Review: Rayman 3D

Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft

It's fair to say the 3DS has had a disappointing launch library. Nintendo released glorified tech demos plus Nintendogs + Cats, and other developers haven't really given us a lot to play at launch either. When the best games for your system at launch are a turn-based strategy game and a retread of a two-year old fighting game, that's a sign that someone, somewhere was asleep at the wheel.
So, Rayman 3D. It's a twelve-year-old game, redone in 3D. Originally released for the N64, Dreamcast, Playstation and PC back in 1999, it's been systematically re-released for every other system in existence, including wristwatches and toasters. Now it's the 3DS' turn to get a version, right after they release the inevitable abacus version.

Now, don't mistake my whining for hating. Rayman 3D is not a bad game at all. If this was the first re-release of Rayman 2 in a long time, I'd actually be very excited about it. The level design is tight, the main character is unique, and they switch things up quite a bit throughout the game. You're not always just running from point A to point B. Sometimes you have to go back to a previous level and open up a door in order to get a MacGuffin that opens up the next path in a different level. The camera behaves nicely. The sound is still a little annoying and Rayman still sounds like he has a mouth full of peanut butter, but it's not so bad.

That's what I think of Rayman 2 in general. However, if you're thinking about purchasing this game for the 3DS, you're not wondering about how well it controls or how good the level design is. Chances are, you've probably already played it at some point in the last twelve years, so you know that it's a pretty good game. If you haven't played it, you probably have no intention of playing it.

No, if you're thinking about Rayman 3D, it's probably for the 3D. You want to know if 3D improves a platform game or is just a distraction. I'm happy to report that it improves the experience immensely.

For example: At one point, you're falling down a long path slowly. Around you are various "lums," or the little bits that you collect throughout the level to open up bonus areas and the like. In the regular 2D version, it can be difficult to gauge your distance to the lums, and you might have found yourself bypassing them or whiffing completely while you aim at them. However, in 3D, this section is incredibly easy. You can tell your exact distance to them and figure out the correct angle to get to them without too much fuss.

In another part, you're water-skiing behind a character that looks like the Loch Ness Monster. In the 2D version, you may miss some of the lums along the way or end up ramming into the various posts and obstacles. In 3D, this section is a breeze.

Also, I swear to God that Rayman looks better. I don't mean that his texture looks better or he has more detail, because he doesn't. It's just that when you see him move in 3D, he looks more real. Another example: There's an animation that happens when you knock down a door. In 2D, it looks cheesy and weird. In 3D, I actually whispered, "Wow." It's all because of the depth-of-field illusion that 3D gives you.

It's not all perfect. In some places, if you angle the camera the wrong way, you'll end up with an object closer to the screen than your character. When that happens, you'll see an immersion-breaking double-image, as it seems that the 3D effect doesn't work so well the closer something gets to the screen.

Still, this is a twelve-year-old game. Once there are more games our for the 3DS, Rayman 3D is going to look less and less impressive. All they did was take a pretty-good game and reskin it in 3D. However, as a proof of concept, Rayman 3D demonstrates how the 3D effect will make other games look really, really good. It's easy to see why Nintendo was excited about 3D gaming and raises my expectations for games like Kid Icarus: Uprising, Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and Super Mario 3D Land. It's just sad that Nintendo let Ubisoft beat them to the punch with a twelve-year-old game.

Final Rating: C+

Why We Hate LeBron James Now

I found this article the other day. It basically says that people who hate on LeBron James are hypocrites and don't have any solid reason to hate him aside from jealousy.


In the author's opinion, we hate on LBJ because we don't like that he went to a different team and wants to win, or some twisted reason like that. He also believes that the more we hate him, the more we eat out of his hand, or something like that. He compares LBJ to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who was villified for not standing during the national anthem, and says that LeBron owns the people who hate him.

