Shooting Synergy in the Foot: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Wii) Review
Posted on
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
There are some pairings so perfect, so obvious, so absolutely made for each other that thinking of one will automatically cause the other to come to mind without urging. Peanut butter and jelly, the Internet and porn, Kirk and Spock, these things just fit together so well one can hardly be blamed for preferring the combination over its individual parts. One of the first thoughts that came to my mind when I saw the Wii in action was Star Wars. How perfect would the nerdgasm be were Lucasarts to create a lightsaber-focused Jedi game with the Wiimote's motion-controls? Without question, Star Wars and videogame nerds everywhere got chubby in the corduroys upon seeing the videos of the release title Red Steel, with all its sword-fighting glory. Why is it then that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Wii is such a stunning disappointment?
All the stars were aligned. A Star Wars game about Darth Vader's hidden Sith apprentice with customisable force powers, motion-controlled light saber fighting and two-player duels would be the ultimate geek wet dream. But from the very get-go, I was left with a puzzled disappointment. Leaving aside the ultimately irrelevant narrative retcon of the Star Wars mythos, the presentation of the game is mediocre at best. The graphics are not even on par with the better PS2 games, and games like Metroid Prime: Corruption has already ably demonstrated that the system has the horsepower to push some impressive graphics. Yet this title is rife with flat texture works and inconsistent use of lighting and shading. Star destroyers in particular look awful, flat colored polygons with tiny bits of detail and no lighting effects. Yet your character's personal ship has plenty of detail and shading applied. The technical aspects of the system's graphics hardware count for nothing if the artists half-ass their way through the game.
The voice acting suffers from a similar inconsistency. While Vader and the Stormtroopers are certainly well-represented, the main character cannot seem to decide whether to speak with an affected British accent or an accentless American reading. This could all be forgiven if the game play lived up to the potential. Unfortunately, that is the exact area where the game falls apart the worst.
Now I realize that the original Wiimote with the addition of the upcoming MotionPlus attachment is probably not as precise an instrument as I at first thought. But a very flawed game like Red Steel managed to do what a Star Wars game could not, make sword-fighting fun even though the Wiimote does not map 1:1 arm movement onto the screen. Perhaps it was Red Steel's use of first-person perspective as opposed to the FU's 3rd person, a change which makes a big difference in immersion. But I tend to think the reason FU doesn't feel that immersive is because the controls are downright sloppy. Not only does the character not respond in kind to the Wiimotions, I never felt like I needed to do anything more than flail around in order to kill anything but a boss. I am reminded of the typical gameplay of No More Heroes, which was overly boring except on the boss fights. The force powers are fun, but many require motions on the nunchuk that aren't intuitive. The 3rd person camera was one great big bag of dick, constantly flipping around the character unbidden, causing me to lose my target. Though the D-pad allows me to control the camera, the D-pad isn't really well-placed for the kind of quick use I needed to switch the camera in combat situations. The Nunchuk's imprecise analog stick doesn't help in this respect either.
But one of the most irritating things about the game involved the boss fights. Rather than the exciting swingfests of a game like No More Heroes, the boss fights in FU are tedious affairs littered with jarring QTE's (Quicktime events). Rather than relying on the player's skill with the lightsaber and force powers to defeat bosses, every boss has certain stages of health loss that necessitate passing a QTE. Failure results in the boss's health being reset to the last stage. While some games use these effectively (Resident Evil 4 comes to mind), the use of QTE's in FU just breaks what little immersion the game has. Two hours into the game and I decided that I had had enough. The story wasn't interesting enough to endure mediocre gameplay and sloppy controls.
Seeing the mess that Lucasarts came up with for FU (a wholly appropriate acronym I might add) makes me appreciate the flawed brilliance of No More Heroes' boss fights even more. The fact that FU for the Wii has a duel mode that is not online-enabled is just another sore spot. Given the sloppiness of the controls, the weak graphics and voice acting, I'm forced to give this title a 5 stars out of 10. The only thing saving it from a lower score is the fun force powers like Choke and Lightning. But not even choking the shit out of a Stormtrooper can make up for the title's shortcomings.
All the stars were aligned. A Star Wars game about Darth Vader's hidden Sith apprentice with customisable force powers, motion-controlled light saber fighting and two-player duels would be the ultimate geek wet dream. But from the very get-go, I was left with a puzzled disappointment. Leaving aside the ultimately irrelevant narrative retcon of the Star Wars mythos, the presentation of the game is mediocre at best. The graphics are not even on par with the better PS2 games, and games like Metroid Prime: Corruption has already ably demonstrated that the system has the horsepower to push some impressive graphics. Yet this title is rife with flat texture works and inconsistent use of lighting and shading. Star destroyers in particular look awful, flat colored polygons with tiny bits of detail and no lighting effects. Yet your character's personal ship has plenty of detail and shading applied. The technical aspects of the system's graphics hardware count for nothing if the artists half-ass their way through the game.
The voice acting suffers from a similar inconsistency. While Vader and the Stormtroopers are certainly well-represented, the main character cannot seem to decide whether to speak with an affected British accent or an accentless American reading. This could all be forgiven if the game play lived up to the potential. Unfortunately, that is the exact area where the game falls apart the worst.
Now I realize that the original Wiimote with the addition of the upcoming MotionPlus attachment is probably not as precise an instrument as I at first thought. But a very flawed game like Red Steel managed to do what a Star Wars game could not, make sword-fighting fun even though the Wiimote does not map 1:1 arm movement onto the screen. Perhaps it was Red Steel's use of first-person perspective as opposed to the FU's 3rd person, a change which makes a big difference in immersion. But I tend to think the reason FU doesn't feel that immersive is because the controls are downright sloppy. Not only does the character not respond in kind to the Wiimotions, I never felt like I needed to do anything more than flail around in order to kill anything but a boss. I am reminded of the typical gameplay of No More Heroes, which was overly boring except on the boss fights. The force powers are fun, but many require motions on the nunchuk that aren't intuitive. The 3rd person camera was one great big bag of dick, constantly flipping around the character unbidden, causing me to lose my target. Though the D-pad allows me to control the camera, the D-pad isn't really well-placed for the kind of quick use I needed to switch the camera in combat situations. The Nunchuk's imprecise analog stick doesn't help in this respect either.
But one of the most irritating things about the game involved the boss fights. Rather than the exciting swingfests of a game like No More Heroes, the boss fights in FU are tedious affairs littered with jarring QTE's (Quicktime events). Rather than relying on the player's skill with the lightsaber and force powers to defeat bosses, every boss has certain stages of health loss that necessitate passing a QTE. Failure results in the boss's health being reset to the last stage. While some games use these effectively (Resident Evil 4 comes to mind), the use of QTE's in FU just breaks what little immersion the game has. Two hours into the game and I decided that I had had enough. The story wasn't interesting enough to endure mediocre gameplay and sloppy controls.
Seeing the mess that Lucasarts came up with for FU (a wholly appropriate acronym I might add) makes me appreciate the flawed brilliance of No More Heroes' boss fights even more. The fact that FU for the Wii has a duel mode that is not online-enabled is just another sore spot. Given the sloppiness of the controls, the weak graphics and voice acting, I'm forced to give this title a 5 stars out of 10. The only thing saving it from a lower score is the fun force powers like Choke and Lightning. But not even choking the shit out of a Stormtrooper can make up for the title's shortcomings.
Labels: Entertainment, George Lucas, Lucasarts, Nintendo, Science-Fiction, Star Wars, Video Games, Wii
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Unfathomable Devolution: Madden NFL '09 (Wii) Review
Posted on
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
It's that time of the year again, that time when the air starts getting colder and football fans everywhere are inevitably disappointed by another year's rehashing of the familiar Madden NFL video game formula. And to celebrate the annual disappointment, it's time for me to review this year's version of that storied, beaten-to-a-pulp franchise for the Wii. Yes, most versions of the game could be reviewed with a simple, one-line hyperlink to archived reviews of a previous year's entry. However, it is an annual tradition, and I feel compelled to offer at least something new on each version that I play, so without further ado, I present my review of Madden NFL '09 for the Nintendo Wii.
