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Game Review: G-Force

Josh Salem — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:56:34 +0000

Posted on andPOP:

This review marks a number of firsts for andPOP. It’s the first time I’m reviewing a Disney title, it’s the first game I get to play and write about before the official launch date, and it’s the first game I’ve ever reviewed… in 3D! That’s right, today I’ll be reviewing, nay, PREVIEWING Disney’s G-Force video game on the PlayStation 3; talking about what I liked, what bugged me, and all the interesting cute little things guinea pigs do that now freak me out when I see them in real life. With the movie comes out this Wednesday on July 22^nd, and the game being released July 24, this is your first look into the inner workings of a super secret group of spy rodents.

Following (but expanding on) the story line of the movie, G-Force has you taking the roles of Darwin (guinea pig) the commander of G-Force and his infiltration comrade Mooch (house fly). Throughout the game you progress as the movie progresses, however, in this rendition, you take an active role in saving the world as you interact with other members of G-Force. Beginning with a training level to show you how to make best use of Darwin and Mooch, you are taken through a fairly basic tutorial that looks like it’s been ripped right out the pages of Portal, while the level design is simple and pretty, I feel like this short training session was not nearly enough to prepare you for world savings and robot fightings.

As an action / espionage / adventure title, you are presented with times where you must sneak by lumbering humans, utilize your partner mooch to by-pass defense system (you can access Mooch for a limited time whenever you like by pushing up on the D-pad), upgrade yourself and your weapons, and cause general havoc throughout different parts of the game. What I enjoyed most about G-Force was the variation in gameplay you got to deploy throughout, as different obstacles and objectives gave you new and interesting methods of progressing to your goal.

While you have many different styles of gameplay to enjoy in G-Force, I felt that in order to include all these variants made the controls way too complex, especially considering this game is intended for children, the target demographic of the movie. I think the main reason I find the controls confusing is because not only does every button do something, but as well, depending on the context you are in these buttons can do something else. The best example of this is the X button, while walking it will let you jump, push it again and you double jump, push it a third time and you hover, push jump again and you use your rocket boost. As well, if you push jump while targeting a bad guy, you dive and roll. There are a number of techniques like this that you acquire throughout the game. Beyond this every direction of the D-pad gives you access to a tool such as your hints radar, Mooch, or heat-sensor vision while every face button changes your weapon equipped. The shoulder buttons allow you to attack, target, or scurry across the floor; really there is a lot to do with your controller and in the heat of battle it can get a little flustering. On the flipside, the reason you have so many buttons do so many things is because you have that many weapons, gadgets, and tools at your disposal. Weapons and items such as Mooch, heat-sensor vision, hint PDA, Electro-whip, Plasma gun, scanner, Nanohacker, Saberlizer (That allows you to weaponize every day appliances yourself) and much much more. One thing to note as well when talking about the controls behind this game is that there is no motion sensitive gameplay utilizing the PS3 controller; I would take this as a good thing as a) the controls are confusing enough, and b) I have yet to play a PlayStation 3 game that made good use of such a feature.

The sound in G-force is as expected, but done well. Action packed generic music; zappers, snapping, and appliance related sound effects sound as realistic as I guess we could assume them to sound, as the ambient noise that comes from action and infiltration fill the air I feel that at least, they are appropriate as they are used in the game. The voice acting is decent as well, while I don’t really know what rodents mouths would look like when talking, I take it as them actually speaking in the game, spot on and when talking through their voice communications, the radio-ish distant sound works well. Voice acting is another story however, while Disney was able to keep some of the voice actors in the movie for the game (namely the main character Darwin played by Sam Rockwel, G-force friend Zach Galifanakis, and Saber himself Bill Nighy), a lot of the more unique voices are absent. I guess Will Arnett, Nicholas Cage, Penelope Cruz, Steve Buscemi, and Tracy Morgan had conflicting schedules. Instead, similar sounding voice actors were used in their place but these I feel were hit and miss as I could not really tell the scope of these voice actors in the film based on trailers alone. For the most part I enjoyed the voices used but in some instances a faux Tracy Morgan just doesn’t do it for me.

Oh Mr. Pink, when are you going to make the leap into gaming?

Here’s the part I assume most of you are most interested in, the graphics. As a current generation game based on a movie which boasts it’s fantastic computer graphics, you would assume G-Force to look great, and it does! From little guinea pig hairs and whiskers, to Mooch buzzing around your head, the modeling of the rodents used in this game are extremely detailed. I wish the same could be said however for the humans roaming around the game as they seem to be a little less rendered than your average first year PlayStation 2 title. Luckily, you do not interact with humans very often as your main enemies are appliances that have been transformed into killing machines (almost exactly like the kitchen appliances at the beginning of the Transformers 2 movie). One thing I enjoyed about the Saber branded appliances however was that with each one introduced, their entire model name complete with number was shown (as if you could purchase these appliances in catalogues) as well, utilizing your scanner, you have the option of discovering each enemy’s weakness and exploiting them during your attack. Overall I think the graphics used in G-Force the video game weren’t exactly up to par with the movie (that took millions to produce) but were still pretty slick for a PlayStation 3 title with all the particle effects used and whatnot… what? That’s not the big thing you were interested in? Ohhhhh, you want to hear about the 3D? Well, let me tell you all about it, gather around children. As the first console 3D game, I was a little worried as to how it would work out because, to be honest, I always had a hard time seeing 3D in movies (like Monsters Vs. Aliens, Up, and Ice Age 3) but to my surprise G-Force came with two paper blue and red 3D glasses, like the old school ones instead of the new polarised technology. Now, the 3D-ness of G-Force can be turned on and off whenever you like in the options menu, which not only do I think is a fantastic idea for those who get headaches easily, but also extremely useful if you have more than two people in the room watching the game. I find the 3D welcome, but a mixed bag of usefulness from time to time. Mooch, your whip, and the jetpack will actually pop out and look amazing; but other times such as during some cutscenes and menus it is very hard to see what’s going on or what you are choosing. The most prominent example of this issue is if you are playing in 3D and your hint screen tells you to push a certain direction on the D-pad to activate a new ability, every direction looks the same in these 3D glasses and you cannot tell what direction the screen is telling you to push. Reading text in general while in 3D mode I find is also quite challenging. Overall however, the introduction of 3D into G-Force did not in any way make the game harder to play or control and in the end I think is quite amazing in short bursts, I don’t think I could play the entire span in 3D alone.

Now for the rest of the review that didn’t really fit in anywhere else. The instruction manual that came with G-Force was abysmal; I find more often as time goes on that companies stop using instruction manuals as well… manuals for instruction and rather as promotional pieces. I say this because I went through G-Force’s instruction manual a number of times looking for instruction on saving, controls, gameplay mechanics, screenshot explanations… anything that I would like to know before diving into the game and I could not find any. Instead there were just instructions on how to turn on the system and the rest of the manual was just an explanation of the characters, weapons, story, and levels. Playing through the game you collect health, ammo, chips, and silver and gold discs. Chips are a form of currency you use to purchase upgrades and new weapons, upgrades and weapons you unlock with gold and silver discs. In order to purchase these weapons and upgrades you must find a Saber branded vending machine. Two things about these vending machines, 1) you cannot see what you are selecting in the vending machine menu in 3-D mode, and 2) if these are machines… why aren’t they transforming and attacking you like every other machine in the game? Silver discs that provide upgrades are hidden (along with extra lives) throughout the game in strategically placed spots so for the completionist gamers out there, you have a little extra something to look out for while playing through G-Force. Maps showing the location of these silver discs can also be purchased at vending machines.

Overall I was impressed with G-Force, while it is not my type of game, I thoroughly enjoyed the graphics, control, gameplay, and innovations found within, and I know I’m not the only one that enjoyed it as you all will see soon enough when Jenn’s video interview and demo of G-force is published in the near future. One thing I have to ask though, is how vicious flesh tearing waffle irons get into the heating vents of an office building…

Gameplay: 4.5/5

Graphics: 4/5

Sound: 3/5

Replay Value: 2.5/5

Game Review: Guitar Hero Metallica

Josh Salem — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:46:27 +0000

Posted on andPOP:

After Guitar Hero: Aerosmith fell as a bust, I was extremely hesitant to pick and try a guitar hero title based on one of my favourite metal bands, but through my loyalty of both the game and the band, I figured I’d give it a shot, after all, Metallica would never sell out, right? (that was a joke). Guitar Hero: Metallica (GH:M) delivers everything it promised. Open for the band, play with the band, be the band. While presentation, music, graphics, and extras are all phenomenal (and all that are important to the Guitar Hero brand); I still felt a little off about GH: M, more the vibe I get from the band itself than anything else. GH:M promised us three things. A kick ass sound track, a real feel for what the band does almost nightly while on tour, and visuals that rival a live concert. In all three sections, GH:M meets expectations and does it with flair.

Visually I enjoyed GH: M not only as a video game but how closely it felt to a live concert. As I had attended a Metallica concert a couple of months ago, with the show fresh in my mind I decided to compare it to their virtual stage presence. Their signature moves were all there, stances, postures, actions and facial reactions were all accurate. In fact a couple of times it kind of weirded me out that they could nail down the motion capture so perfectly. Again however, this lead to an issue I’ve always had with Guitar Hero, that being that the stage presences during songs felt too scripted. If you were to play the same song three times in a row for example, all three times James would whip his guitar up in the exact same manner at the exact same point every time, an issue you witness less with their rival game, Rock Band. Otherwise when playing as the house band you’re in the same position as if you were playing any other Guitar Hero title, same characters and instruments present, which was expected comparing GH: M to their Aerosmith predecessor. While playing as Metallica however, up to the hair styles and facial blemishes you play and look like a much younger Metallica band… which I guess makes sense as if you were aging and greying, would you want to be immortalized in your prime or your later years? Lighting effects, virtual pyrotechnics, and all that fun stuff are included and work well with the songs they apply to, much like a planned concert yet again. Stage backgrounds almost all relate to a Metallica album or tour and as such, all these features combined provide the most realistic concert simulator to date.

This sound track is wicked. Not only do players get to enjoy a slew of Metallica songs (almost 30) from All Nightmare Long to Whiplash, but you also get some great tracks from bands that have, in one way or another, interacted with Metallica in the past. These tracks include Bob Seger’s Turn the Page, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Tuesdays Gone, Slayer’s War Ensemble, and Toxicity by System of a Down to name a few. The only con to this amazing track list of approximately 50 songs is that not everyone might find it amazing. If you’re a fan of hard rock or metal, you will adore this list, if however, you’re a fan of country, pop, or easy listening… well then a) you would hate this track list… and b) why would you pick up Guitar Hero: Metallica in the first place? As well, players can access the Death Magnetic album DLC in GH:M, saving them from swapping the disc out for Guitar Hero: World Tour. It’s true however that Death Magnetic is the only DLC that will work on GH:M, I feel this may again have to do with the scripted stage presence found in this title.

Controlling Metallica has never been easier, players can drum, play the guitar or bass, or sing their favourite tunes as one of the most influential bands in history. The guitars are a-blazing, vocal chords burning, and drums pounding and this was in fact one of the reasons I felt Metallica was somewhat rubbing in the hardships of their jobs with this title. I will admit it must be really hard being Metallica, standing on stage rocking their asses off for hours on end, I don’t necessarily want to experience that pain when playing a leisurely game at home. Some of these songs are lightning fast from start to finish and some of them are extremely long. Players have three options: a) they can pause in the middle of songs for a rock-break to rest their rock-fingers, b) players can suffer and struggle through the rock-pain, or c) they can train day and night for months on end to be able to virtually rock as long and as well as Metallica. The drums have it especially bad, as Lars showboats in the game and virtually (and smugly) laughs at how you can’t do what he does on a plastic toy, it got a little annoying that every song took 5-10 minutes to play through. At certain points I felt the urge to just turn the title off and play something fun… or rest my hands in a bowl of cold water. To add insult to injury, since my Guitar Hero drum set was defective, I was using the Rockband drum set, meaning one less pad to play making the game that much easier… but still painful. Add on the extra hard plus mode for drums (not recommended unless you have the double bass pedal bundled with pre-ordered games) and you have one hell of a time ahead of you. Guitar and bass weren’t any easier, just as fast, just as long, just as painful. It’s not so much that the songs are hard to play, but rather they’re fast, furious, and long.

