Ghostbusters: The Video Game for PS3

I hadn’t originally made specific plans to pick up the Ghostbusters game that was coming out alongside the 25th anniversary release of the original movie on Blu Ray, but after the sneak preview I got at A-Kon 20, I decided i had to get it.  I’m infinitely glad I did.

I always make a first play-through of a new game on Normal difficulty and even with that, the game wasn’t too terribly hard, though some levels did have some frustrating ghost battles.  But now that I’ve beaten it, will I play again on Hard?  No, thanks. I’m expecting to play through it again on easy, which is described in the game as “For those who just want to experience the story.”  Well, let me tell you, the story is worth it.

Dan Akroyd himself, in an interview you can watch on the game’s disc, says he really thinks of the game as the third movie (despite the fact that a third movie is supposedly in the works with filming possibly starting in late 2009).  Everything is in place in the game that you would expect.  The locales are accurate, the character design is great, and the game control is pretty good.  The game’s presentation itself is very cinematic with nothing on screen except for your character, the other Ghostbusters, and the environment you’re in.  Your health is displayed on the proton pack’s side as well as how hot your pack is so you can vent it to prevent overheating (don’t overheat an unlicensed proton accelerator on your back, okay?).  What really impressed me is the redesign of the proton pack; Dr. Egon Spengler has really outdone himself.  You have different blaster capabilities as you get through the game: The basic proton blaster from the movies that damages and can then lasso a ghost to pull into a trap, a slowing beam that can also fire a cluster bomb type of attack, the slime throwing device from the second movie that fires slime or can fire a solid slime tether you can attach to two points originally pulled from the second movie, and a final more powerful blaster that fires powerful single shots or semi-tracking machine gun style shots.  The interesting thing about all these is that each one is built into the proton pack’s design as the game progresses.  When you get the slime throwing addition, you’ll notice a green tube runs from the pack along the chord to the proton blaster.  Changing to it, a green tube raises from the proton pack and the lights turn green to identify which you’re using.  Each is diplayed with something happening with the pack and it looks perfect, just like it were designed from the movies.

And speaking of the movies, just about everyone is back.  Bill Murray as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz voiced by Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis as Egon Spengler, and Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore.  Even Annie Potts is back in her role as Janine, their secretary, and William Atherton as Walter Peck.  And they aren’t all that returns from the previous movies.  Ecto 1 is back, of course, the classic fire house Ghostbusters HQ, Slimer, The Librarian from the first movie appears, Vigo’s painting is in HQ, Gozer returns in the form again of Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (and that’s explained too), Tobin’s Spirit Guide, and even Ivo Shandor (the architect of Dana Barret’s apartment in the first movie).  Oh, and the slime from the sewers in Ghostbusters II?  That’s back as well, and its origin is explained.

The thing that kept me playing the game was the fact that I laughed out loud as much as I did when I first saw Ghostbusters.  The writing of Akroyd and Ramis is clearly evident and keeps the game feeling like it belongs among the movies, which places its story 2 years after the second sequel with a new recruit joining the team and training in the field.

The game isn’t too difficult, particularly when you have the three other Ghostbusters with you (one is usually absent, whether it’s Peter having gone to a function or Winston having not gotten back from going out for one reason or another).  If you’re knocked down, another of the team will come revive you and if they’re taken down, you can revive them.  This makes for a lot of opportunities to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, but there are still some fights where it’s just you and Ray or you and Peter and one of you might get taken out on your way to help the other.  Some of the fights are even hairy enough to make it difficult with the entire team getting each other back up, but mostly you can pull through.

The game does feel to retread on other areas just a bit, but not too much.  You do return to the Sedgewick hotel where Slimer was first encountered and the public library where Stantz, Venkman, and Spengler first made contact with an apparition.  Combine that with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and one might feel like you’re just rehashing the original movies, but you really aren’t. You do get to enjoy a completely new story that expands on the first two and gives you a bit more detail on what was going on in the first movie’s underlying details while preparing for the future of the Ghostbusters.

