Why The Super Mario Bros. Collection Makes Me Angry

The Onion’s AV Club reviewed the 25th Anniversary Super Mario Bros. Collection today. Spoiler warning: They gave it an F.

This is where you would expect the Nintendo fanboy in me to start screaming and howling about how the AV Club is not being fair to Nintendo, and they’re forgetting about the BEAUTY of these games. If that’s what you came here to read, I’m sorry to have wasted your time.

The fact of the matter is, Nintendo has dropped the ball with regards to the Anniversary Collection. I can’t even begin to describe how badly Nintendo dropped the ball. They didn’t just drop the ball, they dropped it down a storm drain and then drowned trying to go get it back, and then badgers ate the body.

Here’s what you get when you drop $30 on this anniversary collection:

1. A warmed-over ROM of Super Mario All-Stars
2. A booklet
3. A music CD
4. Regret

First of all, Super Mario All-Stars was a really fun game... in 1993 when no one EVER released games for the previous system on the new system. It was amazing to be able to play Mario 1, 2, 3 and the Lost Levels for the first time in glorious 16-bit color and sound. Those of us in the US had never even played the Lost Levels, so it was an extra treat. Plus, you could save your game! Rock ON!

That was 17 years ago. These things are now passe. For example, we’ve seen Super Mario 1 redone so many times that we’re bored by it. We’ve seen Super Mario Advance and Super Mario Advance 4, which redid Mario 2 & 3 with way more enhancements. The Lost Levels, having now been “found,” are no longer a huge draw.

On top of that, you can purchase all of these games via the Virtual Console service for $21 total. Twenty-one dollars! Let’s do the math:

$21 < $30

Via this complex mathematical formula, I have extrapolated that $21 is, in fact, LESS than their asking price for the Anniversary Collection.

“But, Mr. Blogger Nerd Rage Man, these are ENHANCED GRAPHICS! SAVE SLOTS! Not only that, but there’s a booklet and music CD! That has to be worth $9 more, right?”

You could make the argument that those additions add up to $9 worth of extras, except for two things:

1. Nobody really likes the enhanced graphics or music. What will draw a bigger crowd, the original Super Mario Brothers music, or the “improved” Super Nintendo music? What about the “improved” graphics? What’s the bigger nostalgia trip? Essentially, Nintendo is charging you extra for something you don’t want, didn’t ask for, and don’t really like.
2. Save slots aren’t that important anymore. Using the Virtual Console, you can easily stop your in-progress game and move on to a different game. In the NES and Super Nintendo days, there was no way to do so. Your only option was leaving the system on overnight, which could damage it or cause it to overheat. It was a Big Deal to have save slots. Now, not so much.
3. The booklet and music CD are flimsy at best. Quick, where can you find information on the making of Super Mario Brothers? TRY EVERYWHERE. Where can you listen to the original music of the game? HEY LOOK, YOUTUBE. There is absolutely nothing here that you can’t find free elsewhere, and in many cases, better quality.
4. Where the &#$^ is Super Mario World? For a time, they were releasing cartridges with Super Mario All-Stars and Super Mario World together. What happened? Why did they decide not to include it?

Here’s what really gets me. What did Nintendo do with this collection? They quite literally slapped a Mario All-Stars ROM on a disc and sent it off to printing. The ROM itself is maybe 8 megabytes large. What did they fill up the rest of the disc with? Pictures of their moms and dads? Vacation memories? The unabridged Oxford Dictionary? It’s quite possibly the laziest collection I have ever seen.

Let’s compare this collection to the Mega Man Anniversary Collections. The Mega Man Anniversary Collection has 8 Mega Man games on it, two unlockable Mega Man arcade games, unlockable galleries and more. The Mega Man X Anniversary Collection has 6 Mega Man games on it, an unlockable kart-racing game, and galleries. This is from Capcom, a company that has far less money than Nintendo.

Now, imagine if Nintendo had gone that extra mile. Imagine if this collection had Mario 1, 2, 3, the Lost Levels AND Super Mario World AND allowed you to unlock, say, Super Mario Land 1 and 2 and maybe Donkey Kong. I would have been happy with that. That would have been amazing. As it is, they handed out poop in a box.

Here’s the sad part: If they would have released this five years ago as a 20-year anniversary collection, it would have been amazing. Playing the Mario games on your Gamecube and using the music CD at a time when we still used CDs would have been awesome. As it is, the Super Mario Bros. Anniversary Collection was a giant missed opportunity and one of the most pathetic collections I’ve ever seen.

Our New Mission Statement

You may have seen that our new mission statement is “Analysis without the hype cycle.” You may wonder what we mean by that. Here’s the explanation.


You may remember this article, where I talked about the problems plaguing game reviews. One of the problems with game reviews and reviewers is this: They’re too close to the industry. They depend on exclusives and advertising from the industry to fuel their own traffic and give them something to write about.

I’m not saying this in a conspiratorial, us-versus-them manner. It’s the God’s honest truth. For example, looking at IGN right at this instant, there are ads for Mafia II from Direct2Drive, Adventure Quest, Tron Evolution, and OnLive. Gamespot is skinned with Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Maple Story, Kinect Joy Ride, and EA’s iPhone games.

I’m not criticizing these publications by any means. I mean, it makes sense to advertise games on a gaming website. A lot of journalists are great, fine, upstanding individuals and I would never state that their journalistic credibility is suspect. But when your salary is literally paid for by the companies that you sometimes need to tell people to avoid, it adds an extra dimension to your already-taxing job.

However, that’s not where the largest part of where game journalism fails, since most reviewers try and be honest. It’s actually a little bit deeper of a problem.

Above all else, what does every gaming company wan? They want you to buy the latest game, system or accessory that they’re producing. If you stop buying their products, they’ll go out of business. If they go out of business, the game sites and magazines close up too. So what’s a game site to do?

You’ll notice that a lot of game sites focus on what’s coming up, what’s new and what the best games are of this year. They don’t spend much time looking into the past or putting games in historical context. They also have a tendency to hyperbolize newer games at the expense of older ones. Every new game is one of the Best Ever, so you can throw out your old copies of game X, or, even better, trade them in.

It seems that a lot of the sites get involved in the hype cycle, which is kind of like this:

1. “What game is next?”

2. “Ooh, can’t wait for this new game!”

3. “It’s out! Quick play it!”

4. “Good, huh?”

5. “What game is next?”

6. Go to step 2.

Once again, I want to make it perfectly clear that I’m not saying that all game reviewers are immoral and purposely trying to get you to waste your money. However, with all sorts of sites all around the globe talking about what’s new and coming up next, very few discuss what’s happened and how it matters to what’s going on today.

There’s a problem with this approach. One, many games are meant to be savored and enjoyed. If you blast through them without glancing to your left and right every once in a while, you miss out on some really cool stuff.

Two, the only people that can legitimately keep up with this approach are teenagers or adults with no responsibilities. As you get older and approach middle age, like most of the gaming audience is doing, you can’t keep up. You end up in a very frustrating position while the rest of the world passes you by and your backlog mounts.

Three, it creates an economic strain and beefs up the power of places like Gamestop. In order to keep up, you have to sell Game X that you just finished QUICKLY before it loses value, and eBay and Glyde take too long. Gamestop’s just down the street and they’ll give you something for it. Go! Go! Go!

Downwards Compatible has always been about avoiding the games that are hyped out of control and focusing on what’s enjoyable to play right now. We’ve never formally made it our mission statement, though, and that’s what we’re doing today.

Downwards Compatible: Analysis without the hype cycle.

It means that you’ll be able to talk about what’s already come out instead of what’s coming out. We’ll focus on new technologies, sure. We’ll talk about interesting things that we see happening in the world of gaming, most definitely. However, we’re not going to go chasing after rainbows and trying to find that elusive game that will somehow make us happy. We’re going to take our time, chew thoroughly games that we like, and figure out why we like them.

Hopefully, you’ll stick along with us for the ride. Thanks for reading.

Major Redesign

Exciting things are afoot at ↓C! We've just replaced the main page with all the goodies that Google rolled out in the last year, and we're contemplating a FULL redesign to go along with all the fun! We've also got a new mission statement, as you can see above.

What does it mean? We'll explain in a different article.

Downwards Compatible's End Of Year Awards

Most Disappointing Game

Metroid Other M

It wasn't the cutscenes that bothered me about this game. It wasn't the storyline or the characterization of Samus that annoyed me either. What annoyed me was this: They removed the essence of Metroid and then called it a Metroid game.


