Review: Disney Epic Mickey (Wii)

Disney Epic Mickey is a game that has very lofty goals, but fails to achieve any of them. It was an ambitious project that aimed to take the Wii’s strength — family friendly cartoon games — and merge that with a bonefied quest-oriented game that appealed to more mature gamers. Unfortunately, instead of defining a new genre or carving it’s own niche, the game fails to deliver much of anything.

As the game starts, Mickey finds himself sucked through a magic mirror that transports him into a mysterious hallway. Peeking through a doorway, he watches as a man in wizard dress puts some final touches on what seems like a model town. Happy with his work, the man sets down the brush and heads to bed. Mickey then decides he is going to be a complete jerk and paint over the man’s hard work. In his fervor to vandalize this stranger’s model, Mickey accidentally knocks over the paint and thinner vials which unleashes all sorts of holy hell upon the work.

Does Mickey run to find the stranger, so he can right his wrong? Hell no! Mickey turns tail and runs back through the magic mirror. Like any good sociopath, Mickey doesn’t seem to care one iota about what he has done. However, karma is a bitch. So one night as Mickey is sleeping (and presumably dreaming about defacing the Mona Lisa) one of the dark blobby whatevers he unleashed reaches out from the mirror and pulls Mickey back  into the world he set into turmoil.

Review: Mortal Kombat (360)

If you’ve read our ‘First Impressions’ on the game, you already know that my first look at NetherRealm’s newest  Mortal Kombat was a positive one. After spending more time with the game, all I can say is that the quality and experience that I enjoyed so much from the onset has only been reinforced by repeated and prolonged play.

It’s very easy to get bored of a fighting game. I’ve mentioned many-a-time that I’m not particularly fond of the genre in general. Part of that stems from my fat, slow fingers and the fact that I’m horrible at them. The other issue I have with fighters is that they tend to be extremely repetitive. There’s very little room for variation in game play aside from a usual assortment of gimmicks and “mini games” that hardly ever feel welcome.

Even when I made up my mind to buy Mortal Kombat I knew that whatever excitement I had for the game probably wouldn’t last. I was just hopeful that the game would be fun and that it would bring back fond memories of staying up all night with a few friends as we tried to experience every fatality, babality, stage-specific death, and ‘toasty’ secret level.

Even if the new game was able to do those things, I thought that after a few dozens fights I’d get bored. I still wanted to give it a try, but I wasn’t expecting the game to become one of the favorites in my collection. What a nice surprise it’s been! I’m not ready to change direction and call myself a fighting-game fan, but Mortal Kombat has easily been one the most fun games I’ve played in the last year.

Hector: Badge of Carnage – EP1 PC Review

When you follow as much news as I do, it’s easy to forget about things. Release dates can be particularly troublesome due to their sheer number and tendency to be changed again and again. So when a tweet announcing the availability of ‘Hector: Badge of Carnage’ via Steam popped up in my feed, it was a great surprise.

You think these pros look scary? Well Hector isn't wearing pants when the game begins . . .

I’ve never played the iPhone/iPad version, but it took nothing more than a quick view of the trailer to see that the game was full of both the usual Telltale charm, and a level of crude adult humor that I hadn’t expected from the company.

It’s the First Edition of the Njoystic Podcast!

Well hello there! Tonight, nJoystic begins cast’n da pods! I wanted to test the waters and see how this all works. I apologize in advance for the poor audio quality — not only did I not have a chance to propperly edit the cast, but I also forgot that my mic completely sucks and that I need to construct a ‘pop filter’.

Anyway, in this edition we talk about Sony’s PSN woes (and yes, there’s supposed to be sarcasm in there but I didn’t emote it very well.) We also talk about Valve and Portal 2, and the danger of ‘Video game genre bias.’

Check it out:

Mortal Kombat First Impressions . . . Toasty! (360)

This probably won’t be the last epic-struggle release date this year, but it was the first real dilemma for me. In case you were somehow blissfully unaware, both Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat hit store shelves today. I could only buy one, so it was a sort of gamer’s Sophie’s choice. Except my name is not Sophie. And I didn’t send Portal 2 off to die . . .

Anyway, for the last two weeks I’ve been saying that I would pick up Mortal Kombat. I don’t know why I was leaning that way — I suck at fighters and I haven’t owned one since . . . hell, probably since the original Kombat. Okay, that might be a lie. I’ve had to have had one newer than that, right?

"Please come over here!" . . . or something like that.

Not important. My gut just told me to go with Mortal Kombat. Maybe I just wanted something different than what I’ve been playing lately. Maybe I longed for something to bring back part of my wonderful gaming past. Fortunately, I can say this game has given me both.

Ace of Spades Beta Impressions. Yeah, it’s Fun.

A game described as a multiplayer Minecraft in a WWII setting with guns sounds great right off the bat. I finally got a chance to check out the early beta for myself. Fun confirmed.

