Next up on the menu was a game that could potentially change the way we look at MMORPGs... or, depending on who you ask, could end up being one of the biggest bombs of the year:
Final Fantasy XI.
Final Fantasy XI
Everyone I’ve spoken to about this game has either gone head over heels crazy waiting for it or feels angry and betrayed that Square would make an MMORPG as opposed to another offline installment of their flagship franchise. For those of you in the first group I am here to tell you that this game is looking like the real deal,
but be prepared to shell out some dollars to play it because it’s going to be preloaded and sold with the HDD (PlayStation 2's hard drive) which will sell for $99 come March 2004. After a 30-day trial, you will have to pony up $12.95 per month and an additional $1 per month for every additional character. Is it worth it? To be honest, I still don’t know.
At first glance it looks like your average MMORPG - decent graphics, a character creation system, various races and classes to choose from, etc... but it’s when you see the game in action that it starts to set itself apart from the competition. The battle system is much more robust and even includes chained attacks that, if timed right between 3 or more characters, will cause massive damage to your enemies and gives people one less reason to go at it solo. There is also a meter for special moves that accumulates as you take and give damage.
Final Fantasy XI, like all MMORPGs, is far from perfect though. Some minor complaints include loading times when moving from one area to another (I don’t recall any loading times in
EQOA), and a menu system that seemed rather confusing with certain options being buried behind a few too many menu options. The menu confusion could have more to do with the fact that I had a limited amount of time with the game and no manual, but considering the fact that some gamers never even remove the manuals from their cases, a less cumbersome interface might not be a bad idea.
In the end though, how much of that really matters? Those of us that end up buying the game will probably do so
because we’ve been playing
Final Fantasy games since the days of 8 and/or 16-bit cartridge-based systems.
We know what
Square Enix is capable of, and $12.95 a month or
not, we want to be there first hand to find out if they’ve worked their magic yet again.
After casting a confusion spell on all the journalists with the hope of getting us all to write excellent
reviews for
FFXI, Square Enix let us move on to the
989
Sports presentation. At the risk of angering the sports nuts out there, I won’t spend too much time on
these games considering two are already out, and another will be out in less than a week.
989 Sports Titles
The games presented to us were
GameDay,
Gamebreaker,
Shootout, and
Final Four. Of those four games,
GameDay looked the most promising. The good thing is that 989 realizes these are rebuilding years - and the first step to making a better product, in my eyes, is being able to admit that you’ve still got work to do.
One area that I will give 989 a ton of props for is their online setup. The number of things you can do online, across all 989 sports games, is ridiculous. Messaging, private messaging, voice chat, 64 team tournaments (talk about March Madness!), stat tracking, real time sports scores running across the bottom of your screen; the list goes on.
Now if only they could get us to be this excited over their offline game.
Speaking of offline, at this point in the day most of us were running on empty - the Gatorade energy bars can
only keep you going for so long. Good thing Sony had something to jolt us awake in the form of
Ratchet &
Clank: Going Commando,
Rise to Honor, and
EyeToy.
Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
Going Commando, the sequel to the original
Ratchet & Clank game released less than a year ago, is almost assured of a spot at the top of the sales charts. The sequel finds our heroes on a far away galaxy working for a large corporation attempting to find an experimental project that has been stolen. True to its name this game appears to be bigger, better, and edgier than the previous installment.
Insomniac brought back everything we loved about the first game, and threw a pile of new stuff on top. Venturing into the realm of RPGs, the game now allows you to earn experience points that are used to upgrade your hit points, weapons and armor. In addition to five weapons from the first game (which you can access immediately with an
R&C save file), there are also tons of new weapons in the game each with its own upgrade. Use them long enough to earn the appropriate amount of experience and you can go from a Gravity Bomb to a Mini Nuke, or a Pulse Rifle (aka Sniper Rifle) that upgrades to become the Vaporizer.
Sounds great, right? Well trust me when I say that you will need all those upgrades if you want to survive in this game! Enemies have now been given as many as 120 hit points, some can hit you for 35 points of damage per hit, their AI has been beefed up, and they exist in levels 2-3 times larger than in the first game.
Another new addition to the series is what Insomniac likes to call "mega"-games. Gone are the days of mini-games that hold your attention for less than 5 minutes. This game seeks to destroy that stereotype by making the games larger in scope and also a larger part of the overall story. The hoverbike racing, for instance, looked more polished than half the futuristic racers you see out there as full games. There is also the addition of spherical worlds that, if nothing else, seek to bowl you over with their insane visuals. The first time you see one you will be impressed that the oldest of the current next-millennium systems is actually rendering it - that's how impressive it is.
