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As I've gotten more time with the game, I've learned more advanced moves and tricks. Items - gained by being hit - are used with the nunchuk's C button. Holding Z while passing will lob the ball in the air. Holding down the B button will charge your shot, giving it more speed, or culminating in a power-shot unique to each character. The D-pad can be used for character-specific deke moves (some players will move ahead, others will perform an offensive move) while you have the ball, or while you don't, to do a slide-tackle and a steal.
Charging and passing are integral to success as the AI (or human) opposition becomes more difficult. A charged lob, if intercepted with the B button, can be headbutted or air-kicked for a super goal shot. Charging makes the ball go faster, so volleying before an attempt on the goal helps too. And some of the dekes can actually be used to skip past the otherwise-inpenetrable goalie and into the net.
The game is kept lively by a great amount of variety. In items - there are green shells, red shells, ice shells, bananas, chain chomps, and even bob-ombs. In characters - in addition to team captains (Mario, Peach, and DK to name a few) with superpowerful special abilities, each of the selectable team members (including Dry Bones, Toad, and Monty Mole) has its own moves, and everyone has different stats for running speed, tackling, passing and shooting. And in stadiums - every one has its own special tricks, from the slow turf and dropping Thwomps in Sand Tomb, to the wall-less and windy Thunder Island, in which the occasional flying tractor or fish will knock players off for a period of time.
Strikers Charged has great, fast and fun gameplay, with a fantastic challenge, and enormous multiplayer potential. Unfortunately it doesn't look like you can play online with more than two Wiis, but this is a perfect companion to your otherpartygames.
Set in ancient Greece, God of War is the story of a mighty Spartan warrior named Kratos, and his struggle against the god Ares. Kratos is plagued by nightmarish visions of destruction from his troubled past, and pleads with the gods to relieve him of his pain. Finally, Athena responds with a request: stop Ares, who has been laying siege to Athens, since the gods themselves are forbidden by Zeus to war with one another.
After a brief introductory cinematic (with excellent narration and voice work), the first area of the game is set in the Aegean Sea, where Kratos fights off undead warriors infesting a fleet of ships. The fleet has also been attacked by a hydra, the boss of the area, which Kratos must violently dispatch.
Violence is something Kratos is very good at, and something which the game is very good at showing. Though highly reminiscent of the newer Prince of Persia titles in terms of game world interaction, God of War is much less focused on the environment, and much more on brutal combat. There is a high emphasis on chaining together combos, the rewards for which go toward upgrading Kratos with new or more powerful abilities. Slaying enemies is often a terribly bloody affair, further reinforcing Kratos' bloodthirsty character.
Contextual commands are frequent - for instance, when a hydra's head lay before Kratos, pressing the face button displayed over it initiates a special sequence where more buttons are prompted for, and pressing them correctly will yield bonus results, be it more damage, more upgrade points, or what have you. These contextual minigames are not limited to boss fights, though, as I just happened to encounter one in the process of pleasuring some women in Kratos' bed (for ability points, of course).
It is a solid game, but so far I am not as impressed with it as the hype surrounding it appears to be; probably due to in how many ways it reminds me of Prince of Persia. The gameplay for one, and the old-world setting for another; then there's the intro scene on boats at sea with zombies (sans Hydra, directly from Warrior Within), and the contextual minigames are quite similar to the speed-kill system used in The Two Thrones. Even Kratos' blade chain weapons are a bit like the Daggertail the Prince uses in both aforementioned games. Anyway, I'm counting on the upcoming areas to mix things up.
I only played some multiplayer matches, so I don't know anything about extra features, unlocking things, online play, or anything beyond the basic game; but the game setup is really fun and easy to play. The controls are simple: A for a pass (or to change players if you don't have the ball), B for a goal shot, shake the remote to do a tackle, nunchuk stick to move. Yeah, there is the hindrance that everyone will need a nunchuk to play, but it is worth it. This is one of those games that becomes exponentially better with more people.
