Illusion of Life: Disney's Epic Mickey (Wii)

Mickey has never been my favorite cartoon character, even as youngster
growing up on Wonderful World of Disney and you Kurt Russell movies.
Warner Bros. and specifically Chuck Jones suited my tastes far more
clearly, with sarcastic, violent, deliriously funny shorts filling my
weekends. Bugs and Daffy carry multiple layers as characters appealing
to both kids and adults, while the ever more sanitized character of
Mickey abandoned the early rubber armed rapscallion who tormented
Pete. I guess in the end, Mickey specifically has never been funny or
dangerous.

Epic Mickey is a historical exploration of Disney Animation wrapped in
a game. Fantasia era Mickey accidentally spills the Sorcerer's bottle
of paint thinner on a scale model of Disneyland, unaware of the
disastrous results. Flash forward several decades and Mickey is sucked
into a vortex leading to the model, taking only the Sorcerer's magic
paint brush with him.

The brush itself is the main interface to the world, controlled by the
Wii-mote, with character movement controlled by the nun-chuk. It
allows Mickey to spray paint or thinner, creating or destroying this
twisted replica of the Magic Kingdom. Mickey quickly discovers his
thinner accident years earlier has twisted and warped a world created
by Oswald the Rabbit as a refuge for forgotten Disney characters. The
method in which Mickey interacts with the world and its characters
defines how they will later react to Mickey, as he can make friends
using paint or enemies using thinner.

Transitions between areas are playable platformers based on actual
Mickey Mouse cartoons dating back to Steamboat Willy. This is
initially charming, but like so many aspects of the game, the charm is
quickly ground away.

Plagued by camera and control issues, Epic Mickey is endlessly
repetitive, especially in later areas where quests require constant
travel between worlds, so the same cartoon platform is crossed dozens
of times. Devoid of voice other than the incidental and ambient
noises, dialogue is delivered N64 style, as word balloons. Boss
battles show a spectacular lack of imagination, as one battle REQUIRED
the player to run to the left on a circle track around the boss.
Deviation to the right would automatically drive Mickey off the track
and to death. Checkpoints are sporadic, some placed perfectly, and
others so far back in the world as to be useless.

Most damaging is the obvious care and attention given to the character
design and animations. When entering structures, the inside would
revert to a 3D rendered-flat version of a classical cartoon
represented perfectly. The love of the source material is (no pun
intended) painted all over the game other than the mechanics and level
design. The environments are dark and gloomy, which is thematically
appropriate but muddy on the SD resolution of the Wii.

Epic Mickey feels designed by two teams, one art, one tech, that never
communicated their intentions to the other. Lead by Warren Spector
this game deserved to be better and instead is an epic disappointment.

The Sweetest Embrace: Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC

When my blue-skinned lover first hinted she might still be interested
I laughed with pure joy and joked about my alien lesbian tryst in Mass
Effect. My wife was immediately non-plussed at my juvenile joke, but
quickly explained that it was more than that. That she had been there
up until the end, and we had fallen into bed on the eve of a suicide
mission.

 Liara was my Sheppard's first true love, and her brusque rebukes in
Mass Effect 2 stung. It opened opportunity for romances with other
characters and my Sheppard pursued Jacob with vigor, but no real
connection.

The ME 2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker changes all that. On its
surface, it is an action-packed, suspenseful thrill ride, reuniting
old flames in a common purpose. At its core, it uses the plot as a
base to repair or destroy the original relationship with Liara.
Ethical dilemmas abound, as do the opportunities to say the wrong
thing at the wrong time throughout the myriad dialogue choices and
snap decisions created by the engine.

My wife watched as Sheppard and Liara rekindled their romance and she
finally understood, she understood why I took joy in these moments.

Weight of a world: Limbo

Late to the party as always, a surprise gift of Microsoft Points finally allowed me to jump in on the Limbo bandwagon as I was unwilling to pay $15 for a game this reputedly short (though  apparently satisfying).

 

Set in an dream-like world of foggy black and white, Limbo is a side-scrolling physics puzzle-platformer, but it is also so much more. The player controls a boy, silhouetted in pitch black along with the midground elements, with baroque and distorted foreground and background elements fading to grey smudges.

