Pokemon

I want to start this blog post off by stating that I'm open for suggestions. Visit my Game Collection on IGN Clubs, and pick something for me to blog about. Post it in the comments, or email me.

Now, the first thing I was requested to blog about was Pokemon. As you can see, I own a few Pokemon games. So I thought I'd go over them.

Now, Pokemon started in 1996. I think that's when the development started, actually. The first two games in Japan were Pocket Monsters Red and Green (Pocket Monsters being the Japanese name of Pokemon). Blue was added later, followed by Yellow a year or two after.

In North America, however, things were different. They were unsure whether or not Pokemon would sell. So, they took the anime, which was made in Japan after the games had become smash hits, and released it in the US before the games were released. The reason being that they wanted to judge interest in this new brand before releasing the games. This has lead to some people believing the games are based off the anime, which is simply untrue.

Green never came out in the US. The first two out in this region were Red and Green, with Yellow following a year later. At its core, Pokemon is a basic RPG game. The catch being that instead of using your own character to battle, you use creatures that you caught. The tag line of the game was "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" Which Nintendo used, along with the fact that not all Pokemon could be caught in a single cartridge. You had to have a friend who had the other version, and trade with them. The final Pokemon, Mew (#151), couldn't be caught in any of the games. In fact, you had to be at an official Nintendo event in order to add Mew to your collection. Meaning you could never truly catch them all, unless you had a cheat device.

The basics are simple. Each Pokemon can only know four moves at a time. The use of moves is limited by a PP number, with the least powerful moves having 20 PP and the most powerful having only 5 PP. You can only carry six Pokemon at a time. HP and PP, along with status ailments, can be cured by items or by visits to a Pokemon Center. Your goal is to battle the Gym Leaders, who are always accompanied by underlings who you have to battle first. The ultimate goal, once you have all the gym badges, is to fight the Elite Four, followed by the Pokemon League Champion.

The Pokemon games have more of a story than just gym battles, though. You are rarely able to fight a gym leader without first completing some task that involves the overall story at some level. In the first two Pokemon series (Red/Blue/Yellow and Gold/Silver/Crystal), the enemy is Team Rocket. In Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, they shook things up a bit. In Ruby, Team Magma is attempting to awaken a legendary Pokemon, while Team Aqua is trying to stop them. In Sapphire, the roles are reversed, as Aqua are the villains and Magma are the allies. But in Emerald, both teams are villains. It's an interesting story twist that keeps those two games from being too stale.

Overall, though, very little has changed. Granted, I've not played the DS games, but I'm sure they're basically the same. But, Pokemon still sells an extreme amount, so I can't fault Nintendo.

Also on my list is the Pokemon: Trading Card Game for the Game Boy Color. Yes, they made a video game based on the actual TCG. The game only contains cards from the original set (Basic) as well as Jungle and Fossil. There was a Japan-only sequel to this, that included more sets. The game recreates most of the TCG rules, though I seem to recall some things didn't work properly. There is a story, which flows a lot like the regular Pokemon games, but it's a nice change in that it's based on the TCG. It's more strategic than a typical Pokemon, thanks to the TCG rules and such.

I stopped following the actual TCG sometime after the first Team Rocket expansion. It was fun, but I had no one to play with. Despite the fact that I collected over 400 cards. I don't have much to say about that, though.

Finally, there is the anime. I was a fan for the first season or two, but then it got a bit too predictable. Ash would challenge a gym leader, lose, and then through some cheesy bit, discover his flaw and overcome the odds. It's a formula they used way too often. I've started watching again with the Diamond & Pearl series. I'm glad that the focus isn't entirely on Ash anymore. And Dawn going through contests makes for a refreshing change. It's certainly better than the original version of the anime. There are a lot more stories they can do, and it's not always the same old routine. Still, it's as cheesy as ever, sometimes in an "After School Special" sort of way. But it's better than it used to be.

