Alpha Protocol Review

In the late '90s and the early part of this decade, you couldn't talk about PC RPGs without mentioning two names: BioWare and Black Isle. While BioWare has gone on to develop some very successful RPGs (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, Dragon Age) Black Isle sadly went down with publisher Interplay.

Several members of Black Isle went on to form Obsidian Entertainment, and Obsidian's been something of a mixed bag. Knights of the Old Republic II was pretty good, but buggy and lacking some of what made BioWare's original so great. Likewise, Neverwinter Nights 2 had an interesting story but failed to live up to the original.

Despite Obsidian's "good but..." track record, I'd been eagerly anticipating Alpha Protocol since it was first announced. Early details pegged it as an RPG with shooter elements and a rich dialogue system... something like Mass Effect, replacing the sci-fi elements with a 007-esque spy story.

Early reviews, however, were somewhat mixed (the game currently has an average score of 65% for the PS3, 64.1% for the Xbox 360, and 74.8% for the PC version at Gamerankings.com). Reviewers have complained that the game is buggy, the AI is poor, that combat with most weapons is useless, and that the stealth elements are fundamentally broken. While I can't deny that the game definitely had some bugs, I'm going to call bullshit on the rest.

I think a huge part of the problem comes from how the reviewers approach the game. I even recall one reviewer belly-aching about your ability to hit a target isn't simply a matter of where you aim your reticule (I wondered if said reviewer complained about that same fact in Mass Effect, but I was too lazy to look it up). The impression that I got was that most reviewers associate spies with stealth, tried to play Alpha Protocol like it was Splinter Cell, and declared the game broken when that approach didn't work.

Newsflash, video game press: Alpha Protocol is an RPG.

As someone who plays tabletop RPGs, I feel comfortable telling you that all RPGs come down to probability, and statistics for yourself and your enemies that modify probability. On a tabletop, everyone rolls dice. On a video game the dice-rolling might be simulated behind the scenes, but trust me, it's there. So in a game like Alpha Protocol, if one guard doesn't notice you killing his friend two feet away but another catches a few strands of your hair peeking out from behind cover from down the street, that's not an AI issue. One guard rolled high on his ability to notice you, the other didn't. And let's not forget that the enemy rolls are likely against a roll on the player's part to stay hidden, or that the player's ability to stay hidden is affected by any armor worn. Likewise, shooting at an enemy in an RPG isn't enough by itself to hit that enemy. Your ability to attack, stat boosts from the weapon being used, and defensive stats for the enemy all factor in.

To be fair, if you hate that sort of thing, then you probably won't like Alpha Protocol, and if you expect to play Alpha Protocol the way you play Splinter Cell, you're bound to be disappointed. However, it strikes me as unfair to criticize Alpha Protocol for being an RPG and not a stealth-action game with RPG elements.

As an RPG, Alpha Protocol is actually pretty good. You play as Agent Mike Thorton, a new recruit in a super-secret agency called Alpha Protocol. The agency and the protocol its named for apparently exist in extra super secrecy so that they can act in what they determine to be the country's best interests while leaving the American government total deniability. Thorton's first mission for the agency is to track down some missiles believed to be stolen from an American company and used by terrorists to shoot down a passenger airliner. There turns out to be more to that than meets the eye, and Thorton finds himself on the run from everyone, including the agency he works for. Throughout the game, you're never entirely sure who you can and can't trust. When dealing with some of the major characters, you'll have two to four dialogue choices. How you decide will affect how the characters treat you and sometimes have serious repercussions. It's true that you'll play the main missions no matter what, but the order you do them in and the relationships you have will affect how those missions play out. It's a great system that has me looking forward to replaying the game in the future just to see how differently things could play out.

The gameplay is also pretty good, once you accept that it's an RPG. I chose to play the game as stealthy as I could. While this meant that I could often sneak up on an enemy and take him out silently, I soon realized that it was impossible to never be spotted. Unlike games like Metal Gear or Splinter Cell, where being spotted meant your were screwed, being spotted in Alpha Protocol meant fighting some guys until you could turn the alarm off. Which brings us to your gear selection. You can take two weapons, armor, and a few gadgets. You actually have four choices of weapon, though, and the armor you wear affects things like how many gadgets you can carry, how much ammo you can carry, how much endurance you have, how much damage reduction you have, and how stealthy you are. I chose stealthy armor, a pistol, and an assault rifle. I used the rifle in most of my fights, but I had a silencer on the pistol and developed a skill that would let me kill an unsuspecting enemy with a critical headshot. The game reviewers who complained that the pistol is useless in a firefight are 100% correct, but they're missing the fact that it's supposed to be, and that's why you take two weapons on every mission.

Of course, stealth isn't the only option. You can wear heavy armor and simply charge enemies, guns blazing. Or you can build up your tech skill and use an array of gadgets to distract enemies while you go around. It's all about how you build your Thorton. I even built up my Martial Arts skills, so that by the end of the game I found that unless an enemy was a good distance from me that it was often more affective to beat the living snot out of him with my bare hands.

Alpha Protocol's biggest problems aren't enemy AI or broken stealth mechanics. Alpha Protocol's biggest problems are game bugs and it's inventory system. I leveled my stealth skill up until I turned my basic Awareness ability (an ability you start with that lets you know what direction enemies are facing, even if you can't see them) to advanced Awareness, at which point it just stopped working. I'd hit the button to activate it, the game would make a sound, and nothing would happen. Sometimes the game would pause as if loading, then when it resumed a second later the camera would be pointed at the ceiling. And let's not forget the time I went through a door and stepped off the world, falling until I reloaded an older save.

As for the inventory system, I mentioned that you can carry two weapons out of four types. The game has pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, and assault rifles. As I mentioned, I found that assault rifles were great in a firefight, and that a silenced pistol was good for the occasional stealth kill. I played the entire game using those two, and never once did I feel like there was a reason to try the other two. Also, while it was easy enough to figure out if another weapon was better than the one you were using, weapon upgrades were a bit of a mess. Lastly, there didn't seem to be enough of it. As you ran about, collecting money and upgrades, you rarely got new weapons or armor. In fact, when you found money it was often a small percentage of the cost of a new weapon. I replaced my starting piston and my starting assault rifle once each, and my armor twice over the course of the entire game.

Minority though I might be, I actually feel like the game's pros far outweigh the cons. Like I said before, if you're expecting something else Alpha Protocol might not be what you're looking for, but taken for the RPG that it is I found it to be a very engaging game well worth the 15 hours or so that it took me to complete my first play through.

Final Score: A-

Getting caught up with mini reviews

Things have been a little hectic lately, but even I was kind of surprised when I realized that I hadn't posted anything in two months. Did this mean I wasn't playing games or doing anything else worth reviewing? Nope... it just means that when I haven't been working, I've been trying to play games.

At this point, I feel like it'd be a waste of time to write full reviews for everything, but I'd like to at least give you my basic feelings in case you were actually counting on me for such reviews. So here goes...

GAMES

God of War III (PS3): If you've played God of War or GoWII, you should know by now what you're getting into. Not a lot has changed... you start of the game all bad ass, something happens to de-power you, you run around getting powered up for a final boss fight. Considering that the final boss fight that you're preparing for is the same final boss fight you were preparing for in GoWII, the whole setup feels a little contrived. Another thing I didn't care for was how most of the weapons you collect in the game are essentially variations on the chain blades you've been lugging around for the whole series. It's almost as if the developers have come to accept that we don't really care to use a sword when we've got knives attached to chains to swing around. Thing is, giving us more weapons attached to chains doesn't make us any more likely to use them instead of the one we've started with, so just to make sure we have to use the new weapons, the developers threw in obstacles and enemies that can only be overcome with one type of weapon. Despite these minor quibbles, God of War III is both visually impressive and the combat is as fun as it ever was. Final Score: A

Gundam Assault Survive (PSP): Essentially, GAS is a sequel to the well-regarded Gundam Battle series. The controls are the same, the game engine is the same, and the game is still divided into eras. As you might expect by now, another campaign era is added in the form of the next Gundam series in the UC timeline (F91, for those of you keeping score at home). A bit more surprising is the addition of campaigns for Gundam SEED and Gundam 00. Then there are a few minor changes to the game's formula. The most welcome change is that you don't have to pick a side for a campaign. Once you've created your pilots, you can play both the Federation and the Zeon sides of the 0079 campaign, for example. This makes it easier to unlock all the mobile suits on one save file. Another change I like is that you earn credits for doing missions, and the credits can be used to buy new units, buy special parts, or buy tune points. You no longer earn tune points for playing with a suit, so when you get a new one you can start tuning it right away. Less-liked changes are the fact that everything's been re-balanced. Most enemies take more shots to kill, even after you've tuned your mobile suits. Likewise, the most kick-ass suits are not the killing machines they were before. Getting new suits is a pain as well. You don't unlock suits, you unlock the ability to buy them. However, most mobile suits will need to be developed before you can buy them. For example, after you have the Zaku II S-type, you'll need to find or buy a part to equip on it, then buy the development plan for Char's Zaku II just to unlock the ability to buy Char's Zaku II. This can make unlocking many of the game's suits an expensive chore.