 

Borrowing heavily from German Expressionism for its visual style, Limbo also leans on elements from The Lord of the Flies and common phobias (spiders, parasites). All elements are well suited to the abstract world and are surrounded by ethereal music and sound design. The environment changes from an insect and arachnid infested forest to a dilapidated but trap laden urban environment, culminating in the dangerous gravity challenging bowels of factory.

 

What struck me immediately were the snappy yet whimsical animations that told both story and character, yet functionally obeyed the procedural rules of the engine. Physics dominates the gameplay, requiring an understanding motion and momentum as applied solutions to extremely clever puzzles. I often forgot that all things in the world have weight, and behave as such, leading to constant 'DOH' moments when a puzzle would finally work. Approaching play as a gamer hindered me, because I always looked first to the trite gameplay solution, rather than the real-world physics based solution.

 

My wife, a non-gamer, was entranced immediately by Limbo. The opaque visuals and the Grimm's Fairy Tales-esque graphic but not explicit violence drew her in, evoking empathy and wonder. Glimpses into the world and its inhabitants led to questions about the state of this reality, and if this dreamlike environment was in fact a dream.

 

Limbo is evocative without preening, and has no pretense. It is somber and the joy of each puzzle solved or trap evaded is muted by the constant danger of what is next in a world created to kill you.

 

Always leaving more questions than answers, Limbo is indeed insanely short, but satisfying.

Jump Around Get Up and Get Down

So, Kinect.

 

I swore a million times over I would not spend money on a glorified Wii until a killer app appeared, something appealed to me as a "core" gamer. Something that would make me give a damn and make the gameplay unique and compelling.

 

So, here we are, with a mechanized black eyeball tracking my movement across the room and (mostly) obeying my verbal commands. It is neat. It is slow and cumbersome to navigate a menu compared to the swish-clicks of buttons and thumbsticks.

 

What finally compelled me to bring this tiny Wall-E into my home was a change needed in my actual lifestyle, not the world(s) inside the game.

 

I am a big fatty fat fat. Weight has been a bouncing ball all of my life, tied entirely to my interest in activity. When given a social motivation to exercise I have and when left to my own devices I haven't, and I have been left to my own devices for the better part of seven years.

 

My real life is a litany of injury and pain, constant reminders that I am carrying the equivalent of an 8-yr old around all of time. Watching my body shift to compensate where my lower back arches more now, straining my stomach muscles to try and hold aloft a shelf of flesh that now migrates over and below my belt-line sickens and saddens me.

 

Depression and body image go way back with me.

 

So, after consulting with my wife, we plunged in and immediately bought a single game, Your Shape Fitness (we rented Dance Central to see if it would be fun or even possible given flinging nearly 300 lbs around to a beat is difficult at the best of times).

 

I figured, in my desperation and laziness, that if I tied exercising to my escapism of gaming (and fed my desire for achievements) I might break a sweat.

 

Your Shape has a clumsy finicky interface that is easily confused by dangling clothing or an errant cat that meanders through the frame. However it is a reasonably deep exercise class, marking you on body position and timing. It measures your BMI and adjusts the workout to something that hopefully won't kill you. The Tai Chi movements are a wonderful low impact way to warm up and down.

 

The only thing that will keep me from using this successfully is me. I literally have no excuses now, no reasons not to get off my fat ass and move.

 

It hurt my ass the day after my first 30 mins of huffing and puffing. I think that's a good thing.

Die Another Tomorrow When You Come- Jame Bond 007 Blood Stone (PS3)

With recent word of publisher Activision's 90 day "restructuring" of British Developer Bizarre Creations, talking about their most recent, if middling, effort is discouraging. James Bond 007:Blood Stone is a third person shooter, following an original story rather than a movie tie-in, with Daniel Craig reprising the titular role in voice and likeness as does Judi Dench as "M".


Ostensibly on a cover, shoot, repeat cycle, the story literally drops Bond into an international mystery revolving around the creation and sale of bio-weapons. Singer Joss Stone becomes a Bond girl as the story's female protagonist and sings the credit sequence song, which in and of itself is part of a missed opportunity.

