February Show

The February episode of the Jon and Carlos Show should finally be up on a server tonight, so you can listen to it on the website, or hopefully on iTunes by Sunday or Monday.

Carlos sat this show out, but Wes does a good job filling in. We talk a lot of Final Fantasy and play tons of great music from all sorts of SquareEnix games.

Make sure you download us when the show is available and give us a high rating!

More Complete Thoughts on Infinite Space

As I stated before, the writing in Infinite Space is top-notch. Its even very humorous at times. There is quite a bit of reading, but it is broken by gameplay enough to make it not only tolerable, but I genuinely look forward to what they characters are doing in between battles.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, it is an RPG (complete with random battles) set in space. You travel from planet to planet, buying new spaceships for your armada, equipping them with more powerful weapons, and hiring new crew members to assign to work in different capacities (according to their strengths) on your various ships.

Infinite Space really is a thinking man's game. The battle system takes a second to learn, but could take years to master. At its heart, the battle system is an active time bar, akin to the 16-bit and PS1 Final Fantasy battle systems. A ship can attack when the bar is 1/3 full, or it can with until 2/3 (at least) full to launch a more powerful attack. However, this attack can be avoided by issuing a command available when the bar is almost empty. Each ship had a different range of attack and can be moved to different rows so that your more durable ships can take the brunt of the blows.

Outfitting the ships and your crews can be the most time consuming aspect of the game. Instead of having traditional RPG stats of Attack and Defense and Speed, the characters have attributes such as Leadership, Piloting and so on. There are dozens of different positions on each ship to fill, and finding each characters forte is essential to your ship operating at optimum levels. You can also upgrade and change the weapons systems of your ships and add medical bays and crew quarters. It's pretty epic for a little DS game.

The character designs are varied and they have a nice subdued anime style. The battle ships have a lot of variety as well. The battle graphic are nothing to write home about, but quite a lot can be going on there, so the technical limitations are understandable.

I'm personally not an advocate of voice acting in any particular game, especially not on a little DS card. The silence is welcome in a game with this much reading and menu navigation. The music is nothing special, but is never distracting either.

Give this one a shot if you're looking for something to really scratch your head over.

The Correct Opinion

If you haven't heard about Nintendo's new handheld system, you can check it out here. It is announce to launch before the end of the fiscal year (March 2011). It would be really surprising to me if it did not launch this holiday season.

The technology of having 3-D visuals without the need of glasses is pretty amazing, but I'm not really sure how this new technology will interact with actual gameplay. I am 100% sure than Nintendo would not launch new hardware unless Miyamoto had an idea or two for how to use it. The puppet master is most assuredly at work here.

While I do not like 3-D effects in films (I think they take you out of the visual experience rather than draw you in), I am open to the idea of 3-D in games, as long as it is integral to gameplay. Gameplay is everything. If it is just to make Mario's fireballs look like they're coming straight for your face, I'm out. But I have faith that Miyamoto have something in mind here.

The correct response to this one is cautious optimism.

A Story of a Cave

If Contra 3, Super Metroid and Super Castlevania had a sexy 3-way love child, and that child was an NES game, they would name it Cave Story. I found myself wondering why Nicalis didn’t just give the PC version of the game a facelift and go for a full 16-bit style. But I was enjoying myself so much, it was hard to care that much.

The 8-bit+ graphics run smoothly. It’s nice to be able to fill screen already full of enemies with bullets and not run into any slowdown. Various enemies with different methods of attacking populate the caverns awaiting annihilation. There are quite a few boss fight, all of which pretty challenging but never overly frustrating.

And what a soundtrack! It rivals some of the best of 8-bit music. The little chirps, especially of text, can be a little overpowering, but once gameplay commences, all is forgiven.

Many weapons are at the player’s disposal. From machine guns to flame throwers to bubble guns, each gun is upgradeable and a blast to blast away enemies. Like most adventure games in the 8 and 16-bit era, health and ammunition is expandable. None of the expansions to health or missiles are too far out of reach. Upgrades to armor and reload speed are also available and easy to find. Many will just be made available to you by progressing in the story. Unlike many adventure games, backtracking is Cave Story is limited, and the game never sends you too far on fetch quests.

The story in Cave Story is told the way stories are meant to be told in games: quickly, without interrupting gameplay for more than a few minutes, and it can be completely ignored without impeding gameplay too much. If you don’t just breeze through the exposition, it does get a little tough to figure out how to proceed.

Gameplay is what it is. Shoot and jump. Controls are responsive. The boy does not control his momentum in the air as well are Mario, but who does? The game at its heart is not a platformer anyhow. The map system could be a little better. As it is, the monochromatic

Cave Story embodies simple perfection: one idea, executed masterfully. Even if you have played this one before on a PC, do yourself a favor and drop the $12 on the WiiWare version.

Quick Thoughts on Infinite Space

I can feel all 100+ of my Pokemon let out a collective cry when I take Heart Gold out of the DS card slot. Its a cry of abandonment and sounds a lot like that DS rumble pack. Remember that thing?

