Games: What games are you currently playing? [OT!]

**mrwiseman** · April 2nd, 2007, 12:45 PM

IRT Cata: Whats your favourite/most played game on the 360 so far, by the way? Im thinking of buying one this summer.

Kameo, hands down. Here's a quick review of all I own or tried:

1. Kameo (adventure): Awesome game. Everything is great about Kameo: varied gameplay (control ~9 characters at once - the girl transforms), impressive visuals (you'll get straight into the next-gen with this; at least justifying what you've bought), and an outstanding orchestral and choral soundrack with the right music for the right scene, from the relaxing, environmental music in the central town to brick-shitting scenes. Its only flaw is that it ends, and it could have been longer. (Est. time 8-20 hours, moderate replay value.)

2. Test Drive Unlimited (driving): Somewhat of a massively multiplayer driving game. This would be the Oblivion of games. You're in Oahu. You can buy cars, hundreds of different models. Also bikes. You can tune them. You have to own houses with big garages for them. You enter competitions, win prizes. Also deliver stuff. And that's it. You're free in a huge island which you take over an hour to drive around at full speed.

3. Enchanted Arms (cRPG): Currently testing, can't say much other than it looks as good as any Final Fantasy could be, and the blonde guy is gay. Too early to judge, but I've read large reviewers were quite unfair to it, criticizing aspects such as linearity, which are part of the genre, probably because it comes from a small developer and doesn't have a big name. Being about the only pure cRPG you can get for the 360 (as opposed to the 2837918923705 damned American shooters which are all the same), it's not to be ignored.

4. Viva Pi?ata (RTS): Read my review above.

5. Dead Rising (adventure): Probably the best survival horror I've seen. Interesting story, good gameplay (though somewhat repetitive), and literally thousands of zombies (with a hundred of zombies on screen right after you).

6. Sonic (platforms): Duh. Read my review above.

7. Gears of War (FPS): Just another American Rambo-has-a-big-penis FPS. Quite cinematic and with a story mode (devs felt like working this time). Great visuals: the most awesome grey textures I've seen, though don't ask for other colours because there's little else. Why all the hype? I don't know, maybe it's great for FPS people, and maybe I'm going to get lynched after some Google this.

-. Oblivion (pcRPG): You already know about this one. If you don't like how it runs on your PC (can also get a cheap GeForce 7600GT for some 130 ? that will deliver great performance), you can try it on the Xbox 360. It runs in more or less medium detail (perhaps medium detail with high trees and grass), and high resolution (1280?720). However, the PC version is much preferred because of the mods, which are the biggest value of The Elder Scrolls. Right now my modified Oblivion has notably better visuals (at no performance cost) and twice as better AI than the original, plus a completely revamped, dynamic economy, rebalanced, less adjusting difficulty, and more things to see and do.

**mrwiseman** · April 4th, 2007, 11:53 PM

Playing Enchanted Arms, 2.5 hours into it. So far, it's ok, though I was expecting a bit more.

Gameplay: Good enough. Not the bomb ? random battles, little interaction with the scenario, but the combat system is fun. (Again, not Grandia, but it's not something you'll hate after two hours into the game.)

Story: Too early to tell. The setting is ok, it could have been any Final Fantasy game.

Characters: Pretty bad. The protagonist is an overexcited boy. Think Justin/Grandia 1, only with half the brains. Mr. Perfect is pretty good, though nothing like Citan/Xenogears. And then there's... that. The blonde guy is not just gay, he's a faggot. He's the kind of faggot you love to hate, regardless of your opinion on homos. They had to go for the worst possible stereotype. If they had done the same for other usual minorities, we'd have got a gangsta rapper talking like "whats up yo nigga, I gonna clear this shiz mutha fuggas" all the time. As a consequence, this guy always "fags up" all cut-scenes. With this character there's no way the game can get serious, romantic or dramatic, no brick shitting and no laughs either, it's all lame TV stereotyped comedy. I hope he dies soon or leaves my party somehow. BTW, his voice is less annoying in Japanese, so set the voices to Japanese.

Visuals: Technically-wise, the graphics are pretty good: very round models, awesome textures, HDR, reasonable shader effects, etc. However, they're so far unimpressive in the artistic department. They rely too much on perfectly round and geometric shapes; the scenery looks too polished to be credible, let alone beautiful. Vegetation is static (something I consider mediocre in this generation) and the colour balance is far too bluish, though most of these issues may be just the style of this city; I can't tell. Overall it feels as if the first city was a quick modelling job (not lame as Sonic's Soleana, in fact it's not lame, just simple and unimpressive).

Music: The intro and combat music is good; otherwise BGM is "just there". It's not terrible, but nothing you'll remember 5 minutes after you switch your console off. It's too early to tell if the soundtrack is overall mediocre/average or overall good, but don't expect Mitsuda-quality.

