It’s ‘Resident Evil’ Day! (Update: Now with trailer!)

Well, sort of.

Starting today, if you head over to the eShop on your Nintendo 3DS, you’re bound to find the demo for Capcom’s upcoming Resident Evil: Revelations, due for North American release on February 7th. Fan favorite Jill Valentine will be the main (playable) character, and it is set in 2005, taking place between Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5. The game will also release bundled with the controversial Circle Pad Pro accessory, which is exclusive at GameStop. In a rather strange decision, 3DS users are limited to 30 uses of the demo. The demo itself uses 1,146 blocks of memory.

Perhaps the bigger news today is this image that sprang up like a wild Pokémon:

Resident Evil 6 will see a release date of November 20 of this year, available for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Perhaps we’ll see Resident Evil 6: Wii U Edition some time in the future. The game will feature Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy, debuting in the first two games respectively, together for the first time in a series entry. Ada Wong supposedly plays a role also and will be a playable character.

Credit to IGN for the image. They have more details here:

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3 

Update! The first trailer for Resident Evil 6 has been released via Capcom Unity!

In the midst of Microsoft’s customer “service,” we find a heroine.

Happy new year, everyone. This is not the first post I intended to open 2012 with, but this a very interesting development:

Back in late September, I had written a piece about my friend whose Xbox Live account saw unauthorized access and unauthorized charges to her credit card. What followed was an aggravating attempt to communicate with Microsoft, who claimed to have suspended her account in order to investigate the matter even though she was still able to access her account. They came up short. Furthermore, they flat out refused service on the basis that she used an alternate, shortened form of her name which violated their terms of service.

Yet according to Xbox Live Director of Policy Stephen Toulouse, no such policy exists. So, what’s up?

No solid answer has yet to surface. Some are claiming it is a Windows Live ID issue, according to at least one testimony in this article from Joystiq. Microsoft has denied otherwise. Their response is akin to running around like headless chickens or perhaps like an ostrich with its head in the sand.

I mean, Christ, there’s yet another NeoGAF thread about it made on January 6 of this year. In this entire mess, though, someone has gone the extra mile.

Her name is Susan, who was victimized and had her Xbox Live account stolen and sold overseas. She went above and beyond and tracked down where her account ended up and eventually made contact with the person who bought the account. She got all the information Microsoft failed to do.

You can read her story and the plight of other frustrated customers on her page: Hacked on Xbox

So thank you, Susan, for all of your efforts. I wish I could have helped out my friend more on the matter but hopefully Microsoft sees that this is not a problem to be swept under the rug.

To a productive year!

The 3rd Street Saints got my back

Saints Row the Third is second to Pokémon Black in the amount of hours I have devoted into its madness this year, closing in on about 50 now. I don’t know if that says more about my devotion to Pokémon Black (click here for more on that) or how much I enjoy engaging in combat against rival gangs and making civilian lives as miserable as possible while simultaneously entertaining them by dancing like Carlton Banks.

It has been five years since the first game in THQ’s sandbox crime game series debuted. I can’t help but think back to where I was five years ago in this world in conjunction with where my character has been these past years. In five years I went from being a college sophomore to a college graduate with few job prospects in a nation protesting financial irresponsibility by the collective “one percent.” In those same five years, my character went from being “the playa” to “the boss.” The Saints went from being a rival gang to a record company and a mess of manipulated suburban kids to a syndicate to a freakin’ BRAND NAME with MERCHANDISING. That includes bobbleheads! It leaves me so flabbergasted in a near exhilarating way. It brings this strange sense of joy, as if me, myself and I made all of this happen!

I think Saints Row the Third finally strays away from the “It’s like Grand Theft Auto” mantra. Is there a big, explorable map? Yes. Are there side activities and is there mission-based gameplay? Yes. Do you steal cars? Duh. However, Rockstar spends every new Grand Theft Auto game building to its new protagonist’s personal tragedies over the course of its story, effectively starting from scratch, as well as creating worlds to admire by looking like famous cities as much as possible and appealing to our familiarities. Saints Row continues the story of a group of people we met years back and their goal is clear from the beginning, a rise to power with no hidden agendas. It may sound simplistic but this is not a bad thing at all. Rockstar Games gives us worlds and Volition, Inc. gives us playgrounds with almost no end in sight.

