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.