Resistance 3 (PS3): Solid Shooting

I don't play very many first person shooters. After Wolfenstein 3D and Doom they all started to just feel like copies of each other. They never hold my interest for very long. But there have been a few exceptions to the rule such as Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Resistance: Fall of Man. I had only bought Resistance because it was one of the few launch games the PS3 had out, but never the less it had good enough story telling and a long enough game play to hold my interest and make it seem like a worth while purchase. But I was never a die hard fan of the series, so Resistance 2 and 3 both kind of slipped me by, but with a "buy 2 used get 1 free" coupon about to expire and needing a 3rd game, I took a jump on a game I probably wouldn't have ever gotten without a bit of prodding from some reviews I have heard. Will it hold up to my rigid fps standards?

RESISTANCE 3: (PS3)

Resistance 3 picks up four years after the events of the 2nd game where protagonist Joseph Capelli, takes out previous games protagonist Nathan Hale after he started to succumb the Chimeran infection. An act that was probably welcomed by Hale but frowned upon by the remaining U.S. military. All was not completely lost as Dr. Malikov was able to isolate the gene that gave Hale his resistance to the infection, and from that was able to develop a cure. After becoming vaccinated Capelli is dishonorably discharged and returns to Oklahoma where he tries to return to a life of semi-normalcy where he gets married to a girl named Susan and has a son, Jack. For two years they hide out from the Chimera until they start to note an increase of Chimeran patrol. After fending off  a minor attack Capelli finds a Terraformer, a massive floating laser that lays waste to anything below it, hovering near where they are and is closing quickly. He heads back to help evacuate everyone where he is found by Dr. Malikov who informs him that there is a large tower in New York with a wormhole open above it, causing the entire world to freeze over. After being persuaded by his wife to go, he leaves his family with Maliakov to get to NY and try to close this hole and hopefully find a stop to the Chimera. 

"Go cross the country on foot against the monsters we've hidden from for years
while we hide in this hole, honey." Yeah, I'll get right on that. Bitch.

Now I have heard that this game bears a striking resemblance to the story of Half-Life 2, but as I have mentioned prior, I am not a big first person shooter guy so all I know about the Half-Life mythos I know from what I learned form the Portal series. That being said, They have a bit of a interesting disconnect between game play and cut scene story telling in the course of this game. In between stages where you get a CG animation cut scenes, its pretty thick with drama and Capelli is very well characterized. He shows a pretty broad range of emotions. But when game play actually starts he virtually says nothing despite what happens around him or what others might be saying to him. Its kind of odd actually how he can be greatly characterized and silent protagonist at the exact same time. Its not really a detriment to the game but it something that seemed a bit odd that I noticed. 

The controls are a bit awkward, but not too much. Generally the controls seem kinda standard for first person shooters but this is one of those games where every single button has a function so it can be easy to mistake a button for one thing when it does another. Prime example of this is when I would want to change a weapon, I would always instinctively go for one of the shoulder buttons. But in Resistance 3 each shoulders have a use: Fire, Secondary Fire, Grenade, Aim. I would need to go to triangle button to pull up my weapons menu. The melee is on the R3 trigger which to me is a button that just shouldn't exist. I've never really found a way to press those buttons in way that is fluid and natural. I kept making similar mistakes during the entire course of the game but they were never in a critical point where it because too frustrating to play.

I am wondering if it is just because my LCD TV is getting out of date but the graphics in the animated cut scenes all seem very grainy to me and the further I played the game the more noticeable it seemed to become. The reason I question this is because when I play games like Final Fantasy XIII where some of the scenes can be very CG animation heavy, I don't seem to experience this. Perhaps its just shitty compression, but I only really noticed it in cut scenes and one specific sewer level of the game. Outside of that, the games world war II post apocalypse looks good, and the Chimera are all very cool in their design. There is a specific level were you are trying to navigate a small mountain town at night and several weak Chimera spawn out of pods around town. They appear out of nowhere and if you don't see them approach they can nail you for big damage fast. Its a genuinely scary and exciting to play in.

One of these guys sneaking up on you is a hell of a lot scarier than some armored human.

