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Costume armor for larping is no different than the costume accessories required for any other game. Whenever the need for costume arises in gaming the need is for either enhancing the role being portrayed or for protection from some real or virtual online requirement. Various accessories such as dedicated leg armor are designed to add quality and value to gaming. Game costumes can be accessed both online as well as offline.
They are available within dedicated stores that allow you to view the costume components and verify application. Costume armor designed for larping is also easily accessible. You not only get to view the choices you can invest in online, but you can also take a virtual trial of the accessory. They are displayed with all the necessary information alongside, to make shopping for them easier. The sites are just a click away and never more than a second to access.
One of the many things that can tie a generation together is their shared memory of pop culture. One can easily distinguish another person from their generation by comparing such things as movie quotes, theme songs, cartoon knowledge, or even commercial jingles from their time.
The Star Wars franchise is one of those generational watermarks. Beginning in the late 70s, the original trilogy left an indelible mark on most of the moviegoing world. Adults and children alike shared in the knowledge of the Force and how it aided a young Skywalker in his quest to save a princess and redeem his father.
While the original trilogy will always bring about certain memories to the people from that era, the Star Wars franchise didn’t end with Return of the Jedi. Countless books, graphic novels, toys, and even four more movies have provided continuation to the universe that George Lucas built, and it has all kept alive the Star Wars mythos for newer generations. Along with these additions, there have also been many entries to the Star Wars canon in the form of videogames, which brings us to LucasArts’ latest release, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
Set in the time between Episode III and Episode IV, The Force Unleashed details the adventures of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice and the events that led to the forming of the Rebel Alliance.
Hit the jump to find out if The Force Unleashed lives up to its heritage while still providing a worthy videogame experience.
[This review contains no spoilers]
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PS3, 360 [reviewed], Wii, PS2, PSP, DS, mobile)
Developed by LucasArts
Published by LucasArts
To be released on September 16, 2008
Not too long ago, I went to see Star Wars: The Force Unleashed at LucasArts’ studio. In my preview, I mentioned that The Force Unleashed looked to be shaping up as a true Star Wars movie wrapped in a video game. From the opening Vader intro to the first boss fight, what was shown displayed top-notch production values along with a very positive nod towards satisfying any series fan. With the final release of the game, I can say that my opinion has not changed.
From beginning to end, the attention to detail and presentation is absolutely phenomenal. Each and every cinematic that you see has an almost movie-like quality to it. The quality of the animation and the (believe it or not) outstanding voice talent combine to give the illusion that you are playing an actual movie — not just any movie, but a Star Wars movie. The Force Unleashed seamlessly interweaves these gorgeous cut scenes into and out of gameplay so well that the usual marked difference between playing and watching becomes very pleasantly blurred.
One of the reasons for this blur is that the same amount of effort used to make the cut scenes is also apparent during gameplay. While some games only look good in their cut scenes, The Force Unleashed looks great all the time. Whether it be the detailed environments, the costumes, or just the fluid movement of the unique in-game characters, no penny seems to have been pinched in making everything as visually stunning as it can be. But while the entire visual package is, bar none, some of the best I’ve seen in awhile, a game cannot rest on its appearance alone.
By now you may have noticed that everything about The Force Unleashed’s presentation is impeccable. Since I’m the one telling you that it is, I certainly won’t try and argue against myself in telling you that the game is almost a movie in its own right. As a movie, it’s amazing, but The Force Unleashed also happens to be a videogame. You know, something that is played. And it’s upon playing The Force Unleashed where certain negatives begin to show.
As I mentioned in my preview (and as is unmistakable by looking at the game’s box), the entire thrust of The Force Unleashed’s gameplay is centered on using, surprise, the Force. While I certainly had my issues when viewing the preview, I had figured it was just my newness to the controls. At the time of writing this, I’ve completed the entire game twice, and I still have issues with the Force controls.