The game is worth buying if you like comedy and definitely if you like the Ghostbusters to begin with.  I’m eager to hear more news about the third film that’s being scripted now by the writers from The Office, likely to be submitted in first draft form to Murray, Ramis, Akroyd, and a director in the coming months.  I know I’m ready for another great comedy to carry the franchise further because I ain’t scared of no ghosts.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Unleashed for PS3

After finishing Ninja Gaiden Sigma, I needed more bloodshed, so I went straight into Activision’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine game that loosely follows the events of the movies and adds a little extra for a nice touch.  Now, I’m a huge Wolverine fan.  I have every issue of the ongoing comic series, I own Hulk 180 (his first appearance, but not his first full issue appearance), and the mini-series.   I don’t buy every comic with ol’ Logan in it, but I admit, I like the character.

I’ve played The Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine on NES, X-Men on Sega Genesis and on Game Gear, I played X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse on SNES, Wolverine: Adamantium Rage game on SNES (also available on Sega Genesis), X-Men Legends I & II, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, X2: Wolverine’s Revenge, and even the X3: X-Men United game.  I think I’m pretty well versed in Wolverine’s gaming appearances at this point, so I like to think I’m warranted to say that X-Men Origins: Wolverine Unleashed is a pretty good game for the character.  It may not be one of the best games created, but it definitely climbs fairly high on the list for movie-based games.

The game flips you between flash back sequences to Logan’s past and the present timeline of the movie.  As such, we see more of Wolverine’s mission in Africa where he and his team, led by Stryker, were on the hunt for a rare metal (the adamantium later bonded to Wolverine’s skeleton).  The game walks a closer balance between the movie and the comic books, giving Wolvie some pretty crazy action sequences in destroying helicoptors or being thrown off of giant towers to survive the fall.  Still, it keeps the movie’s fairly realistic look with Logan in combat fatigues and an undershirt to start off in the jungles of Africa and later replacing that with a tank top and blue jeans or his leather jacket.  The thing that caught me from the opening cinematic was that this game would be holding very true to Wolverine’s classic catch phrase of “I’m the best there is at what I do, and what I do isn’t very nice.”  The opening CG cinematic does show Logan pop those adamantium claws, but that’s the last you see their silver glint.  After a few seconds, they pretty much turn red and stay red for the rest of the intro as he maims and slaughters soldiers out to get him.

I thought the intro was fairly cool, but when the game started, I admit I was shocked by the brutality of Logan’s first attacks as they removed a man’s entire arm, another’s legs, and gutted a third before beheading my final opponent.  Limbs remained on the ground, though sometimes wound up pretty far away from the site of the carnage.  I thought it was a bit shocking at first, but that’s what Wolverine does, especially back when he had less moral ground and did his missions to the best of his deadly ability.  Besides, they attack you first.  The other thing I noticed in this first little fight was that the game was true to form for Wolverine’s fighting style.  Not the slashing and spinning of claws.  No, I started the fight in camo fatigue pants and a white tank top.  I ended the fight with no shirt remaining and noticed that it deteriorates as you take damage, getting torn and shreded until there’s nothing left.  Once your shirt’s gone, you’ll notice bullet holes in Logan’s back or chest or huge gouges across his flesh where he’s slashed open by machetes.  Once the fight’s over and you want to stand there and watch, you can see the wounds close up, watching that healing factor go to work.  And you don’t have to wait until out of a fight for it to kick in. You can run around and avoid enemy fire during the fight to heal up too.  This does get a little extreme at some points with missiles taking out a chunk of your stomach to show the adamantium ribcage later on.  I took enough damage at some points that even comic Wolvie would be down for the count until the healing factor kicked in later.

As you progress through the game, you can pick up figurines of Wolverine for experience towards leveling and to unlock three different costumes: 80s Tan/Brown costume, Classic Yellow/Blue costume, and the X-Force black/gray costume.  Normally, I love unlocking the costumes and changing into the classic look, but with the more realistic environment and feel of the movies, they don’t quite seem to fit the game as well.  However, when I unlocked the X-Force costume, I thought it actually did fit in great.  If I were choosing costumes for a live action movie, I’d highly recommend an X-Force inspired design for Wolverine.

The controls are easy to get used to and combos aren’t hard to pull off.  The only complaint I had with the game was how easy it was, though that does give me motivation to play through the game on a harder difficulty now, which I intend to do.  The modification to the movie’s story is rather enjoyable as well, giving a few added locations and information.  The story would be far too long in movie form, but it works well in the game.  Mystique makes an appearance and plays a part in some of the game, an addition I actually liked to the story.  The only thing I didn’t like about this was that Raven is noted to be pregnant with John Wraith’s baby, him asking her at their last scene in the game what she thought of the name Kurt, implying John Wraith is Nightcrawler’s father in the movie timeline.  This doesn’t really work too well since Scott is in high school as of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Nightcrawler is an adult just a few years later in X2: X-Men United.  The only other comic characters to appear, in a well done fashion, are Dr. Trask and the Sentinels.

The difficulty being too easy being my only complaint largely comes from how easy it is to take out enemies with an insanely long range for a lunge attack.  This could partially be since I just got done with Ninja Gaiden Sigma so this game seems easier than it really is, but I stand by the position that it could be a bit harder.  We’ll see how difficult hard mode is, but if you’re an X-Men fan, I recommend this one as a fun rental.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma for PS3

I remember when I used to play Ninja Gaiden endlessly as a kid.  Either at a friend’s house, helping each other watch out for enemies or at home with a rental grumbling at those blasted raptors and bats that would knock me off my narrow footing, I still loved the painfully difficult game.  Endless continues certainly helped, but starting over at the beginning of a level after being defeated by a boss was not exactly fun either.  Still, those of us who know what it means to be a child of the 8-bit gaming era know that one could not simply give up over something like this.  We pressed on.

Times have changed in gaming. Drastically.  Gone are the days of extra lives and continues as your only salvation for dying.  We can save our games to hard drives now (a feature I think that contributes to weight gain in children in today’s age.  After all, utter frustration often sent us outside to ride our bikes.) and we still often have unlimited continues to press onward.  But one thing that hasn’t changed is Team Ninja’s affection for a true challenge and Ninja Gaiden Sigma doesn’t dissapoint.

I don’t know what the game was like originally on X-Box nor in the Black Edition, but Sigma is a fun game that keeps you pushing for more, or at least I did.  The game starts out easy enough with an introduction to some of your cool ninja moves like chopping enemies up, running up walls to flip off them, running alongside walls to get over gaps in your path, climbing, and combos.  Like so many action/adventure games, Ryu Hayabusa (that’s you, by the way) has to solve a few puzzles here and there by finding an item to open a door or sliding a missing statue piece into place.  Sometimes these puzzles are as simple as “don’t fall down the hole there, go around it and cut open the window with you sword” while other times you’ll traipse all around every inch of the map before acquiring your item to make your way back to an earlier area.  The longer of these tasks never really get boring and there’s plenty of bonuses to be had in your search.

Enemies often pop up and, with a quick push of a button, you can see you have a time limit to kill them.  Beat this time challenge and you’re rewarded with an item, usually one that helps to increase your max life, thus increasing the hits you can take before death.  I have to admit, I never managed to pass these challenges, but then I never really tried either.  I just had fun toying with different attacks, trying different things, etc.  I might try them on another play through, though.  On top of this,  you can collect scarabs and essence orbs that allow you to buy things from a blacksmith at certain points in the game.  Upgrading your weaponry is highly recommended and you’ll usually want to keep a few health potions handy.

