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2007-05-12T20:29:00.001Z

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A Dissertation on Videogame Localisation

2007-05-09T14:05:00.000Z

As part of my degree, I had to write a dissertation on an aspect of translation. Not wanting to do actual research, I chose to do it on the impact of the technological arms race on the role of the translator in the videogame industry. Exciting, isn't it? Yeah. So having spent literally over 5 hours writing the infernal thing, I may as well upload it for your viewing pleasure.

Warning: It's not very focused, and all very boring, really. Here.

Metal Slug Anthology

2007-04-27T15:49:00.000Z

Again, from gamestoaster.

Even in 1996, the Metal Slug series was old-skool. For the enthusiast, they represented videogaming at its purist, polishing up a tried-and-testing gameplay mechanic until it shone. For the rest of us, in a time of bump mapping and physics engines, their broadly drawn 2D visuals and arcane gameplay just seemed dated. Even so, they've found a fan-base, and have graced a multitude of formats over the last decade. Metal Slug Anthology collects the 7 games released to date on one disc for the Wii.

The games are almost uniformly solid to play. The artwork is heavily-stylized, and adds a considerable amount of charm and character to the games. They offer a definite challenge, but rarely does this lead to frustration. They also pack in enough variety - from drivable vehicles to an array of boss battles - to save repetition ruining the experience. A 2-player co-op mode rounds off the package.

That said, it is now 2007, and the side-scrolling shooter has been surpassed in terms of visuals and thrills. If you still enjoy the genre today, then Metal Slug Anthology offers a great example of it, and you'll get a lot of bang for your buck, as none of the seven games on offer will be strolled through.

Outside fans of the genre, however, it is hard to recommend. Individually, the games would have worked well as Virtual Console releases, but at full-price, it's difficult to recommend what for many would amount to nothing more than a short dip into times gone by.

Pac-Man Rally

2007-04-07T16:47:00.000Z

Originally on gamestoaster, here.

Pac-Man, the story goes, was inspired by a tired glance at a quarter-eaten pizza. The round, open-mouthed character was born, and the game followed from there. He wasn't so much a character, as a single characteristic - a set of big yellow jaws, and the various Pac-Man arcade games employed him in the only way they really could. Why, then, is he now mucking about in go-karts and motorbikes?

Pac-Man Rally is a cartoon racing game very much in the vein of Mario Kart. Various Namco characters compete in a variety of cups by racing across various stages, collecting weapons, power-ups and so on, all for reasons best known to themselves. Split-screen 2 player and battle modes are also present, offering a diversion to the single-player proceedings. It is very unashamedly Namco Does Mario Kart.

There is an inherent problem with this, however. Whereas Nintendo's roster of colourful cartoon characters lends itself well to such a game, Namco's catalogue is a little less inspirational. Their most successful games of recent times have been Tekken and Soul Calibur, and their back catalogue is full of arcade relics. Someone somewhere along the line decided that Pac-Man was more child-friendly than Voldo, and left it at that. The result is a character list boasting blue ghost, red ghost, pac-man, ms. pac-man and other personality-devoid creations.

And that's something of a pity, because with more imaginative characters, the game could be gunning for the top of the podium. The racing is solid, with innovations in the form of fruit-pickups enabled short-cuts and a big mechanical Pac-Mobile power-up, and the multi-player is more than capable. Mario Kart nudges it in terms of challenge offered, albeit by 'cheating' AI, but that's hardly of importance in a game so squarely aimed at the younger market.

So when all is said and done, we're left with a below-par Mario Kart. it is probably the best option on the PS2 for those looking for similar thrills, but don't expect a lasting challenge.

The Videogame Translator

2007-03-26T17:56:00.000Z

I'm currently writing a dissertation on the localisation of videogames. I say currently, but I've yet to really put pen to paper - merely doing lots and lots of reading. Anyway, I wrote this article as a way of focusing my thoughts a little.

