Review: Final Fantasy XIII

 

The plot of Final Fantasy makes no sense. I was trying to figure it out the whole way through, watching every cutscene, skimming through the in-game encyclopedia, reading additional material online. I'm still lost. Final Fantasy games are always a hard nut to crack, their worlds existing unto only themselves. In every iteration you are expected to digest an entire new universe of mythos, history, geography, etc. Final Fantasy XIII might just take the cake though. By using similar non-words like Fal'cie and L'cie as names for it's central ideas, it is just inviting confusion. Not necessarily bad, but pair this with the fact that the main characters are a bunch of non-comunicative anime stereotypes and, well, what you end up with is one of the most annoying and nonsensical plots ever to grace a JRPG. And that's saying something for the genre of games that is perhaps best know for it's overwrought, melodramatic, and honestly, loony teenage-angst-meets-the-sci-fi-apocalypse yarns. (Xenosaga anyone?) I don't want to let this be the only sticking point of this review though because it's not all bad.

The battle system in particular, is extremely engaging and well done. It at once, simpler and more complex than any Final Fantasy battle system to come before, and is fast, frenetic and usually satisfying. But the thing is, it had better be good because in this game, it's literally all you do. Gone are the mini-games, sidequests, optional dialogues, villages to explore, etc of previous games. In XIII, its all about battles. You travel down a series of lovely corridors, occasionally picking up loot out of a treasure chest, you run into an enemy and then you battle. Then you sit through a cutscene where these emotionally dysfunctional kids try to figure out whats going on while spouting out a dense jargon peppered with agonizing catchphrases. (Let's create our own destinies you guys!)

I do have to say that this game took me over a year to complete. I played it off and on and that may have made the plot seem even more incoherent than it actually was. I'm saying that for the sake of fairness, but honestly, theres really not anything that made me hungry to keep playing. And it really is a shame, because I was ready to love this game. I really was. I would say up until the half-way point, I was pretty into it. Many RPGs start out restrictive and branch out later into the game. This one, as an intentional design choice, keeps the player exactly where they are supposed to be at all times. Had this game been a cinematic marvel, I wouldn't have even minded. But if you are going to feed us a lousy anime story, don't make that the main course.

6.5 / 10

Review: Alone in the Dark: Inferno

Jeez. I need to stop picking up these crappy old survival horror games in the hopes of finding hidden gems. It so rarely happens. I'll tell you, it sure didn't happen with Alone in the Dark: Inferno. The Inferno edition of the game is the PS3 remake of an Xbox 360 title which was deemed unplayable upon release. I'll need to look up what exactly was changed because the game still seems pretty damn unplayable to me. Of all of the games I've played the whole way through, this one might be the only one that is not technically beatable. Due to glitches that prevent you from progressing, the game is essentially broken. Seemingly aware of this fact, the developers included a feature that allows you to skip to any park of the game like a DVD scene select menu. What. The. Fuck.
So they knew that the game didn't work and just decided to ship it anyway? On the second time it was released? It literally makes no sense. And there are soooo many glitches. Almost every step of the way through this game, I was battling a game engine that worked against me completing what the game was asking me to do. Objectives were unclear and sometimes the necessary elements to complete them did not load correctly or whatever, leading to situations where you have absolutely no idea what to do and no means to do it. The game can be stupidly difficult in this way- it will send you to the last checkpoint because of the game's poor design caused you to die. Get ready to complete the same sequences again and again until you do it the exact way the game wants you to.
What's really upsetting is that believe it or not, there was some real potential here for an awesome survival horror experience and some things work out quite nicely. You can't fault this game for lack of ambition- it tries to do so many things that it ends up feeling unfocused and sloppy, reaching a bit to far into other genres. You have your floaty driving sections, platforming with and camera angles, first person immersion exercises that border on the absurd. The inventory system is the most obvious example of the game's bizarre fixation with first person viewpoint. Essentially a spin off of the Resident-Evil-of-old style limited inventory slots, your weapons, tools and healing supplies are stored in your jacket pockets which you actually navigate through in first person. Crazy right? The combat is an amalgamation of combining materials to make bombs, clunky shooting, and even clunkier melee combat. Wait till you get a load of the melee in this game. It's bananas. While holding down a trigger, you must twirl the thumbstick in the direction you want to swing, taking into account the fact that you need a full swing radius to do any damage. Oh and you will have to solve puzzles in this way too. Good luck! There's quite a few puzzles in this game actually, almost none of which make any logical sense.
It's incredible how good one sequence will play just to be followed up by some momentum killing design errors that bring the whole experience crashing to the ground. The presentation isn't awful per se, for a game it's age (one of the first next gene titles), but when a game seems like it wasn't even tested for bugs before it ships, its hard to appreciate the good qualities. And the story certainly doesn't earn the game any addition points. It's the sort of B-Movie fare you would expect, laughably bad for the most part yet enjoyable enough to keep you sticking with until the end. With some more time in the cooker, this could have been a decent game, but as it stands, it's barely worth the 5(5!) dollars it cost at Gamestop.  4/10