So what else is there to do beside play the game? Well, I’m glad you asked. Much like Guitar Hero 1 and 2, to progress through the ‘story’ mode, instead of having to beat certain songs, players only had to accumulate a certain number of stars to progress, meaning you could skip all the songs you found boring until a later point. The real fun however comes from all the added bonuses the game provides. Aside from the standards like quick play mode, online play, multiplayer band, and battle mode, there are characters to unlock such as Lemmy (of Motorhead fame) and King Diamond (from Mercyful Fate), instruments and costumes to unlock and other colour variations and videos to ‘purchase’ from the game store. New features in the battle mode include new power ups such as ‘fade to black’, ‘trapped under ice’, and ‘ride the lighting’ (which is essentially the same as amp overload). Another extra bonus is that every song in the game is available in quick play mode from the start, a welcomed tweak to this Guitar Hero fan. Players can also go backstage to practice the more challenging songs, view behind the scene videos and pictures, and read song lyrics. You also have the option of creating your own Rockstar in the aptly named Rockstar Creator mode, leader board, Rock rank, and community stats tracking fill out the extras. Oh, I may have neglected to mention two extra cool additions to the bonus mode, Drum over mode allows players to erase the drum track to any song and, depending on which song, the accompanying drum tracks are available to go wild and sound great doing it with any track in the game. The second bonus, again, I feel is Metallica tooting their own horn, but is still kind of neat. Metallifacts, after you finish a song you unlock the Metallifacts for it in which the song will be shown and played in the background, but throughout the song little fact pop-ups appear, kind of like a DVD-style text based commentary. While the concept is neat, I’m not sure I really care that the sound I’m currently hearing is a trumpet played in reverse. I’m sure it’s something different… but I just don’t care.

Overall if you’re a fan of Metallica, you should go out and get this title for whatever system you have, if you don’t have any systems available for this title but love Metallica, you should go get an Xbox or PS3 and rock the heck out! If you can’t stand stuck up, full of themselves rock stars (which by far Metallica is allowed to be) you might want to steer clear of this one. One thing’s for certain with Guitar Hero Metallica however, it will by far increase your finger stamina to a whole new level.

Gameplay: 4.5/5

Graphics: 4.5/5

Sound: 5/5

Replay Value: 4/5

Game Review: Animal Crossing – City Folk

Josh Salem — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:27:09 +0000

Posted on andPOP:

Let’s just clear the air right now. This game is not about crossing the street, it’s not about cross-roads, it’s not even about cross-breeding animals (you sick gamer you). Animal Crossing is a game all about life, starting a-new, and making new friends. You start off on a bus with your new narrator buddy, starting a new life in a new small town. Why are you going there? What did you do in the past that forced you to run away and start again in anonymity? Will anyone miss you in your old life? Questions such as these are not asked in this children’s life simulator, just as questions being raised as to why you’re the only human in town, and a little child living on your own to boot aren’t addressed.

With the help of a very special partner more in tune with this game’s target demographic, we set off to explore Animal Crossing: City Folk. The first problem we encountered with this title was the tutorial and explanation of the game. It’s hard to explain how to live a virtual life, it’s even hard to try and explain it to a child. With so many things to do, rules, and mechanics, the high level of complexity doesn’t translate well to younger audiences. In fact, it gets so convoluted that even grown adults have a hard time following the objectives laid out before you (at least I had a hard time).

Another issue stems from Nintendo’s online capabilities. While the PS3 and Xbox 360 have easy access to online play and friends, the Wii lacks this ability and instead players must enter long friend codes, for this reason the average Wii gamer often skips online experiences for their own sanity. This is quite unfortunate as Animal Cross: City Folk try time and time again to get players to come online. Bundled with the Wii Speak microphone players have the option of communicating with their friends in Animal Crossing rather than typing or clicking on individual letters. Convenient, or at least it would be if you could ever find people to speak to in the game or even on the Nintendo Wii Speak channel, which was just as bare as the game. Otherwise, the Wii Speak microphone works and sounds great, a high quality microphone that can pick up sound from far away while resting on your television (or below it), connecting to the Wii’s USB plug, the Wii Speak microphone matches well with the Wii sensor bar and is small enough to not distract the eye during gameplay.

So, you start off in your village, pick a house to buy and immediately you owe Tom Nook an arm and a leg for your two bedroom house, go to his store, work part time delivering goods and exploring the village (essentially learning the lay of the land) and your set to start your life out. The first objective you have is to repay Mr. Nook for your house, sell items you find, shake trees, and do whatever it takes to get that loan shark off your back. As you progress through the game you unlock new items and decorations to renovate and improve your house with, and eventually buy up to four different houses as you live your virtual life among the animals.

Two things make animal crossing unique: one are the characters within the game, wacky animals are the driving source of entertainment for me when playing this game and every time I meet a new zany creature, a small smile crosses my face. The second feature is that Animal Crossing: City Folk, runs on real time, whatever time it is where you are, it’s that time in the game, whatever day it is in real life, same day in virtual life, weather, ditto. This is key as some items only appear during certain times (such as Halloween), granted, players can always change their Wii clock to get special items, but otherwise, timing is similar to real life. Another feature lies in the name of the game, city folk. Eventually you can go visit the city and explore new areas while meeting an abundance of characters that can be sometimes hard to find in your village, basically it seems to be for players who can only play Animal Crossing at specific times but want to meet everyone at any time.

