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Review: Silent Hill Origins (PS2)

It thrilled and chilled on PSP last fall and now the most recent installment in the Silent Hill series is available on PS2 as well. Silent Hill: Origins began life as a remake of the first Silent Hill game on PSone and soon evolved into a game with its own unique character and storyline. While some environments and areas will be recognizable from previous installments, Origins is, in essence, as close to an all-new Silent Hill installment as we’re going to get until Silent Hill 5 makes its PS3 debut.

I’ve been a Silent Hill fan since its humble, Resident Evil-challenging PSone beginning, and certainly have preferred the series’ somewhat more subtle, psychological horror approach, contrasted with the shock-n-gore approach and George Romero-esque style of the Resident Evil series. Fortunately, this approach is on full display in Silent Hill Origins, which tells the tale of Travis Garby, a trucker who is driving a late-night route when he nearly runs over a little girl – Alessa Gillespie, a recurring character from the series.

When he hops out to investigate, she’s gone but he spots a nearby mansion in foreclosure that seems to be on fire. Naturally, he runs to help and finds the girl inside, burned alive. Yup, he soon finds himself lost inside Silent Hill, the human roach motel of small towns, because folks check in but rarely are allowed to check out – alive.

One thing that struck me on the PSP original was the level of detail achieved on the smaller screen; the game looks fine, but not quite as impressive on the larger screen/higher resolution PS2 platform, which seems to indicate the port-up was not a vast reworking, but done with a bit less attention to detail. Still, the average Silent Hill game is still scarier than a stack of Resident Evil games, so I’m not really complaining here.

The game is a mish-mash of styles; it’s a bit more action-oriented (in the vein of Silent Hill 4: The Room) and yet the control scheme, like this title’s appearance on PSP, is a throwback to the PSone original. Still, as with most Silent Hill games, even in this slightly more action-oriented outing, the best strategy is to avoid any and all unnecessary conflicts with the undead, as they tend to be fairly devastating to your well-being and because you’ll always be fairly limited on your supplies … of everything.

With an intriguing new storyline and main character, Silent Hill Origins is a nice chiller, though a bit shorter than I would like. There’s virtually nothing new to the PS2 up-port, so if you already own the game on PSP, there’s really no compelling reason to buy it again on PS2. Anyone who missed the game on PSP, though, ought to pick it up.

Team Silent, who created the first four Silent Hill installments, were not part of Silent Hill Origins, by the way; however, neither will Team Silent be involved in the making of Silent Hill 5 on PS3, so get used to it, in the short term. The series, fortunately, seems to be in good hands, and at least there are new installments still being worked on for the Silent Hill franchise; last I heard, Tecmo hasn’t announced any next-gen platform plans for Fatal Frame, their popular “ghost photographer” spooker.

In the end, Silent Hill Origins is a must for any fan of the series, but only if you don’t already own it on PSP; if you do, the PS2 version is virtually the same, so pick a platform and buy the dang game already!

Before you begin Crisis Core

Before you begin Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, be sure to look into some term life insurance quotes. The PSP game is far more of an action RPG than the traditional turn-based affair that made the Final Fantasy VII universe so universally appealing, to be prepared for the change.

That said, the game is everything one could hope for on a gameplay standpoint, except that it’s a bit short on the main quest. A lot of hours can be added via optional missions, but the main quest is complete in only a handful of hours of gameplay, rather than the 50-plus hours the original Final Fantasy VII game delivered on.

I’ll be doing a full-on review soon, but I’m enjoying what I’ve played thus far.

Review: MLB 08 The Show (PS3)

It’s ironic … and shocking. It wasn’t that long ago that Sony’s in-house sports development team, previously known as 989 Sports and now just referred to generically as SCEA, was an industry laughing stock. But as the PS2 era wound to a close and the PS3 era dawned, Sony reinvested in reinvigorating their sports game lineup, and the results have been increasingly improved reviews, although none of their games have yet eclipsed the industry big boys, 2K Sports and EA Sports. Until now.