The Saints continue their desire to conquer all and getting in their way this time is a group simply called The Syndicate: the Morningstar crew, made up of snappily-dressed Belgians, The Deckers, kids who just walked off the set of Tron: Legacy, and luchadore wrestlers, well, the Luchadores. The big difference is that a botched operation at the start of the game brings our Saints to the city of Steelport, changing the setting from Stilwater. The quest begins to take over the city through missions and making some new friends along the way. For just about every little thing you do, you earn experience points through the “Respect” system. Volition, Inc. tweaked this system to finally make us feel like we’re earning our keep. Earlier in the series, Respect was gained to simply unlock new missions and side activities. Respect now unlocks bonuses and customization options, like resistance to bullets and fire. By the time you’ve spent your hard-earned cash on said upgrades, you are a walking god or goddess, chaos incarnate. I really enjoy how the game teaches you to be financially responsible, even after the fact that you earn money on an hourly basis through the purchase of stores and real estate properties. Which will you buy next? Will you give your fellow “homies” a health boost, or will you unlock the ability to wield two pistols and submachine guns?

The familiar side activities return, like Mayhem, Snatch, Escort, and my favorite Insurance Fraud. They’re also few and far in between, perhaps for the better. There aren’t six levels of every activity anymore, but merely spread out and vary in difficulty. Newcomers include Tank Mayhem, Guardian Angel where you snipe approaching enemies to protect your crew, and perhaps the biggest one is Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax: a Running Man-style game show where you must eliminate fellow contestants, dodge traps, and simply make your way to the exit and survive. It would be a simple battle in its core were it not for the wacky visuals akin to Japanese ‘humiliation’ game shows complete with color commentary. It is easily the most memorable of all activities. One thing that personally bugs me is the removal of Fuzz, where you dressed as a police officer and attacked criminals with an accompanying cameraman. It was my favorite activity from Saints Row 2, and not only is it gone but one of the NEW side missions is just an alternate take on Escort but with a tiger replacing a prostitute. Personally I would have just kept the tiger and taken out the hookers.

Most of Steelport isn’t particularly unique, but alongside its suburbs, its industrial zone and harbors you will find a very festive downtown area that is not so much Vegas Strip as it is Los Angeles in the film Blade Runner (amusingly enough this territory is home to the Morningstar and not the Deckers gang). It doesn’t stop it from being a fun place to explore, especially on foot as you come across alleys and corners that hide a number of hidden collectibles that reward you in some extra cash. The best way to explore the city by far is by air, whether it’s in a regular propeller plane, a passenger jet, or a VTOL aircraft, and admire the city lights and skyline (which only grows as you upgrade certain territories) at night. The vehicles from the first two games have returned and can now be customized to be much more resistant to damage and tire blowouts. Best of all is that you can get a fellow Saint to deliver one to you without needing to visit a safehouse or an auto shop.

I really enjoyed Saints Row the Third, despite some hiccups here and there, like some technical bugs, clothing is way less varied than the second game but are a tad more stylish, and a significant number of the main story missions simply teach you how the side activities work. Listen, if I wanted to learn how Insurance Fraud works, or play Snatch, I would simply find their respective icons and get to it. In fact, I wished there were more story missions than what was ultimately delivered. This is not to say Volition skimped on that aspect of the game, but this studio was able to craft some incredibly hilarious and likable characters and place them in hilarious scenarios who see every ounce of destruction unleashed on their rivals as just another good time to be had. This is why Saints Row works. It’s simply about having a good time, and doubly so if you and a friend join forces online.

As I continue on reflecting on these games, I also think about how the game has almost veered away from the whole hip hop subculture lampoon that felt rather ambiguous in part one and now seems to completely play it straight and just shoot for style out of a magazine ad. The Saints still have “cribs,” now they have penthouses. There are still hoodies and baggy jeans, but their default wardrobe are stylish suits now. The Saints have moved on up from 3rd Street, and I’m hoping they go even higher.

