There was a good reason why I avoided the original Army of Two, and this was because of the terrible single-player AI. The game was only fun with another person, but even then, it was flawed. The 40th Day tries to improve this, but it fails. You would normally expect the console experience on the PSP, but all we get is a top-down, clear-the-room-type game.
The story is even retarded in the sense that it doesn’t make any sense. You are in China on a mission, and something goes wrong, and you have to escape. Why not just call for air support? I don’t know; the game never explains. At first, the game is pretty fun with its fast-paced gameplay. You can switch between a primary and secondary weapon (assault rifle and shotgun), which you have to use in different situations. You have a melee attack, and you can command Rios to hold or go into Aggro mode. This is supposed to make him more aggressive, but all it does is piss you off. You can duck behind cover (but you can still get shot most of the time) and upgrade your weapons, as well as buy new ones. If Rios ever goes down, you can revive him, but if you die before you get to him, it’s game over, and vice versa.
So what makes the game not fun? Too much, in fact. First off, the AI is absolutely dumb. Once the screen moves to a new area, you can’t go back, but sometimes Rios will still be back there, and he’s stuck for good. If you die and need him to revive you, you’re screwed. A lot of the time, Rios will just charge out at enemies and get his health depleted quickly. This is especially annoying during boss fights. There are also a few glitches where you will get stuck in objects, which can be very frustrating. Upgrading weapons takes forever since you can’t accumulate cash fast enough. By the time I got 2/3 through the game (and I stopped there, by the way, because the game just became unbearable), I had only bought two guns and upgraded my first two. The only other things you can do are press buttons and hack turrets to use against the enemy. The game just isn’t exciting anymore after the first level.
Does the game at least look good? Kind of is your answer. Some of the environments look OK, but everything just looks too cartoony. The game sounds OK, and it has good voice acting, but it can’t save this piece of garbage. Does co-op save it? More so, yes. If you have a buddy, the game can be quite enjoyable, but the redundant gameplay makes it a borefest very quickly. The awesome bro-li-ness of the console games doesn’t come across here, and this makes the game a flop.
Back in the old 64-bit era, famous actors were just starting to feature in video games, but many blew it off as child’s play. Bruce Willis is one of the first actors to have a game built with him as the main protagonist that is not based on a movie. The game features a very detailed Bruce for the time, with some solid pre-rendered FMVs thrown in the mix as well. The game features a noncoherent story that makes no sense, but when Bruce is involved, it’s all about the action, right?
The game has an over-the-top view, and you shoot all around you using the face buttons. You can jump, but as the camera goes, jumping can be a bitch and is probably the hardest part of the game. Not being able to move the camera in his environment is very frustrating and almost ruins the game. You can pick up different limited weapons such as homing missiles, plasma guns, electro bolts, etc.—nothing special. Each level, however, is very well laid out, and the enemies have nice designs. The game is hectic, fast-paced, and pretty immersive.
At the end of every level is a boss fight, and these can be easy or hard, and they vary throughout the game. A problem I ran into is that instead of using the second analog stick, using the face buttons makes shooting diagonally hard, which leads me to mention that the difficulty is very unbalanced. Some levels are easy, some are hard throughout the game, and that’s a bad thing.
Bruce Willis lends his voice, and there are maybe 20 or so lines. Yeah, that’s it. Cliche stuff such as “Ohhh, you want some too?!” “Kill ’em all, it’s time to jam!” and various groans and grunts. In my mind, that isn’t using Bruce Willis to his fullest potential. This game could have been cooler and more than just a name tie-in. I also feel a co-op mode would have been good here as well.
All in all, Apocalypse is a fun weekend shooter, but nothing more. Bruce Willis’ talent was wasted, but if you can get over the annoying camera, controls, and lack of an interesting story, then Apocalypse is just for you.
