Blog of Pawn

Our first xbox 360 game, piniq, is live! Get it here!

It’s been three months since I’ve written anything. I feel guilty. However, rather than a game review, today you will be treated into a glimpse of my evening.

A short while ago, I had dinner with James and Elliott at Taco Bell, who had just finished their daily hour-long workout session. Briefly into the meal, Elliott started to make conversation of a guy who was mad about some documentary blaming McDonald’s for obesity and made his own documentary where he ate a 6000 daily calorie diet at McDonald’s while also running marathons. The guy had been fat despite never eating at McDonald’s before and had managed to lose the weight prior to making the decision. We then discussed how crazy that number of calories is and how bad different food items can be for you, and that was that.

On the way home, I couldn’t get over the irony that the guy didn’t really understand the problem, and was making another documentary that most people would find irrelevant. I can speak with authority on this because, on this topic, I’m a bit closer to your Average American than this guy apparently was. For one, I’ve eaten at McDonald’s. Two, I’m not running marathons. And three, like most Americans, I’m tipping the scales at more than what physicians say is optimal.

That being said, Americans aren’t going to do what this guy does – they aren’t going to run marathons so they can eat their 6000 calorie diets. Most aren’t going to spend an hour at the gym daily like James and Elliott. Most don’t have the calorie information memorized for every single item on the menu of every restaurant. I’d even venture to bet most people don’t know what their daily calorie intake should be if they did happen to know the values per item.

I paint a pretty bleak picture for the well-intentioned who would like to see Americans become healthier. If you can’t get us the exercise, and we can’t be bothered to learn how to diet, what can you do? Simple – make it just as easy as the alternative. You can’t really do that with exercise. No matter how you cut it, exercising means doing more than what you were doing before. However, dieting could become just as easy as not dieting.

Taco Bell is on the right track with their “diet section” of the menu, but they haven’t taken it quite far enough. They sell a la carte steak tacos in a small corner of the menu for $2 each, but then they have the big combos with things like the Grilled Stuffed Burrito, nacho chips, and a drink for $5 and call it the #2. If someone with influence really wants to see your Average American dieting more, make a #12 with 3 fresco steak tacos and a water for $6. That way, I can get 480 calories just as easily as I can get 1,190 calories₁. Yeah, it’s only slightly more convenient, but it’s enough.






₁ I actually looked these numbers up for the items mentioned – the #2 assuming you got steak as your meat and Dr Pepper.
Taco Bell Nutrition Calculator
Fountain Drink Nutritional Information

Back in March, Elliott and I both bought Final Fantasy 13 on opening night like good little fanboys and subsequently started playing through it in the coming weeks. However, while Elliott would go on to complete the game, I got stuck and put it down for a while. Elliott made a very public bet that I wouldn’t finish the game before the end of the year. Seemed safe, I’m sure, with my other distractions throughout the year. When I began re-pursuing the game, he started trying to dissuade me with psychological warfare by reminding me of the games flaws. Over the last few weeks, we’ve had quite a few discussions of the games pros and cons. That said, I’ve persevered and completed the game, and am now prepared to discuss it. Also, you lose Lemming. :-p

My initial impression of the game was that it was quite streamlined on all fronts. The first people you see will talk when you approach them without you needing to click a button. The battle system only puts you in direct control of one player while the other two are automated. You can set their role as healer, magic user, tank, etc. But, you don’t directly control them. And to top things off, you don’t even have to directly control what your main character does. You can just press x and let them choose their own actions. Quite streamlined, much more fast paced. You choose your actions while your action bar is filling, rather than waiting on it to fill like previous games. Did I say actions with an s? That’s right. You choose more than one action for them to do in a row. Just removing wasted time. This makes for battles where your guys spend far less time standing around, and far less time that you’re staring at menu items rather than admiring the cool action occurring on screen. When the battle’s over, your guys are at full health and magic. If any were dead, they’re back. To top things off, the first areas were literally straight lines that I would walk forward then watch the next cut scene. Cut out that exploration crap! The whole game design seemed to say “Pay attention to the story. Pay attention to the characters. Forget that you’re playing a game.”

