The TV and Film Guy's Reviews

Virtua Tennis 4 - Bomb Tennis, Anyone?

2011-05-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Although I don't play tennis, it has always appeared to be one of those games which is easy games to play horribly and horrendously difficult to play well. If you can't manage to hit the ball in tennis, it's not like golf where you have to keep trying, you'll just lose the point. It might not be much fun that way, but you can definitely complete a match.

Of course, in the videogame world, things are far more simple than that. Anyone can hit a golf ball in Tiger Woods, and anyone can hit a tennis ball in Virtua Tennis 4. That's probably a pretty good thing, because no one would want to play if a sports title was remotely as difficult in the videogame world as it is in the real world.

To get this next bit out of the way upfront, while there is network play available in Virtua Tennis 4, it is not going to be covered in this review. As the world knows, the PlayStation Network is not currently working and therefore that portion of the game is not currently available (although presumably when the PSN comes back, the online multiplayer will become available).

Multiplayer is just a small portion of the game though, the real meat and potatoes of it all is within the World Tour, where you are tasked with creating a player and bringing him or her up through the tennis ranks. World Tour has been revamped for this new version of Virtua Tennis and features you traversing four different areas of the world one at a time as you prepare for the Grand Slam event in that area… not that they're called Grand Slams tournaments, while the title has some licensed players, it does not have those four tournaments (but there are tournaments in those locations).

On your way to the tournaments your goal is build up your star rating, which is essentially your world ranking, and to improve your skills. This is done through a series of ridiculous (and often fun) minigames. You'll be doing things like hitting a bomb back and forth with a competitor until the timer runs to zero and one of you ends up getting caught in the blast, breaking clay pigeons, trying to make good poker hands by hitting bad cards, and bringing baby chicks to their mommies.

In other words, the minigames have absolutely nothing to do with real tennis. There are some moments on your trip to the major events that are real tennis related, including minor tournaments and practice rounds, but while most of the minigames have you on some sort of tennis court and with a racquet, they're not traditional tennis.

It is all perfectly fun (if only sort of tennis related), but the way you get to these events isn't nearly as enjoyable. The map is organized with a trail on it, one which takes you from event to event, but you only get to move on the map with "tickets" which number one through four and thereby denote how many spaces each one will take you. If you play too many events (minigames) at the spots you land on, you'll become rundown and potentially injured, but you may not have any choice about what you do due to the ticket availability (you must participate on the event on any space on which you land). There are special spots where you can purchase more tickets (one each time), but this all makes too much of the focus of a tennis game non-tennis related things. Imagine if you could only play tournaments in Tiger Woods by landing on the right square or could only play a baseball game in MLB 2K11 the same way. You don't need to land a ticket for the exact right number of spaces to play in a major, but for other tournaments you do and that's hugely frustrating for anyone who wants to build their tennis player by playing tennis.

Once you do get to play tennis, the actual mechanics of it are good, if a little dumbed-down. There are several basic types of shots you're allowed to hit (lob, top spin, regular), but anything more specific is game controlled depending on your position on the court. It makes you look like a much better player than you might be at first, but as you progress, you'll find that it really hampers you in trying to accomplish what it is that you want to accomplish on the court.

There is no claim that this is an EA Sports-esque title, one that would do its best to imitate the actual real-world sport, but Virtua Tennis 4's desire to do so sometimes and even then in only halfway fashion makes it something of a disappointment – if you're not able to/don't wish to license all four Grand Slam tournaments in tennis, don't build a game mode which revolves around you going to knockoff versions of those tournaments, particularly when the path to get there involves things like having to serve soccer balls into goals on a tennis court while being blocked by plastic defenders.

Honestly, when the game embraces this sort of minigame goofiness it can be a whole lot of fun. However, I can think of several other ways to make the minigames a part of the title without diminishing the actual quantity of tennis played.

There are other modes available as well l (like the aforementioned not reviewed online section) allowing for one off matches and small tournaments, and you can play as a licensed player in them as well. But, if you're offline and one player, you won't be spending that much time there because it doesn't allow for the same depth of play.

Graphically speaking, the game isn't quite realistic in its animation style, but it does look good. The cutscenes upon winning points or matches become repetitive all too quickly though, and they don't match up with what's just taken place on court (if you're at the net for a point and you win it, in the cutscene you may find yourself running in from the baseline). Sweat does pour down your skin as well as the match progresses. Characters don't necessarily look true to life, but they do make for pretty good facsimiles.

We have not tested the Move or 3D capabilities of the final version of the game, but we did get to experience them at Sega's Spring Showcase back in February. Our assessment at the time was that while the Move was fun, it didn't provide quite as much control as the traditional method of play. The 3D at that point too looked good.

Let the Virtua part of the Virtua Tennis 4 title be your guide here – it's virtually tennis, not an all out pure sim. It is fun, but don't expect it to be more than what it is.

Virtua Tennis 4 is rated E (Everyone) by the ESRB for Comic Mischief. This game can also be found on: Wii and Xbox 360.

Article first published as PlayStation 3 Review: Virtua Tennis 4 on Blogcritics.

Hector: Badge of Carnage and the Case of the Horrific Bug

2011-05-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

It may be an old cliché, but the truth of the matter is that first impressions do count. The way something or someone catches your eye that first time around does make a difference. This is unquestionably true for videogames – that opening sequence has to draw you in, make you want to play, and when you finally do get to start actually playing, the first thing you do in the game sets the stage for everything that is to come after. Blow the opening and you may lose your audience very quickly.

The folks at Straandlooper clearly know this. It is because first impressions are important that opening puzzle in episode one of Hector: Bade of Carnage involves you, as Detective Inspector Hector, in your underwear fishing something out of a dirty toilet using a used condom. Yes, Hector is meant solely for adults and it revels in that fact.

Hector has had something of a long trip to its current Mac/PC release. Initially, the game came out on the iPhone in June of last year (with a promised second and third episode down the line) before Telltale Games stepped in this year and announced that they would help bring all three games to PC, Mac, and iPad. Said second and third episodes are now due this fall.

The game is a perfect fit with Telltale's style of point-and-click puzzle titles, requiring you to formulate odd solutions to weird problems. In episode one of Hector (entitled "We Negotiate with Terrorists"), Hector is called in to help fix the city of Clapper's Wreake at the behest of a terrorist. The city is something of a cesspool which the terrorist would like to see cleaned up. Hector is himself a cesspool as well, so his fixing the place does seem rather odd, but the foul-mouthed Detective Inspector still goes about his job.

Although exceedingly short, the first episode of Hector: Badge of Carnage is also exceptionally fun. It is the same sort of crude humor which is the hallmark of South Park and definitely not for the faint of heart. There are disgusting moments, lots of foul language (more if you understand the British slang employed), and general foulness (a significant portion of episode one takes place in a porn shop).

The graphics are cartoon-like in nature and the style is great to look at. The mouth movements don't line up with the dialogue being spoken, but that fits the entire crude sense of it all. As for the dialogue, outside of being foul, the performances are truly enjoyable.

One place where Hector does somewhat differ from many other point-and-click adventure puzzles is with the dialogue trees. It isn't simply a matter of exhausting all your choices in order to get someone to give you the information you need, rather there are several times when you need to progress logically (or semi-logically) down a path, choosing the right responses to get what you need to know and advance.

The game also features an in-game hint system which is just as lewd as the game itself. Ask how you should proceed, and you'll be berated rather regularly for daring to not go out on your own to figure it out. The hint system really is a perfect extension of the title and helps give the game a more finished feel.

Sadly, that finished feel is rather destroyed by the current Mac port of the title. Going back to that first impression of the game, while that first puzzles is brilliant, utterly disgusting, and a great hook into the game, one of the first things you'll actually notice in the game is a horrendous flicker. The port to the Mac does have a significant bug (perhaps only with certain video cards, perhaps not, and other PC bugs have been reported as well) which causes different parts of the game to flicker on screen. One moment you will be able to see everything perfectly, the next certain items on the screen will disappear, then other items, then the whole thing. Telltale is aware of the issue, but that doesn't stop the title from being an incredibly frustrating experience at times – it seems inconceivable that the default hardware configuration for many current generation MacBooks (and who knows how many other Apple computers) have a video card that is potentially not supported.

There are some odd other oversights as well, including Hector misreading a sign at one point, and due to his misreading it, giving you the answer to a puzzle that you may not have yet figured out. But, that is more of a minor issue.

As Telltale is aware of the flicker situation, they will hopefully arrive at a solution soon. Until that time it is exceptionally difficult to give the game a rating. As it stands, it something of a two-star title, but with the bugs fixed it would be four-stars. The flicker actually manages to ruin some puzzles as important pieces of the game flicker at different times from unimportant pieces.

It is because the frustration level becomes so great and the fact that puzzles get ruined due to the flicker that we recommend waiting for a patch for buying the game.

Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode One is not rated by the ESRB, however, Telltale's website does recommend the game only for those 17 years of age and older and the game does feature many adult themes and language. The game is also available on iPhone and iPad.
The initial release:

With a promised fix for the bugs:

Article first published as PC/Mac Game Review: Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode One on Blogcritics.

Back to the Future - The Game: Episode Four -- Time to go Back to the Drawing Board

2011-05-11T07:18:00.000-07:00

As I stated in my review of the last episode of Back to the Future: The Game, by this point in time, if you haven't already purchased the game you're either not going to or waiting until you see whether the whole package is worth it (or maybe hoping for a sale). While episode three in the series did, unquestionably, have many an amusing moment and add to the overall fun of the title, episode four fails to do so.

"Double Visions," as the episode is entitled, features Marty escaping from the alternate Hill Valley of 1986 and heading back in time to good old 1931 in order to stop Edna and Emmett Brown from falling in love. That's all fine, the plot is not the problem. It may be somewhat goofy, but it fits in perfectly with what's come before.

No, while the problem with the game is two (or maybe three) fold, the plot isn't one of them. It is, however, related to one of them.

The first problem with the episode is that said plot is often delivered in speeches that are far too long. There are moments during "Double Visions" when you will unquestionably want to get up, take a nice stroll around the room, and then return to see if you'll now be allowed to play. These moments are not Metal Gear Solid long, but are still far too long and occur far too often. Each episode of the game doesn't take all that much time, and it almost feels as though Telltale has tried to lengthen this one with unnecessary dialogue in which you do not participate.

Then there's problem two, and it is far worse than problem one – the puzzles simply aren't that much fun to solve. Perhaps the best way to describe them is "cumbersome," the puzzles are cumbersome. On a fairly regular basis puzzles titles have issues like the ones I mentioned in episode three, where you have a perfectly valid way to solve the problem, but the game would like it solved differently. Here, while that occurs, it isn't as upsetting what the obvious and correct solutions sometimes require.

As an example, one puzzle forces you to go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and—you get the picture—in a single room, altering the same two things over and over again until you've done it enough times to complete the already pretty silly task. There needs to be some sort of shorthand employed, because as it stands, it's just kind of annoying and takes far too long.

That potential third issue, isn't quite speechifying nor is it cumbersome puzzles, but it's cumbersome game development during plot advancing chats. In episode four, you will find yourself talking to someone and once the conversation finishes, magically, things around you will have changed subtly – areas that were previously unavailable are now available… for no good reason. Your conversation in no affected the changed areas, no one in what was visible in the background was seen working near or around the changed areas, no one has announced that the area has changed – it just has. And, if you're not paying terribly close attention, you will have no idea what to do next because there is absolutely no reason to think that anything has altered around you during your brief chat.

In short, from start to finish, Back to the Future: The Game – Episode Four is a frustrating gaming experience. If you already have a season pass, it's worth playing the episode for completion's sake, and if you intend on getting a season pass later I wouldn't skip the episode, but if you're on the fence, this one just may find you opting to not purchase the game.

Back to the Future: The Game - Episode Four is rated RP (Rating Pending) by the ESRB but previous entries have been rated T (Teen). This game can also be found on: PS3.

Article first published as PC/Mac Game Review: Back to the Future - The Game: Episode 4 on Blogcritics.

We Could be Siege Heroes if Just for one day

2011-05-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

Angry Birds, didn't exactly create a genre of games, but it certainly did popularize one. In fact, in a press release for their newest title, Siege Hero, Armor Games is quick to point out that the game's predecessor, Crush the Castle, is kind of like Angry Birds but was released before the avian tossing title. The statement was in no way intended to knock down someone else's castle, more to point out that they weren't pilfering anything with this release.

In truth, there have been any number of spins on the genre, outside of the above, there have things like Tiki Totems which follows the formula as well, just with tapping to remove sections as opposed to launching something. And, with the way mobile apps are growing, it seems like there may be room for all of them. Plus, when they're done well, they're fun.

