Never Too Old To Play™

Resident Evil fans can be generally split into two groups: players who enjoy and embrace the action-oriented third-person game play style of Resident Evil 4 and 5 and those who prefer the old school puzzle solving with a more moderate dose of zombie killing action.

Desperate Escape, the second piece of downloadable content for Resident Evil 5, is clearly geared more towards the action fans in contrast to Lost In Nightmares which, while offering a lot of cleverly crafted nostalgia to gamers who grew up with the earlier entries in the series in the 90’s, feels like a completely separate entity instead of an expansion on the main game.

In Desperate Escape, the player takes control of recently saved Jill Valentine (or can use Sheva Alomar’s comrade Josh Stone after beating the episode once) on a side journey that details just how Jill and Josh ended up in the helicopter during the final cut scene of Resident Evil 5.

Whereas gamers who have no history with the Resident Evil franchise may get thrown by the drastically different game play style of Lost In Nightmares, they’ll easily transition to Desperate Escape which uses characters, enemies and environments from the main game. The episode fits perfectly into the world, and the very basic story complements the campaign proper which makes for a better, more seamless experience.

Desperate Escape is basically more of everything players loved (or hated) about Resident Evil 5 so the gamer knows exactly what they’re getting when they plunk down the $5 for the download (the content is also available as part of the Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition package for those players who were late to the game).

I think both pieces of downloadable content are worth playing for long time fans of the Resident Evil series, but if I had to choose one to recommend I would suggest Desperate Escape in a heartbeat since it’s a much more exciting experience that is truer to Resident Evil 5’s heartbeat.

Final score: 4 out of 5

Parent to parent

Like I said in my review, Desperate Escape is more of everything that was great in Resident Evil 5 which includes the gore and the violence. I wouldn’t recommend the main game to young children, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend this expansion.

Experience this for yourself!

• Resident Evil 5: Desperate Escape (Xbox Live Marketplace)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)

I know I’m not alone in wishing for a remake of the first (and second for that matter) Resident Evil games using the new perspective and game play style employed by Resident Evil 5. That may be a pipe dream, but for now players wishing to take a stroll down memory lane can do so by playing Lost In Nightmares, a downloadable episode available on Xbox Live (or as part of the Resident Evil: Gold Edition available for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3).

Lost In Nightmares is the playable version of the flashback in Resident Evil 5 where series protagonist Chris Redfield recounts his mission with ex-partner Jill Valentine searching the European mansion of Umbrella Corporation chairman Ozwell E. Spencer.

The setting is deliberately reminiscent of the Arklay Mountains mansion in which the first Resident Evil game takes place. In fact, the entire chapter is essentially a throwback to that first game with tons of tiny little homages to the one that started it all. For instance, when you open doors in Lost In Nightmares, the view switches to a head-on perspective of the slowly opening door just like in the original game. There are also little winks and nods involving shattering windows, ceiling traps and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

The only problem is that for the most part the episode is really quite boring. While it’s nice to see puzzles that are very similar to the ones gamers enjoyed back in the 90’s when the first game came out, the near utter lack of action sequences is quite jarring after having played the action heavy Resident Evil 5 main campaign. It’s true that Resident Evil didn’t boast non-stop gun fights, but Capcom seems to have swung to the completely opposite end of the spectrum with this DLC.

This isn’t to say that there’s no action anywhere in the entire mission, but what little there is seems somewhat mundane. Gamers meet a brand new enemy about halfway through the episode, but aside from the final boss fight that new enemy is the only type you encounter.

There are no zombies, no infected dogs, no Majini, etc. so there’s really no traditional combat sequences because the new enemy is one of those “very dangerous but very slow” types that you can almost always avoid fighting altogether.

Just about the only part of Lost In Nightmares that feels like it’s part of Resident Evil 5 at all is the final boss battle in which you face an enemy you battled in the full game by using the same strategies and techniques. It’s very frustrating for me personally that this is the tie-in since the game play style for this particular boss was my least favorite in Resident Evil 5.

Despite all of the issues I had with Lost In Nightmares, I still recommend it to die hard fans of the series (or at least the first game) since there are a lot of little Easter egg type details that fans should enjoy. I’m torn on this download myself because while I enjoyed the nostalgic aspects, I found myself incredibly bored with a good portion of the episode. Perhaps I need to recognize that my tastes have changed and to stop wishing for what Resident Evil was so I can focus 100% on my enjoyment of what Resident Evil has become.

Final score: 3 out of 5

Parent to parent

While this is an expansion for a game that I would not recommend for children, the significant lack of combat almost allows me to offer an opinion that the episode is child-safe. However, what the new enemy does to your character if it manages to get a hold of them is easily as gory as anything you’ll find in Resident Evil 5. Further, you would need to purchase the main game in order to play this expansion so there really isn’t any reason a child should ever be playing Lost In Nightmares.

Experience this for yourself!

