Kyerannosaur Roars: Starting and Quitting Zone of the Enders

Let's roar about Zone of the Enders, a pair of games I've heard praised many times. I once saw a fellow dino playing The Second Runner and thought the action looked incredible and fun. I was excited to rent a copy of the HD Collection to finally indulge in the giant, super saiyan robot action myself.

Not much later, I spit them out angrily.

I bit into the first Zone of the Enders because I like continuity. As the first in a series, I fully expected it to be the weaker of the two -- this is typical for franchises (though not always the rule). The cut-scenes came hard and fast, featuring polygonal characters and pixelated explosions that I remember so fondly from the PlayStation 2-era of games. I was first quickly reminded that I was playing a Japanese-produced title, complete with poor voice acting, strange character names, and a plot filled to the brim with tropes. None of this hits above or below my expectations. What does hit above my expectation is how quickly I'm dropped into game play, being able to pilot my Frame (read: giant robot) and battle enemies. Then control is taken away so characters can dialogue and I remember that this game was designed by Hideo Kojima. (Don't get me wrong, I love Kojima-san, but he also loves his plot.)

So I sit in a cockpit, staring around at my environment while a monotone computer tells me how to play. Then the computer tells me what's happening. I go back to the action and fight another battle. Computer-talking-time again. Now we're watching a cut-scene. More dialogue from the computer and our underage hero. Action. Talking. Action. Talking and more talking. At this point, I'm disinterested and bored.

This is not a bash against cut-scenes or detailed stories in games. This is about keeping the player interested. During a cut-scene in Metal Gear Solid, I'm watching characters act and interact. During these listen-to-ADA-speak moments of Zone of the Enders, I'm looking at nothing, controlling a first-person cockpit view, for sometimes more than five minutes. Add to that my knowledge of anime tropes and I'm really not intrigued by what is happening or what the computer is talking about. These interruptions are quickly killing the pacing. I came looking for cool robot battles; I was shown cool robot battles; now I'm being denied cool robot battles in lieu of dull commentary about a heartless computer AI.

Not to mention moving from one sector of plot or combat to the next is slow-going as well. After a few hours, I'm hunting obscure passcodes from various towns literally labeled "Town-1," "Town-2," etc. I get confused about my goals and destinations and I quit crunching.

Let's try The Second Runner! As the sequel, it's bound to be better.

Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner is an improvement over the first game. It looks better, the dialogue is better, I get to watch people talk while I'm stuck in the cockpit view... Tastier, better prepared experience. Sadly, I lasted less time with it than the first.

The Second Runner quickly got me into combat and feeling cool. It gave me a few waves of enemies to fight, teaching me the controls and mechanics, giving me a chance to show off. All good.

The first boss fight took twice as long as it should have. Most of my attacks against her did chip damage, and even once I figured out the proper pattern and combo it was still a six minute ordeal -- six minutes of not making mistakes or I would die. I'm all for difficulty in games. More importantly, however, I want a game to feel consistent. TSR just spent the past 15 minutes showing me that I was going to be awesome. Then it set me into a fight very different, and while I was still learning game mechanics. Great games like Dark Souls and Mega Man are tough, but they're consistently tough; this is not.

I win the fight but I'm feeling a bit riled, as though the game had been attempting to insult me for not just "being good" right off the bat. A few combat scenarios later and I'm in a tight corridor surrounded by enemies, most of them gnat-like and relatively unintimidating. Then the plague of the last era of games reared its ugly head: camera control. Despite all of my attempts, I could not manage to get my avatar to lock onto the powerful opposition; no, instead I could only target the many gnats buzzing around me. So I was unable to fight back: if you can't target the adversary, you can't fight the adversary: if you can't fight, you lose. Repeatedly. I quit crunching.

I wanted to enjoy Zone of the Enders and I still want to see a successor, but somewhere between the pacing, the controls, and the difficulty spikes, I unfortunately got lost. Both games left a bitter taste in my mouth. Adjust some ingredients though, make the design feel more consistent and tightly woven together, and this can be something really great. I hope to crunch that something great one day.