Let us turn our thoughts specifically to Siege Hero, a game which contains 63 levels and the promise of more down the line. Where it differs slightly from its predecessor and Angry Birds is that rather than launching your missile of choice from the side towards the structure, Siege Hero operates on a first-person perspective – the missile comes from where you are and heads straight towards the castle.

Other than that, the basic principles all remain the same – there is a structure made out of various objects (wood, stone, ice, etc.), and you need to destroy it, killing all the bad guys but leaving any bystanders alive. You get bonus points for not harming the innocent and lose points should you kill them. You also get bonus points for not utilizing you're full complement of missiles. Hit a predetermined score level and you obtain mastery of the level rather than just completion. Siege Hero also offers several types of missiles, from single rocks to multiples, vats of fire and tar, and even bombs.

The game really is a trial and error experience, one which asks you to examine the structure you need to destroy, pinpoint the weak spots, and predict the resultant carnage of firing a rock at them. You will, of course, be wrong though – the result of your missile hitting the structure will never be exactly what you think it is, and while the missile may work in demolishing the structure, it won't work as you intended. But, that's okay, just as it's okay that trying to repeat the exact same moves in second playthrough of any level tends to result in something slightly different occurring.

The biggest problem with the game is the scant number of levels – 63 may sound like a lot, but with a few hours work you should be able to master nearly all of them. For us, there is one pesky level which we simply cannot get a high enough score on and it is driving us slightly insane (this review could have been done several days ago if not for our obsessive need to master level 15). Inevitably, people playing this game will find one or two levels where they run into the exact same difficulty only to have a brilliant epiphany on where the first missile must be launched. We're still waiting for that epiphany.

We're also waiting for more levels to be released. Sure the game just launched, but we're vaguely obsessed with it and think that anyone who spends the 99 cents on it will be as well. And, if anyone knows how to take master level 15, do give a holler.

Siege Hero is not rated by the ESRB.

Article first published as iPhone Game Review: Siege Hero on Blogcritics.

Upstairs, Downstairs, or Maybe a Little of Each - The Complete Series 40th Anniversary Edition

2011-05-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am faced with a review so monumental I don't quite know how to begin. Normally this occurs with some sort of overwhelmingly massive release, a classic television or film series which is so monolithic that it becomes somewhat hard to dissect it and examine the component elements.

Enter today's review, Upstairs, Downstairs: The Complete Series – 40th Anniversary Edition.

Originally broadcast beginning in 1971 and running through 1975, Upstairs, Downstairs helped spark a whole genre of show (or, at the very least, is credited with it). The idea is actually a terribly simple one – set in the early 20th Century (the series spans the years 1903 to 1930), the show follows the life of those residing at 165 Eaton Place in London, be they servants or the family being served.

And it is at this point where I start to run into trouble with the actual review. How much should I divulge about what happens on the show? How much should I go into the various cast changes? How much should I talk about the new Upstairs, Downstairs series which picks up six years after the original ends?

On the one hand it could be suggested that the entire plot of the original tale is fair game, that as the series began 40 years ago and finished 36 years ago, anyone who is truly curious about the show has either already seen it or expects the possibility of finding out what occurs in it. But, I disagree. Even 40 years down the line, Upstairs, Downstairs remains a fantastic drama series, one well worth watching, and one which I wouldn't spoil for anyone.

There is a certain challenge present in the creation of such a series with two very distinct groups of people whose stories must both intersect and remain separate. It's a balance that Upstairs, Downstairs, more often than not, strikes beautifully. You do hear in the show that what's taking place simply with the staff and family would never have happened years ago, and whether that's true or not, the various scandals that rock the house do make the show enjoyable.

As the series' 68 episodes span several decades of life, the cast does change and their roles do alter as well. There are many individuals who appear and disappear, but there is certainly a solid core of both staff and owners. On the downstairs side these include (but aren't necessarily limited to) Hudson, the butler (Gordon Jackson); Rose, the head house parlour maid (Jean Marsh who also co-created the series with Eileen Atkins), Mrs. Bridges, the cook (Angela Baddeley); Ruby, the kitchen maid (Jenny Tomasin); Edward, the footman (Christopher Beeny); and Daisy, under house parlor maid (Jacqueline Tong). On the upstairs side is Richard Bellamy, the head of the house (David Langton); Lady Marjorie, his wife (Rachel Gurney); James, their son (Simon Williams); Georgina Worsley, the step-daughter of Lady Marjorie's brother (Lesley-Anne Down), and Hazel, who first appears as Richard's secretary (Meg Wynn Owen). Again, there are more, and some of those listed here aren't perhaps on the show as long as one might like but they do comprise a good starting point.

Perhaps one of the reasons Upstairs, Downstairs still works so well today is that it is a period piece and as the daily life of that already set time period can't change between the early 1970s and today. Between that, the truly interesting tales, and the amazingly nonstop problems that cover the Bellamy household, the show holds up exceptionally well.

Upstairs, Downstairs is a well-scripted, well-plotted show. It is an example of great, classic, television making. What it really does is provide its audience—both the original one and anyone watching the series today—with a look at how society changed over the course of a nearly 30 year period in England. While the major events of the day are highlighted, and those unquestionably make for memorable and wonderful episodes, the show delves into any number of trends, fads, and thoughts that were espoused during the same time frame. It is brilliantly made classic television about a moment (or set of moments) in history.

The 40th anniversary release of the series is nearly as monolithic as the series itself and includes more than 25 hours of new bonus material including a truly excellent and in-depth five-part making-of documentary (one part appears on a bonus disc included with every season's box). There are also interviews, episode commentaries, and an alternate version of the pilot episode, moments from the Russell Harty Plus talk show where Harty sits down with various cast members on the series, and another documentary on the show called Upstairs, Downstairs Remembered.

The weather seems, perhaps, to finally be getting nicer for the summer, but it's entirely possible that it will turn gloomy and cool again in the not too distant future. Anyone who has never experienced Upstairs, Downstairs before, or who wants a great look at what happened behind the scenes on the series, would do very well to squirrel this away for that moment. I'm not sure that one can be a student of television without a knowledge of Upstairs, Downstairs, but the show will be of interest to those beyond that narrow cross-section as well. It's Upstairs, Downstairs, and while I can't say that it's every bit as good now as it was when it originally aired (I'm not old enough to know that), I can tell you that while the set will suck hours and days of your time, it's well worth it and a truly great television experience.

Article first published as DVD Review: Upstairs, Downstairs: The Complete Series - 40th Anniversary Edition on Blogcritics.

ZombieSmash! - Another way to Prepare for the Coming Zombie Apocalypse

2011-05-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

I've told you this before, but I remain ever more convinced of this fact, the zombie apocalypse (or zombiepocalypse if you will) is coming. I don't know when it's going to start, but I do know that television shows and videogames have me totally and completely ready for it. I have learned at least a half-dozen rules to fend off zombies and will feel absolutely no guilt about kicking out of my panic room anyone who may have gotten bitten.

On a fairly regular basis, in order to keep up with my zombie-wasting skills, I search out (or have delivered to me) a new zombie game or television show. These items are highly useful in terms of learning about the different types of zombies that I will face when the undead begin to walk the Earth once more, and the best ways for eliminating them. I promise you, if you want to survive the end of the world, you're going to need to learn all you can about our zombie enemies.

I'm not entirely sure that the methods by which one eliminates the undead in ZombieSmash! on the iPhone will truly help me once day of judgment arrives, but it does keep me thinking about our future nemeses, and that is important. If we are to remain alive in the post-apocalyptic world, we need to consider how to do that in the pre-apocalyptic one – zombies must remain a concern at all times.

ZombieSmash!, published and developed by Gamedoctors, currently sports two different campaigns (the second, "Camp Nowhere" was recently added and is a free update), both of which essentially function in the same way – zombies appear, and using a combination of finger-flicking and weapons, you eliminate them. It is both a clever and a frustrating title. The campaigns take place over the course of a calendar month, with each level representing a different day. Your mission, in tower defense-style, is to eliminate the oncoming zombie horde, with new levels introducing new weapons and/or zombies to constantly tweak gameplay.

Initially within ZombieSmash! all you have to do is grab a zombie with a finger and flick it around the screen – you, in this mode, are essentially a god-like creature. You get to watch as the zombie flies in rag doll fashion around the screen until bits of it come off and it eventually disappears leaving a star for your to grab (these stars can later be used to upgrade your weapons and defenses). As stated, the further you get into the game, the more weapons you have at your disposal including rocks, grenades, guns, pianos, mines, etc., etc. And, while the base zombie simply trudges towards your safe house, later ones run at it, fire guns, wear helmets, or cannot be flicked with your finger.

It is this last thing which presents something of a problem and makes the game at times frustrating. ZombieSmash! is fun when it abides by its own rules – despite being corporeal and in the house you still have the ability to act like a god and flick zombies. Once the game breaks those rules, not allowing you to flick zombies of certain types or any zombie on certain levels, it becomes less enjoyable. Either you're a god-like being or your not, there seems to be no spinach-in-a-can reason for your ability to flick at times and not flick at others, just a desire on the part of Gamedoctors to artificially make some levels more difficult.

Another issue with ZombieSmash! arises in the number of zombies the game throws at you. Part of the point of the game is to watch the pretty zombies fly around the screen as you flick them, but so many zombies appear that you don't get the chance to do that. Instead, you'll spend most of your time on every level with your thumbs constantly flicking without ever stopping to see the result of your flicks – if you do stop, you're going to give the undead an unwelcome opportunity to advance. Essentially you have two choices – watch the excellent graphics or perform your task well, and anyone who is serious about surviving the coming disaster will choose the latter. You can hear the soundtrack, which is also wonderful, no matter what you choose, but having to decide between the pretty and the winning isn't satisfying.

The levels in ZombieSmash! are relatively quick and the game saves automatically, so it is a good pick-up-and-play-for-a-couple-of-minutes title. And, if you're only playing a level or two at a time the frustrations are kept to a minimum.

As we inexorably head towards the zombiepocalypse, we're going to need to become more comfortable detaching body parts from the undead and watching the resultant splatter without a sense of squeamishness. ZombieSmash! will only help people do this, and the ability to freeze frame, save, and upload to social networking sites the final zombie death on each level, can be most amusing as well.

If you're just starting out your own preparations for the end of days and looking for a low-key way to desensitize yourself to zombie death, ZombieSmash! is a great place to start. More experienced zombie killers will also find new thoughts on how to eliminate an oncoming zombie multitude. The game may not go as in depth as some of its console relatives, but it is a satisfying on-the-go study aid.

ZombieSmash! is not rated by the ESRB but features cartoon violence.

Article first published as iPhone Game Review: ZombieSmash! on Blogcritics.

Legitimizing Videogames: All Your Base are Belong to us by Harold Goldberg

2011-05-03T15:38:00.001-07:00

Videogames have, slowly but surely, crept into our daily lives. Even excluding the recent woeful news about Sony's issues with the PlayStation Network, television shows, movies, and other forms of media have made fairly regular mention of videogames. Games have crept in at the edges and slowly become a regular part of pop culture. Home consoles are in an incredible number of American homes, the Nintendo Wii sits in rehab facilities around the country, and virtually every blockbuster film seems to be accompanied by at least one videogame.

In his new book All Your Base are Belong to us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture, Harold Goldberg traces a history of exactly how we got from a few folks making a dot travel from one side of a monitor to the other and back again to a moment when a large videogame release can earn more than a major motion picture. Each chapter within Goldberg's book tells of a gaming company or genre and propels the tale ever forward towards the present day in fascinating fashion.

I am, perhaps, slightly biased in my view on videogames and therefore potentially Goldberg's book as well, since I derive a portion of my income from the world of videogames. It would, quite obviously, benefit me to have videogames be seen as culturally significant, but the argument that they are isn't the main thrust of the book, but rather a foregone conclusion.

In his introduction, Goldberg states that "the videogame industry in the United States is now a $20-billion-a-year juggernaut, surpassing movie, music, and DVD sales—combined." You don't get those kinds of numbers solely from people playing in their parents' basements. He goes on to talk about other ways they appear in pop culture as well, from 30 Rock and South Park to car commercials, from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to Mark Ecko clothes.

It truly is impossible to seriously suggest that videogames do not inform a significant portion of our popular culture. That is why that portion of the discussion is in the introduction and not the book proper. Goldberg makes a case for how significant games are, but one merely need look at the facts to know the truth.

No, where All Your Base proves most interesting is not in the creation of an argument surrounding the importance of games, but in telling how exactly the history of videogames progressed and how they became so important. Often, although not always, chapters within the book tend to be loosely tied together, with one moment in gaming history leading inexorably to the next.