The look and feel of the game is a bit weirdly futuristic, maybe a little on the x-treme side, but the run-and-tackle soccer gameplay combined with special Super Mario items and abilities is a real blast.
After about nine logged hours of gameplay and one of the more bizarre video game endings I've seen, I've downed all 16 colossi and, well, pretty much just what I expected happened. Several of the last ones were super difficult (I took over an hour on just the final colossus).
My new favorite colossus is #13, a giant flying sand worm. Upon riding into his desert, he burst out of the sand and up into the air, and seemed to go on forever. Three glowing air sacs protruded from his underside, begging to be popped with arrows, but catching up to the swift-flying worm as he bobbed and weaved was pretty trying, and aiming while on horseback is something of a trick.
After hitting all three sacs, the worm descended, but was still flying really fast. It put two fin-like protrusions from the front part of its body down into the sand. I had to ride up to them at full speed, jump from horseback, and grab hold of these fast-moving fins. Then I had to climb up the fin and make a tenuous leap to its main body.
The body had three weak points, one near the fins and each of the other two further down toward the rear. As I made my way to a weak point, the worm would wriggle around, and even turn upside-down to try and get rid of me. Alas, I made it to the vulnerable spot and stabbed it into submission - but then the worm's protective flaps (over each weak point) lowered, and he dove back down into the sand, knocking me out in the process. Eventually he surfaced again, and I had to repeat this shooting-and-catching process twice, once for each of the remaining weak spots.
Though fairly long and really difficult, it was definitely the most interesting fight of the game, and perhaps my favorite boss of any game in general.
Beating the main game opens up a Hard Mode and a Time Attack Mode, both of which I intend to try sooner or later.
As I have said - Shadow of the Colossus does few things, but does them very well. Some will be turned off by what the game lacks, but if you enjoy boss fights against impossibly large monsters, this is a real winner.
My gripes about the game's difficulty? No more. Later colossi have proven to be formidable opponents - some in terms of figuring out how to hit them, some in terms of actually doing so, and some in both.
The game has two 'meters' - both of which regenerate over time - one being the health bar (not that important), and the other being your everything-else-ometer (very important). This circular indicator shrinks as you hold on to or climb a difficult to hold surface, like the back of a writhing giant. It also depletes when underwater as your breath, or even when drawing your bowstring back for a prolonged period. The meter expands with every colossus you defeat, and though you won't die when it empties, you will let go, or surface from underwater, etc. So managing this meter is the most important part of a colossus fight, because once you run out, you're going to have to get all the way back to where you were again.
There isn't a lot to the game other than finding and killing bosses, but what's in there is really well polished. For instance, the horse can steer itself: when navigating narrow passes or rocky terrain, if I just let go of the steering stick, the horse will find its own route. Sometimes it turns around and I get pissed off, but it's cool how much it emulates an actual horse.
The real genius of the game is the amount of and variety in the bosses. Boss fights are the coolest part of most adventure games (usually numbering around six to nine), and what Team Ico has done is create 16 unique and very impressive boss fights. The game's primary means of conveying fun is through figuring out how the colossi work, so I wouldn't advise reading this spoiler if you intend to squeeze the ripe juice of entertainment from Colossus, but if you just want to read some badass war stories, these are some good ones.
The third colossus wasn't too tough, but was really cool. He was a tall humanoid holding a plank-shaped rock that he tried to crush me with; I could tell that I was supposed to climb up this thing to get to him, but there was a piece of armor in my way. It looked breakable, but I couldn't figure out how. Eventually - by accident - I got him to slam the weapon down on a stone platform, shattering the armor in the impact, and I made my way up to his weak points and bled him dry.
So far my favorite colossus has been the fifth one, a giant bird. I had to shoot some arrows at it to get its attention, then as it swooped down on me, leap onto a wing and hold on for dear life. The weak spot on its back was easy to get, but as I went for the ones on either wing, the bird actually flew upside-down trying to get rid of me. Showed him though.
