VideogameVagabond.com

When some companies update their sports games, the changes from release to release are so minor, so cosmetic, it would make Jane Iredale jealous enough to look into IP infringement. That’s not the case with Wolverine Studios and developer Gary Gorski.

2007 has been a banner year for Gorski and Wolverine; they began the year updating their pro basketball game into the well-received Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball, them releasing the second iteration of their pro golf sim, Total Pro Golf 2. Now, just before the Christmas holiday, the company has managed to release their version of college hoops, Draft Day Sports: College Basketball.

Actually, DDS:CB is an update of Gorski’s last take on college ball, Total College Basketball, which was originally released through Grey Dog Software before Gorski broke off on his own and formed his own publishing concern, Wolverine Sports. Since he was the sole developer working on TCB, he was able to take the game with him, but with the release of DDS:CB, the franchise is now back to being completely in his control.

Using a code base and design sense that debuted in DDS: Pro Basketball, College Basketball is functionally quite different from Gorski’s pro game. For one thing, instead of a pro draft and free agent period that predominantly takes place in the off-season, DDS:CB boasts one of the most detailed, advanced and in-depth college recruiting engines found in any college hoops title on any platform; yes, that even includes beating out the critically-acclaimed College Hoops 2K8 from 2K Sports, found on most console systems.

In Total College Basketball, recruiting involved only a slim selection of actions, including putting a player on a weekly call/watch list, as well as the occasional opportunity to schedule a campus visit, home visit, watch a game, or scout a game in-person. While that game stuck very closely to real-world recruiting limitations, the interaction between coach and player was limited but functional. With DDS: College Basketball, recruiting has grown into a complete game experience all its own, and can take place both in and out of season, still in strict accordance with current NCAA contact restrictions, as well as a realistic budgetary limitation on recruiting. (e.g., the larger the school you coach at, the higher the budget available for recruiting the best possible players.)

The main difference between TCB and DDS:CB is that the new game has amped up the sense of real contact between player and coach. One is able to interact directly with potential recruits via interactive phone calls, and the player’s responses are based on not only his general interest level in your program, but in your coach’s ratings as well. Also, recruiting success is highly dependant on coaching skills in DDS:CB; even the best coaches won’t necessarily see a player’s true ratings in basketball skills and abilities, but a less experienced coach with low ratings in the areas of scouting and recruiting, for example, could really vary quite a bit from their actual, hard-coded abilities.

For example, with low ratings, a less experienced coach might look at a Greg Oden-style player and see only an average center, while at the same time looking at a guy like Minnesota Gophers center Spencer Tollackson and seeing an all-Big 10 talent where only an average player exists. As one progresses through a coaching career and improves these abilities, perceptions will stray less and become more accurate, but will never be 100 percent true.

This is because that even among very talented coaches, opinions vary and DDS: College Basketball reflects that; current Gophers coach Tubby Smith, for example, valued Canadian point guard Devoe Joseph very highly and pursued him with intensity before signing him. Joseph actually plays shooting guard in Canadian high school ball, and so some equally-talented college coaches never pursued him has a point guard prospect. While Devoe was highly pursued by both Kansas and Minnesota, for example, Florida and Duke never seriously went after him.

Wolverine developed DDS: College Basketball by following a very public path of opening the beta testing of the game to anyone who purchased a pre-order of the game. This allowed the company a plethora of opinion from the people who play the game most: devoted fans. While no game releases without any flaws, this public beta has produced a relatively stable, clean version of the game in its initial release.

Also, developer Gorski has announced on his company’s message boards that the game as released will see new features introduced as time goes on, as he has added to the code base the capacity for several new features suggested by his public beta-testers, but that are, in release version 1.0, currently not utilized. Therefore, we can expect the game to get even more feature-rich as time goes on and successive patches are released.

Supported once again by a devoted and prolific mod community, Draft Day Sports: College Basketball’s official release is free of any trademark infringement, but for those who desire a more genuine, real-world experience with the game, there are unofficial mods available that can enable those daring enough to modify the game to make sure they are playing, for example, the Minnesota Golden Gophers, rather than the Minnesota Rodents. Since these mod designers are not employed by Wolverine and reap no profits from their freely-distributed efforts, it’s a no-harm, no-foul situation that can make the game feel perhaps a bit more authentic.

The real benefit of the game, however, is the way in enables multiplayer online leagues to be formed and supported through the game itself; a full-featured commissioner’s office is available so that online league administration is possible. In the 1.0 release, however, this is the least-changed feature of the game and although some much appreciated minor fixes have been implemented, such as making it possible for the game to track the money spent each week on recruiting functions by each team, the game still tasks the commissioner to enter many functions manually, rather than allowing each player to accomplish these tasks within the game and email their team file to the commissioner.

