Bit.Trip Beat - Second Song

Synesthesia is a term that's been thrown around quite a bit in regards to video games lately. Near as I can figure, it is usually used to refer to a game where playing the game itself creates music. Not in the Guitar Hero sense, but in the sense that something seemingly unrelated, like a spaceship shooting down bad guys adding to the melody of a musical piece. It's... hard to describe.

Much as Bit.Trip Beat is.

As regards to how it plays, that's pretty simple. It's like Pong. Or Breakout. Or Arkanoid. Or any game where you have to hit a ball with a paddle. The controls are ridiculously simple - tilt the Wii remote forwards and backwards to move the paddle up and down.

Meanwhile, various balls or pellets or whatever come at your paddle and you have to hit them back. Some come along a straight line, some bob up and down, and some even come back at your paddle after you hit them. In a lot of ways, the game feels to me like a bullet hell shoot-em-up. The patterns of dots coming toward your paddle require split second thinking and reflexes or just plain memorization.

Did I mention that while this is going on, you've got some incredible chiptunes-inspired music (think bleeps and bloops with a driving beat) and flashy backgrounds and colors and all things happening? I imagine it is what it would be like to play Breakout during an acid trip.




The game at its heart is trying to evoke an Atari-age aesthetic. The graphics consist mainly of thick, blocky art and the animation even involves ghosting as if you were playing it on an older television set. The use of Pong to create music is especially effective when you are close to game over as the music stops, the graphics turn black and white, and the only sounds are "pings" that come from the Wii remote when your paddle hits a ball.

There's a lot more I could say about this game, but I think I'll save it for potential future blog posts.

One thing I will points out is that the level of concentration my eyeballs and brain require to play this game destroys my eyes. After staring at moving large pixels and colors for ten minutes, it practically hurts me to look at a static image again without resting my eyes.

No More Heroes - Finished the game

This game was an incredible experience. Someone said it best that this game is sort of like Blaster Master or Ninja Gaiden for the NES - games that weren't perfect but that were incredibly fun to play and everyone had to have. The difference is that both of them games had really compelling gameplay (okay, so Ninja Gaiden also sold itself on its story) to go with them. Here, the visceral feel of the gameplay is great, even if it isn't necessarily deep. But the story and game execution and details are what sells it.

I mentioned previously that the city of Santa Destroy feels lifeless. More than that, I share the opinion of other that is one of the worst level-select screens ever. While there are some neat details scattered around Santa Destroy (references to other games and punk music), having to drive in your bike from one location to the next is just tedious. Especially when you just want to earn some money at the side missions.

It is also probably a good think that the game doesn't try to pad itself out too much. The combat feels great. The graphics show your character performing all sorts of neat combos. The kills slice guys in twain and send blood splattering everywhere! You can mow down entire groups of enemies! You can send them to their doom with professional wrestling moves! Despite all that, the combat isn't very deep. There's high and low attacks and dodging and occasionally throws, but there isn't much meat there. You start feeling this a bit on the later bosses that have a ton of health where you just have to do the same thing over and over in order to defeat them.

All that said, I really enjoyed this game. Any adult who has a Wii and is more of a core gamer should check this out. The game is fully of crazy action and over-the-top entertainment. It is a send up of action movies and video games and just absolutely feels right. This is like one of those movies you start talking about immediately afterwards with your friends and say, "Did you see that? It was amazing!"

I usually don't hesitate to post spoilers because it is assumed here that I will be talking about my progress in a game which can include anything I have seen. But since so much of the enjoyment of No More Heroes is discovering the story and references in it, I feel I must put in this intermediate paragraph.

That said, there were so many great moments I experience in playing through this game and encountering all the bosses:

Destroyman was hilarious. A postal worker that thinks he's a superhero, complete with nipple guns and crotch rockets? And the way he makes Travis fall for his obvious tricks is a delight.

The death scene where Holly puts the grenade in her mouth and her head explodes is a classic 'oh my fucking god I can't believe that' moment.

The hilarious brain machine contraption in the next fight was just classic and sort of reminded me of Terry Gilliam or Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I knew that this fight would end before it started, but I figured Travis (or the machine itself) would be the one to do it.

Rank 4 might have been my favorite fight. Half the level is a dream sequence where your character is the space ship in a shoot 'em up sequence. And the boss fight was probably my favorite in the game (only Destroyman comes close). It is just staged so well. From the set up as a date at the theater between Travis and Sylvia to the boss performing an on-stage magical act and you acting like an actual member of the audience to the fight itself which involves the magician turning the screen upside down and includes an interlude where you are put into and escape from a magical trick box, to the cinema after defeating him. As I said, it is staged incredibly well.