MLB 08 The Show has finally broken through; although it has turned out to be an off-year for 2K Sports “third-party exclusive license” MLB competitor, MLB 08 The Show nevertheless deserves recognition for finally pulling off the unthinkable and besting one of the two main third party sports developers. This year’s Sony baseball sim is just simply better than 2K Sports’ MLB 2K8. How? Let me count the ways as we open the books on MLB 08: The Show.

First is the new, deeper Road to the Show mode, which boasts new advancements, career goals, and position specific situations to play through. No longer restricted to a single season of play, the game allows you to track your players’ career from the rookie leagues on up to the majors, gaining experience and new skills along the way; the mode is basically a baseball RPG, which is a good thing that lends both depth and replay value to the game. To be honest, this is what won me over. I’ve seen similar features in Sony’s basketball franchise, but it is here where the concept has finally come together to create a solid experience in single-player mode, one that is not limited or limiting.

The new progressive batting system is also a welcome innovation; the game rewards players for consistent hitting, but penalizes them for failure, which helps keep the stats realistic and reflects the ups and downs all hitters go through as a 182-game season plays out. There is also a lot more stat-tracking this year, right down to a batter’s history against specific pitchers, which should satisfy the stat fanatics out there.

One feature I treasure, as a busy person, is the ability to save your game right in the middle of a ballgame; many sports games do not include this feature, which means either pausing the game and possibly getting caught up in something that causes you to forget the system is on with the game paused, or perhaps quitting and having the play the game over; neither option is particularly appealing and by allowing the user to save their progress in the middle of the game, MLB 08 The Show gets heartfelt gratitude for their consideration of an adult gamer’s schedule. While such a feature will rarely be needed on the pause-friendly PSP, it is a boon to PS2 and PS3 gamers.

Other convenience features include the ability to create a folder called My MLB Music on either the PSP or PS3 versions of the game, and import your favorite MP3s into that folder so they can be played in the game. This is worlds of fun for folks who want to game and hear their own favorite music playing at the same time. The feature, however, is not available for PS2 owners.

The game’s graphics are nothing too world-changing, but they are decent enough to get by with on the PSP and PS3; on the PS2, however, the graphics are starting to look dated. At least MLB 08 The Show on PS3 comes with out-of-the-box compatibility with the upcoming DualShock 3 controllers. Of course, since Sony made both the game and the new controllers, that one was a given.

The fielding controls are the game’s biggest flaw; the controls are as wonky and un-crisp as ever, and certainly make it worth turning on fielding assistance or auto-fielding whenever possible, though that’s not an option, really, in Road to the Show mode. The pitching controls are improved and the batting mildly improved, though, so at least the results on controls vary from position to position. And anyway, I’ve never liked the fielding controls in any baseball game I’ve ever played, so maybe that’s a wash.

In the end, no matter whether you’re playing on PlayStation 2, PSP or PlayStation 3, MLB 08 The Show is good enough that folks who own Xbox 360s and Nintendo Wiis may just start wishing Sony would make their franchise available to platforms other than their own, especially with this season’s surprising drop-off in quality on 2K Sports’ MLB 2K8.

Review: Wild Arms XF (PSP)

Although most folks will rejoice when I say that the Wild Arms RPG franchise has finally arrived on PSP, hold on to your yippee-ki-yays for a moment, cowboy. The US Old West-themed fantasy series may now have a title on Sony’s handheld platform, but this PSP title is significantly different from the popular series that has done moderately well on PSone and PS2.

That’s because Wild Arms XF, developed as always by Media.Vision and published by XSeed is not your standard turn-based RPG, but has more in common with Final Fantasy Tactics than any previous Wild Arms installment. Given an all-new storyline and cast, Wild Arms XF is a full-on tactics-style RPG with all the benefits and drawbacks thereof.