The game feels more traditional PC generation FPS than many of the ones that you play these days. There is no regenerating health bars or shields as you have to grab med-packs through play, you get about 10 different weapons to use that you have on you at all times instead of just the more commonly used 2 weapon slots that you just grab and drop weapons as you use them, There are no chest high walls or cover mechanics to duck behind them so you actually have to use terrain to dodge and cover from enemy fire. Its a refreshing change of pace that offers this tense moment of excitement when you are down to about a 4th or less of your health, desperately spraying fire around at a swarm of Chimera while scrambling from cover to cover to try to find a med-pack somewhere. There is a particularly difficult point near the end of the game where you have to take an outpost and defend it against wave after wave of enemies. It was difficult yet fun to play all the same time.

But if I had to summarize why I actually enjoyed this game when I traditionally hate FPS titles is functionally for two reasons. First off is the weaponry. As stated before you get 10 different guns to use but in most shooters, despite having different kinds of weapons they all work the same way: point at something, shoot. Resistance 3 boasts a mix of WWII weaponry and sci-fi Chimera weapons each of them with two different methods of fire. The Bullseye can be compared to the gun in the film "Fifth Element" where you can hit a enemy with a tag and then unload your clip, all the bullets homing in on the spot you tagged, which is great for enemies with an exposed weakness. There is the Atomizer which is basically a lightning laser that torches nearby enemies and will occasionally jump to a new target, but if you are getting swarmed you can drop a device that causes a lightning vortex that thrashes and zaps anything that steps into its field. There is the Mutator, which can blobs of plague that causes enemies to explode into a pile of toxic blobs on the map, or you can fire off a can of gas that causes enemies to vomit themselves to death before turning into toxic blobs that can explode and infect other enemies. Or you can use the auger, which allows you to see through walls and fire blasts that go through any hard surface and increases strength as it does to hit enemies through 3 or 4 levels of cover. They are different and throw in interesting new dynamics that make them much more fun to use than just 30 gun options that fire bullets straight in front of you. God when I got the Mutator I couldn't wait to unload the gas bombs on a group of enemies to see them simultaneous spill their insides until they turned, only to see their buddies run in to help and start vomiting themselves. Hilarious.

You're supposed to shoot through cover with that thing, dumbass.

The other thing that I like is the aside from the various forms of regular Chimera there are, and there are a good mix of different types all notable from each other, is that the game remembers that boss fights and mini-bosses are fucking awesome. Circling around cover as a massive Widowmaker is trying to stomp me into paste while I try land the one exposed red spot on its body to dump a full clip of my Bullseye into. Wandering the mines of a mountain village, there is a massive worm-like Chimera bursting through the walls as I'm trying to blast it in the eyes when it gets stuck to stun it long enough to throw a gas tank in its mouth for big damage. This to me will always be more fun than just waves and waves of cannon fodder enemies because this forces you to use all the skills you've learned in specific situations, or at the very least gives some variety. 

There is multiplayer too, but again, I bought this used and I refuse to pay for an online pass. Besides, if you've played one FPS with slayer, CTF, and king of the hill, you've played them all. I don't care. Actually, After writing this and looking back at my receipt I see that I was still provided and online pass for the purchase of a used copy of the game, so maybe I will give the online a try. Good on you Insomniac Games, nice to see someone still taking care of the consumer.  

There is one massive flaw in the game though. Well really, its not even the games fault. But when I took this game home, I popped in in and was met with a PSN update. Ugh.. fine, let that go. Takes almost 20 friggen minutes to upload and install. Fine, Moves on to the next screen: What? Oh for fucks sake! Losing my patience, let that go and came back around 98%. Soon as that finished I got ready to start and... Installing trophies. Ok, fuck you game. I'm going to make a sammich. This is the worst problem with PS3 games. You really need to find a means of installing the game within the first level of the game. Nobody likes having to wait the moment you put a game in. You want to play it when you get home! So start finding a way to put the game in, press start, and while I'm playing the first level of the game on the disc, in the background it is installing the rest of the game so when I finally pass that point it can install the rest. I can't be shooting for the stars at this point, that has to be something that can be done in current gen technology. I might not have all the times down, but if you look at Rooster Teeth's "Rage Quit" you can see that I really am not exaggerating about the length of the install. 

