It successfully borrows the excellent control scheme found in the Brain Training version of sudoku and combines it with a huge number of sudoku puzzles (20 million!), kakuro puzzles and some other highly entertaining mini-puzzles. The control scheme works like a charm and makes it a dream to play. The little mini-puzzles also add plenty to the package, with the pairs match game being especially fun. The kakuro puzzles are a welcome addition, providing a great alternative to the sudoku. There is even the option of making your own sudoku grids. The only negative is the lack of single card multiplayer.

Sadly it was released at a time (mid 2007) when there was an absolute avalanche of Brain Training clones, logic puzzles and casual games, so it kind of disappeared without making a huge splash, which was unfortunate, because it is a high quality package.

To put it simply, anyone who likes logic puzzles should absolutely check out Platinum Sudoku. It has a great interface and control scheme, plenty of puzzles, and lots of little extras that add greatly to the overall experience. It might be a little hard to find now, but it is well worth the effort if you are a fan of the genre.

The are 20 million sudoku puzzles!

Kakuro is plenty of fun

Well, my experience has so far shown me that this is completely inaccurate. In fact, I have found that casual gamers are far more difficult to please than any hardcore gamer will ever be. Getting a casual gamer to even try a game is difficult, but finding one that they enjoy is even harder.

How do I know this? Well, I live with a stereotypical casual gamer and it is almost impossible to find a game that she wants to play. For the sake of anonymity I shall call this person EB. EB is a 30 year old female (she still claims 21), who has her own DS and access to the household Wii. She plays games to relax, kill time and for mental stimulation. EB will only go into gaming shops/sections if I drag her in, kicking and screaming, and she has absolutely no interest in the gaming industry. All of her information about games comes from a game’s packaging, television advertising or from me. Despite all this, EB plays games on a daily basis, clocking up more hours in front of the DS than I manage on the DS and Wii combined.

While I can find any number of DS and Wii games that I know I will like, finding a game for EB can be frustratingly difficult. My game library is filled with plenty of games that I was sure EB would like, but sadly, it turned out that she just didn’t find them all that entertaining. The good news is that once EB finds a game that she likes, she will spend hundreds of hours playing it, to the point that hearing the music or sound effects again and again can drive me insane.

The Living with a Casual Gamer series will examine which games EB likes, and more importantly, the common elements that link these games together. Hopefully, it will help us harcore gamers understand the casual crowd a little more too and help anyone having trouble finding suitable games for the casual gamer in their lives.

EB’s current obsession is the Monopoly/Boggle/Yahtzee/Battleship compilation on the DS. It’s not a great game, but it is competent, and the games are all playable. It is a game she has owned for over a year but periodically returns to every couple of months. She spends hours and hours with Boggle, Battleship and Monopoly and doesn’t care about the flaws that many reviewers identified, such as poor enemy AI, no single cart multiplayer for some of the games, poor graphics and sound, no statistics tracking, very few options and no online mode. These things are just not important to her and have no influence over what she thinks of the game. What is important is that each game has a simple set of rules, is familiar, mentally stimulating and can be played in short or long bursts.

Familiarity is something that EB likes. While hardcore gamers love to explore new gameplay mechanics, learning a new play-style is a huge turn-off for casual gamers like EB. Developers wishing to target the casual crowd should not aim to reinvent the wheel, they should instead refine something that is already familiar. Casual gamers want to be able to jump straight in and play. That is why the Monopoly/Boggle/Yahtzee/Battleship compilation has been such a hit with EB. She already knows the rules, she already knows the input method (touchscreen), and the experience doesn’t change halfway through. She knows what she is going to get and that is fine with her.

Anyone looking to find a game for the casual gamer in their life would be well served by finding a copy (it may be hard to find these days) of the Monopoly/Boggle/Yahtzee/Battleship compilation. It has certainly kept EB happy for a long time and is almost guaranteed to keep your casual gamer happy too.

]]> http://everyoneplays.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/living-with-a-casual-gamer/feed/ 5 choodi casual-gamers monopolyboggleyahtzeebattleshipcover http://everyoneplays.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/i-made-it-on-to-screen-plays-your-turn/ http://everyoneplays.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/i-made-it-on-to-screen-plays-your-turn/#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:32:55 +0000 Theo Georga http://everyoneplays.wordpress.com/?p=242 ]]> A while back I wrote an article for Screen Play’s Your Turn section and it finally got published today.

