Game Play: Katamari Forever (PS3 Review)

Katamari was, in it's original form, difficult to explain but plenty of fun to play. The sum result of The Prince rolling around his ever increasingly girth of a Katamari to J-Pop music translates into a kind of wonderful digital stress ball (even if The King is always on your back).

That the 360 got a Damarcy rendition before Sony is something of a sign of how this generation has gone ... and yet similarly PS3 users are missing out on little but patience here.

Katamari Forever mixes up new levels with old, a mish mash of new graphic modes and more or less the entirety of the original gameplay intact. It really is what PS3 owners have been waiting for - a high def rendition of the first game with all the updates from the sequels along for the ride. One might argue that the game doesn't add enough to change the old formula .. but that just begs the question of why you want to do such a thing.

Obviously highly recommended.

Game Play: Fat Princess (PSN Review)

Fat Princess is an isometric class-based multiplayer game where two teams fight from opposing castles which hold the eponymous royalty as prisoners. There is an offline mode, though that is basically just a tutorial area for the real deal - though the game play still works pretty well as the bot AI is consistently good (which also helps sometimes fill out the online games).

Players choose their class by grabbing a specific hat (and can change classes in the same way on the fly). There's the sword-slinging warrior, bow-slinging ranger, spell-slinging mage, staff-slinging cleric and axe-wielding worker. Well, OK, the worker slings as well, I guess. Other relatively unique mechanics include tossing pieces of cake to your prisoner, making them fatter and harder to rescue, upgrading various items including the hat making machines (unlocking a secondary attack or stronger weapon for other players).

The core of the game is pretty strong and makes for a well-balanced match in general. No class is overwhelming powerful and each takes a bit of skill and practice to really become useful, while also being simple enough to play around without feeling like a complete tool.

For me, actually, the most problematic of all the classes is the worker ... which is something of a shame. It's by far the most difficult to achieve any decent score from as the worker spends half his time running around, getting killed (he's rather defenseless, even with the bomb upgrade) and the point rewards are meager compared to the ranger (for example) who can just stand and wound opponents to rack up a decent score.

There's also the fact that the gameplay can get a little repetitive and occasionally an experienced team will just race past an inexperienced one, especially in the normal "capture the princess" mode. The team deathmatch mode is somewhat preferable, because there's not catastrophic failures ... just a lot pointmongering. The soccer mode is fairly entertaining as well, even though moving the ball around is a bit frustrating.

Is Fat Princess worth it? It gets point for being at least somewhat unique, and has a strong online showing for the money. I wish it was deeper and more engrossing, but I'll also admit to having spent a few late nights with it. If you're looking for some cartoony online hack and slash, this might be the title for you.

September 24th PSN Update Looking Amazing

So far confirmed for this Thursday: Fallout 3 DLC, in fact the Broken Steel DLC - probably the best of the bunch. Trine (see the trailer at Average Gamer). Zombie Apocalypse.

Jinkies.

Bethesda Announces Fallout 3 PS3 DLC Dates

"Broken Steel" - September 24

"Operation: Anchorage" + "The Pitt" - October 1

"Point Lookout" + "Mothership Zeta" - October 8

-- Bethesda Dates Fallout 3 PS3 DLC [IGN]

Also, apparently some optimizalkad blah blah NEXT FREAKING WEEK!!

TV Watch: Virtuality

Virtuality began life as a TV pilot from some of the same crew as Battlestar but ended up as merely a movie, a show that wasn't picked up and something of a tease.

The show follows the crew of the Phaeton, mankind's first interstellar ship, on a mission to find intelligent life around Epsilon Eridani. The show's title refers to the dual nature of the crew also taking part in a reality TV show as well as having access to "virt mods" for virtual reality. Without moving into the realm of spoilers, nothing is quite right on either side of that fence.

There's a lot going on, even for a television pilot gone movie. You have the backdrop of ecological disaster, making the 10 year voyage to the stars critical for the planet. There's a lot of infighting surround the reality show itself, the bizarre problems in virtual reality and the interactions between the twelve person crew.

