Never Too Old To Play™

It’s been a while since the shift of power in the console gaming industry from Japanese developers to their Western counterparts. Microsoft kick started this trend with the introduction of the Xbox, a video game console that was similar enough in architecture and design to a PC that formerly PC-centric developers had little problems porting their titles to the system. All of a sudden, Western developers like Bungie, Epic, id, and Valve who were marquee players in the world of Windows and Macintosh gaming but virtually unknown by gamers whose cash lined the coffers at Nintendo, Sega and Sony found themselves at the door of a whole new market of consumers.

However, while the console gaming population’s appetite for games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto III, and Splinter Cell grew, they still relied on Japanese developers like Square and Namco for their role-playing fix. Game series like Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Quest were among the many Japanese role-playing franchises available on the PlayStation 2, and the genre contributed to the console’s greatest strength: its “something for everyone” library of software. Some titles even reached blockbuster status with four in the top ten list of best selling PlayStation 2 games.

Then, the Xbox 360 arrived and everything changed. (Cue dramatic music.)

Actually, all Microsoft did was take the smart approach with regards to the design of their new console. (Cue PlayStation 3 fanboys ranting about RROD.) Microsoft knew the appeal the Western style of game development, up to that point mostly exclusive to the PC platform, would have with the growing video game market, and knew what those developers liked about working with the Xbox. Instead of trying to make radical changes for the sake of change (and under the guise of innovation), they simply expanded on what already worked and kept the architecture similar enough that the transition from Xbox to Xbox 360 would be fairly easy for developers. More importantly, they listened when the teams demanded more memory without which games like Gears of War and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare would have been impossible.

One of the results of this approach was the release of highly evolved fourth entry in the Elder Scrolls role-playing game series on video game consoles. Oblivion arrived to much fanfare due to the high degree of character customization, the vast and fully realized world, the sheer number of characters with whom to interact, the epic story, and the beautiful graphics which all but guaranteed that gamers who weren’t interested in role-playing games before took notice. Critics raved about the game to the tune of a mid-90s average review score and many year end awards. The game went on to sell 2.93 million units on the Xbox 360 platform and 1.15 million units on the PlayStation 3 platform.

Bethesda followed up this masterpiece two and a half years later with the even better Fallout 3, a more action-oriented role-playing game set in the post apocalyptic world of the Fallout series of computer role-playing games. Fallout 3 was almost the exact opposite of Oblivion as far as concept – instead of a high fantasy world of wizards and warriors, elves and monsters, and good and evil, you had a depressing glimpse at a realistically possible future set on the desolate backdrop of a ravaged Washington D.C. where the denizens didn’t have the luxury of worrying much about the morality of their choices.

Similarly, BioWare’s space opera Mass Effect, released a year before Fallout 3 in 2007, challenged the player’s own perception of what was right and wrong. Although the setting was completely different – Mass Effect took place in a distant future where humans are galaxy-trotting with aliens on board advanced starships – the developers had the same approach with regards to the choices you made: almost nothing was clear cut good and evil, and it was commonplace for someone to find themselves conflicted about which path was the right one to take.

What these three games did was introduce console gamers to actual role-playing games where the gamer actually plays a role by deciding what their character says and does, and how they say and do it. Until this point, most gamers only knew Japanese RPGs, which were games that merely paid lip service to the term “role-playing game” – the stat-building aspect of traditional tabletop role-playing games was there but the spirit of the genre was missing.

Oblivion, Mass Effect and Fallout 3 opened gamers’ eyes to the reality of JRPGs. The wool over their eyes had been lifted and many realized just how shallow and simple these games were: it’s kind of hard to go back to the linear progression, restrictive turn-based combat, static stories, and canned dialogue that simply served as sound for pre-rendered cutscenes when you’ve experienced open worlds, thousands of dialogue options, real-time action, and the ability to make choices that have an actual impact on the game.

The old style of “role-playing” was no longer acceptable, and both sales and critical reviews reflected this new attitude. Of all the JRPGs released this generation, only one – Final Fantasy XIII - broke a million units sold with 1.88 million as of early February. Mind you, this is after seven weeks on sale in Japan where Final Fantasy XII sold 1.82 million units in Japan in the first week alone and ended up with a total 5.69 million units worldwide when all was said and done.