• Resident Evil 5: Lost In Nightmares (Xbox Live Marketplace)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)

Zombies have always frightened me. The idea of an easily communicable disease or pathogen that forcibly removes all sense of self and converts a person into an essentially mindless husk of what was once there disturbs me. The idea of a merciless, focused enemy horde that grows by virtue of whittling away the opposition, and the sense that as each day passes there are less of “you” and that many more of “them” is eerie. The thought that it’s really not a matter of if but when you become a snack for the masses, screaming in agony as a dozen reeking, rotting living corpses tear into your flesh while you’re still alive, while your blood is still pumping through your body (and now squirting out of your severed veins), is enough to make me shudder.

Yes, zombies have always frightened me. I am, and always have been, a huge fan of horror, especially films of the zombie sub-genre like George Romero’s classic Dead series so it really did not surprise me that it was love at first sight when I first experienced Resident Evil on the Sony PlayStation.

Capcom’s classic survival horror masterpiece was the first video game to make me feel pure, unadulterated fear. It arrived at a time when video games were only just starting to take on more mature themes with many people still entrenched in Nintendo’s rainbow parade of happiness. Mario and Donkey Kong made me happy and kept me smiling; I virtually peed my pants five minutes into Resident Evil when that first zombie dog crashed through the hallway window.

Even better, it kept up that level of tension throughout the whole experience. At no point in Resident Evil did you really feel safe because there could be a zombie hiding behind any door or a dog waiting to jump through any window, and since you didn’t enjoy the benefit of the bottomless backpack that so many video games of the time employed you couldn’t rely on the safety blanket of adequate ammo and medical supplies to ensure your survival through the next area.

Resident Evil 5 is quite a different game from its great, great, great grandfather. It’s not so much a survivor horror game as it is a survivor action game. The enemies aren’t reanimated corpses but they still act a bit like zombies as they stalk you; now, though, they’re hapless victims of creepy parasites that jam their way down your throat and turn you into bloodthirsty savages – they don’t want to eat you, but they hope to make you dead.

There are a lot more of them, too. In Resident Evil, you’d meet a zombie every few rooms or hallways – the anxiety of bumping into one around the next corner or behind the next door, especially when you were low on ammunition, was what kept the heart pounding. In Resident Evil 5, however, the tension comes from having to stave off a slowly advancing horde without being able to run and gun your way through like a super soldier.

You see, Resident Evil 5 isn’t a traditional shooter game despite kind of looking like one – Capcom decided in the previous game to change things up from the trademark fixed perspective of the series and make the experience a little more personal by putting the camera behind the player character just above the shoulder – because you have to set yourself and aim before you can actually shoot anything. It’s understandably a little disconcerting to gamers heavily invested in the typical first- or third-person shooter style of play, but it adds a little excitement and challenge to what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill shooting game.

Adding to the tension is the new real-time inventory management system that doesn’t include a “pause” function. If you’re down to your last sliver of life and being chased by a chainsaw-wielding psychopath, it’s more than a little harrowing not to be able to freeze the game and take your sweet time deciding between one medicine or another. Thankfully, Capcom gives you a little bit of leeway by allowing you to set certain items to one of the four points on the directional pad so you can quickly equip that item if you need it in the heat of battle; good luck if you didn’t prepare beforehand, though.

The game opens with an introductory cinematic that gives you a little preview of things to come before dropping you in a dilapidated Kijuju shanty town filled with people who are no longer the welcoming type. You play Chris Redfield, the hero from the very first Resident Evil game, who is now a member of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) on a mission to apprehend one Ricardo Irving, a black market arms dealer attempting to sell a bio weapon of an undisclosed nature (fans of the series should easily be able to figure out what the weapon is).

Your partner on this mission is Sheva Alomar, a top agent in the BSAA’s African branch, who you can play as in subsequent playthroughs after you beat the game. She is quite a contrast to Chris from a design perspective: while Chris is enormous – he must have injected a ton of steroids because he makes WWE’s John Cena look like a skinny little nerd – Sheva is lean and svelte; while Chris is dressed like an operative, Sheva looks like someone about to go on a hike; while Chris pummels his opponents with brutal hooks and uppercuts, Sheva uses graceful kicks to incapacitate her foes.

Sheva is probably one of the best AI partners I’ve ever worked with in a video game. She rarely gets in the way, is quick to heal you when enemies have dealt the pain, keeps up with you quite well, and is quite competent in combat situations (she has saved my butt on more than one occasion).

The common enemy types early in the game are not nearly as competent. While you’re taking out their buddies alongside them, they’ll just keep advancing on your position. The challenge comes in their sheer numbers and ability to absorb damage. You don’t get more powerful weapons until later in the game so it’s not very difficult to get into a sticky situation where you’re being overwhelmed by a horde of infected rabble despite how slow they move when they get near you and how much more open the environments are than earlier games in the series. I’ve heard people vent in frustration about the nuances of the control scheme which prevent you from “running and gunning;” I’m of the opinion that the game is most exciting in these circumstances thanks in no small part to the particular gameplay style.