Some videogame memories are universal. Burned into the minds of most gamers is Ryu’s ‘You must defeat my dragon punch to stand a chance!’ words of discouragement, or a gravel-voiced Snake checking in with the Colonel, marking the opening of Metal Gear Solid. ‘It’s-a Me, Mario!’ is another to provoke knowing nods and smiles. Raise a glass then, to the humble videogames translator, without whom, we would never have had the chance to create these memories, or the hundreds like them. Without whom, these memories would not be universal, but confined to a cluster of volcanic islands in the pacific.

With Japan traditionally being the most prolific of nations in the sphere of videogame development, and the thirst for Asian gaming ever growing in the Western hemisphere, the role of the videogames translator is more important than ever. However, in terms of accolades, it receives perhaps the least attention. Where are the BAFTAs for the translators? Nowadays, there’s an award for almost every discipline in the industry – from character design to audio production – and yet one of the most crucial is almost universally ignored.

That in itself may be testament to how good a job the videogames translator is doing. A successful translation of a videogame is one that plays like a domestically produced game, with no jarring dialogue to draw attention to the fact that they’re playing a game created on the other side of the planet. Their work ensures that instead of linguistic abominations like Zero Wing getting into gamers’ hands, they instead play slickly realised localizations of the Metal Gear Solids of this world.

If the end result is not enough to deserve a tip of the cap, then the means surely does. The industry has moved a long way since the days of Zero Wing. Money has rolled in, technology has advanced, and games have become much more epic. The Playstation era brought full motion video and high-quality audio, while the Xbox kicked open the online world. Art-teams swelled, programming teams double and tripled in size, and yet the translator’s floor space has remained by in large unchanged, with often a single translator working on an entire game.

Considering that these days, an entire game can mean upwards of 1.5 million words – frequently culturally entwined, presented in a variety of media, and subject to constant change and revision - the challenge is overwhelming. Chipping away at that mountain, and having to do so on a tight deadline, is an unenviable task, and one that deserves huge appreciation from the entire industry.
Still not convinced? Look at your catalogue of games. Remove any games produced in a foreign language. Mario 64? Gone. Ocarina of Time? Gone. Final Fantasy VII? Gone. What are we left with? A near empty shelf, littered with more Need For Speeds than Goldeneyes.

Far Cry: Vengeance

2007-03-24T19:29:00.000Z

The original Far Cry, when released almost three years ago, turned out to be little more than a plain Jane shooter dressed in a fancy frock. Cutting-edge visuals aside, it failed to bring anything new to the party, and as such the franchise never entered into gamers' hearts in the way Doom, Halo or Half-Life did.

In the intervening time, the franchise had made its home on Microsoft's Xbox, before coming to the Nintendo Wii in the shape of Far Cry: Vengeance. Unfortunately, this installment of the series has turned up the party wearing the exact same frock as three years ago, and those blocky shoulder-pads really do stand out against the competition's more svelte little numbers.

A tropical, jungle environment is always going to be more taxing on hardware than the standard corridor shooter, and this is certainly the case here. Vegetation is big and blocky and rock-faces are ill-defined. And without visual appeal, Far Cry shows itself up to be a bit mundane.

The good points? The controls are the best attempt yet on the Wii. The awful dialogue and plot will raise a laugh or two. The application of feral abilities is by-in-large well done.

However, the game-play is mostly a case of follow-the-yellow-dust road, and straying from the beaten track never offers any reward. There are some drivable vehicles scattered about the archipelago which acts as the backdrop, but the controls are too loose and the vehicles physics too lightweight. And that just about sums up the game itself: too lightweight, too rigid in following the beaten track.

The lengths I will go to...

2007-03-23T17:57:00.000Z

...in order to avoid starting to write my dissertation. Faced with an empty Word document, I'd rather arse around on the internet doing nothing for hours on end. Even that can get tiresome after a while, so I took work-dodging to a whole new level. Firstly, I catalogued what I reckon to be most of the movies I've seen in my entire life using listal.