Games without the benefit of a mega franchise fared significantly worse at retail: Infinite Undiscovery from Square moved only 0.57 million units; Blue Dragon moved less than that at 0.53 million worldwide; and the well-reviewed Demon’s Souls (GameSpot’s 2009 Game of the Year) has only managed 0.63 million in sales. And none of the JRPGs released this generation have achieved aggregate scores in the 90’s at MetaCritic whereas just one – Demon’s Souls - barely made it at GameRankings (Oblivion, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, and Mass Effect 2 all scored in the 90’s on both sites).

And if the game with one of the biggest brand names in console gaming history can’t put Japanese role-playing games back in the spotlight, what game can? Dragon Quest X? Highly unlikely despite the history of that series because the game will be a Wii exclusive. A third Kingdom Hearts game? The Final Fantasy series has historically sold better and received better reviews so the likelihood of that currently theoretical game surpassing Final Fantasy XIII is probably low. Plus, the real diehard Disney gamers are actually likely to spend the money on a Wii (if they don’t already have one for all those Disney licensed games) just to play Epic Mickey, a Disney game where you actually play Mickey Mouse instead of just drag his buddies Donald Duck and Goofy along for the ride, instead.

No, sadly (for JRPG fans, anyway) this seems like the permanent trend as Western developers for all genres take the reins of the video game industry from Japanese developers mired in their old ways, unwilling to adapt with the times and create products that appeal to more than just the often quirky tastes of the Japanese consumers.

In response to a recent IGN interview with Sony executive Peter Dille in which Mr. Dille proclaimed that the PlayStation 3 would “be around in 10 years” and eventually overtake the Xbox 360 in sales, GameStooge writer Jordan Lund unsurprisingly went on an anti-Sony tirade, making sure not to forget any of the key fanboy tactics in arguing the superiority and domination of their preferred entertainment device.

Mr. Lund gets what appears to be an ad hominem argument out of the way early on in the article, declaring that Mr. Dille’s position cannot be taken seriously because he is a Sony executive and other Sony executives have in the past professed confidence that the PlayStation 3 would surpass its competitors (or at least its primary competitor, the Xbox 360). While Mr. Lund is of course unable to support any point of view that said Sony executives are wrong about their predictions since the timeframe has not yet passed, the intent is certainly there to link the possibly dubious nature of their claims to the validity of Mr. Dille’s.

The crux of Sony’s argument that the PlayStation 3 will eventually outsell the Xbox 360 is the premise that Microsoft’s console is not “future proof” and thus cannot possibly stay on the market for an extended period of time beyond the historically standard “five year lifespan” afforded to video game consoles, resulting in a period of time during which the PlayStation 3 will no longer have competition from the Xbox 360. This is a laughable strategy because the PlayStation 3 does not and will not have a deep and broad enough library of software to be a viable “cheap” option for so many years after the next Microsoft, Nintendo and, yes, Sony consoles hit the market. The PlayStation and PlayStation 2 were able to stay relevant because they had enormous game libraries – the PlayStation 3 selection pales in comparison.

Mr. Lund has the generally right idea, but argues based on the iffy prediction that Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony will not launch new consoles anytime within the next six years (assuming that Mr. Dille was actually referring to a ten year total life cycle for the PlayStation 3 and not an additional ten years from now). The notions that in six years the economy will not have recovered to the degree where gamers would not be interested in new console technology and would be fine with playing Project Natal games and editions of Halo and Gears of War that look pretty much the same as the ones we played a couple years ago are ridiculous at best.

He continues with irrelevant paragraphs of stats that are focused entirely on the North American region with no consideration whatsoever for the rest of the world mainly because the only significant Xbox 360 sales lead is in this region whereas the two consoles are nose-to-nose in Europe and the Xbox 360 is a lost cause in Japan. After crunching tons of numbers to show just what kind of a lead the Xbox 360 has over the PlayStation 3 in terms of install base, he “put(s) things in perspective” with an extreme example of the PlayStation 3 needing a whole year of sales consistent to its 2009 numbers while the Xbox 360 sells nothing instead of the realistic example – the PlayStation 3 maintaining its current weekly worldwide lead of just under 37,000 for three years – that might show just how flimsy his whole line of argument is.

