maybe some trophies also.
• Load Times:  There are load times all over the place for The Force Unleashed — including going in and out of menus from gameplay.  This would not be bad if not for the fact that The Force Unleashed installs itself on the hard drive:  An almost 3GB install.  The only time that the load times get frustrating is when you die.  It takes upwards of two to three minutes for the game to reload the level so that you can try again.
• Unbalanced Enemies:  I hate Purge Troopers.  Let me say it again:  I hate Purge Troopers.  Why?  Because these guys are seemingly more powerful than an AT-ST.  WTH?  Why?  The enemies in the game are very unbalanced at times and some of them (like the Purge Troopers) are illogically more powerful than they should be.

But, overall, still loved the game.  Was quite an experience.  If Episodes I, II and III did not exist and this game defined the opening for Episodes IV, V and VI that would have been fantastic.  Unfortunately, Episodes I, II, III and Jar Jar Binks do exist and this is not enough for me to forgive George Lucas for that mess.

I broke down today and got a Dual Shock 3 controller.  Yes, Sony has punished me for their stubbornness in not settling the whole force-feedback lawsuit.  But, I’m glad I got the controller, it works well in Burnout Paradise and my new game GRiD.  Unfortunately, the force-feedback does not work in Call of Duty 4 [...]

I broke down today and got a Dual Shock 3 controller.  Yes, Sony has punished me for their stubbornness in not settling the whole force-feedback lawsuit.  But, I’m glad I got the controller, it works well in Burnout Paradise and my new game GRiD.  Unfortunately, the force-feedback does not work in Call of Duty 4 (I’m hoping for a patch or something to activate it).

Talking about new stuff, I also picked up GRiD today (I got a stash of birthday money).  I had downloaded and played the demo — I didn’t know what it was, but I thought I had to give the demo a try.  What a fantastic demo it was, very polished and the presentation was spot-on sexy.  I just had to get the game after playing the demo.  The driving mechanics are not hardcore simulation like the Gran Turismo series, they have some simulation feel to them, but the mechanics lean more towards arcade (though, not crazy arcade like Burnout Paradise).

The thing that intrigued me was the damage modeling in the game.  It is pretty cool and a car can be broken down into pieces — and the debris littered all over the roadway as a driving hazard for the rest of the race.  Gran Turismo 5 Prologue still continues to “tradition” of Super-Man cars that are indestructable.  That has always been an annoyance to me, as I could use other cars as bumpers around corners to win races.  Not here with GRiD where your car can fall apart from too many hits — the damage modeling is cool, but not realistic as each car can take quite a beating before falling completely apart or malfunctioning.

GRiD is the old Race Driver TOCA game, but with the RPG and backstory crap ripped out — and the hardcore simulation engine removed and replaced with a more arcade-like engine.  I am glad they ripped out the backstory and drama crap from the game as it refocuses the game on racing.  And what a great racing game this is.  The feel of speed is tremendous — and in some situations it is scary fast, like when one drives the open wheel formula cars which scream down the tracks.  The sense of speed that Codemasters has put into the game is indescribable in words or pictures, you have to play the game to get a good feel of just how fast (and fun) the racing is.

Although I love Burnout Paradise and continue to play it, I wanted something that was track-based to play — and something with real licensed cars.  Paradise’s open-world is both a blessing (it’s rather cool not to be forced to play races in order) and a curse (frakking getting lost during a race really blows).  Having track-based racing lets me practice and memorize something a little smaller than a whole city.  And the licensed cars (45 in total from what I read) is really cool.  Sure, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has 60+ cars, but do I really want to spend my time racing a Suzuki Cappuccino?  Not really.

Anyways, back to racing!

For my grad, dad and birthday gift, my wife got me a spanking new Playstation 3.
Thank you wifey for such a cool gift!  You are a kick-ass wife and the PS3 is a kick-ass gift!
I wanted a PS3 mainly so that I can watch Bluray movies — we already pay for Netflix, so it would [...]

For my grad, dad and birthday gift, my wife got me a spanking new Playstation 3.

Thank you wifey for such a cool gift!  You are a kick-ass wife and the PS3 is a kick-ass gift!

