One of my favorite games of LAST generation has unequivocally got to be God of War 2.  I have not owned a single Sony console in my life, but I did borrow a PS2 from The DLB and worked my way through the entire game, a full two years after the launch of the Xbox 360.  While the God of War series isn’t really a poster child for subtlety and restraint, the execution of the action, the breathtaking boss battles, and the ever-changing-but-always-well-delivered set pieces made me feel like we had actually moved the ball forward to the endzone known as True Cinematic Gaming™.

You can imagine, then, that I had (perhaps unreasonably) high hopes for Dante’s Inferno.  A combination of God of War-style gameplay and a studio that created one of this generation’s coolest games?  Instant win, yes?I regret to inform you that this isn’t the perfect game.  I also regret to inform you that it’s not even close to that.  A few of the high points first:

- If you’ve played God of War, you’ll be very at home here.  The combat system, the power-up system, even how you acquire health, experience and mana, are painfully and shamelessly ripped from Kratos’ world.  God of War IS genius, though, so if you’re going to copy something, make it the best.  (I am reminded of Uncharted’s “homage” to the Gears of War-style stop and pop style of gameplay, a system that they recognized as genius for the type of game they were creating and ran with it to wonderful effect).

- The presentation elements surrounding the game are pretty wonderful.  The cutscenes are a mix of pre-rendered CG movies and in-game interchanges, but they take advantage of the extra fidelity during the CG portions by blending high-quality renderings and a disturbingly effective hand-drawn animation style (this is sold to you through the era-appropriate tapestry artwork that starts moving from time-to-time).  None of it ever felt forced, and it was usually quite chilling, which a game of this subject matter should achieve.

As for the other shoe:

- It’s wonderful that the game is running at 60fps at all times (especially during the more stunning moments such as the church falling apart around you), but I can’t help feeling like we could’ve used just a bit more in the lighting/texture work/animation department and trade that in for something closer to 30fps. (while inconclusive, DigitalFoundry is banking on God of War 3 being 720p/30fps, and everything we’ve seen so far is nothing short of stunning in comparison to Dante’s Inferno).  There are definitely “seams” in the presentation that feel a bit like a step backward in terms of the generational leap we’ve been experiencing in game engines over the past few years.  Levels feel very “geometric”, animations of enemies are synchronized like a robotic dance squad, and the lack of some now fairly common special effects (depth of field in particular comes to mind), all scream last-gen.  There are some AMAZING moments of high-quality texture work, though: the fire effect used for your “you can’t move forward until you beat up these guys” wall, the lightning storm outside the church, and a few other moments of note all pop off the screen.

- The voice acting is a little bit on the suspect side.  For such a narrative-heavy game, I really do wish they landed this part.

- Shock value is great, but sometimes the showing of breasts without any real meaningful context feels more juvenile then perhaps originally intended (of course, it’s looking like we won’t be stopping at naked boobs…).  The violence portion of the game isn’t really a huge deal for me in a game where you FIGHT through hell, but the nudity just didn’t come off as serving any purpose outside of getting people to talk about the game.  Congratulations guys, you win.

If the demo is the sole basis one should use in considering this game, I currently am going to classify it as a rental.  As is typical for most demos, there is a sizzle reel of upcoming moments in the full game (which I had already seen once before), and after playing through the demo and peeling back the mask of the quick cuts and explosive musical score, I found myself a little less excited for Dante’s trip through Hell.

What did you think?

So, not really for the kiddies…keep THAT in mind when you think about downloading/playing it.

There is a basic tutorial mode in the beginning that demonstrates what a badass bitch you are in the game.  After that, they dump you into the most intensely confusing and difficult 3 minutes of gameplay you’ll ever play.  I played it twice and nearly turned the demo off because I was SURE this was not a game for me.