An especially enjoyable aspect of Resident Evil 5 is the high level of quality in the graphics. From both a technical and creative perspective, the game’s visuals are top notch to the point of being one of the best looking games of the generation. There’s an incredible amount of detail in every part of the game from the different textures of your characters’ outfits to the glossy sheen of the exposed musculature of a classic Resident Evil monster you meet later in the game.

As impressive is just how good each of the number of varied environments you visit in the game look. You’ll find yourself speeding across dusty savannah in a Humvee, wading through crocodile-infested swampland, exploring ancient, subterranean tribal ruins, and pushing through abandoned research facilities. Each environment is gorgeous to behold because of the amount of attention paid to the little details that make it look like a living, breathing place. As you race by the unkempt, decrepit structures in that first shanty town, you can imagine that the people hunting you down were stuck in a living Hell long before the parasites got to them.

The story builds upon events from previous Resident Evil games and even earlier as certain flashback scenes and many of the documents you discover touch upon the lengthy history and back story behind the entire franchise. Most notable is the clear revelation of the relationship between series villain Albert Wesker and the founder of Umbrella Corporation, Ozwell E. Spencer; fans are finally told exactly what Wesker’s motivation has been throughout the six proper games. I saw the story really only failing during one particularly cheesy cutscene just prior to a boss battle where one of your adversaries starts spouting grimace-inducing pop culture references before injecting himself with a mutagen.

Resident Evil 5 is certainly not for everyone. Fans of the series as a whole will most likely enjoy this final entry in the main series – producer Jun Takeuchi said that the sixth game would probably be a reboot, and Capcom estimated that the next game could take as long as eight years to make – and even gamers who were not enamored with the story of the earlier games might enjoy this one due to the changes in gameplay direction and a departure from the zombie premise. The people most likely to have an issue with this game are those accustomed to the more freeform first- and third-person shooter style of gameplay who might feel too restricted by this departure. Nonetheless, this is a game interesting enough to at least give a shot before making a final decision one way or another – give the demo a go: it’s a pretty accurate representation of what you’ll be doing through the rest of the game.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

If you’re shopping for a younger player, just leave this game on the shelf. There is a lot of violence and gore in this game with the player taking part in the killing of people who are essentially just victims of an evil corporation’s gruesome bio weapons experiments. The actual infection and transformation processes are depicted quite early in the game, but there is equally disturbing imagery further on as various people undergo hideous mutations into vicious beasts. This is definitely a “Rated R” type of game so act accordingly.

Experience this for yourself!

• Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5 (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5 (PC) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5 Collector’s Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5 Collector’s Edition (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• Xbox 360 Elite Limited Edition Red Resident Evil 5 Console (Amazon)

If you read the review teasers on Metacritic.com, or even go so far as to click through to the actual reviews themselves, you may be inclined to think that Metal Gear Solid 4 is the greatest game in the history of gaming. Don’t be fooled. Like Halo 3, this title that has been described by some as Hideo Kojima’s magnum opus is a beneficiary of exaggerated, and for the most part undeserved, hype.

Or  maybe it’s a victim of that hype. It’s hard to tell when such games enjoy remarkable sales based on the undying dedication of its most diehard fans, the impressive reach of monster marketing campaigns and grandiose declarations by raving critics eager to be the first to recognize the coming of the “best game ev-ah.” It’s a bit telling when you can put any number of the overblown hype nuggets used to describe either game’s supposed greatness next to each other and really not be able to tell which ones go with which game.

Meanwhile, the new breed of mainstream gamer who isn’t a video game geek and doesn’t have any deep emotional or nostalgic investment in these video game series is shrugging their shoulders and wondering what the big deal is. If you went into this game without any clue as to who Solid Snake was, you would within an hour of starting the game likely find yourself asking a) how some old fart is supposed to be a bad ass special operative, b) who would design robots that looked like giant metal chickens missing their upper halves, c) why everyone talks so much that they might as well be reciting a Shakespearean soliloquy, and d) who the hell are the two dozen characters you’ve already met?

Metal Gear Solid 4 is creatively a giant mess. The Metal Gear series is notorious for having bloated, overly complex stories that tend to be heavy handed in their moral preaching and verbose in their delivery. Like many other Japanese game designers, Kojima relies very much on lengthy and sometimes over-the-top cinematic cutscenes to drive the story forward but he takes things a step further by producing some of the longest cutscenes in the history of gaming – some have estimated that Metal Gear Solid 4’s non-interactive interludes make up about 50% of an average playthrough’s time!

This wouldn’t be so bad if there was a clear narrative that made sense, but this game’s story involves so many characters (basically, anyone from all the previous games who represents any sort of loose end to be wrapped up) and plot twists that it becomes even more convoluted than its already confusing predecessors. In fact, Metal Gear Solid 4’s plot makes the previous games’ look like Aesop’s Fables. One of the biggest complaints about Spider-Man 3 was that the story had too many villains such that the filmmakers couldn’t really focus on and develop them – imagine multiplying that number of characters several times! It’s like X-Men: The Last Stand where it seems you’re introduced to a new significant character in every other scene.