Then I downloaded MacOSaiX and used the posters for these movies to make a mosaic of a photograph of myself. Here it is:

300

2007-03-23T15:58:00.000Z

I never got around to writing about Clint Eastwood's duo of war movies concerning Iwo Jima, but suffice to say I thought they were good. Flags of our Fathers took a sledgehammer to the notion that war brings out the hero in the everyman, and Letters from Iwo Jima, unlike almost any other war film, portrayed the enemy as genuinely human and humane. They were a breath of fresh air, and a million miles from the movies you'd expect Dirty Harry Callahan to be making.

Indeed, if that loosest of cannons were to bring a make a movie, you'd imagine it'd be diametrically opposed to those pair, and indeed a lot closer to Zack Snyder's Frank Miller's 300.

300 is a man's movie. Or, if not quite a man's movie, then it is a teenage boy's movie. It doesn't waste much time in plot exposition - and what exposition there is features a healthy amount of lady-nipple to tide us over until the next of the frequent battle scenes. This movie is all about how men become heroes in war, and when the titular 300 aren't sticking spears in people, they're shouting rousing speeches at each other as they pile dead bodies. Flags of our Fathers it certainly is not.

Those two most volatile of places - the internet and the middle-east, erupted with accusations that the portrayal of the Persian army was racist. True enough, the film featured mutated, horrifying Persians, so obviously this is no Letters From... style treatment of the enemy, but this film has no claims of historical accuracy. And as the accusations are based on movie-goers leaving the cinema thinking that yes, King Xerxes was guarded by half-men, half-goats, I would say that it is the Iranians and Internet Pant-Wetters that are racist against movie-goers, for thinking they are so stupid.

Anyway, the battle scenes themselves revel in blood and gore, frequently slowing down to let the audience appreciate that spear through the chest a little more. It is a credit to Snyder, and perhaps Miller, that despite dominating the entire film, the action never feels repetitive or overly-long. Indeed, it wasn't deeper characterisation (the 300 are differentiated only by haircut, really) or more political intrigue that I felt was lacking, but rather more men sporting ridiculously defined six-packs stabbing improbably large mutated beasts in the eye with big spears.

My deepest thanks go out to all involved in this picture, because I now have the perfect counter-weapon when I'm next asked to watch The Sound of Music by my girlfriend.

The Warriors

2007-03-21T17:24:00.000Z

Note: This article originally appeared on GamesToaster.com, here.

Time has not been kind to the scrolling beat 'em up. Before the arrival of the original Playstation, the genre was regarded as the one-stop-shop for those seeking their fix of action. The subsequent jump to 3D led to various failed attempts to reinvent the genre, before it was quickly laid to rest.

Rockstar then surprised everyone by developing a game based on a cult 1970's movie that was, essentially, a side-scrolling beat 'em up on celluloid. In doing so, they managed to create what was a true return to form for the genre - featuring simple yet satisfying fight mechanics and an engaging story. There were criticisms; most notably that one can only punch a faceless thug in the face so many times without the experience feeling a little repetitive.

Rockstar have done well in bringing this game to the PSP. The story-mode is present and accounted for, as is a quick-rumble mode for those wishing to dive straight into the face-punching, on top of multiplayer modes. The controls map well to the handheld, the visual and audio production is top-notch, and the load times are tolerable.

Indeed, in many ways the PSP is the best hardware for this game. Dipping into the game for 10 minutes here or there not only helps to stave off that sense of repetition which hampers the home console version, but is perfectly suited to the simple, accessible game mechanics.

It is not all sunshine and lollipops however, as the screen can get a little overcrowded during some of the bigger donnybrooks, and the fighting engine falls down when faced with such numbers. The abundance of cut-scenes is another annoyance, but thankfully they're usually quite brief.

So, the rarest of games. a by-the-numbers port of a Playstation 2 game onto Sony's handheld that doesn't leave you completely underwhelmed, but rather accentuates the positives and all but removes the negatives of the original

ytilibitapmoc

2007-03-21T13:10:00.001Z

Despite Sony's best efforts, I am still intent on buying, or stealing, a PS3. Sure, it's over-priced, there are currently no must-have games available, Playstation Home is disgusting, backwards compatibility seems about as compatible as Isreal & Palestine and the machine itself looks hideous, but just as Bonnie Tyler really needs me tonight, so I too really need a PS3.

