Category Archives: Impressions

Impressions of games and stuff that I managed to spend some time with.

LocoRoco

30/05/2006 Olly Leave a comment

LocoRoco

Yeah, I found a use for the PSP. How unbelieveable is that? There’s been a LocoRoco demo out for a while (get it here) and I finally got around to updating the PSP to 2.7 and giving it a try. Not only is it a PSP game that isn’t a port, but it also seems to be a bloody good one.

Seriously, give it a try. It’s almost DS-like in its simple design – three buttons are all that’s used. You tilt the world with the shoulder buttons and move your weird singing blob across the terrain while pressing both together to make it jump, and as it enlarges in that way that rolling blobs in video games tend to do you can press circle to break it into a mass of smaller ones. Holding circle makes them join up again as they scream like children.

More than anything it’s a charming little game. The flat graphics are cool, the music is something out of Katamari Damacy (the blobs even sing it if you look closely), and the sound effects are a good laugh. It’s supposedly out in Europe next month before even Japan so get the demo and give it a try.

Games, Impressions, Xbox

Rockstar Table Tennis

26/05/2006 Olly 1 Comment

Wow, this game is fun. I was as surprised and dismissive as everyone else when Rockstar announced that their big 360 exclusive was going to be a no-frills budget (for a 360 game, at least) table tennis game, but despite trying to be the Dogme 95 of video games, albeit a very good looking one for what it does, it’s a highly competitive and fast paced game that I think is well worth the asking price.

All you get in Table Tennis is exhibition, tournament, training, and Xbox Live modes. That’s it. The training mode shows you the ropes and the surprising depth that this game has (and gives you an achievement for completing it – hooray!), and then the meat of the single player is found in the tourneys which range from mildly challenging to pitting you against some kind of prescient table tennis ninja. Online is where the time will be spent because this game is very competitive and although the best player will usually win, large rallies are not unusual and it’s always fast.

It’s the presentation that I like. While there’s not a lot going on, the character models look great with flowing clothes that get visibly sweaty as the match gets intense and fluid animations. The sound also deserves mention – everybody loves the sound of a ping-pong ball which you’ll hear all the time, but the music is an understated techno track which only starts to kick in as a rally picks up and slowly increases with the rally counter. It fits in with the maxim of the game: that less is more and that the simple and addictive gameplay can stand alone.

What remains to be seen is how much lifespan the game has. While it’s great fun there’s not a lot to it, and it’s probably going to depend on cultivating an obsessive (and no doubt inhumanly skilled) online community during the lean summer period. Still, it’s worth getting for £30.

Games, Impressions, Tech, Xbox

Tronix Rules

21/05/2006 Olly 2 Comments

I wanted a Quick Charge Kit for my 360 because the Play & Charge kind of defeats the object of the wireless controller and was getting on my nerves, but since it’s not out here I decided to jump online and import one from the US. I’d heard of Tronix as a great resource for US imports way back when I used to read EGM circa 1998 but had never used them so I gave them a shot.

Now how’s this for service? I placed my order at 8pm on Wednesday, and on Friday morning I got a knock at the door where the FedEx man was waiting to hand me a package containing my Quick Charge Kit. A turnaround of 40 hours or so for an order from the States is bloody impressive, especially since there are UK retailers that wouldn’t get it to me that fast.

What’s more, they’d marked it as a promotional product without me having to ask which meant no import duty (it was probably within the allowance anyway, but you can never be too careful), and it cost me £20.21 for the thing plus FedEx shipping. When it eventually gets released here we’re probably talking £19.99 or £24.99 anyway. Kudos to them, and they have my hearty recommendation for anyone looking to import a US game. Unless you’re already in the US, in which case that would be silly.

As a side note, the Quick Charge is much better than the Play & Charge, even if you’ve already bought the old kit. I now don’t need to ever wire my controller and always have a fresh battery ready to go. Joy!