The dynamic duo that debuted on the PS2 nine years ago is now back in next-generation action with new weapons, updated graphics, and the same awesome stories and dialog you would expect from the series. The future sees the duo fighting an ancient race known as the Cragmites that Ratchet’s lombax ancestors supposedly destroyed. Ratchet learns more about his ancestor’s dark past and must stop the evil Emperor Tachyon before he annihilates the last of the lombax race: Ratchet.
The game hasn’t changed in the past nine years, and this is both good and bad. The tried-and-true action platforming formula that revolutionized the platforming genre is still intact here, but with no upgrades. Ratchet can jump around, hover, glide, fly, roll, and shoot his way through hordes of enemies. The game is also a third-person shooter that allows strafing from side to side and a first-person mode. You have to go around the world finding certain gadgets and weapons to kill bigger, badder enemies and unlock areas. Gadgets range from the classic Slingshot and Gravity/Grind Boots to the new Geo-Laser (which uses the SixAxis to guide it), the Hover Wings (which also uses the SixAxis), and more. Weapons include the Combuster, Shard Repeater, Tornado Launcher (that uses SixAxis to guide the tornadoes), Death Springs, Predator Missile, and more. There are some defensive weapons, like the awesome Grovatron, which shoots out the disco ball and makes the enemies dance. The Morph gun turns enemies into penguins, while the Gelenator uses a green jello goop that lets you jump to higher areas at certain levels. All the weapons are original, creative, and really fun to use. Some enemies are weaker than other weapons, which makes weapons gained at the beginning useless towards the end, so there are balancing issues.
Weapons can be upgraded automatically after use, or you can do it yourself by collecting raritanium and upgrading at weapon stations. You can also buy new weapons, armor, and gadgets like Leech Bombs. Buying items in the game requires nuts and bolts that are collected from killing enemies or breaking open boxes. There are also some ammo boxes spread throughout the level, so keep an eye out for those. There are also life boxes that you can collect, but these tend to be rare thanks to the game’s high difficulty. Yeah, the game is really hard because not only are the bosses hard, but later on, in the game, a few hits will kill you even if your health is past the 200 range. I found this very frustrating, plus no matter how much you upgrade your weapons, you never feel like they’re powerful enough, which leads to ammo issues. This is a huge downfall in the game, and I hope the new game fixes this problem.
If you really love just killing enemies, you can go into the infamous gladiator stages and earn yourself some serious bolts by beating waves of enemies with certain instructions. These can range from only using your wrench, weapons switching automatically, to even boss fight tag teams. Some people are probably wondering about Clank. Well, he gets his own upgraded and improved levels using the mysterious Zoni as his helper instead of the little robot Clanks. You can levitate across gaps and order them to repair things, and the newest addition is slowing downtime. Clank’s sections haven’t been updated too much, but it’s enough to keep you from getting bored. You can also collect gold bolts and unlock skill points to buy some costumes in the extras menu, but they aren’t that great, so only hardcore fans should indulge.
Another side note that I have to mention is that the game uses the SixAxis really well, from diving from the sky to use the weapons to even shaking your booty in a pirate dancing mini-game—yeah, only in Ratchet & Clank. One of my favorite mini-games is the new “tilt-the-ball” type of hacking game, which has a spark running from circuits, and you have to tilt the controller to guide a metal ball to connect the gaps so the spark can reach its node. The game throws a lot of new stuff at you at a good rate, so this keeps you from getting bored. I just wish that the game wasn’t so hard so it could be more enjoyable. What makes the game even harder is that the checkpoints are far and few in between. You can finish half a level and then have to start over from the beginning.
If you think Future suffers from a lot of problems, it does. The huge difficulty problem, poor balancing, and not-so-next-gen graphics make you really consider this for purchase, but with a super funny story, loveable characters, and great weapons, it makes up for all those shortcomings. The Groovitron alone is worth the play-through.
One idea that has not really been explored in video games is fairies, and why this is beyond me. When I saw Folklore debut at E3 ’05, I was stunned by the beautiful visuals and the charming idea of capturing fairies’ “ID” and using them to attack. After the game’s release, two years later, it received lukewarm reviews, with most people complaining of the difficulty and repetition, and I have to agree.
