VideogameVagabond.com

Tonight I played Fable II for the first time; my wife and I went and picked it up, and after supper, I told myself I’d play about an hour and then start writing my blogs and videogame reviews up.

Only an hour very quickly turned into, like, four hours. That’s how addictive the game plays. The pacing is much improved this time out and, with plenty to do both in-town and out, the game is much better than the first Fable, which was a classic but not exactly as polished as this game is.

You can do just about anything in the game, from having sex to performing at a real work-a-day job, to getting married and whatnot. And the graphics, this time, are on par with the best Xbox 360 titles on the market. About the only thing you don’t get to do in the game is sell car insurance: mainly because there are no cars in the game.

Otherwise, I’m sure they would have thought of it.

My picks are sometimes eclectic, sometimes a bit weird, but I think this holiday season, there’s no question for me which game I’m looking forward to playing most on any platform. I call it my must-have game of the holiday season.

There were really just two main contenders this time out: Fable II and Fallout 3.

Fable II is addictive and deep; I loved the first game and my wife and I have been looking forward to the new one ever since we got our 360.

Trouble is, Fallout 3 is also mighty attractive. From the same folks who stole literally hundreds of hours from both my wife and me with Oblivion, as much as we both want to play Fable II, there’s simply no contest, in this case.

Fallout 3 is our must-own title of the 2008 holiday season. No question about it. And I think this is a choice that’ll be as widely popular as Outer Banks rentals.

We continue our survey of promotional products… wait, no… games worth getting in the month of November 2008. It’s the last big month of the year, so our ultra-picky picks are your best guide to not wasting your hard-earned cash. We’ll now focus on the best to be had on the Xbox 360.

Left 4 Dead

Once EA gets into a new game genre, they really get into it. More survival horror from the company that did so well with their survival horror debut, Dead Space.

The Last Remnant

Another SquareEnix RPG on 360 instead of PS3? Believe it. This one’s typical epic stuff on the new next-gen RPG champion, Xbox 360. Not much has been leaked about this one, but it’s supposed to be the latest RPG goodness from the company that recently gave us Infinite Undiscovery. ‘Nuff said.

Where’s Gears of War II on our list? Sorry… didn’t care for the first one, so no go on the second. We’re that ultra-picky. Ignore us at your own expense.

Tales of Vesperia is the second major RPG release from Namco-Bandai to debut on the Xbox 360. Unlike last year’s innovative Eternal Sonata, however, Tales of Vesperia is a more to-formula release than Eternal Sonata was. That doesn’t mean the game is without its appeal, only that it’s less innovative and experimental.

Tales of Vesperia is the tenth main title in the Tales series, and is, to date, the most appealing of the series. The anime-style graphics have the right look and feel, and are relatively consistent throughout the title. The combat is smoother than usual and, like its predecessors, is an action-based RPG that keeps all the action on the main screen, rather than switching to a special “encounter” screen.

The story revolves around Yuri, a former member of the Imperial Knights who quit when he became unhappy with how the Empire treated its subjects. Accompanying him is his intelligent dog, Repede, and Estelle (Estellise, to be more formal), a successor to the royal throne who has never been outside of her castle walls and never known anything less comfortable than a modern sofa.

Their society revolves around an ancient technology called “blastia,” which has properties that can be used in a wide variety of ways, including enhancing battle skills, but also mundane tasks such as maintaining the water supply of a city. Blastia to the world of this game is pretty much what petroleum oil is to our real-world society: a lifeblood element. And viewed as a parable of our society’s dependence on oil, Tales of Vesperia takes on an extra level of unexpected depth.

As the story gets underway, a thief steals the aqua blastia responsible for the lower city’s water supply, and Yuri pursues the thief to the castle of the royal family. He is unable to capture the thief, but there runs into Estelle, who accompanies him, eventually joining his party.

The action-based battle system remains challenging throughout; it is one of those rare games that is balanced well enough that you actually have to use the defensive moves to limit your opponent’s damage on you, while still allowing you to get in some offensive maneuvers at the same time. Estelle’s entrance into the game as an ally is a particularly well-designed element early in the game; in a battle with your first boss-level character, you have to survive your encounter with him long enough to cut him down to about half of his unrevealed hit point total.

