Bayonetta Gets a 9.5. I Think Somebody’s Thinking With The Wrong Head

IGN gave Bayonetta the following score: 9.5/”Incredible”. As Russ pointed out earlier, the PS3 version only got an 8.2 on the PS3, but that’s more of a hardware problem. They’re the same game.

Here are some other games that B-netta is either as good as or better than according to the scores:

Modern Warfare 2: 9.5

Uncharted 2: 9.5

Assassin’s Creed 2: 9.2

Rock Band 2: 9

Fallout 3: 9.4 PS3, 9.6 Xbox 360

The Orange Box: 9.5

Mass Effect: 9.4

Bioshock: 9.4 PS3, 9.7 Xbox 360

…and so on. Truth be told, I’ve only played the Bayonetta demo, and although I liked it, I can’t help but be a little skeptical of that 9.5, especially since it received a higher mark than the IGN’s Top 360 game of all time, Mass Effect. Also, until I play the game  (which may or may not ever happen) and it proves me wrong, I refuse to believe that it is right up there with Fallout 3. There is just no damned way.

IW Patches MW2 Multiplayer Issues/Plays Games With My Heart

That’s just perfect. It would figure that the day after I finally unlock the damned thing, IW puts out a patch to, among other less important things, balance (a.k.a pussify) the Model 1887. After completely dominating a certain team deathmatch with these beauties akimbo style last night, I even got a message from the last I guy I killed telling me that I was cheap for using them because they are too overpowered. I love things like that! Now, no more.

At least I got one good night with them.

Demotopia!: Il-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey

Here’s an awesome video game/real world connection for you. Last week, Thai authorities seized a plane that was connected to smuggling arms in and out of awesome places like Russia and North Korea (both countries of which I have been drunk in. True story). The type of plane? An Il-76; a plane made by the very same manufacturer (Ilyushin), that made the Il-2, which just happens to be the subject of the most recent demo I’ve played: Il-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey.

Although it had just about the worst, and probably most racist voice acting ever in a game, I was big fan of Blazing Angels. It didn’t take itself too seriously by getting caught up in a bunch of details like flight instrumentation and an unnecessary variety of weapons, but it gave you just what you needed to have a good time: a machine gun, some rockets, and someone to shoot at. It was fairly shallow gameplay-wise, but it produced a lot of body-leaning good times.

Much of the same can be said from my demo experience wit Il-2. It’s not gaudy or flashy, and although it does have more depth Blazing Angels, it focus more on the ride than the small technicalities. There are a multitude of different viewpoints both in and out of the cockpit, and a target lock-on that ensures you don’t lose sight of what you’re going after. However, the tutorial mission puts you in the air with dozens of slow moving targets all around you, so I didn’t get a feel for anything as fast or intense as a dogfight. The controls are a tricky to wrap your mind around at first, especially since I feel I just mastered simple piloting techniques of the planes in Battlefield: 1942, but once I overcame that curve, it started becoming more natural.

Look, this game isn’t a Modern Warfare 2, or an Assassin’s Creed 2, or an Uncharted 2, but it can definitely be something a little less involved for you to get into after all those top-tier titles have run their course, and by then you’ll be able to pick it up on the cheap. If you liked Blazing Angels, or even really liked the flying in BF:1943, give the Il-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey demo a shot.

I Can’t Be The Only One That Feels This Way

With all the time and resources that Ubisoft put into making Assassin’s Creed 2, couldn’t they have done something to make Lucy Stillman actually look human, and not like the offspring of The Joker and a velociraptor with shoulders like a linebacker? Seriously, she looks horrible! At least in the first game she actually looked a little like Kristen Bell, but here she just looks like some sort of monster. As a matter of fact, the entire present day part looks extremely low-budget.

I know the modern, real world scenes are not the focus of the game, but as the place where you spend the first thirty minutes, it’s a very bad representation of what’s to come. Oh, and while I’m at it, I hate those two new characters that are helping out. Super annoying.

Game’s rad, though.

Demotopia!: Dante’s Inferno

Is Dante’s Inferno good as hell, or hella shitty? Read on to find out.

Russ:
Man, I had heard that this game was going to be similar to God of War, but I didn’t think it’d be this close. Everything little thing seems the same, like the quick-time events, button mashing to do actions (like breaking fountains for health, etc), a combo-counter, an upgrade system, lots of boobayes, and pressing a shoulder button to activate other actions like climbing ladders (who thought this was ever a good idea?). I was expecting some influence from Kratos and Co, but this makes Dante’s Inferno feel like a royal ripoff.