But the biggest change in the game, and one I'm on the fence over, is the addition of multi-map missions. The first missions in a campaign may only have one or two areas, but later missions in the game will have up to nine. Finishing a mission now isn't about simply completing an objective; you will have to try to control different areas and defend your ship while trying to complete an objective. Sometime an objective might be to destroy a certain mobile suit, but that mobile suit won't appear until conditions are met like destroying enemy ships or controlling certain areas. The result is that many missions are longer and less-suited toward the bite-size gameplay the PSP is best for, and there are fewer missions. Indeed, missions like the War in the Pocket mission in previous Gundam Battle games are now a number of areas in just one mission. So while the new tactical elements are a plus, the way it's implemented can often be a minus. If push came to shove, I'd have to say that Gundam Battle Universe is still the better game. Final Score: B-

Pokemon SoulSilver (DS): I admit to having a certain weakness for core Pokemon games. There's a part of my brain that likes collecting stuff (it's the same part that compelled me to find all the Riddler Challenges in Arkham Asylum, or to unlock all the costumes in a Dead or Alive game). And when you get down to it, Pokemon is a basic, but fun, turn-based JRPG. Back in the days of the Gameboy, I liked the original, and I thought that Gold/Silver/Crystal were better. In recent times, I've enjoyed the newer ones but always felt that they were a step down from Gold/Silver/Crystal. SoulSilver is basically a DS remake of Silver. While newer moves and secondary types have rebalanced the game since the days when the Gameboy Color was king, SoulSilver (or HeartGold, if you prefer) is still probably the best of the Pokemon games. Final Score: A-

Battlefield Bad Company 2: I enjoyed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare when it came out. When Modern Warfare 2 came out, it was a huge letdown. The characters in the game are unlikeable and possibly insane. The plot is convoluted and at times doesn't even make sense. Infinity Ward more or less jumped the shark, and I've pretty much lost any interest I had in the Call of Duty franchise. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is the new modern-military FPS hotness. All of characters in Bad Company 2 have their own unique (if sometimes stereotypical) personalities. This makes for likeable characters, humorous dialogue, and the occasional dig at Modern Warfare. While the plot is a little ridiculous, you can actually follow it without going "WTF?!" after every mission. And the combat is pretty much what you can expect from modern FPSes. My only real complaint is the amount of smoke in the game. Grenades will kick up dirt, wood will splinter, brick will crumble, and buildings will collapse. All of it kicks up dirt and dust that obscures your vision, but never really seems to bother the enemy AI. If you like FPS games, you owe it to yourself to pick up BFBC2, as it's better than Modern Warfare 2 in pretty much every way. Final Score: A

Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox 360): Since the advent of Gran Turismo, racing games have been divided into two catagories. On the one hand, you've got your arcade racers, which range from Ridge Racer to Need for Speed to Burnout. On the realistic side, there's been a few games like TOCA Race Driver, but only Forza Motorsport ever really seemed to compete with Gran Turismo. The physics were better, and you didn't spend a ton of time screwing around in used 1989 Honda Civics. Forza 3 is hands down the best of the Forza series. Even though I thought Forza is better than Gran Turismo, Forza and Forza 2 were still too tedious for me to really get into. Forza 3 had me completely hooked, though. The career mode spans six seasons. Each season has a championship series, and you pass the time between championship events by racing in other evens. Different events will have you racing different cars in different classes. Forza 3 makes it easy to figure out what class you car is, and provides ways of automatically upgrading it to the top of one class without going over into the next one. For example, you might have a car that's an E class, and you might want to race it in a D-class event. You can choose to automatically take it up to D without accidentally going into C. As such, you don't spend too much time tuning, and you spend more of your time driving. The only (and I do mean only) complain I have about Forza 3 is that the game sometimes doesn't know when you've got too much of a good thing. Most races early in the game are two or three laps on a short track, but championship races in later seasons can be several laps on extremely long tracks. It's not uncommon for one race event to take a half-hour to complete. While it's sometimes fun to try to beat your best lap time on such a race, it can also be a little dull when you've actually lapped mos to of the competition and start to zone out. Final Score: A.

Silent Hill: Homecoming (Xbox 360): This was the first Silent Hill game I'd played since the original back on the first PlayStation. I remember really liking the first one, and I'd picked up Homecoming on clearance at a Best Buy. It's been sitting on my shelf for probably over a year now, unplayed. I decided to give it a whirl, and I'm actually sorry that I did. The game is complete rubbish, and it's really the fault of the combat system. People have complained that the combat in previous Silent Hill games have been the game's weakest points. In attempting to fix it, the developers actually made it worse. Homecoming is frustrating to the point of unplayable. Final Score: F.

Halo: ODST (Xbox 360): I have no clue why Halo is still so popular. Sure, the original was fun in its time. I didn't particularly care for Halo 2, but I could see people still being into it. But by the time Halo 3 came out, there were plenty of better FPS games, both for single-player and multi-player. I guess Bungie knows that the Halo fans will pretty much buy a sack full of turds if they put the Halo brand on it, and that's pretty much what they did with ODST. The gameplay, which has gotten worse with each new Halo game, is just awful in ODST, so I'm finding myself not caring about any of the characters. The story's kind of pointless, too, since by now most fans would know how Master Chief wins the war. The only positive thing I can say about ODST is that a lot of the voice cast are from Firefly (Nathan "Malcom" Fillion, Alan "Wash" Tudyk, and Adam "Jayne" Baldwin). Final Score: D-.

MOVIES:

Hot Tub Time Machine: Probably one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. What I really like about it is that it makes no excuses and attempts no explanations for how over-the-top ridiculous it really is. Final Score: A+

The Bounty Hunter: You'd think a movie about a bounty hunter trying to collect on a bounty that's on his ex-wife would be funny. The previews certainly make it look funny. But it's one of those movies where all the funny stuff is in the previous, and the rest of the movie is a predictable and dull romantic comedy. Final Score: D+

Clash of the Titans: It's a movie about a guy sets off on a quest to save a city from Hades. Not because he really cares about the city, mind you... mostly because he's pissed at Hades for killing his family. As he goes about his quest, he fights a lot of monsters. All-in-all, Clash of the Titans doesn't offer a lot in the way of plot or surprises, but watching a pissed-off dude fight monsters makes for a decent popcorn flick. Final Score: B

Iron Man 2: It picks up where the first one left off. Tony's dealing with being both the rock-star head of a huge corporation AND a superhero in the spotlight. Iron Man 2 is a little busy at times, though. We're dealing with the government wanting Stark to give them Iron Man, we're dealing with Ivan Vanko wanting revenge of Stark, we're dealing with Justin Hammer wanting his company to one-up Stark for military contracts, we're dealing with Stark's friendship with James Rhodes, we're dealing with Stark's daddy issues, and we're dealing Stark confronting his own mortality. It's all played brilliantly by the cast, but it feels rushed, especially the few brief fight scenes. It's a solid movie, just not as good as the first one. Final Score: A-.

Mega Man 10 Review

As a child growing up in the 80's (and early 90's), I have a lot of fond memories of the NES.  At the time, if you played video games, you owned an NES.  There was Nintendo cereal, a cartoon for Super Mario Bros and the Legend of Zelda, plus cartoons like Captain N and Video Power.  We had movies like The Wizard, and accessories like the Zapper, R.O.B, the Power Pad, the Power Glove, the Advantage, and the Game Genie.  Back then, we didn't check GameFAQs when we got stuck, we shared tips and secrets at the lunch table at school.

A lot of games from that era haven't held up that great, but one series that I feel has was one of my all-time favorites: Mega Man.  I played and replayed all of the old NES Mega Man games (except 6, which got lost in the transition to the Super Nintendo) more times than I could count.  I even took a copy of Dragon Warrior IV I'd received for Christmas back to the store, resisting the urge to open a new game, just so that I could get Mega Man 5 instead.

In 2008, Capcom surprised the gaming community by announcing Mega Man 9.  The last official game in the "classic" Mega Man series was released over 10 years before on the original PlayStation, and rather than continue to improve the graphics Capcom and developer Inti Creates decided to make it 8-bit, in the spirit of the old NES games.  Between the nostalgia factor and the fact that I'm a huge fan of Mega Man games in general, I couldn't have been more excited.  And yet, when the game came out, it was kind of a letdown.  At some point, Mega Man games had got a reputation for being hard, and Inti Creates decided to make Mega Man 9 one of the hardest.  Thing was, the game wasn't hard because you had to learn enemy patterns or try to figure out what boss weapon worked on which boss.  It was hard because it was cheap, with more spikes, pits, and blind jumps in a given Robot Master's level than previous games had in their Wily levels.  I've played and beaten all six of the NES Mega Man games plenty of times (1-5 on the NES, 1-6 on emulators, 1-6 on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection, etc), and even I thought Mega Man 9 was so frustrating that I never even finished it.  I could only imagine how many gamers who might have been newer to the series were completely turned off by Mega Man 9's insanely cheap difficulty.

In an attempt to appeal to a wider audience, Mega Man 10 was released with a Normal difficulty (still really hard), and an Easy mode.  Despite the fact that players can chose which difficulty they want, many hardcore players cried foul.  Easy mode, they said, was simply too easy.

