HoriPad for iOS: Finally an MFi Controller Done Right

I want to buy a wiiU, but I can't justify the 300 dollar price tag for a system that has only four games on it that I want to buy... one of them (Xenoblade Chronicles X) not even released yet. But among the titles I want that ARE available is Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.

I've always wanted to get into Monster Hunter. I know it is a hugely multiplayer affair, which normally isn't my bag, but co-operative multiplayer is fine. I like it in Dark Souls, it is one of the only draws for me in Destiny, it is probably awesome in the Monster Hunter Series. MH also ticks a lot of the other checkboxes for what I want in an action-RPG. But this isn't a post about Monster Hunter. It is about the piece of gear that made Monster Hunter available to me.

At this point you have to be a massive dick-snob to unilaterally dismiss touchscreen gaming. It is true that the selection of games is skewed way over to the disposable, the shallow, and the irritating... the latter particularly apparent in the dominant forms of monetization. Free-to-play and In-App Purchases are usually truly execrable. Very few devs seem to have figured out how to make these plans palatable and respectful-seeming to gamers. Not that gamers universally deserve respect. But I do.

There are some genuine diamonds in touchscreen gaming. Some of them are even in that disposable, casual space that veteran gamers seem to be so dismissive of. Not even remotely in that space is Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, originally released in 2008 for the Sony PSP. Updated for iOS in 2014, by the looks of all the reviews it is a stellar port. I have iOS devices. I can play THIS Monster Hunter.

But there is just one problem. Monster Hunter is a third-person action game, a genre really, REALLY designed with two PHYSICAL analog controls (read thumbsticks) in mind. Reviewers say the touchscreen controls in MHFU work well, but I had trouble with 'em. I have an iCade with modified stick and buttons that helps me overcome touchscreen difficulties with some games, but iCade implementation is spotty amongst development houses, and not likely to get better since Apple backed a new controller initiative called MFi a while back. MFi support is easy to plug into iOS games and some companies like SNK Playmore have really taken this by the horns.

When MFi was first announced, the company Steelseries raced some controllers to market and pretty much copped all the initial hubbub about 'ooh, physical controls on my iPad'. But they aren't all that good, frankly. They were expensive and to a gamer base that was used to pretty decent stock controllers on their consoles (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One), they were either flimsy or odd or both. Especially for the asking price. But at E3 last year, even more MFi controllers were trotted out by various hardware developers, prominent amongst them MadCatz... and not as prominently, Hori. That meant something to me because I frickin' swear by Hori's arcade joysticks on my consoles. I love 'em. So Hori showed an MFi controller that looked a lot like the Playstation DualShock layout on an Xbox 360-shaped controller. But when their projected release date came due, the controller didn't arrive in stores. And subsequent release info on it got to be pretty scarce or unreliable. Amazon listed it, but that looked more hopeful than anything else.

Welp, I finally got one. At between 70 and 80 dollars, it is still on the steep side (compared to stock console controllers) but a bit cheaper than some of the other MFi choices. It is considered an 'extended scheme' controller. So if you go look at a list of compatible games on a site like www.afterpad.com bear that in mind. The issue seems mostly to come into play for me when a game only uses the 'standard scheme' and doesn't map to the expected control on the extended device, as with Cave's Deathsmiles mapping movement to the HoriPad's directional pad instead of to the left analog thumbstick. Deathsmiles still works like this, it just isn't ideal.

The Horipad is a rechargeable console-style controller. The impression that it is the size and shape of an Xbox 360 controller from the E3 footage is accurate. It is not a mini controller designed to be 'so portable, just like your iPad!'. And it adds yet another rechargeable device to the legion most people probably own now, with the battery inside probably responsible for most of the heft on this thing. It is solidly built and all the buttons and sticks have a good feel... quite a bit, again, like the Xbox 360 controller, though the location of the sticks isn't offset. They are lined up on either side of the bottom edge like a Dualshock.

Hooking up to my iPad and iPhone through Bluetooth was a snap, though the lighting scheme and use of the power button were a little confusing until I looked at the included instructions. There doesn't seem to be much lag when playing Monster Hunter or DeathSmiles, something of a consideration for Bluetooth devices. The thumbtacks have a rubberized upper surface for grip, and have good stiffness and travel distances. It comes with a USB cord for charging, but no USB-to-outlet converter. I just plugged it into AC pak for an iPad or a Nook and it worked great.

An additional lack of concession to portability, the Horipad doesn't include any sort of clip to attach it to your iPhone or iPad. There is a little foldable easel-thing that your touchscreen slots into... and it does hold it upright. But this just reinforces the impression that Hori was thinking a gamer would make a sort of tabletop console out of it. An iPad played in one's lap wouldn't suffer much, but using your iPhone is awkward. It didn't create a problem for me since most of the games I want physical controls for are on the larger touchscreen, but if iPhone games are a player's main concern, this isn't the most convenient solution.

I'm also going to give it a slight knock for an aesthetic choice also. To me, the pics Hori put out for this thing make it look like it is a silky black controller with a white plate surrounding the thumbsticks. Actually, the body has a super glossy finish, and the thumbstick plate is a tacky, cheap-looking chrome silver. Just weird design decisions on what 'feels' like a near-premium product.

Given the build quality and the console controller-ishness of the layout, I can almost wholeheartedly recommend this thing, with the small aforementioned caveat about no phone clip. If you don't have to have the controller be tiny and portable like an iPhone, then this is probably the best MFi controller out there. For games that would benefit from physical controls, and gamers that want to eke a console style experience out of their touchscreen it might be the only real choice...especially for the fussy, so-called 'hardcore'.

Now to give this Monster Hunter thing a go. At last.

*Bump*
(to keep Google from deleting this thing)

Evil, and Not In a Good Way

 


Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicle for the Sega Dreamcast

Thirty hours or so of my life I'll never get back and I stubbornly, doggedly, stupidly worked my ass off to make that happen. This may be the worst game I've ever played to completion. But let's begin at the beginning.

I acquired this game ages ago from a local import store... local to where I was living at the time, Maryland. I was attracted by the art style and the fact that from what little info I could glean it was a 3d platformer. It was near the end of the Dreamcast's short lifespan as a regular retail product, but I still didn't have much in the way of platforming games for it and I'd had a fine time with the two Sonic Adventure games.

To get the good out of the way (and this'll be very short) it DOES have a pretty cool twisted fairy tale look to it. Although the framerate frequently bogs down and the number of polygons is low by today's standards it is still an interesting game to look at. It could be seen as a sort of companion piece, graphically, to the American McGee Alice games-- especially the first Alice. The music is really good. I've read the soundtrack described as 'mostly ambient sounds' in reviews but that's crap. To go along with the Burton-esque visuals, the game has a very definite Elfman-esque soundtrack, some of the tunes quite memorable. The voice acting is also decent with plenty of somewhat adult humor, and I'd swear there are some name actors amongst the voicing, like Terry Jones and Robbie Coltrane, though I haven't tried to investigate this thoroughly. They are not credited in the manual. The whole sensory package aspect is attractive and one of the two main reasons I stuck with the game right to the end. I wanted to see and hear everything there was to see and hear.

Also there was the time investment. When I read a book or watch a film, even if it is abysmal I usually try to stick it out. Whether that's through some usually-misplaced idea that it SHOULD get better or whether I just hate having put a time investment into something and then leaving it undone, I don't know. In the case of Evil Twin, I'm going with the latter. When I first put the game in years ago, I played it a while but just got tired of its shortcomings. Then after enough time had passed to salve over the frustrations, I'd pick it up again and play through a little more. The problems with the game exaggerated of course, by my having to figure out where I'd left off in the levels and the narrative. Over the years I've probably had three runs at the game, each covering a day or two. Recently I decided to stop farting around and just finish it. Determined to finish it.

That mindset put me on the path to mental ruin, one I was determined not to stray from no matter all the warning signs and opportunities to bail.

That's because every other aspect of the game is horrible. During the previous plays, I think I just thought the trouble was me and my sporadic playing, 'Of course it is going to be tough, I'm not really putting serous time in on it'. Actually, no. The game plays like ass. It is the very definition of that certain type of euro-game, a game designed by a European studio, that has great style but completely misses the mark that makes Japanese or American games playable. Evil Twin is French. Obviously, I'm drawing a very stark generalization there. But in the main, there seems to be some truth to this. If you want an exception to the rule, most of the French-made Rayman games seem to dodge the euro-game's penchant for horrible mechanics. Game studios in the modern era are bigger and more 'international' so I'm probably being a predjudicial ass for bringing this up. Studious like Crytek and Croateam make awesome games and they are euro devs. Maybe it was a nineties thing mostly. Anyway.

 Challenge is one thing, but when the majority of the challenge is trying to wrestle with how to work around a game's shortcomings?... that's bad.