It’s called Do not feed the fanboys and is about fanboys and how they are the lifeblood of the video game industry.

Head on over and check it out.

Hardware

• Wii 753 000
• Nintendo DS 588 000
• Xbox 360 391 000
• PlayStation 3 276 000
• PSP 199 000
• PlayStation 2 131 000

Software

1. Wii Fit w/ Balance Board (WII) 644 000
2. Street Fighter IV (360) 446 000
3. Street Fighter IV (PS3) 403 000
4. Wii Play w/ Remote (WII) 386 000
5. Killzone 2 (PS3) 323 000
6. Wii Mario Kart with wheel (WII) 263 000
7. Call of Duty: World at War (360) 193 000
8. Mario Kart DS (NDS) 145 000
9. New Super Mario Bros (NDS) 144 000
10. Guitar Hero World Tour (WII) 136 000

Nintendo’s dominance of this generation has been obvious for some time now, but the more surprising thing that has come out of the last few months of data is that hardcore Playstation 2 owners are resoundingly moving to the Xbox 360 ahead of the PS3, and the large casual audience has already decided to move to the Wii.

Xbox 360 product management director Aaron Greenberg told Gamasutra that their research was showing Playstation 2 owners were choosing to go with the Xbox 360 this generation.

“What we’re finding in our research is that a large portion of the volume we’re driving with Xbox 360 purchasers is actually PS2 owners choosing Xbox for the next generation. We’re switching people from the PlayStation brand over to the Xbox brand,” Mr Greenberg said.

With the Xbox 360 consistently selling 100 000+ more than the PS3, it is hard to disagree with Mr Greenberg. It seems the PS3 is destined to be the second choice of the shrinking hardcore gaming market. Meanwhile, the Wii is increasingly looking like it will easily rival the success of the PS2.

The success of the Wii has so far caused all sorts of problems for those publishers and developers that failed to take the machine seriously. Make no mistake, the reason that so many publishers and developers are experiencing financial difficulties has very little to do with the current state of the world economy and more to do with the fact that they backed the wrong horse out of the gate. It is no coincidence that the poor financial results of the big publishers has coincided with the scramble to reorganise development to take advantage of the Wii’s growing userbase.

With EA and Activision representatives more or less admitting this in recent public statements, look for some seriously big announcements coming out of third party publishers at E3 2009.

I just got Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and I am not happy.

While I am enjoying the game, I am a little frustrated that, in  such a high profile game, there are technical glitches which cause freezes and game issues.

Today, I tried to put the game in sleep mode and it just wont turn off. Then when I tried to restart the game, it froze and I had to turn it off, and that’s not all. A quick Google search reveals other glitches and faults that people have found in the game, including this video posted by YouTube user fire2box showing how he lost complete control of the game.

I hijacked this drug van from the passenger side door, in the process I got a wanted star for the crime. Anyways the driver of the van never got out and so I became stuck in the passenger seat. The cops give chase to the van and the game is thus unplayable for me since I can’t even bail out of the van.

All I could do was really just save the game and turn it off and come back and start from one of my safe houses.

While some people may say that I am just being picky, I think it is unacceptable that a product can be put on store shelves with such problems. Especially when the game industry is trying desperately hard to catch the film industry as the premier entertainment format of choice. It becomes even more ridiculous when you realise that no one in the gaming industry is trying harder to match the film industry than Rockstar Games.

Would you pay to see a film that suddenly froze in the middle for no apparent reason? Obviously not, so why do we happily accept games that do these things?

There are plenty of games that ship with serious glithces and faults, some which actually render the game unplayable. In the grand scheme of things, my complaints about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars may be minor, but if we can’t expect the latest installment of one of the biggest game franchises in history to deliver a technically flawless experience, then what hope do we as an industry have of ever being taken seriously by the mainstream?

Taking plenty of inspiration from Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, House of the Dead: OVERKILL serves up seven chapters of over the top zombie…sorry, mutant shooting action. Mixed into the plot are some of the most memorable supporting characters that have ever appeared in a video game, including a mad scientist, an incestuous prison warden, a hot stripper looking for revenge and a deranged crime lord. The lead characters are equally memorable. Agent G and Detective Isaac Washington play off against each other in true odd couple style during the many well made cut scenes. Their interplay can be quite entertaining and does a great job of endearing players to what could have been two quite anonymous lead characters. Washington in particular has some spectacularly funny lines, but he does often rely too much on swear words, which drags the quality of the script down.