I can safely say that, yes, Easy mode is too easy.  Aside from being able to take more damage, floating platforms are scattered throughout the levels in places where players are likely to miss a jump.  But the thing is, while Easy mode might be too easy, Normal mode (and Mega Man 9) is still too hard.  It's one thing to enjoy a challenge, but only a sadomasochist could love Mega Man 9's level design.  And when push comes a shove, I'd rather play a game that's too easy than too hard.

Funny thing is, since I wasn't throwing my controller, cursing, and pulling my hair out in frustration, nostalgia did take over.  It was like being back in my childhood, getting excited to be playing a new game in my favorite series, running through levels and figuring out what order was the best to beat the Robot Masters.  It was the feeling that I'd hoped I'd get from Mega Man 9.  And as short as it was, Mega Man 10 became an instant classic, a game I'd played through twice (once as Mega Man, once as Proto Man), and a game who's downloadable content (Mega Man Killers! Playable Bass!) has me more excited than big-name releases like God of War III.

I would like to see Inti Creates come up with a better balance for Mega Man 11 (and I do really want a Mega Man 11 now)... maybe an Easy mode as easy as 10's Easy mode, a Hard mode as hard as Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10's Normal Mode, and a Normal mode that's somewhere in between.  But even if Easy mode was too easy, it made Mega Man 10 fun enough that I'd pay another $10 if Capcom would re-release Mega Man 9 with an Easy mode.

If you've ever had even a passing interest in the Mega Man games of the NES era, you MUST play Mega Man 10.  It's the kind of game that Mega Man 9 should have been: the kind that makes me want to blow the dust out of a gray cartridge and pop it into an NES.

Final Score: A+

Mass Effect 2 Review

When the first Mass Effect was released it instantly became on of my favorite games.  Bioware had crafted an amazingly rich and detailed universe, populated it with genuinely interesting characters, and used them to tell one of the best sci-fi stories I've experienced.

What Bioware did with Mass Effect 2 is to improve on the first game in almost every way.

From the get go, you can import a save from the first Mass Effect.  The choices you made in the first game do have an impact on the second.  What I found pleasantly surprising were some of the way even minor things from the first game carried over into the second one, helping to increase the sense that the world of Mass Effect is a living, immersive world.  For example, while riding in an elevator during the first game I heard a news bit about a person named Kitt putting together an all-elcor production of Hamlet (which is funny if you had talked to the elcor ambassador and learned about their emotionless way of speaking).  In the second game a terminal was actually advertising this production.  Similarly, a minor character who gives you an optional side-quest in the first game turns out to be a more important character in recruiting a particular party member.

The story itself is slightly darker than the first.  After nearly being killed, Shepard is revived by the terrorist group called Cerberus.  During the time that he was out, the Alliance and the Citadel Council have convinced themselves that Sovereign's attack was an isolated incident and that the Reapers aren't really a threat.  Human colonies are disappearing, though, and the Illusive Man behind Cerberus believes that a mysterious race known as the Collectors are behind it.  More importantly, the Illusive Man believes that the Collectors are working for the Reapers, and he's recruiting Shepard to put together a team to stop them.

And what a team Shepard puts together!  Without giving too much away, only two of the party members from the first game return.  This seems disappointing at first, but you quickly become attached to the new crew.  In typical Bioware fashion, each of the member of your party is a well-developed character with their own personality and back story.  In fact, it will sometimes make it hard to do choose which members to take on certain missions.  You might know that a certain party member will be more effective against a kind of enemy you expect to face on a mission, but on the other hand you might really like another less effective member.  Mordin Solus, the salarian, was a particular favorite of mine.

The most jarring change is probably to the gameplay itself.  Many of the RPG elements have been stripped down.  All of the characters have fewer options for using their skill points, fewer ranks to buy, and fewer points are awarded.  There are fewer weapons, and once you find one any party member that can use that kind of weapon are upgraded to it automatically.  There are no weapon mods (special ammo becomes an ability for different characters).  And Shepard is the only character who's armor you can customize at all.  Combat is less about a weapons damage, accuracy, and heat stats and more about how well you as a player can aim and how much ammo you have.  Heath and shields also deplete (and recharge) much faster, placing a greater emphasis on finding and using cover.  At first, this seems like a turn off, but the reality is that after playing for awhile it makes the combat more intense and the inventory management much more streamlined and certainly more accessible to a wider audience.

2010 is just a little over a month in, and I know we've got a ton of great games to look forward to this year.  I wouldn't be surprised, though, if Mass Effect 2 is mentioned in Game of the Year discussions a year from now.

Final Score: A+

Bayonetta Review

In 2001, Hideki Kamiya delivered the first Devil May Cry game for Capcom.  Later, some of Capcom's biggest talent formed Clover Studios, which delivered critical-favorite Okami and the sequel to (and PS2 port of the original) Hideki Kamiya's Devil May Cry.  When Capcom decided to close Clover (while retaining the IP), members of Clover formed Seeds Inc.  Seeds merged with another studio to form Platinum Games.

Bayonetta isn't the first game from Platinum Games, but it's the first one with Hideki Kamiya at the helm.  And perhaps unsurprisingly, it borrows a lot of elements from Kamiya's earlier Devil May Cry.

The game tells the story of Bayonetta, a witch found in a lake where she'd been sealed in a coffin for the past 500 years.  Bayonetta has incredible powers and a talent for killing angels, but she doesn't have any memory of who she is.  Driving back from completing a mission, she's attacked by someone who sparks a memory from her past.  Using her informant, Enzo, supplies her with enough information to track the attacker back to an old European country called Vigrid, where she recovering her lost memories is the key not just to solving the mystery of her attacker, but saving all of creation.

As I mentioned earlier, Bayonetta borrows a lot from Devil May Cry.  The game is broken into 16 chapters, with slick cutscenes to fill in some of the story between the action-packed levels.  Like DMC's Dante, Bayonetta can attack with weapons or guns.  The big difference here is that Bayonetta can equip weapons in both her hands and on her feet, which can make for some pretty interesting combos.  The enemy design is top-notch, too.  While there's only a few different types, they do an excellent job of being both majestic creatures that really could be the Bible's angels as well as otherworldly, monstrous creatures.  That fits well with the game's mythology, that light and dark, Heaven and Hell, angels and demons are opposite sides of the same coin with a careful balance maintained between them.  This mythology provides a solid base for a surprisingly interesting story.  For the first chapter or so, it's pretty easy to dismiss Bayonetta as a shallow sex-selling heroine.  But as Bayonetta's past is explored, she's revealed to be a strong heroine who's playful innuendo hides the fact that she really does care about the people around her, with a sense of justice that's not a simple as "angels good, demons bad."

If I had to find fault with Bayonetta, is that it very much feels like a button-masher.  While you have a button for shooting, a button for your hand weapon, and a button for your feet weapon, and tons of combos that you can make out that combination, the action is fast-paced and rarely allows you to think about what combos you're going to use.  The thing is, mashing the buttons can still produce some very slick effects and you're never really penalized for doing it.  The only other real flaw I can find with it is that it's a tad on the short side, with my first playthrough taking about 8 and half hours.  There's some replay value to be had, though, with chances to improve your scores on the levels and plenty of hidden stuff to find.

Ultimately, Bayonetta is a stylish, fast-paced, well-polished action game.  You're not going to push crates around or look for a crest to open a door under a fountain.  You'll chop, smash, shoot, impale, crush, and otherwise brutalized tons of angels.  If you're looking for a more evenly-paced adventure you might want to look at other games, but if you're looking for action there are few games that pull it off as well as Bayonetta.

Final Score: A-

Mike Reviews His Hat

I've been wanting a nice hat for awhile.  It's taken me something like two years to get around to it, mostly because it doesn't seem like many people sell hats in my area.  I mean, sure, you can get a ball cap just about anywhere you go; I've got more of those than I know what to do with.  And yeah, you can buy cheap fedoras at Target, but that's not what I wanted either.

Finally, a store in my area started selling them, albeit at around $70.  When they finally went on sale at a price I was willing to pay, I was told that it was a doorbuster price and I'd missed it by two hours.

Having seen what I wanted in a hat, and having a price in mind, I eventually wound up at JC Penney's website, of all places, where I found the pictured hat for just $29.99 with free shipping.  The price seemed better than anything on Amazon, and was certainly better than what I'd seen at the other store, so I bit the bullet and bought it.

The hat in question is from Dorfman Pacific's Scala Classico line.  The style is called Outback; it's a style similar to a cowboy or western hat that originated in Australia.  It's even been said that Outback hats are are Australia's version of the cowboy hat, although there are differences.  The crown is shorter and teardrop shaped, and the brim is shorter and doesn't turn up as drastically as a cowboy hat.  If the Outback is Australia's cowboy hat, then Akubra is Australia's Stetson, and an Akubra worn in Disney's "The Man From Snowy River" is credited with making the Outback style popular in America.