Naughty Dog hears you. Patch coming for ‘Uncharted 3′ aiming and motion-blur issue.

After days of cries that the aiming in Uncharted 3 is rather off and counterproductive, Naughty Dog community manager Arne Meyer has stepped up and addressed players via the Naughty Dog forums and even asked for volunteers from NeoGAF to come to their studio in Santa Monica, CA to speak with employees and test out an upcoming patch that will supposedly fix the aiming and add the motion blur effect, which is missing from the retail release of the game. Two NeoGAF users, CartridgeBlower and AwesomeSauce, stepped up to the plate and you can read their feedback on the NeoGAF link above.

As nice as it would be to have this kind of oversight prevented and observed before the final product ships, it’s also nice to see the studio actively seek out opinions, suggestions, and having a dialogue about a potential problem.

You can also read Meyer’s article concerning what Naughty Dog set out to achieve with the single-player aiming in his post on Naughty Dog’s official site. In it, he says that the concern was accuracy, that weapons now fire directly from the barrel of a gun and its recoil must be taken into consideration as opposed to being fired from certain angles and missing by a wide margin. He also says the aiming is “identical” to the second game, which is flat out untrue. I’m not sure what exactly the post is talking about. I tested out the differences of the aiming between Uncharted 2 and 3 and I had absolutely no issue hitting targets with an AK47. Speaking of which, Naughty Dog also sought to weaken the distance of the weapon since many players supposedly used it too much for their liking.

I played a little of Chapter 4 in Uncharted 2 and the way Drake moves the targeting reticule is absolutely responsive to my input on the analog stick. Uncharted 3 is slow, even after a significant sensitivity increase and not as responsive. What players might not see is the inner reticule that expands and shrinks depending on a weapon’s recoil as part of its aim assist. Regardless, Naughty Dog has acted on the issue and I was still able to finish Uncharted 3 on Normal difficulty. While the aiming is undoubtedly better in part two, I honestly did get used to Uncharted 3‘s system towards the end.

Catchin’ up!

Might pull double duty today seeing as the big hoopla right now is the announcement of the fifth installment of a certain car-stealing adventure. You’ve probably never heard of it.

The last big adventure on a console I recently had was revisiting the 15-year-old gem Super Mario 64. I played it during the course of my 24-hour gaming marathon a few weekends ago and I finished it with about 80 or so stars. To my surprise, the game was still pretty fun after all these years except for the part where I constantly fight with the camera combined with Mario’s ability to slip and slide on any terrain without fail! I’ve also been playing Final Fantasy IX, which is one of my favorite games ever. I’m trying, TRYING to make my way through The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Since July, I’ve been in this Lakebed Temple. I haven’t really had the motivation to continue on. The issue is mostly due to the time that I picked to play the game. I was hoping to have the game clear before the release of Skyward Sword. This could still happen. Speaking of Skyward Sword…

Man! How about this fall? I feel like we’re getting smacked left and right with so many titles dropping with Batman: Arkham City, and now Battlefield 3 and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception finding their way to homes from store shelves. Even Sonic Generations might be worth a mention, but I didn’t care for the “modern” version of the demo. Next week we have Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which will probably sell about 80 zillion copies in the first hour, Saints Row the Third (my most anticipated 2011 game), and after five freakin’ years, The Elder Scrolls V: SKYRIM. I didn’t order Modern Warfare 3 and nor do I intend to at the moment. I won’t get on a soapbox about it, but I don’t get to have the great multiplayer experiences the fans get to simply due to a lack of time. It’s a price drop for me and hopefully during this coming holiday season. It pains me to even say I won’t be buying Assassin’s Creed Revelations just yet, either. *insert sad face here*

Then there is Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 to consider… what a blitz.

