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It's difficult to describe just how good Chinatown Wars is - you really have to play it to believe it. By GTA standards, it's a good game, sitting at the same table as its console brethren; what it lacks in driving finesse it more than makes up for with unique features. By handheld game standards, Chinatown Wars is better than it has a right to be, and sets an impossibly high bar for anyone else ambitious enough to try open-world on the DS.
I finished the main missions and did a little tooling around on the side (drug dealing, vigilante and ambulance missions, et cetera) in just under 10 gameplay hours. Which may seem low compared to other GTAs, but the missions in general feel much more concentrated here. The game is brilliantly designed for on-the-go play: all the bullshit of driving long distances, or protracted hunting and protection scenarios, is filtered out, distilling the missions into pure fun. It feels very potent, and satisfying.
Naturally, there are a ton of extras in Chinatown Wars beyond the main storyline, like taking out security cameras, acquiring property, and rampages and so on. I'm not planning on going for 100% completion, but these extras are way more attainable and immediately gratifying than some of the more obtuse collectibles in other GTAs.
Metacritic currently says Chinatown Wars is the highest rated DS game, even boasting no marks below 80/100, and I think that's entirely justified. Unfortunately the game may not get the recognition it deserves until the PSP port - which is really too bad, because the touch-screen stuff in this one puts even some Nintendo implementations to shame.
Imagine The Lost Vikings set in medieval swords-and-sorcery land. You have a wizard who can float things around, and magically conjure up blocks; a thief who can swing from a grappling hook; and a warrior who blocks falling rocks and beats up skeletons. Oh, also, there's co-op - you switch between the characters in solo play, or multiple players can use each character simultaneously, making for wicked-fun physics-based hijinks.
As a single-player outing, Trine is interesting and inventive, if frustratingly difficult. Dying seems too easy, especially with all these spikes everywhere. Multiplayer is fun not just for the teamwork-oriented challenge, but also because you can screw around and toss your friends into fire. The physics-based game world is definitely engaging, and I'd love to play around with it some more.
Problem: co-op is local only; there is no online play. How lame is that? I'll gladly buy the game at full price if this is added in, but in lieu of that I'm waiting for a price drop.
Progress: Played the PC demo solo (didn't finish) and co-op (AWESOME)
I don't think I can sum up Assassin's Creed in one word. If I had two, I would say (1) fun, and (2) disappointing. But this abridgement really doesn't do the game justice. Below, I have crafted an excruciatingly long explanation of why AC succeeds at being a video game, but fails at everything else. If you have a beer handy you might want to start drinking now.
Assassin's Creed is an incredibly complex product, with some daunting animation and AI technology, a bold narrative structure, and a real accomplishment of a control system. All of these aspects are especially impressive because, despite being remarkably deep and nuanced, they're implemented in ways that are easy to pick up.
The crowd-based AI drives how guards move, what they see, how much attention is drawn to you, and how much you'll be searched for before you can disappear; but all you really need to know is, when you're spotted, run and hide. The present-and-past story framing provides some convenient mechanics for skipping particularly uninteresting gameplay, and conveniently explains away how you're able to save your game, or die and come back. And though you're able to do a bajillion different things with the face/action buttons, a surprisingly elegant system of creating context sensitivity means that, past the intro, you should never be confused about how to execute an action.
So, technologically, this is really a marvel. I have a lot of appreciation for this - but, good tech does not necessarily create a good game, and Assassin's Creed makes this point in abundance.
The really interesting thing about AC's gameplay - and the story, for that matter - is that, in the lengthy introduction, it is totally different from the rest of the game. This is disregarding the tutorial portion, which is understandably mechanical, though also rather long (think the tutorial intro from Kingdom Hearts). The proper curtain-raising has you assassinate one soldier; shoved out of a combat situation by a real-time cinematic; climbing and running along a linear path; exploring a town that is completely friendly to you; jumping off a building in order to attract attention; and setting off a trap. None of this happens in the rest of the game, and in fact, what does happen tends to be the opposite.
Which is good, in a way. Because the introduction is long and boring, and the later gameplay replaces it with generally speedy action. But the intro also set up a large, engrossing, and deep game world, which the later gameplay almost entirely discards. Assassin's Creed boils most of its real-world actions down into video game tropes: complete X number of sub-missions to proceed; kill a certain amount of guys within a time limit; even more creative tasks, like beating information out of someone, becomes a routine of waiting until no one is around, then engaging in fisticuffs. There are even collectibles, in the form of flags scattered around the cities, although collecting them doesn't unlock, accomplish, or do anything. (Unless you're on a 360 and have a boner for gamerpoints.) And you're allowed to fast-travel to cities after visiting them once, which eliminates a stupidly-dull overworld, but also tosses the feel of immersion right into an errant pile of hay.