There's not a lot of bad to say about the hat.  It's made of a crushable wool felt, so the idea is that you could sit on it, roll it up, jam it in your pocket, whatever you like, and it'll smooth back into its natural shape.  It's also waterproof, which makes it well-suited to western Pennsylvania's unpredictable weather.  The hat is a subtle black felt with a simple leather band and single small feather.  It's stylish enough to look nice with nice clothes, but versatile enough to be a work hat.  It's also exceedingly comfortable.  It's warm enough that you'd want to wear it in the winter to keep your head warm and dry, but not so warm that it feels hot indoors.  In fact, it seems comfortable enough that the protection it provides from hot sunshine would make it comfortable in the hot sun without making your head too hot.  This isn't particularly surprising, since that's actually the purpose of the Outback, but it's good to know that its a design feature that wasn't lost in translation, as Dorfman Pacific is a Californian company.

I'm sure that there are better brands, like Akubra, but I more or less got what I wanted at a very reasonable price.  Final Score: A

New Super Mario Bros. Wii Review

As a child of the 80's, I grew up with the Nintendo Entertainment System. I can remember when we didn't say we were going to play a game, we said we were going to play Nintendo. I remember when we didn't call our games discs or cartridges, we called them tapes... even though they actually were cartridges. I remember terrible cover art, I remember the Zapper, the Power Pad, and the Power Glove. I remember a time when a game took you months to beat, if you ever did, not because it took a long time to get through but because whenever you died or shut the system off, you were starting at the beginning.

Some statistics to help frame this review (release years are based on the US release).
Super Mario Bros. came out 23 years ago in 1986.
Super Mario Bros. 3 came out 19 years ago in 1990.
Super Mario World came out 18 years ago in 1991. To put it another way, children have been born and graduated high school since the last time a "proper" 2D Mario game was released on a home console (although we did get the original New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS in 2006).

As a huge fan of 2D Mario games, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is all kinds of old-school good. Just like Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros, NSMBW will have you hopping, collecting coins, eating mushrooms, and fighting turtles through a variety of environments spread out in ever-increasing difficulty over a number of themed worlds. There's not a lot I can really say about the gameplay; either you've played a "real" Mario game or you haven't (feel free to argue with me, but Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy are fun, but they're not real Mario games).

It's hard to put into words what exactly makes Mario games so fun, to the point that even the old NES games hold up much better than most games from that era (the only NES games I like better are the first three Mega Man games). It's colorful, it's got memorable enemies, and the level-design is top-notch. None of that's changed in the past 24 years. And if New Super Mario Bros. drew its inspiration from the original Super Mario Bros, NSMBW is taking cues from Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. The Koopalings are back. There are airship levels. You can't keep him after a level, but some levels have Yoshi. Bowser Jr. fights in a clown car like the one from Super Mario World.

For all the nostalgia borrowed from the NES and SNES Super Mario games, what holds NSMBW back from being as huge in my mind as New Super Mario Bros. on the DS (which I named Game of the Year 2006) is how much it borrows from the DS game. The Wii game looks like a more polished version of the DS game. The world maps are laid out the same, you still have one mini-castle in each map, you still have flags at the half-way marker of a stage, and you still have a big flag pole to jump on at the end of each level. There are still red-coin hoops and three large star-coins in each level. As much as things stayed the same between the various Super Mario Bros. games, each one felt new and fresh when compared to the previous one... until now.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is not, however, a Wii-ified port of the DS game. Some changes are welcome. All of the levels are new, even if they're in worlds that look that they were pulled from the DS version. Some power ups are gone (the Mega Mushroom, the Turtle Suit) and new ones take their places (Penguin Suit, Propeller Suit, and an Ice Flower). Instead of random bosses like a giant Cheep Cheep or Petey Piranha, the Koopalings from Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3 are back. Amazingly enough, the designers did an amazing job of making sure that each battle with each Koopaling is unique. The Wii version uses an item storage system similar to Super Mario Bros. 3. Instead of carrying an extra item that could be activated mid-level, you store them so that you can use them to power up before entering a level. And, perhaps most welcome of all, you can quick-save anywhere instead of just after castles.

Some changes are less welcome. The star-coins you collect, instead of opening up alternate levels, are used to buy gameplay hint movies. And of course, they had to stick waggle in the game somewhere. There are in fact a few times you'll use it. For starters, shaking the Wiimote will cause Mario to do a spin jump. Unlike the spin jump from Super Mario World, there's no real advantage to it in NSMBW. In fact, a few times I accidentally spin-jumped to my death because I was moving in my seat, and the Wiimote took that as shaking. The Propeller Suit is powered by spin-jumping, and it functions like the propeller pads in the DS game. And in some levels, there are screws that move parts of the level around. To use them, you have to shake the Wiimote while standing on them. The final use for shaking is, while holding the 1 button, you shake the controller to pick up objects. Why they added this extra motion to something we've been doing since SMB3 is beyond me. The other way the Wiimote is used is that there are some platforms that tilt when you tilt the Wiimote. This is less irritating than shaking the Wiimote, but given the series awesome pedigree, I'd rather leave Wii-specific controls out of the game entirely and include an option to use the much more comfortable Classic Controller.

The two biggest additions to the game are Super Guide Mode and the ability to play with four other people. Frankly, I don't know about the multiplayer. When playing with someone of similar skill on one of the earlier levels, I can see where competing and cooperating might be fun. But the second half of the game is hard, and having other players seems like it'd be a distraction. This is especially true if you're playing with someone who's skill at the game is lower than your own.

Speaking of the difficulty, the Super Guide is used whenever you die eight times consecutively in the same level. A green block will appear, and hitting it will cause the game to ask you if you'd like Luigi to show you how to do the level. After he does, you'll be given a choice to try it again on your own or to skip the level. I've heard some people complaining that it's a dumb idea, but I'd like to say I think it's great for a couple of reasons. For one, whether or not you use it is up to you. Two, it's not even available until you've died so many times on the same level that you might actually want to skip it, and three, the game is really hard. Of the five Mario games I've mentioned, NSMBW is far and away the hardest. I've cursed, I've thrown my Wiimote, and I used the Super Guide to beat not one, but four levels for me. And this is coming from someone who thinks Mega Man 2 is easy.

All-in-all, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is too much like it's DS sibling and too lacking in originality to be better than SMB3, Super Mario World, or New Super Mario Bros. That also means that, especially with a kick-ass game like Dragon Age Origins still fresh in my mind, it won't be winning any Game of the Year awards from me. But it's still a 2D Mario game, which makes it one of the best 2D platformers available and one of the best reasons to own a Wii.

Final Score: A-

Dragon Age Origins Review

I have said this before, and I'll say it again: I have never played a bad game by BioWare. And I think pointing that out is the best way to start this review.

BioWare is best known for their RPGs, and there are many reasons for this. In addition to creating games that are fun to play, BioWare has a knack for creating deep characters with complex personalities and huge, living worlds. This is especially true of their original IPs: they've created rich histories, local legends and complex politics for Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age that are every bit as fleshed-out as Dungeons & Dragons or Star Wars even without the 30+ years of history behind them.

Dragon Age has all the hallmarks of a BioWare game. The Tolkein-esque story is simple: an uprising of creatures known collectively as Darkspawn are rising up in a "Blight" in the kingdom of Ferelden, and naturally it's up to the hero you create to save the world. Along the way you'll deal with werewolves, the undead, and other monsters, as well as betrayal, politics, and magic gone awry, as you seek to recruit allies in your fight against the Darkspawn. What makes the story unfold in such a gripping way is how it's told. You will learn about the history and culture of humans, elves, and dwarves of Ferelden. And if you take the time to engage your party members in conversation, maybe give them a gift or two, you'll also get to know a lot about them. They all have rich back-stories that make them engaging, three-dimensional characters that you will develop feelings for. This is furthered by the banter between themselves whenever they're in your party while your traipsing about the countryside.

As for the gameplay, I can't comment on the console versions, but anyone who's played an MMO like World of Warcraft will be right at home with the PC version. Although the PC version gives the option to pan the camera up for an overhead view similar to Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate, I've found it's easier in most situations to use the standard behind-the-back camera and the WASD keys for moving. Combat seems easy enough. You right-click on an enemy, and your character will attack that enemy. As your character levels-up, he or she will learn a number of abilities or spells based on their class. These skills can be placed on a quick bar. They require stamina or mana to activate, and just like an MMO they require a cool down period before they can be used again.

After getting a feel for the combat, it can actually be remarkably deep. Your party members all have tactics slots, so you can dictate what they should do in a variety of situations. If necessary, you can click on their portrait to take direct control of them, and at any time combat can be paused by pressing the space bar. While paused, you can still issue commands to characters, which allows you to set up combos. For example, you can have a mage cast Freezing Cone on an enemy, which will freeze them in ice. You can then have a character with training in bows use Shattering Shot for a chance at instantly killing the frozen enemy. Or you may have a Warrior use a stunning attack, only to have another party member follow it up with an attack that takes advantage of the stunned enemies lowered resistances.

