-

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, 1 and 2.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is one of my favorite games. It took a great story ark, being in the Star Wars universe, and combined it with many elements from games being released at the time. Now with the development and release of the sequel, we will see if they can reach the bar set by the first one.

The First Game - Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was one of the most innovative games of 2008 and combined familiar elements with new ideas. This is true in the story, the gameplay and the graphics.


Story: The story takes place, If you are familiar with the Star Wars series, between the two trilogies. You play as the secret apprentice of Darth Vader who is sent to wipe out the last remaining Jedi in the galaxy. The writers took the time to write a story that would not conflict with the story of the films and also offered some explanations for things that occur in the films. For example (spoiler alert), at the end of the game when after the main character faces off against Vader and dies it is shown that his family crest is the symbol that will later become the symbol of the rebel alliance, thus tying the two stories together. This attention to story is what has set Star Wars based games apart from the usual movie based game.



Gameplay: The gameplay has many elements of other good games of the time but combined them in a unique way. It has some of the elements of Assassin's Creed combined with the fighting style of Ninja Gaiden, and God of War. It also adds a new element, force powers. Now, you would think that it would be difficult to control telekinetic powers in a 3d world, but the controls work well. The powers (on PS3) use the analog sticks to move objects in all six directions.



Graphics: The game's graphics are amazing. But one element that sets it apart is the physics. The game itself runs on the Havoc engine but also uses DMM which stands for Digital Molecular Matter and offers better particle physics. The game also contains an advanced artificial intelligence program called Euphoria. This allows the NPCs to react better to your actions.




Now there is a sequel to The Force Unleashed that is coming out soon. It will be interesting to see how, if at all, they add to the story of the first game without losing continuity. And it will also be interesting to see if they can improve on the game elements of the first one or will it fall short.

Rampage: Universal Tour - Classic PS1/N64

Rampage: Universal Tour is the sequel to Rampage: World Tour. It was a 2d side-scroller in which you play as monsters on a quest to destroy the world. You set off through the world going from city to city knocking down buildings. The great part of the game is that it was a three player game and you work together to take down each city. The plot is that three of the characters are held captive and you must free them.  The game had various characters with their own special abilities. Some of the characters included a lobster, a werewolf, a gorilla, and an alien. This game was simple but still one of my favorite games for the Playstation One system. The game was fairly long with nearly a hundred cities.

The game's simple nature is what made it appealing and with the rise of app gaming, a game like this would be perfect. I would love to see this game on an iPod or iPad. Also in making new app games developers should look at classics like this one. 

Motion Control: Move and Kinect

Since Wii debuted several years ago and began to out sell both PS3 and Xbox 360, they have been trying to find a way to cash in on the motion control craze. They have both created their own motion control add-ons for their systems; the Playstaton Move and Xbox Kinect. These two, however, take different approaches to motion control and attempt to improve on this new technology.

First off: What is motion control? 

Motion capture technology replaces button combinations with a series of movements captured using various sensors. Wii was the first video game system to implement this technology but now Sony and Microsoft are following this trend.

Playstation Move: The Playstation Move adds a controller simillar to the "Wii-mote" to the system but uses a light orb that can then be captured by the Playstation Eye webcam. This is very different from the Wii controller and hopes to offer more accurate controls. 

Playstation Move Demo

Microsoft Kinect: The Kinect takes the motion control idea to a new level. It loses the controller all togeather. Players stand in front of a motion capture sensor bar and it tracks their movement. This is meant to give much more accurate control and only use the movement of the players to control characters on screen and also use camera technology to put players in the game.

Kinect Demo

Both the Playstation Move and the Microsoft Kinect are coming out soon and it will be interesting to see if they are successfull or not. I think they will show if motion control is the wave of the future for gaming or just a fad.

Red Dead Redemption - Undead Nightmare: Rockstar Takes On Zombies.

 "When in doubt add zombies" - Cliff Bleszinski (designer of Gears of War)

A few weeks ago I reviewed Dead Rising 2, a game about a zombie outbreak. In my review I had stated that maybe it was the game company's fault for all the shortcomings in the game. Capcom, the makers of DR2 are fairly new to sandbox games. I had said that maybe if Rockstar had made a zombie open world game it would be a better game. Well, now they have. With the new Halloween released expansion pack for Red Dead Redemption, Undead Nightmare, you now have to take on the zombie apocalypse in the old west. It is only $9.99 on Xbox Live or the Playstation Network.

