Play Impressions (14/4/10)

April 14th, 2010

meteos-flowers

Meteos

Meteos is a neat match-three puzzle game for the DS which involves dragging blocks vertically to match with same coloured blocks, either horizontally or vertically, which sends them flying past the top of the screen to a neighbouring planet. A stream of blocks continuously rain over you (hence the name Meteos, ie meteors) until you’ve lodged enough blocks into outter space to blow up the respective planet. There’s a bizarro narrative linking all this craziness together, but don’t dare ask me about it.

Meteos‘ simple match-three mechanics is lengthened out into a full game with stages that vary up the gravity of the skywards-moving blocks and, as referred to in the Lumines series, skins for the various stages. These alterations have no bearing on the core mechanic, and, as such, Meteos‘ sole asset feels stretched beyond its scope. Sora Ltd attempts to flesh Meteos out with a ridiculous story and locked bonus content, however, these additions, much like the changing skins and minor physics changes are artificial at best. New stages, bonuses and other extras are just distractions which impede the experience more than enhance, particularly when the block designs animate and become incongruous with each other.

I got many good hours of gameplay out of Meteos‘ enjoyable match-three mechanic alone, which suggests that the self-sufficient gameplay is better suited to a downloadable format with an infinite mode and clear block designs. This is an awesome game with frivolous additions to meet the retail release.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

How can one not enjoy the unashamedly bombastic nature of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat? It’s a game that I haven’t the energy to finish over a regular duration, so I’ve decidedly been hitting the bongos every couple of months for the past few years now. Not quite a ritual, just something worth pulling out on occasion.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is one of those games where the visual presentation matches the gameplay really well. Gameplay is a patchwork quilt of set piece 2D platforming concepts (riding animals, using the parachute and fans, the boss battles) stitched together around the surprisingly excellent bongo-based platforming. The standard platforming constitutes the majority of gameplay, as does the environmental/elemental-based theme within the visual presentation. As frequently as DK switches to a new mode of play, does the visual style pertain some sort of individualistic flair (which may not adhere to the rest of the style guide). Detailed textures and neat technical effects are mashed in amongst plain textures and simple modeling. The gameplay is as diverse as the visual showcase, consolidating the game’s irreverent style.

As a brief conclusion, the fact that Nintendo can create a supremely enjoyable platformer with two buttons and a clap technique is a testament to their ingenuity.

Final Fantasy: Rings of Fate

In contrast to how I usually comment on games, I haven’t didn’t play Rings of Fate for very long and am already writing about it. After an hour or so of playing (and confirming impressions with my brother who completed this game years ago) I decided that it wasn’t worth my time to play Rings of Fate. It’s simply hack and slash filler, that’s all. From the onset, Rings of Fate seems like a great kids game, but the story is so condescending and the voice acting so ear piercingly awful that I was forced to preemptively give up. Players loathe games which make them feel stupid and adore games which make them feel intelligent, and this was a game that looked down on me, so I have no sympathy for it and neither should the children.

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Tags: donkey kong, final fantasy, meteos

Height and Character Design Musings

April 8th, 2009

The strangest realization popped into my head when first playing Metal Gear Solid 4 roughly a year ago. In one of the numerous opening scenes, Snake was standing at the foot of a grave stone saluting. It wasn’t the obvious throwback to MGS3 that caught my attention – that metaphor was already obvious. No, what grabbed me was how Snake looked like a human, a normal person that could don a blazer, tie and pair of chinos. Normal Snake, in a normal context. Snake’s moment of reflection is then shortly interrupted by an equally real Otacon. Seeing both of these characters rendered in gorgeous photo realism certainly pulls at the game’s heritage and really draws you in.

Witnessing Snake in something other than skin tight fabric wasn’t exactly what made him seem human. It’s certainly a contributor, and presents him in a more personal light, but on pondering the idea a little, I realized what it was; these characters have legs!

The history of video games has been stunted by men and women with stumpy legs. I guess you could blame the plumer perhaps, he started it. While not true of all games and genres, I feel that in the past the build of video game characters have been presented in a rather obtuse fashion. Call it a technological thing, that resolutions are small and hence the pixel count to build a person is rather limited, you can’t argue with that. Less pixel power naturally results in less complex imagery and (generally speaking) more simplistic character designs. With these limitations in mind, when abiding by a strict pixel count, where on the human body can you cull pixels while still maintaining a “human” image? The legs, of course. Short hands, tiny head, empty torso naturally appear strange, shorter legs, I’d argue, less so.

