LittleBigPlanet - Impressions from the Beta

Hype is an interesting thing. In many cases it manages to get us excited for products that, when finally released, fail to live up to the colossal expecations the fanbase has set for them. I'd like to call this the "Too Human effect". Some titles, such as Kingdom Hearts 2, GTA4, and Halo 3 manage to overcome the problem to some degree and meet the expectations most players have set for them. Very few, however, manage to exceed those expectations - especially when sequels are concerned.

LittleBigPlanet is an interesting case because not only is it a brand new franchise, but it's a gargantuan-budget title that was created by a fairly unknown developer, but somehow managed to become the PS3's "next big thing" throughout its development cycle (at least since it was first revealed at GDC 07). And even more interesting - it manages to exceed every expectation set for it.

Not to say that it's a perfect game, but its powerful creation tools and easily understandable interface manage to make it the most "hardcore" "casual" game I've ever seen. This is probably the first game (aside from Rock Band) that I've been able to pull out at a mixed gathering of people from different gaming backgrounds and get a unanimously positive response. This is a very good thing for Sony.

Now, enough with the fluff...

Basically, LBP's story mode (where you unlock most of the objects for use in the create mode) has you progressing through a series of levels. X button jumps, R1 button grabs. That's all you need for level navigation. If you want to get fancy, you can open your "popit" (LBP's substitute for an options menu) and place stickers and other decorations around the environments at will. Occasionally you'll need to put a certain sticker on a specific background in order to progress. That's about as complicated as the mechanics get. However, the levels are designed to be gigantic physics-based playgrounds. You have different materials reacting as they should (stone vs sponge vs cardboard, for example), rockets, switches, springs, wheels, and more - all seamlessly integrated into the levels. The level design is impeccable (at least in the few maps the beta has given us to dink around with), and more importantly gives a lot of ideas

The game's main draw - and the feature that will keep LBP active for years past its launch day - is the much described level creator. This feature allows players to build their own levels from scratch. Many features of the level editor workon an event - trigger mechanism, that is -if the player does *a*, then make *b* happen. For those familiar with the structure of computer programs, it's very simplified, but everything makes sense. You hook a switch to an object, tweak the parameters, and test it out. A few times during level creation I got results I wasn't expecting from chaining events like this together -- either due to unexpected tool behavior or Newtonian flukes caused by the game's realistic physics...but interestingly enough, these "mistakes" actually open up more creative ideas more often than not.

The only real complaints I have about the level editor are rooted in the wonky undo system that rewinds your last few actions (especially when testing objects...sometimes you can screw yourself a bit too easily and accidentally destroy your level, but the undo system doesn't seem to have a very large cache of actions for these particular cases, leading to some problems) and the DualShock 3 controller itself... Although all the tools are easily accessible via the in-game Popit menu, creating land masses (even with the many shapes provided) is a chore. There have been many, many times where I kept wishing for access to a keyboard/mouse configuration. Also, the tutorials do a great job at explaining the tools individually, but really don't tell you much about how you can fit them together. Once you get the hang of it, though you can build an object like a rocket-powered car in under a minute, using just a couple of the many tools provided to you. For the less daring , you can also unlock many story-based objects in the story mode to use in your levels. Beta-specific complaints include game freezes during online play, problems publishing levels, and a save data corruption that caused me to lose a few hours of work and forced me to replay all the tutorials I'd already gotten through. Considering this is a BETA, not a DEMO, this is more than forgivable. I do wish there was a centralized place to report issues, though (rather than forums, which are fairly obnoxious).

Sharing levels is as simple as selecting "Publish" from the pod screen and selecting a location on the "LittleBigPlanet" where your level icon will be shown. Other players can then enter it, try it out, and rate it. If you're feeling particularly generous, you can reward players with "prize bubbles" in your levels that will give them access to the objects you create. This is the feature that will extend the life of LBP far beyond the "first month high" most big-budget games receive.

In conclusion, I'm thoroughly impressed with this game. I think this is probably the first PS3 exclusive to really show promise as to what the PS3 provides over competing consoles. This is a game that could have (and should have) gone to the Wii, if the Wii hardware was current-gen rather than last-gen. It's the most hardcore casual game out there (or casual hardcore game, if you prefer), and it's a blast to play.

Now please, Sony, don't ruin my experience with a bunch of pay-only DLC.

MegaMan 9 *Language Warning*

Nothing brings back more gaming memories from my childhood than Mega Man. From the awful cover art to the addictive gameplay, the series was a hallmark for NES action titles back in the early 90's. In fact, conquering Mega Man 2 and 3 represents a large part of the gaming pride I had as a kid.

Fast forward to 2008.

