Above the Clouds

By Jon Lajoie. Also, this.

Get ahead of the curve

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EA's skate: 2007 GOTY?

I can haz propz???

Bioshock? No. No, no, no, my friend. The Orange Box? Maybe. Call of Duty 4? Perhaps. Maybe even a sports game could have taken the Game of the Year title in 2007. No, I'm not talking about John Madden 199- er...2008. I am talking about EA's other anticipated effort, skate.

And yet not many people chose it. Hardly anyone even considered it. This one fell by the wayside since everyone was looking too hard at all the excellent shooters that came out this year. But as far as playability goes, I think skate should have been on more year-end GOTY lists.

In addition to toppling the Tony Hawk empire of skateboarding games, essentially steering the genre from arcade towards simulation territory (which isn't always a good thing, but here it gives the competition a huge advantage) skate boasts a brand new control scheme which broadens the player's tricks to the limits of his or her imagination.

"I think skate. should have been on more year-end GOTY lists."

It takes close to perfect and near inhuman timing to pull of some of the tricks and stunts in this game, and while I am sure more than a few controllers have been flung at basement and rec room walls because of this, it is also what makes skate fun. There is no better feeling than landing a 5k point trick, or a series of grinds and manuals to complete a film challenge. Similar to the way I felt in Portal and Half-Life when ever I solved one of the puzzles that advance you through the game. skate does have a steep learning curve, and the tricks are easy to learn but difficult to master. That unparalleled sensation of mastery and achievement is the reason I pick up my controller in the first place.

skate also had that really cool video editing thing. When the game came out I would whittle time away at work by sitting on EA's online skate theater and watch other people's various triumphs and failures they felt were fit to record. There are just enough options to make it possible to edit a piece of footy into very different and creative aways. The is another example of the new ground that was paved when skate came on the scene.

I coulda been a contendah..

And what about those visuals? skate is a lovely game, and not just because of it's playability, but also the graphics. The settings and animations are completely lifelike, and the level of detail is astounding. The way the sunlight hits the sidewalk and gleams off of your board, the little willows that begin to drift through the air when you remain stagnant for long enough, and of course the ragdoll physics. The sound is incredible as well. The chunk of your board slipping off a curb and into the street, the passing by cars and offhand pedestrian comments really immerse you into to the skaterverse of San Vanelona.

I think this game was massively overlooked in 2007. Once the hype died down, skate was totally forgotten about, or perhaps over shadowed by something else. Its a shame because this one is a real gem. Am I the only one still playing it?

PSP: PSPoo?

Right...

I bought my PSP in a bit of a frenzy. I had a compulsive desire to own a portable device one day, and thus began my research into the PSP and the DS. The DS is the handheld that everyone touted, from critics online to flesh and blood nerdtenderds alike. Even Nicole Kidman was rocking one for a minute there. EB games, in accord with this sentiment, suprisingly had what would turn out to be the best advice: "If you want to watch movies on it and put music on it, go with the PSP. If you want actual gaming, I'd choose the DS." I thought to myself, "Well, the PSP has the movies and music thing, and it has pretty good games. I mean it has GTA on it and it looks just like the PS2 version, so that should keep me occupied. I also bought a bunch of other shit like The Warriors, SOCOM, Mortal Kombat and Tekken. It seemed like such a good deal.

I found the controls to be difficult in games like GTA. The one-stick control scheme that they have going on in that game didn't work for me, and the game just seemed cheap. It felt like a knock-off of the GTA III that I fell in love with; the affair that would re-infatuate me with gaming itself. This was a problem that I had with quite a few games on the PSP, so I mostly stuck to Tekken -Dojo mode on those long rides home from work. There came a time when my commutes became much shorter, and since it didn't seem worth getting invested in a video game for such a short ride, the PSP stayed at home. And I mean it stayed there.

About a month back a friend of mine came into town and brought his DS with him. He had a generous amount of video and audio stored on it, which I had no Idea was possible. He had loads of it. The screen seemed lit a lot better, the video much clearer than on my PSP. Factor in the slim compact feel of DS which can slip right into a pocket. I can't take too much away from the PSP in this department; aesthetically speaking, it is a very sexy contraption, very sleek indeed. But its oblong shape makes it a little unwieldy. What's more, it's best to have a screen protector for the PSP as it susceptible to dust which leads pixel loss which leads to "FUCK!" The DS on the other hand folds in half already as I mentioned earlier, which is a clever built in solution to the problem.