For the first 2/3 of the game, you can get through the game without ever running in circles fighting random monsters. Ironically, this aspect is something that Elliott hated which I liked. Play a game like Fallout and you may get used to the idea that game worlds are to be explored. However, if you’ve been paying attention to the Final Fantasy series, most of them are all about the story they tell. Final Fantasy 10 comes to mind as also being particularly “linear”. I got annoyed with the last 1/3 of the game requiring that I grind/explore a lot before I could move forward, while this was Elliott’s favorite part. The one thing that made it more bearable is that the fighting engine is more fun than any previous game’s.

Unfortunately, while the voice acting is superb, the story in this game isn’t as good as the aforementioned Final Fantasy 10. Because of that, your willingness to want to push through and find out what happens next decreases. I remember the whole time I was playing 10, I wanted to know how it ended. With 13, I was constantly wondering what the next weird twist would be without even fancying a guess as to how it could end except that it would probably all work out. But, it wasn’t a constant drive to push forward, more like an aimless wandering forward. The story would have lent itself to a more exploratory game style.

Another gripe is that the characters were especially annoying. Due to the aimless wandering, the storytellers saw it fit to have random spots where the characters would stop and then have some “character development” where someone would have a random epiphany. It felt contrived. It didn’t help that each character starts as an extreme of a particular emotion, so every development was just a slight push in the other direction. Square has made much deeper characters in the past. I don’t know what happened here.

With all that negativity, you’d think this game would’ve gotten horrible reviews. Well, not all is bad. The graphics are especially noteworthy as giving new meaning to the term “amazing graphics”. The visuals will impress throughout, and part of what pushes you forward is wanting to see what they create next, from a “frozen” lake with giant waves to an open world that you can see for miles and miles. I never stopped being impressed with the graphics from the opening sequence all the way to the last part of the game.

The music is also quite good. In fact, it won some awards this year for “best music”. I do have a minor gripe that the song selection was inappropriate in some parts, but overall it was quite enjoyable. Also, I didn’t like the main theme song as well as that from FF10 or FF9, but I applaud them for trying something new. Still, though, great music.

So, final verdict. Truth is, if you’re looking for a good JRPG, you’ll most likely be quite satisfied. You won’t care about how linear it is if you know that’s what you’re getting into. Like I said before, the battle system is fun. While the story and characters have their problems, its still worth your time to experience this Fantasy.

Two reviews in one day folks! What’s happening?!

I recently played through and beat Professor Layton: Unwound Future, the 3rd in the series. For some reason I never got around to buying #2, but I think I’m going to have to now. It’s been a while since I played the original, so I forgot that they’re actually pretty good stories. It would have been easy to have a mediocre story as an excuse to throw a ton of puzzles at you, but they didn’t settle. I found myself engaged in the mystery even more than in many story-driven games. There are plot twists you’ll never see coming, but after thinking about the story, you’ll feel like you should have.

If you played the original, you’re no doubt wondering about how the puzzles are. That’s the main point of the game, right? I found them to be pretty entertaining, more original than the first game’s. Also, there are four levels of hints that start off vague and end with basically telling you the answer. So, the game is as hard or easy as you need it to be. I finished the game with more than enough hint coins to have made it even easier if I wanted it to be.

I clocked in around 20 hours, with a lot of puzzles remaining that I’ll probably go ahead and do. Thumbs up.

Holy cow I’ve dragged this game out for far too long! How long? I reviewed #3 a full year ago and started on this one shortly after.

I had a hard time pushing myself to finish this one. Its old-school ways wore me down after playing the previous ones immediately before. There were sections where wandering into the wrong direction could land you a game over screen very quickly. The random battles weren’t especially great. You know the drill – your guys on the right, the enemies on the left. A few noteworthy matchups were found throughout. One was a “bog witch” who would turn my guys into frogs. She was surrounded by frogs who also would turn my guys into frogs. They had no way of killing me, but they’d transform me repeatedly back and forth until eliminated.

The characters in the game all had their specified specialties, and you got to see a decent variety of them throughout the story. Someone would leave just as others would join. It reminded me of FF 2 more than FF 3 in that regard. On that note, why are these even-numbered games full of people all too eager to kill themselves for the greater good? It’s like everyone has an Optimus Prime complex!

