E3 Roundup
In case you’ve been under a Geodude these last two weeks there’s been a little videogame convention in America called E3. The Nintendo Wii (pronounced Whee!) seems to have caused the biggest stir with its innovative motion sensitive controllers, Virtual Console and always-on functionality, eschewing Hi-Def graphics for an affordable new way to play games. Sony on the other hand had an uninspiring show with their bulky Waffle Iron/Blue-Ray player (sorry I mean PS3), a plagiarising controller and some hefty prices. Microsoft announced their HD-DVD drive add-on, the interesting Live Anywhere which syncs up your 360 with your PC and mobile phone for some cross platform gaming experiences, are massively expanding Live Arcade and dropped the small bombshell that GTA4 would be available on the 360. They also showed off a tantalising teaser for some game called Halo 3 - heard of it?

SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs (16+)
Verdict: AI without the I
Platform: PS2.
Rating: 3/5
How many games these days don’t require complex controls and memory requirements that are no longer just referring to your computer’s RAM? Very few, which brings me to SOCOM 3, a game that at every opportunity trys to squeeze as much information into your brain and on the screen at one time.
There is a reason for this though - it’s a strategic, squad based military shooter. Third in the line for refinement and tweaking it offers vehicles as its reason for existence as you have plenty of opportunities to tear it up in jeeps and boats with your balaclava wearing posse.
As leader of an elite squad of Navy SEALs you are sent on varied missions throughout the world, issuing commands to your team mates on the fly and leading the fight with your customised tool set of weapons. The game is solid, if uninspired and the ability to hand pick your weapons allows for your own play style to shine through (that’ll be the semi-automatic rifle with added x4 scope and frag grenade launcher please!).
Unfortunately whenever I think i’m just about to really start enjoying it one of my elite squad members will start running into a wall or fail to notice the combatants shooting him in the back. Thankfully the enemy are of equal intelligence so they get on quite well. Seeing as i’m (debatably) sentient however I can’t help but get frustrated as I run down countless soldiers with my jeep because they don’t know i’m there (perhaps SOCOM 4 can introduce a horn so I can give them a quick beep before running over their surprised expressions). It’s as if the squad commands aren’t there for strategic control but to make up for the lack of AI, not that they actually help. I play games for fun and to test myself, SOCOM 3 only tests my patience and subconcious knowledge of guns.
Online and LAN play however are its saving graces, offering countless hours of tactical multiplayer fragging - just hope your team mates are a tad more intelligent than the artificial ones.

Metroid Prime: Hunters
Verdict: Metroid goes portable FPS, oh yes.
Platform: DS.
Rating: 4/5
When I bought my DS over a year ago it came with a demo that to me, superseded any of the launch titles by showing off the real potential of the touch screen. The fact that no one has yet released a first person shooter for the DS confounds me but I think things may be about to change as that demo has come of age and sits in my claw shaped hands in the form of Metroid Prime: Hunters.
Leading the way in a blazing, technologically ground breaking trail with stunning graphics and audio design, Hunters is in stark contrast with last week’s subject of review - Splinter Cell: Essentials as it’s a game that has been built from the ground up centred around the machine and its controls.
Playing like a traditional, dual stick or keyboard and mouse FPS, you use the d-pad to move and the touch screen to look around while the left shoulder button is on fire duty. The touch screen also serves as a panel for other buttons controlling weapon selections, morph ball and visor select.
As far as the game is concerned it’s a streamlined, portable friendly version of the standard Metroid fare. You’ll be exploring alien worlds, shooting, platforming, solving puzzles, and rolling around pinball-esque areas using Samus’ physics defying Morph Ball ability.
The most notable addition, aside from true FPS controls is the multiplayer. Originally scheduled for launch around Christmas without online functionality Nintendo thankfully backtracked and the difference it has made is immense. They’ve created a seamless, easy to use online death match system where you can battle it out (or in my case lose) against 3 others from the comfort of a WiFi hotspot. If you play with friends over WiFi you even get to voice chat before and after matches and there’s a rival system for making online enemies out of strangers. The games are frenetic and fun, the maps are well designed, and each Hunter offers different weapons and abilities, some of which however can be a little unbalanced. Be on the receiving end of Trace’s alt-form melee attack and you’ll know what I mean.
In the Metroid canon it may not stand up to be the best, lacking some of the depth and length of previous versions and encumbered with the DS’ slightly unforgiving ergonomics but as a replayable FPS it’s gonna have me firing plasma for months to come, wherever I go.