Some sub-missions are anti-immersive by virtue of sheer frustration. For instance, a number of them require you to do things without being seen, which becomes increasingly difficult as the game progresses, and the number of these things rises. So I stealthily assassinated four rooftop archers - but because a paranoid guard saw me on my way back to the mission giver, I lost it, and would've had to try killing them all over again. How many times can you kill the same four soldiers? You might be surprised.
I say would've, though - and here's a bit of good news - because I also have the choice of not doing it. The open world of Assassin's Creed may not have as many options as a Grand Theft Auto, but it does give you the ability to skip many of these sub-missions; you need to finish X number of them to get on with your main assassination, but there are always at least twice as many available. I gave up on a number of frustrating sub-missions, finding and doing easier ones instead, and feel like I've missed nothing in doing so.
The most fun part of the main gameplay, as I've already mentioned, is free-running across rooftops and ganking guards in the throat. On your way from task to task across a city, you're given free rein to accomplish things as you wish. Sure, you could blend in with the crowd in the streets, slowly making your way to your targets, with no collateral damage. Or, you could run through the city like a maniac, taking out people as you see fit, and running and hiding from your inevitable pursuers. I really liked a hybrid of these approaches, preferring stealth kills to direct combat, combined with the expertly implemented free-running, jumping and climbing. (It has the capacity to be almost as fun as the new Prince of Persia - I wish PoP had towers to climb!)
So while I came to find the core gameplay rather fun (fun enough that I barely turned the game off all weekend), it definitely didn't lend itself to a convincing game world anymore. Other flaws mar the immersiveness, too - a shortage of unique speech among generic NPCs, bizarre guard behavior in chasing me (they don't jump off buildings, they fall off), the fact that Altair is as good a swimmer as Tommy Vercetti, dying instantly if he falls into water.
On the other side of the game world, the present-day framing also becomes less compelling as it marches on. Plot twists abound, but are told poorly. Most of what you'll find out about the mysteries of the game's story are from reading email on your captors' PCs, while the spoken bits are vague at best, and stilted at their worst.
As for the ending, it's terribleabysmalvacantfucking awful. In the last hour or so, the game decides that even stealth is unnecessary, and you fight wave after wave of soldiers head-on with a combat system that was designed to discourage its use. Then there is an M. Night Shyamalan twist with the head Assassin, that you probably half-expected from the very beginning of the game; a ludicrous boss fight that trivializes the sort-of-well-written technobabble behind the story; a literaldeus ex machina; and when you wake up, your captors say "We'll be back" and leave. Then there's some visual set-up for the sequel(s), and the credits roll. What the fuck!
There are a lot of bad things to say about Assassin's Creed. It is an ambitious title, and got a lot of things wrong. The game's saving grace is that the core assassination gameplay is actually good - I've had more fun with this than in any other stealth-related game. But in the end, all the parts of AC that don't feel like a video game are disappointing and lackluster.
The most depressing thing about AC is that it clearly took a fuckton of work - it is a massive accomplishment - but there is still so much more it has to do, before it can succeed as a hyper-immersive, story-driven experience. I will still play the next one, even if it's just more of the same. But I have doubts that even a second installment will reach this one's lofty aspirations.
I guess it's good that they're working on it, but based on the mistakes in this first installment, I'm not convinced that Ubisoft will ever be able to pull it off.
I started replaying this recently, and at first it was easy to dislike; Assassin's Creed is at its worst when it's redundant, so playing through the beginning of the game again was a chore. Cutscenes tend to be long and unengaging, and the same can be said about traveling through the Kingdom overworld. But, man, I'm torn - because now that I'm settling into the game's mechanics again, I'm discovering the hidden depths of its exploration and stealth combat.
It's not all flowers and chocolate. I'd posit that AC has reached the uncanny valley of gameplay, such that the game's impressive physics and animation are easily marred by occasional control failures. Even if Altair climbs the tower flawlessly 19 times out of 20, that one time he can't grab the handhold right in front of him, or jumps away instead of up, shatters the illusion.
When it works, though, it's just as much of a blast as the new PoP: climbing up things, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Plus, there is the whole assassin thing. Direct combat is competent, I'm still getting the hang of that, but the preferable alternative - and probably the coolest thing in this game - is the stealth kill. This isn't like so many other games where you need to sneak up behind a dude and then hit a Slit Throat button; Altair freeforms this shit.
I can sneak up from behind, or walk casually by, or sprint up, or even leap from a ledge and use my equipped wrist blade to gank a bitch in style. The robust game engine means that almost any approach will work, and I actually have a lot more fun running headlong into someone and assassinating them, than with the whole sneaking schtick. I wish Metal Gear Solid was like this.
Meanwhile, the other gameplay stuff - gathering information and setting the stage for assassination missions - is still fresh for me. I've read from numerous outlets that these tasks become incredibly repetitive, but the novelty hasn't worn off for me, possibly because I've been skipping a lot of them. (I'd estimate that you only have to do maybe 1/5 or less of the available tasks in an area.)