Sound: Sound FX is as irrelevant as the BGM, probably non-existent, I can't remember, but most dialogue, is fully voiced and voices are available in English and Japanese, so I'm pretty happy with this. As usual, the Japanese voices are better and less annoying, and you can get more information on how characters regard each other and their degree of courtesy from listening to them. I'm also realizing how big a weeaboo I am because I understand more words than I should.

Overall: It's too early to tell. If the story turns out good, the blonde guy stops fagging up my game, and the artistic department improves (in the two other major cities and other stages), this could be a very good game. I can already tell the combat system is good enough. If, on the contrary, things keep as they are, this will be a dull RPG, and I'll probably abandon it in favour of any good old SNES RPG.

[ April 04, 2007 09:44 PM: Message edited by: -Wiseman- ]

**Cataferal** · April 5th, 2007, 12:09 PM

Sounds like generic RPG syndrome. I find games like Enchanted Arms, which do have a fair amount of polish to them, are quite good for inducing new gamers into the realm of narrative-based roleplaying. For the veteran though, its always going to feel as shallow and lukewarm as a childrens paddling pool, especially next to the SNES/PSX era classics. Just hold out until Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey...

[Cue miniature essay on homosexuality in videogames]

As for the "gay" protagonist, from what ive heard this guy is your typical angsty teen bishounen, and not specifically homosexual (unless im mistaken). I have nothing against gays, but i do think developers should take care with presenting homosexual characters in games. When your expected to play for hours on end, its hard to maintain empathy for a character who is so overtly homosexual, they bear little personality beyond that stereotype. The same applies to ethnicity as well (Barret's dialogue in FFVII just dodging the bullet thanks to some late character development). I'd love to see a someone successfully produce a game for the gay market (because it certainly seems big enough); that'll be the point when i see videogames confirmed as a veritable artform powered by freedom of speech, and catering for all tastes.

[/You can start reading again now]

Anyway, thesedays im either playing Excite Truck or Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz (Wii). I sometimes find myself wishing Nintendo pushed themselves harder in the graphical department; im itching for some 720p love. The beautiful artwork that went into Twilight Princess's location designs seems to often be suffocated by the low resolution, and that makes it marginally less fun. [img]frown.gif[/img]

[ April 05, 2007 09:16 AM: Message edited by: Cataferal ]

**mrwiseman** · April 6th, 2007, 01:48 PM

The protagonist is not specially gay (though he could/should be manlier); the problem is the third character, the blonde one. I suppose if I were gay I'd hate him as well, he's a disgrace for humanity; the flamboyant faggot kind. I suppose they tried to make him funny, but he's not, he ruins everything with his cheap TV comedy failed attempt at humour.

As for the Wii's resolution, I don't know if it can work in 1280x720. The hardware is basically a GameCube clocked at 1.5 times the original, with 4 times more RAM. In theory, it should be able to do 1280x720, although they'd have to watch out for the fillrate; an HDTV framebuffer has thrice the pixels and thus you have one third the texture mapping power.

**Nevan** · April 7th, 2007, 01:01 AM

IRT Wiseman: Have you played Gears of War? Because it's not a FPS, it's a Third Person, Tactical. I was just wondering if you played it or you're judging the book by the cover.

**mrwiseman** · April 7th, 2007, 06:21 AM

Yup, at a friends', played myself then saw a few hours further into the game where a blind monster wanted to kick your ass and kept smashing into walls. It overall felt like another FPS for me; not my cup of tea. As far as FPS go, I liked Halo much better: at least it was colourful.

[ April 08, 2007 05:56 PM: Message edited by: -Wiseman- ]

**Cataferal** · April 7th, 2007, 10:39 AM

Gears of War is definitely on my "must-get" list. It may not be the most original title on the shelves, but it is fun, highly polished, and it'll flex some of my TV's High-Def muscle. Thats all im expecting from the 360 in its pre-Halo 3 era.

As for the Wii, the best it can do is 480p, unless a future update will remove that cap.

**mrwiseman** · April 8th, 2007, 09:03 PM

12 hours into Enchanted Arms, update: things are going much better. The faggot has been replaced by a pretty hot chick I'd hit, plus she's into leg fetishes. A very profitable change. Finally, some hotties, I say. Though something must be wrong with this game: men are effeminate and women are tomboyish. No wonder why there aren't too many NPCs around, nobody's going to reproduce because girls like it dirty and men are afraid they may break a nail.

Jokes aside, the story started and it's pretty good so far. Character development is about to start. Visuals are getting better (though they still feel far more advanced in the technical department than they are artistically). The music is weird but I think it ranks as average (I'm starting to hate the good combat music though, too repetitive).

There must be over a hundred of playable characters, because you can find certain items or defeat certain enemies and build your own monsters for your party. Even the huge ones who were bosses can be built and used if you find or receive the item. There's a wide variety of these enemies ("golems"); here are some examples:
- Gnosis-like: technodog, jellyfish
- Realien-like: maid anime girl, army anime girl
- Gear-like: several kinds of robots

[ April 08, 2007 06:10 PM: Message edited by: -Wiseman- ]