Graphically the cartoony boxish looking characters and environment lend to the young demographic this game was made for, while the Wii is capable of much higher graphical capacity, this simple art style allows for much smoother gameplay throughout. The colours are vivid, and characters goofy looking, but I feel this was exactly what Animal Crossing: City Folk were going for. Sound wise we see a similar direction; while no characters talk, they each have their own voice and music. This music provides a sense of personality as each one is unique and portrays how they act. The music within the game is simple and relaxing, not overly annoying as other children games might have, however at the same time not so dull that you do not even notice that music is being played. The Wii Speak microphone works extremely well and perhaps in future games this peripheral might make more use than just sending voice messages to past Wii friends.

Overall Animal Crossing: City Folk provides hours of entertainment and innovation into the gaming world, while the Wii does not really lend much to the game in terms of graphic, online or control capabilities, it’s still a welcome addition to the Wii library, especially for OCD gamers. City Folk has a lot of entertaining things to do, it also has a lot of mundane tasks to partake in. Gamers can live their lives playing City Folk, or they can move away to a new city and LIVE out City Folk in real life. Just remember, there’s no reset button in the real world.

Gameplay: 4/5

Graphics: 3.5/5

Sound: 4/5

Replay Value: 4/5

Game Review Crash Bandicoot – Mind Over Mutant

Josh Salem — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:59:08 +0000

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Crash Bandicoot: Mind over mutant is extremely similar to its predecessor, Crash Bandicoot: Crash of the titans. The features are the same, locales similar, mechanics of game play identical, one could even say Mind over mutant is more of a continuation or expansion than a sequel… which I guess makes sense because in general isn’t that what a sequel should usually be? I mean, aside from improved graphics, gameplay or features that is… which Mind over mutant lacks over Crash of the titans. With Mind over mutant being released October 7th, 2008 and Crash of the titans being released only a year earlier, I can’t help but feel this was more of a cash grab than anything else.

The story starts off with an amusing little cut scene continuing from the end of Crash of the titans and continues with an average day in the life of Crash. The female bandicoot wants to fix your TV and left her tools strewn all across the level, of course this is the exact same first map as Crash of the titans (which makes sense as it is still the same home you lived in, in past games. You go through the tutorial levels, learning how to play and gathering the pieces only to come back and see a commercial. In this commercial two shady looking characters are promoting virtual headgear being released around the land free of charge. Female bandicoot gets one, buff bandicoot gets one (characters from past games) and Crash gets one… but for some reason, Crash’s fries him at the touch and he cannot wear it. Characters get mesmerized and all of a sudden turn into rampaging mutants, it’s up to crash to save them and everyone else that has transformed.

With the help of his voodoo sidekick and a whole new slew of titans to control (a feature introduced a year earlier in Crash of the titans) Crash hunts down his demented friends all while unlocking new costumes and characters to use. The controls graphics and sounds for this title are all identical to Crash of the titans, smooth textures, cartoony actions and slowdown every here and there. Audibly while Crash doesn’t speak himself, the monsters have little conversations among themselves before being bombarded by Crash, and while they can be entertaining at times, they are often quite annoying. The only graphical aspect I enjoyed throughout this game were the different cut scene styles, all of which take on a different variation of children’s entertainment, from the slapstick cartoon to puppet form.

Another added feature I enjoyed greatly was the addition of a second player for co-op. Almost taking what Mario Galaxy did with their second play and improving upon it, the second player can come and go as he/she pleases and has the option of being either a cursor that shoots chickens at baddies (don’t ask) or jump right in as a second bandicoot all together. This can be either a good thing or a bad thing as your companion has the ability to mess up your own gameplay by interfering, unfortunately there is no online co-op yet… perhaps next year’s Crash installation will have exactly that. Crash now also has the ability to store and sort through his titans and even upgrade them; in the past title, Crash could only have one titan ‘vehicle’ at a time, but now, he can pick and choose as he pleases, almost like a shape shifter at whim.

Overall, this Crash title is much more of the same, while I wouldn’t really consider it a bad thing, I don’t think players should rush out and buy this title if they already have Crash of the titans, unless they thoroughly enjoyed the story and want to continue through it. Otherwise Crash: Mind over mutant is a great game to rent for ages 10 and up.

Gameplay: 3.5/5

Graphics: 3/5

Sound: 4/5

Replay Value: 3/5