This game plays like last year's version, only without some of the bugs that plagued '08.
Wow, that was easy.
With the snarky, obvious joke out of the way, let me delve a bit further into why this game is not worth purchasing. Other than the obvious and completely predictable retreading of the well-worn game engine, there is one great reason not to buy '09. The game has devolved. Yes, they did seem to fix some of the bugs I complained about last season. They did seem to make it a bit easier to tackle and pull off some of the special moves. They even added a great new feature: "Call Your Shot," which allows the player to pause the game at the line of scrimmage, select a receiver and create a route on the fly, allowing a much more flexible form of audibles than in the past (though the audible system is otherwise intact).
But the game has taken a serious turn for the worse in the graphics department. It has literally devolved from a slightly-stylized version of realism into a color-saturated world of brain-stabbing eye pain. 2007's version was what one would expect: an X-Box level graphic treatment of football, complete with shadowing and good texture work. No, the Wii versions will never approach the hi-def level of the 360 and PS3 versions, nor should one expect them to. But this year's version has taken all the depth and "realism" from the textures and instead substituted great swaths of overly bright color. Grass fields look like astroturf carpets, barely indistinguishable from domed stadiums. While this in itself would only be disappointing, their choice of color palettes for screen interface elements exacerbates the problem. Each receiver on pass plays has an icon dictating which button to push to throw to that receiver. However, the icons are not only bright, they are surrounding in neon-colored halos, ostensibly to denote which receiver is actually open. However, the colors chosen are so bright and the field behind them so bright and devoid of texture that the icons just blend into one big mess of indecipherable retina rape. The game looks like a tie-dyed Fisher-Price toy. It's excruciating. Fortunately, I can safely say that comparisons to '07's graphics prove that it isn't because the hardware can't handle decent graphics, it's because of a conscious decision on the part of the art directors at EA Sports.
This art direction has been evident in last year's FIFA product, and it has to stop. While it's perfectly acceptable to use this style in the Mii-inspired mini-games like the 5-on-5 game added to NFL '09, it is absolutely unacceptable in the regular game. Not only does it make the game ugly, it makes the game unnecessarily difficult to play. It makes the player fight the interface, which the Wii-mote is supposed to alleviate. I've seen EA Sports teams do better - the PS2 version of FIFA 08 is a perfect example. I don't know if the art style is meant to be "casual-friendly" (it's not) or just to follow what they consider a Wii-themed branding, but it has to stop. As I said in the FIFA 08 review, these games have built-in audiences that expect certain things. Adding mini-games to attract a wider audience is fine. Fucking up a game's interface in some retarded attempt to attract a wider audience that alienates previous fans of the series is destined for failure.
As a result of their design choices, I was unable to finish two full games. Had I spent full price on the game, I'd have been extremely pissed. The game has devolved from a reasonably decent version of videogame football into a cockup that isn't worth a rental. I did not get to the Online or 5-on-5 modes or any of the other new modes in the game, because the basic gameplay was just so offputting. If you can manage the retinal assault of their awful art design, the game is probably just as good as last year's version with fewer bugs. But if bright colors cause you physical pain, avoid Madden NFL '09. Your eyes will thank you.
This game plays like last year's version, only without some of the bugs that plagued '08.
Wow, that was easy.
With the snarky, obvious joke out of the way, let me delve a bit further into why this game is not worth purchasing. Other than the obvious and completely predictable retreading of the well-worn game engine, there is one great reason not to buy '09. The game has devolved. Yes, they did seem to fix some of the bugs I complained about last season. They did seem to make it a bit easier to tackle and pull off some of the special moves. They even added a great new feature: "Call Your Shot," which allows the player to pause the game at the line of scrimmage, select a receiver and create a route on the fly, allowing a much more flexible form of audibles than in the past (though the audible system is otherwise intact).
But the game has taken a serious turn for the worse in the graphics department. It has literally devolved from a slightly-stylized version of realism into a color-saturated world of brain-stabbing eye pain. 2007's version was what one would expect: an X-Box level graphic treatment of football, complete with shadowing and good texture work. No, the Wii versions will never approach the hi-def level of the 360 and PS3 versions, nor should one expect them to. But this year's version has taken all the depth and "realism" from the textures and instead substituted great swaths of overly bright color. Grass fields look like astroturf carpets, barely indistinguishable from domed stadiums. While this in itself would only be disappointing, their choice of color palettes for screen interface elements exacerbates the problem. Each receiver on pass plays has an icon dictating which button to push to throw to that receiver. However, the icons are not only bright, they are surrounding in neon-colored halos, ostensibly to denote which receiver is actually open. However, the colors chosen are so bright and the field behind them so bright and devoid of texture that the icons just blend into one big mess of indecipherable retina rape. The game looks like a tie-dyed Fisher-Price toy. It's excruciating. Fortunately, I can safely say that comparisons to '07's graphics prove that it isn't because the hardware can't handle decent graphics, it's because of a conscious decision on the part of the art directors at EA Sports.
This art direction has been evident in last year's FIFA product, and it has to stop. While it's perfectly acceptable to use this style in the Mii-inspired mini-games like the 5-on-5 game added to NFL '09, it is absolutely unacceptable in the regular game. Not only does it make the game ugly, it makes the game unnecessarily difficult to play. It makes the player fight the interface, which the Wii-mote is supposed to alleviate. I've seen EA Sports teams do better - the PS2 version of FIFA 08 is a perfect example. I don't know if the art style is meant to be "casual-friendly" (it's not) or just to follow what they consider a Wii-themed branding, but it has to stop. As I said in the FIFA 08 review, these games have built-in audiences that expect certain things. Adding mini-games to attract a wider audience is fine. Fucking up a game's interface in some retarded attempt to attract a wider audience that alienates previous fans of the series is destined for failure.
As a result of their design choices, I was unable to finish two full games. Had I spent full price on the game, I'd have been extremely pissed. The game has devolved from a reasonably decent version of videogame football into a cockup that isn't worth a rental. I did not get to the Online or 5-on-5 modes or any of the other new modes in the game, because the basic gameplay was just so offputting. If you can manage the retinal assault of their awful art design, the game is probably just as good as last year's version with fewer bugs. But if bright colors cause you physical pain, avoid Madden NFL '09. Your eyes will thank you.
Labels: Madden, NFL, Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:30 AM
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Circling the Bases: MLB 2k8 Baseball (Wii) Review
Posted on
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Since the demise of the High Heat Baseball franchise and my adoption of the console as my platform of choice for yearly baseball video games fix, the MLB 2k series of games has been outstanding. Though not always the prettiest or most bug-free, the series has generally been the best action-oriented baseball simulation on the market. But after the abysmal failure that was The Bigs for the Nintendo Wii by the same development studio, I had my doubts about the Wii version of MLB 2k8. If the game had adapted the execrable interface and sloppy controls of the arcadey The Bigs, it would have been a dramatic failure. I'm delighted to report that is not the case, as the 2k8 version of the series holds its own with any of its predecessors.
Those interested in an action-oriented sim with licensed player names and stats will not be disappointed with this game. Those looking for a solid, fun baseball experience will also not be disappointed. The stats are all there, the graphics are decent though not incredible, which is par for the course with this series. It contains season and franchise modes as well as home run derby minigames. It unfortunately lacks online play for those who want that sort of thing. But like any Wii game, the first question to answer is about the motion controls.
2k8's motion controls are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the pitching interface is slick and intuitive, and unlike The Bigs, doesn't make the player feel the need to strain his shoulder throwing as hard as possible. Someone with any knowledge of pitching at all should handle the pitching controls easily. The catcher will place his glove where he wants the ball pitched, and the pitcher should try to match that, as his advice is sound.