Where even to start? 3d platforming games, or the 3d platforming sections of other generes, are a tough nut as it is. Placing your character in a tricky jump can be infinitely more complicated and difficult when you have three axes of movement over the traditional two.  Mario 64 showed it could be pulled off with panache. Nintendo dialed in just what the player needed in a camera and in the controls, both sensitivity and on-the-fly correction. The Sonic Adventure titles didn't have as good a camera, but Sonic himself had pretty great tools to navigate the levels and the game detected use of the homing dash pretty accurately over parts that could've otherwise really been frustrating. Every game involving intricate jumping from a 3d viewpoint struggles with how to make it challenging... but in all the right ways... and the fruits of that struggle pass on to the player frequently for the worse. Why? Why couldn't devs figure this out? I recently also finished Metroid Prime's remake on the wii. I was shocked at how well (Nintendo again) the platforming worked. Metroid's formula wasn't to make the jumps themselves overly difficult... Samus has plenty of oomph to her jumps AND the ability to control her descent somewhat, AND a bit of floatiness to give you a bit of extra correction time... but in the nature of each area's construction, with the player having to figure out where to go, usually vertically. The jump physics weren't the most realistic, but it sure made the game playable. It was fun, and if you failed a jump it was pretty obvious you weren't equipped to make it. The game let you know from the get-go that you weren't supposed to spend a ton of time figuring out if the holdup was lack of an item or just shitty playing. If you were supposed to make the jump at that time, you made it easily.

Evil Twin has just about everything wrong with it's platforming. Other aspects of the game are buggy and confusing, but it is something you can deal with. And in fact, parts of the game other than the platforming are kind of fun. The parts where you can freely explore a hub area or the boss fights. But the camera sucks. The controls suck. Collision detection sucks. Cyprien's shadow (for placing just where you are in a jump) sucks. Bugs and wonkiness abound.

A typical example: Tricky platforming segment. Narrow planks on which Cyprien must jump, frequently moving or the kind that drop out from under you if you stay put more than a second or two. Also more often than not, a failure leads to death, not just a drop down to an earlier area for you to make your way back up. This is the kind of thing that in a 2d platformer, assuming tight controls, a player deals with all the time and is, in fact, a trope of the genre. But in Evil Twin, you must do this looking from behind Cyprien, jumping him forward into the screen. Cyprien jumps for greater distance the longer you press the jump button, and the platforms are unevenly spaced. His shadow is slow to be drawn under him (or the ground between the platforms is too far down for you to see the shadow). On wide or round platforms the shadow sort of works... you have time for a bit of midair correction. On narrow planks, as in this example, you will not have time. Cyprien is not floaty in any way.

Now. At times the game camera does swing out and view Cyprien from the side OR you can rotate the camera to do so. But here's the complications to THAT. A sidelong camera doesn't always pan along with Cyprien. It ROTATES. So as Cyprien jumps the camera stays in its place an rotates to keep Cyprien in view. The camera 'wants' to be behind Cyprien, the default view. So if he jumps while you view him from the side, at the end of the jump you will see him from behind in a three-quarter view. And the controls are relational to the camera. So at the end of the jump, the sideways movement you held jumping him forward in 2d view now moves him diagonally or even sideways. So you'll need to re-orient the camera back to Cyprien's side if you want to jump from the 2d vantage again. A laborious process at best, and totally impossible on those sections where the platforms drop out from under you. You don't have time for such camera tomfoolery. You are forced to leave the camera behind Cyprien so that the view is fixed and the contols won't change on you as you negotiate the series of jumps.  Even in the sections where it fixes on a 2d view, You can still move Cyprien toward or away from the screen. Coupled with the Dreamcasts slippery analog controller, it is a common occurence to have Cyprien fall off the front or back edge. It is inexcusable to have intricate, variable 2d platforming sections without the player character 'locked onto' a rail that only works in two dimensions. Can you imagine having to make sure Mario didn't take a step or two towards or away from you as you did all that jumping in Super Mario World? If the d-pad could be used so that you were sure you were going ONLY left-right or up-down, that might've helped, but Cyprien's movement is only on the analog nub.

It just goes on. Cyprien grabs ledge edges and hauls himself up. Except when he doesn't. This mechanic could go a long way toward making up for the difficulty in orienting yourself during jumps. But it is extremely capricious. And you have no way of knowing ahead of time which 'edges' are candidates for grabbing and which aren't.

I don't know how the controls are in the PS2 or PC versions, but the DC's are really fucking sensitive. I was constantly hauling Cyprien back from almost running off the far end of a plank or platform. Which is itself a symptom of his shadow being useless for placement, and lack of floatiness for correction. The player must push the stick all the way forward to make sure Cyprien makes the jump, but often that is TOO far. This happens in quite a few 3d platformers, sure, but Cyprien has little in the way of jump correction on the way down. There's a reason a bit of unrealistic play exists in the best 3d platforming games and Evil Twin is an example of a game with all of that shorn out.

My kid let out a loud 'whaaaa?' when he watched me land squarely on a huge expanse and then just drop through it to my death. Although it wasn't exactly common for this kind of bug to kill my player character, on top of  the other difficulties it became one more weight on the scales of frustration. The game has save points that are few and far between, and on later sections waaaay far back from progress through the level. I spent a lot of time knowing I should go all the way back and save after accomplishing something important, but dreading the monumental work to get back. AND saves are an inventory item. So unless you explore pretty thoroughly (which isn't encouraging), you might actually be low on the ability to save.

The graphics, interesting though they were, led to another issue. They are so stylised and so gnarly and intricate in places, that I wasn't really sure what I was seeing. That's a problem in a game where you have to 'figure out' where to go. The game is kinda like Metroid or Zelda where access to an area is granted after you gain an item. But it was dreadfully unclear just where the next path was. Cyprien has a journal/objective book but it is pretty vague. And some of the hubs and levels are so complicated, that if I put the game down for even a day or two, it was hard to remember the layers of quests and where I was going. In this game you need to take notes. Some items you get you don't use until much later in the game, so long that I really forgot I'd even had them and I only progressed by throwing my hands up and going back through my inventory to try equipping things to see what that'd trigger. That's old computer adventure kinda shit. Really poor signposting. I'd have done better to keep my own notes on inventory items AND what exits or paths the game showed to me as I flipped switches. The game wants you to really explore and note all this out of the way stuff, but the controls and other issues make this such a chore it discourages exploration. I frequently found myself just getting through a level in the most linear fashion I could, and that's no way to play a game where the major hook is the visuals.

So you've got buggy, dodgy jumping and a lot of it. Slippery controls and iffy edge detection and grabs. The worst camera ever. Limited Resident Evil-style save items, and frequently inconvenient save points in a game guaranteed to kill you many many times. Not to mention, obscure objectives and paths that you'll need a guide to sort out. So why did I keep at it?

I'm not sure. There was just a point where I'd put in enough time... so that even when I realised the 'kinda-ropey' jumping stuff at the beginning was only going to get worse... I couldn't just abandon it. Maybe the very evil of the whole thing made me want to conquer it, if only to say I did it and then complain about it. Like some players fancy conquering kuso-ge on a regular basis. But normally, that ain't me. I have a good track record of buying games that turn out to be good. Good enough to finish without regrets. For every Splatterhouse (finished and didn't like) there are dozens of games in my to-play stack that turn out to be a decent choice. I wound up using a guide MUCH more frequently for this game than I care to because I just wanted to get it over with. Even figuring out how to beat a boss, a part of games I really enjoy normally, was just not something I wanted to deal with when getting back to the boss room would be ANOTHER horrific bout of platforming.

So stay the hell away from this game. Seriously. I VERY rarely ebay a game after I've played it, but I think this one's outta here. Its saving grace, probably due to relative rarity, is that it seems to hold a pretty decent price for resale. But even a crazy-good return for selling this thing wouldn't be enough to get that time or sanity back!

What's Up...

Probably should get back to this posting thing.

So currently being part of the great statistic, the unemployed, in addition to video gaming I've set out some educational goals. To wit: learning C++, the Unity game engine, and the 3d graphics software Blender. Pretty much to get my feet wet in the 'creative' end of computer crap, since almost all of my adult working life has been spent working at screens and keyboards doing very productive utilitarian sorts of things. Can't hurt to have knowledge of this stuff on the resume, particularly C++, and there's only so much time one can spend poring over job listings.

These ideas could all go in the crapper tomorrow if I get hired somewhere.

Anyway. Finished Metroid Prime on the wii a few days ago. Good stuff though my patience for all the backtracking and experimenting that comes with Metroid(-style) games means I can't take a steady diet of 'em. This game took me about 25 hours to get through. I'm toying with the idea of playing the SNES game Super Metroid, which I've never played, but I'm afraid I'll get sick of the style partway in and quit. And I really don't want to do that. So I may hammer a few other things out before Super Metroid.

Currently playing Spelunky, Last Hope: Pink Bullets, and Evil Twin.

Ugh. This stupid editor just chopped out my last ten minutes of typing. My opinions on these games. I'm so pissed I'm going to have to come back to them in another post. Fucker.

Dark Timesink of Souls

 

My video game poison of late has been Dark Souls on the Xbox 360.

I've played Space Marine with my kid some... enough to finally get my multiplayer dude up to level 41 (the cap) and unlock more weapon and armor perks. And I've gone through about 30% of the modern update to Splatterhouse, a decidedly mediocre game that reads like it should be tailor-made for me, but is actually kind of a drag. I don't know whether to quit playing it or just see it through because of the investment I already have in it. And I've started on the Chrono Trigger, a classic you-must-have-played-this RPG, that I really DIDN'T play owing to the fact that I seldom play RPGs and didn't own a Super Nintendo when then the game originally released. That's on the Wii Virtual Console.