A type of floating lock-on determines what your Force powers will be used on. Where the lock-on “square” positions itself is dependent upon what’s in front of you and the direction that you’re facing. This sounds like it should work fabulously, but the AI that the lock-on uses needs some more work. The reason that it needs more work is because the lock-on will shift — not only when you move, but when the enemy moves, too. Since the Force target square doesn’t distinguish between the type of objects you can apply the Force to, consistent and accurate usage of the becomes a trying experience.
Allow me to explain. Countless times throughout the title, you’ll be trying to use the Force Grip on an enemy that is right in front of you. More times than not, the enemy will move in a way that will change where or what your Force Grip will attach to. You would think that the next logical choice would be the other enemy that is right in front of you, but you’re wrong. Nine times out of ten, you’ll end up locking onto a crate, or even worse, a crate that isn’t even on the screen. Meanwhile, said enemy and his cohorts, who are still right in front of you, continue to shoot you in the face. This outcome is persistent throughout the title and is most frustrating during any sort of fast action or boss fights, of which there are many.
The highest degree of frustration derived from this game also comes from the general use of Force powers during play. While you intentionally start off very limited in the usage of the Force, you eventually gain more experience and more abilities in its use. None of this will actually help you in the melee combat, though. Almost every enemy has attended the “school of cheapness” and has brought its diploma to The Force Unleashed.
Enemies swarm, attack, and shoot you incessantly while you are in fighting range, and this makes using the more impressive (or even useful) Force powers somewhat impossible. When dealing with any group of enemies, I found that the best tactic for not dying over and over again was to find something to hide behind and whittle the number of enemies down by blindly throwing them, or throwing something at them, until their numbers were less fatal. The enemy AI is brutal to a fault, and takes away from the game’s intention of using the Force to deal with situations while relegating a majority of the combat to lightsaber melee tactics.
I would also like to mention that the second boss battle is, by far, the cheapest boss battle I’ve played in the last ten years. Only upon the second playthrough (with almost fully maxed out Force powers) was he more manageable — just a warning for your first time through.
As you play, you will find yourself routinely irritated by the loose Force controls and the brutal and occasionally unbalanced enemy AI. You may also notice some inexplicable frame rate freezes during the game, especially while playing as Vader, but all other issues are minor and not worth mentioning.
Now while it may sound like the entire experience is marred by these control issues, that is somewhat not the case. While these issues are persistent throughout the title and, in my opinion, certainly detract from the overall enjoyment of the game, those who are longtime Star Wars fans will be more than satisfied with their Force Unleashed experience. Without a doubt, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a masterpiece of storytelling and fits magnificently into the Star Wars universe. Unfortunately, as a video game, the gameplay issues in The Force Unleashed are extremely noticeable and hinder a lot of the enjoyment that is derived from the narrative.
Too Human (Xbox 360)
Developed by Silicon Knights
Published by Microsoft
Released on August 19, 2008
Too Human attempts to blend Norse Mythology with science fiction to retell the beginning of The Ragnarok, that which the Vikings considered their end of the world, when their Gods, the Aesir, would be destroyed in a war with Loki and his children. Playing the role of Baldur, it is your job to wage war against the mechanical horde with whom Loki has sided and protect humanity as an Aesir.
While an interesting concept, the premise for Too Human quickly becomes absurd as the Norse mythology is shoehorned in, often awkwardly, and with no degree of subtlety. As much as I respect what the writers have tried to do, having what amounts to a glorified Space Marine refer to a woman as a “wench” before talking about his “weird” just comes off as ridiculous. This chapter of the series — part one of a proposed trilogy — is very shallow beyond its Norse roots and seems to exist solely to show how clever Silicon Knights is for referring to robots as goblins and pretending Odin is some kind of artificial intelligence.
The story has its redeeming qualities of course — Loki fulfills a stereotypical but enjoyable role as the sneering, gloating villain while the disembodied talking head of Mimir can be somewhat amusing. In this suspiciously short eight-hour game, however, very little exposition is actually had. It takes eight hours for the game merely to say “Loki is a bad guy. You will probably have to fight him in the sequels.” Ultimately, despite a few glimmering moments of promise, the game ended (abruptly) with me feeling flat, unfulfilled and frankly not very interested in what might happen in Too Human 2.