Number seven was also really cool. This one was an electric eel, and getting on it was easy (luring it to the surface), but afterward staying on him was really tough since I had to hold on as it went underwater. I stabbed smaller weak spots in front of each of its electrified fins to deactivate them before finally stabbing it in the head.
The tenth colossus was similar, a sand worm. I fought him in an underground cave filled with sand, and as I looked at the big rocks in the ground, I figured I would pull a Tremors 2 on him and just take him out after he stupidly rammed himself. But it turned out that he was way too smart for that. It actually took me three attempts to figure out that I had to mount up and have him chase me, then fire an arrow into his eye, blinding him such that he didn't notice the rock wall looming straight ahead.
Those are some of the most memorable, but each fight has really been a great thrill. Like I said, there isn't a lot to this game, but it's extremely good at what it does.
Legend tells of a hidden land at the ends of the earth, where forbidden magic can bring back the souls of the dead. So what's a guy to do when his lady friend is sacrificed? Shadow of the Colossus begins with a somewhat lengthy cinematic introduction, wherein the main character, Nameless Man, travels great distances to find a sacred shrine of ancient construction, at which he deposits the body of his girl and prays for her salvation. But the collective spirit of the shrine informs the man that before she can be resurrected, he must find and slay 16 colossi. It seems a bit fishy to me - but what can I do? Gotta save the chick.
Here's how it works. First you whip out your semi-magical sword, hold it up to the sun, and move it around until the reflected light points in a single direction. This is the direction to the next colossus (they are done sequentially). Then you get on your horse and ride that way, navigating open fields and narrow passes, checking a rough map to examine the surroundings, and continuing to use your sword every now and again to correct your bearings. Sometimes you'll have to use your own two feet to hoof it through un-horse-able terrain, e.g. cliffs, or water.
Eventually, you will come across the colossus, who lives up to its name by being somewhere from Really Big to Holy Shit That's Goddamn Big. Now your task is to defeat it. The means of achieving this differ per colossus, but ultimately you will have to locate its weak spots, again with the light-reflecting sword, and then shove the sword into said weak spots a few times. Once the colossus is downed, you will mystically return to the shrine, not congratulated in any way, and instantly told to find the next colossus.
It is a simple system, and it works fairly well. Navigation is a bit dull but goes quickly enough that it isn't terribly boring. The controls are a little weird, but the first colossus is enough of a pushover to get you accustomed to everything pretty easily. Sometimes the camera can be irritating - especially when trying to move around a colossus, which, as one might expect, happens somewhat frequently.
The colossus-climbing game is all about jumping and climbing, but this is no Prince of Persia; Colossus is much more relaxed. Most of the game's difficulty is in figuring out how to get to the weak spots, and not as much in actually getting there. It's often referred to as a puzzle game for this reason.
Other than you, your horse, and the colossi, there is pretty much nothing in the game world, save trees and birds and geography. This, along with some cinematic camera positioning (which, again, can be irritating sometimes), makes the whole game feel very artful. The dynamic soundtrack helps out here too, with peaceful traveling music transitioning into suspenseful music when a colossus is stomping around, and into adventurous sounds of triumph when the tables begin to turn. It does a fantastic job of setting the mood.
One of the more striking things about the game is its technological sophistication. The graphical quality is a bit low; I hate to complain about it, but when a blur effect isn't being used on the screen, a lot of the textures look grainy and rough. But on the other side of the coin, after a monumental loading time when a saved game is loaded into play, the entire world is accessible and seamless. And a lot of stuff that should be extremely difficult to pull off, like the main character holding onto part of a moving colossus, is done remarkably well.
So far my biggest complaint is the difficulty; it's pretty easy. But I'd be surprised if it didn't get really challenging before the end.
God Hand was Clover's last hurrah, before being officially disseminated. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of it. It's been mostly ignored by the gaming public, and received lukewarm reviews from the media.
