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[2 Minute Review] Persona 4

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High school sim or epic quest?

Persona 4 summon

You’ll have to put aside about 100 hours to find out!

DO: You are a transfer student from the big city, sent to a small town in rural Japan. While you deal with the struggles and pitfalls of being the new kid at the local high school, you also find yourself involved in the quest to solve a series of murders in town.

TYPE: JRPG

PLATFORM: PS2

PRICE: $39

MEAT: The Persona games are a subset of the Shin Megami Tensei series, as detailed here. Set in the sleepy town of Inaba (a drastic change of pace from the usual hustle and bustle of most SMT games), you play a transfer student who needs to navigate the social While slow to start, Persona 4 hits the ground running by about the 3 hour mark and never lets up for the next hundred hours. Unlike most JRPGs that are set in some mythical fantasy land or sci-fi setting, the modern-day setting is one of the many breaths of fresh air that help to keep the game fresh. Unlike Persona 3’s evokers (which basically emulated your party shooting themselves in the head on a regular basis), Persona 4 backs away from the more controversial imagery and uses the television and tarot cards as the main method of breaking away from the reality of every day life.

During your travels, you will gain a cast of characters who initially come across as anime stereotypes but as you spend time with them, you’ll see that there are many facets to their personalities that make you care about what happens to them. In fact, the social aspect of the game is the strongest portion of the game, in my opinion. I would be perfectly happy playing a game that entirely revolved around the various social portions of the game.

There is a robust turn-based combat engine in the game for those times you need to dive into the TV and help clear out the dreamworlds of the various characters you encounter in the game. The variety of ‘dungeons’ found in the TV world is a welcome improvement over the rather repetitive tower of Tartarus from Persona 3, as each kidnapped victim of the serial killer has a particular fantasy that you must explore and rescue them from before it’s too late. From steamy bathhouses to high-tech secret labs to a retro-style game, you’ll always have a unique environment to explore.

Add to all of this already rich gameplay the Persona collection and fusion aspect, which is like a deeper, darker version of Pokémon, and you have something that will keep you fiddling around for that perfect monster ally to the wee hours of the night.

persona4 lab
PERKS: A wonderful cast of characters; 100+ hours of questing; gorgeous graphics (given that it’s a PS2 title!); a compelling storyline; fantastic voice acting; one of the best localizations I’ve ever experienced (it keeps a lot of the Japanese charm and culture but makes it very accessible for a North American audience).

SCREAMS: For more gameplay during the first 2-3 hours of the game. One of the unfortunately quirks of the last few Persona games is that the initial 3 hours is almost like a glorified cutscene. That said, those first 3 hours are there for a reason and really help establish the world you will be mucking about in for the next 100 hours; for a ‘next-gen’ installment that renders the pop-art visuals in HD; less repetitive dungeon-crawling and even more of an emphasis on the social aspects of the game; the ability to revive the main character if he is killed in battle instead of having that be an instant trip to the Game Over screen.

VERDICT: Buy! Especially if you are a fan of Japanese culture or JRPGs and want to play something fresh that isn’t the typical swords & sorcery, save the world rut that the genre tends to get stuck in.

Video Games Live

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I just got back from one of the best concert experiences of my life. If you ever get the chance to see a Video Games Live concert in your area, do yourself a favour and get your butt in a seat ASAP.

The symphony that played this evening was phenomenal, the synchronicity between the music and the video component was impeccable and the choir, which was a YOUTH choir of all things, was fantastic. Heck, even Tommy Tallarico earned my respect tonight. He may make me want to punch him in the teeth whenever I see him on TV reviewing a game, but he is one hell of a guitar player and can he ever MC a show.

One of the surprises (for me at least ) was that this was the second concert in the history of VGL that they’ve included music from Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, which was just outstanding. They also had Martin Leung, the videogame pianist, play a few sets during the evening and he was a wonder to watch play. I used to play piano back in the day but this guy is on a whole other plane of existence.

Anyway, enough gushing. If you enjoy the music you hear in the games you play and want to have a great 2 1/2 hours listening to your local symphony play them (and maybe win some prizes), I’d highly recommend you go out of your way to catch a show. My friends and I are already making plans to come back to see it next year, assuming it makes its rounds in our general area.

Oh, I almost forgot about the costume show before the concert began. While I really liked the family that dressed up as Mario, Luigi, Link and Princess Peach, the guy who had the homemade Red XIII costume from FFVII was amazing. I wish I had pics, but it was it ever a sight to behold.

Eating My Own Butt

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About 2 weeks ago, a little experiment was unleashed upon the PSN by the creator of Katamari Damacy called Noby Noby Boy.

There’s not a lot to the game, but it is oddly compelling in its own special way. You are BOY, you stretch by moving both ends of your body in opposite directions and eating things which let you stretch further. That’s about it. There is also a meta game where you report your length to GIRL, who aggregates all of the lengths of all of the BOYs playing Noby Noby Boy on the PSN and that length tallies up as she stretches from Earth to the Moon and beyond.