With so much at work here, and so much of it working quite well - it baffles me how this show didn't at least get a shot. If you look back about a year, you see Fox sticking with the more generic shows (I reallly like both Fringe and Dollhouse, don't ge me wrong) - and ditching the more unique ones ... namely this show and Boldly Going Nowhere. From those I've talked to who have seen the Boldly pilot, it's completely hilarious. And nearly impossible to see.

If anything, Virtuality reminds me a lot of Odyssey Five, a character driven show with some unique sci fi twists and mysteries to it.

At least you can still watch Virtuality on Hulu, which I highly recommend. Still, I would imagine someone could possibly find a copy somehow...

Cancel that order. The video was pulled off Hulu. Now that is a tease.

iPhone Review: Comics from comiXology

Recently iVerse released an app, and App Store got a Genius list for recommendations, which made me wonder if it would really help find more noteworthy apps.

Well, sure enough it helped me find Comics, which is an app from comiXology, though there is also an app for the website, so be careful there.

Comics and the iVerse app are extremely similar - they're both apps which allow you browse, buy, organize and read comic titles. They have some distinctions, they use different readers with different behaviors, for instance, and iVerse has more options for notifying new titles. comiXology has more titles in general, however, including it seems a continuance of both Neozoic and Atomic Robo.

I don't see any fairness in pitting the two against each other. Both apps are 99 cents. They're both going to deliver comics right to your phone. I heartily recommend getting the both of them.

Threats To My Productivity

Yesterday, Marvel Alliance 2 dropped - certainly a time sink.

Next Tuesday, Katamari Forever hits. I'm already half-addicted to the demo, and it has two levels.

By the end of September, the DLC for Fallout 3 theoretically makes it to the PS3 (theoretically). This is a game I spent so much time in I almost changed my billing address to the Capitol Wastelands.

Mid October? Uncharted 2.

Yikes. It's going to be a busy few weeks.

Game Play: Marvel Alliance 2 First Look (PS3)

Snagged the last copy Gamestop had of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 yesterday, and The Girl and I managed to get a couple hours of play down.

The heritage to the older games is tangible - most of the controls and gameplay mechanics are carried over and the first impression if you've played the other games is that this is more or less that game with a highly revamped graphics engine. Even if that's all there was - the title would probably be worth the price of admission. The graphics are top notch, although the camera leaves something to be desired and there are instance where the areas get past all the lovely dynamic lighting by simply being really, really dark.

We're only toe deep into the storyline at this point, but I think this game might set a new bar for franchise related narratives. The cut scenes are actually something you might want to watch rather than just a setup to explain why you're fighting on a bridge/forest/castle/whatever.

The "fusion" mechanic is interesting. Basically it takes the combo system from before and puts it on steroids - the combined attacks are far flashier, much more powerful and there are specific types of fusion attacks for certain situations. Area attacks are good for mobs, directed attacks for bosses and guided for ... well, running around the room a lot. We haven't quite gotten the hang of them yet.

In some ways the mechanic insists upon itself - there are clearly scenarios where you really need to use it. Which is usually fine, but also seems to make boss fights feel a bit prolonged and sometimes a little brutal. This is also because the health gameplay has changed - you can carry two "health tokens" to fully heal or revive one character, and they always seem to show up when you're fully healed.

In general, though, a big thumbs up. Probably post a follow up when we get deeper into the game. Bottom line though - they've kept a solid core from the earlier games, added a lot of fancy graphics, and added not only a few new twists and plenty of material ... but a good storyline to boot. Not a bad formula.

Movie Watch: The Wrestler

Honestly, about the only nice thing I can say about this movie is that Marisa Tomei is a very attractive fortysomething.

This is now the second Aronofsky film I didn't finish. First was Requiem For A Dream which I found so profoundly depressing that I could feel enjoyment sucked out of the room. Jennifer Connelly became wildly unattractive to me during the movie - a clear crime against nature. While The Wrestler doesn't share quite the same level of surrealistic masochism as Requiem, there's certainly enough pain and loathing to go around.