Set in the wild west, God Hand is the story of an audacious man with the power of the gods in his hand, and the demons who are trying to strike him down. At least, I think it is. The manual had that much in it - after completing a few stages (I think?) of the actual game, the narration and dialogue have explained basically nothing. Including the controls; the provided screen in the Options menu is about as enlightening as a plank of wood. It wasn't until I bought new moves and had to equip them, that I found out what the actual button combinations for executing said moves were supposed to be.
I started in Normal mode, and died inside of a minute, but even Easy mode is kicking my ass so far. There is a level-up system in God Hand where you gain experience by landing blows and defeating enemies, but you also lose (a lot of) experience by getting hit, and can in fact level-down. For me, passing level 1 is infrequent and brief.
What I will say for it is that it is funny. Stomping a fat guy's head into the ground is pretty neat, and a cutscene I just saw with a demon lady talking smack to a spanish pimp was very amusing.
Honestly I'm kind of fed up with it after less than 20 minutes. I think I'll start playing Shadow of the Colossus instead.
In typical Square Enix fashion, the ending sequence was lengthy, in millions of different parts, and not actually that tough. Some worlds also weren't too great - Halloween Town, most notably, was pretty disappointing. But the vast majority of Kingdom Hearts is stellar, engaging, and addictively fun. After my self-imposed hiatus to work on Chibi-Robo!, KH was nigh-impossible to put down again.
I finished the game at just under 35 gameplay hours, and though I've done all I'm really interested in, there is yet more left in the game in the way of optional sidequests and bosses. Not for nothing, either, as most of these yield rewards in the form of items or magic spells, and new abilities continue to roll in by levelling up.
The ability system is really cool as it evolves throughout the game. To begin with you'll have only a couple abilities - like a combat roll, or 'item magnet' which pulls nearby dropped items toward you. Eventually you'll learn ever-valuable MP regeneration abilities, combat moves, and other miscellany that really kick the combat system up a notch. Abilities require Ability Points to equip, so managing the right set of abilities within your AP limits is, while not necessarily difficult, an added step of setup strategy.
I should also mention that the music, specifically the original music, is superb. I didn't find out about the game's composer, Yoko Shimomura, until recently with her spectacular work in this franchise and in the upcoming Heroes of Mana soundtrack. But apparently she also did the Mario and Luigi series, as well as Super Mario RPG (alongside Kondo and Uematsu), and is now working on SSB Brawl. Awesome! And I would be remiss not to bring up the voice acting - some of it is shabby, but for the most part it is very well done. Haley Joel Osment makes a good main character; James Woods as Hades is fantastic; and they even got Gilbert Gottfried to do the parrot from Aladdin! Even some of the impersonators were pretty good, I really thought that Genie was Robin Williams until I looked it up.
KH has a couple rough spots, but is ultimately an extremely fun and satisfying game. Albeit a bit muddled by the Disney presence, I could even go so far as to call it a modern classic.
Plane rides? Great for Pokémon. Got my second badge, and a kickass bike.
From the get-go it has not been my intent to "catch them all," or to become unendingly immersed in hidden game mechanics, and thus far it is working out great. The simplicity of the core game is great fun.
I named my Psyduck Qork, and my Ponyta Princess. They are awesome.
Taking care of the Sandersons' house is fun at first, but after a while I felt like it was beginning to drag on. Some of the goals for completing the main storyline were a bit cryptic and unclear; the amount of happy points that were necessary to reach the next battery level grew exponentially; and sometimes just finding things in the house was irritating due to them moving around from day to day. But, on the whole, it is still a fun and really cool game.
Like I said, the end kind of dragged on a bit, but it's not a terribly long game: 10 to 20 hours, probably, depending on how much of the substories you're willing to invest in. There are collectible "stickers" that don't really affect much - after completing the Giga-Robo story, your battery power is (literally) infinite - but signify other things in the game to keep you busy, like solving the problems of all the toys in the house.
A DS sequel, Chibi-Robo!: Park Patrol, is coming out soon. I haven't seen much of the game, but a lot of the fun of this one was because of the domestic environment; I don't know how engaging it will be in a primarily outdoor setting.