Over the last three years I have had the honour and pleasure of interacting with some of the coolest, nicest and smartest people in my attempt to try and learn more about the art of video games and the craft of journalism. I have seen so many great things that I would have never found otherwise, and learned so much about the local community that I would have never even thought to look for. I’ve done this all with the support of friends and family.

Over the last few months it has become much more difficult for me to devote the time I feel is required to put out quality content. Although I have had Tim and Ian Y. helping me for quite some time, with everyone’s schedule becoming more and more filled up, it has been difficult to put in the effort to produce unique and engaging pieces (especially considering they both do it for free). Instead of leaving this space to stagnant, I wanted to address it directly to all of our readers, friends and passers-by.

LeftStickRight will be on hiatus until further notice. This does not mean we are stopping altogether, but it does mean that you likely will not see any content popping up for some time. We are not sure when or how we will be getting back into the swing of things, but this space will be kept alive for people to continue to browse through what I think is a great archive of articles relating to the world of video games.

I’ve spoke about the origins of the site and the journey we’ve been on, but very rarely do I really address the people behind it. I wanted to mention a few people who have inspired and encouraged me over the last three years.

• My wife: Toni – Without her, I probably would not have kept at it as long as I did. I also would not have gotten Tim on board and continued to challenge my thinking about games. She will be the one that gets me back on here when I need to be.
• My friends: Matthew, Justin, Steve, Mark, Matt and Aaron – It was conversations with my friends that made me think I could really do it. They created a monster!
• Nintendo of Canada PR guy – Matt Ryan: I have never spoken to him or sent him an email, but it was his free pass to an event at work that got me started.
• Ashley Beaulac, Greg Valentine, Kyle Moffatt, Matt Levitan, Elisa Wegenast, Maricel Dicion and Rhiannon Clifford – And all of the other great PR people that put up with my nonsense and continued to help supply LSR with games.
• Shaun Hatton – One of the best people I’ve met in my travels. Inspired me throughout my time on the site with his work on Toronto Thumbs and now EP.
• Justin Amirkhani – Another up and coming writer who has been more than friendly to me and has contributed to the site on multiple occasions. A great guy.
• Jaime Woo – Another inspiring fellow, whose work with Gamercamp demonstrates the future of the Toronto gaming community.
• Randy Mosiondz, Aaron Webber, Chris Priestly, Miguel Sternberg and Billy Thomson – Who let me hound them with questions in interviews and who allowed a guy to take their time up who in his head was saying “I DO NOT DESERSVE TO DO THIS” the entire time.
• Susan Arendt, Andrew Webster, Mathew Kumar… – And all of the other great writers who I have met and who have inspired me to be better.

I could honestly go on forever, and I’ll probably have missed some key people (oops!) but I wanted to lastly give a big thanks to my writers. First, Adam Marcucci and Jon Fisher who were early contributers to LSR (when it was UGTV.ca) and of course the biggest thanks to Tim Latshaw and Ian Yuan who have been absolutely stellar and learning with me all the way. Ian has become a great audio producer with his work on the podcast, and his writing is top notch. Tim is now writing for sites like Joystiq and The Escapist and is only going to shoot the moon from here.

As final as this all sounds, it isn’t. This is a long overdue thanks to a great crowd of people who I look forward to continuing to interact with. It has been a great time and I hope that that will continue in the not-too-distant future.

To anyone reading this far that is wondering how in the world they can get into games journalist I have two pieces of advice. The first bit of advice is read. Read around the net and see what kind of content people are producing. Not just on major outlets but all over. The second advice I have is to write and write well. Don’t just start pumping out reviews or commentary, start thinking about the major issues and find out how you can really talk about things that make you passionate about games.

After all of this drama, the truth is you’ll probably hear from us again fairly soon.

Cheers,
Ian Howlett

Now there’s Sonic Colors for the Wii. The name cries gimmick, but Sega appeared to have extra faith in this iteration, discontinuing some of its older, critically panned titles so as not to continue sullying the pot, one could say.

Wishful thinking? I’m happy to say no, actually. Sonic Colors shines through where previous titles floundered, offering the best Sonic experience on a console in years.

Years.

The basic premise of Sonic Colors is par for the series: Eggman has created an amusement park in space by linking five planets to his resort. It’s all, of course, a ruse to conceal a diabolical motive that depends on capturing cute, collectible alien creatures called Wisps. Sonic and Tails arrive to investigate and mass robot genocide is soon celebrated.