So, all told, if the PSP and the DS have similar features (i.e. both can run movies and emulators; both also have wireless and home brew capabilities, which I don't care about) the only thing separating them is the gaming. The PSP has advanced graphics, but it misses the mark a little bit when it comes to bringing in the fun. The DS on the other hand has a massive library with some very strong titles. I don't game enough on the go to do a trade in or even any further research on the two handhelds, but I just recently realized that I may have made a mistake in choosing the PSP over the DS. I just wanted to share my epiphany and get the word out especially to those who may be in the market.

Assassin's Queef

I don't know about you, and especially you ladies, but for me when I was in high school a queef was kind of like Atlantis. Farts were the tops, and the possibility of a whole new arena was really exciting. I would've had to be close to a woman probably so it's true that was part of it at the time, but really it just sounded fun all around. And eventually it turned out that they were a lot of fun and worth the wait and everything.

At the same time, as great as they are, sometimes one comes along at a time where it can maybe take you out of your stride for a second. I guess it comes with the territory.

The beginning of Assassin's Creed is a nice little introduction. After a little story plays, they pretty much cut you loose with all your abilities to go cut some guy, and his guys. But it turns out you "weren't supposed to do that" (couldn't have done anything different though) and you'll find yourself stripped of some of those powers for a while after shaming your brethren. Before long you can start to try to redeem yourself, and I thought the tutorials fit in really well all around.

It's a lot of fun moving Altair around. I think it's great jumping around in Crackdown too, and after just enough bumping my head or failing to grab the right ledge in Pacific City it was nice to hold RT and maybe A, and watch the animation while he jumped over stuff in his way or started climbing a wall. I know where I want to go, and I don't need to have to press a bunch of buttons to get there right now. While you're climbing, you still need (L) to move left or right for a place to grip, and if you try to sprint through a crowd of people you'll probably keep repeating the same stumbling animation, so there's still a little something to it.



You have to let yourself enjoy the videogame world to enjoy some of the mechanics, and I was fine with that. Basically as long as you break out of the sight line while people are chasing you, you can hide from them in one of three places: in a haystack, in a shaded gazebo on the rooftops, or on a bench between two civilians. If you didn't leave all the soldiers' lines of vision before hiding, they'll drag you out. Otherwise they won't even look for you on the bench or in that big pile of hay when they come around the corner, but the hiding wouldn't have worked if they did. Likewise you can walk up behind a guard in a way that would be pretty suspicious in real life, and they won't see you unless they see you. But it works in the game. So I like this program too, it's a nice option to have along with running or sword-fighting all the time. I guess you could pick at it when you discuss the pros and cons with your Realdoll but I think the fun won out on that call.

So running, jumping and climbing is fun, hiding works, and the fighting is good too. The timing is fun, the controls work, they teach you pretty well and as you do your stuff they'll give your master assassin shit back along the way. Again the animations are great as you kick ass. Through the game you'll notice repeats here more than with the general movement, but there are several different depictions of going to town on these guys. This game never gets very hard although you might die a few times in a couple spots.

At this point I would like to crap a little bit on the story, or at least how much of it they made me "watch." They have a gimmick during some of these scenes where you see a kind of flash on the screen and you're supposed to press any key to change to an alternative, cinematic view of what's happening. If you do this at 85% of all the possible spots you'll unlock an achievement. In a way this was a cool idea, changing the camera angle, but I didn't wind up with that 20 by the end and it's because of some combination of too many cut scenes, too long or too boring. There are some guys I'm supposed to kill to bring peace to Masyaf, and that is enough motivation for me. If I'm getting into the game world to run around a corner and dive in a haystack, that's great work on your part, so please don't drag me out for another scene. Meanwhile some of you clowns would like more story in Omega Five, and we all learn how to live together while we wait for the perfect game.