The author doesn't understand why people hate LeBron James. It's not because he left the Cavs. If LeBron would have left and gone to Denver, the Clippers, the Knicks, or any other team, Cleveland residents would be the only people still complaining. When the Cavaliers dropped from 61 wins in 2009 to 19 in 2010, it became pretty obvious that LeBron was the only player that the Cavaliers had, so who can blame someone for getting out of a bad situation?

Even if he would have gone to a team that had a solid No. 2 guy but no No. 1, that would have been OK. What bothers us isn't that LeBron left Cleveland. What bothers us is that he got together with his buddies for the express purpose of winning a championship. To the people sitting at home, that smacks of laziness.

We respect athletes who work hard. Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Albert Pujols, that kind. We hear stories about them being the first to practice and the last to leave. We like that. We expect our athletes to leave it all on the floor for us because that's why we pay them so much money. That's the tradeoff: We pay you money, you entertain us by giving it your all every day.

That's why, for example, Michael Jordan was beloved. He never took nights off. He never just said, "Screw it," and drop a pass to someone else instead of taking it himself. He never took the easy way. He pushed himself and his teammates to work, work, work, sometimes to their detriment. That what it takes to get six championships.

This isn't a question of whether or not LBJ or D-Wade or Bosh work hard on the court. No one is denying that they play hard. What puts them behind the 8-ball is that they gave up. Instead of using that competitor's fire to make their own teams better, they grouped together for the express purpose winning championships every year. Compare this to the Dallas Mavericks, which is comprised of Dirk Nowitzki, the husk of Jason Kidd, the occasional Jason Terry sighting, and that's it. Dirk could win almost on his own. Why can't these guys?

The author of the article also hints at racism, and reading the previous paragraph, you might be tempted to think that we liked the Mavs this year because Dirk is white, and we hated the Heat's Big Three because they're all black. That's too easy of an explanation, though. Here's why. Consider other African-American athletes:

Kobe Bryant. I was always a Kobe-hater, but I'm changing my tune. Consider: He has Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom and Ron Artest on his team. They're all No. 2 type of guys. You would never ask any of them to carry a team on their own, because they can't. Yet, Kobe won a title with these guys.

Tim Duncan. He has Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli. Neither of them are No. 1s. Yet, he won tons of championships with them. He's beloved in San Antonio and respected throughout the league.

Shaq. Shaq paired up with Kobe in LA, true. Yet, Kobe wasn't yet KOBE. He was merely a very talented player who wasn't still a little wet behind the ears. He needed time and maturity to carry a team. Once he got a little more mature, Shaq left. He needed to be the No. 1. He went to the Heat. Wade was still a No. 2 and only grew into the No. 1 role after Shaq left.

Kevin Garnett. Garnett grouped with Pierce and Ray Allen. Now, can Ray Allen carry a team on his own? When he was younger with the Bucks and Sonics, he kind of did, but he was viewed as a No. 2 before Garnett arrived. Pierce was also a guy who was on the cusp of being a No. 1 but couldn't quite get there.

See? It's not a race thing. No one was necessarily mad at any of these guys for being on the teams they were with except for those who hate on everything. KG even engineered his escape from Minnesota to end up on a contender, and when he won a championship we were HAPPY for him. It's not about race or trying to find the right team for yourself. It's about respect for the game and the fans.

For example, most people dislike the Yankees or Red Sox because they stack their teams with the most expensive and talented players and expect championships. When the Yankees won in the 90's, it was with guys like Paul O'Neill and Bernie Williams, along with Hall-Of-Famers like Jeter and Pettitte. These were guys who came up in the system together and became a TEAM together. Now that they stack their teams, we take a perverse pleasure in watching them lose.

We weren't mad that LeBron picked a different team, we were mad that he picked THIS SPECIFIC team with THESE SPECIFIC players. He went out and grouped himself with players that would get him an easy championship. He could fade down the stretch like he did last year and no one would notice because Wade and Bosh could pick up the slack. That's not respectful to the greats who came before, guys like Russell, Bradley and Mikan.