All in all for a guy who doesn't really like or play first person shooters, I found myself really enjoying this game and ripped through it inside a couple of days. It did feel significantly shorter than the first Resistance title but I don't really count that against it since the standard game these days lasts about 5 to 9 hours of play length. Compared to other shooters this game may not break the mold but it was fun enough for someone who doesn't touch these games. Now I felt I needed to get the 2nd one just on premise, so I did. 

Atelier Rorona (PS3): A Rage Quitter Quickie

ATELIER RORONA: (PS3)

Something I forgot to make a point of is the game had a lot of the same music I heard in Atelier Totori. They do this thing where basically the same song plays in a lot of areas, but they'll remix the sound or genre of music as you transition from area to area. its a kind of cool effect that keeps the song from getting stale so fast, but it does start to wear on you after a while. I was kind of shocked when I went back to this one and realized a lot of the Totori soundtrack was just yanked verbatim from this game.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations (PS3): Too much of a good thing

So yeah. I'm really behind one this one. I purchased this game around Xmas time but for whatever reason as much as I enjoy playing this franchise it never seems incredibly high on my to do list. I ended up waiting until a big thicket of March releases before I actually got around to it. So to some folks this review won't be anything new but then again, I'm not out to compete with major game review sites and mags, I'm just talking about things as I play them. So, without further adieu.

ASSASSIN'S CREED: REVELATIONS (PS3/XB360)

Our next installment of Assassin's Creed picks up with future protagonist Desmond Miles waking up realizing he is in the Animus. Finding the consciousnesses of agent 16, the assassin in the animus before him, Desmond learns after retrieving the Apple of Eden his mind basically overloaded and he has slipped into a coma. In a last ditch effort to save him, his team basically boosts the Animus in safe mode in basically a world of free physics. He unfortunately cannot wake up however because the Animus doesn't know where to put him and in order to find his way back, he needs to complete the memories of the ancestors before him before he can go back to reality.

In diving into the Animus portal, he finds himself back in shoes of a much older Ezio Auditore returning to the home of the Assassin's and the home base of the first Assassin's Creed. Upon reaching the library he finds a score of Templar's trying to open it and learns they have one the 5 keys needed to enter. After a bit of spat he then takes off for Constantinople to try to assist the Assassin's guild there and locate the remaining keys in the hopes of learning the true purpose of the Assassin's and hopefully finding a means to end this conflict between the Templars.

"So Desmond, You ever gonna get to be the star of this game?"
"Probably not."

It is really interesting to me how goddamn much they are able to flesh this Assassin's Creed II story out. II ended on a pretty haywire note and it left me with a lot of questions but I definitely left that game much more satisfied than the first one. Then Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood fleshed that game out further, with a bit more focus on the Desmond character. Everything about it gave this feeling that Revelations was going to be the big climatic finish. But what bothers me about this, and its been noted by others before, is that there doesn't seem to be any weight to the stakes. Yes, the Templars and Assassins are still trying to kill each other but really that doesn't even appear to be a major focus of the story. There is a bit of a side plot between the succession of the new sultan of the land, but if Ezio doesn't meet one of the heir's in the first scenes of the game, it could have been cut out completely with nearly zero impact to the overall plot line.  He's in a race to get these keys to Altair's library but he doesn't really have any idea or what he'll find. It just sounds like every serious point or event seems to take place outside the Animus, which you occasionally hear whats going on in between stages, or when you collect one of the keys you get to play a little further in the life of Altair and find out what became of him which never seem to last long enough. Occasionally they try to characterize Desmond in these obscure 1st person "puzzle" sequences, but they are slow, boring, and optional. Its basically all the fun of Portal, without the portal gun, GLA-DOS, Wheatly, puzzles, cake, humor, or entertainment. It falls completely flat. I hate to say this but from a story perspective, there is virtually no reason this game needs to exist other than the wrap up the tales of the previous characters, which should have been done like 2 games ago.

Essentially building bridges is all you do, and even that isn't much fun.

Still Lookin' like a dapper bad ass in his old age. 