It is totally worth it to play through, though.  The game then pulls that, “Well wasn’t that trippy?!  Now let’s start back at the beginning of our story” sort of bit (albeit with a different narrative trick), and then the actual demo starts.  The demo material that follows is MUCH easier on you, and actually lets you figure out how to apply those tricks from the tutorial in the beginning.  Without spoiling the moments, I actually didn’t want the demo to end, and considering how I almost deleted it from the first “mission”, that’s a pretty amazing feat.

The game is exceptionally weird, with the full Japanese womanizing erotica and absolutely strange mashups of different genre pieces (angels, fairies, and torture devices?  Ooooo…K?), but it was dealt with so confidently (especially when you are introduced to new enemies…weird but clever “journal entries” are presented referencing them) that somehow it all “works”, at least as well as this sort of quirky Japanese actioner can work.

The graphics are pretty nice, ranging from “meh” to “wow, that is actually an enormous hair monster eating a mini-boss”.  Nothing that is advancing the state of the art, but very confidently delivered and it runs smooth as butter even when craziness is at its peak.

It’s definitely something that sticks with you, and not necessarily in a bad way.  In a sea of gaming experiences, that’s saying something.

Can’t a guy just get to bed at a decent hour?  After a somewhat ho-hum episode of FlashForward last night, I stopped my Windows Media Center Extender DVR session on my Xbox 360 and booted back to the dashboard, ready to do a quick check for new content before SleepyTime.  Alas, I was kicked from Xbox Live and prompted for an update!  Almost 2 hours later, here’s what I stumbled across.

As a sidenote, I have NOT tested the Facebook app, Halo Waypoint, or the MSNBC.com news feed.  (In short, I am not a Facebook member, and the other two options are not available as of yet).  Moving on…

Last.FM: For those of you not familiar with the service, Last.FM is a music discovery service in the vein of Pandora and Slacker.  It allows you to create customized streaming “radio stations” based on artist or keyword (if such a keyword has already been populated on the service, of course).  Last.FM also offers a service called “scrobbling”, which is essentially Last.FM’s term for “listen to what you like and sculpt your listening habits”.  The implementation for the Xbox 360 delivers these features quite effectively.  When I added my Last.FM login info, it had my custom radio stations and preferences downloaded in under 60 seconds.  Choosing one of those stations almost instantly begins to stream that station, complete with photos of the artist playing.  A tap of the “X” button fades the radio station bar into the background, allowing you to navigate through the various options, create new stations, etc.  It is surprisingly fast and smooth.  The major gripe against this feature is that you are stuck in the Last.FM app for your listening experience.  As incredible as the in-app experience is implemented, you don’t get to go cruising about the dashboard, in games, or really anywhere outside of the app and its nifty artist slideshow.  As disappointing as this is, it also relegates this to a far different purpose from  replacing in-game music streaming from your personal music collections.  I can actually see this being a great option for gatherings or really any occasion where you might want to jam out to some tunes while NOT sitting at the 360.  It doesn’t really soothe the wounds inflicted by not having ubiquitous Last.FM support, but more is still more, and I’ll take it over not having any streaming radio.

Twitter: Not too much to say here.  I posted two tweets from my Xbox 360, and it works just how you might think it would.  The inability to surf to links or see pictures makes the experience pretty limited, but what is here is nice.  I sincerely hope they at least add the ability to see Twicpics, otherwise I can’t imagine being here very often (as it is I open/update twitter about once every 2 months anymore).

Zune Video: From a technological perspective, this is probably the most exciting of the updates.  This update to the Video Marketplace (launched three years ago this Thanksgiving) allows all video content to be streamed rather than downloaded.  The streaming is also adaptive, meaning that your video stream (if you meet the minimum bandwidth requirements, of course) will start at a lower video quality and ramp up.  I tested the trailer for Caprica, and I had been ramped up from a rough, low-res Youtube-esque quality up to what was called (via a small prompt in the top righthand corner of the info pane) 1080p HD, all within about 28 seconds.  Not bad considering most feature length content has title cards during this period anyway.  The quality was quite good when we achieved 1080p, so I have high hopes that this technology will quickly be adopted by those deterred by the need to download releases before now.  (I was one of those people, in fact; as much as I prefer digital media to physical, I could not recommend the Video Marketplace before now, since it defeated the one major advantage that streaming video could always claim: instant grat).  Keep an eye on this one, folks; I think this is going to be bigger than most folks are giving it credit for.

