Valhalla Knights 2: Battle Stance is an upgrade of Valhalla Knights 2, the latest in a series that has struggled to develop an identity beyond a generic template for JRPGs. How does it do?

Developer: K2 LLC
Publisher: XSEED Games
Genre: RPG
Console(s): PSP

The verdict: Some essential improvements raise this upgraded version of Valhalla Knights 2 to passable status, but there’s still nothing noteworthy. Beyond that, there’s not much to recommend.

I noticed rather suspiciously that Valhalla Knights 2: Battle Stance was an updated version of a game that had been very recently released. This is rarely a good sign, and indeed, the original Valhalla Knights 2 was not well received, to put it lightly. So what does Battle Stance offer to redeem its predecessor? Battle Stance does provide a badly needed fast travel system that was absent in Valhalla Knights 2, but it merely makes Battle Stance tolerable, and the game never rises above mediocrity.

Another orphanage?

Valhalla Knights 2 (and Battle Stance as well) don’t exactly push the bar in terms of innovation, so in an attempt to spruce up this obligatory summary I’m going to use a counter of JRPG clichés as I narrate. Every millennium, a catastrophe strikes (one) in the form of the evil Goddess of Judgment punishing mankind (two). This particular time, the Witch of the Crystal managed to injure the Goddess, and thus sent her into hiding (three). You play as a young hero whose orphanage is burned down by heretics supportive of the Goddess (four) and escapes to join the Royal Latroci, a group of Crystal Witch supporters out to stop the Goddess (five). In short, the story is filler. It says nothing meaningful, does nothing innovative, and doesn’t stand out in any way.

There’s a degree of customization since you have the ability to create your character, though from a fairly limited palette. In addition to a gender, you’ll be able to choose whether you’re a human, an elf, a dwarf, a Halfling, or an akatoki, with two other unlockable races. There’s a relatively scant six preset facial templates and six hairstyles. It’s nice to have some customization, but given the level of in-depth modeling we can do in other games, this seems fairly threadbare.

Kill this number of monsters again, and again…

The game’s biggest problem is that the story never goes anywhere, owing in part to the fairly monotonous gameplay progression. Your main base is a town that features the usual inn for your resting and saving as well as an armory for items. You’ll be spending a fair amount time at the Royal Latroci guild building, where you’ll receive all of your quests. The problem is that it’s difficult to tell which quests advance the story, and most of them have no depth. They broil down to the same type of quests you would find in most MMORPGs, like killing a certain number of monster however many times. In tandem with the completely interchangeable story, there’s just not much to keep this story going.

Battles are decent enough, but very button mashy. Fights are real time in arenas, and while your four allies are handled by competent AI, you’ll be doing pretty much nothing but hammering the X button to attack. There are ten different character classes with various strengths and weaknesses, and additionally you can equip two sub-jobs per character. While a job itself enables a character to use gear specific to that class, a sub-job only allows you to perform spells allowed by that class, which still allows for a neat element of counterbalancing strengths and weaknesses. How often you’ll need most skills or even class differences is debatable, since even when enemies get harder they can be taken down very quickly; it’s just a matter of killing them before they kill you.

So what does Battle Stance do to improve the Valhalla Knights 2? Well, in the original game, the lack of a fast travel or teleportation system meant players would have to do a ridiculous amount of pointless traveling that padded the game out mercilessly. Battle Stance implements a teleport system that gets rid of a lot of backtracking, at least making game progression a little smoother. Beyond that you have four allies instead of six in a fight, not that it changes much.

Closing thoughts

Valhalla Knights 2: Battle Stance fixes the game-breaking problem of its predecessor and elevates it from snore-inducing to passable. It’s nice being able to customize character builds but there’s nothing that stands out here. The story is cookie cutter, the battle system is interchangeable, the job system is clever but bland, and there are far better RPG offerings out there on the PSP.