The game itself plays in a very similar manner to other on-rails shooters. Movement progresses along a pre-determined path with the player only responsible for shooting enemies. It is gaming at its most simple, but it works exceptionally well, reducing gaming down to as simple an interface as possible. Point at the screen and pull the trigger. Everybody can understand it and get straight into the action.

The controls work well, with the Wii remote’s IR pointer used to good effect as the on-screen aiming reticle. Using the Wii-remote on its own is functional, but the game takes on a new life when the remote is combined with one of the many plastic gun casings available on the market. It is amazing how much a simple plastic attachment can add to the game. Unfortunately the Wii-remote calibration does not work very well, meaning that the game can never function as a true light gun game.

The audio-visual presentation is where the game really stands out, with the same retro treatment that gave the Planet Terror and Death Proof films such authenticity liberally applied to everything. Dust marks, missing reels, static lines, it’s all there and it all creates a fantastic feel for the game. The visuals are excellent too, with well modeled characters and environments setting a fantastic scene for the action. The audio is also top-notch with great sound effects and an irreverent soundtrack that suits the theme well. The superb voice work is also something that deserves mention with each of the characters voiced convincingly, and the amazing, over-the-top narration giving the films that authentic 70s grindhouse feel.

There are a few technical blemishes which affect the game, but nothing that’s too problematic. Occasionally the frame rate will slow down, which can lead to aiming problems and there was one instance in The Fetid Waters chapter where the enemies failed to show, meaning the stage could not be played. It is disappointing that in such a high quality production a large bug like this was missed.

The game can be finished in a few hours, but with a director’s cut and a selection of mini games available to unlock, there is plenty of reason to keep coming back. Even more so because while the game is fun in single player, when a second player is added, the fun increases exponentially. Completing the director’s cut mode adds even more reason to come back as doing so unlocks dual wield mode, which, when combined with the two player mode, can then be used as a de facto four player mode.

Conclusion
Hardcore gamers have cried out for adult games on the Wii and House of the Dead: OVERKILL certainly delivers. The game is awesome fun and I think it will go down as a landmark in the on-rails shooter genre and on the Wii.

I think the game shows what can be achieved when there is a clear theme and direction from the start of the project. The grindhouse style suits the gameplay well and definitely adds to the overall quality of the game. If more developers concentrated less on recreating the mechanics of their genre every time they made a game and concentrated more on advancing the storytelling, then video games as a whole would be far a far more respected art form than they are currently.

While it does have its faults, House of the Dead: OVERKILL is a great game that can be enjoyed by almost everyone. It is easy to control, tells a fun story, has interesting characters and comes together into a great overall package. Definitely try it, but just remember to keep it away from impressionable kids or those easily offended by the excessive use of the f-word.

Score 5/5 Great

I recently started playing Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the Chosen. Having never played a Dragon Quest game before, I was eager to see why Japanese gamers go so crazy over the series.

Read on for my impressions of the game (spoilers too).

7 March 2009

I’m up to chapter three now and things are going along swimmingly. I almost quit when I saw that the dialog in chapter two was written with a Russian accent.

I am not sure if I like the way each chapter has a different set of heroes. It is a little hard to develop any empathy with a character that you only control for a couple of hours. Going back to level one each time I change character is annoying too as it means losing battles to the same weak enemies I have fought plenty of times before.

The story is moving along slowly, and as yet I really don’t know what is going on, but each individual chapter is nicely paced. I am hoping that everything will come together soon.

Chapter three is quite fun. I like the concept of being what is essentially an NPC. I don’t know where the story is heading in this chapter, but it is certainly not a typical JRPG storyline.

Current play time: 6 hours 38 minutes

3 March 2009

Played for about half an hour today. I managed to get a little way into chapter one and am enjoying the experience so far. The battle system is surprisingly simple and quick. This may change as I get further into the game, but for the moment I am really enjoying being able to get fights over and done with in a speedy manner.

I am very impressed with the way the game is presented. The music and graphics are excellent and the game certainly has a distinct style that differentiates it from the Final Fantasy series. In fact, I was originally expecting the game to have many similarities to that other big Japanese Role Playing Game series, but I was happily proven wrong. Hopefully this continues.

