Jay’s Internet Log

A few days ago I read a review saying that Rock Band 3 is the best rhythm game that’s ever been created.  After spending just about an hour with the game, I’m agreeing so far.  Sure, this basically looks a lot like the other games in the series, but Harmonix has tweaked many aspects of it, all for the better.  The only thing that’s gotten me upset is that I earned a 4 point achievement, and when I earn achievements that don’t end in 0 or 5, I get Incredible-Hulk-Angry.

Anyways, last night I installed three cymbals onto my Rock Band drums and booted the game up.  I tried for a little while to import all of my other Rock Band songs, but couldn’t get it to work, so I’m still puzzled as to how to do that.  I went into a freeform drum room to make sure that the cymbals worked and was pleasantly surprised when not only did they work, but now it seems like I’ve got a fairly full drumset here.   The 4 original pads and kick pedal all play different drum sounds, and each of the cymbals plays a different sound as well.  It’s quite impressive.  I played through the first setlist consisting of 6 songs, then Llama once, all on Pro mode Medium.  When playing Pro mode, in addition to hitting the notes as they come down the course, you have to hit the correct cymbals as well, which has made Medium level drums fun again for me.  It really takes a lot more attention to play this way and with the exception of Llama, I played all real easy songs.

I tried uploading a video but was getting an error, so I’ll try again tonight.  That’s all I really have to say about the game right now since I’ve only put about an hour into it and half that time was creating Sir Awesome again.  It would be nice if Harmonix allowed you to bring over avatars from their previous games so I don’t have to do it each time, but it’s not a huge deal.  I look forward to putting a few hours into it tonight, and eventually with friends, as this game is full of win.

I say somewhat because I’ve never played the game that people are comparing this to (God of War).  In terms of gameplay, The most similar game that I’ve played is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.  Also, as a side, if we’re comparing games, shouldn’t we all be comparing all platforming games to Pitfall and Super Mario Bros.?  Games are going to continually take ideas from other successful games.  Activision pays a certain developer to basically copy another developer’s ideas every few years and it makes them a LOT of money, though it goes almost unnoticed among reviewers and many fans.  It’s part of the industry and it isn’t going to stop.  When I read about people knocking this Castlevania game because it’s too similar to God of War, I just stop reading because they should be reviewing this game in a sterile environment and for what it is.  Okay, on to the game at hand.

To begin with, my Castlevania experience began when I was 12 years old and my neighbor showed me his new Nintendo Entertainment System.  We played the original Castlevania on it and eventually beat it; a task that I doubt I’d be able to easily accomplish today.  Since then, I’ve played all but about 4 titles in the series on most every platform, my favorites being the Nintendo DS titles.  I did play Castlevania 64 until I got to a part that I couldn’t get past in a clocktower of sorts.  The jumping mechanic in that game was atrocious.

I played the demo for Lords of Shadow Monday evening and was very impressed with the presentation set forth, the voice acting (though at times it definitely feels read and can be a tad long), the graphics, as well as the gameplay.  The demo consists of the first two levels of the first chapter of the game, and admittedly, I had some problems with getting the combat down.  I died a few times but when Gabriel, the main character, flew over a bridge that wasn’t really there at the end of the demo, I took a deep breath and knew that this was going to be a great ride.

Last night when I arrived home from work, the Limited Edition of Lords of Shadow was waiting for me.  I opened up the box and started installing the discs one after the other.  I always suggest that you do this with every current title that you play.  Not only does it make the game run more efficiently, it reduces heat and prolongs the life of your 360.  I took a quick glance at the art book and CD, but these won’t really be looked at more until the game has been completed once.  The packaging is nice, but I would have preferred a metal tin case.  I love those metal tin cases!

Upon starting the game and realizing that I had just played these levels the night before, I fared much better and got through the entire demo section unscathed.  I bought a few new attack moves, and really started to understand the attack methodology.  When done correctly, the battle mechanic is extremely satisfying.  I decided to stop buying new moves to see how far I could get with just a few basic ones, and I got about 6 levels further before stopping for the night.  Now I’ve got a lot of credits to spend on some moves tonight.

Graphically I believe this to be the nicest looking game I’ve seen on the 360 and I don’t really foresee better graphics coming to this platform without serious performance degradation.  The only clipping or stuttering I saw was at the head end of a few cutscenes, and even then, only for about a half second.  During gameplay I saw no slowdown whatsoever.

The game is divided up into 12 chapters made up out of about 50 levels.  Chapter 1 had 5 levels, and Chapter 2 appears to have more like 10 levels.  When starting the game, you can replay any level you want from a menu and choose difficulty.  This is similar to how Resident Evil 5 was set up, and I wholeheartedly approve.  This will make it easier to play through harder difficulties with all of my upgraded weaponry and moves.  Also, each level upon completion grants you a challenge in order to add re-playability and counts towards achieving 100% in the game.

One particular boss fight actually required me to grapple onto and climb his enormous body.  The game doesn’t really tell you what to do at first, and I died a few times figuring it out.  You have to destroy 4 orbs on his body, but after you destroy the second one, the game saves so you don’t have to repeat the first two again when you inevitably die.  At the end of the fight, I was climbing this thing very efficiently and eventually downing it felt really good.

Here are a few negative aspects that I’ve encountered with this game, because even though I think it’s very well made, it isn’t perfect.  It may be just because I’m still early in the game, but it sure does seem to pause an awful lot to instruct you on what to do when new items are available, but like I mentioned above, when a new, huge boss is introduced, the game decides to let you guess what to do while he punches the ice repeatedly (That’s a hint to this boss!). I’ve gotten lost a few times.  Sometimes the path will fork and you won’t know where to go.  Luckily, each time I’ve come across this, the paths merge together to a common goal.  The levels are all very short in length, possibly due to the high amount of graphics that need to be loaded.  When a new level starts, Captain Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart will always be Captain Picard to me) talks for about a minute while the level loads.  This is a nice touch but it tends to drag on at times.  I’m still engulfed in it because I’m trying to figure out this story.  At the end of each level, it always tells me that new moves are available, even when they aren’t.  When you grab an enemy, a large circle closes in on a smaller one, and when it gets inside, you’re supposed to hit a button.  Many times I’m hitting it too early, but that’s not the game’s fault.  Maybe on harder difficulties these circles are a bit faster, which is where I think they should be.  The last little bit of frustration that I’ve had is that sometimes the game will want you to jump to a ledge, but I jump almost to it and drop to my death.  This isn’t so bad though since the game autosaves frequently and I just start over again right from that ledge.  Even when you fall in battle and have to go through it again, the credits that you earn are saved so you essentially are earning them again on top of what you already earned.

Overall, I’m loving this game so far.  Sure it borrows methodology from other games, but very few don’t these days.  Even Batman: Arkham Asylum last year borrowed from games such as Splinter Cell, but for some reason it wasn’t publically knocked for that.  Some reviewers seem to be making up excuses for not liking this game and I’m not sure why.  Most of them say that it’s too similar to other games, but maybe they don’t realize that not everybody has played those games.  They should really be reviewing this game for what it is, and not what it borrows from others.  This game has a great Castlevania feel to it.  Also, when someone says that this game drops in framerate, I have to disagree.  It runs perfectly on my old 360, so it should on yours too.  The game is fun and very well put together, and I applaud Mercury Steam for their effort.  I look forward to finishing this and playing it again!

[EDIT] – I forgot to mention the music.  The music is amazing.