Story aside, that isn't to say that game play isn't as good as it always has been. It's still loads of fun to parkour your ass from rooftop to rooftop and with edition of the hookblade and zip lines now everything moves even faster. There is not a lot of new innovation from this title from its previous one. Generally all the weapons are the same, you build up new assassins from the downtrodden of the streets just like you do in the prior games, but in this one you have to accompany them on a specialty mission before they can maximize their potential to be true assassins. You can send them out to renovate the city but it seems even less important to do this time around. Yes it opens up new shops and such and takes away Templar influence but this time around, and I had this issue with Yakuza: Dead Souls, I had that feeling of "god dammit. I've already done this shit, I don't want to do it again." So I found myself just doing things as I happened by them. there were only a few scant missions I used my Assassin's insta-kill on a particularly stubborn guard and many of the actual assassinations felt much easier to do than in the previous titles. They did add a bit of a tower defense mini game but really you are only forced to play it one time in a tutorial kind of thing, and if you keep your notoriety down from the Templars you'll never need to do it again. The only real new kill in your bag of tricks is you can construct grenades now as if your cavalcade of weaponry wasn't enough, but I doubt you will ever find need to use anything but your hidden blade. Its fast, efficient, and kills quickly.  I still think the combat sucks in this series. You are given all these different weapons and means to kill, yet every single weapon you get handles the same way, you are give a handful of different attack options but they are all useless because unless you hit your sneak kill, you are just going wait for an enemy to telegraph their attack and hit counter, then chain to the rest of the enemies. Just like the last 2 fucking games. For the majority of the game you can get by just throwing some coin, walking buy distracted guards, and then hidden blading your kills before they even know whats happening. Its all still pretty fun to play over all but really, its just more of the previous 2 games.

Graphically and musically, there isn't a very significant change from the other games. With the exception of some polish to some of the graphics, an entirely new location to run around it and Ezio Auditore becoming Oldzio Auditore, there pretty much isn't much change in the look of the game. Some of the tunes sound similar in comparison to the previous titles, but for a series of games as long and as epic as these are, you would figure there would be a more notable or interesting soundtrack to the titles. Go ahead, try to hum a part of your favorite Assassin's Creed song. Couldn't think of one? Neither can I. 

I'm sure the multiplayer is still fun, its a pretty original concept and it beats the hell off the slayer or team deathmatch concepts. Pretending to be a computer controlled character long enough to fool a target, that's loads of fun. But I bought he game used and didn't have an online pass and I'll be damned to pay an additional 15 bucks for something I'll play like 2 or 3 times.

Ultimately, I feel that Assassin's Creed is getting away from the concepts that would have made this series incredible in an attempt to try to keep up with other big name action titles. The core concept as I understood it is your are an elite assassin who can enter a room, pickpocket one target, stab another, and be out of the room before anyone even notices. But the longer this series begins to run on, the more it seems like the stealth aspect of the game is optional. And to me that is a serious problem and has to potential to kill off this franchise. Take a look at games like Thief or Hitman: Blood Money, these are titles where you actually get penalized for making your presence known and it makes sneaking up on a kill that much more exciting and shows a greater level of skill to be able to be in and out without alerting a guard. This seemed like something that Assassin's Creed should have naturally adopted but it falls even flatter with each release. The other HUGE fucking complaint that I have is Ubisoft knows they are wringing out 60 bucks a pop for each of these fucking games, and because of it, they refuse to put an ending in sight. They may have delievered on ending the tales of Ezio and Altair, but I am no closer to figureing out what the fuck in going on with Desmond in the real world, where they intend to go, or what the fucking point even is.

And now here I am, waiting for a 5th fucking installment of this fucking game to get even the basic fucking plot points answered. It's become complete infuriating to continue to play this game just to have them piss in my face just before the credits roll. I've never been so disappointed in an ending to game since the first Assassin's Creed game. Maybe that's why I keep putting this series off when they come out. No matter how much fun it is to play, how good of a story is told in it, no matter how great it looks or as memorable as it is, every fucking single one of them leaves me with this feeling of bitter disappointment. I am constantly being baited with the thought, the IDEA that all this is leading up to a massive finale that we might never see. There are talks that Assassin's Creed 3 is going to be completely retooled to have a completely different feel and have new characters and settings, but I already hear the apathy of its fan base getting tired of waiting around.  They better answer a FUCKTON of questions in this new installment because I guarantee that people will get tired of this game before it comes to a close. And then the remaining fans will never get their true ending or some slapdash rushed finish.