Much of the book is written in a fly-on-the-wall manner, with Goldberg's clearly meticulous research showing as he documents specific moments in the development of titles and the formation (and deformation) of companies. Everyone reading will have their own personal favorite story, but perhaps the one most people will be instantly interested in is that of Electronic Arts. EA is behemoth in today's videogame world, and you would be hard-pressed to find someone who has not at least heard of the Madden NFL franchise. Of course, the story of Shigeru Miyamoto and the mustachioed plumber he created is another good choice for those only tangentially interested in the subject.

Fans of videogames will certainly be enchanted by the book and have an inordinate amount of fun playing "guess that game." Going through the book, one reads the ideas that developers had for titles and can instantly try to figure out what game the idea would turn into. For instance, the opening of chapter eight has a discussion about two guys driving a car, but thinking about "Sonic's Ass." Astute gamers will instantly recognize that there is but one character in videogame history which could possibly have come out of the idea of a game about Sonic's hindquarters.

Reading through the work, and despite my longtime love of the medium, I found myself shocked by both how many of the influential games I played without realizing what they were and also at how many I missed.

To be fair, a decent amount of the book repeats a sort of Horatio Alger-type myth, as young (or middle-aged) imaginative folks with little more than an idea and the clothes on their back (or a steady grind of a job) come up with the next big thing and make millions off of it (or should have made millions off of it). There also seems to be a horrible tendency for those same people and companies to lose all their money again as well. But, what Goldberg is doing is tracing a history of games and the rise (and fall) of genres that helped make games the force they are today – if the folks involved through the years were often of the same type, it isn't Goldberg's doing. On the other hand, what it does mean is that as compelling as the tales are—and they are all very compelling—if you read too much of the book in a single session the people in the chapters may have a tendency to bleed together.

Tracing the history of videogames isn't an original idea to All Your Base are Belong to us, but Harold Goldberg does create a narrative which is both compelling overall and which works beautiful as individual chapters. For anyone who wants to read about how Mario made his way into our culture, or how the idea behind The Sims' was developed, or how consoles ended up in our living rooms, All Your Base will not only provide you with the information you're looking for, but will do so in a very readable, enjoyable way.

Article first published as Book Review: All Your Base are Belong to us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture by Harold Goldberg on Blogcritics.

Exploring Kidlandia and Loving it

2011-04-28T08:35:00.001-07:00

I have a nearly five-year-old daughter, and she is of the inquisitive type. A day with her is a nonstop barrage of questions followed by her own personal extrapolations based on the answers to the questions. I wouldn't call her extrapolations wrong, but rather fanciful, and if not wholly accurate they are at the very least based on the facts available to her.

Others would say that she has a good imagination and I certainly wouldn't contradict them. She has a great imagination (okay, as her father I'm biased, but I'd still argue that she does) and a desire to learn about the world.

Enter Kidlandia.

Begun in 2008 by Brian Backus, Kidlandia is a website that allows kids (with parental oversight) to create worlds based on characters new and old. On the Kidlandia website one can make wall hangings, prints, door hangars, height charts, and gallery wrapped canvases (amongst other things), and personalize nearly all of it.

On the website you choose a character/theme (Kidlandia Kreechurs, Disney characters, Dora, VeggieTales, SpongeBob, and several others in the future) then get a huge number of options involving the plethora of products (the aforementioned canvases, hangings, and more) you can make using the characters. You can also work the other way, choosing the type of piece you want to create and then selecting the characters you want on it.

A basic example of this is the work we created on the right (click for a larger view). It is a Kidlandia Kreechur themed piece done on their "Pirate Hideaway" map. We spent hours customizing it and the final result is better than anything we could have hoped for.

It is with this customization that the real fun—and the use of imagination—begins. Once you have your basic character and piece set, you can use the website's wizard to create names for rivers, oceans, mountains, islands, etc. You can also opt to individually change all the names manually. What you then end up with is a beautiful, almost completely personalized for—and by—your child, piece of art. But, the project can extend well beyond just names and objects on the map. You can actually click on the characters and create stories about them on the site.

Not everything is adjustable, if you look at the paragraph description on the example, that remains constant as does the basic layout of the map (or whichever piece) you've chosen. The creatures are moveable as are the different other objects placed over the map (boats, forts, castles, creatures, etc.).

Part of the brilliance of the site is that it can be a highly involved, hugely intricate endeavor, but it doesn't have to be that time consuming either. As stated, we spent hours creating, adjusting, modifying, and scripting a single piece, but with the template wizard you can just give the site the names of your family members and places you like and have it all done for you.

What also takes some time is the actual production of your piece of art. The final piece of three that was ordered on April 8 arrived on April 22 (the first two came earlier in the same week).

Time aside, the result is absolutely spectacular. We created a height chart, gallery wrapped canvas, and a canvas scroll and were not merely impressed but what arrived on our doorstep, but instantly and completely in love with it. The quality of what you're getting for your money on the Kidlandia site is fantastic and the items make an absolutely perfect addition to any child's room. There is no corner cut with the final product; it is a professionally created, personalized piece which not only will your child love, but which very well may make you the envy of the other kids in your neighborhood.

Due to how the site is organized and the creation process works, there seems to be little that one could do which would result in a "bad" piece showing up on your doorstep. All the items come with a good sprinkling of people, animals, and things already on them without being either overwhelmingly fully or desolate. More can be added and items can be subtracted as well, but it would take a deliberate effort on one's part to make a piece which has things arranged poorly enough to look disappointing.

For those who would rather not go online to create their project and who happen to live in or near New York City, Kidlandia now also has a boutique within FAO Schwarz. While the boutique doesn't have the full range of products that the website does, you can purchase a 24x18 print there, you can take your print home that very day (and there are special FAO only items available at the boutique).

What Kidlandia is really offering is a way for children to both explore within their own imagination and, particularly when used on the website, a way for them to also figure out more about the world at large in which we live (hey, that stuff we designed on the computer here at home is connected to something larger out there somewhere).

Whether you end up creating a family tree (which didn't feel quite as in depth as we would have liked), play with a real map, or create something completely unique and different, the customization options are huge and there is a ton to explore. If your child and your neighbor's one both end up using the same basic template you're still virtually certain to get a final result which is noticeably different.

So few things in this world offer one the opportunity to be creative, have fun, and end up with a result which you're virtually guaranteed to love. Kidlandia is one of those things and a website not to be missed.

Article first published as Product and Website Review: Kidlandia on Blogcritics.

(Said in a Yell) Mortal Kombat!

2011-04-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

Back when I was in high school, more years ago than I care to remember, I had an English teacher who liked students to write short papers. He would tell us this on a fairly regular basis and would always remind us why – 10 pounds of bullshit smells worse than one; keep it short, keep it sweet, and don't deliver more bullshit than required. In honor of that English teacher, those of you who don't care to read the next 1,00 words or so of this article can just read one more sentence and glean from it everything you possibly have to know about this new Mortal Kombat. Are you ready? Okay, here it is, the one sentence review – Yeah, it's pretty much Mortal Kombat.

That's it, essentially that's all you really need to know about this rebirth or reimagination or return to the franchise's roots or whatever people are saying of the new Mortal Kombat – it's Mortal Kombat. There is blood and guts and fatalities and Scorpion and Sub-Zero. The game is a 2D fighter with great in-game graphics, utterly brutal action, and an incredibly quick pace.

The heart of the game is the traditional arcade mode where you can compete in a regular one-player ladder tournament, tag team tournament, or several different skill matches. But, before you do any of that you may want to visit the tutorial section… although you're instinct to do that may be mistaken.

Fighting games live and die by the actual specifics of combat (or kombat as it were here) – are you stringing together tons of different button presses to create combos (kombos) or do you just need to mash away at buttons in order to kill (that one stays kill) your opponent? You should be able to learn exactly what a game requires of you in the tutorial and how to execute the various combos you need, but in Mortal Kombat it just doesn't work that well. The game asks you to progress in the tutorial by completing certain moves, only we sat there for an extended period of time pushing the exact buttons we were asked to push in the exact order we were asked to push them without the appropriate combo ever happening. When we moved along to the game itself we had a far easier time of making the various combos happen, but we simply couldn't execute them in the tutorial (even when we returned there later).

There is also a tutorial specifically on fatalities, and that one functions far better. There you get a helpful little box that tells you where to stand to execute the fatality and you can either have it timed (as it is in a game) or untimed so that you have as long as you need to push the right sequence of buttons. Go through the fatality tutorial with your favorite characters and you'll be slicing and dicing opponents in no time.

Actual fights, be they one-on-one, two-on-one, etc., unfold beautifully – the game is fast and you'll need to be fast too if you want to play it well. Yet, for all it's being fast and moves getting thrown left and right and tons of damage being issued, our first run through of the single player ladder had a match which was only decided when time ran out.

Outside of fatalities, Mortal Kombat's personal tweak to the fighting genre (every game has their alleged hook) is a little meter at the bottom of the screen which has three distinct portions that can be filled. Fill the first and you can execute an enhanced (slightly more damaging) special move. Fill the second and you break out of a combo. Fill the third and you can execute one of the highly touted X-ray moves which deals an immense amount of damage and shows you just which of your enemy's internal organs you crushed. The system works really well, it allows you to play slightly more defensively, slightly more offensively, or try to go all out and execute an X-ray move (which, just because you push the buttons won't necessarily happen as your opponent can block or evade them).

The new Kombat also sports a Challenge Tower which asks you complete 300 different challenges from simply executing combos to beating opponents and everything in between. That, combined with the regular old arcade stuff and a pretty good-sized story mode means that there is a whole lot to do in the title.

As for what's involved in that story mode, that's a little more iffy. The mode features some distinctly mediocre cinematics which tell a story about Raiden sending memories back in time to help save Earthrealm from being destroyed by Shao Kahn. You then play through various portions of the story from old Mortal Kombat games as various characters and watch as present-day Raiden tries to work out the memories he got from future-day Raiden so he can save Earthrealm. While a bunch of the battle are good and it's a great way to earn money to unlock bonuses, you're not able to skip past the story and just enter the battles. That really is unfortunate because the story is just as ridiculous as every fighting game story and consequently you're probably going to want to skip it as much as possible. It would be manageable in bite-sized chunks, but folks talk way too much between battles.

There is also an extensive online section which is well worth your time and features several different types of battles. You're going to need to buy the game new to play online or purchase a code, because the one included in the box can only be used once.

Mortal Kombat is a distinct brand of fighter, it is more brutal than most and while it relies on combos it doesn't do so as heavily as other games in the genre. No, what Mortal Kombat asks is that you spill blood, lots of it. As you go further into each battle, fighters take damage which doesn't magically heal and blood hits the ground and remains there. It is a vicious, gore-filled title which revels in its M rating.

Or, to bring you back to what I said about 1,000 words ago – it's pretty much Mortal Kombat. If you like your fighting games bloody and with tons to do, you're going to like this one.

Mortal Kombat is rated M (Mature) by the ESRB for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, and Strong Language. This game can also be found on Xbox 360.

Article first published as PlayStation 3 Review: Mortal Kombat on Blogcritics.

GLaDOS Lives: Portal 2

2011-04-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

People like to make things complicated that don't have to be. It happens in life and it happens in the world of videogames. Look at some of the progress trees games like those in the Final Fantasy series sport. They may great, but they are also hugely detailed and if you try to picture them in their entirety your brain may explode.

Sometimes that old acronym, KISS, is exactly right and you should just keep it simple, stupid. In 2007 Valve released the first Portal game and the gameplay concept really couldn't have been more simple – each room is a puzzle where you have to get from the beginning to the end. You have no weapons, just an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, or, if you will, a "portal gun." You can fire your portal gun and make holes in walls that will transfer you from one part of the room to another (as you progress you can make two holes to decide where you're going from and too whereas initially one of those locations is predetermined with an already existing hole and you just get to make a second). Other things like lasers and blocks can also go through the portal hole, and your job is to figure out how to best utilize your portal gun to traverse each room.

Portal really is a very simple concept – get from one place to another using mainly your wits. Each level may take you anywhere from 30 seconds to a full hour to complete depending on when exactly you have that moment of clarity which allows you to see the puzzle from a new perspective and thereby find the answer.

On top of that concept, Valve placed something of a minimalist, but nonetheless fascinating (I refer to it this way because you have very little agency in it), tale about a computer, Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System (GLaDOS), going somewhat haywire. You uncover what is taking place with GLaDOS as you go through the game and, at the end of the title, you beat her (she speaks with a woman's voice, so we're going to call it a "her").

How then do they go about making a sequel to this brilliant title? Well, frankly, by doing more of the same and it still works wonderfully.

As fun a villain as GLaDOS is, and due to the way in which she coaxes you through her tests she is fun, the truly great part of the game is the fact that Valve has worked out this simple mechanic—create portal holes to traverse a room—and built level after level after level which constantly test your ingenuity and build on the basic concept. Rather than the levels in the second game feeling like rejects from the first, they are equally clever and will test you just as much if not more.

