College Killed the Hardcore Gamer in Me

The gamer is dead, dead as doornail. I should clarify that statement; the gamer in me is dead. Allow me one more clarification, the hardcore gamer in me is dead and the culprit was college.

While I may be a bit superfluous in revealing the untimely demise of a part of my former self, this is because it’s something I have struggled with since I first noticed it happening.  I didn’t want it to die and like a hidden tumor growing in my brain, it snuck up on me and did its damage before any preemptive measures could be taken.

It seemed to happen in no time at all. In fact, it feels like just yesterday I was fiending to get home from school so I could unload on some n00bs in endless rounds of Counter-Strike, or level up my Hunter with some invested hours in Phantasy Star Online. It really feels like no time at all since I inhaled the news feeds of IGN and made dozens of daily posts on G4’s message boards under the username Snowmiser.

Then one day I sat down for a game of Super Smash Bros. Melee with my cousin. He is seven years my younger and I introduced him to the absurd fun that is Nintendo’s character brawler. I was generally used to schooling the boy in the ways of Mario or Captain Falcon, but this time I was shocked to find that he had suddenly developed gaming skills on par with Vince Vaughn in Swingers. He was handing my ass to me and made sure to smack talk the entire time. If I had ever seen the movie I would have probably felt like Stallone in Rocky V, but everyone has told me to avoid that low-point in the series for the betterment of my own existence.

Pop-culture similes aside, I was humiliated. Even my uncle commented on my withering gaming skills. It was my junior year of college and I realized it had been two years since I had completed a single player game of my own volition. I decided I needed to recapture my old glory, but when I sat down in front of my console ready to crack back into an all engrossing adventure game, I realized my zeal and passion for games and gaming was gone.

I couldn’t do it. Why? First off, the time commitment. Most games are ten-plus hours of gameplay and I had homework, reading and papers to get done. Then there’s the antisocial behavior. I was in college surrounded by people my own age. I didn’t want to become one of those recluses who only leaves his dorm to hit up the late-night drive thrus and empty his trashcan of used tissue.

No, single player games were dead to me and I found myself only gaming when it was in a social or group setting. Rounds of Halo, some heated games of FIFA and, of course, setlists of Guitar Hero were the only way to go for me. I could game for five or twenty five minutes with a group of my friends and feel like I had some fun without compromising my work or social life. I had become the casual gamer that the old hardcore gamer I used to be would have mocked and ridiculed.

But regardless of any amount of self-loathing and no matter how much I missed it, I just couldn’t get back into the single-player, hardcore gaming niche. Aside from Metroid Prime 3, I haven’t completed a full-length quest game since my freshmen year. Even after graduation, this is still the case.

This stems from the fact that it becomes increasingly difficult to justify long hours devoted to a medium in which I consistently question what in the hell it is that I am actually getting out of it. It isn’t a new debate, but I find myself posing the question as to whether or not video games are art on a consistent basis.

I want to say yes. There are some great examples in the potential for artistic expression in video games, but when I think about the ways I experience other forms of art and the way they effect me, well, video games rank pretty damn low on the list.

When I listen to music, read a book and, of course, watch a movie I can feel moved or inspired to look at myself, my life or life in general in new and exciting ways. When I experience art that moves me, it inspires me to go out and create my own work. When I beat a video game, you know what I usually feel?

“So what?”

This isn’t to say that there aren’t certain games have inspired me or games that have moved me. But those are few and far between. For every Ocarina of Time, Metroid Prime and The Secret of Monkey Island, there are at least a hundred more empty, first-person shooter frag-fests featuring excessive gore and computer generated big tits. The market is dominated by egotistical male escapist fantasies. Imagine if the majority of movies released were Michael Bay type extravaganzas, if every book were Twilight and every song some more Auto-Tune club crap. I don’t think people would take film, books or music very seriously either.

Video games need great character depth and character development. While it’s true that there are RPG’s that offer such an experience, they usually require around 40 hours of gameplay. There is a gap in the market for gamers who are looking for an artistic experience that don’t want to be anchored in front of a television for such an absurd block of time. I believe games have the power to move players and speak to something greater about our existence. Can it be done without having to master 17 types of shotguns and terribly cheesy voice over? I hope so, many just haven’t found out the “how” to that question.

