It’s a Bird, Mother! Netflix Brings Arrested Development Home

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Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 10-05-2013

Category : Entertain Me, Featured, Movies, Reviews, Television

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Michael: It’s just hard to accept that it’s really come to begging.
George: Sometimes, it’s the only way to stay in the game.
Narrator (Ron Howard): Please, tell your friends about this show!

Ron Howard, we did. We looked the other way, for a just a second, and they snatched Arrested Development from our sticky, chocolate-covered banana hands with swift and heartless indifference. So, we told on the offenders. We told our parents, our teachers, our friends, our families, our congressmen and our pets. We wrote, emailed, blogged, Tweeted, Facebooked and clipped up YouTube homages in the multi-millions of copyright infringement violations. Apparently, it all worked.

May 26th at 12:01a.m. PST, (That’s O.C.-time, kids.) hordes of rabid Bluth devotees will commence their Memorial Day celebrations with Trader Joe’s frozen bananas, Grey Goose Vanilla and O.J. hiballs, Gangytinis and the words that started it all … And that’s why you always leave a note!

The original banana stand: Park Ave., Balboa Is., Newport Beach, CA

“There’s always money in the banana stand.”  Original: Park Ave, Balboa Is., Newport Bch, CA

After Fox cancelled Arrested Development, similar to their unwise, initial cancellation of Family Guy, executive producer Mitchell Hurwitz explained he was not interested in Showtime’s offer to pick up the show, nor any other network offer for that matter. Even though his show was brutally cut short after a mere three seasons, Hurwitz was “more worried about letting down the fans in terms of the quality of the show dropping” than he was worried about letting down fans by leaving them without it altogether. Hurwtiz offered hope to fans everywhere by further stating, “If there’s a way to continue this in a form that’s not weekly episodic series television, I’d be up for it.” In 2011, Netflix snapped the towel off the competition and exposed their cutoffs, leaving them crying in the shower. Netflix earned distribution of the long-awaited fourth season. Steve Holt!

 This month, Netflix will proffer the patient and the tenacious fifteen, brand-new Arrested Development episodes, one more than originally planned. Officially season 4, it will serve as a where-are-they-now?, visual omnibus of the Bluth Family, each episode focusing on a specific member: episode no. 1, George Michael.

“Everyone, ourselves included, seems to feel like the Bluths left the party a bit too soon,” said Brian Grazer and Ron Howard of Imagine TV, which co-produced Arrested Development with 20th Century Fox TV. “Bringing a series back from cancellation almost never happens, but then, Arrested always was about as unconventional as they get, so it seems totally appropriate that this show that broke the mold is smashing it to pieces once again.”

You’ll find few creative comparisons of Arrested Development to other shows. There are no blah blah-meets-blah blah kind of descriptions, because there has never been a show like it. Which leaves yours truly fretting, hoping that season 4 will live up to past memories and future visions of the Bluths.

Winning awards ranging from AFI’s TV Program of the Year to a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, Mitchell Hurwitz’ Arrested Development has garnered, thus far, twenty-five awards and thirty-eight nominations. The comedy series set in Newport Beach, California is simultaneously as random and tightly-knit as a ensemble production could be. Like Seinfeld or The Beatles, there really could be no magic without everybody. Plucking out any one character would be like knocking out a support beam; it might stand for a bit, but you want to get the heck out of there, in case of an earthquake.

It has been a very long seven years since the brilliant-but-booted story of an Orange County real estate dynasty living in genteel poverty was ripped from our hands. Now, it’s come back to us and we’ll take it the way we want it: on our devices, on our schedules and gorging ourselves on Tobias, Buster, Gob, Gangy and George Michael, making ourselves as fried and sick as we want to be on cornballs and Lindsay’s hot ham water.

Michael Cera Photo: Eva Rinaldi Celebrity Photography

Michael Cera Photo: Eva Rinaldi Celebrity Photography

As for the future, beyond May 26th that is, S4 will also serve as a primer to the eventual, fan-driven, feature-length film. Along the Bluths’ Balboa boardwalk, Netflix will not only be keeping a sharp eye on the bananas:dollars ratio, but watching carefully the dynamics of the fire-sale user-model they call binge-viewing.

“While Netflix doesn’t release viewership numbers, critical response indicate that the first direct-to-Netflix original series, House of Cards, was particularly popular with viewers inclined to watch a whole series in only a few sittings,” writes Rachel Edidin of Wired magazine.

Like a line of gratis, birthday shots set up on a long bar, or an open bag of Gardetto’s, if they put it in front of us, we will consume it. With deftly placed plants and payoffs throughout numbers of Arrested Development episodes, it’s impossible to stop at just one. Netflix, as well as other distributors and broadcasters, will be studying the hungry hordes closely and, if the latter two are wise, adjusting formats and viewing models.

Heads up, HBO and Bravo; you might still try to force us into cable contracts and programming on your schedule, but that’s all over. Sure, HBOGO is a great app; but one can’t use it unless one adheres to the front-end, archaic, cable subscription model. Even the scraps CBS, NBC and Discovery begrudgingly throw at us under the Hulu fence, or even via their own websites, are becoming boring and passé: dictating on which devices we may watch, for how long we may watch and how many episodes we are worthy of receiving. (Psst, broadcasters, we’re still watching your commercials; why do you care so vehemently when and where we watch them?) As George Bluth, Sr. reminded the dolls of his attic tea party with a strong, pointed finger, “I don’t let ‘em tell me what to do.”

Now, get your Bluth frozen bananas, grab your Gangytinis and crank up “The Final Countdown”: it’s time you blue yourselves!

 

Executive Producers: Mitchell Hurwitz , Brian Grazer, Ron Howard , Jim Vallely and Troy Miller

Production Companies: Imagine TV and 20th Century Fox Television

Exclusive Distributor: Netflix

Arrested Development Central Cast:

Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth

Michael Cera as George Michael

Jeffrey Tambor as George Bluth Sr.

Jessica Walter  as Lucille Bluth

Will Arnett as George Oscar Bluth II, a.k.a. Gob

Tony Hale as Buster Bluth

Portia de Rossi  as Lindsay Fünke

David Cross  as Tobias Fünke

Alia Shawkat as Maeby Fünke

Hannah’s fave places to haunt on-line? Jennypop.net  @JennyPopNet & Jennifer Devore’s Amazon Author Page

Game Review – Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Nintendo DS

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Posted by David Lucier | Posted on 22-01-2013

Category : Featured, Game On, Nintendo, Reviews

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Courtesy of Capcom

 

I just happen to stumble across one of the best games I’ve played in a long time. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Yes it sounds a little crazy, and in truth it is, however this game was fun, innovative, original, and walks the fine line of humor/drama amazingly well.