Please, don't get me wrong, things change dramatically as you go in the title and you're not going to feel like this is a simple rehash of what you did in the first Portal. That being said, I'm not really going to tell you how they change and what may be different, that would ruin so much of the fun. I will tell you that GLaDOS is back; that you learn more about what is going on at Aperture Laboratories and why; and that despite doing more of the same, the game never really feels repetitive.

Portal 2 also comes with the ability to play co-op online in a separate campaign and can be played across different platforms in said campaign. In fact, a huge advantage to buying a PS3 version of Portal 2 is that if you sync your PSN account with your Steam one, you get a free Steam download of Portal 2 for your computer. Sadly, what you can't do is sync a cloud-based save file – save your PS3 game and you can't pick up where you were on your computer. Even so, getting two copies is a pretty great deal and when you consider the fact that the game isn't terribly more expensive on PS3 than on Steam (currently Amazon gets $5.00 more for a PS3 copy than what Steam does for a download) it becomes an even better one.

In case you think my enthusiasm for the series is slightly overdone, I will point out that the sequel is not perfect. Load times are, quite frankly, hugely frustrating. Every time you beat a room, the game takes some time and loads up the next one. That's all well and good when it's taken you a whole long time to figure out how to proceed in the last room, but when you blaze through the room and are itching for the next only to get slowed by yet another load it's becomes discouraging.

Are load times too high a price to pay? No, unquestionably not. Portal 2 is a great expansion of the franchise and manages to successfully bring in new players without overly dumbing down the start of the game for experienced Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device users.

One more word of caution, Portal 2 is a huge time suck. The sense of accomplishment you get when beating a puzzle will cause you on more than one occasion to utter those famous last words, "just one more and then I'll be done." You'll end up beating the game in a minimal amount of time that way (it is a longer campaign than the last one), but the rest of the world may fall by the wayside for a little while. You won't regret your choice to continue, but those around you may get frustrated.

Portal 2 is rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) by the ESRB for Fantasy Violence and Mild Language. This game can also be found on: PC, Xbox 360, and Mac.

Article first published as PlayStation 3 Review: Portal 2 on Blogcritics.

Semi-Delightful, Sort of Delicious, Almost De-Lovely

2011-04-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

The biopic has been done before… repeatedly. We have all seen dozens of biopics – if there's a famous person whose life may be remotely interesting, why not making a movie out of it? The only real question then becomes, if you're making a biopic, how do you go about making it interesting. The answer for director Irwin Winkler and writer Jay Cocks in putting together a biopic on Cole Porter is to do it as Cole helping orchestrate a stage a musical about his life. The result of this effort, De-Lovely, is nothing less than highly entertaining even if it isn't the most illuminating.

The film stars Kevin Kline as Porter and Ashley Judd as Linda Lee Porter, his wife. What the film is more notable for however is that the majority of the songs are sung by well-known singers. From Robbie Williams to Sheryl Crow to Alanis Morissette to Elvis Costello and Vivian Green, every time someone who isn't Kline or Judd open their mouths to sing it's a cameo appearance and unfortunately all too often relegated to the background as nothing all too serious takes place in the foreground.

Essentially, what this results in is two big missed opportunities. First, there's the fact that Porter was obviously a musical genius and the singers they've gotten to perform his songs here are outstanding. These are performances that should be heard in their entirety, not simply there to give a little bit of flavor to the film and to make you want to go out and buy the soundtrack (which I've owned since the film's theatrical release and listen to on a semi-regular basis). Then there's missed opportunity number two – if you've opted to have old Cole Porter looking back at the life of young Cole Porter why not give old Cole more than a couple of opportunities to complain about how things are being depicted or to lament his actions? The frame is the perfect way to provide a way in to the man's thoughts and show the audience what Porter felt internally. It's an opportunity simply not used to its full potential and consequently terribly disappointing.

Instead, what we're offered is a very surface-based story of Cole Porter, a man who loved strongly, drank regularly, and wrote songs beautifully. It is pleasantly diverting as far as it goes, and Kline and Judd deliver good performances—as does the criminally underused Jonathan Pryce as the director of Cole's life—but it should have been more. Like a wonderful melody struggling to emerge but never quite making it, there's a great movie hiding just behind the scenes in De-Lovely, but it never gets onto the screen.

No, De-Lovely is, in the end, a movie that has great singers, great songs, a great story behind it, and a great way to tell the story. However, it fails to commit to its own storytelling method and that leaves one wondering why they bothered to utilize the frame in the first place. The way things stand with the movie, it is worse for having the frame because it gives a window into the film that should have been and not what the film is. There is even a moment towards the end of De-Lovely when a friend tells Cole that he's "had the most fascinating life," but after not seeing it on screen one wonders if the film is telling that audience that as much as it is being told to Cole. All in all, there is far too much telling and not enough showing going on in the movie – the most easy and obvious example of which is the fact that it's never clear why Linda loved Cole as much as she did. Obviously she did, but the film never makes any sort of a case for it.

On the technical side of things, the new Blu-ray release of De-Lovely features some good black levels, and a good amount of details. Patterns on clothes in particular are quite detailed. Unfortunately, the level of detail present also makes it more obvious when Judd has makeup on specifically to age her, it becomes distracting and to some extent ruins the effect. Also on the negative side, there is a noticeable flicker in a number of scenes which is highly disconcerting. The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is better than the visuals – the music is crisp and clean and beautiful to hear. The surrounds are mainly utilized with said music, providing a more immersive experience. There's nothing grand about the sound, but there are no real disappointments in it either.

The release contains two audio commentary tracks, one with Winkler and Kline and the other with Winkler and Cocks. There are also the obligatory deleted scenes as well as a making-of piece and another shorter one on the music which contains interviews with many of the singers who appear in the film doing Porter's songs. While the interviews are not the deepest, Porter's songs are the best part of the film and learning more about the process of filming them is interesting. The two last featurettes both delve into how scenes were put together (one for each of the featurettes). Winkler and the cast and crew really get into how the scenes were constructed and both of these "Anatomy of a Scene" featurettes are exceedingly interesting. Not to harp on this yet again, but not for the first time MGM has opted to not include a main menu for the film. Every time this omission is made it is a mistake and a disappointment.

De-Lovely has a lot to recommend it, from great musical performances to an interesting main character. However, the film never comes together as well as it should – it never gets as deeply into the characters as it needs to and it never truly gives insight into why anything takes place. It should have been, and it could have been, so much more.

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: De-Lovely on Blogcritics.

The Secret of NIMH - The Story Goes Blu (but not with a Particularly Good Release)

2011-04-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

Don Bluth, a legendary figure in the world of animation, may have, at least in part, come out of the Disney tradition, but looking at his first full length animated feature, The Secret of NIMH, one wouldn't think Disney. Based on the book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien, Secret is a dark film, much darker than your typical Disney animated feature.

Something of a mystical and convoluted story, Secret is about some of the smaller animals who live on and around a farm. The main character is Mrs. Brisby, a mouse who must prepare her family to move as winter is ending and the farmer's plow is going to destroy her house. Mrs. Brisby, however, can't move as one of her children is too sick to go anywhere. She manages to secure some medicine to make her boy better, but he still needs several weeks to recuperate.

In an attempt to find a way to stave off the plow, Mrs. Brisby is told to go visit the rats as they can move things and that's when the story gets exceptionally weird. The rats are super-intelligent rats who have been given injections by the folks at the National Institute of Mental Health and who then escaped and have been happily living in the rose bush on the farm.

Trust me, it works much better than it sounds as though it might, and once it gets into rat politics it gets even better. Without delving into too many of the specifics, some of the rats are quite happy with their life and stealing from others while a different group of rats, and the rats' leader, Nicodermus, feel as though they ought to live in a self-sustaining manner.

The Secret of NIMH is a fantastical, dark, interesting, animated feature. However, it is also a movie that raises more questions than it answers and some younger viewers may be frustrated by that. Rather than having a clear opening and closing, Secret drops you off in the middle of a story, a story in which so much has already happened. There is a brief flashback sequence which helps clue the audience in a little more, but which doesn't lay everything bare. Between that and the distinctly dark nature of the movie—and right up until the closing scene it is a very dark movie—this is not one for the youngest members of the viewing audience no matter how cute the mice might be and how funny Jeremy, the crow, looks and acts.

On the other hand, for those who care to examine it, the story is exceedingly interesting and can truly cause one to think about not the way in which we pursue knowledge as much as the way in which we interact with our environment. It is also, it must be said, a beautiful and brilliantly animated feature. There are not only interesting camera angles and shots that you wouldn't necessarily see in a typical animated movie, but it is exceptionally well realized and the darker scenes (like the plow going on its run) are mesmerizingly great.

Unfortunately, the Blu-ray release of The Secret of NIMH wholly fails to do justice to the visuals. The movie is full of scratches and noise, and terribly inconsistent in its presentation from one scene (or shot) to the next. You will come across some very clear, very well defined and detailed shots one minute, only to get something far more muddled the next. The titles that appear at the opening of the film look particularly poor, with something of a shadow image underneath and with a trail to the right (almost as if the letters had zoomed in from the right, which they don't, and arriving at the center of the screen but with a blurry ghost image from where they came on). There is also a flicker from time to time. The audio track is an 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio track, which is what the film had upon release and which works far better than the visuals. Looking at the dirty, scratched print one would have thought that the soundtrack would feature the same dirty, scratched nature, but it does not. It is actually a rather good track, well mixed, and features good music and effects.

MGM has again opted to go without a real menu on the release which is something of a shame. As for the special features, there is a previously released audio commentary with Bluth and collaborator Gary Goldman (story adaptation, producer, and directing animator) which delves into this first feature they did outside Disney, and a behind-the-scenes featurette. Neither is a must watch/listen, but both hold your attention well enough and provide a nice sense of background on how the film came about.

The Secret of NIMH is a fascinating animated feature. It is a dark departure from so many other animated movies, but spellbinding. It may not hook everyone, but those willing to go for the ride will be amazed by not just the story and the questions it doesn't answer, but by the look and way it has all been put together.

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: The Secret of NIMH on Blogcritics.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Shadow Wars - Long Name, Mediocre Game

2011-04-15T08:26:00.001-07:00

I am a fan of turn-based games, be they Civilization-style or more action oriented. The idea of being able to plan three, four, five, and more (if you're good) moves ahead and outfox your opponent appeals to me. It was therefore with no little enthusiasm that I popped Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Shadow Wars into my 3DS. The experience was more than a little disappointing.

Burdensome name aside, this game is, of course, a part of the Ghost Recon series but certainly a somewhat different breed nonetheless. It is, as indicated in the first paragraph a turn-based tactical game – your characters exist on a battlefield (town, forest, what have you) comprised of little squares and you get to move from one square to another trying to outmaneuver the completely generic baddies.

There is some story present about people wanting to take over their country and then nearby countries and presumably eventually rule the entire world with their iron fist. The fact that they fail to grasp the notion that the more they tighten their grip the more worlds will slip through their fingers or something like that is not touched on (although that would have made the game a whole lot more enjoyable). In fact, the entire story is wholly irrelevant, really exceptionally dull in general, and made more so as it is told in dialog boxes between levels. You can ignore it completely just as you can completely ignore your mission briefings because every time you start a new level your objectives pop up on screen and are always roughly the same – save the x, kill the y, destroy the z, protect the… I've run out of letters, but you get the point.

You squad changes slightly as you go, but essentially there are six different types of soldiers you can command—commando, gunner, sniper, recon, engineer, and medic—and you run around the battlefield best utilizing each type until you accomplish your goals or lose. There is certainly a sense of progression in the title; as you proceed you can level up characters and do more faster with them, and the difficulty and complexity of what it takes to complete the mission goals increases as you progress as well. There are also other battles that unlock as you win missions. That is all to say that while in terms of story the game fails but in terms of progression it succeeds.

Unfortunately, it also fails at another exceedingly key point – the actual battles. Everything that takes place on screen feels exceptionally stilted – even once positioned properly there is never a smooth flow to how a firefight unfolds. You can speed up how quickly movement is shown, but doing that still doesn't add a good sense of flow to the game. Everything takes too much time, from moving your soldiers (even at quick speed) to their stopping when they arrive at the designated location and firing. There is also too much like before characters return fire once fired upon. Everything in the game is a slow and laborious process. That, combined with the fact that as the story is no good means that there's really nothing to make you want to wait to see what happens when it eventually does.

The game does look pretty enough in 3D, sporting a nearly top-down view and some nice graphics. At least, the graphics are nice on the battlefield, the stagnant ones via which the story is told doesn't really do much to convince you that you ought to spend your time trying to care about why your troops are in the field.