Capcom releases Mega Man 9, a throwback in every way to the older Mega Man titles on NES. Gone is the Mega Buster shot and the slide. Gone is the next-gen sheen, replaced with 4-color sprites ripped right out of the early 1990's, and deliberately added sprite flicker/slowdown. Gone is the sanity of late 2-D platformers (SotN, New Super Mario Bros. etc.), replaced with "conveniently" respawning enemies, spikes, bottomless pits, and disappearing block puzzles over said spikes and bottomless pits. The difficulty is amped up so much in this release that in my 2 hours with the game so far (trying out the different stages), I have yet to be able to make it to a single robot master. I feel for all the TVs that will soon be shattered by incoming controller projectiles...the amount of sheer frustration this game has the potential to generate is maddening.

To give you an idea of how maddening this was, I present to you a stream of consciousness during an attempted playthrough of Splash Woman's stage (supposedly the easiest in the game), inspired by the Angry Video Game Nerd:

"Ok, GameFAQs said Splash Woman should be taken down first - who am I to argue? Splash Woman it is. Hey, this interface looks a lot like MM3's selection screen. Too bad it's not 480p, maybe I should have waited for the 360 version."

"Splash Woman. Here we go. Let's get it on!"

"Hmm...low resolution mermaid. How original. Love the old school music, though. I wonder what the stage will look like."

"Water. Nice fake light effects - ha ha. Go figure. Okay, walking right, walking right..."

"Bombs. Jump over the...WTF?! They home in?"

*MegaMan gets hit*

"Damn. Shoot 'em instead?"

*MegaMan shoots and the MegaBuster shots bounce off*

"Crap! What a way to start the stage, half my life bar's gone. Screw this, just take the hits, get past 'em, and drop into the hole."

*Drops into the hole, next screen*

"Next screen. Robo-octopus firing shots of ink at me. Yet again, shots bouncing off. Gotta shoot it in the head. 3 shots and he's down, but now I'm colored black from getting hit with the ink... doesn't seem to do anything, so oh well."

"Ok, few more enemies, couple of jumps... ooh, a bolt guarded by another octopus. Take this, octopussy! 3 shots...and he's down. Leap over the hole, grab the bolt...YOINK. Drop in...next screen!"

*Drops into the hole. Spikes halfway down, falls right into them and dies*

"....What?! Seriously?! SERIOUSLY?! Mega-ASS!"

*Starts over at the beginning*

"FUCK!!! I forgot - no checkpoints until halfway through each stage...this is almost too old school for its own good. Back to the bombs...easier to avoid this time."

*Navigates to the previous point, dodging the spikes*

"HA, take THAT! YEAHH BOYYYYEEEEEEE!"

"Veering left...more spikes - but easier to avoid this time...reminds me of the Doc Robot stages from MM3. I don't remember them being this hard, though..."

*next screen, jets creating bubbles of different sizes that float up the screen*

"Oh, GREAT. I know where this is going...have to hop on the bubbles..."

*hops on a small one and it breaks*

"Ok, I get it. Small ones break, large ones don't. So ride the large one up...probably into a huge wall of spikes..."

*rides up the screen*

"Completely empty next screen, no spikes! Shocking..."

*squid comes out of left side of screen and knocks MegaMan off bubble*

"SHIT. Damn squid. Ok. Dodge the squid next time."

*Navigates up 2 screens on the bubbles, narrowly missing a last-second sniping squid from the left side of the screen*

"Hah, another squid, right at the end! Very clever, Capcom. Next!"

*A few screens later, there's a moving platform puzzle with platforms coming out of the walls moving right and left and then disappearing*

"Ugh. Now it's getting ugly. First take care of that robot... HA! GOTCHA! Now jump on the platforms...and .... wow, that wasn't so bad."

"How much you wanna bet there will be another puzzle with these damn blocks combined with spikes or bottomless pits?"

*the next screen does indeed have such a puzzle*

"Spikes for 500, Alex."

"Looks like I need to time my jumps exactly right this time. Okay, see the pattern. Get across the spikes, make it to the platform on the left."

*hops successfully onto solid platform, only to get bumped off by a moving platform that comes out of the wall immediately after landing, lands on the spikes and dies*

"ASS! Why am I NOT surprised..."

"AAARGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! Ok, that's it, I need a beer."

*Yes, I actually went to the fridge and got a Rolling Rock at this point, left over when a friend bought some for a party last month*

"Oh, look, I get to start over from the bubbles. That's OK, I guess..."

*back to the second block screen*

"FUCK this. Alright puppy, time to earn your keep...Rush Coil, do your thing. Let's get over to the left side of the platform, call the doggy, hop up...and...."

*misses the ladder, not high enough...and another death-by-spiking*

"GOD DAMN IT!!!!!!! FUCKING PUPPY PIECE OF SHIT!!!!"