That’s just a hand-wavy assumption though, I’ll let you judge that one yourself.

RPGs are another interesting point of discussion, due to a camera angle that looks down on its characters, the legs of many an RPG protagonist naturally appear shorter than they really are. It’s a neat camera trick. Phantasy Star was a little different in this regard, an exception perhaps.

final-fantasy-viii-8-cast

The first game that got me thinking about the legs in video games was Final Fantasy VIII. Unlike the growth stunted heroes of the previous entry, FF VIII realistically rendered their cast with human sized legs, maybe even a little longer. Since then, no legs have really stood out for me, until that of MGS4. Like FF VIII, these characters aren’t just tall people, they are tall by conscious design choice.

Another example of character height that stands out to me is village chief Bitores Mendez from Resident Evil 4. In this case, his height was intentionally standout and it works effectively in characterizing this menacing creature. Height is clearly an asset to him, unlike Ramon Salazar, another character in the same game, who’s height is clearly a challenge. There are rarely ever any (non-comedic) distinctively short game characters, which makes him all the more memorable. That and the shrill of his voice.

Maybe this commentary all sounds a little batty. Height is clearly an integral part of character design, so it’s interesting to explore its history and particularly memorable moments of its integration in video games. After all it does have an effect, it’s part of the reason why I’m quite resistant towards the dumpy characters in the Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles universe. I don’t know. Tell me some of your own ideas regarding game characters and height, and maybe this post would have been worth something beyond trail-less conclusions ^_^

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Tags: final fantasy, metal gear solid

Half the Man he use to be

April 6th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jggtImFqj3Q

Just a wee bit of house keeping to take care of. Firstly, check out another one of my posts over at Zath. This one is generically dubbed How To Improve Your Online Communication – I’m no good with titles. I really enjoyed writing this at the time, but when it came to re-reading the uploaded version, something bothered me and I not dare finish reading it. Maybe you can tell me if it’s any good. I remember it being dangerously academic at the time of writing (yet at the same time being impossibly academic, due to lack of references, read from here if you lust for empirical discourse). In anycase Simon let it through, and that’s cool.

I’ve also unfortunately suspended my crusade to take on the Final Fantasy series. Not by choice, mind you. I was lapping up Final Fantasy II on the PSone Origins disc. Thoroughly enjoying myself too, FF II is ten fold better than the original, yet amidst the RPG happy days the game freezes during a compulsory non-interactive sequence, ensuring that I can’t progress any further. This occurred once before at a determined point in the game, but thankfully I could avoid it, this time I’m not so lucky. I was planning on playing a good chunk of the series on the Playstation 3 and GBA. Not a bad choice considering the first time the first half the series (FF I-IX, maybe give or take one game) saw release in Australia was the PSone. No seriously, like Dragon Quest, we got robbed pretty bad.

The problem is a PS3 issue I think. So I simply to switch to the PS2, right? No, unfortunately not. A few months ago we got a mod chip installed on the console, to play a series of games that (like the Final Fantasys) had skipped PAL release. I whined over these titles previously. Yet, the console seems to be struck with the inability to play much at all. I’m not sure if it’s broken or what. I have to wait for my twin to investigate, so I’ve simply given up all hope for the meantime. Emulation is a possible option, but considering I have to whole series hard copy on access, there’s no reason why I should stoop so low to play the game’s that are rightfully mine (or his – my brother’s). In the meantime I’m itching to play some Dragon Quest IV on the DS, or Valkyria Chronicles on the PS3. Thinking of Valkyria Chronicles makes me urge to finish Fire Emblem Sacred Stones. Then again, maybe I ought to leave that for when I return to Shanghai. Argh, it’s too hard.

Just on that topic though, I wanted to give a shout out to this post which missed the rounds of last month’s Link Out segment. Deceptively simple differences between two of my most dearly loved titles. Who would have thunk it?

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Tags: final fantasy, netspeak

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