My favorite answering machine message from the video store is the one where they say that instead of returning the porno you rented, you instead returned a copy that cuts off two minutes into it.

If I had my suspicions that the boss fights in this game were a send-up of Metal Gear Solid, the final boss fight confirmed it. First, the games finishes demolishing the fourth wall by having Jeane comment on how if she told you her story, it would increase the game's rating which could delay it... and then they might have to call the game No More Heroes Forever (a classic video game in joke). Then Travis says to just fast forward through it. So you literally get a fast forwarded scene through tons of expository dialogue where Jeane reveals a life of abuse, incest, whoring herself out, training to be a killer, and getting her revenge. It was great.

Then in the "real ending" after defeating Henry, Travis argues that he can't reveal new plot now since the game is over and they have a great conversation about how the game should end to some totally kick ass music.

As you can tell, I found No More Heroes to be a great experience.

No More Heroes - Ranked 7th

Why did I get this game? Well the premise is that you play as an American anime nerd named Travis Touchdown who wins a real life light saber on eBay and decides to use it to become the world's best assassin. How can one not want to play that game? Additionally, the game play is supposed to be a mish-mash of Devil May Cry and Grand Theft Auto. All of this is presented in a neat cel-shaded aesthetic.

My overall impression of the game so far is that it's awesome despite having some flaws.

Some of the gameplay works very well. The swordplay mechanics are great. I love slashing at foes, attempting to kill one while avoiding others, and putting together combos of slashes and wrestling moves. The motion controls of the wii remote are very well used in this game. It probably would have been too error prone to attempt to determine whether the player was making a horizontal or vertical strike, so instead the A button slashes and whether it is horizontal or vertical depends on the position of the remote. Additionally, motion controls are used for winning battles of strength, wrestling moves, and finishing blows and they work perfectly for those.

Battles tend to be frenetic and intense - especially when you are taking on multiple thugs at once. You have to strike a balance between finishing off the foe you are attacking and dealing with the other foes surrounding you. After taking down one foe, you often need to immediately dodge out of the way to avoid the blow coming from the guy that ran up next to you while you were fighting. All this slashing, dodging, and waving the controllers around is amplified during boss fights. The boss fights are very well done with each boss having unique attacks and moves that you have to learn in order to defeat them.

Unfortunately, the gameplay mechanics aren't all roses. The camera in this game is pretty bad. You often have to move it as much as you move your character which is nearly always a bad sign. The fact that the camera doesn't move well with you character can absolutely wreck you when fighting a lot of enemies and especially in boss fights.

The game takes place in a fictional California town of Santa Destroy. While the game was compared to Grand Theft Auto in terms of freely roaming the city, this description isn't really apt as there is precious little to do in the city. While there is other traffic and pedestrians you see and can hit while walking around or riding your motorcycle, they never react to you, making the city feel pretty lifeless. Really, I think it is best to think of the city as more of a hub than the open cities of the GTA games. In the city you can go to various shops or take on side missions to make money before going to the fuller levels where you will fight the next ranked assassin.

For a game with such a bizarre premise, it is actually more subtly wacky than I would have thought. The game has a kind of internal logical consistency even if it wouldn't make any sense in the real world. The characters you meet all have bizarre philosophies about life, how to get ahead, and what to do, but they involve things like cleanliness, collecting balls, and using the force while avoiding the garden of madness. The dialogue is similarly just subtly bizarre. Kind of like a cross between David Lynch and Hideo Kojima. Seriously, the conversations you have with the bosses before and after you fight them have a very Metal Gear Solid feel to them. Characters wax philosophical when they should be killing each other and it doesn't really make sense. All this does make the plot a little opaque and hard to pick up. The background for the story was done in two lines and the fight with the 8th ranked assassin contained one or several plot points that made no sense to me.

Besides the poor camera and lifeless city, my other big complaint is how the side missions work. You need to go to one location to get them, then drive to wherever the mission is located, and then if you fail it, go all the way to where you got the job and then back on to the starting locating to try it again. Other minor complaints include odd graphical issues (textures and pop-in) and characters and especially your bike getting stuck on terrain and other obstacles.

Still, the game gets so many details right, that it is easy to overlook the big things it does wrong. Details include:

Travis' apartment being decked out with anime stuff. Posters on the walls, a giant gundam in one corner, toys on the shelves, anime woman pillows, his cat occasionally grabbing onto the fish hanging on his fan, and a tissue box by the tv chair.

The fact that to recharge your light-saber, you make a masturbating motion (and Travis acts like he is doing just that)

Wrestling references (predominantly Mexican wrestling references) peppered throughout the game including trading cards of wrestlers, and a mysterious acquaintance who leaves you notes and helps you remember moves.

Moai statues scattered throughout the city.

The fact that, during the loading scenes you can make the spinning "wait" star bounce and send it flying around.