But where the game stumbles a bit is in the batting interface. This is completely puzzling to me, because it would seem that batting would be the no-brainer for this system. Wii Sports' baseball had the batting swing interface down, and this game doesn't really capture the same feel. Rather than feeling the need to stand in a batter's stance and swing for the fences, the game's controls inspire only small flicking motions. There is a disconnect between the swing and the screen that is hard to pinpoint but it creates a noticeable distance from the game that shouldn't be there. I want to make clear that the batting controls aren't bad at all. They just lack the oomph I expected out of a title with a motion-sensing stick as its main form of input. The fielding, throwing, and baserunning are all solid, and the management options in exhibition and franchise modes are as strong as the last version I played, MLB 2k6 for the XBox.
The game also stumbles on a part of the design that I'm finding is difficult for all Wii titles, the menu system. The 2k8 menus all use the shiny glass button art style that is so prevalent in Wii titles, probably because it mimics the look of the systems main console, the Wii Menu. Unfortunately, this art style is carried through all of the menus, including the screens that display stats. Baseball is a stat-heavy game, and just making up a lineup can require looking through multiple stat categories for the entire bench team. All of it is rendered with entirely too much graphical polish. Too much effort is expended on making the menus look shiny, while the information contained within is often cramped and requires side-scrolling to read properly. Baseball stats are usually presented horizontally and so much screen real estate is needlessly wasted, making menus take longer to read than necessary. Unfortunately, this is a problem in multiple Wii titles, especially sports titles like all of the EA Sports titles I've reviewed, including NBA Live '08, FIFA '08 and Madden NFL '08. I can't say whether this is a Nintendo mandate or just bad UI design, but it's becoming quite irritating.
Despite these flaws, MLB 2k8 is a damn fine game of baseball, the first good serious sports sim on the system. I would recommend it for anyone who wants a good baseball game for their Wii. The game deserves an 8.5 out of 10 for its depth of play, quality of presentation and fun mechanics. Perhaps next year's version will include online play and even online leagues. Until then, MLB 2k8 is a fine addition to any Wii sports fan's library.
Those interested in an action-oriented sim with licensed player names and stats will not be disappointed with this game. Those looking for a solid, fun baseball experience will also not be disappointed. The stats are all there, the graphics are decent though not incredible, which is par for the course with this series. It contains season and franchise modes as well as home run derby minigames. It unfortunately lacks online play for those who want that sort of thing. But like any Wii game, the first question to answer is about the motion controls.
2k8's motion controls are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the pitching interface is slick and intuitive, and unlike The Bigs, doesn't make the player feel the need to strain his shoulder throwing as hard as possible. Someone with any knowledge of pitching at all should handle the pitching controls easily. The catcher will place his glove where he wants the ball pitched, and the pitcher should try to match that, as his advice is sound.
But where the game stumbles a bit is in the batting interface. This is completely puzzling to me, because it would seem that batting would be the no-brainer for this system. Wii Sports' baseball had the batting swing interface down, and this game doesn't really capture the same feel. Rather than feeling the need to stand in a batter's stance and swing for the fences, the game's controls inspire only small flicking motions. There is a disconnect between the swing and the screen that is hard to pinpoint but it creates a noticeable distance from the game that shouldn't be there. I want to make clear that the batting controls aren't bad at all. They just lack the oomph I expected out of a title with a motion-sensing stick as its main form of input. The fielding, throwing, and baserunning are all solid, and the management options in exhibition and franchise modes are as strong as the last version I played, MLB 2k6 for the XBox.
The game also stumbles on a part of the design that I'm finding is difficult for all Wii titles, the menu system. The 2k8 menus all use the shiny glass button art style that is so prevalent in Wii titles, probably because it mimics the look of the systems main console, the Wii Menu. Unfortunately, this art style is carried through all of the menus, including the screens that display stats. Baseball is a stat-heavy game, and just making up a lineup can require looking through multiple stat categories for the entire bench team. All of it is rendered with entirely too much graphical polish. Too much effort is expended on making the menus look shiny, while the information contained within is often cramped and requires side-scrolling to read properly. Baseball stats are usually presented horizontally and so much screen real estate is needlessly wasted, making menus take longer to read than necessary. Unfortunately, this is a problem in multiple Wii titles, especially sports titles like all of the EA Sports titles I've reviewed, including NBA Live '08, FIFA '08 and Madden NFL '08. I can't say whether this is a Nintendo mandate or just bad UI design, but it's becoming quite irritating.
Despite these flaws, MLB 2k8 is a damn fine game of baseball, the first good serious sports sim on the system. I would recommend it for anyone who wants a good baseball game for their Wii. The game deserves an 8.5 out of 10 for its depth of play, quality of presentation and fun mechanics. Perhaps next year's version will include online play and even online leagues. Until then, MLB 2k8 is a fine addition to any Wii sports fan's library.
Labels: Baseball, MLB, Nintendo, Sports, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 3:28 PM
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Wooo-hoooo!!! Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) Review
Posted on
Friday, March 14, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
I am not a fan of the Mario Bros. series of games. Yes, I'm old enough to have played the original Donkey Kong in arcades when it was brand spanking new. I've played Super Mario on the original NES and Super Mario World on the Super NES. But I never really liked platform jumping games, probably because I suck so horribly at platform jumping. I always preferred the Sonic or Crash Bandicoot games over Mario if I wanted to indulge in that kind of gameplay, but only rarely and without any real zeal. When Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii came up in my queue, it was the kind of game I wanted to play if only to review it for this blog. What I found was an incredibly surprising game, the kind of innovative take on an old genre that is so fun, the game transcends its genre trappings.
Super Mario Galaxy is about something. There's a story involving Princess Peach being kidnapped by Bowser again, but really, the story is about as coherent as an acid trip. For this type of game, story is essentially a meaningless contextualizing of the natural imperative to finish the level. The game would be just as entertaining with or without the story. Like most of the other first-party Wii games, such as Metroid Prime: Corruption, or The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, this game is really a puzzle game masquerading as a platform jumper. Mario is sent to different galaxies, most of which are mini-planetoids floating in space. Mario must find his way to unlock the planetoid, which will either allow him to move to another planetoid or rescue one of the Power Stars he is sent to collect. Getting the power star finishes the galaxy, or in the case of multi-star galaxies, it opens up another set of planetoids.
The planetoid designs are fantastic. Each is an almost perfectly-sized morsel of fun, with some inventive puzzles that challenging, sometimes mentally, sometimes physically. The game isn't a HARD game, per se, as its gameplay is simplistic enough for all ages. The motion-controls are used sparingly, so that the game doesn't really give much of a workout except on some rare planetoids. But it will make you think about how to navigate through the puzzles or beat the bosses. The game's level design and gameplay philosophy remind me of Valve's Portal because of how different from other games of its apparent genre it really is. Though I think Portal is a better game, mainly because its FPS genre trappings are more my style than platform jumping, Galaxy is still one of the best games I've played on the Wii.
Graphically, the game is gorgeous, proving once again that High-Definition graphics are not necessary to make a good game. Walking about on the planetoids isn't quite dizzying, but the way in which the topsy-turvy gravity of the planetoids is implemented makes the game much more immersive than a non-first-person game should be. The sound is also top-notch, though Mario's "Wooo-hoooo!" has always grated on my nerves. My one complaint about the game is that the Wii's nunchuk analog stick can sometimes feel a little uncomfortable over long periods of play, though that's hardly the game's fault.
Super Mario Galaxy is one of those "tons of fun in small, easily digestible chunks" games, and as such is as close to a must-buy game on the system as there can be. I would rate the game as a 9.2 out of 10, because it just really is that much fun. Though I didn't finish the game, it was only because of the release of a real baseball game on the Wii (MLB 2k8 which I will be reviewing). I plan on putting the game back in my queue at a later time to continue my star collection.
