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Tag: PS Vita

Hotline Miami (PSN) in Review

Michael Barnes 6 Comments

hotline-miami.jpg

This is how you’re supposed to be doing it.

It’s 3 A.M., I’ve got my headphones on and the 47” LED is searing my retinas in hot pink and turquoise neon, the title in scan-lined Russian letters like it’s bootleg contraband, hardcore violence porn from a world where only outlaws play outlawed violent video games. The music is turned up almost painfully loud, throbbing synth pulses from a 1989 that never existed except as a fantasy of unremembered nostalgia in the minds of musicians likely too young to have listened to music back then. I’m trying for either the 20th or the 100th time to complete a level of Hotline Miami, and I’m feeling totally wired, paranoid, cranked up really high and headed for a 19th nervous breakdown as I get gunned down again.

In another life, I split skulls and splatter gore everywhere, mind flashing back to the white suited apocalypse at the end of A Better Tomorrow II, thinking about how many times I’ve killed that dog and wondering if that Call of Duty dog will die this ruthlessly, cruelly, and without pity. I die again. Stupid mistake. Get up and go again. Is it just me or is the screen changing colors? Why does it all look crooked? I’ve never taken cocaine before, is this what it’s like? It’s how I imagine it. I don’t feel any pain when I die over and over again. I don’t really feel anything but DRIVE.

It hits me. I’m not working out a puzzle. I’m not watching guard patterns and learning the level. It’s not about learning a sequence or perfecting a series of moves. It’s not all in the wrist, reflexes are not being refined. The repetition starts to grate, and I realize the horror behind this video game.

I’m being programmed to get it right. I’m being programmed to lose all feeling and become a desentized 8-bit killing machine. I put on my mask, pick up a shotgun, and become a fucking monster.

And then a man in a cock mask asks at point-blank range, “do you like to hurt people?”. I pause. He’s not asking the top-down 8-bit Ryan Gosling on the screen. He’s asking ME. Music is hurting my ears at this point, it’s so loud. I’m staring at the screen, those fucking scanlines slicing up eyeballs. Well, do you, punk?

This is Hotline Miami’s Grand Statement About Video Game Violence, about all the Little Computer People we’ve murdered over and over again over all of these years. This is, or should be, Video Gaming’s Message to the World 2013 (or 2012 if you played it on PC, before it hit PSN). This is your argument, right here Roger Ebert (Kurosawa rest his soul), that games can be art, carry meaning, and comment on humanity. But this isn’t another bro-op AAA game disguising fucking MURDER FANTASY with Hollywood production values. There is no anti-hero bullshit obscuring the fact that the character you control is a psychopath. This is raw. It’s not “awesome” to kill people in this game. It’s pretty sick- by design.

I don’t know that there has ever been a more wretched, honest moment in a video game than when the character stops after the first massacre and vomits.

Yet it all remains remote, at arms length. The video game medium keeps us safe from the truths Hotline Miami is exposing us to, as we play. The deconstructed retro graphics and Lynchian narrative cryptograms give us safe distance from what this game is screaming at our faces. Many will play this game and think that its “bad ass”. Many will relish in its merciless, brutal bloodshed. But they’ll miss what this game wants to say to us.

As the highest paid developers in the video games industry continue to fail to find anything for us to do other than to kill things, Hotline Miami is like a blazing neon indictment of what we are psychically, digitally doing far too often when we play. Maybe the developers didn’t intend this, maybe they thought they were making nothing more than a bloody, violent, surreal old school indie action game with an incredible aesthetic sense. But even if they didn’t, the underpinnings remain.

Did I have fun playing Hotline Miami? Of course I did, the gameplay is awesome. But is it because I’ve been programmed to enjoy it? Or do I just enjoy hurting people?

Bass rumbles, my 2013 TV flickers like a 1983 set. It’s really too fucking loud. I should turn it down but I won’t. I should turn off the PS3 and go to bed but I won’t. Next level, new mask, weapon unlocked. I descend.

