Best of 2007, Games, GOTY, PlayStation

Best of 2007 #8: God of War II

24/12/2007 Olly Leave a comment

God of War II

As far as I’m concerned it’s testament to how strong the 3D action genre is at the moment when my least favourite of the current big three – Devil May Cry, God of War, Ninja Gaiden – can make number eight in my best of the year. With 2008 due to bring us a new installment in all three series…well, the phrase “pig in shit” comes to mind.

It’s fitting that a console that brought such a vast library of great games got a send-off as spectacular as God of War II. Nine times out of ten such a major game wouldn’t have come to the ‘obsolete’ console when its successor was out there and, at the time certainly, wanting for AAA titles. But the fact that it could run on the PS2 is all the more impressive when you see it. I don’t know what development voodoo the developers have done, but at times this game pushes around things that most games of the HD generation wish they could do.

It’s only real flaw is that it’s God of War. That is, it’s more of a button masher than its genre counterparts and is ultimately as shallow as Kratos himself. But it’s not trying for the technical mastery of Ninja Gaiden or the deep combo system of Devil May Cry. It’s a rollercoaster ride, about the fireworks more than the grey matter despite being ostensibly the same genre. It’s Independence Day to their Bourne Identity. And while one is clearly better than the other, I have plenty of time for both.

Having played the PSP demo, I can’t wait to see what the team can do with the PS3 hardware in 2009. Killzone what?

Best of 2007, Games, GOTY, Nintendo

Best of 2007 #9: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

23/12/2007 Olly Leave a comment

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Somehow, Corruption is both the best and worst of the Metroid Prime series. It’s the best looking, it has the smoothest difficulty curve, and yes: it has the best controls.

It proves once again that when controls are tweaked with the Wii in mind rather than crowbarred onto the remote that it’s a very capable control system. I couldn’t imagine playing Halo on the Wii remote but at the same time I couldn’t imagine playing Metroid Prime on a 360 controller. It has its place, and that’s fine.

My main complaint is that it’s continued the shift away from what makes a Metroid that was started in Metroid Prime 2 and Hunters, and this one really suffers the most from it. This series is about isolation on a hostile planet, whereas Corruption has an opening that infamously echoes that of the first Halo to an almost plagiaristic extent, and most of the planets will have you running into fellow bounty hunters and receiving communications from the Federation. I’m not the only one to have also noted that these aspects aren’t particularly well done either, making them especially alienating for fans.

Still, these issues are with the story, which is thankfully a largely secondary distraction. The good stuff is just as good, and the token gimmick (the titular corruption of the phazon variety) is better than the annoying Dark Aether guff in Metroid Prime 2. It’s a great sci-fi adventure and, if Retro can get over the temptation to lean too much on the story, leaves me keen to see what they can do with their obvious talent and the best first-person shooting controls on a console.

Best of 2007, Games, GOTY, Nintendo

Best of 2007 #10: Hotel Dusk: Room 215

22/12/2007 Olly Leave a comment

Hotel Dusk: Room 215

If I wasn’t giving it its little bit of recognition here, this would be a shoo-in for one of those fun but meaningless awards like ‘best game nobody played’ or ‘most overlooked game of the year’ (surely an oxymoron if you’re recognising it with an award?). It’s been and gone so completely that it’s hard to believe that it actually came out this year.

It felt to me like 2007 was a poorer year than previous for the DS in all respects but sales, which are still in the stratosphere. The new entry into the Ouendan series lacked the immediate appeal that the first game had, and even Zelda seemed to arrive with little fanfare, missing out on the event game status that New Super Mario Bros enjoyed. Hotel Dusk, though, is a uniquely DS game that won me over with its noirish style and storyline. It really wouldn’t have worked as well on any other platform.

While far from perfect, it was able to tap my enthusiasm in for a number of different things. The old adventure games, for one. And noir. And the brilliant design decision to hold the DS vertically like a book, emphasising the pulp novel influence and really making it perfect to play on the bog, and allowing for the genius idea of writing your own notes in your notebook. If only they’d fixed some of the minor annoyances – slow text scrolling is a pet peeve of mine, and the plot progression wasn’t always smooth – Hotel Dusk could have been even higher on this list. More adventure games please, Nintendo. Or make LucasArts do the right thing.

But in the meantime, play this one. I’m sure it’s cheap now.