Gameplay-wise Folklore takes a step in the right direction but then trips with flawed execution. You can capture dozens of fairies and store them for later use. Each realm has different types of fairies, and they are used not only to fight certain enemies but bosses as well. Some fairies are weak against some and immune to others. You can assign fairies to each face button and execute them as attacks. This is a step in the right direction, but the trip-up is due to flawed mechanics. Every time you attack a fairy, the character stops, and then the animation is played out. This can be very frustrating when fighting fast-moving fairies or bosses. Another flawed element is that you don’t know what fairy is good to each other because there is no data letting you know. You have fairies classified under elements, but you don’t know which can fight which unless you equip and unequip each fairy, and this is daunting.
If that sounds bad enough, navigating through the levels is extremely hard, despite the extreme linearity of the game. Most levels are like mazes that give you no direction on which to go, and re-spawning enemies every time you reenter an area is a disaster. Really? Re-spawning enemies? C’mon. You have to fight each area to acquire the IDs to break certain gems or fight bosses. After you have visited an area once, you can just run by them all. Another thing that I hate is that there is no way to use items. You can collect karma items, but I have no idea what they are used for. Health can only be generated by saving spots or when enemies drop them, and this is rare. If you die, you have to start all over again from the last save point.
The other useless and annoying element of the game is the MP bar. It regenerates, but there are no special magic attacks, so using only attacks that drain a bar is absurd. After a few hits, you have to wait for it to regenerate, and this can be very annoying when fighting enemies that have timed downtimes.
If you want to talk about something that really annoys me, There are 8 chapters in the game, and each character has 6, but when you get to chapter 7, you have to play 1-6 with the other character. Playing through an already frustrating game twice to see the ending? It’s almost not worth it. The game does have a great mystery murder-type story that will keep you guessing all the way through, but there are even problems with that. There are lots of text readings and hardly any cut scenes. The scenes are pre-rendered CGI, which is what next-generation technology is supposed to illuminate. You also get weird comic-style panels that you can fast forward and then RPG-type avatar conversation screens.
There are positive notes that make the game worth at least renting, and the biggest one is the great use of the Sixaxis motion sensing. This is probably the most use I’ve seen from any PS3 game so far. When you defeat folklore, you will see a red soul come out of it, and that is the sign to hit R1 and pull the controller up. Some bigger folklore and bosses have you whacking the soul side to side, pulling up at timed moments, and shaking the controller vigorously.
The game’s best feat is probably its looks, with gorgeous landscapes and beautifully designed folklore, but that’s really not enough to keep you playing. Once you get to chapter 7 and realize you have to go through the game again with the other character, it makes you decide whether to tread on or give up. If the game wasn’t so frustrating with all of its weird, quirky gameplay elements, it would be an amazing adventure.
When you think of racing games, most older gamers will think of Gran Turismo: graphics that push the current generation to its limit, ultra-realistic physics, and cars that drive like their real-life counterparts to a T. Just when we thought racing couldn’t get any better than Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2 back in 2005, Gran Turismo 5 rolls along on the PS3.
As the title suggests, this is just a preview, or an over-glorified demo, of the full game coming out this year. While the game was released almost 2 years ago, it still looks amazing today, and the realism is so close to real life you can taste it. Everything you know about Gran Turismo has had a facelift, and this includes the menu. Instead of all those icons on a map, you are treated to your car being displayed in different countries in the background, along with an event calendar and some new icons. The first thing you will notice is the fully-fledged online play with up to 12 players. The second is the GT TV, which lets you purchase episodes of car shows for die-hard car fanatics (I completely skipped this), but it’s there. You have your regular events and single races instead of the standard simulation and arcade modes. You can go to the dealerships, pick up your cars, and jump into the events.