My opinion of the unique plot framing is a bit waffly now. The story is somewhat intriguing, so I'm hopeful that it will develop into something really cool as I progress, but again I think Assassin's Creed has fallen hard into the uncanny valley. The game's world is excruciatingly planned and presented, yet the control interface is so simplified - as are some gameplay elements, like pressing the Blend button to follow a group of monks around indefinitely - that it's anti-immersive, a frequent reminder that, yeah, this is a video game.
Of note, I recently started playing with an Xbox 360 controller instead of a keyboard, and it does feel a little easier in terms of combining simultaneous actions. But I'm pretty surprised at how poorly the controller support was built in. By default, my X, Y, and B buttons were all transposed; the right stick wasn't assigned to anything; and though the 360 version of the game uses the analog triggers for targeting and high/low profile mode, apparently the PC version's control settings are unable to use these analog controls for digital actions. Bizarre.
And, that's it. I'd guess I ended up clocking in somewhere around 6 hours, maybe 8 tops. So yes, it's quite short. As I've alluded to earlier, though, it's a real blast once you get used to it.
I suppose you could describe it a bit like a learning curve, although maybe it would be more appropriate to say that the game is good once you "get it." The most disappointing thing about MadWorld, and I suspect the single biggest reason anyone will dislike it, is that it allows the player to lazily waste time scraping up points with boring kills. Not just allows them, really - it's easy to fall into this trap, not even recognizing that the chainsaw is not the ultimate weapon.
There are definitely steps that could be taken to better highlight each level's different options, e.g. indicators on the pause map and the HUD radar, and perhaps on-screen prompts and relevant banter from the game's commentators. These already happen when new stuff enters a stage, but there's no love for a level's base features (which is most of them).
A few other aspects of the game could be improved for a sequel, which I really really hope happens:
Please, some color! If points of interest in levels and on enemies could be painted, say, yellow, my ability to actually see what's going on would be vastly improved. As good as the black and white looks, it just does not serve the game as well as more visual contrast would.
A better told story. The plot in this game wasn't bad, exactly; but the way it comes out, in progressively-lengthy cutscenes inbetween levels, could use work. They were rarely relevant to Jack's progress in the game itself, and as a result, the story's multiple big reveals didn't have a whole lot of dramatic effect. (Jack's apathetic attitude didn't help.)
Unlockables! When you finish MadWorld, you can replay it from the beginning with two new weapons, and in an optional Hard mode, but that's the sum total of the game's unlockable spoils. I feel like additional playable characters would fit in great - since the chainsaw is the only gameplay feature that's really tied to Jack himself - and could give some additional meaning to accruing points.
A pickier (or less picky?) commentary engine. The lines are fucking hilarious, but as with any game commentary, it's ruined by repeats. More often than not, a common, repeated action, like attacking in motorcycle levels, continually triggers the same comments. The commentators should be less inclined to repeat themselves, and of course a bigger script wouldn't hurt either.
The core gameplay, though, I wouldn't really touch. After I got that the focus was on injury over killing, everything just came together; once you find them, each level's violence devices are a joyful variety, and the levels themselves, as well as the bosses and mini-bosses, are extremely well designed. Other than a little more color, I really can't recommend any changes to the game's style, either, as it looks and sounds perfect for the content of the game.
MadWorld is an extremely fun game marred by a few flaws, the biggest of which is that it's possible to not have fun playing it. My tip: check the map as soon as a level starts. Take a look around to see what you can use, and you'll inevitably run into victims on your way to whatever crazy death contraption you find.
I tried this out with some buddies last night, and I came away impressed. Not impressed enough to buy my own copy - this is very much a sequel to Wii Sports: while hermit gamers like myself will enjoy it in a party setting, the solo play is still not very compelling. But Wii Sports Resort is still a fantastic success, because everything Wii Sports did, Resort does better (well, except Baseball, which it doesn't do at all.)
Boxing has been supplanted by Swordplay, which is actually fun, even if you don't get to really slice anyone up. Tennis is replaced with its army cousin Table Tennis, and though the scale is smaller - it's strictly a two-player affair - Wii MotionPlus's addition of spin control makes it feel better regardless. Bowling and Golf are straight-up ported to Resort, and each one benefits from the gyro sensor, and has a slew of new modes that fans of the original will enjoy. (I might actually argue that the new Golf is less fun because it's more accurate, and apparently I have a wicked slice.)