The story was fairly entertaining. They really went crazy with the twists in this one, though I have to wonder if they just kept on thinking “ok, how can we make this MORE ridiculous?” and ran with it.

Overall, I’m sure its a good game overall, but I’ve kinda been soured on trying to play through all of the Final Fantasy games back to back. At some point I’ll get to #5, but I’ll be giving it some time.

Friday evening, I went with James to Bentonville’s toy expo. The 1ups were playing familiar videogame tunes. Booths were selling funnel cakes and hot dogs. Walking around, we saw bikers pulling off tricks and various new toys on display for others. We were having a good time, when out of the blue, a large ship flew in and hovered above. Several creatures jumped out of it and started spraying the crowd with what appeared to be bullets!

I instinctively picked up a chair for cover just in time to see a dozen pink crystal shards lodge themselves in its back. I threw the chair at the alien who fired, picked up another and rushed him down. After confiscating its gun and taking out a few aliens, I picked up another gun. I started to toss it to James, just in time to see him roundhouse kicking an alien Norris-style and grabbing its rifle out of the air before it hit the ground. Firing non-stop, we eventually found ourselves back to back circling around killing what seemed to be an endless amount of enemies.

I started to panic when a larger alien started charging towards me with some sort of energy-based melee weapon who showed no signs of stopping. As I could feel the heat of the blade, a large hole was blasted in the side of its head, causing him to drop dead. I looked towards the direction the shot came from to see a familiar green suit. It was the Master Chief! He was standing in the back of his Warthog, blasting the Covenant with his turret. James and I worked our way over; I took the driver’s seat while James took the passenger seat. As I drove around, James and the Chief blasted the enemies until there were none left.

It would be easy to dismiss this story as fiction, but take a look at this!

I’ve been one of the lucky few to have access to the beta for StarCraft 2. Unfortunately, I haven’t been allowed to talk about it…until now! You’re probably anxious to dig into your brand new game, but read below for details about what’s changed, what hasn’t, and tips from someone who’s played a few rounds.

The beta for StarCraft 2 had constant updates with access to its features being progressively unlocked. The single player campaign was never included. However, before the beta closed last week, they gave us access to a very rich multiplayer experience. It includes the things you’d expect of a modern game – achievements, unlockables, an interface that makes it easy to chat with your friends and set up a game either with people you know or against complete strangers. Yes, games have come a long way since 1998, when the original took the world by storm.

More important than the interface outside of the game, the real question is the gameplay itself. What’s changed since Broodwar? Here, I will say that the changes have been more evolutionary than revolutionary. They didn’t add any new races – still the original three. They haven’t drastically altered the gameplay, but they’ve done what’s necessary to make this the definitive version of StarCraft. If you liked the original, you’ll like this one too and probably won’t be able to go back.

The first update you’ll notice is the graphics.

The original game ran at 800×600.

I’m not sure what resolution StarCraft 2 maxes out at, but its more than your computer can handle

SC2 actually uses 3D character models though the game still plays from the same overhead perspective. You can use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in, though I never found a good reason to do this. I imagine the closer perspective will be used in cut-scenes for a more personal feel. The 3D engine has already given the custom games a lot more flexibility. I found online where someone had made a 3rd person shooter using the new editor. I’m sure a lot more amazing creations will be produced in the coming months.

A few seemingly small tweaks have changed the dynamics of how I play StarCraft. The Command Center/Nexus/Hatchery can now rally workers straight to the minerals. This allows you to spend more time focusing on the battle and less time on making sure you have enough gatherers. A small icon on the bottom-left also warns you when you have idle workers. Whenever you have a spare 50 minerals, throw in an extra worker and forget it. I wish they’d default the rally point to the minerals, considering it’s the first action you’d ever want to do 99% of the time.

Another tweak to increase build efficiency is the ability to hotkey multiple buildings to a single button. Say you’re Terran and you’ve built three Barracks to pump out Marines. Doubleclick one of the Barracks and they’ll all be selected. Then press Ctrl + 1 to assign 1 as their key. After that, you can press 1 at any time, then A A A to build a Marine in each of the Barracks. All three will come out at the same time. Later you decide you want to create some tanks, so click 1, then hold Shift while clicking the Factory to add that to the selected buildings. Press Ctrl + 1 again and now you have 4 buildings attached to the one key. Now press 1 and A A S for 2 Marines and a Siege Tank. If you were a hardcore Starcraft 1 player, you may have noticed that the hotkey for Marines changed. They changed a lot of the hotkeys to be accessed from the left hand so that you waste less time.