In the final analysis, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Shadow Wars is a really solid idea that has only been half-implemented. The tactical, chess piece nature of it works and works well. There is certainly a lot going on and a lot to pay attention to during battles. The story, however, is hugely flat and the actual unfolding of the battles is overly slow and dull. Shadow Wars has all the promise of a good game but fails to deliver.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Shadow Wars is rated T (Teen) by the ESRB for Mild Violence.

Article first published as Nintendo 3DS Review: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Shadow Wars on Blogcritics.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution: Could he be for Real?

2011-04-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

I want to believe.

Famously, Fox Mulder had a poster in his office which had that line written and depicted a UFO. I don't know how I feel about UFOs and whether or not I have any desire to believe in them; what I want to believe is perhaps slightly more unlikely.

I want to believe that Jamie Oliver is in fact attempting to help the world for almost wholly altruistic reasons with his show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, that he's not mainly doing it for personal fortune and glory. How slim are those odds?

Last night the second season of Food Revolution started up, and having completed his mission (apparently) last season of helping folks in a small town, this year Jamie has opted to help the people of Los Angeles transform they way think about food.

Well now, right there, you immediately have to ask yourself if the show moved to Los Angeles because the city is bigger and more people can get helped, or if it made the move to L.A. because the costs associated with shooting the series will be lower and the television market is a larger one so more people might choose to watch.

The logic behind putting the show in L.A. could certainly be for both altruistic and non-altruistic reasons, but Oliver argues so strongly and so forcefully that his motives are solely altruistic that I question him that much more strongly myself.

Okay, I'm cynical, but just because I'm cynical doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Plus, let us not forget what I said at the start of this piece – I want to believe. I so want Oliver to be doing this to help the world; I want him to be doing it because he believes he can make a difference in the way our society operates and thinks; I want him to be doing it because he truly cares about the future as a whole and not just his personal future.

I will, of course, never actually have that answer. I can't possibly go inside Oliver's mind and sort out what's actually going on within it.

Maybe part of the reason I have trouble believing him is that Oliver and the TV show seems all too knowledgeable about manipulation. Last night he did a stunt where he showed how, more or less, meat processors extract the last little bit of meat from what would otherwise get turned into dog food. Let me be up front – I am neither advocating the process nor arguing against it, I don't know enough about it one way or the other. What I do know is that Oliver's version of the process was certainly orchestrated to highlight the yuck factor and to elevate general distaste for the procedure. He may be right, it may be a horrible idea and truly dangerous, but the way in which he went about showing the process was carefully calculated to get people on his side, and with his being up front about his version not being terribly accurate we can't know what may have been changed to highlight the disgustingness of it all.

On the plus side, I don't think that Oliver would deny that he was manipulating his audience. I think he would argue that he set up that demonstration and the one in which he loaded the sugar onto a school bus (in order to illustrate the added sugar in flavored milk) in order to shock and upset folks. Well, I'm not being fair, I think he would admit he was being manipulative because he pretty much said that he was with the sugar demonstration. He needs to get people angry at the establishment in order for things to change, so naturally he would try to push people's buttons.

All that means though is that Oliver is a smart guy, one knowledge about what is effective on television and in person. It doesn't mean that his motives for getting folks riled up aren't solely to benefit Oliver himself and that helping Los Angeles (and the world) isn't simply a byproduct of that (kind of like the dog food is a byproduct of the butchering of the cow).

What I keep coming back to here is that Oliver could be using his skills and charisma (and he certainly has a lot of both) for good or for ill and that without being in his skin we'll never truly know his motives.

Mulder's obsession with wanting to believe only took meeting an alien to prove that it was not in vain. I think figuring out Jamie Oliver's motives may be a tad more difficult.

But, in the end, I really like the show, I really like the idea behind it, and I want to believe.

Article first published as Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution - I want to Believe on Blogcritics.

Heading Back to the Future for Episode 3 of the Telltale Series

2011-04-12T06:36:00.001-07:00

Marty McFly is back… again. Telltale Games has released the third episode in their Back to the Future: The Game series and this time we find poor Marty back in 1985, but a (different) alternate 1986. As with the other entries in this episodic franchise, it is a fun, but at times stilted, experience.

We have to assume that if you're reading this review you fall into one of three larger categories: lover or at least exceedingly quizzical about all things BTTF, hater (but potentially still quizzical) about all things BTTF, or that you're simply waiting to see if Telltale delivers a decent experience over the course of the season before you buy the game. Perhaps we should draw a Venn Diagram with these three categories, because you may very well find yourself in more than one of the above groups. That being said, this article will mostly focus on the third of the larger groups because there's probably no talking to anyone in the first two.

As you would expect—let's face it, Telltale would be insane to change things at this point—the game remains in their traditional puzzle format. Essentially, you go around, grab every object that you can, and talk to people in order to learn how you should go about using all those objects that you've grabbed.

The beauty of this is in its simplicity. As there's little alteration in the format from their other titles, Telltale can spend their time crafting an in-depth fun story and interesting puzzles rather than having to reinvent the wheel every time.

Of course, that's the problem too, at times the game feels overly simplistic and unable to cope with you, as the player, wanting to do anything that the game doesn't want you to do. One more than one occasion during this episode you'll go about trying to solve the current problem in a way that seems perfectly logical to you, but that isn't the way the game wants you to solve it and you will, therefore, fail.

The best example of this we have from the current episode is a moment when you, as Marty, are trying to find Einstein who happens to be hiding. You have in your possession a truly disgusting edible treat that the pooch likes and know that he's hiding in one of three locations. Your logic may dictate that you hold out the treat and move around to the possible spots, figuring that you'll entice the dog out. Your logic would in no way be flawed except for one tiny problem – that's not the way Telltale wants you to find the dog and so Marty will refuse to execute what you're telling him to do.

As for the story that takes place within this alternate 1986? Yeah, we're not going to tell you a lot about that. Look again at our assumption above – we figure that if you're reading this review you're waiting to buy the whole game and just about everything that happens here in this alternate 1986 is an outgrowth of the first two episodes. If we told you that Doc… excuse us, Citizen Brown was running an alternate Hill Valley and that it had a lot to do with Edna Strickland, Kid Tannen, and a rocket powered drill it wouldn't mean all that much… unless you know who Edna Strickland and Kid Tannen are and what went down with the rocket powered drill. And, you won't know about those things unless you've played at least one of the first two episodes, and if you have, you probably don't need us to tell you what this game's all about, because it's like the first two except that the plot has progressed.

We wouldn't suggest that Back to the Future – The Game: Episode 3 is perfect, you will find yourself frustrated by some of its shortcomings. That being said, the plot that Telltale has constructed with the series is a fun one, and the problems that Marty has to fix are amusing. The graphics aren't knock-your-socks-off outstanding but pleasing enough and the voice talent does a good job.

We still definitely recommend that all fans of the film trilogy and/or Telltale's usual brand of wacky puzzle fun check it out.

Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 3 is rated RP (Rating Pending) by the ESRB but other episodes have been rated T (Teen).

Article first published as PC/Mac Game Review: Back to the Future - The Game: Episode 3 on Blogcritics.

Hitting the Asphalt in 3D

2011-04-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

Asphalt 3D is not exactly what you would call a simulation racing game. In fact, if, rather than stating that all racing games were either simulation or arcade you placed them on a continuum with simulation on one end and arcade on the other, Asphalt 3D would still end up relatively far into the arcade side of things.

The game features iffy physics, and a decent sense of travelling at high speed while offering a plethora of upgrades. You need not worry about adjusting downforce or grip, the point of the game is simply to hold the gas down, use turbos when you can (make out our stash of turbos and get "hyperspeed"), and pass all your opponents.

Throwing it into reverse for a moment, the heart of this latest Asphalt takes place in career mode. There, you start off with one car on easy courses with simple opponents and slowly work your way up to something more serious (but not a whole lot more serious). As you win races you earn XP and cash. In their simplest terms, the XP unlocks upgrades and the cash lets you buy those upgrades (and more cars). Courses are also littered with cash as well as wrenches (to bang out any dents you may have gotten on the course) and turbos (to boost your speed). You also earn cash during a race by nearly colliding with other cars – actually collide with them and you lose money.

In career mode you level up relatively quickly and earn lots of cash which means that you can continually be buying new cars and getting lots of upgrades for them too. There are, as it may seem, a ton of ways to earn money and you'll soon find yourself with a hefty stockpile for all your purchasing needs. That almost—almost—makes the game work, because the truth is that after a couple of races, the majority of the game has a very been there done that feel.

There are different race types and different courses and semi-hidden shortcuts, but after a while there simply isn't enough differentiation between them all. And, in the end, your strategy in every single race is the same and Jerry Reed expressed it perfectly decades ago, "Just put that hammer down and give it hell," or if you prefer other parts of that song "Keep your foot hard on the pedal. Son, never mind them brakes."

We have no problems whatsoever with going at high speeds for extended periods, but the physics of it all don't really seem to work. Zip along at your top speed and you can hit the side of the course with little to no issue, you either keep travelling along the edge and lose speed because of whatever you're hitting or you move back to the center and continue on your merry way. Actual head-on crashes do manage to stop the car, but not for one minute will you believe that your car could possibly sustain so little damage and have so few theatrics result from a head-on collision.

Asphalt 3D does feature some officially licensed cars as well as 17 based-in-reality locations, the ability to earn sponsorships (which provide bonuses to your car), and local multiplayer. Those elements certainly add to the title, but rather than making it deep, only make it seem like a full game instead of a rough draft.

The majority of the top-screen graphics are pretty enough and the 3D well used to place things at different depths. The cars are nice to look at certainly and the backgrounds not bad. The bottom screen however isn't quite as nice. That screen is mainly used to provide you with a basic, non-exciting to look at, outline of the course and everyone's positions on it. That course outline also shows you where all the shortcuts are, which is a little weird considering that you get bonus cash for entering one which makes it seem as though they should be hidden. However, even if the bottom screen didn't show you where the shortcuts were, you'll regularly see cash or a wrench or a turbo at the start of shortcut and in a location that wouldn't exist were a shortcut not present so you'll know exactly where to go without ever taking your eyes off the top screen.

In the end, Asphalt 3D just doesn't seem to go far enough. Why have semi-secret shortcuts? Make them secrets. Why have semi-realized crashes? Make them big and powerful. Why have a decent sense of speed? Make it blazingly fast. Asphalt 3D is an arcade racer that could never be remotely considered a simulation game but which doesn't seem to truly embrace its own arcade-ness. If it wants us to take the plunge, it ought to do so as well.

Asphalt 3D is rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) by the ESRB for Mild Violence.

Article first published as Nintendo 3DS Review: Asphalt 3D on Blogcritics.

A Milkman, A Fiddler, and Tradition Walk into a Bar...

2011-04-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

The Norman Jewison directed 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof is unquestionably about Judaism and Jewish tradition, but the truth is that it's also about so much more than that. It's about the human condition; it's about family; and it's about how we all learn to relate to people who are different, be they of a different age, gender, religion, or background. It is impossible to sit and watch the three hour tour-de-force and not find something in it which you can see mirrored in your own life.

At the heart of the film ,and repeatedly breaking the fourth wall, is Tevye (Topol in an Oscar nominated performance). Tevye is a Jewish milkman living with his wife, Golde (Norma Crane), and five daughters in the village of Anatevka in Tsarist Russia just after the start of the 20th Century. It is not an easy life for Tevye, his family, or any of the other members of the community, but as he would tell you, it's tradition and so that is what he does.

As much as Tevye may appreciate and respect tradition, he finds that his three oldest daughters – Tzeitel (Rosalind Harris), Hodel (Michele Marsh), and Chava (Neva Small) – don't necessarily want to follow in the same path. Over the course of the film, one by one, they all ask for permission to marry someone that they love and who is not of Tevye's choosing. Their desire to not wholly abandon life as they and their family know it, but to tweak it slightly.

Just as it does today for all of us, the world around Tevye is changing and the ways that worked from him when he was young don't work for his daughters. What the film doesn't say overtly is that it's entirely probably that the way Tevye does things aren't really the way his parents did, no matter how much he may argue that he is simply following tradition. The reality is – and the film acknowledges this – that we don't live in a vacuum and things change from generation to generation, it's not always an easy change to deal with, but simply sticking one's head in the sand doesn't work either.

Towards the end of the film, Tevye acknowledges to the audience that he has repeatedly been forced to bend in order to make his daughters' happy. However, at that same moment, Tevye insists that he can bend no more, that the latest request from one of daughters is simply too much to bear. Tevye refuses to acquiesce, refuses to turn from his tradition on this occasion, and the result is so cataclysmic within the world of the film that not only does the movie rapidly draw to a close, but it does so with the inhabitants of Anatevka forced to leave their homes and give up nearly everything that they have. Tevye's refusal to move away from this one tradition of his ends up with his losing almost everything. By ending in this manner, we're being told that in order to stay who we are we have to give up some of the same. It's an essential truth of the world – the Earth keeps spinning and while looking back and honoring the past is appropriate, becoming stuck in it is all too easy and none too good.