If you feel you need one more romp with our age Italian friend then I guess I could recommend Assassin's Creed: Revelations. But you'd probably leave more satisfied if you never finish it.

I wish I hadn't.

Tales of Graces F (PS3): JRPG 101.

I don't really understand the stigma that JRPGs seem to have attained over the years for being bad games. I grew up with JRPGs. Some of the best games in the NES, SNES, and Playstation era were JRPGs. Games like Final Fantasy 6, Dragon Warrior, Lufia I and II, Legend of Legaia, Parasite Eve, Star Ocean, Persona just to name a few of them. Many of these are still being heralded as the pinnacles of video game history. So it baffles me when someone rolls their eyes at a game when they find out its a JRPG. On the Gamecube I discovered a game called Tales of Symphonia and it basically became the only reason I owned the system and made me a fan of the franchise from this point forwards. After several releases over multiple systems, PS3 now gets a re-release of a overseas Wii game with additional content.

TALES OF GRACES:F (PS3)

The game opens up with two young brothers, Asbel and Hubert Lahnt, exploring outside of their town to find a flower field rumored to let flowers of all types bloom year round. Upon finding the field they find a girl with pink pigtails sleeping in the flowers. Asbel awakens her to find out that she doesn't know who she is, where she's from, how she got there or why she's there. The boys decide to take her to the town to see if anyone knows any better, where they receive a tongue lashing from their sickly friend Cheria. After a brief walk around town and not learning much more about the mystery girl, the boys speak with their father and learn that a very important guest from the kingdom will be visiting and not to bother him. Naturally, they ignore their father and find out that this boy is actually the prince of their country, Richard. After showing him around the village and the Lahnt hill flower garden, one of his guards tries to kill the young prince and Asbel befriends him by managing to fight off his would be dispatcher. After being grounded for disobeying his father, he breaks out of his room and takes off with Sophie (the name for the mystery girl) for the capital city to meet his new friend. Meeting up with Cheria and Hubert who were already at the city, they meet up with Richard and make plans to go into the castle through a secret passageway. But when the kids follow the path, they find Richard unconscious. Sophie senses danger and a large monster attacks, basically laying waste to the kids. Sophie emits a bright light and manages to fight the monster off but not before it takes one last fatal shot at her. The last thing Asbel sees is Sophie making one final assault on the beast before it goes black. Asbel reawakens at home, his father telling him that Hubert has been adopted, Richard was not involved in the accident, and that Sophie is dead and it was basically his fault for not being able to take care of her. Infuriated, Asbel swears off that he will not be the next Lord of Lahnt and storms off. Running into Cheria he tells her that he's is leaving to become a knight and become stronger, she begs him not to go but to no avail. He leaves at night and enrolls into the knight Academy before we regain control 7 years later.

With the Tales franchise the stories always seem to start off some what sluggish and unoriginal. But they always have a habit of taking several turns and twists that really have a tendency to keep you playing. Generally the game is filled with some pretty common anime archetypes and cliches. These can be a nothing issue for people like me as I've watched my share of anime, but to some people this can be downright nauseating. It does fall into some pitfalls though. Example, as most anime fans will be able to tell you, the person with the narrowest eyes will be the villain at some point. It is never a twist and it is never shocking, you can usually tell right from the onset. I wouldn't say that it was 100% clear in this one but it certainly wasn't shocking when it happened. Tales games have always have had some pretty complex stories that never seem to come to an end, but that being said it does a fairly good job of keeping your interested and playing along.  I  wouldn't say its the strongest story ever, but it was still pretty good. It has a bit of a sluggish and unoriginal starting point to it but they do a good job of weaving the characters side stories into the main plot to add a bit of complexity and depth to it. They also suckered me into thinking they pulled one of the game fuax-pa of switching the last boss of the game to somebody different. As it turned out I still had a whole other dungeon to do. Damn you Tales.

This seems weird enough as is, but she has a grabby hand gesture that is a little over the top.
That being said, the Sophie and Pascal post fight gestures are pretty damn funny.