One benefit is that the title introduces a job system into the Wild Arms universe for the first time; this allows for greater customization and skill acquisition than previous titles, but the trade-off is that the game has no world for you to wander around in and explore; it boasts only two modes – story sequences and battles.

Like FFT, Wild Arms XF doesn’t take it easy on newcomers; you must learn the game system fast or be crushed by superior opponents, some of whom are designed to be avoided at all costs, so pay attention to your actual mission objectives before entering into each new battle.

Of course, none of this is a problem for me; I love tactics RPGs and that makes this chapter of the Wild Arms saga a welcome change of pace. My wife, however, was not so kindly disposed toward the title, complaining that it was too hard too soon in the game, arguing that a game should offer a few more battles before ramping up the challenge level so quickly. (My wife prefers action-based RPGs.)

The story is one typical of the world of Filgaia. The game centers around a brother and sister, Clarissa and Filius, who start out exploring the world outside their home town, but who are eventually caught up into the political struggled of the day. There are hints dropped early on that Clarissa is either an exiled princess who doesn’t remember her past, or is a dead ringer for the dethroned debutante. Things just kind of snowball from there.

Wild Arms XF isn’t a title that breaks tons of new ground or revolutionizes the genre, but it is a game that’s entertaining, challenging, and possesses few flaws that will bug veterans of the tactics RPG genre. It also fits right into the universe established by previous games, and delivers a Filgaia-based game that you can take with you on the go. The only drawbacks are the steep learning curve for genre newcomers, and the fact that the jobs and skills system are a bit thinner than those found in Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lion. Then again, that’s setting the bar pretty high.

Wild Arms XF is one of the sharper-looking entries in this series, benefitting perhaps from the smaller screen the PSP offers. In the end, it all adds up to a niche RPG that will appeal to most fans of the series and fans of tactics RPGs, but likely won’t draw a lot of non-fans into the fold. Definitely a solid entry, though, and a good addition to any PSP-owning RPG lovers library. XSeed is doing all it can to support the title, too; I’m hoping they’ll offer up some logo pens as part of that effort!

Review: God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP)

When I heard the God of War franchise was moving from PS2 to the PSP for the Chains of Olympus chapter, I was skeptical at first. Sure, the PSP needs a solid action-adventure title as much as any other platform, but one of the main appeals of God of War as a series has been its larger than life sense of scale. How could the title maintain that appeal on the PSP’s rather smaller screen?

Well, I needn’t have worried. The game still looks sharp on the handheld platform and offers plenty of oversized opponents appropriate to the lineage of the series. Even my wife was impressed with the look of the game on the small screen; it was loaded with detail that only a few other PSP titles have come close to achieving and that makes the game a really fine showcase for the PSP platform.

Not a simple port, God of War: Chains of Olympus is an all-new adventure that serves as a prequel to the first God of War title released on PS2. Developed by SCEA-Santa Monica and Ready At Dawn Studios, the game allows up to five difficulty levels, although the last two have to be unlocked. The game casts you as Kratos in a situation where the gods have been rendered powerless, leaving Kratos with only one choice: he must square off against the most vicious of demonic creatures from Greek mythology. Gamers get to choose between saving his soul or the ancient world from imminent and total destruction, which affects the way the game ends.

The only main complaint with GoW:COO is the typical one; it’s relatively short length. My wife beat the game in under 10 hours and from what I’ve heard and read, some people might be able to even trim that down to under eight hours. While the action is fresh and fast, the load times sometimes get a bit cumbersome and slow down the pace just a bit. The battle system is relatively easy to master and immediately familiar to any fan of the series; and it’s been adapted well enough that you don’t often feel the loss of extra control options.