Some problems do pop up right from the start when buying a car since there are frequent loading screens between screens and the car information isn’t displayed right. It scrolls across the bottom, and you can only view the car if you click on it and have it load. There is no full-detail spec sheet, mainly due to the fact that you can’t upgrade your cars. Yeah, guys, sorry. In the “demo” version of Gran Turismo 5, you just buy your cars and race as is. I have no idea if Polyphony is completely stripping away this idea since it is also missing in the PSP Gran Turismo as well.
Once you buy your car (there are about 80 or so cars if you get the free Spec III update), you can go into your garage and sell cars from here as well as view them. Gone is the whole car wash thing, for now, but some sort of virtual tour of the car would have been nice, as would being able to use all the items in the car (cmon, you want ultra-realism, right?). Once you get into the event menu, you can see the requirements for entering, and these are limited to certain types of cars. Once you start racing, you should get third or better to earn credits to buy more cars, rinse, and ad infinitum. While this sounds dull, each car handles it surprisingly differently, and the AI is a really nice challenge. However, the usual time limits are set way too tight and are almost impossible to beat even when driving with the guideline and not crashing.
When you actually start driving, you’ll notice just how tight the controls are. You really like turning a wheel thanks to the great analog stick of the DualShock 3 and the great vibration feature. Every car also sounds the same, and the amazing in-dash cockpit view (for the first time in Gran Turismo) is beautiful, but I just wish you could turn the driver’s head around. There aren’t too many tracks to drive on, but there are a lot of familiar ones all the way back to the first game 12 years ago.
If you want to talk about aesthetics, the game looks stunningly real. You can’t really tell the car apart from something in real life, and the tracks all look amazing, but I know I can look better, and I hope the graphics engine I boosted a little for the final release.
While there are many flaws and things missing, such as the driving tests and upgrades, there are a lot of things not improved, like the super strict time limits, plus sometimes the game is just too real to be fun. Other than that, for about $25, you can really have a good racer that will last you a while, or if you are a die-hard Gran Turismo fan, this will tide you over until the final release.
Metal Gear Solid is one of the most memorable game series ever created, and MGS4 is a great topping on the cake. Not only does MGS4 offer an incredibly riveting story, but also some great multiplayer as well as hidden stuff for long-time MGS fans irking all the way back to the original game.
Starting out with MGS4 is kind of daunting due to the deep storyline that is hard to follow unless you have played the other three games, but you can manage if you are smart enough and stick with the story. The only problem I had with the story was the drawn-out cut scenes that can last over 30 minutes, thanks to Hideo Kojima’s love for cinematic storytelling. Most of the length comes at the end of every chapter, the mission briefing, and then the beginning of the next chapter. Each chapter took over 30 minutes to start, and sometimes the dialog can drag on and become sleep-inducing.
Metal Gear has always been known for its stealth gameplay, and MGS4 is the first Metal Gear game to give you complete control of the camera and even implement a first-person mode. The greatest improvement (for me) was the fact that sneaking through compounds, camps, and warfront lines didn’t feel like a puzzle anymore but like a stealth game. The amount of stuff in your HUD may be overwhelming at first, but you will adjust. You have a health meter, a psyche meter (that I never found any reason to keep track of), an item and weapon menu, a camouflage gauge, and a radar screen. You can also buy weapons and ammo from Drebin’s Shop using Drebin points that are accumulated by picking up weapons on the battlefield. You can also customize weapons now with silencers, grenade launchers, shotguns, flashlights, and more. There are dozens of weapons to buy, and each comes in handy for certain situations.
Using your camouflage is one of my favorite elements because whenever you lie still, your suit copies the texture on the ground and lets you blend in better. Throughout the game, you will acquire more types of camouflage, but the suit is great. You can even change the color of your vest and face. Another element that I love is the change of pace in the game. No longer have you been confined to stealth-only elements since there will be full-out firefights through some levels, vehicle sections, and even a section where you use a mech. That doesn’t sound like metal gear to you? Welcome to the evolution.