But Dark Souls is really the current crack du jour. Or has been. I've nearly finished my second playthrough and I think I'm finally giving it a rest. Veteran Dark Souls (or Demon Souls) players know what I'm talking about: this game will own your life.

Not strictly an RPG or really even an action-RPG (by whatever fluid definition that can actually be applied), Dark Souls is probably accurately described as an action game in the third person mode (like Bayonetta or Darksiders) but heavily influenced by RPG mechanics. So technically, if you come to grips really well with the combat system you could 'skill' your way past a lot of the game without paying all that much attention to the RPG aspects like leveling up or tooling up your weapons. It'd be really tedious, because the combat is technical and complex, and if you don't level up or manage your equipment, the fights will drag out to an almost interminable degree. The game already encourages slow and careful play as it is, so players greatly benefit from utilising the RPG aspects as much as possible to gain whatever advantage they can over the game environment and enemies, just so progress continues quickly enough to hold player attention.

There are forty bazillion web entries covering Dark Souls. There's a whole thriving community that goes on and on about just this one game. And I can see why. It is utterly compelling. There's no need for me to really go into game details that thousands of other people have already covered. But there are some caveats to the game I wanted to get into... quite apart from the 'it's so hard' stuff so many others have said. I DID actually have an earlier post on this blog talking about Dark Souls and how it really wasn't so brutal as everyone was making out.

That was before I'd hit my own personal wall in the game. I tried repeatedly to get past it. I had a guidebook. No help. I read stuff online. The enemies acted differently than everyone was saying. So I put the game down for what I'd intended to be, like a week, but turned into months as other games (and life shit) intervened and distracted.

As it turns out, when I finally dug back into the game, my biggest problem was 'skilling' my way up to that point as I'd mentioned earlier in this post.

Dark Souls basically amounts to 'runs' between checkpoints. At each checkpoint (bonfires in the game) you can replenish, repair, whatever. At the cost of most enemies respawning. So to play you really just foray out from a bonfire, exploring and memorising what comes between you and the next rest stop. Every enemy can be dangerous, but they have patterns that can be learned or weaknesses that can be exploited, and what I'd done in the early stages of the game was to use my years of video game playing experience to fight really well using what I had, and upgrading only when it might occur to me to do so, and to work out strategies for defeating those few foes I couldn't overcome in a standup fight. Which is what you are supposed to do. But it isn't the ONLY thing you're supposed to do.

I was getting by, thinking I'm all awesome. Even the bosses up to that point, though difficult and causing me to die a fair number times, could be defeated with some not-too-complex strategy and a bit of luck or timing. Finally, the game put me up against a boss where my characters stats or equipment was a problem. Literally his inability to take a punch. It wasn't that I couldn't figure out what to do, but my character couldn't hold out long enough to do it. Up to that point, I'd been using timing, spacing, the reach of my weapon, and memory to ensure my enemies didn't really lay a glove on me. Even if they did, the damage that got past my armor and shield could be dealt with using healing potions. But now I was facing a boss who was going to hit me, pretty much no matter what. AND hit me so hard I really wouldn't have much opportunity to use healing potions. My guy just wasn't ready for him. I didn't KNOW this at the time, I figured it was just too hard or unfair. BUT. I had every intention of re-approaching it because the whole reason I got Dark Souls in the first place was because I'd understood it to be challenging. I just didn't get back to it very soon.

Upon picking it up again (with the encouragement of an online buddy-- thanks Jason) I discovered you really can't ignore the RPG aspects forever. Going back to that hurdle, I figured I was just somehow missing something. I had done some grinding in RPGs before, the process whereby the player goes over previously conquered areas to amass experience points or gold in an effort to gain levels or items that will boost their character and make a difficult challenge easier. This was an action game seemingly and I just hadn't done any grinding-- or even tried to amass souls (the game's experience points and currency) and level up 'properly' through the progress I HAD made. I'd tried to bulldoze my way through using thumbs on controllers only.

So I walked my dude back toward the beginning as far as I could and tried to be as frugal as possible about gaining and losing souls, and be really attentive towards leveling up and upgrading my weapons. Lo and behold, I was able to weather that troublesome boss's attacks and take him down. Because with some careful accounting/leveling, and paying attention to various types of equipment do, my character was able to weather some hits. Weather them long enough to strike back and kill the bastard.

That might mean the moral of the story would be a take on the old adage to 'read the instructions'. Dark Souls is hard, no shit, but if I'd played the game being as attentive to the numbers aspect of it as I was to the moving and fighting... playing it as it was intended... I'd have been past that hurdle sooner. Afterwards, when I'd cottoned to that fact, no part of the game-- no trap, no boss-- was as difficult or frustrating. The part I was stuck on is considered pretty tough, but I more or less sailed on past the other 'toughest' spots. The game continued to be challenging, but the other cool aspects of the game, the atmosphere, the multiplayer, and the upgrade system became the most compelling parts and still are. All the tools a player needs to make the different enemies in the game manageable are there. You don't even have to be all that 'action-game' skilled.

I give From Software really high marks on this game. Some of the stuff that bothers players and critics doesn't faze me. I'm used to seeing past some rough edges in games to enjoy a unique experience. So when I read people bitching about the framerate bogging down or being invaded by other players too often, I'm not very sympathetic. My biggest complaint about the game is arguably one of its strengths, its opacity. The game is really frickin' stingy about what you're supposed to do. The mysterious areas, and surprise traps and enemies help make this game what it is, and the intense, highly-strung state the game puts you in is like no other game-- on par with the best survival horror titles.

Figuring stuff out IS part of the games fun and challenge, but I feel that should cover narrative and in-game puzzles or strategy. NOT the basic workings of the game. The game is a sort of open world, with one or two hubs and the rest of the areas branching out. You are free to go to many areas and die many times before you figure out an area is one you really aren't equipped to handle yet. But here's the tricky part. How do you distinguish between an area you aren't ready for and one that is just super-challenging but that you CAN get through? You could potentially get pretty far into an area before running up against something you just cannot handle and lose all your accumulated souls in the bargain. Conversely, you could get into an area where you manage to kill the first few enemies, but surviving was such a near thing that you believe anything past that is just not something you're up for. The game already intimidates with a pretty unforgiving experience system, making almost any combat a risk. And the NPC's give very little information, expecially in the early going. Whether you risk going into a new area or hang out and grind known areas to beef yourself up, a lot of time is wasted in trying to work out what to do next. Later in the game this is less of a problem, as a specific NPC outlines your goals and a crucial item invokes a cutscene indicating some paths. But if you don't really pay attention at that point, you'll be just as clueless as you were before. People who take a lot of notes might have an advantage here, but the days of having to do this for RPGs are supposedly past. It is one of the things that kept me from getting into RPGs in the old days!

The other overly-obscure aspect is the handling of magic and equipment and the upgrades involved. In hindsight, it is actually pretty simple and pretty cool, but until you have a handle on it, you can spin round and round wondering why the hell you can't do something that seems bone-obvious you SHOULD be able to do. Again, the NPCs give almost no help, and what little they DO say,  you have to really pay attention to, and make some not-so-obvious deductions from.

I guess From Software figured the community would fill in the blanks, and largely they do. There are at least three full wiki projects centered around Dark Souls. The PvP (player versus player) aspect has all sorts of active forums and tips pages written on it. This is all well and good, but I'd rather have figured it out from in-game tools and not by going asking. Online advice didn't help me get past 'that one boss'. I had to work out what would work for me. And frustrating ast that was, it'd been nice if all of Dark Souls mysteries would've been like that. I mean you COULD work it all out for yourself, but dying over and over just to figure out where to go, or trawling through menu screens to figure out why I can't upgrade my mace just isn't my idea of fun. THOSE aren't the kind of puzzles I want to work out.

Early on I bought the Dark Souls guide. For some complex games I buy guide books so that after I beat a game I can get indications of where to go to find extra items, subquests, complete achievements, whatever. I don't care to get help from them while I'm on my initial playthrough. With Dark Souls though I had to give in. I used the guide for two things: what area to go to next (when it wasn't pretty obvious) and how the equipment and magic system works. The guide is attractive (a black hardbound from Future Press) but not nearly as useful as one would think. On where to go next, it was fine. Helping me finish NPC quests or find hidden items in my second playthrough? Pretty good. So as a map book it was decent. Some of the maps could be clearer but I didn't need a step by step walkthrough.

The book also explains how the magic and equipment system works, but it is more or less scattered through the book, making it painful to get the whole picture. Suffice to say, if you buy the guide, read the first section about basic play, then the beginning of the items section (to understand item attributes), and the very last section, the extras. The extras section actually explains the upgrade path because certain achievements require you to upgrade to the fullest extent, so the text explains what is involved in that. The craziness is that it isn't giving anything away to read that-- you kind of need to know what is expected to do this just to play the game, and THE END of the book is the place it is given. If you don't get a handle on this, you'll spend many a head-scratching moment wondering why the fuck that sword you just made into a +5 just disappeared off your list so you can't make it a +6 even though you have plenty of materials and money. The system is NOT particularly difficult, but is made so because there's no in-game information apart from brief dialogue from blacksmiths or other NPC that whizzes by.

