As expected, Namco Bandai announced Soul Calibur V at a press event they had in Dubai last night. I liked the last game even though it had its flaws (you read the review for that somewhere here), so I have high hopes for this new one which comes out next year for PS3 and 360. A four year gap between games makes sense along with the storyline taking place seventeen years after Soul Calibur IV, so we'll see a mix of old and new characters. Since its an odd number entry, hopefully there will be no guest characters, but I won't be surprised if Project Soul does it again. I don't expect an arcade release before consoles since Namco didn't do one for SCIV and personally, an arcade version of Tekken Tag 2 is good enough for me. Soul Calibur V is still ways off as more details will be revealed at E3 next month.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Retro Review - Star Fox 64
This is an old review I did for the Wii Virtual Console version of Star Fox 64 four years ago.
In the spring of 1997, Nintendo brought back one of their innovative series from the Super Nintendo to the Nintendo 64 with Star Fox 64. The original that came out on the SNES was innovative for its day requiring the infamous FX chip to run it. There was a sequel some years later, but it never came out in the U.S. Fans of the series had to wait a little longer for the next iteration of Star Fox on the Nintendo 64 and it delivered as if it was what Nintendo wanted to do with the original. The biggest innovation of Star Fox 64 was the introduction of the Rumble Pak, which bundled with the game. The Rumble Pak basically began the whole era of vibration or force feedback that is a standard in this current generation of consoles. Now people that missed out of one of Nintendo's N64 classics or loved this game to death in 1997 can revisit it on the Wii's Virtual Console for 1000 Wii Points, or ten dollars, without the rumble function. Despite losing rumble, Star Fox 64 still remains fun today as a great space shooter that was something else back when it originally came out.
Star Fox 64 had a bigger focus on the story when it is basically a simple purpose of revenge. Fox's father, James McCloud was killed in Venom by the main villain, Andross. Andross wants to take over the Lylat System and started his takeover at Fox's home planet, Corneria. It is up to Fox and his team of animal buddies, which consists of Peppy Hare, who was a teammate of Fox's father and a veteran, Slippy Toad, a toad who is totally annoying which I will bring up again later, and Falco Lombardi, a crazy pilot who wants to go all-out, to defend the whole Lylat System from Andross and take him down. Andross also has a rival group of pilots, Star Wolf, which goes out to hopefully destroy Fox's team at certain levels. The whole storyline does not really matter in the gameplay except when it gets annoyingly addressed through the in-game chatter.
The gameplay of Star Fox 64 was great at the time. The progression of the game was something else besides being just another linear shooter. The game can be beaten two ways, which consists of a good and bad ending. Most of the levels have branching paths and if you complete a certain objective, then you move on to the harder route unless you do not want to go that way and you have the option to take the easier route to a different set of levels. This idea of progression gave the single player campaign more replay value which each run at least two or three hours depending on the path and your skills.
The shooting gameplay still remains special with most of the levels using the Arwing. The Arwing has three types of lasers, which are single, double, and hyper. It has the ability to fire a lock-on shot to any enemy and take it out in one shot. This lock-on attack is one of the primary weapons of the game especially taking out multiple enemies for combo points. You earn points for taking out enemy ships, combos with multiple sets, and the boss at the end of the level. The Arwing has uses bombs as its powerful weapon, but it is under used most of the time and only needed in certain sections. The on-rails action provides the best moments of the game with sets of enemy ships everywhere trying to take you out, but the difficulty is not that hard at default settings. In certain parts of the game, the Arwing will go on all-range mode and you start an arena type battle sequence. These parts are not as fun as the basic on-rails action, but it provides a good break of the action. Besides the Arwing, Fox can use other vehicles in certain levels like the Blue Marine in Aquas and the Landmaster in two levels. These levels were some of the weaker moments of the game because it is not as satisfying as using the Arwing flying around like crazy. Each teammate had a special skill, but Slippy's ability of showing the bosses' health meter remains as your most important teammate other than Peppy helping you with basics and when you're attacked and Falco going his own way.
There was also a splitscreen multiplayer versus mode for those who like multiplayer stuff. This mode is pretty bare-bones in 1997 and remains that way today with only three stages for battle and bland environments. The weird thing about the multiplayer was a certain controller was set to a certain pilot other than using a character select screen. Fox was usually the first player, Peppy was second, Slippy was third, and Falco was the fourth player. This mode is pretty much boring today because it is simply four ships in a deathmatch or competition of destroying the most enemy ships with not a lot of depth. Sure, it was cool back then having four players duking it out in a dogfight, but in the end, the multiplayer in Star Fox 64 feels tacked on and still is that way today.