Once you get to that point, Estelle enters and provides some much-needed healing spells so you can attack your opponent a bit more freely. You’ll still need some defensive moves, but you can attack with less hesitancy and take your opponent down much more quickly than in the first half of the fight.

Using this as an example without revealing more spoilers, let’s just say that further boss-level encounters are similarly well-designed, making the experience all the more satisfying when you come out the victor.

In the end, Tales of Vesperia is much improved from previous series installments, but still has a way to go before it can be considered on-par with the top RPG offerings available today. As a second-tier RPG series, however, it delivers a satisfying experience that offers plenty to appreciate in between the bigger RPG releases.

2K Sports’ NHL 2K9 for the Xbox 360 is a rather ho-hum update to the annual professional hockey franchise. The game still lacks the cinematic flair experimented with in NHL 2K7 but went missing in action in last year’s NHL 2K8. While rosters have been updates, there are actually not that many noticeable tweaks between last year’s release and this edition of the game.

The hockey game, developed by Visual Concepts, does play host to some changes, however. Most notable is the new commentary team, made up of Randy Hahn, Drew Remenda, and John Shrader of the San Jose Sharks broadcast team. While this freshens up the commentary with new voices, they are too often stuck with the same too-brief script of tired clichés that the last commentary team used, limiting the appeal of the new voices behind the lines.

There are also some notable upgrades, including new stick handling moves, more superstar moves added to the list from 2K8, enhanced skating engine, enhanced checking, brand new fighting engine, hit by puck collisions, blocked shots, user-controlled Stanley Cup celebrations, playoff beards and more than 1,400 new gameplay animations. But it’s all just window dressing on a package that, in the end, is still more vanilla than it is rocky road.

The heartbeat of any pro hockey game is its franchise mode, and unfortunately, there have been some troubles with NHL 2K9 in that regard; it seems that some users have discovered that if they play through more than a couple months of the franchise mode in one sitting, the game has a tendency to freeze up and result in lost data.

Also, if one manually saves their franchise immediately after a game-controlled auto-save, some users have reported that their save file gets self-deleted by the game. Although these problems are said to be limited and rare in scope by 2K Sports, they can occur and certainly become a problem for those who experience them. So far, in my testing, I have not been able to duplicate these errors.

The skating physics are improved from last year’s model, and the feel of the game is solid. Once you learn the controls, it is possible to be competitive in most of the games you play, though the AI is smart enough to win some from you even if you’re a series veteran, especially on the higher difficulty settings where the game physics and AI amp up and start playing as smart as you, and allowing fewer flukey goals.

Still, there’s really not much new in the way of expanding the appeal and features found in franchise mode, and the online play options are pretty much the same as before. When you combine this relative lack of real change or improvement to the series, along with the annoying lack of the cinematic presentation flair on display in 2K7 but since abandoned, there’s not much to really recommend this year’s model. If you desire up-to-date rosters, this is a serviceable entry in the series, but those who loved the 2K7 version won’t find a suitable replacement in this year’s model.

Created by developer tri-Ace, the geniuses behind three (and soon, four) Star Ocean titles, as well as some other well-thought-of one-off titles, have unveiled their latest RPG masterpiece, Infinite Undiscovery, which at least for a while will be an Xbox 360 exclusive title from SquareEnix.

The good news is: it’s a good one! Infinite Undiscovery revolves around the tale of a world where the moon is, for mysterious reasons, chained to the earth and unable to move in rotation around the planet. A lone hero rises up to undo these chains and become the people’s hero and he – is not your main playable character in this game. Instead, in Prince and the Pauper fashion, your hero is someone who just happens to be the spittin’ image of this hero of the people.

Complication matters is the fact that Capell is a bit of a pacifist; he’d rather blow a flute than swing a sword, but fate pretty much won’t allow him the luxury of that option. As the game begins, he’s been imprisoned by some folks who believe Capell is Sigmund the Liberator, and soon he rescued from that cell by Aya, one of Sigmund’s followers. As is usually the case with such games, Capell eventually gets caught up in Sigmund’s mission, like it or not.

