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• The 61FPS Review: Killzone 2

  NOTE: The following review and the grade attached to it are based entirely on Killzone 2’s single player campaign. Stay tuned to 61FPS for a follow-up, post-release examination of the game’s considerable multiplayer component. Guest contributor Adam Rosenberg covers games from his secret lair in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, typing, reading and playing the days away as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah. There may be hundreds of them, but first-person shooters can really be broken down into two categories. The first type of FPS is marked by a strong balance between play, narrative, difficulty and pacing. If that balance is good enough, the game warrants a full playthrough. The other type is competent and even entertaining, but it’s just one more game with a gun. For one reason or another, maybe the challenge isn’t engaging enough to keep me going, maybe it’s the story, this type loses my interest long before the credits roll. Guerilla Games’ Killzone 2 almost falls into the latter camp for me. Had it not been for the demands of this review, I never would have finished the game. I’m glad I stuck it out though. Killzone 2 stumbles in its first half. Unwieldy controls, awkward combat dynamics and an unfocused, impersonal narrative are a lethal combination. But during the game’s back half, everything gels. It just takes some time to get Read More... Posted Feb 27 2009, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: playstation 3, killzone, sony, call of duty, 61fps review, gears of war, call of duty 4, killzone 2, Adam Rosenberg, guerilla games, killzone liberation

• Star Ocean and the HD-JRPG Conundrum

  After literal years of anticipation on the part of geeks across the world, Square-Enix will finally release Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope for the Xbox 360 on February 24th, 2009. It’s a momentous occasion for the genre. Star Ocean is the first A-list JRPG franchise to make the leap to HD consoles. You can argue that Tales of Vesperia earned the honor first, but Namco’s Tales franchise is more a brand/masthead than a bonafide franchise, one even more diluted than the Final Fantasy heading. I’ve never cared for the Star Ocean series’ battle system – Penny Arcade said it best when they described Star Ocean’s battles as “deciding which character gets molested by lizard men” – and its science-fiction narrative has always been more interesting in concept than in execution. I want to be excited about Star Ocean 4, but not because I feel like I’m missing out on a series that so many other gamers seem to love. I just want to be excited about an HD-JRPG. JRPGs have been enjoying a renaissance on the DS, not unlike the one they had on the PS1 some twelve years back, but the genre has been woefully underserved on the 360 and PS3. Read More... Posted Jan 14 2009, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, little big planet, playstation 3, nintendo ds, xbox 360, final fantasy, lost odyssey, hironobu sakaguchi, infinite undiscovery, tales of vesperia, call of duty 4, persona 4, persona 3, Playstation 1, The last remnant, star ocean 4, blue dragon

• How Much Simpler Do ESRB Ratings Need To Get?

  At some point when I wasn't paying attention, the Internet began to boil about something the pre-presidential version of Barack Obama said about video games and violence. To paraphrase, he wants ESRB ratings to be clearer and explain more thoroughly what kind of content a concerned parent might find in Kill 'Em All IV. Admirable, but what's the point of novel-length content labels if parents refuse to bother getting past the letters? I'm generally patient with the human race, but damn if we sure don't like putting ourselves out. The typical adult defence against change is to whine, "I don't waaaaant to!" like a three-year-old. When change inevitably happens and new methods are applied to old systems, human survival instinct automatically kicks us into the proper response, which is to sit down hard on the floor and cry "I don't get it, it's too haaaard", followed by rubbing grimy fists into tear-stained eyes. This might account for why so many parents have simply chosen to ignore the ESRB: games aren't rated with the MPAA's safe and familiar alphabet. That, or a lot of parents are simply bone lazy. It's not to say the ESRB's system is failsafe (Rating a game "E10+" and merely citing "Suggestive Themes" is about as useful as citing it for "Peanut Butter Monkey Pants"), but the MPAA's system doesn't offer a thousand lines of detail, either. Nevertheless, movies seem to get in a lot less trouble than games. When some fish-eyed parent goes on television to scream (in between smoker's hacks) about the violence her five-year-old was exposed to in an R-rated movie, the world usually says in a collective voice, "Duh, the movie is rated R." The problem falls off the news as soon as someone takes footage of a monkey riding a dog like a horse. Read More... Posted Nov 11 2008, 06:09 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: nadia oxford, game violence, call of duty 4, esrb, mpaa, games ratings

• Boy Addicted to Call of Duty 4 Found Dead

  Phillipe, a five-year-old otter who resides in Achewood often tortures himself by asking his friend, LieBot, about sad occurrences in the world. "LieBot," he says, "what's the saddest thing?" LieBot is always obliging with an answer, usually something to do with a simple man crying over a cracked chicken egg and promising this egg that one day it will be a real chicken capable of a loving friendship. I felt as helpless as Phillipe when I read about the death of 15-year-old Brandon Crisp, a boy who ran away from home when his parents made him stop playing Call of Duty 4. It's especially bad news for his parents, who called his bluff and helped him back when he threatened to run away. Ouch ouch ouch. Crisp's disappearance brought to light a lot of discussion about video game addiction, some of it enlightening and a lot of it negative. There's been a small surge of "Look what games do to our kids" chest-thumping by alarmists who (as usual) ignore the core problem: addiction. Addiction has few prejudices. If Crisp hadn't become addicted to Call of Duty 4, he could have just as easily fallen into alcohol, drugs or monkey-sniffing. I do feel badly for his parents because they noticed a problem and tried to tackle it with good old fashioned discipline. Taking away the source of the issue makes sense, but fighting addiction is not like straight-up behaviour correction. I'm not a psychologist or even smart, but I believe the generation gap also played a part in the conflict. Read More... Posted Nov 06 2008, 02:56 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: xbox 360, xbox live, nadia oxford, brandon crisp, game addiction, call of duty 4