 

The setup is this, you start of the game “waking up” after being killed. You are then treated to one of the better tutorial levels I’ve seen. It’s informative but at the same time it doesn’t have nearly as much of that “yes yes yes I get it lets move on” as most games do. Don’t get me wrong, it is still there, but not as much. Now this is coming from someone who loves origin stories so the fact that the tutorial is explaining how all the powers work may have something to do with my opinion on this, so your mileage may vary, but I found it enjoyable. Essentially you can “jump” from one object to another over a predetermined distance, and on occasion you can interact, or what the game calls performing a “ghost trick” on the item. So using the first level as an example, you have to get up a pile of junk, but only have a few items that you are allowed to jump into, one is a folding cot, which you jump into, and then unfold in order to get closer to the next item that you can jump into.

 

The other part of your abilities, and the main draw of the game for me, is that if you find a body, you can jump into it and go back to 4 min before their death. This allows you to both see what happened to them, which gives you more plot, and you are able to try and alter their fate by using your ghost tricks. The nice thing about this is although there is some trial and error, the game does have a halfway point that you can restart at instead of going back to the beginning, and throughout the game there was really one one point where I got frustrated, and that was solely because that apparently in the world of japan a bullet is shaped like this guys hat:

 

Courtesy of Capcom

 

instead of this:

 

 

Which, when the goal of the scene is to find something the same shape as a bullet, is quite annoying.

 

Probably the most important thing to know going into this is the choice of items you can jump into is very arbitrary. Basically the game says “only some objects have cores, which are what allow you to jump into them” but that is all the explanation that you get, which is fine with me but I know some people may be looking for more on that front, I advise you, don’t. Its much more fun that way.

 

The plot of the game is for you to find out who you were and how/why you died. A straightforward sounding trip, however this one is filled with so many twists and turns that you get a bit dizzy. These turns range from partially obvious to well crafted surprises. Many times I found my self knowing in general what the next twist would be, but not the specifics, like in a horror movie when you know the mystery killer is actually one of the kids, but you don’t know which one or why. My best advice to you is to see this one through to the end, which I found to be amazingly rewarding and well worth it. In addition to this the cast of characters is…. interesting, but in a good way, most of the main characters are somewhat normal with just some random quirks, but then you have some odd balls, such as the smooth dancing inspector and the junkyard superintendent w/the pet pigeon. All these characters, although weird, still somehow seem to fit in the story and don’t seem that out of place so it’s not as jarring as it sounds.

 

As far as the game play portion of that journey, it’s almost all good. You have two ways to control everything, stylus or traditional buttons and both are always active so you can mix/match, which is what I did. You have two worlds to navigate, the real world, which you can slide the screen around to get a better view with either the stylus or d-pad, and the ghost world, which stays locked on you, but is where you can see what cores are around for you to jump to, again by using the d-pad to “reach” in the direction your pushing, or drawing a line with the stylus, which is sometimes required to reach certain cores that are behind another core. In this ghost world the top screen shows a picture of the item you are in and what, if anything, you can “trick” it into doing. This may have been my favorite part, because in many puzzle/adventure games half the game is figuring out what items are useful and what ones aren’t and this tells you right away if its just a stepping stone or useful item.

 

Now this is a type of game I do normally enjoy but end up using a walk-through for most of it just because I’ll become impatient with the trial and error nature of the puzzles, however this game does a great job of guiding you but not hand-holding you. Now if you are a hardcore Myst fan you may have a different opinion, but for me this was the perfect middle ground of difficulty and I only resorted to a walk-through once, for the above mentioned “lost in translation” moment.

 

As far as graphics and sound, they are both good. The music, although good, is limited to only 2 or 3 tracks, and as nice as they are, do get a bit repetitive after a while, whereas the sound effects just seemed to fit perfectly with the game. The graphics are colorful, and clear, on par with most recent DS offerings. I thought it was a little odd that the top screen of the DS, which from what I understand does have slightly better resolution, was only used for the item info and not for any of the few cinematic scenes in the game, but it didn’t seem to suffer for it.

 

Now, as far as replayablity…this I’m not sure on. As much as I loved the story that was told, because so much of it is based on not knowing what was going on, it does loose some replay value there, and the game doesn’t offer anything new a 2nd time around from what I understand. But it was definitely worth a play through, and who knows I may change my mind in a year and want to play it again.

 

Fun factor? Through the roof. And this game is a perfect example of why I want this in my reviews. I can’t really explain how a puzzle/adventure game is this much fun. But it is.

 

As mentioned above, the learning curve on this game is also excellent, it leads you along nicely, similar to Portal but at a much faster pace, that still works. You never really feel left behind, however some hard core adventure fans may find this too slow or too easy.

 

Overall here’s what we got, scale of 1-10:

- Graphics-8/10- Good solid colorful graphics, Ghost effects are simple but just plain work and look right, some anime/Japanese flair but not overly done in that style.

- Sound-7/10 not bad but not quite enough variety in the soundtrack. Appropriate sound effects.

- Gameplay- 9/10 It works 90% of the time exactly as you ask it to, and is very intuitive and easy to figure out.

- Replayability- 5/10- this is all down to personal preference, the game offers nothing new, and due to the nature of the plot being surprise heavy, its tough to nail this down. Basically, if you can re-watch movies like The Game, or Sixth Sense then you can replay this game.

- Learning Curve 9/10- one of the few games to get this right, although the final end of the curve may not be high enough for some, the gradual climb is perfect for those of us who never could get through Myst.

- Fun Factor 9/10- It just is. The combo of time travel, twisting plot, innovative controls/concept. They all come together in a great package.

 

Now, a brief note on my overall scoring, it will not always be an average of the above because I don’t think its a fair system, just because the sound is bad doesn’t always bring a 9/10 game down to 7 or 8, sometimes its still 9/10 even with bad sound.

 

Overall 9/10- Fun, great story, good gameplay, total package. If you have any interest in an adventure type game, but have had problems with other entries, try this one out.

 

 

Cross-posted: Geek The World Online.

 

I Know I Shouldn’t, But I Love Tiny Tower (iOS)

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Posted by Peter Hurstak Jr. | Posted on 03-07-2011

Category : Game On, iOS, Reviews

Tags: , , , , , , ,

I know that millions of people play Zynga’s Farmville and that they love it and that they spend money on virtual items that help them farm faster (I accidentally typed “fart faster” and was tempted to leave it be) and that there are a million derivative games out there offering a similar experience with a difference skin and that these are also very popular. I get it, and I’ve even tried to give myself to that experience. Some kept my attention for a small period of time, but ultimately none of them for very long and I think I once spent a dollar on one of them. I guess that’s a success, but I’m a sucker for in game purchases who forgets that things bought in the iTunes store cost money until they send me the receipt a few days later. I’ve made in-game purchases sometimes before I even start playing the game. It’s just that easy to convince me to pay for something that was supposed to be free. The Farmville derivatives, though? No such luck. I don’t even bother playing them anymore, already certain that they’re not worth my time or energy.