For example, in a normal Metroid game, you would have been subjected to the hot areas or the slowness of the gravity areas until you found the Varia or Gravity suit. Then you could gleefully traverse the areas that you couldn't before. You could also take out enemies that you couldn't before since you now had the tools needed to handle them.

I think Nintendo discounted how important that feature is to the long-term appeal of Metroid. Metroid has always been about seeing things you can't open or defeat, then finding the tool on your own and pushing past the problem. It's a sense of satisfaction knowing that YOU did something.

Other M instead keeps you from doing anything because you're just waiting for permission. This kills one of the biggest battles at the end, because you're not told that you have permission to use a specific weapon and since it hasn't been demonstrated since the very beginning of the game, you've forgotten how to use it.

Also, Metroid is about backtracking. It's about returning to previous areas stronger to show you how far you've come since the beginning. It's only until AFTER the game is over that you can finally play Other M the way you SHOULD have been able to at the beginning. Sigh. Such a missed opportunity.

Most Pleasant Surprise

The Wii's Emergence As A Real Gaming System

The Wii had one of its best years this year. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is an all-time classic, and they've had decent game after decent game come out. The only thing Wii gamers are missing is a major RPG, but that will never-

OH LOOK THERE IT'S "THE LAST STORY!"

Love it.

Most Shocking Decline That I Saw Coming a Mile Away

The Death of Guitar Games

As recently as earlier this year, I said that the massive amounts of Guitar Hero spinoffs would kill not only the Guitar Hero brand but also Rock Band and anyone else who tried to make them. Didn't I? Didn't I call this one from a mile away?

Then Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock launched and everyone was surprised that it flopped. Then Rock Band 3 fell on its face undeservedly. I'm telling you, Activision is driving every single one of its franchises into the dirt and the next one up is Call of Duty. You heard it here first.

Game That's Like Eating A Really Good Sandwich That Has Poop In It Every Ten Bites

Donkey Kong Country Returns

I love DKC Returns. I really do. It's fun, it's smart, it's just the right amount of difficult. However, about every ten levels, you're presented with a level where you have to fly a rocket around the level. This rocket is difficult to control, and you only have one hit until you're dead. Save points are few and far between in these levels.

Add to this the Super Guide system, which starts bothering you after you die eight times in the level and you CAN'T TURN OFF, and you have a recipe for rage quitting.

Great game, though.

Game I'm Most Looking Forward to Playing Now That I'm Not Writing For Gaming Trend

InFamous

I've been writing for Gaming Trend for the past two and a half years. They're a fine publication, and we left on good terms. However, for the last two years I haven't been able to do what I love doing: Buying piles of games dirt-cheap and playing them at my leisure. I used to do this all the time. I bought the original Ghost Recon for $2 used. I've bought games like Viewtiful Joe for $1.99. At that price, almost any game is fun.

Now that I own a PS3, I want to do the same thing. The first game on my list was Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I played it for a while and had a good time, and I intend to finish it before I move on to Uncharted 2. However, I also now have InFamous, and everyone tells me it's better than Prototype, which I loved. Looking forward to it.

Downwards Compatible Games of the Year

3) Kirby's Epic Yarn

Kirby's Epic Yarn exists to make you smile. If you play games to take out your aggression or the equivalent of punching a pillow when you're angry, you won't like Kirby. However, if you play games to have a good time, relax and smile, then you'll enjoy Epic Yarn.

2) Dragon Quest IX

I've now put in about 80 hours in DQ9 and I still haven't finished it. It's not even like I've done a ton of side quests or anything: I've just been goofing around and levelling up characters. It's a turn-based JRPG in its purest form, and it's magic.

1) Super Mario Galaxy 2

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is remarkably confident. It's hard, it sounds great, it's clever, and it looks beautiful. It's the new game against which all 3-D platformers should be judged, and it should stand as one of Nintendo's crowning achievements in a long list of them.

Review: Create

Developer: EA Bright Light
Publisher: EA

A lot of game executives looked around about a year ago and notice that while they were each sitting on a fairly decent pile of cash, Nintendo was rolling around naked in money a la Indecent Proposal. Independently of each other, they decided that they would like to be rolling around naked in money as well and decided to copy what they perceived to be Nintendo’s strategy: Go after non-gamers and make super-simple games for them while using peripherals such as motion controls.

Most companies have found that this strategy hasn’t really worked, since that wasn’t really Nintendo’s strategy after all. That secret is closely guarded in a pocket hidden within Satoru Iwata’s underpants. However, that doesn’t stop companies from trying.

The latest attempt at reach a wide family-friendly audience is EA’s Create. It purports to be a game that’s all about accessibility and solving problems using only the blob of grey stuff in your head. How does it turn out? Let’s find out.

You Must First Create The Universe

Create has two major parts to it: A bunch of challenges and an overworld that you can decorate. During the challenges, they’ll present you with, say, a gas can and ask you to get it onto the back of a truck. They’ll present with a few tools, like a motorbike and a couple of ramps. It’s your job to figure out how to work it all together. If you solve it, you get a “spark,” and collecting enough of those unlocks the next world.

In the overworld, you’re presented with a place, like a circus. They’ll ask you to, make a “Create Chain,” meaning they want you to place a certain amount of objects on the world. For instance, they’ll want you to color in some of the blank textures with whatever available texture you choose: Grass, brick, concrete, polka dots and the like. They’ll want you to place some items, like maybe Ferris wheels, trucks, animals or whatever. Once you’ve placed enough, they’ll reward you with another spark.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering where the “creation” comes in. That’s just it: You don’t really do any creating. You use the items that the game gives you to solve puzzles or add stuff into the world. You don’t get to change the world itself. You’re just adding little bits and pieces to it.

On top of that, the puzzles don’t really give you a lot of options. Most of the ones I played presented you with a few items and told you to solve the problem using JUST those items. There were cases when I would realize that there was the PERFECT item to solve the puzzle but the game wouldn’t let me use it. I would have to jury-rig a solution using parts that I didn’t really want to use. Now, they may be thinking that limitations breed creativity, but they really don’t. It just makes Create reminiscent of those bad 90’s adventure games that demand that you use nightmare-dream logic in order to solve a puzzle when there’s a much more viable solution that they won’t let you use.

The controls also don’t do Create any favors. I used a Dualshock controller to play Create and found the menus horribly unintuitive. You may be thinking that if I used the Move controller maybe I would find the menus easier. However, using the Move controller wouldn’t change the underlying bass-ackward menu organization that mars Create.

Here’s how the menu is divided: Environment tools, game objects, brush tools and world tools. What’s the difference between an environment tool and a world tool? Beats me. After playing through several of the levels, I still couldn’t always find the tool that I needed and had to back in and out of several menus before I found the right one. It’s also important to know that I have 25 years of experience navigating in-game menus and still struggled.

You’ll also have to use these menus A LOT. In fact, the whole game is menu-driven. How could you take the main part of the game and screw it up so badly? It would be like a Halo game accidentally remapping the fire button to moving the left control stick backwards and mapping the movement controls to the D-pad, then not allowing you to change it at all. Microsoft would never let the product out of the front door. How did EA let this one go without some major overhauling?

When writing this review, I feared that maybe I was overthinking things. Maybe I was expecting Create to be something that it wasn’t. However, with a name like “Create” there are certain expectations. If someone buys this off the shelf, they will see words like “imagination!” and brightly-colored swirls of paint beckoning them to a world of magic and wonder. When they find that they’re doing what amounts to painting a dollhouse, I have a feeling that they’ll be disillusioned.

Final Grade: D

Review: Super Scribblenauts

Developer: 5th Cell
Publisher: WB Games

2009’s Scribblenauts was infuriating for a lot of people, including this reviewer. Up until that point, developer 5th Cell had made games that showed that they understood how and why people play games. Scribblenauts was an amazing concept that got buried underneath piles of major mistakes.

This review isn't going to be about throwing dirt on the old version of Scribblenauts. Lots of reviewers already did that. Still, it's important to list the flaws of the original to see what needed improvement. Here are three of the major ones:

1. It was unfocused. They would throw you into a puzzle and expect you to sink or swim. That's not always a problem, but when the victory conditions weren't spelled out or unreasonable impositions were placed without any explanation of an alternative, it led to a lot of frustration.
2. Most puzzles could be solved by placing a jetpack on your character and racing him over to where he needed to be. Why sit and try and come up with a complex solution when it's easy enough to just make a mode of transport and finish the puzzle? Some may say that I was missing the point and I needed to be more creative, but I'm a pretty practical person. If you present with me with an easy solution and a Rube Goldberg-esque tangle of solutions that may or may not work, I'll take the easy solution any day. I suspect most people are the same.
3. Maxwell controlled horribly. 5th Cell has stated that they meant for you to direct him and not control him directly, but many puzzles demanded a certain level of movement that was only possible with direct control. In many cases, one false move could lead to death, and it was far too easy to make that false move.