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The Great Pokemon Extinction Event

Brandon 7 Comments

Pokemon Black/White 2 comes out on Sunday and while I will most likely pick it up, I fear that it will confirm something that I’ve known for quite some time now, namely that I don’t really give a crap about handheld gaming any more.

It’s a difficult realization to come to. Handheld gaming has been a big part of my life for years now, but over the past 18 months or so, things have shifted and I find myself less and less enthused about the hobby’s diminutive offerings. Pokemon Black/White 2 may end up being the last handheld game I ever buy.

Cue the hyperbole machine!

I’ve gone to two E3s now where I have been absolutely and completely unimpressed with the handheld offerings for the 3DS. The first E3 that showed off 3DS games displayed mostly remakes of existing N64 titles, with a smattering of new games that still haven’t seen the light of day. Luigi’s Mansion 2, I’m looking at you. Hell, this past E3, they didn’t even have a set place to see 3DS games. You had to flag down a Nintendo rep and play the 3DS attached to her belt. Let me tell you how much that’s not going to happen.

Sony’s booth fared much better when it came to presenting Vita games, but at the same time, did I see anything there that really made me get excited for the platform? Not really. Sure, Sly 4 looks cool, and the cross play feature is a nice sell, but nice enough to hold on to the unit, especially after Barnes put that bug in my ear about selling it? Probably not.

Sure, you can blame the iPad, my go to source for mobile gaming at the moment, but just like in any situation, if you point one finger at something, there are four fingers pointing back at you. Only in this case, the four fingers are pointing back at Sony and Nintendo. Yes, iPad games look better than the 3DS, but they’re not better than the Vita. Sure, they’re cheaper, but sometimes, wading through which games are actually cheaper and which ones are just cheap storefronts for in-app purchases makes the cost comparison moot.

The reality is this: the latest and future offerings for both handheld systems interest me only barely. Pokemon Black/White 2 is a slam dunk, as is the new Professor Layton, but what beyond that? Assassins Creed: Liberation could be good, but good enough to pay $40 for? I doubt it. What beyond that? I read the list of upcoming games for both platforms and not only do I not see anything that strikes my fancy, but I’m not really bothered by the fact, something which speaks more to my state of mind than anything else.

There was a time where I would look forward to the upcoming handheld releases, planning out my time with the games so that I always had something to play. Nintendo and Sony both saw to making that impossible, with such a cruddy trickle of releases for both systems, and as a result, I stopped playing and stopped caring. Now, I couldn’t tell you when things are coming out and furthermore, I have on interest in looking. Hell, it took me by surprise that Pokemon Black/White 2 comes out on Sunday.

In the space vacated by Nintendo and Sony, I find myself playing games on my iPad, reading digital comics and, surprise of surprises, playing games on my PC. I don’t see the PC replacing my 3DS or Vita to the same degree that my iPad has, simply because of the portability factor, but more often these days, when I want something to play at night, I turn to Steam and the small collection of inexpensive, indie RPGs and adventure games I’ve amassed over the past few months. Hell, I’m seriously considering buying Torchlight 2, with the excessive heat generated by my laptop as the only limiting factor. $20 may be a lot for a game I’m not sure of (although I’m finding the demo to be delightful) but it’s half the price of games for the Vita or the 3DS and it’s on a platform that isn’t going anywhere.

It’s possible that things will change, but I would be surprised if they did. I think I’ve been away from traditional handhelds too long and as a result, I can no longer see the wisdom in paying $40 for something that isn’t that much better than games to be had at a fraction of the price. I’m still looking forward to revisiting Unova and playing the new Layton later in the fall, but these games may end up being the final notes of a song that’s been over a decade in the making. They look to be pretty good games to go out to, but at the same time, I can’t help but be a little sad. It’s been a long, great relationship. I just wish Sony and Nintendo had been as interested in keeping it going as I was.

Handheld Fun with Sony

Brandon 5 Comments

One of the problems of being at E3 is that you don’t always know what the general perspective of E3 is. I’m not sure if that’s an actual problem or just a blissful result of being in your own self absorbed world of giant, transforming robots and physical embodiments of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

So, when I read Michael’s excellent Gravity Rush piece, I wondered why he thought that Sony had given up on the Vita. After all, I spent a good hour going from one Vita title to another at the Sony booth at E3, surrounded by other folks similarly interested in Sony’s little handheld powerhouse.

As it turned, out, Michael was talking about the lack of Vita coverage at the Sony presser, which gave the impression that Sony was over the Vita. It’s perfectly understandable and yet another reason to avoid those vapid PR spectacles and instead seek out information on individual games.

The game that I spent the most time with at the Sony booth was the upcoming Sly Cooper game, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. I was first drawn to it on the PS3 but once I saw it on running on the Vita, I knew it had to be mine.

Simply put, they’re the same game. And when I mean it’s the same game, I mean that between the visual style of the game and the power present in the Vita, the two games look identical. It reminds me of Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 on the Vita. Add to the visuals the fact that the Vita has two thumbsticks, like a PS3 controller, and gryoscopic doo-dads, like a PS3 controller, and you have a handheld game that plays almost identical to its larger console counterpart.

I say “almost” because, as nice as the Vita’s screen is, sometimes a larger screen is nice for seeing hidden objects, alternate routes, etc, but even so, the fact that the Vita version of Sly Cooper plays the same as the PS3 version means that I’ll gladly play nothing but the Vita version. For the record, the two games being identical isn’t some marketing speak. I specifically chose to play the same level on both systems in order to compare and contrast. What can I say, you can take the man out of QA but you can’t take the QA out of the man.

Despite being developed by a different studio than the previous three games, this is definitely a Sly Cooper game, with all that entails. The slow, somewhat stilted dialog that starts each mission is still there, as is Sly’s set of acrobatic moves. With this version, Sly can change costumes and gain extra abilities as a result of the quick change. The level I played had Sly dressed up as his Robin Hood-esque ancestor and using a bow and arrow to sling ropes across the circus tent he was climbing up. If you’ve played and enjoyed Sly Cooper games in the past, I think this will scratch that itch for 3D platforming and thievery.

If you feel like dropping the cash on both versions of the game, you can do the whole cross platform play and swap your saves across hardware for a completely uninterrupted Sly Cooper gaming experience. I have no desire to do that, but I can understand the appeal, especially if you were playing a ton of Sly and then embarking on vacation. I’m not sure any game is worth almost $120 for a contiguous play experience, but I bet Bill would pay that much to be able to play Dark Souls at every waking moment. Me, I’ll stick with the Vita version. It’s cheaper, it looks just as good and I can bring it with me to work for lunchtime play.

After that it was off to try some Jet Set Radio. I never played the original game and I know that it is much loved by the Dreamcast fans. Maybe I’m just terrible at it, but I didn’t get it. I’m hoping that they release a demo that I can try under better conditions, because if my performance with it at E3 is any indication, I’ll just be wasting my money. It did look nice, for whatever that’s worth.

After the shame of Jet Set Radio, I moved down a couple of units and picked up a game from Xseed called Orgarhythm. Usually when I play a game I prefer to be allowed to do my thing in silence while I figure everything out, but the woman standing at the Orgarhythm section and playing the game was so enthusiastic about it that I didn’t mind her giving me the ins and outs.

The game is a combination rhythm-RTS in which you control a host of armies as your main character, a deity of some sort, casually strolls across the countryside. As he walks, music plays and your job is to queue up his armies and their attacks based on the beat of the music. The game is played with nothing but the touchscreen and while it did take me a few minutes to figure out what I was doing, soon I was bopping my head along and ordering waves of attacks.

The better you are at tapping out the army selection, unit selection and then drawing a line for your armies to follow, the more units you get at your command. In addition to the rhythmic aspect, there’s an elemental aspect to your armies and the attacking enemies meaning you have to make sure you’re deploying the right armies based on the enemies that are attacking.

Once the game gets going and you’re fending off attacks and adding units to your ranks, special bonuses and power-ups become available. Being rewarded with a larger army and more powerful attacks was a great incentive to keep tapping out the right rhythm as was the fact that your deity doesn’t stop walking for anything. Knowing that you have to be constantly on guard lest your character die is incredibly motivating.

Finally, while I didn’t get my hands on the Vita version, I did manage to play the PS3 version of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. It’s not a bad take on Smash Bros., with all of the chaos that brings with it. I’m not too keen on having to completely drain your opponents’ health bars before you can kill them as one of the things that brings such depth to Smash Bros. is how different characters can knock you off of the stage more easily than others. Still, if you’ve always wanted to play Smash Bros. but are somehow wedded to Sony products, I can see this holding appeal.

It’s a shame that Sony didn’t mention the Vita more in their press conference as this system needs all of the public praising it can get. At least they did have games, and pretty good ones at that, for people to play. At the Nintendo booth, the only way to get your hands on a 3DS was to flag down a booth lady and ask to play the unit tethered to her waist. Gee, thanks Nintendo, I think I’ll pass.

Gravity Rush Impressions – A Tragedy

Michael Barnes 14 Comments

I wasn’t planning on picking up Gravity Rush, the first retail game for the PS Vita that isn’t a port, an extension of a franchise, or otherwise forgettable. It’s a game- and brand- designed from the ground up for the floundering platform. It leverages the handheld’s strengths while presenting a full “console” experience, as was promised by the Vita’s press copy. I tried the demo Monday night, I was at Gamestop Tuesday morning with a pile of trade-ins, and I left with a copy of the game.

Here’s the rub. This Gravity Rush, like Vita itself, is doomed. It is destined to be underplayed, under-noticed, and undersold. But also like the Vita, it’s not likely to be underappreciated by those who experience it because it’s a really, really damn good game for a really, really damn good platform. Sony’s continued mishandling of the Vita (the company apparently forgot about it at E3) is no more evident than in its failure to release Gravity Rush as the flagship launch title instead of a scaled down, watered down version of Uncharted.

Gravity Rush isn’t a mold-breaking, lightning-in-a-bottle title. It doesn’t create a new genre and its ambitions do not lie in telling a Bioshock-level story. But what is is, and where it innovates, is in bringing together modest ambitions to deliver a supremely solid, highly stylized game that has “cult smash” written all over it. This is a game very much in the old Sega Dreamcast mold, another possible Jet Set Radio. And then there’s that whole gravity shifting thing, which feels completely fresh, novel, and most importantly fun. If you’re whining about how all “they” make anymore is military shooters, here’s one for you.

It’s a superhero origin story game. It’s a surprisingly focused open world one. It’s an action brawler with an upgrade system. It’s a puzzle-platformer and there’s some stealth gameplay. It has that orb thing from Crackdown. And it’s wrapped up in a drop-dead gorgeous comics style that’s as much Marvel as it is Manga. The young protagonist would fit right in with the X-Men.

I’ve only played for about two hours but I love it. It’s dazzled me, it’s delighted me in that short time. Not many games these days do that since so many focus on the Blockbuster Moment, this-world-is-shit angst, or boo-ya murder fantasy. There was one point last night where I was trying to collect these gems and I was floating in zero-G free fall and I was twisting and turning to see them, using the Vita’s gyroscope. I was on my couch with the Vita over my head, eyes toward the ceiling. It was immersive, and the control was dead on so the illusion wasn’t broken by implementation. It’s been done before in other IOS and 3DS games, but nowhere has it been more effective. The thrill of empowerment when you use the gravity ability to walk up walls or fall into the sky is awesome.

But it’s not the same sense of badass power that the Arkham games give you. It’s more like you’re a kid, like Peter Parker, discovering your abilities and how to use them. The first hour of the game is clumsy and awkward. You blow off out-of-bounds often. You fall. You get disoriented. You crash into statues and miss kicks. It makes sense because you’re learning. Some critics have already complained about these elements, of course. They’re missing the point.

I’ve still got 10 to 12 hours to go with the game by accounts. I almost want to stop playing it now in case it becomes repetitive, boring, or loses focus in sidequests during the middle game. Right now, I feel like I’ve played a truly new game and not just for the Vita. Refreshing, joyful, and passionately made games are rare these days and I almost don’t want to spoil it.

A zillion people will play some puzzle-platformer designed by an arrogant ass that claims that Japanese design is dead. But the number of people that will ever get to play Gravity Rush is likely exponentially smaller due its appearance- and in fact, its dependence- on a poorly adopted platform. It doesn’t help that it’s a product marketed by a company that is clueless as to how to sell it or to make consumer want it. Is it worth buying a Vita for Gravity Rush? Hell no. But if you have one (or access to one), this game is as good an argument for the underachieving handheld as anything else. The tragedy is that it may turn out to be one of the best games of the year on any platform.

Muddying Marisa

Brandon 10 Comments

Marisa Chase of Uncharted: Golden Abyss

See that fetching young lady up there? That’s Marisa Chase. She’s your sidekick/guide/reason for killing dudes in Uncharted: Golden Abyss. She’s an archaeologist, like her grandfather and like her grandfather she’s looking for a link between a secret sect of Spanish friars and a city of gold hidden in the Central American jungle.

Uncharted wouldn’t be Uncharted without a plucky female there to act as the straight woman to Nate’s jokes, as well as point out obvious things like ledges and bullets and murderous henchmen. She can shimmy and jump like Nate and she knows as much, if not more, about the lore of the region as Nate and she drives a mean canoe. She’s a pretty valuable asset as you make your way through the jungle towards a reunion with the slimy Dante and his ally turned enemy General Guero.

There is one important difference between her and Nate though, and it’s one I wish the writers would have stuck with. Unlike the other ladies in Drake’s life, Marisa doesn’t use guns. Right up until when she does.

We’re going to get into Golden Abyss spoiler territory here, so I won’t be offended if you hold off on reading this until you play the game. As launch games go, I liked it, although it pales in comparison to Uncharted 2, what I consider to be the high water mark for the franchise. Sony has a pretty good track record with bringing their exclusive franchises to their handhelds and Golden Abyss sits firmly in the middle of these efforts. It’s not as good as the God of War PSP games, but it’s vastly better than Special Agent Clank. Among Uncharted games, I’d say it’s on par with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, way below Uncharted 2 and way above Uncharted 3.

Marisa has a hard road to walk in that she’s going to be compared to Elena yet she can’t live up to being Elena. It’s not her fault, nor is it the fault of the people at Bend Studios. They have to make a side character that you care about, in order to make the player understand why they’re risking Nate’s life, but at the same time, they’re making a character that is never mentioned in any of the other Uncharted games. Basically, she’s Willie Scott.

Marisa is bright, attractive, headstrong and not at all afraid to go tromping through the jungle, so she’s easy to like. Bend Studios makes the same unfortunate writing and voice direction that Naughty Dog does and makes her and Drake turn every simple action into a conversation but not to the point where Marisa becomes annoying. On a somewhat related note, Bend did get rid of UC3’s incessant need to have Drake touch something every five minutes like the game was a Very Special Episode of Uncharted where Drake finally owns up to his crippling OCD.

Where Marisa differs from the women in previous UC games is that she doesn’t use guns. At various points in the story, usually right before your’e attacked, Marisa makes it a point to mention that she doesn’t do guns. Doesn’t use ’em, doesn’t like ’em, wants nothing to do with ’em. As defining character traits go, it’s not the most original thing in the world, but it makes sense for the character in a way that the opposite choice made in previous games do not.

Look, no one loves Elena Fisher more than me, however her transformation from reality TV show host in Uncharted to gun toting murderess in Uncharted 3 makes absolutely zero sense to me. I understand that from UC2 onward she is an investigative journalist and as such needs to protect herself and yes, she did see her camera man brutally murdered in front of her, but the flippant manner in which she kills bad guys in UC3 did not sit well with me.

To be completely honest, I’m not really sure why Drake is so comfortable killing guys other than he’s the hero and in these games, the hero kills people. I get that murder is the most common form of expression in games lately, and there are plenty of people trying to kill Nate over the course of these games, but why is he so comfortable with killing them? In UC3 we see Nate as a street urchin. Fast forward to Golden Abyss and he’s comfortable with all manner of arms, as well as capable of snapping a guy’s neck with impunity. In fact, if you want to get every kill based trophy in the Uncharted series, Nate has to kill at least 2800 people. In comparison, the highest number of confirmed kills in military history is 160. What happened to Nate to make him OK with blowing someone’s brains out and then switching to making a charcoal rubbing like he’s in third grade art class?

So yeah, I was really happy with the idea of making Marisa uncomfortable with and unwilling to use guns. My wife is extremely uncomfortable around guns, and will not allow them in the house, which isn’t a bad choice given that we have two young kids. Still, I would love to pick up target shooting as a hobby, but her edict makes it somewhat impractical. So again, I understand Marisa’s choice and I thought it was an excellent one. Realistically speaking, she’s an archaeologist. What does she need a gun for and when would she have learned to use it during a childhood spent accompanying her grandfather to dig sites?

All of this made the decision to have Marisa start using guns towards the end of the game all the more infuriating. Without getting too much into it, Drake catches up with Dante, they fight and Dante makes a comment about Marisa letting Drake get his hands dirty while she manipulates him. At this point, I thought they were going to do a big reveal and make Marisa the villain, something I would have hated. They didn’t, but I hated the alternative just as much. Marisa takes this speech to heart, as most people would do when confronted with the ramblings of a lying thief, and decides to start pulling her own weight. Never mind that she helped Drake get to the city of gold and has helped Nate every step of the way except for when gunfire broke out. No, she needs to start helping out at this very minute and the way she’s going to do that is by killing people.

Come the eff on.

With that, Marisa, who had been a genuinely interesting character became yet another Uncharted sidekick, peeking out from behind cover and ineffectually shooting enemies. Worse, by giving her a gun, her AI went from defense to offense and she would frequently venture up the path too much, taking fire and making me expose myself to save her. Making a character uninteresting with a shitty personality shift is one thing, making me have to restart a checkpoint multiple times because she can’t hit the broad side of a barn is something else completely.

I don’t know if Bend felt they needed to drop some female empowerment stuff on us, or what the thinking was behind this, but I wish someone had sat them down and explained that sticking to your morals when it is incredibly difficult and/or inconvenient to do so is the stronger choice. Knowing that you were able to stick to your code would be far more empowering than throwing your belief system away just because some asshole said some things that made you feel bad. Sure, Nate offers the token “once you do this it changes everything” line, but it’s not like he seems all that upset at having murdered several hundred people so why should Marisa care?

It didn’t sour me on the game entirely, but it did bug me. It also made me think that we’ve gotten about as much out of the Uncharted franchise as I think we can reasonably expect. I’m glad that Naughty Dog is moving on to The Last of Us and I hope it energizes them creatively because between this UC game (which I know they only supervised) and the creatively bankrupt Uncharted 3, I think Nate et al should take a cue from the old Marisa and swear off guns for a bit.