Fresh off of Goldeneye 007 I am continuing my Wii FPS fix with Conduit 2. Apparently somewhere between 1 and 2 they may have lost the definite article but they gained a sense of self-aware humor. It helps that Micheal Ford is now being voiced by Jon St. John of Duke Nukem 3D fame.
Again, this game is looking about as good as you can on the Wii. The motion controls are very natural feeling (a bit better than Goldeneye in my opinion). The levels are a much less repetitive than the first Conduit game and the enemies offer just about the right amount of challenge for this aging gamer’s reflexes. This is not groundbreaking stuff here, but on the Wii, you take what they give you.
I’ve had this game for quite a while now and have been waiting until I complete it before writing about it. Man, I suck at Jamestown. I don’t know if I will ever finish it, so I guess I will say a few things about it now. Despite my inability to finish the game, Jamestown is great. It’s a rare PC exclusive bullet-hell shooter with pixel perfect art and wonderful music. On top of all this is a goofy 17th century colonial America on Mars theme. There is a good risk/reward balance and, even though I keep dying, it always feels like I almost could get past that last enemy. I think it will even support my massive X-Arcade joystick controller. So good.
I never played Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. I guess the original was noteworthy for making the controls on a console FPS slighty less sucky. Well, that and the ability to play head-to-head with friends using a postage stamp sized corner of the screen. The Wii refresh of Godeneye improves upon the analog stick controls by using the much more FPS friendly numchuck and Wiimote control scheme that worked so well in the Metroid Prime games. Sure, it’s not even close to the precision of a PC mouse and keyboard, but it’s perfect for playing while sitting back on the couch.
The game itself is really good. There’s a decent amount of variety in game play and the story and cut-scenes kept me pushing forward. I especially liked the stealthier sections of the game. Like everything else about a Wii vs. PC FPS, the stealth seems kinda dumbed down, but, then again—and maybe I’m just cutting the Wii some slack—I didn’t mind it at all.
I have tried the split-screen multiplayer too and it’s fun too. However, you need more than two people to make it really work.
Outside of Demons, I have not see many of Lamberto Bava’s films. A Blade in the Dark has a few really effective and tense sequences. Counter to the title, these horrible killings mostly occur in bright, fluorescent light (not unlike Argento’s Tenebre). Unfortunately, the story is terrible. The victims are just passersby who appear in the main character’s house for no good reason. The hero’s job is that of a horror movie composer. This could have been played up in some real interesting ways but, except for some disjointed voices on his tape early on, it really plays no part in the plot.
Dear Esther is a noble little experiment that pushes the notion of video games as art. The problem is, it isn’t much of a game. You walk around a beautifully rendered desolate island in first-person view. As you move along you are fed bits and pieces of a narrative involving a car accident and a woman named Esther. The story slowly comes together as you approach your goal but remains vague and feels unfinished even near at the very end. Again, this is not a game. Unlike the very similar (yet excellent) text adventure, Photopia (similar both thematically and game-aticly [yes, I made that up]), in Dear Esther there are no choices to be made and any exploration is limited to a couple of structures off to the side of the main path. You pretty much stick to that path and keep pushing forward. In Photopia the story becomes coherent, complete and satisfying at the end. Dear Esther – not so much.
Now all this isn’t to say that it isn’t a worthwhile hour or so of holding down the walk-forward key. The game is beautiful, and, even though at first I didn’t really get what was going on, the narration is very, how shall we say, “fancy” sounding and arty. Whenever someone tries to push the position that video games can be art they always seem to compare games with movies. I think this is a bad comparison. Video games have much, much more in common with site-specific and installation art. It isn’t so much about the scene-to-scene plot as it is about the immersion and exploration. In that context, Dear Esther is an admirable work of art that I’d recommend despite its non-gamey-ness.
Another solid pulp novel from Prologue Books. This time the story follows a group of ex-soldiers out for revenge against their old captain. None of the five main characters is without their dark side so you aren’t quite sure who to root for.
There have not been many wild west shooters. I guess there was Outlaw for the 2600 and, of course, now there’s Red Dead Redemption (a game which will never come to the PC). But when Call of Juarez came out, it was about the only Western themed game around. The old west had all you needed for a decent FPS: guns, outlaws, sparsely populated towns and dysentery.
I liked Call of Juarez. It has a nice blend of shooting, platforming, stealth and story. There were times while I was sneaking around it felt very much like my favorite FPS, No One Lives Forever except without the awesome dialogue. The shooting mechanics are good, and it has a “bullet time” mechanic that you will completely over use. The story is simple but is told in a unique way by having you play as two separate characters. Nothing revolutionary here, just a solid first-person shooter with a unique setting and narrative style.
Okami follows much the same formula of a typical Zelda game. You proceed through the game by defeating the boss at the end of a dungeon only to gain a power that gives you access to the next dungeon. Between each dungeon there are overworld levels to explore, wandering enemies to battle, items to collect, fish to fish and characters to bore you with endless unskippable dialogue.
It all sounds very mediocre, right? But where Okami sets itself apart is in its Japanese woodblock inspired rendering and art design. It’s not quite as sharp as the cover art would suggest, but it remains a colorful and playful world filled with tons of unique looking characters and enemies.
My biggest complaint, and this is kinda backwards, is that the game is just too long. There were at least three occasions when I thought that *this* boss battle would be the last. Thirty-six hours later I finally beat the game, and by that time I just wanted to move on to something else. The story is alright, but after the third time you defeat the big baddie who was advertised as the ultimate evil and destroyer of worlds, you stop caring about the narrative. The aforementioned endless dialogue doesn’t help either.
I bought this CD based on their cover of Grand Master Flash’s “White Lines.” It’s a great cover, albeit a bit too long. The rest of the disc is filled with fast and messy punk rock music. Most of the arrangements hinge on a distortion pedal that switches between growling guitar and screaming guitar at the appropriate changes in the songs. Not the most memorable stuff, but as far as noise rock goes this ain’t bad.
Nancy Sinatra may be best known for being the sister of the great Frank Sinatra Jr., but she also, with the help of Lee Hazelwood, recorded a bunch swinging 60s tunes many of which were hits. This CD is a great collection of songs and includes, of course, the song which made her a star, “Leave My Dog Alone.”