The game just feels fluid, smooth, transitions well, and has a perfect playtime of about 15-20 hours. You can also partly interact with the cinematic by zooming in and, at key points, pressing L1 for a first-person view and pressing X for flashbacks of previous games. I do have to say my biggest disappointment was the boss fights, since they aren’t as original as in previous games. Most just have you shooting enemies to death and using a key element to figure out how to actually kill them.
There are a multitude of CQC moves for you to use against enemies or just a good silenced shot to the headworks too. Hiding bodies isn’t such a big deal anymore since you are in a war, and crawling through dead bodies will be like tomorrow’s chores after a while. Using camouflage to blend is probably the key element to sneaking in this game since using shadows and lying are still key.
When it comes to multiplayer, you are in for a treat because Metal Gear Online is a fully integrated online system that is separate from the game. You have several different game types (all the ones you can expect), all while using Drebin points to use guns during matches and using your experience points to level up and buy stuff for your character through the Konami website. There are several expansions available, but Metal Gear just never felt like an online thing for me. It is fun, but trying to find a room with 16 people is kind of rare, especially at lower levels. The online element of Metal Gear is strangely deep for a game that doesn’t get much online traffic since Metal Gear feels strictly like a single-player-only experience, but it’s there for people who want it.
If Metal Gear turned you off before, you should give it another shot because it truly mixes stealth and action beautifully, and even someone who doesn’t care too much for Metal Gear (like me) can love this game. The game looks amazing, and all the characters look life-like and are rendered beautifully. The voice acting is top-notch, and nothing can type out the fight scenes. Patience is a virtue in this game, but you get a great feeling of satisfaction after sneaking through a whole enemy camp unseen. It is easier than previous games, but it still offers a challenge.
If you love the Metal Gear saga, then you should have this already, but even people who have never played a Metal Gear game get engrossed in this wonderfully crafted and touching story while being sucked into the single-player experience.
Killzone 2 is such irony because everyone bashed the first game back in 2004, claiming it was a failed “Halo Killer” and trying to be Sony’s proprietary FPS since Microsoft had Halo and Nintendo had Metroid Prime. Now that 5 years have rolled around, Killzone 2 is considered one of the best FPS games ever made, is winning multiple games of the year awards as we speak, was made the best-looking game of all time (during its release), and looked 100 times better than Halo 3. Not only that, but back in 2005, everyone criticized the game for being pre-rendered because no one thought this kind of stuff could be done on a game console. Even in terms of multiplayer, Killzone 2 really impresses with a strong ranking system, squads, voice chat, clans, and the works.
The weakest part of Killzone 2 may be its story and characters. Instead of playing as Templar like in the first game, you play as Sev and fight alongside a squad of three: Garza, Natko, and Rico (the only ones from the original game). The war against the Helghast isn’t over, so the only option is to storm the Visari Palace and take Visari down once and for all while fighting against a cruel general hell bent on getting the ISA’s nuke codes.
Not only is the game lacking a solid story and characters, it is also very short. You can beat the game in about 6–8 hours, depending on your playstyle, so it will leave you wanting way more. One thing that impressed me a lot was the clever level design. The levels make you really think about your strategy on how to attack enemies, and this includes the weapons as well. Each one is unique and can only be used in certain situations, and there is a smorgasbord of them to boot. You have flamethrowers, rocket launchers, shotguns, and other sorts. Each weapon feels powerful and packs a good punch, especially when your shotgun takes off ahead at point-blank. You can mount turrets and even drive vehicles at a couple of points. Now, when it comes to Sixaxis Control, the game uses it very poorly in only three ways. You can turn valves, set charges, and move the loading screen hologram around. It was not very exciting, and I was expecting some pretty good use out of it with an epic game like Killzone 2.
If you have an HDTV, the game will blow your mind visually and audibly thanks to its impressive next-gen showcase. The graphics are amazing, with super-high-res textures that have never been seen before. This stuff looks like pre-rendered next-gen graphics, but in real-time. While the game doesn’t have much color, that is okay because there is a distinct art style. There is a lot of ambiance on top of all this that makes you feel like you are on a war-torn planet fighting for your race.