Since Tuesday night, I have given a few hours to Uncharted 3. I really like it. I have my issues with it as far as its mechanics go but I like it. There seems to be a storm brewing concerning the aiming. A couple of videos have spawned on YouTube, and apparently this problem only exists in single-player mode and not in the multiplayer or perhaps even the cooperative mode? I’ll admit, the first time I played the game, where an underground passage serves as the tutorial more or less, I did have trouble aiming at targets. I thought I was just sucking. Maybe it’s still that, but once I went online I discovered I apparently wasn’t alone. Folks have gone online to do what folks online do best: complain, and no, that is not complete snark.

GameFAQs
NeoGAF
Naughty Dog

"Just give me like 10 minutes! I got this!"

As I write this, Uncharted studio Naughty Dog  have addressed this issue, as found in this Digital Spy article, but what I’m basically reading from community manager Arne Meyer is the typical PR response that says, “No, we made it better!” Apparently aiming has been made more sensitive for a more “precise” feel. I personally do not experience this and compared to the second game it definitely feels like a step down. I don’t know if I can say just yet whether this has dampened my experience of Drake’s Deception so far, but right now I would honestly go with no.

Update: Microsoft and EA on FIFA breaches — “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ars Technica broke the story, as did Giant Bomb and Joystiq.

To be honest, I’m shocked that I constantly see comments in my inbox from people who fell victim to this ridiculous breach of security. I had written the entry almost one month ago, but the media outlets finally decided to say something after supposedly hundreds of users submitted their tales of woe.

Microsoft’s and EA’s responses more or less amount to “We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

They’re claiming they have seen no evidence that this is going on, or on a level significant enough to raise an issue about it. Why would they? Microsoft doesn’t need a PR problem on their hands, as certain Xbox Live procedures dealing with credit card information are already questionable. It’s not even certain how exactly customer accounts are compromised. The people who have been affected by this issue do not seem to be simple-minded idiots who click on “FREE PLAYSTATION 3!!!” banner ad links and fill out personal information. These are people who know how to secure information to the best of their ability. What is it, then, that allows this to happen while Microsoft and EA play dumb and then lock an account for nearly a month as they investigate the matter? Hell, in a lot of cases Microsoft prove themselves to be completely inept in the matter regarding customer support and send people on an irritating back-and-forth trek of obtaining information from their banks and creditors only to have to make a fourth call to customer support.

I’m glad it’s finally being made aware and good lord at all the comments I’ve received. Thanks to all for sharing your woes. Hopefully something is being done about this and it works out for everyone. Can’t EA at least say “We’re sorry our game contains a Douchey Account Exploit Mode?”

Extra Life Charity: Play Games. Heal Kids.

On Saturday, October 15, I’ll be participating in the Extra Life charity. I will be playing games in a 24-hour marathon session in the name of Children’s Specialized Hospital, part of the Children’s Miracle Network of hospitals in an effort to raise money for them. I think this is a fantastic cause and I encourage anyone to please help out and sponsor if you can. You can sponsor any amount you wish, with the minimum being $1, one dollar, an hour.

Thanks very much!

My Extra Life Page

Xbox Live users hacked, victims in the name of EA’s FIFA DLC.

Late this past August, my friend noticed she had a large number of unauthorized charges on her credit card. Someone, somewhere, had gained access to her Xbox Live account and charged an enormous amount of Microsoft Points. Immediately, she phoned Microsoft’s customer support service, who claimed to have put the account on hold and will take up to 21 days for the investigation to find results. Despite this claim of account suspension, the unauthorized user was still able to purchase additional points and she was able to watch these points diminish slowly but surely on the official Xbox site, seeing them spent on downloadable content for EA Sports’ FIFA 2011 soccer game. We took to Google immediately and found a related post on the site Giant Bomb. It wasn’t much help, but we at least saw a degree of comfort that she was not the first.

