Getting Started with Little Big Planet

I finally picked up a copy of Little Big Planet a few weeks ago but have been so busy with the holidays and playing Gran Turismo 5 that I haven't had much of a chance to dig into it yet. I pre-ordered LBP2 last month and felt that I ought to explore the first title before the second, so I have spent some time playing this weekend. The game's idea is simple, clever and adorable. The cutesy arts and crafts visual style fits perfectly with the concept of a limitless dream world and I can see exactly why the game was such an enormous hit. It's absolutely brilliant in theory, but it's quite frustrating in practice.

Because the game is so open ended, it's often difficult to tell how to proceed within a level. But the real trouble is with the controls - there are so many possible actions for each sack person and with each object that I find myself often unclear on how to proceed. This results in a lot of trial and error, lots of laughing, and lots of cursing at the television. But mostly, I spend a lot of time failing to jump over coals and spikes and noxious gas. There are three planes of depth in the game that allow for a mostly linear progression with some variety and layers. It also causes me to misjudge the exact location of platforms and fire pits. The levels that are heavy in jumping have been causing me a lot of trouble due to my poor depth perception.

To take a break from frying my cute and crispy little sackgirl I went through many of the tutorials in the create mode. I had no idea just how many tutorials there were! Because there are so many types of objects and so many ways to customize them, the tutorials have a lot of ground to cover. Normally I would find this tedious and unpleasant, but the tutorials and menus are narrated by Stephen Fry, making them great fun! At one point he even says "wibbly wobbly" which made me giggle. I hope to finish up the tutorials tomorrow, though I'm not certain how many might remain. It takes quite a while to build levels, but I'm enjoying the process. I hope to build a couple of fun little maze and puzzle levels without pain and death.

All in all, it's a really fantastic title. As I get better at judging distances and depths I find myself really enjoying Little Big Planet. It's great practice for the new title when it releases in a few weeks.

Looking Forward for 2011

There's certainly a lot to look forward to in 2011, but it's tough to focus on the future when I still have such an impressive backlog of PS2 and Wii games to complete. Below is a list of the older games I'm hoping to complete this year and also some of the titles I'm looking forward to in 2011.

Upcoming:
Tera (PC)
Little Big Planet 2 (PS3)

Continuing:
Starcraft 2 (PC)
Gran Turismo 5 (PS3)
Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
Little Big Planet (PS3)
Dante's Inferno (PS3)

Begin:
Fallout Series (PS3)
Assassin's Creed Series (PS3)
Deathspank (PS3)
Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)
Demon Blade Muramasa (Wii)
Okami (PS2)
Odin Sphere (PS2)

Gran Turismo 5

I've been playing a lot of Gran Turismo 5 this last month, in between holiday festivities and familial obligations. It's a great game to pick up for a few hours here and there, though I've experienced many frustrations with A-Spec (the mode in which the player operates the car directly) due to my lack of a driving wheel. Owing to this, I've spent most of my time toying around with B-Spec (the mode in which the player controls an AI driver or team of drivers) races and buying cars. I've had a ton of fun with this. It's a nice way to explore the tracks, compare vehicles, and observe different strategies. I've been slowly amassing a collection of cars meant to tackle the various challenges offered by each tier of content (9 specific races/tournaments per difficulty level) and tuning them up. I'm about to polish off the most annoying challenges - the Mazda roadster (Miata) challenge, the Toyota Yaris challenge and the pickup truck challenge. This will finish up the first 2 tiers of content, and I'm nearly through the third as well. Mostly I have been buying shiny new supercars and select classics. When I finally get a racing wheel I'll have a lot of cars to play with!

Console Cleanup

My attempts to polish off the uninspiring Final Fantasy XIII have failed. I was making decent headway towards my goal until I got my copy of Gran Turismo 5. Now all I want to do is drive in circles and tune up beautiful, shiny cars. It's incredible how addictive this game is. I'm not even a car enthusiast - just casually interested and easily amused. It doesn't help that individual races take around 10 minutes each, some much longer. It's easy to lose track of time as I did yesterday. Afternoon became evening before I realized that the day was gone. I'm finding the title fun as a casual player - it's clear and direct enough that I'm not having too much trouble. Advanced knowledge of historical cars would definitely be an advantage, but if I wanted to I could look up lists of the best cars to suit each challenge online. I enjoy shopping the used car lot without any outside assistance, though. It's a lot of fun to just pick a car off the listed specs and give it a try.