Editorials, Games, Impressions, Nintendo, PC games, PlayStation, Sega, Xbox

E3 Thoughts

13/05/2006 Olly 2 Comments

Nothing mind-blowing from any of the big three, then. Some impressive stuff, to be sure, and some things better than others, but no clear advantages for this console war. My biggest thought so far has been “OMG!”:

This is probably going to be a long post…

First the conferences. I stayed up late to watch the Sony one live and, like most people seemed to, came away disappointed after all the hyperbole. Only three games really struck me – Final Fantasy XIII, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Virtua Fighter 5 – and the rest seemed spectacularly unspectacular. Tekken 6 didn’t even look as good as DOA4, and Resistance looked like a browner Call of Duty, for example. I was impressed with the very cool Eye of Judgement demo and the aforementioned three games, but then…$600. It’s not even a generation ahead of the 360 but is $200 more? No thanks.

There is a $500 unit, but who wants that? You lose the HDMI (so none of the advertised 1080p, ever), memory card slots, and wi-fi. At least if you buy a Core 360 you can buy the things to take it up to the premium one at a later date, but with the PS3 you’re stuck with the crippled one. I’m not going to get started on the “amazing innovation” (their words) of the motion sensitive controller but suffice to say that Nintendo must have been pissed.

What made me laugh was listening to Radio 1 the next day which is usually the home of PlayStation fanboy chavs and the opinions that were called in were universally negative. They even said that the consensus seemed to be that they’d “copied Microsoft and Nintendo and slapped a massive price tag on it.” Continue reading E3 Thoughts →

DVD & Blu-ray, Games, Impressions, Movies & TV, Tech

Logitech Z-5400

07/05/2006 Olly Leave a comment

Logitech Z-5400

I’ve got a decent TV, a decent DVD player, and decent cables connecting everything into it, but the slightly incongruous link is my sound system, an Interact DSS-900, which has served me well enough for a few years but just isn’t that great. It only cost me as much as three of the digital coaxial cables that I use though, so I suppose it’s been good value.

It’s been loud enough to annoy my parents on a regular basis (late night Call of Duty 2 is a particular sore point) but it only supports Dolby Digital and Dolby Pro Logic II which has left DTS on DVDs inaccessible and it doesn’t have a remote which means that even with my lovely Harmony I have to get up to turn it off with the rest of the system unless I want a low hum 24/7.

Anyway, with a student loan to blow I decided it was time for an upgrade, so I went for the Logitech Z-5400. It has a remote and supports DTS which is two of the criteria down immediately, it’s more powerful and so can keep family members awake even more effectively, and it has support for seven devices at once (up from three) while negating the need to flick an optical/coaxial switch hidden away on the back when I want to change between DVD and 360. At a shade under £150 I’d say it’s even better value than the £100 spent on the old one, and just look at the white-on-black LCD. Look at it. That’s worth the money alone. Continue reading Logitech Z-5400 →

DVD & Blu-ray, Games, Impressions, Movies & TV, PlayStation

Advent Children

02/05/2006 Olly Leave a comment

It took its sweet time, but Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children – the CGI film arm of the new Final Fantasy VII triptych – is finally out (legally) in the West. I last saw it when I was in Japan seven months ago and can’t imagine why an English dub would take that long to record, but at least it’s here and I don’t have to rely on a typo-ridden fansub to understand most of it.

My impressions of the movie itself haven’t changed, even with the slightly better translation. I enjoyed it but it remains quite esoteric, assuming prior knowledge of the games by, for example, not even naming most of the original protagonists. The DVD addresses this slightly with the 25-minute ‘Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII’ feature which gives an abridged history, but even that is hard to follow and more useful for those like me who played a lot of the game but never finished it. Obviously it contains major spoilers for those who plan to finish it and somehow don’t know how it ends.

What will draw many people to this is the spectacular CGI. While characters fall short of looking completely lifelike as they did in the previous Final Fantasy movie, The Spirits Within, for my money they’re the best “realistic” CG humans on film so far, and since the whole thing is styled like an anime (no real hair can be that spiky) the occasional flaky animation doesn’t tend to detract. How does a person look when they’re backflipping off a skyscraper, anyway?

Either way, Advent Children remains an action-packed movie with some of the best high-flying combat scenes since The Matrix. It’s enjoyable as a purely visceral experience, which is probably why most exposition scenes are brushed aside in a few minutes to make room for another motorcycle chase. Not exactly deep, obviously, but good fun. Fanboy pornography, basically, and entertaining despite its vapid nature.