Splinter Cell: Essentials
Verdict: Essential? I don’t think so.
Platform: PSP.
Rating: 2/5
Hmm, here’s a lesson in how to take a great game and make it suck -1. Port it to a console that doesn’t have enough buttons/sticks for the original control scheme to work.
2. Use the original control scheme.
Welcome to Splinter Cell: Essentials, contender for the most ironically named game this year.
Essentials is a rehash of levels taken from the excellent Splinter Cell games residing on the home consoles. While this isn’t a bad thing, the fact that they’ve been shoe horned onto the PSP with little thought or sense and left reeling with inexcusable bugs is.
From the outset it’s apparent that the game has been rushed through development. From the initial and continual awkwardness of the controls to the constant audio glitches, shoddy AI and lifeless camera. While the core of the game is reasonably solid and built with some already proven level design it fails miserably in the area where it matters most - playability.
Replacing the PS2’s right stick camera control with the combination of a button press and the analogue nub (normally used for movement) means you are restricted from moving whilst altering the camera. Every few paces you take, every small corner you turn, you have to stop, just to see where you are going. In tense close combat situations it can often be the cause of your death - it’s hard to fight someone if you can’t see them. Lets not even talk about the levels where one false step means death and a level restart. Please, lets not.
Another example of design genius is that movement controls flip to the face buttons when you equip your gun (so you can aim with the analogue nub). Could they make the game any more counter intuitive to play?
it’s a game that doesn’t really sit well with portable gaming either. It doesn’t have that ‘pick up an play’ ethos and the dimly lit levels don’t suit anywhere other than a darkened room to play it in.
For it to work it needed to be redesigned with the limited controls in mind - automating the camera, remapping the controls in a radically different way. Instead, as the bugs show, it was just rushed out with little sensitivity towards its intended host.
If you were worried that the PSP would become a resting ground for lame PS2 ports, Essentials unfortunately does little to allay that fear.

Rampage: Total Destruction
Verdict: Distracting budget fun
Platform: PS2, GC.
Rating: 3/5
Putting you in the oft desired role as a giant monster on the rampage (or is that just me?) Total Destruction is an update of a classic franchise, moving it into the realms of 3D (soon to be 4D on the PS3) and offering a load more beasties than before.
When I were a wee lad I spent hours smashing skyscrapers with my sister on the Spectrum+3 (what a machine) and this faithfully recreates those rose tinted days although perhaps a little too faithfully. You (and up to 3 other friends) are charged with destroying buildings, eating people and challenges (eat 10 mime artists, smash 5 trams - the usual monstery stuff) have been introduced to spice up the gameplay and unlock special moves and new monsters.
The move to 3D is unfortunately limited and pretty pointless as you’re restricted to a single row of buildings at a time (just like the originals). In updating the series to 3D they could have made a free roaming, city smashing fest (i’ve yet to play a truly great game of this ilk - Godzilla, pull your socks up!). Instead they’ve plumped for what amounts to an unimaginative graphical update and introduces slower gameplay and unresponsive controls.
It’s fun for friends though and at £20 you can’t knock it as it comes with the original Rampage in its retro glory and the speedier claymation styled sequel Rampage: World tour which shows up Total Destruction’s inadequacies all too well.

The Godfather (18)
Verdict: Let it sleep with the fishes
Platform: PS2, Xbox, PSP, 360, PC.
Rating: 2/5
I had a vague hope that EA might actually turn the tide on the well earned reputation that games based on films are rubbish. Unfortunately The Godfather disappears into the annals of history as yet another generic, licensed cash in. Joy.
Admittedly they’ve made some effort, working the story of your character into the background of the film, allowing you to witness and be part of key events. It has their excellent character creation tool and an in-depth virtual tailor so your gangster can look, er...gangsterish and they’ve spent a lot of time accurately modelling characters from the film.
Seemingly taking their cues from GTA they’ve tried to create sandbox versions of Little Italy, Hell’s Kitchen etc, replete with ‘interactive’ people, cars to hijack and police to annoy. Whilst following the story of the film you can embark on side missions, gaining money for the family and treading on the toes of rival gangs by imposing your own enjoyably brutal ‘protection’ services upon local business’.
Featuring a once promising but ultimately two dimensional method of harassing people (attack them until a gauge fills to a certain level) its analogue controls give you some limited flexibility but it almost always leads to button mashing (or ‘stick mashing’ but lets not go there). The sandbox elements also prove to be pretty empty (and far from pretty) with little to do and very little depth. Look too closely and you’ll lose what vague suspension of disbelief you may have.
It’s this shallow level of immersion that is The Godfather’s biggest crime too (that and what happens to that poor horse) and what sets it so far apart from the original film. From the start it screams ‘game’ at you and doesn’t stop. Floating neon arrows, an out of context radar, icons that hover above people, an out of date HUD, unintentionally comic animations, a lackadaisical camera and cars that drive like supermarket trolleys.
Fair enough it’s a game so what’s the problem? It’s a game based on a classic piece of cinematography, not any old action movie. It’s been handled with little sensitivity or imagination and is full of so much unnecessarily intrusive game information that at no point do I feel like i’m in the film. And isn’t that the point of the game?