One of the Tales series strongest points are the interesting and lovable characters that keep you playing though. Games like Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss have some fantastic ensemble casts that are easy to love. Even some of the less popular titles like Tales of Legendia give a few characters with a good back story to just make you want to keep playing through just to learn more about them. Tales of Graces cast sadly is not one of the strongest. Asbel in his adult life is somewhat of an angsty whiner, Hubert is a dislikeable bed wetter the whole time. Cheria while sweet in the childhood days, becomes a bit of a nagging bitch and never lets up for like the whole adventure. The only characters that I like are Pascal, who's so ridiculously cheerful and over the top in all her reactions its nearly impossible to not laugh when she speaks. The other character I like is Malik, who plays the kind of mentor figure but he has some pretty entertaining lines in his own right.

Ummm, I'd prefer you didn't give anything the "ol' chunk chunk", Pascal...

The most notable change to the combat system is the complete elimination of magic points, in its place you get a CC gauge that as long as you are not attacking, is continually rising. Usually set at a minimum value you can raise it during the course of the fight to go through longer attack and combo chains. This is kind of nice because it allows the flow of the combat to keep up, and even more so in long stretches of dungeons you don't need to worry about your healer running out of magic. Sadly you can't use your healing magic in the menu but they have brought back the cooking system for health and stat boosts during and after combat, you can also make stuff to use in the stores that affect the whole team as well. It will not be very often you find yourself needing for items.

Sound is hit or miss. The there are two complaints about the music: First is that the really good songs and notable tracks really come in until later in the game. The villages and towns music is pretty standard RPG fanfare, but they have don't have that "catch yourself humming it around the house" aspect to it like Radiata Stories has. And the other is for every good track the game has, it has one that is utterly horrible. Chief offender of this is in the Barona Catacombs which thankfully is a short dungeon, but its literally a 3 note loop of three organ notes. Maybe the devs knew you wouldn't be in there too long so they didn't need to write a masterpiece but for fucks sake its bad enough for people to notice its annoying. The voice acting is pretty anime stereotype as well. Many of the voices are well done enough to get you through the game, definitely better than some of the voices in the later Star Ocean games. But there will be some very anime cliche scenes that are bit hard to stomach. The game really does have a bit of an excessive obsession with the whole power of friendship nonsense which can be really rough at times. Granted, you can always skip the cut scenes if they become a bit too much.

Most of the Tales of games try to give an aspect of replayability to them, usually giving you grade during your first play through so you can play it again on a new game plus with additional experience or stat points, faster play speed, increased damage, keeping items and all that such. But Tales of Graces F also contains a "Legends and Legacies" chapter which allows you to pick up the game months after the completion of story, giving a bit a new side story. Most of the area's will be retreads with harder monsters but it does flesh out the ending a bit and gives you a little more to play. Usually I play Tales games only one time, but this one I managed to play both chapters which took almost 80 hours, but now am finding myself midway through a play through with new game plus, tearing through the game at 5x experience and damage making all the fights faster and shorter, so I am flying through the game now trying to complete the mind numbing amount of side quests the game has hidden along the way.

The last thing I want to bang on about again, is the DLC issues. the game offeres from free DLC right out the gate which seems to be a nice gesture, but as you play through the game you can unlock costumes that are different for each character or throwbacks to other Tales games. But then I started to find screen shots that showed various other Tales and novelty costumes that would be fun to use as well. But when I started looking in the playstation store, I started to find that most of the costumes were almost 4 bucks a pop. To make matters worse, all of the free DLC was only 100kb to download, which says to me that's a fucking unlock code and I am not downloading anything. This really bothers me that so many games are starting to gut content from a finished game to charge a few extra bucks for it. I know some companies plan DLC and I know some of them work independently on them from the main game. My big qualm is I think I would rather actually download the costume instead of unlocking it from the disc. It will at least give me some small comfort that the stuff isn't in my possession already and I'm just paying extra to get to use it.

The real shame is I like a lot of these costumes. but if i want just the ones
pictured here, that's like 52 more dollars. Eff, That.

Again, I don't know why so many people seem to have problems with JRPGs these days. I've always found them fun to play and ultimately you play these games for the story. Yeah they may not be as deep as some of the more modern western RPGs but take this review for what it is. It may not hold up against some of the classics in the franchise like Symphonia or Abyss, but if you want to get a good time sink with a decent story and fun combat system, Tales of Graces f  is a solid play.  I would recommend it.