That is, until earlier this week. A friend of mine at work was telling me about Pocket Academy, the new game by Kairosoft (makers of Game Dev Story and Hot Springs Story, two iOS games I fell deeply, deeply in love with) set in a Japanese high school. The very thought of putting those two hands together led to me purchasing the game using reflex and muscle memory as I tried to work out in my head whether or not I actually had the money in my checking account and then getting sad because I actually had to wonder whether or not I had $4 in my checking account. As my fingers hurriedly worked their magic, he also tried to sell me on this new free game called Tiny Tower. He isn’t a great pitch man, however, and seeing as I was already thinking about how deeply I was going to dive into Pocket Academy, I wasn’t exactly sold on a free tower sim supported by in-game currency purchases.

On my way out the door, though, I did catch a glimpse of the game over his shoulder. While still not sold on the game, I was just a little interested thanks to the pixelated art style. Enough so that I noticed several glowing headlines about it as I perused the web the next day, and ultimately so much that I downloaded it that night because, hey, whatever, it’s free, right?

So I started playing the game the following morning while I was at what promised to be an incredibly dull day at work, breaking no less than a thousand rules. Perhaps under different circumstances this would not have happened, but Tiny Tower seemed to have luck on its side as it carried me through my predictably tedious day, sinking its insidious hooks in me along the way.

The game starts very slowly. The tutorial runs you through the first steps of creating your tower, first giving you the funds to build your first floor: a residential zone. My cleanly labeled “Plainlake Apts.” stacked on top of the similarly labeled “lobby”. Then, a little pixel man with a mustache and goatee named Ralph Barnes appeared at the elevator, and I used onscreen buttons to bring him to the second floor and he became the first tenant of my tiny tower. Next, I was given the funds to build third floor and put a restaurant inside of it. After it was built, I gave Ralph a job there, then set him to work making slices of pizza which people would then buy for one moneys. After moving a second person into my residential floor, I was able to give him a job in the pizza place as well and suddenly the two men were able to get to work on making personal pan pizzas, which would be ready for sale in fifteen minutes and would then sell for two moneys apiece. Ultimately, my pizza place (and any other workplace you can install on a floor) could support three employees, who could then make three levels of items worth one, two, and three moneys, respectively. When the items were finished being prepared, I could tap on the “stock” icon floating on the edge of the floor to put the items up for sale, bringing in more income for my tower and allowing me to purchase new floors with different store fronts and apartment styles in each. As your tower grows, it becomes more demanding of your attention. That said, it never requires your immediate attention, as the family portraits you stock in your photo studio will never spoil like an unharvested patch of pumpkins might.

It doesn’t sound terribly exciting or all that different from the typical Farmville style game, so it took me a while to really figure out what it was that drew me in so much. As I stated above, the game’s pixel art was immediately appealing to me, as they do a great job of creating many unique looking people with a limited palette. People have different clothing styles, hair, hats, glasses, facial hair, et cetera, and you have the ability to change a character’s style if you wish, though only in a limited capacity which you have no real control over. The characters are further brought to live with a very clever homage to facebook, “bitbook”, in which the people living in your tower will post status updates throughout the day about their job, the roommates, or just what they’re up to. This personalization becomes useful, as the game will randomly ask you to find a particular character for a number of different reasons, using a “towerbux” as a reward to encourage you to get to know your tenants. Each character is also made unique with a stat system, in which the person’s particular strengths in five different areas are rated between 0 and 9, and they each have their own dream job. The “game” portion of Tiny Tower is properly assigning your virtual tenants to jobs which will reduce the overhead of the job itself and increase production and sales of the product. It’s a seemingly simply system which grows in complexity in proportion to the growth of your tower.

Which leads me to the next thing which drew me in: the growth of the tower itself. In a game like Farmville, the point is to have a giant, cool-looking farm. I’ve always found that sense of scale doesn’t translate especially well, however, because you’re ultimately just making a bigger and bigger square that’s as easy to navigate at it’s biggest as it is in its smallest size. Your tower, on the other hand, gets bigger the more you play, and it’s easy to compare sizes with your friends. The size of your tower also comes into play when dealing with people who wish to ride the elevator, which requires you to hold the button as you travel through each floor. It’s a way to demonstrate how much progress you’ve made. There are even Game Center achievements for building your tower up to a hundred stories, assuring me that I’ll be working on this tower for a long time to come.

Perhaps the best part of Tiny Tower is that it is incredibly well balanced. Games of this ilk are designed around getting the player to spend money on in-game goods. Most of them, following Zynga’s model, get players hooked until they reach what can only be described as a progress wall, or a point at which the speed of the game is considerably slowed unless you purchase some in-game items in order to keep up your pace. The in-game item purchase in Tiny Tower are the aforementioned “towerbux”, which can traded in for moneys, or to speed up construction or restocking, or to purchase faster elevators. However, if you are hooked enough on Tiny Tower to spend the money on some towerbux, you likely do not need to. The game hands them out pretty generously. They are given out as tips from random people you’ve given an elevator ride to, for finding a particular resident for somebody, for building a new floor, or sometimes for stocking each level of item in a store. I’ve collected nearly thirty already just casually giving people rides and stocking my stores as I’ve been writing this review. Considering that you get a hundred for five real dollars, it doesn’t seem worth the investment. That said, I’m going to buy some towerbux just because I can’t think of any other way to support developer Nimblebit on this outstanding game. Due to the relative ease of putting out a game on iOS, you get a lot of developers who have great intentions and great ideas, but seemingly no sense of what makes their game right for the platform (see my review of Demolition Dash). For Tiny Tower to succeed on so many levels and also be a freeium title is nigh unheard of. (An enthusiastic) OKAY, YEAH.

*Edited because I spelt towerbux as “tower bucks” like a big dumb idiot and I don’t want everybody to make fun of me because I made such a stupid, stupid mistake and I’m sorry.

Review – Demolition Dash on iOS

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Posted by Peter Hurstak Jr. | Posted on 24-06-2011

Category : Game On, iOS, Reviews

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Video Credit: Dreamfab

 

Before I begin this review I would just like to establish that this game was played on an iPhone 4 and that we will be using the surely by now familiar rating scale of PASS, EH, and OKAY, YEAH.