I’ll try to put out updated impressions of the remaining features as I’m able to test them.  Overall, great stuff coming this November!

For those of you that might be familiar with a recent post of mine, take heed: Microsoft isn’t a big fan of such things any longer.

Major Nelson just posted on his blog that as of the new system update being sent out (first to Preview Program participants but then to all by the end of November) to all Xbox 360 consoles, your “unauthorized memory unit” will no longer be accessible through your console.

A quick check of Amazon.com shows that the 120GB to be $135 shipped.  I guess all that cross-mojination of the Zune Video Marketplace has Big Content scared (as in perhaps Microsoft can’t allow purchased movies until they lock up the DRM hardware-wise)?  This obviously also protects Microsoft’s hardware ecosystem, so it would be natural to assume this is Microsoft protecting their peripheral price points, but if anyone has read what is involved in the DIY hard drive upgrade for your 360, I doubt they’ve lost too much money except to the occasional 133t haxx0rz who want to stick it to M$.  In any case, paying more for something that doesn’t actually cost that much without the fancy Microsoft packaging/software just sucks, plain and simple.  Here’s hoping for a swift price drop of the 120GB drives if they want to continue to sell them.  Me, I’ll be slogging along with my 20GB until we’re sub-$100.

Yes I am aware that AH was a lovely April fools joke, but with the launch of Guitar hero and its hipper brother Rock Band there has been talk of other offshoots (can we say DJ Hero?). It made me think about all of the other possibilities that could come out for video game fools.

Didgeridoo Hero: Get in touch with your inner aboriginal native with this version of the musical game. Comes complete with an authentic plastic replica of the ancient musical tool. You’ll be a rebreathing superstar in no time!

Marching Band: Relive your awkward High School years with this offshoot of the Rock Band franchise. Comes complete with Brass, Woodwind and percussion. Soon you will have “Band Camp” flashbacks.. and we ALL know what you did in band camp. (Soon to follow the “color guard” expansion pack, decorate your own flag and rifle!)

Harp Hero: Ahh the Harp, such an under-appreciated and under used instrument. It isn’t for classy establishments anymore! Get good at that and you can move on to…

Celtic Band: Because you are usually drunk playing it anyway, you may as well use it to your advantage. Sing songs of drunken fights and dead ancestors. You’ll be wearing kilts in no time!

Beatbox Hero: to use with DJ Hero, this spit proof mic is good when doing your Biz Mark E jam.

Of course, I would LOVE to see Accordion Hero become a reality. Nothing better than jamming with Weird Al on your console.

You reading this Activision and Harmonix???? Get to work! And if you are looking for a game developer, just drop me a reply..;)

It’s that time again!  What’s “New” with the Xbox Experience!

I just got into the preview program last night, and I think “modest update” would be the correct term for this most recent dashboard update.  Here is a quick breakdown of the features I’ve stumbled across so far (this list isn’t exhaustive, but these are most of the major points):

The Good:

• Netflix update.  Although there is supposedly some updates to how Silverlight is integrated into the Xbox OS, this is still technically a standalone update from the dashboard (you are prompted separately to update the Netflix app).  Anyhow, once it is updated, you are treated to a much more usable and integrated Netflix experience.  For example, you are now able to browse 100 titles in each major genre you frequent (for me, they are Sci-Fi, Comedy, Indie Horror, and Action Adventure…I feel you judging me right now…); I’m assuming these get rotated out on a periodic basis.  You can either play these immediately or add them to your instant queue (a nice touch).  With the above mentioned tech improvements brought about by updated Silverlight implementation, there is now dynamic video streaming quality for playback of Netflix movies.  Also, there are now a few very small but welcome pieces of info attached to the movies in your queue, such as whether the title is in high-definition or not, and when the movie will expire from the Netflix Instant Watch catalog.  All in all, this makes the Netflix Instant Watch function a much more inviting portion of the dashboard.
• User ratings!  You can now rate content on the Marketplace (welcome to the turn of the century, Microsoft…)  There are now “top-rated” sorting options in each area of the Marketplace, so you can see which Halo people like best.    The implementation is pretty great overall, with a quick pop-up that allows you to give 1-through-5 stars.
• In-game achievement browser.  This one is just flat-out brilliant.  When the NXE launched last fall, they added a nice sub-screen in the dashboard for your profile that allows you to see the titles you have played and the achievements you’ve earned.  When browsing the achievements here, you can simply navigate between the items to see what the requirements are without having to go into each achievement to find that requirement (contrast this to the in-game Xbox Guide, where you DO have to enter each achievement to see the requirement).  In short, they’ve brought the much-improved achievement browser to the Xbox Guide.  Once you use it, you’ll be upset it didn’t happen sooner.
• Sorting for your Xbox Guide friends list: by activity, Gamertag, or online status.  I’ll take it.
• Party improvements.  Adding someone to your party is pretty quick now with one-button invites, and even accidental disconnects from your party will now be handled by the service, connecting you right back up to the folks you were hanging out with inside cyberspace (we already had this “reconnectivity” for Xbox Live updates, but now even wonky internet connections and locked-up consoles can’t keep you and your friends apart).
• An “eject disc” button (“X”) when you are selecting the disc in the tray!  (It’s the little things, people).

The Meh:

• For the Netflix update: The other major piece of the update is the party watch feature.  You can demo this without anyone by suggesting a movie and starting it; as other sites have covered, this is a MST3K-style movie den where you can “emote” about the movie experience.  I don’t really mind this feature, and it’s actually a bit mind-bending that it syncs viewing with up to 7 other folks in a virtual living room of sorts, but my major problem with it is that there isn’t one button press that will switch to full-screen (currently you need to choose the “Display” option that typically cycles through aspect ratios?)
• For the user ratings: The two things that stood out as a natural evolution to the experience would be a better visual cue that you’ve already rated something (currently the stars “cycle” between the current group rating and your rating, but you have to wait for that cycle to get to your rating; perhaps have your rating show first?), and the ability to rate the items in your dashboard achievement list.  This second one makes the most sense, since this is verifiable proof that you’ve actually played the game you’re rating (at this point, anyone can rate anything, regardless of whether or not they’ve played or even seen the title).
• Avatar Marketplace.  w00t, I guess.  I do like the ability to earn “awards” for my avatar in addition to achievements, but Microsoft will probably never get me to buy virtual clothes or props for my virtual self, as generous as they’ve been with the free clothing options for the past several months.  It’s well-implemented and easy-to-use, for what it’s worth.
• Xbox Live Gold Member badge.  How many years were you paying for this?  Oh, that many.  Cool.
• Xbox Live Indie Games update mechanism.  First of all, a revision to this was sorely needed; I purchased Weapon of Choice awhile back (EXCELLENT little Indie Game, btw), and when updating the title the first time, I was awkwardly dumped to a screen to re-download the full version of the game.  Only after launching the game did I see that the version number (which not all games sport on the home screen) was incremented.  I assumed when I had read they revamped this process that it’d be just like the update process for regular Xbox titles (By the way, why are we still getting kicked off of Xbox Live for these updates?).  That’s…not the case.  Instead, the splash disclaimer screen for the Indie Games informs you an update is available for your title.  THEN you are awkwardly dumped to the screen that has you re-download the full version of the game.  It is then added to your active download queue, but doesn’t begin to download.  When you choose continue, you receive another prompt to inform you that you are getting sent back to the dashboard.  So, instead of migrating to the much more streamlined title update procedure, we got more steps.  Oh well, better luck next time.  At least I know what the hell is going on now.
• There is a Tips/Tricks/Help section near the end of your My Xbox channel now.  This isn’t a terrible idea, but it’s basically just a collection of links to other parts of the NXE.  Not really quite as exciting as I had thought it might be.