Now, I want to make a comment about the Pokemon themselves. The first generation (1-151) all seemed to be influenced by something in nature, either an animal or plant. And they all had names that looked easy to pronounce. The most difficult name, for me, was Zapdos, which isn't too difficult. Since then, however, things have become a bit wacky. The designs have become more fantastic, and the names have become much worse. When I first saw "Typhlosion," my brain exploded. Though, looking at it now, I can pronounce it. But at the time, I just saw a mess of letters. What happened to simple and easy to pronounce names? But, I guess I'm just nitpicking now.

DMC4 and Conflict: Denied Ops demos

It was a very quiet January. Only a single post in the blog. I apologize for the lack of content.

Anyway, demos of Devil May Cry 4 and Conflict: Denied Ops hit the PlayStation Store recently. I thought I'd give them a shot and see how they do.

Devil May Cry 4 - This demo has two modes, Exterminator and Executioner. I chose Exterminator, which gives you a ten minute time limit. The graphics are great, and it's really nice to look at in most areas. Now, before I go into the gameplay, I should note that I've never played a DMC game before. Yes, I played a demo of the original DMC (or was it DMC2?), but I've never played a full version of it before. But I think the game plays well. The main character, I guess it's Nero, feels a little slow when you're locked on to an enemy. But, as things progress, that tends to be a minor issue. I didn't notice anything glaringly bad, and I'd have to say that fans of the series will be quite satisfied with it.

Conflict: Denied Ops - Having read virtually nothing on this game before playing the demo, I didn't know what to expect. The demo is typical tutorial fare. The graphics, while fairly good, aren't spectacular. Maybe it was just the level being shown, but it didn't impress. The gameplay is good, though. Except that the nature of the demo had the game wanting you to stay as the close-range guy for most of the mission, and there weren't any real opportunities to utilize the sniper. Now, I'm sure some people may prefer that, but I love sniping. I'll take sniping over close combat any day. But, there wasn't anything really bad about the gameplay. It's more or less a standard FPS, but without any ability to jump. Maybe it's just me, but I expect my super powered soldier to be able to jump. It's okay. Nothing too special.

Game elements that need to be retired

In the past few weeks, I've been thoroughly enjoying Zero Punctuation (note: not-safe-for-work). Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's take on games is quite humorous. But in his review of Super Mario Galaxy, he touched upon a subject that I happen to agree with, and I liked the analogy he used. But, I figured, why stop at one game element that needs to die?

So, I figured I'd go through a series of game elements that I feel need to go away.

Lives - As mentioned in Zero Punctuation, the Lives system needs to go. Lives were created solely for coin-operated game machines as a way to prevent gamers from playing forever on one quarter. The developers needed a way to not only end the game session, but make the player insert more coins in order to keep playing.
As console gaming caught on, the lives system was combined with a Continue system as a way to increase challenge in games. Making the player complete the game with a limited number of tries made what would otherwise be a somewhat easy game suddenly have more difficulty.
As games have become more epic, and thus taking longer to beat, game developers have started to shy away from Lives. Yet some companies don't seem to grasp that the Lives system is no longer necessary. We have checkpoints and save points after each level to help the player complete the game, and artificial intelligence that create challenge. A Lives system just isn't needed to create challenge.

Health Bars - Nothing ruins the experience of a "realistic" shooter more than seeing brightly colored health packs laying on the ground. Maybe it's just me, but when I'm storming the beaches of Normandy, I don't want to see big health boxes scattered around. Thus I have been quite relieved and happy to see the newest trend going around: regenerating health. If you get hit, you just wait a few seconds and you will be back to full strength. But get hit too much in a short period of time, and you're dead.
In my opinion, that is the best way to go these days. At least in action games. RPGs will never get rid of their health system, nor should they. And I can see why games like Mario and Ratchet & Clank need health systems. But in action games, they're just obsolete. It was probably the first Halo game that really started the trend. But now I can't imagine playing a shooter without regenerating health. Heck, even Uncharted and Assassin's Creed use this new health system.

