Rock Band 3

Harmonix/Backbone Entertainment - 2010 - X360/PS3/Wii/DS

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

I'm a big fan of the rhythm game genre and in particular the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games. Now there hasn't been a release in either of these franchises since 2010. This fact, coupled with the decreasing sales and popularity of these franchises caused many people to speculate that these types of games were "dead". Then out of the blue, Harmonix announced Rock Band 4 and Activision followed suit with an announcement of Guitar Hero Live. Obviously neither of these franchises are dead (at least at the time of writing) and both have new games launching in the coming weeks, but I do think there are a few reasons we haven't heard from these games in five years. First and probably foremost was oversaturation. If you include the DJ Hero games and the various portable releases from each franchise, Harmonix and Activision combined to release thirty five Rock Band and Guitar Hero titles between 2005 and 2010. I'm serious. Check Wikipedia. The American economic downturn that occurred at the end of last decade certainly didn't do any good to either of these franchises that require players to buy relatively expensive accessories. Plus I think some players decided they didn't want to have ridiculous Fisher Price-looking plastic instruments cluttering their living space anymore. I think that last point still holds true in 2015, but there obviously hasn't been any oversaturation in a while and the U.S. economy is doing better which is why I think we're now seeing releases from these franchises. So what do I want to see from either Rock Band 4 or Guitar Hero Live? Let's take a dive into one of my all-time favorite rhythm games, Rock Band 3, and examine some of the things I think it does well and some of the things it does not so well.

Let's get the bad things with Rock Band 3 out of the way first. The game has obsession with realism and wanting the player to learn real instruments. This is fine when done well, and a game like Rocksmith really shows how this concept can be pulled off successfully. But Rockband 3's execution of this was way too complicated. Rock Band 3 introduced "Pro Mode" for guitar, drums, and its new keyboard accessory. Mad Catz partnered with Harmonix to sell a "pro guitar" with 102 plastic buttons. There wasn't really a great tutorial for this instrument, and the strange chord notation was almost impossible to interpret at the speed Rock Band throws notes at you. Especially for someone who has no actual experience playing guitar (me). This was the same problem with the "pro keyboard" which expected the player to play a 25 button mini-keyboard at full song speed. I actually liked the "pro drums", which added 3 cymbals to Rock Band's normal drumkit of 4 pads. I found it to be a welcomed challenge as opposed to an impossible one. But aside from the drums, I think the whole "pro mode" experiment was a failure, especially when you consider that none of the older DLC or other imported songs supported the pro guitar, and most didn't support the keyboard at all. They strangely did however, support pro drums. My speculation is that the songs were always encoded to differentiate between cymbals and drums, even though the original drum kits only had 4 pads. I think Harmonix has recognized this failure and has removed support for pro instruments and the keyboard peripheral entirely for Rock Band 4 although they will continue to support pro drums. 

The most awesome thing about Rock Band 3 is the massive library of DLC songs you have access to. If you include importable tracks from previous entries in the series, the total of playable songs is upwards of 4,000 which is pretty awesome especially assuming Harmonix makes this library available again for Rock Band 4. You can be practically guaranteed to find something you'll like when browsing the online store. Rock Band 3 also introduces vocal harmonies, allowing there to be more than one vocalist, provided you have more than one microphone. Tracks that support vocal harmonies will show separate vocal tracks with separate lyrics for each singer. Another new feature is the ability for players to drop in and out of songs on the fly without restarting a track. This, combined with the ability to make song playlists and enable "no-fail mode" made it very accessible as a casual party game. Rock Band 3 also features an expanded career mode and a more in depth character creator. All of these features combine to make Rock Band 3 a very full featured and well polished game

Rock Band 3 Video Review

Summary

Despite it's faults and it's misguided attempt to integrate playing "real" instruments, Rock Band 3 is still the most fun I've had playing rhythm party game. I've actually already played a pre-release build of Rock Band 4 at Pax and I think it captures all of the great things that Rock Band 3 did well. If people are willing to dust off their plastic instruments and hook them up to their next-gen consoles, I think Rock Band 4 should do just fine. I probably won't buy it initially as I don't even own a next-gen console yet, but I'm glad these franchises have been resurrected and I'm looking forward to eventually playing more fake plastic instruments.

Resident Evil

Capcom - 2002 (1996 Original) - GameCube/Wii/PS3/X360

Ahhh, October. October has always been one of my favorite months. Maybe it's because I was born in the beginning of the month, or maybe it's because October means football season is in full swing or maybe it's because the oppressive Florida weather where I live starts to cool down a bit and you can go outside again without feeling like you're going to die. Or maybe it's because October is home to Halloween, which has become one of my favorite holidays in my adult life. Aside from eating candy and dressing up like ridiculous characters, the fact that Halloween is a sort of celebration of fear and scary things has always been a novel concept to me. Last year, I observed Halloween by watching a bunch of horror films and exploring specifically why I did or did not find them scary. This year, I'm planning to do the same thing here, but with games. I'm going to kick things off with one of the most obvious and well-known horror games of all time, but I promise in the coming weeks I'll cover some horror games you probably haven't played before. Also if you're looking for other horror titles to try, check out anything I've labeled with the horror tag so far. All of those titles are interesting in their own way and definitely worth a look with Silent Hill 2 being a particular favorite of mine.

The original Resident Evil made its debut on the PS1 in 1996 and is considered to be the genesis of the survival horror game genre. It was very well received critically and commercially and it of course spawned many sequels, spin-offs and movie tie-ins. Starting with Resident Evil 4, recent entries in the series have been more action/shooter than survival horror, but the original Resident Evil is certainly true survival horror. As important and influential as the original is, the game I want to specifically talk about is the 2002 remake for GameCube that was then ported to a bunch of other consoles. The 2002 remake contains completely redone visuals and cutscenes, alterations to gameplay, completely different puzzles and re-recorded voice acting, sound effects and music. This sounds like total blasphemy, especially to remake a game as iconic as the original. But the remake is SO well done; it's faithful to the vision of its predecessor and it's a testament to the quality of the remake that the remake is arguably even more well received than the original. Aside from more immersive sound and graphics, probably the most important thing the remake did was re-record the voice overs. The voice acting was, well, pretty terrible. I think the enhancements made in the remake enable this game to age a little more gracefully and stand the test of time as a horror game masterpiece.

If you've ever played any of the other entries in the Resident Evil series, you know that the story is kind of ridiculous and throw away. There's all sorts of plot holes and inconsistencies and it can get pretty absurd at times. Most of my other favorite horror games use excellent writing to help create their creepy mood, but not really so with Resident Evil. What it lacks in storytelling, it makes up for with superb audiovisual presentation and excellent game design. One of the first unusual things you'll notice when playing the game is that it uses a fixed and stationary camera. The game is still rendered in full 3D, but the camera never moves, only the the player and enemies do. This can be a little disorienting at first, especially when changing scenes, but I'm surprised I haven't seen this elsewhere in other Survival Horror games. It makes the game feel very cinematic and gives the designers complete control over exactly what they want the player to see. In first person games or games with an adjustable camera, the designers have to design set pieces and jump scares around knowing or guessing where the player's camera will be. Resident Evil is freed up to design its scares however it pleases, and it does so very well.

Resident Evil does a great job of not only creating creepy atmosphere with its audiovisuals, but also by creating stress and nervousness through gameplay. Encountering an enemy in is scary in its own right, but that fear is also accompanied by the stress of considering how to deal with the enemy. You may have a pistol, but ammo is limited. Should you still shoot it? Knives don't consume ammo, but are also more risky as you have to get close to the enemy in order to kill it. And even if you do manage to "kill" a zombie, it will actually eventually reanimate and become stronger and faster. You can prevent a zombie from reanimating by burning their corpse, but that means you'll have to carry around kerosene and a lighter which take up precious inventory slots. Burning corpses will also consume kerosene which is preciously finite resource. Is the corpse in a key corridor that you'll have to walk through frequently? It might not be worth your kerosene. And if ammo or health are low, sometimes the best option may be to simply run away.

Another smart game design choice was the limitation of the player's inventory slots. You'll eventually find a giant crate in the game that can store all of your items, but you can only take so many of them with you at a time when you leave. You'll have to make strategic decisions about how many healing items you want to bring, how much ammo you want to bring, whether or not to bring the kerosene/lighter and you'll also want to think about how many inventory slots you want to keep open in case you find something interesting while exploring the mansion. There's also a finite number of saves you can make while playing Resident Evil, which is a really interesting mechanic that I'm surprised more games haven't copied. Your character in the game saves their progress by typing on an old-fashioned typewriter, but using a typewriter requires ink ribbons which are then consumed. When you burn through all of your ink ribbons, you can't make any more saves until you find more ribbons in the mansion. This keeps the player from just killing a few enemies and quickly running back to a save their progress. There's an ample amount of ink ribbons to find in the mansion as to not make the number of saves an annoying issue, but it still makes you think twice before making a save with minimal progress. Very smart game design.

Summary:
Resident Evil is a horror game classic, and the remake is a masterpiece. You absolutely must play this if you're a horror game fan, but if you call yourself that you probably already have. For those looking to test the waters of the survival horror genre for the first time, the Resident Evil remake is a great place to start. It excellently builds and maintains tension through superb audiovisual presentation and smart game design. In the most Capcom of moves, I hear they're remaking the remake for next-gen consoles and PC and it will be out early 2015. I think this is just going to be an "HD remaster" of the remake, but this will still hopefully give more people a chance to play this game. Shinji Mikami, the creative director of Resident Evil, also has his latest game "The Evil Within" coming out later this month. From what I've seen of the game so far, it looks very interesting. Hopefully he can recapture the terror and suspense he created so well initially with Resident Evil

Okami

Clover Studio - 2006 - PS2/PS3/Wii

This is unfortunately one of those “best game no one has ever played” games. Okami is a very artistic, creative and refreshing take on the "Legend of Zelda" formula. You play as an incarnation of the Japanese Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu, who has returned to the land of Nippon incarnated as a white wolf to save the land from the evil 8-headed dragon serpent Orochi. Everything from the art style, to the musical score is highly Japanese culture infused. But it's more along the lines of ancient Japanese history, folklore and religion than like Japanese anime, for instance.

Art plays an important role in Okami. Early in the game, you'll meet up with Issun, who is an artist, painter and muse. Issun kind of serves as the game's narrator and Amaterasu's voice, the same way the fairy in a Zelda game would. Issun and Amaterasu soon come into the possession of the "celestial brush". It is a magical paintbrush that allows Amaterasu and Issun to perform miracles and is also Okami's main gameplay device. It allows the player to essentially freeze frame the game and paint on the canvas that is the current image on the screen. So for example, after unlocking the wind ability for the brush, painting swirly lines in the sky will cause wind to blow, which may turn a windmill that unlocks a gate blocking your path or something like that. Or in combat, drawing a slash through an opponent will cause a magical sword to appear, cleaving an enemy in two. It's an interesting gameplay device that is both the game's main puzzle solving mechanic and fighting mechanic and also fits in perfectly thematically with the game.

Most of the gameplay in Okami is puzzle solving and fighting with the celestial brush. The brush is used to "perform miracles" which usually involve restoring and healing wildlife or feeding animals. Doing these tasks gives Amaterasu more "praise" (experience), which can be spent to upgrade Amaterasu's stats. Honestly the combat system in Okami was kind of "meh" for me. You pretty much just figure out which brush technique works well on which enemies and then you're good to go. There's not a lot of challenge offered by the combat here. If you're playing Okami, you'll be doing it for the visual style and the presentation of the game's story. Okami's focus on storytelling is pretty strong and the game can get fairly text heavy at certain points. Actually I believe the game's opening cutscene and text bubble intro take a good 10-15 minutes to get through. So if story isn't your thing, you may be put off by the amount of reading you'll need to do. But Okami tells a pretty interesting and unique story. As someone not too familiar with Japanese folklore or the Shinto religion, Okami's interpretation of these things was pretty interesting and fascinating to me and kept me playing through the end.

I don't think I've ever been so positively struck by a game's art direction. Everything in the game has that large brushstroke accent that you typically see in classical Japanese paintings. It makes the entire game look very stylized and painting-ish. Very cool. Check out the screenshot below, click to enlarge it. The art style of this game is a huge plus, and I'm not someone who typically cares about that kind of stuff. It's a great case for art style being more important than realism in games. The excellent soundtrack further helps in immersing the player with the use of traditional Japanese string instruments, wind instruments, and drums. I'm sure the instruments all have specific names, but I'm too lazy to look them up. Here's a sample of the soundtrack. Awesome stuff

Summary:
Okami is a very refreshing and unique experience and it's a shame more people didn't play it when it came out. It's definitely worth a look if you're a Zelda fan or are looking for something very different to play. As long as you're aware of the amount of text reading you'll do in this game, you won't be disappointed.

Resident Evil 4

Capcom - 2005 - Gamecube/PS2/PS3/Wii/X360/PC

In order to help commemorate the release of the “Ultimate HD Edition” of Resident Evil 4 on Steam this week, I figured I’d post about how awesome this game is. It's actually difficult for me to put my finger on why I like this game so much. On paper, it seems like a game I would absolutely hate. The story is pretty much ridiculous. The puzzles feel tacked on and unnecessary. There's instant death quick time events in cutscenes. All things I hate. Plus it's a shooter, and I'm not usually enthralled with action/shooters. But somehow this game really won me over and became one of my favorites.

Resident Evil 4 marked a huge shift in the franchise's gameplay. RE 1-3 were really more pure survival horror games. Ammo was scarce. Enemies were scarce, which made it more intense when you encountered one. Aiming was kind of awkward which gave a real sense of vulnerability. The emphasis was on atmosphere and trying to creep the player out. I liked these games, especially the first Resident Evil. RE4 is a very different kind of game. There's enemies all over the place, the controls are tight, and the emphasis is on the shooting and action. It's a different kind of fun. It still does atmosphere sort of well through the first half of the game, but kind of abandons it through the second half in my opinion.

What I think this game does very well is variety. Variety in enemies, variety in weapons, variety in locations and so on. While I think RE4 does some sections of the game better than others, at least you never get the sense that you're doing the same thing over and over which I frequently get while playing shooters. There's the atmospheric lonely feeling of the village in the beginning of the game, the creepy cultists in the castle, the unnerving bizarre science experiments in the laboratory and the over the top action sequences near the end of the game.

There are lots of unique and memorable experiences in RE4. There's everything from being trapped in a cabin with legions of zombies trying to break in to running from an invisible monster through dimly lit sewers. There's even epic gigantic boss fights and a few vehicle sections as well. It's not as nerve-wrackingly scary as the first RE games, but there are a few jump scares scattered throughout RE4. There's a sort of fun metagame of deciding which weapons and items you'll take with you with limited inventory space. And deciding which guns to upgrade and which upgrades to purchase is fun too.

Summary:
It's just good old zombie killing fun. Check it out

Super Smash Bros: Project M

PMDT - 2013 - Wii

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

(Author's note: I originally reviewed this game at the end of 2013 when Project M 3.0 first launched. The review contained some outdated information and I wasn't too happy with what I wrote begin with, so I rewrote it as of 9/21/2015. You can read the original review as a comment below)

What is Super Smash Bros: Project M? No, Nintendo didn't sneak in a fifth Smash title without you noticing, Project M is a fan-made mod of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii to make it play more like Super Smash bros. Melee for the Gamecube, hence the M in Project M. But this isn't to be confused with Nintendo's most recent Smash title, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U which fans have just taken to calling Smash 4 because the former is a mouthful. Confused yet? Let me start over from the beginning. In 1999, developer HAL labratory and Nintendo launched Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64. It featured all of the most well known Nintendo mascots in a fighting party game where emphasis was on knocking the opponent off of the stage. There were no health bars in the game; there was only a damage counter. The more damage you dealt, the farther your target will fly the next time they're hit. Super Smash Bros, henceforth referred to by fans as Smash 64 to avoid obvious confusion with other Smash titles, was a critical and commercial success. It was intended to be a fun party game, but some people (myself included) enjoyed playing it with friends competitively with its wacky items turned off.

Then in 2001, Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Gamecube was released. It was amazing. It was more full featured, faster and had more depth than Smash 64. But more importantly, its game engine better facilitated the competitive playstyle that I enjoyed from the previous game. 15 years later, Melee still retains a large competitive audience and the Melee tournament scene is still active and growing. There's an excellent documentary on YouTube if you'd like to learn more about Melee and its top players, but we're here to talk about Project M - and I'm almost there. In 2008, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released for the Nintendo Wii. It featured, by far, the largest playable roster of fighters, more stages and more items and a more fleshed out single player mode. It was a fine party game, but most fans of competitive melee didn't care for Brawl. The Brawl physics engine didn't allow for the fast-paced, combo heavy gameplay of Melee. Furthermore the perceived balance of Brawl's roster was so lopsided that one character, Meta Knight, started to be banned from use in some tournaments.

So now enter Project M. It was designed by a collective of Brawl modders now known as the Project M Development Team (PMDT) to be a complete overhaul of Brawl to make it play more like Melee, changing everything from the physics engine to character balance and movesets. Fighters from Melee were mostly reverted or approximated to their Melee counterparts while Brawl newcomers were reimagined in the Melee engine and in most cases given new animations, movesets and playstyles. New gameplay modes and features, new characters, and new stages were added as well. I think there's more that sets Project M apart from Brawl and the PMDT have made so many changes that in my eyes, Project M really is its own game and not just a mod of Brawl. It's relative ease of installation is also a huge plus, only requiring its users to have a copy of Brawl and an SD card with custom files (which you can find here for free) loaded onto the Wii. No other permanent modifications need to be made to the system or the game.

In addition to approximating the physics engine of Melee, Project M has several other features that benefit competitive play like built-in stage striking and debug mode with hitbox displays and a frame advance feature. So now some of you may be thinking "That's cool and all, but I have no interest in competitive play. Should I still check out Project M?" Yes. There's lots of really cool and unique new features in Project M that make it worth checking out on its own. Ever want to play a different character on every single stock? Project M's all-star vs. mode has you covered. Ever wanted to play Smash like a traditional fighting game with hit points and death boundaries turned off? You can do that too. If you really want to get ridiculous, check out Project M's turbo mode which allows any move you do to be on hit canceled into any other move.

The attention to detail is another thing that's really nice about this game. When character's movesets were being reimagined and tweaked to fit competitive gameplay, homages to the various series each fighter is from were worked in. For instance, Snake can now use his tranquilizer gun and survival knife from Metal Gear Solid, Lucas can use "Offense Up" from Mother 3, and Samus can switch between ice beam and fire beam, like in Metroid Prime. Brand new stages have also been created with a high level of fidelity and detail. Some even include cool easter eggs and other visual secrets. A brand new announcer was added to the game along with new music tracks and imported sound effects from Melee. Actually, if you're a little more technically inclined, it's not too hard to figure out how to replace the music files for the game yourself and create your own tracklist for this game.

Super Smash Bros. Project M Video Review

Summary
I really enjoy Project M. It's my personal favorite Smash game to play due to all of its competitive-friendly features and roster balance which the PMDT maintains through semi-frequent patches. I know Project M has been struggling to stay in the spotlight recently, due to the release and popularity of Smash 4 in conjunction with Nintendo sponsoring Twitch streams of Smash tournaments and obviously not having an interest in promoting a game that's not their own. But I hope the audience for this game will continue to grow cause I really enjoy playing it with other people. I'd say it's worth finding a copy of Brawl and dusting off your Wii if this looks interesting to you. It's a blast to play whether you're a competitive or casual player, newcomer or Smash veteran.