The biggest change, probably, is the addition of new units and the removal of old units. At least from the multiplayer. They’ve hinted that some of the old units will be in the singleplayer campaign.

For Terran, the Firebat, Medic, Vulture, Goliath, Wraith, Science Vessel, Dropship, and Valkyrie are gone.

However, they now have eight new units: Medivac, Banshee, Hellion, Marauder, Repear, Raven, Thor, MULE, and Viking.

The Thor is notable as being a giant mech that goes down faster than I’d like it to. The Medivac is notable as being both a Medic and a Dropship. The Reaper is the Terran’s new favorite rushing unit. It has a jetpack allowing it to jump up and down cliffs. The MULE allows the Terran to collect minerals at a ridiculously fast rate.

The Protoss have lost their Dragoon, Arbiter, Corsair, Dark Archon, Reaver, and Shuttle.

They’ve gained the Colossus, Immortal, Phoenix, Void Ray, Warp Prism, Sentry, Stalkers, and the Mothership.

The Colossus looks like it was taken straight out of War of the Worlds. Like the Terran Repear, it can move up and down cliffs with its massive legs. The Mothership is a giant ship with some unique abilities, one being the ability to cloak other units as well as the ability to recall units in a target area to the Mothership (don’t feel so sad about losing your Arbiter The Void Ray is a unique ship that shoots a laser beam which continues gaining power the longer it can continue firing. Stalkers have effectively replaced the old Dragoon as a ground-based shooting unit. One distinct ability they have is to teleport short distances. This works great to allow micromanagers to move damaged units to the back of the army to continue fighting. To match the Terran’s new gathering power, the Protoss have a new ability called ‘Chrono Boost’ which allows units to be built faster or upgrades to be researched faster. The difference between a good player and a great player will be how often he remembers to take advantage of this new ability.

Finally, the Zerg have lost their Guardian, Lurker, Scourge, Defiler, Queen, and Devourer.

They’ve gained the Roach, Queen (what??), Baneling, Changeling, Infester, Corrupter, Overseer, Brood Lord, and Infested Terran (huh?).

I’ll explain the Queen first. What you knew as the Queen is nothing like what is called a Queen now. The unit is now a ground unit that stays in your base to create more larvae to create more units. She can also heal units or buildings, or create creep tumors to increase the range of the creep. The Overlords no longer have the ability to detect cloaked units. You’ll have to upgrade them to Overseers for that feature. The Roaches, with their ranged attack and the ability to move while burrowed, have been upgraded and downgraded pretty frequently. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be a favorite or useless. The Infester has a lot of interesting abilities, like taking over units with Neural Parasite and spawning Infested Terrans.

The Terran Supply Depot can now lower itself into the ground, so there’s no reason not to use it as a wall.

Well, I imagine you’re probably feeling overwhelmed with information by this point. So, I won’t continue much further. One last thing I’ll say is that there’s a stronger sense of each unit having one or two distinct counters. So, learn what these are, learn to scout your enemy early and often, and play play play! I’ll see you in-game.

Be sure to add me as a friend and let me know that you read my blog. You’ll find me at pawn@gamerhighway.com.

I’ve decided that puzzle games are the junk food of gaming. You pick them up whenever you want something to fill your appetite, but you’re not quite ready for a full meal. You may get tired of it for a little while, but you’ll come back to it some other time. You may feel a little guilty for lack of real substance, but boy does it taste good.

I think I’ve had my fill of World of Goo for a little while, though who’s to say I won’t snack on it again in the future.

When I first saw World of Goo, I had my doubts about how viable its premise would be as a puzzle game. How would they achieve much depth with just a bunch of goo balls that stick together to try to reach pipes? I was wrong to judge the game so early.

What I didn’t realize was that throughout the course of the game, they keep adding elements of variety to keep it fresh. Its all tied together through a relatively shallow but genuinely humorous story.