A very bright and vibrant look matches the title for sure

It should be noted that the tale is told tongue-in-cheek with plenty of flippant Sonic-tude. It’s groan-inducing at points but chuckleworthy at others, lending itself to a sort of “Saturday morning cartoon” feel. It fits well; at least better than watching Shadow packing heat or Sonic smooching outside his species ever did.

Sonic Team chose to transition between 2D and on-track 3D during gameplay; a decision that really makes all the difference. Gone are the clunky, confusing werehog areas that plagued Unleashed. It’s all back down to a mix of platforming and speed. Sonic is almost always pressed onward with little backtracking, and when the camera switches to a behind the ‘hog view, he is sometimes locked into “quickstep” mode where you can zip between three lanes, or a drift mode that allows better navigation of corners. It sounds potentially limiting, but is a great way to maintain the speed in these areas many players are looking for. An icon at the bottom of the screen indicates when the game is in one of these modes, as well as when there is an instant kill danger such as bottomless pits. Where has this warning been all my life?

There are four control options, of which the Wii remote and nunchuk combo felt most comfortable to me. Controls felt tight and responsive for the majority of the game, although some platform navigating felt tricky at times. This might have had as much to do with the length the camera was pulled out at some points.

This really satisfies both the Sonic and Mr. Driller fan in me

The eight multi-hued wisps are indeed the gimmick du game. One color grants power to the standard boost gauge, while the other seven grant individual powers such as laser propulsion, drilling through the ground and sticking to walls. The Wisps are timed and work well similar to the power-ups of Mario Galaxy. Most importantly, where previous titles’ gimmicks failed, Wisps rarely hinder Sonic’s motion and, in many cases, enhance it.

Each of the six worlds in the main game divided into six acts and a boss battle, with a three-part finale. Each world is vividly presented as a combination of its natural elements and Eggman’s machinations. The soundtrack, a blend of orchestrated music and synth, perpetuates this theme. It’s a beautiful overall package that often bursts with personality, although the rare pixelated background element does detract a bit.

While the enemy bots tend to brandish different objects depending on the world, most are the same standard design. It could be argued that the enemies shouldn’t be the grand focus and that having too many would detract from zipping through a level. That would be understandable. What’s not understandable is why three bosses are basically remixes of the first three you encounter in the game. They’re fun fights, but there’s no reason not to have six unique creations. The final boss, thankfully, does not feel like a throwback.

I don't know when we started playing Mario Bros., but this is wild

The replayability factor is intriguing. Some acts feel oddly short — at least until you realize you’re missing three or four of the five special rings hidden in each act. Returning to earlier stages after freeing certain-colored Wisps allows you to access different sections entirely passed over on the first runthrough. Even with that considered, picking up some of the special rings you can see in your first play can be a challenge, as well. I beat the main game with an embarrassingly meager number of special rings, and since they unlock extra stages in the Sonic Simulator — essentially a collection of extra courses that can be played with a friend — going back can be rewarding. Online leaderboards are also there for those kinds of people.

So what I’m really trying to say is…
Search for what people cry out for in their Sonic games and you’ll find three common elements: good platforming that doesn’t just have you hold right all the time, alternative paths to explore and speed, stupid. Sonic Colors manages to hit upon that golden triad in a way no other Sonic title this generation has been able to, providing a contemporary experience that still manages to pay good tribute to the blue blur’s roots. Will that stop some of the “hardcore fans” from trying to disparage it somehow? Probably not, but there’s currently no better case against pulling the plug on the hedgehog.

Sonic Colors is developed by Sega and is available on the Nintendo Wii. Review derived from about 6.5 hours of play with a retail copy of the game, in which the main game was completed. So, so many special rings to get back to…

It is a long cast, but we promise it is a good one and is filled with some information for anyone that may have missed the Gamercamp event, or perhaps were just interested in what transpired that. That and why Dance Central isn’t Ian’s favourite dance-based game for the Kinect. I know!

Games discussed include Kinect Adventures, Dance Central, Dance Masters, DYAD, The Depths To Which We Sink, Sword & Sworcery, Zombiedots, CityState, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Movie: The Game and They Bleed Pixels.