The new games are then Archery, which is cool almost entirely because of the motions you do to shoot; Basketball, which is a little awkward but still pretty fun; Canoeing, which I didn't really care for but one of my friends is in love with; Cycling, which is like the one from Wii Fit but worse; Frisbee, including frolf; "Power Cruising," which is a sort-of lame jet-ski slalom; and Wakeboarding, which is like the stunts part of Wave Race without the racing bullshit. There's also an "Air Sports" category which includes stuff like dogfighting (dumbed down but fun), skydiving (??), and a mode where you fly around the island for five minutes (...). Each sport category has different modes like this, although they usually aren't quite that different.
Wii Sports Resort is Wii Sports, bigger and better. And even if I don't plan on owning a copy of my own, this game is still great for me - because when Nintendo sells a gajillion Wii MotionPlus attachments with it, someone will finally make a good lightsaber game. It'll happen. It's got to.
Progress: Gave Up -- Tried each game (even cycling, ugh)
The hardest part of MadWorld is realizing that, despite all appearances, the game isn't really about killing; it's about maiming. Not only does trying to swiftly finish enemies get monotonous, but since you don't earn many points for un-creative kills (and you need to reach point goals to progress), it takes longer, exacerbating the problem. There are plenty of varied and amusing hazards and weapons strewn about the levels, but if you try to "shortcut" the game, getting to the point goals takes longer and is less fun.
Rather than trying to rush to the cool boss battles, then, MadWorld asks you to live in the moment of the level, and to find things to enjoy in the violent playground around you. I think that the game could be (and, if there's a sequel, should be) more direct in showing you where the ultraviolent delights are - there is a map in the pause screen, and there is a heads-up radar, but again, I run into the issue of visual contrast. If something in a level isn't already tinged with red blood (which many are, but most aren't), it's just difficult to pick out of the surroundings, especially with monochrome enemies mobbing me at the same time.
Did I mention the boss fights are cool? In the past few levels I've fought a frankenstein, a buxom vampiress, and a dude on a motorcycle (I fought him with a motorcycle!). The crazy bosses really remind me of No More Heroes, which is, well, awesome.
I'd been reluctant to come back to MadWorld - afraid it would disappoint me again - but I'm glad I reconsidered. For a relatively short burst (three levels in about an hour) it was great fun, and I think I'm figuring out the rhythm of the game.
Each stage has a surprising amount of content to explore, but trying to take it all in, at the cost of ignoring nearby killing opportunities, is a sure way of not having much fun. Similarly, if you just try to kill things as fast as possible, you won't get to see all the creative and varied killing contrivances the level has to offer. The key is a compromise: playing by ear, killing what you will, and seeing where the level takes you. MadWorld is really at its best when you treat it like a homicidal playground.
In my second attempt at level 4, I discovered not one, but two areas which I'd completely missed in my first, failed run through. One was a man-sized meat grinder, with an elevator that took me to fight a dude in a giant ... turtle suit. (Bender says, "Fuck turtles!") The other was a restaurant kitchen, where I was able to toss enemies onto a conveyor belt, and have them chopped up by some sort of robotic ginsu knife.
The characters and settings are still a riot, and luckily the story - which appears to be slowly ramping its mysteries up into some sort of grand revelation - knows better than to get in the way. The tale of an abandoned city's cruel fate is visibly and neatly separated from scenes of a pimp explaining, in rhyming ebonics, how to stuff ninjas into firework launchers.
Also, while the music offended my ears at first, once I started to listen to what it was saying - it's actually pretty funny. Many of the songs' lyrics literally describe the game's graphic violence, which just sounds hilarious. Check out the lyrics, and imagine they're being sung to modern rap-styled tunes.
One of the most surprising things about the Ghostbusters campaign is its length. By the gold standard of Gears of War/2's co-op campaigns, this one is longer - and though there are some parts that get a little videogamey (go to the four power nodes, collect the four pieces, etc.) the story in general is still good, easily better than Ghostbusters 2 as well as most modern games. Aside from the Wii version's wacky graphics, about the only real complaint I have about the setting is that Bill Murray clearly isn't into it; he has less lines than almost anyone else in the game, and only a handful of them are really convincing.
The gameplay gets a little murkier. Gestural ghost-wrangling can be fun, but can also be frustrating, e.g. when a directional slam the game prompts you for takes a ghost out of your line of sight, or behind you, completely screwing up the camera angle. There are a few glaring bugs as well: a "Catch up to your team-mate!" mechanic would semi-frequently teleport my co-op partner or myself to completely the wrong place, and in one level in particular, one or the other of us would invariably spawn outside of the level, falling through the map forever while the other had to finish the level solo. One gets the impression that, if it hadn't been pushed to release alongside its hi-def cousin, this version of the game could have used another couple months of development polish.
It has its problems, and the mildly inventive gameplay dulls as the game marches on. Yet there is a simple joy in the mostly-destructible environments, the boss fights are atypically creative, and Aykroyd's and Ramis's story carries the whole production fairly well. If you like good comedy, you owe it to yourself to try this game out on one of its many platforms. Although I've heard that the DS one is awful.