Which is all well and good, but what I’m here to show you is the best part of the game. If BOY is stretched too far too fast or gets run over by one of the strange, strange denizens of whatever random level he’s spawned upon, he can snap in half. How does BOY go back to his own stretchy self?

He eats his own butt.

Behold.

Did I mention that NNB lets you record your games and upload them directly to Youtube! It also has the best homepage URL in the history of the internet (after BM, of course…)

If you’ve got $5, a PS3 and a connection to the internet, I implore you to show that creativity can thrive and grab a copy of the game!

Easy, Breezy, Beautiful

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No, I’m not talking about Cover Girl. I’m talking about Flower, the latest game to hit the PSN and a true contender for most beautiful game of the year.

flower-game-screenshot-1

If you’ve ever had a debate with anyone about whether games are art, thatgamecompany’s latest offering should help put that arguement to rest. If you have $10 to spend on a game this weekend, spend it on Flower.

Flower is one of the latest in a slowly growing field of games often referred to as ‘chill’ games. Pixeljunk Eden, A Kingdom For Keflings and flOw are other examples of this kind of game, where the focus isn’t so much on conflict and violence as it is on relaxing and exploring a world with few boundaries.

In the case of Flower, you blow a flower petal across a variety of fields, touching other flowers which open up and add their petals to your breeze. As you collect more and more petals, your ‘tail’ grows longer and longer, which can add some interesting effects and often helps you open up new areas of the world.

Flower uses the Sixaxis controls exclusively and is one of the only games I can think of that actually uses that technology effectively. thatgamecompany should be hired out to teach other studios how to harness the Sixaxis as they’ve obviously got a handle on how it works.

While some might complain about the length of the game (it can be completed in about 3-4 hours) or that it is essentially a gussied up tech demo, for those willing to approach it in the proper frame of mind, it is an utterly rewarding and relaxing experience. There are some twists later in the game that I won’t spoil and I have to say that level 4 is probably the high point of the game, artistically. There are also loads of trophies to unlock and lots of hidden things to go back and search out.

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Enjoy!

An SMT Primer

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Tony, this is for you…

The Megami Tensei series (aka MegaTen aka Shin Megami Tensei aka SMT) is a long running RPG series from Atlus. There are several different offshoots from the core SMT line, which tends to be a post apocalyptic setting with lots of nasty demons running around. To my knowledge, the only game in the core line that has come to North America is SMT: Nocturne.

The Persona games are more like a dating sim crossed with a dungeon crawler. Spending time with your friends and getting to know them is almost as, if not more, important than leveling up. The last two entries (Persona 3 and 4) are some of the best JRPGs to hit the PS2, period, and are refreshing in that they’re more about the storytelling and characters than they are about phat lewt. Persona 3 was infamous for the fact that to unleash your characters’ personae (ie. cast spells) your character would have to shoot themselves in the head with a gun-like implement.

Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2 are set in a post apocalyptic cyberpunk kind of setting.

Devil Summoner games(at least the ones that have seen the light of day over here) are set in the 1920’s with you playing as a sort of private investigator. There are other ones in Japan that are set in a more cyberpunk setting.

Devil Survivor is a new DS game that looks like a mixture of the Persona games and the core series. The main plot point is that it takes place after an apocalyptic event that the authorities were able to avert. Unfortunately for you, they averted it by sealing off Tokyo with all of the demons and citizens inside it. And you’re one of the people stuck inside…

One of the biggest conceits of essentially all of the various SMT games is that while you do fight monsters and demons of all sorts, you also tend to have some way of recruiting them to your team. Some of the games have you negotiating with the demons mid-fight, others have you finding cards and fusing new demons and monsters. In essence, it’s like a very dark, mature take on Pokémon…

Reaching Out For The Truth

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I just realized that it has been far too long since I posted anything around these parts. I intend to rectify that situation shortly. I spent the better part of the last month and a half (108 hours in game time) playing through Persona 4 and will have a review up shortly. I’ve also got a review of The Maw (XBLA), Flower (PSN) and a few other gems tucked away for a rainy day.

It’s nice to finally beat a Persona game though!

‘Tis The Season To Save

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If you’ve managed to survive Christmas dinner and the Boxing Day sales, there’s one more goodie under the virtual tree this year from our good friends at Valve.

Steam is having a massive sale from now until Jan. 2, 2009. Everything is 10-75% off and there are some great deals to be had. I snagged World Of Goo for $15 (I couldn’t justify getting it for $20) as well as Ghost Master ($3) and Runaway: The Dream Of The Turtle ($7). Nothing like getting 3 games for $25, I say.

There are some really good deals on publisher bundles as well and it would be a shame for those of you interested in some unique indie games or even some big titles from the past year or two to miss out on these deals.

[2 Minute Review] Mirror’s Edge

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A game on the edge of pure brilliance and utter frustration.

Mirror’s Edge is 90% exuberant fun and 10% controller-smashing annoyance.

DO: Run through a stylized metropolis, pull off incredible jumps and try to outrun bullets.