An issue I have with the game is its intense need to seriously alter history and reality. These crusaders are some real bastards. And your main character sews a cloth cross to his chest. No explanation or anything, he was just apparently bored. Death shows up to take your main character’s life, and he doesn’t even think “Holy shit!”, he just immediately decides to fight Death…to the death. There’s this level of unbelievability that really takes away from the experience. It’s like the developers knew that only gamers were going to play the game, so they catered directly to them. I feel like I should be drinking WoW-flavored Mountain Dew or something.

The game itself is pretty solid, and it feels fun to fuck up some hellions. The level layout feels very predictable, and in turn, very boring. And seriously, this game is so God of War that I feel like it is a total cliche, and it’s not even out yet. Probably looking to be a solid rental, if anything.

Mark:

I can’t…quite…put my finger on it, but I swear I’ve played this game before. I don’t remember the name, but I do remember that it had something to do with God, and War, and a guy on a bloody rampage in search of redemption from his sins of the past, and medieval boobs. Well, wither way, the church isn’t going to like this one.

Ok, enough hoo-ha. God of War is one of my fave game series of all time, and I will be god-damned (pun intended) if this isn’t the same game. You know what, though? I love it. It’s brutal, violent, beautiful, and bloodier than Kate Gosselin’s tampon (I’m just as ashamed of that joke as you are). Here’s the thing, though: knowing what this game is, and ultimately what it will be, I don’t feel the need to drop $60 on it, especially since GOW3 is right around the corner. I am looking forward to this Dante’s Inferno, though, and you should all give the demo a try; it will take you to some awesome places.

Demotopia! Bayonetta

Steve:

I’ve always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with action games which stems back to playing Devil May Cry on the PS2.  At that time, it was my first real experience with the genre, and initially I was very impressed; until I got horribly stuck on one of the games later bosses, and decided to give up.  As time went on, subsequent iterations of the Devil May Cry series became even less forgiving, and even more pre-occupied with embarrassing and juvenile depictions of its female characters and their sexuality. Likewise, the other games in the genre always seemed to offend me in some way; whilst the Ninja Gaiden games have an excellent combat system, they’re just too cheap, and my experience with God Of War 2 left me feeling underwhelmed.  As a result of this, I went into Bayonetta with extremely low expectations.

However, after playing through the demo I was really pleasantly surprised, as Bayonetta manages to avoid most of the pit-falls I usually associate with games of this type.  It’s good to see that the games difficulty seems to be manageable, and not just ridiculously hard, as is often the case.  The combat mechanics are deep whilst still being extremely simple at their core – I often feel that action games (especially the  Devil May Cry franchise) make the combat mechanics too involved, whilst not giving you enough indication as to how best to use the skills available to you, leaving you feeling slightly bewildered.  The game also rewards you quite heavily for evading attacks, as a last-minute dodge puts all enemies into slow-motion, and really lets you capitalise on the counter-attack.  The game doesn’t make this too difficult to pull off, and as a result, makes you feel powerful and also helps keeps the game moving at a brisk pace.

However, I do have a few gripes with the game, and though the graphics are generally very good, (there are a number of really neat visual touches – like the butterfly wings that appear when you perform a double-jump), in trying to accomodate numerous enemies on-screen at the same time, the camera sometimes feels a little too zoomed-out, which can make the characters look a little small.  By far my biggest gripe with this game though, is its infantile and un-necessarily sexual treatment of the lead character; for those who are unaware, the lead characters clothes are made out of her own hair, which also transforms into weapons during combat.  The caveat to this is that when the hair transforms into a weapon, the lead character is essentially left naked.  This just comes across as being gratuitous and naive, and that the only reason it has been included is for the developers’ amusement.  In saying that, though, it doesn’t seem to be handled quite as badly as in the Devil May Cry series (as far as I can tell from the demo, anyway) as there are no extended slow-motion crotch shots, or breast-jiggle physics on display.

Despite this though, my time with this demo was a lot of fun, and if the whole game turns out to be this good, I might even be tempted to buy this when it releases.  Given my chequered past with games of this ilk, that’s probably the biggest compliment I could give Bayonetta.

Russ:

As video game blogger, I thought there was an unspoken rule that we’re supposed to make fun of Bayonetta. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the main character looks alarmingly like Sarah Palin. Either way, I wasn’t planning on enjoying this demo at all, but I ended up really liking it.