On strategies for beating enemies or bosses (arguably the thing many or most players might actually buy it for) it is terrible. There are hardly any suggestions for combat strategies in the thing that would line up with what I did. And many times the book omits any help at all. What is probably the trickiest non-boss encounter in the game (and I'm agreeing with the legions of players who feel the same way) gets barely a passing mention. It doesn't really matter too much, I figured out my own battles. Even this obstacle didn't hold me up long. But just a word of warning. I can recommend the book as probably 'the nicest' collection of Dark Souls data in one place, but its usefulness lies mainly in its item tables (though somewhat outdated on a few items owing to patches) and its maps. If you're stuck in a place, the book can help you. If you're stuck on an enemy, the book really won't help you. Weirdly the book omits how to perform a parry, an important basic mechanic in combat.

So I'm not proud of it, but I did go to the book for a few things during my initial playthrough. More than once, I found myself entering an area, and not wanting to waste a lot of time finding out if I should be there. I suppose the contrived methods most RPGs use to prevent you from going somewhere ahead of time are less realistic, but now I'm beginning to look at that shit a lot more favorably. There's an area in Dark Souls where a huge gate blocks your way until you reach a certain point, then you see a cutscene of a giant raising the gate. That was an exception to most of the access in Dark Souls, but the way almost every other game operates. A little bit more of THAT would've helped me save face!

This game has also stoked my hitherto flaccid interest in online multiplayer. More about that next time. My fingers are tired now.

Bleah!

I'm a terrible person!
At least I'm terrible at keeping up on this blog!

I've had a number of downturns in my life, particularly the one about joining the masses of unemployed in this country. But I've still been plugging away at nerdery in various forms and so I should be frickin' maintaining this thing.

Not to be too personal... the blog really isn't supposed to go there...  but depression can make neglect-ers of even the best of us.

So here I go updating.

Now With Joystick Action

It has take some months for me to really be able to understand, let alone enjoy 'iOS gaming', the games designed for Apple's various iDevices. My kids (naturally) had no problem at all. They've been Temple Running, Doodle Jumping, and Jetpack Joyriding pretty much since they got their Touch iPods last summer, and long before I had any experience with anything beyond my trusty/crusty click-wheel ipod (which I still use for music). But touchscreens and I have a really hellish history, so I held out as long as I could.

Future posts will include iOS game coverage to a degree, but my viewpoint will definitely be from the old dog learning new tricks angle... that is, a controller-user trying to get some enjoyment out of all the tapping, swiping and flicking you have to do to get anywhere with touchscreen gaming. Or ways around this.

Case in point, and serious nerd-gasm. My iCade.

This is kinda jumping ahead to more recent times... I've bought a lot of iOS games before getting this thing... but the iCade is probably what I'm most excited about. And wouldn't you know it? It turns my newfangled touchscreen based device into an old-fashioned controller-, uh, 'controlled' mini arcade cabinet. Yes, I have wasted little time literally turning back cutting edge tech and reducing it to the same controls used on my favorite games from the 80s and 90s.

But even more uber-nerdy: I ripped the stock stick and buttons out and replaced them all with Sanwa parts. To be honest, the default hardware was okay, but really unbelievably noisy. And the buttons had a really deep push range to them. I'd modified sticks on my console games to Seimitsu parts, but I went Sanwa (the go-to buttons for most fighting games) this time just to see how they were different.

I really like 'em. Not better than the Seimitsu parts but definitely an improvement over what shipped. My kids thought my choice in button colors was crazy when I ordered 'em, but now that they are installed I win the friggin' tasteful mod competition.
The iCade really isn't compatible with that many games available in the Apple store. And the freebie Atari package that you can download with the iCade is kinda crap. Fortunately there is an awesome option available that more than justifies the cost of the iCade and any mods I might've done. An iOS version of Mame (MultiArcadeMachineEmulator).

I never really dug Mame all that much in the past. Mame is largely grounded in the PC, and I've always thumbed my nose at PC gaming because of all the hassle with the tech and the catchup you had to do if you wanted to play the latest games as intended. Mame didn't push PC graphics technology but it had its own set of rules, updates, versions, workarounds blah blah blah. I like consoles because I just want to put the damn game in and go. No fucking around.

But Mame is also controversial. You have to download game images (ROMs) of games that frequently still have a copyright owner... and you aren't paying them for it.

To quickly push past my personal view on whether Mame is piracy or not (because that is mostly beside the point of this post), my feeling is that I'm willing to download and play a ROM for any arcade game that doesn't exist for a console... ie, a viable platform for most gamers (not many people can and do afford a JAMMA setup not to mention buying a PCB for each game). If a company releases a version of the arcade game for a console I am more than happy to buy it. So yes, that IS Truxton II, a pretty rare Toaplan game, showing on the screen of those pics. If someone were to somehow manage to procure rights to publish Toaplan's games I'd be the first in line to shell out for those official releases. In the scheme of things, current video game publishers are not losing money from me because I'm using Mame instead of their products.  Mame (and the game ROMs) is free so that isn't money going towards Mame that could be going to legit game releases either. I follow this model with DVDs too. I'll buy a 'fansub', but happily get the legit one as soon as it becomes available. I can't think of a time I've failed to this. I used to have an all fansub Godzilla film collection, but since four different companies have made USA releases of Japanese Godzilla films, there are only two fansubs left Godzilla vs Megalon, and Godzilla vs Biollante. If the suits will let these out officially, they'll get my money

So the version of Mame I currently have loaded on my iOS device supports a library of almost 2300 games. Yep. 2300 games. Instant justification for an iCade, since compatibility for the thing was evidently important to the iMame4all developers. The jailbroken version also supports wiimotes, but I've found since getting the iCade the wiimote with a Classic Controller is best used for dual-stick games like Smash TV or Robotron 2084.

Of course of that 2300 games a lot are crap. Or clones. Or boring. Or a product of their time and unplayable by today's standards. Or require a one-off controller that came on the arcade cabinet, like a trackball or dial. Also every iteration of Mame had ROMs in their libraries that the guys working on Mame never got around to making work before a new version of Mame came out. So about 10% of the games don't work or have issues that cripple them running. But at the end of it, if I only include games that run, that I like, or that I've always wanted to try that still lists out at hundreds and hundreds of titles. I couldn't give them each serious attention of I was awake 24 hours a day. And at the time of this writing a followup version of Mame for iOS is in beta with an even bigger library. I can barely wrap my head around all the games I've gotten already.

And talk about an awesome way for my kids to discover so may of the classic games and genres from my formative video game years AND the golden age of the arcades in the late 80s and early 90s! They already have favaorites. And they can see where a lot of the titles they play on Xbox 360 or their iPods got their start.

Everybody's Seen It

Yes. Go see The Hunger Games.

Doing better than Twilight and deserves to. Jennifer Lawrence is great, exactly how I pictured the Katniss character. In fact, most of characters (apart from the crazy looking Capitol ones) look and act pretty dead-on to my recollection. Including the two black contestants from District 11 that seem to have certain wacknut elements Twittering their discontent.

Seriously? I can't recall Suzanne Collins' exact words, but whatever she wrote about Rue and Thresh, I pictured them as black. There was absolutely no dissonance for me from the film. Cinna read black too. WTF people? Honestly, Lenny Kravitz is great in the film. The most heart-in-mouth sequence is between him and Katniss.

I'm oddly gratified that this is doing so well. I feel bad Lawrence isn't getting paid enough (1/2 mil plus residuals) but her ticket is in after this one. Probably my gratification has to do with it crapping all over Twilight. I've watched the Twilight films on DVD with my daughter, and Bella is just the whiniest, neediest, common-sense lackingest fem-douche on the planet. I haven't read those books, and can't imagine I'd ever want to.

If I have a criticism of Hunger Games, it is that it is almost too fast-paced. As juvenile fiction published by Scholastic, the books don't have much padding and are paced pretty much just like a film. But the movie is STILL almost breakneck, with no real pause to get a clearer understanding of why all this happens or who the characters are. I'm all in favor of the old 1960s style of picking up the characterization as you go in reading fiction, and the Hunger Games books certainly are that. But this film could still stand another half hour or so of meat on it. As it stands it is pretty much the Cliff's Notes version of an already spare novel. It hits all the major points and events... and is pretty damn dramatic and intense in places... but it seems edited to assume anyone watching it is already familiar with the story. It'll be interesting to see if a DVD fleshes this out a bit.

Wowie Jeez.

It has been almost FIVE MONTHS since I last posted here? Sorry!

A bit back I noted my posting was too infrequent and would try to do better, but then I got hit with the holidays and leaving my job. I have taken a really long time to recover my impetus to write.

I also mentioned previously that I had a reviewing gig, but I resigned... some time before this 'disappearance' actually.

I don't generally like to bring much about my personal life into this blog... I never conceived it as an avenue for me to vent apart from hobby, pop culture, and entertainment matters. So suffice it to say, that while all is not perfect in the Knight of Gold's real world, I feel like this thing has been neglected too long. And I didn't even know how long until I just logged in and saw the date on that last post!