After you kill each assassin there is a message on your answering machine from the video store about some adult video you ordered or that is overdue.

8-bit style victory screen after you kill an assassin and take their rank.

Customizable outfit of sunglasses, leather jacket, jeans, belt, and t-shirt (all of which can be bought, or for t-shirts, found in dumpsters).

Receiving cell phone calls where the Wii remote vibrates and then the person's voice comes out of the remote.

Dialogue such as "If challenge were a taste, you'd be quite delicious!"

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07

The golf portion of Wii Sports showed promise, but didn't really deliver. All swinging the remote measured was your power. Still, it presented a game that could be fun. And it got me interested in the Wii PGA Tour game. But games are expensive and despite positive reviews, I didn't see myself picking up a golf game any time soon. Fortunately, my friend Dan loves my Wii and loves a laid-back golf gaming experience so he picked it up for his "eventual Wii" and I get to hold it until he gets one.

It gets the golf experience very close to being accurate. It measures not only how hard you move the remote forward, but whether you angle it off to the left or right for a hook or a slice. This makes it feel like you have a lot more control over your shot. You also have the standard golf game aspects of changing clubs, shot types, and positioning shots. Putting is similar to actual shots, except it is more about lining up your shot while the actual shot mechanic is about being patient with your putt backswing.

To be honest, it is the gimmick of swinging your golf club with the Wii controller that makes the game. Especially multiplayer, because watching people line up and hit their shot is great. Golf, in general, is a sport that I think works a lot better as a video game. Mario Golf: Advance Tour was one of my favorite games for the Game Boy Advance. I think that this game is another solid addition to a multiplayer Wii library. It is a laidback game that all your friends can sit around and play. I also think that next year's edition could serve to really get the formula right. Still, I can see my friends and I playing many games of this.

Excite Truck - S Rank in all courses in Excite Mode

There's something about this game that can totally suck me in. The mechanism to gain points are simple, yet there's a great give and take between gaining points in different ways and being able to control your vehicle and not crash. So, it may seem like you can gain easy points from tree runs, but you run the risk of crashing. Or easy points from drifting means you won't go as fast and won't get into first place. Or easy points from air means you want be getting any points from drift or tree runs.

And this game totally has the "just one more time" mentality. When you play a race and only get a B rank, you think that if you could just play it again you could do better... and you usually do. There's a sort of state you get into while racing where you are peripherally aware of the course and swerving this way and that and just trying to do what you could to stay in it and get the most points possible.

The multiplayer works very well too, especially once all people understand the mechanisms to get points. When I first started playing with my friends, it was always the case that the person that won the race was the one who won the match. Now, we are having races where the person who comes in second ends up winning because they have more points. This is just totally awesome because it means people can do well with different racing styles. Personally, I'm generally more concerned with coming in first rather than doing stunts to get points. But coming in first generally only gives me 15-20 points so it can be a risk if my opponent is very good at tricks to get points. Also, it helps that my friend Paul totally took to this game because it gives me some very stiff competition.

Excite Truck - S Rank in all Bronze courses in Excite Mode

Wow, I'm not sure if I've ever gone so quickly from not getting a game to being totally addicted to it. I started playing this game when I got home from work today and didn't stop until just now, making about four hours of obsessively playing and racing.

I really just didn't get the game before. I had gone through the beginner tutorials, but that really wasn't enough to delve into what makes the game tick. I also sort of got the whole concept of long jumps and tree runs and other things like that giving you stunt points, but now I see where in the levels to look for these things, how to better achieve them, and the desire to push myself to do better stunts. The game also flows very well once you get into it. It totally drags you in.

The normal (Excite) races are lots of fun. Because you are ranked based on more than just where you place, you are encouraged to find all the best areas for jumps and tree runs and crushing others. This makes it so much more than just a racing game.

There are also Challenge races which I have tried in which you need to drive through gates or hit rings in the air. They each emphasize a different aspect of the skill needed to do well in the game. They are also fun and you feel like you could eventually S Rank all of them with enough practice (unlike, say the challeneges in ATV Offroad Fury 2 that just began to seem impossible.)

So yeah, I'm definitely keeping this game.

Excite Truck - Two Player, Nothing Unlocked

This is the third of the multiplayer games I have tried with friends. My initial impression is that the game is okay.

I'm not sure why I feel that way, given that one of my friends thinks the game is the best we have played. It could be my general bias against driving games. I've just never been that enthralled by them. Or it could be the fact that, while the controls are good, they aren't great. Steering is very sensitive and you definitely have to adjust to that. It could also be that there aren't many tracks or vehicles unlocked.

