Because I’ve been playing this game so damned much since I got my Xbox 360, I thought I’d write a review of it.

Stuart and I have played it on Xbox Live! together twice, and both times the lag was pretty crap but we still had fun. The very first time, I had just started, and my Level 1 agent was completely unable to keep up with his.

Me: Where the hell are you?
Stuart: I’m up here, on the roof of this giant building, I can see the top of your head.
Me: WTF? What do I have to stand on to get up there?

——–

Crackdown (Microsoft Game Studios / Realtime Worlds)
Platform: Xbox 360
Score: 8/10

Criminals are a rotten lot. Turn your back on them and they’ll take over your neighborhood in a heartbeat. You’ll see them start to ride around in hideously painted cars overnight, blasting bad dance music everywhere you turn. The point where it really gets unbearable for me is when they add gunshots into the mix, leaving police corpses outside your home. That’s just not on.

Crackdown is a game where you are tasked with single-handedly crushing a crime wave that the combined efforts of all the world’s police have failed to stop. When I say ‘You’, I mean a heavily-armed genetically engineered agent of justice, of course. But it’s important not to let that minor detail turn you off because you’ll get used to being awesome.

In its essence, this is a game of many discrete joys. While crime-fighting is in itself a fulfilling goal, the numerous creative options and bonus objectives mean that you spend a lot of your time just exploring the limits of your cel-shaded sandbox. Set over five islands that make up the troubled Pacific City, Crackdown offers up plenty of room to play in. You can swim up rivers, drive down boulevards and crowded public squares in commandeered (really, stolen) vehicles, and gracefully traverse city blocks in giant loping leaps from rooftop to rooftop. The crisp, colorful execution has a comic-book playfulness to it, and you’ll find it to be a cross between playing GTA3, and watching Universal Soldier and the Japanese movie Casshern back-to-back.

Its gameplay design has been infused with basic RPG values: the more you do something, the more you’ll come to excel at it. Spend enough time challenging yourself to climb buildings and you’ll find your agility level rising. Mow down villains with mad driving skills, and your Agency-issued vehicles grow faster, and visually morph when you enter them. It’s like being in the boat from Hulk Hogan’s TV series, Thunder in Paradise, except none of the agents have mullets. All in all, improving your stats in a game of Crackdown feels far more rewarding than it does in most action RPGs. Every time your agent gains an extra star, releasing a shockwave of energy, you’ll run back to earlier areas to see if you can finally reach that elusive rooftop, or drive a car fast enough to jump over that bridge. By turning a modern city into a playground, Crackdown achieves a level of spatial connection between player and level that most RPGs do not. The feeling of wonder over new-found powers instantly becomes a deep-rooted desire to see them play out in a familiar setting.

Crackdown doesn’t just offer incentives for obsessive compulsive behavior. In fact, it nurtures it. Hidden across the city’s rooftops are 500 Agility Orbs, and finding them inevitably becomes an addiction to rival Pokémon collection. Elsewhere, you’ll find purple vehicular stunt markers hanging in the air, waiting patiently for you to find a way to get a car through them. Taken along with street races, rooftop Parkour races, games of Stockpile and Rocket Tag, and another 250 Hidden Orbs for those who’ll explore every inch of the virtual city, and there’s a raft of things to do in Pacific City besides hunting down your 21 gang bosses. Although fun is already its own reward, doing any of these tasks also rewards you with points that make you even more badass. Most achievements are also unlocked just by doing ridiculous things like juggling a car up in the air with a rocket launcher.

What you will find lacking in the experience, however, is something most 3rd-person shooters already suffer from: a poor camera. You’ll often find yourself just missing the edge of a ledge and falling 100 feet to the ground, ending your attempt for a record time on a Rooftop Race. All because you couldn’t move the camera quickly enough to see what was under you, after having moved it up to see what you were jumping at to begin with. It’s a minor niggle, and even with other complaints such as multiplayer lag, a lack of good in-car radio music, and the lock-on targeting system that favors parked cars over the guy shooting at you, there’s a significant amount of fun to be had.