I wanted a PS3 mainly so that I can watch Bluray movies — we already pay for Netflix, so it would be better to take advantage of the Bluray selection, rather than pay a whole lot more for HD satellite feeds.  I must say, the PS3 is quite impressive — although, I guess I could be a bit biased as an ex-Sony employee.

Observations about the PS3:

• Now that Bluray has won the high definition format war — finally — the PS3 has an upper-hand when compared with the Xbox 360.  Whether it really plays out, I don’t know.  But, that was the whole reason why I wanted a PS3:  Bluray.
• Brilliant move pricing the lowest priced Bluray player the same price as the PS3.  It just makes people think that they are getting a “free” game console with the Bluray player.
• Demos on the Playstation Network (PSN) are great!  Usually, I don’t play through a whole game unless I can really get into it — and there are not many games that I can get into.  So, playing a demo from start to finish is usually enough to make me satisfied.
• PSN network speed is horrendous.  It takes forever to download something from the PSN.  I tried downloading the PS3 update from PSN and it ran ~160kBps, which is terrible (my DSL line is a 3Mbps line so I get around 300kBps max).  Sony needs to invest into more bandwidth (or stop throttling).
• Even though Sony is out to sell Bluray discs, there is still a market for downloadable video and audio content.  So where is it Sony?  Sony has a whole library of movies, TV shows and music that it can sell online.  They should get on the ball and start doing it — Microsoft does it with the Xbox 360 and Apple does it with the AppleTV already.
• The PS3 hardware itself is beautiful.  When Alice lent me her Xbox 360, I was surprised by the size of the total package — most importantly that the power brick was the same size as the Xbox 360 console!  The PS3 is all enclosed, the only thing that sticks out are the HDMI and power cables, no fugly external power brick here.
• The PS3 is quiet.  Alice’s Xbox 360 was loud — not just the fans, but the drive also.  And not just “kind of loud”, more on the “this is distracting my gameplay loud?.
• I’m kind of disappointed at the lack of 1080p games.  Most games seem to run at 720p, which is fine, but I figured the PS3 was powerful enough to squeeze out 1080p gaming easily.
• The DVD upscaler (software) does not do as good of a job as a dedicated DVD upscaler.  When compared to the old Pioneer DV-400V upscaling DVD player that we had, the PS3’s upscaled DVD output is a little disappointing.
• The SixAxis controller is lighter than I thought.  Also, I don’t like having to pay for Sony’s stubborness when it comes to rumble.  Sony should have swapped out the SixAxis controllers the minute they settled the lawsuit against them.  One of these days, I’ll get a Dual Shock, but not right now.  I’m fine with the SixAxis.
• The lack of PS2 backwards compatibility is a disappointment, but not that big of one.  It is not like I have played any of my old PS2 games recently and that I would pop one back into play anytime soon.  I still have my slim PS2 in the garage and can pull it out to use when I want.  It would be nice to have the backwards compatibility, but not a requirement.  What is hugely disappointing is the actual reason why Sony stripped out the backwards compatibility from the 40GB PS3.  Sony reasons that “by omitting the option of playing PS2 games, Sony hopes that new customers will instead spend their money on more PS3 games.”
• The one game that my wife got me was Burnout Paradise — because I’m a huge Burnout fan, I have all of the games on either the PS2 or PSP.  Burnout, Burnout 2: Point of Impact, Burnout 3: Takedown and Burnout Revenge on the PS2.  Burnout Legends and Burnout Dominator on the PSP.  Now, Burnout Paradise on the PS3.  Fantastic game.  The only thing that has be a bit frustrated right now is that I still don’t know my way around Paradise City and that makes doing races a bit difficult — as sometimes I find that I have turned on the wrong street and am going the wrong way.  If only Criterion would have made the minimap like a GPS device — mark out a general route (that skips shortcuts) for the player, if the player gets off route, then “reroute” based on where they are heading.  This would help lessen the frustration of being lost in the city — there are subtle hints that Criterion threw in like the blinker on the car will give you a hint where to go.
• The one movie that my wife got me was Casino Royale.  The movie is a gorgeous showoff film for Bluray.  The scene where Bond and the bombmaker are fighting it out on the crane really shows off the resolution of Bluray movies (as the water sparkles brilliantly in the background while the helicopter-mounted camera revolves around the two from a long distance).
• Remote Play functionality — where the PSP can take control of the PS3 and display media (and some games) — works really well.  I was surprised at how easy it was to setup and get going.
• Although the PS3 has no PS2 support, it, ironically has psOne support.  The support works and there are some “enhancement” technologies to try to make the old games look new again — like texture smoothing.  The psOne games I have tried on the system (Gran Turismo 2 and Metal Gear Solid) both work well and look…well, like the are ten years old.
• Netflix continues to amaze.  I sent back movies the day that I got the PS3.  That night, I logged into my Netflix account and flipped on the Bluray option and moved some Bluray discs to the top of my queue.  The next day, Netflix received my DVDs and sent Bluray discs to me.  I got the Bluray discs the following day.  That is normal operating style for Netflix and it continues to amaze me.  Now, if only Netflix to adapt their “Watch Now” feature to stream HD content and stream it to a PS3, that would completely knock me out of my chair.
• The PS3 is made as a media center.  What I love is how the harddrive is easily user-replaceable (which I will do with an old, larger notebook drive.  What I also love is that the PS3 can play all sorts of media — including MP3, WMA, AAC, DVIX, XVID and H.264 AVC.  And all of this can either reside locally, on a USB thumbdrive, on a DVD-RW disc, or can be streamed over the network (from a DLNA server or, as Alice tells me and I have to test out, an Apache server).  The PS3 is surprisingly open for a product that has come out from Sony.
• The PS3 can also take Linux, but I don’t know if I’ll go down that route.  I have enough Linux boxes at home (yes, one can actually have “enough” Linux boxes).  I don’t really want to turn my PS3 into a semi-Linux box also.