Best of 2007, Games, GOTY, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox

Best of 2007

21/12/2007 Olly Leave a comment

Can you believe that it’s that time again? With ten days to go until 2008, my rundown of my favourite games of 2007 begins tomorrow. As always, the rules are that the games must have been released in one of the three major territories (Europe, US, Japan) at some point in the calendar year 2007, and obviously must have been played by me during that time.

With three consoles on full steam and out of the post-launch doldrums (some more than anothers), this year has really been about the games. 2005 brought three new systems and 2006 two more, while unless you live in the gaming third world known as Europe, 2007 was about the manufacturers flexing their muscles with software as the crowds pored over sales figures and enjoyed the spoils.

Recent months have led to this year being mentioned in the same breath as 2004 (Halo 2, MGS3, GTA San Andreas) and the immortal 2001 (Halo, GTA3, MGS2 – notice a pattern? – Final Fantasy X, Gran Turismo 3, Silent Hill 2, Devil May Cry, etc), and while the 2001 comparison seems almost fatuous when look at the classics we had that year, 2008 has been set up to be an epic. I’m both anticipating and dreading having to fit games of the calibre of Metal Gear Solid 4 and GTA4 into only ten positions.

Just for reference, these were my choices over the last two years:

And let me get it out of the way immediately to say that Mass Effect will not make the list because I’m not getting it until Christmas and so won’t have the opportunity to include it. Assuming I like it, however, it will be included in the late additions, as I did with a couple of notable games last year.

Games, Impressions, PlayStation

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

07/12/2007 Olly 2 Comments

I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say that the PS3 hasn’t been brimming with top exclusives in its first year on the market. Ratchet & Clank was the closest thing to a real system seller; Heavenly Sword wasn’t without problems; Motorstorm was good but hardly overburdened with content; and we all know what happened with Lair.

Uncharted is the first PS3 game from Naughty Dog and, like their Crash Bandicoot gave the PS1 an identity at a time when consoles were defined by their mascots, for me this is the PS3 game so far. It’s good enough to make that outlay and the lean months seem worthwhile, and in places it was the first time that a PS3 game had me questioning whether or not it could be done on another console.

Continue reading Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune →

Games, Impressions, PlayStation

DualShock 3 Impressions

03/12/2007 Olly Leave a comment

In what I’m sure will be remembered as a breakthrough up there with the moon landing and the mapping of the human genome, Sony have done the impossible: they’ve got rumble and motion sensing into the same controller.

With rumble back in there and the controller no longer feeling quite as waifish, that’s two problems down. We still have the somewhat floaty and uncomfortably-placed sticks and those inexplicable convex triggers (PSW has the right idea), but it’s a big improvement. Perhaps more importantly, however, I haven’t had those intermittent signal dropouts that plagued the Sixaxis and I’m yet to hear of any from other people. That’s worth the upgrade alone.

Like the Controller S for the Xbox, this is how it should have been done the first time. I’ve kind of given up on my other problems with the DualShock design being fixed or even acknowledged as problems, so at least the removal of several new issues is a step in the right direction. It seems like a subtle improvement in general, with the sticks having a slightly different feel to the Sixaxis – a friend described them as being more “PS2-like”, although I don’t know what exactly had changed – and the whole thing generally feeling more sturdy.

(click images for larger versions)

Obviously it’s the rumble that provides the main attraction, and that seems well done. It’s clearly not the much-vaunted TouchSense, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like weights on motors. The games that I’ve tried which feature rumble – Uncharted, Resistance, the GT5 and Ratchet demos – may simply be using it in subtle ways (I’d bet that they were integrated in a hurry) but in all instances it felt more like a buzz than what I’d describe as a rumble. It remains to be seen how it will handle the sharp jolt of gunfire once developers have it properly integrated, though it was predictably well executed in the rumble strips and engine feedback of GT5. It also tested fine for rumble in PS1 and PS2 games.

In-game Sixaxis motion sequences are, predictably, still shit. Developers: please look at Warhawk’s optional implementation and let me use the sticks.

So from what I’ve played the DualShock 3 seems to be a worthy new iteration of the Sixaxis that PS3 owners will want to invest in. It seems odd that there is such a gulf between the Japanese and Western release dates given that there are no region locks for hardware, but – given that there are no region locks for hardware – it’s a simple import. Admittedly not quite so simple anymore for EU residents, so in that case I suggest looking for importers in your country or simply taking a punt on eBay.

For non-EU residents Play-Asia has both black and ceramic white variants available. Might I suggest the white because, like its console cousin, it won’t show up the dust quite as much and looks rather more spiffing.