The deal has recently been sweetened with the release of downloadable expansion packs (1 free, with another costing 800 MS points), and a patch that enables the resurrection of defeated bosses for more replay value.

It’s been a long time since I posted a mix online, and so I thought I’d let the next one form over time in a blog post, with descriptions.

These songs are currently being considered:

Leah Dizon – Softly
The first single from Chinese-Filipina-Caucasian American import car model turned demure, virginal Japanese idol Leah Dizon is an auto-tuned (har har) wonder of pop schmaltz. Except something about it just grabs me. It could be that little down-then-up melodic hook at the end of the first line. It might also be the cliched production – I think the term is ‘shimmering’ – that encapsulates the feeling of a sunny weekend, right at the end of summer holidays.

We all know it from younger days. That feeling that while everything is right in the world, it certainly isn’t going to last forever, and just at that moment you realize one day you will look back from the position of an older, more troubled person and say, “good times.” Summers are the saddest best times of our childhood, all opportunity, waste, and compromise. That’s what this song suggests to me near its end, and if we were all Portuguese/Brazilian I could have just said saudade and you would have understood without all this faffing about.

This is something I wrote a few months back for a friend’s zine that has now been released.

5 minutes ago, I had myself a really strong cup of coffee from the office machine. So forgive me if my fingers skip a letter over, or leave out a word entirely. I will not be going back to edit it. This will be a forward-moving exercise, and that is the first step in saying goodbye to a city. You must not look back, only pack your things, both tangible and otherwise. I am not saying you cannot reminisce while in the process of leaving, only that you must never stop being in a state of leaving. A pause to think, “oh, if only I could find a way,” does not help your cause at all. If there was a way, you would likely have taken hold of it in a desperate manner much, much earlier on. Resign to your fate, it will be easier.

Like the weary half of a long-stagnant partnership, imagine yourself a young nubile female recently freed from her possessive mobster boyfriend. Look forward to all the cities you will now be sleeping with. Remember all the times when failed public transportation systems slapped you across the face, sending you reeling into Ming vases and all manner of mantelpiece decorations. If that wasn’t enough, now you can finally stop lying to your family about what this place really does for a living. Remember, look forward and not backwards, unless it’s to frame, sully, or misrepresent the past.

Say goodbye to the friends you’ll leave behind. You know, the ones who declined your offer of lifelong companionship (in locations of your choice). They may not be the most sincere of friends, but say goodbye anyway. It is a magnanimous gesture that helps to ease them into some semblance of a life in your absence. Promise to call, and write letters to rehash and reheat the meagre strings of commonality that will scarcely bind you in the lack of physical proximity. Or hell, since it’s 2007 you could just add them to Facebook and be done with it.

Take a tour bus, or regular public bus, around the city for a day. Allow yourself to realize that there were many places you never ventured out to explore. Many faces you never met. Cities are, by the very nature of their naming, very large places indeed. And does Jesus kick himself every night about not appearing to every man, woman, and child in Jerusalem during his time? Does Mick Jagger bemoan the groupies he had to lock out because there is only so much coke and whores a man and his band can accomplish in one evening? Don’t answer that. Instead, try switching them around in your mind. What Would Jagger Do with the ability to generate alcohol from thin air? Given Mick’s position, would the Son of God… you know…? That’s far more interesting, don’t you think!? My point is, learn to let things go.

Have some fun burning bridges. If you’re never coming back, take every opportunity to push the limits of human decency. Hit on that checkout girl who’s always letting her top fall open at you. No, it’s not an accident you fool. Give her your dirtiest come-on. Afterwards, teach her son how to play with knives.

Take photos of everything. No matter how resolutely you leave – and as mentioned earlier, you must – there will be days where a stray song, or stray TV commercial, or stray hair in your food will reduce you to fond tears for your former home. In these moments of unmanly weakness, you will find comfort in leafing through stacks of these mundane images. But remember, although it may salve your forlorn heart, never mistake this for an acceptable practice. It is the nomadic soul’s equivalent of squeezing one out in the toilet of a strip club.