The Not-As-Good:

• The NXE now lags and gets choppy with no rhyme or reason as to why.  Fix it.  Now.

I think those are the highlights.  Anything else cool/terrible you’ve found in your travels?

Here are my impressions for the Big Three:

Nintendo: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.  I was absolutely taken aback by the fact that they completely didn’t show up.  Nothing was revolutionary or interesting; the games were a rehash of older titles, and their nods to the “core gamer” were three titles they had already announced and a new Metroid game.  Oh, and there is the Wii Vitality Sensor: a finger clip that senses your pulse in conjunction with hold your waggle remote in one hand, having a nunchuck in the other, and standing on your Wii Fit board.  No new features for the console at all (no firmware updates).  I’m sure none of it matters and they will continue to sell, but easily the worst press briefing.

Sony: Very well-constructed press conference.  They bookended the presentation with Uncharted 2 at the beginning and God of War 3 at the end (clearly the most impressive games for the PS3).  The structure was great in hindsight, but it didn’t serve the “middle” very well.  Tony and I disagree about MAG (their 256-player online game), but seeing the terrible graphics of MAG after seeing the insane physics and animation of Uncharted 2 (MAG was shown right after Uncharted 2) didn’t work very well as a strategy.  Modnation Racer looks really fun, a Mario-Kart style game with the Far Cry 2 level editor baked in; I didn’t realize this until yesterday, but the Play-Create-Share brand started with LittleBigPlanet and it is their “community” brand for games that will have community features like level/content creation and distribution.  Cool idea to have those in a specific bucket.

Sony’s motion controller did not impress me for a few reasons:  First off, it is a Wii-killer, but only that (no real innovation, just doing it better).  You’ll need to have both the camera and the wands to make it work, which will add to the total price.  And on top of those things, there just wasn’t anything outside of some engineering demos, so who knows how well it will work in games.  This last part isn’t a knock against the product, just the demo of it.  It really just showed the fact that both Microsoft and Sony’s shareholders told them to either make a motion controller or we’ll find someone who will.  Microsoft obviously was told much earlier since their motion camera was much more a part of their presentation (and much further along come demo-time), and Sony probably stuffed that in at the last minute so as not to be the last kids to the motion controller party.

TOO MUCH PSP STUFF!  I know they are really trying to love and pimp the PSP, but they spent way too much time on this.  Way too many game/feature announcements for it, as well as the PSP Go! launch.  More than anything, this part just wasn’t my bag, baby.  One interesting point, ALL UMD titles going forward will be launched on the Playstation Network.  I’m sure Gamestop loves that.

The continual “it’s not just only on Playstation, it’s only possible on Playstation” was getting a little old (Microsoft had a different super-corny bullshit marketing line), especially since they said it 30,000 times during the 90 minute conference, and because they kept saying the exact same line last year in the E3 2008 press conference.  It felt rehashed and embarrassing; the stellar games speak for themselves (although they don’t really say “that” to a gamer that plays more than one console), it just reeks of “trying too hard”.

Microsoft: Definitely had the most “even burn” of the three conferences, although the they had some real duds, the worst of which was the Tony Hawk presentation (I can’t imagine caring less about that game).  Thankfully that and the total throwaway announcement about the Beatles Rock Band games were at the top of the presentation.

Microsoft’s uber-corny catch phrase was “showing, not telling”, and it also got very irritating; what else would you do with the three ultra-huge LCD screens behind you?  Also, I now know where my $50 a year for Xbox Live goes to: Sir Paul McCarty, Ringo Starr, and Steven Spielberg all showed up to tell us how awesome these announcements were.  ‘Cuz, you know…I really trust those three when it comes to my gaming purchases.