I can't find anything particularly interesting about the singular focus on a man's tragedy which is just so droning and unrelenting. Rourke does an amazing job (hey, two nice things), for sure, but there isn't a scene with any respite for the character. Even when he plays Nintendo with a fellow trailer park kid - the kid has to rub it into his face that Call of Duty 4 is out and he's stuck with an NES.

In summary: His day job sucks, his night job is killing him, the closest thing he has to a girlfriend is a stripper, his daughter hates him for being a dick, he abuses drugs, and the people who adore him either want to staple gun his face for amusement or have no idea who he really is as a person.

What's awful about The Wrestler is that it isn't even terribly unique. We've seen this kind of character before - but without the snuff film edge to it.

Obviously not recommended.

Game Play: Alive 4 Ever (iPhone) Review

Setting aside the rather obvious marketing grab from the completely unrelated game from Valve, Alive 4 Ever offers a pretty decent set of zombie shooting entertainment. It's a top down, dual "stick", shooter and the controls are about as responsive as I've seen from an iPhone game. So far I've only seen the one room, but the variety of subgoals, like rescuing people and picking up suitcases full of gold/vaccines/yummy things, is well done.

My only complaint is that the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly, more quickly it seems than you can upgrade to match the new kinds of zombies, slow ass survivors, and a rapidly depleted ammo supply. The idea may be that you're supposed to replay older levels to get XP and then boost to move on.

There's also local coop available, but I haven't tried to convince The Girl to play with me just yet.

So largely a thumbs up, especially if the genre is your cup of tea.

Word of the Day: "Crapulous"

Via dictionary.reference.com, it means:

1. Given to or characterized by gross excess in drinking or eating.
2. Suffering from or due to such excess.

That's just perfect.

Good Question - How Would You Fix Heroes?

Topless Robot points out that Heroes has gotten to the state where commercials for the show point out it's been sagging - and I have to admit that I haven't watched the show since Sylar put on a suit and started acting like a bad Men in Black impersonation.

So I don't even know if I could answer my own question, but I know one thing - at this point it would be painful. Just a few personal notes:

- Some of the ensemble has to go. Take an existing character and revamping them just to fit the plot better is plain stupid and gets rather insulting to the viewers after a while. Kill some people, bring in fresh blood.

- Along with that ... remaining characters need to become internally consistent. Hiro should use his powers in one episode similar to how he does in an another, and not conveniently forgetting he can control time simply because he has a inconvenient power.

- On the inconvenient note, it should be added that in general ubercharacters are pretty dull (and generally inconvenient to your plot). The entire "power sucking" concept got out of hand quickly in the show and only got worse. Characters who can't be killed and can kill everything are just problematic.

- Plotwise, the show has always been hackneyed for me. It has decent themes, but relies way to much on nascent subplots that never really go anywhere and character development which seems like it can turn on a dime. I haven't watched lately so I don't know where the whole "creating superpowers conspiracy" core plot went, but the show needs to find themes which can work season to season, and not feel like it is picking up the pieces each time.

So basically: Kill some people off. Add some new ones. Be consistent. Get a trailer which convinces me you have a story worth saving.

App Store Now Genius, iPhone gets 3.1

With over 75,000 apps in the App Store, it can be difficult to find new applications. Apple’s extended its Genius media-recommendation algorithm to iPhone applications. It looks at the apps you already own and makes recommendations based on that information.

-- Apple announces iPhone 3.1

Obviously, sign me up. At the same time, I wonder how much this will do to alleviate smaller apps with less hype getting noticed.

New Dante's Inferno Wallpaper: Greed & Greed Sale

Some fresh circle of hell rendering below. We're putting all this media on the new Cathode Tan Facebook page, so you're in FB feel free to keep an eye out there. (Oh yeah, Twitter may be next...)

EA also sends word that today, and today only (9/9/9) you can get $6.66 off your pre-order of Dante's Inferno at GameStop.