Disclaimer: This game was provided by XSEED Games for review purposes

What’s with this pattern of Xbox 360 JRPGs come out on the PlayStation 3 months later?  First it was Tales of Vesperia (thanks for not releasing that in North America, Namco Bandai) and now Star Ocean: The Last Hope has gotten this treatment.  Thankfully, Square-Enix has done us the courtesy of giving Western gamers a chance to test out the international version of the latest in the Star Ocean series.  How does the international version hold up?

Developer: tri-Ace
Publisher: Square-Enix
Genre: JRPG
Console(s): PlayStation 3 (standard version: Xbox 360)

The verdict: If you never played The Last Hope, this is JRPG almost to the core.  If you like JRPGs, you’ll like this.  If you already experienced it on the 360, there are some gratifying improvements but not nearly enough to justify buying another version.

International versions of RPGs can put gamers in a dilemma.  On one hand it’s likely that fans of something like Star Ocean have already played The Last Hope on its Xbox 360 version which was released a year ago.  On the other hand, what could they be missing?  Is a PlayStation 3 international version worth purchasing to those who have already experienced the Last Hope saga?  Unless you’re a diehard Star Ocean nut, there’s not enough to plunk down more money, but there’s enough to make this the preferred version for people who never played the 360 counterpart.

Where no JRPG has gone before

Star Ocean: The Last Hope acts as a prequel to the Star Ocean series, so players won’t need to look up previous storylines on Wikipedia in order to know what’s going on.  What newcomers will find is a classic JRPG story with a big scoop of Star Trek: Enterprise mixed in.  In the aftermath of World War III, the world has been devastated by nuclear warfare and humanity must turn to the depths of space in order to find a new home.  You take control of Edge Maverick, part of the expedition to seek new worlds.  Soon enough during exploration something inevitable goes wrong; Maverick and his team wind up stranded, and if you’ve ever played a JRPG in your life you can figure out where the story goes from here.

Unfortunately, things don’t start off well since the international version of The Last Hope doesn’t bother to fix the laughably weak opening to the game.  An impressively dull narrator whose voice doesn’t break an octave narrates completely soundless footage of nuclear warfare and the subsequent peace and development of space travel.  Come on tri-Ace, fork a little money over to the audio team!  This actually points to a problem with The Last Hope itself: The game essentially assumes you’re a JRPG fan.  It never raises the bar, pushes the envelope, or takes any steps outside of the box.  Rather than try to draw you in with the opening, the game assumes you’re here because you’re a Star Ocean or just a general JRPG fan.  If you are, great, but if not you won’t find much in The Last Hope.

We do not come in peace

The Last Hope actually has a fairly interesting narrative, owing in part to the uniqueness that a space setting offers.  The game manages to keep you on your toes and most players will be interested enough to proceed on despite the overarching JRPG theme of “plucky hero and allies fight evil entity”.  The flipside – which was present in the original version as well – is having to push through a solid ten hours of exposition and character development, as if the game couldn’t be bothered to interweave it with the storyline and simply wanted to get it out of the way as fast as possible.  Characters are tolerable JRPG archetypes when they’re not…well, irritatingly annoying JRPG stereotypes.  One new feature of the international version is the ability to have Japanese voice with English subtitles, which works to the game’s advantage.  The English voice acting never rises above mediocre, so this is definitely a step up.

One of the few areas where The Last Hope defies JRPG standards is the combat, and it’s subsequently where the game is most enjoyable.  There’s some level grinding involved, but even that will be fast if you play your cards right. Combat is fairly diverse enough that hundreds of fights will all be a blast. Battles are triggered by interacting with the visible monsters that roam the world, and fights are real-time with the ability to control one of your characters at a time while the other three are handled with competent AI. You have your standby physical attack, but there are a lot of special attacks that can be assigned to hotkeys. Different characters all have different roles to fulfill, and even though your main character is Edge character abilities and fighting styles are varied enough that you’ll likely experiment with everyone.

