A master-class in poor licensing.

With three reviews, COD Vita is sitting on a 30/100.

Call of Duty, the largest game franchise in the world, produces a game worse than a port of a Gameloft iOS port. How could such a thing happen? How could Activision have been so stupid?

That’s the question we should all be asking of them. Looking at how much of a money maker this could have been for the Vita (and a system seller) it’s almost unbelievable that they would take such a lazy approach to their most valuable brand. Let’s try and de-construct.

They chose a poorly reviewed developer, and gave them no time.

Nihilistic games were contracted to create this game for Activision. Their recent efforts have not been the most acclaimed, for instance the Resistance Franchise’s Burning Skies for the Vita was released earlier this year from Nihilistic, and it received some mixed reviews ending up with a 60 on the metacritic scale. This is one of Sony’s big franchises and they give a lot of time and thought into who they work with. It looks like Nihilistic was given just over a year to work on this game after they made the underwhelming Playstation Move Heroes (53/100) on the Playstation 3.

With the work that they had done on the Vita device, building an engine and having the only real FPS on the system (other shooters being third person), the bean counters at Activision thought they would leverage their work, and get them to make a Call of Duty game. This in itself was not a huge mistake, given the right leadership and support from their publisher Nihilistic could have created a serviceable game, but they decided that this game should be released for the 2012 holiday season.

All these games so far, are reviewed higher than a Call of Duty game if trends continue it should be right there at the bottom 30/100.

This puts Nihilistic in an incredibly difficult situation. Release a game they know will be bad and get a straight cash sum for it, or not have a project to work on. There’s a lot of blame to go around, but Nihilistic software shouldn’t receive much of it, considering the critical response of their last game they weren’t really getting their doors knocked down by publishers to get work, but they came upon the worlds biggest gaming franchise. Why not take the job? A paycheck is a paycheck and a developer needs to keep their doors open. Now that the game has been released Nihilistic has changed their name of 14 years to get away from the bad press.

Metro UK review should go up soon as well… 30/100

What were some of the tell-tale signs this game would be a bust?

1. Media blackout

For one, there were no screenshots, game videos or details until months after the original announcement. Games like Soul Sacrifice or Killzone Mercenary, games that weren’t due out until next year had full trailers at E3 that showcased at least some gameplay. But nothing for the game that would be released in less than 6 months time. No one knew who the developer of the game would be either until a few months later! This type of secrecy is strange in such a close-knit community.

2. No series actors reprised their roles

There are many different characters in the Call of Duty universe, but the ones that appear in Declassified are the same ones that appeared in the first “Black Ops” game. Despite this Nihilistic/Activision didn’t get any of the original actors. This shows that they made the game on the cheap, why pay Hollywood stars the full rate when you can get a local actor to do the same for almost nothing? At this point only one actor from the production has added it to their IMDB profile, meaning they would rather not broadcast they were part of this production, just like how Ben Aflfeck might not want people to remember Gigli.

3. No early review copies for game reviewers

Reminiscent of the movie industry, when a studio knows a film is a dud, they don’t show it to critics, because the bad reviews prevent those first weekend ticket sales, and then their advertising strategy is cut down at the knees. This is the same thing that has happened with COD vita. Commercials were created for the new Call of Duty game on Vita, and to prevent everyone knowing how bad the product is, they hid it from the public.

4. The developer retreating forever more from retail, while changing their name.

Even before the game was released Nihilistic software decided they would change their name to NStigate games and work on digital titles only. This seems like the only way the developer could survive the negativity it’s received from gamers, just because they were trying to keep food on the table. It’s quite easy to blame them, but the fault is really with Activision.

What does this mean for the platform? And the franchise?

The PSVita is in need of a killer app, I think that anyone can agree that despite the console`s strengths, sales are not one of them. Call of Duty was like a beacon of hope for the device, something that would differentiate it significantly in the eyes of consumers are more adult than the 3DS, and more “hardcore” than iOS games. But what we’ve received is a buggy, overly short (most reviewers complete single player in an hour or less), disgrace of a game.

Call of Duty as a franchise will continue to chug on, but there’s no doubt that it will burn anyone who buys this game. That’s just a shame, and something we as gamers should be vocal about with the publisher. It’s a sad day for handheld gaming that’s for sure.

PSoneclassics.com

A shot of some of the great graphics in this game on Vita

Wow is the only thing to say.

Having PS Plus on Vita (Launching on November 20) will get you most of the system sellers for the system.

Uncharted Golden Abyss – regularly $45 on store

Gravity Rush – reg. $36

Wipeout 2048 – reg $36

Mutant Blob Attacks – reg $7.99

Jet Set Radio Debut – Reg $9.99

So that’s right, you get all these games for free on the 20th of November, if you have a Vita or not. That’s about $140 worth of games for FREE. ($140 dollars of games that I’ve already bought actually). But that’s not all! You also get a free PSP game, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions usually $9.99, which was a remake of FF Tactics for PSone.

I think it’s become an amazing time to be a PS Plus owner myself (even though I am not yet a member and already own these games).

For those of you on the fence about grabbing a Vita, I think this call is for you.

PSoneclassics.com

Via the Playstation Blog.

Earlier today I read that Robert Florence stepped down from Eurogamer due to an article he wrote about Games Journalists taking PS3′s as “gifts” (See Bribes) to post a tweet about the upcoming Tomb Raider game. What’s amazing is that any mention of those particular journalists in the article were removed by Eurogamer due to a supposed threat of a libel suit against the publication from one of the offended journalists.

Many of the offended have been defending themselves from this criticism saying there’s nothing wrong with receiving things to advertise for games. This case shows the sick and twisted nature of big name games journalism, which I have railed against many times before, getting chewed out by many of course, even having other journalists tell me that I’ll never get “in the inner circle of reviewers” because I am critical of others.

I’m hoping that Robert Florence gets a new job after this, it seems like he’s one of the only people in the industry with the balls to say what’s going on. Good on you.

Via Reddit. (link)

PSoneclassics.com

The adventure game IS coming to the Vita.

Machinarium confirmed coming to the Vita

Amanita Design sent out a little bit of info about Machinarium coming to US and Asian PSN, but what really got my eye is that they are working on a PSVita version.

The game was released a month ago on European PSN and has since been downloaded by more than one hundred thousand players (I am also informed that is has a 92% rating right now on SCEE). It should be released on October 9th in NA, and October 18th in Asia.

As for the PSVita version they say they’re working hard on it, but they have no idea when it will be released, hopefully soon!

Machinarium is an indie adventure game that originally came to PC, the PC version has an 85 % rating on Metacritic. If you’re interested it’s coming soon! I think I’ll wait for the Vita version, just seems like it would work great on a handheld.

PSoneclassics.com

Should you grab this on PSN?

The 3rd Birthday (PSP)

The 3rd Birthday is the third game in the Parasite Eve series, I’ve already reviewed Parasite Eve 1, and Parasite Eve 2, so I thought I might as well finish off the trilogy, continue on to the review of this PSP game.

Original release: March 29th 2011 (NA)

PSN Price: 19.99

Developed by: Hexa Drive

Published by: Square Enix

Gameplay

This series has changed a lot through each sequel. The first game was a mostly straight forward RPG with some cool shooting elements, the second game was a Resident Evil style shooter, this third game in the series is different still, a 3rd person shooter with some light RPG elements. The most innovative part of the game is a body jumping mechanic, which does something completely new.

The body jumping works sort of cruelly on the part of other soldiers. You switch between these other soldiers fighting against a mutated enemy called the twisted (I’ll speak more about that in the Story part of this review). So you take over their bodies and if you health has been exhausted you just switch to another soldier while your old “husk” dies. Other than that cruelty it’s actually a pretty interesting mechanic, it was done a few times before but never as well as in the 3rd Birthday.

The shooting mechanic works well enough, especially if you’re playing the game on the Vita (the dual analogue sticks really help). It is a little repetitive though. Eventually you’ll get a cramp in your trigger finger. But there are a few things that make it a little different. There are some light squad controls where you can order your fellow soldiers to take on a target with you for instance, but you can really become them all with a quick switch, so if they aren’t in the correct spot (like not standing behind cover), you can jump into their bodies and get them back into place.

The 3rd Birthday 3rd person shooting.

There’s a more magical/biological aspect to the gameplay as well, the overdrive mechanics, in this way you can jump into enemies to deal more damage, and if you build up a special meter you can go into “overdrive mode” where you deal a way more damage and your speed is upped for a short period.

The RPG elements are limited to upgrading your weapons and your DNA, you get new DNA pieces by diving into enemies through the overdrive mechanic. Upgrading your weapons are a must, starting out with only 180 bullets in your assault rifle puts your in a tough place, and eventually I ended up with being able to hold 900 at a time. The DNA upgrades were always a bit of a mystery for me though, the game doesn’t do a good job at teaching you what you need to do to take proper advantage. You can take a look at some online guides… but that’s really a detriment to the game.

Gameplay over all is decent enough, but every area is a grind, and other than a few new weapons and some light RPG elements, the gameplay stays the same throughout, making it tedious by the end.

Graphics

This game is actually gorgeous, it’s a PSP game but being released late in the cycle means that the game was really well optimized. Everything flows really well on screen even with a lot of enemies (and friendlies) on screen. The particle effects are actually pretty spectacular. The twisted are well designed, and their animations are pretty well done. Square Enix actually did a great job on the production side of all their PSP games, and the 3rd Birthday is no different. The music is done well, and the pre-rendered cutscenes are just as good as any game on a home console.

The art style in the 3rd Birthday is pretty interesting as well, there are numerous types of “Twisted” that show a decent amount of imagination. Overall the graphics in this game are excellent for a PSP game, and it looks even better on the Vita’s OLED screen.

At least there’s no Coca Cola commercials in this one (unlike PE2).

Story

Usually I put the story aspect at the start of the review, but this game deserves a special mention on story.

The game starts with the Twisted attacking New York, and the humans lose. You spend your time going back in time inhabiting people’s bodies to change history. After every mission history is altered, so perhaps you get a new character who survived, they come back to life and wonder why you’re acting so strange. This is interesting enough, even if it takes a bit of time to get used to. Every mission ends with a huge boss battle, some of which are pretty tough, and you actually need to think out a decent strategy before you proceed.

You continue doing this right up until some of the final missions. At this point you’re looking for answers  as to what happened, why your character had lost her memory, etc. No matter what you think you’re going to get with the final act you’ll be disappointed. Out of almost any game I’ve played in the past few years, this game has the most disappointing and convoluted story. It seems like at one part they just fired the writers and just had the interns finish up the story. It might sound like a bit of a stretch, but you have to believe me on this one.

Also the characters in the game are mostly new (except two) and because they lost the rights to continue the original story (it started out as a Japanese novel), the ones that have stuck around, Aya Brea and Maeda are completely different. Aya changed from being a strong independent female to becoming an over sexualized and constantly victimized amnesiac. Maeda the Japanese scientist who helped out Aya in the other games has now become some sort of pervert who sends Aya creepy messages over radio. It’s just a tough sell to anyone that has played the other games in the series, and anyone who wants their game stories to make any sense. Even the translation of the script is badly done, I mean the voice acting is fine, but even the best actors couldn’t have made this story worthwhile.

Is the 3rd Birthday worth it?

Overall I would say no, the graphics and production values are top notch, the gameplay is decent too but it gets a little repetitive. The deal breaker is the story. It’s too bad that all the great production values were spent on this flawed story. Who knows if they’ll be another game in the series, but considering that they lost the rights to continue the original story, and they made their lead characters into one dimensional tropes, there’s no real reason to hope for another.

6/10

Megaman and many more Capcom titles coming Tuesday to the Vita store.

Well Done SCEA!

SCEA has gotten a little more work done, and that means that we get a few more PSoneclassics to buy off the PSN store for you Vita, including some games that didn’t even transfer via PS3 before. This info comes from the Playstation Blogcast but they stated that they didn’t announce them ALL. Which is sort of an annoyance, but really they won’t be available until Tuesday’s update. Also New Little King’s Story will be released on the Vita, and there are a few Vita demos out as well.

I’ve actually reviewed quite a lot of these games, so click the link if you’re looking to see what I thought of these games as PSoneclassics.

Here are the PSoneclassics coming to Vita as stated by Rey from the Blogcast. 

Spec ops games

Megaman 1,2,3,4 (Megaman 1 review, Megaman 2 review)

Darkstalkers

Street fighter Alpha games, 

Dino Crisis 1 and 2, 

Breath of Fire 4

Resident Evil 1, 2, 3 (Director’s Cut Review, RE2 Review, Re3 Nemesis review)

Final Fantasy 6,8,9 tactics, origins, (Final Fantasy 8 review)

Parasite Eve games (PE1 Review, PE2 Review)

Not transferable before even through PS3, now coming to Vita.

Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, 

Legend of mana

Tomb Raider 2, 3, Last Revelation

 This makes over 100 PSoneclassics available on Vita

With these extra games the PSoneclassics count on the Vita goes up to 113 games, lets hope they keep updating these until we get everything, we still haven’t seen classics like Metal Gear Solid, Xenogears and the Crash Bandicoot games in NA, (but are available in other regions). Blood Omen Legacy of Kain is something that everyone should experience… Ah… all in due time let’s hope.

PSoneclassics.com

GTA3

If you haven’t played it, Grand Theft Auto 3 is coming to PSN today.

Grand Theft Auto 3 is the first game in the franchise to really make it big, when it became a 3rd person action game. GTA3 has been on almost every platform ever, and it coming back to PSN (as a PS2Classic) is a welcome addition, especially since it was released on iOS about 6 months ago. There’s no price set for it yet, but all other PS2 classics on the network cost $9.99, so that might be an indication.

GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas were rated by the ESRB a while ago, so people have been waiting forever to get it released. Let’s hope that it gets ported to Playstation Mobile as well! Then you could play it on your Vita (or your tablet, or PSmobile cellphone).

PSoneclassics (and PS2classics.com)

Pretty straight forward boxart.

A new PSoneclassic!

Turnabout is a puzzle game coming to PSN that has 150 puzzles in it! I haven’t heard of this game before, so we’ll see if people are excited for it, but admitantly, I’ll be playing LBP Vita today instead of this… but if you’re looking for a new puzzle game, you got it!

No idea if this works on Vita, one would assume it should.

PSoneclassics.com

And with this, every war game boxart was born.

Medal of Honor

I originally reviewed this game on the PSP and PS3, and at that point there was a bug that would stop you from continuing, if you A. Died, B. completed a mission, or C. looked at your console funny. Now on the Vita, it seems like those problems are behind us, so I managed to complete the game and here it is, another review.

Original release date: November 11th, 1999

Release date on PSN: June 2nd, 2009

Price : 5.99

Story

For the uninitiated Medal of Honor is a World War 2 game, you take control of agent Patterson a member of the OSS, the “Office of Strategic Services” which was a honest to god military intelligence service that was the pre-cursor to the CIA. You and Mr. Patterson go behind enemy lines and kill lots of Germans, and stop a lot of secret Nazi weapons programs too, that are also based in history.

Character wise you’re not going to get a lot out of it. Even though the story was written by the great Stephen Spielberg, there is no real story other than see Nazi, shoot Nazi. There’s no dialogue with other characters, as you’re a single operator through-out the game. Any narration you hear is in the cut-scenes between missions, they’re really interesting actually because they’re historical films of real WW2 weapons. But don’t expect to see you character grow or there be any twists in the story.

Gameplay

This was built to be a Goldeneye like experience, and gameplay wise I agree, it plays a lot like it. You get many different weapons, the standards, hand guns, shot guns, etc. The accuracy of the weapons are a little off it seems though, making some weapons way overpowered. If you have a rifle, you’ll headshot everyone you see, being stuck with a shotgun and a machine gun in later levels though can be a pain. While playing on the Vita touching the back pad (where R2 would be) you get the cross hairs just like you remember on Goldeneye. This was a lot tougher on the PSP,  the dual analog sticks on the Vita make this game much easier to control

The missions are objective based, but there isn’t a lot of variety. You collect this list here, then plant a bomb here, sometimes you have to show a passport for a little stealth action, but that’s a very small portion of the game. There aren’t any escort missions which might be a godsend, but it probably would have given you someone to talk to at least. It gets to be a bit of a grind without a story.

The difficulty ramps up like crazy by the end of the game as well, (someone decided to give the Nazi’s rocket launchers at some point). That can get a little frustrating, but it’s not too bad.

There’s a multiplayer mode as well, but I didn’t test that out, but I heard you can get cheats to challenge a Velociraptor as William Shakespeare.

Shooting nazi’s pretty simple concept.

Graphics

Medal of Honor is not a looker. It’s strength comes though animations. It was one of the first games where enemies would react depending where you shot them. They catch a bullet in the foot they hop around, the arm, they cover it and etc. They will even follow you by crawling into vents something I haven’t seen in games in the latest generation, which sort of surprised me. The music is excellent though, orchestral score by Michael Giacchino the Academy Award winning composer of films like Mission Impossible 3, Up, the Incredibles etc.

The levels are a bit like mazes, and you do get caught in a lot of corridor shooting. This is mostly due to the draw distance in Medal of Honor, it is really short. It’s even tough to use a Sniper rifle, because most of the time you can’t see the soldiers shooting at you due to the distance problem. This is obviously due to the PSX limitations at the time, but it’s still frustrating getting shot at by someone you can’t see, so you have to fire wildly into the night hoping you hit the source of lead.

Is Medal of Honor worth playing?

I had fun with it, but going through the review has really made me a bit more negative on the whole thing. It’s an interesting game that’s for sure, but the little annoyances really nip at your heels. The end of the game does sort of end abruptly as well. You would have thought with a game backed by Spielberg you would get something, instead you get a 15 second clip announcing victory. The gameplay is decent in Medal of Honor, but the total lack of story doesn’t really drive you forward to complete it.

Medal of Honor is a functional shooter, but with nothing to really get you invested other than shooting Nazis.

7/10

PSoneclassics.com

Sept 18th, will have more PSoneclassics coming to the Vita according to the Playstation blog podcast, those games that will be purchasable from the Vita are….

2 extreme

backstreet billards

The rest of the PSone trilogy now available on Vita

bowling

coolboarders 3

destruction derby

Jumping Flash 1 & 2

Jetmoto 2

Medieval

Metal slug x

Rally cross

Syphon filter 2 and 3

King of fighters 99

Warhawk

A lot of fans of the Wild Arms series will be happy for this one

Wildarms 2

Wipeout

They also stated that “Snowy the Bear’s Adventures” is a psone game coming to the Vita, but it’s actually a PSmini instead. I believe it is the same for “Crimson Room” as well, which was also stated.

PSoneclassics.com