It certainly shows signs of being an early Beta. Control and view is a bit . . . interesting. But you’ll get used to it. Other than that, there’s not much to know. You build or destroy stuff while advancing on the opposing teams base (more specifically, their ‘intel’, which is taken capture-the-flag style.) Your rifle fires straight and true . . . and as far as your eye can see. Headshots are instant kills, so you’ll want to make use of trenches/foxholes, and building cover structures.

You have some grenades, though I found them more trouble than they were worth most of the time. I did happen across one of those jerky ‘blues’ (teams are green or blue) while he was fast at work digging some sort of large pit. He wasn’t looking up, so I dropped a ‘nade on his head. That was quite satisfying.

Njoystc’s ‘Hey! I Remember That!’: Disney’s Stunt Island

I thought a feature on old games and how we remember them could be fun, and so I bring you a new feature called ‘Hey! I remember that!’

And what a great title to kick things off with! In an age where more and more gamers and developers are enjoying ‘open world’ or ‘sandbox’ style games, I think it’s only fair we give credit to a game that did the same thing back in the old-timey year of 1992. Vanilla Ice was on the radio. I was probably still rock’n some ‘Ninja Turtle’ pajamas. And ‘Stunt Island’ floppies were strewn across my (err, my parent’s) computer desk.

That’s right, a game that still came on floppies. Wasn’t there also one of those cardboard code-wheels used as an anti-pirating measure? Or was it one of those “what’s the third word on page 38 of the manual” deals? I can’t remember.

Almost as much 3d detail as Dragon Age 2

The game was one of the few I played at the time to boast amazing three-dimensional graphics (see above.) It also gave you the ability to fly around the island anywhere you wished to go, while attempting death-defying (or, often death-resulting) feats of stunt’itude.

The game offered various preconceived stunts that you could complete for fame and fortune. From bombing runs to aerial acrobatics to skydive missions, all under the premise of being part of a film set. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to land my parachutist on those damn field goal posts! I don’t think I ever got it.

Where the game really shined was in the ‘free’ mode, which let you set up props, cameras, and stunts however you wanted to. You could even assign vehicle statistics to the props, enabling you to fly that big pirate ship around the island, or create flying cars. There really was an amazing amount of control.

Once you did whatever it was you wanted to do (if I recall, a lot of our free stunts involved flying around as the bird and pooping on things) you could view the replays from the various camera angles you had set up, and even save the resulting movie. You were then able to splice together movie segments and add sound, resulting in some wonderful masterpieces . . . or cinematic bird poop scenes. Whatever.

Surprisingly, this is the stunt coordinator and not a porno talent scout.

If this all sounds like sandbox fun at it’s best, you’re right. And again, this was back in 1992! I’m often amazed that there hasn’t been a remake, which could be remarkable given the current technology available. Titles like ‘Gary’s Mod’ or ‘Minecraft’ show you don’t necessarily need to give the player a strong list of win conditions for a game to be addicting. Sometimes, a few simple but well implemented features and a heaping helping of freedom can go a long way.

Hell, if this game could have ran on the machine we had back then, it could probably run as a smart phone app. Just say’n . . .

Well, that’s it for this ‘Hey! I remember that!’ Until next time, happy pooping, birds!

Review: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

I haven’t fired up my Wii in a long time (pause for jokes.) When I got the Xbox, it wasn’t really supposed to be a replacement for the Wii, but that’s what happened. And to be honest, I never felt like I was missing anything. I mean, it’s just the Wii, right? My mistake.

Really, what plumber *hasn't* dealt with these?

Mario Galaxy 2 marks the first time I’ve really played a Mario title since Mario 64 (though I did play that a second time on DS), so I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this title. One complaint I’ve had relating to the  ‘Mario’ franchise  in general — be it the titular series itself, or in the ‘sports’ and ‘party’ games — is that Nintendo seems to have a fetish for excessive dialogue boxes and forcing the user to press ‘A’. I’m sure this is done in an attempt to make the text less daunting a read for the younger players, but it’s really damn annoying to have to ‘Press A’ after every sentence in a dialogue sequence.

So I was much annoyed when the opening of Mario Galaxy 2 was brought to a screeching halt as every character forced me to go through these stupid sequences to explain the non-plot of Princess being kidnapped in Bowser’s latest bid to rule the universe. I mean, Mario games aren’t really about the story, so why should it take me a half hour to button-press through the thin opening sequence?

Fortunately, the problem doesn’t really crop up again in full until the very end of the game, when you get the conclusion of the “story.” Talking to the characters in-game can be just as annoying, but the dialogue is much shorter so it doesn’t bring things to quite the same grinding halt that the first and last sequences do.