OK, so we've detailed the three major flaws of Scribblenauts. You may have more in mind, but the point remains the same: Scribblenauts was a fantastic and wholly original idea marred by substandard execution and weird decisions. So does Super Scribblenauts improve on the original, or does it merely rehash the mistakes of its predecessor?

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver."

As in the original, Super Scribblenauts has you solve puzzles with...well, anything. If you enter in a word, chances are they have it in their enormous dictionary. Everything from computer to broadsword, azalea to zebra, it'll probably be there.

The big change is the addition of adjectives, which makes the game so much deeper and much less frustrating. For example, there are so many times in the original game that I wanted to make something heavy and wouldn't be able to. In Super Scribblenauts, it's very easy to make, say, a long heavy stone bridge.

This comes into play in a great deal of puzzles. One puzzle has you as a blacksmith attempting to outfit a soldier with weapons to defeat a variety of foes. The first weapon can be anything, but then they ask you to defeat flaming foes, so you have to create a weapon that has the power of ice, like a "Frozen Bow," and so on.

In one puzzle, you're presented with a giant robot and have to make a girlfriend for him. You have to make, say, a "Giant Metal Woman," then give her clothes that will attract the robot and a romantic gift that a robot would like.

In a personal favorite puzzle, you have to get into a fancy party, get a keycard, turn off a security camera and get information from a safe without harming any of the guards. You have to create a disguise, immobilize a guard without killing him and then escape on a motorboat.

If these puzzles sound more focused than the original game's puzzles, that's because they are. They'll usually explain exactly what your objective is, and then help you to figure out what you need to do next. Some people may like this, and some people won't. I found that the improved focus made me much more creative, since I didn't have to think so much about "How do I do this?" and focused instead on "what should I use?"

Another very welcome addition is a help system. If you need a hint, you can purchase up to two hints using the game's currency, "Ollars." In certain multi-stage puzzles, they'll provide you with several hints for the various stages of the puzzle. I can't tell you how many times that's taken a puzzle from, "What the heck am I supposed to do here?" to "Oh, that makes sense." It cuts way back on your frustration level and is greatly appreciated.

In the first game, puzzles were divided between "Action" and "Puzzle" types. The problem was that some of the so-called Action puzzles were more puzzle-y, and some of the puzzle ones demanded quick reflexes. On top of that, some action puzzles were so fast that you could barely get one word out before you were beset by enemies.

They've removed that distinction here. Now, most every puzzle gives you a little time to breathe beforehand, examine the situation and figure out what you need. There's a timer running in the corner, but missing the allotted time doesn't make you automatically end the puzzle.

The controls are also greatly improved. They give you the option of using the original game's controls in case you liked them for whatever reason, but you'll probably do what everyone else has done and map the movement controls to the D-pad. It's amazing what this one little change did to the flow of the game. Now, instead of having the stylus handle character controls AND camera controls, the stylus is free to handle the camera and any objects you have on the map while you control your character's movements.

There are a few times where you'll wish that your character could jump higher or farther, or that he could run faster. However, I argue that those limiting factors improve your creativity. If your character could run at super speeds or leap large gaps, why would he need to create anything? It's fine the way it is.

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones But Words Will Never Hurt Me

Super Scribblenauts still has a few flaws. For one, some puzzles are a little opaque. For example, in one puzzle you're presented with four characters: A king, a butler, a leprechaun and another character. You have to wear clothes or handle items that will make all of them happy. I decided to make a gold plate to hold on to, since the gold would make both the king and leprechaun happy and the plate would make the butler happy. Well, the butler didn't like the plate. Instead, I made a gold serving tray, assuming that now all three would be happy. Unfortunately, the king no longer liked the tray. Why? Who knows! Why didn't the butler like the plate? Who knows!

You'll run into this from time to time: Puzzles that you would think you have answered end up being incorrect. You'll try tweaking your answer or coming up with different answers and none of them are satisfying.

Also, sometimes they'll expect you to read their mind a little too much. One puzzle had me coming up with items for an outdoor party. I put down a tent so that they would have shelter, but they didn't think that was a party thing. I had some food, some music and a clown for entertainment. The game still wanted more. I tried putting down another entertainer, and they didn't want that. I put down something to drink, and they liked that. I tried putting down sports equipment for activities, and they didn't like that, and so on.

At no time did they tell me what I was missing. Even when I checked the hints, Super Scribblenauts only told me I needed food and entertainment. I got pretty desperate. I put down a grill, but it set fire to a table. I made cake, and a character ate it and got cavities. Worst party EVER.

They'll also sometimes ask you to put down one more item that you can come up with. For example, they may ask for eight items to put in a garden. You'll come up with 5 right off the bat and then they'll start repeating. For instance, a rosebush just puts down a rose. If I put in a tulip, it's the same as a rose, and so on. After a while, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

A Worthy Sequel

Still, Super Scribblenauts is all about the little things, like giving Abe Lincoln and George Washington flamethrowers and watching them fight a horde of courageous zombies or making riding a velociraptor against a cowardly Zeus. While a lot of people got that out of their system with the original game, it's still always fun to just mess around for a while.

For all the hype that floated around the original Scribblenauts, it ended up delivering a lot less than promised. Super Scribblenauts delivers the goods in a way that the original couldn't. If you liked the original Scribblenauts but found it too frustrating, Super Scribblenauts is for you. If you never played the original, skip it and get this one instead. You’ll have a great time.

Used Games Are KILLING THE INDUSTRY and It's YOUR FAULT

This actually made me pretty mad. Cory Ledesma of THQ has gone on record as saying that they don't care about people who purchase used games, and says the following:

"We hope people understand that when the game's bought used we get cheated."

Consider three things, Mr. Ledesma.


1) The economy is bad. Getting ever-so-slightly better, but still bad.

2) Used game sales only happen because someone bought the original game.

3) Major publishers rarely, if ever, lower the price of new games until next year's version comes out.

It's ridiculous comments like this that send me into a froth. Consider my following story, which I have recounted repeatedly:

After being unimpressed with Super Mario Sunshine and 3D Mario games in general, I passed up Super Mario Galaxy until I could find it used for $30. I loved it so much that when Mario Galaxy 2 came out, I preordered it and picked it up on day one.

That would not have happened otherwise. I wasn't going to drop $50 on a game that I didn't think I was going to like. No one will unless they have disposable income, and fewer people have disposable income than any time in the industry's short lifespan.

Now, it's true that the companies only have one distribution level, i.e. games at retail. Unlike the movie or music industry, they don't have touring or theaters to prop up their business model.

However, whose fault is that? The fault of the consumer, so that they should have to pay to prop up your poor decisions? Or is it the fault of the business owner who is only depending on one stream of revenue? Just because publishers are only making money one way doesn't mean that the consumer needs to get punished for it.

Review: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Nintendo

The Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series have a sort of shared history between them. Both are RPGs, and both started their respective trajectories at the same time on the NES. Both gained popularity in Japan and then made their way to Stateside. Their respective companies, Enix and SquareSoft, eventually ended up merging together to form Square Enix.

However, while Final Fantasy had its breakthrough with Western audiences with Final Fantasy VII, Dragon Quest hasn't had that much of an impact here. Since Dragon Quest games are so huge in Japan, it’s odd that they're not quite as popular with Western audiences, as Dragon Quest games are always of extremely high quality.

The only real difference between the two series is that the rules in Final Fantasy games change from game to game. They don’t use the same battle systems, style of play, even the same art design from game to game. Someone who has only ever played Final Fantasy I will have to idea how to play Final Fantasy XIII. That allows for a lot of evolution from game to game.

By contrast, if you’ve only ever played the first Dragon Quest, the newest iteration, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, will be immediately familiar. The same basic mechanics are there. It’s turn-based combat with spells, levelling up, and the like. The underpinning Dragon Quest-ness really hasn't changed after all these years.

This puts forth an interesting question: Is that a bad thing? Does a traditional JRPG like Dragon Quest need to evolve? Is there enough here to justify picking up Dragon Quest IX if you’ve already played a previous Dragon Quest title?

A Heavenly Quest

In Dragon Quest IX, you play the part of a Celestrian. Celestrians are guardian angels over the world, and you’ve been assigned to watch a quiet burg called Angel Falls. Shortly after receiving your commission, a large earthquake shakes the heavens and earth, casting you down to the world below without your halo or wings. You realize that you must help people in order to gain acceptance by the gods and get back what you’ve lost.