The combination of gameplay, story, setting, and characters makes Dragon Age Origins a highly addictive game. For a good long while, if I wasn't sleeping, eating, or at work, I was playing Dragon Age. I couldn't put it down, and even when I was eating or at work, I'd be thinking about playing Dragon Age. The downside to that is that I started to look for other games to play on the side if I didn't think I'd have at least an hour and a half to devote to playing Dragon Age (which is how I was able to not just play Modern Warfare 2, but actually finish it first). Playing Dragon Age won't just take up a large portion of your free time for a few days, either. It took me almost 45 hours to finish the game, and BioWare included plenty of reasons to replay it. For starters, depending on the options you pick when creating your character there are a total of six unique origin stories to play through. And even after they merge, there's a lot that you can do differently on subsequent playthroughs. While there's no clear-cut good and evil paths to pursue, at many points in the game you'll be forced to make a choice. And they're not always as simple as A or B, either... sometimes you'll have many options available. Sometimes more than one will seem right, and sometimes you'll be forced to make hard calls to pick the least-bad choice. You can easily play through Dragon Age Origins twice and never make the same decision in both games, and even then you'll need to play through yet again to explore other decisions. If all that's not enough to keep you hooked, BioWare has an ambitious two years of downloadable content planned, with two quests and some armor available at launch and another quest announced for December.

In a year when a number of big games were moving into 2010, I've found a number of games that have been able to impress me this late in the year and be serious contenders for a game-of-the-year award. I'm happy to say that Dragon Age Origins crushes them all. It's not only the best game I've played this year, but it's easily better than anything I played last year, Fallout 3 included.

Final Score: A+

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (P)Review

I didn't technically finish Uncharted 2 yet. You see, Dragon Age Origins came out, and I've lost any interest in anything else. I'm at the second to last chapter, though, and I wanted to write something about the game for you guys. You can probably take this review as definitive, unless something happens during the last chapter to make me change my mind. But I doubt I'll get back to it until I'm done with Dragon Age.

I my little home theater setup, I use my PlayStation 3 a lot... as a media player. I play DivX files on it all the time, I use it as my main DVD player, I use it when I want to listen to music on the big speakers, and it's my only Blu-ray player. But when it comes to games, I'm rarely using it. It seems like the Xbox 360 gets more better exclusives (Project Gotham, Forza, Mass Effect, Ace Combat 5, etc), or when games come out for both consoles the PS3 version gets the short end of the stick (Fallout 3 not getting the DLC until later, Bioshock not coming out on the PS3 until later, games like Ghostbusters and Bayonetta looking like shit on the PS3 compared to the Xbox 360 version, etc). For people thinking about the PS3 as a game machine, especially if they already own a 360, it can be a hard sell. Sure, it's got some exclusives, and some of them are even pretty good. But I think the PS3 has been lacking that one killer exclusive that single-handedly justifies purchasing the console. I figured that exclusive wouldn't come until God of War III comes out next year.

Turns out, I was off by a few months. If you're on the fence about getting a PS3 and the recent price drop/redesign hasn't swayed you, Uncharted 2 is all the justification you need.

The original Uncharted was a good game. It was very impressive graphically (for a console game), and it had very human characters with believable dialogue and top-notch voice acting. Uncharted 2 becomes a great game by taking all that was good about the first one and taking it up a notch. The game's plot, which is sort of like Indiana Jones with a touch of James Bond, blurs the line between a cinematic movie experience and a game. On the game side, you're looking at a mix of platforming, puzzles, and gunplay that makes you think, "This game is like Tomb Raider, if Tomb Raider stopped sucking and became awesome!"

The game opens with our hero, Nathan Drake, hanging from the end of a train that's falling off a cliff in the Himalayas. You have to climb up the train (often as it's falling), grab a gun, and fight your way to a cliff... before the game goes back to the beginning of the story to explain how Drake got there. Without giving too much away, it starts with Drake being hired to help steal something from a Turkish museum and winds up with him fighting some guy who could have been a Die Hard villian.

As good as the game is, it's not perfect. Fortunately, my complaints are few. For starters, a lot of the game is starting at point A and trying to figure out how to get to point B. This is usually done by climbing and jumping around the environment. The problem here is that the game's graphics are so good that it's not always obvious what you're supposed to be climbing on. Which brings me to my second complaint. While the controls feel tighter than the original's, they can still be imprecise at times. I can't count how many times I've died because when I jumped Drake went a little to the left and missed his ledge, or how many times I've fallen off a roof trying to line up a jump. My last complaint, and this one might seem a bit odd, is that the game is a little too long. For the majority of it, it's an absolute blast, but near the end you start to feel like, "Ok, another area where I have to climb and jump on shit. Oh, and another enemy ambush at the end. Haven't I beaten this game yet?"

Minor complaints aside, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the single best exclusive games on the PlayStation 3, and one of the best games of 2009.

(Maybe) Final Score: A

Macross Ultimate Frontier Review

Some of you are probably wondering what I've been up to. After all, it's been nearly a month since I reviewed Arkham Asylum, and all I've mentioned since then was a F.E.A.R. 2 micro campaign that took me something like two hours to finish. The short answer is work, with some Fallout 3 on the side.

The long answer, which will give us our review, is Macross Ultimate Frontier.

Macross Ultimate Frontier is the sequel to last year's Macross Ace Frontier, which I reviewed just over a year ago. A lot of what I wrote about the gameplay still applies here. You still take your pilot, grab one of the games mecha, then run or fly around shooting other enemy mecha. The graphics and gameplay have been a little more finely tuned, though, so this feels less like Macross tacked onto a Gundam game and more like a genuine Macross game.

But those aren't the only improvements. In fact, most of the complaints about MAF have been addressed. The Macross Frontier campaign extends the whole way to the end of the series. In fact, the original Macross show does too, ending with Kamjin's assault on on the SDF-1 rather than the final battle of Space War One. Macross Zero is given a campaign, as well as Macross Dynamite 7 and the Macross Movie "Do You Remember Love". The Extra campaign still has the over-the-top waves of enemies missions, but it also includes missions and units from non-canon Macross II show and the canon Macross VF-X2 PlayStation game.

The number of playable units has also greatly increased, from 57 to 102. All of the units from the the canon Macross animes are present now, including the odd exclusions from Macross 7. That's more of an increase than it seems, since units with FAST, Armored or Super packs are no longer separate units. On the Player or Partner tab at the hanger, you can choose what optional equipment to install, if any. With the default selection of "Type B" for any equipment, your weapons and special attack will change, and you'll get a second health bar. When that bar is depleted, you'll lose your optional parts. You may also chose to dump them manually.

The tweaks and additions sever to make Macross Ultimate Frontier the best Macross game in the franchise's 27 year history. I can see some room for improvement, though at this point I might just be being nitpicky. Basically, despite the additions, we're still missing a few canon and plenty of non-canon Macross units, like the VF-3000 Crusader and the VF-14 Vampire and pretty much every unit from Macross II that isn't a Gilgamesh or the VF-2SS. And the handful of Extra missions from Macross II and Macross VF-X2 feel like a tease. What I'd really like to see in the next one are actual campaigns for Macross II, Macross M3, and Macross VF-X2 that would include all the missing mecha from those games and series. In the Extra campaign, throw in some missions for the Stealth Wing Experiment, and toss in the SW-XA1 and SW-XAII. And with new movies coming out for Macross Frontier, either addition Frontier missions or a new campaign with new missions, mecha, and optional parts like the Tornado Pack from the movies.

In the meantime, every Macross fan needs to get a PSP, and get Macross Ultimate Frontier.

Final Score: A

Batman: Arkham Asylum review

As a comic book fan (granted, more Marvel than DC, but still), I was curious about Arkham Asylum. And I know that some of my readers, who've never really cared for comic books or enjoyed comic book-based movies (even Spider-Man!), who have basically been hearing the press about AA and thinking, "good comic book game, but not for me."

It's time to fix that line of thinking.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a good comic book game. I'd agree with the reviewers who have said that it's the best comic book game ever, and it's certainly the best Batman game by a large margin. But to simply label stop there would be doing the game a huge disservice. Forget that Batman's a comic book; Arkham Asylum is a great game. Period.

The story, by long-time Batman scribe Paul Dini, is actually pretty basic. Batman had caught the Joker with suspicious ease during his latest caper. More suspiciously, a fire at Blackgate Prison caused a large number of criminals, many former members of Joker's gang, to be transfered to Arkham Asylum on the same night. Figuring that Joker was up to something, Batman decided to personally escort Joker all the way to his cell at Arkham. What Batman hadn't counted on was that the Joker wasn't planning an escape, he was trying to take over the Asylum with a little inside help. So it's up to Batman to rescue Commissioner Gordon, defeat a couple of super villains, and stop the Joker's master plan.

What really makes AA shine is the execution. At it's core, the gameplay is fairly simple. The camera is a third-person over-the-shoulder camera similar to recent Resident Evil games or Dead Space. The X button is the attack button. This is an important distinction from being a "punch button," because if three goons are attacking you from three sides, you might tap X, X, X and Batman might punch the first goon then throw and elbow back at the second goon before spinning a kick at the third goon. The Y button is for counters. When an enemy has blue lines by his head it signals that he's going to attack, and by pushing the Y button Batman will counter that attack. This makes combat fluid and somewhat free-form instead of just churning out the same combos over and over. It also makes you feel like Batman when you're kicking, punching, kneeing, elbowing, flipping, parrying, and blocking, surrounded by eight goons, and taking them all out without taking any damage.