I guess that’s a long-winded enough posting for now about the PS3.  I’m sure I’ll have more later.  Do you own a PS3?  What do you think about it?  And what’s your PSN name?  I want to add you to my friends list!

Here’s what I’m playing right now:

Burnout Dominator (PSP):  You gotta love the Burnout series!
Cooking Mama (DS):  Just.  Plain.  Fun.  And no dishes, pots or pans to clean up after cooking.
Rayman Raving Rabbids (Wii):  Hee-larious and very fun game!
Super Paper Mario (Wii):  A great re-imagining of the Mario series.  I really like the small touches they’ve [...]

Here’s what I’m playing right now:

• Burnout Dominator (PSP):  You gotta love the Burnout series!
• Cooking Mama (DS):  Just.  Plain.  Fun.  And no dishes, pots or pans to clean up after cooking.
• Rayman Raving Rabbids (Wii):  Hee-larious and very fun game!
• Super Paper Mario (Wii):  A great re-imagining of the Mario series.  I really like the small touches they’ve added like the “flipping”.

I watched a bunch of videos from E3 and here are some games that I would love to play:

• Halo 3 (Xbox 360):  I have played and finished Halo and Halo 2 on my Xbox.  Halo 3 looks really great, but I am hesitant to cough up $460 to play Halo 3 ($400 for an Xbox 360 and $60 for Halo 3).
• Killzone 2 (PS3):  This game looks fantastic and was the talk of E3.  Again, I don’t know if I would want to cough up $560 to play it though ($500 for PS3  and $60 for Killzone 2).
• Super Mario Galaxy (Wii):  I can’t wait for this one to come out.  I want it for my Wii.
• Metroid 3:  Corruption (Wii):  Looks interesting, I just hope it doesn’t have the “I finished the level, now I have to backtrack through the whole level on a timer” thing.

Any games spark your interest from this year’s E3?

I finally got a Wii! This morning, while I was with Eileen and Jacob visiting his grandparents, I told Eileen, “I’m getting tired of the hunt for a Wii. Maybe I’ll just get a PS3 and enjoy some Blu-ray movies. Lets go to Fry’s and check out the PS3.” So, Eileen [...]

I finally got a Wii! This morning, while I was with Eileen and Jacob visiting his grandparents, I told Eileen, “I’m getting tired of the hunt for a Wii. Maybe I’ll just get a PS3 and enjoy some Blu-ray movies. Lets go to Fry’s and check out the PS3.” So, Eileen humored me and we went to Fry’s. Walking by the desk for software, we saw a sign, “Wii Bundle, Wii + Two Games, $349.” Yea, right, I thought. They actually have Wii’s in stock. So, I asked, out of frustration, “You have the Wii in stock?”