To be fair, I had no idea that it was made by the guy who made the first Devil May Cry (but I figured that out in about two minutes), especially being that it’s a SEGA game. Honestly, this is my most enjoyable SEGA-produced gaming experience since some random House of the Dead game many years ago. Bayonetta looks really good, even down to the super-cool menus, although the Sarah Palin character sprite could be bigger. The easiest difficulty is dumbed down to automatic/single-button combat moves, so I actually opted for a more difficult setting; truth be told, I enjoyed the challenge and rhythm of this bloody button masher. The game feels distinctly Japanese, especially considering the cheesy techno background music, surreal/confusing story, and grading system after every major battle.

There are still some issues that I need to have cleared up before thinking about buying this game. First, the game must have a decent length to separate it from rental status. If it proves to have 10+ hours of gameplay, it might warrant purchase. Secondly, I didn’t see anything about an upgrade system, but I hope there is, because that would be a big selling point. Games like this need an incentive to keep playing, and I’m not too sure if the story will be enough to keep us going. Being that this game has already been released in Japan, I could probably find these two things out with a little research, but I’m lazy. Final verdict: I’m pretty sure that anyone that likes action-arcade games should try out this demo.

Mark:

I never understood all the hype behind this game. To me it just seemed like another forgettable Devil May Cry-ish beat-em-up, and even after a few minutes of gameplay, I was still ready to dismiss it as such. As the demo went on and I became more familiar with the controls and the pace of the game, it really started to grow on me. The action was smooth, it looked good, and was just campy enough to not take itself too seriously. I like that.

Of course it is still injected with that unique form of Japanese sexuality. You know the  kind where they try to design the girls to look like westerners, but they still have those unmistakable Asian faces and ridiculously huge boobs (I’m not complaining). I feel a little gypped, though, because I heard about this epic scene that the 360 demo has with falling clocktowers, dragons, and statues, but all the PS3 demo had was this very nice looking garden. I guess they’re pretty much the same thing.

No More Heroes: More Heroes Edition!

As reported recently on Joystiq,  former Wii exclusive No More Heroes is currently receiving an HD makeover so it can be ported to the Xbox 360 and PS3.  The port, entitled No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise, is set to release on both platforms sometime in 2010.  After seeing some of the screenshots, it’s difficult to deny that the game looks good in HD, especially given how grainy and jaggy (albeit deliberately) the Wii’s visuals were.  However, is porting this game to the Xbox 360 and PS3 really necessary?

Given how poor the sales figures have been for most recent hardcore Wii titles, there is definitely logic behind this idea; to create a relatively inexpensive port of a well received game, in order to bring the game to a much wider, and more receptive, audience.  However, this idea seems flawed, in that the type of gamer interested in this probably already owns a Wii, and so has probably already bought or played the game.

Also, part of what set No More Heroes apart from the crowd on Wii was the inclusion of motion controls.  Without them, No More Heroes is essentially a button-masher; whilst these may be rare on Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 users already have far better examples of this genre available to them.  As such, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand who publisher Marvelous are trying to target with this game.

Big Black Friday With Pearly White Savings

Pretty much every store in existence that has something to do with video games, brick-and-mortar or otherwise, is having some big-time Black Friday deals starting tomorrow morning. I, for one, have enough games to last me for the next few months, so I don’t think I’m going to be standing in line outside GameStop at 6am (although, Ben 10: Alien Force for the DS is only $9.99…).

I will tell you, however, that if you still don’t have a PS3 and have maybe been waiting for a better deal to pick one up, your wait is over. GameStop’s PS3 bundle comes with a 120gb Slim, and three awesome games: LittleBigPlanet, and God of War 1 and 2 for only $299. You can’t beat that with even the largest of beating sticks.

So hows about it? Anybody taking advantage of some sales? Don’t forget that online retailers and download sites like Steam are offering some major discountages, too.

My Gripes: Xbox 360 Chatty Chatty Chat Chat

The Xbox 360 voice chat system is a complete mess, and if they really want to move forward with their vision of being a community-friendly console, they really need to do something about it.

When the NXE was released and first introduced “Party Chat,” it seemed like things had really gone in the right direction. Having the ability to talk with multiple friends regardless of whether you were playing the same game or not was a really great idea, and generated some good times. It made the clunky “Private Chat” system for the most part obsolete, which was a blessing in my book, and added a fun new dimension to console gaming. But now, with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and surely many copycats to come, you can’t be in a party chat while playing in most online matches in order to keep people from cheating. This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t all have to deal with reduced functionality just because there are a few people hopping on the opposite teams of their friends and providing intel. I don’t even think that happens very much anyway. Plus, private chat is still enabled, so two friends actually can talk while on opposite teams, not to mention how easy it is to hop on Skype with your friends and circumvent the entire process.