Driver: Parallel Lines (18)
Verdict: If at first you don’t succeed...
Platform: PS2, Xbox.
Rating: 3½/5
In the post Grand Theft Auto 3 landscape the Driver series was always going to have a rough time responding to Rockstar’s sandbox opus and Driv3r certainly wasn’t the correct response. Parallel Lines seeks to compete with GTA whilst carving out it’s own niche in the genre and repairing it’s tarnished name. Like a fumbled bank heist it almost pulls it off too.
Throwing you into the role of a young getaway driver, you’re thrust into a 1970’s New York full of cops and robbers car chases replete with cardboard box filled alleyways and iconic music. Flairs and Afros included. Later on the story twists and shifts to the contrasting present day making the 70’s seem altogether brown.
In sharp contrast to Driv3r, Parallel Lines features an impressively robust game engine. The draw distance is massive, everything is solid and bugs are at a minimum (apart from the odd physics glitch that can send your car disco dancing into the air in a fit of epilepsy).
The city is also vastly different to Driv3r’s - it’s heavily populated and teeming with life although it seems like they’ve over compensated for Driv3r’s barren wilderness - the roads can be so busy that high speed car chases become too staccato, forcing you to weave around the traffic at a stilted pace. Realistic it may be, fun it isn’t.
Car handling is finely tuned as expected from the series and is also an important feature of the game as you can repair, paint and upgrade any car you steal - if it gets destroyed it conveniently returns to the garage allowing you to continually experiment with the perfect getaway vehicle. Or best looking one.
Parallel Lines has a lot going for it. It’s authentically stylised, plays well, looks good, has worthwhile sandbox elements, uniquely introduces a stealth mechanic to car chases and improves upon it’s predecessor ten fold. As much as I wanted to like this game however it just kept falling short with poor design issues like cruel restart points, unskippable cut scenes and unclear objectives which ended up just driving me to distraction.

Dragon Quest: The Journey of the Cursed King
Verdict: Surreal, epic and very funny
Platform: PS2.
Rating: 4½/5
It’s a rare honour to play a Dragon Quest game - The Cursed King is the first released in the UK and typically, the eighth in Japan. As revered as the Final Fantasy series abroad and at home amongst UK importers it’s a series that has similarly been honed and refined over the years.
As I settled in for an evening of Japanese role playing with Noel (no, it’s not what you think) in an attempt to recreate our Final Fantasy glory days the first thing that struck me was the game’s distinctive aesthetics. With a glorious mix of stylised 3D graphics and cell shading you are immediately thrust into a vibrant cartoon world full of subtle confidence and primary colours.
With character design by the Dragon Ball Z creator it’s populated by wild and wacky creatures. From the King Kelp (an Elvis made of sea weed) to the schizophrenic calamari with arguing tentacles and Jessica’s well endowed Buff Puff ability it’s brimming with visual humour and ranks as one of the funniest games i’ve played without it even telling any jokes.
Special mention has to be made of the games localisation too, re-recorded with British voice actors it’s one of the few Japanese games with such a sensitive and well judged translation. Admittedly some of the squeekier voices grate but when it comes to portraying emotion it’s expressive and thankfully lacks the adolescent awkwardness of some of Final Fantasy’s heavier scenes.
Dragon Quest is a game created in the classic mould of the Japanese RPG. In fact it could be argued that it’s the series that set the mould. With turn based, random battles and the obligatory barrel smashing and levelling up of characters you’ll know exactly what to expect and while it could be argued the game is unoriginal and stuck in the past, what it has done is refine the formula with enough streamlining, thought and panache to make it a welcome and special sequel.
If it weren’t for the frequent and repetitive random battles and minor menu gripes it would be perfect - a rare example of how a sequel can improve a series, not degrade it.