Finally, and most importantly, have your last meal. Only you should have more than one. The same way vacation overeating is excused, the effects of last meal dining tours of a city on your body are forgiven by friends and loved ones. Have at it. Eat all the duck fat, pork belly, smoked sausage and Mexican food you want. Provided you’re not some sad schmuck who frequents chain and themed restaurants, you’ll never find anything quite the same anywhere else. Although you may plan to return to them someday with new friends, Fate is cruel and your favorites will always be shut down on account of rodent infestation and incest. Or an infestation of incestuous rodents, if truly unlucky. I speak from personal experience.

It’s rare that I finds a remix of a favorite song so good that I can’t tell which is better. This Groovefinder remix of Nina Simone’s ‘I Got Life’ (yes, that Muller ad song from a few years back) is a great example. It embraces and extends the palette, with every new element seeming to belong.

Link

Further to the last post, I just had a moment of heartbreak while surfing the Play-Asia site. I recently bought 3 EA games for the price of 2, which is their current summer gaming promotion. That’s about $140 bucks for 3 games: Def Jam Icon, Burnout Revenge, and Fight Night Round 3.

On Play-Asia, Def Jam Icon and Burnout Revenge are both $38. That effectively negates my free game. Fight Night is sold out, which means I can’t see what it used to cost, which makes me feel only that little bit better.

The morale of the story, once again, is check Play-Asia.com before buying any games.

Edit: If anyone’s looking to buy Prey for the Xbox 360, you probably can’t beat this price: USD$17.90 (SGD$27.50)

The ads are back in town. A banner here, and a skyscraper on blast. Let me show you how advertising can be integrated with blog content!

I use Play-Asia.com quite a bit, seeing as how they have free shipping to most places in the world, and prices are competitive with local retailers. Yesterday I went to a store looking for Rainbow Six Vegas and a sales guy nearby asked me out of the blue, “Do you like… The Darkness?”

Normally, that would be indication to leave the store as quickly as possible without making any sudden movements. But he meant The Darkness, a highly-rated supernatural FPS that’s just been banned here for no apparent reason. Far more violent games continue to be available. It could have something to do with the fact that your character is a mob hitman at the age of 21. Perhaps it has some immeasurable ability to coerce youth into secret societies.

“Ah. How much is it?”, I asked casually, with all the know-it-all insouciance I was born with and which has cost me many a friendship.

“$89. It’s banned, you know.”

Dammit, I wasn’t getting through to him. I decided that I had no time to waste with the maker of such a bad deal, although Rainbow Six Vegas was sitting cold on the shelf before me, at a bargain price of $66, five less than the neighboring stores were asking. The tension built, the silence between us unnerving. Should I make some concession to his salesmanship and indicate some surprise? ‘Wow, that’s a steal for contraband of that calibre!’, or perhaps, ‘Banned? I had no idea!’. Or even maybe affect the creepy voice of the merchant in Resident Evil 4. ‘I’ll buy it at a high price, stranger!’

I decided to walk away, making no comment, letting the imaginary desperation of his mind (in my mind) fester as I picked up Rainbow Six Vegas and made my way to the cashier. While $66 for my game was a steal, The Darkness at $89? Pah! I knew it was only $76 on Play-Asia.com.

My several-month-new Pioneer plasma TV has gone on the fritz, shutting itself off within seconds (up to 5 minutes, if lucky) of being turned on. I believe an internal overload circuit has been activated after the recent storm activity, and needs to be reset. Imagine my horror when the planned weekend of vegging out with the 360 evaporated.

Forced to find alternative pursuits, I played on other consoles.

Prince of Persia: Rival Swords (PSP)
*** (out of 5)
I’ve had this game for awhile now, but never really gave it any love. The camera controls take a little while to get used to – I come from the Japanese school of automatic best-camera POV – but once you know how, you stop falling to your death. Am currently stuck on the first giant boss with a possible bug that prevents the game from telling me when to stick him in the head with my dagger. A charming game. Still, some moments have been nothing but pure wall-jumping pleasure.