This is an unfortunate oversight that makes being the commissioner of an online league far more labor-intensive than it ought to be; hopefully some of the upgrades waiting in the code for future patches include automating some of these owner/commissioner tasks by expanding the actions the .tem file is able to capture.

Such minor oversights, however, do not make this game any less amazing an upgrade than it is. While many uses of Total College Basketball never thought the game could be improved, Wolverine and Gorski are, as always, incredibly open to user feedback and have implemented the best and most-often requested improvements into the new title already; as future patches promise only to add to the experience, the end result is a game that is at the top of its class. Whether compared to competing text management sims or the company’s own released in the past year, Draft Day Sports: College Basketball is the best game of its kind on the market today.

Much as I hate to admit it as a longtime Sony devotee, Microsoft is making a lot of right moves in the Xbox 360 era. Their platform was the first to play host to the first and biggest hit of the new generation of hardware, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. They’ve gone on to play host to such unique hits as Gears of War, Mass Effect, Halo 3, and even Bioshock. Now, their latest effort at irresistible Xbox 360 exclusives is: Final Fantasy XII! Well, not really. But perhaps, in a way, it is a title that deserves that nom de plume more than the tales of Vann and Panello ever did, at least in the eyes of purists.

I’m talking, of course, about Blue Dragon. Yes, Blue Dragon is not published by SquareEnix. Yes, Blue Dragon is not part of the Final Fantasy series. And yes, Blue Dragon is not appearing on either a Nintendo nor a Sony system. But in three ways that count, Blue Dragon is the “next Final Fantasy” for those who appreciate the work of a game’s creators, more than its brand name.

You see, Blue Dragon, developed by Mistwalker Studios and published by Microsoft, is the brainchild of three of the most important minds in Final Fantasy history. Hironobu Sakaguchi is the game producer and scenario writer for Blue Dragon, a role he played in pretty much the first 10 installments of the Final Fantasy series.

Akira Toriyama is the character designer for Blue Dragon, and it is his art that set the tone for many early Final Fantasy titles, as well as several other early SquareEnix titles. Finally, Nobuo Uematsu is the composer of Blue Dragon, and it is his compositions that adorned many of the early Final Fantasy and other SquareEnix titles.

Sakaguchi fell out of favor with Square after his Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie flopped at the box office and, as Square either merged or formed partnerships with other major Japanese RPG developers, such as Enix, GameArts and others, the Final Fantasy series has moved on without Sakaguchi-san.

But Bill Gates felt the guy who created Final Fantasy might have a few good ideas left and, given the freedom to create completely new IPs instead of more Final Fantasy iterations, just might find that old spark of creativity once again. So he drafted Sakaguchi to form Mistwalker Studios and add talent around him, which included Toriyama and Uematsu, and create a series of Xbox 360-exclusive titles for the Seattle-based billionaire’s second go at a gaming console.

Blue Dragon is Mistwalker’s first release to see the light of day. It’s anime-inspired, cartoony style, provided by co-developer Artoon, aligns the game with some of the earlier Final Fantasy titles, as well as Final Fantasy IX. Yet it is by far not the only release planned. Announced and forthcoming from Mistwalker for the Xbox 360 are Cry On, Lost Odyssey, an as-yet untitled RPG project that promises to be a 50-50 mix of RPG and MMORPG, as well as an already-planned sequel to Blue Dragon, tentatively titled Blue Dragon 2. Mistwalker is also branching into handheld development with tactical RPG, ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat, Away, and Blue Dragon DS, all for Nintendo’s DS platform.

But all of that means nothing if Blue Dragon falls flat on its face, right?

Relax. Blue Dragon is loads of fun. Spanning an amazing three DVDs, Blue Dragon is a lengthy, epic turn-based RPG that should reinvigorate interest in the turn-based battle systems by keeping the pace swift and options widely varied.

Immediately familiar despite being a completely new IP, the tale begins with a humble village that seems to be attacked by “land sharks.” Three young friends, determined to save their village from another devastation by this creature, set out to destroy it and uncover shocking truths about its nature and origin that are just the tip of the iceberg in this massive RPG epic, and even with all that, there’s not a stair lift in sight, in spite of the geriatric-seeming main villain.

