The Mëtäl Shäll Live Ön: A Brütal Reviëw

There are many games out there for many different kinds of people. You've got Final Fantasy for your emo kids, Halo for your adrenaline fuelled ADD kids, and Doki Doki Majo Shinpan for your middle aged Japanese train molester kids. One demographic that remains largely untapped, however, are your metal head kids. Oh sure, games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band might feature heavy metal, but there have been no games that really embrace metal culture. Until now that is. Brütal Legend is a game that can best be described as heavy metal incarnate. If you are a metal head, you don't need to read this review. You need to go, like, right now (yes, even if you're reading this in BOB) and buy this game, because it was made for you. If you're not a metal head, well, keep on reading.

Brütal Legend comes to us from Tim Schafer, whose previous games include classics like Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, and Full Throttle. All of these games were excellent, but the best part of them by far is the phenomenal storytelling and hilarious writing. Brütal Legend continues this tradition of narrative excellence by telling us the story of Eddy Riggs (played by Jack Black), the world's greatest roadie. Riggs spends his days serving the world's worst Nu-Metal band, Kabbage Boy until a stage accident spills blood into his magical belt buckle and transports him back in time to the age of metal. Eddie awakens in this strange land to find himself beset by a group of evil druids wielding rather large daggers. Luckily, he finds a massive axe, the Separator, with which to defend himself, and he's brought back an axe of his own: his guitar, Clementine, which turns out to be an even stronger weapon. The world amplifies the power of rock, meaning that his guitar can now call down lighting, make things explode, and shake the earth with power chords.

Using these weapons and a simple brawler combat engine, Eddie fends off a group of demonic druids and nuns and fights his way down a mountain of bones. At the bottom he encounters Ophelia, one of the last members of the human resistance, who informs him that he is in the temple of Ormagöden, the fire beast, and that he has just killed the personal guard of Doviculous, the emperor of the demonic tainted coil. The clock is ticking and an army of demons is on the way, but fortunately for our heroes the temple is the resting place of not only the Separator, but of an ancient hot rod, the Deuce, left behind by the metal gods. Eddie uses his guitar to play a solo (which works as a spell in the age of metal) to raise the buried relic from the ground, and then makes his escape along with Ophelia, who directs him to Bladehenge, which is the resistance headquarters.

From this point on the world opens up for you to explore. After you find your first motor forge and meet the Guardian of Metal (played by Ozzy Osbourne) you'll get the mouth of metal, essentially a car stereo, and you'll be able to drive around taking in the scenery and listening to metal. The world of Brütal Legend is inspired by the cover art from the best heavy metal albums, and each landmark in the game, such as the aforementioned Bladehenge, would not look out of place on the cover of an Iron Maiden record. Trees have spears for trunks, car parts grow from the ground, and the remnants of an ancient race of titans litter the landscape. The creatures are equally epic, ranging from chrome spiders, who spin bass strings as webs, to panthers that shoot lasers from their eyes. The world is so gorgeous that it's possible to lose yourself for hours just exploring it, looking for collectibles. Unfortunately, the game doesn't tell you how to activate these unlockables and it can take a while to figure out that you're supposed to light them on fire or cause an earthquake near them in order to access them. It's also kind of annoying that the most powerful, sometimes vital solos in the game are not unlocked in the main story and instead must be found through exploration, but now I'm just nitpicking.

Eventually, you'll want to get back to the main quest, which slowly instructs you in the ways of the game's most unique gameplay mechanic: the RTS (real-time strategy) style “Stage Battles.” Throughout the game you amass an army of headbangers, razor girls, and roadies, and team up with factions lead by the likes of Lemmy Kilmeister and Lita Ford, in order to do battle with the most evil forces in the universe: Hair Metal and Doom Metal. The hair metal faction, lead by general Lionwhyte (played by Rob Halford), is a copypasted version of your own army, glammed up with glitter and highlights. The Drowning Doom, the doom metal faction, is populated by zombified emo kids, and its units focus on debuffing your units by making them depressed. Finally, the Tainted Coil are a group of ugly demons whose units are a disturbing mixture of religious symbolism and bondage.