One of the first things you’ll notice is that the characters you use in your party are largely ciphers. They don’t have voices, dialogue, or any personality, and the main character is a silent protagonist. However, while your crew may not be very well-defined, the characters you meet in your travels are.

Within the first hour, you’ll meet a woman who didn’t know her father was a legendary innkeeper, a lazy young adult who finds a calling he didn’t know he had, a mayor who’s frustrated with that same lazy son, and your exacting teacher who has some doubts about your abilities but chooses not to voice them to you.

Along the way, you’ll be fixing all manner of problems, and in some cases there’s only so much you can do. You have to give these well-drawn characters the push in the right direction to fix their own problems, and the result is satisfying. For example, in one affecting setpiece, a neglectful husband's wife dies. It’s your job to teach him not to shut himself off from the world even though he’s grieving and become a better person as a result. It’s cases like these that make the world feel real.

Another cool touch: As mentioned before, Angel Falls gets shaken by the earthquake at the beginning of the game. Among other things, the church bell and town sign are broken. When I came back about ten hours later, the bell was fixed and the sign was back up. The characters even remark on how long it’s been since they saw you, and there are other significant changes to their dialogue as well. Things like that go a long way towards convincing you that the world is more than just a place full of monsters, but a living, breathing place.

Of course, though, this is a JRPG. Being a JRPG, there need to be battles, and they're exactly what you would expect from Dragon Quest. It's turn-based, you pick a command, and then your characters perform the attacks/spells/abilities that you’ve told them to do. There's not a whole ton of flash and dash to the battles, but there are a few tweaks.

One excellent tweak is the removal of random battles. Instead of random battles, you’ll see the enemies on the screen and can choose to approach or avoid them. In some cases, you can’t really avoid them, and sometimes they’ll either run at you or away from you if you’re more or less powerful. It’s pretty great because it gives you a good amount of control over how much battling you want to do. I sincerely hope that future Dragon Quest titles use this feature.

While your characters earn experience points in the traditional way, there’s another wrinkle in the combat that’s really quite fun. There are several classes that you pick from, like Gladiator, Minstrel, Martial Artist, and so on. When your characters earn XP, they earn XP specifically for that class. If you want to change classes, they drop back down to level 1 in the new class, but since there are no equipment restrictions, you can outfit that level 1 character in equipment normally used by a level 15 character and level up fast with the new skill.

You’ll want to change your classes up, since the ability point system from Dragon Quest VIII is back, and is much, much deeper. Every few levels, you gain ability points that can be used toward improving your skill with the several different classes of weapons or each individual classes’ special skills. For instance, the Martial Artist has a special move called “War Cry,” which can cause fear to a group of enemies. The Minstrel can use “Egg On,” which raises your fellow party members’ tension, making their next attack stronger, and so on. When you change classes, those special abilites you gained will move with you. It adds another layer of strategy to combat, and makes your team even more fun to use.

Alchemy also returns from Dragon Quest VIII, which enables you to mix ingredients together and create new weapons, armor, accessories and items. If you want the best equipment, you’ll need to get a handle on how alchemy works, but scattered throughout the world are various books which will give you recipes explaining what you need to make your fancy new cat-shaped shield.

On top of that, using Nintendo WFC, you can connect to DQVC, which is Dragon Quest’s “home shopping network.” On that service, you can find hard-to-find or rare pieces for alchemy. In some cases, you can find equipment that would normally be way out of your league as well. It’s a cool feature that I’ve used quite a bit so far.

The music is also excellent. It’s dramatic when it needs to be, chipper without being cloying, and generally easy to listen to. Some of the same sounds are repeated from prior Dragon Quest games, as well as some snippets of music, but not enough to totally distract you. It’s just enough nostalgia to be good.

Dragon Quest IX looks great for a DS game, and they’re some of the best the system has to offer. This doesn't come without a price, though. In some areas, you’ll see fairly significant slowdown. This usually happens when all four of your characters are on screen, but it’s still annoying. They’ve tried minimizing this by having a combination of fully-3D characters (usually your party and any important NPCs) and 2D sprites, but it still happens. It’s not enough to totally derail the game, as RPGs aren’t generally twitch-based games and it happens relatively rarely, but it’s still there.

There are other little complaints that could be raised about Dragon Quest IX. For one, if you don’t like traditional turn-based JRPG combat, you won’t like Dragon Quest IX's combat. Your mileage may vary.

Also, there are certain tasks that you can only do in certain cities. For instance, would you like to drop off one of your party members for a bit and do some solo adventuring? Go back to the inn at Stornway. Would you like to perform Alchemy? Go back to Stornway. Would you like to change classes? Go to Alltrades Abbey.

It’s not that it’s time-consuming, since you have a spell called Zoom that requires no experience points to use. It’s just that they could have made at least made some way to, say, access your bank account in more cities. I mean, banks have branches, don’t they? That would have fixed that problem. Since these games are steeped in magic, you could have very easily had some magic stone that would connect you to DQVC instead of making you traipse all the way back to the Stornway Inn to check it out, right?

However, one benefit of going back to previously-visited cities is seeing how things have changed. For instance, I would never have seen the changes to Angel Falls if I hadn’t gone there to find some crappy clothes to alchemize. I understand why they made you do it, but it would have been nice if it was more streamlined.

Good Quest

All that being said, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies makes a really good argument that games don't necessarily need to evolve. It’s a very, very good JRPG and one of the best of the Dragon Quest series. I’m about 20 hours in so far, and I’m showing no signs of slowing down. It’s smart, touching, and deep. There’s so much to see and do, so many interesting scenarios that the game presents to you, and the same traditional gameplay that captivated gamers almost 25 years ago. While it may have a few flaws, they’re not gamebreakers.

In other words, if you have a passing interest in the Dragon Quest series, you need to play Dragon Quest IX. It’s not going to win any awards for originality, but in some cases, iteration is preferable to evolution.

E3 2010: Nintendo Reaches Out

Your reaction to 2010's E3 was probably one of two options:

1. Nintendo Ruled!
2. Meh.

Judging by a lot of magazines and online writers, the first reaction was the most common one.  This E3 was viewed as Nintendo's call to the core, where it came back to the games that "we" wanted to play and cool new tech to play with.  No Vitality Sensor, no Wii Fit Extra Plus, no Little Slinky Kitty Goes To Happytown.  Most everyone was happy with this.


The select few that weren't okay with what Nintendo did were left more unimpressed than anything.  Reaction to Kinect was fair to middling and Microsoft seemed more interested in showing that the 360 could do anything but games. Sony's press conference wasn't anything special.  Sure, they showed off some Move titles, but they looked like upgraded Wii titles that we've already played before.  There was no amazing new showstopping game that brought the house down, and nothing really jumped out at most gamers from them.

However, if Nintendo stole the show, why are some unimpressed?  There's a very good reason.

When we discuss "Core" audiences, who are we talking about?  Are we discussing males 18-35 who've played video games for 10 years?  There are certainly loyal female gamers as well.  Are they included in this group?  What about people who've played for five years?  What about preteens and teens who have more buying power than ever?  What about-

Et cetera, et cetera.

See, for most gamers, a "Core" gamer specifically means "Me."  Try reading blog posts and comments from disaffected "Core Gamers" and replace their words with personal pronouns.  It's eye-opening.

"Nintendo has to work to get core gamers back" becomes "Nintendo has to work to get me back."  "Sony and Microsoft's strategy to go after casual gaming will disenfranchise core gamers" becomes "Sony and Microsoft's strategy to go after casual gaming will disenfranchise me" and so on.

There's this odd sense of entitlement in gaming culture.  For instance, we demand a sequel to Beyond Good & Evil, but it sold very poorly.  Why do they absolutely need to make one?  We demand that Nintendo return to their roots, but Nintendo is making more money than ever.  We demand that Sony and Microsoft stick to making games that please us, but they're both hemorrhaging money from their gaming divisions.  Why should they work to please us?

Nintendo made overtures to their longest-running audience, which is people who grew up playing Nintendo games.  Some of those people fell away in time and started playing other systems, while other people stayed on as die-hards and gritted their teeth through the Gamecube years only to be ignored during the Wii years.  Others still stand by Nintendo and keep on playing regardless.

Nintendo reached out to all of those audiences by offering games for everyone.  "You want the little-known and little-played Kid Icarus series back?  Here you go.  You want more of Donkey Kong Country?  Enjoy.  Hey, a new Metroid game is out in a month, even though no one buys Metroid games."

