Completion Notes: Osu Tatakae Ouendan 2

The Japanese love their rhythm games hard, apparently. Ouendan 2¸ much like its Japanese predecessor, ramps the difficulty of some songs up into an area that is most definitely unapproachable by the majority of the DS population. In contrast, the US entry in the series – Elite Beat Agents – was easy to the point that I completed all difficulty levels in the span of a week. This last entry in the series cramped my hand over the stylus countless times before I even reached the hardest difficulty (with the female cheerleaders) and had me fuming well into the night during ill-advised before-bed playing sessions.

The core of a rhythm game is in its song selection, however, and this was a bit of a mixed bag. Since I’m not up-and-up on J-pop and don’t have any built-in bias (as I did with Elite Beat Agents and selections from Cher and other songs I can’t stand) I grade the songs in Ouendan based purely on how fun it was to tap out the rhythm and how often I found myself hearing songs in my head and enjoying them. In this, Ouendan 2 falls short of its Japanese predecessor. I found myself trying to get through songs as fast as possible and not look back (e.g. not replay for a higher score) to the point that I’m not certain I unlocked all of the bonus songs. Even without unlockable songs in the first game I remember playing through 5 or 6 of them just for the hell of it.

B

Completion Notes: Gun

Finally got around to this one, picking it up used and at heavy discount for the 360. What this game represents is a great start for a franchise that doesn’t seem to have any legs (unless I’m mistaken, I’ve not seen word of a sequel). This is unfortunate, since the core elements of Gun – the western setting, effective and fun storytelling, and simple and approachable combat system – do a very good job of creating an enjoyable experience. Where Gun could have improved in a second iteration is in the following areas:

Length

Gun is short. Very, very short. I finished the entire game in one sitting on a lazy Sunday afternoon, nearly completing even the optional side missions. I enjoyed what was there, but it all felt rushed and was definitely over too soon. They took the time to hire top-flight talent for the voice acting, did a nice job crafting the game world and most of the characters, but breezed right through it like a middle schooler reading Cliff’s Notes for a book report. I want the novel next time, not the abridged version.

Variety

The majority of the story missions are straight combat. Go from point A to point B, and shoot everyone in between. I’m fine with that, to an extent, but the combat situations very rarely challenged me to use some of the more interesting combat techniques in a fight until the last boss battle (where it was an unfortunate requirement, and I didn’t think to use it for a long time). They give us a bullet-time skill that makes killing very easy, but no situations where I felt like its use was clever or important.

Optional Content

Side Missions are provided and unlocked in a sort-of-Grand Theft Auto kind of way. Finish a story mission, get a few more side missions. Rinse, repeat. Unfortunately the side missions provided are very spotty, ranging from the fun (more combat) to the mundane (herding cattle) to the tremendously irritating (timed “Pony Express” delivery runs that have you fighting with the controls). I did them because I felt compelled, and because it’s the only way to power up your skills. Side missions should be fun diversions and not made such a core element to the equation, especially when they aren’t fun.

Despite those shortcomings, I still strongly recommend a play-through of Gun, but only as a rental. $5 and a weekend seems the best way to experience the game and walk away satisfied.

B-

I WILL FINISH GAMES THIS YEAR

I figure what with it being January 1 and people making resolutions, I'd jump on the bandwagon with one of my own... of course it's something that doesn't really improve my quality of life at all: I AM GOING TO FINISH GAMES THIS YEAR.


I'll start things off by listing the games that I have that are awaiting my attention:


DS/GBA

1. Final Fantasy V

Wii

1. Zelda Twilight Princess
2. Rayman Raving Rabbids
3. Excite Truck
4. Red Steel
   

Xbox 360

1. Lego Star Wars 2
2. Condemned
3. Call of Duty 2
4. Marvel Ultimate Alliance
5. Oblivion

PS2

1. Final Fantasy XII
2. Okami
3. Guitar Hero 2
4. Shadow of the Colossus

Gamecube

1. Fire Emblem
2. Battalion Wars
3. Metroid Prime Echoes
4. Tales of Symphonia

Xbox

1. Ultimate Spiderman
2. Prince of Persia Warrior Within
3. Prince of Persia Two Thrones

PC

1. HalfLife 2
2. Company of Heroes
3. Warcraft Frozen Throne

First Up: Zelda, HalfLife 2, and FFV.