That isn’t to say that there are not artists working right now to expand the expectations and limitations of the medium. However, these are mostly indie developers with much smaller budgets and much smaller fan bases. Like comic books, indie video game artists looking to do something more must face a dominated market in terms of both production and consumption.

I don’t want to come off as anti-gamer or anti-gaming. I want to love games like I used to. When I first beat Ocarina of Time, I was depressed. I didn’t want the adventure and my time in that world to end. I fell deeply in love with the characters and music in that world. I would go back and play the game just to wander Hyrule Field and play the songs on my ocarina that I loved. I remember the feelings associated with that game so well because it was rare that I felt something like that after finishing a game. I want to feel that again.

I want games to be respected, studied and discussed on the same level that film, music and literature are. If you know of any games that fill that void, let me know. I just feel that the medium just has a lot of growing up to do before the gamer in me is resurrected and video games are considered a true art form.

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Slugger for the iPhone: A Freakin’ Homerun

Once upon a time I was baseball fanatic. Hailing from the hilly terain of beautiful San Francisco I inhaled the sweaty musk of los Gigantes with pride. And I made a mark on the mound chucking side-arm sliders for my high school baseball team, the Lowell Cardinals (whoop whoop). But when I migrated 400 miles South to attend college in Los Angeles, the diamond-shaped baseball region buried deep in my soft-tissue shuddered and short-circuited. Perhaps I can fault my newfound proximity to a team I was raised to hate (the Dodgers). Or maybe the clumpy, stinky L.A. atmosphere can be held responsible. Either way, I fell off the MLB train.

It wasn’t until just recently, when I happened upon a slew baseball titles in the App store, that the smell of clean-cut grass and deodorant-less Umpires came barreling back at me like a screaming line drive. Beisbol. My former flame. I decided to give a couple of lite versions a whirl. These digital reunions,  to put it eloquently, were dick. Big, hairy dick.

In fact, I was about to give up on the sport altogether when a certain home run derby type title plunged onto the top of the App Store charts. What’s this? How could a baseball game lacking the functionality to play an actual nine inning game be so popular? Me no get it.

Then it went on sale. At $.99 I had to take a bite.

The result: Com2Us’ Slugger for the iPhone is my glorious albeit admittedly geeky return to America’s hot-dog-eating, beer-slurping, terrorist-stomping national pastime.

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of Home Run derby, you should immediately punch through the rock from which under you live. The classic mechanic works like this: hit as many home runs as you can within the span of 10 outs. An out is anything other than a home run.

Slugger is an arcade-style home run derby challenge with a surprising amount of depth. You’ve got standard Arcade and Classic modes (the only difference being that arcade mode rewards you for hits), a training mode with customizable delivery rotation, pitch speed and type and the coup de grace of this tiny wonder: head-to-head online competition.

With a plethora of player statistics (online ranking, win/loss totals, avg. HR distance, longest HR streak, etc.) repeated play is extremely gratifying. In my case,  maintaining a respectable win/loss ratio has become an obsession.

In online play, you choose your difficulty specific channel (or opt for a non-discerning one) and are immediately paired up with a comparably ranked challenger. The set-up is lightning fast over 3G and WiFi, and the gameplay is a blast. A small window displays your challenger’s game in the upper-right hand portion of the screen, and it’s a race to fill your score bar. After a match which lasts anywhere from 2-5 minutes, you can immediately request another, and you can even friend your opponent for later play.

I might as well let on now that online play alone is worth the purchase. But why don’t you humor me and read on for the other stellar stud in this baseball gem; upgradables. In both on and off-line play, a variety of pitches will come at you. Other than the standard smorgasboard of curves, sliders and knuckleballs, there are power-up pitches, sabotage pitches, and of course gold balls. Should you hit one of these golden nuggets out of the park, you’ll gain gold points, Slugger’s currency equivalent. With these gold points you can browse a marketplace of character upgrades. Helmets, uniforms, bats, batting gloves, even glasses and facial hair are all available to stat boost and customize your character’s look. Ish is bomb dot com.