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with updating a great Flash game and porting it over to other platforms. Hell, it worked out really well for Metanet Software’s N; when Anthony Burch reviewed the Xbox LIVE version, N+, he gushed over the title, calling it “the ultimate indie platformer.”
Now the title makes its way to both the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable as, well, N+. After playing the Nintendo DS version for over a week, I can safely say that yes, N+ on Nintendo’s handheld is a fun, addictive platformer. But does it warrant the “absolutely a must buy” Anthony gave the XBLA version?
Hit the jump to find out.
N+ (Nintendo DS)
Developed by Silverbirch Studios, Metanet Sofware
Published by Atari
Originally released on August 26, 2008
The concept of N+ is simple: it’s a platformer without all of those pesky story elements or offensive maneuvers that characterize most modern games. If there is a narrative, you’ll have to make one up, so here’s my take: you are a ninja who must raise money in order to save an orphanage by collecting valuable golden orbs while navigating dangerous terrain. Or, you’re trying to pay off student loans to pay off ninja college.
Whatever the case is, N+ throws over 200 different levels at you, all of which must be navigated by moving and jumping. And that’s it. It’s all absurdly simple, but its solid controls and momentum-based physics jumping work well and feel great with the DS directional pad. The game’s challenge comes from the deceivingly difficult level layouts, which include lasers, mines, and other generic booby traps designed to keep you from your goals. The difficultly ramps up significantly as you progress through the levels, initially introducing you to very basic game concepts, eventually escalating to areas that seem near-impossible to negotiate.
But here’s the great thing about N+: even when you die — exploding on a mine or being bounced around the stage like a rag doll — you always feel like it’s your own fault. The controls and in-game physics are precise and predictable enough that when you screw up, there’s clearly no one to blame but yourself. Sure, this can be tough on your ego, but it encourages perfecting paths through areas, and completing a particularly tough stage is immeasurably gratifying.
Regrettably, beyond personal satisfaction, there’s not much that would have you pushing for that perfect level run-through, collecting all of the game’s gold nuggets. The game does maintain statistics, but not for individual levels; there seems to be no way to see how well you’ve done on levels you’ve cleared. You can’t see how many gold pieces you missed, your total score, or the time it took you to complete any given stage. It’s because of this that I felt no reason to do anything more than push from start to finish of each level, with no desire to really return.
It’s a good thing that the game not only features a full-featured level editor, but also a way to connect to the Nintendo Wi-Fi network to download and play user-created areas. Not only does this feature open up theoretically-endless replay value for N+, but it also keeps better, more motivating statistics than it does for the levels the game ships with. When connected to the network you can see not only who created it, but not many times a level was played, how many times it was successfully completed, and your own best time. Additionally, levels can be rated, so if you want to sort through the crap you can (and considering the relative ease of use of the level editor, there most certainly will be crap).
N+ can also be played cooperatively with another ninja or competitively with up to three other players, but with only one cart, testing these modes wasn’t possible. Co-op is a straightforward affair, with two players working towards a level’s exit. Competitive modes include Domination Mode (own as many switches on a level within a given time limit), Tag Mode, and Blitz Mode, where players race towards a goal.
Visually, beyond the smooth animation of the game’s skinny ninja, N+ doesn’t necessarily impress. It’s mostly flat colors, with more shades of grey than anything else, and sharp, even angles comprise most of the game’s rooms. You can view and play the game on either of the handheld’s dual screens — one displays a wide, zoomed out view of the map, with the other giving you a closer look at the action.