My friend naturally disputed these charges with her bank, barely. They needed information from Microsoft, which Microsoft does not give out but that an investigation was underway. Microsoft also claimed several times they would actually give her a call and update her the investigation. They did not. Ever. Unfortunately, because of some strange technicalities in their terms of service, Microsoft customer support claimed they saw no problem, that they could not help her in any way and that communications between the customer representatives and the agents of the fraud department are limited to the point where the reps don’t know some of the things the customer is even talking about. After successfully contesting the issues with the bank, Microsoft actually tried to dispute the claim filed and say that these charges are legitimate. My friend is no fan of soccer, so naturally she would never touch a FIFA game in her life, but now FIFA 2011 sits in her game history like a stain on a nice carpet. Not only that, but regardless of how many Microsoft Points you may have had prior to this breach, Microsoft is inclined to perform a points adjustment and you may be left with less than the amount you originally had, if any at all.

I took the search to perhaps the largest game forum on the internet, NeoGAF. I discovered that this was bigger than I had anticipated. Several of the forum’s users have been attacked by these thieves in the same fashion: charge points, purchase FIFA content, get away scot-free. Success with disputing these charges has been rather up and down, it would seem:

Thread 1 – Started May 24
Thread 2 – June 13
Thread 3 – August 30

One issue seems to stem from Xbox Live’s recent Family Account option, that allows a user to create additional accounts for family members and “gift” them Microsoft Points and edit their user options. Unauthorized users may access your email associated with the account, or the account itself, purchase this family pack and a points pack for resale across a number of sites like eBay.

Taken from my friend’s letter to Microsoft reps:

From what I can tell, hackers can gain access to the victim’s accounts in a couple of different ways.  One way is by calling Xbox Support and pretending to be the victim.  They speak to a representative long enough to get a bit of information on the account, and then hang up and call back and use that new little tidbit to get a little further with the next rep.  They do this until they have enough information about the victim’s account to gain complete access.

Another way that I have read about seemed specific to FIFA ’11, where a hacker can e-mail EA support with some jargon that confuses the EA server into sending the hacker the victim’s Xbox and EA account information.  I’m not sure of the legitimacy of this claim but during my search I found videos about it on YouTube, as well as websites explaining how to do it. 

I’ve also seen reports of phishing sites offering free points for the victim to click and stupidly enter their account information.  

Once the hacker has access to the victim’s account and purchases the points, they can create a family account and restore your gamer tag to their console to make it part of the family account.  This way they are able to use your points even when your account is locked.  

They also seem to be selling accounts with the stolen points on sites like tradetang to customers who unwittingly buy them, thinking they are getting a great deal.  The auctions for these accounts make claims such as “Dear friends: Since the points might expire, please use up the points within the warranty time” and “The accounts are not gold.  And it is better not to buy gold membership for the account because it won’t last too long.”  How that doesn’t send red flags is beyond me.

Besides the unauthorized charges themselves, the unfortunate thing is how unreliable Microsoft’s Xbox site as well as their Windows Live site can be. Many users experience error pages that prevent them from successfully editing their account passwords and other details in order to increase security. Microsoft has also notoriously made removing credit card information and disabling auto-renewal payments for Xbox Live a hassle. Customers can either phone customer support and ask for the options to be removed, or remove it from the Xbox Live Dashboard but needing to add another credit card, which possibly negates the entire reason for removing your information in the first place. I recommend at least purchasing a prepaid Xbox Live card from a local retailer, as well as Microsoft Points cards. It’s unfortunate that we cannot depend on security like this from a major corporation, let alone two, right, Sony? We have to do our part as well, and although this sounds like common sense, this could happen to even the most experienced users: make sure to have a strong password, never give out credit information if you can help it, and don’t click on shady, suspicious links that claim to have amazing prizes and what have you.

I think sites need to make this issue aware, and Microsoft and all corporations that ask us for credit information for utilization of a service, to please work on updating your security measures and not just casually pat the customer on the shoulder and say “We’ll see.”

Microsoft Xbox Support
@XboxSupport 

 

 

 

Nintendo 3DS ‘Ambassador’ program reminds us of primitive goodness and frustration with free NES games.

Surprisingly, Nintendo seemed to have uploaded their free Nintendo Entertainment System games for their 3DS ‘Ambassadors’ a day earlier than they had announced. Typically I’m sitting around in the afternoon to evening waiting for something new to show up on the Virtual Console. I think Nintendo is still trying to figure out this newfangled “internet” business the kids are raving about today.