Is 3D the next HD?

I think in some ways, Microsoft's Xbox 360 heralded the modern HD era of entertainment, being the first consumer device which both insisted upon itself on being part of the high def generation, but also one that was massively adopted by consumers.

Course, much of HD adoption wasn't the rosy path either Microsoft, Sony, or the other players, wanted it to be - which to bring it back to gaming aided a certain company rhyming with Mintendo by being cheap and easy to use on existing standard def sets. However, by May 2009, nearly half of homeowners have a high def set, a 12% increase from the previous year. The dust has settled on the format war, players are getting quickly cheaper and there are more and more viewing options are becoming available.

So, just as the smoke begins to clear - the industry is trying to carve the next, um, next-generation. HD is old. 3D is new:

We saw 3-D footage shot at the Beijing Olympics, including that larger-than-life opening ceremony in the Bird's Nest stadium and a soccer game that was more vivid and lifelike than anything I've ever seen on a screen. It felt as if we were standing at the edge of the pitch. I'm not a big sports fan, but the first thing I thought was that the "killer app" for this technology will be sports. Monday Night Football will never be the same again. ESPN, which embraced HD and boomed because of it, is going to have a field day.

-- TV’s Next Dimension [Newsweek]

In part, we have James Cameron to blame. He has been spearheading a movement in cinema for a while now, trying to prove that 3D has evolved past the gimmick stage and deserves to become the forefront of movie making technology. It doesn't hurt, of course, that the movie industry has been getting kicked in the shins with piracy and low ticket sales - both things that moviemakers hope 3D can help address. See, you can't simply sneak a camcorder into a theater, burn it and sell it if that theater is playing a 3D version. Add in the additional draw (and potentially the jacked up price) and you have a very happy theater owner.

The game industry has been making similar noises, although probably with a slightly different set of motives. With Moore's Law no longer being the prime mover for selling new games, or to put it another way - you can't be sure of a bestseller by trying to outperform yesterday's graphics anymore - game producers would love to have a technical solution to spike some sales. Long term gamers will realize, of course, that they have been here before, and honestly we'll need to see some better demonstrations to decide if goofy looking glasses are worth playing the game.

All of this, of course, translates into apparently an entirely new set of hardware:

We'll have to wait and see on that one. To get into the 3-D game, you'll need a new TV, obviously, as well as a new Blu-ray player that can play 3-D discs, and a new HDMI cable that can handle the extra data associated with 3-D content. The first stuff you'll see will be on discs, but Panasonic expects 3-D content will be delivered on cable and satellite, and even, eventually, on broadcast TV. It took eight or nine years for HD sets to reach widespread adoption, and 3-D will likely follow a similar curve.

-- TV’s Next Dimension [Newsweek]

Ahem. Firstly - a new HDMI cable? Wasn't HDMI supposed to be something of the end all, be all, for media cables?

But that's being nitpicky. I think the holes in the 3D theory are a bit more expansive than just the cables.

First - I find it doubtful that piracy will be so quickly subdued. It's been a circular technological war since the onset, and will continue to do so. Second, it seems unlikely that 3D is going to be a massive hit outside certain genres. I could be wrong, of course - perhaps seeing a lame romantic comedy with an additional dimension will make it slightly less lame - but I certainly don't see dishing any extra dollars to see it that.

Finally, HD was a far harder sell than the industry assumed it would be - partially due to high prices and partially due to a needless format war. There's nothing to say that a 3D generation wouldn't face similar, or worse, issues - especially considering we don't have any ready to market sets to examine at this point. Especially since I would challenge that "nearly half" equates to "widespread adoption", and adding in consumer fatigue from the fact that half them would have sets less than ten years old (my last TV I got from my first corporate job out after college, not that I'll admit here how long that was) - I think anything less than a decade is pretty optimistic.

Also, how hard of a sell will it be to convince consumers they need new hardware to make use of a feature which has been around since the 50's?

In general, I think the industry may be getting a little ahead of itself here.