Summer Drought

It's been quite some time since I last updated this blog, so let's get caught up a bit, shall we?

I have a large backlog of unfinished games. So many, in fact, that I think if I took an entire month off of work with the sole activity restricted to playing games, sleeping, eating, and occasionally attending to personal hygiene I would STILL have a backlog when I returned to work. I've had a problem with compulsive game buying since I first entered the workforce and discovered the wonders of disposable income, so this backlog problem is certainly nothing new.

It is for this reason that I am actually happy about the traditional gaming "drought" of the summer, where companies are loathe to release games -- for fear of the dreaded "outdoors" I presume -- since this break gives me a chance to catch up with the games I've ignored for the last few months. Or so I always intend. After all, there's always some game that I was able to resist buying back in the busy pre-and-post-Christmas timeframe that just calls to me to be bought... but I digress.

Here's a bit of a quick recap on the games I have played thus far this summer, and why it is I still have not finished them:

Kingdom Hearts 2
I've actually written a bunch about this game already here so I'll keep it short: the game sucks. It's really that simple. A truly broken gameplay experience with some really nice production values. I tried and I tried, but in the end could not bring myself to suffer any longer and thus did not finish it.

Perfect Dark Zero
This is on the short list for "worst shooter I have ever played." In order to fully understand how vile this game is -- and this works only for people fond of the original -- take your memories from the heydey of the N64 PD and put them in a manila envelope. Seal the envelope using the tears of a child who just dropped their ice cream on the ground on a hot summer afternoon, then place the envelope against an electric fence (powered on). Now, unzip your pants and piss on the envelope. As the current washes through your nether regions, try as best as you can to picture Madeline Albright naked.

That is PDZ in a nutshell.

FIFA World Cup 2006
This is a sports game, so it doesn't really have an "end" persay, but suffice it to say that I did not complete a full World Cup. I am awful at FIFA games. It's completely inexplicable. No game (or series of games) have consistently confounded me in the way that FIFA has. I even took the time to learn as much about the game of soccer as I could throughout the course of watching the real World Cup, yet that only improved my skill by a fraction.

My record vs. my sister's fiancé: 1 win, I-Lost-Count-At-15 losses, 0 draws
My record vs. my roommate: 2 wins, 6 losses, 3 draws
My record vs. the computer: 1 win, 3 losses, 5 draws

I decided to throw in the towel on this one and attempt to make as much money back in trade-in value as possible. I will not give in entirely, though. You will not win the war, FIFA... I'll be back when FIFA 2007 releases!

Titan Quest
A PC game! Too bad it is an inefficiently-coded mess right now that chugs along on my PC. Granted I don't have the most powerful rig around, but I should at least be able to run it at my LCD's native resolution instead of the blurry, jaggy-filled 1024x768 I ended up with. Placed aside for a later patch that will hopefully fix my problem.

Galactic Civilizations 2
Eerily reminiscent of Master of Orion from back-in-the-day -- a game that I had a dangerous addiction to -- I squandered my free time for two weeks solid on this one. It's a hell of a fun game, but I have put it aside for fear of blowing another 30 hours of my life in the next few weeks...

Tales of Symphonia
This one is still really a work-in-progress, but has been pushed aside for a bit due to a large influx of new 360 game purchases. Tales is a very well done, polished RPG with an old-school bend -- had this game arrived back in the SNES days it would very likely have been up there with the Final Fantasy's and Chrono Trigger in the minds of gaming geeks everywhere. Instead, it arrived two generations late on a system that was not on the "must buy list" for hardcore RPG-ers, so it didn't get the attention it deserves from the gaming public. This is a temporary thing... I'll be back to finish this one for sure.

Burnout Revenge
I borrowed this from a coworker when he went on vacation. Ordinarily I hate racing games that involve some modicum of reality -- if I'm not racing a go-kart with some cartoony mascot riding it or a futuristic 1200-mph anti-grav racecar, I'll pass on that game nine times out of ten. Since trying Burnout was in this case at a wonderful cost to me of $0, I popped it into the 360 and gave it a whirl.

This game is fun.

Really fun.