"But, what about letting him do what he wants to do? He's a human being! Maybe he doesn't want to follow the script we've set for him! Ever think about that, you heartless, selfish bastards?"

Here's the problem with that line of reasoning. We'll use a comparison between being an athlete and being a politician. They're very similar. Case in point: Who elects officials? We do. When we elect them, we expect them to represent us because we put them there. We pay their salaries, and when we stop liking them, we remove them.

OK, so who pays athletes? Well, same thing. We do. We pay with our tickets and watching them on TV. Therefore, we expect them to represent us because we put them there. If our team doesn't have athletes we like, we don't pay with our tickets or by watching them on TV. If we like an athlete, we pay them exorbitant amounts of money for our entertainment pleasure.

There's a reason that LeBron James gets paid more than, say, DeGasana Diop. It's because we, as the fans, want to see LeBron James more than Diop. We know he can do incredible things, so the payment is basically saying, "Hey, here's an advance on all the incredible stuff we expect you to do and payment for all the cool stuff you've already done. Good luck!"

That's why the argument of "Let the athlete do what he wants, it's his life" doesn't work. He gave up that right when we started giving him money to do awesome things for us. That's why we got mad at Ricky Williams when he walked away from football to hang out with gurus and get high: We paid him lots of money to entertain us, so we expect that he will do so.

Like, with LeBron, we paid him a lot of money to do incredible things on a basketball court. We paid him because sometimes we like to see an athlete transcend his sport and do something we've never seen. Instead, he took our money and did what he wanted to do instead of what we expected. Well, guess what? It doesn't work like that.

When a CEO takes enormous amounts of money for their work and don't accomplish anything, what do the stockholders do? They vote him out. When a politician takes more money than he deserves, what do they do? They kick him out. When someone gets more than they deserve, we get angry.

LeBron is blessed with a freakish amount of talent. It's fair to say that no other basketball player (and I'm including Jordan here) has as much as raw talent as LeBron has. He wanted to play basketball and use that talent to entertain us. When a person has that much talent and they decide to take it easy, we get angry. When we see someone like LBJ decide that he would rather hide his talent by letting someone else do the heavy lifting or treat his gift like something that is of no consequence, we get angry, and with good reason.

We get angry because we will never have that much talent, but we all want it. If we could have the talent that LeBron James has for one day, we would never, ever forget that day. We would dream about it. We would remember the one time we blew past three guys and dunked in the face of a fourth, ran down the court, blocked a shot, then took the ball the other way and drained a three with a defender's hand in our face. We would die with a smile on our face, remembering that one time.

Therefore, what we want to see, and what we pay LeBron to do, is use his talent to make his team better. If there was any doubt about that, all you have to do is look at how much hate is directed his way. The people who pay his salary have spoken.

Review: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars

Developer: Ubisoft Sofia
Publisher: Ubisoft

It's time to give Julian Gollop more money.

Julian Gollop, maker of X-Com: UFO Defense and Laser Squad: Nemesis, has never been one of the sexy names in game development even though his games are extremely well-designed. On top of that, turn-based strategy games have never been a particularly exciting genre for most. Yet, somehow, Gollop and Ubisoft have made the best game currently available for the 3DS.


Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is set in Russia in the near future. You have six soldiers that each have different skills and have to use them to finish a whole lot of missions. Duke is the leader, Haze is a sniper, Saffron is the medic, Mint is the engineer, Banshee is the scout and Richter is the minigun-toting tank of the crew. In order to accomplish your missions, you'll need to deploy each of these effectively.

If you've played games like Fire Emblem, Advance Wars or Shining Force, you'll know how this game will play out. You take a turn and try to kill their dudes, and the enemy takes a turn and tries to kill your dudes. Being a Ghost Recon game, this is obviously modern combat with guns, grenades and rocket launchers.

Terrain matters. If you have higher ground than your opponent, you'll cause more damage to them. If you have the low ground, you'll take more damage. If you're in a bush, you'll have a little bit of cover. If you're behind a fence, you'll have a little bit of cover from the front but not from the side or back. If you're in a building, you'll take far less damage.