Review: Dead Island

Ghaaaaa… That was miserable. This is the first time in a while I have been so fucking over a video game before completing it… and yet oddly compelled to see it through to the finish. Even though it ended totally predictably and without any twists or new gameplay elements added past the very first couple missions. This game is just idiocy. It's mindlessly running from point A to point B gunning down every thing in your way, watching an absolutely atrocious cut-scene and the rinsing and repeating. Yet, for some reason this mindlessness is palpable to a certain degree. I found this game to be a nice accompaniment to watching tv and listening to podcasts, as it is so mindless and inconsequential that you really only need to uses about 10% of your brain power to make it through. And I seriously wonder how many people actually made it through this one. The presentation quality seems to take a pretty hard dip around the halfway point, and the mission structures become even more banal and annoying than they were before. You will run back and forth between the same locations hundreds of times looking for the next item or switch that will further the absolutely asinine plot. I don't want to give anything away… actually there is nothing to give away. I don't know what happened and could not care less. There's an island, zombie outbreak, you are immune, etc. It's the same tired Zombie conventions you've seen in every movie, game or whatever since the beginning of the zombie craze, a fixation that I am personally bored shitless of. Seriously, no more zombie games for a while guys.
Theres really not much more to say about this time waster of a game. I could pick it apart piece by piece but it would be needlessly dissecting a turd. It's pretty much all turd- all the way through. Certain questions continue to bother me though: why was the premier trailer for the game so damn good? It was emotional, terrifying and seemed to signal something that would take the genre in a new direction that was laced with heartbreaking ethos. Instead the actual cast of the game is a swath of gansta rap cliches- even going so far as to have an awful zombie-themed rap over the ending credits? Why did the cutscenes, which featured atrocious texture pop-in, expressionless faces, and seemingly nonexistent lip-syncing, look worse than pretty much anything I have seen on the precious generation of consoles?! Why does the game impose any real penalty for dying, meaning that you can just go in guns blazing, die on purpose, re-spawn and just do it again until all of the enemies are dead? It totally ruined any sense of fear or dread i might have had. Why did this game last for 25 hours, padded out with a hundred pointless busy-work missions? Why do they set up the ending for a sequel? God no!
    I realize that this game is intended to be played co-operatively. And for stretches of it, I did. It made it a bit more fun, but seemed to increase the occurrence of glitches, frame-rate issues, the game freezing outright, etc. Also, if you join someone else's game, you are simply gaining experience and not progressing your own plot. For someone like me, who was simply trying to power through this mess, that did not work. So, my only option was to just wait and see if people wanted to join in on my game, which only happened 4-5 times.
    Dead Island is a culmination of things that need to go away in the video game industry: mindless shooting, overuse of zombies as a plot device, pointless fetch quests, total lack of any meaningful story, cliche characters, length that seems wildly disproportional to the amount of time you would actually want to play it, a disregard for presentation that is honestly insulting to the completionist gamer,  extremely graphic violence with a lazy context… the list goes on. And yet, it still doesn't descend into the absolute pits of gaming hell. As hypocritical as it sounds, I guess I had a bit of fun. If this was a movie it would be Sci-Fi Channel Original.  4/10

The Lavender Shadowfish- Funny Games

The long awaited 4th song from The Lavender Shadowfish!

The Lavender Shadowfish- Hotdogz 4/2

The Lavender Shadowfish- Taxi Cab

The long awaited second track off of Traveling Companion is revealed!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aJUxoJXG1E

An Ass Load of Short Video Game Reviews

Jet Set Radio (aka Jet Grind Radio)
Smilebit (2000)

Score: 10
The irreplaceable first moment I realized that games were art. The music, visual style and gameplay all come together perfectly in this delicious enchilada of awesome. An amazingly creative, subversive, offbeat experience that can be found nowhere else... except maybe the sequel.

Jet Set Radio Future
Sega (2002)
This sequel took everything awesome about Jet Set Radio to the next logical step, by making it even more insane. You could move around more freely, grind into infinity, do more elaborate tricks, tag in half the time and kill airplanes with spray-paint. The soundtrack is once again amazing. It's a bigger game but feels ever-so-slightly less focused than it's predecessor.

Skies of Arcadia
Sega (2000)
Score: 10
This top notch JRPG is a thing of wonder. The vast airborne world is more interesting and beautiful than anything seen in a Final Fantasy game, the characters and storyline are heartwarming and memorable, and the gameplay is strategic and deep. This game is a grand, lush adventure that you will find yourself longing to return to again and again.

Halo: Combat Evolved
Bungie Studios (2001)
Score: 10
If you're speaking in terms of good, plain fun, Halo is an unparallelled experience. A thrill ride from start to finish, this sci-fi first person shooter single-handedly upped the ante for all shooters to come. It's cinematic, epic, and just gigantic feeling. This Xbox launch title was kick in the pants that the game industry needed at the time.

GoldenEye 007
Rare (1997)
Score: 10
The first great console shooter may not hold up so well today, but for its time it was an superbly crafted experience the was completely unparalleled. Always good for a fun-filled nostalgia trip.

Silent Hill 2
Konami (2001)
Score: 10
The best story ever written for a video game and indeed one of the best stories ever written period. Poetically understated and tinged with sadness and despair, this twisted story is the type of thing that may haunt you for the rest of your life. One of the very finest video game experiences of all time.

Silent Hill 3
Konami (2003)
Score: 10
The last truly great Silent Hill game gives us the most vivid look into the hellish Otherworld. This is actually one of the very best looking games ever made. With darkness, blood and rust covering most of the game world, the things that do pop into focus are beautifully rendered. The story gives some closure to the thread started in the first Silent Hill, wrapping up one of the greatest trilogies of games ever made.

Silent Hill 4: The Room
Konami (2004)
Score: 7.5
Team Silent's red headed stepchild is still measurably better than most survival-horror games. Ditching the familiar gameplay of the first three Silent Hills for a more "experimental" approach proved to be a mixed bag, but when the game is at its best, it contains some of the most frighteningly bizarre imagery of the series and one of the most engrossing plots.

Silent Hill: Origins
Climax Group (2007)
Score: 7.0
This compact Silent Hill adventure feels the most like the original Silent Hill out of any other game in the series. As a result, it feels like a bit of a rehash. If you like the other games in the series, you will probably like this one too, just be warned that it is probably the least compelling entry because it's the least ambitious.

Silent Hill Homecoming
Konami (2008)
Score: 8.0
The sixth Silent Hill game is the strongest since the original trilogy. A very welcome change was made to the combat, and even made sense in the context of the story, which is full of great moments that longtime Silent Hill fans with either greatly appreciate or relentlessly bash. There are some pretty glaring flaws, (slider-box and wire puzzles, I'm looking at you) but overall, this is a scary yet entertaining journey even if it does lack a certain element of Japanese insanity.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Climax Group (2009)
Score: 7.0
This strange entry into the Silent Hill saga masquerades as a remake of the original, although in reality they look, feel and play nothing alike. There's nothing wrong with that though, as this game ends up feeling like the most unique, far removed experience of any of the games in the series. There are some brilliant mechanics at work here, like psychologically profiling the player- I just wished it was pulled off a bit more smoothly. The biggest problem with this game is that it isn't very scary and focuses entirely on puzzle solving, as opposed to combat. In the end, It's still a recommendable game because of its sheer uniqueness.