Things picked up quite a bit, with excellent showings of the new Splinter Cell and Alan Wake (both incredibly beautiful games), and some breakneck announcements of Crackdown 2, Left for Dead 2, and Microsoft’s own Mario Kart clone, Joyride (which will be free and supported only by DLC purchases of tracks and cars beyond what it ships with).  Forza 3 was also shown, and looks friggin’ incredible, but I’ll never ever play it.

The “fall update” (I’m calling it that since every damned thing is apparently coming in the fall – come on, guys, Sony gave out the Uncharted 2 Multiplayer beta Tuesday night; where’s our love?) has a whole slew of things coming:

- the Video Marketplace will now be Zune Video, and we’re getting instant-streaming 1080p video with 5.1 surround sound (instead of waiting for an 8GB file to download).  It looks like it’ll function much like the Move Player on ABC.COM, where it instantly starts you out at a lower bit rate and ramps it up; there will be a little indicator at the bottom lefthand corner that shows what “level” you are streaming at (1,2,3,HD).  To get the HD level, you will need a minimum of 8Mbps on your download speeds.

- Free Twitter/Facebook integration with both the dashboard and in the development kits (meaning programmers can add a “Post My Stats On Facebook!” button to their games.  Mostly yawn, although I’m sure there are folks out there who will love this.

- Free Last.FM integration.  You’ll now be able to stream your custom Last.FM stations (and set up new ones!) to the dashboard.  No word on whether you’ll be able to do this in-game, but I’m doubtful since the bandwidth to play multiplayer games takes precedence over downloads from Marketplace.  Rich and I have lots of questions about whether or not you can have your music scrobbled (think Pandora so that your custom stations will be more personalized to the things you like) on the Xbox, so I’ll just reserve judgment on how nice this integration will be until we get some concrete details.  Not having Zune Pass integration sucks, though.

- Full Games On Demand.  Great addition; needs to be competitive pricing with retail of course, and newer titles not older.

The motion controller (Project Natal) was the coolest addition so far.  Not so much for the actual motion games, but for the incredible tech baked into it.  If you haven’t seen the videos, you must hit the web and check them out.  My favorite implementations so far are the facial recognition (you walk in front of your Xbox and it logs you in), the Minority Report surfing of the dashboard (we’re there folks), and the ability to have a multi-array microphone that A) uses voice recognition for quiz games on the couch and B) allows multiple people in the room to chat without having headsets and Xbox Live Gold accounts.  The demos they showed were very far along and amazing in their own rights.  The Peter Molyneaux (Fable creator) demo video was hysterical for it’s Molyneaux-ness and amazing for what he is suggesting is actually happening; must see.

Overall, tie between M$ and Sony, and Nintendo’s show was a complete bust.

I recently finished Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and I am officially going on record as saying this is a great game, and one that Star Wars fans in particular have no business missing.  I had a wonderful time visiting some wonderful Star Wars set pieces, positively terrifying my opponents with mind-numbing force powers, and exploring some of the (extremely) light RPG elements as you develop your light-saber-wielding fiend of power.

There are a few things in particular worth noting.  First, the graphics are breathtaking almost completely throughout.  The set pieces I mentioned above are grand in scope and full of animation and life.  Being a part of the final attack on Kashyyk or hoping around inside an under-construction Death Star (1.0, of course) never gets old, with every screen brimming with life and Star-Wars-ey goodness.

The oft-advertised DMM (Digital Molecular Matter) technology that makes things react with appropriate physics (wood splinters, glass shatters, metal bends, etc.) will make you smile when it works.  There are some items in the world that, for obvious design reasons, are invincible (this ain’t Red Faction, you know) to any attack, but only occasionally ruined the immersion of using the Force to wreck shop throughout the universe.

And there is no denying the giddy appeal of the story as it bridges (and even slightly expands upon) the time between Episodes III and IV, which, I might add, is generally better acted than most game cinematics (and entire portions of the prequel trilogy).  There were a few very endearing moments, some truly funny deliveries, and although the proceedings never feel totally epic, the story was absolutely worth the journey.