*Game Over*

"I'll never play this piece of crap game...EVER EVER AGAIN."

Okay, maybe I'm over-exaggerating. I will play the game again - maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.

I mentioned both MM2 and MM3 at the beginning of this review. Now, I know, for a _FACT_, that both of those games were not nearly as cheap as MM9 - not by a longshot. How do I know? As recently as 3 years ago I went back and beat them both again on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for PS2. And although my retro gaming skills were a little rough at the time, I had nowhere near as many deaths on those games as I have experienced with 2 hours... 2 HOURS...of MM9.

Maybe it's for the best - I mean, I do notice myself getting better with each attempt...something I like to call Ninja Gaiden syndrome. A game will continually make you its bitch and you come back for more and more - improving your skill just a little each time - until the obstacles that once proved insurmountable are nothing to you.

Hopefully I have the patience for this...otherwise, I'd better start looking for a new TV and Wiimote, just in case my Mega-rage gets the better of me.

A New Challenger Appears - 27 Trojan Horses Courtesy of "Marvel vs Capcom 3"

Let this be a lesson to all of you.... if something is too good to be true, it probably is. Also, never download anything from IsoHunt. One minute I'm playing the best fan-made game ever, and the next my computer is hijacked by about 78 million pieces of malware...

It all started last night. On a whim while browsing YouTube, I came across videos of a "build" of Marvel Vs Capcom 3 with over 115 characters. Unofficial of course, it was a fanboy's wet dream. Completely fan-built from scratch using M.U.G.E.N. - an open source fighting engine. Everyone from Firebrand to Phoenix to Galactus was playable, a dream come true.

Since the YouTube videos didn't contain any links to the game with characters included (only shells due to copyright reasons), I went ahead and downloaded it from IsoHunt.com, the only place that seemed to have the full build.

Bad idea.

Terrible idea.

In fact, probably the worst idea I've ever had.

After a 15 hour download, I finally unzipped the colossal directory and started playing the game. At first the .exe didn't work (showing an error stating files were missing), and I had to download a "fresh" one from an open source site for M.U.G.E.N. - that should have been my first hint that something was amiss...but I didn't listen and started playing. Aside from a bit of slowdown, it played just as I had hoped it would, albeit being a little rough around the edges...

Then something happened. All of the sudden, about 20 IE windows opened (funny, I'm using Firefox), my background changes to a bleeding biohazard sign, and a bunch of warnings pop up about being infected with everything from viruses to spyware. YIKES! I pulled the internet out on my computer and got a freeze...

Upon starting in safe mode with networking and downloading a couple of diagnostic programs, I found that Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 hit me with not 1, not 2, but 27 different trojan horses. Most of which I believe are removed at this point, but in order to have any kind of confidence in running anything on my PC again, it looks like I'm going to be fresh-installing Windows once my Trojan-free backup files are done copying over the network.

And with that, it's time to wipe my hard drive and start over again. A moment of silence for my PC...

And a big FUCK YOU to "Marvel vs. Capcom 3". Thanks A LOT....

Achievements: Boon or Bane?

It's been a long time coming, but I've finally had a few minutes to sit down and tackle one of the most interesting developments to come out of the "current gen" consoles.

There is nothing worse than going to your profile page in Xbox LIVE and seeing not only your total achievement count and gamerscore, but the dreaded "OUT OF" gamerscore number. That is, every time you put a game in your 360 (or download a full version of a LIVE title), it adds the total value of the possible earned achievements to this number. Thus, if you have played 42 full games, you'll have a gamerscore out of 42,000 points! It guilts you into feeling like you've wasted your money on a game if you haven't played it enough to milk most of the achievements out of it.

In my opinion, there are right ways and wrong ways to do achievements:

WRONG WAY: Eternal Sonata, Devil May Cry 4 - most of the achievements are locked away until at least the second playthrough, making you feel like you accomplished next to nothing even by working your way through a game on default difficulty levels. The games mentioned here leave the VAST MAJORITY of gamerscore points FAR out of reach until beating the game on higher difficulty levels and grinding sidequest after sidequest (1,000,000 red orbs? REALLY?)...argh...

WRONG WAY: Shadowrun, Gears of War - Lots and lots of online-only achievements. There are two problems with this. The first is finding opponents after the game's online community begins to dwindle. Lack of available opponents means there is no way to unlock the achievements, which really isn't fair to those people who actually stuck with the game in the first place! The second problem is the quality of online achievements -- they have the potential to piss off a lot of people who happen to be in a game with a person who is grinding for achievements. Things such as "get 100 kills with grenades" or "get 100 kills with the chainsaw" or "kill a team member" can turn certain game types into absolute chaos. Gears of War had quite a few of these... However, the first problem doesn't really apply if you're a game such as Halo 3 - which also did a fairly good job of avoiding too many "asshat" multiplayer achievements...