This part of the game can get repetitive. There are 9 targets to assassinate and for the most part they all work the same way. First, the assassin leader sends you somewhere to go see an assassin contact. Then it's time to gather information so you don't have your pants down when it's time to strike, and there are four ways to do this. You can watch the end of some guy's speech, follow him and beat him until he talks, sit through a short scene and then kill him. You can sit through a short scene, watch two guys exchange some sensitive information, follow and take it out of the guy's pocket and then watch him look around with no clue who took it. You can sit through a short scene and then go do some assassinations for an informant who needs them, but I did not complete any of these. The one I tried, you had to do the whole thing without being seen, and you don't even have to do that for your big targets. It seemed like a pain in the ass so I left the informants alone. Finally you can sit on a bench between two citizens while two other guys have a sensitive conversation a few feet away in the busy marketplace. And sit through a short scene, this was the easiest. These go pretty quickly and after you collect ("learn") two or three it's time to check back in with the assassin contact before going in for the kill.




For side missions, several groups of soldiers push around one innocent civilian each, and you can tear in and take on all comers until you free them. Fortunately the innocent doesn't die in the middle of all this, and you can pretty much take over. Afterward the camera stays fixed on them for a few more seconds while they deliver one of four lines about how grateful they are. You get the idea that I was impatient with some of their presentation choices. You can save a few dozen citizens, and each time you have to wait a little too long while they thank you for the camera toget back where it should be so you can keep taking care of business. It's minor,
but over a few dozen times it made my dick slightly limp so maybe it's not.

Now, it may sound like I've been trashing a lot of the game here, but view points were a better idea. When you get to a new spot, your map is all foggy and you don't know where to go, but every part of every city has a handful of tall buildings you can climb to see what's up. Get to the top and Y makes you look around and synchronize the city with your map, so you can see the rest of the view points along with any of those missions in that general area. It was a cool idea and cool to see the entire city all at once, and advances like these are at least part of why we keep buying a bunch of games. If you don't want to climb down afterward, you can jump off into a haystack, another great "in the game world" idea, and watching it is spectacular too. Anywhere you see birds on a ledge while you're jumping around, they'll fly away when you come but you can jump off there and land in a haystack. Nice.

I think I'm just about finished, and overall the pluses outweighed the minuses for me. I can see why they might not for others, but nothing was broken and I had a lot of fun with it. Maybe you'd get into the story more than I did, but unless it's something like Half-Life 2 that shows you what's up right away instead of telling you a bunch of shit, I usually like my game stories on the minimum. Probably everyone will be turned off a little by the repetitive nature of some of it. Even as cool as the view points were, by the time you hit up so many of them of course it starts to lessen the impact, mistake by them because it was so cool to start with. But when you get a little jaded you'll climb a really tall one, and jumping that far into hay never gets old. Really you could solve some of that by playing in smaller chunks because the moving and fighting is great and you're always doing that more than the other stuff, so I guess it also says something that I played through the whole thing in longer sessions anyway.

It occurred to me I didn't say anything about those 9 assassinations that are the whole point of the game. They're cool too. You can pretty much shank anyone at any time, so it's a lot like that, bracketed by cutscenes and followed by achievements. Really everything you're going to do in this game happens so fast that the tedious parts are over pretty quickly and the fun takes over in general. Maybe that's a big part of why all the scenes kept sticking out after a while. I liked riding the horses too, and that's coming from someone who avoids Zelda games. Sorry if I just lost all my credibility with you, at this stage.

Dromo was really pushing CoD4, but I'm a new 360 owner still working on Vegas, Gears and the Orange Box and I was in the mood for something more different. Sorry if I just lost all my credibility with you, at this stage.

So that about does it. For you achievement folks I finished my first run with 730 points and I think most people would get about that much just playing through it, if not some more. I can't really see finding all the flags dispersed around each area for another 100+ total, but I'll go back in and run around some more anyway so we'll see what develops. I'm not ready for a second run yet either but I could see playing through it again in smaller sections if I get tired of jumping around looking for leftover Templars to slash up. In conclusion, it turns out that although queefs are great, the range of possible funny sounds is rarely as diverse as the classic fart. From the little I know of anatomy and how the human body works, that's probably a good thing overall. But Ubisoft can put this on the box: this game is better than queefs.