Regarding the game’s music and sound effects, the best I can say is that it sounds like a videogame, which is not necessarily a good thing. “Bleeps” and “bloops” characterize most of the game’s sounds, which would be fine if you were listening to them against a bed of listenable music. Unfortunately, the game’s soundtrack is abysmal and grating, probably the most obnoxious I’ve heard in a title in quite some time. Let me clarify: the music itself isn’t bad, with some pretty hot 8-bit beats and potentially catchy melodies. The problem: each piece of music is no longer than 15 seconds long, and will continually loop itself to the point where you’ll be forced to turn down your sound before you’re carted off to an insane asylum. Fortunately, the game gives you the option to cut the music altogether (and I believe that it’s the default option).
Overall, N+ on the Nintendo DS is a fun, polished game for what it is … a collection of obstacle courses. But it’s a polished and tight experience, to be sure, although I do feel that the game could benefit from having a tighter overall goal structure versus an open series of mini-challenges. Still, for those looking for challenging, bite-sized gameplay, N+ contains some of the best you’ll get on the DS.
The Xbox 360 has been screaming for quality RPGs to fill the void left since Lost Odyssey. Japanese RPG powerhouse Square Enix has had some new titles looming on the horizon for a while now, and the first of its big release, Infinite Undiscovery, has appeared to take Lost Odyssey’s baton.
Developed by tri-Ace and exclusive to the Xbox 360, Infinite Undiscovery was always a bit of a quiet one — most of us knew it existed, but nobody was really talking about it too much before release. Now it’s out and the Internet is certainly talking — mainly asking help forums where to go next.
Yes, Undiscovery may not be a word, but it’s still an incredibly fitting title, as you’ll find out when you join Colette and I in our official Destructoid review.
If you have found any problem with your xbox 360, do visit xbox 360 3 red lights repair. At that website, it provides you with full Guide & Videos to permanently repair your XBOX 360. Here’s an idea for a game: Let’s create vast maps full of generic environmental details so that everything looks the same, then hide new areas and key locations around the map, which the player won’t see in full until they’ve traversed the whole thing. Giving our players only the vaguest hint of where they need to be, we will then throw them unprepared into this huge wasteland with very little of interest between locations, and even open up new areas of the map without ever announcing that we have done so. This is a brilliant idea.
Infinite Undiscovery is a truly prophetic name, as that’s exactly what the game is about as you wander lost around the game’s large, obscure maps. The very fact that many users of online message boards are all asking the same questions about where the Hell to go next is very telling — Infinite Undiscovery is very badly designed, throwing the player into a big and boring world before telling them to work it out.
This is Undiscovery’s biggest trespass, but it is still just one in a long line of offenses that have marred what may, at one point, have been a decent idea for an RPG.
[Red ring of death -- literally]
You play the role of Capell, a flute playing moron who has been wrongly imprisoned by The Order of Chains. The Order, being the generic evil empire that it is, has chained up the Moon and locked it in place above the world. Capell is at the mercy of these fiendish brutes because he looks identical to the man they are really after — Sigmund the Liberator, a man with the power to cut the Moon’s binding chains.
Accidentally rescued by one of Sigmund’s followers, Capell escapes to find Sigmund and his liberation force, and from there follows them on a journey to rescue the cliché world from a cliché villain while having a cliché coming-of-age story with all his cliché friends.
Ah yes, the RPG character clichés. They are all there — the annoying twins, the brooding emo, the musclebound idiot who’s a child at heart, the one that’s an animal and of course, the female lead who is madly in love with the main character but acts mean to him, yet is jealous of any woman that looks at him funny.
It wouldn’t be all that bad — Lost Odyssey had its fair share of stock characters — but I have never seen an RPG employ its leads so ham-fistedly and with such obnoxious obviousness. For example, the female lead Aya begins her worn-out love and jealousy routine almost moments after meeting Capell, as if the writers knew that we all saw it coming so dispensed with any kind of build. Why bother when we’ve seen this trite idiots-in-love bullshit a thousand times before? Characters are randomly inserted into the plot, barely fleshed out, and then almost forgotten. I was actually surprised to see at least one character in my party — he was so inconsequential I hadn’t noticed him there.