WRONG WAY: Avatar: The Last Airbender, TMNT, and other licensed games - You know you have a bad game on your hands when you make the achievements blatantly easy for no other purpose than to make sure people play your game. Movie games have been notorious for this lately, especially those based on kids' licenses. Then again, if you buy a game solely because you'll be able to pick up 1000 achievement points easily, you have bigger problems* than worrying about purchasing a bad game.
*says me, who shamefully has 1000/1000 from Avatar in his Gamerscore history... -_-;; I didn't buy it though!!

RIGHT WAY: Soulcalibur IV - Now THIS is how you do achievements. Not only are the tasks extremely varied, but many are unlocked simply by playing the game normally. Grinding for them is actually counter-productive in many cases because of the way the game is designed. Also, and more importantly, in-game rewards (in the form of equipment for custom characters) is unlocked as more achievements are earned, encouraging players to continue playing for something other than additional Gamerscore points. Adding in-game rewards to achievement milestones is something newer games are starting to try, and it's a trend I would like to see more of.

Unless implemented the right way, achievements and trophies serve little purpose other than to artificially prolong the life of a game. And believe me when I say that most (and I mean most) of the achievements that consist of simply grinding for hours and hours have the potential to bore even the most hardcore of gamers to tears. Microsoft once tried handing out free XBL games and T-shirts for a contest won by increasing gamerscore a few thousand points over a specific time period. Apparently too many people entered, because they sure haven't tried anything like that again...

Excuses, excuses... YOU MADE A BAD GAME.

First...as a software developer (albeit not games at the moment) I understand the need to appeal to a userbase, and how it can reflect negatively on a product that you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into for the last year or more if you fail to take this into account. Negative reviews have an effect on sales, sales have an effect on company finances, company finances have an effect on employment, it's not rocket science here.

However, I've noticed lately in many articles (mostly referencing Nintendo's "casual revolution") that execs and developers blame reviewers for being harsh on their product for "not taking their target audience into account". Yes, they believe it's not "fair" for a games journalist to review their copy of That's So Raven GBA (OH SNAP) because it wasn't made for games journalists. Instead developers say it would be more fair to judge a game based on a focus group of the "target audience" (little girls):...

One of these articles can be found here (talking about Kane and Lynch): http://www.gamesradar.com/f/kane-lynch-how-it-feels-to-be-critically-panned/a-20080908102911734000/p-2

What this argument does is basically excuse any "flaws" in a game because the "target audience" (usually kids or "casual gamers") will forgive them. Bad graphics? Bad controls? "Meh, they're just happy to accessorize their ponyz". This argument can also be used to explain away bad graphics, control issues, and other gripes in rushed movie games: "It's for fans of the movie, they don't care about graphics or control - they're just happy to have an interactive vision of their favorite film".

BOLLOCKS.

This argument doesn't hold water for two reasons. While I can agree that certain assumptions need to be taken when reviewing a kids game, franchise game, or casual game, most of these games DO fall under one of the pre-existing game genres, and thus should be fairly compared against other games in the same genre on the same system. Does a side scroller "Hannah Montana" on the DS get a pass on its poor graphics or gameplay or whatever because the target audience is tweens? It's a SIDE SCROLLER. As much as the developer wouldn't want to admit it, it's completely fair to compare it to New Super Mario Bros. A game in the same genre on the same system that is for EVERYONE (hardcore and casual alike).

The second reason is even simpler: bad reviews should not affect your target audience if you're going after kids, women, or casuals. Because the vast majority of non-hardcore gamers WON'T BE READING GAME REVIEWS. Grandma doesn't care that the game Little Jimmy asked for for Xmas got a D+ in EGM. Look at Carnival Games for Wii -- hell, look at most of the non-Nintendo titles on Wii (Capcom excluded) it makes me sick how much shovelware is selling in droves. Game executives, you can't make this argument.

After all, what about the "casual" games that are actually good by hardcore standards? Look at EA's Boom Blox, a wonderful, fun, replayable puzzler that's just as entertaining for hardcore gamers as those who have never picked up a Wiimote...and wonder how much more it would have sold if it had Mario instead of generic sheep and monkeys in the background....Where do titles like this end up in your argument?

I'm 26 years old. When I have kids, if they end up being gamers, I'd probably look at reviews before I'd buy my kids a game, just so I know I wouldn't be wasting my money on something that would get played for 5 minutes and then tossed on the shelf to collect dust for eternity... but I'm special in that regard.


All that being said, I'd still probably seppuku myself if I had to code up Bratz Ponyz Fashion, Ninjabread Man, or one of its ilk...it's games like these that make me glad I'm not a game developer. I'm guessing for most people in the industry, bad reviews aren't so surprising as much as they are expected.