The characters are a ton of fun to use. For example, Mint can deploy a turret. If you know you have to defend a position, you can deploy the turret to provide you what amounts to another helper, albeit one that doesn't move. Banshee is especially fun to use, as she is unable to be attacked by enemy units as long as there isn't a unit directly next to her. She also has a backstab move that can either kill or take the majority of an enemy's health, which requires you to gamble a little bit. Move her in close and go for the kill, or have peck away at opponents from afar?

Missions are pretty varied. For example, one mission has you rescuing friendly soldiers from a building. Then, you have to defuse a bomb on a ship. You race across the map to a control tower to open up a pathway to the ship and then defuse the bomb. In the meantime, of course, you're taking fire from enemies and have to hold off as many as you can.

In another mission, you navigate the corridors of an enemy base and plant bombs. Then, you track down the last position of an enemy leader to gather intel, defend Mint for a few turns and escape before you get inundated with enemy soldiers that pour in.

It's surprising that the missions don't seem to repeat themselves, considering that there are so many of them. I'm 12 hours into the game, and according to the save screen, only about 20% complete. It's not like I dawdle through the missions, either, as I would guesstimate I've completed about 25 or more of them. With that in mind, there's a lot of variety here that will keep you entertained for a really long time.

The 3D also goes a long way toward making a humdrum-looking game in 2D look like a great in 3D. You can see what terrain is higher. You can tell what areas are traversible by your crew and which ones aren't. You don't need some sort of artificial marker to tell you what is what because the 3D effect handles that effortlessly.

Shadow Wars is by no means perfect. I would have liked if line-of-sight was better implemented. For example, let's say two enemies are standing, one in front of the other. Both can take a shot at me. Realistically, the one in back would shoot his friend on accident, but not in this game. I suppose they left it that way to make it easier to use for newbies or people not generally disposed to play turn-based strategy, but I ask you: Would a person who doesn't like turn-based strategy pick up a turn-based strategy game? Watering it down just makes those who want real strategy frustrated.

The sound is very blah. Characters will grunt when they take damage, but those sounds aren't uniform. A character can get hit three times in a row and use three different voices to grunt in pain. That's weird to me. The music is a little disposable as well, but it's not bad.

There's something else odd: Your characters are bullet sponges. They can get hit repeatedly, make their odd-sounding grunts, and keep on moving. However, when one of them dies, the mission is completely over. It doesn't matter if you've spent half an hour on the mission. Shadow Wars doesn't care. The mission is failed and you must start over.

It explains why everyone (including the medic) can take ridiculous amounts of damage, but it's also a little annoying when all of your progress is wiped out because someone gets bushwhacked. How about this for the next game: If your character dies, you have two turns to get your medic over to them and revive them. Maybe they would only revive with half of their hit points and can't have their normal allotment back until the next mission. I don't know. I'm not the designer. Just figure it out for next time, OK?

Also, Banshee can be overpowered if you do it right. For example, I learned the sneak-attack move with her and also gained the ability to gain a crazy amount of Action Points, which enable you to do super-charged attacks. In one mission, I had her running around behind enemy lines and systematically murdering almost half of the opposing force with backstabs and good timing. It was hilarious, but almost game-breaking.

Plus, the AI will do hilariously stupid things. They'll charge past soft targets and go for tougher characters. They won't coordinate attacks. They'll charge a bad position and get mowed down. It would be great to take this game to multiplayer, but the only multiplayer option is local hotseat multiplayer. This is the kind of game that's BEGGING for internet multiplayer. Make it happen in the sequel, Ubisoft.

There's a big backstory involved in this game, but the best thing I can say about the story is that it exists. It's convoluted and pretty much only exists to further the gameplay. There's a guy who wants to take control in Russia, and some other guys who... I dunno. I lost track after about 10 missions. You don't need to follow it in order to enjoy the game.