Super Mario Galaxy is about something. There's a story involving Princess Peach being kidnapped by Bowser again, but really, the story is about as coherent as an acid trip. For this type of game, story is essentially a meaningless contextualizing of the natural imperative to finish the level. The game would be just as entertaining with or without the story. Like most of the other first-party Wii games, such as Metroid Prime: Corruption, or The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, this game is really a puzzle game masquerading as a platform jumper. Mario is sent to different galaxies, most of which are mini-planetoids floating in space. Mario must find his way to unlock the planetoid, which will either allow him to move to another planetoid or rescue one of the Power Stars he is sent to collect. Getting the power star finishes the galaxy, or in the case of multi-star galaxies, it opens up another set of planetoids.
The planetoid designs are fantastic. Each is an almost perfectly-sized morsel of fun, with some inventive puzzles that challenging, sometimes mentally, sometimes physically. The game isn't a HARD game, per se, as its gameplay is simplistic enough for all ages. The motion-controls are used sparingly, so that the game doesn't really give much of a workout except on some rare planetoids. But it will make you think about how to navigate through the puzzles or beat the bosses. The game's level design and gameplay philosophy remind me of Valve's Portal because of how different from other games of its apparent genre it really is. Though I think Portal is a better game, mainly because its FPS genre trappings are more my style than platform jumping, Galaxy is still one of the best games I've played on the Wii.
Graphically, the game is gorgeous, proving once again that High-Definition graphics are not necessary to make a good game. Walking about on the planetoids isn't quite dizzying, but the way in which the topsy-turvy gravity of the planetoids is implemented makes the game much more immersive than a non-first-person game should be. The sound is also top-notch, though Mario's "Wooo-hoooo!" has always grated on my nerves. My one complaint about the game is that the Wii's nunchuk analog stick can sometimes feel a little uncomfortable over long periods of play, though that's hardly the game's fault.
Super Mario Galaxy is one of those "tons of fun in small, easily digestible chunks" games, and as such is as close to a must-buy game on the system as there can be. I would rate the game as a 9.2 out of 10, because it just really is that much fun. Though I didn't finish the game, it was only because of the release of a real baseball game on the Wii (MLB 2k8 which I will be reviewing). I plan on putting the game back in my queue at a later time to continue my star collection.
Labels: Mario, Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:46 AM
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Dribbling for Dullards: NBA Live 08 (Wii) Review
Posted on
Friday, February 15, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
I am not a fan of the current incarnation of the NBA and am not a fan of basketball in general. My first exposure to the game in over a decade came during last year's NBA Finals, and only because my favorite player LeBron James had made it to the championship series. As a result, a "casual-focused" NBA action simulation game should be right up my alley. The Wii version of NBA Live 08 from EA Sports should be that game. The fact that it isn't highlights the defects of the EA Sports' overall design philosophy for Wii games. In short, they are designing dumbed down, barely-interactive imitations of their popular series from other platforms, and doing it quite badly.
This review will be similar to the review I gave of FIFA 08 last year, because that game shares so many similarities with this one, as well as with Madden 08. Though NBA Live 08 does not share the bugs of Madden, all three games use the exact same menu system, a menu system that blows like Orca. While the menus are pretty, they are horribly slow, and often deliberately short of necessary information. For instance, during season mode, trading a player or signing a free agent is an exercise in frustration. The player cannot sort the columns of information, so that searching for a Point Guard with an overall rating of 70 or higher means sifting through every single player until that point guard is found. For the free agent list, that is over 50 players to sort through, with a painfully slow scroll feature. Once a player is selected, there is no additional information about that player beyond his name, position and overall rating. No biographical information, no age, no breakdown of his skills, just an overall rating. The information is there, as it shows up on team roster screens, so why isn't it available when scouting the player?
Like FIFA, the game is incredibly light on the typical game modes expected of an EA Sports title, or any "serious" sports title for that matter. There are exhibition games, the casual "Party" mini-games, season, playoffs and tournament modes, as well as online games. Unlike the other versions of the title, there is no dynasty mode, which is what most fans of this type of game will want to play. What's so galling about the exclusion of Dynasty mode is that there really is no design needed on such a mode, since it's been in previous versions of the title for years as well as current versions on other platforms. It's an infuriating design decision. Just as with FIFA 08, the target audience for this type of game is going to be fans of the previous games in the series and people who are NBA fans. Dynasty mode is exactly what those fans will come to expect, and any game that does not contain it will be considered inferior. It's almost as if the designers at EA don't want people to purchase the game for the Wii, which is ludicrous and bordering on tinfoil hat territory.
But beyond all the extra modes expected of a franchise such as this, how does the on-court action perform? That's a mixed bag. On the one hand, the game is fun, more so than FIFA 08 and with fewer bugs than Madden 08. Here to, the game fails at the fundamental design level. Like the other EA Sports titles, NBA Live includes a "Family Play" option, something EA Sports has touted as a means of balancing the game among different skill levels. Younger kids or less accomplished gamers can use the Family Play controls, which only use the Wiimote to pass, shoot and play some defense, while more skilled gamers use the advanced controls which adds the nunchuk and the ability to control the players' movements. I applaud the concept. However, the actual design and execution falls well short of the stated goal. Rather than evening the balance, it hamstrings the more accomplished player by removing options. The advanced player feels disconnected from the actions on the screen, mainly because there are so few actions the player can perform when compared to other games of this type on other platforms.
Motion-sensitive controls are supposed to be about immersing the player deeper into the game by mimicing real-life motions. Mapping the game's controls to the restrictive nature of the Family Play set of controls actually makes the player feel less immersed, because of how little freedom with shot selection, shot skill and juke moves the controls allow. Once the basic controls are mastered, there don't seem to be anywhere else for the player to improve, and his actions feel divorced from the actions the players are peforming onscreen. FIFA 08 suffered from the same problem, and it is a fundamental flaw of the Family Play design. If EA wishes to target sports games to a younger, less savvy audience, it would seem to make more sense not to use the existing "hardcore" NBA Live franchise to do so. For myself, it leads me to prefer to purchase the game on the PS2, which is disappointing in the extreme. Motion controls are supposed to make the Wii version preferable, because of how much more immersive they can make the game, and EA Sports has failed miserably time and time again.
It's high time that the EA Sports Wii division be replaced from the top-down with those who understand that existing franchises come with expectations that are not being met. I shudder to think of how badly this design philosophy would diminish the NHL franchise. Sports gamers who want serious sports games on the Wii are being criminially underserved. I would rate NBA Live 08 a 6 out of 10, only worth purchasing in the bargain bin by people who care nothing about NBA seasons and just want a midly fun, 30-minute basketball-flavored diversion.
This review will be similar to the review I gave of FIFA 08 last year, because that game shares so many similarities with this one, as well as with Madden 08. Though NBA Live 08 does not share the bugs of Madden, all three games use the exact same menu system, a menu system that blows like Orca. While the menus are pretty, they are horribly slow, and often deliberately short of necessary information. For instance, during season mode, trading a player or signing a free agent is an exercise in frustration. The player cannot sort the columns of information, so that searching for a Point Guard with an overall rating of 70 or higher means sifting through every single player until that point guard is found. For the free agent list, that is over 50 players to sort through, with a painfully slow scroll feature. Once a player is selected, there is no additional information about that player beyond his name, position and overall rating. No biographical information, no age, no breakdown of his skills, just an overall rating. The information is there, as it shows up on team roster screens, so why isn't it available when scouting the player?
Like FIFA, the game is incredibly light on the typical game modes expected of an EA Sports title, or any "serious" sports title for that matter. There are exhibition games, the casual "Party" mini-games, season, playoffs and tournament modes, as well as online games. Unlike the other versions of the title, there is no dynasty mode, which is what most fans of this type of game will want to play. What's so galling about the exclusion of Dynasty mode is that there really is no design needed on such a mode, since it's been in previous versions of the title for years as well as current versions on other platforms. It's an infuriating design decision. Just as with FIFA 08, the target audience for this type of game is going to be fans of the previous games in the series and people who are NBA fans. Dynasty mode is exactly what those fans will come to expect, and any game that does not contain it will be considered inferior. It's almost as if the designers at EA don't want people to purchase the game for the Wii, which is ludicrous and bordering on tinfoil hat territory.