Star Fox 64 in 1997 had great graphics because of the variety of single-player backgrounds Fox's team travels around. The planets were fairly diverse cliches with a normal Earth-like planet, a snowy planet, and a sand planet. Then there are the space levels, which also had something different on every one of them like Meteo's asteroid field and Bolse's enemy base. On the Virtual Console, the graphics are cleaned up and it is actually one of the better looking Virtual Console games on the Wii out of the other N64 games on the service. Compared to today's shooters, it is not that great now, but each level had its own special moment.
The music is still awesome in Star Fox 64. The soundtrack provided intensity at certain moments of the game and boss fights music still remains one of the best bits of music in a Nintendo game. For the rest of the sound, the firing of the lasers and the bombs still remains solid. The voice acting on the other hand is flat out horrible it is funny yet still nostalgic. Mostly, your teammates will say they need help from you as if they can't do anything at all other than being there. Specifically, Slippy sounds like a girl other than a guy and that is specifically noticed in the last Star Fox games like Star Fox Assault on the Gamecube. Then again, Slippy's gender remains questionable while you can tell Peppy and Falco by gender. The in-game chatter goes crazy at a constant rate that you feel like shooting them down and shutting them up, but the nostalgia does kick in hearing such memorable lines as "Do a barrel roll!." Despite the horrible yet nostalgic banter, Star Fox 64's music stands out from the good sound.
Star Fox 64 still remains as the best Star Fox game ever before it fell apart with the Zelda ripoff, Star Fox Adventures, and the on-foot segments in Assault. It was basically a better version of the original Star Fox with more stuff thrown at you and the constant annoyance of Fox's teammates. While you will likely buy this game for the awesome single-player campaign and branching paths, the multiplayer feels like a rushed mess of something that is forced in the game hoping to give the game more replay value. For ten dollars, Star Fox 64 is one of the better games available on the Wii's Virtual Console as one of the Nintendo 64's instant classics.
In the spring of 1997, Nintendo brought back one of their innovative series from the Super Nintendo to the Nintendo 64 with Star Fox 64. The original that came out on the SNES was innovative for its day requiring the infamous FX chip to run it. There was a sequel some years later, but it never came out in the U.S. Fans of the series had to wait a little longer for the next iteration of Star Fox on the Nintendo 64 and it delivered as if it was what Nintendo wanted to do with the original. The biggest innovation of Star Fox 64 was the introduction of the Rumble Pak, which bundled with the game. The Rumble Pak basically began the whole era of vibration or force feedback that is a standard in this current generation of consoles. Now people that missed out of one of Nintendo's N64 classics or loved this game to death in 1997 can revisit it on the Wii's Virtual Console for 1000 Wii Points, or ten dollars, without the rumble function. Despite losing rumble, Star Fox 64 still remains fun today as a great space shooter that was something else back when it originally came out.
Star Fox 64 had a bigger focus on the story when it is basically a simple purpose of revenge. Fox's father, James McCloud was killed in Venom by the main villain, Andross. Andross wants to take over the Lylat System and started his takeover at Fox's home planet, Corneria. It is up to Fox and his team of animal buddies, which consists of Peppy Hare, who was a teammate of Fox's father and a veteran, Slippy Toad, a toad who is totally annoying which I will bring up again later, and Falco Lombardi, a crazy pilot who wants to go all-out, to defend the whole Lylat System from Andross and take him down. Andross also has a rival group of pilots, Star Wolf, which goes out to hopefully destroy Fox's team at certain levels. The whole storyline does not really matter in the gameplay except when it gets annoyingly addressed through the in-game chatter.
The gameplay of Star Fox 64 was great at the time. The progression of the game was something else besides being just another linear shooter. The game can be beaten two ways, which consists of a good and bad ending. Most of the levels have branching paths and if you complete a certain objective, then you move on to the harder route unless you do not want to go that way and you have the option to take the easier route to a different set of levels. This idea of progression gave the single player campaign more replay value which each run at least two or three hours depending on the path and your skills.