To make matters worse, there are so many strange story elements involved that it becomes a chore to keep track of and understand all of them. On top of the war that you’re dropped into in the beginning of the game whose details – such as who’s fighting in the conflict and why the war even started in the first place – are not clearly revealed to you, you have to wrap your mind around the main character’s genetic engineering (as well as the back story which explains why this changed him from Solid Snake to Old Snake), the admittedly compelling story behind the heavily promoted and ridiculously named “Beauty and the Beast Corps”, and the multitude of subplots involving the leadership behind the enemy organization. Oh, and a vampire. Sort of.

There’s way too much exposition in the game – “Let me explain what just happened in this ten-minute speech” – and there are way too many lame plot twists that are there just for the sake of having plot twists – “I was only pretending to do this so you wouldn’t know what I was really up to.” And do any of us really need to see someone hiding out in an oil barrel because they have a wicked case of diarrhea from the local food? I sure didn’t.

At least the game is decent during the parts where you’re actually playing. There isn’t anything that special about the run of the mill missions where you’re just trying to avoid (or stealthily take out) foot soldiers, but a level where you’re trying to tail a suspect through a European city in the middle of the night is kind of cool and most of the boss battles are really well done – I’d even go so far as to say that all except one of the “Beauty and the Beast Corps” stages (especially one that takes place in a snowbound environment in which you are both the hunter and the hunted) are some of the best designed boss battles of this generation. On the other hand, the final battle is not only rudimentary and boring but easy as well, which is somewhat of a letdown considering it’s supposed to be Solid Snake’s last hurrah.

The graphics are pretty good as well although at times the visual design leaves something to be desired. The artists obviously poured a lot of effort into designing Solid Snake and the major characters, but many of the “foot soldier” types that you most often fight are decidedly less detailed. And some of the environments are pretty drab despite having the advantage of higher resolution textures than most console games. Overall, though, the visual experience is one of the stronger aspects of the game.

“Good but not great” is the phrase of the day when talking about Metal Gear Solid 4. With the exception of the mostly asinine narrative, pretty much every aspect of the game is good but nowhere near the exaggerated level of quality that most reviewers have lavished upon the title. It also succeeds where Halo 3 didn’t: it’s a solid “current generation” entry in the platform’s flagship series that doesn’t seem like it could have been done with little compromise on the previous generation of hardware.

While it’s not God’s gift to video games, Metal Gear Solid 4 at least works its tail off to earn the right to enjoy a little bit of that crazy hype.

Final score: 4 out of 5

Parent to parent

Metal Gear Solid 4 is not a game for children despite some of the cutscenes seeming like they were scripted by children. There is a lot of killing (by both the good guys and the bad guys), and the enemy organization makes no bones about being willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish their goal. Plus, the story line is so complex that a kid’s head would probably spin trying to make heads or tails of it. Most importantly, the Beauty and the Beast Corps’ back stories, which involve such themes as cannibalism and mass murder, are definitely too disturbing for younger players.

Experience this for yourself!

• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3) (Amazon)
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Exclusive Limited Edition (PS3) (Amazon)
• PlayStation 3 80GB Metal Gear Solid 4 Bundle (Amazon)

Greg Miller, one of the editors over at IGN’s PlayStation 3 channel, posted an editorial about a week ago in which he asserted that the Xbox 360’s highly anticipated exclusive role-playing epic Mass Effect 2, the sequel to a highly decorated sci-fi epic, is inarguably and definitively a better game than the PlayStation 3’s equally anticipated exclusive action platformer Uncharted 2, which happens to be the 2009 Game of the Year of almost every professional gaming publication in the industry, and then proceeds to dedicate two pages to nothing more than explaining why he likes role-playing games better than action games.

He points to the lengthy, complex storyline and well developed characters in Mass Effect 2, and notes that he felt more of a connection to Commander Shepard than to Nathan Drake because he was choosing how Shepard interacted with other characters during the non-action portions of the game. These aspects are all well and good if you like role-playing games, but they’re irrelevant to someone who’s simply interested in all-out action. In fact, for that kind of player, Mass Effect 2 is likely not a great choice because you spend the majority of your time talking, walking and doing mundane tasks like scanning planets for mineral resources.

This is not to say that Mass Effect 2 is a bad experience or even a worse experience than Uncharted 2 but rather to point out the folly in trying to measure the superiority of one over the other based solely on criteria that is not only subjective but may be of complete irrelevance.

Probably the most laughable thing that Mr. Miller implied, though, was that his claim that Mass Effect 2 is hands down the better game somehow had more weight because he’s “the PlayStation guy,” an editor from the PlayStation 3 channel of IGN who says “Trophies are better than Achievements,” and “who bought a PSPgo on day one and doesn’t regret the decision in the least.”