Questions, comments and concerns can be sent to podcast@leftstickright.com

Podcast Breakdown

Intro – 0:00
Sword & Sworcery Demo/Keynote: Capybara Games/Superbrothers/Jim Guthrie – 0:04:55
The Depths To Which We Sink Demo: Big Pants – 0:11:10
Zombiedots Demo: Form & Method – 0:15:50
UDON 10th Anniversary Keynote: Jim Zubkavich – 0:17:40
CityState Demo: Normative – 0:22:35
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game Keynote: Stéphane Boutin – 0:24:30
DYAD Demo: ][ - 0:27:32
Games Journalism Keynote: Mathew Kumar - 0:29:26

Dance Central - 0:37:05
Dance Masters - 0:48:20

Day 2: Breakfast & Brains - 1:02:05
Set the Fight to Music: Shaun Hatton & Jeff Alyanak - 1:04:15
Developing Narrative in Comics & Games: Miguel Sternberg, Benjamin Rivers & Chris Butcher - 1:08:00
SCUMM-Sucking: Adventures in Educational Gaming: Ryan Henson Creighton - 1:13:10
How To Make Babies: Ryan Taylor - 1:18:10
Rebooting the IGDA Toronto: Leslie Phord-Toy, Ryan Henson Creighton & Julian Spillane - 1:23:55
Designing Puzzles for Goats: Miguel Sternberg - 1:27:08
Demand More Design From Games: Shawn McGrath - 1:31:17
Indie Free-Flow: Nathan Vella - 1:37:16
Chasing the Dragon: Nitai Bessette - 1:43:10

A big thank you, as well, to Jaime Woo and Mark Rabo for their amazing efforts in organizing the weekend events. Hats off!

Scared, right? No? Neither was I!

Okay, I was a little tiny bit. But I’m easily frightened. So is the rest of the LeftStickRight crew, as we collect the whole lot (Tim, Ian Y. and myself) to talk about our scariest gaming moments and some of our favourite frightening games. I also talk about Flower again.

In other news, someone important has left Capcom, Champions Online is going Free-to-play and Sony is creating a rewarding program to reward people who buy their stuff.

Games discussed include Vanquish, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, Doom 3, Clock Tower, Dead Space, Silent Hill and Alan Wake.

Questions, comments and scares can be sent to podcast@leftstickright.com

Also, Chuck and Charlie Green are discussed.

Games discussed include: Vanquish, Dead Rising 2, Alan Wake and The Saboteur.

Questions, comments and crossover ideas can be sent to podcast@leftstickright.com

This week we are locked in to talk about a few events that we have gone to like the Sony Holiday Preview Event. We also discuss the NPD Numbers for September and why we will probably never talk about them ever again. Also, some games were played.

Games discussed include Killzone 3, Vanquish, Dead Rising 2, Hegemony: Philip of Macedon, LittleBigPlanet 2 and Nidhogg.

As always, questions and concerns can be sent to podcast@leftstickright.com

“Eee-vee!” the bird chirped with such diction as to not evoke the wrath of Pokemon Company lawyers.

The bird’s name was Ivy, star of the game Ivy the Kiwi?, and as the reviewer picked up her game, he discovered she was a lost little hatchling trying to find her way home to her mother.

“What an adorable children’s fairy tale trope you are!” the reviewer said to Ivy.

“Eee-vee!” Ivy chirped.

The reviewer soon learned that while Ivy was brave little bird, she was not very bright, blindly skipping ahead in a direction until she would hit an obstacle and turn around. Luckily, the reviewer could create up to four vines on the screen at once, guiding Ivy to a goal in each of her 50 stages.

Smash that brick, you little bird! That actually might hurt...

With a child-like aesthetic and line-drawing mechanic, the reviewer could not help but think his new avian friend was trying to pull some crap on him by copping Kirby’s Canvas Curse. But as he continued playing, the reviewer soon realized that stretching and moving the vines added a pleasing sense of momentum to the action. The ease with which the Wii Remote controlled the vines only added to the joy.

“It’s pretty fun tossing you around like this!” the reviewer beamed, right before he accidentally catapulted Ivy into a wall of menacing spikes.

“Ee-veeeee…” Ivy cried.

“Yeesh; sorry!” the reviewer apologized. “Unfortunately, you were made by the same guy who made Sonic. I think he has some strange attraction to pointy things.”

As Ivy and the reviewer journeyed on, they shared some entertainingly frenetic moments making lines of split decisions to keep the young bird’s adorable little tailfeathers from becoming consumed by the gaping maw of impending doom. Other living enemies such as rats and crows were introduced, but the reviewer found that by pulling on the vines and snapping them back into place, he could launch Ivy and turn her into a twirling deathdrill, piercing the hearts of her enemies with her long, pointed beak.