Hokay, so you’ll note that I haven’t even mentioned the controls, graphics or sound design at this point. The truth of the matter is, they are all PERFECTLY executed. The graphics are Playstation caliber, the sounds of jeering fans, cracking bats and baseball-damaged scorboards are extremely satisfying and the controls are simple and effective. You use the accelerometer to line up the bat’s sweet spot with the pitch’s anticipated destination, and tap anywhere on screen to swing.

At the risk of turning this review into a full-fledged feature, I’ll compact my criticism into easily digestable bullets:

• Not all of the upgradables offer stat boosts, which begs the question why would you purchase them other than to customize your look?
• On that note, because the higher-costing items are generally better stat-augmenters, appearance customization is consequently minimal.
• I’d like to see an expanded marketplace with more emphasis on appearance customization and not just tiered upgrades. For instance, why do you have to pay to change your skin tone at the outset?
• More multiplayer game modes, please?

That about wraps up this review. I definitely recommend a purchase here, for baseball enthusiasts, former baseball enthusiasts, and sports-shy arcade fans alike. And if you ever come across SamSles in online play, watch the eff out. I can swing a mighty digital bat bitches. Crrrrraaaaacccck!

Castle of Magic Review

Well would you look at this, Sam Sles actually posts more than once in a fortnight. Has the world gone mad?

Anyway…

Today I’ll be wrapping my noodly gaming appendages around Gameloft’s latest offering, Castle of Magic, a platformer with some serious presentation glam.

The iPhone has seen a fair amount of platforming action. From Toy Bot Diaries, to Shift to retro classic Sonic the muthafucking Hedgehog, it’s a popular genre that translates to the device relatively well. In fact, the supposed limitations of a button-less gaming platform have birthed a series of innovations completely foreign to the DS or PSP (See Shift, Ignite, Rolando, etc.)

But a true, dedicated platformer – one that relies on the precise control of movement, jumping and attacking – remains a challenge on the device. iSkeptics maintain that a virtual button interface simply can’t deliver low-latency input response, and so control scheme mastery is nothing more than a digital pipe dream. But it appears that Gameloft dares to pack this pipe and smoke it, offering a classic platformer with little to none iPhone-specific control features.

So the question remains, can classic platforming exist (and flourish, even?) on the iPhone?

Well naysayers, I believe Castle of Magic is your answer. Through five worlds, 20 plus levels and several boss stages, CoM proves to overcome the “limitations of the device,” with gameplay that’ll have you crying “hallelujah this shit has old school ritz.”

In CoM, you control a nameless (his name might’ve been mentioned once, either way it’s clearly forgettable) boy magician whose female gaming partner has been kidnapped. The culprit is a heinous sorcerer Nefastax who tasks the boy with conquering several in-castle game worlds in order to recapture his ladyfriend. The story is garden variety platformer faire, and other than some clever quips, it offers no compelling entry-point into the gameplay. Whatever. A lucrative plot would’ve been nice, but Gameloft  appears to allocate their production resources elsewhere (if you’re reading this Gameloft, my writing services are cheap and gamer friendly.)

Let’s move on to the vizzy’s (that’s visuals for you non-abbreviation-savvy readers). Castle of Magic looks great. If you’ve played Klonoa: Door to Phantomile for the Playstation then you’ll feel right at home in this magical 2.5 dimensional world of vibrant backgrounds and polygonal characters. Everything from the in-game menus, to boss-battle cut scenes is polished. This is what iPhone gaming should be. And Gameloft really racks up some presentation points on this one.

The ONLY drawback in the graphics department stems from the incredible amount of detail the developers were able to scrunch into each world environment. Occasionally, when hopping along and pounding baddies, you’ll be hard pressed to distinguish the interactive, foreground platforms and NPCs from the fluid background animation. In the winter world, for instance, I often mistook lively penguins as interactive characters, and static igloos as background decoration. This issue isn’t completely debilitating (after several rounds of play you become familiar with each layer) it just runs counter to my gamer intuition.

The accompanying audio is likewise clean. Really, the soundtrack is carnival-ese and harkens back to established platform franchises. No complaints hear, err here.