In short, Mr. Lund’s protestation of Sony’s incompetent arrogance is understandable, but his modus operandi of using nearly any statement by Sony that doesn’t fit into his narrow world view of things to vomit a veritable feast of selective statistics tarnishes his credibility by painting him as little more than a bitter fanboy trying desperately to play down any bit of positive news for “the other system.”

And lest we forget – Nintendo did not lose the 16-bit console wars to Sega. Sega squandered a two and a half year lead time for their Genesis console to end up with only a 10% market share lead on Nintendo just two short years after the launch of the Super Nintendo. Now, to put that into perspective, imagine a scenario where the PlayStation 3 didn’t launch until December 2007 yet started off 2009 with the same proportion of sales to the Xbox 360’s that it enjoys today (45% of sales that don’t include the Wii) at only 10% the number of games that the Xbox 360 had. That would be pretty impressive indeed.

Note: It might be useful for me to mention that the reason why Mr. Lund’s fanboyism doesn’t surprise me is because he is a (now rare) poster in the Usenet forum alt.games.video.xbox that I often browse.

It’s not very often that a video game sequel notably improves on its predecessor in almost every way. Left4Dead 2 for the Xbox 360 did it. From what I’ve read in magazines and various websites and heard from friends, Uncharted 2 for the PlayStation 3, the 2009 Game of the Year for most industry publications and gaming websites, did it (I have not yet replaced my broken PS3 and so have only played a little bit of the game on a friend’s system).

However, for every Left4Dead 2 and Uncharted 2, you’ve got games like Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 which is every bit as good as the first game but doesn’t really improve on it in any way, Knights of the Old Republic 2 which is technically on par with the previous game but is a creative disappointment with an underwhelming story and uninteresting characters, and Gears of War 2 which has even better visuals and underlying technology than the original game but feels like a confused mess half the time with new styles of gameplay that feel too disconnected from the core game.

The developer Pyramid, a branch of Sony’s respected Japan Studio, fortunately succeeded where Ubisoft Montreal, Obsidian Entertainment and Epic Games didn’t by making some minor (but important) changes and adding some new stuff without doing anything too radical: they built on the tried and true Patapon formula without messing around with it too much.

Very little has changed in the core game design. You still act as the Patapon’s deity, leading the little eyeballs who find themselves stranded in a new world with their former foes, the Zigatons, after their seafaring vessel is destroyed. You still issue commands to your army via timed four-press combinations of the PlayStation Portable’s four face buttons, each of which represents a talking drum -  for example, pressing circle-circle-square-circle results in the song “pon-pon-pata-pon” which orders the Patapons to attack any enemy, animal or structure within range. You still move your warriors through side scrolling levels set in various environments filled with opponents, obstacles and the occasional boss fight, and in between these levels you still return to Patapolis where you can play numerous mini-games or improve your units with harvested materials.

Indeed, for the first several levels of the game, it may seem like nothing has changed from the original Patapon. The developers took a smart approach by gradually introducing the new changes as the game progresses.

The first new feature you’ll come across is the Hero character, a special warrior who is able to act as any Patapon unit in your army and further transform into any Patapon species unlocked for a given unit. The Hero also has a unit-based special ability that is activated when you issue a certain number of commands with perfect timing – for example, the Yaripon Hero’s spears create a green cloud upon impact that damages any enemies it touches while the Tatepon Hero’s shield provides invulnerability for the entire army. Also, the Hero can wear attribute-enhancing masks that can only be acquired in the multiplayer mode.

After facing off against the giant dragon boss Dodonga from the original game and going on a few more simple missions, including one hunt, you’ll meet the first new boss in the game, a giant version of the Motiti birds you hunt named Motititi. It’s fairly easy with relatively weak attacks – including a rather lame fart attack – but is useful because it drops rare bones you can use to evolve your Patapons. Other new bosses include the much tougher Mamboss, a giant woolly mammoth who seems to shrug off damage and attacks by goring your warriors with its tusks or stomping them, and the relatively weak Sentura, a giant spider-like creature that spits acid , spears Patapons with one of its appendages and can only be damaged under certain environmental conditions.