Keeping the good and the bad

Combat is essentially unchanged in the international version of The Last Hope, not that there’s anything wrong with that.  The international version of The Last Hope keeps the good stuff from the original game intact.  You still have different planets to choose from in terms of exploration.  There’s still a huge amount of replay value, with 50-plus hours easy achievable between battle trophies, the coliseum, the main story, and the litany of other things to do.  It’s also gratifying to have the game on one disc rather than three as was the case in the Xbox 360 version, where you had to insert disc one if you were playing on disc three if you wanted to revisit an earlier planet.

The international version still could have done a lot more.  Framerate drops can still be an issue when combat gets frantic, and pop-in texture is still a problem.  Additionally, there are still wait times of nearly an hour between save points on certain locations; it’s inexcusable for any game to at least not have a quicksave in 2010.  The international version of The Last Hope definitely boasts some improvements over its 360 counterpart, and should definitely be played by JRPG fans trying to decide which version to pick up.  Even so, it could have improved a lot more and it could have been better.

Closing thoughts

I don’t want to turn this into a review of Star Ocean: The Last Hope itself, since if you’ve ever played a JRPG in the last five years you’ve played this.  The enjoyment you’ll get out of Last Hope correlates directly with how much you enjoy JRPGs.  If that and the Star Ocean name sells you, go for the international version and see how the Star Ocean story began.

Disclaimer: This game was generously provided by Square-Enix for review purposes.

The fine investigative polling at Joystick Division has unearthed specific reasons for why Activision employees were fired.  As outlined by Kotaku, 30% of the polled employees were fired due to lamenting wanting to work at a small company where it’s all about the games – like EA!

My personal favorite goes to “Started referring to employment at Activision as ‘Getting played via the subscription model”", with a respectable 28% of the vote.  I urge Joystick Division to do one of these polls for Square-Enix immediately.

Though I never had the chance to review Dante’s Inferno, that wasn’t going to stop me from actually playing it.  The opinions I’d heard prior to playing it ran both ends of the love-hate spectrum: Some people thought it belonged in heaven, some people wanted to cast it down to the ninth circle of hell to join Lucifer.  As a result I didn’t have too much of an impression heading into the game.  My verdict would be that it’s solid and plays decently enough, but it runs out of momentum and it could have been a lot more.

First, let me hang a disclaimer over this pseudo-review: Yes, I will be comparing Dante’s Inferno to God of War.  The fact is, God of War hits a few significant notes that Dante’s Inferno missed, which is why Dante’s Inferno can never be anything more than decent.  What do I mean by this?  Read on.

The first problem is with Dante.  To the game’s credit I like the reimagining of Dante as a character, and his back story is fairly interesting.  Unfortunately, the writers fell into the familiar trap of trying to make him too sympathetic despite being a testosterone loaded juggernaut.  In God of War Kratos has a tragic past but it doesn’t wholly define his exploits or his brutality.  Because of Kratos’ bloodlust his few vulnerable moments regarding his family only seemed more authentic, since they eventually flared up his rage even further.  This helped us accept that Kratos was indeed human, but it took a backseat to his merciless nature.

In Dante’s Inferno the problem is that in between viscerally murdering demons in more ways than I could begin to count, the writers expect us to see Dante as a tragic, sympathetic character first and a psychopath second.  They try a little too hard at making him seem like a nice guy.  It’s sort of like Dominic from Gears of War 2 when he started going on about his wife Maria.  With Dominic’s steroid-beefed form and colossal chin did you take any of those talks seriously?  At the very least I imagine it was relatively hard to do.

This also feels like a cheap shot, but Dante’s face has an uncanny valley look to it whenever he speaks.  His mouth opens and closes mechanically and there’s no expressiveness on his face at all.  I expect more than a blank cardboard look when Dante is confronting the lord of darkness who made Dante watch as he and Beatrice engaged in a rather creepily intense make out session.