Alongside this story of tradition and changes to it, is beautiful, Oscar-winning, cinematography by Oswald Morris and an incredible set of songs (screenplay by Joseph Stein, music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, adaptation and orchestration by John Williams). Whether or not one has ever seen the movie before, it is nearly impossible to go through life and not have heard at least one of the songs.

All of this put together – the story, the visual presentation, the music, and some great acting – make Fiddler on the Roof a true classic in every sense of the word. The film is now 40 years old but remains as vibrant, breathtaking, and true as it ever has been.

The 40th anniversary Blu-ray release sports a new 7.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio track that sounds absolutely spectacular. It is clear and crisp with no hints of noise or pops that you might think a film from 1971 would have. When the music plays (and it plays a lot), it is full, rich, and entirely immersive. The visuals, while impressive, are not quite as clean. There is a noticeable flicker in several scenes, most notably when the sky is present. By and large the print is a clean one, although there is certainly the occasional bit of dirt. There is an ever-present (as there should be) grain to the picture, but still a good deal of detail.

The release also comes with a DVD version of the movie and a number of special features, including a storyboard to film comparison; a deleted song; two different pieces on the music itself (one about Williams work and one about the original music from the play); and a look at the how Harris, Marsh, and Small got their roles and their work on set. All of those pieces are relatively interesting, but better are two different pieces on Jewison, an audio commentary by Topol and Jewison (recorded sepearately), and a discussion on the filming of Tevye's dream. You can watch this last sequence with the original full-color filming side by side with the desaturated final version or watch the full color version with an introduction by Jewison. All in all, there is a lot to watch and learn about what went into making this classic movie and while not of it is anything that simply has to be watched, it is all worth a look. It must also be said that MGM has, almost inexplicably, opted to not produce a main menu for the film. All the special features are accessed from a pop-up menu which can only be seen from the main movie. It is an odd and disappointing omission for an otherwise strong release.

Fiddler on the Roof is a great movie, a great musical, and a great rumination on life. It really is so much more than a simple look at a Jewish family and community in Russia, offering to anyone who wants to see it a full view of how we are all affected by the ever-changing world and how we all must learn to deal with the changes, no matter how hard that may be.

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: Fiddler on the Roof on Blogcritics.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D - More Than Just a Pretty Face?

2011-04-06T08:07:00.001-07:00

After playing Madden NFL on the 3DS and being sorely disappointed with the result, we ended up with the perhaps irrational fear that it was going to be impossible for a developer to put together a fun, exciting, enjoyable sports title on the system. Sports titles on handhelds are notoriously difficult to execute anyway, and heck, if Madden couldn't put out an enjoyable version of the premiere football franchise, what chance did anyone else have?

As we said though, that was something of an irrational fear, but one we harbored nonetheless. We won't say that the new Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D has completely assuaged our worries, but it certainly has mitigated them.

If you're like us and have the same sort of fear, you definitely won't be convinced of your wrongness when you pop in the PES 2011 cartridge and start up a match. While the graphics are good—not great, but definitely good—the default camera view that game provides is far too zoomed in and almost wholly useless. Sure, it highlights the 3D-ness and the characters and field, but it doesn't actually give you any sense of scope, where other players are, and how a set piece may be developing.

That is exactly when your fear will take hold of you – why would they bother with that viewpoint? Does PES 2011 on the 3DS have so little to offer that they're going to give you a bad default camera choice just so you don't notice the number of other issues? No, as it turns out, that was just a single really bad decision. We won't go so far as to say that the rest of the game is utterly brilliant—it assuredly isn't—but it's better than you're first led to believe.

The basic problem the game has is the lack of control it imparts to the player. Rather than really being able to turn in 360 degrees (one would have thought that possible with the analog controls the 3DS sports), you're still only able to go in eight possible directions. That makes it awfully hard to control where passes and shots end up, and you'll find that you routinely fire off a pas to a covered player instead of going to the open guy just a hair to the left or right of where the pass actually went.

The game does sport some real players and teams, and most of the gameplay you'll do will take place either in the Master League or Champions League. In Champions, you can do a competition setup which features round robin matches and then a knockout stage, whereas in Master League your more running a team. I say "more" because while you can sign players, make them like your team, and tweak odds and ends, you never really feel as though you can get into the nitty-gritty details of it all.

In short, that's really the sort of thing which, for better or worse, we've come to expect from a handheld sports title. On the 3DS, PES 2011 has pretty good graphics, stilted but enjoyable in-game action, and not quite as robust a set of modes as you might actually want. One of the more interesting and better additions to the title is the in-game utilization of a portion of the bottom screen which allows you to setup various team strategies in advance and then simply tap one to implement them. It is a really good use of the bottom screen without having to make you constantly raise and lower your eyes during a game.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D has all those hallmarks of a launch title that make it fun and frustrating at the same time. From the poor default camera angle which highlights the graphics and 3D-ness at the expense of playability to the lack of precise controls for your players, one can almost see where the next iteration of the franchise on the system will head. The current title is good and is a better football game than the equivalent version of American football we've gotten on the 3DS, but it's not spectacular. Next year's version, however, might be (and maybe it will include online play as well).

If nothing else, the game has shown us that a great 3D sports title is certainly viable and something we should, without a doubt, be expecting to see on Nintendo's latest handheld.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D is rated E (Everyone) by the ESRB.

Article first published as Nintendo 3DS Review: Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D on Blogcritics.

Shift 2 Unleashed - Releasing Your Inner Stig

2011-04-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

In the end, the point of videogames is to provide an enjoyable experience. Be the game big or small, wholly immersive or quick and surface level, you should enjoy the time that you're playing them. Better games, however, are the ones that stick with you and provide fond memories when you're not there with them.

When I sit down to review a racing game, the questions I ask myself about it are not solely limited to the cars, tracks, upgrades, customization, video, audio, and online play. No, they actually extend to how that racing game comes back to me in the real world. The racing titles I like the best are the ones which, when I'm sitting in my car, have me thinking about racing lines and gear changes, oversteer and understeer, downforce and grip. In recent days, Shift 2 Unleashed has caused me to think about all of that and more. That is to say, Shift 2 is a pretty good racing game and a truly enjoyable experience.

The basic problem I think some people find with immersive racing simulation titles is that people believe that they're better players than they actually are. At its very outset, Shift 2 eliminates that as a possible bone of contention. Before you are actually allowed to begin the career mode, you are put behind the wheel for two races and based upon your performance in those two races, the game calibrates the difficulty level to one that you will find appropriate – neither too easy, nor too hard. The game's decision is, of course, changeable as you go along in the title, but it does provide an excellent starting point.

Ostensibly, your goal in Shift 2, which has you racing on closed courses in real cars, is to win the FIA GT1 World Championship, but I seriously doubt that anyone playing the title actually considers that their goal, it's kind of just a manufactured goal for career mode because career modes tend to need a goal. The actual goal for most people will be to race, to race well, and to do so across the 120 different track layouts (utilizing 35 different real world locales) with a plethora of the 120 different licensed vehicles and then to post good enough times with the game's Autolog system so as to appropriately humiliate all their friends. In short, there is a ton to unlock in Shift 2, a ton to customize, a ton to buy, and a ton of fun to be had, and you're going to want to see and do just about everything the game has to offer.

With so much going on in the game, Shift 2 can appear a little overwhelming, but developer Slight Mad Studios has really narrowed the entire thing down to bite-sized pieces. There is a large number of different levels of tracks and competitors which unlock as you go along, and within each of those levels the types of races in which you take part are further separated. Then, when you're customizing your car so as to better perform on the track, you can either tweak a large number of individual items or have the game tweak those areas based upon a smaller set of options, i.e., rather than playing with several different settings to adjust oversteer and understeer there is a separate tuning menu which will allow you to simply choose more oversteer or understeer. The game in no way requires or promotes one or the other method, allowing you the player to choose the amount of control you want to utilize. Once your car is tweaked, you can then save the configuration, multiple configs can be saved, and choose specific tracks on which each config ought to be used.

As you play and complete certain objectives both within a single race and in the greater scheme of things you earn money and level up, thereby opening more courses, more races, and giving you the cash to improve existing cars and buy wholly new ones.

Perhaps my biggest problem with the game is the highly touted Autolog system which puts just a little too much emphasis on the multiplayer aspects of it all. This isn't the first game in the Need for Speed franchise which has used Autolog, but in essence, what it does is push for you and all your friends to buy the title so that you can compare stats every single time you, individually, home alone, race. When you finish a race, the game informs you where on your Speedwall you rank in comparison to your friends on that course – and helpfully actually provides the model of car (and how upgraded it was) which produced the times. That's all interesting enough if you have a whole bunch of friends with the game, but if you don't, it just takes up time and space. Beyond that, the game seems to not handle very well the fact that you haven't hooked up with many friends as its wording every time you're still number one on a course on your Speedwall makes it sound as though you're not doing a good job.

The other main problem with the game is the amount of times that it takes saving and loading anything is exceptionally long. It pulls you right out of the title to sit there for so long after a race as the game slowly but surely gets ready to save and then actually does. We also noticed that if you restart a race in the middle (because, frankly, what that other guy did to you was hugely wrong and unfair – like your being disqualified in a duel for hitting the other car when he actually rear ends you as you slow going into a turn), things don't always fully reset on the course. For instance, if you hit a tire wall and send tires flying everywhere, then restart the race in the middle, those tires have a horrible tendency to be floating in space right where they were the last time out (visually anyway if not physically).

On the other hand, those tires are awfully pretty to look at. The game is utterly beautiful, with great looking cars and fantastic looking courses. You're not really going to get a huge chance to check it all out in the middle of a race, but if you play with the camera angles as you zip down a straightaway, you're going to be mighty impressed with what you see. It really doesn't matter whether your racing at day or at night, or which camera angle you're using, the game is beautiful.

If my incessant watching of Top Gear has taught me anything, it's that racing modified street cars on a closed course can be an incredible amount of fun. Shift 2 Unleashed further pushes that notion, crying out for the Stig in all of us to don that Alpinestars outfit (Alpinestars is present in the game) and get racing. Now if I can just figure out how to shave 30 seconds off the morning drive to preschool…

Shift 2 Unleashed is rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) by the ESRB for Mild Suggestive Themes, Mild Violence. This game can also be found on: Xbox 360 and PC.

Article first published as PlayStation 3 Review: Shift 2 Unleashed on Blogcritics.

Taking a Listen with Marc Ecko's UNLTD.SOUND Force Headphones

2011-04-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the past 20 or 25 years, the use of headphones has grown in incredible ways. Jump on a subway in New York City and you'll see a huge number of the now iconic white earbuds that come with every iPod and iPhone. In fact, Apple has done such a good job at imbuing those white earbuds with meaning that you can now buy knockoff white earbuds so that everyone will think you're listening to an Apple product as you keep your Zune carefully hidden in your pocket.

Let's face it though, as iconic and convenient as those little white earbuds are, they don't produce the greatest sound you've ever heard, they can fall out easily, and they're simply not all that comfortable. They are also, of course, not the only game in town.

In fact, Marc Ecko has recently released an entire line of headphones called UNLTD.SOUND. The line contains four different over-the-ear headphones as well as two in-ear models. That offers the consumer a decent amount of choice within the fashion designer's lineup, and with suggested prices ranging from $59.99 for the top of the line Force headphones to $9.99 for the in-ear Chaos set, the prices are all pretty reasonable as well.

For our review, we received a Force headset in Graffiti White (it is also available in Gold and Camo Grey). With a 1.2 meter cable, travel bag, and volume controls on the cord, the Force set comes with just about everything you need to get going (for what it's worth, all the over-the-ear sets are 1.2 meters and have a carry bag).

The technical details for the Force set are as follows: they have a 38mm speaker diameter, an impedance of 32 OHMS, maximum power input of 200mW, and frequency response of 10Hz to 22kHZ. They also feature noise reduction and mega bass.

Although perhaps a little shocking to look at initially, we quickly grew to like the appearance of the black graffiti on a white background. It helped that when we put them on we instantly found them hugely comfortable. Once we actually plugged them in, we were even more impressed – they sounded quite good, providing a noticeable improvement from the speakers of our handheld gaming device, and unquestionably sounding far better than our white earbuds. Sitting down and listening to a movie, music, or a game, every sound was clear and distinct, nothing was lost either on the high or low end. There was also a huge amount of bass present when the volume was turned up. Although increasing the volume on the headset cord doesn't change the volume on your device (unlike your white earbuds), increasing the volume on the headset does not add any sort of hiss or distortion as we have seen elsewhere.