Along the way, you’ll learn new drum commands for jumping (to avoid certain types of boss attacks) and partying (to immediately wake up from being put to sleep or frozen in ice from special attacks), a new Blizzard Miracle which summons snowfall during a mission, some new materials such as liquids and fangs, and a few new mini-games in Patapolis. There’s also a slew of new Rarepon species and a new evolution system where you can follow different paths of upgrades to get to the more powerful species.

A more noticeable change in the game, however, is the addition of three new Patapon units that each offer new tactics for the aspiring general. The first is the Toripon, an aerial unit that hurls javelins at ground-based units but is highly susceptible to anti-air weapons. The second is the Robopon, a mechanized unit that punches enemies with its two giant fists or hurls boulders that it digs out of the ground. The last – and probably the most useful – new unit is the Mahopon, a sorcerous unit that uses long range attacks such as fireballs and chain lightning strikes that change depending on what kind of staves you equip them with: once you acquire the more powerful staves, there’s really no reason to not include the Mahopon squad in your army.

Even with all the new additions and enhancements, the gameplay doesn’t really feel that much different from the original game. Rather, the changes work to open the game up further to new tactics and strategies, allowing for a much wider range of playing styles. Much of the fun is in trying out the new units for the first time to see how they fare against enemies you’ve already defeated.

Patapon 2 is a sequel done correctly. The developers didn’t try to do too much with their changes being the video game equivalent putting good sea salt on a steak: the Patapon flavor is still ever-present… it’s just kicked up a notch. The game is easily my favorite on the PlayStation Portable.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

As with Patapon, I don’t think there are any problems with letting your kids play this game. Children should love the appealing 2D artwork and the catchy soundtrack as well as the scores of cool boss monsters they’ll battle. The game forces players to both plan ahead and think on their toes, and promotes a love of music, all great lessons for kids. The only caveat is that the game may be a little too difficult for younger players who may not fully comprehend the nature of strategy. It’s one helluva way to learn, though.

Experience this for yourself!

• Patapon 2 (PSP) (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)

It’s rare when a game comes out that is not only unique and refreshing in concept but also straight-to-the-pleasure-center-of-the-brain fun to the point of becoming a welcome addiction. It’s shocking when such a game is exclusive to the red-headed stepchild of the video game world, the PSP (a gaming system with more bad ports than the Somali coastline), which is why the industry was buzzing when Sony released Patapon in December 2007 in Japan and in February 2008 across the rest of the world.

Up to this point, the PSP’s software library was widely viewed as a graveyard full of lazy ports and hacked up follow-ups of PlayStation 2 games hampered by the PSP’s not-quite-PS2 technical specs and more importantly its lack of a second analog thumbstick which made playing games like Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories more difficult than they should have been. Developers were much more interested in getting games out quickly, regardless of incompatibilities with not just the design of the hardware but the spirit of portable gaming.

Pyramid, the development team responsible for Patapon, bucked the trend by focusing on the essence of the PSP right from the start. Instead of long levels on vast maps peppered with checkpoints, almost all of the missions in Patapon are short and easily digestible chunks of instant gratification and steady progression. Instead of resources-intensive graphics technology prone to framerate stutter and glitches, Patapon is visualized with simple yet memorable two dimensional artwork – no 3D polygons here. Most importantly, instead of complex controls and the more advanced gameplay one would expect from a console game, Patapon players only use the four face buttons to input one of less than a half dozen commands to their army – Patapon’s gameplay is about as simple as you can get while actually doing something.

Don’t mistake simplicity for shallowness, though. Pyramid kept the design and gameplay simple so the player could focus on the actual strategy and skill. You see, Patapon is at its core a mash-up of the real-time tactics and musical rhythm genres with a little bit of Peter Molyneux- or Will Wright-esque God game flavor sprinkled on top. The basic point of each mission is to make it from one end of a horizontally scrolling stage to the other, battling enemy warriors or creatures and knocking down buildings along the way. You do this by issuing commands through the PSP face buttons, each of which represents one of four talking drums whose sounds combine together to instruct the Patapons to attack or defend amongst other things. For example, hitting the “square” button three times followed by the “circle” button one time tells the Patapons to advance forward.