“Whee!” the reviewer shouted.

“Eeee!” Ivy exclaimed.

Later into their journey, however, the reviewer began to become a bit frustrated. Some stages required the reviewer to transport a rock along with Ivy, which proved quite cumbersome. The journey also began to reach a point where there was little new introduced to the stages except a sadistic number of hazards to make them endearing little deathtraps. Had it not been for an easily maintainable stock of extra lives by collecting feathers dotting every stage, the tale would surely have come to an end sooner.

Upon the end of their journey, the duo learned a second set of 50 stages had been unlocked; this time requiring Ivy to find a key in order to clear the goal.

“Eeee-vee?!” Ivy said.

Poor thing has no idea what it's doing

“Yeah; ‘fraid so, kiddo,” the reviewer replied.

In the end, the reviewer decided Ivy and her game had a lot of charm and pick-up-and-play ease to make them quite engaging, but became deceptively stressful toward the end in a way that might put people attracted by that ease off. On the same page, their purposeful simplicity give them a pleasantly refreshing personality in one respect compared to games that try too hard, but it would have been nice to have seen them expand a little more in character and level design as the journey progressed.

“Farewell, Ivy!” the reviewer said, waving goodbye to his new friend. “You’re not a bad bird at all, really. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to spread your wings in the future!”

“Eeee-vee!” Ivy sang back, right before walking headlong into a pit of spikes.

Ivy the Kiwi? is rated E and is available for the Nintendo Wii and DS with a “mini” version slated through digital outlets. Story based on 4 hours of play with the Wii version.

A few days after he picked up The Curious Village, I learned just how.

“You can’t skip the cutscenes,” he stated.

Whaaat? my English major brain screamed. You can’t just cherry-pick the puzzles out of Professor Layton and throw the story away! That’s ridiculous! Preposterous! Completely and utterly… crap; where’s my thesaurus?!

His opinion perplexed me, but the more I considered it, the more I wondered whether the puzzles and plots of the Layton games go hand-in-hand as well as I initially believed. By no means am I saying the titles are bad, but is it possible the series’s goals of providing both a puzzling and story-driven experience lead to some clashes? I went into the latest North American release, The Unwound Future, with this question in mind.

The plot; it thickens

The Layton series would just be a digital puzzle book without its stories and it’s clear that developer Level-5 has increased its focus on plot and character development over time. A Professor Layton movie in Japan may be the most obvious indicator, but a Nintendo press release for Unwound Future says the game “features significantly more hand-drawn animated sequences and voice acting than the previous installment of the series.”

The additional attention to storytelling is felt almost immediately as spoken dialogue fills the opening. It was pleasant at first — voice acting not necessarily something by which Nintendo’s systems are stereotypically known — but as minutes passed, I was really starting to ache for a puzzle. They were kind enough to provide one within the foundation-setting flashback, but it did feel like I pushed through quite a chunk of voice and text to get there. This can be compared against the quickly-arriving challenges of Curious Village, where the game seemed eager to make puzzle-heads aware that they were in the right place.

The puzzles do start to pick up after a bit, thankfully, and many do tend to have some relation to the current goings-on in the story — certainly more than the onslaught of “This [object] reminds me of a puzzle!” quips in the first game. There are still a few of those moments in Unwound Future, but it does seem restraining that every puzzle should have to adapt perfectly to the plot. On the other hand, it feels somewhat anti-intuitive to the plot having Layton and Luke take a quick break from running for their lives from a mob to contemplate a discarded banana peel on the street.

It’s tough, however, wanting to level criticism against Level-5′s mixing of game and story, mostly because the story can provide such a satisfying experience once the pieces are set and mysteries begin to unfold. The whole aesthetic of the series and its characters is charming and the voice acting well done, creating a universe so appealing that it opens the player to more easily suspend his or her disbelief at times when the explanations for various plot points dive into left field. A design this pleasant and unique should be showcased, no doubt, but it does seem minorly diluted sometimes when the media switches from fully-animated scene to still voiceover to plain text — something that is necessary due to the also necessary inclusion of puzzles.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN

Is there a quantifiable “perfect balance” of plot advancement and puzzle provision to be found here? It’s tough to say. The puzzles themselves are rewarding, but so are the characters and world. I wouldn’t dream of sacrificing the ending of Unwound Future in any way for the substance it adds to everyone’s favorite unsinkable professor and apprentice, but I almost wonder if that would be better served in a separate movie form. And for those who don’t care much about the story — as egregious as that may sound — would they be better served by some sort of “freeplay” puzzle mode?