But beyond all the extra modes expected of a franchise such as this, how does the on-court action perform? That's a mixed bag. On the one hand, the game is fun, more so than FIFA 08 and with fewer bugs than Madden 08. Here to, the game fails at the fundamental design level. Like the other EA Sports titles, NBA Live includes a "Family Play" option, something EA Sports has touted as a means of balancing the game among different skill levels. Younger kids or less accomplished gamers can use the Family Play controls, which only use the Wiimote to pass, shoot and play some defense, while more skilled gamers use the advanced controls which adds the nunchuk and the ability to control the players' movements. I applaud the concept. However, the actual design and execution falls well short of the stated goal. Rather than evening the balance, it hamstrings the more accomplished player by removing options. The advanced player feels disconnected from the actions on the screen, mainly because there are so few actions the player can perform when compared to other games of this type on other platforms.
Motion-sensitive controls are supposed to be about immersing the player deeper into the game by mimicing real-life motions. Mapping the game's controls to the restrictive nature of the Family Play set of controls actually makes the player feel less immersed, because of how little freedom with shot selection, shot skill and juke moves the controls allow. Once the basic controls are mastered, there don't seem to be anywhere else for the player to improve, and his actions feel divorced from the actions the players are peforming onscreen. FIFA 08 suffered from the same problem, and it is a fundamental flaw of the Family Play design. If EA wishes to target sports games to a younger, less savvy audience, it would seem to make more sense not to use the existing "hardcore" NBA Live franchise to do so. For myself, it leads me to prefer to purchase the game on the PS2, which is disappointing in the extreme. Motion controls are supposed to make the Wii version preferable, because of how much more immersive they can make the game, and EA Sports has failed miserably time and time again.
It's high time that the EA Sports Wii division be replaced from the top-down with those who understand that existing franchises come with expectations that are not being met. I shudder to think of how badly this design philosophy would diminish the NHL franchise. Sports gamers who want serious sports games on the Wii are being criminially underserved. I would rate NBA Live 08 a 6 out of 10, only worth purchasing in the bargain bin by people who care nothing about NBA seasons and just want a midly fun, 30-minute basketball-flavored diversion.
Labels: Basketball, EA Sports, NBA, Nintendo, Sports, Video Games, Wii
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Beautiful Puzzles: Metroid Prime Corruption (Wii) Review
Posted on
Friday, January 18, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Having never played the Metroid Prime series on the GameCube, or any Metroid games at all, I came into Metroid Prime Corruption for the Nintendo Wii with a completely blank slate. The only preconceived notions I had going in were that the game was a pretty, neon-infested first-person shooter sequel which had garnered rave reviews in previous incarnations. Those notions were somewhat incorrect. While the game appears on the surface to be a first-person shooter, it is really much more.
At heart, Corruption is a puzzle game, masquerading as an action-adventure shooter. The game does look and play like a shooter, but the shooting is secondary to the real fun in the game, the various puzzles embedded into the landscape surrounding the main character. Dressed up by a story involving an alien race called space pirates and their attacks on the Galactic Federation, the story is a thin context for the conflict that drives the player forward. While the story is good, it's certainly not deep, reminiscent of many anime movies. There are parts of the story that do not resolve to any coherent conclusion such as the origin of Dark Samus, the player's evil counterpart, but overall the story is satisfactory. The voice acting is solid throughout, and the visual effects and cutscenes are well-done. The game itself is gorgeous, with a distinctive style that leans heavily on the neon. It is easily on par with the best-looking games on the system, like Zelda: Twilight Princess.
The gameplay itself is spectacular. As I mentioned above, the shooting is secondary to the main gameplay element. Using the Wii Remote as an aiming device, the aiming is precise and can be augmented with a target lock (though the player must still aim at the enemies). Beyond the aiming, there isn't a lot of "waggle" gameplay. The only other use of the motion controls is the use of the electro-grapple, which uses the nunchuk to control an electromagnetic whip, but it's used well. The game's puzzles are fantastic. Most are decipherable with the visual context given, but there were a number of puzzles that caused me to go to Gamefaqs to solve. The puzzles are fun, though I wonder about a world that builds structures that require a person to roll themselves into an armored spheroid in order to power gigantic machines. In the context of the game, it all makes a weird sort of sense, and the armorball gameplay is an interesting mechanic, though I certainly prefer the upright gameplay over the marble madness.
The exclusion of an online multiplayer function, which had been rumored as a feature months before release, is a damn shame. The dynamics of the electro-grapple and armor ball would likely make for some incredibly interesting multiplayer combinations, both in team-based and deathmatch-style games. Hopefully the design team will consider that and come back with a less expensive online-only Metroid game in the future (but I won't hold my breath for that). As it is, the game has between 15-20 hours of gameplay and a low replay value. Finishing the main story opens up a "Hypermode" difficulty, giving those who enjoy replaying the same game on a higher difficulty some replay value.
Overall, the game serves as a great reason to own a Wii. While certainly not a perfect game, Corruption proves that the system can combine gorgeous graphics with solid gameplay and subtle yet appropriate uses of the motion controls. I would rate the game an 8.5 out of 10, certainly worth a purchase or a very long rental.
At heart, Corruption is a puzzle game, masquerading as an action-adventure shooter. The game does look and play like a shooter, but the shooting is secondary to the real fun in the game, the various puzzles embedded into the landscape surrounding the main character. Dressed up by a story involving an alien race called space pirates and their attacks on the Galactic Federation, the story is a thin context for the conflict that drives the player forward. While the story is good, it's certainly not deep, reminiscent of many anime movies. There are parts of the story that do not resolve to any coherent conclusion such as the origin of Dark Samus, the player's evil counterpart, but overall the story is satisfactory. The voice acting is solid throughout, and the visual effects and cutscenes are well-done. The game itself is gorgeous, with a distinctive style that leans heavily on the neon. It is easily on par with the best-looking games on the system, like Zelda: Twilight Princess.
The gameplay itself is spectacular. As I mentioned above, the shooting is secondary to the main gameplay element. Using the Wii Remote as an aiming device, the aiming is precise and can be augmented with a target lock (though the player must still aim at the enemies). Beyond the aiming, there isn't a lot of "waggle" gameplay. The only other use of the motion controls is the use of the electro-grapple, which uses the nunchuk to control an electromagnetic whip, but it's used well. The game's puzzles are fantastic. Most are decipherable with the visual context given, but there were a number of puzzles that caused me to go to Gamefaqs to solve. The puzzles are fun, though I wonder about a world that builds structures that require a person to roll themselves into an armored spheroid in order to power gigantic machines. In the context of the game, it all makes a weird sort of sense, and the armorball gameplay is an interesting mechanic, though I certainly prefer the upright gameplay over the marble madness.
The exclusion of an online multiplayer function, which had been rumored as a feature months before release, is a damn shame. The dynamics of the electro-grapple and armor ball would likely make for some incredibly interesting multiplayer combinations, both in team-based and deathmatch-style games. Hopefully the design team will consider that and come back with a less expensive online-only Metroid game in the future (but I won't hold my breath for that). As it is, the game has between 15-20 hours of gameplay and a low replay value. Finishing the main story opens up a "Hypermode" difficulty, giving those who enjoy replaying the same game on a higher difficulty some replay value.
Overall, the game serves as a great reason to own a Wii. While certainly not a perfect game, Corruption proves that the system can combine gorgeous graphics with solid gameplay and subtle yet appropriate uses of the motion controls. I would rate the game an 8.5 out of 10, certainly worth a purchase or a very long rental.
