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• The 61FPS Review: Metal Gear Solid 4 Part 2

  As I mentioned in the first part of this review, Guns of the Patriots is the Metal Gear that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that, for the series and game type, passive viewing is every bit as much a part of the play experience as actual player control. It’s misleading, though, to think that Metal Gear Solid 4’s greatest achievement is its presentation. Since its debut on the MSX in 1986, the actual game under Metal Gear’s graphics and story has been about using a limited, often suffocating interface to explore multiple solutions to a problem. A classic scenario: Solid Snake enters a room filled with obstacles (packing crates, trees, stationary vehicles) and a handful of hostile artificial intelligences (soldiers, security cameras, dogs) moving along set paths. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater The goal is to guide Snake passed hostile elements without alerting them to his presence. The environment and tools acquired in its boundaries (anything from firearms to camouflage) create options; you could crawl under cars to avoid detection or tranquilize a soldier to distract the others as you move on. Snake is difficult to manage though; move too fast and you risk accidentally walking into an enemy’s line of sight, fire a gun and you risk being heard. You could make the argument that the finicky and imprecise control of Snake is immersive, simulating the stress and precision of actual stealth, but the truth is that it superficially increases difficulty, masking the rudimentary artificial intelligence’s faults. In Guns of the Patriots, not only has the environment and multiple-solution approach been expanded upon in both scope and realism, but the control has been streamlined to a point where agency is truly in the player’s hands, no longer at the mercy of a stilted interface. Read More... Posted Jun 24 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, metal gear solid, hideo kojima, 61fps review, metal gear, mgs4

• The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2 Part 2

  Love the one you’re with! My first few hours with Ninja Gaiden 2 were disappointing, an experience colored by high standards and higher expectations. I got over it and am now content to enjoy kicking the heads off of evil ninjas. As far as my overt criticisms go, well, they’re holding true. Gaiden 2’s camera and level design are abysmal, not to mention the game’s numerous glitches. Are severed ninja arms supposed to float in mid-air? The game’s got problems. Ninja claws, however, are not one of them. Neither is the sickle and chain or the enormous scythe you steal from a bunch of werewolves. As much as the weapons and scenarios from Ninja Gaiden 2 sound like a series of bad internet jokes from 2004, these additions to protagonist Ryu Hayabusa’s arsenal make for good entertainment. They don’t make for necessarily great play though. The first impression Ninja Gaiden 2 gives is that its combat, the literal core of its design, is unchanged from Ninja Gaiden 1, but subtle changes have been made. Specifically, countering enemy attacks is now easier than it was in the original game. It makes combat more fluid, allowing attacks to string together smoothly without risking injury or having to wait for an opening in an opponent’s assault. As a result Ninja Gaiden 2 is more accessible than its predecessor. But if a game’s foundation is based on being inaccessible, requiring the player carefully study its rules and practice play, isn’t its design diluted by decreasing the demands of its rules? Read More... Posted Jun 17 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, 61fps review, ninja gaiden

• The 61FPS Review: Metal Gear Solid 4 Part 1

  I’ve spent the last ten years of my life resisting Metal Gear Solid. I didn’t play the series’ opening chapter until April of 1999 and, even then, I only played because it was gifted to me by an exceptionally generous friend. At sixteen, I considered myself a staunch traditionalist. I wanted my games two-dimensional and my gameplay familiar so Metal Gear Solid didn’t appeal to me (I'd be lying, though, if I said its monumental popularity wasn't at the heart of my dismissing it.) It took playing MGS to realize Hideo Kojima, more an eccentric than a trendsetter at that point, had captured the gaming zeitgeist in two discs of content. Basic play in MGS was little more than a polished version of the original Metal Gear’s, but its presentation and narrative ambitions were a new face for gaming, every bit as redefining as Mario’s first hop-around Princess Toadstool’s 3D castle. MGS’ in-engine acted-cutscene, dramatic-instance formula remains the template for storytelling in videogames to this day. Read More... Posted Jun 16 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, metal gear solid, hideo kojima, 61fps review

• The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2 Part 1

  When Team Ninja’s Ninja Gaiden finally released, it was mind-altering. No three-dimensional action game played as well, looked as good, or had its raw scope, and no one in the world was expecting it to deliver as it did. After all, the game had been vaporware for half a decade. Remember when Tecmo announced it as a game for Sega’s Project Katana (the development codename for Dreamcast)? How about when it was supposed to be a Playstation 2 launch title? By the time Team Ninja announced that they’d be releasing it as an Xbox title, I was starting to wonder if the game existed at all. When no screens or video of the game materialized for another three years, it was fair to assume that Gaiden was destined to be little more than trivia fodder. But then February 2004 rolled around and there it was. That month will, in my mind, always be a benchmark in the history of action games. Ninja Gaiden has aged well in four years, its multiple revisions and expansions right through the Playstation 3 remake Ninja Gaiden Sigma proving its foundation to be sturdy and engaging. 3D action games broadly, however, have surpassed it. God of War brought bigger, more exciting environments and enemy confrontations while improving accessibility and even Ninja Gaiden’s immediate forebear Devil May Cry added more depth in its third and fourth entries. Even the lackluster Heavenly Sword took away Ninja Gaiden’s crown as the genre’s most visceral visual spectacle. I’ve been lukewarm on Ninja Gaiden II since it was announced last year. I couldn’t tell what was wrong. Something about it just seemed so sterile, so rote in comparison to everything else hitting the new wave of consoles. Dynamic limb removal is the big innovation? Really? This is Ninja Gaiden II! Time to redefine 3D action a second time! I realize that’s an unfair expectation to put on a game but it isn’t unfair to expect a modicum of refinement, some change to the established formula that utilizes both hindsight and the power of new technology. That’s why Ninja Gaiden II is, initially, so disappointing. Read More... Posted Jun 09 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, devil may cry, 61fps review, Playstation, ninja gaiden, dreamcast, god of war

• The 61FPS Review: Grand Theft Auto 4 Part 3

  I was hoping to open the final entry in my review of Grand Theft Auto with a definitive statement about its story, to find the game’s essence in the conclusion of its through-the-looking-glass tale of crime, brutality, and the American experience. I can’t. After one month, some thirty-five hours total, of playing Grand Theft Auto 4, I’ve quit. I’m not positive how close I even am to finishing the narrative portion of the game at this point because, not unlike the gameplay itself, there is no arc. After a certain point, the story merely plateaus with no discernible rise and fall. It ceases to be a compelling enough reward to keep playing the game. Grand Theft Auto 4 is a work at odds with itself. It places you in a gigantic world and allows you to do what you will, but you cannot change it. It allows you to build friendships with the characters surrounding you but keeps you always at their mercy, penalizing you if you can’t answer your phone in the middle of a firefight. The cars control with severe realism but the game demands you drive like Sandra Bullock in Speed. Even the slightest police provocation is an arrest-able offense but you can escape them by turning a corner. But most problematic is protagonist Niko Bellic. Read More... Posted May 29 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, rockstar, Grand theft auto 4, 61fps review, new york, niko bellic, sam houser

• The 61FPS Review: Wii Fit Part 1

  Written by Derrick Sanskrit I found myself cycling through all the photos on my hard drive this past weekend, remembering all the good times I had in college and the wacky stuff I've done in the years since. What I didn't expect to see, though, was the radical change in my appearance. I am in no way obese but I'm noticeably lumpier than my sleek and slim sophomore self. My nightly routine of sit-ups was replaced by senior thesis work. Then came the workaday world of sitting on my ass and eating greasy food. I'm not looking to lose a lot of weight or have rippling biceps, and I sure as heck don't have the time or energy to go join a gym. I want an easy way to define my body a little better and have fun doing it. Read More... Posted May 21 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: nintendo, nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, wii, 61fps review, wii fit, brain age

• The 61FPS Review: Grand Theft Auto 4 Part 2

  Into the valley of death rode the six-hundred-plus minutes I’ve spent in Liberty City since I last wrote. I would like to tell you that the rabbit hole has gone deeper but the truth is that it has merely gone on, level and consistent. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, per se. As I said before, Grand Theft Auto 4 is an engaging piece of software beyond the basic freedom the open-world gametype offers up. The story has continued to entertain and while reaching Alderney hasn’t revealed some kind of treasure trove of new experiences, the missions that progress that story have continued to impress. One in particular, a full-on bank robbery, stands out. At first, the job seems like another cut-and-paste shoot out; go to marker on your map of LC, watch a scene of dialogue, proceed to shoot everything in site. What actually happens is quite different. You, as protagonist Niko Bellic, retrieve the money from the bank’s vault before everything goes wrong. One of your partners is shot to death and you must lead your surviving associates out into the city against the full force of the LCPD while sticking to a loosely defined path through alleyways and the city’s subway system. Eventually, the escape opens up entirely, leaving you to decide how to evade patrolling helicopters and squad cars. The bank job is exemplary of how much GTA 4 has grown as game with specific goals over its predecessors and how artfully implemented linearity gives your personal experience of the game that much more impact. Read More... Posted May 19 2008, 04:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, zero punctuation, Grand theft auto 4, liberty city, gta, 61fps review

• The 61FPS Review: Grand Theft Auto IV, Part 1

  We’re going to do things a little differently here at 61FPS when it comes to reviewing games. For starters, all reviews are going to be brought to you in three digestible installments. Games are simply too long – not to mention that many can’t be completed at all – to offer you the most thorough critical examination we can offer in a single helping. The just released Grand Theft Auto IV is the perfect candidate for this formula because while there are a set number of tasks to perform in its world that will allow a player to see its narrative through to a traditional conclusion (in addition to a number of tracked statistics that will result in a 100% marker,) the game’s non-linear nature means that it can go on forever. Want to turn on the game and see just how many Hummers you can pile onto a Coney Island pier? Have at it. I’ve spent approximately fourteen hours in Liberty City at this point and while that’s no small amount of time, it’s clear that Rockstar’s world still has plenty to offer. Read More... Posted May 12 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, grand theft auto iv, rockstar, Grand theft auto 4, liberty city, gta, 61fps review