Victims of Pataponic wrath drop all sorts of loot ranging from money (known as ka-ching in the game) to weapons to materials, all of which can be used to evolve or customize your units. This is where a little bit of strategy comes into play as you have to decide, for example, whether the special attributes of a particular special unit outweighs its inability to wear helmets (some of which are very beneficial), or whether it would be better to spend that one rare ore you earned to specialize one of your cavalry units or one of your archers. This is not to mention that before you start any given mission, you have to choose only three out of your six available squads – infantry, heavy infantry, ranged, heavy ranged, cavalry, and archers – based on what you know about the upcoming challenges.

In addition to the basic combat stages, there are also hunting missions where you can stalk various animals, unique boss battles against gigantic dinosaurs, sandworms and robots that make the Patapons look incredibly puny, and fun little mini-games where you can participate in such activities as metalsmithy or cooking in order to earn materials or bonus items to help gain victory.

Almost all of these actions involve pressing some combination of buttons to one of the game’s many catchy beats or tunes. Whether you’re slamming a hammer into an anvil with a clank, playing a trumpet for an itchy tree (don’t ask) or firing a volley of arrows at an enormous crab, you’re creating music with the Patapons who sing different verses depending on your most recent commands. I challenge anyone to play a few levels of Patapon and then try to get the phrase “pata-pata-pata-pon” out of their head.

As great a game as Patapon is, it’s not for everyone. If you’re the type of gamer who needs epic quests, complex stories or the staccato of gunfire in order to be satisfied, you’re not going to find much satisfaction in this game. However, if you’re up for a new and unique kind of tactical gaming experience realized with an aesthetically pleasing visual design and powered by one of the most endearing soundtracks of the portable gaming world, you won’t go wrong with Patapon.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

I have no qualms about recommending this game for children. The strategy and tactics aspect of the game may be a bit over most young children’s heads, but the controls are more than simple enough and the visual design is kind of like a cartoon with lots of solid colors and bold lines. While there is an aspect of violence in the game – after all, you’re sending an army of warriors to fight other warriors or hunt creatures – there is no blood or gore and the characters are as far from human as you can get: Patapons are basically eyeballs with arms and legs while their nemeses the Zigatons are square shaped eyeballs with arms and legs – both simply deflate when they are defeated. More importantly, the game teaches kids the value of both planning ahead and thinking on their toes to adapt to the situation, and promotes a love of music with a focus on rhythm and beat. Chances are that your kids will love this game.

Experience this for yourself!

• Patapon (PSP) (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.

Just about two weeks ago, IGN editor Ryan Geddes wrote a piece for the site’s PlayStation 3 channel titled “Editorial: Why I Bought a PS3 – How Sony (and Microsoft) finally pushed an Xbox gamer back into the PlayStation fold.” The title of the article should have been “Editorial: Why My Inner Sony Fanboy Finally Resurfaced.”

Mr. Geddes starts out by cleverly painting himself as some sort of diehard Xbox 360 gamer so that his “conversion” to the PlayStation 3 has much more impact, as if his buying a PlayStation 3 for himself – a gaming journalist who no doubt has near unlimited access to more than one of them at his workplace – was testament to some sort of dramatic victory for Sony: If even a hardcore Xbox 360 gamer like me jumps ship, the PlayStation 3 must really be the superior console!

Of course, he drops subtle hints at his past life as a PlayStation 2 owner but spends far more time explicitly bashing the Xbox 360 than actually delivering solid arguments as to why the PlayStation 3 is a good system. The best he can do is offer the vague opinion that “it’s cool and Japanese” – with no elaboration on why the console is cool and what being of Japanese design has to do with that – and recycle the tired hardware diatribe while ignoring how much better Microsoft was – and still is – than Sony at dealing with those problems: Microsoft replaced my launch Xbox 360, which lasted just shy of three years of generally heavy gaming usage, for free whereas Sony asked for (but didn’t receive) $150 to repair my 40GB PlayStation 3, whose touted Blu-ray drive died after about sixteen months of infrequent gaming (with the rest of the console following suit a week later).

“It recalls a time when Japan was the center of the hardcore gaming universe, before it ceded that mantle to the West.” Is that like at all like how the Xbox 360 and its predecessor recalled a time when the West was the center of the gaming universe with systems like the Atari 2600, the Intellivision and the ColecoVision before the video game market crash and the emergence of the Nintendo Entertainment System as the new go-to home entertainment device for video games?