When played on PS3 Bloodstone opens as expected, with the MGM logo followed by Activision and Bizarre Creations , only to shudder to a dead halt as the game does a 10 minute mandatory install. While this is non-issue on the 360 (and pre-installed on PC), the install itself could have been an opportunity for immersion. By dropping the Activision/Bizarre logos until the credit sequence and instead having the classic Bond turn and fire sequence follow the MGM logo, and then stream a pre-credits mini-game while installing to PS3, the opening would immediately be more true to the source and invisible on non-PS3 platforms.

Missed opportunities and good intentions are the hallmark of the game. Like another recent Activision game, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Bloodstone directs the player down a series of linear corridors, as enemies swarm in wave after wave until bodies litter the floor. The hand-holding continues in vehicle sections, most notably an early boat chase that while graphically stunning, essentially renders the player as a passive partner in the experience. Barely needing to steer the boat and only able to fire Bond's weapon when prompted, the entire sequence is an extended exercise in interactive cinema.

A more egregious example of a vehicle section gone wrong is a mid-game chase following a partially frozen river. Not only are the ice and the water often essentially the same color, the chase contains no checkpoints, which is an annoyance at best given the player is hounded by a Russian Hind helicopter. Mistakes either result in a mission ending dip in the river, or a bump against a wall stalling the car long enough for the Hind to perforate the player. This was easily the worst and perhaps intentionally the shortest mission in the game.

On-foot, the controls are loose and the camera often in the wrong place. Following the GTA 4 method of camera distance and character momentum, sudden shifts in direction cause Bond to lean dramatically, swinging the camera close or wide depending on the distance to the nearest obstruction. Combined with a basic cover system, this often leads to death as returning to cover is stymied by the camera. Checkpoints on foot are reasonably generous, and aided by the "FOCUS AIM" rewards system.

Up to three "Focus Aim" points are awarded, one per takedown, allowing the player to string together one-shot kills, quickly eliminating otherwise troublesome distant or well-covered enemies. Combined with the brutal, varied and vastly entertaining takedown system, players are able to engage in some strategy, alternating between close-up hand to hand or stealth attacks, and ranged weapons.

The ability to apply even mild strategy compared to the relentless forward momentum of most shooters makes the Bloodstone more entertaining than it really should be. The enemy AI is afflicted with the same condition as the enemies in COD:BLOPS in that they fling themselves haphazardly at the player that they might show off their ducking and rolling animations before dying. No actual tactics or humanistic behaviors are ever displayed, rendering Bloodstone one more shooting gallery.

Strangely, though diamonds play a large role in the credits sequence, there is no actual reference to blood diamonds or blood stones. There is a tangential tie to a character's back story, but it is never fully explored.

Blood Stone ends in anti-climatic vehicle sequence and following cut scene that fails to resolve the main plot and blatantly panders for a sequel that will never come. Unfortunately flawed especially in the vehicle sections, given the developers pedigree, Blood Stone at 10 hours is at best a rental.

COD-Blocked: Call of Duty Black Ops (360)

Playing an FPS on a console is one of those things in life I hate, like people who cross the parking lot diagonally, strolling along as if the entire space was theirs alone.A long time PC gamer, I am spoiled by the responsive accuracy of the mouse and keyboard. I generally loathe twin stick shooting, as I ALWAYS disable the aim-assist, preferring to actually try to shoot what I aim at.

I am not often successful and in fact the Halo series are close to the only shooters that feel tight and responsive to me on console. Somehow Bungie's secret sauce of loose responsive vertical movement and I assume some kind of predictive code combined with satisfying spray'n'pray weapons make it feel right.

Call Of Duty:Black Ops does not.

Set during the cold war, with a flashback to the familiar and well-worn territory of World War II, COD:BLOPS follows soldier/special ops/secret agent? Alex Mason. Voiced by Sam Worthington, Mason's most distinguishing feature is his lineage from the little know Australian area of Alaska, as Worthington's accent veers more than a drunk kitten on a lazy susan.

The story opens with an interrogation of the player as Mason, and flashes back to the experiences that lead to this moment. Hopping from Cuba, to Russia, to Vietnam, COD:BLOPS follows the now formulaic COD path of telling the story from multiple viewpoints, in multiple locations, though never straying from the corridor shooting that have long defined this series. Often more like an interactive movie, the player is directed from checkpoint to checkpoint in breathless fashion, interrupted only long enough to show a scripted sequence or a cut scene.It is even possible to complete entire missions without firing a shot, as seen here.