Gleeful destruction, simple controls, fast pace, fun multiplayer modes -- I now understand why there has been such a big to-do about this series over the last few years. I'm going to try and put a lot of time into this game before returning it to my coworker, but it may not be in the cards (despite its high entertainment factor) because of...

Chromehounds, Madden 2007, and Ninety Nine Nights.

Since I'm currently playing those three, I'll leave discussion of them to a later post.

Quick Shots

Not in the frame of mind for a long-winded post (nor do I really have the time to do so), but here are a few quick thoughts from the last week or so since I last updated:

Dogs, Bells, and Brain Age
A lot of the age score in Brain Age seems to be tied to conditioned response; that is, the more you do what few Brain Test minigames there are (about six) the lower your "age" will go regardless of true "progress". There have been days where I know my brain is not exactly firing on all cylinders and I pull a low-20's or even a 20 (which is the best score in the game). Much of this seems to be tied to the fact that I (1) do the same brain test exercises every day and (2) avoid the one that involve speaking.

When I break from the norm and do the ones with speaking, my brain age drops by about 5 years on average. Is this really a representation of how well my brain functioned that day, or is it simply that I haven't been practicing the verbal games and am not as good at those as I am at the others? Based on the performance for my daily training on these days -- roughly on par with my 20year-old nonverbal test days -- I'd lean more towards the latter.

This is a bit disconcerting, as it really throws into question the validity of giving out a "Brain Age" at all. If all I need to do is practice the same thing over and over again in order to make my brain "younger", what am I really doing? Is this any different than working harder at a career, carving that intellectual rut by which you'll catapult into senility? Different in terms of what you're doing with your brain, most definitely, but not so different in terms of variety over time.

Harmony of Dissonance
Last week I finally got around to picking up the second Castlevania on the GBA: Harmony of Dissonance. While I've only beaten it with the "bad" ending thus far, I think it's fair to render judgement on it: it's not bad. It's really middle-of-the-road in terms of execution of the formula in place since Symphony of the Night -- nothing particularly new, but nothing really flawed about it either.

Two gripes: the music is awful to the point that I consider it only a slight step above Castlevania 3 on the NES, and the bosses are far too easy. While I can recall having to grind a few levels before a boss fight in other games in the series in HoD I didn't stop at all. The real shame of it is that the bosses themselves feel delightfully old-school in their execution and attack formulas, and could have been quite fun if they were more difficult.

Two raves: the dash system (forward and backward using the shoulder buttons) quickened the pace of combat nicely, and the fact that the slide skill deals damage was great for speeding through earlier sections.

One huh?: Apparently the Belmonts took on interior design as a profession somewhere along the way in their centuries of vampire hunting. Throughout the castle you find various items that do you no good at all: candlesticks, a cat statue, curtains... then you find an empty room and Juste Belmont exclaims that the room "needs some decoration" and places these items about the room. What? When did this turn into a reality TV show? Juste: "Oh my GAWD... Dracula what have you DONE in this room? Just LOOK at those drapes!"

Overall: B-

Guildwars 1, Idiots 0 -- Assassins lose out
A few weeks ago I posted what seemingly could have been a deep discussion about online worlds -- but ended up as a bitch session about how nobody'd take my poor Necro into their group because I didn't have the requisite skills to put together a build that most would find useful. Well, here we go again.

With the release of the Factions expansion, there has been a glut of Assassin-profession characters floating about -- too many of them, in fact. The group "economy" would have a tough time keeping track of so many of the same profession in and of itself, so one would expect a certain resistance towards an "Assassin Looking For Group" announcement. "Look, buddy, we don't want any more... we've already got three assassins!"

What is really going on here definitely exceeds this expectation and goes into full-fledged anti-Assassin prejudice -- it's virtually impossible to find groups as an Assassin later on in the campaign. This is not because Assassins aren't a useful build to have around -- as one would expect from my previous discussion on how my Necro build really isn't that useful -- on the contrary a skillfully utilized set of Assassin skills (even without any secondary professions in use) can be quite useful in keeping healers and spellcasters from getting snuck by enemies. The reason for the anti-Assassin movement lies instead with the players themselves: they suck. Plain and simple, most Assassins are played like a Warrior (i.e. run headlong into packs of enemies, try to duke it out toe-to-toe, etc) and as a result die faster than an erection at a Golden Girls reunion dildo party.