Once the actual game began, I felt right back at home in the Mario universe. That is not to say that the game felt stale, or that Nintendo is content to just sit back and recycle the success from their past games. As I mentioned, it’s been a while since I’ve played Mario, so I’m not really qualified to speak on the series’ progression. What I can say is that Nintendo was able to keep the things that made Mario 64 successful, while continuing to bring new and clever tricks to the table.

Would War Games Benefit From Likable Enemies?

I was reading a post over on Ben’s Laboratory, giving his impressions of the Killzone 3 Single Player Demo, and something he said really jumped out at me. Referring to the opposition the player will face, Ben wrote, “This is an enemy that just seems obviously, and completely bad and that makes them completely dull.”

The more I thought about it, the more I saw the genius of that statement, and how it applies to a genre as a whole. As gamers, we’re used to facing down the Nazi threat, or beating back waves of savage, blood-thirsty terrorists. Or toothy, brutal aliens. The “bad guys.”

It’s easy for us to go along happily killing the enemy and never thinking twice about it. Sure, Modern Warfare 2 had that scene that made us all feel a little sick. But still, it was the evil enemy that made us do it. The blood was on their hands, even if we paid the price in the end anyway.

What seems to get ignored — and not just in video games, but in life in general — is that not every war has a clear cut good side and evil side. Lets look at the American Revolution. It’s easy as Americans to say, “Hellz yeah! We stood up for our rights and kicked those Red Coats back to England! WooT! America RoX!” We’re the good guys, because we won.

What really happened is that a group of us decided that we didn’t want to be part of England anymore, and we were going to take this land for ourselves. We weren’t right and they weren’t wrong. We just disagreed, and fought, and the new ‘Americans’ won. Remember, the victor is the one that gets to pick who the good guys and bad guys were.

But those “bad guys” we were killing? They had families too. They weren’t homicidal monsters bent on killing. They were following orders in a fight that really gave them just as much right to believe that they were on the good side. Right and wrong and good and evil is often very subjective. Why isn’t it in video games?

War should make you feel uncomfortable. It’s ugly. It’s violent. And it’s horrible. But in games, we rarely see the consequences of our action. There’s never really a connection to the droves of enemies we’re killing. And that makes it easy. That faceless, nameless son-of-a-bitch that’s shooting at me? Eat a rocket, jerk!

It’s as much their fault though; how often do you see a scared, overwhelmed enemy cowering in fear? How many games give us an opportunity to capture a surrendered foe? Or give us any option, other than shoot-to-kill? And when the enemy is only out to kill us, why should we care about them? When their end-goal is world domination, or to trigger the apocalypse, and then sit back and chew the heads off of every bunny and kitten on earth, why should we care about them?

Why is it that developers shy away from more ambiguous struggles? Is it because it’s too uncomfortable for everyone involved? Or is it because it’s just easier to make a clear “bad guy” and let the player have at it?

Choice-based character driven gaming is something that’s really starting to come into it’s own. The “war game” genre would be a perfect medium to really hammer this type of play home. Do you believe in what you’re fighting for? And at what cost are you willing to fight for that cause? Maybe you should align yourself with the other side. Any hope for a peaceful solution? Will you show that enemy soldier some mercy, now that he’s outnumbered? Hell, maybe you can even help him escape the battlefield and reunite with his wife and newborn.

That all sounds like a much richer and more rewarding experience to me, rather than walking through five or six hours of faceless, nameless soldiers who amount to little more than glorified target practice.

Connect the player to your game through emotion. The “airport scene” and fighting in the streets of DC (Modern Warfare 2) and defending our homeland from enemy occupation (Homefront) are steps in the right direction, but until you include the “bad guys” as part of the emotional equation, you’re really only working with half a story.

And with the deluge of war games currently set to hit market, and the countless ones currently in development or yet to be conceived, gamers everywhere would benefit from a deep, emotional experience that would set itself apart from the rest.

I urge you, game developers of the world, to make me feel something when I pull that trigger. Something other than, “Die you Nazi bastard!”

Review: Stacking (XBLA)

It’s hard for me to imagine the production meeting that started with god knows what, and ended with “We’re going to make a game about those little Russian stacking dolls!” (Matryoshka, if you insist.)

Fortunately, the fine fine folks of Double Fine are not most people. Not only did they make a game about dolls, but they managed to make a game about dolls that I was excited about even before it hit Microsoft’s virtual shelves.

Caviar from a fish head? Sign me up!

It’s not really surprising that Double Fine, the team behind titles such as Psychonauts and Costume Quest, were able to squeeze so much cute, unique charm out of a game. Visually, I love Stacking’s style. The characters are cute and often hilarious. The environments are a masterful blend of whimsy — think candy-cane and gumdrops mixed with industrial Gothic architecture. The whole thing is presented as an old-timey silent movie, complete with old-timey piano and orchestra musical tracks.