While the previous entry in the franchise flirted with controversy in the "No Russian" mission (an essentially empty exercise in shock rather than meaning), developer Treyarch avoids such potential stumbles by offering nothing new at all. In an early mission, set during the Souyez launches in Russian, the game hands the player reskinned versions of the weapons used in MW2. The anachronism is so blatant that the game's dialogue even addresses it as the player fires a Javelin missile, something not yet invented for 30 years.

COD:BLOPS picks up steam during a series of sequences set in Vietnam. Drenched in cliched atmosphere, wide scale battles rage in and around entrenched defenses as aerial napalm strikes and massive lines of explosive detonate and annihilate scores of enemies, generating real chaos. Eventually, the battle is taken underground in a tunnel rat sequence that while heavily scripted has some truly memorable moments. Unfortunately the game takes a turn for the worse in cribbing whole sequences from movies like The Deer Hunter and Full Metal Jacket, culminating in one of the worst missions in recent history, an on-rails helicopter battle using a Russian Hind.

Funneled up river to the next checkpoint, the player never actually controls the vehicle, with only slight vertical and lateral movement possible. Essentially a light-gun version of a strafing run, the control scheme becomes hideously incompetent when facing enemy helicopters. Unable to maneuver in any reasonable fashion, the dogfight degenerates into literal circle strafing to avoid incoming fire while peppering enemies with missiles. Unfortunate and frustrating, the sequence adds nothing to game but additional playtime.

The Infamous Hind Sequence

As the story progresses it becomes more bombastic and less coherent, eventually morphing into a James Bond style megalomaniacal master plan that abandons all sense of history.While COD:BLOPS does have a far less dense, more linear and clear storyline than the Modern Warfare games, it undercuts itself by never taking the time to develop any of the characters, or even explore the historical context of the time period.

Empty of any meaning or even risk, COD:BLOPS delivers on the promise of a COD game by repurposing tech and design formula without bringing anything new to the equation, save for an after-credits level that is the only inspired and truly entertaining part of the game.

Unsurprisingly it is already a massive success, ensuring this franchise will continue.

A Perfect Copy-Force Unleashed II (360)

I have never been more torn in my feelings for a game than I was for the original Force Unleashed. An essentially broken platformer that add repetitive combat and puzzles and rendered the player as ridiculously overpowered apprentice to Darth Vadar also contained one of the best Star Wars stories to date. Linking the prequels to the originals, TFU had moment of sheer joy pinioned with moment of pure tedium.

Like any good sequel TFU II does what the original did, only better.

TFU II returns the apprentice to Vadar’s side, a clone of the original Starkiller (one of many), that escapes his bonds to find the only thing that is clear to him, his transplanted memories of Juno, the love interest from the first game.

Armed with two (2!) lightsabers this time, Starkiller travels from world to world in a mish-mashed plot that feel likes a handful of swiss cheese. One could make the assumption that the cutscenes were the first thing completed in the game, and the team ran out of time and money to create the connective tissue between, so they dropped a bunch of the plot; it is that disjointed.

At the end of TFU Starkiller was so overpowered that the endless cannon fodder thrown at the character could be literally tossed aside en mass. The only real threat would be Vadar and eventually the Emperor. Starkiller begins the sequel with all of his force abilities intact, leaving the player to upgrade them as they see fit. Adding in the ability to “Jedi Mind Trick” enemies to turn on their cohorts combined with “Force Fury” allows the player opportunity to turn an entire group of enemies against one another, only to slice the survivors in half.

Unlike the brutally painful Star Destroyer sequence in TFU, TFU liberally sprinkles its painful moments throughout the game. Repetitive and uninspired boss fights are bracketed by poorly placed checkpoints. The only truly exciting and inventive moments take place in free fall, as Starkiller plunges down through miles of atmosphere, dodging and destroying enemies and the environment along the way.

The narrative and emotional climax of the game comes full circle to cloning facility on Kamino. The end boss repeats the same structure five (5!) times as you ascend the cloning tanks, making the battle a punishment to be endured to reach the truly dramatic and engaging end sequence. Only there does the game finally deliver on some of the emotional and narrative promise.

A full 50% shorter than the original and emptier than an bag of invisible popcorn, TFU II is a disappointing follow-up and at best a rental.