I love when RPG's, especially JRPG's jump right into the action. And Infinite Space most certainly does. The gameplay kicks in right away and the story unfolds through the natural progression of gameplay. That's video game writing at its best.

Its really writing at its best no matter the genre. Exposition is a death sentence for an audience's attention span, wether they be readers, viewers or players. Too many RPG's want to draw a player in with story, but they forget the reason the player picked up the controller was to play a game, not watch someone else perform all the action.

I'd really like to get a chance to absorb this one, but my Pokemon keep calling me back to that familiar territory. I've probably spent more time in Johto than I did in high school if you add up all the accumulated clocked hours from every single run through. God knows I could give a Toad directions in the Mushroom Kingdom at this stage in my life.

I may have to put off diving into Red Steel 2, which comes out in a couple of days. I think I would benefit as a player if I waited to secure a Wii Motion+ before taking on that challenge. I've also been feeling the need to jump back into Fragile Dreams. Keep an eye on the website (which you can find here) for a full review of Infinite Space in a couple of days. But it may be a few weeks before I get to Red Steel.

Not Quite Broken

I think I want to like Fragile more than I actually do like it. But the game has an allure that keeps me coming back hoping that the game will get better as I go.

The allure comes mostly from the atmosphere that permeates every decrepit train station, dilapidated mall, and ramshackle theme park in Tokyo years after the world has ended. You play as Seto, a human survivor who embarks into the ruins to look for other survivors after his lone companion has died. The developers put a ton of time and thought into building a crumbled world to explore.

The world itself is disgusting and beautiful, as it has begun to fall into disrepair. The environments are detailed. The lighting effects from the flashlight are pretty cool. The game opens with a beautifully animated scene of Seto departing on his journey. I didn’t bother with trying the English voice tracks. I’ve lost almost all faith in English voice work (for games) and English translations. The Japanese voice tracks also add much more to the atmosphere.

Seto finds little mementos of people who passed away when the curtains closed, and those mementos hold a little piece of their memories and feelings. Seto can listen to what they had to say when he sits by a little camp fire that are also the save points. The game is somber and lonely which makes the player long as much as Seto to find other survivors.

The primary tool Seto uses is the flashlight. The game elegantly uses the IR sensor on the Wii remote to shine on object, environment and enemies. The flashlight is the most useful tool Seto has because it is almost always dark. Also, enemies can only be revealed by shining light on them. You’d think it’d be inadvisable for Seto to travel at night, but the I guess the game developers didn’t rely on the premise to serve the gameplay on this one. Kudos to them for that.

The gameplay has been one of the major complaints about the game. Many outlets criticize the combat system for being too simplistic. I don’t mind simple combat. In fact, I think the combat works just fine, but the game needs less of it. It’s a little disruptive to the exploration aspects of the game. Different weapons (random stuff he finds lying around) he can use alter the combat a little here and there, bit I think the only adjustments the combat really needs is a lock-on system and fewer enemies to fight.

My primary issue with the game is the lack of puzzle solving. Throughout the game, Seto is mostly moving from point A to point B and must find a key somewhere in between to open the door at point B to proceed. Having some more difficult puzzles to solve would incredibly enhance the atmosphere of the game. Not to mention give it some actual gameplay. For an exploration game, the areas to explore are usually pretty narrow. Also, the environments themselves, while nice to look at, are not good for much else. There is virtually nothing to interact with. Being able to do so would draw the player in even more.

The game has a bit of an identity crisis. I think the developers thought they needed some combat to get people to play the game, but really they just needed to go all-out with an exploration game. Making a post-apocalyptic puzzle game akin to the Myst and Riven games would be fantastic. I don’t mean to say that there is nothing worth experiencing in this game. The game does have tremendous ambiance. Running along the rails of a roller coaster is pretty awesome too.

Gotta Catch 'em All

Pokemon Heart Gold is a magical experience. Nintendo doesn’t normally show much reservation when it comes to re-releasing classic games to keep the revenue flowing, but they they and Game Freak really gave Gold and Silver (originally for the Gameboy Color) quite a work over.

One of the most noticeable improvements is the graphic’s overhaul. The environments are still very recognizable and familiar, but incredibly detailed, bright and colorful. Goldenrod looks particularly breathtaking with its new pseudo 3-D coat of paint. The layouts of many familiar locations have changed, with new surprises waiting to be discovered. The lighthouse looks spectacular. The new Gym designs are very awesome as well.

I’ve never minded the 2-D sprites in the Pokemon games, but the animations have always lacked. I can’t help but wonder how hard it would be to have fully animated 2-D sprites duke it out like in the Fire Emblem series. It would require a lot more animation than Fire Emblem does, so it would most likely require a massive DS card, but it would be really awesome to see Nintendo and Game Freak really pull out all the stops.