Even better than that for us, however, is the fact that after wearing them for several hours they were still just as comfortable as they had been when we first put them on. In our estimation, headphones not only have to sound good and not look inordinately foolish, they have to be comfortable as well, and the Force headphones certainly fit those qualifications.

While we have absolutely no complaints about the sound or the look of the headphones, we did run into some problems actually connecting them to our devices. The Force headset never sits fully flush with any device, there is always a little bit of metal from the headphones' audio jack visible. Additionally, the Force headset does not connect to an iPhone 4 if the iPhone 4 has an Apple provided bumper. With an iPhone 4 bumper, the headset's audio jack will simply not push far enough in to lock securely. The random scattering of other cases we had present for our testing worked with headset, but we wouldn't go so far as to say that only the Apple manufactured case is a problem.

After testing them out, we can say that the reasonably priced Marc Ecko UNLTD.SOUND Force headset has found its way into our laptop bag, a place where real estate is at a premium. They are, sadly, not a replacement for our white earbuds, but whenever we are given the opportunity to use the Force headphones instead of the buds we unquestionably will.

Article first published as Product Review: Marc Ecko UNLTD.SOUND Force Headphones on Blogcritics.

Yogi Bear Makes a Big Boo Boo

2011-03-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

There is often a complaint leveled against Hollywood that they have "run out of ideas" and it is because of Hollywood's lack of ideas that we get a fairly consistent stream of remakes. I don't think that's accurate, I prefer to believe that the powers that be realize that by updating classic efforts they can not only gain a new audience but snag the old one as well and not have to spend as much time, energy, and money in the process is what has caused the glut of remakes.

Watching last year's Yogi Bear big screen adventure though it is easy to understand why those on the other side of the argument feel the way they do. Starring Dan Aykroyd as the voice of Yogi, Justin Timberlake as the voice of Boo Boo, and Tom Cavanagh as Ranger Smith (unlike Yogi and Boo Boo, he's not CGI), the film is as big a calamity as any of Yogi's schemes. It is not, in short, smarter than the average film… it's not even smarter than the average children's film.

The basic plot revolves around the evil Mayor Brown (Andrew Daly) and his Chief of Staff (Nathan Corddry) trying to sell the logging right to Jellystone Park in order to balance the city's budget and help convince the populace to make him governor. Don't bother asking how a local mayor is allowed to close a national park, it's a question that I am not convinced ever even struck director Eric Brevig (2008's Journey to the Center of the Earth) or any of the other people involved in the film.

Ranger Smith, of course, has a brilliant scheme to save the park, a scheme actually provided by his love interest for the film, Rachel (Anna Faris), but Yogi ruins it and the park closes… at least temporarily. By the end of the film the good guys win; the bad guys are exposed; and one poor junior ranger (T.J. Miller) learns a really valuable lesson about doing the right thing and paying your dues.

From start to finish, just about every joke, every scheme of Yogi's, and every slow burn on Ranger Smith's part is telegraphed. The CGI Yogi and Boo Boo may look good, and Aykroyd and Timberlake may do good approximations of the voices from the cartoons, but that's about as far as it goes. Even the Road Runner cartoon which preceded the film in theaters and which is on the Blu-ray as a bonus feature fails to offer much fun to those over the age of 12 (roughly).

It would actually be unfair of me to suggest that there is nothing at all redeemable about the film – it unquestionably impresses the youngest members of the audience. My four-and-a-half year old thinks the film is outstandingly fun and wonderful, every time I have seen it with her (twice in the theater and again at home on Blu-ray), I try and look at it through her eyes so that I too may laugh uproariously at Yogi's shenanigans. I have been unsuccessful in this endeavor, outside of the exceedingly smooth CGI and some of Yogi's schemes (like a picnic basket catapult), there really is little that an older crowd will enjoy. Perhaps it is just a case of what works as a brief cartoon failing to work as a full-length feature, but I think the problem lies more in the script and execution than the concept.

One of those other "little" things that does work here is the film's Blu-ray presentation. Excluding some obvious green screen shots during a water rapids sequence, the film really does look astoundingly good on Blu-ray. The black levels are great and the level of detail exceptionally high. You can make out every piece of fur on Yogi and Boo Boo and lots of details on trees, rocks, and shrubs in Jellystone. The colors are rich and vibrant, particularly the greens which are abundant. The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is equally good. The same rapids sequence that doesn't look all that it might, sounds wonderful, featuring plenty of use of the surrounds to really put the audience in the middle of the action. The entire track is also well-mixed so not only will your hear every thud and thump clearly, but you won't have to adjust the volume for dialogue scenes.

The extras include the aforementioned Road Runner short as well as a digital and DVD copy. There is also a memory game aimed at the younger crowd and a "mash-up" that runs about four minutes and combines footage from Yogi cartoons with scenes from this movie and EPK interviews from his current adventure. The rest of bonus features, which are actually nominally interesting, are all crammed into a single interactive section called "Spending a Day at Jellystone Park" where you can visit (by clicking on them) different areas in the park and then watch a couple of featurettes in each area. The featurettes are all pretty standard behind the scenes items, but still manage to maintain one's interest level… when the viewer isn't sick of having to search them out. Placing these featurettes within this single section of the Blu-ray proves exceptionally annoying as the load times to get from one part of the park to the next are overly long when all that you're treated to in each section are a few brief looks at the making of the movie. And, why exactly the Yogi mash-up and memory challenge weren't included is exceptionally puzzling as they seem a perfect fit.

I don't mind saying it again – I do not believe that Hollywood has run out of ideas, I think that once they have a property they believe will be successful they milk it before trying to come up with any new plans. I also think that there's nothing at all wrong with that basic concept, I just wish that more effort were put into some of these endeavors. For all the clearly expensive and great-looking CGI work done on Yogi Bear, it still has the feel of an exceptionally slapdash effort made with little consideration of what might actually make for an enjoyable experience. I believe that there are certainly good ways to adapt Yogi for the big screen, ways that would make for a really likable film. None of those ways were (successfully) employed here.

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: Yogi Bear on Blogcritics.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters: Mulligan!

2011-03-29T12:06:00.000-07:00

When it was announced that the new version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour would feature the Masters and the Augusta National Golf Club, no one was more excited than I. As a golfer, a watcher of golf, and a gamer, I had hoped for years that somehow EA would manage to convince the powers that be at Augusta that it would be beneficial for everyone involved to have one of the premiere golf courses in the world included on the premiere golf simulation franchise.

EA Sports' tagline has been "if it's in the game, it's in the game," and as one of the four Majors of the PGA Tour, not having the Masters in the game was a problem. After playing the new version of Tiger Woods, which is burdened with the somewhat unwieldy name of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: the Masters, I am now a little worried that having the Masters in the game is something of a problem.

For this latest version of the franchise, the career mode—the meat and potatoes of the game—has been revamped and retitled, it is now "The Road to the Masters" and everything that you do as a golfer in the game is about getting to the Masters. As a huge fan of the simulation aspects of Tiger Woods, I have loved the versions which featured a nice calendar and where, once you made your way up from the Nationwide Tour to the PGA Tour you would play in events that mimicked those the pros were playing in on any given week of the calendar year. For several iterations, EA Sports seemed to make sure as best they could that whatever courses the US Open, British Open, and PGA Championship were at that year were included in the title and so when you went to play those Majors you were playing at the correct course. Add to that the fact that you could go online during those weekends and simulate the real world weather conditions at the event and have your score compared to those of the pros, and it was simulation golf heaven (even if I could belt a 320 yard shot down the middle of the fairway, which is nothing I could ever hope to accomplish in real life).

While you can still go online this year, the calendar is a thing of the past. In career mode you do still work your way up from an EA Sports Amateur Tour to the Nationwide Tour, through Q School, and then onto the PGA Tour. You get to progress by completing certain objectives (finishing in a certain position or better for a number of matches), and once you're on the PGA Tour and have your rank crack the Top 100 you're allowed to play in a major (including the Masters). Each tournament is presented to you as the next that you're allowed to play and within that course you then can play a round against a computer player in one of a variety of golf games (skins, match, battle, etc.) and in sponsor events before finally entering the tournament proper. You can also earn an exemption to get to play in the Masters by completing a nine challenges which simulate historical moments at the tournament.

It is all very well presented, and Augusta National looks absolutely beautiful as a course, but the Masters is but one of four Majors in the world of golf, and to have the entire game focus itself on getting to this single tournament—which isn't even the tournament that decides who wins the FedEx Cup—inaccurately skews the whole simulation. The Masters and Augusta should be represented in Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and it should be represented because it is one of the four Majors, not because it is the be all end all of the PGA Tour. However, this version of the game gives the impression that it just might be.

Moving away from the career mode, also new to Tiger Woods this year is the addition of a caddie to help you choose your shot before each and every swing (except if it's a really long putt in which case the caddie mysteriously walks off to get a hotdog or a soda without informing you that he's chickening out of helping). Prior to each shot, the caddie will step into view next to your golfer and offer up some shot choices and the landing area for those shots along with giving you an idea of just how difficult the shots are to hit.

In my playing of the game though, I found his choices to rarely mimic what my own would be, and while the AI used to create the caddie may be good, the fact that the caddie can't add into his computations the personal preferences of the golfer he is going out with, no matter how many rounds you play with him, makes him that much more frustrating. He is easy enough to turn off, but you still see him when setting up your shot, and he's just taking up space there on the screen. He may help folks unfamiliar with the game or the course make better choices, but the fact that there is no dialogue, no back and forth, really hampers his ability to help more experienced players. Beyond that, EA states that "as the user's course mastery improves, so does the quality of the caddie's shot recommendations." I can't say that I saw such a change in my experimenting with him, but if I'm reading the statement correctly, that seems to mean that the recommendations you get early on from your caddie may not be so good, and that wholly undercuts the idea that beginners should use him to gain a feel for how to approach a course and a hole.

As for the graphics, they are, unfortunately a mixed bag. The vast majority of the time courses look utterly fantastic and the way nearly everything is represented is beautiful. However, there are certainly moments when elements of a course—I most often noticed the problem with the edges of bunkers—shift repeatedly between the correct image and a static-y, indistinct one. When this occurs, it isn't only while the ball is in flight or on a flyover of the hole, but rather the entire time you're at that part of the course – before, during, and after the shot.

Additionally, none of the edges around your golfer are well represented. There is a distinctly murky area around your golfer nearly the entire time they are on the course. This area is noted by large, blocky pixels and sometimes a thick outline and gives the impression that where they real they would be standing in front of a green screen with the course CGI-ed in behind them. Simply put, they don't always feel as though they are present on the course.

Included again this year is the EA Sports GameFace which allows you to upload pictures of yourself to the EA website and then import them to the game so as to better simulate your own likeness. As the game itself acknowledges with the numerous humorous statements that run across your screen as the system processes your face, it takes an incredibly long time. That would be perfectly satisfactory if it then presented you with a version of yourself which was again fully customizable should it make an error in animating you. That isn't the case though and the first time I uploaded my pictures, the entire right side of my face was covered with what appeared to be severe scarring that I do not actually have (at least as far as I can tell). As that sort of problem can't be corrected once it's there, I uploaded new pictures, waited again, and was eventually rewarded with a far better result. GameFace is, without a doubt, a completely fascinating potential addition to EA Sports' titles as a whole, but it still doesn't feel quite ready for primetime.

As for the audio, Jim Nantz and David Feherty provide the play-by-play and color commentary. They both do so with the insights that are at times interesting, at times informative, and at times just plain wrong. One year maybe we'll see a version of this game where the broadcasters are able to always correctly state where the ball will end up or be smart enough if they are unsure to say nothing at all. This is not that year.

One other thing which has always puzzled me about the Tiger Woods franchise must also be mentioned – the way the game handles balls that end up in hazards. New this year is the fact that drop zones on par threes for every course (16 on the disc, 18 downloadable with PS3 and 360) are accurately presented in accordance with what they are in reality (unless the course is a fantasy course). What the game still doesn't do however is offer on any hole is the choice of dropping on the correct line by no nearer the pin or rehitting your shot (a choice you are offered on a real course). As other golf titles offered this choice more than a decade ago it seems inconceivable that EA Sports can't somehow include it in Tiger Woods.

Perhaps I am being nitpicky. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters does a whole lot that is right and a whole lot that is wonderful. Perhaps it is because it handles so much so well that when it makes a mistake its errors are that much more apparent, that much more glaring. While that certainly may be partially true, it is hard to contemplate a world in which the revamping of the career mode to one which focuses so heavily on a single golf tournament could have been a good idea. That is, it's hard to contemplate such a world unless this was what EA had to sacrifice for a single year to get Augusta National included in its course lineup, in which case I suggest you wait until next year to buy the title. It is my hope that come Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13, we are back to a more realistic footing for the career mode and that Augusta is still present. The course should be a part of the game, but in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 the cost of its presence is simply too high.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters is rated E (Everyone) by the ESRB. This game can also be found on: Wii and Xbox 360.

