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The tale of souls and swords will never shut up, so stop asking.
Namco’s latest entry in their Soul series of 3D fighting games comes with a few changes that impact the game in interesting ways. Most of these ideas are drawn from 2D fighting games.
Soul Calibur, in case you don’t know, is very much a rock, paper, scissors type of game. The standard triangle is that vertical attacks beat horizontal attacks, sidesteps beat vertical attacks, and horizontal attacks beat sidesteps. There are a few other additions to this, such as throws, crouching and guarding, but that’s the basis of the game. In this new edition, they have added a meter for each character. With this meter, you can do Critical Edges (like supers in a 2D game which cost a full meter), Brave Edges (like EX moves in a 2D game, which cost half a meter) and Guard Impacts, which is a change for the game as usually guard impacts were free and just required you to press forward/back and guard. Now, however, they cost a meter and are executed using back+A+B+K. A is horizontal attack, B is vertical attack, K is kick and G is guard.
It has a few singleplayer modes, such as the standards (Arcade, Versus) but have added some others, like the Story mode, where you play through a short story involving the new characters to the game and their interactions with Soul Calibur, Soul Edge and other cast members. It’s quite weak, which is unfortunate as you have to play it to unlock some characters, a mechanic that I’d hoped by now was dying down in fighting games. I understand it may add longevity for a single-player experience, unlocking characters can be laborious and especially so when you want to play competitively. The more interesting mode to me in the ghost battle mode, as this is like the arcade simulation modes in Virtua Fighter 5 and Namco’s own Tekken series where you fight against a range of AI supposedly modelled on a spectrum of real players (they at least have the names of real players). It’s also a way to unlock titles for your online card, but we’ll come to that later. This mode is a good way to gauge your strength when you don’t have some friends or a good internet connection to practice with.
The training mode in this game is pretty extensive, and that is greatly appreciated. For each character, it shows basic gameplans, the top 5 best moves for a character, some sample combos and move punishing practice. This allows a beginner to really get their teeth into a new character quickly and easily. It also has a vast array of dummy and recording options for the advanced player who wants to test specific setup or figure out frame advantage/disadvantage for his or her self.
 Click the image for some Soul Calibur V gameplay from Teesside Fight Club. Online modes are becoming increasingly important for the success of a fighting game and thankfully for SCV it implements this almost flawlessly. The connection stability and action feels fluid, never too laggy, even sometimes on a 1-bar connection. This is essential for a fun experience, and I’m pleased it delivers. Ranked and player matches are presented nicely, 6-player rooms for player matches are available with full spectating and even text chat. It’s fully featured and sends the message that Namco understand that online modes are important to the community now. It’s good to see, in the wake of great games with bad online (I love you, KOF13, but seriously why are you terrible online?).
Namco have already shown a desire to control the character balance in this game, having already patched the game twice to try and fix this. It’s unfortunate that their method of doing this is by weakening the strong characters more than strengthening the weak characters, but it seems to be working, if only a little.
The issue I have with SoulCalibur in general is that you can’t really compete until you have a lot of data. You need to know when you have priority or when you have advantage so that you don’t get trapped. For a while you will keep attacking at the wrong time and just get destroyed over and over. It requires patience and learning, and if you have both, it’s very rewarding and a step up for the franchise from 3 and 4, which were both pretty disappointing. Pick it up if you like your fighters.
So EA finally decided there was a key sport missing from their console portfolio: Tennis. With established franchises like Virtua Tennis and Top Spin, you would expect it to be a challenge to get into the market. As a lover of both tennis games and tennis (I will be at the ATP World Tour Finals for the third time this year), I had to at least try their offering. How does it stand up? Not too badly, overall, but with some rookie mistakes.
As is common with EA Sports games at this point, there’s a double control stick method to playing as well as a button method. The stick method is called ‘Total Racquet Control’ and allows you to swing using the right stick while also selecting shot type and angle. This feels good for some shots, especially serves and topspins, but you find yourself going back to the traditional button controls. A is a flat shot, X is slice and Y is topspin, with some shortcuts for lob and drop shot usng the triggers. It is generally easier and often better to just play with the button controls, but I move between the two as I see fit. The swinging is timing based, but not as tight as it should be. You can swing far too early and still get the ball back into the opposite court, which when you’re given a ‘too early’ message seems silly. Obviously for an optimum shot you need ‘Good’ timing but often the difference is not as stark or impactful as it should be.
There are a few modes in the game, ranging
How long has it been since there was a truly good Sonic game? I’d wager Sonic Adventure 2 was that game. Since then, Sonic Team have unraveled and made some travesties of games (don’t even get me started on Sonic 06). Is Sonic Generations any different, then, I hear you cry?
Actually… yes.
The concept of Sonic Generations is to celebrate Sonic’s birthday in style, and boy did it. With the wonders of deus ex machina, time travel puts Sonic’s world(s) into chaos due to the Time Eater, the mysterious entity that has sucked up levels from Sonic’s past and captured all of his friends (unfortunately they don’t stay captured). Anyway, the plot is not important, this is a sonic game. What we need to know is how does it play?
For the most part, very well. Each level from Sonic’s past is split into 2 acts, classic pudgy short Sonic, and modern lanky spiky Sonic. Classic is purely 2D whereas Modern is a mix of the 2. I was surprised, but the Modern levels actually generally play better than their classic counterparts. Maybe it’s just the adrenalin rush of going fast, but the Modern obstacle courses and speed traps feel good again, like they always should have. The same old problems (camera, bad homing jump tracking) occasionally apply, but they’re not so bad this time around. Classic levels however are altogether a slower affair, with Sonic occasionally feeling sluggish, but once you figure out the route and learn when to jump, you can stay on the top path and feel like you’re playing on a Mega Drive, albeit with better graphics and different physics. They tried to emulate the original physics, but I don’t think they succeeded, on the whole. Sonic’s a bit floaty. However, it doesn’t really matter.
 Familiar? Should be. The 9 levels are split up into 3 blocks: Mega Drive (Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary), ‘Dreamcast’(Speed Highway, City Escape, Seaside Hill) and Modern (Crisis City, Rooftop Run, Planet Wisp). By far their greatest achievement was making Crisis City really playable. If you know where the level came from and how it used to play (if you don’t, I implore you not to find out), it’s a christmas miracle.
After each block of 3 levels you have to collect boss keys by doing a challenge in each level. There are 10 challenges for each level, 5 for classic, 5 for modern. They range from such activities as racing the other Sonic, getting some help from your friends, earning new shields and even some puzzles. Whenever you complete them, you unlock artwork or a song. Some of the songs are remixed and well worth hunting down. Once you have them, you get a boss battle. As usual, these are pretty disappointing, unless you’re really riding the nostalgia wave. What are more fun, however, are the 3 mini-bosses, where you must take down 3 of your past rivals in Metal Sonic, Shadow and Silver. All of these battles are fast paced and fun, and earn you a chaos emerald which you need to finish the game. When you get through all of those, there’s a final boss to do, which is in the 3D tradition of 2 Super’d hedgehogs vs a big bad. It’s kinda dull, unfortunately, but worth it to see the cheesy ending.
One thing I haven’t yet mentioned is the little cutscenes. They’re actually pretty well done, full of self-referential humour and fourth wall breaks. They still get hand on head painful at times though, so be careful.
The graphics are on the whole of high quality, but some levels get confusing and it can be hard to tell foreground from background (which is sometimes intentional, like in Seaside Hill where 2 or 3 paths run parallel to each other). The sound is great, with classic sound effects and a vast array of music from Sonic’s past, rearranged for modern times or as their originals if you unlock them.
If you are, or have ever been, a Sonic fan, you must play this game.
Do you want the best version of bomberman that ever existed? 10 players at a time? All the options you could want? Buy this game, then, go on.
 GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLL!
…sorry, I don’t have much to say on this one. It’s bomberman, you blow people up and they shout at you when you trap them. It has an inconsequential but pretty fun single player mode. It supports 10 players via multi-tap, and a has a lot of different items and good maps. It’s the best console version there is.
Toaplan. Say this name to a shmup fan, and they will go dewey-eyed. Toaplan are the precursors of Cave, and as such this is the percursor of Cave’s signature style: the danmaku, or bullet-hell.
As such, this game has a lot going for it. The music is great, the gameplay is great, the designs are great. It looks a little choppy, but otherwise it is…great.
 Classic Cave, except not. The main gameplay mechanics ars you’d expect of any modern vertical shmup. You have a rapid shot and a hold shot, and the hold shot slows you down. The rapid shot has a wider range but does less damage. You also have smart bombs, which clear the screen of bullets.
There are a few extras though, in the form of a leveling system. As you progress, you collect stars which count as experience. Collect enough, and your weapons gets more awesome. Upgrades are persistent across credits, so credit feeding is okay.
By the way, you’ll probably need to credit feed. This game is balls hard. The reward for 1cc’ing is more than likely a large wave of smug satisfaction.
Play this, and witness history in the making. Warning though, this is expensive. Might wanna find other means or just watch a superplay.
…is shit. And it’s got nothing to do with the porting (which is in fact excellent).
Ok, it isn’t, but I have reasons to call it an average Sonic game.
Sonic CD was developed in Japan while STI and Sonic Team in America were developing Sonic 2. As such, some people consider it a sequel of the original game too. In actual timeline, I don’t honestly know where it goes, but there’s no Tails (or there wasn’t before this port). It’s a tale of Sonic wanting to be a DeLorean. In other words, there’s time travel involved, but we’ll get to that later. You have to move through the past to create a good future and fix the world from its impending doom. It was the birth of both Amy and Metal Sonic.
First of all, the physics are very much like Sonic 1. This is good in general, although there is the addition of the peelout, which lets you run fast from stopping by holding up+a, then letting go of a to move. This solves the ‘can’t get up slopes’ issue from Sonic 1, and is welcomed.
However, the levels in Sonic 1 were generally well designed. The worlds here generally aren’t. While the first level, Palmtree Panic, plays well, it quickly goes downhill until you get to Wacky Workbench. I cannot describe in words quite how much I dislike this level, so I’ll keep it short: A BOUNCY FLOOR EVERYWHERE? WHY?! Of course, that also means jumping blindly into traps, such as electrified fences and spiky balls. To top it all off, it’s sometimes hard to tell what is background and what is foreground.
 whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Ok, I know I’m a bit harsh on this game, but it’s because its design seems to clash with the concept of Sonic that I analogise it with; the concept of running fast and to the right and usually upwards, the concept of finding the optimal path on the fly and spotting ways to easier ground. With this, however, exploration is forced twofold. First of all, the spring placement in most places forces you to memorise them or follow the path they’re forcing you to retread, just because you *might* find something. Secondly, to get the proper ending, you must find the statues and destroy them. This can only be done in the past, and some of them are in amazingly obtuse hideyholes.
One major high point is the soundtrack (Well the EU/JP one, the US one while okay is not as good). This soundtrack is actually pretty left field, and offers some cool and interesting tunes, such as brlaugh, whoooo and movethatass. The visual design is also pretty nice too, with a lot of bold and daring colour schemes.
Maybe I just don’t *get* this game, but it’s not the classic Sonic game Sonic Hipsters would have you believe.
Did you ever play Capcom’s Puzzle Fighter? Now, I dunno which one came first (I’m pretty sure it’s this one, because it was also on Master System), but one of them stole from the other.
In this charming but mental puzzle game, you must match animals to their lunch. Tiles of carrots, dog bones, bamboo leaves and bananas drop from the sky and you must organise them for when the animals arrive. When the correct animal is connected to the food, it eats all of it that is continuously connected (not diagonally).
 Animal Crackers. As usual with this type of thing, the key is chaining, and by structuring long combos, you send more garbage to your opponent. Oh, yes, this is a 2-player game, and the idea is to fill your opponents grid. You better make sure you’ll kill them though, as if they get a combo from what you dropped, it’s only gonna come back to you. See why I compare it to Puzzle Fighter? The crash gem type machanic is strongly in force here.
The whole thing is nothing if not bright and colourful, and it’s insanity will eventually grip you until you get a little addicted. There are plenty of computer opponents to take on and beating them is no mean feat, but grab a friend and let the real battle begin.
I have long professed a love for the original Rayman game. Charming, colourful and difficult in all the right places, it has a special place in my gaming history. But then, it all went 3d, and while 2 was good, Rayman was stuck on a downward spiral for a long time. Now though, he has gone back to his roots, and my, is it glorious.
Rayman Origins is a basic tale of rescuing a world where the story is clearly not that important, and that’s fine. It is still massively engaging, due to its arresting visual style. A cartoony, hand-drawn look where everything is lush and bright and attractive.
 The fiery cooking zone. The gameplay is very much that of a classic 2D plaformer, with running and jumping being the main focus, but rayman (and his friends) has some tricks up his sleeve. First is his projectile fist, which can be sent further by winding him up. I guess this is where having completely detached hands and feet comes in handy. It can also be used to grab things and hang from ledges. He can also run fast and temporarily fly with his hair, a skill that it is essential to get to grips with if you want to be in full control. Using his various techniques, movement feels fluid and natural, which is aided by the quality of the animation on the characters.
It’s not that hard to be good at the game, but it wants you to be perfect. This is symbolised by the rewards at the end of each level for collecting lums, the yellow and red sparks, which are essential to unlocking new levels and worlds to explore, as well as extra characters to play as. To find enough to get all of the bonus electoons from the end of level meter, you will need to explore skillfully. Finding hidden places with lums (or even cages, which I’ll get to soon) is necessary for the maximum scores, as is making good use of the king lum, which turns all lums red for a period of time which makes them worth double their usual value. Making sure you get the most possible from those periods of time can be challenging, but if you want to complete the game to its fullest you need to, and I feel the game is its most rewarding if you do so.
Cages are back from the original Rayman, and they are hidden behind doors on normal stages. These doors could be hidden behind what looks like scenery, but generally a few stray lums will point you in the direction of the door, much like bananas in the Donkey Kong Country series. A level is not complete until you find all cages, and their criteria is usually as follows: 2 hidden in level, 1 for completing level, up to 2 for end of level lum count, and 1 for time attacking the stage which can only be done after you complete it once. The time attacking is also a lot of fun and requires you to make very little in the way of mistakes.
There are a few special types of stages, besides the standard platforming. Most worlds end in a horizontal scrolling shooter stage, and these stages feel like of the quality that you could release those stage alone as a shooter on XBLA and it would get decent reviews at the very least. They tend to reward risky play but could be frustrating to someone not used to that genre. There are also underwater stages that, by some form of magic, are not boring. Rayman feels almost agile in these stages and doesn’t slow the action down like traditionally happens in underwater platformer stages. The final type is the treasure chase. There are 10 ruby teeth that unlock a bonus world, but each is contained in a treasure chest. To get the tooth, you must chase the chest through a autoscrolling, crumbling stage where one mistake will tend to see you falling off the left side of the screen. Speed and precision are required for these (optional) stages, and deliver a great sense of satisfaction when completing them.
A feature that was pushed forward in marketing a lot was up to 4 player co-op in the style of New Super Mario Bros Wii, where co-op partners can put themselves in a bubble for safety. There are no levels where extra players are a distinct advantage, however, so consider it a diversionary way to enjoy the game with friends, but not much else.
One thing I’ve yet to mention is the sound.However, that’s not because it’s bad. In fact, it really adds to the jolly, fun-loving atmosphere of the entire experience, and ramps up the tension for some stages. The theme for the treasure chases in particular is brilliant.
I honestly can’t say enough good words about this game or how happy I am that it even exists. Just go try it why doncha? There’s a demo on XBLA,PSN and Steam.
It’s tempting to not expect much for 80 Microsoft points (around 80 pence, I believe) but then you remember the app store and it’s wealth of great 59p experiences. So, what should you spend your MSP change on? Here’s one suggestion.
Birth Order is, on the face of it, a shmup. You’re an oversized ship with massive guns, and you shoot enemies and bosses out of the sky.
You have 4 weapons, each corresponding to the face buttons. The game will tell you which button to use on every enemy, and your shots auto-aim so you never have to worry about lining up with enemies, just choosing the right weapon is enough. This can throw you off initially but once you understand it, it flows well.
Enemies can shoot 2 types of bullets: pink, that are cancelled into collectable stars when you kill the enemy, and orange, which can not be removed from the screen and must be dodged.
 Explosions and shootings. The collectable stars lead nicely into the experience system. The main hub of the game is like a board game, full of hexagonal tiles. To progress, you must complete a stage on each hexagon to find new levels and hunt down the 6 keys. These keys are guarded by bosses, marked on the map, and let you access the final boss. While you’re going through levels, you will pick up cards, whch will prove essential to your survival. The cards provide evolutions (of which there are 4, and offer you power-ups, and are recommended to all be collected before you head to the final boss), stage-temporary powerups (like drones to follow you around and shoot, commonly know as ‘options’, a power to make no orange bullets appear, a smart bomb and a card collector), extra stars and cards that autocomplete tiles or show you further into the map.
Your field of vision is small to start and you must wander blindly to find favourable tiles, like boss squares, extra life squares and star squares. This game is purely survival, as there is no score to attack. This will put a decent amount of STG fans immediately, but I implore them to give it another look.
It’s a fairly unique entry in its genre, and its novelty is certainly worth a few playthrough at less than a quid.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I love this gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.
…ahem.
King Of Fighters 13 is the continuation of the KOF series from SNK-Playmore. After the diabolical incarnation of 12, that was basically a tech demo for the new sprite art method, this game puts all the systems in place and shows itself to be a game that deserves to stay on the scene for the long haul.
The story, as ever, is convoluted, but mainly concerns the androgynous Ash and the just-as-androgynous Saiki. Saiki is the leader of Those From The Past, who wish to re-awaken the Orochi, and Ash wishes to put a stop to it by pretending to help Saiki then betraying him in his final hour. Then there’s some time travel and they both cease to exist. I don’t get it either, really.
That’s not important anyway, what is important is the characters. There are 33 characters (and 3 DLC characters) from various other SNK franchises, past KOF games and a few new faces. No one character is so unbalanced as to break the game, but there are a few problem cases. Benimaru, for example, has literally every tool a character could need and is therefore top tier. However, every character is viable, as of now. Just let that sink in.
 Colooours. Click for video. As always, it’s a 3 on 3 non-tag team battle game, which adds a focus on meter management and team ordering. Some characters are natural anchors(played in last position), which generally means they can do their best damage with meter at their disposal, and natural point(played in first position), where they can do good damage without meter and actively build meter. A character with good fireballs tends to fit this role.
As with all KOF games, there’s an extra few layers to movement on top of the standard capcom model. There are hops, which are jumps done by tapping which allow you to pressure more quickly and at a different angle. They are an essential part of being good at this game. There’s also rolls, which allow you to move through projectiles and out of traps. However, they can be thrown or baited, so you have to be careful not to overuse them or you risk being punished repeatedly.
The game has 2 main meter systems, a standard super meter of which you can have up to 5 stocks, and a HD meter, which allows you drive cancels and HD mode. Drive cancels allow you to, on hit, cancel a special move into another special move, allowing you to continue combos. In a sense, it works as an anti-infinite combo device, as loops are possible but only due to using meter, be it for a drive cancel, HD activation or power-up super. When you are in HD mode, you get unlimited drive cancels (knows as HD cancels in this mode) and allows you to cancel on block, instead of just on hit. It also makes available the MAX cancel, which allows you to cancel into the Neomax, your most powerful move.
Execution is pretty hard in this game, and a lot of people will be put off by the high skill ceiling, which is unfortunate, because combos in this game are so satisfying to hit. I don’t exaggerate when I say it feels much better to get a full HD combo than any long combo in any other game I’ve played. It’s also a game that doesn’t let you hide behind systems to win by comeback mechanic *COUGHTHISDECADECAPCOMCOUGH*, and you have to commit to every decision you make. This is vital in making the game feel fair and competitive.
Just buy it, for the love of- If you like fighting games AT ALL, you should love this.
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