Zone of the Enders was developed and published by Konami; High Voltage collaborated for the development of the HD Collection. For this post, I played Zone of the Enders for about two hours and The Second Runner for about one and a half hours on the PlayStation 3. I rented a copy of the game.

Kyerannosaur Crunches Dishonored

Tastes like CHOICE!

Dishonored has been getting a lot of well-earned praise of late. Arkane Studios have successfully crafted a unique, deep, atmospheric experience. But beyond the wonderful, captivating atmosphere (which I really did love), I must praise the game's brilliantly constructed, and purposefully contained, player-choice driven levels.

Take note that this is not a massive RPG along the lines of Dragon Age or Mass Effect where every little action impacts the world and drives you further to your own, player-constructed conclusion. Dishonored is much more controlled than that: you will always go to the same locales to assault the same group of people. However, you do have an effect, and I like how it's written and handled almost better than the big sweeping diversities you see being attempted elsewhere.

Dishonored deals a lot in political intrigue, full of attempted coup d'etats, double-crossing, personal honor, and the ever-appealing and justifiable vengeance. You've been framed for murdering the impress, have been rescued from your execution, and have the opportunity to set things straight. In the process, you will seek to put the rightful heir, the young Emily Kaldwin, on the throne. It is up to you how to do this. Here, I feel, is Dishonored's strongest selling point. You really do have a lot of options, all exposed organically. Decisions are made almost implicitly.

The game is separated into discrete pieces, or chapters, determined by missions. Each mission has a set, determined objective -- usually to eliminate a certain political member. The rest relies on you: how to approach the target (do I need a key? is there a security system to watch for?), how to get inside (ventilation? possess a rat? fight my way in?) , who to interact with along the way (avoid or help citizens?), how to deal with conflict (fight or flight?), and whether or not to kill the target (do you show mercy?). And these decisions are made strictly based on action, not by selecting from a menu.

Here are a some things I really like about this system:

• The concept of choice is prominent throughout every encounter. Characters constantly repeat that how you deal with a situation is strictly up to you -- they just want results. This keeps it fresh in the player's mind that there are multiple routes, many options, and everything is at his discretion.
• The rat plague is a clever "paragon" gauge. The more killing you do, the greater the presence of rats is; the less bodies found, the plague stays a bit tamer. This is much better for the world, and even for game play, than some growing bar on the menu screen.
• With most changes occurring from mission to mission, difficulty changes are easier to maintain. This is big, since playing non-aggressively (trying to keep people alive) is generally much harder than reacting violently. If you play more aggressively, each mission will be filled with more guards, your actions will be more well known. If you play "nicer," you'll have more friends to help you out moving forward.
• Since the game is smaller, more contained, every encounter and decision has more weight and the effects are more apparent. With larger games, not only can it be harder for players to detect how all of their choices mattered, but it's harder for developers to take everything into account. With Dishonored spanning just about 8 hours, every step, every chapter, is refined and polished in such a way that nothing feels overlooked. With the plot being shorter and smaller in scale, any one decision means more, especially when dealing with taking the lives of political figures.
• Any route makes sense for Corvo, the protagonist. He is the trusted bodyguard of the empress and a very skilled man, who just got betrayed and branded a murderer: he has every right to react with anger, seeking vengeance. However, he is working for peace, working to restore what has been lost, and sparing lives could easily be his style. Choices don't feel out of place or out of character for the lore.
• You are only one person in the plot. Admiral, regents, religious leaders, and the empress's daughter -- the heir to the throne -- are all involved. You have an effect on things, of course, but you aren't the sole driver of how things turn out in the end. I personally really, really like this.

I could go on and on about how tasty this game is and how wonderfully crafted the blending of choice, game play, and plot is. I would love to see more games focus on the smaller scale and really polish up their worlds as opposed to trying to make me the super epic hero who decides the fate of the universe. I like being the epic hero but only if the developer has the time to pull it off (Dragon Age II, I'm looking at you). That said, Dishonored is delicious.

Dishonored was developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda. For this post, I played about 10 hours, enough to complete the game once and play the first two missions again. I purchased a copy of this game for myself on the PlayStation 3.