Article first published as PlayStation 3 Review: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters on Blogcritics.

Getting Tangled with Disney's Latest

2011-03-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

Not always with the most positive of reactions from fans, historians, critics, and the world at large, Disney has a way of making classic tales uniquely their own. The talents of the Disney animators and producers are again on display with their latest feature, the 50th full length theatrical feature from Disney Animation Studios, Tangled, which hits Blu-ray and DVD tomorrow.

A retelling of the classic story of Rapunzel, Tangled features Mandy Moore voicing the role of Rapunzel and Zachary Levi as Flynn Rider, Rapunzel's knight in shining armor/prince/good guy come to rescue the damsel. Or, that's the character that Flynn turns into, initially he's in with a pretty bad crowd and something of a thief.

The film is actually told through the eyes of said thief as a flashback, with him informing everyone right up front that he will in fact perish in the piece. He opens the story by telling us the tale of how a single drop of sun once reached the Earth and caused a special flower to grow, a flower used by the evil Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) to stay young forever. Mixing the old with the new, Rapunzel comes to be born after the king's wife falls ill and he sends men out to find the magic flower to heal the queen. Gothel takes umbrage with the procuring of the flower that was keeping her alive and upon realizing that Rapunzel's hair now has the same properties as the flower, kidnaps her and brings her to a tower to live.

As with so many a fairytale, things in Tangled rely on the highly improbable. Flynn randomly finds Rapunzel's tower on his escape from stealing the crown of the missing princess from the king and queen and happens to do so right as Rapunzel is itching to leave the tower and discover what the lights in the sky that appear every year on her birthday are (the king and queen hold a vigil/party every year for their missing daughter). It is, in short, a preposterous confluence of events which push the story forward, but they occur, the story gets going, and the laughs and enjoyment keep on coming.

The truth is that no matter how ridiculous everything which occurs in the film is, and it is all rather ridiculous, it is still also all hugely amusing and wholly pleasing to watch. Flynn is nothing but empty bravado with a heart of gold and Rapunzel wholly over-exuberant and naïve. It is a match made in heaven and as Flynn takes Rapunzel on a trek to see the lights (as part of an agreement to get back the crown which Rapunzel grabbed when Flynn appeared in her tower), the two fall madly in love with each other. Of course, Rapunzel doesn't know who she is, can't really trust Flynn as he hasn't been entirely honest with her, and has a whole lot of mother issues tied up around her case of Stockholm Syndrome. But then, the course of true love never did run smooth.

On top of all of that are several fun-at-the-moment but not always terribly memorable songs; excellent CG animation; and larger than life voice performances by Moore, Levi, Murphy, and the rest of the cast which includes Richard Kiel, Jeffrey Tambor, Ron Perlman, and Brad Garrett. There is one particularly beautifully animated scene near the end of the film during the lantern festival for the princess which will stay with the viewer—any viewer—long after the final credits have rolled.

I am only semi-convinced that the dizzying animation, storytelling, jokes, and amusements that the film offers make Tangled a film for the ages and in the same class as so many of the studio's other works. That is a question only time can answer, but it is not outside the realm of possibility. What the film certainly is however, is proof yet again—as if anyone but the naysayers needed it—that Disney animation doesn't wholly rely on the wizards at Pixar in order to keep itself alive. There are a number of great moments in Disney's fractured fairytale, from a scene at a local bar named The Snuggly Duckling to the aforementioned festival sequence with the lanterns, and a whole lot to love in the film.

With the Tangled Blu-ray release, Disney also proves yet again that they know exactly how to deliver a film to homes in high definition. The colors, detail, and imagery in the film as a whole is absolutely spectacular. The palette is bright and rich, and the colors pop off the screen here. You'll notice no issues in the transfer, and again, the lantern sequence at the festival is truly mesmerizing in high definition. The 7.1 DTS Master Audio soundtrack is equally good. The sound is rich and full, with music all around you and during crowd and action sequences the surrounds are used to great effect (even if they don't come into play as much at other times).

As for the extras included on the two-disc Blu-ray release (the second disc contains a DVD), that is something of a mixed-bag. The film is also being released as a four-disc set with a 3D Blu-ray, and that is the only set to include a digital copy of the film as well. It is unfortunate, but if you don't need the 3D Blu-ray, you'll still have to pay for it if you want the digital copy. The two-disc release does contain the relatively standard set of bonus features including deleted scenes, extended songs, two alternate openings to the movie, an exceedingly brief look at all 50 of the films to come from Disney Animation Studios, and a making-of piece hosted by Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore. Entitled "Tangled: The Making of a Fairy Tale," the featurette has a highly produced feel but Moore and Levi still manage to be jubilant enough about their lines that it not only successfully imparts some (but not a ton) of information but remains enjoyable for audiences of all ages.

Tangled is unquestionably a unique spin on the story of Rapunzel, but is a spin which works very successfully. It isn't exactly your classic prince-and-princess-fall-in-love fairytale, but it is fast-paced, at times dizzying, and actually fun for the whole family to sit and watch together. You can't ask for much more than that.

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: Tangled (2010) on Blogcritics.

Drinking (Lots of) Tea on The Amazing Race

2011-03-27T19:48:00.000-07:00

For me, tonight's episode of The Amazing Race was all about attitude and outlook. We saw whining, we saw crying, we saw complaining, and we also saw some really positive moments too (spoilers below).

At least five teams at the start of the episode complained about staying in China. Now, they weren't actually staying in China (not that they knew that initially), but I couldn't figure out why exactly they were so upset about the prospect of not flying to another country. Did I miss where China was so horrible for them? Was everyone just tired because of the double-leg they did there?

If that's the case, I'm moderately disappointed. These people have been on the race before, they should have expected a difficult time of it for this second outing. If Phil and the producers had given the teams a simplified version of they race, they would have blown through it and we all would have been massively bored with the whole season. Let them suffer for our amusement, isn't that kind of the point of a reality show like this? And, whatever their problem may have been with what they did in China, was it really such a terrible country for them to have to visit?

Well, all their whining about China aside, they can't have loved what they found in India. Their first task there—after waiting outside overnight—was to taste tea and find, out of 400 different cups, which was the same kind they had drank the day before in China. Yes, multiple cups of tea were correct, but it still looked like an incredibly difficult task. I was amazed that Ron got the right one so quickly, but a whole bunch of other teams had a lot tougher time with it.

Now, I don't want to think that the racers we have this season are a bunch of whiners, but between the complaining about China and then the complaining about the tea task, it certainly seems like they might be. Luke actually broke down into tears over the whole thing which, I'm not going to lie to you, was moderately ridiculous.

It was a hard moment to watch because I felt for him – if he hadn't paid enough attention to the tea when he first had it in China, he would have had no basis from which to find the correct cup in India. On the other hand, crumbling to the floor in tears was probably overselling it. It was stupendous when he finally guessed right and got the correct cup. The fact that everyone in the place seemed to applaud him and that he got a bunch of hugs as well was a pretty special moment even if everything that had preceded it for Luke was anything but good.

So Luke was a little happy, mostly sad, and semi-ridiculous, wholly ridiculous was Zev breaking a tea cup on purpose when he found out that he was wrong in his choice. He got it right the next time out, but I wonder if that wasn't just because the guy running the challenge was a little worried that if Zev was wrong again he'd smash something bigger than a cup.

I'm not going to even get into Jen & Kisha's not opening the Snapple bottle to find the clue and that moment's place in the realm of ridiculousness tonight. We've focused on whining, crying, complaining, and stupidity enough. Instead let's turn our attention to something more positive.

You know who I most liked this week? It was Flight of the Globetrotters for giving Margie & Luke a hug after seeing that Luke had fought through his troubles with the tea. Perhaps not surprisingly, as professional athletes the Globetrotters recognize when to congratulate an opponent on a match well fought. Sure, the last time the basketball players were on the show they quit and that kind of undercuts that whole professional sports thing, but that was giving up on themselves, not unsportsmanlike conduct towards someone else.

I am curious to know what the teams thought of India. Guess we'll find out at the start of the next episode (though Jet & Cord did say tonight that it was "great"). Whatever they thought, I do hope they express themselves in a way which doesn't make me cringe and feel embarrassed for them, which is how I felt for a bunch of tonight's episode.

Article first published as Tea Time on The Amazing Race on Blogcritics.

The Sims 3 on the 3DS: See you in the Next Life, Jack

2011-03-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

The Sims 3, as a franchise, is a massive success. It has been ported to system after system, updated, expanded, and tweaked. Now, it's a launch title for the Nintendo 3DS, but it may not be one that you're going to want to leave the store with at the same time as you pick up Nintendo's latest handheld. Obviously the problems with the title have nothing to do with the game's concept and despite what you may be thinking, the problems are also unrelated to the graphics (3D or otherwise) and unrelated to there being "missing" components from previous releases. The problems are with the layout, and we'll be talking about them more later.

By now, we all know what The Sims is all about – you create people, create a home for them, and take them through their hopefully not too mundane lives. Your Sim will make friends, have a job, cook dinner, and learn to play chess. It is almost entirely brilliantly fun. I have been known to spend hours building my Sim the perfect, expandable, dream house at the start of the game, before I've ever laid a single finger on my Sim in the game world. The Sims is a tested, tried, and utterly brilliant. Who knew that controlling the lives of someone else could be way more fun than controlling your own, but let's face it, it can be.

While the version of The Sims 3 that was released to the Nintendo DS was a semi-sanitized E for Everyone game, for the 3DS, the folks at EA have given you a T for Teen version, similar to the console and computer releases. Also included back in the game is stuff like the ability to put in landscaping.

Listen, we don't want to insult you by giving you 500 words on the overall generic stuff that could be used to talk about The Sims 3 on any platform. The Sims franchise has been around for more than a decade, it's a life simulator and each successive entry into the series has given you more options, more tweaks, and more to do. It is also one of those titles which has traditionally worked better on a PC or Mac than it has on a console or handheld because there is so much to control and so many possible tweaks and a keyboard and mouse offer the ability to manipulate the extensive array of choices you're provided in greater detail, with greater finesse, and with far greater speed than any console or handheld controls we have ever come across.

On the Nintendo 3DS you're faced with that same issue all over again. If you've ever played the title on a computer you're going to feel pretty handicapped playing it on the 3DS, and, even if you haven't played it on a computer, you're still going to get a sense that it's all very stilted when it shouldn't be.

In this version of the game, the top screen, the 3D one, is useless at least 75 percent of the time. You're almost only ever changing things or manipulating anything based on the bottom screen, which is a shame because the graphics on the top screen and the title's use of the 3D technology is great. But, great or not, your life, menus, and choices, are almost all there on the bottom, not the top. We in fact got so focused on the bottom screen that at one point when we needed information and pressed the correct icon we fumed that nothing appeared to tell us what we wanted to know. Yeah, the information was up top and the game trained us so well to not look there that we didn't check it.

The other major problem – the one outside of ignoring the pretty 3D graphics – with the bottom screen-centeredness of the title is that there is, unlike on a big TV or computer monitor, an exceedingly limited amount of real estate on a handheld screen. Necessarily, bringing up readable menus and sets of choices on the bottom screen takes up nearly all of the bottom screen every time. You can't focus on the top screen however to see what's happening because you're constantly needing to read all the monitors, menus, and choices the bottom screen offers. That leads to incredibly erratic and frustrating gameplay, no matter how many options you have for your Sim.

As for one nice 3DS inclusion, you can take a picture of yourself and have your Sim look like you (think of it similarly to the EA GameFace option which appears in many of the EA Sports titles). Additionally, new to the 3DS is the ability to send butterflies out into your world and set off an earthquake via Karma Powers. You earn these. There is also a StreetPass inclusion for the title – be close enough to someone else with the game and Sims will transfer between the two 3DS systems, so you can turn on the game one day and find all-new folks in your town.

In short (relatively speaking), on the 3DS you find a version of Sims 3 which contains great graphics, excellent use of the system's 3D capability, lots of customization options, fun sound effects, and a whole lot to do, all of which is completely hampered by a disappointing interface which will seriously mar your enjoyment of the title and may just make you wish you'd stuck with a computer version.

The Sims 3 is rated T (Teen) by the ESRB for Crude Humor, Mild Violence, Sexual Themes. This game can also be found on: Nintendo DS, PC, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360 and Mobile Phone.

Article first published as Nintendo 3DS Review: The Sims 3 on Blogcritics.