Animal Crossing: Wild World
Verdict: A wide world of wonder
Platform: DS.
Rating: 5/5
Last week I moved house twice. Thankfully only one meant lifting heavy boxes up two flights of stairs, the other involved being driven by a sea faring turtle in a taxi through the pouring rain. I found it kind of fitting to name the latter town Sherwood too.
In the globe like world of Animal Crossing you are presented with an open ended paintbox game full of humour, mortgage repayments, socialising, creativity and lots of laid back fun. It’s a game with no finite goal other than earning money to pay off your mortgage (at your own leisurely rate), become an expert in interior decorating and make your town appealing to visitors - how you do this is up to you.
Provided with the tools to create you can do what you want - plant orchards and flowers, compose music, create constellations, paint and design clothes and furnishings in glorious pixel vision.
If all that creativity is tiring then go fishing or head down to the museum’s cafe for the sounds of the free spirited K.K. Slider, the singer/songwriter dog.
Presented in a colourful and stylised way your town exists in real time - day, night, weather and the seasons enchantingly matching reality by the DS’ internal clock and populated by cute animals full of character, bad jokes and a penchant for asking favours.
Play quickly picks up a rhythm of its own, short bursts everyday becoming routine to check the shops and mail, water the flowers and chat to the animals. If you leave it for a while they’ll wonder where you’ve gone and weeds will start to grow. It’s infectious and consuming, albeit in healthy bite size pieces and it’s even invading my dreams.
If you’ve played the Game Cube version then this is all very familiar because Wild World isn’t really a sequel, it’s more like a remix. Apart from the necessary and welcome streamlining for it’s portable home and intuitive touch screen controls the main difference is the addition of multiplayer between DS’ and over WiFi internet.
This allows up to four friends to play and chat together in one of their towns, a stop watch item allowing for the creation of fishing and bug catching competitions and games of hide and seek. Nintendo’s robust friend code system means no strangers can enter your town allowing people of any age to play in a safe and fun environment.
It also allows for information to travel between towns in a random viral like exchange of residents, constellations and clothing designs - if you ever find a Pacman t-shirt in your shop designed by Jammy, that was me.
Come to Sherwood, I have pears and oranges and a nice line in pixel design.

Fight Night Round 3 (16+)
Verdict: Floats and stings.
Platform: Xbox, PS2, 360.
Rating: 4/5
While enjoying Soulwax’s set at Rock City the other night it once again struck me how peculiar dancing is, the way we get great enjoyment from just shaking our body about - we’re a strange species aren’t we?
Fight Night may not be Virtua Celebrity Dancing but it’s certainly full of rhythm and groove. Just in this case it has purpose - to dance around your opponent, dodging shots and throwing well timed moves.
If you haven’t already guessed, Fight Night Round 3 is about boxing. Admittedly I don’t normally go for boxing games, I prefer the more acrobatic and fast paced Street Fighters and Soul Calibers of the world but I’ve found myself engrossed in EA’s latest iteration of the series, hooked by that ‘just one more fight’ urge to try and take my custom made fighter to the top.
It’s a comprehensive and polished game offering quick, pick up and play fights with famous boxers or the deeper career mode that allows you to create your own fighter (right down to the size of his lips) and tailor his fighting style and strengths to your own preferences in an RPG-lite kinda way. Just be warned if you give him an offensive last name - it appears on his shorts for all visiting parents to see.
Gameplay is mainly handled on the twin sticks - left for movement, right for punching - and it’s this set up that differentiates it from any other fighter I’ve played (IK+ being the closest I can think of). Using the right stick for throwing punches at first feels alien, it lacks the immediate satisfaction of button mashing but once you’ve been through the essential tutorials you’ll start to feel like you’re actually swinging those punches yourself - when they hit home it’s even more satisfying.
I’d love to talk in depth about how the graphics on the 360 version are nearing photo-realisim but I haven’t got one of those shiny new consoles yet (come on PR people send me a free one!) and had to suffice with a preview in a shop. The current gen machines handle the game well whilst the 360 version defaults without a HUD for total immersion, the high definition graphics, animation and audio conveying enough information to replace it - definitely a sign of things to come (dancing).