Viva Piñata

Played on Xbox360

I usually wait until after I finish a game before I review it. But I’m pretty sure that Viva Piñata doesn’t have an end. I guess the closest thing would be getting all the achievement points. But given all the other games I have going on right now (ahem, new Wii), I don’t think that’s happening any time soon. So I’m going to jump the gun and tell you what I think now instead of later.

Viva Piñata received a lot of critical acclaim (links: GameSpy, GameSpot, GameFly), and with good reason. It’s a charming game with adorable graphics and compelling gameplay. It’s hard to stop playing Piñata once you’ve started, because there’s always something to do in your garden. Advancing through the game and discovering all the creatures is genuinely fun. But there’s something about it that’s just… off.

The thing that initially confused (and disturbed) me about Viva Piñata is that despite all the cute creatures with personalization options, this is not a game about enjoying your piñatas. It’s about getting over attachments. You start the game intuitively caring a lot for your individual piñatas. But to advance in the game you need to grow heartless and start selling of your piñatas and feeding them to other Piñatas. You quickly learn to not get too attached to your piñatas because eventually you’re going to have to do away with them. Don’t bother spending money to buy a cute hat for your Newtgat, because half an hour later you’re going to be feeding him to that Badgesicle that just moved in. And definitely don’t stop to give him a name - just keep it at “Newtgat 2” so that it’s easier to say goodbye. As a game that’s targeted at kids (with it’s own Saturday morning cartoon and everything), that underlying message is kinda disturbing.

But hey, I can’t be too harsh. Because even as I’m sitting here preparing to retire Viva Piñata to the shelf for awhile, I kinda still wish I was playing it. My memories are filled with delightful moments of coaxing new creatures to join my garden and rejoicing when they finally decide to stay. But somehow my brain has blocked out all those other memories… like when I was too slow to call the doctor and my piñata died from some crazy candy fever… or when I had to put down my first Raisant because he picked a fight with everybody… or when garden filled up and I had to sell off entire species to make room for some new hotness…

Damn. It’s a wonder I don’t curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep after playing this game.

Perspective

One interesting aspect of the new Armory feature for WoW is that you can now go look up that bastard who corpse camped you for half an hour. Now I know that I was only one of 49514 (Contrast that with my lifetime kill count of 2372, which unfortunately I was never able to add that bastard to).

I play on a PvP server because quite frankly it makes everything just a tad more interesting. I’m one of those people that actually enjoyed Ultima Online’s PvP system. Nothing made your heart beat quite as fast as having the bounty board’s number one menace riding towards you. Likewise with WoW, the possibility of random PvP adds a wild card into what could otherwise just be a standard RPG grind.

However, PvP is only really fun when it’s relatively even. And unfortunately the design goals of the endless MMORPG gear grind are at odds with the design goals of fair PvP. Even WoW’s reward for PvP is just more gear. Which is a bulletproof “rich get richer” game design. That would maybe work if the PvP matchmaking brackets were based on gear value, rather than the mostly useless measure of Level (given that there’s a level cap and everyone’s at it). Supposedly they’ve fixed that and added a better matchmaking system for the Arenas, but those aren’t “casual” friendly as they require you to form a regular team of consistent players. Essentially leaving no real viable outlet for the occasional PvPer.

But this is all part of the appeal of MMORPGs, I guess. In a singleplayer RPG, you’re always the hero. You rise up and save the world. You’re special. But in an MMORPG, you’re competing against thousands of other potential heroes just like you. Which means you’re guaranteed to be outclassed by a large percentage of them, making your digital self just as mundane as your physical one.

Crackdown

Played on Xbox360

Well, that didn’t take long. I finished Crackdown (links: GameSpy, GameSpot, GameFly) before I was even able to add it to my “Now Playing” list. Which you think would have me fuming about value or something. But I’m not. I actually had a blast playing Crackdown. I’d recommend you rent it, not buy it, but it’s definitely a really fun game that’s just different enough from the other games out there to feel fresh.

Crackdown takes place in a big open city where you can wander as you please, much like the Grand Theft Auto series. But Crackdown has much less of an emphasis on driving. As the game progresses you level up skills that make you increasingly superhuman. The value of driving around is quickly eclipsed by your ability to leap from rooftop to rooftop (or even from ground floor to rooftop). The superhuman agility and strength that you achieve gives the game a little bit of a Matrix-like feel. You can even pick up vehicles and use them as weapons (kinda like Jet Li in The One). A lot of the gameplay actually feels a bit like our very own Science & Industry, with the spawning, superhuman enhancements, and weapon capture elements. Just rebrand the game to include more of a corporate theme (instead of gang warfare) and include more high-tech weapons and you’re good to go.