Just like an opinion that Safari is a better web browser than Internet Explorer doesn’t become more valid just because it comes from a Windows user and an opinion that Jon Lester is a better pitcher than A.J. Burnett is no more valid if it’s offered by a Yankees fan, there’s no reason to believe any more that Mass Effect 2 is a better game than Uncharted 2 simply because a PlayStation fan thinks so.

If you want to do a real apples to apples comparison of the two games, you’re pretty much limited to quantitative analysis of things that can be measured, like which game has better graphics technology (Uncharted 2), better performance (Uncharted 2), more gameplay (Mass Effect 2), more replay capability (Mass Effect 2), longer game time (Mass Effect 2), less bugs (Uncharted 2), etc. Yet even these aspects are still subject to relevance analysis – better graphics or more replayability are each not of any significant importance to a large number of gamers.

In the end, the lesson is one that can be applied at a higher level to the whole “which console is better” debate: don’t worry about trying to prove that the Xbox 360 is better than the PlayStation 3 or vice versa because you can’t when there is no single type of gamer that is the sole arbiter of what makes a console or a game better than another. Just enjoy the games you have and leave the bickering and pandering to the fanboys whose lives are validated only by the hunk of electronics they have next to their television.

Saw came out of nowhere in October 2004 to take the movie industry by storm and become the most successful horror franchise in history. The refreshingly different thriller, directed by previously unknown filmmaker James Wan and written by Leigh Whannell who also played one of the supporting characters, was shot for about $1.2 million and went on to gross over $100 million worldwide, later spawning five sequels and now a video game.

Like the film sequels, the game focuses significantly less on the sense of thrill and mystery that made the original movie so great and more on the gore that seems to get more explicit as each year passes (and a new Saw film arrives in theaters) to the delight of today’s shock horror fans. The game isn’t nearly as gory as the more recent sequels – understandable, since Konami took over the project early on (Japanese game companies eschew overly graphic violence) in the hopes they had found a spiritual successor to their dying Silent Hill franchise and no country’s ratings board would approve a game of that nature – but includes enough blood and body parts to give the player a sense of its film origins.

Ultimately, the game is made for fans of the series. Konami hired Wan and Whannell to write a whole new story that ties into the overall Saw legend, and it works very well both as a piece of the overall puzzle and as a standalone arc that continues from the original movie’s plot (in case you didn’t stick with the franchise after the first film). The setting – a long abandoned psychiatric institution in which the staff conducted all sorts of vile experiments on their patients – is exactly the kind of place the Jigsaw Killer (played appropriately by the films’ Tobin Bell) might choose to test his captives. And references to the movies are abundant: newspaper clippings scattered about the hospital tell the backstory about the Jigsaw case, doctor’s notes hint at John Kramer’s psychological evolution into the Jigsaw Killer and various rooms showcase the aftermath of some of Kramer’s tests.

As former detective David Tapp, portrayed in the original film by veteran actor Danny Glover but voiced here by Earl Alexander (who played Louis in Left4Dead), you have to make your way through the dilapidated hospital avoiding instant death traps (doors and tripwires rigged with shotguns that pulverize your head), broken glass strewn on the floor (an ultimately annoying obstacle to deal with that doesn’t really advance or complement the gameplay in any way) and violent thugs who have been trapped here by the Jigsaw Killer and tasked with removing a key stitched into your body.

Following instructions left to you on mini cassette recorders and through the intercom (often accompanied by video footage played on strategically positioned television sets), you must solve a slew of “light” puzzles in order to gather the things you need in order to get to the victims you are meant to save, all of whom have some sort of past relationship with Tapp. For example, one victim is the wife of the late detective Steven Sing, Tapp’s former partner who was killed by a trap when the two of them broke into Jigsaw’s old hideout.

The traps holding each of these victims, and the puzzles you have to solve to beat them, are by far the most interesting part of the game. Whether you’re playing Jigsaw’s demented version of Concentration where each wrong turn results in a steel rod spearing a victim’s body part or his alternative take on Pengo where passing over too many designated spots causes an elaborate iron maiden to swing shut, you’ll rest at ease with some sense of satisfaction after having rescued each inevitably irritable and ungrateful captive.

Unfortunately, you won’t feel quite as good going through all the repetitive gameplay of the vast areas in between each of the major tests. Aside from having to avoid the obstacles listed above, you’ll find yourself at the mercy of sluggish controls and a monotonous combat system reminiscent of the Silent Hill games. Combat is never enjoyable but is thankfully pretty easy for the most part as you only face one real boss character who can be very easily taken out with certain features of the environment – during the rest of the games, you’ll just be facing peons who can’t hack any real pain.

Worse than the combat, though, are the basic puzzles thrown at you when you do things like pick locked doors or open weapon cases. These challenges, if you can call them that, involve fairly mundane and repetitive tasks that get old very quickly; in fact, many of them cycle through a small handful of choices so you start seeing the same puzzles very early on (there’s even one puzzle that is exactly the same every single time you see it). Unfortunately, you have to go through them so often during the game that by the end you’ll be able to solve most of them in your sleep.