If there is one thing I absolutely love about this game, it is the Helghast design. They are such cool characters with creepy, glowing red eyes, raspy voices that are only heard through gas masks, and strange British accents. The gritty art style is great and really fits this type of game, despite everyone complaining about next-gen games not having enough color.
The multiplayer is the meat of the game, with up to 32 players on each map, and everything gets really insane really fast. It takes a while to get the hang of how everything is done and the fast pace. When I first went online, I died about 100 times before I even made my first kill, and no, I don’t suck. After you get the hang of everything, it becomes super addictive and fun. There are plenty of modes, from team deathmatch to search and destroy to even a king of the hill type game. For people who just got a PS3 for Christmas, Killzone 2 is something to really show off to your friends, and with great multiplayer, you can expect lots of hours playing this great next-gen gem.
The action/adventure genre seems to be the only genre right now trying to push games forward in terms of gameplay, graphics, and story. Uncharted is one of these, and while it is two years old now and was developed way before the PS3 was announced, it was ahead of its time and still is. On the surface, Uncharted may look like a male version of Tomb Raider, but you are completely wrong. Not only are the visuals some of the best in the industry, but the voice acting and characters are what’s so believable. The people in Uncharted are everyday people who are trying to do heroic deeds and, in turn, show their imperfections, which makes the game much more believable. Searching around for El Dorado and Sir Francis Drake’s footsteps has never been so fun.
There are two main elements to Uncharted: shooting and platforming. There isn’t much in the way of puzzle-solving (the ones that are there are too easy). The shooting mechanics are great since they give you a great sense of desperation thanks to the wonderful animation of Nathan Drake and the way he interacts with the environment. You can see him breathing heavily in panic, ducking with different animations while running, and actually vocally expressing how he is feeling. Third-person shooter mechanics do not need explaining, but you do get a good variety of weapons that you are allowed to carry, including one pistol and one heavy weapon. Grenades can be thrown by changing the arc of the throw with SixAxis, but as far as this is concerned, SixAxis is used very lightly and not very often. The only flaw in the shooting is the number of enemies you are given, which can be way too many in certain situations, so the difficulty is unbalanced.
In terms of platforming, this is the best part of the game. Jumping around is pretty easy, but you can pretty much jump on anything you want, and part of Nathan’s imperfections show in this since he’ll slip off edges or just barely make jumps. Swinging on vines and walking through a U-boat submarine could never have felt better. A lot of the gameplay is broken up nicely with vehicle sections. These include a jeep and a jet ski from which you are shooting. The Jeep sections are heart-pounding, and the beautiful jungle scenery flying by adds to the cinematic experience. When you aren’t monkeying around, you can look for up to 60 relics to unlock trophies.
One thing that I can’t express enough is how beautiful the game is. With such high-resolution graphics, beautiful HDR lighting, highly detailed textures, and realistic water, Naughty Dog really created their second-best franchise with this masterpiece. There isn’t much to complain about in Uncharted, except maybe its length. With 22 chapters, the game can be beaten in 8–10 hours, depending on your playstyle. The replay value is good since you will want to go back and collect more relics to unlock trophies.
If I had to really nitpick the game, all I can say is that I wish there would have been more SixAxis integration, a more balanced difficulty, more challenging puzzles, and the game could have been a good 5 hours long, but other than this, it is pretty much flawless. If you are getting a PS3 this holiday, start with Uncharted because it will make you love your PS3 that much more.
When a brand new game console launches, we all look toward the games they launch to really show us what the console is capable of. There have been some failed system launches with either very few games or just poor ones. The PS3 was not such a console, especially with Heavenly Sword backing it and wowing gamers across the world. Heavenly Sword puts the characters, Nariko and Kai, in your hands as you battle an evil warlord trying to take over your clan’s land. Right from the start of the game, you get introduced to sweeping epic landscapes, amazing graphics, beautiful sounds, and a great, albeit simple, combat system. For being a launch title, the game has excellent production values, and they really shine for the PS3.