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly
Tecmo (2003)
Score: 8.5
Possibly the most frightening video game ever made. The game is designed to mercilessly torment the player, who is constantly forced to confront horrific apparitions up close and personal, thanks to the ingenious implementation of a camera-lens view. The story is also very intriguing, concerning extremely disturbing Japanese sacrifice rituals.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
Ninja Theory (2010)
Score: 6.5
Enslaved feels like a genuine effort on the part of its designers, and in some ways it comes together magnificently. However, an extra layer of polish would have been greatly appreciated. On the positive side, the dialogue and mo-cap acting is really superb. The characters have a very human quality to them and you end up caring quite a bit about the plot. The world and atmosphere is great. The problem with this game is that it feels unfinished- there are some janky glitches, frustrating restrictions on movement and a pretty atrocious frame rate when things heat up. This is definitely a case of a game that looks more visually impressive when it's not moving. That being said, it is still a relatively fun, if simple and short experience.

Beyond Good & Evil
Ubisoft (2003)
Score: 6.5
I remember being turned off by this game's art style back when it was released, but after eight years of hearing about what I was missing out on, I took the plunge. I still feel the same way about the art. The cool green color palette does not work for me and the character design are downright laughable in many cases. Anyway, I digress. The game itself is fun, if short and kind of generic feeling. Button mashing, puzzle solving, sneaking, photography and driving all play a part in the experience, some more interestingly than others. There are certainly moments when you realize that you are having a great time, but by the time you are really getting into it, it just ends. Glad I haven't been waiting for the sequel these past eight years.

Vanquish
Platinum Games (2010)
Score: 9.0
Platinum Games strikes again! In similar fashion to Bayonetta being a perfected revision of the Devil May Cry formula, Vanquish is a perfection of the Gears of War formula. This game is one pulse pounding encounter after another, taking on waves of increasingly insane amounts of enemies. Pay no attention to the retarded story, and just enjoy it for the thrill ride that it is. It's very rare that you feel quite this powerful in a game, given the ability to slow down time and rocket boost all over the battle field, and the game encourages you really take risks and go balls to the wall. The game is stunningly produced, with graphics and frame-rate never taking a hit, even when there is pure mayhem occurring on-screen in this amazing shooter.

Alien Front Online
Sega (2001)
Score: 6.0
One of the very first online console games and a fun, if simplistic, one at that. That microphone attachment for the Dreamcast controller was hilariously dumb looking.

inFAMOUS
Sucker Punch (2009)
Score: 7.5
By far the most violent T rated game I can think of, this game lets you unleash a torrent of destruction on helpless citizens. Of course, this all factors into whether you are good or evil but trust me when I say that it is far more fun to be evil. Anyway, Infamous gives you an impressive amount of freedom. I have not seen any other sandbox game that lets you feel like a legitimate superhero (or villain) like this one does. It's a fun romp not to be taken too seriously, as the plot and characters are nothing noteworthy.

Resistance: Fall of Man
Insomniac Games (2006)
Score: 6.0
When I think about how I rate games, I divide the quality into two categories: how well the programmers did their job and how well the artists did theirs. In other words, one part is how the game plays and the other is how the game looks, sounds and tells a story. From a gameplay perspective, there is nothing really wrong with Resistance. It's your standard sci-fi first person shooter. Artistically, this game is about as interesting as the crumpled up piece of tin foil so many of its environments look like. And this coming from the minds who created the lush and colorful worlds of Ratchet and Clank seems like a huge misfire. The only part of the Insomniac flavor that remains is some creative guns, but even they are tame in comparison to R&C.

