Metroid Prime Pinball (Nintendo DS)

I wish I were good at pinball. It's one of those kinds of games that I always imagine is fun to be good at, although I'm sure that's a silly opinion to have in practice. I've never heard of the pinball wizard getting the girl, and as far as I know there wasn't a montage-based 80's comedic underdog movie inspired by pinball...and we all know that 80's montage movies are the definition of what's cool and what isn't. The whole playing purely for a high score mentality has always been just beyond my grasp; I'm just too ADD to really get good at those kinds of games. I'm normally intrigued enough by interesting table design to want to explore and trigger every feature, but once I've run through every aspect that I can manage at a basic skill level I get pretty bored. I think I can still give this game a fair shake, though...you'll just need to take the above statements into account.

The premise of Metroid Prime Pinball is actually pretty clever – Samus spends a great deal of time in both Metroid Prime games in the morph ball form. Rolling through those puzzles and bouncing everywhere gave someone the novel idea: why not make her a pinball? Design multiple levels based around environments from Metroid Prime, work in a lot of neat special maneuvers you could easily see Samus doing, slap in a nearly perfect soundtrack adaptation from the first game and voila – you've got a pretty good game on your hands. The primary game mode even links the tables, making it necessary to travel between them to complete the primary “mission” of collecting the twelve Chozo artifact pieces ala (wait for it) Metroid Prime.

I think it's a bit impressive the developers were able to create a “mission” mode in the first place. You can't really have a huge variety of play modes with pinball...I mean, it's pinball. You smack the ball around on a themed table and try not to let it fall into the hole at the bottom. The only other options are to play a single table or play wireless multiplayer, which is really just a contest to see who can make it to 100,000 points first within a limited time. I will say that it's a thoughtful addition since the DS wireless option is pretty heavily advertised these days, but as usual I don't have friends with the time or the hardware to really test it out. Getting to 100,000 points is actually pretty easy, but it'd be a good enough race all the same.

The typical DS game uses the two screens to present more information simultaneously to speed information processing or to present an extra control interface ala the touch feature of the bottom screen. Metroid Prime Pinball belongs instead to a new minority of games that use the second screen to extend the primary play area, which gives it the ability to display something that really looks like a pinball table. The only catch is the gap between the two screens, which ended up representing a physical obstruction on the virtual table. The ball actually disappears momentarily as it moves from one screen to another, which sounds inconvenient as hell in theory but ends up feeling natural in practice. Your mind will instantly adjust to the virtual gap since there is some physical distance between the screens. In a way it even adds to the realism.

I mentioned earlier that the soundtrack was nearly perfect. Most of the tables have an amazing adaptation of the area's theme music, utilizing the virtual surround of the DS to a degree that still makes me marvel. The Tallon overworld music sounds nearly identical to the GameCube version, and the Phendrana, Chozo temple, and Magmoor levels aren't far behind. The lone exception to this is the Space Pirate frigate, which got some sort of guitar-based metal remix of the Metroid theme. I personally find it to be extremely cheesy and think it sticks out like a sore thumb.

The shoulder buttons control the paddles, blah-blah-blah. Do I really need to cover the control scheme in a pinball game? Well wait, maybe I do. There are a few table features that end up pulling Samus out of the morph ball for a few moments to either shoot or jump, but honestly the controls aren't much of a surprise there either once you get the timing down. I'll say it's exactly what you would expect it to be and leave it at that.

I think that about covers it. It's freaking pinball...if you have no real idea what that is hit Google, because I can't be bothered to bring you into the 21st century. Well...the 20th century. Or 19th. I think that's when pinball really solidified as a game. Well, either way if you've got a DS and you like pinball you should really pick this one up.

Bioshock (Xbox 360)

Some of these posts are going to be a bit different. When a game gets to a certain level of quality there is no end to the information available, and I hate rehashing things you've probably heard a thousand times already. Bioshock? It's fantastic. The complexity of combat, the gorgeous visuals, the involved story, all of these things (and more) add up to an experience that simply cannot be missed. While I think numeric ratings are bullshit in general, it's still worth noting that Game Rankings has Bioshock in its top ten list - the first new game on the list in a few years or more.