Something that not a lot of people know about me is that I’m a very, very big fan of the endless-dash-style score attack games, and that I love to take them with me on my phone. For example, I once declared that Canabalt was an absolutely perfect game, and I stand by that claim today. I’m also a huge fan of the evolutions which have followed up on Canabalt‘s success such as Above or, more recently, the incredibly successful Tiny Wings. It feels a little cheap, but using a touch screen for only the simplest of controls is a fantastic way to make a game on a touchscreen device, and this has been proven time and time again. On paper, Demolition Dash seems to have everything it takes to ride the wake of popularity left by those titles. It puts you in the role of Zilla, a pink dinosaur set to run through stages destroying everything in his path with his bulk and his mighty roar. The game is fast, the graphics stylish and detailed, and the twist of trying to destroy environmental obstacles as opposed to avoiding them seems as if it should be winner. That said, the game misses out on some of the most important parts of the gameplay experience that makes a game like Robot Unicorn Attack or BIT.TRIP Runner such winners.

The first thing that surprised me about this game were the graphics. In the screenshots I’d seen, everything looked sharp and distinct, reflecting an incredible amount of effort and detail. In gameplay, however, these qualities do not shine through. Rather, they make the game’s world feel cluttered and indistinguishable. Even the levels, which pit you in several different countries throughout the world, do little to make you feel as though you are actually in a new environment. There are different backgrounds used, and the subtle background tracks are evocative of a new locale; but the differences are a bit too subtle, and each location looks and feels almost exactly like the last little-bit-too-busy country you played through.

Each stage has a primary win condition of getting through it without losing the four segments of your tail which represent your hit points, if you will, but they also feature secondary objectives such as destroying a certain type of tree, enemy, or obstacle or collecting enough of a certain something scattered throughout the stage. These secondary objectives are unfortunately hindered by the problems outlined above, as the game plays a bit too fast to properly distinguish and seek out many of these objectives. Much of the time I was not aware of what I was doing as I was completing them, the reward screen giving me a sense of surprise more than a sense of accomplishment. Similarly, it becomes difficult to distinguish the enemies you encounter, the developer’s solution is inelegant and distracting at best. Rather than make a real effort to have the enemies stand out, somebody decided that the best way to alert the player is to play a police siren in the background while the enemies themselves emit enormous lens flares. Admittedly, it’s effective, but it highlights one of this games biggest flaws rather than corrects it. It feels like a half-baked, last minute solution which betrays the attention to detail paid to so many other portions of this game.

Ultimately, my biggest problem with this game is what puts it so far behind the market it hopes to compete in. The brilliance in a game like Canabalt or Tiny Wings is that not once while playing those games did I ever feel like I wasn’t in control of my character. Conversely, not once while playing Demolition Dash did I feel as though I had any control over the character. I rarely felt as if it were my fault when I failed a mission because there was so much going on in such a tiny window that it seemed impossible to keep track of it all, and I never felt like I did anything all that great when I succeeded. I felt like I made a legit effort to get better at the game, and yet I still felt like my successes and failures were out of my hands. I commend the effort of developer Dreamfab, because they’ve clearly put quite a bit of work into this game. Sadly, though, they’ve put this effort into a mediocre experience. (A generous) EH.

 

 

For more information about Dreamfab or Demolition Dash, visit the Dreamfab website at http://www.dreamfab.com/. Like Dreamfab on Facebook or Follow them on Twitter @dreamfab_games.

Almost a Review of Portal 2′s Single Player Campaign

Posted by Peter Hurstak Jr. | Posted on 21-04-2011

Category : Game On, Reviews

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I guess I’ll begin with the most concise review I can manage: I love this game. The puzzles are great, little improvements like adding a zoom function really improve the overall experience, and the graphics are fine in spite of the now-positively-ancient Source engine. The single-player experience is significantly more fleshed out and substantial than that of the first Portal, and this time around truly holds its own as a game and not simply a Half-Life side story.

I’m not particularly surprised by any of this, really. I can’t recall the last time Valve released a bad game, and there is clearly passion within the studio about this franchise. I’m more relieved than anything else, really. I’m one of the few out there who considers Mass Effect to be considerably better than its sequel, and I’m always wary of a company trying to recapture the magic of a game by polishing up what’s good about it and not paying attention to what made it so good in the first place. That probably sounds dumb, but I’m going somewhere with this so shut up and hear me out. It would have been very easy to make a Portal 2 that would be very successful both critically and commercially that I would have hated. The first title was built on an innovative and solid puzzle mechanic, but what people remember about it was cake and GlaDOS and whether or not there is any truth in said cake (there is not) and a Jonathan Coulton song which was at once catchy and clever but now only exists to ruin parties when somebody who can’t read the atmosphere insists on adding it to the Rock Band playlist. Portal was a short but magical experience which was very quickly distilled into a teeshirt. Nothing scared me more than the prospect of going to a message board on Friday morning (allowing for a 3 day moratorium on spoilers) and seeing it awash in sycophants declaring their unending love for Test Room 16, AKA THE CAKE LAIR!!#@! while posting youtube videos of themselves doing the GlaDOS Shuffle, the hot new dance craze set to the tune of the latest tongue-in-cheek JoCo jam.

It’s easy to dip back into the well when trying to follow up something as surprisingly popular and beloved as Portal. The game was a phenomenon, hitting hard and fast and when something like that happens, it can be very difficult to discern what creates that kind of success, even for the creators. Often, the best people can do is try and recapture the phenomenon’s most successful parts because they can’t suss out any better way to follow up on it. Maybe the brightest minds at Valve got together in a board room and the best they could come up with was “People love cake and songs penned by Yale graduates,” with one post-it note stuck to the side of the whiteboard saying “Maybe mix it up and get a Harvard guy this time?”

It became clear to me very quickly over the course of the game that this was not to be the case. Valve had the sense to identify that the product was not what made the first game great, but rather it was the ingenuity and creativity of some truly talented, very funny people. Portal 2 is wonderful for all the same reasons that Portal was wonderful: it is incredibly well-crafted in every area and it is a truly original and unique experience, even against its predecessor.

Thought I just had: Did Valve choose not to recycle the old jokes so they could make new tee shirts with catch phrases on it? My meme predictions are: ::maybe spoilerzlol?:: “I’m Different” and “I’m the guy who’s gonna set your house on fire… with lemons!” ::end spoilerzwtf?!::

I’ve yet to experience cooperative play! I wanted to finish the single player first. I have, and you should too. Portal 2 is kind of a can’t miss thing, and if you don’t like it then you’re wrong and we can’t be friends.

First Impression: Steam on PS3

Posted by Peter Hurstak Jr. | Posted on 20-04-2011

Category : Game On, PS3, Reviews

Tags: , , , , , , ,

So yesterday was Portal 2sday, which we all know to be very, very important. Truly, it is, and I will have more on that in the very very near future. However, the other important thing about yesterday was the debut of Valve’s Steam service on its third platform, That Triple. As much as I have looked forward to Portal 2, I’ve almost been more excited about this Steam thing and what it could possibly mean in the future.