New Super Mario Bros.
Nintendo (2006)
Score: 7.5
Damn. I guess I didn't realize how difficult the 2D Mario games are compared to the 3D ones. This tight platformer requires nearly scientific timing and precision to complete 100%. It's a fun and addictive game that utilizes many of the more recent additions to Mario's skills with the original Mario gameplay. It may not do anything particularly awe-inspiring, but it has solid, time tested mechanics and character to boot.

Demon's Souls
From Software (2009)
Score: 9.5
The sense of accomplishment one receives from progressing through this game is unparalleled. The journey is dauntingly perilous and not for those who have little patience, but the asymmetrical multiplayer component adds a unique twist that elevates this game into the stuff of legend. When the book is closed on the PS3, this will without a doubt be remembered as one of its finest games.

Shadows of the Damned
Grasshopper Manufacture (2011)
Score: 8.0
It's a bit rough around the edges, but what Shadows of the Damned lacks in finesse, it more than makes up for in creativity. Lake Suda51's previous games, this one will be polarizing, but if you are a fan of Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Killer 7, and No More Heroes, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It's like a smoothie of all of those things. Steering away from full-on horror into grindhouse territory, it is every bit as fun and stupid as the movies it tries to emulate. Add that to some of the most bizarre imagery and great music found in any game these days, and you have something that feels unique and full of character. So here's to Suda51 and his gang of freaks. May they continue being the wild card in gaming for a very long time.

Dead Space 2
Visceral Games (2011)
Score: 8.5
Dead Space 2 is an extremely polished, intense sequel to a game that was already those things. Dead Space 2's main weakness would have to be its lack of innovation from the original. It literally felt like a continuation of the first game. That okay though, since Dead Space was an extremely enjoyable modern survival horror experience. While I might bemoan the death of the classic survival horror genre, the fact of the matter is that I have a lot of respect for the Dead Space series carrying the torch for survival horror in the modern age. Sure, it's not as scary as the old Silent Hills, Resident Evils or Fatal Frames, it's a bit to easy, and many areas look identical. However, It's a thrill ride that's full of great (and gory) moments.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Nintendo (2007)
Score: 7.5
Although I'm not a Zelda completest, this is without a doubt the blandest the series has gotten for me. Basically a side story to Wind Waker, this game takes place in a similar ocean-like world. Even the art style, while greatly simplified is very similar Wind Waker's. Obviously if you hated that game, don't even bother with this one. It's not like you are missing a fundamental piece of the Zelda saga. There are clever uses of the DS hardware like having your map present and editable at all times, weird quirks like having to blow into the system to put out flames, and a bit of variety to classic Zelda gameplay. What bothers me most is the childishly simple dialogue and the devilishly difficult and repetitive Ocean King Temple. Still, Zelda!

Catherine
Atlus (2011)
Score: 9.5
Yeah, at its core it's a relatively simple puzzle game, but there is so much love put into every inch of Catherine, it feels like so much more. Like the Persona games, this gem is full of great characters, witty dialogue, and a story that gets progressively weirder and more entertaining. The anime inspired Persona visuals really come into their own here too, a stunning mix of bold graphic colors, creative and disturbing monsters, expressive characters and atmospheric environments. What's really amazing about Catherine though, is that what would appear to be a repetitive rinse and repeat cycle of puzzle solving and character interaction never, for a single second, gets old, a testament to the clever pacing of both the story and gameplay.

Resident Evil (GC)
 Capcom (2002)
Score: 9.5
Along with Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2, the Resident Evil Remake on the Gamecube deserves the very highest honors bestowed upon a survival horror videogame. As a remake and overall improvement of the game that single-handedly invented the genre itself, this should be considered absolutely essential to anyone interested in survival horror. It is the one Resident Evil game that can honestly be considered terrifying and features the tightest version of the "old school" Resident Evil game mechanics. Before Resident Evil became a phenomenon, spawning a plethora of dubious and campy diversions, it was a story about about one extremely creepy mansion and the struggle to escape.