The game revolves around you seeking out and assassinating a series of gang bosses. Which is definitely fun, but unfortunately is the only primary goal of Crackdown. There are car and foot races to do on the side, which are kinda fun but mostly function as achievement point syncs. The core gameplay of Crackdown is great (leaping around never gets old), but it is a bit disappointing that there wasn’t more content. Still, it’s a great way to spend a weekend.

Final Fantasy III

Played on Nintendo DS

I’m happy to say that after some difficulty I finally finished Final Fantasy III for the DS (Links: GameSpy, GameSpot, GameFly). And I’m having some trouble deciding exactly how I feel about it.

There have been a lot of ports of the old Final Fantasy games to the GBA. This one is distinct in that they did an extensive graphical upgrade from the original 8-bit 2D graphics to completely new fully-3D models. And they were very successful in that. The characters, monsters, and environments all look great. It gave this 17 year old game the look of something completely modern… which is kind of dangerous. Because everything else about this game is still 17 years old.

Most of the reviews for this game described it as being difficult by modern standards. I wouldn’t say that. Difficulty implies that it demands a high amount of skill and engagement from the player. That’s not really the case. FFIII doesn’t demand skill, it demands a tolerance for mind numbing level grinding (which I guess could be a skill…). You don’t have to learn intricate strategies - you just have to level up enough so that you have enough hit points to survive the attacks of the bosses. Grinding is pretty standard in the RPG genre, so it’s hard to criticize FFIII too much for it, but I felt like this game demanded more than most.

Final Fantasy III is the first game in the series to introduce the job system. Unlike future evolutions, this game only allows you to leverage the abilities of one job at a time, making it more of a big “I changed my mind” switch than an adaptive strategy. This is further exacerbated by the fact that you don’t unlock jobs by performing well in the ones you have; you only have to proceed through the story to get the more powerful jobs. So there’s no carry-over value of your early advancement. For example, you can completely ignore the less powerful Evoker and still unlock the ultimate Summoner job. Given that the number of enemies was reduced to accommodate the new 3D graphics, multi-targeting caster jobs are far less useful than melee jobs. And since you’re already going to be grinding a ton to level up, for your own sanity you’re probably going to forced into a party of simple fighters because melee attacks take less time than big fancy summons.

But I’m being a bit too harsh. For its time, this job system was revolutionary. And if I was playing the game in its original 8-bit incarnation, I probably wouldn’t be so critical. But the game looks so darn pretty that I have a hard time reminding my brain to lay off.

FFIII provided me with an interesting trip through the RPG gaming archives, but what I really hope comes out of this is a nice 3D RPG DS platform for some new adventures. Final Fantasy Tactics DS, por favor?

Hollywoodland

I watched Hollywoodland the other night. And I was left feeling more than a little unsatisfied. It was no fault of the actors, they all had fine performances. And the colors and aesthetics of the movie made it quite pleasing on the eye. But it just didn’t go anywhere. It was pretty much the most anticlimactic movie I’ve ever seen. I guess there kinda was a partial climax, but it was smack dab in the middle of the movie, not closer to the end. Which left me with the feeling that I was still waiting for the real climax… and then the credits rolled.

I understand that it’s a historical movie, and the George Reeves mystery is unsolved. I’m comfortable with that. I can deal with a lot of grey in my movies. But while storytellers should feel free to mess with my head as much as they please, they really shouldn’t mess with the pacing.

In music, pretty much everything fits in to one of a couple standard time signatures. That provides the frame, and then the musician can paint whatever they want inside that. Breaking outside of the standard timing can sometimes be interesting, but usually just results in something you can’t tap your foot to. Movies are the same way: they should follow the standard narrative structure. I’m not saying that every movie should have a happy ending. I’m saying that they should have, you know… an ending.

If I can feel mysteriously satisfied at the end of the hugely unresolved Fellowship of the Ring, you can manage to make an unsolved murder satisfying. You can flip pretty much every other standard on its head (case and point: Memento). In fact, please do. But that whole notion of “building up to something” - keep that.