Labels: Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 8:51 AM
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Why Bother? Driver: Parallel Lines (Wii) Review
Posted on
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
This review will likely take more time to write than it took me to play Driver: Parallel Lines for the Wii. The lack of time spent on both playing and writing isn't to say the game is short, because I've no idea how short the game is. What the game is can be shortened into an acronym: YASP, which stands for Yet Another Shitty Port. The review is short because I couldn't stand to play this game for more than twenty minutes and neither should anyone else.
Not having played any of the previous Driver games, I can't comment on how it compares to the rest of the series. It bears a startling similarity to the Grand Theft Auto series of games, complete with Pulp Fiction-esque cinematics. The story follows a young driver in 1970's New York, just a wacky guy who takes odd jobs being the getaway driver for all manner of criminal enterprises. The game part of this story involves stealing cars, driving the cars around to various waypoints and evading the police to complete whatever mission is presented to the player.
All of that might be fun, if it weren't for the controls. The game is a wasteful mess, a good concept wrapped around sloppy, sluggish controls. Driving is an exercise in frustration, using the Nunchuk's analog stick to terrible effect. The stick is unresponsive and hard to use, as if the developers didn't want to bother tweaking the software to respond to this particular set of hardware. In the short time I played, I found no use of the Wii's motion controls at all. Given how badly the analog stick was utilized, I should probably be thankful I wasn't forced to use bad waggle just to justify the game's existence on the Wii.
In short, the game is a terrible, terrible port that is a complete waste of a DVD. No one should buy, rent or play this game. It is a YASP of the lowest kind, yet another shitty port that disrespects the system and its fans.
Not having played any of the previous Driver games, I can't comment on how it compares to the rest of the series. It bears a startling similarity to the Grand Theft Auto series of games, complete with Pulp Fiction-esque cinematics. The story follows a young driver in 1970's New York, just a wacky guy who takes odd jobs being the getaway driver for all manner of criminal enterprises. The game part of this story involves stealing cars, driving the cars around to various waypoints and evading the police to complete whatever mission is presented to the player.
All of that might be fun, if it weren't for the controls. The game is a wasteful mess, a good concept wrapped around sloppy, sluggish controls. Driving is an exercise in frustration, using the Nunchuk's analog stick to terrible effect. The stick is unresponsive and hard to use, as if the developers didn't want to bother tweaking the software to respond to this particular set of hardware. In the short time I played, I found no use of the Wii's motion controls at all. Given how badly the analog stick was utilized, I should probably be thankful I wasn't forced to use bad waggle just to justify the game's existence on the Wii.
In short, the game is a terrible, terrible port that is a complete waste of a DVD. No one should buy, rent or play this game. It is a YASP of the lowest kind, yet another shitty port that disrespects the system and its fans.
Labels: Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 8:15 PM
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A Kick in the Balls: Fifa Soccer 08 (Wii) Review Turns into a Rant
Posted on
Monday, October 15, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Fifa Soccer 07 for the X-Box, while flawed, was the game I played the most over the last year. The game was not perfect, nor was it a completely realistic simulation of football, and yet its outstanding action play, its deep managerial simulation and plethora of club and international teams and leagues was overwhelming. Most sports video games wear out their welcome by the second or third month of play, often before I've even finished an entire season, but not Fifa 07. When my X-Box finally died, I spent a few weeks missing the game, and eventually ended up purchasing a copy of the Gamecube version to play on my Wii to tide me over until the 08 version showed up for the Wii. It was with a great deal of breathless anticipation that I looked forward to seeing an updated, motion-controlled version of one of my favorite sports video games of all time. In the weeks before its release, however, I began to get worried. My fears were justified. EA Sports has kicked me in the balls.
My first pangs of worry came from the release of Madden NFL 08 for the Wii. My review was not as harsh as it should have been. Madden's flaws were evident when writing the review, but the flaws became so much more obvious and galling after I wrote the review. It was the kind of piss-poor execution of an existing franchise that familiarity bred the ultimate contempt. I would actually downgrade my assessment of the game to the point that I would consider it unworthy of a purchase. It is incredibly buggy, its online play is atrocious, its controls less precise than the previous year's version, which is ridiculous considering the 07 version was a Wii launch title. The game might at first appear to be worth a 7 out of 10, but eventually it wears one's patience down to a 5. The lack of any patching options on the Wii, as well as EA Sports' decision to ignore the Wii audience's demands for a roster update leads me to label Madden as shovelware.
But Fifa Soccer 08 for the Wii is worse. Initial reports suggested that many of the game modes available in other versions of the game would not make it to the Wii, including my personal robot jesus mode, Manager mode. While this worried me, I was determined to purchase the game. It still had season and tournament modes, I would tell myself, so perhaps those modes would be acceptable. They weren't. The extra play modes for the Wii version are so thin, the game feels like it was released in 2003. While all the teams and leagues make it on the disc, they are mostly just window dressing without the manager mode. It might have been acceptable in the '90's to play a season without any way to transfer players between teams, but in 2007, that's a feature that cannot be dropped. And what was it dropped for? Footi Party, a series of three shallow multiplayer mini-games hosted by a horse-toothed Mii version of Ronaldhino. While I applaud the addition of these type of party games, they are in no way deep enough to warrant a purchase by casual players who weren't already interested in a new Fifa game. The Table Football (Foosball) is a fun diversion, while the other games are somewhat weak, and none make up for the loss of manager mode.
But how does the real game, the game on the field play out? It drowns in mediocrity. While the graphics are updated from the GameCube version (though not as realistic as the X-Box version) with appropriate shininess, the controls are weak. Player movement feels entirely too sloppy, especially on defense. The AI on Semi-Pro difficulty was rarely a challenge. The most important aspect of gameplay, the motion controls, were spotty and imprecise. Although one can use a Wiimote waggle to pass, it isn't necessary and thus feels tacked on. Crossing and shooting was a mixed bag of up or down Wiimote thrusts. It appeared that instead of the granularity of normal power bars, motion controls only offered four different strengths of shot or cross. Tricks are accomplished with button presses and waggles, but the motions were sloppily implemented and difficult to choose. While the gameplay wasn't bad, it wasn't great either. The motion controls were useless tack-ons, imparting no immersion whatsoever. Like all too many shovelware games from the big publishers for the Wii, the waggle seemed to be used for no other reason than to tout waggle.
This is the thing that gets me most ranty. Not only is the game lacking in critical features, not only is the motion control poorly implemented, but the developers couldn't even get the basics down. The menus are incredibly laggy, especially in the roster view. Each player's stamina, which must be viewed during a game to help determine substitutions, is only shown by selecting the player, which is in itself a slow, tedious task because the screen hitches for a second before updating with the selected player. In other versions, the stamina is shown in the roster list. Perhaps the developers felt that Wii players wouldn't substitute, but even in season management menus, game mode menus, really every menu in the game is a laggy mess. If one were to wear a tinfoil hat, one would think EA Sports WANTS the Wii to fail to sell games. Given EA Sports' obvious choice of the 360 as its promotional tool, that idea is not too far-fetched.
This game is a failure in every sense of the word. It is a gimped, shovelware version of a fantastic franchise and the developers should be ashamed of how little effort is exhibited. The game's very design is fundamentally flawed. I've been a champion of the Wii's ability to draw in non-gamers and casual gamers with its intuitive motion controls. Adding casual games such as the Footi Party to Fifa 08 is a good idea, unless of course, it means removing features that fans of the series have come to expect. Fifa 08 is not a new game, it's an upgrade to an existing popular franchise, and as such, the developers have an obligation to target the design for the franchise's past audience first. Not only have they not done that, they've designed the game so badly, even casual players will have no reason to pick the game up. The addition of waggles controls without any real good reason to add them further compounds the problem. And finally, the game doesn't even allow the player to set up their own control scheme, which means the customer can't customise their experience to their own level of comfort. Rather than make the game more accessible to those outside the core audience, they've made it less accessible to those customers most likely to purchase the game in the first place.