Baloons are one of the many various items you’ll use to achieve your goals.

In addition to the story which can be completed in a relatively short amount of time, the game has a few elements to give it some replay value. In addition to the regular criteria for beating a level, each has an OCD criteria that will either be to get a certain amount of extra gooballs into the pipe or completing the level in a certain amount of time.

Also, every extra gooball collected over the minimum will go to a place where you can try to build as tall of a tower as you possibly can. You’ll see other peoples’ records as clouds in the sky. I probably spent as much time on this as the regular story, trying really hard to build a tall tower that wouldn’t collapse.

Not my tower.

So, would I recommend this puzzle game? Yes, yes I would. You’re not going to put as much time into it initially as a Final Fantasy game, but odds are much higher that you’ll come back to it now and then.

If I were to give a short list of favorite games, the Street Fighter series is right up there. Super Street Fighter IV is indisputably¹ the best Street Fighter game to date. As much as I loved Street Fighter 4, I was pretty hyped about Super Street Fighter IV before it came out. All of the extras they were promising made it a deal almost too good to be true. Having played the crap out of it over the last few weeks, I can now assure you that it is everything a great videogame should be.

Need more convincing? Okay. Figured you would.

When I’m raving about how great this game is, I invariably come across one of 4 types of gamer. I could draw a 4-box grid and be all scientific-like, but I won’t. Needless to say, no matter who you are, there are several good reasons why you should be playing this game.

Player 1 – Can I call you Guile? No? Well, thanks Guile.

You played Street Fighter 2 almost two decades ago (can you believe its been that long). You thought it was pretty fun, but then you were annoyed as the series kept releasing titles with slightly different names, one or two upgrades, and 4 new characters. You ask, “Are they doing it all over again? Did they not learn their lesson? Haven’t they been doing the same thing for the past 19 years?”

Well Guile, you probably didn’t notice, but there was a decade-long gap between the last iteration of Street Fighter 3 and Street Fighter 4. I think they’ve had enough timeout to learn their lesson. Don’t you? Super Street Fighter IV is anything but a minor upgrade from last year’s game. They added 10 new characters, bringing the roster up to 35. That’s a bit more than the 12 fighters you remember². To put things in perspective, Tekken 6 only added 7 new characters to Tekken 5′s roster³. It doesn’t end there though. They re-did all of the animated intros and endings, they added several new offline and online modes (!), revamped the training mode that was introduced in SF4 (excellent for getting back into the series), added new stages, and many other things. This is anything but a minor update. Any other company would call it a full sequel and charge $60, but Capcom didn’t. It launched at $20 less than the average new game. A true steal at $40, you can currently pick it up on Amazon for $30. Not a bad price for re-entry into the series. With all of your old favorites and just as many characters you’ve never seen before, you’re going to fall in love all over again. Give it a shot. You won’t be disappointed.

Player 2 – You’re a casual gamer. Today I’ll call you Dan.

You play videogames casually but haven’t ever played Street Fighter. Maybe the occasional Facebook game or a little Wii bowling. You’re already telling yourself “This game probably isn’t for me. I don’t like that type of game.” You don’t know what type of game it is, but you assume you won’t like it. Well Dan, you’re going to be surprised when you finally do give this game a shot and learn its exactly your kind of game.

Street Fighter II was one of the original games that people got together to play with friends and strangers. The granddaddy of casual gaming, it single-handedly inspired a genre of followers and gave the arcades a boost in popularity that had never been seen before, and hasn’t been seen since. This new iteration, Super Street Fighter IV, comes with a new online mode called “Endless Battle” that’s designed to bring that same feel to your home. Up to eight people can play together, taking turns while everyone who’s not playing can watch and talk with each other with microphones. If playing online isn’t your thing, playing multiplayer offline with friends is a ton of fun too. Despite being a 2 player game, its a lot of fun to watch even when you’re not playing. The characters’ expressions are a joy, and flashy effects will wow you when they fill the screen. You’ll spend hours showing your friends the vast array of crazy characters.

Player 3 – Hey Cody, hope you didn’t get bored waiting for me to get to you.