I'm not an idiot though. I'm not paying the 500 million dollars in gold bullion that is the European RRP (certainly not when good ol' Irish retailers stick their arm in too). I'm going to wait until I relocate to Japan, and pick it up there, for a comparative pittance. In this way, I can justify spending what would otherwise be a ridiculous amount of money on a box full of technology to sit under my telly collecting dust beside my Xbox 360 and probably quite near to my pristine PSP and DS, safe in the knowledge that all you saps in Ireland are paying almost twice as much. Ha!

All the talk recently has been of the cutdown backwards compatibility that the European (and soon every) model will feature. The internet, as the internet's wont, erupted with the screams and howls of a hundred thousand fanboys, who proclaimed this move by Sony as a sign of THE END - not for Playstation, but for the universe itself, judging by some of the reaction.

But what does backwards compatibility actually mean to me? I have not once played an original XBox disc in my Xbox360. I guess the XBox can't really be used as a fair yardstick however, as I have never owned a copy of Barbie Horse Adventure or very much cared for Halo, so I've not got too many compatible games lying about. That, and I'm afraid that my brittle Xbox will break into a million pieces if confronted with such a relic.

On the Wii, I've played the GameCube classic WarioWare - even though it's been made somewhat redundant by the Wii sequel. On the Playstation 2? Bishi-Bashi, once. Final Fantasy VII, until I realised it was rubbish. Metal Gear Solid, until the horribly aged graphics made me physically sick. In short, I've almost never taken advantage of backwards compatibility.

The Playstation 2's catalogue being so varied and full of much-loved games and unplayed gems, that I'm a little concerned about being limited to playing games like Mouse Police should I need a previous-generation fix. So I spent 5 entire minutes of my life scouring the backwards compatibility list, checking for games I might possibly want to play. Here's what my in-depth invesitigation uncovered.

Rez: It's not even on the list. Which is actually a little comforting, because I sold my copy of it for about 20e, and I'm not willing to pay the bajillion euro people are asking for on e-bay.

Ico: It runs fine - giving me a good 7 or 8 more years to never play it.

Freak-Out: Not on the list, not getting in. A shame, because it looks brilliant.

Frequency: Not on the list, as likely to work as a French public-sector employee. It's sequel, Amplitude, joins it on the picket line.

God Hand: Will work with noticable issues, perhaps marring one's enjoyment of repeatedly walloping people in the face.

Gregory Horror Show: Noticable issues.

Grand Theft Auto: GTA III works fine, while mercifully Sony have broken the awful San Andreas. As an unhappy accident, Vice City also works fine.

Killer 7: Works with no issues, but nor does the emulation make any sense of what is the most bizarre videogame in the world. Even more than that Korean anal-probing one.

Guitar Hero: Not on the list, nor is the sequel. Sony clearly hates Harmonix.

Katamari Damacy: Not on the list. I've no real want to play it, so I'm glad it's not playable, as it's sure to annoy all those pricks who extoll it is as the second coming of Jesus.

So there you go. An inexhaustive list to the old games I will and wont be able to play, and problably wont play regardless, on my PS3.

Mouse Police, incidently, isn't on the list.

Shinobido: Tales of the Ninja

2007-03-17T18:30:00.000Z

I once visited the historical home of the Iga-Ueno ninja, where - as God is my witness - I watched a ninja exhibition as guitar music wailed in the background. It was AWESOME and SWEET. Much more so than Shinobido: Tales of the Ninja, which I just reviewed for gamestoaster.

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There are, basically, two types of ninja. Of the first specimen, popularized by the internet and Saturday morning cartoons, we know that they are awesome, predominantly mammals, but occasionally mutant turtles, and are totally sweet. The other, and if I may say less appealing, type, is the one who invariably pops up in videogames. This ninja is quick, silent, invisible, deadly. And so it is in Shinobido: Tales of the Ninja.