The most important part of Heavenly Sword is the combat system, which never falters. You don’t receive the Heavenly Sword until a bit into the game, but once you do, you are welcomed to three different fighting styles on the fly. Instead of having to stop the game and switch styles, you can use them by just holding down a button. You are always in “speed” mode, which breaks the sword into two swords, while L1 puts you in “range” mode, which is kind of like Kratos’ chain swords in God of War (which Heavenly Sword receives its nickname “Goddess of War”), and lastly, holding down R1 puts you in “power” mode. There are a good amount of combos that let you switch in and out of these styles with amazing animations and a cinematic sweeping camera. Another element of the gameplay is the counter system. The enemy will glow the color of the style you need to be in to counter. Standing still is an automatic block, so hitting the attack button at the right time will perform a killer counterattack.
On top of this, you play as Kai, who has a deadly semi-automatic crossbow that can be controlled with “aftertouch,” which is controlled with the SixAxis motion controls. This was one of the first games to really utilize the SixAxis with bone-crunching and nasty kills from guided bows or anything else you can hurl at the enemy.
Puzzles in the game aren’t really a challenge since there aren’t many of them, but the bosses are. Each boss has multiple health bars, and once you get one knocked down, you initiate a button-pressing sequence by hitting the circle (which sounds just like God of War). Some bosses are just downright hard and seem impossible to beat, but remembering their attacks is the key.
Not only does the game look and sound amazing, but the story is riveting, as is the acting. With full-motion capture sequences, this game has some of the most realistic facial animations I have ever seen. With Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings, Ink Heart) as a director and actor on board, you are treated to amazing work. If the combat isn’t satisfying enough for you, there are epic battles where you fight thousands of soldiers on-screen at once. Shooting a cannon and using aftertouch is just so satisfying, especially towards the end of the game. If you are also curious about collecting items, you can unlock stuff by doing certain tasks or meeting certain goals in each section of the game. With such a beautiful game, you would want to see how it was made.
If I had to see a flaw in Heavenly Sword, it would be that the game is extremely short, clocking in at 4-6 hours, depending on your playstyle. You could literally beat this in one or two long play sessions. The game also has some technical issues, with some slowdown and occasional choppy animation. The combat is also a bit shallow and a tad too button-mashy. Other than that, I can’t wait for the sequel to be announced, but it has been over 3 years with no word, so I feel this great new IP has been abandoned.
The first thing you will notice when you open the white box is how light and compact the console is. Being heavier than the Wii but lighter than the Xbox, it is completely square and just slightly rounded in the middle. The back actually reminded me of the ridging from the fat PS2, so for nostalgia’s sake, it made me smile. The console now has a smooth matte finish instead of the horrible gloss sheen that welcomes fingerprints. Gone is the horrible Spider-Man font, replaced with the original PlayStation font and a simple PS3 engraved right on the front. Gone is the horrible, fully spelled-out name and the huge dome that made it look like a George Foreman grill.
Now that I have seen the older PS3 for so long and then compared it to the new one, I am disappointed in the hardware features. If anyone remembers the reveal of the PS3 at E3 in 2005, they promised 6 USB ports, 3 Ethernet connections so it could be used as a router, two HDMI ports, and the external memory slot, plus PS2/PS1 backward compatibility, yet the final console hardly offered half of this. Now, three years later, the console is stripped of almost all those features. Sporting only two USB slots, one HDMI port, no PS2 emulation, and no external media storage, it makes you really wish you got more bang for your buck. Aesthetically, the console has improved, but in terms of holes to plug stuff into, it is lacking. It does, however, have a regular power cable with surprisingly no brick and consumes less power thanks to its 45-nanometer processor compared to the older model’s 90-nanometer processor. The RSX graphics chip has been upgraded to consume less power and process better with less lag.