Now let’s look at weapons and health potions.  Weapons are awesome.  Crazy awesome.  You have the traditional Ninja Gaiden single katana, the Dragon Sword.  You also have twin katana (true katana, they’re curved) so you can pretend you’re Leonardo as a human, nunchuks (Mikey!), a staff that upgrades to more of a spear, a two handed great sword, chained sickle-flails (the better nunchuk), and more.  Even a wooden sword that, when fully upgraded, becomes a truly powerful paddle…with runes on it.  I call it Woodmourne or the runepaddle.  Different weapons are useful in different situations, but you can probably get though most of the game with whatever is your favorite except a fight or two.  Projectile weapons include a bow & arrow that can be a pain to fire in first person as it’s difficult to dodge incoming shots when aiming (you can jump and get auto-aim shots in heated combat though), shuriken, the windmill shuriken (returning from 8 bit glory), explosive shuriken (these look like the throwing knife weapons anime followers will see in Naruto more than throwing stars), and different types of arrows.  Again, weapons are awesome, and doing various combos with them are more awesome.  Potions, however, can be a bit of a pain.  You seem to always be needing to grab a few “just in case” there’s a nasty surprise ahead, but with skill of not getting your butt kicked (very hard in some points if you aren’t a ninja master), the game is generous enough to keep you modestly supplied with chests or the timely placement of the blacksmith.  I understand health potions are less of a requirement in the sequel as you can regenerate health to a point.

The fighting in the game is fast paced and hard pressing.  Enemy ninja will pelt you with explosive shuriken that stick to you, guaranteeing some damage.  Motorcycle military will fire at you with explosives and machine gun fire.  Soldiers on the street will come at you with guns, swords, and clubs.  Later you get to start facing demons that just devestate your life with a chomp or a claw swipe.  Once  you get the idea of what to do with different enemies, though, you can start to make strides in overcoming different enemy types.  Learning your combos and knowing which to use when greatly helps success and I admit I often had trouble hitting a pop up combo because I’d hit a button twice instead of once at the start and change the combo entirely.

Boss fights can range from interesting and fun to utterly painful.  Particularly driving me crazy was a later boss called Ultimate Alma, which I defeated after a few tries only to die on the next level and get sent back to her level.  Apparently I needed to backtrack across a field to save after beating her.  The enemies that killed me destroyed me faster than most bosses, by the way. They’re that nasty.  A little ‘net research revealed how to kill them in seconds, though, so don’t despair.  What infuriated me more was after killing the boss and going back to her, it took me dozens of attempts to beat her again.  I can’t tell you why. I don’t know what was going on differently, but I just had trouble the second kill.  Some bosses, such as her, seem to have very cheap moves that are near unavoidable (hers was a 5-fireball attack with her charging right behind them. Dodging the fireballs got me ran over by her and attacking her went headfirst into fireballs).

I really only have two big complaints with Ninja Gaiden Sigma and one minor complaint.  The first big complaint is that despite how cool all the ninja moves are with wall running and flipping, this is not a platforming game, but it has points that wants you to platform.  I had numerous jumps that I pressed one direction, but Ryu would hit a different wall and backflip to where I started or down into lava to make me start over.  I’d often jump at an angle to wall-run, but he’d run up the wall and back flip off of it, again to his death.  While these areas are thankfully few and fairly far between, it was enough to frustrate me when I came across them.

My second complaint usually generated itself during certain boss fights.  When you’re in a circular small arena and you are largely dependent on watching the boss to dodge attacks and wait for the right time to counter, the camera angle can be extremely detrimental.  I would often move to avoid an attack and find the camera against the wall, zoomed up on me and the boss was charging by the time I adjusted the camera.  This was another major problem that you can overcome with a little practice, but a pet peeve none the less.

My minor complaint was that the story was what you’d expect if you played the 8-bit games, but still had a good development and wasn’t too insane, confusing, or weird.  The complaint comes in with beating the game.  Don’t expect much of an from the CG artists.  You get a few scenes that are fairly short.