Sony’s PlayStation and PlayStation 2 systems ruled their respective generations because the games, and not the systems themselves, were cooler than what was available for the competition, and games are inherently platform-neutral pieces of intellectual property: technically there wasn’t any reason why Super Mario Bros. couldn’t appear on the Sega Master System, Final Fantasy VII couldn’t appear on the Saturn, God of War couldn’t appear on the Xbox, and Halo 3 couldn’t appear on the PlayStation 3. Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 is going to be no “less Final Fantasy” than Final Fantasy XIII on the PlayStation 3 unless you’re one of the few who think that watching hours upon hours of drawn out, self-congratulatory and pretentious pre-rendered cutscenes is an admirable trait of the series.

The Xbox 360 succeeded – and continues to succeed – this generation for the same reason. Microsoft recognized the potential appeal of previously PC-only genres like FPS and “western” (i.e. computer) RPG to console gamers and built the right system for developers to most easily bring games of such genres to the modern console gaming market. If you build it, they will come: Microsoft built it, and gamers came by the millions.

Engrossed in his fanboy-fueled “epiphany,” Mr. Geddes seems to instead think that Microsoft forced the Xbox 360 on gamers by “hijack(ing) the game industry… (and) beat(ing) Sony at its own game” – Microsoft did in 2005 what Sony did a decade earlier so why all the bitterness? What he doesn’t realize is that gamers didn’t buy the Xbox 360 because they had to but because they wanted to. The excitement and fervor surrounding the Xbox 360 was far greater than any shown for the PlayStation 3 a year later for a variety of reasons, including a significant shift in the types of games the majority of the market wanted and a conspicuous ambivalence by most gamers towards the overhyped new technologies Sony wanted them to pay an extra $200 for.

With last year’s PlayStation 3 price cuts, the playing field is more level now yet the consumers still want the Xbox 360 because that’s where the best overall gaming experience is. “Cool” isn’t defined by a glossy black exterior (and all the lovely fingerprints that go with it), high-definition movies (which most people don’t actually care much about) or a Cell processor that nobody cares to work with (unless they’re owned by Sony).

At the same time, “cool” isn’t eroded by a likely niche new technology (anyone who thinks Project Natal has a seriously deluded perception of market reality) or a middle-aged Xbox Live spokesperson whose “insecure awkwardness” only graces the eyes of the few who actually watch Major’s Minute instead of playing Modern Warfare 2.

I wonder if Mr. Geddes sees the irony in attacking the legitimacy of Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb as a viable console cheerleader when it’s because of the demands of gamers the same age as he was when the PlayStation brand first arrived that gave Sony an opportunity in the first place. As far as solid console spokespersons are concerned, I’m interested in hearing who Mr. Geddes thinks is even fit for that role on the PlayStation 3 side. Last I checked, Sony wasn’t even concerned enough about their community to have someone other than aged corporate executives like Jack Tretton, Ken Kutaragi and Kazuo Hirai toot their system’s horn.

And Jessica Chobot, host of IGN Strategize which is front and center on Xbox Live, isn’t too shabby a mouthpiece – just ask the PSP. Sure, she’s not actually an official Xbox 360 or Xbox Live spokesperson, but the average gamer, who doesn’t browse gaming websites or read gaming magazines wouldn’t know that – they just see her plastered on one frame of Xbox Live almost every day. Perception is everything as Sony found out when suddenly the Xbox 360 was the talk of the industry.

Well, everyone except closeted PlayStation 3 fanboys with press passes.

When I came into work this morning, I certainly wasn’t expecting a Hollywood bombshell in my Inbox, but there it was: Tobey Maguire, Sam Raimi out of ‘Spider-Man.’

This is about as big a news story as there is in the Hollywood industry, what with the Spider-Man trilogy being one of the biggest film franchises in movie history and Sony Pictures’ top cash cow and that success being due mostly to the directorial efforts of Sam Raimi and the performance by Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, a.k.a. the eponymous web-slinger.