Also distracting me from my quest to finish up FFXIII is the arrival of Little Big Planet! I've wanted to play this game ever since I saw the first demo at the San Diego Comic Con years back, before it was released. And it seems like every time I have gone into any game or electronic store I find myself picking up a copy and toying with the idea of purchasing it. But when I am playing an MMO I do little else - I don't read, I don't go out and I certainly don't split my time with console games. So I have always held off on getting a copy until now. With the sequel coming shortly after the new year I decided I had better get my act together and explore the game so I am ready for LBP2. I have only experienced part of the tutorial thus far and have not spent enough time to offer much constructive commentary yet apart from one observation. This game has, without a doubt, the very best tutorials ever. I adore Stephen Fry, and listening to him do the voice over has caused me to actually pay attention and utilize a tutorial for perhaps the first time ever in my gaming career. The game itself is adorable and clever. It's been so long since I've played a game with such limitless possibilities and I suspect what it will show me is that my own imagination has been withering slowly over the years. I can't wait to start goofing around with the level creation tools!

Gran Turismo 5

I've never been a huge fan of driving games, mostly because I always had trouble reaching the pedals in arcades and because I was never terribly interested in cars as a teen and young adult. For the last few years, however, I've become a huge fan of the BBC's Top Gear program. I watch it primarily because it's entertaining, hilarious and clever. But I have always held a great admiration for things that are well made and beautiful, and well manufactured vehicles are no exception. I still know very little about my own car, but I have recently become much more curious about cars. They are one of the great modern inventions and it's fascinating to learn about how they work.

My first impressions are good (though, it would be nice if they'd created a female shaped racing driver). There's a bit of content to install, a few settings to set and then you're off. I decided to start with a trip to the used car dealership, where I purchased my stunning first car - an unbelievably bright lemon yellow Toyota Celica. From there, I decided to work my way through the basic licenses to get a handle on the controls. It has been years since I've played a console driving game, and even then I am accustomed to using racing wheels so there's a lot to adjust to with the controller. Not knowing what speeds to use in different cornering scenarios began to hamper my license exams, however, so I decided to learn by emulation and entered my first race. This proved to be the right decision, as I was able to take the first few laps of each track in the pack as practice. Using the other cars as "bumpers" to keep me on the right track helped refresh the broad strokes for me, and even after just 3 races I saw a huge level of improvement in my consistency.

So far I am really enjoying the game, and can't wait to get another controller so that I can actually race friends. This will provide quite a lot of replay value. I'm excited to see what I will unlock once I advance to the next tier of content as well. I certainly hope there are more races in each subsequent difficulty level. I was disappointed to see only nine tournaments for the beginner rank, but considering how boring these easy races will be for skilled players I understand. I snapped a few pictures, including the one above, during replays. The photo capturing abilities are rich and the replays are very sharp as well - I'm having a lot of fun re-watching the races and analyzing my mistakes. It's clear that a great deal of work went into making this game sleek and rich with content.

Something else that I'm finding enjoyable about the game is the inclusion of specialty races with specific entry requirements. The beginner's races offer several tournaments of this type, such as a European car manufactured between 1960 and 1979 or small Japanese cars from before 1979. It's tough to afford extra cars at this point in the game, but it's fun to have the variety. Unfortunately, both of the classic cars I purchased to participate in these races proved to be very, very slow and handle terribly. I suppose it demonstrates a realistic representation of their actual performance, but it's definitely frustrating.

Katamari Forever

I've been looking forward to a new Katamari game for ages - my friends first brought Katamari Damacy to my attention when I was living in New York, flat broke and perpetually bored on my (rare) days off. I was working two jobs and exhausted mentally and physically. Enter Katamari Damacy. Possibly the strangest, most bizarre game ever imagined for the PS2. Wacky music, a ridiculous premise, and the bizarre royal cast of characters all come together to make the game something completely unique and unbelievably fun. Each subsequent title in the series offers a different explanation for why the King of all Cosmos has accidentally destroyed the stars and his tiny son, the Prince of all Cosmos, must painstakingly repopulate the universe by rolling up items into clumps called katamari. I spent weeks with the catchy music stuck in my head during my commute. It's the kind of game that is perfect to pop in for a few minutes after a hard day - it's impossible to be grouchy or depressed while humming along with the soundtrack and trying to roll up fleeing cats and dogs and children into wiggling balls of stuff.