There are many who still aren't satisfied by this.  Even though Nintendo is specifically saying, "Hey, we made ourselves some money and created some new fans by making ourselves more family-friendly.  Come on back," many gamers now sniff at Nintendo's offerings like spurned lovers.

Lighten up, guys!  Nintendo is a company.  They're not your buddies, they're not your parents, and they only exist to make money.  However, the fact that they're even trying to reach out to you should tell you something about how important you are to them.

If I spent a lot of time talking about Nintendo in this review, it's because Nintendo was clearly the winner in this E3.  There's now a buzz about Nintendo's products that didn't exist beforehand, while Microsoft and Sony look a little lost, like they're trying to co-opt Nintendo's ideas about three years too late.  We'll cover more of their problems in a later article.

My Most Played Wii Games (June 2010)

I just thought I'd throw these up here.  Don't worry...my E3 stuff is coming very, very shortly.




1. Super Mario Galaxy - 72 Hrs. 12 Mins. (E)
2. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 54 Hrs. 42 Mins. (+.5 Hrs)
3. Wii Sports - 42 Hrs. 28 Mins. (E)
4. MLB Power Pros 2008 - 41 Hrs. 5 Mins. (E)
5. Mario Kart Wii - 40 Hrs. 27 Mins. (+2.5 Hrs)
6. Beatles: Rock Band - 34 Hrs. 40 Mins. (+2.5 Hrs)
7. Metroid Prime Trilogy - 27 Hrs. 40 Mins. (+.5 Hrs)
8. Rock Band 2 - 23 Hrs. 35 Mins. (+2.5 Hours)
9. Little King's Story - 20 Hrs. 33 Mins (New)
10. Wii Fit Plus - 20 Hrs. 31 Mins (New)

I blame my wife for the Wii Fit Plus reading.  If it wasn't for her, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Monster Hunter Tri would be vying for the next spot.

Top 5 Downloadable Games (Excluding Channels):

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 14 Hrs. 8 Mins. (E)
2. Super Mario RPG -  11 Hrs. 49 Mins (New)
3. Super Mario World - 6 Hrs. 10 Mins (+1.5 Hours)
4. Dr. Mario Online RX - 5 Hrs. 37 Mins. (E)
5. Cave Story - 5 Hrs. 14 Mins (E)

Back From Break

You knew I had to weigh in on E3, right?  We'll have some thoughts posted later.

Opinions In Brief

Opinion 1: Activision Vs. Infinity Ward

First of all, Activision says that Infinity Ward heads West and Zampella were getting a little too big for their britches.  I can see this happening.  Not that I know West and Zampella (I don't), but sometimes people in a newly-minted successful position start making demands that they're not entitled to make.


That being said, the way that Activision mishandled the situation was outrageous. If Infinity Ward is to be believed, they withheld money, which is really the whole point of making a game.  You can make the "games are art, man!" argument all day, but the point of all of it is to do something you love and get paid for it.  If Activision withheld that monetary benefit, they negated the entire point of Infinity Ward's work.

Watch yourself, Bungie.  That's all I'm saying.

Opinion 2: The 3DS

Most of the objections to the 3DS are about a few things:  The price and the feeling that it's a bandwagon product.

First, no one knows the price yet.  Knowing Nintendo, they're not going to price this out of the hands of their consumers.  That's not their style.  Look at the Wii.  Instead of making a $300+ system with HD, their focus was on affordability.  50 million Wiis later, and it's safe to say they learned that lesson in a big way.  So, can we stop whining about the price?

Second, it's not like Nintendo just crapped out the 3DS after watching Avatar.  Their hardware process is a long and arduous route.  They spent a lot of money in R&D trying to determine whether or not this was a good way to go, and I think it'll succeed amazingly.

My major problem with 3D is always the glasses.  3D without glasses and hopefully at a proper price point?  I'm in.

--

I can't think of any other news that jumps out at me right now, but if I think of anything else, it'll get a mention here for sure.

Where Have You Been?

Yeah, I know, I know.  It's been a while since I posted.  A few things conspired against me:

1)  I'm writing for Gaming Trend again.  So far I've thrown together reviews for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Little King's Story, Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Cave Story, and Rage of the Gladiator.  That would explain that.

2)  I'm starting a writing firm called Word Forge to do some freelance copywriting.  It's exciting stuff, but very time-consuming.

3)  We took a trip to Mexico.  A lot of fun.  I didn't burn at all.

4)  My job sucks and is stressful, so therefore you have reason #2.

I'll post some opinions soon.  I haven't died, just vanished for a bit.

Also, happy 4th anniversary, blog!  Here's to many more.

Review: Rage of the Gladiator

Developer: Gamelion Studios
Publisher: Gamelion Studios

Anybody up for another action-based puzzle-strategy beat-em-up? It's not exactly a crowded genre, with only the Punch-Out games filling the gap. Enter Rage of the Gladiator.

The best way to describe Rage of the Gladiator is this: Punch-Out!! with mythical creatures and a skill tree. You play from a first-person perspective and face off in an arena against an opponent.

The controls are very tight. That's a necessity for any Punch-Out clone, and Gamelion Studios nails it. Just like Punch-Out!!, you can dodge left, right, or block head-on attacks. Unlike Punch-Out!!, you can also jump, kick to the left or the right, and call down special attacks that rain destruction from the heavens.
Your opponents look great, with lots of detail and great animation. Just like Punch-Out!!, your opponents will tip their punches with subtle (and not-so-subtle) tics, and the sound work does its job with that too.

Also, having a skill tree in this sort of game is a really neat idea, and I hope Nintendo is taking notes. Here's how it works: After every victory, you get to allocate skill points toward different disciplines: Offense, Defense or Magic. Offensive skills will increase your power incrementally or reward you with more powerful special attacks. Defensive skills will improve your ability to withstand a beating and give you defensive skills that can negate enemy damage. Magic skills will allow you to build up your special meter faster and will open up other skills that can, for instance, transform you into a giant. Figuring out which ones you want is great, and since they're all pretty useful, you can’t really go wrong when selecting them.

There's one part of Rage of the Gladiator that I would really like to single out in particular as worthy of praise: The difficulty curve. This is a clinic in difficulty curves. While you do get a tutorial at the beginning, Rage of the Gladiator doesn't expect you to remember all of your various moves right off the bat. It starts you out with just remembering how to dodge and when, then gives you an opponent that requires that you jump, then gives you an opponent that requires that you block, then hands you another opponent that requires that you kick. After a while, you're using all of these moves in tandem without noticing. That takes serious planning and skill on the part of the developers, and it's worth mentioning.

There are a few negatives to Rage of the Gladiator. First, if you've played Punch-Out!!, you mostly know what you're getting. Aside from the skill tree, there's not a lot of new ground broken here. Considering the paucity of Punch-Out!! clones it's not a huge issue, but be warned: If you don't like Punch-Out!!, you won't like Rage of the Gladiator.

Second, there's only one arena in the game, and you only see the part directly in front of you. I know they did this to limit the size of the game so that they could fit it on WiiWare while still giving the opponents the detail they deserve, but it still feels kind of cheap.

Third, Rage of the Gladiator is presented with an overly-serious narrative. It's obvious that someone spent a whole lot of time on this story, but it just doesn't fit with the tone of the rest of the game. You're playing a fighting game where one of the special moves allows you to repeatedly kick an Archdevil in the crotch. I don't want the fun interrupted every few minutes for another tale of death and revenge from a narrator who sounds like he just drank two jack-and-Cokes and smoked a pack of Pall Malls. Rage of the Gladiator didn't need a story, but oh well. It's there.

Finally, some of your special moves take a while. Some of them take about ten to twenty seconds for the whole animation to play. Don't get me wrong, the animations look great the first time. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth times? Eh.

However, taking the package as a whole, Rage of the Gladiator is good fun. It's another great WiiWare game that will give you about 5-7 hours of playtime, and as long as you're a fan of Punch-Out or even like it in passing, you'll enjoy Rage of the Gladiator.

David Jaffe on Digital Distribution

>Someone has positive comments about digital distribution...and for once I agree with them!

He goes on to add: "For me, digital distribution was a really big deal - just the fact that we're allowed to see games like Shadow Complex and Flower, games that would never be greenlit for $60 retail products.

"The idea of bypassing retail and speaking directly to the customer is pretty exciting," added Jaffe.

Agreed. That has been fantastic. We're seeing a larger variety of games because not every game has to be a AAA $60 game anymore. Can you imagine how outraged you would be if they tried to sell Mega Man 9 for $60? ;I mean, it's a fine game, but that would be crazy talk.

