Lazy Sunday – Dual Analog, On the Go

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Having recently gotten my mitts on Nintendo’s 3DS Circle Pad Pro attachment, I feel obliged to attempt throwing a few words at the device – with only one game that supports the add-on at my disposal, a few might be all I can manage today. The Circle Pad Pro isn’t flashy or visually appealing by any stretch of the imagination. Practicality is the name of the game, housing two rear triggers and one shoulder button along with the add-on circle pad on a very light-weight frame that cradles your 3DS. Open spaces provide access to the 3DS’ volume switch, power cord connection, and headphone jack. There’s also a thin opening for the wrist strap included with the device, which is meant to be attached directly to the 3DS.

An infrared transceiver at the back of the device uses science and magic to silently detect the connection, which the 3DS makes no mention of until Resident Evil: Revelations loads and acknowledges the situation by offering to enable control style-D. As expected, this control option allows players to tackle Revelations as if they were using the dual analog controls offered by the PS3 and/or Xbox 360.

Guiding Jill through the derelict cruise ship with the Circle Pad Pro offered two observations.

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Posted: February 5, 2012 at 12:24 am By Jamie Love | View Comments

Nostalgia Trip – The Simpsons Arcade

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The Simpsons’ trip to the arcades in 1991 represents a perfect intersection, the point where Konami’s apparent ability to create beat ‘em-up quarter-munching arcade cabinets with any license, crossed paths with The Simpsons’ surging ability to sell any product their images were plastered upon.

Today the game hit Xbox LIVE Arcade for 800 Microsoft Points, and will appear on the PlayStation Network next week for $9.99 – or free to PlayStation Plus subscribers on that platform. Like last year’s release of X-Men Arcade, The Simpsons Arcade game was what I often longed for on home consoles, rather than the infuriating adventure games we got instead.

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Posted: February 3, 2012 at 9:07 pm By Jamie Love | View Comments

Sweet’N Low – My Haunted Weekend

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It’s a well established fact that ghosts are jerks – they move furniture around while you’re away, drive your electric bill up by playing with the lights, and though I realize you may not want to hear it, they do sometimes stick things in your mouth while you’re sleeping.

Within the videogame medium, ghosts have an equally dickish reputation, from the boards of Pac-Man to the haunted houses of Super Mario Bros. But this weekend I had a chance to catch up with perhaps the worst yet via The Hidden, which released for the 3DS back in November.

The augmented reality game asks players to walk around areas in the real world while the 3DS camera is used to layer blob-like phantoms on the screen – the game seems hesitant to call these creatures ghosts, but they fit the ghostly bill. The player’s task is to scan and destroy these creatures, which will have you spinning around as if grabbed by a seizure as these ghosts quickly twitch out of your field of vision while throwing some form of ectoplasm excrement at you. The player must somehow meet the challenge of calmly readjusting their perspective to keep these critters on screen without throwing the 3DS into the nearest ditch.

The game is hilariously terrible, perhaps the champion of such pursuits on the handheld to date – one of those interesting ideas that has no room to evolve beyond the “hey isn’t this neat for five minutes” factor.

The real long-term humor stems from the game stressing players be mindful of their surroundings, but at the same time making it necessary to visit new Wi-Fi areas to discover more ghosts and progress the game. The Hidden absolutely encourages players to find new destinations in which to play, and thereby look like a complete ass in public, which is just a little bit wonderful despite the awful act of playing the game.

If you still owe any of your frenemy’s an xmas gift, this might just be the ticket.

Posted: January 22, 2012 at 2:08 pm By Jamie Love | View Comments

Demo Report – Resident Evil: Revelations

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Waking up in the cabin section of a derelict ocean liner, Jill Valentine expresses a feeling of déjà vu, which I certainly share in as the opening of the Revelations’ demo feels very much like a homecoming, stirring some equally pleasant and terrifying memories. The gloom of ruined rooms is occasionally broken by the shimmer of essential supplies, and also the continual arrival of humanoid biohazards that are largely featureless, save for the spiky limbs slapping out at players before these creatures close in for a more intimate attempt at feasting on Jill’s blood.

Clutching the 3DS and lurching forward through the ship is a very intimate experience, bringing back unnerving sensations and a slower pace of traditional horror the mainline series has largely moved away from in the pursuit of high-grade action. Entering a dining hall where food is rotting on tables and a strange vapor hugs the floor finds me several shades hesitant about the prospect of moving forward any further, and it’s rather terrific being gripped by that feeling of apprehension again.