On the graphics front, anyone hoping for outstanding visuals should look elsewhere. While the game looks far from horrible, it is definitely a game that could have been done on a previous generation console. It’s surprising the development team didn’t put a whole lot of effort into taking advantage of the powerful Unreal Engine 3 – there’s a painfully conspicuous gap between the quality of graphics in this game and those in Batman: Arkham Asylum, BioShock and Mass Effect. If you’re going to pay for that kind of technology, you might as well leverage its capabilities, especially when it comes to how the characters look: there are only four or five different enemy models, and Tapp and the other central victims don’t look remarkable at all.

The team did seem to put a decent amount of effort into the presentation and overall art style of the game, however. The design of the hospital is formidably creepy although there isn’t a lot of variation in the environment – other than the major testing chambers, you’re basically either in a tiled bathroom, a decrepit hallway, a dirty storage room, a bloody examination room, or a ruined patient’s quarters. The doors all look the same. The floors all look the same.

Like I said earlier, this is a game made specifically for fans, and this is quite obvious during every second of the game. However, only the parts of the game that are closest in spirit to the content of the movies, the puzzles, really work as far as gameplay is concerned with everything in between – the flaky combat in particular – coming off like arbitrary filler created without much thought as to why it should even be in the package.

The story, however, is decent and expands upon what fans already know about several characters in the series so if you’ve seen all of the movies I could certainly recommend this as a rental or a buy if you can find a store selling it at discount.

Final score: 3 out of 5 for fans; 2 out of 5 for non-fans

Parent to parent

This is a game based on the Saw film franchise. If you’ve never seen any of those movies, perhaps you should watch one to see firsthand what the series is all about. If you’re not inclined to do that, I can save you the time by saying, “Don’t buy this game for children.” It shouldn’t be a problem for older teens, though.

Experience this for yourself!

• SAW (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• SAW (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)

Aren’t you supposed to learn from others’ mistakes? Microsoft seems to be putting a lot of eggs into that shaky basket with the big “Project Natal” sign taped to it.

In case you missed the overly dramatic reveal during Microsoft’s press conference at last year’s E3, Natal is the codename for an upcoming device to be released this holiday season exclusively for the Xbox 360. The device includes a 3D camera and depth sensor that interprets an infrared map of the space in front of it 30 times per second with the ability to simultaneously track and analyze the motion of up to four people (and 48 skeletal points on each of those people) down to movements of individual fingers. In addition, there is a multi-array microphone running proprietary software that allows it to determine the source of any sound and distinguish between “real” noise and ambient sound (and appropriate suppress the latter); this software even includes voice recognition capabilities that can be used in tandem with the facial recognition aspect of the camera’s software for some impressive results.

So with all of this cool technology rolled up into one little black bar of plastic, why do I have such little faith in Natal? The answer is simple: Natal is little more than a glorified Wii.

The primary feature of the technology is the advanced motion sensing functionality that essentially turns the entire gaming space into a controller. Think of it as a Wiimote on crack – instead of just sensing where the controller is like the Wii does, Natal actually sense where every part of the player’s body is and tracks how that body moves. That’s very impressive in concept but unfortunately less interesting in practical application.

Think of all the games you like to play and then try to come up with a way those experiences could be improved through the console’s knowledge of how your entire body is moving. There are a few games where this would be a benefit – Wii Fit would be able to let you know if you’re doing a particular yoga pose incorrectly and a game like Just Dance would be able to evaluate your entire body instead of just an estimation of what your arms are doing based on the motion of the Wiimote – but they’re pretty much all Wii games.

How would “core” games benefit from this technology? What motion sensing functionality could you add to a game like Modern Warfare 2 that would actually improve the gaming experience to a substantial degree? Some have suggested that you could hold a model gun like a real soldier but I can’t see how that would be a more fun gaming experience (think back to all the derision aimed at the commercials for the first Call of Duty Wii game that showed a teenager ducking for cover behind his sofa) and more importantly how developers would handle movement (running in place doesn’t strike me as a particular fun or immersive activity). Others have suggested that you could still play with a standard controller (which is in direct conflict with the marketing slogan that you wouldn’t need a controller to play Natal games) and just use hand signals to command your squad and hand motions to throw grenades – do either of these ideas improve the gaming experience, and would you really want to take your “button hand” off you controller in the heat of battle? Still others offer the idea of using the microphone to dictate commands to your AI teammates – isn’t that something you can technically already do with the Xbox Live headset, and more importantly have any past games that utilize voice command systems actually succeeded with them?