Random Battles - This only applies to RPGs, of course. But I hate random battles. Final Fantasy is by far the worst offender as far as random battles go. That isn't to say that other games don't abuse the system.
With Final Fantasy XII removing random battles in favor of MMORPG-style battles, I hope this is the start of games moving away from random battles. Nothing irritates me more than to be walking around, trying to complete a quest, only to be forced into a battle. I don't like random battles, and I want to choose when I fight. Wild ARMs 2 and beyond use a unique system that lets you cancel certain battles at the expense of an ECNG gauge. But because this gauge went down, you were eventually forced to fight. Which became an annoyance.

Fixed-level enemies - This also only applies to RPGs. But when I'm playing an RPG, I play for the story, first and foremost. I don't care about leveling up, battling, or the overall experience. I want the story. I think the story is the most important aspect of all games, but RPGs need the story more than anything. I don't play an RPG to "play" it, I play an RPG to experience the story.
Which is why I hate games that almost force you to level-up in order to beat certain enemies. This is almost all Japanese RPGs, and at least some American RPGs. The example of the way to do things has to be the Elder Scrolls series. In my first play through of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I finished the main quest at around Level 6. The best part about it is the game doesn't force you to level up. All the enemies scale to your current level. If you level-up, the enemies do as well. Meaning the enemies are never too tough, and never too easy. Certain enemies only show up when you reach certain levels, which adds to the challenge. For example, I got to Level 10 in my second play through so I could get the Skeleton Key (a Daedric artifact), and I started seeing enemies I never saw before.
When I say "fixed-level enemies," I mean the kind who are always at a certain level, all the time. They always have fixed stats that rarely, if ever fluctuate. Meaning you must level up to progress, but when you have to backtrack to earlier areas, the enemies are complete push-overs to the point that you can kill an entire battalion of baddies with one move. RPGs would be much more fun if the enemies level and stats scaled along with yours. That way, later enemies aren't too overwhelming, while earlier enemies aren't so weak near the end.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading.

Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed is one of those games that seems to divide people. Some people hate it, some people like it. Personally, I enjoyed the game.

I've heard complaints about the combat, but honestly I thought the combat was quite good. Sure, it takes some getting used to, and it's not perfect. But I mostly held R1 and countered in battle, and it worked out nicely. Using the other techniques proved to be useful in the later stages of the game.

The story is well done, if not a bit contrived. The "big spoiler" about the true setting of the game isn't just revealed in the first five minutes, it's revealed in the game's own instruction manual. Ubisoft dodged discussing the "futuristic" elements of the game to the end, but they ended up giving it away in the manual, and even the opening scene. I'm disappointed by that, but I suppose it was for the best.

That isn't to say the game doesn't have twists and turns in its own right. Even in the "future world" segments, it pays to walk around and interact with whatever objects you can. The first few times you can't do much of anything, but soon enough you can talk to the female assistant, access the computers, and so forth. I won't say any more, as you have to play it yourself. Or read a guide. Whichever.

The most fun I had was running around on the rooftops. That was so much fun. It reminds me of Prince of Persia, which makes sense because it's the same company. But it was a lot of fun overall. Also, once you get to the View Points and can look over the city, the scope of the game really shows itself. If you can get to a really high view point, you can look over the city and see how much detail is in there. You can see every building, big and small, and marvel over the power of the current generation of hardware. Some of the views are simply breathtaking.

Which brings me to the graphics. Amazing stuff. However, I wasn't really wowed by the character models of the assassination targets. Yes, they are a step above the previous generation, but I get the feeling as if a lot more could be done. Maybe it was just the art design, but a few of the guys just looked ugly. I'm probably nitpicking, though.

The PS3 version of the game, which is what I played, was very well done. I didn't encounter a single glitch, except a strange "can't read disc" error that happened only once. The game prompted me to upgrade it to version 1.10 when I first started it, so maybe that fixed the bugs. I don't know how it compares to the other versions. I noticed very little slowdown, and it certainly didn't affect the game in any way.

All in all, I had an excellent experience, and a lot of fun playing Assassin's Creed. The end of the game definitely set up a sequel. Even though it was said that the game is part of a series when this was first announced, the ending basically shouted out, "Wait until the sequel to find out more!" If you wait until after the credits, you're granted more time to poke around with the computers and find out even more of the story details.