Something that is annoying me though is the way the NPCs speak. Did they have to write each word as if it is being spoken with a heavy Scottish accent? It is distracting and adds nothing to the game.

Current play time: 38 minutes.

The game features 1000 crosswords, as well as anagrams and word search puzzles, which should be enough to keep even the most avid crossword buff entertained for months. The gentle difficulty curve allows players of all ages to enjoy the game, with simple puzzles for the younger crowd and extremely difficult options for crossword veterans. The anagram and word search options provide a nice diversion and are fantastic fun in their own right.

Entering words into the grid or selecting letters in the other modes is extremely simple, thanks to the excellent handwriting recognition and touchscreen control. The puzzles and clues are displayed clearly, making viewing the puzzles easy, even for the most hard of seeing. The intuitive touchscreen interface of the DS also makes navigating around the larger puzzles a breeze.

Conclusion
As a puzzle game fan, I have seen the genre evolve so much over the last couple of decades. With each new generation of video games, it seems developers just keep adding layer upon layer of complexity to try to make their titles stand out from the crowd. So-much-so that some modern puzzle games are so convoluted and complex that it is difficult to ever fully understand them.

Crossword puzzles on the other hand are one of the oldest, simplest and most enduring forms of puzzles, electronic or otherwise. It takes no explaining how to play and even someone who has never played can work it out almost straight away.

Thankfully, titles like Brain Training, Sudoku, Picross and now Crosswords DS have brought electronic puzzle gaming back to its roots by providing simple, repetitive tasks that are challenging and truly fun to play. That is why I just love Crosswords DS. It captures the simple interface and great design of traditional crosswords and turns it into a DS game that I can use on my daily commute to and from work. Yes I can walk into any newsagent or book shop and buy a book of crosswords for less, but there is something about Crosswords DS that just seems to make it worth the extra expense.

Score 4/5 Good

The game is based on the extremely cute Shawnimals Wee Ninja character created by former Electronic Gaming Monthly editor Shawn Smith. The story takes place in Ninjatown in the world of Shawnimaland. After an eruption of the nearby volcano, Mount Feroshi, Ninjatown is attacked by the evil Mr Demon and his dark minions, the Wee Devils, who are looking for the recipe for Ninjatown’s famous ninja star cookies. Taking on the role of Ol’ Master Ninja, the player must defend Ninjatown against the demon invaders. It is all very cute and cuddly, but extremely funny, with plenty of pop-culture references and movie quotes scattered throughout the game.

In traditional tower defence style, waves of enemies attack and the player must set out a variety of defences to deal with the different attackers. Instead of building turrets, Ninjatown requires players to build ninja huts, which house a variety of deadly Wee Ninjas. Each type of ninja has different strengths and weaknesses, making them strong or weak against different demons. Each ninja hut can be upgraded to improve the fighting prowess of the defenders. This ensures plenty of depth to the combat system and requires strategic thought when it comes to which huts to place where and which ninjas to upgrade.

Defeating each wave of attackers requires plenty of strategic planning and an understanding of what each of the many ninja varieties can do. Players must also manage their resources to ensure they have enough firepower left for the next wave of attacking demons. The player can also use Ol’ Master Ninja’s special powers against the invading hordes.

Control is handled via the touchscreen and everything is easy to navigate and use. The lower screen displays a close-up of the action and there is a zoomed out map on the top screen. Relevant information about each of the ninja huts is displayed on the top screen. The player’s main task is to place ninja huts at specific strategic locations. Once this is done, the little ninjas will automaticaly attack any enemies that come into range. There are a few variables that the player can control, but most of the action is left up to the little ninjas themselves.

Like so many tower defence games before it, the whole concept works extremely well. The perfectly balanced gameplay means that while the player will never be able to breeze straight through the game, they will also not get stuck for too long on a single map. Because the same tactics will not work for every map, it pays to experiment with the different ninja classes to find the best strategy.

There is plenty of content with 36 maps spread across nine districts of Ninjatown. There is the facility to play single-card or multi-card multiplayer, where two players can compete to be the first to clear each wave of enemies. In single-card play there are only three maps available, but that is bumped up to nine when two cards are used. It is reasonably fun, but the real meat is in the single player.