The whole affair takes place in a nice-looking world that is somewhat photorealistic, but only if you painted reality over with an airbrush. Think of it more as a very sharp-looking cartoon world … for grown-ups.

Like the Star Ocean games before them, and most other tri-Ace games, Infinite Undiscovery is an action RPG that retains an RPG feel more than an action-game feel, which should be a good fit for all longtime, multiplatform SquareEnix fans. The battle system at its core is rather simple, but is given depth and complexity as the game evolves without ever becoming hard to manage. Quite a feat.

The game also offers up more than the usual dungeon crawl; there are puzzles to solve and mysteries to unwind and secrets to reveal. Some of these are accomplished using a “link system” that allows Cappel to talk with folks he meets with different party members sort of “along for the ride. While it doesn’t work on everyone, each area has at least a couple people who will either tell you something extra, or given you something they’d have held back otherwise, simply because your fellow party-member is with you.

Like most other tri-Ace games, the simple world is a bit deceptive, in that there are loads of new systems introduced as the game progresses. Examples include the aforementioned in-town link system, as well as a battle link-system, an item creation interface, and much more.

In the end, the game is exactly the sort of thing the original Xbox era lacked; a top-notch exclusive RPG release from one of the top names in RPGs: SquareEnix. Infinite Undiscovery could become the basis for SquareEnix’s newest franchise, and based on the high quality on display here, there’s no reason it shouldn’t spawn sequels. 360 fans, rejoice: not only is the 360 “in the mix” of the next-gen RPG market, but as of now, they’re well ahead of Sony and the PS3. That’s because, like a sizable handful of RPGs released to the 360 recently, Infinite Undiscovery is a must-have for any true fan of RPGs.

October is typically a crazy month for videogame retailers and this year is no exception; titles are flooding the market and sending GameStop managers into drug treatment for all the stress they’re under as their stores stock up for the holiday shopping season.

In fact, I know of a couple EB managers who are still going through drug rehab stemming from last year’s holiday rush, but that’s beside the point; as consumers, this is one of our top months, so we must spend our dollars more wisely than ever, so as not to get caught with a stink-bomb game. Here’s our list of the best Xbox 360 games for October 2008:

Dead Space

Available October 14, this is one of EA’s rare entrances into the popular survival horror genre. You’re a communications tech trying to repair the damage done to ship’s communication on a mining vessel in space, cut off from all sources of help, when you discover most of your fellow crew have been massacred by an alien entity that now has you in its sights. Looks to be can’t-miss stuff.

Rock Band 2

Available October 19, this sequel to last year’s genre-growing title guarantees your investment by being completely backward compatible with all original Rock Band songs: instant music library! And because we’re recommending RB2… no, Guitar Hero World Tour does NOT make our list for the 360.

Fable 2

Several years in the making, Fable 2 is the game many people bought their Xbox 360 to play. Well, it’s finally here October 21 and looks like it’ll live up to all the hype. Nuff said? You bet.

Fallout 3

Available October 28, the folks who brought you the first great RPG of the 360 era are back and pushing the envelope again! Bethesda’s Fallout 3 is among the most anticipated RPGs of the year, and a great way to round out a very very strong month for the Xbox 360.

September is the first great month again for Xbox 360 releases and pouring over the long list of exciting titles is kind of like a coffee addict trying to decide what to get from Starbucks coffee. So let us help. Here are VideogameVagabond.com’s top September 2008 releases on Xbox 360.

Infinite Undiscovery - SquareEnix

With Infinite Undiscovery, SquareEnix is introducing its first new franchise in quite a while, and its first franchise that is, at least for now, an Xbox 360 exclusive. Definitely a must-own. Available now.

Rock Band 2 - Electronic Arts

Not as innovative this time around as Guitar Hero On Tour, but Rock Band has the big mo’ from last year’s release and certainly the deeper, more varied playlist. Available September 14.

Silent Hill Homecoming - Konami

Following this summer’s release of Metal Gear Solid 4, one of the top horror franchises makes its first next-generation splash with this title and proves Konami has definitely arrived. No fan of being afraid while gaming should be without this one. Available September 30.

