VideogameVagabond.com

Can a 45-year-old man maintain a marriage and a videogame habit? Let's find out!

Tag Archives: videogame

Review: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (DS)

It wasn’t long ago that the videogame world had never even heard of an attorney simulation game, at least in the US market, but it hasn’t taken Capcom’s little series long to catch on and become a popular series on the Nintendo DS. Filled with all the intrigue of a mystery novel come to life, the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games did well initially in Japan, where they appeared on the GameBoy Advance, before making their way to the US market via the DS.

The previous three games, Ace Attorney, Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations, all featured Phoenix Wright as the series’ main protagonist; Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney introduces an all-new protagonist and Phoenix Wright appears as a defendant accused of murder in the opening case of the new game.

Graphically, the game hasn’t changed much from its GBA origins. About the only improvements in the way the game looks is a mildly richer color palette and some smoother-looking textures; other than that, the signature art style of the series is largely unchanged. While the game looks fine by DS standards, however, it doesn’t look quite as nice as the Harvey Birdman attorney sim Capcom recently released on Sony’s PSP platform.

While the opening sequence that places rookie attorney Apollo Justice on the defense for Phoenix Wright is a shocker, the biggest changes to the series come in how one interacts with the game. Like the notorious fifth case on the first Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney game, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney was built specifically for the Nintendo DS platform, rather than being ported up from GBA. As such, all the exciting investigative tools so enjoyed in that fifth case are now present and accounted for in all four cases that comprise the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney game.

That means the game takes full advantage of the DS’ microphone and touchscreen; you can once again rotate items via touchscreen to uncover concealed clues, or use the microphone to shout “Objection!” during the course of a trial. AJ:AA also features several new features.

One is the perceive system, which helps Apollo pinpoint nervous body language that helps him identify when a witness is being deceptive. A crime recreation mode is also introduced for the first time, and is utilized to help pinpoint new evidence. With all these new DeWalt tools in his arsenal, one might think it would be a snap for Apollo Justice (and gamers) to solve the four cases in front of them. However, it’s not quite so easy and gamers will need all these tools to get to the truth of the matter, since the Capcom scribes behind this game are quite good at plot twists, rabbit trails and big reveals, to keep things interesting.

As before, each case grows increasingly challenging, making solving the final case a significant achievement. More of an interactive novel than a true videogame, Apollo Justice may feature a brand new main character, but everything DS fans enjoyed about earlier Phoenix Wright games has returned – in spades.

The release of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney catches the US market up with the Japanese market. The future looks bright for the series, however. It is well-known that Capcom announced the fifth game in the series about a year ago, in May 2007; that game is expected to release next fall. Also, in February 2008, a spinoff title featuring life on the prosecution’s side of the courtroom, featuring Miles Edgeworth and Dick Gumshoe, was announced as under development by Capcom, so with at least two more games on the way, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is definitely a new beginning not a final swan song, for games of this genre.

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.