So, insofar as there's a large variety of games that don't necessarily have to sell for large amounts, digital distribution has been a boon, and it's important to realize that. There are two sides to every coin.

Criminally Overlooked Games: Dark Cloud

I'm a big believer in the holy triumvirate of game design: Controls, Achievement and Anticipation. Controls are obvious: You shouldn't have to struggle with the controller to get the game to do what you want it to do. Achievement means that goals should always be attainable yet challenging. Anticipation means that you should always wonder what's around the corner, whether it may be a new weapon, a cool cutscene, or a neat backdrop.


Dark Cloud was one of those games that sold a ton of copies and was quickly forgotten. Released around the time of the launch of the Playstation 2, Dark Cloud doesn't carry a very wide footprint in gaming now. It had its flaws as well, sometimes glaringly so. However, since it held true to the holy triumvirate of game design, it holds up really well.

Dark Cloud was made by Level-5, which has now exploded with Professor Layton, Dragon Quest 8 and 9, and Rogue Galaxy under their belts. Dark Cloud was one of their first proving grounds, where they showed they could make memorable characters with fun mechanics and memorable setpieces.

Here's the plot: You're Toan, a character who looks suspiciously like Link. The Dark Genie has destroyed all life on the planet, and you're tasked with finding pieces of the world and putting it back together. Along the way, you'll make friends with a diverse group of adventurers, like a half-cat half-human girl, a reluctant desert warrior, and a machine-gun toting flying dwarf. You'll rebuild cities, go fishing, and try and stop the Dark Genie from being created.

At it's core, Dark Cloud is a Rogue-like, with randomly generated dungeons and weapons littering the world. Instead of levelling up your character, you level up your weapons with gems you find. You snap them into the weapon, and when your weapon levels up, they become part of the stats of the weapon. After a while, you can turn that weapon into a gem which can be snapped into a new, more powerful weapon to give it improved attributes or upgrade the weapon into a new weapon.

When in the dungeons, you're able to find various globes scattered around that generally have pieces of a city in them. You're able to absorb those pieces and then bring them back in order to construct the city according to the wishes of the townspeople. Sometimes, they'll have simple requests like, "I had a ladder, please bring me one." Sometimes, they'll be more complex, like, "I need to be near water." Sometimes, like in the desert area, they'll be really outlandish, like, "Match up the face on my house with the face on this totem pole AND put me nearby water." Either way, it's immensely satisfying to place trees and ponds and houses and waterwheels and then be able to walk amongst those very same buildings that you put there. It's gives you a really cool sense of accomplishment that you don't get from anywhere else.

When talking about Dark Cloud, I find myself talking more about the mechanics of the game than the underlying plot. In that sense, it's a lot like Diablo, where the design makes the game. However, since Dark Cloud is Japanese, you have to bet there will be some lengthy (yet interesting) cutscenes and some truly strange moments. For instance, one fortune teller tells your fortune by jumping on your head, covering your face with her skirt, and wiggling back and forth. It's weird.

Speaking of the mechanics, Dark Cloud shouldn't be fun. For example, you have manage your thirst. If you get too thirsty, you'll start losing health. Therefore, you have to carry tons of bottles of water with you in especially deep dungeons. Does this make the game more fun? No, absolutely not. Also, your weapons can break. When they break, they're gone for good. All the stats and special bonuses you've implanted in them are gone as well. Does this make the game more fun? No way. I guess the core concept of Dark Cloud was so much fun that it holds up even with its flaws or weird decisions.

Level-5 went back to the well with a bigger budget for Dark Cloud 2, adding more features onto the original game including fish fighting, golfing in the dungeons, photography, and a giant robot. No more managing thirst or perma-broken weapons. You would think that these changes would have improved the game, but I still say that the original was the better game. It was design distilled down to it's purest essence, and that's why Dark Cloud is Criminally Overlooked.

Some EEDAR Analysis:

From EEDAR:

Core Games on Wii Continue To Struggle

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle has scored top reviews averaging a 90 (out of 100) since its release. However, sales came less than 30,000 units for its first week (January 26, 2010 release). Given that the game is more targeted to the traditional core gamers (who tend to be more attached to the Xbox 360 and PS3) this is yet another sign that the Wii is a difficult device for third party publishers to succeed on with M Rated titles. Other titles that have failed to perform despite strong review scores on the Wii include Dead Space: Extraction (ERTS) and MadWorld (Sega). Of course, all three titles did have low marketing budgets, which is likely the wrong strategy to use when attempting to target the Wii consumer, even if you are targeting the “core” market. (Italics ours.)

This is what I've been hammering on. It's like publishers are just expecting that core games will sell on the Wii without any promotion. Here's the thing: They'll promote the crap out of Modern Warfare 2 and Dante's Inferno, ensuring huge sales. Then they say, "See?  Games sell on the 360 and PS3." Then they don't promote Wii games, and then they say, "See?  Games don't sell on the Wii."

OF COURSE THEY DON'T SELL IF YOU DON'T PROMOTE THEM!

Even for traditionally "core" games, they promote them like crazy! How large is the Madden marketing budget? How large was the marketing for Halo 3? It just baffles me, it really does.

January 2010 NPD Results

Via Kotaku and GoNintendo:

01. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) - 656,700
02. Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) - 572,100
03. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) - 555,700
04. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360) - 326,700
05. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 310,900
06. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) - 297,600
07. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3) - 259,000
08. Army of Two: The 40th Day (Xbox 360) - 246,500
09. Just Dance (Wii) - 191,900
10. Darksiders (Xbox 360) - 171,200

U.S. consumers dropped $597.9 million on video games during the month of January, down 12 percent from January 2009, when software sales reached $682.6 million.


Jan 09 to Jan 2010 just for comparison’s sake…

Wii: 679,200 / 465,800
NDS: 510,800 / 422,200
X360: 309,000 / 332,800
PS3: 203,200 / 276,900
PSP: 172,300 / 100,100
PS2: 101,200 / 41,600

So what do we learn?  The Wii is still ahead, but demand has slowed considerably.  360 and PS3 demand is up though, so that can't be blamed on a slow economy.  PS2 demand is waaaaay down.  I think last year was the PS2's last gasp, and we'll see new systems off the shelf shortly.

Also, people, I'm begging you: Stop buying Just Dance.  Please.

Review: Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes

Everyone is falling over themselves to talk up Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. Here are a few choice quotes:

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes comes highly recommended, whether or not you've played any other games in the M&M franchise. This is not a bastardization of the series. If anything, Clash of Heroes may become the catalyst to resurrect a franchise that was once on its last legs. - RPGFan

If you’re looking for a good challenge for your strategic muscles, Clash of Heroes is the game for you. - NSider2

During the course of writing this, Eurogamer MMO editor Oli Welsh popped up on my MSN to ask me if I thought it was a puzzle, RPG or strategy game. It has enough elements of each that I honestly couldn't say. What I did do was recommend it to him wholeheartedly, because, whatever it is, Clash of Heroes is a very good game indeed. - Eurogamer

Clash of Heroes can be summed up very easily. This is one of the best games of 2009. - Kombo

In other words, there is a lot of praise for this game. Is it really such a great game? Yes and no. Yes because it resurrects and restarts a moribund franchise and adds some fantastic ideas to it, and no because it's so poorly balanced and laid out.

Clash has a neat concept at its core that's getting a lot of play lately: The puzzle/strategy/RPG with a story. Puzzle Quest started it, Puzzle Kingdoms made it boring, Henry Hatsworth threw in platforming, and Clash of Heroes brings it back to puzzle/strategy. The concept, in a nutshell is this: Match three or more units together. They'll march forward in a straight line after a set amount of turns and do damage to whatever is in front of them. Your opponent on the upper screen will do the same thing to you. Use this method to defeat a variety of other heroes and bosses with some variations. In some cases, the enemy moves around the field of play, meaning you have to figure out where they're going before you can stop them. In some cases, your units have different powers, like consuming unmatched units in order to boost attack power or leaving a trail of poison in their attack's wake. When you win a battle, you and your units gain experience points.

The underlying mechanics are great fun. Learning the intricacies and timing of this system is fantastic, and the variety of units makes it a pleasure to play. In fact, that's what makes the entire game so frustrating. Here's the problem with Clash of Heroes: It's horribly, horribly unbalanced. It succumbs to what I call Brick Wall Difficulty.