A sidebar complaint I have comes from Sigma only.  Rachel, the fiend-hunter, was a part of the story, but didn’t have playable levels in the original version of the game; it was a special addition for us PS3 owners that had to wait for so long to play this blast from the past.  Now let me be clear, I liked playing as Rachel and I liked her fighting style.  I also like boobies, straight and clear cut, I’m a breast man.  But Rachel is just silly.  She’s scantily clad as one would expect a heroine fighting monsters with claws that could gut her in a single hit, leaving her stomach, cleavage, arms, legs…basically every major body part and organ center completely exposed.  I could deal with this as I’ve grown up with fantasy games where women are eye candy (and if you think about it, they’re logically far superior fighters as they survive in far less than the men do and never seem worried about getting hurt), but her breasts are Jell-O.  There’s no other way to describe them.  They jiggle when she moves, they bounce when she jumps, they flop around like a Jell-O mold when she turns, and they lightly jiggle when she breathes.  They lightly jiggle when she’s standing still.  Now, you’re thinking, ‘C’mon, Fox, they’re boobies, they jiggle‘ right?  Okay, sure, but Team Ninja should consider the awkward look of a hardened leather armor cupping woman’s chest…only to have the entire thing move. I mean, she isn’t jiggling in her armor, her armor moves, bounces, and jiggles with them.  Maybe I’m looking at Rachel in a hardened leather armor when they intended it to be skimpy spandex, but they just move too much. And coming from me, who can be as fan boy as the next guy and appreciates him some fan service, that’s saying something.

Hopefully they tone down the jiggle and crank up even more awesome ninja ass kickery in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 due out this fall.  Still, despite my three complaints and minor sidebar complaint, I recommend Ninja Gaiden Sigma to any PS3 owners who consider themselves hardcore.  And if the game is too easy, beating it unlocks hard mode.  Beating hard mode will unlock Master Ninja Mode.  Alternatively, kill the black samurai in level 2 on a difficulty to unlock the next difficulty right off.

Go forth, ninja.

Movie Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

While I realize I named my blog to be an MMO Discussion, I’ve started to venture into reviewing of video games and movies more in general lately and I decided I’d start here with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  Perhaps at some point I’ll start separate blogs and that way I can keep my MMO speculation, movie reviews, and general game reviews separated, but for the moment, I’m just not that organized.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
June 2009

Before I get fully into the latest Michael Bay adventure with the robots in disguise, I’ll preface the entire review by stating that I wasn’t a huge fan of Bay’s 2007 Transformers to begin with. My problems with the first movie mostly revolve around feelings of too much focus on angsty teen romance and out-of-place jokes, particularly from special agent Simmons, played by John Turturro. Mr. Turturro isn’t to blame for my dislike of his part, though. It’s entirely Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman’s fault, the writers who wrote the screenplay (unless Turturro ad libbed some lines).

Here we are two years later and Mr. Bay is bringing us more than meets the eye again. We’ll start off with a point that will be a complaint for every modern Transformers movie with Bay at the helm: The Transformers are impossible to identify on screen to start with. Only colored characters or specifically named characters will be recognized. Otherwise, the robots bear absolutely no resemblance to their cartoon heritage. This is a bit disappointing for some characters, such as Megatron, who are very important to the series yet blend in so much you can lose track of who you’re seeing in wide shots and action sequences. I think part of this is special affects overload making them excessively complex and complicated where their original designs, even when drawn with intricate detail, were more simplistic. Just ask artist Pat Lee http://www.ntfa.net/store/miscgfx/ScrollPrime.jpg

Revenge of the Fallen improves on the first movie in many ways, but also falls short in some of the same areas as its predecessor. Let’s start with the good. The movie is more action packed and less teen romance. When I go to a theater to see Transformers, I want to see robots turning into cars, fighting each other, and stuff blowing up. You get a lot more of this in this sequel and a lot less uncomfortable awkwardness of a teen boy trying to hook up with a teen girl. The movie starts with a large scale battle between the US Armed forces and their new allies the Autobots against an impressively large Decepticon. I liked the angle of the Autobots, under Optimus’ leadership, having formed a partnership with the humans to fight “the evil forces of the Decepticons” (thanks to Lion for those lyrics).

The plot moves at a steady pace with Sam Whitwicky (Shia LeBouf) going to college and adjusting to the change with meeting his room mates and going to parties. Although it’s not investigated too much, there’s a hint that the writers did want to present the difficulties of the transition as Sam is at a party and thus misses his first Internet web-cam date with his girlfriend, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). I’m pretty sure if I were dating Megan Fox, I’d be promptly on time for every date, but them I’m also sure I never knew girls that looked like Megan Fox in high school nor in college.