Combat, while very satisfying, isn't actually a major focus. In fact, when enemies have guns, they can do a lot of damage to Batman very quickly, and sometimes it's best to be a little stealthy. Batman's stealth isn't the same as Sam Fisher or Solid Snake's, though. Batman isn't trying to get by undetected. Batman's still going to take enemies out, but with stealth takedowns or by picking off stragglers in a group then fading back into the shadows. (A little advice on this note, buy the "Inverted Takedown" upgrade as soon as humanly possible. You'll thank me later.) One of the game's highlights for me was taking out no fewer than ten armed enemies in one room without being seen.

Mostly, though, Arkham Asylum is about getting from point A to point B. Arkham Asylum might be comprised of a few buildings on an island, but the entire game takes place on that island. You might find that your current objective has you go to one area, where you get info that leads you to another area, only to follow your objectives back to the first area. Events that happen in the game will cut off some routes or open new ones, and some areas will be unaccessible until you get a certain upgrade, ala Metroid.

If fantastic combat and exploration are like cake, the game's atmosphere is like a creamy filling. I've heard it compared to Bioshock in that sense, and while I'm not sure they're conveying the same sense of atmosphere, the level of atmosphere each game brings to the table is similar. Arkham Asylum is a run down, creepy mental institution in a run down, creepy town. Even without any supernatural enemies, the game can tread close to survival horror at times. Some of the best scenes, including one very reminiscent of the boss fight with Psycho Mantis in the original Metal Gear Solid, are when Batman is suffering from the effects of Scarecrow's fear toxin.

The icing on all this delicious bat-cake is the voice acting. I think the voice acting in a lot of games today has come a long way from the "Jill Sandwich" days of the original Resident Evil game, but Arkham Asylum's voice work is truly a gem. Fans of the DC Animated Universe will recognize Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Arleen Sorkin as the voices of Batman, the Joker, and Harley Quinn, respectively.

If you like video games, even if you don't really like Batman or aren't really familiar with him outside of Christopher Nolan's recent films, do yourself a favor and play this game. With a lot of game's slipping into 2010, and even as much as I loved F.E.A.R. 2, Arkham Asylum has become my front runner for Game of the Year.

Final Score: A+

DS Double feature!

I know, I know... you're all waiting for me to review something awesome, like Arkham Asylum (still don't have, waiting for a buddy to finish it and give me his copy), or Wolfenstein (made it to the Downtown area). But I sadly haven't finished a console or PC game in quite some time. Hey, I've been busy! Labor Day, vacations in Maryland, babies being born (not mine), and what have you have been eating up quite a bit of my time, and when I am home I've finally found a game that I can get my wife to play with me: Rock Band 2.

I have managed to sneak in some handheld time, and since I recently bought a new red-and-black DS Lite to replace my launch day white unit who's hinge finally gave up the ghost, that handheld time has been spent playing the DS, where I've finished two whole games. So, without further adeiu:

Mega Man Starforce 3: Red Joker

Around the time that the Gameboy Advance came out, Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune decided to reinvent Mega Man, in a way that his children could appreciate. The result was the Mega Man Battle Network series, a series that was popular enough with its target audience to get five animes and a manga series, in addition to six main entries in the series and a few spin-off games.

The Mega Man Starforce series, while featuring an entirely new cast, is largely a continuation of the Battle Network games. They're RPGs, with a heavy emphasis on collecting (and trading, I suppose) battle cards/chips/whatevers. The game is mostly isometric sprites running around, either in the real world or in the EM Wave world, which is where most of the similarities between Starforce and Battle Network lie. The main difference between them is the combat. Battle Network had a 3x3 grid on the left for Mega Man and another on the right for enemies. In Starforce, Mega Man can only move left or right over three squares, with enemies in front of him and a camera angle high over Mega Man's shoulder.

Despite the different versions of each game, there are really only three games in the series. Continuity is fairly tight between the three games, with events in previous ones being referenced, sometimes to the point of being major plot points, in the sequels. Starforce 3 might be the last one, though, as it does a good job of tying up lose plot points and resolving the series. What's more, while previous games in the series have come out on an annual basis, the newest Mega Man game looks to be some kind of crossover between Battle Network and Starforce, with more emphasis on Battle Network.

In general, I've found the Starforce series to be more fun than the Battle Network games, so if you're a fan of those you might want to check out Starforce 3. The difficulty was also more finely balanced than Starforce 2. However, the Starforce games are definitely aimed and the younger Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh!/whatever crowd, and probably isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Final Score: B-

Super Princess Peach

I'm not exactly sure what Nintendo was thinking when they came up with this one. Were they trying to capture a new audience by appealing to younger girls? Were they simply interested in bucking the status quo in the Mushroom Kingdom by having Mario get kidnapped and having Peach set off to rescue him, instead of the other way around?

Regardless of what was running through the developers heads, the result is a relatively solid, if a tad easy, 2D platformer.

Despite it's roots in the Super Mario Bros series, the game play is a bit different. Peach has an umbrella named Perry that gives her a few options unavailable to Mario. She can pick up most enemies instead of just Koopa Troopas, or she can smack them. Later in the game, she can even fire small blasts of energy from the umbrella. Also, like Super Mario Bros 2, Peach has a health bar. She starts the game with three hearts, but can increase that to five. Also like Super Mario Bros 2, levels aren't timed.

The most important difference, though, is that Peach has some emotion-based abilities. It's been argued that that's a little sexist, but I prefer to think of it as a side-effect of the game's setting of Vibe Island (that is, if Mario had been doing adventures on Vibe Island, perhaps he'd have emotional powers as well). She can get angry and catch on fire, giving her the ability to burn some objects and pound the ground. She can get happy and float through the air or create a little whirlwind around herself. She can get sad and cry, watering some objects and allowing her run a bit faster. Or she can get calm and recover lost health. She can't use those powers indefinitely, though. Her emotional powers come from her Vibe Gauge, just under her health bar.

The change in game play versus a traditional Mario game makes for slightly less linear levels. The game is still divided into eight worlds, and each world has a few levels inside and concludes with a boss battle. In each level, you still need to make it from the start to the goal, but you have the added goal of rescuing three Toads hidden in each level. There are also, especially later in the game, often multiple paths through a level. This combination of looking for hidden Toads (or other items) and multiple routes encourages exploration and replay. Later in the game, though, it also means that finding the Toads and navigating the levels becomes more of a challenge than the enemies in them, leading to a few frustratingly confusing and long levels with totally anti-climactic boss fights.

Ultimately, Super Princess Peach is a Mario game that's also not really a Mario game, one that's fun for gamers of all ages and genders, not just little girls. If you enjoy the Super Mario series, or just enjoy a well-crafted 2D platformer, you'll definitely want to check this one out.

Final Score: A-

Shadow Complex Review

Let me start off this review by telling you that the reason I'm able to review Shadow Complex so quickly is because I beat it that fast. Not because it's a short game, mind you... because I literally could not put it down. Seriously, I finished the game in about three long play sessions. That right there should tell you everything you need to know.

If it doesn't, I'm happy to expound. Shadow Complex, which ties into Orson Scott Card's novel Empire, is the story of a young couple, Jack and Claire, having fun exploring a cave in the woods when they happen to run into a the Restoration, a terrorist organization seeking to overthrow the government of the United States. Claire is taken prisoner by Restoration soldiers on the suspicion that she is actually a spy. And Jack, armed with naught but his trusty flashlight and the fighting skills taught to him by his military dad (even though he doesn't actually want to be part of the military), sets out to infiltrate the titular Shadow Complex to rescue Claire.

Jack picks up a few things alone the way that help him on his quest, including some guns, missiles, grenades, and special body armor. And between Jack's growing inventory and the game's paper-thin plot, you might be forgiven for thinking Shadow Complex is a run-of-the-mill first-person shooter. You might be in for a shock, then, when I tell you that the game is a 2.5D side-scrolling platformer. Indeed, if there's only one single game I could could compare Shadow Complex too, it'd have to be Super Metroid.

The Shadow Complex itself is displayed on a map, and like Super Metroid a small section of the map is displayed in the upper right corner of your HUD as you explore. Like Super Metroid, you won't be able to access certain areas until you fight the right weapon or armor upgrade. And like Super Metroid, you'll be spending as much time looking for secrets as you will shooting enemies.

Aside from the obvious change in characters and settings, the most obvious difference is that Super Metroid is a 2D, sprite-based game, while Shadow Complex is a 2.5D game where everything is rendered in 3D polygons. This has a few benefits, but a few drawbacks as well. The most obvious benefit is that the game looks gorgeous. But the drawback is in the controls. Shadow Complex has both your main and sub weapons mapped to the trigger, because the right thumbstick is used for aiming. And the reason you have to aim in more than 8 directions is because enemies often attack from background. Similarly, the d-pad is used for switching sub weapons, and you have to use the left stick for moving. These control differences are minor nitpicks. You get used to the controls very quickly; they just seem a little unintuitive for a 2D platformer.

Another drawback to the 2D gameplay in 3D levels is that, occasionally, you're in a room where there's a staircase clearly rendered in the background, but you can't walk up the stairs. To progress upward, you have to jump from landing to landing, which can ruin your immersion by reminding you that you're playing a game.

