PS3™ Impressions

 So, much happened since I was able to put my hands on this powerful machine for the first time, the one that is named Playstation 3™: I've started and finished Assassin's Creed, mastered the multiplayer-mode of Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, chilled a lot with skate. and crashed a lot more with Burnout: Paradise - not to mention the nice demos. But was this all worth 4oo€ or even the launch price of 6oo€? Let's hear what I think. [...]
(show me)(don't show me)

First, there is Assassin's Creed which was the reason for my brother to buy the console before christmas in the first place. I, myself would have waited for the next price drop - I expect it in the end of March - but he couldn't wait. Well, now I probably have to buy my own, for reasons I may explain in a later psot, so again I calmly anticipate the end of March. The game itself looked spectacularly good in the first trailer it was announced with and it still looks good with its actual gameplay graphics. But that's how it is nowadays: the games look good. Damn good. There's more effort put into visuals than any other part of a game. And with lots of games you can not only see but "feel" it, too. When the gameplay's bad or dull, I mean, et cetera. At least that's what I think with most of today's games. Especially those that are released for the PS3™. Only few bring challenging gameplay and even less are exclusive to Sony's wonder machine.

That's the case with Assassin's Creed. It sure is fun to play in the first 3o to 6o minutes, a very satisfying mix of innovative and prooven-to-be-good, well tried game mechanics (a little bit of Metroid, a little bit of Metal Gear Solid ...), until you assassinated your first victim for the first time - some people might have needed less time for that which is something to discuss in one of the next paragraphs - but then it just keeps repeating itself. I mean, the story progresses of course but the gameplay is just this in a for(i=1; i<=9; i++)-loop, if you know what I mean. I missed some variation here.

The obligatory parts of the game are quite thin, examined per iteration, but the optional stuff is huge. I mean this world of Jerusalem, Damascus, Acre and the kingdom connecting these towns is an open world, gigantic in its extent and there are several things hidden in and scattered over it, flags to collect, Templars to assassinate, towers and therefore view points to overmaster. Personally I spent most of my time playing this game with looking for these things. That's why I described it as an Exploration-Game when asked by my brother and his girlfriend - total strangers to this sheer phenomenal videogame world I live in - because if you want to achieve 1oo% of the game you'll search flags majorly. Which is quite thin in terms of game motivation. Thin enough though to catch my full attention and seize and squeeze the life out of me - but that's another story ... ;^p

[ Woody's Checkpoint: # top # ]

The controls were quite powerful giving the player the options to sneak around or burst into the action, but was it simple? I don't think so. I mean, in terms of climbing there was no problem at all, you just had to push up or down to climb up or down. As easy as a jump in real-life. And very well animated, too. Like in Uncharted which I've seen only in trailers and in a demo yet, very fluid changes between the different states of the character. But in order to run I had to hold not only the direction but also the R1 button to activate the conspicuous "action"-stance/mode and the X button to sprint. Three buttons/sticks just to run! It took me some serious convincing skills to keep ignoring that.

The music and overall atmosphere really worked well though, for both the "in"-in-game scenes and the "meta"-scenes that connect the levels. Also wonderful convincing voice acting, of key figures and less important merchants, bystanders, guards, townspeople alike. Although a bit repetitive. But still, it all metaphorically through me into this region. At least I think so. Obviously, I have no idea how they talk over there in this region and how they talked back then but judging by the movies you can see from that time and place ... okay, Hollywood movies are not to be taken too seriously, but ... you know ... I think it worked well. Just the gameplay stinks. Sort of.

And especially the ending. I mean, of course, it's supposed to be part of a trilogy, of course, it ends with a cliffhanger and so on - I really have no problems with the ending storywise. But from a gameplay perspective? After letting the protagonist say "What does this all mean?" the game just ends. Without really ending. Let me explain what I mean. No spoilers, rest assured.

There's this weird stuff happening that creates suspense and curiosity, followed by this abrupt aforementioned ending accompanied by the credits roll. And after the credits roll you return to the last room and can continue walking around and reading eMails. But that's it. No "Thank you for playing the game!"-screen, no status screen showing the achieved targets and secrets - not even a teaser or screen advertising the upcoming sequel this game relies on. The story just ends without finishing the game properly.

No rewards for collecting flags and stuff. At least, there could have been some artworks, making of videos or video interviews ... or something! I mean, what purpose do the flags have anyway?! You can't unlock a secret alternative ending by finding them all (at least, that's what all the FAQs write about this game), you can't unlock bonus content, you don't even get a pat on the shoulder! You get nothing! What did I waste my time for hunting this shit?! You know what, actually this really pisses me off right now as I'm thinking and writing about it. Playing the game with the aim to finish it and to find the most secret stuff possible was completely unnecessary. I should have done other things instead. Like finishing Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, for instance. The final endboss is still waiting.

I could have done only the obligatory part: climb one view point, get three pieces of information, kill the target. Repeat. But then it would be so unsatisfyingly few gameplay content. And that is why this game sort-of-sucks. For this length it should have cost only half of its price, in retrospect.

Anyway, this game gets a 3.8 out of 1o from me. That's a really bad rating, I know, but it was a really bad game, kinda.

[ Woody's Checkpoint: # top # ]


Now, with Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare I was completely blown away. I obtained it for my birthday and played it almost ever since for the next two or three weeks or so without an interruptive change of game. I saw some trailers of it beforehand and was anxious to try different stuff - like the perks - but I would have never imagined that it all would have this huge impact on me. This is by far the best videogame I've played for this console. Almost the best game of the year, personally. Not because it just looked good but because it satisfied me.

The visuals were something very status quo, probably better, I don't know. Maybe I didn't honor the visuals as much as I should. The animations of the characters and so on. They're really colorful but I wasn't taken aback by them and the rest of the visuals. Not as much as the people around me were, friends, my brother, et cetera. But that's okay: they just don't need to be astounding for this kind of game, multiplayer first-person-shooters (M1PS) as I categorize them or "Killerspiele" as german politicians and other ignorants probably categorize them.

The controls are just right. Well, almost. I needed to get a little bit accustomed to the placement of crouching, proning, knifing, zooming with sniper and holding breath but after this phase it just slid off my hands into the game. I liked the given possibility to customize the sensitivity of the sticks. Although I think there are few 1st-person-shooters that don't let the player regulate this. Most of the games just work fine in terms of movement-sensibility, I think, but this one I had to alter.

Besides the little tune played during gameplay intermisisons which gets a little annoying just like any other music that you hear repetitively about 1.ooo to 2.ooo times, roughly and truthfully estimated, the sound is great. But what do I speak of: the sound of guns? The shotgun sounds like a shotgun and the single-bolt firing sniper rifle has a nice whoom - what else could you want from a M1PS? I'm fine with the game's audio. Multiplayer has no music obviously so there's nothing to talk about. Just like the story. There's nothing to talk about either in multiplayer.

[ Woody's Checkpoint: # top # ]

Now, the gameplay is what makes this game interesting, if you ask me. Firstly there are classes with the possibility to create your own classes, then there are the perks which let you create classes with various abilites, like planting C4, more health and lots of more cool stuff. But you have only three perk slots and perks of "group 1" don't "fit" in slot 2, for instance. Which is interesting as you can't create a class carrying, i.e., claymore mines and a RPG launcher at the same time. So you have to create different classes before the matches begin during the intermissions if you want to use both in a match. Not at the same time but in regard to a certain situation. Which brings me to another cool yet less innovative, less spectacular thing: you can change classes during a match, as to say between spawns. This can be very handy. And I must say those perks are really well balanced. I rarely felt being in disadvantage because of the perks my enemies had. At most because of their skill level ;^p

About multiplayer-modes I must say some were bad and useless IMHO, like Oldcore - well, not exactly useless, just .. not my type - but the good thing is that with the now standardized iNet-connectivity of the NextGen-consoles the developers can easily change modes if they want. And that's what they actually did. They seem to have had a look at some fan-based feedback which made them change the selection of gameplay-modes. Nice.

The multiplayer is so thrillingly addictive - I didn't even had the urge to try the single-player-mode at all. Like I didn't know there was one, hehe. But then I tried it because friends recommended them and .. well, I like the multiplayer. Somehow the single-player-mode was rather boring for me. That's why I have next to nothing to say about story and music of the game at all. What I can say is that the story wasn't exciting enough in the first two or three lvls to keep me coming for that.

Which brings us to the rating: Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare get's a solid 9.4 out of 1o from me. Sad thing about the single-player-mode. I guess there is no videogame in the world that succeeds with the hard task of delivering both SP- and MP-modes. Except Goldeneye 007.

[ Woody's Checkpoint: # top # ]


Let's talk about skate.: this game is really cool in a way although it is not much more of a real game than flOw. I mean there's a "career mode" and actually that's the mode that I play most but .. you just skate around and complete challenges. Or you don't. It's simply so much fun to cruise around and just chill with the game that it pretty much succeeds in transferring the calmness, the flow of the world and all of its parts, the unimportance of your individuality in the constantly moving and changing universe, the feeling of zen as I like to call it that surrounds me when I go to skate for real.

Furthermore the tricks and stunts you can perform with your skateboard are accessable right from the start which adds to that calmness. As this is what it's like in real life. You can do the tricks if you can do the tricks. There's no videogame barrier that hinders you. There's a trick book that helps you learn some basic moves but you don't have to look into it. You can just learn for your own. Look into your inner self and do something intuitive. That's why it adds to the calmness. The only things that are locked at the beginning are clothings, skateboard decks, wheels and things like that, so technically things that don't matter much. Besides, why is it that almost all the cappies and t-shirts not only look all alike but also look horrible? The cappies look raised as if they had the same protective rubber / plastic interior as the helmets from construction sites do. Well, certainly not my taste.

As with the challenges you either have to skate yourself a high score on a certain spot on the map, fulfill small tasks in one set, follow another skater to a then unlocked areal or race through a parcours and become first. These are all decorated as all sorts of occasions like photo shootings, trick tournaments, one-on-one confrontations with so-called pro-skaters and so on. Or videos of yourself to advance your carreer for a skater magazine that you can start and anywhere you want and end anytime you want which is cool. Adds to the freedom of the game.

A little bit unrealistic is how you only need to push three times off the ground to achieve maximal speed and roll on and roll and roll and roll ... in real life it's more like push and push and push and ... but it's just a videogame. It has to be fun so .. whatever. Apart from that the controls are really nice. Flicking tricks with the right analog stick, tricks that correspond to what you do with your board when you're doing the trick, needs some getting used to but is definitely nicer than memorizing button schemes and button combos for tricks. The more complex the trick the more complex the combo and sadly with Tony Hawk's games it was always a bit too complex, for my taste.

The music is pretty much what you expect from an EA game except that it's less rock and more chill. Which suits the game in any way. Just like the replay function. You can view the replay of what you just did ANYtime, edit your replays and upload them for others to view and rate. Sweet. I've seen some different online function, too, where you skate a spot taking turns. Whoever makes the highest score which means best trick without a face-plant wins. I didn't dig too deep though. Sounds interesting enough from a distance ... ;^p

Last but not least the visuals. They look good. I'd say as good as possible at the moment. Sure, it looks merely like twice or third as good as the PS2™ could do; sure, the PS3™ could probably do better; but for this early state of the NextGen I'm pretty satisfied with the given visual treat. It's no Assassin's Creed, no Killzone 2, no Crysis - but it doesn't need to be. This game is not about visuals, it's about skating. And in this regard it's a fairly good game.

My rating: 7.2 out of 1o. Have fun doing whatever with this opinion.

[ Woody's Checkpoint: # top # ]


And to give this much too long article (ooh, for the first time I've called the psoting "article" - starting to feel a little bit professional now, huh?) a nice conclusive touch let me say a word or two about Burnout: Paradise. It pwnz.

The whole series of Burnout games has been widely known for its realization of speedy car races, tight chases, thrilling avoidance of crashes - short: the mere feeling of speed, especially with its later installments, but with this new game developer Criterion Games (who can also do great 1st-person-shooters) pushed action-themed car races into a whole new lvl. And at the same time it fails with fulfilling some simple standards.

First of all, the world is seamless which means that there is not much of a menu to guide you through all the "lvls" or races. You just drive around, stop at a traffic light and start an event with a button combination. Each (or almost each) traffic light has an event and most events have a goal which is to be reached first, "unwrecked" or in time. There are other events without a spatial goal like "Road Rage" or "Stunt Races" that demand to defeat an increasing number of opponents or score by driving all crazy. Huge jumps, barrel rolls, drifts, oncoming lane, etc. - not much too new for Burnout veterans.

What is new is that you can set time or crash records for all the single streets in Paradise City. Just turn into the street at one of its ends and reach the other one - which is kind of hard and unforgiving if you stay on track and ignore short cuts. I mean, one crash and the record's puffed into thin air. Which is good: I like it hard ;^) And for the crashes - called "Showtime" - you simply push another button combination (L1 + R1) to blow up your car and start rolling into others. Hit buses for a multiplicator. This is actually where the game and its crashes get a bit irrealistic but better an irrealistic cresh mode than no crash mode, if you ask me. I'm deliberately mentioning the actual PS3™-button combination because I spent ages searching the iNet for it. There is no tutorial at all to tell you this kind of things - but there is an annoying DJ who doesn't mention it although he/she could. Maybe I should have looked at the booklet. But still. Other games display these infos on loading screens to make them seem shorter as you are busy while waiting, and to avoid nasty tutorials but as a developer you can't just conceal information on how to play the game, IMHO.

Anyway, I've mentioned the DJ, DJ Attomica, who is .. well ... I have to start with another annoyance of the game: the language. I've purchased the german version and I can't play it in english. If I set the console to english and start the game (no in-game language select) it starts in french ... hello?!? What weird shit is that? After googling around I've found out that this is no new thing for the Burnout series: the exact same corruption (yes, that's a major game corruption in my eyes) could be found in Burnout: Takedown. Irresponsible. I don't think that this has something to do with the developer so I assume it's the fault of the publisher. Listen well, I blame you EA! Oh look, it's not only the german version of the game but also the italian one - this will reduce my rating for sure:

[ Woody's Checkpoint: # top # ]

Users brainbird on EuroGamer.net and TTP on neoGAF.com:
<<
On a related note, my german (multilingual) version of Burnout 3 Takedown played in french when my Xbox was set to english. What the...?

[//]

Just got the EU (Italian) version of the game and WTF it doesn't have English language option?!?

My XMB is set to English so that games defaut to that language (I HATE playing games in any other language other than the original one since localization sucks ass) but with Burnout Pradise it starts in French cos there is no English! I can play it in Italian by switching system language accordingly but FUCK ME if I'm ever going to do that. NOT. A. CHANCE.

Gesus fucking christ. First COD4 (only language available: Italian). Now Burnout Paradise. With all the space on the Blu-Ray disc they c&p the language choices of the DVD/360 versions. WHY?! WHY?!?!

Now I have to sell this and order the UK version from play.com.

Thank you idiots.

/rant
>>

So, I did not exchange it with a US version of the game just to have it in english. That would have been too much circumstances for me. I just played it in german. And I wish I could have played it in english. How I wish I could have played it in english. I've played the demo. That one was english. But the demo was downloaded from the US store so ... too bad. I liked the english DJ Attomica. I've read how others don't but I did. But the german one is realized by a woman who obviously isn't into car races and action games. She seems to have read her stuff as if this would have been a game for children. From ages 6 to 12. Also with very few emotions, more emphasis put to pronounciation, less to emotions, almost like an amateur. ("Schiesse ihn von der Strecke um ihn zu deiner Flotte hinzuzufuegen.") I'd like to believe that she gets better at the later utterings but the sad thing is that she does not get better but instead you get used to her lack of talent. This is damn sad. Lower rating.

But apart from that the music is rocking like we're used to with EA's selections. Yet mysteriously there's much of the old music from the earlier Burnout games. Not enough money or time at the end of the developing process? Sad again. And while we're at the sad things: due to the world being seamless you can't restart a race "by menu" - you have to actually drive back to the start of the event. And I thought that you can't give up early on, too, at first but I've found out that you can just stop your car and wait. Another unmentioned thing. Besides, the car selection in the junkyard which is used like your personal garage is damn slow due to the long loading time. About an estimated same length as in Motorstorm. Just for a cool "hey, the car is dropped by a crane and lacquered in the same color you left it"-effect I could have easily done without.

But hey, the game has great sides, too. Just look at the visuals, especially the crashes. Oh boy the crashes. They already got me with their first trailer that showed the deforming of the chassis (I don't actually remember if this trailer is the first one I'm talking about but you should see there what I mean). With crashes like that you don't want to avoid spinning around your own axis, tumbling into other cars, letting the glass shatter, crumbling into tiny bits, compressing the interior, losing tires, chassis parts and the whole heck - you want to crash! ... but there are no drivers to steer the cars. Which is only a negative point on first thought but actually I'm happy not to see rag dolls getting smashed and probably dismembered all the time in these very realistic looking car accidents. The developers either would had to lose some reality or make the 'rag doll damage' realistic, too - and that would have made a very bloody brutal game out of Burnout: Paradise. And imagine how unlikely and therefore irrealistic it would have looked like if every car would have been occupied by single male drivers. As this is a city you would expect to eventually encounter families with little children and senior state ancestors, babies, pets, etc. - oh, the horror!

[ Woody's Checkpoint: # top # ]

The controls of this game are pretty awkward because they have been drastically changed in comparison to its predecessors. Instead of the control scheme every developer has used for their games and every player has steered their cars with for ages, with the acceleration/brake on the right stick and a mere possibility to look behind you, now the acceleration and brakes are set on the lower shoulder buttons and the camera control is realized via the right analog stick. Which gives it some enormous freedom as you can rotate the camera around the car freely in any direction and angle (without zoom) - but who needs this? Good luck trying to get a better orientation by rotating the camera while driving at high speed through a living city navigating your way past the traffic and at the same time taking down opponents to reach or keep the pole position.

Besides that, you control the right stick with your right thumb - so how do you reach these fundamental functions like handbrake and Burnout boost that are placed on the Square and X button respectively? Regarding this, it is just impossible to look ahead for turns and then turn them with the use of the handbrake while boosting - or to boost. How do you boost and change the camera angle at the same time? The answer is simple. I know it because I had to do it when driving over small hills because the camera is set too low behind your car sometimes: you have to do finger acrobatics. And this drastically reduces the accessability of the game. Sad once more. The thing with the low camera, too. Apart from that there are really great camera angles in Burnout: Paradise. And awkard or not - you'll surely get used to the controls after your first twenty or thirty percent of the game.

Next to the aforementioned things there are other small things that make the game worth-wile like "Power Parking" or the wide mass of collectibles. I actually managed to find all shortcuts of the game, without a walkthrough. Things like that really make me proud. And I choose not to mention the sometimes irritating navigational aid at crossings during events. Which leaves me with one final but big portion of the game I haven't mentioned yet before the rating: the online mode.

The online mode is just as seamless as the whole game itself. Well almost. You simply flip in an on-screen menu with a quick D-Pad button press and select your mode of choice. After a few seconds of freezing, I mean loading with a stoppage of all motions on screen, you're there. The game "unfreezes" and you continue driving where you were before. If you look on the map though you can see that there are other players now so go ahead, drive to them and see them racing and crashing like a so-called A.I. could never do. Although I don't know how to connect with Playstation Friends who have purchased the game, too. It's somehow random who you connect with. This seamless integration of the online mode looks innovative on the one hand but this randomness on the other hand rather ... "it didn't work otherwise". Sad.

Now, several "words or two" and "sads" later here it is, my final rating of this incredible psoting: Burnout: Paradise gets a 7.6 out of 1o from me. It could have been above 8 but too much things were off-track. Still an enjoyable game. Comment if you like.


The console itself freezed in every single game except skate. and Burnout: Paradise at least once which is more often than the PS2™ used to do but that's just another indication that Sony tries more and more to develop a multimedia center with this rather than just a "toy". Live with it.

Well, the PS3 was some fun so far but compared to other consoles I must say it was not as claim-fulfilling as its predecessor yet, the Playstation 2™, it was surely not as much worth its price as the Wii™ was so far and it most definitely was not as much fun as the SNES™ yet. So, with my expectations still high and my hopes lowered hugely at first, then raised back little by little, I still wait for Sony to bring the blockbuster-titles - exclusives! - like Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots, that would convince me to buy my own console for my new single home. If Sony actually still tries to do so ...
# top #