Due to this reasoning, I don't put down my Assassin with a chip on my shoulder; I completely understand why groups are avoiding Assassins like the kid with Tourets at Bible study camp. Eventually strategies will emerge that use Assassins in a way that works to their skillset and groups will start accepting them again. That, or the idiots will go back to their Warriors, thus cutting out the fat and leaving only the skilled Assassins. When this happens I'll return to my Assassin and pick up where I left off. Until then, it's a healer class for me.

No use picking a class that I'd have trouble finding groups with...

Hey Nintendo? Please rethink this...

Yesterday Nintendo announced the official name for their next console: Wii. Pronounced "we", Nintendo PR sells the idea as a coming together of sorts; of a convergence of people of all types to play games together.

Since reading the first announcement yesterday, I've gone through a few phases of response to this:

Revulsion
Revolution was a great name. Admittedly a bit long-winded, the Revolution moniker carried a certain edge to it, almost as if Nintendo was revolting against the status quo and busting down the doors of convention. A sense of cool that Nintendo has lacked since the SNES era. If need be, four syllables can be cut to one, and we can call it the Rev. That's got a nice ring to it too.

Wii on the other hand does not strike me as cool, instead giving me the impression of a bunch of people in a board room talking themselves into a bad idea. A room full of people suffering from groupthink and trying to be too clever. Images float through my mind of a haughty chuckle rippling through the room, with people rapping their knuckles against the desk or snapping their fingers in an expression of approval. Essentially, it strikes me as an Apple type of move.

Wii also comes across as childish, like "Wheee!" or "wee-wee". Nintendo has struggled to break free of the reaction to the GameCube as a system for children. They designed the... Wii... as though they'd learned their lesson, but then turned around and gave it a lame name that has a built-in setup for childish jokes. It's as if they got so caught up with how clever the name matches the message that they lost sight of the fact that people will actually have to refer to the system as Wii.

"Want to play _____ on my Wii?"

"Did you see that new game for the Wii?"

"What games are good for the Wii? Where can I find a Wii for my child?"

Good God, that's horrendous.

Justification
Ok, maybe it's not so bad. After all, it does do a good job of conveying where Nintendo wants to go with the system; that is, if the general public has the opportunity to read the press release where they spell out what they mean by Wii, why there's two i's, and why the "We" concept is so important. If not, well, Wii is just crap.

As in “we.”

While the code-name “Revolution” expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer.

Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else.

Wii will put people more in touch with their games … and each other. But you’re probably asking: What does the name mean?

Wii sounds like “we,” which emphasizes this console is for everyone.

Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii.

Wii has a distinctive “ii” spelling that symbolizes both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play.

And Wii, as a name and a console, brings something revolutionary to the world of video games that sets it apart from the crowd.

So that’s Wii. But now Nintendo needs you.

Because, it’s really not about you or me.

It’s about Wii.

And together, Wii will change everything.

Effective marketing could solve this dilemma. Wii can overcome such a crappy name... wii will buy the system anyway, right? Wii will enjoy the games and have a great time with the system. Wii will download NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, and TurboGrafix-16 games. Wii will rejoice.

(suddenly I feel like I'm writing subtitles to the opening of Holy Grail... also also wik?)


Refusal
Ok, I won't be calling the system Wii. I refuse. It sounds too stupid in normal conversation. Even switching it around a bit and calling it dubya-two makes it sound like income tax, and that is not a good connection. I will continue calling it Revolution, at least until the point -- if it occurs that is -- where Nintendo again becomes synonymous with Video Game in the American vernacular. I will then simply call it "The Nintendo".

"Want to play ____ on the Nintendo?"

"Did you see that new Nintendo game?"

"What games are good for the Nintendo? Where can I buy a Nintendo?"

Much better.

UPDATE: Resolution
Behold this solid bit of logic from a wise man in DC:

dude... the wii is an excellent name - people are so stupid - and i agree that its very apple

think about when you tell a non-gamer that you have a game for the playstation 2 or the xbox 360... you always hesitate or maybe say - its for playstation or some abbreviation that's not really the same system so you don't have to say the number in the name of the system

anyone could just say - i got a wii - its totally cool and has this wand you wave around - anyone can play it...

everyone wants some crazy name like the nintendo supernova or the nintendo lightning dominator... you can't underestimate the power of a simple one syllable name - everyone will love the name in a year and if they look back at all they wrote about it now they'll feel like morons...