Professor Layton is a strange breed this way. Most would argue it’s a standout in video games both in puzzles and plot. And although they it sometimes feels these elements jockey for position, is it possible their combination still provides something better than the sum of their parts?

I consider the series excellent purchases as I’ve played them, but I also look forward to seeing Level-5′s continuation with the series. If more seams can be ironed out between the activities in the games and how they influence the stories, they can only become more unskippable.

Sometimes we go on “vacation”. This usually coincides with me getting lazy or possibly working an overnight shift and completely melting my brain. We apologize for any inconvenience! Podcast Temporarily Silence.

This week we are discussing shooting people in the face for a good cause, a lot of sales including that of some game that came out this week and also a game that has been shut down. Other stuff that we forgot to write down, as well.

Games discussed include Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, Hegemony: Philip of Macedon, Silent Skies and About a Blob.

Also we want to issue an advanced apology to Michael Todd of Spyeart for completely butchering your name. We are bad people who do bad things.

For those of you who don’t know, Samus Aran is the lead player in the Metroid series of games. She has a large cadre of fans and is one of the most beloved classic videogame characters in the Nintendo canon. Her relationship with gender is an interesting one. She is almost always shown clad in a bulky orange battle suit that obscures just about every detail of her possible appearance. In fact, in the original Metroid game, her true sex remained hidden until the end of the game when she finally takes her armour off.

She remained firmly sealed in that orange façade for 18 years and during that time was quietly heralded as a non-stereotypical female hero: tough, independent and never portrayed as a sex object. But a shift occurred in 2004 with the release of Metroid: Zero Mission for the GBA. In it, an attractive blond-haired, blue-eyed Samus appears briefly sans armour wearing a skin tight blue outfit. This blond bombshell version fades into the background only to suddenly reappear 4 years in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Dubbed Zero Suit Samus she makes an appearance in Metroid: Other M as well.

Like any change to an established classic Zero Suit Samus caused a bit of backlash. Amongst those up in arms were those that felt it clashed with her traditional depiction as a mysterious and stoic bounty hunter, while others saw it as pandering to the lowest common denominator. There were also those that felt it undermined Samus’ position as a strong, positive female protagonist.

After giving it considerable thought, I believe that it’s a refreshing change with generally positive results. As I see it, it goes a long way in making her a well rounded character. Before, the Zero Suit I liked Samus, but she was flat and soulless 1-dimentional avatar devoid of any emotional draw, something along the lines of a Master Chief. By revealing her true appearance it gives players something to become attached to besides a shiny orange slab.

This is especially important for the face. As the guys at Epic Games know, real main characters don’t hide their face under helmets (there may be snipers about). But in all seriousness, the face is very important to how humans recognize one another, form attachments and register emotion. This holds true not just for real people but videogame characters as well especially now that 3-D rendering is advanced enough to create fairly realistic looking images of human faces. By giving her a face it makes it that much easier to identify with her and become more immersed in the game.

In so far as it being pandering or cheapening her profile, I think things have been over-blown. I’ll admit the Zero Suit presents her as attractive in a way that is far less subtle than the other Metroid games (To this day, one of my favourite videogame moments is when you’re able to see the ghostly reflection of her strikingly beautiful eyes from the inside of her helmet in Metroid Prime.) but she’s hardly depicted as some kind of lusty sexpot femme fatale. And it’s important to consider that the good old Varia suit has hardly been abandoned, in fact she still spends the overwhelming majority of her time still fully clad in metal. It’s just a supplement to allow the developers to show her in a context outside of blasting Space Pirates.

Lastly, the argument that it has tarnished her status as a non-stereotypical female protagonist is a little inaccurate. Firstly, I wouldn’t have considered a pre-2004 Samus as strong female character as her gender was a non-issue in the older games. She spent all her time wrapped in metal that obscured just about any distinguishing features. She was essentially a-sexual and only female in some abstract sense. You can’t be a positive female character if you’re not female or no-one knows you are. Secondly, in all aspects aside from the superficial, she is the same character. Being attractive in and of itself does not make one a negative gender stereotype.

So I’m a Zero Suit fan, it’s livened up the franchise without committing rampant sacrilege, given her some dimension and personality but most importantly, there’s now a reason to use Samus in Smash Bros. aside from blasting people in the back with the charge shot.