Speaking of Skype, I am led to my next issue with the 360 chat system: the extremely low sound quality. Half the time I can barely hear the people I am talking to, voices cut in and out, and overall it just sounds cheap and gimmicky. Most of the time, I would rather have my laptop next to me as I play, and chat over Skype, which is infinitely more stable and has crystal-clear quality. I imagine a dream-team where Microsoft and Skype hook up and offer an amazingly high-quality 360 chat service. It would be like Kobe and LeBron on the same team (or for our international friends, it would be like Renaldo and, um, some other really good footy guy on the same team). That’ll take some of the sting out of that $50 a year I pay.

Finally, one last little note. Does it bug you as much as it does me when you want to send a text message to a friend and the default option is to send a voice message? How often do people do that? I would say that I send roughly one voice message for every thousand text messages, and that one little “down” button press is a huge pain in the ass. CHANGE IT NOW!

End transmission.

Fare Thee Well, Little buddy!

So after nearly a week of limping along like a brave little toaster, my Xbox finally breathed its last on Saturday.  As a result, I jumped straight onto Xbox.com to arrange collection of my sick Xbox.  Then I jumped straight onto the customer support phone line, as Xbox.com had some sort of weird, unspoken beef with my console serial ID, and wouldn’t let me schedule a collection.  On the upside, my console will be fixed for free, despite the fact that it *whisper it* just missed the cut-off for the three-year warranty period.

Which brings us to the present, where my Xbox has just been picked up by UPS so that it can begin its long journey to Valhalla Germany for repair.

Vaya con Dios, little buddy!

Impressions: last.fm on Xbox 360

As you may already be aware, some of us here at Threevue are big fans of Last.fm.  As some of you may also be aware, Last.fm is one of three new apps (joined by Facebook and Twitter) to be integrated into the Xbox 360 dashboard in an attempt to further blur the lines between games consoles and media centers.

For those who aren’t yet aware of Last.fm, it’s a music program which lets you listen to music of your choice, in full, online.  Not content with just doing that, Last.fm will also recommend music to you based on your selections, track your listening habits, provide pictures and biographies for the artists, as well as tour schedules for any touring artists, as well as having a burgeoning community.  On top of all of that, it’s also free!

As is, there are already a number of ways to use Last.fm; via the site, a desktop app, and an iPhone/iPod Touch app,  all of which vary greatly in their functionality; the website is the most feature-packed, whilst the iPhone app is extremely bare-boned.  As a result of this variance, I was naturally a little sceptical when I first heard that this service would be coming to the Xbox dashboard.

However, I finally got around to checking this out today (despite downloading it when it launched on the 17th), and I found myself pleasantly surprised at how robust this app really is.   This version of Last.fm allows you to perform the vast majority of tasks available on the website, plus a few more gamer related things that the site doesn’t offer.  It all works fairly well with the Xbox 360 controller too, though the ability to skip tracks with the triggers/bumpers would have been good.

There are some noticeable omissions though; whilst your listening habits are “scrobbled” to your website profile for tracking, there is no stat tracking functionality available on the dashboard app itself.  Also, the “on-tour” schedule is sadly missing from the dashboard app, as are all of the event planning functions available on the site.  I have personally found these to be really useful as a single-source way of finding out which bands are playing in my city, and when.  There also doesn’t seem to be any way of adding people to your Last.fm or Xbox friends lists through this app, which seems like a huge missed opportunity.

Regardless of these omissions, the Last.fm dashboard app still contains a host of worthwhile features, and is well worth checking out.  Of course, it’s debatable as to how much use you’ll get out of this if your Xbox and PC are set up in the same room, but if you do have them set up in different rooms then this could be well worth your time.

I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised…

The good news: my copy of Modern Warfare 2 arrived today.

The bad news: My Xbox has decided to RROD.

To be fair, my Xbox has been doing this for the past couple of days but keeps coming back to life.  I managed to get it working yesterday by disconnecting the power cord for an hour or so, then turning it on and off repeatedly.  Hopefully I’ll manage to get it working long enough to get some time in with Modern Warfare 2, though I’ll need a more permanent solution eventually.

*sigh!* You may have won the battle life, but you haven’t won the war!

Cheapskate: $100 Xbox 360 Arcade, Two Hours Only!

There’s a sale going on NOW where if you buy a $200 Xbox 360 Arcade, it comes with a $100 Amazon gift card. Considering the fact that you’re going to spend $100 on gifts this year from Amazon anyway, this is quite the deal if you don’t have an Xbox 360 yet (and you’re willing to piecemeal the rest of your Xbox 360 together later).