Even though I have some gripes, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is a very solid turn-based strategy game. I'm also sad that a turn-based strategy game is currently the best game on a Nintendo system. That's the sort of thing I would expect from the N-Gage or PSP, not from a system created by Nintendo. Come on, get it together, Big N.

Final Grade: B+

Etch-A-Sketch Tech Support

I work in tech support, and sometimes we get so frustrated with customer that we wish we could just give them an Etch-A-Sketch. However, I'm not sure that would help most of them. I suspect it would go a little like this:

Representative: Thank you for calling , how can I help you?

Customer: My thing is broken.

R: OK, let's see what we can do. How is it broken?

C: It doesn't work.

R: How so?

C: Well, the line... it... doesn't go... One second. (quiet) Darlene! What's this thing doing again? (pause) Uh-huh? (pause) Uh-huh? (pause) OK. It doesn't go left or right, only up and down. Now, you should know I'm not "Etch-A-Sketch literate," so none of your technical talk, okay?

R: We'll do what we can. Let's see if we can help. Have you tried moving the left dial?

C: Left dial?

R: Yes, the left dial.

C: I don't see that. I don't think I have one.

R: It should be there.

C: I don't have one.

R: It's on every one of these. I want you to put your finger at the upper-left corner of the device.

C: I'm telling you, it's not there.

R: Just put your finger there and move it straight down and you should find it.

C: It's not there. I don't see it. I don't have one. It's not there. It's- Oh, there it is.

R: OK, now twist the dial back and forth.

C: OK, one second. (pause) I can't.

R: How are you twisting it?

C: I didn't twist it, I pulled it.

R: Pulling it won't do anything, and you might break the dial instead, so don't pull on the dial.

C: Pull on the dial? That's what I'm doing and it doesn't work.

R: No, no, DON'T pull on the dial. Twist it from left to right.

C: OK. (pause) Nothing happened.

R: Walk me through what you just did.

C: I took the Etch-A-Sketch and turned it from left to right.

R: The whole thing?

C: Yeah, you told me to twist it from left to right.

R: No, leave the Etch-A-Sketch where it is and just twist the dial left to right.

C: Now, my son works at the Etch-A-Sketch place and he says you shouldn't have to do this.

R: What does he do there?

C: He works in the lunch room. He's very smart, and he says I shouldn't have to do this. He says that I only need one dial and I don't have to twist it at all.

R: Well, that's not exactly correct. You need both dials to do anything.

C: I don't see how twisting it will work! My son says-

R: Just give it a try.

C: (grumbling) Oh! It worked! (yelling) Hey Darlene! It works! (back on phone) OK, good. Now, one more question: How do I make it go... not left, or right, or up or down, but like... a mix of those?

R: Like, diagonal?

C: Now, I said I don't know about these things, so I don't want any of that mumbo-jumbo.

R: No, that's the name of that kind of line. It's a diagonal line.

C: Well, how do I make it go di-gagnal?

R: This is a lot less complicated than you think. Move both dials at the same time gently.

C: You can do that?

R: Yep.

C: Geez, these things are so complicated now. I'm going to give it a try. (pause) Ohhhh. Ohhhh! That's really neat! I can make it- Oops.

R: What happened?

C: I made a long up-and-down line on accident just now. Can I erase it?

R: No.

C: Why not?

R: They're just not built that way. You can shake it upside-down though and start over.

C: (shaking) Wow, what will they think of next?

Opening Daaaaaay

It's opening day! And already the Brewers have hit two home runs off Edinson Volquez, who, by the way, has the look in his team photo like someone totally freaked out.

So Long, Guitar Hero

I predicted that Guitar Hero was going to collapse, and verily, it came to pass.

Here's what a few people are saying:

“You can have an IP that you lovingly care for and release every so often that can last forever, or one you ride hard into the ground.” - Cliffy B

Sing it, Cliff.