Now to the meat of this megabyte package, the gameplay, the almighty platformer aptitude test. Castle of Magic features a now commonplace virtual button control scheme. A smallish virtual d-pad, two buttons for attack and jump (from left to right) and the occasional pop-up button for in-level passages and special moves. The basics are nailed down. You can double tap the jump button to perform a double jump and double tap and hold for a parachute gliding maneuver. The button response is surprisingly crisp. And I say this with stone-faced seriousness, because other than the pop-up buttons, there is nothing iPhone-exclusive about the controls. And so it appears Gameloft would like Castle of Magic to be evaluated on the same plane as say, Sonic, or some Italian plumber. Sidenote: CoM rehashes the Sonic health system replacing rings with gems.

But it fares relatively well. The levels are dynamic and of variable duration. There are (at least) four different powerups littered around each stage, enabling the protagonist to shoot fireballs, or climb vertically with a pick-axe, among other things. My favorite powerup is a stunted version of invincibility – you swallow an ice cream cone and transform into a fat kid, trouncing over enemies in a slow-motion truffle shuffle glaze. To top it all off, you can swim underwater AND morph into a swordfish when applicable. Snazzy.

Before I shower too much praise on CoM, I should mention that certain aspects of  the gamplay are as irksome as slow-loading internet porn:

There is only one mode of play, random, as the difficulty level fluctuates whimsically between stages. The boss stages are similarly schizo – some provide compelling, nuanced play mechanics, while others promote mindless task repetition. Spoily Alert! Case in point: the final boss requires nothing more than a detailed memorization of enemy movement pattens. Fucking lame.

To wrap up my criticism, the game is short. Like too short to ride this ride short. I could’ve easily conquered Castle of Magic on a lazy Sunday. Oh well.

Overall, I’ve enjoyed my time with this title. I wouldn’t say it’s got the depth or replayability of the 16-bit classics, but it does offer a shiny package for an afternoon platforming spree. At $5.99 it’s worth a bite.

And a final note to the iSkeptics: Give Castle of Magic a whirl and see if it doesn’t (for the most part) calm your pretentious thumbly-wumbly control concerns. If you have tried it and you’re still high on your physical button horse, then why not post a comment outlining your position? I always appreciate some snarky debate.

New Genre, Coming Through: Welcome to the Sandbox

I’m probably one of the few people who gets a little excited when I see those survey cards inside the instruction manuals of new video games. You get to fill out the little survey, and mail it out for free (no postage necessary), content with the knowledge that you, in some small way, have influenced the video games market with your consumer data. Sue me, I’m an idealist.

They ask you how many games you buy, how often you play, and what kinds of games you like specifically. Right here, right now, I’m starting the lobby for Sandbox games being represented as their own genre on those kinds of lists. Action/Adventure represents them you say? Perhaps back before GTA III, but these days, with so many games sporting robust open worlds and the style being represented as often as it is, it has developed beyond just being a “setting” for an action/adventure title when properly implemented and utilized.

By now, the Action/Adventure genre as it is has been separated enough from Sandbox gaming because while it can be set in a “city” or open world, it very simply breaks down to: missions, goal attainment, story advancement, rinse, repeat. I have nothing against AA games, I love Uncharted and have a healthy amount of AA titles in my games library, but the idea behind them is the nature of Adventure: that you set out with a goal in mind of attaining, and with some level of freedom to deviate, it follows a linear path of progression towards that goal.

Sandbox gaming, on the other hand, is marked by the ability to provide a robust experience without a player following the narrative arc of the game. GTA IV, for example, is cited as a great example of this since many people have played this for hours without ever advancing the story. They drive taxis, earn money, buy guns and tear the world up. While they’re missing out on a brilliant narrative (the story was what really made GTA IV spectacular in my eyes), their interpretation of that particular game shows just what a Sandbox game is as opposed to just an open-world game.

Prince of Persia (2008) for example is the latter. While the game world is open and allows for free roaming, aside from the reparations the prince makes, it’s hardly a sandbox world, merely a responsive adventure world where the game relies on the pursuit of the stated goal of rejuvenating the land. Aside from pursuing light seeds, a supplemental quest that doesn’t benefit the characters other than advancing the story in some parts and being an achievement marker, there is no “sandbox” to play in. It’s a robust environment through which the player has free reign to roam about.

The genre of sandbox gaming can be defined not just by the scope of the environment, but the depth of the experience primarily. How much is there to do in the game’s setting? Are the multitude of the options superficial? Are they all requirements for narrative involvement and advancement? Or, in the case of true sandbox gaming, can the player find a unique playing experience through these elements even if they are independent of the narrative?