I can anticipate people thinking that it’s unfair I focus only on one genre of games so let me look to others. What about racing games? What bold, new functionality could developers add to a Forza Motorsport or Project Gotham Racing sequel that would make the racing experience more authentic or more realistic? One suggestion I heard was that gamers wouldn’t need to spend money on a specialized wheel controller and could just use something round as a stand-in. That’s a real winner of an idea when gamers are already complaining that the use of the Wiimote, with or without a wheel attachment, in Mario Kart Wii is too light and loose. Let’s not forget the absence of any rumble-based feedback, a problem cited by PlayStation 3 gamers who played Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

Action games? Again, it wouldn’t be practical to keep removing your hand from the controller in order to flail your arm in a hilarious attempt to instruct your onscreen avatar to attack your foes although I suppose that you could just hold the controller in one hand with your thumb on the analog stick and just swing a pretend sword around in your epic battle against monsters that aren’t there. Fighting games? I would love to see people film themselves playing a fighting game with Natal and post those videos up on YouTube: we’d have a whole new generation of Star Wars Kids! Ditto with platformers – can you imagine how hilarious footage of people hopping around their living room would be?

When you really start to look at things, it becomes obvious that Microsoft is trying to do just a bit too much with Natal. Whereas the Nintendo Wii was the gaming technology that nobody knew they actually wanted, Natal will be the gaming technology that nobody actually wants (or they would have already bought into the Wii).

Hardcore gamers have hammered the Wii again and again for being little more than a gimmick that many developers tried to jam into their game concept just so they could say “we have a Wii game” and try to cash in on the Wii craze. There are countless complaints from people who lament the dearth of “core” games on the Wii while countless shovelware titles crowd retail shelves. Does anyone really expect things to be any different with Natal? It’s pretty clear that there’s no viable application of the functionality to the most popular game genres so most Xbox 360 releases will ignore the technology altogether (and those that don’t will surely include a way to play the game using “normal” controls which means the Natal features will just be tacked on gimmicks). The only Natal titles that will come out are the ones that were made specifically to take advantage of the device’s features (in other words, niche games that are only going to sell to the relatively small percentage of gamers who actually go out and buy in).

Of course, there will be a handful of diamonds in the rough like possibly the Milo concept shown in the “impressive” demo I referenced above, but they’ll be radically different gaming experiences that won’t help foster wide mainstream support of the technology like the marquee Wii titles (Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, etc.) did for the Wii.

It seems that Microsoft is simply making the same mistake many companies did in thinking that they could copy Nintendo’s efforts and make tons of money doing it. They’re banking on a scenario in which Natal is a runaway success that will make gamers forget that we’re already over four years into this console generation, a point in time at which the manufacturer traditionally started to drop hints at what the next generation of hardware will be like, or at least make them happy enough to ignore that tradition and give Microsoft some breathing room.

Aaron Greenberg, Director of Product Management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, said at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show that “we don’t think we’re halfway through this generation.” Think about when you first turned on your Xbox 360 and tried out Call of Duty 2 (yes, 2). How long has it been since you’ve played Perfect Dark Zero or Kameo? Could you wait that long for the next Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo console? Would something as niche and gimmicky as Natal really tide you over for the next four to six years?

The core gamer in me finds that possibility almost terrifying.

About a week ago, a fellow poster to the alt.games.video.xbox Usenet group referenced an Engadget article about gadgets they considered to have defined the decade in which the Engadget staff chose Microsoft’s Xbox 360 for the gaming world. Despite being an avid fan of the Xbox 360, I had to laugh at Engadget’s choice considering the two systems they listed as “runners up” had much more impact on the gaming world than my current favorite console.

First of all, the Xbox 360 was only around for half of the decade and didn’t really pick up steam until about a year or so after launch due to the widespread “red ring of death” hardware failures that I suppose do make a case for the Xbox 360 defining the decade in some way. Engadget editor Paul Miller states that “You don’t remember a console for the chips inside or the case design, but the games you played.” I counter that what gamers most remembered about the Xbox 360 from 2005-2007 were four letters: RROD.

Miller goes on to list Gears of War and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare as the two games that made the Xbox 360 so very special to him mainly due to the Xbox Live online gaming experiences he had with them. I agree with him that those are two of the top games people can play on the system. I just have a slight issue with him ignoring that Call of Duty is, and has always been, available on the PlayStation 3 with online play made possible by Sony’s PlayStation Network, which is free in contrast to Microsoft’s $50 per year charge for Xbox Live play.

Now, before PlayStation fanboys get all tingly, I’ll point out that I’m not bashing Xbox Live or being critical of the charge – I in fact believe that you get what you pay for with these two services and that Xbox Live is a much more robust network that offers a better experience with that monthly or annual fee gamers pay to use it – but highlighting the folly of basing a claim that the Xbox 360 is the defining gaming system of the decade on its online gaming service (as indicate by “We went with the Xbox 360 for its innovation in online play”).

In choosing the gaming device of the decade, you have to look at a much bigger picture. The PlayStation 2 debuted in 2000, the beginning of the decade, and is still on sale today. Sure, its sales are straggling now and it may very well be on its last legs this year, but it’s been strong for the better part of the decade. In fact, it took the Xbox 360 a year and ten months to outsell the PlayStation 2 at the global level and even longer to really solidify a sales advantage over the then 7-year-old previous generation console.