I'm ready for the sequel. I hope it doesn't take two years. But I'm not getting my hopes up. I do worry, though, what direction the game will take. Will Desmond be forced back into the Animus to relive the life of Altair once more? Or will the game shift to Desmond as the main character? If it is set in the future world that Desmond inhabits, I'm sure there will be a major shift in the gameplay itself, as it goes from sword-based combat into gun-based combat, and I don't see that as being an improvement in any way, shape, or form. I don't know how they could keep the game focused on both Altair and Desmond at this point, but we'll have to wait and see.

Unreal Tournament artificial intelligence rant

Artificial intelligence is a difficult thing to get right. I'll say right off the bat that I enjoy playing the Unreal Tournament games offline, with bots only. It's quite fun, once I find a nice difficulty where it's challenging without being overly frustrating. But I've noticed a couple quirks, mainly in Unreal Tournament 3, that bug me.

I should note that I was playing Unreal Tournament 3 on the PS3, not the PC. I doubt that makes any difference, but I figured I should make note of it anyway.

The first quirk that irritates me is the fact that the AI seems to know where you are at all times. It is impossible to sneak up on these bastards. Plus, the "feign death" function in UT3 is useless against bots. The AI somehow knows you're still alive, and will shoot you anyway. But anyway, they seem to know where you are, even if they haven't seen you. I could be hiding behind a column at my base for ten minutes, completely unseen by anyone, but the moment I peek out, I'll see a stream of projectiles coming toward me. For example, I was playing Vehicle Capture The Flag on Sandstorm, a new map in UT3. There is a large wall separating the two bases, and you're able to get on top of it. I got on top, and just peeked at the opposing base, when suddenly two guys and a vehicle were firing at my exact position at the same time. Despite none of my allies ever being up there that round, and the fact that none of them saw me go there, nor did any of them see me up there prior to me peeking out. They fired on me almost instantly, as if they knew I was up there the whole time, and knew exactly where I was situated.

This sort of clairvoyance makes playing the role of a sniper almost impossible, as a sniper is supposed to be stealthy, but it's impossible to be stealthy in a UT game. The AI always knows where you are, and if you pop out for an attempted kill, they'll blast your location with fire to the point where you'll be running around looking for the nearest health pick-up. And that really goes against what a sniper is supposed to do.

Which brings me to quirk number two: the AI seems to focus their attention on you. If they're able to shoot you, they will devote their entire existance to doing so. For this example, I'm going to reference the same round played on Sandstorm. There was an enemy running toward our flag. Two guys plus a Darkwalker were shooting him. I was simply watching, as a passive observer. Logic would dictate that the enemy should get to cover from the Darkwalker, and take care of the two guys trying to kill him. But he ended up firing rockets up toward my position, completely ignoring the three entities attempting to end his short, artificial life. It defies all logic that an AI character would ignore things that are trying to kill him, and only go after the player in some sort of kamikaze mission. Granted, it makes sure that the player is always part of the action, instead of passively observing, but I tend to like passive observation, and I can't really do that when being fired on, and I can't really enjoy it either when the AI seems to not care whether it lives or dies.

I've noticed this to an extent in UT2004, all the way to the Skilled difficulty. UT3 has this issue on Novice and Average, but I haven't tried the other difficulties yet. I would suspect, though, that the AI would more viciously target the player in the higher difficulties, anyway.

I suppose these issues can be forgiven. The games are still fun. Playing a sniper, while difficult, isn't entirely impossible. And I suppose the AI doesn't always exclusively target the player, though I must say that it chooses the most curious times to do so. They're more personal gripes than anything, and it does seem to help keep the game moving and challenging. So I guess it all works out in the end. Still, I wanted to point them out, anyway.

Portal

I've been wanting to play Portal, for two reasons. One, because it looked awesome from even the first video. Two, because everyone is going crazy over it.

I swear, just about everyone who has played this game has nothing but good to say about it. Even the most jaded reviewers on the internet. I read that people were making Weighted Companion Cube porn before the game even came out, and I've personally seen porn involving the gun turrets from the game just days after its release. I had to see what all the craze was about.