Nervous Brickdown (DS)
***1/2 (out of 5)
This game attempts to put a spin on the age-old Arkanoid/Breakout formula, and succeeds, if your definition of spin is ramping up the anxiety. By the way, did you know the paddle in Arkanoid was actually a spaceship? Just one of the many things you learn reading blast! So now while you’re keeping your balls up in the air with the touchscreen, you have to accomplish other tasks such as coloring illustrations, “driving” your paddle left and right down a 3D racetrack, and so on. Essentially your brain will often be playing 2 games at once. Novel.

Crazy Campus (Mobile)
**** (out of 5)
Admittedly, I’ve only just started on this phone game, but it holds a tremendous amount of promise. Like a good old-fashioned Japanese dating/time-management sim (Princess Maker sequels in English, where are you!?), you are a college student in his last semester whose friends have all graduated ahead of him/her. Your task is to put in the study hours, make money at a part-time job, join a clique of stereotypical friends (cheerleaders/jocks/nerds/hippies/hip-hop heads/etc.) and hook up with the hot girl graduation. Oh, the life I never had.

—-

I also spent Sunday afternoon planning a trip to Japan with some friends. Nobody brought a laptop, so I had to surf with my PSP and free Brewerkz Wi-Fi (they rock). Everything was jotted down on napkins, although I’ve since started a wiki to keep everything together. Hopefully it’ll grow and become a useful resource for other otaku pilgrims planning similar vacations in the future.

You can take a look at the link below. Contributing requires a Wet Paint account as it is powered by their software. Would be appreciated!

japan.sangsara.net

I bought an Xbox 360 last week. Like most of the expensive unnecessaries I eventually buy, the desire for one has been building up for months. Disgust and a sense of morality has usually held me back, but in this one instance it’s possible to admit Microsoft has produced something that works extremely well, when it works.

A couple of months ago, I actually tried to buy one but was foiled when the ATM swallowed my card minutes before. I thought that was the end of it, but like all things Microsoft, it doesn’t go away when you want them to (and conversely, they get red rings of death when you don’t).

The big scale-tipper was Guitar Hero II. I’ve missed out on many a videogame fad, and this one is just too good to let go. Videogames generally get very hard to find once they go out of print, and this problem is exacerbated in Singapore by the almost-niche status of original (read: non-pirated) game discs/products. It’s improving this console generation, with the largely hack-resistant 360. But I’m pretty sure once Guitar Hero II is gone, it’ll be gone for good.

Anyway, the experience this past week has been amazing. I’ve consistently come home and played on the console every night, and I spend a lot of time downloading game demos, videos, and trial versions of Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) games. The latter are largely casual board games (Catan), puzzle games (Bejeweled 2), and high-res ports of classic arcade games like Pac-Man, Contra, and Bomberman. They cost money, and I’ve gone down that road as well, without regrets. Last night, the first Wing Commander game in years was released on XBLA, which would be very exciting if it weren’t a completely different genre of action shooter.

It’s interesting to note that Microsoft seems to be the only player actively supporting online console purchases here*. I have no access to the Wii’s Virtual Console store without an American credit card. I believe the same goes for Sony’s Playstation Network.

A couple days after getting on Xbox Live, I added my old friend Stuart to my buddy list, and we blasted through 80% of the incredible game, Gears of War, together online over 2 days with the help of the provided VoIP headset. It was an almost completely perfect experience, with clear and lag-free voice chat between me and the UK, and smooth co-op gameplay. I think it was the first time we’d talked in two years, and yet it felt as if we were in the same room. Those two multiplayer sessions alone were convincing enough justification for the high cost of the damned thing. Until it explodes on me, I’m actually very happy with the machine as a 2nd console to my Wii. It might even be the other way around until Super Mario Galaxy comes out.

And suddenly after playing a couple hours of Guitar Hero every night, I’ve developed incredible left-hand finger dexterity and a bulging right bicep. I’m going to be horribly unbalanced if I keep this up.

*Exception: The local XBLA Marketplace differs slightly from the American one, offering about 7 fewer games, including Boom Boom Rocket, one of the reasons I was keen to get an Xbox 360 in the first place. One can buy it with an inconvenient workaround, so I see no reason why they can’t get their act together and synchronize game releases worldwide.