Someone in the Wii division of EA Games needs to de-assify their head. Adding casual gamers to the development target audience does not mean purposefully forgetting everything that made their games successful in the first place. It means expanding the genres for development, and expanding the intuitive nature of the game's controls. I hope that someone in managment reads this review and dickslaps every person involved in the development of the EA Sports games for the Wii, because I'm not sure anything but genitalia across the chops is going to sink in.
The final indignity is my own reaction to the failure of this game. Like a true addict, instead of putting the game away and never speaking of it again, I traded it and Madden in for credit, which allowed me to buy a PS2 and the PS2 version of Fifa 08. Yes, I am a complete fucking tool, but I must have my Fifa. And now EA and Sony both win, despite doing nothing to deserve it. But at least the PS2 version has manager mode and plays well. I think I'll need to watch an Uwe Boll movie. I've already taken two kicks to the balls, I might as well complete the trifecta.
My first pangs of worry came from the release of Madden NFL 08 for the Wii. My review was not as harsh as it should have been. Madden's flaws were evident when writing the review, but the flaws became so much more obvious and galling after I wrote the review. It was the kind of piss-poor execution of an existing franchise that familiarity bred the ultimate contempt. I would actually downgrade my assessment of the game to the point that I would consider it unworthy of a purchase. It is incredibly buggy, its online play is atrocious, its controls less precise than the previous year's version, which is ridiculous considering the 07 version was a Wii launch title. The game might at first appear to be worth a 7 out of 10, but eventually it wears one's patience down to a 5. The lack of any patching options on the Wii, as well as EA Sports' decision to ignore the Wii audience's demands for a roster update leads me to label Madden as shovelware.
But Fifa Soccer 08 for the Wii is worse. Initial reports suggested that many of the game modes available in other versions of the game would not make it to the Wii, including my personal robot jesus mode, Manager mode. While this worried me, I was determined to purchase the game. It still had season and tournament modes, I would tell myself, so perhaps those modes would be acceptable. They weren't. The extra play modes for the Wii version are so thin, the game feels like it was released in 2003. While all the teams and leagues make it on the disc, they are mostly just window dressing without the manager mode. It might have been acceptable in the '90's to play a season without any way to transfer players between teams, but in 2007, that's a feature that cannot be dropped. And what was it dropped for? Footi Party, a series of three shallow multiplayer mini-games hosted by a horse-toothed Mii version of Ronaldhino. While I applaud the addition of these type of party games, they are in no way deep enough to warrant a purchase by casual players who weren't already interested in a new Fifa game. The Table Football (Foosball) is a fun diversion, while the other games are somewhat weak, and none make up for the loss of manager mode.
But how does the real game, the game on the field play out? It drowns in mediocrity. While the graphics are updated from the GameCube version (though not as realistic as the X-Box version) with appropriate shininess, the controls are weak. Player movement feels entirely too sloppy, especially on defense. The AI on Semi-Pro difficulty was rarely a challenge. The most important aspect of gameplay, the motion controls, were spotty and imprecise. Although one can use a Wiimote waggle to pass, it isn't necessary and thus feels tacked on. Crossing and shooting was a mixed bag of up or down Wiimote thrusts. It appeared that instead of the granularity of normal power bars, motion controls only offered four different strengths of shot or cross. Tricks are accomplished with button presses and waggles, but the motions were sloppily implemented and difficult to choose. While the gameplay wasn't bad, it wasn't great either. The motion controls were useless tack-ons, imparting no immersion whatsoever. Like all too many shovelware games from the big publishers for the Wii, the waggle seemed to be used for no other reason than to tout waggle.
This is the thing that gets me most ranty. Not only is the game lacking in critical features, not only is the motion control poorly implemented, but the developers couldn't even get the basics down. The menus are incredibly laggy, especially in the roster view. Each player's stamina, which must be viewed during a game to help determine substitutions, is only shown by selecting the player, which is in itself a slow, tedious task because the screen hitches for a second before updating with the selected player. In other versions, the stamina is shown in the roster list. Perhaps the developers felt that Wii players wouldn't substitute, but even in season management menus, game mode menus, really every menu in the game is a laggy mess. If one were to wear a tinfoil hat, one would think EA Sports WANTS the Wii to fail to sell games. Given EA Sports' obvious choice of the 360 as its promotional tool, that idea is not too far-fetched.
This game is a failure in every sense of the word. It is a gimped, shovelware version of a fantastic franchise and the developers should be ashamed of how little effort is exhibited. The game's very design is fundamentally flawed. I've been a champion of the Wii's ability to draw in non-gamers and casual gamers with its intuitive motion controls. Adding casual games such as the Footi Party to Fifa 08 is a good idea, unless of course, it means removing features that fans of the series have come to expect. Fifa 08 is not a new game, it's an upgrade to an existing popular franchise, and as such, the developers have an obligation to target the design for the franchise's past audience first. Not only have they not done that, they've designed the game so badly, even casual players will have no reason to pick the game up. The addition of waggles controls without any real good reason to add them further compounds the problem. And finally, the game doesn't even allow the player to set up their own control scheme, which means the customer can't customise their experience to their own level of comfort. Rather than make the game more accessible to those outside the core audience, they've made it less accessible to those customers most likely to purchase the game in the first place.
Someone in the Wii division of EA Games needs to de-assify their head. Adding casual gamers to the development target audience does not mean purposefully forgetting everything that made their games successful in the first place. It means expanding the genres for development, and expanding the intuitive nature of the game's controls. I hope that someone in managment reads this review and dickslaps every person involved in the development of the EA Sports games for the Wii, because I'm not sure anything but genitalia across the chops is going to sink in.
The final indignity is my own reaction to the failure of this game. Like a true addict, instead of putting the game away and never speaking of it again, I traded it and Madden in for credit, which allowed me to buy a PS2 and the PS2 version of Fifa 08. Yes, I am a complete fucking tool, but I must have my Fifa. And now EA and Sony both win, despite doing nothing to deserve it. But at least the PS2 version has manager mode and plays well. I think I'll need to watch an Uwe Boll movie. I've already taken two kicks to the balls, I might as well complete the trifecta.
Labels: Football, Nintendo, Soccer, Sports, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:41 AM
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Wasting the Waggle
Posted on
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
I've been a vocal supporter of the Nintendo Wii and its motion-sensitive Wiimote. Since I saw the first video of the sword-fighting in Red Steel, I was hooked on the concept of using intuitive motions to execute video game actions as opposed to the established thumbstick and button-pushing interfaces of the past few generations. The waggle, as it's been somewhat derisively labeled, was a step along the path towards making video games not only accessible to more people, but more immersive in ways that didn't involve buying expensive HDTV's and adding more pixels. But I remain concerned that many developers are wasting the waggle by releasing half-assed games which use waggle because they feel obligated to waggle. Down that path lies the Virtual Boy, the Power Glove and other gimmicky controllers in video game history.
The Wii has so far shown itself to be a fantastic "party game" machine, with such sterling examples as Wii Sports, Super Mario Party 8, and Rayman Raving Rabbits. There's nothing wrong with these mini-game laden offerings targeted at people who are not traditionally considered gamers. Wii Parties as a cultural phenomenon aren't a bad thing, despite what many pissy elitist game developers and hardcore gamers might claim. Opening the market to non-traditional casual gamers means more money for developers, which should translate into more games and more games should be what every gamer wants.