Despite the minor gripes, though, the game is everything you expect from a God of War title, with all the M-rated content, huge monsters and epic storyline most gamers can handle, and packed with enough action and drama that most folks will be left wanting more. While the extra difficulty levels are appreciated, it’s hard to get much more than one replay out of the game, as there are only two options in the storyline path that can be taken. It might have been more replayable if there was a slightly different storyline for each difficulty level, though that’s probably hoping for too much.

In the end, GoW:COO delivers the goods with surprising effectiveness on the PSP. With some of the best graphics available on any game currently released for the platform, as well as just under 10 hours of playing time, God of War: Chains of Olympus is one title most PSP owners will end up being embarrassed not to own – so go buy it already and avoid the blushing humiliation.

Review: Harvey Birdman – Attorney At Law (PS2 and PSP)

Anyone who has a bulk cable package that includes the Cartoon Network, and knows what the words Adult Swim really mean, will be familiar with Harvey Birdman, the TV series. An Alex Toth/Space Ghost-inspired character, Birdman is a former superhero turned attorney, and through this character Capcom supplies the PS2 and Sony’s PSP with their answer to the popular Phoenix Wright games hosted on the Nintendo DS.

Like the Phoenix Wright games, you play an attorney, gathering evidence, interviewing folks and then trying to present a winning case when the trial commences. Capcom should know their stuff, too, since they make both Phoenix Wright and Harvey Birdman. You’ll find similar pacing, a similar process of getting so many times to choose the wrong argument before you lose your case, and the same story of general game flow.

That said, the two games bear little resemblance to one another in actual execution. On the one hand, while the Phoenix Wright games are extremely retro in their look, the cases you are given to solve are long, involved and challenging, but fully entertaining. By contrast, Harvey Birdman looks great on PS2 and on PSP, with smooth animation that makes it look like you’re watching an episode of the TV show, but the cases are far simpler, less complex and shorter, although still fairly entertaining.

Of course, while Phoenix Wright is a solid mix of drama and light comedy, Birdman is pure comedy with a satiristic bent. Most of the five cases included in the game may seem vaguely familiar, usually because so many elements are send-ups of certain elements of current pop culture. The humor is largely pun-oriented, with a hint of naughtiness thrown in, just like the Adult Swim toon.

Although it’s nice to have an attorney sim on a Sony platform – especially to help ease the wait between new Phoenix Wright titles – Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law is nowhere near as satisfying as one might hope. With shorter, less challenging cases, it’s a good thing this isn’t a full-priced title, or one could come away from the experience feeling perhaps a bit cheated. As it stands, Harvey Birdman performs relatively the same on both PSP and PS2, but seems a better fit to the PSP library, personally. It’s a tidy snack until the next Phoenix Wright game comes out, but don’t expect it to be a full meal.

Review: Disgaea Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

Fans of the niche-genre of tactics-style RPGs usually have a short list of favorites. Typically, at the top of this list is either Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre, depending on which game they discovered first. Both games were developed by Quest, just before Square bought them out and absorbed their development team into their own. Quest is the developer that gave the modern Tactics-style RPG its defining characteristics and identity.

Second or third on the list for most fans of this subgenre is Atlus/NIS America’s Disgaea, one of the companies’ early PS2 offerings. Those who felt Final Fantasy Tactics offered mad depth were blown away by the depth and complexity of Disgaea; some have even compared it’s battle system strategies to algebraic formulas, although I believe that’s taking the hype a bit far, and tends to scare off newcomers to the title.

Now, there’s a chance to reintroduce a whole new generation to the delights of Disgaea while still pleasing fans of the original with Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for PSP. Not only is the entire original game intact for the port-down to PSP, but a complete alternate-reality adventure becomes available after you complete the game, lasting nearly as long as the 100-hour-plus original title.

In the original game, you play through as Demon Prince Laharl, who is awakened from a long nap several years after his father has died and left the throne of the kingdom of the Netherworld vacant. He is accompanied by the scheming Etna and, ultimately, the angelic assassin, Flonne, in his quest to retake his father’s throne.