The expansion begins right before the last mission and serves as an alternate ending to the original story line. You, John Marsden, find your wife and son infected with the zombie virus so you must hogtie them and set out in search of a cure. You then must then travel to the various town and clear them of zombies while searching for survivors. The story also brings back many of the characters from the original game, however, most are now zombies.

Red Dead Redemption

Undead Nightmare

I have only started to play but already there are many minor changes to the environment which change the mood drastically. There is a greenish hue and it is generally darker. At night the moon is shown much lower in the sky to give the eerie feel. Also the quaint little towns are now deserted and burning with only a few textures changed and the addition of fire effects. The background music has also changed to be more sinister. A few of the game mechanics have also changed as well as many new weapons. The expansion is also complete with all new story missions as well as all new side quests. I have high hopes for this expansion and I'm looking forward to playing it.

 Check out the preview on YouTube:Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare DLC Trailer

The Adventure Game: A Dying Genre?

A large percentage of the first video games for the PC were adventure games. "An adventure game is defined as a computer-based game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge." (Wikipedia.org) These games spearheaded the computer game movement. This genre includes some of my favorite games growing up. The genius of these games was the story. They did not have remarkable graphics or game mechanics to keep players engaged but what they did have was well written and intelligent stories as well as witty humor. Titles like Kings Quest, Indiana Jones, Maniac Mansion, Gabriel Knight, and many others.  


Two titles that I would like to focus on, being two of my favorites, are Monkey Island by Lucas Arts and Quest for Glory by Sierra Entertainment. These two games series had amazing stories as well as new and innovative game techniques. There is too much for one entry, however, I'll give you the first one this week, and the latter I'll save for another week.


The Secret of Monkey Island is an excellent example of the adventure genre. In the game you play as a young pirate named Guybrush Threepwood, who is called upon to save his love, Elaine Marley, the damsel in distress. This story really follows Joseph Campbell's hero's journey but it's done in a whimsical way. The protagonist, is an average person who is called to action. He must then go through a series of challenges to become a true pirate before assembling a crew for a journey to Monkey Island to save the girl. Through each challenge he has to master a skill and on completing it receives  a t-shirt. It plays a joke by following this method to a tee. There are three tests and these can be seen as the "road of trials' in the hero's journey. This comes as no surprise that the story follows this formula as it was made by Lucas Arts and George Lucas is known for sticking strictly to this formula as seen in Star Wars. Star Wars is considered as a prime example of the monomyth. Naturally he would carry that over to his game development.  The story isn't only well structured it is also very funny. Even the game play is geared around humor.  One aspect of the game is sword fighting but instead of controlling the character as he attacks, you only control how well you insult the opponent.

Insult Sword-fighting

A rubber chicken?

One thing that a game like this can teach us is that we can create a game with a well written story but it doesn't have to be a depressing drama. Most games today go for a heart wrenching plot to show that it is well written (GTA 4/Red Dead Redemption), but a well written comedy can still have meaningful story. In summary this is a well written, well designed game. We need to see more games like this today to bring the adventure genre back to its former glory.

Dead Rising 2: One Zombie Short of a Horde

So far on this blog I've talked about games I have enjoyed playing, but this week I'm here to talk about a game I didn't like, Dead Rising 2. The game is a sequel to a game about killing zombies in a mall. In the new game, you are stuck in a town, similar to Las Vegas, called Fortune City. You have to fight your way through the casino and mall. At first I had high hopes for the game because whats better than killing zombies in a Vegas, but the game falls short in many ways.

Dead Rising 2

First: Graphics. When you see the first few zombies they look pretty decent but after that you realize that they are all the same, there are about four or five different zombies in hordes of hundreds. This just shows that the developers didn't take the time to render various zombies or create a code that randomizes them, especially since it is a game about zombies.

Second: Audio. The voice acting is bad and the writing is pretty bad too. Another shortcoming is that in the game you have a radio and you often get calls from various people but the calls only come across as text and are not ever voice acted. Again this shows sloppy design.

Third: The World. The map is relatively small compared to open world games today but it has loading screens between every area. These take up so much time and break from the emersion into the game. Also wait times between areas ended with the last generation of game machines.

My main problem with the game is that it had the potential to be a great game but never measured up. It seems like the developers cut corners on creating the game. If the game had been made by a company like Rockstar which created the GTA series it may have been much better because they have consistently put out successful open world games, but Capcom the developers of Dead Rising 2, are new to the sand box format. They are best at fighting games like Street Fighter and maybe they should stick to them.