That said, tossing out half-assed efforts with tacked-on waggle is going to do nothing to help anyone. Games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance are a perfect example of what I mean by tacked-on waggle. The game should have been something akin to Robot Jesus for comic book geeks like myself, but it failed miserably to attract me. The main reason, as my review states, is because the motion-controls were so obviously just button combinations mapped to specific Wiimote waggles. Why not use motions which feel organic to the action performed by the character onscreen? Why not make the player actually throw Captain America's shield instead of just flipping the Wiimote one direction? Why not map one button to Thor's hammer and let the direction and speed of the hammer throw depend on the player's arm motion? Why not use another button to select Thor's or Storm's lightning attacks and make the player reach to the skies and drag down lightning at the target the Wiimote is pointed at? In short, why was no imagination shown in adding waggle to the game? The most likely answer is money, of course. I'm positive Raven Software was forced to release the game during the launch window, and as a result took the easy way out, but they wasted a fantastic opportunity to create a true classic.
Another game which has wasted the waggle is Prince of Persia: Rival Swords. While I must say this game is one of the better games for the system, it's use of motion-control is paltry and weak. The only motions used are for sword-fighting and chain-tossing when in Dark Prince mode. Other than that, there is no use of the Wiimote's uniqueness. The sword-fighting use of the waggle is weak, another obvious use of static motions mapped to replace button combinations from other versions of the game. The controls are imprecise and for most of the combat, the harder to execute motions aren't needed. Unlike Ultimate Alliance, the game is spectacular in all other aspects, and the weak waggle controls don't detract from the game enough to earn a negative judgement on the game. Why again wasn't the Prince's sword mapped to the player's movements? Why wasn't his sword arm controlled organically by the Wiimote while his body's combat acrobatics were mapped to nunchuk waggles? Even something along the lines of Red Steel's swordfighting would have made combat more exciting. Again, the game was excellent, in part because it's focus was the acrobatic puzzle-solving instead of the ho-hum combat. But it could have been so much more with a little thought
Waggle controls should be used with some serious thought. If the waggle doesn't add anything to the game that couldn't be achieved better with a button press, don't use it. Mario Strikers Charged is a perfect example. The waggle is used in exactly two spots. The Wiimote can be flicked to execute a tackle, and the Wiimote's pointer is used to block megastrikes (similar to penalty kicks in real football). That's all, and that's all that's needed. While there might have been more uses of it, they may not have added anything to the gameplay. The release of EA Sports FIFA '08 in two weeks will use more waggling, and I anticipate it with excited trepidation. EA's track record on the Wii is not good, it's latest version of Madden NFL '08 actually a step backwards from the previous version.
One of the Wii's most vocal critic is Shiny founder David Perry, who has criticized the system's non-HD graphics hardware before. His latest comments exhibit a nonsensical criticism of the system by claiming that the Wii has "sloppy" waggle control. What he misses is that the sloppiness of the controls aren't a result of the hardware, but the software driving the games. Yes, there have been games with very sloppy waggle. EA's Need for Speed: Carbon, the aforementioned Ultimate Alliance and Far Cry: Vengeance come to mind as games with sloppy controls. Other games don't suffer from this, such as Zelda, Mario Strikers, Super Swing Golf and Call of Duty 3. The software has to be written well, not half-assed, and the blame for sloppy controls has to be placed squarely on the heads of the developers of the software, not the hardware.
The Wiimote's waggle won't revolutionize the video game interface without good, innovative design and careful, competent programming. Nintendo must ensure that the third-party developers who have flocked to the system because of its initial success aren't using the Wii as a dumping ground for sloppy, half-assed cheap development to fund their AAA titles on the systems elitist developers want to work on. If one year from now, developers are still allowed to release drek such as Far Cry or shovelware like Ultimate Alliance, the Wii WILL fade from the video game industry no matter how profitable its initial run was for the Big N. It's time to stop wasting the waggle, there's only so much wiggle room in the industry these days.
The Wii has so far shown itself to be a fantastic "party game" machine, with such sterling examples as Wii Sports, Super Mario Party 8, and Rayman Raving Rabbits. There's nothing wrong with these mini-game laden offerings targeted at people who are not traditionally considered gamers. Wii Parties as a cultural phenomenon aren't a bad thing, despite what many pissy elitist game developers and hardcore gamers might claim. Opening the market to non-traditional casual gamers means more money for developers, which should translate into more games and more games should be what every gamer wants.
That said, tossing out half-assed efforts with tacked-on waggle is going to do nothing to help anyone. Games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance are a perfect example of what I mean by tacked-on waggle. The game should have been something akin to Robot Jesus for comic book geeks like myself, but it failed miserably to attract me. The main reason, as my review states, is because the motion-controls were so obviously just button combinations mapped to specific Wiimote waggles. Why not use motions which feel organic to the action performed by the character onscreen? Why not make the player actually throw Captain America's shield instead of just flipping the Wiimote one direction? Why not map one button to Thor's hammer and let the direction and speed of the hammer throw depend on the player's arm motion? Why not use another button to select Thor's or Storm's lightning attacks and make the player reach to the skies and drag down lightning at the target the Wiimote is pointed at? In short, why was no imagination shown in adding waggle to the game? The most likely answer is money, of course. I'm positive Raven Software was forced to release the game during the launch window, and as a result took the easy way out, but they wasted a fantastic opportunity to create a true classic.
Another game which has wasted the waggle is Prince of Persia: Rival Swords. While I must say this game is one of the better games for the system, it's use of motion-control is paltry and weak. The only motions used are for sword-fighting and chain-tossing when in Dark Prince mode. Other than that, there is no use of the Wiimote's uniqueness. The sword-fighting use of the waggle is weak, another obvious use of static motions mapped to replace button combinations from other versions of the game. The controls are imprecise and for most of the combat, the harder to execute motions aren't needed. Unlike Ultimate Alliance, the game is spectacular in all other aspects, and the weak waggle controls don't detract from the game enough to earn a negative judgement on the game. Why again wasn't the Prince's sword mapped to the player's movements? Why wasn't his sword arm controlled organically by the Wiimote while his body's combat acrobatics were mapped to nunchuk waggles? Even something along the lines of Red Steel's swordfighting would have made combat more exciting. Again, the game was excellent, in part because it's focus was the acrobatic puzzle-solving instead of the ho-hum combat. But it could have been so much more with a little thought
Waggle controls should be used with some serious thought. If the waggle doesn't add anything to the game that couldn't be achieved better with a button press, don't use it. Mario Strikers Charged is a perfect example. The waggle is used in exactly two spots. The Wiimote can be flicked to execute a tackle, and the Wiimote's pointer is used to block megastrikes (similar to penalty kicks in real football). That's all, and that's all that's needed. While there might have been more uses of it, they may not have added anything to the gameplay. The release of EA Sports FIFA '08 in two weeks will use more waggling, and I anticipate it with excited trepidation. EA's track record on the Wii is not good, it's latest version of Madden NFL '08 actually a step backwards from the previous version.
One of the Wii's most vocal critic is Shiny founder David Perry, who has criticized the system's non-HD graphics hardware before. His latest comments exhibit a nonsensical criticism of the system by claiming that the Wii has "sloppy" waggle control. What he misses is that the sloppiness of the controls aren't a result of the hardware, but the software driving the games. Yes, there have been games with very sloppy waggle. EA's Need for Speed: Carbon, the aforementioned Ultimate Alliance and Far Cry: Vengeance come to mind as games with sloppy controls. Other games don't suffer from this, such as Zelda, Mario Strikers, Super Swing Golf and Call of Duty 3. The software has to be written well, not half-assed, and the blame for sloppy controls has to be placed squarely on the heads of the developers of the software, not the hardware.
The Wiimote's waggle won't revolutionize the video game interface without good, innovative design and careful, competent programming. Nintendo must ensure that the third-party developers who have flocked to the system because of its initial success aren't using the Wii as a dumping ground for sloppy, half-assed cheap development to fund their AAA titles on the systems elitist developers want to work on. If one year from now, developers are still allowed to release drek such as Far Cry or shovelware like Ultimate Alliance, the Wii WILL fade from the video game industry no matter how profitable its initial run was for the Big N. It's time to stop wasting the waggle, there's only so much wiggle room in the industry these days.
Labels: Game Design, Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:43 AM
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