There is plenty of new content to keep the veterans of the series (those of us who have played the game dozens and dozens of times over again) interested. A new character lives in your hometown and travels around with a Marril. She gives you little tips on what Pokemon to let follow you in different locations to see their special reactions. Farfetch’d has an affinity for the Ilex Forrest, for example. Little gems like that are welcome additions.

One of the best things about the original versions was the phone. Registering different trainer’s phone numbers allowed them to call you with helpful tips and for rematches. However, the amount of numbers you could register was limited. Thankfully, that has been remedied. I have registered every single person’s phone number that has wanted mine so far, and my phone book shows no signs of reaching capacity. However, no one has called me for a rematch yet. They must have learned not to mess with me the first time around. Also, you no longer need to hold down the B button to use the running shoes (which you acquire very early in the game).

There was a bit of lag to the menu selection and in the battle animations in the Diamond and Pearl versions. The lag is gone now. I do prefer the menu selection in Diamond and Pearl though. The new games do allow you have two items registered and to access them very easily on the touch screen. This is a lot more useful than most of those little apps that occupied the touch screen in Diamond/Pearl. But searching for status cure items and TM’s is a pain. Only six items are displayed on a “page” and you have to scroll through several pages sometimes to find the item you just picked up. A simple list system would have been much better. I think Nintendo really pushed for the touch screen to be the primary control input system in this one.

What really makes Heart Gold so special is its near perfect blend of the best of the old and the best of the new. It is a must-buy for any fan of the Pokemon series, and a perfect game for any newcomers. Gold and Silver were the best entries in the franchise. It took a remake to dethrone them.

Retro Revival 2

Siding with Sega during the 16-bit wars wasn’t a conscious choice. My dad brought us home a Genesis one day out of the blue and my loyalties were decided for me. I was always an NES kid, and when the N64 came around, I was right back on the Nintendo wagon. That is not to say I did not enjoy my Genesis at the time. I loved the Streets of Rage games, Vectorman, Earthworm Jim, Ghengis Kahn II (probably the game I have poured the most time into ever) and, of course, the Sonic series. Spiderman: Separation Anxiety was the first game I ever bought with “my own money”. I am ashamed to say I even had a copy of Shaq Fu.

A collection of the Genesis Sonic games came out a week ago on the DS. I popped that bad boy into my DS ready for a race down memory lane. I thoroughly enjoyed Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Sonic & Knuckles on the Genesis. My younger brother and I had getting the Chaos Emeralds down to a science in Sonic 2. By the end of the first stage, Super Sonic was available to us.

I have to admit, either Sonic has not aged as gracefully as his tubby Italian rival, or this is a sloppy port. The controls lag and Tails (in the games here is present) is always in the way. In a game that I was looking forward to speeding through loops and spirals, there were always enemies and spikes in the way to slow me down. A well-timed jump or down-press on the D-pad can avoid such obstacles, but the aforementioned lag hinders quick-reflex responses. Sonic seems to float through the air with sub-par control over his momentum. Perhaps I have been spoiled by Mario’s ability to change directions mid-air incredibly smoothly. But these are not the games I remembered. Since my Genesis no longer functions, I guess I’ll never really know if Sonic is not what I remember him being or if his translation onto a DS screen is poorly executed.

It’s not as if a Sonic game cannot function on a DS. The Sonic Rush games were very enjoyable.

Even if my Genesis functioned, I’m not sure I would want to know. I like liking Sonic. He deserves better than he gets.

A Tasty Treat

Just as a quick side note, IGN's Matty C has put together a preview of the Wii's lineup through June. Take a look.

Now, to business:

Megaman 9 was a treat, like finding a Choco Taco. An even bigger treat was playing as the original anti-hero: Protoman. Megaman 10 is also a treat, but its more akin to eating three Choco Tacos back to back (to back). It's not a decision you'd regret, but after 3, it's definitely time to stop eating Choco Tacos.

The 8-bit graphics returns for the Blue Bomber's tenth adventure. The NES Megaman games were some of the most visually appealing on the system, and Megaman 10 is no different by comparison. Unlike Megaman 9, I did not experience and slowdown/bullet time. The 8-bit tunes are catchy as always. There's plenty of challenge modes and Protoman makes a triumphant return as a playable character. Co-op would have been spectacular.

I'm generally opposed to re-using assets unless enough time has passed to revisit them. The interface has not changed at all. All menus are text based and the stage select is still a bit Brady Bunch-y. The shop has returned in almost identical form from Megaman 9. Capcom clearly didn't go back to the drawing board. Or perhaps they did, but a used one.

The most common complaint about the game I've encountered is the difficulty. The only comment I can make about that is: grow a sack. The game offers a good challenge but also provides a generous amount of currency to purchase E-Tanks and 1-Ups.

Wii owners get a taste of Megaman 10 first, but it will be available on all systems by the end of the month. It's $10 well spent, but I think it's time for a break from the Blue Bomber. I would not at all mind seeing what X is up to these days.