I got three games (this, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, and Super Paper Mario at a Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale at a GameStop about an hour from where I live (it was right near a friend's wedding). The woman there claimed I could return/exchange the games at any GameStop within seven days so tomorrow is basically my last day to do so. And I am seriously considering swapping this game for something like Rayman Raving Rabbids. But since I have until tomorrow, I'll try to unlock some more stuff and see if I enjoy it more.

Wii Play - Playing Two Player

The reviews were fairly uniform: Wii Play isn't that great. It is more of a tech demo for what the Wii can do with motion sensing. Still, it is $50 for the game plus a remote while a remote by itself is $40. And everyone seemed to agree that paying $10 for the game is worth it. I'd agree with that.

When you first start up Wii Play, you have to start with the first game - the target shooting. Once you play that, you then move on to the rest of the games until you have played all ten. So basically, in a short period you "unlock" all of the games. I had to do this so that when my friends came over we could try any that we wanted.

In the course of doing this, I discovered that about half the games are worth playing: Shooting Range, Laser Hockey, Billiards, Charge!, and Tanks! Shooting Range gives you a crosshair where your remote points at the screen and you must shoot various objects that appear. It is enjoyable, but I am noticing that there doesn't appear to be much randomness to it. It seems to me that the same things appear in the same spots every time so that game may lose its luster after awhile. Billiards is a game of 9-Ball and works very well. It may be the best game on the disc. Charge! is a game of cow racing where you hold the remote horizontally and tilt it to turn and accelerate and can even quickly move it upwards to jump. While not as deep as Excite Truck, it works pretty well and the jumping gives it an added dimension. Tanks! is probably the best game on the disc. With the nunchuk attachment, you move a tank around the screen. A crosshair appear where the remote is pointing toward the screen and you can fire in that direction. Your shells will ricochet off a wall once so there is lots of strategy to planning your shots.

Laser Hockey, while not the best game on the disc, is the most interesting. Mostly because I really enjoyed it, but my friends did not. It took them awhile to figure it out and even then I'm not sure they totally did. The game is air hockey. Moving the remote up, down, left, and right does the same to the paddle. Twisting the remote clockwise or counter-clockwise rotates the (horizontal) paddle. I "got" this game the first time I played it, but others didn't. Regardless, I enjoy this game even if others don't.

Wii Sports - Playing two player

So, I finally got my Wii last Sunday. My friends in Salt Lake are awesome and pooled their resources together to get me one for my birthday. Well, they put the money together to get me one. They weren't in stock when they were looking and it took a week before stores got in shipments again. Fortunately, people aren't crazy for them anymore so my friend and I got to Circuit City a few minutes after it opened and they still had about a half dozen left.

Wii Sports was the main game I played on Sunday and then ended up playing Monday and yesterday as well. Previously, I had tried it out at a friend's place and was very impressed by tennis and bowling. In fact, the quality of tennis and bowling is what inspired me to actually be interested in getting a Wii as soon as it had a few more good software titles (including virtual console downloads). So I knew Tennis and Bowling were good. I tried boxing and it was fun to watch and not bad to participate in against another player, but it couldn't say it was actually a good game. I'd heard baseball was pretty good too.

What surprised me was golf. No one I knew had talked positively about golf. There wasn't a ton of negative stuff said about it either, but it was never listed when people talked about the good games in Wii Sports. I can somewhat understand. It isn't very deep and it isn't really an accurate simulation of golf. It doesn't check the position of the remote when you would be hitting the ball and thus doesn't determine hook or slice that way. All it really measures is how quickly you move the remote forward. For all of this inaccuracy to actual golf, it is still a fun game. You still have to take wind, terrain, and slope into account when lining up your shot. Instead of having to press a button twice to determine power and accuracy*, you instead just swing the remote. If you put too much power on it, you will hook or slice. It is a very simple use of the Wii's motion sensing capabilities and yet it still really adds to the game. You can have a fun game of challenging a friend to several holes that requires moving about to determine your shots. It is entertaining to play, even alone, and lots of fun with friends. It certainly has made me consider looking into getting a Tiger Woods or other golf video game for the Wii that uses waggle.

Baseball is pretty nice too. You don't control fielding or base running, but for the most part I think that is fine. At first I thought it was all about batting, but the last game I played, my friend and I got into more of a pitcher's duel. The batting is pretty awesome, though. When I keep trying for home runs, I tend to fly out a lot more, just like in actual baseball.

So that makes four of the five games on Wii Sports being genuinely fun and I'd say that's a great ratio. Heck even boxing is fun when you have two players going at it and a bunch of people over.

*I know the modern golf games now use the analog stick(s) for power and accuracy, but the most recent golf game I've played was Mario Golf: Advance Tour for the Game Boy Advance so no analog stick. Before that, I think the last golf game I played was in 1993 or so.