The shooting gameplay still remains special with most of the levels using the Arwing. The Arwing has three types of lasers, which are single, double, and hyper. It has the ability to fire a lock-on shot to any enemy and take it out in one shot. This lock-on attack is one of the primary weapons of the game especially taking out multiple enemies for combo points. You earn points for taking out enemy ships, combos with multiple sets, and the boss at the end of the level. The Arwing has uses bombs as its powerful weapon, but it is under used most of the time and only needed in certain sections. The on-rails action provides the best moments of the game with sets of enemy ships everywhere trying to take you out, but the difficulty is not that hard at default settings. In certain parts of the game, the Arwing will go on all-range mode and you start an arena type battle sequence. These parts are not as fun as the basic on-rails action, but it provides a good break of the action. Besides the Arwing, Fox can use other vehicles in certain levels like the Blue Marine in Aquas and the Landmaster in two levels. These levels were some of the weaker moments of the game because it is not as satisfying as using the Arwing flying around like crazy. Each teammate had a special skill, but Slippy's ability of showing the bosses' health meter remains as your most important teammate other than Peppy helping you with basics and when you're attacked and Falco going his own way.
There was also a splitscreen multiplayer versus mode for those who like multiplayer stuff. This mode is pretty bare-bones in 1997 and remains that way today with only three stages for battle and bland environments. The weird thing about the multiplayer was a certain controller was set to a certain pilot other than using a character select screen. Fox was usually the first player, Peppy was second, Slippy was third, and Falco was the fourth player. This mode is pretty much boring today because it is simply four ships in a deathmatch or competition of destroying the most enemy ships with not a lot of depth. Sure, it was cool back then having four players duking it out in a dogfight, but in the end, the multiplayer in Star Fox 64 feels tacked on and still is that way today.
Star Fox 64 in 1997 had great graphics because of the variety of single-player backgrounds Fox's team travels around. The planets were fairly diverse cliches with a normal Earth-like planet, a snowy planet, and a sand planet. Then there are the space levels, which also had something different on every one of them like Meteo's asteroid field and Bolse's enemy base. On the Virtual Console, the graphics are cleaned up and it is actually one of the better looking Virtual Console games on the Wii out of the other N64 games on the service. Compared to today's shooters, it is not that great now, but each level had its own special moment.
The music is still awesome in Star Fox 64. The soundtrack provided intensity at certain moments of the game and boss fights music still remains one of the best bits of music in a Nintendo game. For the rest of the sound, the firing of the lasers and the bombs still remains solid. The voice acting on the other hand is flat out horrible it is funny yet still nostalgic. Mostly, your teammates will say they need help from you as if they can't do anything at all other than being there. Specifically, Slippy sounds like a girl other than a guy and that is specifically noticed in the last Star Fox games like Star Fox Assault on the Gamecube. Then again, Slippy's gender remains questionable while you can tell Peppy and Falco by gender. The in-game chatter goes crazy at a constant rate that you feel like shooting them down and shutting them up, but the nostalgia does kick in hearing such memorable lines as "Do a barrel roll!." Despite the horrible yet nostalgic banter, Star Fox 64's music stands out from the good sound.
Star Fox 64 still remains as the best Star Fox game ever before it fell apart with the Zelda ripoff, Star Fox Adventures, and the on-foot segments in Assault. It was basically a better version of the original Star Fox with more stuff thrown at you and the constant annoyance of Fox's teammates. While you will likely buy this game for the awesome single-player campaign and branching paths, the multiplayer feels like a rushed mess of something that is forced in the game hoping to give the game more replay value. For ten dollars, Star Fox 64 is one of the better games available on the Wii's Virtual Console as one of the Nintendo 64's instant classics.
Then = 7.8/10
Now = 8.5/10
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Music Video of the Day for 5/5/11
Lady Gaga - "Judas"
Feliz Cinco de Mayo!!!
UPDATE - Ohhh!!!! There's that new Nicki Minaj video too for "Super Bass" in which all I have to say about that is I want "rappy Nicki" back not more "poppy Nicki."
So basically... Judas > Super Bass.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Looking Forward to Star Fox 64 3DS more than OOT 3DS
So a "new trailer" came up for the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D & while the new clip kind of sucks (Hey, let's mix in random scenes throughout the game into a trailer... that's cool right?), if I had a 3DS, I would not get it. It is starting to feel like an underwhelming port. Sure, the graphics look better and the touch controls could be the key difference, but as I said in my OOT retrospective (if I can remember), I'm happy only playing it once and once only even though it is still one of my favorite games of all-time. I'm still glad this 3DS version exists and it will be successful no matter what, but I'm actually more excited for Star Fox 64 3DS than this.