I have still been playing games, watching movies, reading books yadda yadda. So I'll try to catch up and get back to be the web's only real paragon of good taste.

Multiplayer Madness.

I've never really been one to get in on the whole online multiplayer thing. PC users have been hep to this for ages, but I have a personal abhorrence for using computers as game machines (long story), so over the years I've just sort of chalked this up as 'not my deal' and moved on. No Doom or Quake or Unreal multiplayer. No World of Warcraft or Everquest. I dabbled in Alien Front Online wth my Dreamcast (complete with voice mic) and that was fun... but after the Dreamcast dropped off the planet I just couldn't muster the resolve to keep at online play. I enjoy single-player campaigns just fine, and my own preference for competitive play was definitely informed by my arcade days of live, face-to-face opponents.

But I've finally taken the plunge with Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine on the Xbox 360. As I understand it the multiplayer is kind of no-frills, and pretty difficult for its type since the weapons are so deadly. But it is pretty fun and is definitely teaching me why online frag-fests are so popular.... though I don't see myself putting making a huge time sink out of it. Exterminatus just got released last week as free DLC. It probably should've been included with the main game release, but I'm not complaining.

Exterminatus is multiplayer co-op. Basically the survival or 'horde mode' of other titles. You and up to three other players make a stand against waves of Orks, Gretchin and other baddies thrown at you with an unique selection of maps. So far I've mostly played this against my own kid. Being local our connection is good and our headset chatter fun. He's really enjoying it, though Sonic Generations recent release made it kind of a difficult job getting him back to this 'old' game!

Jeez, Sorry.

Wow. Have I been off the blogging thing for a while or what? Sorry about that.

Between my Xbox 360 having drive problems (and having to go in subsequently for repair), working out compatibility issues with same machine over some of the newest releases I wanted, and trying to get my head around a new gaming platform (iOS on my phone), keeping this place up just fell further and further down the priority list.

I also have a weekly gig writing game reviews that is non-paying, but that I want to cultivate. That work has suffered the same absence for all the reasons given above.

I've still been watching movies and buying new music in the gaming downtime. I'm extending the sidebar movie listing to kind of catch up on this. I'll summarize some music opinions in the next entry.

Bloody Hobo Justice

Okay, I have to admit I enjoyed Hobo With A Shotgun a lot more than it probably deserves.

Originally a winner in a contest amongst a slew of trailers made for Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse double feature, Hobo With A Shotgun is the second of those trailers to get made into a film after Rodriguez's own Machete.

Filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia and armed with Rutger Hauer in the lead, this is an extremely violent, profane movie with its film stock and color saturation look firmly in the seventies and its over-the-top colorful punk style ripped from the eighties. Hobo knows it is a cult film, and is aiming straight at that audience, checking off all the boxes for transgressive or weird that it possibly can. But in amongst all the garish intestines and shouted f-bombs, Hauer is STILL pretty damn decent as the titular hobo.

If you do nothing else, seek out the trailer. It is an edited version of a monologue that's in the film, and it pretty much effectively sums up what the viewer is in for. But unlike most of the old grindhouse movies that frequently couldn't deliver on what their trailers promised, Hobo easily comes through. Even though the film is over the top and cartoonish, I can't decide what the most disturbing, horrific scene is. The film is about vigilante justice in a town that is impossibly crime-ridden (though I'm betting places in Mexico at present come pretty close), with the offenses running the full gamut, of murder, torture, etc. right up to torching a school bus full of children.

Lock this one away in the absolutely-not-for-kids box. I'll let my children see this when they are, say, forty.

Now I enjoyed this. But I've got a fucked-up streak a mile wide. Your mileage may vary.

A Game of Two Terries

Rock of Ages, a downloadable game on Xbox Live (and PSN I'm pretty sure), looks and plays like it was spawned by Monty Python's Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam.

Mash Jones' absurdist method of teaching history, like his Crusades TV series, together with the cutout animation and funny voices of Gilliam's Python days... you get this awesome video game. Neither person had anything to do with Rock of Ages as far as I can tell (the developer is Chilean collective ACE), but I hope they've been alerted to it!

Essentially you play the game as the legendary Greek character Sisyphus. You break free of your endless toil rolling a rock for Chronos' amusement and then move down through the ages of history using that same rock to conquer various kingdoms. The opponent kingdoms are laid out as a pair of paths (with terrain, obstacles, and gaps) that lead to castles. Players must roll Sisyphus' boulder (think Monkey Ball or Marble Madness on a bigger scale) through the gauntlet of their assigned path, ultimately smashing into the enemy castle gates with as much speed as possible. Your opponent will be trying to do the same thing to you, over his mirror image course. At its simplest it'd just be a race between two players (your opponent can be human or CPU), but the game is complicated by a tower defense aspect. You can build additional obstacles and hazards for your opponet to navigate, in an attempt to either slow him down (so you get to their gates first) or damage their boulder enough to reduce its mass at impact... maybe even destroy it altogether effectively costing them a turn.

I think maybe I like this game a lot more than the general run of gamers would. It has awesome, sometimes crude humor, a lot of historical references, and constant continual nods to a Pythonesque aesthetic. Everytime you roll on down toward the enemy gates the path is littered with soldiers and citizenry all represented as moving, dancing paper cutouts that shout 'oohg' or 'blah' when you roll over them. I never get tired of it! All backgrounds and landscapes resemble the bright, airbrush-enhanced backgrounds Gilliam used to do in his animation bits. The bosses are incredible absurd CG creations. The intro to each stage is a humorous history lesson, with some of your opponents a complete surprise.

I dunno, the whole thing is probably designed to appeal to me and very few others... at least few game players that'd be on Xbox Live! It hits a lot of my buttons and basically came out of nowhere. My kids think it is awesome, even though their exposure to Python and the other works of the two Terries is pretty limited. But they don't play it as doggedly as I do. I'm trying to get golds in all the time trials, find all the hidden item, everything. Whatever I can do to stretch out the longevity of this goshdamn game because it is too fun!

I read somewhere a reviewer complaining about how the defenses you build aren't enough to really 'defend' your castle. I think the dude was missing the point. The game is REALLY about rolling the boulder and getting to the enemy gates as fast as possible. It is primarily an action game with controller-facility and an understanding of physics and the boulder's momentum as your top tools. The defenses are there to slow the boulder's course. It is rare that a boulder actually gets destroyed and even going off the course only resets you in place with a small loss of time. Even if you lose some layers on your rock, from getting hit by catapults or running into dynamite, and it is smaller when it hits the enemy HQ, it is still basically going to take three hits to win no matter what. So when it comes to building defenses, you are not going to prevent the enemy from hitting you. That isn't the point. And the computer player WILL be better than you are at making the defenses until you put in a lot of time and learn what everything can do and the best places to set them up on the tracks. But you can still win. This CPU's advantages are balanced out by the fact that a human player is going to be better at controlling the boulder. Finding shortcuts and attempting insane jumps is part of YOUR advantage as a non-CPU.

If you want something really funny (and violent in a decidedly different way), try out the Rock of Ages demo. You'll know in two minutes whether it is the game for you. An utterly different, refreshing break from all the murder and grimdark games crowding the field.

Be A F@#%&ing Space Marine

The new game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is out for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Reasons why it is a good game:
Robust graphics engine better than it has any right to be from RTS developer Relic Entertainment.
Seems like a cover shooter, but changes things up a lot to emphasise close combat.
Emphasises close combat, including health ups from finishing moves.
REALLY smooth system for moving from shooting to close combat.
You get to learn why 40K Space Marines are THE Space Marines.
Decent voice acting and music. Cutscenes good and also pretty short.
No weapons really suck if you no how to use them.
Customisation in multiplayer quite deep.
Multiplayer maps tight, interesting, and well-designed.
Perks in multiplayer varied and useful.
Ability to copy an agressor's loadout a great balancing tool.

Reasons why it might not be such a good game:
Close combat strikes and facing frustrating when finesse is required.
No block or shield button. And you could really stand to have one.
Levels very linear, encounters mostly staged the same way through the game.
Limited enemy variety.
Little play variety beyond run 'n' gun action (no vehicles, only one 'shooter' section, etc).
Extremely limited starting weapons and abilities in multiplayer.
System for unlocking weapons and perks in multiplayer arduous.
Only two multiplayer scenarios.
Some significant lag issues at times.

Reasons why it is a great 40K fan game:
You get to be a fucking Space Marine.
Narrative mostly accurate to 40K universe.
Setting and trappings accurate to 40K universe. Effectively disguises simplicity of the levels.
Hearing Orks speak. Seeing Guard hold the Marines in awe.
Definitely feels like part of a bigger war, with lots of incidental NPC actions.
Good choices made on visualisations of potentially difficult ideas like Bloodletter daemons and various plasma and power weapons.
Deep multiplayer customisation includes tons of Marine and Chaos chapters, and many armor types.
Again, you get to be a fucking Space Marine.

Reasons why it is a not-so-great 40K fan game:
Three man Marine squad around a Captain. No explanation for rest of squad.
Titus cool, but pretty underwhelming compared to canonical Marine Captains.
Health restore mechanic really out-of-place for Marines (it's clever, but almost vampiric).
Plot will seem 'same-old same-old' to those familiar with 40K universe.
Effect of Chaos on people and places treated too casually.



