Nintendo DS mini-reviews
Sep. 11th, 2007 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayAbout a week ago, I finally broke down and ordered myself a Nintendo DS Lite. It arrived in good time, but the game I had also ordered for it did not. So after several days of impatience, I went down to the local GameStop to get some games.
While there, I noticed BioShock prominently displayed behind the counter, with lots of boxes and a poster. I asked the clerk how it was doing, and he waxed effusive, and was apparently enjoying the game himself.
I picked up two games that I had heard interesting things about, and have been playing them on and off during my drugged and/or painful hazes of the weekend. I'm not remotely finished with either of them, but can offer some mini-reviews.
First up, "Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney". It's a wacky Japanese lawyer game. It's sort of like an interactive version of Law&Order, alternating between courtroom segments, and investigative segments. During the investigative sections, you interview witnesses and suspects, and search for clues. During the courtroom scenes, you cross-examine witnesses, looking for weaknesses and contradictions in their testimony.
As a *game* PWAA is rather lacking. Long periods go by between moments of interactivity, and it's rare that one of those moments doesn't have an immediately obvious right answer. And being so highly scripted, the game doesn't have any particular replay value. (GameStop had *tons* of used copies; I guess most folks don't hang onto it after they're done.)
Despite its failure as a *game*, it manages to be extremely entertaining. The characters are very over-the-top anime-style and the dialogue is funny. Watching a calm, collected witness gradually break down and have a fit, confessing Perry Mason style, just doesn't get old. And the interactivity, primitive as it is, does add a lot to the experience: it's just plain fun to see Phoenix yell "OBJECTION!" when you push the button.
The other game I picked up was "Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team". It's a curious mix between classic Pokemon gameplay and a Roguelike dungeon crawler. Rather than the very scripted, puzzly dungeons that the mainline Pokemon games have, these dungeons are randomly generated and focus entirely on tactical movement and combat.
The fictional setting is interestingly different. The player does not play a human Pokemon trainer, but an actual Pokemon. (Allegedly, you used to be a human, but woke up one day as an amnesiac Pokemon.) You adventure with other Pokemon whom you 'befriend' rather than capture, and take on missions to help distressed Pokemon in the wild. This has a much more egalitarian political feel than the standard Pokemon fiction, which is a lot more "White Man's Burden".
There are plot-specific missions which open up new areas of the game, but the bulk of game time is spent on randomly-generated rescue missions. Plus, of course, the classic implicit RPG missions of Level Up and Get Better Loot.
The pacing is notably good so far. Though it has an addictive "just one more level" quality, there are also reasonably frequent break-points which make it more feasible to turn the game off and go to sleep :)
While there, I noticed BioShock prominently displayed behind the counter, with lots of boxes and a poster. I asked the clerk how it was doing, and he waxed effusive, and was apparently enjoying the game himself.
I picked up two games that I had heard interesting things about, and have been playing them on and off during my drugged and/or painful hazes of the weekend. I'm not remotely finished with either of them, but can offer some mini-reviews.
First up, "Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney". It's a wacky Japanese lawyer game. It's sort of like an interactive version of Law&Order, alternating between courtroom segments, and investigative segments. During the investigative sections, you interview witnesses and suspects, and search for clues. During the courtroom scenes, you cross-examine witnesses, looking for weaknesses and contradictions in their testimony.
As a *game* PWAA is rather lacking. Long periods go by between moments of interactivity, and it's rare that one of those moments doesn't have an immediately obvious right answer. And being so highly scripted, the game doesn't have any particular replay value. (GameStop had *tons* of used copies; I guess most folks don't hang onto it after they're done.)
Despite its failure as a *game*, it manages to be extremely entertaining. The characters are very over-the-top anime-style and the dialogue is funny. Watching a calm, collected witness gradually break down and have a fit, confessing Perry Mason style, just doesn't get old. And the interactivity, primitive as it is, does add a lot to the experience: it's just plain fun to see Phoenix yell "OBJECTION!" when you push the button.
The other game I picked up was "Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team". It's a curious mix between classic Pokemon gameplay and a Roguelike dungeon crawler. Rather than the very scripted, puzzly dungeons that the mainline Pokemon games have, these dungeons are randomly generated and focus entirely on tactical movement and combat.
The fictional setting is interestingly different. The player does not play a human Pokemon trainer, but an actual Pokemon. (Allegedly, you used to be a human, but woke up one day as an amnesiac Pokemon.) You adventure with other Pokemon whom you 'befriend' rather than capture, and take on missions to help distressed Pokemon in the wild. This has a much more egalitarian political feel than the standard Pokemon fiction, which is a lot more "White Man's Burden".
There are plot-specific missions which open up new areas of the game, but the bulk of game time is spent on randomly-generated rescue missions. Plus, of course, the classic implicit RPG missions of Level Up and Get Better Loot.
The pacing is notably good so far. Though it has an addictive "just one more level" quality, there are also reasonably frequent break-points which make it more feasible to turn the game off and go to sleep :)
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Date: 2007-09-12 03:15 am (UTC)No, seriously. Crack.