“Yup.”

Whoa. Our off chance visit to Brokaw Fry’s has netted me a Wii! I got the Wii, Wii Play ($10 game, $40 Wii-mote) and WarioWare. I totally forgot that the Wii only includes the composite cables for video. I still need to get some component cables for the Wii.

Eileen and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon playing Wii together while Jacob was sleeping. She loves WarioWare (single player). And we love to play Tennis and Bowling together! What fun! The Wii might not have the shiny graphics or Blu-ray player of the PS3. The Wii might not have the shiny graphics of the Xbox 360. But, the Wii certainly has more fun stuff to do than either of the two “next generation” gaming consoles.

Nintendo was smart to bundle Wii Sports with the Wii. Wii Sports really shows off the capabilities of the Wii. Yes, the graphics are so last generation. But, the fun is so, the next generation. The PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms seem to concentrate on next-gen graphics and…well, FPS games. There’s nothing wrong with that, except that I am kind of tired of the FPS genre.

I got the Opera browser from the Wii Store. It…works…GREAT. Fantastic having a browser for a 10ft interface. Even if I’m not going to use it all the time, just having it is great. The Photos Channel is actually pretty good also. I tried it briefly with an SD card full of photos. Very nice indeed.

Anyways, I think the Wii, like the DS, is a great reinvention of what a gaming console can be. Yes, it may not be for hardcore gamers — who will most likely flock towards the PS3 and Xbox 360 — but as a mass-market gaming device, the Wii is really showing the gaming industry that it is all about the fun, not about the graphics.

I visited Micro Center yesterday at lunch (which curiously my wife asked, “They’re still in business?”) and I was quite surprised when I got into the store.  For those of you who haven’t been to a Micro Center — and that could be most of you — they have a huge book section in the [...]

I visited Micro Center yesterday at lunch (which curiously my wife asked, “They’re still in business?”) and I was quite surprised when I got into the store.  For those of you who haven’t been to a Micro Center — and that could be most of you — they have a huge book section in the store. I would say their book section was a good 15-20% of the floor space at a store. Well, not anymore. Yesterday, when I arrived at the book section, it had been sectioned off. The book section was now about 40% of its old self, the other 60% was dedicated to console gaming.

I can understand Micro Center doing this, as they are in business to make money and they will dedicate floor space to what is actually selling. But, it is a pretty sad reflection on our society that we have become so enamoured with the instant gratification of video games that books (and more importantly, reading) has taken a backseat.

On an off-note, I got to play Gears of War on the Xbox 360 finally and I must say:  Graphics, sound and music score are fantabulous!  Framerate?  Not so fantastic, after a few minutes of play I was feeling a bit nauseous — and this only happens to me with games that have bad framerates.

The market has spoken…They love Wii and don’t want to spend $600 on a PS3. Surprised? Not really. What still makes me smile is that the PS2 continues to stomp over Xbox 360 in regards to sales. The top two consoles cost less than $300, are people trying to tell us [...]

The market has spoken…They love Wii and don’t want to spend $600 on a PS3. Surprised? Not really. What still makes me smile is that the PS2 continues to stomp over Xbox 360 in regards to sales. The top two consoles cost less than $300, are people trying to tell us that they don’t believe consoles are worth more than that?  The numbers for January:

1. Wii - 436,000 units sold
2. PS2 - 299,000 units sold
3. Xbox 360 - 294,000 units sold
4. PS3 - 244,000 units sold

It is too early to announce a winner for this generation of consoles, but I think there is a clear leader: Nintendo. It has been a long time since they have had such great success, but it is nice to see them back. This is a good sign that gamers are looking for something different. You can only play so many first-person shooters before they get stale — and that seems to be the genre of choice for the Xbox and PS3 platforms. Also, I think it is a good sign that horsepower and graphics don’t hold as much draw when compared to “fun”. Make a console and stock it with games that are fun, and people won’t care if you can see the hair on the back of a character’s neck.