Those are the big two, in our book. Sure, there are more titles, but remember this is supposed to be a discerning guide to the best titles of the month. Spend your dollars wisely!

It’s quickly becoming clear that the Xbox 360 is becoming the new platform of choice for RPG fans, and Atlus’ Spectral Force 3 release is a clear case-in-point. As a Tactics-style RPG with a strong Japanese influence, Spectral Force 3 is exactly the kind of RPG that, in the previous generation of hardware, would have appeared on PlayStation 2 without a second’s hesitation; so its appearance on Xbox 360 with no announcements of a PS3 version could signify a lot about the direction of RPGs in this generation.

The game focuses on a band of military mercenaries under the leadership of grizzled veteran Judo; when he receives a mortal wound early on, he makes a split decision to pass leadership of his ragtag group of warriors on to the raw, mostly untested Begina, rather than a more veteran member of the cadre.

It’s a decision that seems destined for ridicule and to drive Begina to an addiction to weight loss pills, though eventually the rest of the group comes ‘round and decides to give him a chance.

As for the gameplay itself, it is standard Tactics-style RPG fare. This, of course, is a good thing if you consider games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea to be the pinnacle of an enjoyable gaming experience; many do. The game offers a solid mix of storytelling and action, loads of side-quests and a challenging battle system that keeps adding new elements to maintain freshness throughout the epic storyline.

The leveling up system is quick and easy, and allows you to make gains right in the middle of battle, as soon as you reach the necessary level of experience to advance. Each battle also rewards you with some pooled experience points you can distribute as you see fit, post-battle, and is useful for helping newly-acquired characters catch up to the rest of your party if they join up later in the game.

The backdrop is a European-like continent that is in a continual state of war as multiple sides fight for dominance; early on, you’ll receive most of your missions from one side only and the main missions will help turn the tide of battle to their side. However, as the story progresses, you’ll be able to change allegiances like any true mercenary.

The story itself is rather generic when it comes right down to it; the characters do not aspire to grow beyond genre expectations and the plot developments won’t surprise veterans of this genre much. Still, the dialog is witty at times and the core attractions, really, are the lovely complex battles.

Sure, the graphics are nothing revolutionary and could just as easily have been pulled off on last-gen hardware; but then Tactics-style RPGs have rarely been noticed for their cutting-edge graphics – game play is king.

Due to some great depth, smart map design and a wide variety of foes offering various challenges to success, Spectral Force 3 is a solid entry into the genre that won’t leave you bored after the first dozen or so battles. The only thing holding it back from true greatness is a more engaging and original storyline. Beyond that, the challenge level ramps up at a nice, accessible pace while still offering a chance to be outwitted every step of the way. Good show!

Playing Zoids Assault is like fooling around with a girl who needs to use a lot of acne scars cream; you may get somewhere, but you won’t feel good about doing it. What this Atlus-published turn-based strategy RPG with a military flavor wants more than anything is to be the next Front Mission (SquareEnix’s storied military strat-RPG). Instead, it plays more like a less action-oriented version of some Mobile Suit Gundam game, only worse.

Now, I usually enjoy a good, solid Tactics-style RPG as much as anyone you could name; but that’s not what Zoids Assault is. It’s more of a turn-based military strategy game with RPG aspirations that never really pan out. The graphics, while attempting to be next-gen, simply don’t impress, especially since the horrid game camera frequently places your point of view to one of the least-complementary angles possible for each action following a turn choice.

The battle system is complex and never sufficiently explained; the game simply tosses you into the middle of an extremely challenging battle against aggressive AI foes who will probably finish you off a couple times before you find your way around and take out the enemy. Of course, only dedicated fans will possess that much patience for a game that has no tutorial mode, poor documentation and an imposing learning curve.

I mean, really, who wants to invest three or four hours in your first two or three battles, only to win once and never really come away from the experience knowing much about why you lost. Making matters worse is that the game offers no way to revive fallen units once they’ve been dispatched by enemy forces, which even in the first battle are frequently more powerful than yours.