Raimi managed to take a license that had been languishing in development hell for the better part of 20 years and not only make it work but make it tremendously successful. The first film, released in May 2002 nearly two decades after the Spider-Man comic book property was optioned to B-movie legend Roger Corman, was an immediate blockbuster smash with over $820 million in worldwide box office revenues. The second film earned even more critical acclaim and raked in more than $780 million globally. Spider-Man 3 was less loved by critics and diehard Spider-Man fans alike but managed to outperform its predecessors by earning over $890 million in theaters.

Unfortunately, the current problems with the economy, to which Sony was far from immune having announced an operating loss of ¥227.8 billion in their 2009 annual report, forced the company’s movie studio to adopt a cost cutting policy that tightened the planned fourth film’s budget to $230 million, less than Spider-Man 3’s $258 million price tag and far less than what Raimi felt he needed to make a bigger and better Spider-Man movie.

Furthermore, Raimi was uncomfortable with the time frame he had to work with. Sony wanted to release the film in May 2011 which would not give him enough time to work with Gary Ross, the most recent writer to take on the story, to rewrite the script to his standards. Add to that some tension between the director and the studio over who the villain would be – Raimi was in talks with John Malkovich to play the Vulture who, like the villains before him, would represent some metaphorical challenge to the evolution of Peter’s character, while Sony wanted to go with Anne Hathaway as the Black Cat for more of a “complex love triangle” theme to perhaps bank on the popularity of the Twilight movies – and you can see how the project was starting to become a bit of a mess.

As it became more and more obvious that the two sides would not be able to reach a common ground as to how to proceed with the film, Raimi and stars Maguire and Kirsten Dunst walked away, not interested in another fiasco with less than stellar results a la Spider-Man 3, prompting Sony to release their official plans for a franchise “reboot” which would take Peter back to his formative high school years when he first acquired his super powers.

This, of course, begs the question of why the company felt the need for such a drastic change. Some may feel that it would be difficult for audiences to continue with the series without Raimi behind the camera and Maguire and Dunst center stage, and they would be right. Specifically Raimi and Maguire have become so synonymous with the franchise that most moviegoers, for whom the films are the only glimpse into the world of Spider-Man, can’t imagine anybody but Maguire wearing the red and blue spandex or anybody but Raimi presenting the latest chapter in the development of everyone’s favorite superhero as a character as only he can.

However, if you’re Sony and you’ve already resigned yourself to continue making Spider-Man movies without the director and stars that brought you to the dance, why add on top of the confusion a whole new version of the story millions upon millions of people the world over already saw almost eight years ago?

A better strategy would have been to do something akin to The Incredible Hulk where the studio went in a different direction with a new director, new actors and a new backstory without rewinding the clock to redo the origin story. The movie wasn’t a major success, but that was mainly because it had issues stemming from heavy edits, which Hulk fan and lead actor Edward Norton took exceptional issue with, forced by the studio in an attempt to change the tone of the film.

And those people, including Sony’s studio executives, pointing at success of the Batman film franchise reboot should keep in mind that the series that started with Batman in 1989 and ended with Batman & Robin in 1997 was such a mess with two drastically different directors, three different lead actors, eight different villains (three just in the fourth film), two sidekicks, and a partridge in a pear tree that by the end fans and critics alike viciously derided the movies and moviegoers let their feelings be known with their wallets (Batman & Robin was a domestic flop with $107,325,195 in U.S. box office receipts against a $125 million production budget).

Let’s also not forget that Christopher Nolan’s reboot of the film franchise marked an important shift in direction for the Batman character from the colorful and comical material of the Joel Schumacher films to the more appropriate dark themes explored in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, both of which were much more in line with the original comic book origins of the Batman character.

When you consider the direction Sony wanted to take with the Black Cat as the main villain of the fourth Raimi movie alongside the implications of the reboot, it becomes quite clear that this is little more than a shameless attempt to cash in on the current popularity of entertainment properties that appeal to the tween and teen audiences, which is disappointing and insulting enough to moviegoers the world over that Sony risks alienating most of the people that made the Spider-man film series a blockbuster success in the first place.

Unlinked sources: The Vancouver Sun, The Independent, Box Office Mojo

What do you get when you combine cutting edge graphics technology, well-designed platform gameplay, production values so high they blur the lines between video game and cinema, and a story line that rivals the most recent big screen adventure of a certain fedora-wearing, whip-wielding archaeologist?

