Kinect Adventures

I thought about trying to review the Kinect sensor itself, but I think you already know whether or not you want to buy this peculiar device. A divisive machine to be certain, anyone that has heard about the Kinect for a great length of time has long since formed an opinion, so you don’t need mine. If your idea of fun involves having friends and family over and playing lighthearted entertainment for laughs while getting high on life, you want the sensor. If your idea of fun involves sniping off Middle Eastern terrorists, proclaiming racial epitaphs on a headset while high on something besides life, you don’t want the Kinect. If you can’t be arsed to move the coffee table in front of your television, you don’t want the Kinect, but I recommend a gym membership. And if you don’t have a coffee table to move, let alone a television, Xbox, living room or house, well I recommend the Salvation Army over the Kinect.

As a western European with a sizable basement living quarters and gainful employment, I like the Kinect sensor. I’ll put aside the half-second lag, the pointlessness of the facial scan ID feature and the possibility that the Kinect is the reason my Xbox suffer a red-ringed death. And it bears mentioning that the installation involves several minutes of complete silence, a luxury I wouldn’t have if I tried installing it on a relative’s household filled with screaming children. And the menu navigation is flawed; having to hold your hand over a specific spot is a slow method of accessing options. The voice recognition works but it leaves room for expansion; when I can say “Xbox! Super Meat Boy!” and thus boot up the anti-thesis of the Kinect sensor, I will consider this technology a true success. And above all else, it is the absolute freakiest experience ever in one moment during the install when your avatar is duplicating your physical movements with near-precision. It is especially freaky when your avatar is the giant TV-screen head from Risk: Factions wearing the Earthworm Jim supersuit.

Kinect Adventures is the pack-in title with the sensor, and the game that proves all this newfangled motion-sensing technology works. It’s a series of mini-games that grabs your full-body movements and makes you move in spastic, often unpleasant ways. There’s some peppy, annoying boy scouts/meets animal crackers-theme of a group of adventurers looking for treasure overbearing the game, and it seems that their means of finding treasure is to replay the exact same five mini-games over and over. I personally hate these treasure seekers, if just because they forced my avatar to take off his TV head and supersuit.

So you’ll replay five mini-games over and over again to earn badges and unlock weird trophies. Such trophies include Achievements (yes, this game treasures your gamerscore), avatar clothes to not wear unless you want your avatar to be a 20-something year old boy scout, and weird talking trophies that can recreate a vocal sample of your choosing. Ever want to see a furry critter recite some Wu-Tang lyrics? I sure as hell did.

The mini-games themselves are a mixed bag. “Duck and dodge wacky obstacles or else you’ll get pimpslapped” has you on an automated mine cart, physically avoiding obstacles by moving out of the way, and contorting your body in different positions to collect coins. This can be very amusing, although I think only Yao Ming or someone with great armspan can truly get a perfect score with the way some of the coins are spread out. Likewise “I’m on a boat, bitch!” has you on a raft, moving your body to steer your raft across a raging river with ramps to collect coins along the way. Since there are somewhat dynamic courses here, this mini-game stays interesting longer than most.

“Deflect balls with your balls” (I can’t verify if any of these are the real game names since my Xbox died) has you using your arms, legs, torso and (usually) head to deflect balls towards a series of bricks. It’s not the deepest of games but you’ll get a kick of someone dancing around like Yosemite Sam is unloading at their feet. From there, the games become less intriguing. “Plug your hole” involves moving your hands and feet to block holes in a glass tank. You’ll get to see someone assume somewhat awkward-but-not-too-awkward positions but the arbitrary nature of this game gets old fast. Like with the other games, the Kinect will take a bunch of snapshots of you acting a fool, and the ones taken of you covering leaks are the least foolish, if that amounts to anything. The worst mini-game of the bunch is “act like you’re in that fucking owl movie” where you have to flap your arms to float, drop them to sink, and try to collect all the orbs in the area. Besides being extensively shallow, the game treats “dropping your arms” like an additional flap, so you’ll get a quick jump in the air before actually dropping down to collect the orbs beneath you. So this is the one game where lack of responsiveness is an issue.

And that really is all that Kinect Adventures has to offer. The game certainly proves that the Kinect works and can be a barrel of great amusement. I felt like the Wii controller was too abstract an inaccurate for the tasks it would ask the player to accomplish; swinging that doohickey like a baseball bat didn’t always yield the result you would expect out of swinging a Louisville Slugger, for example. (Plus early adopters ran the risk of their remote smashing into their television.) What I’ve played of the Kinect so far, the motions involve physically recreating motions with your body, and people that accidentally crash through their television set probably deserve their fate. So the Kinect itself is a thumbs up. Kinect Adventures, on the other hand, will provide amusement for yourself and the party for about 30-60 minutes before being put away in favour of Dance Central.

3 stars

Super Meat Boy

While I do tend to talk a fair share about video games to the people in my life, I try to skew the conversation towards the interests of said person. My macho-would-be-tough-guy friends will hear about the time I diced up three straight dudes in a Gears 2 while chugging a Dew down like a man. The women can learn of my sensitive side as I discuss the charming merits of stitching a plush bear’s cut together in Kirby’s Epic Yarn. The older crowd will be excited to learn about the Tommy pinball machine I discovered in a bar at downtown Toronto. But the one dark secret I’ve kept from all of them is an insidious nightmare known as Super Meat Boy. I can’t tell the casual violence crowd because they think anything that you can’t headshot a person isn’t a worthy video game. I can’t tell the ladies in my life about it because it’s a game starring a piece of meat that continuously excretes blood in a trail like a leaky truck. And I can’t tell the older crowd because the game has more than 4 levels and not a single barrel-smashing hammer to be seen. (Though there’s a great King of Kong reference in the game.) But I think I can tell you, the video game-loving public, the people that wear green mushroom hats and think downloadable games are a viable alternative to the evils of Gamestop, about Super Meat Boy. And I can tell you that I think you should buy Super Meat Boy. Even if it means buying XBLA points at Gamestop. Like I did. Sorry.

You play as the titular hemorrhaging Meat Boy, who is on a nary-ending quest to rescue his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the nefarious Dr Fetus. I imagine dozens of sensitive female classmates turning away from this review in disgust already. That is the extent of the game’s narrative. All of the cutscenes in between involve some kind of combination of decrepid Super Happy Tree Friends-like gore humour and parodies of old video games. While I tend to think that 8-bit homages are close to being horribly played out in video games, Super Meat Boy manages to find a few creative victims. When was the last time someone mocked Adventures of Lolo, for instance?

The gameplay is as rudimentary as sidescrolling platformers get. You move, you run by holding a button down, you jump, you do wall jumps. Meat Boy controls like Mario if Mario was perpetually menstruating. Already sounds like about every NES platformer and subsequent Flash game trying to pay homage to every NES platformer.

But as you progress through the game’s levels, things seem to get more and more unsanctimonious. Suddenly, there are more and more spinning blades. And fireballs. And missiles. And other things that will tenderize Meat Boy. If there isn’t a game world element that kills you in one hit, then it may be a fan or portal that transports you to something that kills you in one hit. As of this review, Meat Boy died 9317 times throughout my experience with the game. That is more than the number of women who die in childbirth in Cameroon. (I tried to find a morbid random stat to contrast, this was the best I could do.)

And the game manages to find ways to get more and more demented, in all of the right and wrong ways. Complete a level in a prerequisite time and you’ll unlock a Dark World variation that makes the same level a heaping buttload more difficult. You can find hidden warp zones (which include an announcer audibly vocalizing that you have found a warp zone.) These are fairly challenging sequences that adopt the visual style (and some kind of badass title screen) of old video games. Even more crooked is that you may sometimes stumble across some weird fake-romhack-glitchy stages that are also really, really hard. These are homages to…something I guess. I feel like for every reference to an old game that I picked up on, there were 20 that flew over my head. This is a gamer’s game.

At the same time, I feel like Super Meat Boy has discovered some kind of sacred recipe for how not to discourage a player for dying several times over in a single level, let alone 9000 times. When you die, you respawn instantly at the start of a level with no load time, and the music never loops afterwards. (And as far as video game soundtracks go, this is a gem set. Tommy Tallarico, your Video Games Live show’s setlist just expanded.) Hence, the feeling of repetition never sinks in. Likewise, when you finish a level, a replay of ALL of your previous attempts play at once, and its hella satisfying to watch hundreds of Meat Boys try so hard, followed by the one that ultimately succeeds.

And it helps that the controls on this game are just great. You have full control of Meat Boy’s movements and trajectory of his jumps. When you die in Super Meat Boy, it will always be your fault and not the game’s. Likewise, when you finally succeed in some of the more difficult levels, it is because you suddenly became awesome. You actually get a sense of improvement as you play; that one vicious warp zone level a few worlds back suddenly becomes a breeze once you’ve improved your skill set on subsequent levels. And the game moves super fast too; Super Meat Boy scurries around the areas like he’s in a hurry to change his tampon. The average level length is about 15-60 seconds long, and a Meat Boy’s life span is considerably shorter. Even if all you’re doing is tripping into a razor blade over and over, I rarely found myself bored and frustrated. Rather, I was entranced, constantly trying to get to the next level or overcome the next impossible challenge.

There are all kinds of hidden bandages hidden throughout the world (and they get progressively more and more difficult to dig up.) Collecting a whole hubby-dubby bunch lets you unlock a series of famous, semi-famous and not-quite famous characters from assorted independent games. Each one has their own unique ability; the Boy from I Want To Be The Guy can double jump, Tim from Braid can rewind his movements a tad and so forth. I still used Meat Boy the most for his rapid speed, but I’ve found a handful of moments where many of these hidden characters proved to be beneficial.

If the game has any flaws…well I don’t think I would call them flaws. I heard something of a technical gaffe exists with some of the completion percentages. I managed to unlock the final hidden character despite having 98 bandages instead of the required 100. And I got the “finish every level” achievement despite having some 8 stages to go. I am so not complaining about that. Otherwise, my issues with Super Meat Boy have nothing to do with the game itself. Like how playing Super Meat Boy further withered down the spring in the A button on my controller. Or how I suddenly found myself grinding up on walls and wondering why the wall jump wasn’t executing in Kirby’s Epic Yarn.

And I would like to brag about this; I did finish every level (presented so far, as of this writing) and with it, all achievements and that Meat Boy avatar pet. I feel like my street cred as a video game-playing guy has gone through the roof as a result.

So I found myself loving this game, and am blessed that there is a lot to love. There are some 300-odd levels, and the promise of many more free downloadable levels to come. (One set of 20 downloadable levels already exists, and it is a diabolical set indeed.) Because of this game, I found myself exploring other “masocore” games in I Want To Be The Guy and Mighty Jill-Off. Those games are…well they are crooked evil in their own way. But I feel like Super Meat Boy is evil in the right way; it has mastered the tricks in getting away with being extremely difficult. In turn, I guess you can call it the Abbey Road of independent Flash based masocore super evil platformers.

5 stars

Fable 3

I feel like every time I’ve talked to someone I know about my experience playing Fable 3, the net result is the receiver of my discussion being turned off on Fable 3. This might be because it’s hard to translate “Stephen Fry is hilarious in his vocal performance as a crooked industrialist” to someone who doesn’t know who Stephen Fry is, or how to spell industrialist. It could also be because, well, explaining how the pause system works is an instant turn-off for anyone that can comprehend how to use the Start menu in Windows XP.

You see, pressing Start doesn’t result in a menu screen that lets you access your inventory, map or even save the game. Pressing Start transplants your character inside a small room. Your character has to physically walk to different rooms and approach mannequins displaying the new weapon, clothing item or tattoo in order to equip/wear/ink up. To use the map of the world, you must saunter up to a map of the world in this aforementioned sanctuary. Meanwhile, a butler in this room periodically spouting suggestions and compliments. This whole attempt to visualize the pause screen doesn’t take any of the complexity out of menus but rather removes the immediacy of accessing these things. I would like to have instant access to a map to know where in the universe my character is at any given moment (although the Fable 3 map isn’t so hot at that…more in a jiffy.) And the lack of a pause menu is a bit unsettling. When a game is paused, you KNOW the game world is frozen, and nobody around you will question that this game is in session while you take a prolonged washroom break. Even though the actual action of my quest is halted, there is still an active visual on the screen, complete with a butler that doesn’t shut up while I’m in the lavatory. So somebody walks by and notices this unpaused game is going to be very confused.

So when you come home from work or school or what have you, walk up to your booted-up game console, pause whatever game is inside and give the menu screen a big hug.

Truth be told, the menu screen fiasco is a very insubstantial issue, it’s just such a bizarre one. I should mention that Fable 3 is a fantasy-oriented action/RPG. You are the son or daughter of the character you theoretically played as in Fable 2. Your brother is an atypical corrupt king and you are charged with travelling the land to gain allies for your rebellion. I feel like I’ve heard this story in a fantasy-RPG before…

Though also to be fair, Dragon Age didn’t have Fable 2’s high quantity of Britishness. Like previous Fables, this is a game that soaks itself in juices of smart-assed humour. During your travels, you may run into a posse of table-top RPG cultists, an undead pub party and some very bitter talking gnomes. I mentioned a great evil industrialist earlier; I was so used to Stephen Fry as the voice of encouragement and wonder in LittleBigPlanet that it was a genuine shock to see him turn around as the pro-child-labour, pro-logging, pro-all-things-evil businessman Reaver. And Fable 3 even nails the simpler joys of life. The animation for farting in someone’s face is just something special that every current or former frat boy should witness.

But like a lingering fart, Fable 3 kind of stinks up the room for a bit everyone laughed at the gaseous humour. I felt like everything surrounding the belches and taunting of civilians wasn’t so amusing. Actually, forget that; the belching and taunting of civilians isn’t fun either. Because now you can only use expressions to impress/harass one person at a time, and each expression takes several seconds of button holds. And now, to make someone really like you, you have to do some kind of random digging fetch quest thingy. I kind of miss the absurdity of Fable 2’s ability to let you marry and procreate with a stranger you had just been dancing with for a minute.

And the whole questing bit isn’t quite as interesting as it used to be. There are no puzzles, and item collecting feels needless since your first set of weapons upgrade as you level up. just you walking a straight path and outmashing the local monsters. Though the “path” part can be a bit difficult since the golden trail that is supposed to lead to your next objective tends to periodically flake out of existence. And the fast travel option on the Map sometimes will not take you anywhere near your targeted area. There were side-quests that I gave up on solely because I couldn’t find out where I should be going. And I knew that following said side-quest would only result in more of the same walking, fighting and dig-spot-digging pattern damn near all of the game’s quests follow.

Mind you, the actual combat isn’t terrible. You have a button for melee swipes, your gun shots, and your magic spells. Holding the button down yields stronger attacks. It’s a very basic combat system that, if anything, is more unique than the 3-hit-basic-combo styles of most action games. In fact, there are some pretty damned humourous finisher animations that spice up the fun of killing knee-high-tall trolls. But combat is about the only video game-like aspect to this video game. And since the punishment for death is minor (lose your progress towards your next single experience point, but otherwise get right back and continue fighting), you need not worry about strategizing your equipment or stocking on potions. What we have here is another case of a game where finishing it is an inevitability rather than a test of wits. Not that every game need be Super Meat Boy-like difficult, mind you. My real issue with Fable 3 is yet to come.

I don’t think it becomes much of a spoiler to reveal this aspect of the plot. At some point, you are going to overthrow your brother and become the King or Queen of Albion. The plot then takes a strange turn and forces you to make a series of moral choices. It’s hard for me to reveal much about this section of the game without ruining an otherwise solid plot (And the many degrees of brilliance Stephen Fry brings to this section of the game.) But I will say that the moral choices here suck the righteousness out of being good, and the sadistic fun out of being evil that Fable 2 brought to the table.

If not made apparent earlier, I am trying hard to dance around the issue of how this end-game unfurls. But the breaking point involved me making a long-term plan that involved buying properties and collecting rent. A bizarre-stable of Fable 2, after all, was making a ton of cash as a land owner. But with no warning or provocation, the game took me across a point of no return, and straight to the ending. I could have revisited the game and made a grasp at the various side quests, but what the endgame does to Albion left me in a rather bitter mood about all things Molyneux.

I’ve considered past games like Comic Jumper and No More Heroes to be so damned funny that they are more than worth overcoming their flaws. But Fable 3 is pushing the limit of my need for quirky humour. It’s got oodles of cheeky blokishness and memorable characters, but it’s also not particularly enjoyable on numerous fronts. Playing Fable 3 did give me the strong urge to play Fable 2, which is readily available for cheap prices, so maybe you should just revisit that instead.

3 stars