The alternate reality mode allows you to experience the game if “what if,” mode, a fully developed alternate storyline in which, instead of waking Laharl up, Etna kills Laharl in his sleep and makes her own bid for the throne, redecorating the castle with all-new executive office furniture. (OK, not really.) In addition to adding value to the already long and addictive game for newcomers, this new story mode is what will make veterans of the PS2 classic willing to replay the game again on PSP. It’s definitely worth the journey.

One of the appeals of Disgaea is its incredible depth. There are many ways to progress through the game, many items to buy, many jobs to take on. There is the Dark Assembly, which can be used for everything from rising in rank to petitioning for more powerful items and additional funds. There is the item world, where you can do battle to win upgrades to your items, which level up. And there are the main mission battles, which are plentiful and can often be fought and refought multiple times to level up your party. In fact, the game is so deep, it may be necessary to have the second story mode just to explore it all completely.

The battle system will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s played other Tactics-style RPGs, and has plenty of depth to it as well, since characters gain new abilities as they progress in level. And since the game is filled with great anime-style art, fun voice-acting and an undeniable sense of energy, there’s simply every reason for both Disgaea veterans and newcomers to pick this title up; the second Disgaea title was released on PS2 back in 2006, and word on the street has it that a third Disgaea title is already in development for PlayStation 3, although it is said that the series will retain its throwback visuals even on the new, more powerful platform.

No matter what it is a person enjoys about Tactics-style RPGs, there’s plenty to love in Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for the PSP. Heck, there’s even a multiplayer mode to further extend the replay appeal, available via Ad-Hoc mode via WiFi. Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness definitely extends Sony’s recent run of quality titles for PSP, ever since the PSP Slim relaunch.

Review: SOCOM Tactical Strike (PSP)

Thanks to the trendy popularity of Tactics-style RPGs, a lot of games that offer styles of game play far different from Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea, have been trying to fit the “tactics” label into their titles. SOCOM: Tactical Strike for PSP is one such example.

Anyone addicted to SOCOM games that are action based might feel like playing SOCOM: Tactical Strike is like utilizing a squad of soldiers who all have fibromyalgia. Yet the style of combat found here is nothing like Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea. More properly, S:TS is more on the order of a real-time military strategy game. Fortunately, as long as that’s what you’re expecting, it’s not a bad example of that genre.

The player controls a squad of four solders but never takes direct control of them. Instead, you get to issue action orders that they follow, such as shoot, snipe, move, throw grenades and so forth. Fortunately, the AI executes these commands rather effectively, so you won’t spend a lot of time wishing that game would just let you take direct control.

The main problem is that the multiplayer mode, whether online or localized, gets extremely laggy. Since snappy multiplayer play is a key strength of the series, this is a huge Achilles heel for this game. While it’s not quite bad enough to ruin the game, it does sap some energy out of the experience.

In terms of general game design, SOCOM: Tactical Strike does offer large area maps that offer flexibility when it comes to accomplishing objectives; the same goals can be reached through multiple approaches. The game plays out at a decent pace, although the storyline is nothing special or particularly interesting.

Graphically, the game offers more eye candy than one might expect, stuffing an impressive amount of detail and atmosphere onto the PSP screen. Whether it is rendering lush jungles, old churches or military bases, the areas are both massive and massively detailed. Certainly, the game measures up to the heritage of the series’ PS2-era titles and delivers an experience that is deeper than one might expect on the PSP portable platform.

SOCOM: Tactical Strike for PSP has flaws, sure; but they are not deal-breakers. The game is a fun design if you enjoy this sort of RTS genre, and graphically it deserves to be part of the series, even with the high standards set by the games that came before it. It would be more enjoyable if not for the lag issue, but all in all, fans of the SOCOM series won’t find too much to gripe about.