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is easily one of the best games available on the PlayStation 3, rivaled only by its recently released sequel, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. For that matter, it’s one of the best games for any platform – console, handheld and PC – of the past several years. The PlayStation 3 might as well not have existed prior to Uncharted’s November 2007 launch date as the game was the first really solid title for the system, the one that truly declared the arrival of Sony’s console.

In Uncharted, you take on the role of one Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter archaeologist type who is searching for El Dorado, the fabled city of gold, with a diary written by his ancestor Sir Francis Drake, famed sea captain, privateer and pirate. With the help of journalist Elena Fisher, along for the ride to gather notes and film footage for a documentary, and your old friend Victor “Sully” Sullivan, you explore thick jungle, enemy base camps, hidden caves, and ancient ruins all the while fighting off pirates and soldiers on your quest to discover the lost city.

As you can probably surmise from my brief overview of the game, Uncharted offers a mix of shooter and platform gameplay as Drake puts his climbing, jumping, swinging, fighting, and shooting skills to the test against the various obstacles in his way.

In this sense, the game feels like a superior version of the Tomb Raider series of games with Drake navigating along edges, jumping across chasms or pillars, and otherwise exploring beautifully rendered environments.

When combat comes into play, you have the option of taking cover behind whatever objects are in the immediate vicinity. Actually, it’s more a necessity than an option since Drake isn’t a heavily armored, genetically enhanced super soldier in green armor and, when you think about it, even Fenix, Dom, Cole Train and Baird in their heavy armor can’t stand out in the open in the middle of combat for very long – all Drake has is a half tucked-in shirt!

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Uncharted is the exquisite graphics which are more advanced than those of any other console game this generation with the exception of the Uncharted 2. The impressive amount of detail and clarity in the environments, the high-resolution textures plastered across walls and objects, and the layers of animation used to create realistic facial expressions and more fluid motion amount to a veritable bonanza of eye candy like none seen before in any console game.

The high-quality visual experience you get in this game is absolutely mind-blowing and is one of the only real examples of what’s possible when a developer harnesses the potential of the PlayStation 3’s Cell processor. We’re not talking extreme close-ups on a character in a cutscene made possible by diverting resources away from the environments, physics, artificial intelligence, etc. as in a game like Heavenly Sword but organic water effects, natural movement of foliage, and lush and vibrant environments that you’re actually moving around in while you’re playing the game. This is what the PlayStation 3 is all about.

Of course, the best graphics in the world can only take a game so far. Without an entertaining story with well written dialogue and a solid plot, even the best-looking game can fall flat. Thankfully, Uncharted’s story is exactly what we need more of in the video game industry. Granted, it’s not an epic space opera like Mass Effect’s or a sophisticated dystopian tale of the downfall of man like BioShock’s, but it is an action-packed, light-hearted, fun adventure that would have made a better Indiana Jones movie than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (and, incidentally, is being adapted into a film right now by Columbia Pictures under the guidance of Avi Arad, former CEO of Toy Biz and head of Marvel Studios).

Unfortunately, the game is a bit short, leaving players wanting for much more by the time the credits roll. A decent gamer could probably get through the game on the standard difficulty level in seven or eight hours assuming a little time for trial and error as well as taking in the sights. A good gamer could probably burn through the campaign in five or six hours. Add to that the fact that there is very little replay value with no multiplayer modes – subsequent jaunts through the game are really only useful for collecting arbitrary hidden treasures which can unlock alternate costumes, making-of videos and concept art.

Nevertheless, the relatively short time you’ll spend in the South American jungles searching for the riches hidden in El Dorado will be some of the most entertaining you’ll have playing a video game this generation. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is one of the few masterpieces of recent times with all the necessary ingredients for a near-perfect debut of a soon-to-be classic video game franchise.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

The gunplay and a possibly scary development in the last part of the game probably makes this game unsuitable for young children, but there’s really no reason to not let kids who are at least in the tail end of elementary school play this game. Uncharted is essentially a video game version of an Indiana Jones movie with a fun, adventurous vibe.

Experience this for yourself!

• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PlayStation 3 Greatest Hits) (Amazon)
• PlayStation 3 160GB Uncharted Bundle (Amazon)