I probably should have tempered my expectations a bit. Steam on the PS3 is exactly what Valve told us it would be, which isn’t a bad thing. Actually, it really highlights some of the flaws of PSN in ways that I’m sure Sony had hoped it wouldn’t. Pressing the select button during Portal 2 gameplay brings you right to the Steam overlay, letting you quickly chat with anybody on your Steam friends list much more quickly than sending them a PSN message, and it lets you view your own and your friends’ Steam achievements before the XMB could even finish the obscenely long trophy sync operation. Even in this limited implementation, I think it would be great if other publishers were able to take advantage Steam integration. It remains to be seen how things such as updates will work, but I’m optimistic and feel that overall this is a step in the right direction.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there is science to be done and then I can tell you all about how much I love Portal 2 because I love it quite a bit.

Review – Final Fantasy III on the iPhone

Posted by Peter Hurstak Jr. | Posted on 08-04-2011

Category : Game On, iOS, Reviews

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Square Enix released an iOS port for their franchise game Final Fantasy III last month. Peter Hurstak, Jr. gets his game on to determine if it’s worth the hefty price tag.

 

Courtesy of Square Enix

 

I’m sure by now everybody knows the sordid history of Final Fantasy III as it relates to its multiple US releases. The game game out on the Super Nintendo in 1994, but that wasn’t Final Fantasy III. It was Final Fantasy VI, but it was the third main-series Final Fantasy game released in the US, following Final Fantasy IV (which we called Final Fantasy II). The REAL Final Fantasy III, released in Japan for the Regular Nintendo, never actually made it across the Pacific.

A few years ago, Square Enix remade the game for the Nintendo DS and finally published it outside of Japan. Rather than spiffing up the original NES title’s sprite based graphics as they had with Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II (the REAL Final Fantasy II), however, they remade the game from the ground up with adorably stylized polygons. The remake was well received both critically and comercially. Five years after finally bringing the title to the states, Square Enix has repackaged and released the remake for the iPhone.

If you are unfamiliar with the DS game the iOS release has been ported from, but you are familiar with the other 3D Final Fantasy titles that have graced all forms of Playstation, you should definitely alter your expectations for what the tone and the style of this game are. As I stated above, the polygonal characters are adorably stylized, and I meant that. The characters look somewhat like dolls, which is unsurprising given the typical audience the game would find on the Nintendo handheld it was designed for. That said, the art direction is not out of place given the story it presents.

The game puts you in charge of the fabled four Warriors of Light, all of whom happen to be orphans. It features the classic Final Fantasy plot, where the four elemental crystals which govern the balance of the world are threatened by evil forces, and it is up to the aforementioned four to save the crystals and, ultimately, the world. It’s a old and perhaps kind of boring premise, but it’s not without its charm and it’s certainly bound to illicit warm and nostalgic feelings in those who were raised on the series before the arrival of the Playstation. These feelings will then be nurtured by the game’s excellent score, arranged under the supervision of original series composer Nobuo Uematsu.

The game also features a variant on the very popular job system that American gamers got a taste of in Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy Tactics. It does all the things that a remake of an older game should, touching upon and improving many of the aspects of a long-beloved series while also presenting an old story to a new audience. If you’ve ever been eager to relive the experience of playing a new old RPG, this title is certainly one to look at.

 

 

Regrettably, the iOS version of Final Fantasy III has its drawbacks once you get past the nostalgia. For example, I can’t help but wonder now how I ever managed to deal with random battles before. Several times, I found myself on the verge of throwing my phone as I fought imps, bombs and goos at an alarmingly frequent rate. This problem is unfortunately exacerbated by the games touch controls, as the virtual analog stick can often make it difficult to navigate your party through dungeons. It is not uncommon to run over and over again into walls (and, incidentally, into two or three random battles) just trying to go through a narrow doorway or even to stand in front of a treasure chest to open it.

The game also uses common iOS multi-touch controls like pinching and pulling to zoom into maps and reveal secret switches and passageways, but the constant random battles make the idea of exploration much less appealing than it should be. While none of this stuff bothered me when I was a kid, I feel as though I need to accomplish more when I play a game now. This is especially true in this case because a game played on a phone is played mostly in bits and spurts. When I have a free minute, I’d like to clear a floor of a dungeon or maybe locate a hidden treasure. Instead, I find myself fighting the same enemies over and over again. While the twelve year old Pete would love to spend his time grinding out levels and drawing out the dungeons for as long as they can go, I actually have other ways where I could be spending my time and would much prefer a game where the experience was rebalanced and the random encounters far less frequent.

Despite these concerns, I just couldn’t pull myself away from the game. Final Fantasy has always held a large, warm place in my heart, and for all it got wrong, it got so much more right. The price tag seems outrageous for an iOS game ($16?!), but I was able to justify it by telling myself that I was buying a present for a kid. Yes, I am the kid. I bought the game for the kid in me that’s still blown away by the SNES’s mode 7 effects as the whale ship in Final Fantasy II (Final Fantasy IV) took off for the moon. If you’ve got that kid in you, then by all means spend your money on this game. As an entry point to the series, you may end up more frustrated with it than somebody who has already been tempered by the thoroughly ridiculous design conventions of 8 and 16 bit era RPGS. Still, the characters and story are charming enough that you may yet find something to love in this package. There’s worse ways to spend $16 in the app store. Without a doubt, Final Fantasy III is the best repackaged Square Enix property available on the app store, and the price should be the only barrier to entry.

Game Review – Enslaved Odyssey to the West

Posted by Jessa Phillips aka "SultryMinxZoe" | Posted on 23-01-2011

Category : Game On, PS3, Reviews, Xbox

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

 

Publisher: NAMCO

Photo courtesy of NAMCO

 

Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3

Game Rating: T-Teen

Review Rating: 7 out of 10; BUY

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is the follow-up game to Ninja Theory’s Heavenly Sword. 150 years in the future, Mankind is struggling to stay alive. The remaining humans are hunted and enslaved. When a slave ship crashes in New York, the only survivors are Trip and Monkey. Trip is a tech-savvy young woman from a tribe that has remained hidden while robots rule the earth. You play as Monkey, a big, burly fighter with acrobatic skill. To increase her chances of survival, Trip enslaves Monkey to ensure he will protect her as they travel across the treacherous landscape to find a way back to Trip’s people, fighting off mechs along the way. The story is well-told and integrates nicely with the game-play.

Enslaved is set in a post-apocalyptic world. Instead of going for the typical dust-bowl landscape we’re used to seeing from so many games, players are immersed in a lush, green environment which reminds me of the History Channel’s Life After People. Steel, concrete and brick crumble under the oppression of nature, as plants scale structures. The destabilized structures also provide a great environment for the platforming aspects of the game, adding that bit of danger when you realize your hand-hold is crumbling under your weight. Quite simply, the game is gorgeous.