And, it’s freaking Star Wars, man.

So, what’s the problem?  Why isn’t it the greatest game of all time?

The primary complaint I have with the game is a startling lack of polish.  This pervades many different aspects of the game, unfortunately.  Chief among these offenses is a gets-more-frustrating-every-time pause screen, which requires a rather lengthy loading time every time you access one of the options.  Unlike other action games, you’ll be accessing this pause menu somewhat frequently to upgrade and tweak your character with force powers, combos, talents, as well as lightsaber crystal upgrades you find along your journey.  Want to do your force upgrades?  LOADING.  Go back to the main screen?  LOADING.  Pull up your lightsaber crystals?  LOADING.  You get the picture.

Noted in the IGN review of the game is that the 360 has some distracting tearing issues with the image.  This doesn’t always occur, but it seems that the developers turned off V-SYNC for the 360 version to keep the framerate nice and snappy.  Unfortunately, turning off V-SYNC is rarely a good idea when it comes to having a sharp-looking game, since the framerate gains are marred by a strange looking, unfinished feel.  I have no idea if this is specific to the component cable-delivered image, or whether the PS3 version has this tearing as well (nothing was mentioned for either case), but it is worth noting for those who are 360 gamers.

Finally, the transitions between cinematics and the gameplay don’t flow smoothly enough for such a triple-A title.  Sometimes there is a loading screen, and sometimes a few seconds of inexplicable black screen.  Add to that the fact that the art/animation style really isn’t much better than the stellar looking in-game graphics in most cases, making the choice to use pre-rendered movies a strange one.  (Not to mention bringing some obvious continuity problems when you’ve changed your lightsaber color or outfit in-game and the next moment the cinematic forces a totally different skin on you or your lightsaber).

There are also some strange design choices that leave parts of the game wasted/awkwardly accessed.  For my main example, there are several training sessions (and associated trials) that your droid, Proxy, guides you through to train you in the ways of Force destruction and mayhem.  Lucasarts chose to make these accessible through your load-tastic pause menu.  I’m perfectly fine with this sort of accessibility, but it’s really the only way to get to these trials.  Since it is based on your currently created character, it makes sense to have them tied to your character via an in-game menu, but why not from the main screen as well?  Furthermore, how about folding these into your questing a bit more logically?  Since these teach you how to be a Force-chucking badass, shouldn’t we get more of these early on (especially the training sessions)?  It’s really unfortunate that I actually learned how to do a lightsaber flourish after I had already beaten the game (during my achievement sweep of the trials…*ahem*).  I understand that perhaps a few of these should be locked to save some of the surprises as you play through the game (some trials give away some of the awesome bosses you’ll meet during the game), but I would’ve loved to have seen the training sessions available (and forcefully prompted) between the first few levels to get you accustomed to the major gameplay mechanics, and perhaps having access to the trials of the bosses after you meet them.

There is also the small matter of the game’s reliance on Quick Time Events (made popular by one of my favorite but oft-lamented games, Shenmue) for some of the more devastating moments of Force powers, especially while finishing off bosses in the game.  Unlike some, I think this is a perfectly acceptable way of blending gameplay with cinema, and when done well, makes me feel even more powerful as the main character in the game’s universe.  While some of these moments are amazing, there are a few (the Force battle against the Star Destroyer in particular comes to mind) that are disproportionately difficult to perform from the rest, and after 15-20 minutes of trying to complete them, it’s no longer an epic moment in the story, but a silly gameplay mechanic that you will be begging to skip.  My opinion on QTEs is that this particular scene in the game could not be told as effectively from the normal camera perspective, whether because the dramatic flair the director wishes to convey would be lost, or the action itself would be entirely too difficult to perform in that perspective.  QTEs are about the scene, not the gameplay; the button presses are a small bit of risk/reward that make you feel more invested in the scene than a typical sit-back-and-watch cinematic.  Making them too difficult (in my opinion) totally loses what QTEs are meant for, and I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t a couple of times when these just didn’t work.