As if the following needs to be said, Tales of the Ninja sees you take the role of a ninja as you sneak around, jumping walls, throwing shuriken, penetrating castles, assassinating feudal warlords and stealing scrolls and so on. The gameplay is nothing new to those who've played the Tenchu series, of which this game was born. On the other hand, to those not accustomed to the game's home console parents, the controls will undoubtedly feel cumbersome and unwieldy, and the graphics and animation blocky and unrealistic.

In way of innovation, this PSP title does break the mould a little in offering a level editor, a sizable non-linear single-player campaign, complete with 30 unlockable characters. However, these innovations are ill-suited to a handheld game, where accessibility and brevity of loading times are key.

In the end, this is yet another example of a square peg being hammered into a round hole. From the watered down visuals and the clumsy controls to the lack of pick-up-and-playability, this is a game that was patently designed for home consoles, and as such can line up alongside the ever-growing catalogue of substandard ports on the PSP.

Playstation Homeopathy

2007-03-08T21:40:00.000Z

Yesterday, at the Game Developer's Conference, Sony unveiled what it believes to be an ace-in-the-hole in the race to control the space under our television sets.

Playstation Home - an online hub for Playstation 3 owners - will allow gamers to create a digital avatar of themselves, customise said avatar with all sorts of clothes and accessories, and interact with other gamers in a variety of public and private areas, including games rooms, virtual cinemas and their very own virtual apartments.

It has, amongst gamers, been received like the Second Coming.

To me, it is positively disgusting. As it stands, the Playstation 3, with it's XCross Media Bar, has the cleanest, most intuitive menu of any console or media centre. All your media is laid out in well-defined and easily accessed menus, and when you're enjoying the media, the menus are completely unobtrusive. With Playstation Home, however, Sony have loaded your media onto a big truck, and crashed it at high speed with Bebo, 14 year old american teenage boys, an ikea catalogue, and the contents of your wallet.

They have showed, again, that they are a company desperately out of step with reality. In theory, it sounds like a great idea to be able to go to a virtual cinema with your virtual avatar to watch a movie - until you remember that you can watch one direct from the media bar without the bother of going to the cinema, virtual or otherwise. It sounds brilliant to be able to invite your online buddies around to your virtual apartment to watch a movie - until you remember that you hate when people talk during a movie. It sounds great to be able to display your trophies in a trophy room, and to browse other people's trophies - until you remember that you're shit at games. Being able to meet up and chat with other gamers in a virtual lobby? Fantastic - until you realise that the only people who play games online are 14 year old hormonal teenage boys who want to 'cyber' you.

The icing on the cake though, is that Sony are intent on squeezing every penny they can from you. That film you want to see? It's actually a trailer. That lobby you're in? It's filled with billboards and banner ads. Your apartment? Filled with milk-crates, because you can't afford the ikea furniture. Your avatar? Dressed like a tramp, because you can't afford the armani t-shirt.

I'm not sure what's more depressing: that Sony believe gamers are so shallow, so self-obsessed, so vain and so idiotic that they'll be sucked into buying all this useless virtual shit for real, tangible money or the thought that gamers are actually that shallow, self-obsessed, vain and idiotic. We'll find out this Autumn, when it's released, I guess.

Red Steel

2007-02-24T20:07:00.000Z

Note: This article originally appeared on GamesToaster.com, here.

Back before the Nintendo Wii was on shop shelves, when Ubisoft unveiled Red Steel, gamers were mesmerised by what the game represented. As a gritty shooter featuring John Woo-style gun- and sword-play wrapped in a gritty Yakuza plot, it would become a poster-boy of sorts, a game used to shoot down accusations that Nintendo’s software line-up was too family-oriented, that the control scheme was a gimmick, and unable to cope with the more traditional game genres.

Unfortunately, playing the opening act of Red Steel does little to quell these concerns. The controls feel awkward, with sword-play in particular feels contrived and unresponsive. The plot falls flat, relying on the most generic of devices - an honourable boss’s daughter is kidnapped by an immoral upstart. The opening levels involve slogging through all-too-familiar corridors and factories, hiding behind crates and detonating conveniently placed explosive barrels, lurching from one contrived set-piece to another.