Photo courtesy of NAMCO

 

Another fantastic aspect of Enslaved is the facial recognition. A lot of effort has been put into the character design and motion capture to add an additional feeling of realism. A prime example is the inclusion of Andy Serkis, of Lord of the Rings fame, who lends himself to Enslaved for the facial and motion capture, as well as the voice of Monkey. In addition, he puts his considerable talents to good use as co-director of the cut scenes.

In terms of the actual game-play, the game is fun. It combines strategic planning and combat, platforming and hack & slash with a dash of shooter game-play. The companion aspect with Trip is done well. While your primary mission is to protect her, Enslaved doesn’t make it feel like a babysitting job. The companion aspect is a welcome interactive experience, providing necessary assistance to get through the game. The fighting is not especially difficult, but the developers have done a great job mixing in different types of game-play to prevent the game from becoming too monotonous.

Sadly, it’s not all good for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Somehow, the game has not been able to avoid dreaded hang-ups. There are more than a few instances when you will find yourself stuck in the background, forcing you to move back before you can continue forward. Hanging on a piece of scaffolding when hopping from one piece to the next is a sure way to be removed from the gaming experience. Another issue is physical interaction with Trip. Too many times you will find yourself walking into and around Trip in order to find just the right stance to toss her to the next level.

To find out more about Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, visit Namco’s Official Site.

Game Review – Epic Mickey: Where is Oswald?

2

Posted by Nicole Wakelin aka "Total Fan Girl" | Posted on 22-12-2010

Category : Game On, Reviews

Tags: , , , , , ,

cross posted at Total Fan Girl

We’re an Xbox 360 family because my husband is a hardcore gamer.  I can’t generally play games with him because he’s so good, that he leaves me in the dust where I inevitably get shot to pieces by the enemy.  Many times.  And then I get angry and controllers fly….it’s a bad scene.  I do really enjoy watching him play though because so many games now have fully developed story lines and characters.  I wanted to see if Shepard would save the world and get the girl in Mass Effect, and I kept hoping beyond hope that Marston would find his family safe at the end of Red Dead Redemption.  If a game is just about hopping from level to level, shooting bad guys and racking up points, it’s just not as interesting to me.  Those games have their place, but they are not as immersive or as impressive as games with fully fleshed out worlds and characters.  Epic Mickey promised to be my kind of game.

Everyone is familiar with Walt Disney and his amusement parks.  We all know Mickey and Goofy, but very few know about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.  This little rabbit was Mickey’s predecessor way back in the 20′s and he was hugely successful.  But despite Oswald’s popularity, it was Mickey that became Disney’s greatest success when the rights to Oswald were lost in 1928.  Mickey became famous and Oswald, under different ownership, gradually disappeared from the limelight.  It wasn’t until 2006 that Disney finally got those rights back and Oswald came home.  His original shorts were re-released in 2007 and the first new hints of him in Disney merchandising appeared in the form of t-shirts and Christmas ornaments.  This was all pretty exciting for Disney Geeks, but the most exciting development for this Geek was his pending appearance in Epic Mickey.

I could not wait to see Oswald again, newly animated, running around my TV screen with Mickey.  I don’t own a Wii and I was so desperate that I convinced a friend’s kids to give up their Wii so I could play, with the promise that I’d give them the game when I returned the console. So, for the last month my family has been playing Epic Mickey until today, when I returned the Wii and the game, unfinished, and somewhat disappointed.  The game itself was a classic platformer.  Nothing new or exciting and honestly it’s a bit tricky to play with the nun chucks.  The “paintbrush” with either paint or thinner is a neat idea in an animated world, but aiming it is so flaky that you often miss your target.  My biggest disappointment though, despite downright frustrating gameplay, is something else entirely.

The alternate universe of the Cartoon Wasteland is fun.  Disney fans will easily recognize the different rides, like It’s A Small World, turned into something a bit creepy and odd.  I know, the real ride in the real world might be called creepy and odd but you get my point.  The music is ever so slightly different and a bit off key, the boats float in paint thinner, and there are evil brooms right out of Fantasia throwing buckets of the stuff in your direction as you jump Mickey from boat to boat.  This part of the game was well done and appeals to my inner Disney Geek.  Mickey then moves from one land to the next by jumping into old black and white film reels.  This is also very cool as are the little glimpses of Oswald, who Mickey is chasing.  And of course there are cut scenes, which, given that this is Disney, should be amazing, but….

The cut scenes aren’t actually animated.  Nope.  They’re static images that the camera pans across.  And they’re done in a very minimalist style, more like storyboards from a work in progress than a finished product, and you have to read the words that pop up on screen to know what the images are telling you because the images themselves convey so little.  What?  This is Disney.  What the heck happened?  Oh, and you know that cute little rabbit, Oswald?  The guy who was touted as getting his first new appearance in 50 years and who hasn’t been part of the Disney family in even longer….you hardly see him at all.  Other than his appearance in the opening animated sequence, which is fantastic, Oswald is as elusive as a seat on the Monorail after the fireworks.

I didn’t come to this game as a Gamer.  I came to this game as a Disney Geek who couldn’t wait for the opportunity to see a beloved character of old make a triumphant return to the masses.  I couldn’t wait to show my kids the cute, trouble-making rabbit.  Sadly, I’m going to have to wait a bit longer since his role in this game is practically non-existent.  Epic Mickey held such promise as a reintroduction for this long forgotten character, but instead it turns out to be a poorly executed platformer, with dull cut scenes and very little of the spark of brilliance that is the hallmark of the best stories created by Disney.  Epic?  Not even close.

Game Review – Bayonetta

Posted by Jessa Phillips aka "SultryMinxZoe" | Posted on 02-06-2010

Category : Game On, PS3, Reviews, Xbox

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Publisher: Sega

Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3

Game Rating: M-Mature

Review Rating: 8 out of 10; BUY

Lately, I have given my PS3 all the attention. Bayonetta provided the perfect opportunity to show some love to the old 360. “To the GameStop, Alfred!” After opening the eyes of a young clerk to the reality of female gamers, Bayonetta was mine. Now, I have heard raving reviews of this stylized game. I even played the PS3 demo and knew I had to play this game. With all the hype surrounding Bayonetta one has to wonder . . . is that all it is? My answer – Yes and No.

Who could help being drawn to the female lead? Sega was reaching directly into the stereotypical male fantasy here. Sexy librarian in a skin-tight catsuit anyone? Bayonetta was raised by, but set apart from, Umbran witches. Magical powers – check. Umbran withes represent the dark or evil in the world. Along with their counterparts, Luman Sages which represent light and all things good, they possess the “Eyes of the World” which act to maintain balance in the world and create history. Danger of world domination – check. The biggest problem Bayonetta faces is her amnesia. That is right folks, the woman cannot remember who she is and she is looking for answers. Mysterious – check. What she does best, is kill. She is a hired gun that makes her living disposing of a whole host of angelic forces. Violent tendencies – absolutely.