Kyerannosaur Pot Luck: Sonic, Mickey, Nintendo Land, & Scribblenauts

I've bit into a few games recently that had less distinct tastes from others I've found. Not too surprising, really, since not every game is going to get flavor right or even be trying to present a flavor at all. In light of this, I offer up a Pot Luck. Here's a blast of quick impressions from games I've crunched that didn't have enough to really crunch about.

Keep in mind this doesn't mean the games all tasted bad; this doesn't mean the games didn't have a taste -- these games just don't qualify as a full meal (kinda like a composgnathus). On with the multi-crunchinating!

Sonic Generations
Tastes like FANSERVICE!

This game tastes like it falls somewhere between nostalgic fanservice baked up with old (read: not fresh) ingredients. It's full of remixed levels from previous Sonic games, each presented in 2D and 3D varieties for classic Sonic and modern Sonic. The idea is cool and the nostalgia is great -- seeing Chemical Plant Zone remade in 3D is very cool. The remixed tunes are also fantastic! Yet the gameplay and controls didn't hold up for me. Steering modern Sonic along his high-speed routes felt like steering a barge or a Y-Wing, instead of being a nimble, agile, quick bipedal mammal. The requirement to complete challenge modes in levels is also a big momentum killer, which ultimately prevented me from exploring more of the game's content. The first boss felt like an older Sonic boss fight and was decently designed. The game had good level design, hearkening back to the beloved Sonics of yore, but lacked the polish or controls to properly enjoy what was available.

This title was developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega; prior to this post I played for about 2 hours on the PlayStation 3.

Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion
Tastes RAW!

Being drafted from the design ideas and presentation of the classic Castle of Illusion, I was excited for Power of Illusion. Unfortunately, I enjoyed nothing that I bit into. Within my short experience, I encountered a number of design dilemmas that left a bad taste in my mouth:

• Tutorials are presented after the taught action is necessary. The game contains a number of pop-up tutorial panels, seemingly one for each of the game's mechanics. However, these are presented after the actions are necessary. For instance, a pop-up panel explains how to jump on an enemy to defeat it (which, by the way, is not implemented intuitively, as I'll explain) after the first enemy is met and must be jumped over. The same goes for super-bouncing and many other mechanics throughout the first level.
• Why do I need to press 'Jump' twice for a jump attack? Mickey can jump on enemies to defeat them, à la Super Mario Bros. However, the jump action itself is not enough. Instead, players must press the 'Jump' button a second time, while in mid-air, to turn the "jump" into a "pounce" else take damage from the collision. This is unintuitive, an unnecessary obfuscation, and causes many problems with enemy encounters and level design.
• Writing is poor. These are established, recognizable, generally well-known and beloved Disney characters. They each have their own mannerisms and language. This game fails to account for that and the text comes off as overly simplified and poorly explanatory.
• Enemies on every ledge. I played at least two levels in a row which had ever ledge marked with an enemy. Anytime that I needed to jump near the peek of my jump (which requires holding the 'Jump' button) to reach a higher platform, an enemy would be waiting on the platform -- and I could only attack by double-pressing the 'Jump' button (as explained above). This is flat-out annoying.

Beyond these issues, everything played and looked like a rudimentary platformer.

This title was developed by DreamRift and published by Disney Interactive Studios; prior to this post I played for about 2 hours on the Nintendo 3DS.

Nintendo Land

Tastes like NEAPOLITAN!

Nintendo Land is explicitly the "let's try Wii U" game. It's a showcase of the Wii U GamePad's potential; it's also a showcase of how much fun asymmetric gameplay can really be. Here's a quick rundown:

• Luigi's Ghost Mansion: One player snickers to himself while tracking down his friends who are all shouting every time their Wii Remote vibrates.
• Mario Chase: One player runs like a madman while the her friends scream code names to track her down and catch her within the 2-minute time limit.
• Animal Crossing Sweet Day: Players scurry about to scoop up as much candy as possible while their friend mercilessly hunts them down with two watch dogs.
• Team Attractions: Players battle together through a series of challenges in games modeled well after The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Pikmin.
• Solo Attractions: This is everything else the GamePad can do. Practice now while developers plan on including some form of these mini-games in future releases.

