Portal (Let Them Eat Cake)

So I just borrowed The Orange Box from work to try Portal. I'm not terribly interested in Half Life 2, since story-driven single-player FPSs don't really interest me much. Team Fortress 2 is kind of cute, but I prefer Warhawk for online competition.

Portal is an FPS puzzle game based on the idea that you can put two interconnected holes on the walls so you can hop through one to come out the other. It implements this extremely well, as you can even see through the portal. So if you put them on either side of a corridor, you can look in and see yourself looking at yourself looking at yourself in a repeating image. Going through the portal doesn't change your momentum, so if you put one on the floor and the other on the ceiling above it, you can fall through what looks like an infinite tunnel.

Yes, Portal is short. I pegged the single-player campaign in about two-and-a-half hours. But, it has an extremely interesting play mechanic. I don't think the campaign needed to be longer, as it explored the portal mechanic rather well, and had very few frustrating moments. Also, the campaign was cleverly assembled with an interesting story and funny voicing from a neurotic computer.

One nitpick is that the deadzone on the move stick isn't big enough, so it was a little hard to do one puzzle that required not giving any movement input.

I haven't gone back to do the other modes you get for finishing the campaign, so I can't comment on their value. I can't say it's worth buying the Orange Box just for Portal, though I think it would have made a great $12 download title. As a Quake 3 player, I'd love to see the portal mechanic added to a competitive game with weapons.

Don't miss Portal. Find it on a platform you own (PS3, XBox 360 or PC) and play it.

Why I still hate Nintendo's design philosophy

Since I saw someone skip entire levels on Super Mario Bros. just by knowing where a hole in the ceiling was, I've disliked one of Nintendo's central design philosophies. Knowledge trumps skill.

It's midnight, and I've just finished a session with the first Wii game I've really liked, which is Metroid Prime: Corruption. I like the control system; it's flexible and fun. BTW, I'm playing on Veteran, with the Lock/Free thing so I always have to aim. My save is at 5% progress into the game.

After doing another ball puzzle and shooting some stuff, I got stuck. There are these things it looks like I can grapple from, but scanning them tells me I don't have access yet. So I explore the level, which isn't horribly huge. I jump to everywhere I can find. It turns out that the only thing that looks like it will help is to pull some panels off a wall with the grapple. But that wall is too far up; I can't get there. I apparently had to do this before falling into a valley. So I'm completely stuck, and there are no clues in the valley section telling me I'm stuck. So I've spent a half hour exploring (and generally being bored and frustrated) only to find that what I have to do is no longer available.

Add to that the dearth of save points (since they also replenish your suit they have to be scarce), and you have a major frustration situation. I had to reset the game, and now I have to redo the first half hour of my session just to get back to where I was. And none of this is because I lack skill with the controls; it's because I was missing a piece of information.

I'm not sure I'll be able to play the game anymore since I'm sure this kind of thing will happen multiple times since it's been a general pattern with Nintendo games since the beginning. I know some people like this puzzle element in games, but games like God of War have them without making me angry.

If there's some little thing I've missed that fixes all this, then there's still a design flaw in the presentation somewhere.

Rock Band

Got Rock Band Dec 22, 2007, with the first batch to hit Quebec. I had a preorder in since August, so I was at the top of the list at EB downtown Montreal.

The short version: Buy this as soon as you see one on the shelf, or order one and wait. No excuses like "I have no rhythm," or "I can't sing." It's just lots of fun for anyone.

The long version:

Harmonix has long been making the best music games in the business with Frequency, Amplitude, and Guitar Heroes 1 and 2. I don't mention Karaoke revolution since I haven't played it. Rock Band was the inevitable next step from Guitar Hero, though it was a rather risky project given the cost of peripherals. Combining the XBox 360 and PS3 versions, they've sold close to a million despite the game's greater-than $150 price tag, so it looks like it's paid off for them. People who have visited to play have almost unanimously said that sounds cheap given how much fun it is.

This is such a monstrous game in scope, I don't know where to start. So I'll start with the graphics. The gameplay graphics (note lines, power bars etc) are all rather understated, which is nice. They're clear, and easy to read; I think that's necessary given the amount of stuff on the screen when you play with four people. The band graphics are very well done; they run at around 24-30 frames per second, so they have a film like quality to them. The animations are good, and well timed (with a few notable exceptions) with the music. The character customization is excellent, too. Trena (the vocalist in our band, "Purple Sin") spends quite a lot of time at the Rock Shop buying clothes.

Next, let's talk about guitar and bass. If you've played or heard of Guitar Hero, playing guitar or bass on Rock Band is almost identical. The new controller is very nice, with the buttons being the entire width of the neck, so it feels much more natural to slide across them. There are 5 little buttons near the body of the guitar, which allows you to "finger tap" during solos without strumming. This feels pretty cool, though to a hardcore gamer like me it feels like cheating. Both Bass and Guitar can activate Star-- ahem, Overdrive at any time by tilting the controller. This is a nice ability, since the Drummer and Vocalist must wait until special places in the music to be able to activate their Overdrive. Since the bass player is often responsible for grounding and band with rhythm, he gets the "Bass Groove" ability. All other instruments top out their multiplier at 4x, but Bass Groove allows 6x. This means the bassist can score more points per note (though they often get fewer notes). But what's important is that this system penalizes them more than the other players for missing a note since it takes longer to get back to maximum multiplier. As in a real band, it pays to have a steady bassist.

The Vocalist sings with a microphone, and the game analyses the singer's pitch to see if they're on the right note. It does allow singing an octave higher or lower, which helps if you're singing a song originally performed by a member of opposite sex. The interface for this is very nice; the lyrics scroll by on the bottom, with wavy lines above which show the relative pitch to hit. While singing, an arrow shows up to tell the player if they're above or below the correct pitch. It's nice to get this visual feedback, which tells you if you're slightly above or below pitch even if you're close enough to score points for it. The pitch line is normally green, but nailing orange ones well gives you Overdrive power. This is activated by singing anything into the mic at certain times, indicated by an orange flowery background; which is lots of fun.

The drums are arguably Rock Band's centerpiece, as there's no equivalent experience in any other console game. You'd have to manage to find a DrumMania machine to find a similar experience anywhere, but Rock Band still has a much nicer interface (and better music, in my opinion) than DM. There are 4 pads which usually translate to snare, high-hat, tom/cymbal and crash cymbal. There's also a pedal for bass drum, which is what makes the playing the drums so challenging; you have to coordinate two arms and a foot. After earning enough energy, the drummer will occasionally see freestyle sections where he can play anything. Hitting any three notes in these sections is enough to enable a crash cymbal note at the end of it, which triggers Overdrive. These are called "fills," and developing good ones is fun. The pads are a bit loud when you hit them, so you'll want the stereo up loud to help hide them. There's also a lot of mods available from do-it-yourselfers who have found ways to muffle them, many of these methods don't void the warranty, either.

What makes this game such a great experience is playing with groups of 3 or 4. When any player fails, the rest of the band gets an amount of time to activate Overdrive to save them. The amount of time you get depends on how well the band was doing before the failure; so the audience is more tolerant if the 3 other members were kicking ass. This feature puts the "Band" into "Rock Band."

There are also some online modes, which are generally fun, and don't really require description. They lack a ranking system, so it's hard to get in with players of your own skill level. I usually have to go through 5 or more drum duel opponents before I can find one that I can have close battle with. My PS3 name is Almo2001; look for me if you'd like to try some drum battles.

Harmonix promised 3 new downloadable songs per week, and they've succeeded so far. Many of these are great songs that are fun to play; they're well worth the money.

Rock Band is quite simply the current pinnacle of music games. Don't miss this if you like music or games.

Recommended. 5 stars out of 5.