While there is little about the gameplay that really sets Ninjatown apart from its peers, it is the sheer amount of personality invested into each character and the absolutely hilarious script that makes Ninjatown a must play game. It is amazing that such absurd story, characters and premise can work together so well, but they do and Ninjatown rises head and shoulders above the crowd of similar games.

Conclusion
While Ninjatown does not bring any major new gameplay elements to the tower defence genre, you cannot deny that it certainly does add plenty of personality and charm. It also proves that developers do not need to reinvent the wheel every time they create a game. There is nothing wrong with using a tried and tested style of gamplay as long as there is plenty of time invested in creating an entertaining story and setting.

By concentrating on creating a fun and rewarding story and unique characters, developers Venan Entertainment have turned a typical tower defence-style game into a pleasurable and worthwhile experience. The game just oozes charm and there were plenty of moments where I literally laughed out loud. Take the plunge and Ninjatown’s quirky sense of humor and superbly balanced gameplay will definitely reward you.

Score 4/5 Good

Deadly Creatures is a fun but flawed action-adventure game that takes advantage of its unique theme and setting to deliver one of the better traditional gaming experiences on the Wii. Developer, Rainbow Studios, has managed to combine a superbly atmospheric audio-visual style, interesting design and fun gameplay into a game which is more than a sum of its parts. There are some flaws that impact on the final quality, but overall, Deadly Creatures is a great experience that can be enjoyed by everyone.

The story revolves around the misadventures of two human characters, George Struggs and Wade, as they search the desert for buried American Civil War gold. George and Wade are not the most competent people to ever look for buried treasure and things soon take a turn for the worst as greed quickly sours the relationship. The events are revealed from the perspective of the two playable characters, a tarantula and a scorpion, and eventually the paths of George and Wade cross with the arachnid heroes to unexpected results.

It’s not exactly the most engaging or complex of stories, but what makes it interesting is the way it is told. Parts of the story are told via Wade’s narration, which is excellently delivered by Billy Bob Thornton, and other parts via overheard conversations between the two human characters. Dennis Hopper is perfectly cast alongside Thornton as the sinister George Struggs. It is a very non-traditional way of telling a story but it works perfectly in this setting.

The game manages to immerse the player in the microscopic world of its protagonists extremely well. The environments are beautifully realised and there are plenty of small touches that help add to the believability of the world. Everyday objects become immense obstacles and the variety of enemies are designed to look and move like the real thing. The levels are very linear, and while a more open world would have added greatly to the design, there are plenty of hidden nooks and crannies to explore. The audio is also extremely well handled, with top class voice work from two of Hollywood’s best, an atmospheric soundtrack, and sound effects that make the skin crawl.

The game is targeted directly at the traditional gamer, and while it does tend to follow previously explored gameplay styles, it does introduce some original elements that help it stand out. The Wii-remote and nunchuck combination is used, with movement mapped to the analogue stick and fighting handled via both motion controls and button presses. The controls could defintely be handled without the Wii-remote and in some cases would have been more enjoyable, but there are many moments where the motion controls do manage to add to the game. There are a huge variety of attacks and combinations available for each character and the action is always engaging and fun.

The game does have its faults however. Mid-level loading points often interrupt the flow of the action and the camera can be quite slow to keep up with the action. There are also some collision detection problems. The game clocks in at about 10 hours, which suits the storyline well and any more and it certainly would have started to drag on. There are plenty of collectables spread throughout the game and a few unlockables that will help add to the longevity, but sadly there are no other modes to keep players coming back.

Conclusion
I really enjoyed Deadly Creatures and I think most traditional gamers will too. The game maintains a great atomsphere throughout and I enjoyed the simple story and the creative way it is told. It’s nice to see a publisher take a risk on an unproven concept, even if the game itself does keep things relatively safe. The game does have its problems though, most noticeably with the camera, but these problems never manage to get in the way of the sheer fun of running around as a tarantula or a scorpion. And that is what it boils down to really. Yes, it is fun to run around, pouncing on unsuspecting insects as the tarantula. It is fun to go toe-to-claw against a lizard as the scorpion. It is fun to run up and down the walls and discover what exactly George and Wade are up to next. Pure, unadulterated fun.

Score 4/5 Good

]]> http://everyoneplays.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/wii-review-deadly-creatures/feed/ 1 choodi deadlycreatures