Audiosurfing Your iPhone

Those of you who like me occasionally dip into that frightening and obscure realm known as 'casual gaming' (I feel dirty just typing those words) will probably be clued up on the awesome music game Audiosurf. For those of you who aren't familiar, get yourself a Steam account and go and download it. Right now. I'll wait. What do you mean you need to know more! Okay, well, Audiosurf is more of an overblown visualiser than a video game, but it's a visualiser that does play like a game. Basically, the game/visualiser accesses your music library, that can make use of the iTunes decoder if you want it to, and uses those tracks to design a race track. The way the track turns and bumps, including the speed of the course depends on the song you choose. For certain sounds in the song, coloured blocks will appear on the track, and it's your job to pilot your ship of choice into the coloured blocks, slowly building up a high score depending on how well you play. Your score can then be uploaded to a leader board to see how well you did on your particular song in comparison to the world. It's simple yet very addictive fun and a great way to enjoy your music library.

So there's your history lesson, now onto more exciting up to date news. AppGamer have been talking with Dylan Fitterer, the creator of Audiosurf about the possibility of the game appearing on iPhones, taking advantage of the new OS 3.0. It turns out that he's pretty interested, and short of an official announcement said that the game was on its way. This would be an excellent application to have on the iPhone, it almost feels like this is what Audiosurf was made to do, it was just that the technology wasn't quite available when it came out.

I really hope that this sees the light of day, with the new Metal Gear Solid 4 Touch game on the way, the iPhone is really starting to shape up as a contender in the handheld gaming market. I may actually have to get one now!

Princely Housekeeping

Okay, so after writing up last nights review of Prince of Persia a handful of thoughts that I forgot to post about cam to mind that I felt were essential and needed to be shared with you. Before we get into these few points, I have to say that a part of me really wanted to give the game a 10/10, which amazed even me, because I feel that a game has to be an amazing pillar of excellence with negligible flaws to earn a 10. This game however, was not without its flaws, so lets get down to business and talk about what I missed.

First of all, I forgot to talk about the final boss fight which, as with Gears of War 2, was a bit of a let down. The boss offers no real serious challenge and basically just requires you to finish a level as quickly as is humanly possible. Compared to the challenge presented by the rest of the game this felt somewhat like a joke! I mean, the end boss shouldn't be impossible (I'm shaking my head at Devil May Cry 4 right now!), but it should be a real test to show that you can use all the skills that you've learned in the game.

The other point I failed to raise was the fact that the game dishes out achievement points like they're going out of style. I was shocked by how many points I had earned by the end of the game, but I suppose I should have expected that I would be earning a lot, as the game rewards you for watching the opening cinematic! Whether or not you see this as a good or bad point depends upon your view on achievement points, personally I'm not sure if I liked it or not, but it did sit consistently with the pacing of the game, and the rewards where for genuine things such as mastering a technique as well as for mundane things like finishing a part of the quest.

I know that I've mentioned this in the review, but the final minutes of the game are totally unexpected and honestly gave the game one of the greatest endings I've ever witnessed in a game. If I wasn't so against spoilers I would splurge everything to you right now, but I know that would be wrong. The game is obviously a set up for a continuing saga, or possibly a trilogy like last generations Prince of Persia games. All I'll give away about the ending is that the final achievment was named; To Be Continued... 

I Just Want Your Extra Time

I feel totally blown away. For those of you who believe that video games can truly be a medium for story telling, the Prince of Persia restart is a true example of precisely this. Emotions fly, witty dialogue is exchanged, sexual tension rises and a climactic ending was of course, inevitable. For those who don't know, the new Prince of Persia games available for 360 and PS3 are a series reboot, and have nothing to do with the Sands of Time (SoT) trilogy from last generations machines. The fresh start has done away with a few things that were keeping the old games a part of the old guard and added in a few ideas that give the game a fresh appeal. Although these changes exist, the game is still definitely a Prince of Persia game, whether you're familiar with it from MS-DOS or the PS2.

So lets talk about these changes, most importantly, in regards to the game mechanics. The 'make it look easy approach' of the SoT trilogy has been taken a step further, meaning that whilst a large amount of control has been taken away from the player, the wall runs and jumps feel a lot more fluid and give the game a more fun rather than challenging aesthetic. Whether this appeals is for you to decide, personal I thought that this change made the game extremely enjoyable. Challenges really came from having good timing, a sense of direction and razor sharp reflexes. One of the fun new additions comes in the form of your co-adventurer; Elika. Rather than having the ability to rewind time as you did in the SoT trilogy, here you have Elika to save you from those perilous falls. Essentially it's impossible to die in the game, whenever you fall from a cliff, or are close to being finished off by an enemy, Elika will jump in to save you. Surely this is the antithesis of all those arcade games that used to give you one life for that sole piece of change in your pocket, all those years ago. This game mechanic allows you to be that little bit more adventurous in how you play the game. Risking longer and farther jumps isn't a problem when you have infinite lives.