So basically, good fun for run 'n' gun players, especially those who like the GW game worlds. Sticklers have to be willing to overlook some oddball things put in for 'video game reasons'... seriously Relic, you couldn't include a Marine medic in Titus' squad instead of the life-sucking Execution finishers? Probably the first multiplayer shooter that has trappings cool enough to get me onboard with that particular type of timesink.

Bloody Irony

My son is about to turn 13… become a teenager as it were.

His mother and I have been pretty careful about what he gets to watch on TV, see in the cinema, listen to on ipods, and play for video games. I think it is important, regardless of circumstances, for parents to stay on the same page and present a united front in family policies, and that includes what the kids take in for entertainment.

Up to now it has been pretty simple to clearly divide what is inappropriate content-wise from what is okay. Sex and violence, dubious morality, drug use, torture, and all that… pretty easy to say ‘no’ when your kid is grade-school age. But like the Harry Potter films’ and their gradual creep up in dark tone and violence, so one’s children gradually expand their sphere for what is appropriate for them to see. It is every parent’s judgment call just how much to let in the sphere.

The film rating PG-13 is pretty terrible. I mean the usefulness of it. I find myself paying a lot more attention to those little black and white words underneath the rating to get a better idea of content. PG-13 is so far-ranging that I find myself expending a shitload of effort trying to find out just where on the scale this or that particular film is falling. A film with this rating can be a family film with the word ‘damn’ in it or a few too many scat jokes. Or it could have the levels of violence, including the occasional decapitation, of an R-rated movie but without mature levels of cussing. More than once I’ve had to go to the movies a day or two ahead of my kids just to be able to make this call.

I’m no prude and I’m not easily shocked—certainly not by entertainment content. In fact my commitment to pushing my own boundaries in film viewing may make me the best filter on content that I know of. I’ve been determined to observe my children, their behavior and their reactions, and introduce various levels of onscreen mayhem if and when I think they can handle it. If I’ve gotten a bad reaction, then I dial it back. Unless I’m feeling mean on Halloween or something. Because my daughter is almost two years younger than my son, she has sort of set the bar for what I can allow, since keeping two separate standards going for the two is not really manageable. So she probably sees things a little too early (but she’s mature), and he sees things a little late (he isn’t mature) so it has been made to work out.

TV is simple. I can use the cable box to simply lock all programs above a certain rating, and look at individual programs on a case-by-case basis as they come up. With music, we’ve sort of gone with a looser policy altogether. Given the lack of visual component, the content seems less impacting. So I’m not going all ‘parental advisory’ on the kids about what they listen to. I just keep an eye on it, and if I see playlists that start to lean towards gangster rap or graphic deathgrind, I’ll bring the hammer of censorship down. Lady Gaga and Rhianna have me wincing a bit at times, but I’m letting it go for now.

Games are more complicated. In terms of keeping a different game standard for my younger kid… there’s no issue because she isn’t interested in the games that push that envelope. The worst I have to worry about here is a bit of cussing or some of the sexual content in her DDR games, the same as her music basically. But with my son there’s a whole different need for monitoring in place.

It has only been about two years since I loosened up the reins on violence in first person shooters and let him play Halo. The lack of violence to humans (little conventional ‘gore’) and the emphasis on the game world’s aesthetics and the music, made it more palatable. And this turned out to be a positive decision. He became enamored with the whos and the whats of the Halo universe, including getting toys and books… and not just focused on painting the walls in neon-bright Covenant blood.

BUT. Like his friends, the baseline favorite game genres are first and third-person shooters. So as he’s gotten older, and shown he has been levelheaded, I’ve moved him on up to more mature material. Not too long ago he was playing Serious Sam. This game is pretty violent, with tons of enemies to mow down in a sort of abstractedly gory manner. But the type of enemies, the stylized graphics and the whole over-the-top attitude of the game tempered it for me. When I was his age I was drawing big pictures of war scenes or underwater views of boatloads of people getting attacked by sharks. It had the adults around me rolling their eyes, but not calling for a straightjacket.

Later still, I let him play Wolfenstein. Now this game ups the ante, being by far the most realistic representation of violence he’d yet played. Along with seriously creepy or scary enemies and a sound effects aspect that will make you duck your head from incoming fire even days after you’ve started playing it. But Wolfenstein also has clear-cut, no-ambiguity enemies—Nazis. And their historically supported penchant for occult artifacts. So y’know? No drug dealers, no prostitutes, not much in the way of dubious moral choices, unless you count slaughtering Hitler’s minions a dubious choice. It’s still pretty clearly not in Grand Theft Auto territory. So at this point, the violence is becoming almost secondary, helped in large part by the fact that he isn’t showing an increasing tendency to punch his sister or talk about headshots at the dinner table.

So this brings us to the present. At the moment he is pressing his way through the various episodes of Half Life 2. Half Life is kind of on the order of Wolfenstein. Realistic human enemies mixed with otherworldly fiends. There are also no morally questionable paths through the game. Gordon Freeman is a standup guy whether the player wants to be or not, but the game does a good job of not making it feel too restrained. Half Life is also a cut above almost anything else in terms of drama, story, and overall quality and has seriously given Halo a run for its money in my son’s list of favorites. The world built by Valve has him thinking about a lot more than just the killing, and he really cares about the people populating the resistance against The Combine. By association he also likes the Portal games which emphasize puzzle-solving over blowing things away, though death for your avatar(s) is never far away.

Far and away the most extreme thing he’s played is the new Mortal Kombat. And I really had to think that one over. It is extremely violent, never mind the somewhat scantily clad sexed-up looking women. And it encourages matches to be finished in as violent a manner as possible. I kind of looked at it like some old monster drawings I might’ve done as a kid. Gory, yeah. But MK is also populated by otherworldly creatures and almost every human has superpowers and is dressed accordingly. It is pretty far removed from reality. I actually found The Krypt, where players buy the various unlockables, to be the most objectionable part of the game. You basically have to push a button to kill some hapless prisoner in order to ‘unlock’ his soul, which then flies off to provide you with your ‘reward’. These deaths are by torture device and creature infestation. They don’t provide the meat of the game, and actually get tiresome after a while owing to the amount of shit that’s in The Krypt. But it is still ‘push a button kill an innocent dude’. A didn’t stop my kid from playing MK because it IS just a sidebar to the game, but it was a moment of realization in how casual ‘murder’ has gotten to be even apart from the obvious ‘murder simulators’ that are the typical first person shooters.

But his friends are all about this graphic killing. And apparently have parents knowingly or unknowingly abetting the carnage. When his friends talk about their coolest games they are almost invariably talking about a Call of Duty game or something like it. The only real-world war FPS I’ve really let him play are the Battlefield Bad Company series for Dice. The first one actually didn’t even get up to a Mature rating and what I saw of it, emphasized tactical thinking with its destructible scenery and the comradery between you and your comrade NPCs more than it did running up to the enemy and capping them. So the Battlefield games got a pass. He’ll probably get to play the new one just coming out soon. His friends know these games and think they’re ‘okay’… I’m sure they don’t rate super-high for the very reasons I green lighted ‘em. They’re not in-your-face enough about the killing.

I have since put the nix on some other games, almost always coming up because some friend of his has recommended it. It makes you wonder if these parents really have no fucking idea what their kids are doing, or have just written them off because their ‘only games’. Remember in the old days of Dungeons and Dragons when some kids showed marked behavior changes from taking their characters too seriously? Yeah. Those were only games too.

This brings us to Fallout. Specifically Fallout 3. Fallout is the cat’s ass as far as my son’s buddies are concerned. I knew these games probably had objectionable material in them, because I knew enough about the Fallout game world. I hadn’t played any Fallout games since previously they’ve been PC titles. The Fallout titles I knew about were also role-playing games. So when my kid asked to get Fallout: New Vegas after seeing it briefly at a friend’s house, it was not too difficult to dissuade him since I knew FNV was also an RPG, albeit one with some real-time action aspects. I just knew he wasn’t into games to manage inventories and get into long conversations. He’s done a bit of RPG stuff on his handhelds and is currently stalled in Chrono Trigger on the VC, but it is amongst the least appealing genres to him.

Then some friend let him borrow Fallout 3.

I don’t know if it is because of the way Bethesda actioned-up specifics of the game that were strictly RPG staples before, but the game appears to have changed enough things to where my son wants to get into the Fallout world. Or maybe he has matured enough to where the RPG aspects don’t hinder him. Either way, he took the game home along with Portal 2. I looked at it thinking ‘hm, I don’t know…’ but put it off because I figured burying himself in Portal would buy me some time to research just how bad Fallout 3 is. Nope. He apparently went straight to Fallout. I know this because I his Mom heard screams of agony coming from some NPC he was working over. So she pulled the game for his Xbox 360 until such time as I could render a verdict. I had some explaining to do on how he had a game where the rating box out shows ‘sexual situations and drug use’ right under the M rating.