The sale is going on for the next two hours, so jump on it.

Demotopia!: Left 4 Dead 2

In playing L4D2 I was reminded exactly what it was that attracted everyone to playing the original: it was the not knowing. The first time playing through No Mercy in L4D you had no idea where to go or what was around the corner. At no point could you determine how far through the level you were or when you were about to reach the next set piece/horde attack point. You were just running and shooting. You wanted to get to the safe house, and when you did you ran in the door, turned around, saw a mob of zombies running full-tilt towards you and you slammed the door.

Then you said, “fuuuuuuck…”

And you’re going to do it again with Left 4 Dead 2. The original was immediately thrilling to play with friends but it had no real legs to speak of. Even I admit that Blood Harvest becomes a little stale after the 15th playthrough. It was suffered from the repetition of 4 chapters, 5 boss infected, 7 guns and that’s it.

L4D2 now has 5 chapters, at least 7 special infected, 23 weapons and only more to come with DLC.

The few things I didn’t like about the game that I picked up from the demo is the fact that you still cannot customize the controller. I know, it’s my go-to bitching point, but why Valve? I can do it all your other games. I need those precious milliseconds in the game. My thumbs will, for the rest of my life, think reload is “X” and not “B”. Also, I didn’t know that melee weapons take the place of sidearms. With that prospect I don’t see myself picking up a police baton over a second, unlimited-ammo pistol any time soon. Though, at more than one point I stared down a lone zombie as he sprinted towards me down a long alley only to switch to my machete a second before he got to me and loped his head off like a samurai.

Final verdict: The demo is out on XBLA, go get it.

Cleaning House: Threevue Review: Call of Duty 3

It’s busy times for us here at the Threevue HQ, so much so that we had to look for outside help for some of our write-’em-ups). So we are posting some of the old stuff that slipped through the cracks in the past for one reason or another (coughMarkcough). So enjoy some old school Threevue goodness.

Mark:
Looking back, a lot of people were really down on COD3, and I disagree with every single one of them. Sure, Treyarch’s part 3 may not have been as good (whatever that means) as Infinity Ward’s part 2, but you know what? I had a lot more fun with this one than with that one.

Personally, I feel that COD’s are mostly about the multiplayer modes, and the campaign is secondary, as opposed to the other way around of most games. Some of my fondest memories were of Tyler and I doing laps in a .50cal around Eder Dam, mowing down and frustrating the hell out of the other team. Treyarch made the multiplayer tight and fun, and created the maps to be just close enough for a lot of fast and furious action, but still big enough to stage a good ol’ fashioned getaway. As a matter of fact, there was some forum somewhere that I declared COD3 multiplayer as my favorite game ever. I don’t regret it.

The campaign was a little lame, though.

96/100

Russ:
I bought an Xbox 360 after COD3 was already out. COD2 was one of the first games I bought (it was cheap) and I had a really good time with it. And immediately after finishing it, I stuck COD3 in. The differences in the two were so glaringly obvious to me and my situation that I couldn’t help but to compare it to its predecessor. And it didn’t quite hold up.

It’s strange when a sequel doesn’t outperform its predecessor. I attribute a lot of this to the fact that COD2 and COD3 have different developers. I just ended up preferring the feel and control of COD2, in both single and multi-player campaigns. COD3 is still a strong game, it’s just mired by how awesome COD2 was. I have a hard time coming up with complaints about the game itself, other than the fact that the storyline was a little stupid.

By the time I finished COD3, I was done with WWII FPS games for a while. But even today, if I have to choose between the two, I’ll take COD2 every time.

79/100

Tyler:
Sometimes the fun you are having playing a game comes more from playing with good people as opposed to what is in the disc tray. You can have a ho-hum game on the screen and still get a kick out of the whole thing because you’re playing with friends that make up for it. That ‘s the way it was for me with Halo 2 and 3. The difference here is that with COD3, the game was good too, so you know I loved it. COD3 got a lot of things right. Vehicles, splitscreen online multiplayer (which had fucking better become standard issue among FPSs), online classes (Medic FTW!) and a scaled upgrade in the graphics department.

If I can criticize COD3 for one thing it’s that it got me all pumped for these new introductions only to have them stolen out from beneath my feet by COD4. But I can’t hold that against it. I always come to think that I’ve probably played more COD3 than any other game, online and campaign combined.   Bonus points for having lines of dialogue that I still say today.

“MCGREGGOR!”

98/100