Brick Wall Difficulty can be described like this: You're tooling along, everything's great, the game's been challenging but not overly so. All of a sudden WHAM you hit a wall. You try every skill you have developed in the game to pass it, and you simply can't. It takes an inordinate amount of time to get over the hump, and in some cases it doesn't matter what you do. You will still always hit that wall.

Clash has several such walls. The difficulty spikes almost at random. They don't point you in the way of a solution, they don't help you get over the hump, but they just stare at you and say "Deal." While some may say that this shows trust in the gamer and appreciation for tradition, it really doesn't. It just shows that there were a few too many rough edges in the game and no one involved in the making of it cared. That's a real problem, since the underlying mechanics make you want to play more. You'd like to continue onward, but the game keeps getting in the way.

A few things that contribute to the Brick Wall Difficulty spikes: You're constantly changing characters and starting over from scratch with new ones. Any skills, items, or experience gained from the previous encounters is lost. How could this have been remedied? Allow us to carry over the characters, skills, or items. It's that simple. Even allowing the items to be carried over would be excellent. Instead, you're left running around to do sidequests in an attempt to gain some items that might help you later on knowing full well that as soon as you beat the level's boss you'll lose them all over again.

It leads me to believe that the makers of the game weren't really sure of what the focus of Clash should be. Is it a multiplayer game where the single-player is just to train you on the different factions? If so, then why did they spend so much time crafting a story for it? Is it a single-player game where the multiplayer is there to extend your experience? Then why did they not smooth out the rough edges in the single-player game?

All told, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes had potential. However, in order to see this potential, we'll probably have to wait for the inevitable sequel. Let's hope they learned the right lessons.

Final Rating: C-

The Third Party Conundrum: Is Nintendo In Trouble?

We're not so naive to believe that there are no problems with the Nintendo Wii. Online play is a mess. WiiWare is undersupported and underutilized. The system itself isn't as powerful as its current counterparts. However, another problem comes up among many people: The lack of third-party support. Is it a big deal for Nintendo? Does it really sound the death knell for their far-reaching empire? In order to answer these questions, we have to ask: What's the point of a third-party developer?

During the NES, Genesis and Super NES days, a third-party publisher's role was simple: Make decent games, keep the wheels greased so that there was always something coming down the turnpike for the system's users, and keep people in the habit of buying games until we (either Nintendo or Sega) release a big release. Sometimes, those third-party developers would strike gold and make a AAA title, but they would mostly stick to the background and play a supporting role.

This system worked out great for the console makers. They would have a steady stream of games, keep buzz alive for their system, and get some hefty licensing fees out of the game makers. It didn't work out so well for the developers, since they had to actually pay those licensing fees and deal with the demands and whims of companies far more powerful than their own. For instance, if Nintendo wanted Mortal Kombat censored, then censored it must be. In order to keep making money, those companies had to bow to the whims of their console overlords. Nintendo and Sega could do it, because they were both hardware and software companies. To put it another way: Nintendo and Sega were both equally good at making hardware and software.

Sony decided to change the game with the launch of the Playstation. First, they made the cost of making a game much cheaper buy using disc-based media rather than the old fuddy-duddy cartridge media, but they also loosened the restrictions on making games. They built mutually beneficial relationships with a variety of third-parties and started including them in the process, treating them almost as equals.

Thus emboldened, third parties have stretched their influence far and wide in gaming. Activision and EA are heavy hitters now, and are able to dictate to some of the other companies. Just look at how bold Bobby Kotick was in talking about console price cuts this past year. They now feel that they're an equal part of the video game process, just as important as Microsoft or Sony. They worked long and hard to exert such a powerful influence over the industry and are now multi-billion dollar companies. They're not going to bow to anybody.

In fact, it's gotten to the point that Microsoft and Sony (but mostly Microsoft) are leaning almost exclusively on other companies to make games for their system. If all the third parties walked away from the 360, it would collapse. Sounds a little harsh? Just a review of Metacritic will show the truth.

We're not necessarily judging these lists on the quality and depth of the library, but rather how many games are made by the console manufacturers themselves. First, here are the top ten games for the 360 according to Metacritic:

1 Grand Theft Auto IV
2 BioShock
3 Orange Box, The
4 Mass Effect 2
5 Gears of War
6 Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The
7 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
8 Halo 3
9 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
10 Braid

We'll note that only two of these games are made by Microsoft. Here's the Nintendo list:

1 Super Mario Galaxy
2 Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, The
3 World of Goo
4 Super Smash Bros. Brawl
5 Rock Band 2
6 Metroid Prime Trilogy
7 Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition
8 Okami
9 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
10 No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

On this list, five games are made by Nintendo. If we go even deeper, we'll find out some more interesting stuff. Let's find the top ten games made by Microsoft on the 360.

5 Gears of War
8 Halo 3
13 Gears of War 2
16 Forza Motorsport 3
27 Forza Motorsport 2
33 Fable II
49 Project Gotham Racing 3
66 Project Gotham Racing 4
85 Viva Pinata
106 Crackdown

You have to go through 106 games on the system (out of a total of 812) before you find 10 quality releases by Microsoft. Of those, four are shooters and four are racing games. Let's contrast this with Nintendo:

1 Super Mario Galaxy
2 Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, The
4 Super Smash Bros. Brawl
6 Metroid Prime Trilogy
9 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
15 New Super Mario Bros. Wii
21 Punch-Out!!
27 Super Paper Mario
32 New Play Control! Pikmin 2
37 WarioWare: Smooth Moves

We go through 37 (out of a possible 540) before we get 10 quality releases from Nintendo. Out of these games, two are platformers, two are RPG-ish, two are fighting games, and two are shooters.

In other words, Nintendo is still treating third parties the way that they used to: Using them to fill in the gaps between major releases while not depending on them. The major players in the industry don't like that. Activision and EA don't want to be relegated to a role of subservience. They're multibillion dollar companies and don't want to beg like Oliver Twist. With Microsoft and Sony, they have all the power. Once again, if all the third parties quit on Microsoft today, the 360 would die. There would be no games for the system. If Nintendo's third parties ceased to exist, it would still get along reasonably well. Third parties exert far fewer control over Nintendo than they would like.

So, if you're a third party and you want to keep your position as a power broker in the industry, would you put copious amounts of money into your Nintendo software? No, not really. With Microsoft and Sony, you have the power. With Nintendo, they have the power, and multi-billion dollar companies don't like groveling to anyone.

The easy solution would be for Nintendo to cede power to the major third parties, but why would they? Nintendo's empire is booming. They're raking in money hand over fist. Nintendo went begging, hat in hand, for third-party support during the lean N64 and Gamecube years because they were in trouble. Now, they have their hat back on their head and have no need to dump their hard-earned money in someone else's lap. Plus, giving the third parties that much control means that they can complain and ask for new features that Nintendo is not willing to provide. Nintendo wants to move at their own pace with things like online gaming and storage. They're not willing to devote a huge chunk of money policing an online gaming system like Microsoft does. They're not willing to put a hard drive in a system if it's going to drive the price up. Those are the sort of demands a third party will make, and Nintendo doesn't want anyone telling them what to do.

It could be argued that it's in Nintendo's best interests to loosen up. In fact, I'll argue that right now. It's in Nintendo's best interests to do so. Nintendo has always had a prickly relationship with third parties going back to the NES/SNES days. Remember how upset Midway was that Nintendo wanted Mortal Kombat censored? Remember the stringent restrictions on how many games a company could make a year? As soon as those publishers could find the open arms of a different company, they went running.

As soon as Sony started creating a more open, less restrictive environment for third parties, countless companies jumped ship. By the end of the N64 years, Nintendo's stable of third parties was a barren wasteland. They made overtures to third parties during the Gamecube years, but they did very little to overcome the frustration of developers in the long run. Now, of course, they don't need the third parties so they're ignoring them again.

Here's the problem: Lean times will come again. They're bound to. Forging good relationships with other companies will help immensely. Look at Sony. They were deferential and accommodating to other companies while they were on top, and now that they're struggling the third parties are still working with them, giving them exclusive content and trying to bolster their market position. However, for Nintendo to accomplish this means they would have to change their entire corporate culture AND drop the protective Japanese mindset that makes them so hyper-independent. It opens them up to more leaks and rumors, which Nintendo can't stand. If you were Nintendo, would you risk it?

There are notable gaps in the Wii's library. 2008 was a vast wasteland, as party games stunk up the system. I even contemplated buying Carnival Games at one point. That's how low things got. If there was more third-party support, those gaps would never appear. There would always be something on the horizon, meaning that people would always have the pump primed to buy more Wii games. That could only help Wii system and game sales.