The combat is an interesting point, and one that I'm in two minds about, so lets get the negative out of the way first. The fighting system is extremely shallow. There, I said it. It's shallow like a footballers wife with new boobs. That's how shallow it is. The positive spin for this is that as with the movement the fighting feels slick and streamlined. You only ever take on one enemy at a time and have a handful of combos at your disposal, all stemming from three different types of attack; sword, grapple and magic. Whilst this does make the fighting a little dull after so long spent in the game, it is important to remember that their are much fewer battles in this game than there are in other third person action games, and in this game, as long as you're quick you can defeat an enemy with a one blow kill before the fight can properly begin.

This streamlined approach to the movement and combat gives the game a very cinematic feel. Everything moves beautifully and looks luscious with pop up in the game being an extreme rarity. The soundtrack is amazing, the score in the game truly add to the feeling of grandeur and scale. You may be thinking that I have a point here, and I do (because, hey, I usually have one, right?), the game has a strong visual identity, a fantastic score and movements that make it look almost theatrical. Well, to top this off, the game boasts an amazing story. Not a truly original one, but one that unfolds in the way that stories only unfold when told by the greatest of story tellers. The twists and turns are unexpected and the dialogue shared between the Prince of Persia and Elika gives you an amazing bond with the characters and a need for them to make it through their adventure.

It may not be too much of a shock to you, but I was blown away by this game. It took risks in streamlining the game play and focusing more on the narrative, but I genuinely feel this has payed off. I can see why opinion has been so polarised by this title, so my suggestion to you is to pick it up (it's going for cheap in most places at the moment), play it and decide for yourself. It may be just another average game to you, or one of the most amazing unique experiences of your life. I know it was a great experience for me.

9/10

Return Of The Re-Release

Reports over on N4G have pointed towards the very real possibility that we'll be seeing a re-release of Ninja Gaiden II on PS3, which in keeping with the previous Ninja Gaiden release on Sony's console, will be titled Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Apparently as with the previous Sigma game released on PS3, this title will not be a direct port and will include technical and graphical updates.

Whilst at this point I would hesitate to call this anything more than a rumour, especially as I'm taking N4G's word for it that the translation of the Japanese magazine article is correct. However, I do like the idea of a another re-release of a Ninja Gaiden game (please bear with me on this one, I haven't gone completely insane), the previous Sigma re-release fixed one of the main issues from the original Ninja Gaiden (itself more an update of the old 8 bit series than a re-release), the poor camera. Whilst I know that player camera control was added in Ninja Gaiden Black (the first re-release of Ninja Gaiden), Sigma did this and added better loading times and touched up the graphics. I doubt that a graphical update will be applied this time, as Ninja Gaiden II is still a pretty gem, but perhaps improving the awful camera will polish the games only obvious blemish.

Honestly I would pay for this, I think it's a great idea and if it gets me another play through of Ninja Gaiden II then I'm game. We'll just have to see how much this re-release adds to the existing game, and if it'll actually see the light of day. Can't wait to see what Tomonobo Itagaki has to say about this one.

UPDATE

Seeing as since I started writing this article the rumour concerning Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 has been confirmed pretty much everywhere, I think we're safe in assuming that this is a genuine announcement. Just got to see what updates will be coming to the game now.

Lost In Anime Overtones

I've just finished Lost Planet: Extreme Condition and you know what hit me straight away? Man was that ever a short game! I had just got in laughing distance of the five hour mark when I finished off the final boss in typical epic fashion. Not that I'm complaining because I spent just under £7 on the game for new, and seeing as all the cut scenes and repeat tries probably put an extra couple of hours on my core 5, I've basically payed £1 an hour for the game. Not too bad, but not great. Anyway, despite my lack of a sense of accomplishment (I'm sorry, but I need to invest more time in a game to feel that) the game is genuinely good fun.

You play as Wayne, a colonist on planet E.D.N. III; a world that is inhabited by a corupt military, an alien race and a band of snow pirates. I know, it sounds pretty stock already, but wait, it gets worse. Wayne suffers from amnesia (the back bone of every Japanese video game story since forever) and you advance through the game unlocking various key parts of Wayne's history, subsequently unfolding an increasingly intricate story. And I did enjoy the story, despite the obviously anime inspired cut scenes, which to be honest were rather cringe worthy at times (I blame the voice actors and poor characterisation), the stories slow unraveling was akin to something like 24 or The X-Files in the way that every answer provided by the games cut scenes, just created more questions. I really enjoyed seeing the story through to the end, I just had to know what was going to happen next.

So onto the meat of the game, the game play. Search this blog for 'Lost Planet' and you will find that I've already wrote about the game play before, most notably the difficulty curve. So in brief, the difficulty curve is like a stretched out slinky with occasional moments of agonising repeated attempts provided by the boss battles and the reasonably paced parts provided by the rest of the game, with its 'if it moves, kill it' ethos. The action is a bit primitive and the controls do a fell a little bit lumpy and outdated, but I think this is mostly in part due to the games age and the fact that we have been spoiled by super slick controls in games in recent months. One of the odd features of the game is the idea of thermal energy. Your health replenishing abilities require you to kill enemies, scenery and activate map posts in order to top up your thermal energy, but this energy also depletes slowly because of the extreme temperatures the games environments throw at you. This means that both your health and play time are limited. Spend too long in the game and you run out of thermal energy and your health bar begins to deplete. Play the game headstrong and take lots of hits, your health bar has to use more thermal energy and you end up with less time to finish the level. It's an odd dynamic that takes some getting used to, but ultimately offers a unique and positive element to the game.