I know a lot of reviews touched on this already, but after a very atmospheric and immersive first half, Dante’s Inferno quickly starts to lose steam.  The early circles of Hell were extremely creative and actually made me a little nauseous in a few situations, but repetition and boredom reared their ugly heads in the second half.  One of the circles is a series of shamelessly repeated tasks, and later circles have this bizarre tendency to take place in smaller, closed-in areas.  It’s like the dev team just ran out of time or money.  It’s odd to see this from a talented studio like Visceral Games, which has brought us immersive titles like Dead Space.

I’m going to go the extra mile and say even the early circles of Hell didn’t utilize enough juicy material from its source text.  I’ll spare everyone the details (read a book, people) but the Divine Comedy could have been put to fantastic use in terms of level design and creative atmosphere, and it seems like a real missed opportunity.

Thus we come to the final problem: Lucifer is, as a character, simply not intimidating.  Part of it is the design.  I guess the idea behind him was to show him as an older, decayed figure, but the effect backfires to the point where it’s just hard to take him seriously.  They also over-designed him; that is to say, the artists seemed to try a little too hard to make him look evil.  The hooves, the antlers, and the decayed face almost make him look silly during the final cutscene.  His voice actor fell into the same trap of trying as hard as possible to sound evil and the result being just overdoing it.  I actually chuckled when Lucifer said “I am so sick of you!”, and I don’t think that was the effect the writers were going for.

What made Zeus such a compelling character in God of War II was the sense of power and command he always had whenever you saw him.  His design was simple but significant, and it was easy to see him as an intimidating antagonist.  Even little details like his eyes having no pupils went a look way in making Zeus look very much like a deity.  Similarly, his voice had a resonating tone behind it, like the voice of someone used to giving commands, orders, or judgments.  Lucifer’s voice actor just seemed a little lost in what he wanted Lucifer to be.

So just to recap, Dante’s Inferno isn’t bad.  It plays well enough and the early circles of Hell are fantastically designed.  It feels like a sleek car that roared to life but only had about a third of a tank of gas and didn’t get the maintenance it needed.  I wouldn’t say there’s something wrong with copying a good game in order to make another good game, but what got copied from God of War was the solid gameplay mechanics alone.  Copying atmosphere, presence, and believability can’t be done nearly as easily.

Kotaku serves up an interesting story regarding a rejected piece of art for the ‘Childkiller’ status in Fallout 2.

For the uninitiated, Fallout 2 had a status known as ‘Child Killer’.  That’s right – Fallout 2 lets you do what not even Grand Theft Auto IV, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, or Fallout 3 dared to: Attack children.  There are serious repercussions if you get the label, though.  Here’s the artwork in question, if you can’t be bothered to hit the link:

Err, yeah

This obviously shouldn’t require too much explanation on why it was ultimately left out of Fallout 2.  It was dropped out of the game in favor of the less-inflammatory “Hated” reputation icon.  Kotaku also answers a potential question:

“I don’t think you’ll go to hell for laughing at this…”

Whew!

“…but you will if you imagine it accompanied by a Looney Tunes kettle drum sound, like I did.”

Aw, crap.  Anyway, check out the article for some interesting input by Brian Menze, whose DeviantART page was where the art was posted.

From: SPARTAN Commander Carter-A259 <cartman@unsc.gov>
To: Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood <t-hood@unsc.gov>
Subject: UNSC training capacity
Message sent: July 7, 2552

Fleet Admiral,

I wanted to bring to your attention an issue of importance in our fight against the Covenant.  As you know, Warthog Jeeps have been vital in our ground strategy against Covenant forces in the war thus far.  However, my planetside campaigns have exposed a disturbing weakness among the UNSC Marines and ODST Helljumpers.  When a small squad of our men and I were confronted with a small army of Covenant, I immediately took control of the turret of our lone undamaged Warthog in order to efficiently dispatch the hostiles.  One of the soldiers took the while and another manned the passenger seat.

The soldier driving proceeded to drive in circles around the Covenant, swerving wildly so I was unable to get more than a few solid shots, before driving into a wall, backing up, and then driving into a wall again.  The passenger seat’s only recognizing of this baffling anomaly was to fire a five round burst at nothing with his assault rifle.  Enemy fire rained onto our Warthog, which sustained damage.

As these valiant men and women are defending humanity from certain extinction, if I may speak freely, sir, it is perplexing to see this lack of proper training.  I pass this letter on to you in the hope that it will be fixed; it would be unfortunate that Spartan-117 John to be left alone with UNSC marines of this caliber in three future campaigns.

Respectfully,
Commander Carter-A259

From: Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood <t-hood@unsc.gov>
To: SPARTAN Commander Carter-A259 <cartman@unsc.gov>
Subject: Re: UNSC training capacity
Message sent: July 8, 2552

Commander,

Glad to see you made it through that planetary gauntlet alive – we’re sorry to hear that the Covenant ultimately glassed the planet.  Due to significant budget constraints and a need to replace numbers in the wake of massive casualties, we have had neither the time nor the money to incorporate Warthog driving test requirements as part of UNSC enlistment training.  Rest assured that we are making every effort to fix this problem.  In the meantime, use your Spartan training to man the Warthog driver’s seat.  UNSC troops will support you with sustained gunfire.

Please follow up when you get the chance.  We are eager to see how our UNSC marksmanship training program is working.

Respectfully,
Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood

From: SPARTAN Commander Carter-A259 <cartman@unsc.gov>
To: Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood <t-hood@unsc.gov>
Subject: UNSC Warthog update
Message sent: July 13, 2552

Fleet Admiral,

Sir, I regret to inform you that the USNC Marksmanship Program has not delivered the results you expected.  I took your advice and assigned one of my UNSC comrades to control the turret while another rode in the passenger seat.  Upon our very first encounter with Covenant on the planet <location censored as per UNSC protocol>, my gunner immediately swiveled his gun and fired several times at the gun several feet away from the Covenant.  Only two of forty subsequent bursts hit a Covenant Grunt, which simply shrugged off the attack as Elites pelted our Warthog with plasma grenades.  I was forced to simply run over the hostiles because our passenger seemed unwilling or unable to fire rounds.

Upon stopping the Warthog and furiously questioning the UNSC gunner, his only response was to shoot twice at a Grunt corpse and yell “Get up, so I can kill you again!” This and other incidents suggest that UNSC soldiers have greater accuracy against enemy corpses and are unwilling to directly respond to superior officers.  I would cite these men for insubordination and dereliction of duty, but shortly after we dismounted from our Warthog they walked directly into enemy gunfire and were torn apart.

Respectfully,
Commander Carter-A259

From: Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood <t-hood@unsc.gov>
To: SPARTAN Commander Carter-A259 <cartman@unsc.gov>
Subject: Re: UNSC Warthog update
Message sent: July 15, 2552

Commander,

As we all know troop morale of the Human-Covenant War is taking serious hits after the continual glassing of planets by Covenant forces.  Any soldier irregularities, anomalies, or lack of ability or willingness to fight can be attributed to the gradual advancement of the Covenant deeper and deeper into UNSC territory.  We’ve poured considerable amounts of time and resources into the SPARTAN program – we are hoping your elite training will compensate for the increasing lethargic nature of UNSC soldiers.

Respectfully,
Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood

From: SPARTAN Commander Carter-A259 <cartman@unsc.gov>
To: Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood <t-hood@unsc.gov>
Subject: Re: Re: UNSC Warthog update
Message sent: July 16, 2552

Fleet Admiral,

I must respectfully disagree on your attribution of UNSC soldier inefficiency to morale.  Whenever a squadron of UNSC soldiers follows me, they whoop and yell as loudly as if they have never experienced a war before.  Has the USNC not instigated a policy for soldiers to keep low and avoid detection?  Our luck in not being ambushed in response to our soldiers’ apparent testosterone rushes seems to be that Covenant squadrons are engaged in mild chatter of their own.

Again, I must inquire if there is a deadline for badly needed revitalization of UNSC training programs.  If the Covenant discover the location of Reach, our current UNSC defenses will be wholly inadequate to handle an attack by the Covenant.  What if Reach falls?

Respectfully,
Commander Carter-A259

From: Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood <t-hood@unsc.gov>
To: SPARTAN Commander Carter-A259 <cartman@unsc.gov>
Subject: Re: Re: Re: UNSC Warthog update
Message sent: July 15, 2552

Commander,

As we have spent virtually every novelization hyping up Reach as an impregnable, undetectable stronghold, the chances of Reach being discovered, let alone conquered, are approximately seven hundred million to one.  Currently we cannot provide the data you have requested; in the meantime, I recommend using ODST Helljumpers in lieu of UNSC standard soldiers for Warthog assaults due to their higher levels of training.

Respectfully,
Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood

From: SPARTAN Commander Carter-A259 <cartman@unsc.gov>
To: Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood <t-hood@unsc.gov>
Subject: Really?
Message sent: July 16, 2552

Fleet Admiral,

Okay, now you’re just fucking with me, aren’t you?  The first Helljumper to attempt driving a Warthog drove me right off a cliff.  How is it that UNSC troops can handle dropships just fine, yet as soon as they climb into simple jeeps the training goes to hell?  Master Chief Petty Officer 117-John is already issuing similar complaints; what if he’s alone with USNC soldiers without other Spartans for backup?  It will be the end for us all.

Respectfully,
Commander Carter-A259

From: Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood <t-hood@unsc.gov>
To: SPARTAN Commander Carter-A259 <cartman@unsc.gov>
Subject: Really? (AUTO REPLY)
Message sent: July 18, 2552

THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC REPLY: I am away from my office on a classified assignment and will not have access to this E-mail terminal for seven days.  If this is Carter, stop whining.  Until you’ve been among the ranks of General Kyong’s North Korean super soldiers, you haven’t seen bad training.  Worse still is the BSAA African branch operative training.  Did you know they waste valuable medical supplies on you if you get a paper cut?  Consider that when your UNSC men get a little annoying.  Good luck out there, soldier.

The following is a leaked press release about a hot new upcoming Sega title.  It’s also 100% serious.  Really.

Sega of Europe Ltd. and Sega of America Inc. announced today Sonic and the Roman Empire exclusively for the Wii.  This new installment of the Sonic storybook series will cast Sonic the Hedgehog into ancient Rome, where players will see if they have what it takes to become a true Roman champion, Roman gladiator, Roman emperor, or whatever marketing buzz word gives this game the most hype.  Sonic will battle wild barbarians, Roman rebels, and any other enemies that Sonic Team thought looked the most interesting on Wikipedia.

Exclusive screenshot of Sonic and the Roman Empire

The Sonic ensemble characters that everyone knows and loves will be making appearances.  The following cast members have been confirmed:

Miles “Tails” Prower as Marius, the Great Man of the Army
Knuckles as Trajan, the Kind Hearted Soldier
Shadow the Hedgehog as Caesar, General, Politician, and Statesman of Rome – Caesar/Shadow’s murder scene will be included at the request of fans.  By the way, if you didn’t want the game spoiled, don’t read that sentence.
Dr. Ivo Robotnik Eggman as Hannibal, Carthaginian General
The lead game developer as Nero, the Mad Emperor, who will reportedly fiddle while Sonic Team makes this game

Sonic and the Roman Empire will take place in breathtaking Roman locales of dubious historical accuracy, rendered with Dreamcast-level graphics on the Wii.

A Sega executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, praised Sonic and the Roman Empire. “After the success of our Sonic Storybook series, we are excited to take this franchise in new directions.” The source said while somehow keeping a straight face. “We see a lot of potential in placing a blue rodent in several arbitrary mythological or historical settings.”

Unconfirmed reports state that a preorder incentive by Gamestop will come with a booklet detailing games that you could better spend your money on, as well as more productive ways for Sonic Team to spend money.

When you start playing video games as a kid, as I did when I first picked up the NES controller at my cousins’ house, you notice some things about games as you get older.  A lot of things have changed: Maybe it’s been the huge advances from 8-bit technology to the glistening graphics we have today, maybe it’s much better gameplay elements, or maybe it’s just nostalgia.  Regardless, for every gamer there are some important points of self-discovery that shape perceptions about games in significant ways.  Here are some personal milestones for me, as it will.

Playing a game and enjoying it as a kid, then growing up and discovering it’s a turd
Ack, this one has a few immediate standouts.  One of my earliest PC games was this stinker:

You will die for rendering me in crappy pixels!

Ah, Crusaders of Might and Magic.  Drake is a young lad whose family is murdered by legions of the evil dead in Medievalville because…I guess his family owed back taxes.  This was one of the first games rendered in “full 3D” so it had a lot of hype behind it, and the opening cinematic seemed so badass to an 11-something gamer like me.  Of course, it wasn’t until I got older that I noticed certain things.  Drake speaks with a hilariously casual tone of voice as he confronts the evil lord who killed his family, his face looks like it’s melting, and combat is so imbalanced and awkward looking that you’d swear the enemies were falling down from exhaustion due to some form of break-dancing.

Quest 64 also deserves mention for this category since I actually managed to finish it, albeit with heavy GameShark usage.  This seemed like an epic, heroic, moving tale of a young wizard/sorcerer named Brian who goes on a quest to find his father, stop evil lords, and ultimately confront a giant demon.  Later I would realize how silly the story is and how incomprehensibly boring the combat is, even for an old school RPG.  Maybe I was just entertained easily as a kid.

The first time you hated a game when all the reviews loved it
At some point in every young gamer’s life, he or she discovers that game reviews are, in fact, opinions, rather than the highest authority.  Upon playing this game, a gamer will realize it is perfectly rational to dislike a game when everyone else is heaping praise onto it.  What’s my game for this?

The Force is with you, Star Wars Galaxies...but you are not a good game yet

Few games induce as much bile in me as Star Wars Galaxies.  In a way it’s fitting that this was my introduction to MMORPGs because Star Wars Galaxies was an itemized list of everything wrong with them.  Despite the game-breaking glitches, routine server crashes, ludicrous amount of grinding, unintuitive menus and interfaces, and laughably stupid combat reviewers hailed Star Wars Galaxies as the digital Second Coming, assuring reviewers that, in time, it would be a great game as soon as the problems were ironed out.  Based on how the user base plummeted, my guess is it didn’t.  I consider this retribution for the $50 I would never get back from LucasArts, personally.

Loving a game, then watching it age horribly graphics-wise
There are a lot of PSX/N64 era games that could be hot contenders for this, but for me, there can only be one:

I wish the game looked as good as the box art

I can’t count how many hours I poured into Goldeneye.  Between replaying single player missions over and over again, exploiting cheats and hilarious glitches, and multiplayer with friends, it’s safe to say there are entire days of my life logged into this game.  However, as time went on, something was happened to my beloved Goldeneye.  As time wore on, the faces of the characters grew more and more pixelated, their faces increasingly less descriptive, and their bodies more awkward and gangly looking.  Or was the game itself just looking older?  Yes, Goldeneye is one of the most notorious casualties of hindsight, what with the shiny glistening seventh generation graphics we have now.  It’s still fun to play in a campy way, but it’ll never quite be the same.

Watching the decline of a beloved game or franchise
This one has less to do with nostalgia and more with watching a good franchise inevitably end, as immortal as it may appear at the time.  It might not even be because the games got progressively worse; it could simply be that the developers abandoned it.  Speaking of which:

We'll always miss you, Tribes

Ah, Tribes.  The first Tribes and its sequel, Tribes 2, were no strangers to my computer.  The huge, open worlds, vehicles, bases, and ability of flight gave you a lot to do for 1998 and 2001, and what’s more, you could do it all with your friends.  These games were a lot of fun and some of the best multiplayer offerings back when PC gaming was soaring high, but after Tribes 2 the series started to weaken.  Tribes: Aerial Assault didn’t make nearly the impact that its predecessors had.  Tribes: Vengeance was better and even incorporated a single player storyline, but by now the competition had grown severe.  2004 gave us Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Unreal Tournament 2004.  Ultimately, the developers sadly abandoned the Tribes series, officially concluding it and marking the end of a great series.

Watching a beloved older game turn into a horrible reboot
Let’s conclude this journey down memory lane by coming full circle to today.  Every so often a video game developer will attempt to remake or reboot an old franchise.  Some of them are good, some of them are bad, and some of them are awful enough to negate every good thing the older, better games had ever done.  Case in point?

How could you, Golden Axe?

Sega’s Secret Level team apparently thought it was good idea to turn a classic 2.5D side scrolling series into an aggravating, needlessly hard, flat out boring game.  It’s difficult to believe a game about a bikini clad woman riding a fire-breathing dragon on a quest to avenge fallen loved ones by confronting a giant demon could be this dull, but somehow they pulled it off.  I haven’t used the term revival because I can’t in good conscious consider this a revival of anything.

So that concludes some critical elements of growing up as a lifelong gamer.  I admit to still having some fondness for Quest 64 – the feeling of epic grandeur it held for me as a 10-something year old has been replaced by a campy retro charm that’s hard to overlook.  It’s a guilty pleasure, to say the least.  That being said, it’s important to not to simply dismiss the bad titles we played as young’uns, no matter how deeply they shame us today.  They shaped our perceptions and gave us some entertainment while they lasted, and even bad games have a place in history.

Have you, fellow gamer, ever wished you could somehow liven up misguided columns, self-righteous speeches, and condescending TV reports on how video games are teaching us to be obese killing machines?  Have you become tired of the same old boring diatribe on morality, Christianity, flawed arguments, and sweeping generalizations?  Well, look no further!  Your one way train to fun is right here!

Video Game Critic Bingo, First Edition, offers gamers the chance to have fun rather than simply spam obscenities into an article’s comments section or a pundit’s E-mail box.  With Video Game Critic Bingo, the power is yours to see just how many logical fallacy errors the author/pundit can serve up.  How does it work?  It’s easy!  Whenever you happen to see the inevitable trashing of video games on the horizon, arm yourself with this handy sheet:

Then simply have it on hand whenever the anti-video game sermon begins.  Mark the appropriate square whenever what the author/pundit does matches it, and you’re well on your way to VIDEO GAME CRITIC BINGO! In order to get VIDEO GAME CRITIC BINGO! you need only score five in a row diagonally, horizontally, or vertically.  We’ve even thrown in the center space for free, just for you.

Now, in addition to making anti-video game rants fun and productive, you have something to tell the author/pundit besides your disrespect and the request that they immediately get a full frontal lobotomy.  You get to tell this ill-informed gentleman or lady how close they came to VIDEO GAME CRITIC BINGO!

If you had the chance to play Need for Speed: Shift, EA has seen fit to reintroduce the Need for Speed series to Ferrari.  EA announced in a press release that a Ferrari downloadable content pack will be available for Shift starting on Februrary 16.  Ten sleek Ferrari cars as well as 46 Ferrari specific challenges can be yours – the only caveat is that it’s an Xbox 360 exclusive.  That being said, 360 owners can enjoy this package for 800 Microsoft points, or $10.

The cars that will be available are as follows:

1. 1996 Ferrari F50 GT

2. 2005 Ferrari F430 Spider

3. 2005 Ferrari FXX

4. 2005 Ferrari Superamerica

5. 2006 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

6. 2006 Ferrari F430 Challenge (Online/Quick event only)

7. 2006 Ferrari F430 GTC (Online/Quick event only)

8. 2007 Ferrari 430 Scuderia

9. 2008 Ferrari California

10. 2008 Ferrari 16M Scuderia Spider

These are are all sure to endear themselves to car fans; as someone who isn’t necessarily a car enthusiast, I was drooling just a little looking at the 2005 Ferrari FXX.