Tenzhi the Ti Hsien's Unwanted Opinions

It's been a while since I posted, mainly because I hadn't encountered anything new and review-worthy in the interim. But now I have something: CAPCOM's Lost Planet 2 for the XBOX 360.

I didn't play the first Lost Planet beyond my experience with its demo, having found it to be a rather mundane FPS with an annoying Thermal Energy mechanic that led to my character's demise and frustration. I was planning on skipping the sequel until a friend insisted I check out the demo. The demo was of a game that had no severely frustrating Thermal Energy mechanic, but rather a wild co-op giant monster fight that was just plain fun despite somewhat clunky controls.

The full game has a few more giant monster fights, though the majority of it involves battling humans and smaller monsters. It's a lot of fun to play co-op, but it isn't without its problems. The first, and simplest is the inability to properly take advantage of cover. The ability to use cover has become more and more common in shooters, and I've really missed it in this game. Indeed, I miss it more every single time I get killed in one shot by an AI sniper.

The second is the general clunkiness of controls. You crouch by clicking in the left joystick, and unlike many FPS that have such a feature you cannot set it to be toggled on/off. Dodging is accomplished by crouching, pushing a direction, and hitting the jump button. There is a sprint button, but you cannot jump while sprinting and even a small drop-off will stop you dead as you go into a clumsy landing animation. There is a grappling hook button, but you cannot use the hook while jumping. It's all just a bit awkward.

The third issue lies in the unlocking system. Items are largely unlocked via a slot machine. You use credits you've earned to take a spin, and it cycles through weapons, abilities, nicknames, emotes, and possibly costume parts (I'm guessing on the last one judging by the picture, but I've never landed on it). This wouldn't be too bad, except there are far too many nicknames and emotes to unlock and thus they come up far too often, making it seem like a waste of credits and time.

The fourth problem is trains. Trust me.

Despite all that, however, co-op campaigning is a lot of fun. I recommend at least renting it if you can get 2 or 3 friends to play it with.

Final Score: 7.5 out of 10

I wasn't sure what to think going into this movie. I liked some of the environments I'd seen in previews and trailers, but the Mad Hatter and Red Queen/Queen of Hearts designs weren't very promising to me. I suppose that with all the actors I knew were in it, I'd have to say my expectations were on the hopeful side of low.

As it turns out, my expectations need not have been so low. The movie turned out to be a wonderful spectacle that told its own story - a sequel of sorts - while paying respectful homage to the original. The worst character in the movie was the Knave of Hearts, I'd say, which is a shame because I've enjoyed Crispin Glover everywhere else I've seen him. And it's not that he was bad, but rather he just didn't stand out for once.

If you see this movie in theatres, I recommend seeing it in 3D if at all possible. I often find it adds to immersion, and in the case of this film they used 3D to differentiate Wonderland from the real world much like colour was used to differentiate Oz. For older folks who are only familiar with 3D effects from the days of yore using glasses with Red/Blue or Dark/Light lenses, newer 3D effects are a great deal better. For me the aforementioned older methods often either didn't work or at best produced an effect much like having a cardboard cutout held up in front of a background, but the newer methods actually create the illusion of depth perception.

Final score: 9 out of 10

Let me preface this by saying I've never played any games in the God of War series. I've seen some of the games being played, but I never cared too much for the main character or what I'd seen of the story and thus never played them myself. I say this because I've seen a lot of people comparing Dante's Inferno to God of War, but it's impossible for me to have that perspective.

Dante's Inferno is predictably based upon the first (and arguably best known) chapter of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy wherein the main character, Dante, is guided through the nine circles of Hell by the poet, Virgil.

In the game, the character returns from the Crusades a changed man. Once a faithful, honest, relatively good person, his soul has now been darkened by murder and other dark deeds. He expects to find solace in the arms of a love he left behind for the war, but instead reaps the rewards his own dark deeds have sown, finding her slain and her soul within the grasp of Lucifer. Following her into Hell with the intent to save her, he soon meets up with Virgil and his journey begins in earnest.

