OK, back on Fridays now and after that long, arduous peregrination through the realms of creativity, I'm kicking it with some reviews instead. Usual Supertacularness review system: I only care about the game features. Pretty much anything else (sound, graphics and so forth) you can figure out yourself from looking at a screenshot or watching the trailer.
Bioshock
Flavor of the month, current Big Daddy doing the "best game evar" rounds. System Shock 2, only underwater and in the '50s.
**PROS**
* Easy come, easy go Ammo system - A common institution in most FPS games, sure, but somewhat of a rarity in the realm of the "scary shooter", where you're told constantly to conserve your ammo and just run/sneak past the hordes of enemies. This game makes even the most powerful ammo fairly common, if you know what vending machine to hack.
* Plasmid/Tonics/ADAM - Provides the game with a neat collection thing that directly benefits the player with various power-ups, both Active (Plasmids) and Passive (most of the Tonics). They can be generally bought by harvesting the ADAM (sort of like XP/AP building points, where EVE is the MP needed to use them) from the rather unsettling "little sister" enemies. Other power-ups need to be sought out through detours, which gives the game a neat exploration angle that most FPS games eschew.
* The Setting and Atmosphere - It's obvious that someone went to a lot of trouble with the plot and setting of this game. I wasn't really into it all that much, but as a Designer I can respect when someone goes a long way into describing every little thing (through a series of optional audio diaries) without really needing to.
* This shouldn't really matter, but the Achievement scheme for this game is about perfect: You can get half of them just by playing through the game, giving you a nice amount without really focusing on it (which can often detract those on the first playthrough). The diehard completists will still take their time to get the full 1000 available. I suspect that soon, if not already, the difficulty/design of a 360 game's Achievement Points map will become an additional factor to consider when purchasing/renting said game.
**CONS**
* The length of the game is pretty short, despite the various side-missions and collectibles. Can't really be helped due to its FPS nature, but it doesn't really have much replay value either if you got everything the first time around.
* Respawning enemies are a pain. It does make you wonder where they're all coming from, since people appear to be trapped in separate areas of the city by an almost defunct bathysphere transportation system.
* Likewise, the various cameras and turrets get tired fast, especially when there's several crisscrossing a wide area. Being able to hack into them and turn them against your enemies almost absolves this though.
* The hacking minigame is fairly uninspired. I played it back when it was called Pipe Mania, and I also played it as a hacking minigame back in Anachronox.
Blue Dragon
An RPG, made especially for the XB360 by a team comprised of RPG aficionados, with Final Fantasy's creator Hironobu Sakaguchi leading the pack. Traditional "bunch of kids save the world from ancient terror" scenario.
**PROS**
* Lord help me, but I loved all the searching. You can search practically anything, for various rewards that get less impressive as the game progresses. You can quite literally spend an hour in a new town or city searching every single pot and item. Best of all, the game has a secret subquest that gives you various powerful items for all the otherwise disappointing "Nothing"s you find, which is such a great idea that I'm going to steal it one day.
* The Job System, liberally stolen from FF3 and FF5 (but that's coo' since the FF dude is the one in charge), has been polished to reduce the amount of jobs one can train in for the benefit of more powers and abilities to unlock for those jobs. Some of these abilities can have a distinct change to the tactics you employ, as they all start to become very powerful.
**CONS**
* Very, very cliché. This was intended to give the game a nostalgic appeal, similar to what Final Fantasy 9 was meant to do to that particular series to recover from Final Fantasy 8. There's nothing really wrong with repeating the same instances over and over, per se, especially for those new to the genre (or gaming in general, since it is aimed at a younger audience). But for the type of genre fanboy (hi there) who would likely buy this game it'll probably be a disappointment.
Rogue Galaxy
Sci-fi planet-hopping RPG from the makers of Dark Cloud 1&2, only a bit more traditional than that iconic series.
**PROS**
* Those boys haven't lost their taste for side-quests, which a whole bunch more that almost triples the game's playthrough time. As well as following your mission objectives (which are handy little star indicators), you can also fulfill bounties (optional bosses and specific totals of lesser enemies), compete in an "Insectron" tournament (which parallels the fishing minigames of the DC series) or create new items in a factory simulator, which mixes Pipe Dreams (a lot of that going around lately) and the Georama system of the DC series. In fact, if you liked that game (as I did), you'll probably like this too.
* Continuing the comparisons, the battle system is also heavily based on DC's: You have to fight in a real-time environment, using either your main or sub weapons and a bunch of powers you unlock through something called a Revelation Chart. This power-up system is sort of similar to the License Grid of FFXII, only you need to trade items instead of XP points, with rarer items unlocking stronger power-ups (the items are subsequently unavailable until later in the game).
* The teleporter system makes getting around a breeze. You can travel to anywhere you need to within seconds, though the transporters all need to be unlocked first. Most games use a similar system, but I found Rogue Galaxy's to be extra convenient. Plus you can save and heal at them too.
**CONS**
* If it shares DC's plus points, it must also share its negative points too. The most significant of which is the amount of tedium one can feel by traversing the large dungeons that are scattered throughout the worlds you visit. Added to which is the decision to use random encounters (of the "they weren't there a minute ago" variety), which occur often when trying to move between places.
* To be fair, a lot of the subquests above are less intriguing this time around. The Insectron Tournament in particular, since catching the things, spending the time and cash to raise and breed them until they reach a respectable level of power takes hours and hours to accomplish. Similarly, trying to defeat 30 particular instances of a monster that NEVER EVER SEEMS TO SHOW UP can be a little frustrating. They are optional, and I appreciate that, but for the diehard completists (another shout-out to you guys) it isn't as great. A bit of time to mark certain areas as hotspots for otherwise rare monster encounters to alleviate the waiting time for those who care to seek these areas out would've been a nice touch.
Back to ideas next week. But only one at a time. I've had enough of lists for the time being.