It's roughly 3:30 AM as I type this. It took me a little over three hours to finish the entire game, in one sitting. I don't know exactly how that ranks on the average play time scale, but I'm proud to say I didn't use a single walkthrough. I rented The Orange Box on the PS3, specifically to play Portal. I use Linux, and while Portal is said to work well with Wine, I don't have the money to buy The Orange Box for the PC, and I wasn't sure if $20 for Portal would be worth it, given that I can hardly afford even that.

While I'm sure that most everyone who cares about Portal has played it, and has done so weeks ago, I feel I should give it a more proper review.

First up is gameplay. It's a very unique concept. Only one game, to my knowledge, has featured gameplay like this, and that was Narbacular Drop, a class project done by DigiPen students who ended up being hired by Valve to turn their idea into a full-fledged game. So, you could say Narbacular Drop was a tech-demo for what would become Portal. I have to hand it to the developers, because Narbacular Drop has most of the physics-related fun you'll find in Portal, and for a class project, that's really impressive.

Anyway, once you get access to both portals, the game is basically about spacial recognition. Being able to look around your environment and figuring out exactly how to place your portals. Later puzzles involve figuring out angles and momentum. Some puzzles take some work to figure out, but there will be some where you figure out the answer quickly. However, on the later puzzles, while the solution may seem easy, the execution isn't. That's not a game flaw, it's the precision timing or placement needed.

The audio is really nice. There's not a whole lot to it for most of the game. GLaDOS is humorous at times. The way she says certain things with that monotone, robot voice is sure to make you laugh. It's more just a few moments than the entire game, of course. Also of note are the voices for the gun turrets. I read that the voices sound really cute, and I have to agree with that. The sweet and rather deceptive voice of the turrets is off-set by the fact that it can kill you quite easily.

Also, I only noticed the Weighted Companion Cube in one single "Test." The rest were Weighted Storage Cubes. (The Companion Cube has pink hearts on it, while the Storage Cubes have the Aperture logo.) Which makes me wonder why there is such a craze over this cube. I guess I'm just not getting it.

The story is almost non-existent. The player character has little or no back story, and GLaDOS doesn't start showing much personality until the last level. Still, this is a kind of game that doesn't really need a story. It's like adding a story to Tetris. Puzzle games don't need story, and Portal is a puzzle game.

Overall, I think Portal is amazing. It's quick, which is a shame, but it's a lot of fun. If you're into games that really make you think, Portal is a must have. I'm just hoping for a sequel or expansion pack of some kind.

Burnout Paradise

I downloaded the Burnout Paradise demo (PS3 version) yesterday. I must say it looks great, and plays well. My only complaint of the demo is the introduction sequence cannot be skipped. Also, there are times when the game pauses, and the announcer guy gives you tips on what to do, and these cannot be skipped, either. So, anytime you want to play the demo, it's probably three minutes of crap before you can get to the actual game, with shorter one minute or less breaks every so often.

That part is highly annoying.

Other than that, I think the demo is fun. Though, I avoided doing any missions until my second time through, and when I tried them, I wish I kept skipping them. To me, it's too confusing to try and catch a turn when I'm supposed to, because the only indication I get is a flashing street sign on the top of the screen. By that time, I'm going so fast that I'm concentrating more on the road and less on indicators. If there was a giant arrow, I'd probably be able to follow it better. Or maybe a path drawn on the mini-map.

I'm not really able to play a game where I'm driving at high speeds, and have to make split-second decisions. One reason I don't like street racing games. Although Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit on the PS1 was excellent, and it had enough of a "street" feel for me.

But, I found myself having much more fun just crashing into stuff. Trying to roll my car into a "Drive away" crash, and also going as fast as possible and going head-on into a wall. The damage models are well done, and it looks impressive, and ultimately satisfying, to see my car (and others) be totally destroyed.

So, basically I had more fun driving around like a lunatic than I did actually doing any missions. I think this is what Burnout is supposed to be, anyway. Just a giant city filled with potential destruction and insanity. Just forget the races and all that junk, and go destroy things. It's good, old fashioned, mindless fun.