Needless to say after doing a bit of poking around about what-all is in the game, he’s not going to get to play Fallout 3 for the foreseeable future. Drug use, prostitution, and the ability to murder innocents, are dodgy enough when seen in some RPG-typical isometric view, but Bethesda’s work to make the experience immersive and ‘cinematic’ pretty much shreds any rationalizing I might do. Oh, and hearing ‘fuck’ about five times in as many minutes kinda does that too. Fallout has a karma system where doing the civil thing clicks you towards a certain ending, and doing evil another. But that’s not enough for a kid still in formative years. If he CAN do the horrible thing, he’s going to do the horrible thing. Just to see how the game handles it. If he gets a shitty ending for it, he won’t be happy, but it’ll have been worth it just to see all the forbidden crap we’d never let him watch in a movie.

And I don’t blame him for doing it. I tried to see inappropriate sex and violence when I was kid. But my Mom went apoplectic catching me at it sometimes. Back in the day, the film Jaws (understandably) had a serious public rep for excessive violence. Based on everything she’d seen and read there was no way I was going to see it. So I snuck. And she caught me. Now there were worse things I’d seen and read. But THAT movie was the one she specifically had inside her blinders. I think parents today are doing the same thing. They all have their shields up for Grand Theft Auto, the scapegoat of today, but are missing the Fallouts getting by them. So my kid? Not happy. Not at all. He got caught watching Jaws. There won’t be any disciplinary action to speak of—I mean I looked right at the damn box and handed it back to him. But that’s another game his Dad cut off.

He’s found compensation though, and the irony is almost suffocating.

Yesterday we downloaded the demo for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. The full game releases next week on September 6th. If you’ve read my previous post about Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team, you know we played that little lead-in download to death and are eagerly awaiting this game, its big brother.

So the kid has started in on the demo, and it is one of the most violent games I’ve ever seen. And I've seen A LOT of video game violence.

Games Workshop’s 40K universe isn’t replete with sex or drugs or the exploitation of fuzzy kittens. Controversy around it mostly has to do with the fascist nature of the Imperium of Man (though all the ‘armies’ take a sort of kill-everyone-else stance since the species’ survival is frequently at stake), or the demonic imagery associated with the forces of Chaos. The Space Marines, though the most elite and haughty of human forces, are also frequently far enough above politics that they are shown taking something resembling moral high ground. That is, a Space Marine commander can follow what he believes is right and there’s precious little the more pragmatic human forces like the Imperial Guard or Inquisition can do about it. So playing a Marine captain as you do in this game, you will probably be taking as noble a road as possible given the context, that of protecting humanity and its resources against the invading Ork hordes. So, in terms of narrative choices, I’m not too worried that my kid will be complicit in holding some human victim’s testicles over an open flame. A Marine isn't going to do that.

But cripes. I love GW and 40K, but this is like Mortal Kombat with about a dozen combatants on the screen at the same time. Amongst the 'goodness' is performing ‘executions’ (of Orks mind you) that GAIN YOU BACK SOME HEALTH. I realize they need a healthup mechanic but turning the paragons of humanity into vampires? Actually, there is a precedent for that amongst the Blood Angels Chapter of the Space Marines.

But that’s a long, complicated story. The protagonist in WH40K: Space Marine is by default an Ultramarine—a chapter based in Greek imagery and who run their own empire of Ultramar about as close to 21st century standards of fairness and equality as you’re going to get. So the boy is using his Marine to hack about with a chainsword (chainsaw sword) throwing up clouds of blood and popping off the occasional Ork head with a bolt pistol. Of course he stops every now and then to EXECUTE an enemy which is usually shown as hoisting them in the air on the chainsword while the blade chews through their abdomen and bursts them apart in a shower of blood that then stains the Marine’s armor for the remainder of the combat. Yay!

When I get involved in 40K games or painting or drawing or whatever, yeah BLOOD is implicit or explicit in all of it. The novels are probably the place where the violence actually gets the strongest, particularly where anything has to do with Chaos (the really uber bad guys). But the video game is VISUAL. I’ve rarely seen a GW spinoff that so revels in carnage. And this is the ‘good guy’.

Now for me, this would be fine. I still look askance at the vampire health thing (what the fuck?)… it just seems like there’d be a canonical 'Ultramarine way' to make this happen instead of such a weird, macabre manner. But graphic gore doesn’t rattle me. The problem is that I set this up to my kid as, ‘yeah, you’re gonna love it!’ And boy does he ever! Right down to the smoking, headless, eviscerated Orks lying all over the landscape. He plays the 40K tabletop game, but the brutality is still totally abstract even if the body count was the same… which it isn’t. If the ten minutes I saw is any guide, before the game is completed this Marine is going to kill twenty times more enemies than a similar character would manage in a dozen tabletop matches.

I’m just dismayed looking at this as a parent. It IS over-the-top like Serious Sam. It IS about facing non-human alien enemies out to destroy humanity like Halo. And he isn’t being exposed to any attitudes or philosophy he doesn’t already see in the 40K wargame literature.

So I won’t put the brakes on for this. It might be difficult to explain to another parent the nuance here that makes Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine different from Fallout 3. But there’s a difference. I'll admit to bristling less at violence than the other objectionable sorts of content that Fallout has on display, along with its giving the player the ability to indulge in some of it. He's already been exposed to everything in Space Marine except the execution mechanic. So, though it is off-putting, I'm not lumping it in the same league as Fallout 3.
At least with this new Space Marine game, he’ll be on the hip side with his other blood ‘n’ guts buddies for a little while. He's just going to have to wait awhile longer to be allowed to be totally amoral.

Smoke-filled.

As summer draws to a close so does my cigar-smoking season.

This year I've indulged in my regular smokes, Partagas Almirantes, to a reasonable degree, but I also bought a handful of the same maker's new release, Partagas Black in a toro size. Almirantes are thinner than a traditional toro but just about every other cigar I smoke is a toro and I like trying new things and making comparisons by sticking to that particular size. I was, however, not impressed by the Black. Almirantes are good because, though they aren't really strong, the Cameroon wrapper and the particular choice in fillers combine to make a really fragrant cigar while it is burning. The smoke AND the smell of the heated but yet-to-be-burned wrapper both. And the flavor has a lot of nuances to my palate. They're also not too pricey so I can afford to stay stocked without breaking the bank.

The Black was just dull. A really dark maduro wrapper (hence 'black') on this stick, so I wasn't expecting it to be as fragrant while burning or as nuanced as the Almirantes... but it is just so 'meh'. I was really hoping for more *pow* to it, especially since it is advertised as a full strength... which isn't really an indicator of flavor, but given the pedigree... yeah. I have a few more to finish, and they aren't bad in any way, but color me unimpressed.

Most of my experimentation this season has been in getting selections of Rocky Patel brand cigars in small amounts. The store I buy from, Famous Smokes in Pennsylvania, has a huge range of Rocky Patel products. Many many of them are exclusive to their shop, and I sampled some from the Famous exclusives and some from the mainstream Patel products that are available everywhere.

The exclusives are not bad... and they are fairly inexpensive all told... but there are two non-exclusive, regular Patel cigars that have become firm favorites. I'm kind of shocked at the difference actually.

The Rocky Patel Edge Lite is medium-bodied with a bright Connecticut-shade style wrapper. The Patel Brothers was a full-bodied bruiser with a maduro wrapper. So one light and one dark. Different 'hefts' of smoke for different occasions. And I gotta say these two were WELL above the other Patels I smoked including a couple of different sorts of the lauded Patel Vintage. Wow. I'm going to stick with getting little 5-paks of these for now because over the coming winter it just won't be available to light them up frequently. But I better start budgeting for a box each now at around 130-150 dollars a box from Famous.

So this whole post is kind of a roundabout way of saying if you buy from Famous (or anyone else), and you've been tempted into trying Patel cigars by the various catalog and website deals frequently run on the brand, don't blow 'em off over the bargain marks. Cast your net a little further and snag some of the non-exclusives. I can at least say for me, The Edge Lite and The Patel Brothers (not the Patel Bros. Next Generation, I haven't tried that yet) were great. And most Patels aren't outrageously spendy.

The Best Of All Possible Worlds

13 Assassins (2010).

Jidaigeki (samurai film), check.
Crazy director who is no slouch at violence, check.
Cast of new and old faces in Japanese genre films, check.
Respectful remake of classic film, check.
Hits ALL marks that make samurai films compelling, particularly giri/ninjo (duty/conscience) conflicts.
Has TWENTY times the action quotient of recent samurai films like Twilight Samurai or The Hidden Blade, check.
Has flashes of director's trademark grotesquerie and weirdness, check.
Uses real martial arts training scenes and has frightening fight choreography, check.
Awesome Blu-Ray edition, check.

I'll cover this film in more detail after I've composed myself. Nonetheless if one is a fan of samurai or martial arts films in general, RUN, do not walk, to catch this movie. It has been released on home video here in The States.

Lola Runs Away With It



I don't know how I missed ever seeing Run Lola Run over the years. But I watched it recently, and I have to say it is about the best 'time travel' movie I can remember. And all on a budget that was probably shoestring even back in the day.

German-language with subtitles but don't let that put you off. There is a commentary track on the DVD from the director Tom Tywker and star Franka Potente with both speaking fluent English. A major shout-out for the soundtrack too. Mostly industrial-tinged electronica, with some vocals from the lead, Potente.