It’s nice to see Xbox 360 getting some Atlus-love and building a respectable RPG library, but this sort of me-too-ware is a disappointment, rather than a must-have for any discerning RPG lover. It’s a bit too early in the new generation of hardware for garbageware to be tolerable, and unfortunately, that’s the category Zoids Assault falls into; if you can only choose one Atlus RPG on 360 this summer, skip this one and be sure to grab the impressive Spectral Force 3 instead.

If you enjoy insomnia, have I got a game for you.

It’s a little gem for the Xbox 360 called Lost Odyssey, and it’s everything that Blue Dragon wasn’t; epic, moving, serious, enthralling. It’s the perfect sleep wedge to keep you up well into the wee hours. Even my wife has lost countless hours of sleep since bringing the game home with us from the local GameStop.

While some folks have said the game relies too heavily on text for Kian’s dreams, the stories told are so evocative that anyone taking the time to read them will be moved and forget about the inconvenience. Face it, Lost Odyssey is an instant classic.

It’s a bit sad when a once-solid franchise falls behind the pace, and that the only way, really, to regard MLB 2K8. The game isn’t bad, but the problem is more one of coasting while others are revving ahead. For Sony gamers, there is an alternative in the company’s MLB 08 The Show, but for Wii and 360 owners, MLB 2K8 is pretty much the only game in town.

Much like having an exclusive lock on football titles has made EA Sports’ Madden series lazy and uninspired, so too has having a third-party exclusive on MLB titles made 2K Sports’ baseball titles seem lazy and uninspired. Not having any legitimate competition tends to do that.

The nihilism kicks off almost from the word go; the graphics seem barely touched from last year’s edition, which wasn’t that great to begin with. Even before the 2K8 edition, even before the PS3/360/Wii era had begun, the series was troubled by freezes, glitches and graphical dead space; that hasn’t changed and eventually one has to wonder if 2K Sports and developer Kush Games even care about fixing the game visually.

While Ben Brinkman of Kush has been quoted from several sources saying that 2K8 is the “middle act” of a three-year plan to make over the franchise, that does little to comfort gamers who are shelling out hard-earned bucks for this year’s version. The franchise needs a top-to-bottom graphic makeover using an all-new game engine to really deliver the goods, and that’s not a position 2K Games is in; under their exclusivity agreement with MLB, 2K Sports is obligated to deliver a new iteration every year, which shortens development time, making a complete makeover difficult.

Yet the progress this year seems merely incremental, not revolutionary, especially from a graphic perspective. The new Swing Stick interface is actually harder to time and master than last year’s version, and the all-new pitching system is very realistic, based on analog stick interaction, but also is quite difficult, especially for less experienced hardball gamers, and ultimately many folks will end up choosing an older, alternate control scheme – which, at least, 2K Sports had the courtesy to include several of within the game. Mastering the pitching control scheme is ultimately rewarding, but extremely hard, kind of like buying car insurance online.

On the 360, the graphics lack the fluid animations of other sports titles on the market and feel like they are chugging along; I’ve seen the PS3 version in action and it’s no better, so it’s not a platform issue, it’s a developer issue.

While the new pitching control is a highlight (if you can ever get the hang of it), it’s not the only aspect of the game that’s strong and praiseworthy. Responding to long-term criticism, support of minor league teams has been vastly expanded. The game features no less than 90 real-life minor league teams, as well as 20 authentic minor-league stadiums, with more periodically released over the course of the season via Xbox Live for the 360. Those minor league teams even have some of the real-life players on them, although this is limited to those players who have at least spent some time in the majors.

I also appreciated some of the refinements made – to my complete surprise, since I usually suck at fielding – to the fielding controls. Even baserunning has improved, thanks to smarter baserunning AI. These refinements are not major new features, but have long been needed and offer some much needed relief from a problem that has plagued the series for a long time.

In the end, though, the “room for improvement” areas are critical and more numerous than the nice improvements and new features. Sadly, since Microsoft long ago stopped developing their own first-party baseball game, there is no alternative for 360 owners looking for an MLB game this season. It’s not a terrible game, but it could and should have been a whole lot better. Here’s hoping 2K9, allegedly the year in which 2K Sports and Kush will complete their makeover of the franchise, will finally deliver the goods on all levels. At the moment, however, I’d suggest saving your shekels this year and keep on playing 2K7.