On to the looks. Bayonetta is a raven-haired beauty who dons a catsuit, made of her own hair, that hugs in all the right places. She is of the magical persuasion and uses her hair to summon demons to aid in dispatching heavenly creatures in battle. Freaky and a little kinky – double-check. Rocking out the outfit are the most fantastic set of boots to make this gamer drool. Seriously, what angel does a gal need to kill to get some of her own 5″ boots equipped with auto-firing gun holsters? Add a lovely pair of glasses, a british accent and a few innuendos and there you have Bayonetta. Oh, did I mention the stripper pole?

About those magical powers . . . I’ve already told you about the hair demons and that truly is the most awesome of her magical powers. Right from the intro cut scene you learn Bayonetta has the power to open portals to alternate dimensions which she uses to communicate with people in the “real world” and call demons from Hell. She does have a few more tricks up her sleeve, like the ability to change form;  make her jump and she morphs into a butterfly. Soon you discover she can release her “beast within” and become a panther, providing essential speed and agility. When she evades an enemy just before it attacks, she engages “Witch Time” which allows her to freeze time to finish off her enemies or walk on water. In the moonlight, Bayonetta can engage “Witch’s Walk” to walk up walls, in some environments.

As for the supporting characters, there are few. The developers have created just enough extraneous characters to tell the story and that is it. There are few extras here. Even as you travel through the world, everyday people are mere shadows of those walking around in an alternate dimension. Here’s a quick summary of the supporting cast, without giving away too much plot:

Rodin - a large black man, Rodin is owner of the night club, Gates of Hell. He is also a gun-runner with a personal portal to the underworld, where he makes or procures Bayonetta’s weaponry, and lollipops, of course.

Enzo - a short portly italian man, Enzo is a rat. He is loud and obnoxious, moreover he looks out only for himself.

Jeanne - a tall blond with an affinity for motorcycles, Jeanne is a sister Umbran witch. In this game, she is the proverbial cat with 9 lives. Jeanne knows Bayonetta and she knows what is in her past. She has the answers Bayonetta needs. If Jeanne is a sister witch, why is she always fighting you? Is she a friend or foe?

Luka - a charming ladies man and journalist, Luka has been chasing after Bayonetta almost his whole life. At an early age, he saw Bayonetta murder his father. A great part of him would like to bring about her demise and see justice done, yet he is afraid of her, or is he overwhelmingly attracted to her?

Cereza - a small girl, wandering alone in the town of Vigrid, Cereza believes Bayonetta is her mother. She does resemble Bayonetta quite a bit, but it is hard to envision the gun-toting heroine as a mom. Along with her knit stuffed kitty, Cheshire, Cereza is the key to Bayonetta’s future. The true question is what can she reveal about Bayonetta’s past.

Gameplay is good and actions are fluid. There is not a lot to master in this game and it does not require any great skill. I am actually excited about this. I am not a huge fan of massive kill moves that need strings of commands. Bayonetta does not require a 15 button code to execute a single move. That is not to say there are no combo commands - there are. There are many combo sequences to try and I highly suggest you do. They are not necessary; however, it is what makes the game so much fun. Get on a combo kick and watch the hair fly. Aside from utilizing her own weapons, Bayonetta can take advantage of the weaponry her fallen enemies leave after their death. Firing a gun is fun, but wielding a battle-ax is great too.

The graphics are gorgeous. Characters are bright and vibrant. The developers took full advantage of the light and dark concept. After this game, you will never think of heavenly entities the same way. Archangels look like relatives of pterodactyls in colorful robes, some even carrying musical instruments as weapons. Bosses are truly twisted incarnations of cherubin children. The Demonic hellbeasts of hair are creative and differ with each angelic host they are called to defeat.

The world you travel through is in decay after hundreds of years of destruction. Most “real-world” locations are in some level of ruin, or are actively being destroyed. There is a blending of old world styling with new world convention. Most locations are set among cobblestone roads and antique brick buildings. Meanwhile, there is a modern-day air base, highway and a glittering metropolis on an island in the sea. The locations throughout the world and dimensions are well done, if sparse. Do not travel far from your appointed task, you will not get far. I can appreciate the limited environment. Too often developers create a vast environment with little purpose. In these cases, the world looks great, but gamers can spend the better part of an hour wandering an empty village, breaking jars to collect magical coins to find they were 20 paces from the Boss at the beginning of the level. That is not to say games that encourage exploration are not good; however, that is not why I picked up this game.

The storyline is interesting and amnesia as a device to encourage our desire to know more was a good idea. What was more curious was how the information is revealed throughout the game. The basics of the plot can be gleaned early on; however, there is a bigger story being told and you will find more than a few WTF moments, wondering how it all ties together. The dialogue, particularly in the early chapters, is dreadful. Thankfully, as the game continues there is less trying to make us laugh and more of a wish to progress with the story. That being said, the dialogue sequences can get lengthy in the latter chapters. The biggest mystery has to do with the cut scenes. In my opinion, cut scenes are just as important to some games as the gameplay. Unfortunately, this is where the game let me down. The cut scenes are flashbacks, that is not the problem. The majority of the cut scenes consist of stills, presented as scenes from a film. This is a mistake on the part of the developers, particularly with a game being praised for its slick cinematic feel. Something I loved about this game is the camera control, or lack of. I will admit, I dislike games that require gamers to control the characters actions and perspective. I find it annoying and unnecessary. Bayonetta allows you to control camera perspective; however, you will not miss a thing if you never change the angle.

All in all, Bayonetta was a great way to spend a day for this hack-and-slash lover. The brilliant graphics, easy gameplay and a bevy of attack options (especially the hair demons) made this an excellent game. To my dismay, I ended the game with a general sense the developers did just enough to make the game. The sparse locations, still photography cut scenes and inspired button-mashing do get tedious and the game loses some of its momentum.

If you still aren’t sure you want to lay down the $59.99 to buy Bayonetta, download the demo available on Xbox 360 and PS3. For more information, visit the official game website.

Game Review: Bayonetta

Posted by Jessa Phillips aka "SultryMinxZoe" | Posted on 02-06-2010

Category : Game On, PS3, Reviews, Xbox

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Publisher: Sega

Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3

Game Rating: M-Mature

Review Rating: 8 out of 10; BUY

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsAJ0EaTi4E]

(Game trailer courtesy of Viso Games [YouTube User, Games])

Lately, I have given my PS3 all the attention. Bayonetta provided the perfect opportunity to show some love to the old 360. “To the GameStop, Alfred!” After opening the eyes of a young clerk to the reality of female gamers, Bayonetta was mine. Now, I have heard raving reviews of this stylized game. I even played the PS3 demo and knew I had to play this game. With all the hype surrounding Bayonetta one has to wonder . . . is that all it is? My answer – Yes and No.