I played We Love Katamari a little bit, but never found it as entertaining as the original title. Then, in a cruel twist of fate Beautiful Katamari was released on the Xbox and a fourth title on the PSP, both systems I do not own. I was ecstatic when I heard that Katamari Forever would be released on the PS3, and it really does deliver. Just as goofy and fun as the original, I am enjoying playing through it slowly. A few minutes of katamari rolling daily are a great way to keep a person in a positive mindset! One of my favorite features returns, allowing the player to view full listings of the items they have collected throughout the various levels. There are some fun new aspects to the game as well - filters that alter the appearance of the world, a large cast of royal cousins, and inventive new levels (like the underwater level, very fun!). My one complaint is that the music is not as fun as the original - many of the original songs have been re-recorded but they are just not as good. I'd love to be able to access the classic tracks as well as these newer versions.

Playstation 3 - Home Feature and Updates

I finally took the time to set up my Playstation Home account just to humor myself, and I had a bit of fun popping around to different locations in search of free content. I had a lot more fun than I expected, since it reminded me so heavily of Second Life of which I am not a fan. That being said, there's not a lot of point to the feature. It would be neat if you could actually collect decorations or trophies as you complete different game titles, but there don't seem to be tie-ins. I was also a bit disappointed in the graphics - Mii's on the Wii are adorable, but Sony opted for a more "realistic" representation and it's not very good when compared to other human simuations such as the Sims.

I'll need to spend some more time goofing around with the feature to actually be able to comment intelligently, but it just doesn't seem like there is much there. It's not a practical feature, just something showy and superfluous. The other updated features are very useful. It's now possible to use Netflix without the CD - after a quick install the program appears in the list of video options. It boots up quickly and also has an improved, redesigned interface. Hulu Plus is also available, though I only use the basic service and can't comment on the paid service.

The functions I use the most on my Playstation are the music and video file capabilities. I use a large external drive as the backbone of my home network and for media storage. My PS3 makes it easy to navigate through my video files, but the support for music is not very impressive. I'd still love to see this feature fleshed out to include more (and better) visualizations and more functions. One of my biggest complaints is that music files are referenced by their file names, and not by their modified properties. This makes navigating the files in any mode other than by artist and folder ridiculously messy.

Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds

I grabbed a ticket to Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds, the symphonic rendition of some of the Final Fantasy Franchise's music while I was at Benaroya Hall for The Planets a few weeks back, and I've been looking forward to it ever since. I'm really glad I went, and I will gladly go again in the future in the hopes that a few things are improved. And I hope they never, ever remove To Zanarkand, Liberi Fatali and One Winged Angel from the tour!

Program: [updated to include video links from the Seattle performance]
Liberi Fatali (VIII)
To Zanarkand (X)
Don't Be Afraid (VIII)
Aerith's Theme (VII)
Medley FFI-FFIII
Dear Friends (V)
Vamo' alla Flamenco (IX)
Love Grows (Eyes on Me) (VIII)
Ronafaure (XI)
Main Theme (All)
Bombing Mission (VII)
Fisherman's Horizon (VIII)
Memoro de la Stono (XI)
The Man With the Machine Gun (VIII)
Theme of Love (IV) (skipped due to time constraints)
Swing de Chocobo (All)
The Opera - Maria and Draco (VI)
Terra's Theme (VI)
One Winged Angel (VII) (encore!)

First Complaint: The Accompanying Video
Most of the video footage was classic gameplay footage. Not movies, not opening cinematics. Not even later gameplay footage with acual expresssion and body language. A large amount of great game movie footage and CGI movie not used at all, and a the small amount that was used was actually reused. The "classic" style gameplay footage was hilarious and adorable at first, but though the novelty wore off quickly the footage persisted. Why use minutes and minutes of old school chocobos running across maps when you have pleanty of more dynamic footage from the more recent titles that shows the depth of the art and how the chocobo has evolved throughout the titles? For those of us who have been playing Final Fantasy for a long time it was nostalgic in small quantites, but it got old after a while. For those in the audience (mostly confused girlfriends) who haven't, it was just silly. The narratives and the art - what have always set Final Fantasy apart from the rest of console RPGs for me - were totally lost in the representation.

This was compounded by the fact that there was a heavy emphasis on early titles. The tribute to Final Fantasy I - III was great, especially since it featured some of the recently redone DS content which is beautiful. But the DS gameplay would have been preferable to the old style stuff. The FFVII gameplay was nostalgic for me since it was the first title I had access to, but after a little bit of it, they could have gone to the movie quality as well (towards the end they actually used the Advent Children footage, and it was AWESOME. If they had used the CG quality stuff throughout, the experience would've been so much more profound). The "cuteness" of the blocky avatars really drew me away from the power of the music. Terrible, terrible decision that undermined some of the strongest music of the night.