The NES games are Nintendo’s thanks to folks who purchased their Nintendo 3DS device at the original $249 price tag before it was officially lowered to $169 last month due more than likely to unmet sales expectations. 10 Game Boy Advance games were also included in this reward package. Five have been confirmed.

The following GBA games have been confirmed as of this entry:

• Mario Kart: Super Circuit (2001)
• Metroid: Fusion (2002)
• Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island (1995, 2002)*
• Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ (2003)
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2004)

*Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island is a Game Boy Advance port of the 1995 Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island originally on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990, 2003) has been rumored to be part of the package.

Leave it to Nintendo to refrain from keeping it simple, however. Their interface for browsing has typically been notoriously convoluted. Unless there was another way some of us completely missed, this is how you access your free NES games:

1. Access the Nintendo eShop from the 3DS menu.
2. Tap ‘Menu’
3. Find and tap ‘Settings / Other’
4. Find and tap ‘Your Downloads’
5. Find one of the NES games such as Super Mario Bros. and tap ‘Redownload’
6. Once the download finishes, repeat Step 2…

I’m not even kidding. When it asks if you’d like to continue, you are taken back to the first eShop menu, and it becomes a lather and repeat process for all six steps. I use a very good internet connection at home, but folks who aren’t so lucky may be sitting tight for a bit.

Nintendo released the following games, and I will be talking about some of them today:

• Donkey Kong, Jr. (1982)
• Balloon Fight (1984)
• Ice Climbers (1985)
• Wrecking Crew (1985)
• Super Mario Bros. (1985)
• Metroid (1986)
• The Legend of Zelda (1986)
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)
• NES Open Tournament Golf (1991)
• Yoshi (1992)

Possibly the most successful spin-off of all time. /kanyewest

Super Mario Bros.

A long lost gem by Nintendo, never to be ever revisited–who am I kidding? You know what this is. Your grandmother knows who he is. Moses knew what Super Mario Bros. was and he split the Red Sea in two to find a copy. This was just the beginning of an empire, domination of a world whose subjects would lovingly get down on their knees and bow to a little man in red overalls. To be honest, I’m not one hundred percent on whether Super Mario Bros. was actually a launch game for the NES. Eventually Nintendo sold NES consoles that included the more common Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt two-in-one cartridge in addition to the gray Zapper gun accessory (I think). It is famously Mario’s first real grand adventure having legally changed his name from “Jumpman” and moving to bigger and better things from climbing ladders and avoiding barrels in Donkey Kong (1981). Super Mario Bros. is just about my age, and it’s still one of the most accessible games ever developed. The challenge is perfect. It’s still a fun way to kill a little time if you decide not to use any warp zone pipes. The concept and world design was crazy enough to keep running with it for decades. Its retro graphics have not aged well, but arguably everything else has. In a time now where people are playing quick games on their mobile phones and people embracing indie-developed homages like Super Meat Boy, the old has inverted into new. Playing this straight (that is to say, without any warping), I was able to get to 7-3 before I finally saw a Game Over screen. Remind me to try that Koopa turtle 1-Up trick next time.

Joust, Nintendo style.

Balloon Fight

Balloon Fight is the surprise hit of this collection for me and possibly my favorite in this collection. This is most likely because of my strange obsession with the 1982 Williams Electronics arcade game Joust. In Joust, you repeatedly tap a button to make your character’s giant ostrich fly around while trying to take out enemy characters on their ostriches before they have a chance to do the same to you. You are, well, jousting. I am not a great Joust player, but I love the idea and the design and the execution. Balloon Fight takes this idea and spins it into a friendlier “I’m a guy floating on a balloon and I need to take these birds out before they take me out over water instead of lava.” I think it’s even better embracing the game as an adult because of the hilarious concept and the hilarious idea of birds needing to float on balloons rather than just flying around. The fact that a man is taking birds out of the sky when they may have more of a right to be there than he does is something to ponder. Maybe they believe in fair competition, which explains why it’s one man versus about five or six birds per stage. Not to recycle the point, but much like Super Mario Bros. I found it to be a very fun pick-up-and-play kind of game and it’s the kind of thing you will find today in some mobile app stores. There is a two-player mode, but I’m not actually sure that’s supported on the 3DS. The third mode is “Balloon Trip,” which has the player trying to keep the balloon guy afloat dodging lightning bolts and popping other balloons. Thumbs up, I say.