Review: Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions (PSP)

I was one of the first people in line to buy the original Final Fantasy Tactics for PSone, back when the first version of this game was released. I was more intrigued by and excited about the title than the game everyone else had been anticipating that had landed a few months earlier, Final Fantasy VII. I think at the time, the steampunk influences of Final Fantasy VII were a bit of a turnoff for me (I eventually came ‘round), but the original FFT simply had a more traditional feel; it was more the sort of traditional sword and sorcery style of game I wanted from an RPG at that time.

Despite a “so awful it’s funny” localization that rendered some plot elements incomprehensible, and an incredibly high difficulty level, Final Fantasy Tactics became a long-standing personal favorite of mine and still ranks as one of my Top 5 PSone games of all time. Simply put, it was a dream-come-true title.

Of course, I was pleased to see a whole subgenre of Tactics-style RPGs emerge from the popularity of that title, and while it’s still somewhat of a niche RPG subgenre, it’s now a well-populated one. About the only complaints I’ve had over the years about Final Fantasy Tactics is that the game was on PSone and took so bloody long to play, I could never finish it.

Finally, after a decade of devotion, SquareEnix as released a “remix done right” version of Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSP system. I call it a remix done right because Final Fantasy Tactics is far more than a straight port of the PSone classic onto PSP. There is a surprising amount of new content.

How much is new? Well, let’s start with the crappy localization. GONE! AT LAST! This time around, the script reads well, as though written by someone to whom English was not a fifth or sixth poorly-studied language. And while the game seems just a bit too fond of certain King Jamesian archaic phrases, for the most part the script is readable, comprehensible and even witty in places.

OK, so the game is more pleasant to read. But that’s not all. A considerable amount of new story elements have been added in the form of FMV story segments. Pulled off in some gorgeous animation that honors the original character designs but brings some new style to the game – think animation with some cool texturized colors that make it look like it was drawn in colored pencil and pained in watercolors. Add that the story segments fill in some of the blanks in the storyline, humanizing the characters, and what already was considered to be one of Square-Enix’s best stories ever told improves even more.

There are also some new items added to the mix, new characters (including a cameo by Vaan from Final Fantasy XII), new storylines and twists, and just a lot more than I expected in order to make this more than just a replay of the same game from 10 years ago.

Don’t go in thinking it’s all-new, though; this is still Final Fantasy Tactics, the original, even with all the new bells and whistles. The vast majority of the changes are wonderful; but not all the changes work as well. Need an example? OK.

One of the big drawbacks of the game being redesigned to play on the PSP is that the little tavern missions have been redone. In the PSone original, these were missions you could send your lower-level characters off on in order to help them level up more quickly. They’d be gone from your party for a number of days, and then you could pick them up at a guild, to collect a report of their success and also a reward if your party member did succeed at the task.

This time out, those missions are extra battles and you get to play them out rather than having them happen off-screen and receiving a second-hand report of the action. Instead, you must – and I mean MUST – find an online opponent or companion in order to make use of them at all. This is annoying because it’s not easy to always find someone who is online with their PSP, playing Final Fantasy Tactics at the same time you are, and ready and willing to agree to mutual terms. It’s not as simple a matching process as sports games are.

Even so, I could tolerate the online awkwardness if these side missions could also be completed the traditional way. That’s not an option, though. It’s play ‘em out online or don’t get access to those missions at all. This is not wise design.

The bottom line for me, though, is that having Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions released and remixed and available on a portable platform is indeed a wish come true. I’ve always loved FFT and other Tactics-style RPGs that have followed since, and my only complaint has been that they all take 100s of hours to beat, which is just not always practical on a home console system. Now that it’s on my PSP Slim, I can play it in bits and pieces throughout my day and really make progress in the game.

Anyone who doesn’t think Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions isn’t worth owning just doesn’t like RPGs. Along with Jeanne d’Arc and Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, this year has been OWNED by PSP, especially the second half of 2007. The PSP is hot again, and, at least for me, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is a big part of the reason why.