Fortunately, these minor annoyances don't take away from what is ultimately a classic, non-linear side-scrolling good time. Shadow Complex has that rare quality that makes it difficult to stop playing. The result is a game that's not just one of the best games on the Xbox Live Arcade, but one of the best games on the Xbox 360 period. The game is good enough to be sold as a full-price retail box game. At the $15 asking price on the Xbox Live Arcade, there's simply no reason you shouldn't play it.

Final Score: A+

Hot Mess Review

Despite being on the soundtrack for Snakes on a Plane, despite being on the soundtrack for TMNT, and despite being part of the Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen crowd, Cobra Starship never struck me as being as famous as bands like Panic at the Disco or The Academy Is...

I'm of the opinion that that's a shame. Cobra Starship has a unique sound that's like a fusion of '80s pop and modern rock. And unlike PatD's attempt to be unique by aping the Beatles, it really works for Cobra Starship.

Hot Mess is Cobra Starship's third album. With a lot of bands, it usually takes them awhile to mature as musicians and find their sound. I'm not really sure that's the case with Cobra Starship, though, and I'm not really sure where they're going musically.

I don't mean to imply that Hot Mess is a bad album, though. Although not as strong as their first album, it feels more solid and more cohesive than ¡Viva la Cobra! All of the songs but the final track, "The Word Will Never Do", are enjoyable, even catchy songs. But none of them really stand out the way "Send My Love to the Dance Floor" did from the first album, or the way "The City is at War" did from the second album.

On the whole, I'm going to recommend this album. You can get it at Best Buy or Target for $10, which makes buying an actual CD with a case and cover art cheaper than buying the digital version in a lot of cases.

Album highlights:
"Nice Guys Finish Last"
"Good Girls Go Bad"
"Hot Mess"

Final Score: A-

Prototype Review

People will often tell you that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. But some of the best-told stories actually begin in the middle. Take the film Memento, for example. The story itself, about a man trying to find the person who raped and killed his wife, isn't terribly interesting in and of itself. But the main character, Leonard, has a type of amnesia that gives him no long-term memory of anything since his wife's murder. As Leonard uses an elaborate system of notes, photos, and tattoos, the story is actually presented in the film from a point near the end of the story backwards to the beginning.

Prototype's story is a little like that. You play as Alex Mercer, a man who wakes up in a morgue with fragmented memories, strange powers, and a military that wants to take him out. You spend the beginning of the game with no idea what's going on, and learning about Mercer's powers as he does. The plot unfolds by completely story missions, but also by absorbing the memories of people he kills. And what unfolds is a story of government conspiracies and bioterrorism that dates back to the sixties.

The developer, Radical Entertainment, is the same developer that brought us 2005's Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, and it shows. Mercer has free reign about the island of Manhattan. Like the Hulk, he can climb buildings, jump really high, and throw heavy objects. But Mercer has many more powers, some more useful than others. He can cover his body in a suit of armor, turn is arm into a blade or a whip-like weapon, and glide through the air. His most interesting ability, though, is the ability to grab and absorb other people. This can have three benefits. The first, and most immediate, is that he regains health. The second is that he can take the appearance of whoever he absorbed, effectively disguising himself. And finally, for marked targets, he gains their memories. These memories might just open up a bit of plot background, or they might teach you a new skill, such as how to fly a helicopter.

The mix of powers and gameplay makes for some very fluid combat. You could run up the side of a building, jump off and glide to a nearby building, kill and absorb a soldier, use his rocket launcher to take out the helicopter tailing you, jump down into an alley until the heat's off you, then run back to the enemy soldiers on the ground, accuse one of them of being you, hijack a tank while your patsy is killed by his comrades, use the tank to take out a guard tower, then get out and throw the tank and the backup that's been called in before sprouting claws that you use to eviscerate any survivors.

The game's pacing is very good as well. The first few missions you do are relatively easy as you get used to using Mercer's powers. Just when you start to feel invincible, a new type of enemy will be introduced that will seem overpowering... until you unlock a new power. The story missions are varied in type so you don't really feel like you're doing the same thing over and over, and the bosses are challenging without ever feeling impossibly frustrating. When you die, you don't want to throw your controller in frustration; you want to try again and approach the situation a little differently.

Like most sandbox games, you're not confined to story missions. There are plenty of side challenges. Doing them is totally optional, but they give you "Evolution Points" that you can use to buy upgrades.

The only real knocks I have against the game are that it could be a little short if you don't do any of the side missions, and that everything in Manhattan sort of looks the same. The fluid gameplay, buckets of combat options, and interesting story all serve to make those complaints very minor and easy to overlook. If you like sandbox games, comic-bookish superhero games, or action games in general, you owe it to yourself to check out Prototype.

Final Score: A

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Official Review

IMPORTANT: THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS! If you don't want details, skip down to my spoiler-free review.

Two years have passed since the events of the previous Transformers movie. Sector Seven has been disbanded, but a new alliance between the humans and the Autobots called NEST. New Autobots have arrived on Earth, which is fortunate since apparently more Decepticons have arrived as well. The premise is that during the last two years, the Decepticons would do something (we're never told what), and NEST would show up and try to kill them.

After two years of... whatever, the Decepticons steal a fragment of the Allspark being held at NEST's base, then use it to resurrect Megatron. And it turns out, Megatron's got a boss of his own, who's got plans for the Earth. To implenent them, though, they'll need information... information that's currently stored in Sam Witwicky's head.

Much like the earlier Transformers movie, Revenge of the Fallen isn't exactly plotty. Despite that, I do have to give the screenwriters some kudos for trying to flesh out some of the "Bayformers" mythos is a way that ties into the Transformers mythos at large. We've got the Fallen, the origin of the Primes, and the Matrix of Leadership. We've also got Bay's usual hallmarks: explosions, the military, explosions, some other actions scenes, and explosions. The result is a mostly-good popcorn action flick. There are a few problems, though, that keep it from being as good as the first one.

For starters, this is a movie that tries to do way too much. There are several new Autobots and Decepticons alike, and most of them have less screen time than the American aircraft carriers. There's Megatron and Starscream looking for Energon to give life to the protoforms on their ship. There's Sam trying to figure out what the symbols in his head are and why the Decepticons want them. There's the Fallen trying to destroy the sun. There's Sam trying to find the Matrix. There's even Devestator, and not as a mistaken subtitle for the tank guy in the last film, but a real, honest-to-goodness giant robot formed from amalgamated construction equipment. The problem is, as they're trying to bring everything to a close for the end of the movie, you've got bots who's names you might not have even caught duking it out in battles that leave one or the other dead after a few unsatisfying minutes.

Bumblebee is a little downplayed in this one, given more spotlight to Optimus Prime (as it should be). Megatron gets a few more lines, but is reduced to a patsy for the Fallen. Starscream's craven opportunism is expanded, which is good, but most of the new characters (including Sideswipe, Sideways, Long Haul, Rampage, Ravage and Arcee) get few if any lines. Soundwave doesn't even seem to leave orbit, and one guy, Grindor, could easily be mistaken for Blackout from the first movie.

Worse, though, are the ones who do get lines, and do get personality. Jetfire turns out to be a crotchety old bot who's slightly senile and walks with a cane. Wheelie is a toy truck who starts as a spy for the Decepticons, switches sides after Mikaela locks him up for awhile, and humps her leg. I could live with those two, mind you. Kids see Transformers, after all, and you gotta have some comic relief... like when Bumblebee peed on Simmons in the first movie.

But then you have Mudflap and Skids. They're irritating like Jar Jar Binks is irritating. They're vaguely racist. I wanted them to die. Hell, I wanted them to not exist in the first place.

Problems aside, Revenge of the Fallen is still, as I already stated, a pretty good popcorn action movie. If you liked the first one, go see the new one. Simple as that.

Final Score: A-

Mike's Spoiler-free Transformers 2 review

Pretty good, save for a few minor irritations. If you like explosions and giant robots beating the snot out of each other, go see it.

Final Score: A-

Sega Dreamcast Review

So OutRun comes out a bit ago, and it really has that Sega arcade feel. And now Virtual-On hits, and I find myself really thinking about Sega.

Kids today might remember Sega best for shitty Sonic games, but as I said in my OutRun post, Sega made some of the best arcade games back in the day. I mean, there were racing games, and then there was Daytona USA. Or, there were lightgun games, and then there was The House of the Dead. Even genres I never liked before, like fishing, made for some truly awesome arcade games like Sega Bass Fishing and the even better Sega Marine Fishing. Bottom line is that when you were playing a Sega game, you knew it.

Sega's console history is a little bit more complicated. When Sega got out of the hardware business, it was the final nail in the coffin of an era that was already fading when Sony's upstart PlayStation started dominating the console fields. A lot of gamers today might not be able to remember a time before PlayStation, but for myself the real console wars were between Nintendo and Sega.

A number of bad decisions forced Sega to lose every time. The Genesis (Megadrive for everyone outside the U.S.) was crushed everywhere but the States, and even then only until the Super Nintendo debuted. Then there was the SegaCD add-on... and the Sega 32x add-on... and the planned Sega Neptune that would have combined the Genesis, 32x, and the SegaCD in one package. And the Saturn, which was was outpriced by the PlayStation. And finally, there was the Dreamcast.