Activision sez:

"Although we did well with the core gamer in 2010, we felt the effects of changing consumer demand for peripheral-based and mid-tier titles, which performed well below our expectations.

After two years of steeply declining sales, we’ve made the decision to close our Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on our previously playing Guitar Hero title for 2011.

Despite a remarkable 92 rating on DJ Hero 2, a widely well-regarded Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, as well as the 90-plus rated release from our most direct competitor, demand for peripheral-based music games declined at a dramatic pace."

It appears that Activision learned the wrong lesson here. Instead of placing the blame on peripheral oversaturation, as yours truly talked about back in 2009 and everyone could see coming from a mile away, they said that demand decreased dramatically. In other words, it was completely out of their hands and just a market fluctuation.

When Guitar Hero came out, it was a revelation. It was fun, easy to learn, and just plain brilliant. You could tell that it had a limited shelf life, but there were ways to stretch that shelf life considerably. By metering out carefully the releases, Activision could have kept Guitar Hero viable for several years.

Don't believe me? Think of this: What if they would have ONLY released Guitar Hero 3 and Guitar Hero: World Tour this generation? They could bide their time, wait a a few years, and then release the next Guitar Hero with cool new features. They might even wait a generation for the next one. Can you imagine the demand for the next game? Instead, they pummeled the tar out of Guitar Hero so badly that no one wanted anything to do with it.

They also learned the wrong lesson from Guitar Hero in a different sense. Instead of understanding that the appeal wasn't in the motion or the peripheral but rather the gameplay, they started pounding out peripherals like mad. Here's the thing: No one liked the extra cost involved with the peripherals. They used them because the games they were attached to were fun.

What a concept! Instead of peripherals driving purchases, people actually would buy good games in SPITE of the extra expense BECAUSE they were good! WOW!

I've hammered Activision on this point repeatedly, but don't be surprised if they go the way of 90's Sega. They have no idea what they're doing. So why aren't we having this conversation about Call of Duty instead? We'll discuss that a different time.

Sony's Bad Month

Sony's attempts at stopping their piracy problem has hit a snag: The new firmware they released to stop piracy also stops people from upgrading their hard drives.

They're already fixing the issue, but this has just been a bad month for them. The PSP is totally compromised and the PS3 is compromised. The NGP looks cool, but, to quote Penny Arcade, if it was going to be $249 or less they would have been crowing about it already and screaming "In your FACE, Nintendo!" from the mountaintops.

The sad thing is Sony was really getting momentum gathered. Think about it: If their systems wouldn't have been compromised, they would be sitting on a solid PS3, a PSP that was going to soon be replaced by the really awesome-looking NGP, and they'd be ready to go.

Instead, they have their two flagship systems in tatters, they have to divert funds from R&D over to patching up the screwed-up systems and try and rush both the NGP and possibly the PS4 to market if they want to slow the bleeding.

However, they do have another option. They tried tons of firmware upgrades to the PSP, and it did nothing. They tried releasing PSP revisions, and it did nothing. They wasted valuable company resources on ideas that didn't work and ended up possibly kneecapping the PS3. I mean, think about it: One standard encryption key for EVERYTHING on the PS3? Doesn't that sound like a rush job to you?

I suggest that they take this approach: Put up a bit of a fight. Right now, when  everyone is talking about PS3 hacking, make it a little difficult to hack with these annoying firmware updates. Then, once the furor has died down, stop fighting it and refocus your efforts.

Also, remember that some people are just plain going to try and steal your crap. There's nothing you can do to stop all of them, so just stop the people who are using the most obvious exploits.

To give you an example, I installed the Wii Homebrew Channel a while ago just because there was an easy way to do it using the BannerBomb exploit. Then they upgraded the firmware, which nuked the exploit for the time being. I haven't tried since. It's just not worth the effort. I suppose I could do it again, but why?

At this point, that's really all Sony can do. Just scare away the people who want to steal things come hell or high water. Don't worry about everyone, since you won't stop everyone. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Then cross your fingers and pray like crazy.