The goal of each stage battle is to gather fans, who finance your gig by buying merchandise from you, in order to get your best units on the field. After doing that, you strike at the enemy forces and destroy their stage. It's a rather silly premise, but it works well and helps Brütal Legend stand out from other RTS games. While most of the RTS elements are taken straight series like Command and Conquer, the game offers one refreshingly unique aspect: you can go into battle and help fight the enemies head on. It's pretty satisfying to be able to drop down into the middle of a huge battle and wipe out all the enemy troops with a single facemelter solo (which does exactly what it sounds like it does). Overall, the battles work well, and the various factions are different enough to give the online mode (which is based on the stage battles) some decent variety.

Of course, a game about heavy metal would be nothing without a good soundtrack, and in that regard Brütal Legend delivers like no game before it. There are 107 songs in the game from 75 different artists, and all of them are awesome. Highlights include songs by Motorhead, Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, Tenacious D, and Def Leppard. Also worth mentioning is the song “Girlfriend” by Kabbage Boy, which is a hilarious parody of the Nu-Metal genre. Overall the soundtrack is one of the best in gaming, although if you don't like heavy metal you will obviously be out of luck.

Even if you're not a fan of metal, Brütal Legend still has a lot to offer. It's got a good story, unique gameplay, and really beautiful graphics. If you are a fan of heavy metal, WHY AREN'T YOU PLAYING IT RIGHT NOW?

review: persona 3 FES

Videogames and controversy go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Politicians,
like the moderately unhinged Hillary Clinton, and lawyers, like the generally despised, frequently untruthful Jack Thompson, have a field day whenever something like the hot coffee mod scandal crops up. Decrying sex and violence in games that they view as “for kids” earns the politicians votes from parents too lazy to check the game’s rating, and the attorneys earn more cash from frivolous lawsuits against game companies than they can from running down eight ambulances. They even go so far as to try to get some games banned, like the extremely tame, teen rated high school free roamer Bully, simply because they think that there might be something naughty in it. Recent attentions have, of course, turned to the blockbuster game Grand Theft Auto 4, and Jack Thompson even went so far as to threaten Rockstar to get it cancelled before even seeing gameplay footage. With so much attention on offensive video games, it boggles the mind to think that a game featuring, among other things, teen suicide, illicit student/teacher relationships, and kids who use weapons to “repay” bullies, could completely slip under the radar. It would seem impossible that it could do it TWICE, especially if it were part of a long running series with similar themes. One game has managed this perfectly, and the result is the ultimate edition of one of the finest games ever made: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES (festival edition).

The premise of the Persona series is simple, it’s a classic turn based RPG with a twist: instead of attacking with the party characters, you mostly use “Persona,” a magical representation of the characters’ psyches to do battle. Characters with fired up personalities, for instance, have fire based personas, whereas characters with an icy disposition will…well, you get the picture. Persona 3 expands upon this concept by giving the main character, who is an emotional blank slate, free choice of his magical assistants. The result is somewhat like an awesome version of Pokemon: you can collect Personae in the game and fuse them to form new, stronger warriors. This system is joined with something akin to a Japanese dating sim: by forming friendships with other people at your school and in the community, you can create more powerful Personae of Aracana that match to the personalities of your friends. The stronger the friendship, the stronger the Persona, which is good, because with the battles being as tough as they are, you’ll need all the help you can get.

It’s a bit of an understatement to call the battles in Persona 3 difficult. This is not to say that the battles are overly complicated, in fact, you only have direct control over one party member, and the only thing you really have to worry about in terms of trumping enemies is your elemental affinity (fire beats water, for instance). But simple, again, does not mean easy. You see, because you control just one character, if that character dies in battle, it’s game over. At first this isn’t too brutal, as enemy attacks will damage you down to half health at most (unless you equip a persona with a weakness to your enemy) but when you get to about the 30th floor of Tartarus (the game’s single, massive, randomly generated dungeon) regular enemies start bringing out one hit kill attacks. Completing a difficult side quest only to be killed at the exit by a Hama or Mudo skill is infuriating, but with proper planning it’s preventable. For one thing, if you manage to get behind an enemy and hit them, you can get in a free round of attacks before they respond; however, enemies can do the same, so watch out and stay stealthy. Higher floors almost force you to use stealth tactics to win, and also force you to use the game’s other major tactic: elemental rock paper scissors, a system in which attacking with your enemy’s weakness allows you to get an extra turn and takes theirs away. Using this tactic allows you to leave battles completely unscathed, so long as your AI teammates don’t attack and let the enemies get back up.

The AI varies based on the personalities of party members, and certain members are unfortunately extremely lacking. Fortunately, AI mess-ups are avoidable, so long as you make use of the battle tactics option in the battle menu. This option acts like a simplified Version of the Gambit system from Final Fantasy XII, allowing you to influence the decisions of AI teammates by choosing from a list of useful tactics. It takes a while to get the really useful tactics (like the one that prevents your teammates from attacking downed enemies), but they come along at a fairly steady pace, and because each one is gained after a big boss fight, you feel like you’ve earned them once you get them. You can get to the end without using tactics, of course, but expect to see the Game Over screen a lot. That much dying will mean that beating the game might take much longer than usual, and considering how long the game is, that is quite a vast amount of time.

The original Persona 3 could last over a hundred hours depending on which ending you chose and how much time you spent on side quests. FES, the Re-release, adds a lot of content to the main plot, and adds a number of extra side quests to chew up your time. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though, when compared to the thirty hour long additional chapter that’s been added to FES. The Answer, as it’s called, is essentially a mini sequel to Persona 3, and it ties up many of the loose ends left in the original story, which, by the way, is outstanding.

Persona 3 really is excellent on all fronts, from the storytelling to the gameplay, everything is truly masterfully done. Not only is the game close to perfect, but now you can get it in it’s ultimate form for only thirty dollars, which is a deal that you’d have to be a zombie to pass up. It's a darn good thing that Jack Thompson missed this one, because otherwise we might have missed out on this rockin' awesome RPG.

the orange box (xbox 360)

There are many levels of value in this world. Having two things come out of a vending machine when you only bought one is fairly low value, while buying a car that comes with a lifetime of free gasoline is very high value. The Orange Box takes value to a whole new level. The Orange Box costs sixty dollars, the same price as any other brand new video game. What sets it apart is the fact that it isn't just any brand new video game: it's five brand new video games. What's more, they aren't just any bargain basement titles, they're five top-tier shooters which would be worthy of top marks even if they were sold individually.

The main part of the box is Halflife 2, the top rated PC game of all time. The classic game is present in all of its glory, accompanied by the 2 pseudo-sequels Episode 1 and Episode 2. It's quite obvious why this game is regarded as a classic: the controls are perfectly tuned, the graphics are amazing, and the level of design is ingenious. Whether you're shooting monsters or solving puzzles, you're guaranteed to be having a good time. The plot is as good today as it was three years ago on the PC, and for many console gamers this will be the first time they play the game. Plus, the inclusion of the brand new, long awaited episode 2 means that even longtime fans of Halflife will be able to get something new from the experience.

Another game set in the world of Halflife is included in the package. It is called "Portal," and it is essentially a first person puzzle game. The puzzles in the game revolve around manipulation of the environment via the portal gun, an incredible new game play device that allows you to create two-way portals on any flat, non-metallic surface. You literally have to think in four dimensions to solve some of the harder puzzles. As an added bonus, the game is totally hilarious, thanks mostly to the psychotic computer who torments you endlessly until the final boss fight, where she tells you, among other things, that you are adopted and that nobody loves you. The game itself only lasts about three hours, but it's funny and fresh enough to warrant multiple replays, so you'll get plenty of fun out of it.

Rounding out this stellar package is "Team Fortress 2," one of the best class-based online shooters ever. You play on either the red or blue team, and are given the task to either invade the opposing team's base, or claim the enemy intelligence. To assist you in this task, you are given the choice of a number of unique classes. From speedy scouts to stealthy spies, all of the classes are fun to use and are well balanced. Each class has its own special abilities: Scouts are very fast and can do double jumps, Soldiers can shoot rockets at people, Pyros can burn things, Demo men can blow things up with grenades and stickybombs, Heavies can tear through any defense with a huge minigun, Engineers can build healing machines and turrets, Snipers can shoot people in the head from far away, Medics can heal people and make them invincible, and finally, Spies can turn invisible and disguise themselves as members of the other team. It's a very complex game and I don't have the space to get into specifics, so it will suffice to say that it's good.

The whole Orange Box is tons of fun to play, a great value, and each game deserves five out of five on its own. I have no choice but to give it a score of 6 out of 5- it's that good.

persona 4

Persona 3 was a real gem of a title. Not only was it a great revival for a classic series, but it was so potentially controversial that it’s a miracle that it even made it to this side of the Pacific. The sequel, Persona 4, is another beauty, which continues the series tradition of biting social commentary mixed with the megaten franchise’s notoriously difficult rpg gameplay, while simultaneously improving on P3 in almost every conceivable way.

The biggest improvements, of course, are in the gameplay. The most noticeable improvement is the shift from single to multiple dungeons. This allows for much more of a varied aesthetic in the levels, and makes for much more interesting segments in the randomly generated floors. The preset levels are also much better designed than before, and there are a few really good environmental puzzles included. The battle system has also seen significant improvement. You are now allowed direct control over your supporting characters, and they will take a mortal hit for you if you need them to, meaning that getting ambushed by more powerful enemies no longer spells instant defeat. To balance this, it is now much harder to stay healthy in dungeons. Knockdowns no longer cost enemies their turns, meaning that you need to make full use of the new guard command. MP recovery items are few and far between, and it’s almost impossible to keep your party at full health for long. The free healing monolith in the main dungeon hub has also been replaced by miserly little fox spirit, who charges exorbitant fees for his services and only heals your MP. Outside of the dungeons, the dating sub game has been improved considerably, offering you bonuses other than mere persona advancement for improving social links. The aforementioned miserly fox will reduce his prices the higher your s-link is with him, for instance. A lot of these improvements can be accredited to the story’s change of theme.

This time around, the commentary is focused on TV obsession and consumer culture, and the effects they have on small town life. Having a less depressing theme than the previous game, which focused on isolation within an apathetic and self absorbed society of the city, P4 contains less controversial material. This does not mean that the game is any less deep, although the plot is easier to grasp. What were cryptic metaphors in the world of P3 are much better explained in P4. The perfect example of this is the character Teddy. Teddy is a very typical, cutesy mascot. He cracks bad bear puns all the time, often only making himself laugh, and, much like the world of television that he represents, he is completely hollow. It sometimes feels as though they’ve taken the metaphor too far, though, especially when it comes to the main plot. The murder mystery tale has so much potential, but logic and reason are forgotten in favour of a solution that alludes heavily to Japanese mythology. It would be much more satisfying if the murderer were someone who you would suspect through evidence analysis, but the plot, as is, rings as hollow as Teddy’s padded skull.

The way the game presents its story; however, is superb, especially considering that it’s on a ten year old console. The music is catchy and well orchestrated, and the visuals, particularly the movie quality animated cutscenes, are great. The voice acting isn’t as grating as in most JRPG translations, and a copious amount of dialog is fully voiced. There’s really nothing to complain about.

Overall I give this game a glowing recommendation. If you own a PS2 you and are looking for a new game to play on it, this is pretty much the very best there is.

Review: Sonic and the Black Knight

To say that I wasn't expecting much out of Sonic and the Black Knight is an understatement. From the minute I saw the first preview I was almost sure that I would hate it. It says something then, that despite my incredibly low expectations the game still managed to disappoint me.

The only real compliment I can come up with for Black Knight is that it presents itself nicely. The opening cutscene in particular is really nice looking, but then again, what do you expect from a pre-rendered cinematic? Even without that, however, the game looks very good, especially for a Wii title. The environments and character models are pretty, and all of the textures are sharp and well defined. The game also has some really cool looking woodblock-style cutscenes that give the storytelling some unique flair. The game looks so good, in fact, that I get the impression that most of the design time and budget was spent exclusively on graphics, with most of what was left over going into sound design.

Black Knight also has some pretty decent sound design. The Rockin' soundtrack, while decidedly out of place in the Arthurian setting, is about as good as the music in any other Sonic game. The sound effects are also very well done, with lots of clashing metal, galloping horses, and other things you would expect from this kind of setting. They all sound very real and it's as cool as ever to hear the sounds coming from the Wii remote as well as the TV.

While the music and effects sound great, the same cannot be said for the voice acting. Listening to the terrible dialogue compares less than favourably to puncturing your own eardrums with rusty nails and, to put it bluntly, the translation is so abysmal that it makes the NES Metal Gear look like a literary masterpiece. Unintentionally hilarious bits abound, like the way that Blaze the Cat's medieval persona is frequently referred to as Sir Percival, despite the fact that she is very clearly still a girl in this instalment. That's not to say that a good translation could have saved the script from its biggest failing: a mind-blowingly bad plot.

I realize that the Sonic series has never had great storylines, but The Black Knight marks a new low. The plot involves Sonic being sucked into the world of Arthurian legend by the wizard Merlina in order to do battle with King Arthur himself, who has been turned evil by the sheath of Excalibur. This sheath has also made Arthur immortal, and so Sonic must obtain a Sacred Sword in order to harm him. This sacred blade is Caliburn, a talking sword that is as annoying as it is chatty. After finding Caliburn, he must then acquire three more sacred swords because, you know, that plot device hasn't been used enough already. The entire story is as cliched and predictable as they come, so I suppose I should be glad that it is also rather short. I found myself wishing that the cutscenes were a bit longer, however, because they felt like a respite from the terrible gameplay.

The controls in Black Knight are exactly what you would expect: you attack by waving the remote, and you move using the nun chuck control stick. Of course, there is no actual strategy in the combat, and all you really need to do is press up on the control stick and wave the remote around randomly to get through the entire game, and I do mean the ENTIRE game. There is absolutely nothing to it beyond random waggling. You don't even need to steer, as each level places you on rails with approximately 2 feet of wiggle room on either side of you. To say that this gets old rather quickly is an understatement, and the fact that the levels are all virtually identical doesn't help matters.

Even the boss fights follow the "waggle until everything is dead" formula, with little actual strategy required. In order to make up for the lack of strategy the boss battles all incorporate incredibly unforgiving quick time events. These quick time events are unforgiving not because they require instantaneous reflexes, but instead because they insist on using the Wii motion sensor instead of traditional button presses. The problem with waggling the remote is that it simply is not responsive enough to accommodate that kind of gameplay. Many developers have made note of this and either make the timing of their quick time events more forgiving or scrap waggle altogether in favour of more responsive controls. Sonic and the Black Knight chooses to defy common sense, however, and the result is that a game that is otherwise ridiculously piss-easy occasionally becomes maddeningly difficult.

Back on the piss-easy end of the difficulty spectrum. The game asks you to perform stupid little "acts of chivalry," which amount to running up to the hobbit-like townspeople, pressing z to initiate a button based quick time event, and then giving them 20 rings. Yes, you read that correctly, the townspeople who you are busting your ass to save are demanding money from you, and not only that, but they also make you jump through hoops to give it to them. If you fail the stupid rhythm minigame, they will refuse to take your money, like the fact that you can't dance somehow makes your money worthless to the ungrateful bastards. Thankfully the timing is a lot more forgiving than some of the boss quick time events, but it doesn't make the mechanic any more fun. To make matters worse, some levels REQUIRE that you give away between 80 and 100 rings in order to advance. Whoever came up with the acts of chivalry is certainly no genius, but the prize for idiot of the year goes to the man who decided to implement them as a level goal.

Bottom Line: Good graphics and music can't disguise how terrible this game is. From the awful controls to the horrifically bad story, this is probably the single worst game I've ever had the displeasure of playing.

Recommendation: I have a hard time imagining how anybody could possibly enjoy this game. Even the most obsessive Sonic fans will probably be put off by the terrible design and awful story. I strongly suggest that you avoid it like the plague.

Valkyria Chronicles

Neither turn based strategy games nor Sega are known for originality in the games industry these days. All of the turn-based strategy games out right now, especially those coming out of Japan, are essentially identical grid based affairs. Sega just can’t seem to accept the fact that Sonic the Hedgehog is irreversibly dead. Indeed, it seems as if a turn-based strategy game by Sega would be as bland and monotonous as all get out and as Sega’s new title, Valkyria Chronicles, demonstrates, turn based strategy and Sega are two incredibly bland tastes that… taste surprisingly great together.

I suppose I shouldn’t be all that surprised, though. The game was developed by Sega Overworks, a division whose previous works include the Phantasy Star series and Dreamcast classic Skies of Arcadia, not to mention the popular (in Japan, anyway) turn-based strategy/dating sim mashup series Sakura Wars. The pedigree shows, and Valkyria Chronicles has turned out to be one of the most astoundingly fun, unique games available on any system. Indeed, the combination of turn-based strategy and third person shooter works so well that I can easily recommend it to anyone who owns a PS3, regardless of genre preference. I would even go so far as to call it the best game on the system, were it not for the presence of the sublime DIY platformer Little Big Planet.

Even if it isn’t the best playing game on the system, Valkyria is by far the best looking game on the system. The stunningly rendered graphics and watercolor shading give the game a unique look. The beautiful graphics are combined with textual sound effects (IE. When you fire a machine gun text appears onscreen going “RATTA RATTA RATTA”) to give the game the look of a living comic book. The world itself, an alternate version of 1930s Europe, comes alive with rich details and varied environments. All of the character models are amazingly detailed too, and each of the over 50 main playable characters comes across as a unique individual. Even bit characters are well developed and all play in to the narrative wonderfully.

The narrative of Valkyria Chronicles is, for the most part, a well told tale of war between a small nation and an overbearing empire. The tale is spun in the form of a fictitious history book, On the Gallian Front, and the format works amazingly well, providing an intuitive front-end and allowing the player to quickly jump between story events and skirmishes. A warning to the illiterate: while the cut-scenes in the game are fully voiced, there is a copious amount of supplemental text contained within three glossaries. Speaking of the cut-scenes, they do present a problem for the game’s narrative. You see, while the story is interesting and the characters likeable, the game suffers from MGS4 syndrome: too much of the plot is told through talking heads and long, if gorgeously rendered cut-scenes. Fortunately, the book format provides players with an out. The option to go into skirmish mode at any time diminishes boredom by allowing players to quickly get back in to the excellent game play.

When I say excellent, I mean it. The turn based combat works on so many levels that it’s insane. Fully 3D movement and unstructured battles allow for complex, dynamic strategies. The experience from battle to battle is varied and unique. Often it’s the terrain tha`t makes the battle, as only through effective use of cover and high ground can victory be achieved. While skill does play a major role in the battles, complex stat manipulation also plays a role in determining how accurate your shots are and how much damage each bullet does. Luckily, soldiers level up their stats by class, so you won’t lose your advantage if you swap out one soldier for another. As one of the freaks who actually enjoys tweaking stats to get the perfect load-out, I find this to be extremely fun. I must stress for the more ADD afflicted gamers, all of this leveling and stat adjustment is completely optional.

All in all, I must say that Valkyria Chronicles is a joy to play, and I recommend it to anyone who possesses a PS3 and a functioning brain.

Introduction

Hello and welcome one and all to the Mother's Basement. This blog is a pet project of mine that has evolved from a column I do for my school newspaper. In it I will rant about video games and other nerdy shit I feel like talking about, and I might also do some reviews if the mood strikes me. My first job as a blogger will be to upload my old pieces to the blog for... archival purposes, I guess. Really, it's just so you can bask in my awesome. From now on, all of my articles will appear here before they appear in the paper. Better yet, they will be in all their uncensored glory, so any Sutherland readers who always wished that my articles had more unnecessary fucking profanity should fucking read them fucking here instead of in the fucking Sabre Trooth fuck. (Warning: the preceding sentence contained some material that may not have been suitable for a younger audience. Reader discretion was advised. Now that I think about it I probably should have warned you earlier. My bad.)

Your job as my readers is to read what I write and pretend to give a fuck about my opinion on things. This is not optional, because my ego is a fragile thing, (like that of all bloggers) and if you don't humor me I'll probably kill you in a fit of psychotic rage.

Anyway, welcome to the blog.
-Geoff Thew