However, it is worth persevering. At about a quarter of the way through the game, the factories and corridors give way to well-realized Japanese streets and tea-houses. A credible world is created, with some excellent environmental effects and a rousing j-rock soundtrack. The controls click, and it becomes almost effortless to gun down foes with an ever-increasing arsenal. The sword-play still feels awkward, but is confined to rarely-occurring duels.

Despite borrowing ideas from genre-leading Halo - the recharging health-bar and two weapon limit are present here too – the game look and feel is closer to Rare’s Goldeneye. Much like the classic Bond game, the combat relies more on a quick hand rather than mind, with a shock & awe approach as likely to work as more complex tactics.

The graphics too are big, angular and more grounded in reality than those of Halo. And what the visuals lack in polygons, they more than make up for in environmental effects – from flapping curtains to shattering glass, the world is credibly brought to life.

First impressions, as they say, last. That said, if you can overcome the initially off-putting controls, level-design and storyline, Red Steel rewards you greatly with what is a highly polished, accomplished shooter, and a great omen for things to come in the genre on this hardware.

Monster 4x4: World Circuit

2007-02-24T15:31:00.000Z

Note: This article originally appeared on GamesToaster.com, here.

Monster Trucks. Like its followers, it is big, dirty, loud, over-the-top, and very in-your-face. Perfect fodder for video-gaming. A shame then, that this videogame translation is rarely anything other than pedestrian.

Originality makes its appearance in the shape of a packed-in steering wheel attachment for the Wii's remote - allowing you to steer the remote wildly to steer your truck around the game's multitude of tracks. Originality then quickly says its goodbyes for the rest of the experience, and we were are left with a very pedestrian racing game.

As a port of a year old XBox game onto Wii hardware, the graphics are per-functionary at best. The track-side scenery is angular, and the mud textures are, well, muddy. And although not terribly essential in a monster-truck game, the sense of speed is quite lacking.

All of the whacky racing features are present and accounted for. Power-ups? Check. Speed boosts? Check. Upgradable cars? Check. Obligatory fire-truck? Check. The tracks vary from Egypt to Alaska to Mount Rushmore, and yet save for a change in texture colour, they don't really vary at all. Outside of wholly derivative design choices like these, there is practically no sign of personality. Relying as they do on copying the hundreds of identikit racers out there, any attempts to be whacky or zany entirely miss the mark, and we are instead left with a soulless, joyless experience.

The title is rescued somewhat by a healthy amount of multi-player options, including soccer and combat mini-games, but are made somewhat redundant by the fact that without the steering wheel attachment, the game loses perhaps its only hook. As the single-player game is incredibly brief, playing with friends, provided you have all the necessary equipment, will perhaps provide you with most of your value for money.

It's not that Monster 4x4 is a particularly bad game - it's not. The problem is that it is not a particularly good game, nor shows any ambition to be so. It is almost painfully inoffensive, and as such is never going to be any more than average.

Christmas is the season for giving (and by giving I mean receiving) (and by receiving I dont mean receiving in a homosexual way, I mean presents)

2007-01-06T00:03:00.000Z

I didn't even write a letter to Santa this year, but he was still good to me. As well as a COOL CRISP £5 NOTE, he brought a lovely plastic molded Gibson guitar down the chimney with him, and a copy of Guitar Hero II. Bonus.

Between that and the two Wii that my brothers received (there are two much more deserving kids bawling their eyes out. I hope.), it made for a very energetic Christmas. The Wii was more impressive than I had perhaps expected, and I still find myself sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to get in my 5 minutes of Wii Sports Fitness testing done. According to the white box of wonder, my fitness age is 27, a full 6 years too high - but a compliment when the borderline libelous age of 79 was awarded to me on Christmas morning. And I'd been to fucking mass and everything.

Nintendo were absolutely vindicated in going down this growing-the-market, getting-grandmothers-to-play route, when my usually-rubbish-at-videogames girlfriend trounced me and my brother at Wii Sports. It appears that for gaming glory on the Wii, actual real life sporting skills may be needed. (Balls.)