I want to say that I can completely ignore this quibbles, but it’s a testament to a really great Star Wars offering that I trudged through these annoyances just to see what else I could experience in this galaxy far, far away.  In summary, I think everyone who has even a mild love of Star Wars and a thirst for fantasy action needs to give this game a try.  It’s a wonderful and flawed experience, but a game that gets me passionate enough to review it (considering the avalanche of gaming this holiday season) is worth playing indeed.

I think I’ll end this off by sharing some observations from a couple of the more well-known review sites:

Chris from IGN said, “While it’s far from perfect, Star Wars fans will find that it’s worth playing through simply for its story and the ability to use the Force in fairly awesome ways.”

Ben from Ars Technica said, “If I were given this game as a demo I would say things look great, and I can’t wait to see where they are in four to six months. As a retail release though, the lack of polish is a deal-breaker.”

Sadly, I’d have to agree with both of those comments.

Earlier in the year, I was having similar lockup problems, and it turned out to be a faulty hard drive.  (Not knowing this, I sent BOTH the console and the hard drive back separately, but that’s for another blog…)  I decided (at Rich’s recommendation) to pull the hard drive (after transferring Khidr’s gamertag to my memory card) and see if the hard drive went bad yet again.  Another 3 minutes of FIFA proved this to be untrue.

As sure as we were that the 360 was thoroughly shot, I wanted to test a game that I had previously seen working.  I spun up 5 minutes of PGR3, and completed my test.

After calling 1800-4MYXBOX, I followed the prompting to the “My system froze” leg of the IVR.  It asked me to try three different troubleshooting steps, including checking your system’s date and time.  Holding for a few moments more, I ended up speaking to Ben…in a word, wow.

Ben asked me for my name; once I spelled it for him, he commented that I sounded like a famous person, and informed me that he once spoke to Jack Black, but he obviously couldn’t verify that it was in fact Jack Black.  Deep, man…deep.

After some system issues (a few times on the call, Ben told me that his “server” was running slowly…), he finally found the account with my 360.  We proceeded to go through some inane and downright insulting troubleshooting steps, including, but not limited to:

- Checking the discs for scratches (yup, Tony Hawk’s Project 8 is a Marketplace download)
- Removing the Ethernet cable from the back of the console
- Clearing the cache (hold the “A” button down during bootup) of the hard drive.  Yes, I already had seen the console lock up with just a memory card.  But just in case, you see…
- Removing the A/V cable (“the one with red, blue, white, and yellow connectors”, which I assume meant the composite cable that I’m not using on my HDTV) and CLEANING THE CONNECTIONS WITH A LINT-FREE CLOTH.  The explanation for this was that the 360 is like a PC, and that if a PC video card isn’t plugged in all the way, it won’t boot, or might lock up…what?

After testing each one of these scenarios, and watching PGR lock up each time, he then asked us to put in a movie.  I don’t really know what this would tell us; would it not be so bad if I could only watch movies on my game console?  We watched the entire intro of Star Wars: Episode III (up until the Count Dooku encounter), and Ben declared time of death.  He put me on hold (I now have an intimate knowledge of the Xbox Support trance hold music), and came back to let me know that he had “the worst news”…we would have to send the console in.  After accepting defeat, I was then informed that his “server” still wasn’t working, and that I would have to call back later today or tomorrow to get my confirmation number.  I asked to be transferred to someone who could set up the repair order, and after putting me on hold again, Ben discovered he could now complete the order.  Magical.

I was told I would have to box the console up myself (last time I sent in my console, I was sent a box???)  I wrote down the return address and my confirmation number (Episode III locked up RIGHT there…insult, folks, on top of injury), and bid Ben a fair afternoon.

Thank goodness this whole ordeal happened before the end of November, when my newly extended one-year warranty would be expire!  I SO hope this turns out to be a quick fix…

Anyone have any fun stories about Xbox returns?