At the end of this clip, you'll see a quick glimpse of Star Fox 64 3DS and compared to the graphical effort OOT 3D is getting, Star Fox 64 is getting a major graphical facelift and a needed one too to the point it looks like a completely new game (just look at Solar and Area 6!). Okay, Star Fox 64 is the older game of the two and I have been in the nostalgic mood playing it again (if saw my horrible playthrough on my stream a week ago), but this is the first re-release of the game (not counting Virtual Console) compared to the numerous ways you can get OOT across Nintendo platforms over the years. This is also the first sign Nintendo cares about this franchise again that if it does well and it will, perhaps a new one for the new console that is planned for a 2012 launch could happen. Who knows who would work on it considering Nintendo has dumped the franchise to other developers (Star Fox Assault on the GameCube for example), but damn we're due for a new console Star Fox game.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Why I'm Not Liking ABDC Season 6 So Far...
You may remember a while back I did episode recaps of ABDC on this blog, but I don't do them anymore. I have been watching the current season and so far I'm not liking it. I'll just get to the points right away.
- If Its a Season of the Superstars, why did you already did all the big names in previous seasons. I understand its the current crop of artists in the game, but the show pretty much did everyone that changed the dance game. Let's see if I remember all the artist-specific challenges throughout the show's lifetime.
Season 1 - Michael Jackson
Season 2 - Janet Jackson, Missy Elliott
Season 3 - Britney Spears
Season 4 - Beyonce
Season 5 - Lady Gaga, Usher
So far, the artists that only made sense this season were Black Eyed Peas (the crowd interaction was kind of sick on that episode compared to most episodes) & likely Rihanna this week. Weezy & Ke$ha only episodes??? Really??? I know they have songs crews can dance to, but what have they done to the dance game? Sure, the same thing can be said for the other artists that have been used for the season, but if you're doing a "Season of the Superstars," at least do artists that actually matter in both music and dance. I wished MTV went back to the original format by doing random challenges again, but surely after five seasons they had to change things up again and sometimes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Oh, a Nicki Minaj week up soon??? WTH!!!! Actually, a Chris Brown week really makes sense now as I'm actually surprised they haven't done him yet especially early on in the competition
- Voting system still feels inconsistent - still very popular contest-y
Throughout the course of the show, we seen crews getting peaced out earlier than they should because of the votes and crews staying when they deserve to get eliminated. Yeah, tapings are done in LA and hip-hop dance is pretty much a West Coast dominated thing, but please can we get someone from the other coast to win this thing for once. Honestly, this season has the biggest chance of that happening with Phunk Phenomenon being the crew to beat right now, but I have a sneaky feeling one of the remaining West Coast crews will take it. Let's be real people... Instant Noodles are not that good (especially compared to b-boy crews that were on the show and actually won the thing), but of course they're from SoCal and they're going to repped a lot in the votes no matter whether they do well or not. At the end of the day, the most versatile crew will win the whole thing (look at past crews that won it) so don't expect a "specific-style" crew like Street Kingdom to win it according to my observations of how the show goes which is why Phunk is my pick to win this season with I Am Me going 2nd.
- Gimmicks!!!!!!
Another reason this show sometimes suffers is the concept of "gimmick" crews. I do give this season credit of getting rid of the gimmicks right away with that pole dancing crew, but shout outs to my man D-Trix (the new judge of this season) for putting these crews on blast when he has to. Even last week, I didn't mind him putting Iconic Boyz on blast with his comments because the "kids only crew gimmick" is starting to kick in. Even though I was on the bandwagon after their first performance, they fell off the radar to me. I don't see them winning the competition, but damn they're still doing a good job as I hope they shatter my "gimmick" view away. The same thing can be said for Street Kingdom to a certain extent, but krumping is a specific dance style and as voting went by, the viewers still don't understand krumping completely along with their BEP performance was not that good.
That's pretty much it regarding my dislikes for ABDC Season 6... I'm still gonna watch the rest of the season to see how things pan out, but good thing they took a year off as they should stick to that after this season is done. With all the big name crews we known for years making that big step and established themselves thanks to the show like Jabbawockeez having their own Vegas show, its pretty refreshing to see crews the dance world hasn't really been exposed to have their chance of stardom, which is one redeeming factor this season is interesting.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
New Need for Speed Game Announcement Leaked...
Who knows how this got leaked out from EA's pockets, but here's the new Need for Speed game in teaser trailer form. Called The Run, it looks like they're going back to a story driven approach mixed with what worked with last year's awesome return of Hot Pursuit. I don't know if Criterion is back on board for this one as hopefully they're working on that rumored Burnout game, but I won't be surprised if they're doing another one right away especially how critically successful Hot Pursuit was. Then again, it could be Black Box's return to the franchise since the last game they did, which was the disappointing Undercover game. So yeah, another Need for Speed game as expected for a November release, but with momentum on their side from last year's game, the franchise's reputation seems fine for now again.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
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