As the Decpticons search for information Sam has unwittingly acquired, he gets pulled into the war between the two robots and we learn more about their history and of a past arrival on Earth. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones would have their hands full neuralizing the number of people witnessing events in the first third of this movie as libraries are blown up, giant robots are rolling down bridges, and a house is destroyed (these events by small Transformers, not like Megatron). We get a large battle in a forest between Optimus Prime and Megatron, Starscream, and a few no-name bad-bots, which is probably my favorite action sequence of the entire film. Prime’s “battle mode” includes a gun that bears resemblance to his cartoon design and the recognizable faceplate draws across his mouth to give him the “true” Optmus Prime appearance. I nerd out a little for his battle mode.

New Autobots premiere in this film as Optimus sent out the call for them to join them on Earth to protect the humans, but we unfortunately don’t meet many of them. Included in the cast are Jolt, Ratchet, Sideswipe, and the sisters Arcee, Moonracer, and Chromie. I can identify the sisters as they appear as motorcycles and are a trio. Outside of that, you wouldn’t really notice who’s who from just watching the film.

This is particularly disappointing because there are so many good characters they could have chosen to give screen time to. Instead, we get the bumbling idiots in the twins Skids and Mudflap (voice acted by Tom Kenny (aka voice of Spongebob Squarepants) and Reno Wilson respectively, according to imdb). The two are portrayed about as spot on as a robot could get to the old racist depiction of black figures in Warner Bros. Cartoons or the blacksploitation films of the 70s. Big ears, buck teeth, a gold tooth for Skids, and the street-jargon slang they constantly spout (such as “bitch-ass”) seem to suggest someone in the project decided to just run as far as they could and see when they were stopped. And nobody did. I don’t normally care for being PC, as many others on the Internet have said when discussing these characters, but even I was caught off guard by them. With the triplet motorcycle sisters and so many other Transformers, why, then, was it necessary to create these two? They are nothing like their cartoon or comic counterparts and bring an element to the flim that is completely unnecessary.

Speaking of unnecessary, the sexual references are blatant, in your face, and completely distracting from what could have been a better movie without them. We start early in the film by seeing one of Sam’s parent’s dogs humping the other (I’m led to believe they’re both male and the chihuahua is just humping). The first time we see it is okay, the father yells at them to stop and comments “you’ll see more of that at college too…” suggesting he has, as he should, fatherly worries about his son out on his own. However, for us to see the dog humping away again later during an action sequence? Unnecessary. Again later, we’ll see Wheelie (a character I started to like) humping Megan Fox’s leg. Granted, there’s many who would love to be in that position, but in the film, it was Unnecessary. Devestator, one of the most bad ass Transformers ever designed (and by my memory the first to combine into a large robot by joining others together), is shown as having a pair of wrecking balls dangling between his legs, which Turturro adds to with the phrase “I’m directly beneath the robot’s scrotum.” Seriously, Mr. Bay, you need your head examined. These aren’t funny, they aren’t sex appeal, they have no place in a Transformers movie.

Tuturro’s role is much more subdued in the film than the first (despite the scrotum line) and comes across as a quirky personality that doesn’t quite get to the point of feeling out of place (like it did in the first movie with the line “Your girlfriend’s a criminal…criminals are HOT”). The slightly odd conspiracy theorist-style ex-special agent actually contributes in this film by helping decipher the meaning of strange markings, figuring out where they need to go, and helping with the discovery of some important plot moving points. If Agent Simmons had been like this in the first movie, I think it would have benefited overall.

All in all, the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a fun summer blockbuster action movie like you’d expect. Ignoring Skids and Mudflap (as best you can), and just rolling your eyes at the frequently unneeded sex references, it’s a fun film to sit through. Like most of its kind, don’t think too hard about it and don’t try to pick apart the logical minutia and you should be able to sit back and enjoy it. I saw it at a local theater I love for their $3.25 matinee prices, but I’d pay a regular theater’s matinee as well. And if you go see it and find yourself starting to consider leaving, just remember the final battle sequence is 40 minutes long and has at least half a dozen shots of Megan Fox in her low low cut shirt with a nicely supportive bra running in slow motion. Mr. Bay, that’s all the sex appeal you need.

Autobots, transform and roll out!