That's step 1 in coming around to the Cult of Wii.

(come to think of it, they should rename the Mario Club or Nintendo Fan Club to the Cult of Wii -- it makes perfect use of the duality of Wii/We/Wheeeeeee!)

Thinking over the above statements put me in the right frame of mind when I came across this gem of a logo over at GoNintendo :


This really does it for me. The logo above means two things to me: old school and fun. The ball bouncing back and forth between the i's looks a lot like Pong and to me points out the intention of the Virtual Console in bringing the past back into the present. The i's are also hopping around and animate in a playful manner; they look like they are having fun. Impressive that so simple a logo can convey the reasons I am most excited about buying a Wii.

(the fact that I'm talking about animated i's like they're people either means I'm insane or Nintendo's marketing just might work)

So I'll probably come around to calling it Wii, likely sometime after I buy one. Talking gamer-to-gamer will consistently sound weird -- and probably will never stop sounding weird even long into the system's life cycle -- but it may just work for talking with Average Joe Consumer.

Bravo, Nintendo. Maybe.

Level Five, you are my special bane

First things first: Why didn't we get this awesome startup screen for the U.S. version of the game? I came across this on a European gaming site, and I believe it had a comment below it to the effect that this was the U.K. version of the game. That is really awesome...

But I digress.

I can't think of any game that I've completed more times than this one -- no less than three times on the SNES, once or twice on emulator, and working on a second pass through the GBA port. There have been a few things that remain consistent through all those play-throughs:

1. The death of the flute-playing kid gets to me every time. The way the tune fades away as he turns into a tree. His final statement to the effect of "promise me you'll play for the animals in the forest after I've gone...". It really was the first time I'd felt emotional response (besides anger and frustration, that is) to a video game.
2. That arrow shooting mini-game never seems to get any easier.
3. I catch all of the crystals in the Dark World before they hit the ground. OCD, I guess.
   
4. I struggle with the fifth dungeon in the Dark World (Crystal).
   

The Crystal Dungeon seems to be designed to work completely against my higher brain functions. It's really not that difficult, but for some reason there's a disconnect in my problem solving engine when it comes to multi-level Zelda puzzles. The only other times I can recall having this much trouble with a puzzle in a Zelda game are the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time and the Zora temple in Oracle of Seasons (could have been Oracle of Ages but I keep getting them confused) -- both of these are multi-level dungeon puzzles.

Every time I replay LTTP, I end up wandering around the Crystal Dungeon for about a half an hour or more before stumbling across the solution. Once I do solve it, I slap myself in the head for being so stupid. Unfortunately my brain never seems to record how I solved it, so I am doomed to repeat my struggle. Nintendo even dumbed down this dungeon in the GBA port. No matter. This is the Crystal Dungeon. I will wander it aimlessly for at least 15 minutes.

After all, it is my special bane.

A sleep-deprived brain is an addled brain...

I've now spent an entire week with Brain Age on the DS and let me say it was worth every penny of the $20 it cost me. I "play" it on the way in to work every morning and arrive considerably more awake and aware as a result. I'd go into detail about each activity, but really that's not all that interesting when you don't have the option of trying it out (who wants to talk about speed math and reading aloud anyway?).

What I will mention, however, is the strong indication for how important sleep is to effective thought. I started last week with a Brain Age Check and clocked in at 32 years old (+8 years). Not horrible for a first attempt, given that I was multiplication-table-retarded and couldn't remember half of what I should remember, and this was after a very draining day at work. Two days later I did another Check and ended up at 37 (+13!). Now we're getting awful. Another Check on Friday netted 44 (+20!). Good god. I hadn't slept well (or much) all week and was getting progressively exhausted as the week went on -- culminating in a three-alarm (energy drinks x3) Friday -- so while +20 is really horrendous I justified it by noting how exhausted and unfocused I was while taking the Brain Age Check.

Lucky for me, when I took it on Sunday morning after two nights of 10 hour sleep, my justification was proven valid. With proper rest I ended up at 26 brain-years (+2).

Moral of the story? Buy a DS, and get some good quality sleep.

(the moral of every story starts with "Buy a DS" -- you won't regret it!)