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Posted: January 20, 2012 at 11:45 am By Jamie Love | View Comments

Demo Report – The Darkness II

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If you recall my lengthy diatribe on the matter of The Darkness, and the urgency with which it demands to be played, you might guess that The Darkness II is a subject in which I am greatly invested. I very much need for this title to deliver, and for that reason the question of whether Digital Extremes is equipped to succeed Starbreeze is a puzzle I have been pondering since the day of this title’s announcement.

The demo sets up the premise of the sequel and offers little else in the way of narrative—it provides a capable teaser, and then moves directly along to the matter of vicious tentacle murder.

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Posted: January 18, 2012 at 9:00 am By Brad Johnson | View Comments

You Tell Us – The Final Fantasy XIII-2 Demo

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I’m generally possessed of fond memories regarding Final Fantasy demos. The wayback machine reminds me of purchasing Parasite Eve in 1998, and the extra disc of Squaresoft wares that offered an early slice of Final Fantasy VIII for instance. Some of you may recall the demo for that release, which offered a chance to lead an early mercenary assault that was the final test before graduating as a member of SeeD. I had no idea about the time-bending twists that took place throughout the full game at that point – I just knew I wanted the game as soon as it released based on the mission and cinematic sorcery that demo unleashed.

While I’m not alone in losing a long-running connection to the franchise in recent years, the desire to renew a bond with a series that dominates so many of my earliest gaming memories has been boiling, peaked by the release of a demo for the upcoming sequel to Final Fantasy XIII that is now available on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Unfortunately, my best attempts have been dashed this week, because after playing through the demo twice now, I’ve never felt so completely lost, as if that short taste of XIII-2 somehow verifies that I actually have no idea how to play a videogame and have deceived you all for years somehow. Or perhaps that Square-Enix is pioneering some future for the RPG that leaves me in the backwoods talking to myself about how things used to be.

The demo drops you into a very dry town filled with dreary characters dealing with a very large nuisance, offering a chance to jog around fighting smaller monsters and even stumbling across a side-quest opportunity. There’s a shortage of narrative justification and an emphasis on simply jumping into the fray, gaining defeated monsters as allies that can be added to your party, opening up further possibilities of fusing monsters together like a mad Shin Megami scientist.

The battle system itself still creates a chaotic space where Paradigm Shifts switch between auto-battle inclined strategies, all while I pine for something I can take more measured time with like the RPG luddite I seem to be.

And I could go on chewing on that bone, or I could put the call out to you fine Sugarfiends to go forth and play this demo, and then return and tell me something about it and why it may or may not be the most important creation since sliced Moogle-bread – which is delicious with strawberry jam by the way. Since that seems like the better option, I’ll add that I’d really appreciate it if you would check it out over the weekend, assuming you haven’t already, and offer some opinions of your own in the comments.

Not only can you potentially help me understand Final Fantasy again, but you can also save this post from appearing rather lame should no one chime in.

Posted: January 13, 2012 at 7:54 pm By Jamie Love | View Comments

The Asura’s Wrath Demo – What Just Happened? Edition

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I just finished doing something with the Asura’s Wrath demo. I don’t wholly know what it is that I did, and really, I’m not sure what kind of thing I did it with.

Ostensibly, Asura’s Wrath is a beat ‘em up—except, I think I maybe beat up three guys in the course of the demo, for a total of perhaps ninety seconds of gameplay.

The demo chiefly consists of cut-scenes and quick-time events; it plays like an interactive episode of Dragonball Z, where following the prompts progresses the story, chiefly by causing Asura to get angry and hit things harder.

Interspersed were a few brief gameplay interludes, where I actually had some limited freedom to move Asura and do what I would typically describe as “playing the game.”

These sequences involved A) running and blasting things, or B) running and punching things. In the latter section, I fought what would, in any other game, be called a boss battle—but strangely, even this brawl felt suspiciously as if it were on rails. Not that it was, not truly, but there was a pattern, there were prompts—and eventually, I understood that the game was trying to make me play out a cinematic with my own two hands. If the boss knocked me back, I could tap quickly and recover—if I advanced perfectly through his assault, I could attack. If I was exactly skilled enough, I would use all the right moves and the battle would simply look like a cut-scene.

It would look like a good one, too. The aesthetic of Asura’s Wrath is, in a word, brilliant. I’ve never seen a videogame look like this—like a painting come to life. What’s accomplished here is what so many games struggle endlessly with and never achieve; a true visual dynamism where the nature of the image can change, like a brush stroke, becoming smooth and calming or stressed and furious. The visuals alone demand attention, insisting the game be played.

If there is a game, that is. At the end of the demo, a title screen thanked me for playing, and I sat there, wondering: had I played? I had mashed some buttons, sure—but whether there’s a game here? Whether this is a videogame? I really don’t know.

I do want to find out.

Posted: January 12, 2012 at 11:06 pm By Brad Johnson | View Comments
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