In fact, every single character — from the jealous, whining Edward to the unapologetically camp villain — is so boring or extreme in its clichés that you’d be forgiven for thinking the whole game itself is a parody — a well-observed caricature of Japanese RPGs. However, this notion falls apart when you realize that if it’s a joke, it’s not a very funny one, and things become thoroughly depressing once you see how seriously the game begins to take itself.
Despite its unique gameplay, gorgeous visuals and inventive design, Viva Piñata never quite became a powerhouse Xbox 360 title, perhaps thanks to the guns n’ guts demographic that the system commonly appeals to. If the platform is the problem, then Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise has a chance to prove itself, as Rare has temporarily broken the shackles as a Microsoft second party to team with THQ and bring its candy-stuffed world to the Nintendo DS.
So, how does Viva Piñata work on Nintendo’s handheld? Does the touch screen serve to improve or hinder? How has the game survived the graphical downscale? What color does a Fudgehog turn when you feed it a chilli? Some of these questions will be answered in this, the Destructoid review of Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise.
Reviews are a touchy subject both on and off Destructoid, generating all sorts of discussion, controversy and outrage. In a somewhat fruitless effort to try and curb the endless bitching that surrounds reviews, my predecessor Aaron Linde published Destructoid’s first review guide.
As handy as it is, Nick Chester and I got together and discussed updating the manual to reflect the needs of the modern woman. I hope to make this a little more concise and address a few recurring issues that I’ve noticed when it comes to our reviews. Most importantly of all, we are introducing a brand new scoring scale, offering greater differentiation between numbers and hopefully making scoring a little easier for the review team.
Without further ado, let us be off on our journey then. Please enjoy the brand new Destructoid Review Guide.
The Japanese RPG never ceases to astound me. It is a nearly untouched genre, steeped firmly in tradition. It beckons players to grind for experience senselessly for hours on end with an overly simplified battle system. It entertains with the same archetypal build of protagonists, antagonists, and supporting characters. The genre’s males look like women, and the women look like 12-year-old girls. The games have multiple discs, hours of cut-scenes, and a massively linear style of exploration and gameplay.
Over the years, these cracks in the armor have turned into massive fissures, releasing steam and bubbling goo that have catalyzed the spawning of odd hybrids. One could surmise that the success of the Western RPG, which is typified by its non-linearity, often-complex story structure, and redefinition of battle, has aided in expanding the cracks into the gaping holes that we recognize now.
Tales of Vesperia resides in this transition period. It’s obvious that the developer, Namco Tales Studio, has tried to integrate part of the Western experience into its game. There are marked improvements in the genre itself, changes that were needed for the betterment of the series as a whole.
Taken out of transition context, how does Tales of Vesperia perform as a standalone title? Does it captivate, immerse, or entertain? Is the visual art a viable alternative? Is the battle system fluid and fun? Will it transcend the Tales series?
Hit the break and I’ll tell you.
It’s felt like a long time coming, and the hype has been extraordinary considering the platform, but Castle Crashers finally hit Xbox Live Arcade and has made a huge splash with gamers the world over.
Hailing from the minds of Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin of The Behemoth, Castle Crashers has been highly anticipated for its sense of humor, retro sensibilities and the fact that The Behemoth’s last major game, Alien Hominid, is a well-loved example of hardcore gaming at its hardest. With Castle Crashers, Fulp and Paladin have delivered a more accessible, considerably larger and far more ambitious title, one that was so eagerly awaited that its online servers are still clogged with gamers desperate to get their co-op time in.
Has Castle Crashers lived up to the hype, or was The Behemoth’s medieval hack-n’-slash destined to disappoint? In keeping with the game’s four-player sensibilities, we have assembled a four-man team of trustworthy reviewing knights in myself, Reverend Anthony, Jordan “Grim” Devore and Mike “Savant” Ferry. Don armor and come with us for the official Destructoid review of Castle Crashers.