And I found it to be a most interesting journey. The stylised takes on key figures of Hell were very well done, as were the levels. The controls were fairly intuitive, though the character was at times too responsive to the environment, having an insatiable need to walk off of edges in order to drop down and grab them. The combat was rather straightforward, without any particularly complex combos to perform, but it served its purpose well enough. All-in-all the gameplay wasn't very compelling, but it wasn't bad, either.

But the gameplay isn't the draw here. The design of the game, the story, and the characters are what drew me in. Every circle of hell is well represented. The various damned souls you encounter which you can absolve or punish at your whim have their own minor tidbits of story to pass on. The levels themselves are helping to tell the main story, too, not only as you face each of Dante's sins, but also as you break large chain obstacles along your path the importance of which doesn't become clear until the end. And the story of Dante (and Beatrice) is well told and appropriately left "to be continued" as you escape Hell and enter Purgatory. I find myself wondering if they will draw this out into a trilogy or else combine Purgatory and Paradise into one game.

Were the gameplay awesome, I would give this game a perfect 10. As it is the final score is 9 out of 10, good for one play through.

I have yet to play a Bioware game that I wholly disliked. The first Mass Effect provided a decent sci-fi setting populated by some interesting alien species, thrust you into the role of a blank-slate human in the midst of these interesting species, and sent you off on a journey to have sex with as many of these aliens as you could. Well, maybe that last bit is an exaggeration, but the point is that the game had a lot going for it. Alas that the gameplay was awkwardly wedged somewhere between FPS and RPG in a manner that ultimately robbed me of the desire to finish playing it. And don't get me started on driving the Mako.

So along comes Mass Effect 2, preceded by a few months of hype that I disinterestedly ignored due to my experience with the first game. Indeed, I was planning on ignoring the game altogether, but my experiences with the Star Trek Online beta led me to cancel my preorder for that game which left me with a whole lot of store credit that needed to be channeled elsewhere immediately to stave off boredom. And thus Mass Effect 2 was acquired on a whim with low expectations.

Right off the bat the game lets me know that what I liked about the first game is still hanging about. Then, after some pretty cinematic moments that only become irritatingly lengthy on subsequent playthroughs, it starts easing me into the fact that the gameplay is much improved, having evolved into a much less awkward FPS experience.

(Alright, I have to stop right there because I know someone is going to read this and take issue with my use of "FPS" or "First Person Shooter" in reference to a game where the camera is actually behind the character. So I will make note of a few things here: 1. Genre labels are broadly descriptive rather than strictly literal. 2. This particular label was applied solely to differentiate a newly emerging style of games where you pilot a person and shoot things from games of a much different sort that already had laid claim to the much simpler label of "shooter." 3. A chase camera is arguably more accurate in a "first person" sense, anyway, as a cockpit-type view generally robs you of the peripheral awareness you should have in true "first person." Carry on.)

Once you've been fairly initiated in the new ways of combat, you're tossed into a solar system map which allows you to try out the new methods of exploration and resource gathering, albeit without any sort of tutorial. Here we have more improvements, for though the scanning of planets is somewhat tedious it is miles beyond the irksome task of driving the Mako around.

After that the game falls into what has become the Bioware routine - engaging in interesting bits of dialogue and action that often involves a "moral" choice in an effort to recruit members to your cause with the ultimate goal of taking down some big badguy. It's almost cliche by now, but it works well nonetheless.

But don't get the idea that the sequel is perfect. Going from infinite ammo with upgradeable cooldown times to "thermal clips" is an irritating and senseless change. Especially since your team members all seem to have infinite ammo. The simplification of equipment takes a bit too much of the RPG feel out of the game. And either items in the game are too expensive or there's a decided lack of Credits.

Still, it's definitely worth a playthrough or two and I look forward to the third game in the series.

Final score: 8 out of 10