The world's hungriest dragon.

Yoshi

To be perfectly honest, there isn’t much I feel I can say on Yoshi. It seemed like Nintendo wanted to get its fill of puzzle games in like Dr. Mario and Yoshi’s Cookie after the success of Tetris on Game Boy. In this game, you mix and match Mario’s recognizable rogue’s gallery and essentially score points connecting the same enemies together. Score good combos and keep the queues from spilling over and resulting in a Game Over. Occasionally, top and bottom halves of Yoshi’s eggs will drop, and if you manage to sandwich in many enemies in between the halves, you can score a lot of bonus points and hatch a Yoshi. This is an okay little time-waster, but there is something more appealing about Dr. Mario and Tetris. Yoshi feels rather limited.

Cruelty in a box.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

I should probably alert you to the fact that I didn’t exactly play this on the 3DS, but I recently did play it on the Wii Virtual Console from beginning to end. Zelda II has a bit of gained infamy over the years because it’s a bit of a departure from the design of The Legend of Zelda, which preceded it. The side-scrolling combat of Zelda II would never really see its way into any future two-dimensional entry of the series, nor would the idea of gaining experience points to strengthen health or magic or attacks. We would see the idea of visiting towns and talking to non-player characters who dispense more useless advice than useful in future games. Zelda II might be remembered for two things, if anything: “I am Error,” and its difficulty.

Like the first game, the player travels to several palaces to defeat the boss and find an important item for later use. Honestly, it feels like you as the player don’t have much to go on when not only unlocking new spells, but discovering locations and especially the locations of the palaces of Hyrule. In 2011, this would be a complaint, but I remember that in the ancient calendar year of 1988, a lot of secrets that weren’t hinted at were most likely only available through an issue of Nintendo Power. It’s probably how Nintendo got you to get a subscription! A lot of the game’s difficulty comes in the palaces, where you meet an entirely different set of enemies compared to the ones you run into in the game’s overworld map. In addition, many enemies are just as skilled with a blade as Link is, and you have to maneuver and time your hits to even get a hit in of maybe five just to get to a new area. The palaces become mazes and some areas are accessed in ways that are so not made clear. Unfortunately, if you lose all of your lives (yet another feature that would never be revisited in this series), you start all over from Zelda’s palace where she rests (until you wake her by acquiring the Triforce of Courage) and you have to make your way all the way back. This got especially infuriating at Death Mountain on your way to the final palace. Death Mountain is the stuff of nightmares, with its cruel enemies and their cruel patterns. It is also the game’s real test of courage not only for Link, but for us, who were willing to toil away all those hours gaining strength, to summon the courage needed to face that final palace, where heroes are forged. *ahem* Sorry, got carried away there. The point is, that place is a bitch!

Haunting your childhood dreams.

Zelda II is arguably the least appreciated game in the Legend of Zelda series, but it does have its charm and its difficulty is the stuff of legends. I always applauded Nintendo’s efforts to experiment with different ideas (and that does not include slapping Mario sprites on Doki Doki Panic! and calling it Super Mario Bros. 2) when they did. I was personally relieved when I finished the game finally, compared to my sadness when I finished Ocarina of Time 3D.

It may be a little off for me to jump right into talking about Zelda II without even discussing The Legend of Zelda, but I intend to get to it soon now that I have access to it again. I used to have the Gamecube Collector’s Disc edition from 2003, which had the NES games, Ocarina of Time, and Majora’s Mask but I sold it off.

The next entry will, of course, cover more NES games in this package as I get to them.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes — Closing up the Summer 2011 shop.