Once you get the thing hooked up, the console has impressively placed the power and eject buttons right there below the disc slot (no tray like the Xbox, thank God). The console’s controller is reminiscent of the classic PlayStation controller we have grown to love, but with some additional features: It’s lighter than either of the Xbox or Wii controllers, with six-axis motion sensing, wireless Bluetooth, a mini USB slot, and R2 and L2 now triggering. All of this was added by subtracting weight and keeping the classic feel. Good job, Sony! You know how to do controllers right. It feels great in your hands, but people who like the heavyweight of the Xbox or Wii controllers may naysay.
When you boot the console up, you are greeted with something familiar: an XMB. PSP users will recognize this right away, and I feel this was a smart move by Sony so all of their devices have similar menus without confusing consumers. However, once you get a lot of stuff on your HDD, the XMB becomes cluttered and doesn’t have that nice organized feeling like the Xbox has. I will admit that the PS3 is the least user-friendly console on the market, and this is clear from the dozens upon dozens of settings. There are settings for everything, including hooking up a printer! The PS3 seems more HD-ready than any of the other two consoles, with its Blu-Ray drive and the onslaught of HD settings. You can have the PS3 prioritize what cable you are using for audio and video and dozens of other misc settings for everything, and I love this control. Hooking up to the internet is easy compared to the PS2, since it is the only other console besides the Wii that connects wirelessly without external adapters.
While the PSN store isn’t as streamlined as the Xbox LIVE Marketplace, it reacts to commands faster, and load times between pages are quicker. It is the nicest and flashiest-looking marketplace of the three consoles, so it makes online shoppers feel right at home, like they are on a website. Downloading and purchasing items is another nightmare since you can only make increments of money that are added to your “wallet.” Downloading games is a real hassle since you have to add the item to your cart, check out, download the item, and then install it. Yeah, install it. Seriously? This isn’t a computer, so why do you have to install it? The install time also takes forever, especially for games over 1GB, so switch to a regular TV for a while or get on the computer. Now you can download in the background, but you can’t download while in sleep mode, like on the Xbox, which is a real disappointment and means leaving the console on. You can download while playing games and while in remote play, so this sort of makes up for it, but you can’t download while watching Blu-ray movies. really weird, I know.
Let’s talk about something really important here: backup. Sony is the only company that has even thought of this idea, and Microsoft is the worst with all the registering consoles and profiles connected to saves, content, and whatnot. The Wii’s items can be backed up to an SD card, but the PS3 actually lets you put your stuff on anything! Speaking of the HDD, Sony has added a feature that Microsoft still won’t do, and that is being able to copy anything from your computer to your PS3 HDD. Amazing, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s like a damn angel, which is so sweet.
Let’s talk about remote play. What is this? Well, it allows you to connect to your PS3 wirelessly to your PSP either directly or over the internet. Yeah, this really shows how dedicated Nintendo is to the DS. You can actually go to a Wi-Fi spot in Amsterdam and connect to your PS3 from your house, and this includes the store, web browser, and crap on your computer. The biggest downside and the biggest request is being able to play PS3 games on your PSP and vice versa. Currently, Lair is the only game that does this, but Sony said they would look into implanting it permanently. Another downside would be the fact that you can’t play PSP games on the PS3, but you can download them and transfer them remotely. Yeah, sort of retarded.
Well, what about the games? I purchased my chunk of glory for the exclusives, mainly Heavenly Sword, Killzone 2, Resistance, Ratchet & Clank, Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted, and many more franchises. From just popping in that disc to starting up, the console is silent. You barely hear a whistle and are almost as quiet as the Wii, if not quieter, unlike the Xbox, which has that god-awful tray that slides and clanks, and you can hear the laser clicking, the disc spinning up and down, and the processor fans kicking in. It sounds like you’re in the cockpit of a jet!
I know I talked about the controller, but man, does it feel good in your hands? It’s a tad small, but it feels right. The Sixaxis motion sensing is responsive and is just enough motion sensing to not feel like a complete gimmick cough Wii cough, but enough to add to the gameplay and just enough to draw you in more, while still having a traditional controller in your hand. I think Sony had the best controller layout, and you don’t even need a retarded sensor bar!
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !