Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game is genius, GOTY candidate

Posted Friday, 13th August 2010 under Retrospective game reviews
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So, on Friday nights I check PSN to see what new stuff has come out, and low and behold, after much drooling over screenshots and trailers, Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game is out. I downloaded the demo, Wifey and I fired through the first level, and I bought the full game immediately.

There is so much about this game that is just so right – beautiful spritework (thanks Paul Robertson, you’re my hero!!), amazing chiptune audio, fantastic old school gameplay with a few twists, local co-op, and all in 1080p, razor-sharp low-res style 2D gold. Then there’s all the fan service to the greats of years gone by, and probably heaps of other goodies I haven’t uncovered since we’ve only played through the first level…

I need to spend more time enjoying this game. You should as well. if you have a PS3, download it. If you have an XB360, hang in there, it shouldn’t be too far away. For those unawares, enjoy a trailer:

I really should do a special on Paul Robertson as well, the man is a certified superchamp.

Squeenix, why isn’t RayStorm HD available outside Japan on PS3?

Posted Wednesday, 16th June 2010 under Retrospective game reviews
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I don’t quite understand why RayStorm HD isn’t available outside Japan on PS3. So I went and grabbed a pre-paid card and bought a copy through the Japanese store. Probably cost a lot more than it should when you consider the markup assigned to obtaining a Japanese PSN card, but I reckon it was worth it. Plus, I was able to get the Playstation port of Thunderforce V – I’ve played that to death on my Saturn and was always curious what the port was like, so it was a convenient arrangement.

Anywho, Square Enix’s idiosyncrasies aside, how’s the remake? Very nice indeed (as Yakumo over at Retro Core would say!). I haven’t put a stack of hours into it at this stage, just fitting in the occasional session when not hammering through Afterburner Climax or other gear on the PS3. The HD visuals look clean, uncluttered and the 16:9 playfield works really well – this last bit was my biggest concern going into it as breaking out the boundaries of a horizontal shooter already squeezed to a 4:3 aspect ration (rather than tate, or 3:4 ratio) to an even broader ratio may have messed up the balance RayStorm managed to achieve from back in the day.

While the decision to forego any crazy/fancy new effects may turn off the new breed who haven’t spent much time with the original FX-1B version or the Playstation “port” (though the FX-1B shares its hardware design with that of the Playstation, not unlike Namco’s System 11/12 or Capcom’s ZN-1/ZN-2 platforms, hence why I’ve put the word ‘port’ into quotations), I think it’s a very tasteful update to a solid game… though I still prefer the original Layer Section to its sequels (i.e. RayStorm, etc). So instead of having all sorts of filters, high polygon counts, motion blurring and so forth, we’re presented with slightly updated models and textures that reflect the exact same aesthetic as the original, only without jagged polygones or blurry textures. This is especially noteworthy with the low-poly waterfalls in level 3 🙂

And that’s pretty much it – there’s an arranged mode and some unlockables to keep things interesting, but probably the best feature introduced to take advantage of the current hardware platform are the leaderboards that not only post your high score (mine will be down the bottom if they register at all! 😉 ), but also allow you to save and upload your replays. This is excellent, since it allows rubbish shmup fans (like myself) to see how it really should be done 😉 Aside from this, it’s still RayStorm, so if you didn’t like it before, you probably won’t now unless your tastes in gaming have altered accordingly.

The only question left is – why the worldwide snub for PS3 gamers? Hopefully this’ll be rectified in time. The PS3 needs more Japanese shooters on it – I’d love some Otomedius on our machine, as well as the R-Type remake that came out a while ago, then there’s the Naomi ports (like Ikaruga and Triggerheart Exelica), and so on.

Still, we do have the Söldner-X games which are pretty awesome, but I wouldn’t mind sharing with XBLA if PSN can get a couple of those exclusives in return 😀

Afterburner Climax – Game of the Year 2010

Posted Monday, 14th June 2010 under Retrospective game reviews
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See that blurry picture taken with my camera phone? That’s me purchasing Afterburner Climax on the the 23rd of April. Unfortunately, I’ve been too busy playing it to get around to posting my thoughts on it. Because it truly is that awesome.

But is this just hyperbolic dribble from a Sega fanboy, making the bold statement that this game should qualify as for GotY? Probably. But there’s a method to my madness.

You see, for me there’s a special place in my heart for the classic Sega approach to making a score-attack title. The original two Afterburner games are a double-dose of amazement foe example, and I’ve put more hours than I can count into OutRun. Then you can look at some of spiritual (or actual) sequels to these games that I’ve sunk even more time and money to continue with the classic fix they brought – Galaxy Force, Panzer Dragoon, Gunblade; Outrunners, Power Drift, Daytona, Sega Rally, OutRun 2/2006/Live Arcade (you could even throw Initial D in there as well). Amazing lineup of games that have quantified the definitive arcade experience over the years, and in this sense Afterburner Climax is a completely nonsensical throwback to pickup-and-play mechanics, score attack, increasingly steeper difficulty (arguably unforgiving at times), blue, blue skies and more than a casual nod at Sega’s arcade lineage.

What’s particularly commendable is that the game managed to survive the transition to a home format – I first came across the Afterburner Climax DX cab in… 2008 when checking out one of the few remaining arcades still around the place. The experience was absolutely amazing – having cut my teeth on the Afterburner hydraulic cab back in the day, it was a perfect re-imagining of the original concept but on a modern platform with more current technology.

Despite the lack of the fancy-pants cabinet, it’s still a blast to play – hyper-fast, an orgy of destruction and plenty of hat-tipping to the original games, especially the option to swap between the original YM2151 X Board hardware audio and the new soundtrack put together for Climax. There are plenty of unlockables that can alter the difficulty of the in-game experience too, which is handy if you’re rubbish at the game like yours truly and adds extra incentive for playing through the game over and over again.

And even though it’s not difficult to fire through the game in 10 minutes, I constantly find myself coming back to it every time I put the PS3 on. There’s something immediately refreshing about the no-bullshit attitude the game has – this is an arcade experience, and if you don’t like it, bugger off. No stupid tutorials to explain complicated controls, no unnecessary backstory to slow things down (there is a backstory mind, but it never gets in the way of blowing stuff up), barely any frame-drops or tearing, just pure, high-quality Japanese arcade performance gaming.

Welcome back Sega – what took you so long?

WTF is with the DRM on Final Fight: Double Impact Capcom?

Posted Friday, 30th April 2010 under New old games, Soapbox rants
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So, Capcom recently added what I previously thought was a great release of the arcade versions of Final Fight and Magic Sword as a two-game pack on PSN and XBLA. Owning a PS3, I was tempted to grab it as I really like both games and thought it would be fun to play them in the main living room of the house.

However, I just found out that the game pack has DRM built into it, part of which requires you to have an internet connection at all times when you want to play the game (thanks to Kotaku for the great writeup).

What… the… #$%@?

So let’s get this straight – I’ve bought the game, I’m using it on my PS3, my internet connection drops out (very much a frequent thing in Australia, despite the hard work of ISPs like iiNet and Internode, there’s only so much you can do given the infrastructure), and BAM – no game for me.

Or what happens if my ADSL modem kicks the bucket and I have to wait a couple of weeks between grabbing a new one – I can’t play a game I legitimately downloaded?

Or, as one of the comments left by a reader on Kotaku pointed out, in 5-6+ years time and PSN changes or whatever (or for the sake of retro gaming, 10+ years – the PS3 won’t be Sony’s primary platform forever), I can’t play the game?

It’s… beyond rational.

For the record, I have Final Fight on Mega CD, have previously had it on the SNES, enjoyed playing it on the Capcom Classics Collection releases on the PS2 and even own an original CPS1 Final Fight PCB. Despite this, I was still happy to launch more money over at Capcom (and I am a big Capcom fan) to grab this so I have the convenience of being able to play it in my living room with Wifey, who loves a good scrolling fighter.

But not now. No way am I supporting this kind or behaviour from a company that should know better.

The worrying thing is if this viral attitude that presupposes every user is a pirate starts to infect other PSN releases – I actually have quite a few titles I’ve happily purchased over PSN and think it is such a fantastic service, and as a platform it is fulfilling a niche market of simpler, old-school and retro-inspired titles that aren’t commercially viable via a packaged release.

But this is the wrong way forward.

I respect the rights of a developer and publisher to protect their IP. But in return, I expect the developer and publisher to respect me as a consumer. I also expect that, despite the game being a digital release, that I’ll still be able to fire up my PS3 in 10 or 15 years time and play it. I figure that if I can still fire up my Atari 2600, where some of the carts are probably around 30 years old, why shouldn’t I have that same expectation of a game I have purchased for my PS3?

Capcom have some interesting titles on the way, one of which includes a new entry in the Bionic Commando ReArmed series. I bought Bionic Commando ReArmed within minutes of playing the demo because of impressed I was with it, and thoroughly enjoyed playing through the game. The sequel will potentially be a day-one purchase. However, if there’s even a hint that this kind of draconian DRM is going to be present, I’m walking away.

Shame Capcom, shame.

The Rocket Knight Adventures revisit looks promising (new trailer!)

Posted Wednesday, 14th April 2010 under New old games
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Rocket Knight Adventures on the Mega Drive was/is awesome. When I was reading up via 1up and heard via their awesome nerd podcast Retronauts earlier this year that it was getting a revisit via PSN/XBLA, I was mildly excited. Some of the early promo artwork looked like it had potential, but I was still sitting on the fence.

However, after checking out an update over at PALGN and watching the trailer, I’m pleasantly surprised by how it’s shaping up:

I’m really loving the visual aesthetic here – there’s a classic storybook fantasy feel to the visuals that looks great, and the animation and particle effects are spot on. I didn’t have the speakers on while watching it though, so not sure on the direction with the audio. Hopefully it’s not poxy!

The original Mega Drive game in the series featured everything that made Konami such a powerhouse back in the 16- and 32-bit eras, with loving attention to detail on the visuals, great music perfectly suited to the hardware, plenty of colour, passion, spot-on controls, innovation and even a little story to boot! While the sequel on the Mega Drive was in comparison pretty disappointing (I’m guessing a different team handled it), the concept was still fun. The only game in the series I never got a chance to play was Sparkster on the SNES. I really should track it down though, Konami made some brilliant games on the SNES.

So yes, new Rocket Knight Adventures game for May. Can’t wait 😀