I am going to instill a truth upon you. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the best film that Hollywood has served us this summer, hands down. This movie could have been something of a disaster at worst, and just a mediocre, soulless cash-in (you know, like the 2001 Tim Burton movie) at best. Movies like 30 Minutes or Less, Final Destination 5, and the remake of Conan the Barbarian are all set to close out another season of blockbusters, but really, you should close your summer out with a tale of the risks of science, its battle, or rather struggling coexistence with nature, and a simian revolution that carries more emotional weight than a number of films you will see this year.

Originally I wanted to write a formal review. I have seen the movie two times, and I will watch it again when it’s for sale on Blu-ray. I own the soundtrack, because the intensity that is present when Rocket attacks Caesar in a quest for dominance. Caesar, of course, has an advantage here that later leads into the film’s climax on the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The movie introduces us to Will Rodman, a scientist employed at Gen Sys, whose primary research consists of a solid treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Tests are performed on apes, one of which is Bright Eyes, who shows rapid progress and increased signs of functionality and intelligence. Rodman’s boss thinks this treatment is ready for sale, but the proposal meeting with the board goes terribly wrong when Bright Eyes becomes manic and incredibly aggressive, attacking employees before ultimately taken down by building security. The board mistakenly believes this is a side effect of the ALZ-112 treatment, when the reality is that Bright Eyes has given birth and was protecting her child. In the aftermath, the apes are destroyed and Will reluctantly takes the baby chimp home.

We then get an insight into Will’s life outside of Gen Sys, where we meet his father Charles, a musician and teacher who is dangerously succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease and so the audience now has an emotional stake in Will’s battle to perfect this treatment. The amazing thing about Lithgow’s performance is that his dangerous fits were somewhat similar to his character on Third Rock from the Sun in his states of mania, forgetfulness, and near-insanity. Lithgow knows how to do drama, though, if you’d seen the last season or so of Dexter. We go through years of bonding and interaction between Will, Charles, and baby ape Caesar, who grows into a highly intelligent ape as it is explained that Bright Eyes’ reception of the ALZ-112 treatment passed on genetically.

The film does a fantastic job in characterizing Caesar. He isn’t merely visual effects, nor is he just “Caesar the ape.” He is simply Caesar. The film successfully lets us know this is his story. He does everyday human tasks, as mundane as we see them, but he also retains the sharper, more finely-tuned survival instincts as an animal. The film is a battle of science versus nature.

Traffic reports suggest you stay away from the Golden Gate Bridge today.

Caesar continues to show rather advanced signs of intelligence and cognition, yet his instinct to protect his family unfortunately lead to his detention at an animal control center. Typical red tape, court orders, etc., prevent his release, but Will also continues research on a new variant of the ALZ-112 after his father finally succumbs and passes on after noting Caesar’s progress.

From there on, Rise of the Planet of the Apes should have solely focused on Caesar, and it mostly does this. At first I was left wondering why we were still with Gen Sys, with Will, with this treatment. However, almost like a stage play or even a game of chess, all of the characters, these roles, play their parts in a finely-stitched story. Caesar is portrayed by Andy Serkis, who brought Gollum to life in Peter Jackson’s direction of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the titular gorilla King Kong in Jackson’s 2005 remake of the 1933 film. Serkis plays the role in a way where he is not only trying to establish his leadership with the other simians imprisoned with him, but with us, the audience. We want to follow him every step of the way. This is why the film succeeds. With a few side plots carefully making its way into the battle, they bring some interesting plausibility to this revolution, where it will lead, and what this means for our race and our future. The film raises a few issues about identity, where we truly belong in life, and differences between pride and tyranny as evidenced when Caesar orders other apes not to kill the humans, and thus the audience does not turn against Caesar. The goal is to have their voices heard and to experience a freedom they fought for and will use to their advantage in the long run. Don’t kid yourself. This is a rather frightening thought from the human perspective, but all we can do is watch with awe. By the end, every emotional moment goes above and beyond, and this is truly one of the more emotional films to have released this year.

To top it off, Patrick Doyle’s score is amazingly intense and helps carry our emotions and expectations through to the grand finale.

"I have to go now. My planet, that is to say your planet, needs me."