The only other real notable negative is the soundtrack. It really is a bit lacking and often all you have in some levels is the background noise of the wind whipping around your head as you progress and the gun fire and mech stomping sound effects. The only real positive that comes from this sparser soundtrack is that you do become very well immersed in this sense that you are traipsing across this baron uninhabitable snow dusted rock.

So if you want a decent anime inspired, mech centred action game that wants to be the source material it tries to emulate, you can't go too far wrong with Lost Planet, especially as it seems to have become one of those games that is destined to forever live in the bargain bin. Raid the sofa, check the piggy bank, count the pennies and go and buy it.

7/10

Let Them Keep The Planet

I'm still making my way through Lost Planet on 360 in an attempt to get through it before the next one hits the shelves. I'm finding it a really fun third person shooter, whilst not on par with Gears of War and its younger sibling, its still an accomplished game when you consider how early on in the 360's life it was released. One of the minor gripes I have with the game is the occasional slow down that occurs when there is far too much going on in the screen at once, at the subsequent cheap cluster attacking that the in game enemies insist on doing, causing your health bar to empty at a frightening speed. Although I raise this as an issue, it rarely occurs, especially if you play the game the way it was meant to. One of the more serious issues I want to raise before I finish the game is its difficulty curve.

Most of the game is spent with you, the player, being super man and mowing down wave after wave of baddies, whether they be human or the indigenous inhabitants of planet E.D.N. III. Whilst this is tremendous fun, the game begins to give you a mild case of controller throwing rage when the bosses of the game come around. The difficulty of the game spikes like a child's cholesterol on a visit to McDonalds. I feel that any game should offer a continuously increasing difficulty curve and that said curve should have the odd spike here and there to keep you on your toes, without making the whole of the game a nightmare. But do the difficulty spikes in Lost Planet have to be so harsh? I pretty much never die during the bulk of the game, but when the health bar devastating bosses come along, I do get frustrated.

I think that a part of the problem is that once you get through the adrenaline inducing end of level fights, the game relaxes and returns to its original pace, which whilst not sedate by any stretch of the imagination, is a bit tame when compared to the aforementioned boss battles. It's in these moments after those fights that you ask yourself 'why must the boss fights be so dammed hard?' If the difficulty curve throughout the rest of the game is steady, sticking true to the formula that makes a good game, why on earth are these vain popping segments present?

I plan to persevere in this game, because the story is actually starting to become interesting in a caricature, occasionally cringe worthy kind of way. I just hope that it doesn't do to me what Devil May Cry 4 did and through one of those impossible final bosses that will mean that the game goes unfinished and traded in. Fingers crossed.

Unfinished Symphony

How many do you have in your games collection? Those odd games that proved either too long or not worthy of your attention. The odd one or two? Or are you way up in the double figures? I know that it's something I'm guilty of; picking up a game with the intention of seeing it through to the end, only to find myself putting it down before the credits roll because the next new game is already in my possession and begging to be played. But this really does beg the question, are we missing the point of owning the game if we don't finish it?

Whilst I would prefer not to debase this blog and its good name by using the old games to films analogy, I feel that in this case the comparison is apt. When you watch a film, the only instance in which it will be left unfinished is if the film is complete load of rubbish. Whilst this does also apply to games, you are more likely to finish a good film than a good game. It could be due to length, it's easier to sit down for two to three hours to enjoy a film in its entirety, but most modern games break the twenty hour mark. If we only sit through the first 3 hours of a game, you're missing out on a serious majority of a game, and I'm not suggesting that many do only play this much of any good game.

One game that I know I'm truly guilty of leaving unfinished is Bioshock. The game totally blew me away when I started it, the cinematic feel, the sense of immersion (no pun intended) and the genuine fear I felt whenever I heard a Little Sister was nearby and her Big Daddy came obediently following. Who would of thought the line "this way Mr Biggles" would be so scary. But as the game progressed the Big Daddies stopped being scary, the game started to induce a sense of deja vu as I felt that all I was doing was running errands for more and more lunatics and wasting ammo on splicers along the way. As such, I still haven't finished it, and it's been a year since I last touched it. I'm still baffled that this game that was so appealing and awe inspiring in its opening few hours could invoke such a sense of apathy as it approached its pudgy middle bits.

Surely we're meant to be finishing these games that we've spent so very much on? Surely we owe it to those who put in intensive man hours, at the expense of time with loved ones, to bring us these electronic master pieces? Personally I vow to make a change. I promise to finish a game, before I start the next one. I make this promise in the knowledge that I know that I wont keep it. But oh well, it's nice to pretend, right?