The basic concept in Blue Dragon is a bit odd when you first encounter it; most characters have shadows that become living guardians, imbuing warriors with powers beyond their own abilities in battle. It’s cutesy and cartoony in concept and design, and might vaguely bring to mind the old PlayStation 2 RPG, Okage: Shadow King. Well, wipe the bad memories of that title from your mind right now; Blue Dragon is fresher, more entertaining and offers a far deeper story than OSK ever approached.

The turn-based battle system relies mostly on the abilities of these magic shadows, and each turn offers gamers a wide variety of choices. When played on easy mode, Blue Dragon follows the standard mold of PS2-era Square RPGs, keeping most encounters relatively easy, but ramping the difficulty level up past 11 when it comes to major boss battles. And there are some battles you are doomed to lose for storyline purposes, though they are rather obvious. In hard mode, the battles are more balanced, and a downloadable extreme mode makes the game rather hard to conquer at all, even when facing basic enemies, although it can be done.

These extra modes inspire some replay appeal, although the story remains essentially the same on repeat play-throughs. And considering the amount of time required to explore every inch of Blue Dragon, completing everything and finishing all three DVDs of content, some gamers may want to go play something else before embarking on any replays at all. It’s a massive story that can deliver over 100 hours of play to anyone inspired to explore every nook and cranny and not cheat themselves by skipping over the very entertainingly-told story.

While Blue Dragon is clearly old school in its cartoonish art and turn-based gameplay mechanics, very distinctly different from a completely next-gen RPG-style title like Mass Effect, Blue Dragon definitely delivers something to the 360 that the original Xbox system never had enough of: an RPG so original, exciting and appealing, it will make PlayStation fans feel like they’re missing out on something important in the RPG landscape.

Perhaps one of he most disturbing aspects of Season Three of the ABC suspense drama Lost is how it humanized the mysterious group known as The Others. Although Michael Emerson’s Henry Gale/Ben Linus benefited most from this, the actor who made it the most chilling was M.C. Gainey in his role as Tom.

When the man whose voice for so long had been identified with the unknown evil of The Others turns to Jack in the observation deck of the surgery room, where Jack and Tom are watching a soundless conversation between Ben and Juliet, and tells Jack, “They have a history,” it is at once disturbingly compassionate and equally disturbingly chilling. That kind of subtlety has rarely been offered M.C. Gainey, who has made a career of playing heavies, but he pulls it off masterfully, one of many fine moments Gainey has achieved in the role.

I think that’s why Lost has attracted such a fine and accomplished set of actors in this three-year run, be they established vets like Gainey, or virtual newcomers like Evangeline Lilly, who plays Kate Austen and became an overnight sensation. Series creators J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelhoff and Jeffrey Lieber simply know how to write compelling scenes that allow actors to shine and show off their range. The structure of the show, riddled with character-revealing flashbacks, allows even the darkest of characters to reveal sympathetic experiences that led them to be who they are in the present.

Season Three was certainly no letdown for this reviewer. From the Hurley episode “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead,” in which we learned about his absentee father who came back into his life only after he won the lottery, to the John Locke episode “Enter 77,” in which we finally learn how Locke came to be paralyzed four years prior to his arrival on the island, the season is filled with gripping episodes and instant-classic character moments and big reveals.

It’s clear why actors and actresses far prefer working on a drama like Lost as opposed to, say, a commercial promoting tonneau cover sales. It’s a rare case of television allowing an actor a showcase that boosts their career profile so much that not only can it lead to other, more prominent television roles, but can even lead to an improved movie career.

The show, of course, is even better when the episodes can be viewed in close succession. This makes the program ideal for DVD release, of course. Since it’s debut, complete season DVD sales have been strong for the show, and Season Three is no exception. In fact, it could be the best collection to date, not only featuring extras like episode commentaries on the regular six discs of episodes, but also sporting a seventh DVD devoted exclusively to special features.

Filled to the brim with documentaries, interviews, gag reels and other fan-pleasing content, Lost Season 3 is a great package to pick up, especially now that the WGA Writer’s Strike threatens to shorten Season 4 to a mere eight episodes, or possibly even delay broadcast of the season an entire year or more, depending on when writers and producers can finally bury the hatchet and come to terms.

Some critics claimed that Lost slowed pace a bit, and lost its way in the third season; this reviewer couldn’t disagree more. In pouring over the 23 episodes of Season 3 again, it was made clear to me that, apart from perhaps NBC’s Heroes, there simply is no one out there doing such compelling “novel for television” episodic drama today, and let’s be honest – were it not for Lost, there would be no Heroes. This full season package, of course, is a must-have for anyone remotely entertained by the show.