And Guitar Hero II. The difficult second album, really. The first was, according to memories formed in one rolling-rock fuelled night, a masterwork of quality track after quality track. This one, though, is quality track after whatthefuckisthisshitiambeingforcedtoplay.

As well as leaving me a cool crisp £5 note featuring an alcoholic ex-footballer ex-living person, Santa also did not take £20 from my wallet, which was nice, as I used that £20 to pick up to bargains in the Game sale:

Rogue Trooper - HALO, but not featuring really shit pink aliens.
Yakuza - The most appallingly localized game this side of Zero-Wing, and yet I can't stop playing it. Even though it has random battles.

Casino Royale

2006-12-02T13:48:00.000Z

Over the years, Bond films have become more and more focused not on the eponymous character himself, but rather on the Bond girls, the Bond cars, the gadgets and the over-the-top villains. So it's something of a surprise that with almost all of this paired down to its bare bones, Bond still doesn't take the limelight in this installment.

That honour goes to the man behind Bond: Craig, Daniel Craig. In the months leading up to the film's release, he's been thoroughly scrutinized, and everything from his hair and eye colour to his (apparent lack of) car driving skills have been criticized. And as this installment was very-much a character driven Bond movie, fleshing out Bond perhaps more than the previous 20 combined, many didn't believe Craig could pull it off.

But pull it off he did. Craig is not your typical suave, slick, one-liner spewing dark-suited hero - nor is he meant to be. This is something of a Bond Begins, as we follow a muscle-headed Bond being given 00-status, and face a series of character building exercises that eventually turn him into a character closer to the one we know and love.

I say a 'series of character building exercises', I mean: fights on top of moving cranes, high speed chases through airports, high-stakes poker games, torture scenes, brutal fights in public toilets and so on. For all its posturing as a more understated Bond film, there is still plenty of overblown action sequences to munch your popcorn to - they just dont feature INVISIBLE CARS this time round.

It's not all plain sailing though. The film struggles to maintain tension after the somewhat anti-climactic card-game on which the film is centered around, and there are shades of Attack of the Clones about some of the love scenes.

However, that's all very much excusable, in the face of otherwise stellar action sequences, and an excellent start from Daniel Craig. It may not be the best Bond film ever, but it's certainly the best blockbuster of the year.

Exit

2006-12-02T00:09:00.000Z

Gaming is a pretty unhealthy, not to mention dangerous, past-time, if you believe the media. At best, it turns you into some brain-dead idiot, and at worst into some psychopath ready to shoot up his local school and/or dual-carriage way.

It’s even more bad news for PSP owners, because not only does all the above apply to them, but, if you believe the naysayers, they also have to put up with shoddy ports, remakes and other ill-judged, half-designed games crow-barred onto their system.

Fittingly then, enter Mr. Esc, the hero of Exit, to the rescue.

The premise of Exit is golden, and one staggeringly underused in gaming. You play as the aforementioned Mr Esc, as he leaps into burning buildings, flooded subways, earthquake-stricken hospitals and other disaster areas, and attempt to rescue the victims trapped inside before the time runs out.

And not a gun, never mind a prostitute or lowrider packed full of thugs, in sight. In Exit, you don’t think with your fists, but you do have to think an awful lot with your head. You see, though the premise may sound all-action, in reality Exit is a game of thought and logic. Scattered throughout each level, of which there are one hundred, with more to download, are crates, planks, keys, pickaxes, flashlights and various other devices, each with a specific use. A pickaxe can only be used to hack your way through a frozen wall, a fire extinguisher can only be used to, err, extinguish fires, and so on. As you can only carry one at a time, the real challenge of each level is finding out exactly in which order to use these tools. Should you first open the door to the fire extinguisher in order to create a path to the kid, or do you need to pave a way for the fat guy so he can help you move the huge crate?