Who could help being drawn to the female lead? Sega was reaching directly into the stereotypical male fantasy here. Sexy librarian in a skin-tight catsuit anyone? Bayonetta was raised by, but set apart from, Umbran witches. Magical powers – check. Umbran withes represent the dark or evil in the world. Along with their counterparts, Luman Sages which represent light and all things good, they possess the “Eyes of the World” which act to maintain balance in the world and create history. Danger of world domination – check. The biggest problem Bayonetta faces is her amnesia. That is right folks, the woman cannot remember who she is and she is looking for answers. Mysterious – check. What she does best, is kill. She is a hired gun that makes her living disposing of a whole host of angelic forces. Violent tendencies – absolutely.

On to the looks. Bayonetta is a raven-haired beauty who dons a catsuit, made of her own hair, that hugs in all the right places. She is of the magical persuasion and uses her hair to summon demons to aid in dispatching heavenly creatures in battle. Freaky and a little kinky – double-check. Rocking out the outfit are the most fantastic set of boots to make this gamer drool. Seriously, what angel does a gal need to kill to get some of her own 5″ boots equipped with auto-firing gun holsters? Add a lovely pair of glasses, a british accent and a few innuendos and there you have Bayonetta. Oh, did I mention the stripper pole?

About those magical powers . . . I’ve already told you about the hair demons and that truly is the most awesome of her magical powers. Right from the intro cut scene you learn Bayonetta has the power to open portals to alternate dimensions which she uses to communicate with people in the “real world” and call demons from Hell. She does have a few more tricks up her sleeve, like the ability to change form;  make her jump and she morphs into a butterfly. Soon you discover she can release her “beast within” and become a panther, providing essential speed and agility. When she evades an enemy just before it attacks, she engages “Witch Time” which allows her to freeze time to finish off her enemies or walk on water. In the moonlight, Bayonetta can engage “Witch’s Walk” to walk up walls, in some environments.

As for the supporting characters, there are few. The developers have created just enough extraneous characters to tell the story and that is it. There are few extras here. Even as you travel through the world, everyday people are mere shadows of those walking around in an alternate dimension. Here’s a quick summary of the supporting cast, without giving away too much plot:

Rodin - a large black man, Rodin is owner of the night club, Gates of Hell. He is also a gun-runner with a personal portal to the underworld, where he makes or procures Bayonetta’s weaponry, and lollipops, of course.

Enzo - a short portly italian man, Enzo is a rat. He is loud and obnoxious, moreover he looks out only for himself.

Jeanne - a tall blond with an affinity for motorcycles, Jeanne is a sister Umbran witch. In this game, she is the proverbial cat with 9 lives. Jeanne knows Bayonetta and she knows what is in her past. She has the answers Bayonetta needs. If Jeanne is a sister witch, why is she always fighting you? Is she a friend or foe?

Luka - a charming ladies man and journalist, Luka has been chasing after Bayonetta almost his whole life. At an early age, he saw Bayonetta murder his father. A great part of him would like to bring about her demise and see justice done, yet he is afraid of her, or is he overwhelmingly attracted to her?

Cereza - a small girl, wandering alone in the town of Vigrid, Cereza believes Bayonetta is her mother. She does resemble Bayonetta quite a bit, but it is hard to envision the gun-toting heroine as a mom. Along with her knit stuffed kitty, Cheshire, Cereza is the key to Bayonetta’s future. The true question is what can she reveal about Bayonetta’s past.

Gameplay is good and actions are fluid. There is not a lot to master in this game and it does not require any great skill. I am actually excited about this. I am not a huge fan of massive kill moves that need strings of commands. Bayonetta does not require a 15 button code to execute a single move. That is not to say there are no combo commands - there are. There are many combo sequences to try and I highly suggest you do. They are not necessary; however, it is what makes the game so much fun. Get on a combo kick and watch the hair fly. Aside from utilizing her own weapons, Bayonetta can take advantage of the weaponry her fallen enemies leave after their death. Firing a gun is fun, but wielding a battle-ax is great too.

The graphics are gorgeous. Characters are bright and vibrant. The developers took full advantage of the light and dark concept. After this game, you will never think of heavenly entities the same way. Archangels look like relatives of pterodactyls in colorful robes, some even carrying musical instruments as weapons. Bosses are truly twisted incarnations of cherubin children. The Demonic hellbeasts of hair are creative and differ with each angelic host they are called to defeat.

The world you travel through is in decay after hundreds of years of destruction. Most “real-world” locations are in some level of ruin, or are actively being destroyed. There is a blending of old world styling with new world convention. Most locations are set among cobblestone roads and antique brick buildings. Meanwhile, there is a modern-day air base, highway and a glittering metropolis on an island in the sea. The locations throughout the world and dimensions are well done, if sparse. Do not travel far from your appointed task, you will not get far. I can appreciate the limited environment. Too often developers create a vast environment with little purpose. In these cases, the world looks great, but gamers can spend the better part of an hour wandering an empty village, breaking jars to collect magical coins to find they were 20 paces from the Boss at the beginning of the level. That is not to say games that encourage exploration are not good; however, that is not why I picked up this game.

The storyline is interesting and amnesia as a device to encourage our desire to know more was a good idea. What was more curious was how the information is revealed throughout the game. The basics of the plot can be gleaned early on; however, there is a bigger story being told and you will find more than a few WTF moments, wondering how it all ties together. The dialogue, particularly in the early chapters, is dreadful. Thankfully, as the game continues there is less trying to make us laugh and more of a wish to progress with the story. That being said, the dialogue sequences can get lengthy in the latter chapters. The biggest mystery has to do with the cut scenes. In my opinion, cut scenes are just as important to some games as the gameplay. Unfortunately, this is where the game let me down. The cut scenes are flashbacks, that is not the problem. The majority of the cut scenes consist of stills, presented as scenes from a film. This is a mistake on the part of the developers, particularly with a game being praised for its slick cinematic feel. Something I loved about this game is the camera control, or lack of. I will admit, I dislike games that require gamers to control the characters actions and perspective. I find it annoying and unnecessary. Bayonetta allows you to control camera perspective; however, you will not miss a thing if you never change the angle.

All in all, Bayonetta was a great way to spend a day for this hack-and-slash lover. The brilliant graphics, easy gameplay and a bevy of attack options (especially the hair demons) made this an excellent game. To my dismay, I ended the game with a general sense the developers did just enough to make the game. The sparse locations, still photography cut scenes and inspired button-mashing do get tedious and the game loses some of its momentum.

If you still aren’t sure you want to lay down the $59.99 to buy Bayonetta, download the demo available on Xbox 360 and PS3. For more information, visit the official game website.

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