Plants Vs. Zombies!

For the last few months my Playstation 3 has been nothing but an overpriced Netflix enabled device. But recently I purchased several smaller downloadable games. I've finally gotten around to playing them, and they have been enormously fun.

I have spent most of my time playing the hugely entertaining strategy game Plants vs. Zombies from Popcap. I'd seen the game a year or two back at PAX, and heard about it from some friends but never actually played it myself. Simply put, it's brilliant.

I didn't intend to purchase it when I downloaded the free trial, but I was immediately hooked when I saw how much potential there was. The game contains many levels, gameplay modes, achievements and even a little bit of story. 

Cycling through day and night helps keep things fresh (mushrooms can't be used in the daytime), and each level provides different zombies, different challenges and even special environmental factors that can be conquered through speed, planning and cleverness. I'm really enjoying the game so far, and have a lot of levels left to entertain me. So far my favorite feature is the little overview of all encountered zombies, with their clever names and descriptions.

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.