It’s those kind of conundrums that are central to Exit’s appeal, and while each level presents a difficult challenge, it almost never leaves you stumped for long – it’s usually pretty obvious that you’ve made a mistake just as soon as you’ve made it, leading to much head-slapping and cursing, and instilling in you a renewed vigour as you set about the level again, experience gained from your previous run in tow.

And how refreshing is it to see such a wonderful game appear on the much-maligned PSP? Taito should receive every award going for their approach to designing for the console. From the bright, crisp, 2D visuals, to the short, wide levels stretching across that screen, to the strict time limits on each level that make it ideal for a quick-fix play on the bus, it’s a real treat to gamers who’ve had to gorge on ports of PS2 racers amidst a famine of genuine innovative, tailor-made content.

Exit can easily count itself amongst the best games out on the system at the moment, and will hopefully encourage other publishers and developers to be more ambitious than simply porting their back-catalogues. And the fact that it does all of this without a gangsta rap soundtrack or an arsenal of licensed weapons, and manages to provide some of the most taxing cerebral challenges you’ll come across nowadays, is some achievement.

Rez

2006-12-01T23:30:00.000Z

In the eternal debate as to whether games can be considered as an art form, one game tends to get name dropped more than most. Rez, one of the first products of Sega’s multi-platform approach, was never destined to top the charts. It’s highly stylized wire-frame visuals didn’t lend well to magazine screenshots or box-candy, nor its uniqueness to lazy if-you-like-x-you’ll-like-y reviewing, nor Sega’s marketing budget to overcoming these problems. a 9/10 score in EDGE magazine had to share issue space with, and was overshadowed by, Halo’s 10/10 and a controversial review of Grand Theft Auto III. In the end, Rez found its way into the hands and hearts of only the most adventurous of gamers

Rez, if it must be pigeonholed, is an on-rails shoot ‘em up, somewhat along the lines of Space Harrier. I use the word somewhat because while the only control of on-screen events is through the weapon of your constantly advancing avatar, the appeal of Rez does not lie in the typical genre money-shots of navigating screens filled with enemy ships, or of high-score pursuits. With Rez, it’s something a little deeper.

In The Beginning...

The very beginning of Rez is barren, consisting of a screen filled with your avatar, a wireframe horizon and the most basic of beats coming from the speakers. However, every enemy you target, every shot you fire, every power-up you collect and stage you conquer adds another layer of visual and aural complexity. Before you know it there’s all manner of electronic beeps and thumping bass beats pounding from your speakers, as the screen gyrates in a rainbow of neon colours - all to your actions. You don’t want to destroy the enemy because of some wrongdoing against you outlined in the opening pages of an unread manual (in Rez, the story is something to do with computer viruses, ignore it), rather you want to destroy it because you want to add more and more sound and vision to your journey.

Who's The Boss?

That’s the pay-off, the money shot, and it’s far more potent than seeing any explosion or any body flap around with ragdoll physics.Then, it gets kicked up a gear. At the end of every area (of which there are initially four, each divided into 10 stages) the music reaches a crescendo, the visuals are an orgy of bouncing reds, greens, purples, blues and everything in between and your avatar is - and crucially, so are you - thumping along with it all. The boss battle begins, and you find yourself up against some of the most inspired creations to ever grace a video-game. From being chased through corridors by a giant figure made up of hundreds of individual cubes - each one to be destroyed as they snake around the screen, morphing from one shape to another - to being surrounded by ever growing branches of an electronic tree, the tips of which spew forth unpleasantries mere seconds away from impacting on your fragile avatar; each boss battle offers up something different and something memorable, on par with any of the lauded encounters from the glory days of shoot ‘em ups, and indeed on par with any of the top gaming moments from the last ten years.

The Question

But is it art? It is undoubtedly beautiful, both in terms of visual and aural style, but also in content - wonderfully illustrated by an unlockable area that takes on a journey of human evolution right from the primordial seas up to the present and beyond. If it’s not art, it’s certainly the closest the medium has ever come, and is ever likely to come while not abandoning what makes it a videogame in the first place. And though the game never technically pushes the capabilities of the PS2, it perhaps comes closest to justifying the Emotion Engine’s moniker.