You’re hard core. You chew through the latest and greatest games and spit them out. You’re the best player around and your friends and family know it. You’ve come to the right place. Play against the strangers online and you’ll find they’re more than happy to humble you. That’s okay though. You have the trial mode to learn your stuff and the single-player game to hone your skills before getting back online and showing everyone who’s boss. The trial mode’s great for both newcomers and veterans because it starts off by teaching you the most basic of basics, and advances in what it teaches you until eventually getting to crazy combos that only a real hardcore pro (such as yourself) will be able to pull off.

Player 4 – Sorry to keep you waiting Ryu. Ready for another round?

So you bought Street Fighter IV or maybe you thought about it really hard, because you love the series. You’re still asking “do I need to buy this iteration?” YES! This game effectively replaced Street Fighter IV. All of your SF IV buddies have switched. The same gameplay that you love is here, but with a ton of new content to digest. New online modes are better than the previous offering and the whole online experience is better – joining a game is easier, less lag (usually unnoticeable), a new ranking system, and double-blind character selection.

I mentioned before that there are 10 new characters, but I hadn’t named them yet. You’ve got Dudley, Makoto, and Ibuki from SF3. You get Adon, Cody, and Guy from SF Alpha. DeeJay and T. Hawk from Super SF 2 are here. Two brand new characters have joined: Hakan for the grapplers, and Juri for everyone else. The sheer variety in how these characters play is simply astounding.

They gave every character a 2nd Ultra attack, which if you played SFIV, you know are always satisfying to connect with. You’ll want to play multiple games with every character to learn the new Ultras and determine which one you like best.

Worried about having to go through single player again to unlock characters? Don’t. For one, the final boss Seth isn’t as bad as he used to be. And two, all of the characters are unlocked out of the box, so you don’t have to play it at all if you don’t want to. It bears repeating that they’ve really aimed for this game to be played multiplayer. Even the unlockables are unlocked through multiplayer this time. Because the icons, titles, taunts, and costume colors are now unlocked per character by playing with multiple characters, you’ll find more variety than you used to.

Well, I’ve said about all I can say. I don’t think its possible for anyone to give this game a chance and dislike it. Go buy it, I look forward to seeing you online.






¹There’s probably some people who would dispute my claim, but they’re wrong.^4
2 The roster count is right under SFA3 Max’s 37 characters – the most in the series.
³In Tekken’s defense, it has 43 characters.
⁴And ugly.

As you’ve probably figured out, I’ve been trying out a lot of NES games lately. The other day I stumbled upon a truly impressive entry on my Dingoo called “Cheetamen II”.

It starts out with an introduction cut scene that initially looked like it might’ve been a cheap ripoff of Battletoads, itself a ripoff of TMNT. I quickly noticed that it also looked like it might’ve been drawn in mspaint by an untalented 7 year old.

The story read like it might have been written by that same 7 year old after he was hit in the head a few times with a baseball bat.

Click here to see the rest. I dare ya.

Then the game started, and I knew what it felt like to be a 7 year old who’s just been hit in the head by a baseball bat.

If someone pointed a gun at my head and said “write a side-scroller in 30 minutes or I’ll shoot you”, it’d turn out only marginally better than this game.

• The jumping feels incredibly unnatural; I’ve honestly written a better looking bouncing animation myself before.
• One time jumping glitched and randomly killed me.
• You can’t duck, but there are enemies that are too low to the ground to shoot with your crossbow.
• There are holes to jump over, but enemies walk over them, then walk through the ground if it happens to be at a higher elevation than the starting ground.

I wasn’t able to finish the first level. The enemies will fly at positions to where they can hit you, but you can’t hit them. No matter what. I didn’t bother playing this game for very long, but a little research revealed to me that the game was literally unplayable in later levels, with unmissable glitches that wouldn’t let you continue further.

According to Wikipedia, this game wasn’t officially released, but then someone found all 1,500 copies in a warehouse and unleashed them upon this world right before bellowing out a deep maniacal laughter. The actual cart is quite rare, though the ROM is readily available. If you come across the cart, you may be tempted to keep it in your collection, but don’t. I’m pretty sure that the events of Paranormal Activity were based on the last guy who had the same idea.