Metroid: Other M (Wii)

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 20:06:00 -0400

The latest entry in Nintendo’s venerable Metroid franchise is deeply flawed. Team Ninja gives us a tap-dancing pig smeared with lipstick when all we want is unadulterated bacon.

Most of Other M’s problems are so conspicuous I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the result of a big fish or two being so married to an idea that they couldn’t see how much the implementation detracted from the gameplay.

Strip away the obvious gristle:

The unskippable introductory tutorial. It’s presence in Hard mode (unlocked by beating the game) is poor craftsmanship.
The cutscenes. Let’s ignore the writing and voice-acting quality: when I have an hour to play an action game I don’t want to spend 45 minutes of that hour watching melodrama. Thankfully you can skip these on repeat playthroughs.
The pixel hunts. Zero replay value and a chore to “solve” the first time through. Where’s Waldo.
The third-person stalking. Does not build suspense as intended. Actually took me out of the game the first couple of times it happened thinking I had accidentally entered an alternate view/controller mode. The bane of repeat playthroughs.
The forced first-person. The tail attack segment in particular is just whack-a-mole with z-lock.
The motorized wall crawlers. Forced periods of inactivity, yay.

And there’s still some fat to trim:

The Authorization mechanic is an infuriating conceit and unlike previous explanations (or lack thereof) for having to reacquire your abilities you are constantly reminded of it while playing. It removes any sense of achievement and eliminates the possibility of acquiring an ability earlier than intended.
Requiring the player to save (which automatically refills Samus’s health and missiles) in order to proceed seems designed to compensate for the occasionally overpowered enemies and erratic Sense Move events between saves.
The Concentration mechanic. Same.

What’s left are the bones of a decent Metroid, not the bacon we had hoped for.

Despite all these flaws, I played through the game a number of times on both Normal and Hard. Team Ninja clearly didn’t do everything wrong but its hard to ignore how much better the experience could have been with some egoless self-editing during the development process.

Chaos Rings (iOS)

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:55:00 -0400

Wanted to jot some quick thoughts about Square Enix’s latest iPhone game before I lost them completely (finished the game this past weekend).

Despite being a fully-featured dungeon crawler most of the game can be played single-handed. I played the game on my iPad and was able to play with the same hand I was using to hold the iPad itself. This might be the first game I’ve ever “curled up and played” like you would a book. Even with the DS or wireless controllers, wherever or however you choose to play you’re still stuck in an unnatural T-rex pose, hands clasped together in front of you.
I’m not a fan of nor have I played many dungeon crawlers so I’m not sure if repetition is common to the genre or unique to this game. As a rule I don’t mind the palette-swapping of monsters (as long as new behaviors are introduced) as much as I did the limited number of levels that are repeated (twice in each scenario across four scenarios).
I also don’t mind bosses being reused as palette-swapped enemies later in the game (as it reflects your character’s growth and increased prowess) but reusing them again as palette-swapped bosses later in the game feels cheap.
By the end of the first scenario I had already acquired and mastered all of the available Genes. The repeat content would have been more forgivable if some Genes or abilities were withheld (or new ones introduced) until these later scenarios.
There wasn’t much differentiation in the play styles/abilities of each pair. Once I found a Gene set and tactic that worked, it worked for all of them. The only discernible difference between pairs is their stat growth curves.
Making up for many of the game’s other shortcomings, grinding (presumably the point of a dungeon crawler) was a breeze. With a solid tactic (Pair Attack until the enemy uses a Fire/Wind/Water spell then Divine Fist) and playing at the highest available dungeon level, you can easily earn a level a minute, doubling your HP/MP and damage output every 15 minutes.
Separating each of the Weapon/Armor/Jewel categories into individual characters was an unergonomic decision. Once in an individual category switching to the other character was easy enough but the extra step added to switching categories (back up twice, drill down twice) was an (albeit minor) annoyance.
Piu-Piu’s incessant boob jokes and the dominatrix-god in bondage were sophomoric at best.

Despite its shortcomings, Chaos Rings is a handheld-quality game that was a joy to play mostly due to the quick, inventive battle system and the ability to curl up with it as you would a book.

Unplayed

Metroid: Other M (Wii)

Chaos Rings (iOS)