The PlayStation 2 managed to survive this long on the strength of its games, the most important aspect of any video gaming platform. Like Mr. Miller said, you remember a console for the games you played – the PlayStation 2 has 1,800 of them. Many top franchises got their start on the system. Many of the best entries in beloved franchises called the PlayStation 2 their home. While Sony’s arrogance regarding this generation has cost them exclusivity on third-party video game series like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Devil May Cry, those franchises were available only to console gamers who owned PlayStation 2’s from 2000 to 2009.

And the Xbox 360’s current success is really all due to Sony’s past efforts. Had it not been for Sony’s foresight with the PlayStation 2 – and the PlayStation before it – we’d all still be playing Mario and Kirby games (not that I have any problem with this – I love Nintendo’s games – but I know a lot of “hardcore” gamers who would give up gaming if their only choices were between one cute and cuddly mascot or another). Sony is responsible for making video games cool again, and the bulk of that transformation took place shortly after the launch of the PlayStation 2 with the release of games like Grand Theft Auto III, Final Fantasy X and SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs.

Now, I can kind of understand where people might have an easy time forgetting about a previous generation system that debuted almost a decade ago – I myself sometimes feel as if this generation of consoles has been around forever and pine for what amazement the next series of hardware and games will offer. However, that’s still no excuse for choosing the Xbox 360 as the defining gaming device of the decade when one of its contemporaries, the Nintendo Wii, has had a far greater impact on our favorite past time and the industry behind it.

The Wii landed on retail shelves about a year after the Xbox 360 did, but unlike Microsoft’s big white box Nintendo’s little one made an immediate splash, outselling its competitors on a weekly basis right out of the gate and surpassing the Xbox 360’s total sales in less than nine months (at which point the Xbox 360 had been on the market for 21). Even though the Wii’s software library was severely lacking in the traditional “core” games that long-time gamers favored, the console thrived on the strength of its innovative style of user interaction which was much more appealing to casual and non-gamers who had no interest in learning what the eight buttons, two sticks and one directional pad on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3’s controllers did.

The Wii has been a complete game changer for the video game industry. Thanks to Nintendo, the console gamer market expanded by several degrees, a result of their decision to stop engaging in the traditional “red ocean” strategy of beating competitors for existing market space and instead employ a “blue ocean” strategy of using innovation in key areas to create new market space. Millions of people who would never have thought to buy a video game console, whose gaming experience was limited to marathon sessions of Minesweeper, Bejeweled or Diner Dash on their PCs or who abandoned video games after the Nintendo Entertainment System simply because games got too complex to be a recreational vehicle quickly became part of that new market space, and Nintendo hasn’t looked back.

And while we’re talking about the Big N, let’s not forget the current king of the portable gaming space, the Nintendo DS, which also happens to be the king of all video gaming with more systems sold than any other handheld or console this generation. The DS debuted in November 2004, and in the half-decade since then it has become something of a portable gaming phenomenon, consistently outselling all other gaming systems worldwide on a monthly basis. Nintendo is basically printing their own money with this platform, which is so popular that millions of people have actually paid for what amounts to a marginally improved version of the hardware, the Nintendo DSi.

Nintendo’s foray into the blue ocean style of thinking truly started with the DS, which offered features that were innovations in the video gaming space, namely the touch screen interface, the second screen and the wireless connectivity for quick and easy multiplayer gaming, and games that took advantage of the functionality.

Nintendo even expanded the breadth of their library beyond traditional games with titles like Brain Age in which the player engages in brief activities designed to stimulate the mind, Nintendogs in which the player interacts with a virtual pet using the touch screen and microphone, and the Personal Trainer series of titles in which the player trains in various activities like cooking, mathematics and walking (this title comes with pedometers that are wirelessly connected to the DS system).

With the incredible impact the PlayStation 2, Wii and DS have had on the gaming space in the past 10 years, each essentially redefining what gaming was – and is – it’s a little shocking that people who are for all intents and purposes objective journalists could possibly cite the Xbox 360 has having been more important to this decade of video gaming. Of course, I realize that ultimately this is just a matter of opinion, but I believe that when you make such a bold statement you need to back it up with more than Xbox Live and, literally, a couple of games.

Experience this for yourself!

• Nintendo Wii Console (Amazon)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade Console (Amazon)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite Console (Amazon)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Limited Edition Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Bundle (Amazon)
• Sony PlayStation 2 Console (Amazon)
• Nintendo DS Lite System (Amazon)
• Nintendo DSi System (Amazon)
• Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends (DS) (Amazon)
• Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! (DS) (Amazon)
• Personal Trainer: Cooking (DS) (Amazon)
• Personal Trainer: Math (DS) (Amazon)
• Personal Trainer: Walking (DS) (Amazon)
• Gears of War (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) (Amazon)