But is Nintendo to blame for the third-partypocalypse that everyone seems to be predicting these days? Not exactly. There are fatal flaws in a lot of the third-party games that have flopped at retail. Let's take a look:

MadWorld: Repetitive gameplay, so-so reviews.
Dead Space: Extraction: Rail shooter, awful box art, not a widely known series.
House of the Dead Overkill: Rail shooter, poorly promoted.
Little King's Story: Awful box art, poorly promoted.
Muramasa: Confusing box art, 2-D, poorly promoted, needs a bit of familiarity with Japanese mythology.
The Conduit: Awful box art.

You see the problems? Most of the time, we're dealing with messed-up box art or a lack of promotion. Both of those can be laid at the feet of the 3rd party developers. Now, you may think that box art doesn't matter, but it really does. Good-selling games have good box art. Poor-selling games do not. Find me a game that has bad box art but sold a mint. Phalanx for the Super Nintendo doesn't count.

Plus, just because a game is well-known among "gamers" doesn't mean that it will be well-known among game buyers. Those are a completely different animal, and those people depend on things like marketing, brand recognition, and other factors that affect people every day in their purchases.

Nintendo can't help with the box art problem. They can help with the promotion, but some companies don't need the help. For instance, Sega, Activision, and EA have oodles of dollars to spend on this stuff. If they want to spend the money, they'll spend it. Other companies, like Atlus or Marvelous, aren't so lucky. Those are the perfect publishers for Nintendo to cozy up with. They're in a weak position, so they're willing to accept certain demands from Nintendo. They're also purveyors of high-quality content, which is exactly what Nintendo needs.

So Nintendo doesn't necessarily want or need the interference of major third parties like Activision. They want to be left alone to make what they want to make, but having third parties who are willing to work with you is still a nice thing to have. Nintendo shouldn't put their focus on companies that are unwilling to spend the money to make their games successful, but they could and should help support smaller companies that could use the boost. It'll forge a good relationship for the present, will most definitely help smooth out the rough patches in the Wii's release schedule, and will help position them for future success.

Review: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

I didn't beat Spirit Tracks. I came close, but quit near the end. There were a few problems with it. First, there are only four major dungeons. Second, there are only about four special weapons and then the songs for the Spirit Pipes. Third, getting anywhere is a bit of a pain in the butt.


First, let's examine the dungeon problem. If you add in the four trips to the Tower of Spirits (which I don't), you find yourself doing about eight dungeon-ish activities. That's nice, but it just seemed like Nintendo skimped. For instance, you used to receive Heart Pieces for various activities. Now you receive whole Heart Containers for seemingly mundane tasks. That sounds great, but it means that there's less to do. Consider: In Link's Awakening (for the Game Boy!) there were eight dungeons with heart containers and weapons in each. There were 12 Heart Pieces, 25 Secret Seashells, a trading game, and all sorts of other goodies. You could spend hours just looking for secrets.

Now, in Spirit Tracks, they have the Bunny Rescue and you can shuttle people around in order to open up more tracks in the world. It's nice, but completely unnecessary. You find enough stuff just lying around that you don't need to go out of your way to find more secrets. Other games it was darn near essential. Is that a good thing? Depends. I think it is.

Second, the limited amount of special weapons helps and hurts. It means that no weapon is wasted. You're not going to get a weapon that will help you in one dungeon and then become useless from there on out. You'll find puzzles throughout that use the weapons you acquired at the very beginning. That's nice, and I'm not complaining about that. I AM complaining about how few there are. Sure, you can say that using Zelda in some of the Tower dungeons constitutes a weapon, but it really doesn't. She's just someone who helps you, not necessarily a weapon. If that's something that bothers you like it bothers me, there you go.

Third, I like the train. I like it a lot. However, I don't like that it's maximum speed is "grandma on barbiturates after a hip replacement." It can take five minutes to get from one side of the map to the other, and along the way you have to fight the SAME enemies, take the SAME turns, and do the SAME stuff to get there. Plus, the DS really shows off the lack of graphical prowess by the repeated textures in the trees and some of the dull-looking sprites. I think the train is a fine idea that would have been better suited to a system that could make it look a lot prettier.

Is Spirit Tracks bad? No, not at all. It's a fine game. Maybe we demand too much out of Zelda games, but when every game in the Zelda series is so good, getting a game that's a "B" feels like a "C," especially in comparison to some of the dizzying heights this series is prone to.

Final Rating: B

Dealing With A Sinus Infection

WOOOOOOO they rule.  So therefore there haven't been any articles.  I'll be coming back with more shortly.  Don't forget about me.  I'm needy.

Nielsen Ratings For Consoles

Nielsen and NPD just released a comprehensive report of gaming numbers and statistics.  You can read it here.  There are lots of pretty charts and graphs, but also some interesting points.  Here's one:

Consoles tend to be used similarly in three distinct groups. The first group includes the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. These two consoles have the highest active user percent measures of any other console Nielsen measures. They also have the highest average usage days and daily average number of sessions. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have more features and functions than other consoles Nielsen measures. The next set of consoles which have similar primary usage characteristics are the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox. Primary users in the set play at least once a week for more than an hour. The average usage days and daily average number of session are almost identical for users of both the Xbox and PlayStation 2.

The third set of like used consoles are the Wii and GameCube. The Wii and GameCube have similar, and the smallest numbers in terms of daily average number of sessions, average usage days, and active user percent. Predominant users of the Wii and GameCube are likely to use these consoles at most once a week and for fewer minutes and the fewest number of sessions compared to the other two groups of consoles.

However, here's another quote:

Figure 4 shows the usage minutes for all tracked consoles each month from January 2008 to January 2009. Looking at the total usage minutes across all consoles for 2008, PlayStation 2 with the largest installed base still leads all other consoles. However both the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 usage minutes are both trending down for the year. Xbox usage minutes are also trending down for 2008. The Xbox 360, Wii and GameCube usage minutes are trending upward. (Italics ours)

Interesting stuff.  It's weird that the Wii is sold the most but used the least.  However, here's another quote from a noted analyst:

Why, according to this, only 6% of Wii owners ACTIVELY use their Wii! That's hilarious! More people actively use their Gamecube than the Wii! See, the Wii is a fad after all. Cut and dried, right?

Take a look at the top number on the graph. Only 11% of 360 owners actively use their 360 and only 10% of PS3 owners actively use their PS3. Now, let's do a little math.  There are 50 million Wii owners. 6% of that number is 3 million.  There are 30 million 360 owners. 11% of that number is 3.3 million.  There are 20 million PS3 owners. 10% of that number is 2 million.  In other words, almost the same amount across the board use their system regularly. The gap in percentages is not that great, but the graph (and the way people are reading it) makes it look like "OMG A HUEGE GAP!"

Let's See How Well They Did: Dec 2009 (NPD Predictions)

What use are predictions if we can't analyze them afterwards? First, here were the predictions from Michael Pachter and EEDAR for the month of December:

Pachter

Wii- 3,200,000
PS3 - 1,400,000
Xbox 360 - 1,350,000
PS2 - 350,000
PSP - 650,000
DS - 2,450,000

EEDAR

Wii - 3,000,000
PS3 - 1,450,000
Xbox 360 - 1,490,000
PS2 - 350,000
PSP - 350,000
DS - 2,800,000

Here were the final numbers from NPD:

Wii - 3,810,000
PlayStation 3 - 1,360,000
Xbox 360 - 1,310,000
PlayStation 2 - 333,2000
PSP - 654,700
Nintendo DS - 3,310,000

What can we discern from this? First, PACHTER IS A WIZARD. He called most of the squishy middle. Second, everyone underestimated the sales of the Wii and DS again. I think they did it because these numbers
trump 2008's numbers, and they assumed that there was no way they could beat the 2008 numbers in such a down economy. They were wrong.This month's winner: Pachter. We'll keep tracking this, because it's
important to know who to trust in this industry.

Digital Distribution Stats (Via Kotaku)

A study performed by the NPD Group has found that during Q3 2009 (August-September), 90% of all game purchases were "physical", meaning they came on a disc or cartridge. Leaving the other 10% of purchases to be...anyone? Yes, digital, meaning they were downloaded.

The study also had some interesting numbers on games piracy, especially if you're a Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony executive gripped by fear: "only" six million gamers admitted to downloading games illegally during the same period. Six million sounds like a lot, but the NPD Group say that's only 4% of all gamers.

And of that 4%, 72% of the pirating was being done on PC and Mac. So while console piracy is definitely a problem, it's might not be the epidemic some platform holders and publishers would have you believe.

Source