Beyond the poor choice of footage, it was constantly recycled. Really. Eleven console titles, one online title, 3 DS titles, plus additional FF stuff...and they couldn't find enough unique footage for a 2 hour symphony show? Unbelievable. For titles like 8 where a lot of footage was used, I was shocked to see none of the ballroom sequence "Waltz for the Moon", none of the very end movie, and almost none of the parade sequence. From FFVIII and onward the video sequences were really stunning, and yet there was not that much used (except, thankfully, quite a lot of Yuna's sending dance in one sequence). From FFX onward the gameplay footage is excellent too. Even as early as VIII it's possible to glean emotion from the characters in play mode, but instead of using the footage to tell a story to accompany the music, it was really just a distraction. If the video is not telling a story, then static art images would have been far superior.

Opening videos tell stories! Stories are good!
Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy XII

Second Complaint: No Music From FFXII
NONE. Far and away FFXII is my favorite title. Best and most well rounded cast, best story in terms of complexity and flow, best writing, best language, best voice actors, best art....and an amazing score of music that was completely ignored for this performance. I could have done without any of the FFXI music, period. I found it to be the dullest, though at the very least the choice of video for the FFXI segments told a story. And the true loss was the gorgeous movies and expressive gameplay. There were just a few tiny, tiny clips of the wedding scene.

I'm hoping that they'll add FFXII in the future, since aparently the addition of FFXI was relatively new. Even the small bits were amazing, like the resting music! Seriously...they could tour on this alone...

Full Collection of FFXII Music on YouTube
Full Collection of FFXII Movies and Cutscenes on YouTube

Some Examples:
Final Fantasy Theme (opening credits)
Symphonic Poem Hope (end credits)
Time for a Rest (inn music)
To The Place of the Gods
The Forgotten Capital
Theme of the Empire
The Battle for Freedom
State of Emergency
Seeking Power
An Imminent Threat
Rebellion

Final Thoughts
The FF Series of games are not hard, tricky, or complicated to play. They're really just beautiful interactive stories. That's what this concert series missed and could have capitalized on. There were moments here and there where a certain clip reminded me about what it was I loved about an earlier title that I haven't played in some time. This series had the opportunity to take us back, walk us through the story and retell in a few minutes' time the dramatic and often tragic sweep of each game's narrative. I really feel a better presentation format might be to take each title, chronologically, and present its music. Leading off with the Main Theme, and moving through each title - starting with the I-III medly. For some of the games, which have a lot of music, you would have a large chunk of time to string together footage to tell a comprehensive story.

I hope that as this event continues to tour and hopefully prepares for tours in the future they take this into account. And I hope I can get "To Zanarkand" out of my head before I go completely insane.

I Can't Resist

I have been waiting, and waiting and WAITING to buy a PS3, using every possible justification for not fronting that much money, but the impending release of a new Final Fantasy title has been looming in my mind, and then I see - for the first time ever in the history of bundles - a perfect bundle with things I actually want....

PS3, check
Little Big Planet, check
Wall-E, check

I'm not sure I can pass this one up....

Must keep reminding myself: not backwards compatible, not backwards compatible, not backwards compatible.

What good is a PS3 if I can't roll the world up into little balls? In fact, I think I will go listen to some Katamari music to reaffirm my willpower to resist this offer!

Pearl Jam Rocks!

I knew there was a reason Pearl Jam was my favorite band that went beyond the awesome music and lyrics, laid back attitude, local roots, liberal politics and extensive non profit work!

Reading that Rock Band will have a Pearl Jam track pack with its setlist voted entirely by fans was a great way to start my Monday! Now if they only manage to include my favorites...it's such a long list. Here's hoping tracks like Red Mosquito and Do The Evolution sneak in among the concert/fan staples like Given to Fly, Corduroy, Rearviewmirror, et al. There's such an amazing breadth of songs that it's tough to imagine any setlist doing the band justice. Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to see a setlist the length of a PJ show....3 hours worth of music! It will also be interesting to see if covers are included - PJ's versions of Rockin in the Free World (Neil Young), Fortunate Son (CCR), Baba O'Riley (The Who), and a whole load of other songs would be awesome additions if they can get permission. The song I would most like to hear is PJ's "Little Wing" cover (video here, from Georgia video here from Washington - with added bonus Star Spangled Banner). I like it better than the Hendrix original (/ducks) or the Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton covers.

For the record, I recently made a casual "rough estimate count" of the number of Pearl Jam songs, and the tally (before cover songs of which there are dozens) of album tracks exceeded 100. I included b-sides and soundtrack songs (studio recorded) that were played live and did not include all of the fan club Christmas singles, so the tally really is a rough estimate.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/11/pearl-jam-returns-in-new-rock-band-project-with-fan-voted-set/