TYPE: First Person Parkour

PLATFORM: PS3 & 360 (360 Reviewed)

PRICE: $59.99

MEAT: Mirror’s Edge places you in the red sneakers of Faith, a Runner in a sterile city set somewhere in the near future. Due to surveillence of nearly every form of communication, Runners are used to courier sensitive information from point to point in the city. Sadly, this is about as good as the story gets in Mirror’s Edge. There is a murder, someone gets framed and Faith has to save some people, but what passes for storytelling in Mirror’s Edge is basically there to give you context for why you’re running from point to point. The cutscenes are also rather underwhelming. As a traditional 2D animation afficionado, I don’t have a problem with 2D cutscenes in my 3D games. However, the ones in Mirror’s Edge don’t look very good and seem like something done in Flash.

Enough about the story. The real meat of Mirror’s Edge is the first person jumping/running mechanic. This is where the game succeeds brilliantly. The signature Runner Vision effect, which causes an optimal
route through the level to change colour, is a big help in the early
levels but is much reduced by the end of the game. There are times
where the route highlighted by Runner Vision is not the fastest
or safest, which encourages the player to experiment and find safer and
faster routes than the one suggested by the game. Each level will have you trying to get as high as you can and then progressing in a series of jumps, leaps and wallruns to the end of the level. At certain times, you are put in a room where you need to figure out the best way to reach an air vent or catwalk, but most of the game is spent leaping from roof to roof, which never gets old.

What DOES get old is the combat, specifically the guns and the cops shooting at you. This is where the game took a 180 degree turn from brilliance to frustration and landed flat on its back. Faith is not a super soldier who can soak up 300 rounds. 2 shots will usually put her down and a couple swats with the butt of a rifle will result in a quick trip to Runner Heaven. Unfortunately, Faith’s fragility doesn’t help when you’re trying to subdue a gaggle of cops in riot gear. Further aggravating the situation is the fact that while Faith has a solid punch and a few neat disarm moves, you’ll find yourself fighting the game engine itself instead of the enemies. If you punch a cop, you have to wait for him to stand up and then start the ‘swing-the-gun-at-Faith’ animation before you can attempt a disarm. This leads to many instances of either throwing off your timing or having one of his buddies shoot you while you wait for him to stand up.

Thankfully, these instances are not in the game very often but when they do pop up, they’ll often throw up a roadblock to success that will take many, MANY attempts to overcome. This is particularly egregious from Chapter 7-9 when the game starts to focus more on these combat rooms and shifts away from the platforming. In the interests of full disclosure, I did get the “By Faith Alone” achievement which means that I did not fire a shot for the entire game. Looking back, I think that striving for this achievement is probably what made the areas where the game goes into combat mode so annoying. The game is a lot less frustrating and a lot more fun when the guns are used and upon reflection, the 80 points I got for the achievement were not worth the frustration felt while trying to get it.

For those who just want to run, there are a plethora of time trials and speed runs to go through which pit you against the clock (and the times of other players) in a bullet-free obstacle course based on the levels in the game.

PERKS: An exhilarating sense of speed; awesome visual design; some very cool first person cinematics

SCREAMS: For no guns in the sequel; more first person cinematics; a better melee combat engine; more compelling characters and backstory.

VERDICT: Rent. The core gameplay is a great take on first person gaming and the brilliant presentation shows is a welcome change to the greys and browns that pervade the majority of ‘next-gen’ games. Unfortunately, the momentum that Mirror’s Edge builds as you hop from rooftop to rooftop slams into a brick wall due to the pervasive and infuriating gun-toting cops and the broken melee combat engine.

As always, you can check my Gamercard to see that I have finished the game.

[2 Minute Review] A Kingdom For Keflings

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How can a game that has absolutely zero conflict compete in today’s hyperviolent market?

Typical Screen

Welcome to the most relaxing game of 2008.

DO: Take a scrubby patch of land and transform it into a thriving kingdom.

TYPE: Building/Resource Management

PLATFORM: XBLA

PRICE: 800 MS Points

MEAT: You are a giant in the land of the Keflings, strange little people who want nothing more than to do your bidding. The entire game consists of you ordering the Keflings to harvest resources which can be used to construct a staggering variety buildings. The ultimate goal of the game is to build a castle but getting there can take anywhere from 8-12 hours. It’s one of those games where you can pop in for a few minutes to build one building or spend hours just chilling while you watch your kingdom flourish. This game was so addictive that I’d find myself pulled away from AAA titles like Mirror’s Edge or Left 4 Dead to get back to my kingdom. It is a perfect tonic for those times when you get frustrated and need a break from the more hectic gameplay of straight-up action games.

PERKS: An amazing guitar soundtrack; using your avatar; being able to kick the Keflings around the map (and get an achievement for it).

SCREAMS: For a camera that can be rotated 360 degrees; for a camera that will stay where you put it instead of snapping back into the default isometric view; for a better way to keep track of what building components have been used in a given blueprint so that you don’t make 30 reading rooms by accident.

VERDICT: Buy. This game may be a little TOO relaxing for every gamer, but take the demo for a spin to see if it is for you. In this day of hyperviolence and gore dripping from every corner of the screen, it is nice to see a game pride itself on its lack of conflict. Just make sure you aren’t tired when you play the game as the soundtrack will lull you to sleep.