In some ways, it's not too surprising to see why the Dreamcast failed. Sega launched it a year before the PlayStation 2 was set to debut, and they'd designed a console that was a strong competitor... against the original PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. The Dreamcast arguably did a better job of anti-aliasing than the PlayStation 2, although I think later PS2 games like God of War put to rest any debate about which console was more powerful. It lacked the DVD-ROM of the PS2 and the Xbox. It only had one analog stick. And, perhaps the most damaging of all, it was a tad too easy to get copies of games working on the Dreamcast.

The Dreamcast was still ahead of it's time in a lot of ways, though. The built-in 56k modem meant that, while not the first online console, it was the first console that a lot of us actually played online. I also can't help but notice that both Xbox consoles have shoulder triggers. Even Sony, who's used pretty much the same controller since the first PlayStation, changed the design of the back set of shoulder-buttons on the PS3's controller(s), to make them more trigger-like. Perhaps Sony was aping Microsoft and their appeal with shooter-fans, but it's not really a secret that Microsoft was copying Sega first. Finally, while EverQuest beat Phantasy Star Online out by a few months, PSO showed that MMO's could be played on home consoles.

You take the good, you take the bad, but the thing I'll remember the most about the Dreamcast was it's incredible line-up of launch titles. Growing up, I'd always been in Nintendo's camp. I had an NES and a Gameboy, and I was content to wait for the SNES without ever considering a Genesis or a GameGear. I reluctantly picked up a PlayStation since it seemed to have a lot of games I wanted, but I still had an N64 as well. The Saturn wasn't even a blip on the radar. But the Dreamcast, which would be my first foray into Sega territory, was not only a must-buy for me, but the first console I bought with my own money. And the reason was games. Nintedo could get away with launching with little more than a Mario game. I didn't get a PlayStation until Castlevania came out for it, nor did I buy an Xbox at launch. My launch game for the PlayStation 2 was Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, a beefed up port of a game I already had for the Dreamcast.

The Dreamcast, on the other hand, sold me with Sonic Adventure, House of the Dead 2, Power Stone, and Soul Calibur. Even games like Hydro Thunder, which haven't necessarily aged well, were amazing at the time.

And while third-party developers would eventually resort to shoveling out PlayStation ports, Sega continued to deliver. Crazy Taxi, Seaman, Shenmue, Samba de Amigo, Space Channel 5, the 2K sports games, the Sega Fishing games, Virtual-On, Jet Grind Radio, Metropolis Street Racer, Virtua Fighter... Sega games were innovative, fun, or both. As a Capcom fan, I also delighted in Capcom's use of the Dreamcast as the definitive platform (at the time) for the arcade games like Street Fighter III, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Cannon Spike, Giga Wing, etc, as well as non-arcade games like Resident Evil: Code Veronica.

Today, we might be playing our modern HD consoles, but the fact remains that the Dreamcast had one of the best launch lineups to date, and a software library that justifies pulling it out of the closet for some gaming to this very day... fishing controller and all.

Final Score: A+

Samsung Omnia i910 Review

Well, it was time to renew my contract, and I was looking forward to it... my old Motorola KRZR's battery was on the way out, and it was the second battery I had for it, not to mention that it was seriously falling apart. Motorola might have some slick designs, but the QC on their phones definitely leaves something to be desired.

In any case, ever since the iPhone hit the scene, smartphones have become all the rage. You can either get one or two cruddy clamshell phones that look like something you might have bought five years ago, or you can get a slick smartphone with a touchscreen. A cruddy old phone was out, but I still had a decision to make... do I keep Verizon and buy one of their smartphones, or do I jump ship to AT&T and get an iPhone?

Well, I decided to keep Verizon. As slick as the iPhone was, it wasn't doing everything I wanted a smartphone to do (although what the iPhone does do, it does exceptionally well). I was leaning more towards a Windows Mobile phone, and right around the time I wanted to renew my contract, Verizon happened to be heavily subsidizing the Samsung Omnia. I'd owned three Samsung phones in the past, as well as some non-phone Samsung electronics, and I've always been very satisfied with them, so I decided to take the plunge on the Omnia.

I'll start by saying that every gripe I have with the phone is directly linked to Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile 6.1 is still actually Windows CE 5, which means that underneath Samsung's slick TouchWIZ interface, the phone's OS looks ancient and can be difficult to navigate with a finger, as it was meant to be used with a stylus. The Omnia does come with a stylus, BTW, but the only way to carry it with the phone is tie it to the phone (sorta like a Wii wrist strap connects to a Wiimote). The result is that it looks really feminine, so I just leave my stylus at my desk. The touch screen complaints are also due to the fact that phones like the iPhone or any Android phone use capacitive touchscreens, while Windows Mobile only supports resistive ones. That again means that it was designed to be used with a stylus, not a finger, and absolutely no multi-touch (here's hoping that Windows Mobile 7 will be a little more modern). Oh, and the best Windows Mobile web browsers are almost painful to use, and certainly don't come close to the experience that Safari offers on the iPhone.

That said, there are some pros to Windows Mobile. The biggest pro is that it's an open platform. Other phone OSes might do some things better than Windows Mobile, but Windows Mobile is ultimately more versatile. And if you don't like the default applications, chances are you can find a replacement, often for free, on the internet. For example, instead of converting my videos, which are mostly DivX/Xvid avi files, into mp4 files that are a particular resolution, I can just drag and drop the avi files I already have directly to the phone. Also, a big reason I went with Windows Mobile and the reason that I bought a Dell Axim in the past is that I have a very large collection of ebooks in the Microsoft Reader format. To read my books on an iPhone would require me to download an app for the iPhone, download an matching app for the desktop, create an account at the website associated with those apps, download an app to covert my books into a format that the other apps like, use the desktop app to upload the converted books to my web account, then use the app on the iPhone to download the book from the account and read it. With the Omnia, I installed Microsoft Reader, then drag and drop my books in a "My Books" folder on the phone.

Samsung also went out of their way to make the most out of Windows Mobile. They replaced the traditional Windows Mobile Today screen with their TouchWIZ interface. This is basically a "shelf that can be opened or closed (I usually leave mine opened) with a variety of finger-friendly apps on it. To use an app, you slide it off the shelf onto the main area. In some cases, like for Opera, this will just leave an icon on your screen that you can use to open the app (or to open a folder, in the case of the game icon). But in most cases, the icon will expand, giving you two levels of functionality. The phone book app is a great example. On the shelf, it's a box with a picture of a person. Off the shelf, it'll expand so that it says "Phonebook", and under it will be whatever pictures you assigned to four contacts. If you tap the word "Phonebook," it'll take you to a list off all your contacts, but if you touch one of the pictures, it will take you directly to that contact with four options; to call their mobile, to call their work, to call their home, or to send a text message.

As far as the hardware itself, I don't really have any complaints. One great thing is that, in addition to the 8GB of internal memory, there's a microSD slot under the battery cover, and the Omnia supports MicroSDHC cards up to 16GB, so there's plenty of room for media. The camera lacks any zoom, but it takes 5MP pictures on par with my wife's dedicated camera. There's no standard headphone jack, and Samsung had to go and give it a proprietary port instead of mini-USB, but they make up for it by throwing in a data cable, an adapter for using wired headsets, and an adapter for regular headphones that includes an FM antenna. It has an elegant black, gunmetal, and chrome design that's a little taller and thicker than an iPhone, but a little narrower and lighter than my iPod touch. There's the call and end buttons common to cell phones on the front, and on the side there's dedicated volume buttons and two buttons that you can assign different functions to. One I have set to turn on the camera if you press and hold it, or to switch from portrait to landscape mode manually if you just click it. The reason I do that is because the Omnia's motion sensor seems a little flakey and either wouldn't turn the screen when I wanted to, or would turn the screen when I didn't want it to. I don't see this as a huge problem, since most of the apps work best in portrait mode for me, and several apps like the camera or the Core Video Player will automatically switch to landscape. The only other button is a touch-sensitive device. You can either set it to work like a mouse, with a pointer on the screen, or as a button. Swiping your finger along it works as a directional button, and clicking it works as the enter button on other WinMo devices.

One thing that's big for me is that the messaging app can handle both your text messages, your MMS messages, and your email. This is big for me, because I use Yahoo mail, and a lot of apps like Windows Live Mail and Outlook don't play nice with Yahoo, but the Omnia does.

Call quality and battery life are both great. At first I was charging it every day or every other day, but I think that's just because I was playing with it a lot. Once I had it set up the way I wanted it, I'm finding that I charge it probably twice a week. Mind you, that's using it as my sole phone, so that's usually a few short calls every day, a few texts, maybe check my email once or twice, and reading for a half hour to an hour, every day.

Ultimately, it's not perfect, nor is at as user-friendly as, say, an iPhone. You will have to get apps from the net to tweak it until you have everything the way you want it. But once you do, the added versatility that Windows Mobile brings to the phone make up for the problems that Windows Mobile brings, at least in my opinion, and I find myself absolutely loving the Omnia. Unlike my previous mobile, which sat on my desk unless I went out, I carry the Omnia with me everywhere, even around the apartment.

Final score: A-