Some comparisons to video games have been made about this film, but that didn't occur to me at all while I was watching it. After the fact, I can see that point, but I enjoyed it strictly on its narrative ideas, aesthetics, and extremely kinetic cinematography. Even counting the years and all the overuse of crazy techniques in cinema, the visuals were still really cool.

This movie confirms my faith in the strength of ideas over budget. Totally compelling.

Not Without Its Faults pt 2

The other game defying my expectations was Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team. I got this for ten bucks on my Xbox 360.

Unlike the giant-budget Epic Mickey, Kill Team is one of those little downloadable titles that publishers more and more frequently release as an apetite-whetting cash grab. Part of building hype for an upcoming triple-A game. Sometimes these are little flash games on websites, sometimes they are more elaborate... like the 2D 'retro-styled' game released in conjunction with Capcom's Dark Void. Usually these little side stories aren't anything to write home about, but Kill Team is now out about a month before the much-anticipated much-hyped Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, and is definitely an exception.

It is actually REALLY good.

The upcoming Space Marine game looks to feature the player in the role of a Marine Captain. In the tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine Captains are legendary hero-level characters, typically commanding good size armies, and capable of laying waste to whole squads of trooper models on their own. They get their Chapter's pick of the best custom-made armor and weapons, and are typically very old, very experienced war leaders who have seen battle on countless worlds against all manner of enemy. They're also every inch the super-sized no-nonsense shoot-first type of warriors that western sensibilites seem to require. So a Space Marine Captain makes a great player character in the third person blast and chop-fest that this new game is bound to be. One of 40K's iconic enemy races, the Orks ('futuristic' versions of fantasy orcs), appear in most of the screenshots and videos I've seen for the game. Video games based on GW franchises don't always work out so well, but Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine *looks* like it hits all the right marks.

Which leads to Kill Team. This little downloadable game starts of showing an Ork Kroozer (warship) heading into Imperial Space to attack a Forge World (industrial complex planet). Space Marine boarding craft intercept it, and your game begins. I think the game represents a different specific conflict, but is attached to the larger that also encompasses the upcoming WH40K: Space Marine.

You can choose between four 'types' of Space Marine, and the differences in them basically reflect how much balance you want between ranged and close combat. You can also choose between five different Chapter color schemes, for a bit of personalisation. Each Marine type has three different weapons available but the high power ones need to be unlocked through play. The game also provides various levels of buffs (again most have to be unlocked) and you have opportunities to swap weapons and buffs in the course of blasting through each stage. You're never stuck with an unworkable combination. The controls are simplicity itself, the game is a twin-stick shooter. Moving in one direction while firing in another is a piece of cake, and use of special abilities, running and all that are mapped in logical places. There isn't that much to keep track of anyway.

Now for 40K purists there's going to have to be a little give here. The player is expected to run and gun through the corridors and chambers of a large ship killing hundreds of Orks and Gretchin (SF goblins). None of the Marines on offer would canonically be capable of accomplishing this. In the upcoming Space Marine game it might be a bit less of a stretch considering Captains are top-level hero characters, but in Kill Team you are using (for variety's sake) squad leader and lower level heroes. It is a bit like the stretch you have to make when Guile is fighting the Hulk in Marvel vs Capcom games. For the sake of even having a playble game, some bending of canon is required. So if a 40K goober can just have an open mind and set aside the limitations imposed on these Marines by the tabletop game, they'd find most of the rest of the game is a really neat little exploration of the 40K universe.

I read a review (after I'd played it) that said Kill Team's environments were drab and same-y. Well, there are only five levels and they will take the player about forty minutes each the first time through. And all the levels take place on a big Ork spaceship. So a certain amount of consistency could be expected. The devs structured this, actually working to NOT break canon in a sense, similar to the tabletop system's penchant for campaigns, scenarios strung along in narrative form to reach an ultimate goal. Most typically official individual scenarios do NOT range all over the galaxy and pit an army against a variety of enemie armies. 40K game narratives don't have an everything-but-the-kitchen sink approach, though in their own home games players frequently battle with little regard to a functioning narrative. So I found focusing on just the Orks and THEIR environment to be a good idea. Especially considering the short length of the game and the focused nature of the narrative.

As a long-time 40K fan, I found the portrayal of the cluttered, ramshackle Ork ship to be really cool. It had lots of great details, like every time there was an explosion big enough to rock the ship, all kinds of carp lying around would slide across the floor-- the Orks don't tie anything down! There are great vats of radioactive material just open to the air with no safety railings, and catwalks made up of metal planks barely riveted together. And everything is lit with harsh white lights or hellish red and green glows. The game totally nails the anarchic and heedless nature of Orks and their technology. It's a miracle they could build anything space-worthy. For a little variety's sake there is one level in the game where the Orks have sealed off the ship because of yet another alien presence that they haven't quite been able to eradicate. This was a good bit of fun, with a few visual cues here and there (heavy use of maroon and purple) to indicate the 'changed' nature of the region. The player must make their way through this area, of course, and battles a totally different, well-known 40K force, before confronting the Ork Warboss in the finale.

The in-game player and enemy models are also worth mentioning. I read somewhere that these were basically the assets from the Dawn of War strategy game series, but jazzed up with a few extra details. I haven't played Dawn of War (aversion to PC games, aversion to strategy games!) but the characters and enemies are all perfect for this type of game. The game is played in an on-high isometric view, very much like you were looking down on a tabletop wargame. You get a pretty wide field that you can see to allow time to see what's coming at you-- though the game has a lot of ambushing going on-- and to give room for many enemy to be on screen at once. Consequently, the actual size of the models for most of the game is quite small-- again, like a tabletop view, but every now and then the camera zooms down in for a slo-mo enemy death scene and then the level of detail in the scenery and characters becomes apparent. It isn't Halo Reach levels of sophistication, but there's a lot more texture and bling than was really necessary for such a cheapie twin-stick arcade game. Interestingly, with all the details the dudes in this game all look like well-painted 28mm figures, with the figure proportions and chunky details... as opposed to the upcoming Space Marine game's properly proportioned realistically rendered game characters.

There might be a lot of video gamers who will look at this game and think it is some kind of science-fiction ripoff of stuff from World of Warcraft, but GW's designs, both fantasy and futuristic, were full-fledged and established well before even the first early generations of Warcraft came along.

This game doesn't really do anything new, mechanics-wise. If you can play Robotron 2084, Expendable, Loaded, or Geometry Wars you're good to go. It just has everything tuned really well. It makes it seem ludicrous that no one has applied the twin-stick formula to 40K before. The graphics, the sound, the voice over (sounding rather like Patrick Stewart or Sean Connery at times), it is all just badass.

And the game is just as fun, if not moreso, in two-player couch-cooperative. The powerups, and their judicious use is pretty critical to getting through the game and Kill Team lets both players share the advantages of a powerup that either grabs as long as they stay in proximity to each other. Players can then stack the powerups in a way you can't do in single-player. Player one can grab the power field creating a dome around the Marines impervious to enemy fire. Player two can then grab triple fire, granting awesome sprays of bullets. So for as long as these pickups last, both players are protected, both players have spread guns. It really encourages the players to strategise together and not just be every-man-for-himself and dick the other guy by grabbing the good shit. Since my kid is a 40K fan, this game is tailor-made for he and I to just pick up and play. And it was actually fun trying to find all the hidden medals and acquire all the weapons and buffs. The usual confusion ensuing from two players wreaking havoc is a major part of the fun because with all the cooperative aspects, including reviving a downed partner, it almost never causes a game over. I never found the camera a problem either, and in fact its dynamic tracking actually added a lot to the game.

I've also read some complaints about game length, but to me it was perfect. I'm so damned tired of games that require such a huge commitment in time and effort... even fun games can bog down. This game is only four hours for one play through, as I've already said. But it was really fun on repeat plays and it rewards the primary player with unlocks, achievements, etc even when played co-op. So I've put much more than four hours into it, and none of it has felt like a chore or grinding.

Other writers seem to largely agree with everything I'm posting here. Even non-40K fans give the game a lot of props. BUT. I have to go along with the one huge glaring fault:

NO online co-op. Let me repeat that. A pick-up-and-play game with an expansive user-friendly field of view and multiple aspects to encourage teaming up, but has NO WAY for you to play co-op other than with a friend in the same room. Local two-player ONLY. Wow.

Now for me this isn't really a problem. I have a fanatical kid gamer and 40K goob right in my own home, and I'm not that big for online play anyway. This does, however, seem like an absolutely massive oversight. I can only think the money ran out. Since the game is so well-done in just about every other way, maybe the room wasn't in the budget to implement this. I don't know what all it takes to enable smooth netcode but looking at this game it isn't much of a resource hog. I can't believe it would require anything like a Halo or Street Fighter game to banish lag and get really efficient bandwidth usage out of it. It has a mostly fixed view, tiny characters, and minimal, straightforward controls (son not a lot of inputs to have to read).

Anyway. Huge oversight, yes. But for me personally, this is the best cheap game I've bought all year, and one of the better games overall regardless of price. I don't feel too keen to diss Mickey, and I'll admit to 40K frothing probably enhancing my enjoyment of Kill Team... but I'm probably not going back to the Disney game. I will, however, spend a lot more time in the Ork Kroozer icing greenskins.