All in all, the variety keeps this surprisingly fun. It's not a full-course meal, but more like a package of ice cream to pull out at the next social gathering.

This title was developed and published by Nintendo; prior to this post I played for about 5 hours on the Wii U.

Scribblenauts Unlimited

Tastes like CREATIVITY!

The Scribblenauts IP is built on creativity and sandbox experiences. The puzzles are there not so much for directing the experience but for encouraging more creative thought. It's very much like a coloring book, in that you take your drawing utensils and create something vibrant, expressive, and fun. These works aren't judged but simply enjoyed. 

This title was developed by 5th Cell and published by WB Games; prior to this post I played for about 1 hour on the Wii U.

Kyerannosaur Crunches Batman: Arkham City

Tastes like THE BATMAN!

After being nominated for many awards last year, including Game of the Year from multiple venues, I'm sure most of everyone is aware that Batman: Arkham City is a really, really good game. It's gorgeous, meticulously built, excellently polished, and nearly flawlessly executed. But it's not the Kyerannosaur's job to tell you how "good" or "bad" a game is (hint: this one is "good"); it's the Kyerannosaur's job to crunch and decide how the game tastes, and crunching Arkham City tastes perfectly like the Batman should taste.

Kyerannosaur Crunches Journey

Tastes like...EMOTION!

Journey is unlike any game I have played before. It doesn't have a genre, or follow tropes, or meet design expectations. In the same way "The Artist" defied the rules of what a 21st century movie is, Journey defies modern game design. Just as "Fantasia" captivated its audience by making a symphony an animation, Journey turns emotions into a video game.

Kyerannosaur Crunches Assassin's Creed III

Tastes like AMBITION!

I want to give a big round of applause to Ubisoft for the Assassin's Creed series. These guys seemingly set out to craft a series of games that spans an entire console generation. This has been more than a trilogy. This has been a carefully built legacy, to which we will look back upon and say this was their mark on a generation of game development and game design. For that, let's give a big hip-hip-hooroar! to Ubisoft. Well done, guys.

Assassin's Creed 3 is the culmination of this franchise, the capstone of a generation, and the wrap-up of a six-year series. It's sporting an upgraded engine and all the refinements from five iterations of engineering and design. The visuals are leaps above the earlier installments, the animations fantastic, the set-pieces and locales meticulously reconstructed and rendered, and everything runs smoother and better. The scope of the story and the game play goes well beyond its predecessors and the multiplayer continues to grow and evolve. Yet, with all of this, the game leaves something of a bitter taste in my mouth.

Kyerannosaur Crunches Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Tastes like VANILLA!

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (hereafter referred to as Amalur, because that name is longer than a seismosaur's neck) is an RPG. It's an RPG player's RPG, and it tries to be a really good one. It tries to stand up and say, "I'm awesome! I've got the most and I do the best!" It's like a giant, juicy, fresh cut steak that was cooked without seasoning. It's bland.

When talking about my play time with a fellow dino, I described Amalur as "RPG of RPG: The Reckoning" because that's what it looks and feels like. I started the game and watched a cinematic about some great evil force that once went to war with a prosperous kingdom and was finally defeated but may be immortal (or something like that; honestly, I didn't catch all the details). It felt like The Lord of the Rings and the struggle against Sauron. Then I created a character, picked a class, and a build, and customized my appearance, because that's what you do in RPGs. Oh, and pick a deity to follow, too, because that'll affect your abilities later.

Kyerannosaur Crunches Borderlands 2

Tastes like BADASSERY!

I adored the first Borderlands. The IP has a distinct flavor, a distinct style, that nothing else has emulated yet. It satisfies a craving that nothing else quite can. It tastes like Diablo made from different meat, giving you a difference in the core flavor: a humor and action style that comes from a different team and a different genre.

Borderlands 2 does perfectly what I feel every primal action game should do: make the player feel awesome. Through art, writing, mechanics, enemy design, and even their marketing campaign, the game tells you you're a badass and no one should mess with you -- or face the consequences. You're here to rock faces and claim loot. You are the alpha predator (something I can relate to).