GTA IV manages this, as I stated before. It’s the new trend for gaming to provide an open world that not only gives the player a natural environment to make theirs, but to also make that environment realistic in its response to player actions and narrative development. GTA III did a good job of this by making your presence draw the fire of certain gangs in different neighborhoods when the story called for it. Spider-Man 2 did a decent job of this too, as the story advanced, certain enemies began appearing randomly in the streets in response to the narrative as well. The sandbox responded to the player’s actions and movements through the City. The same can be said of InFamous (if you haven’t read my review of it, you can do so here). Whether a player is evil or good affects not just the game’s aesthete, but also the City’s response to the disaster that begins the story. Does it repair itself and rise from the ashes? Or does it continue to slip further to despair? These are all affected by Cole’s powerful influence.

It says something that technology for video games has advanced far enough that we can construct complex environments for players to interact with and thusly establish an entirely new genre of gaming. That we now have a genre that has separated itself markedly from its forebear shows that the technology and medium of video games is still growing and finding its footing in the world of gaming. Am I the only one who’s excited to see the next GTA or an InFamous sequel?

Dino Smash iPhone Review

I have to face the music. My last Powso piece, a favorable review of Chillingo’s arcade thriller iDracula, was posted to the site over two months ago. My bad people. My bad.

In an effort to make up for lost time, I’ll be posting a string of brief albeit scrupulous reviews in the coming days.

Life post-graduation hasn’t been easy. I’m a jobless wayfarer; a spineless intern. But the one thing that gets me out of bed every morning is a gregarious, glowing rectangle. My iPhone. My pocket companion. And let me tell you, the unemployment train has not derailed my App store consumption habits. Sorry Dad.

Without further ado, I present Dino Smash, Eurocenter’s frenetic multiplayer dino brawler. Dino Smash has racked up stellar reviews on a variety of mobile gaming sites, and drew early comparisons to the original (read: unparalleled) Super Smash Brothers on the N64 for its friendly control scheme and frantic gameplay.

The first incarnation, featuring deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag play modes invited players to control identical dinos in a one-map death arena of ladders and platforms. Using a virtual joystick and three, colorful action buttons (fire, grappling hook and jump) the player must navigate through a side-scrolling tree-top labyrinth, offing enemy dinos with a well-rounded arsenal of weaponry.

The gameplay is smooth and boasts a speedy frame rate. The controls are simple, but nuanced enough to satisfy hardcore high-score list toppers. For instance, a mastery of grappling allows for momentum-based maneuvers a la Spiderman 2 on the PS2. Those with squatter tendencies can even dangle from a vantage point and pick off unsuspecting noobs. Talk about old-fashioned pwnage.

From an audio standpoint, there’s nothing to complain about. Childish yips and battle grunts properly suit the game aesthetic. And the menu soundtrack, a bouncy affable tune,  is suspiciously reminiscent of Diddy Kong Racing. I like.

Recent updates have added customizable avatars, match-making preferences, additional player ranking information and a couple more maps.

At $.99, there is no reason to gloss over Eurocenter’s charmingly polished offering. Dino Smash is hands down the best online fighting game on the platform.

That being said, I always manage to pick a bone or two. Developers, lend me your ears.

Among a dynamic balance of rifles, grenade launchers, shotguns and katana blades is a debilitating default weapon. The hammer. The noob-approved weapon of choice for imprecise mayhem, the hammer is an unfortunate go-to for anyone looking to up their kill count. Hammer spammers are the bane of my Dino Smash experience. And though only a cursory knowledge of acrobatic evasive tactics is required to avoid these bashing brethren, they are still disproportionately powerful.

My remaining significant criticism lies with the dismal map selection. I have a feeling if Eurocenter released some-sort of complementary level editor the dedicated dino fan base would throw up their hands in reverence.

Finally, the online-only aspect is bound to turn off shooter veterans who prefer to refine their skills against the A.I. before entering live play. And 3G connections will inevitably welcome lag.

All in all, these criticisms (though warranted) are minor. Dino Smash is a smashing good time and I highly recommend it to anyone itching for some killer mobile multiplayer action.

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