I'm not going to rehash the plot and it's total awesomeness, I'm not going to talk about how Ken Levine managed to create yet another fantastic title, and I'm not going to talk about how mature the various in-game choices are. All of those things are true, but again - I can easily guess that you've heard it all before. No, I'm going to talk about a couple of negatives surrounding this title. I'm going to talk about the sometimes surprisingly irrational AI. I'm going to talk about how the lack of a simple mini-map nearly drove me insane. I'm going to talk about the typical copy protection issues the computer version suffers from and the mind boggling solution 2K Boston came up with.

I don't want you to think the AI is actually bad - it's not. It's fairly competent in seeking cover and certainly a challenge at higher levels. Opponents will seek out the same health stations you can use to heal themselves. They will press you into corners and try to overwhelm you with numbers. My nitpick is that yet again we've got a game where you opponents have absolute lock-on no matter where you are. Trigger an attack and it won't matter where you are or how you try and hide, that enemy and every other enemy in the area always know exactly where you are. At this point consoles are so powerful and the game engines so detailed that I kind of expect more lifelike behavior, and it can be very jarring when it's not there.

Uh...the lack of a mini-map nearly drove me insane. I guess that's really all I can say about that.

Copy protection is of course a waste of time. You know that, I know that, and most developers know that - but it's not their decision. The suits in publishing insist on it, so for now we're stuck dealing with the problems it causes. I can remember off-hand at least five major screw-ups in the last year or two thanks to heavy-handed protection methods not even including Bioshock. What's different here is the solution. The earlier screw-ups usually resulted in either patches that reduced the frequency of protection checks or in some cases a direct-from-the-programmers "crack" that removed CD checking altogether.

2K's decisions on copy protection and solution for the resulting problems...I can barely repeat it without my jaw still dropping. First of all, even in their initial perfect world you could only install the game on two machines. That is astonishing to me, but at the same time I suppose it's not TOO big of an issue for most people as they tend to only have one computer in the first place. Once the game was installed however, you could only reinstall it THREE TIMES. That. Is. Insane. How dare anyone tell me how many times I can reinstall software on MY hardware. People ask me why I game almost purely on consoles at this point. Ladies and gentlemen, that's a damn good reason. I actually regret buying the game new at this point. Buying used would have still given me the opportunity to play while ensuring 2K didn't actually see my money. Yes, I know this is a rather hollow boycott, but at the same time I would argue it works just as well as not buying the game at all. It certainly is the same on 2K's balance sheet.

Deep breaths, deep breaths...alright I'm calm again. Well, the snafu wasn't actually the protection itself; apparently it wasn't even working right as-is. People were being told they were out of reinstalls on the very first install on their first machine, rendering the game completely useless. Woo! Totally awesome. 2K recognized the issue and put out a patch to "correct" the problem. Their solution? You may now install it on up to five machines up to five times. Nnnng, my head hurts now. Fantastic work guys, thanks for fixing that right up. It makes me want to quote Jon Lovitz:

Me: How did you fix the game?

2K: Patching!

Me: Genius!

2K: Thank you.

(Addendum: I don't play many PC games anymore or pay attention to news about them, so for all I know the limited reinstall protection might be old hat by now and I'm just behind the curve - I do that a lot.

Addendum to the addendum: I've spoken with some hardcore computer gamers, this is something entirely new and they're just as flabbergasted as I am at the sheer balls of it.)

Greetings...again

For better or for worse I'm just full of opinions and I like to write. Given the fact I'm gaming almost constantly, I always want to talk about games. I started out with a blog for ranting about bad games, but I play far more good games than I do bad ones and I want to talk about those too. Sometimes games are off the beaten path and more people should know about them, sometimes games get a bad rap and could use a defender, and sometimes games are just so good I want to add my accolades to teh Interwebz.

Without further ado...