If Insomniac is able to pull all of these ideas together and create a fun and seamless adventure that incorporates the gameplay of
R&C, a little bit of RPG, and a dash of mega-games,
Jak II may very well find itself running neck and neck with another first party platformer this holiday season.
Rise To Honor
The next game we previewed was quite possibly the most ambitious game of the bunch. A tribute to Hong Kong action
films and the brainchild of Jet Li and Sony’s Foster City studios,
Rise to Honor is, in some ways, a first
for the video game industry. Sure, movie stars have been involved with games before but none so much as Jet Li is
with this game. Jet is so involved that he even brought in his choreographer to help out with the fight scenes
and motion capture.
Even more ambitious than his level of involvement is the revolutionary control scheme they decided to go with.
Saying they could never seamlessly capture the look and feel of Jet’s fighting style with the four face buttons,
they set out on a daunting mission to bring us full 360 degree fighting via the right analog stick. Yes, you
heard me correctly - the analog stick ultimately controls all the punching and kicking you will do in this game.
Point the stick in the direction of the enemy you want to attack and Jet will throw a punch or a kick depending
on where they are standing in relation to his body and what he just finished doing. Did someone just sneak up behind you while you were beating on his pal? Whip the analog stick in his direction and you’ll have him wishing he hadn't even tried.
While the moves look extremely cool and really do seem much more realistic than what you see in most games, one has to wonder if this revolutionary way of fighting isn’t going to get boring after a while. With the exception of a shoulder button here and there for certain actions like throws, jumping and climbing, you are going to be restricted to the two analogs for nearly the entire game.
Perhaps that’s what the producers were combating when they added the John Woo style gunplay to the mix. One level has you running through a hospital, gun in each hand, taking out bad guys with bullet time diving that allows you to move in 360 degrees while still in the air. We even watched the video game Jet hop on a gurney and roll himself down a hallway that suddenly became overrun with people to shoot at. Very cool, but it was the only "gun" level we were able to test. Let’s hope the rest of the gunplay levels can live up to it. As any impartial person should do, I will reserve my final judgment for the finished product. Hopefully this game can rise to the occasion (pun intended) and do what it set out to do - change the face of action gaming as we know it.
EyeToy
Another product out to change the "face" of gaming is the
EyeToy. A peripheral for the PS2 that will have you staring at yourself on your TV screen doing things that are every bit as fun as they are silly.
Created for the type of casual gamer that just doesn’t understand why we need eight buttons and two analog sticks to control Mario when they used to do it with a plus sign and two face buttons, the
EyeToy consists of a small camera unit that is attached to your PS2, placed on top of your television set and consequently tracks your movements on screen. Those movements replace the need for controller buttons... and create some rather insane looking moments. Included in the retail package will be a DVD with a dozen or so mini-games ranging from the very odd, such as popping bubbles or waving your arms to clean off a windshield as fast as you can, to the simple fun of the kung-fu game which has you slapping at little ninjas who are trying to dropkick you in the head.
Sound boring? Don't be so sure of it. I thought the same thing until I actually saw people trying it out - and guess what? They were having a blast.
EyeToy has been at the top of the sales charts for weeks in Europe, and while we'd all like to believe that all of Europe is crazy, the fact that it is selling so well over there could mean Sony is on to something here. One interesting use that I heard them list for the
EyeToy was entertaining people at parties. Think how much fun it would be at your next party to just leave the
EyeToy on and watch it catch people's attention as they walk by and see themselves onscreen - I guarantee you, within minutes, there will be a line of folks waiting to try it out.
Even more interesting than the mini-games are the many potential uses the
EyeToy presents beyond them. Sony showed us how it can be used to record video messages that can then be sent to other PS2 users, which in and of itself was not all that exciting but the fact that it's one step closer to video-conferencing on a PS2 has got to have the long distance companies worried. Another interesting demo we saw was the
EyeToy being used to specifically capture the movements of someone's head and using that in a first person shooter. Think back on how often in an FPS you find yourself stretching your neck out to peek around a corner as your onscreen character does the same, as if that were going to help you get a better view - well how cool would it be if it did?
After watching these demos it's obvious that the EyeToy has hardly reached it's potential. Unfortunately, some people will read this and still think, "gimmick." Considering the track record of most add-on peripherals, it would be hard to blame them for taking that stance. Heck, I was a little skeptical at first, but after seeing it with my own two eyes I think it looks like the real deal and I hope gamers will give it a chance. After all, the Europeans aren't that crazy... are they?
Once the
EyeToy presentation was over it was time to breathe a huge sigh of relief. The "work" portion of the day was over... and this is where the perks of being a member of the media came in. We were wined and dined and given access to dozens of consoles running all the games presented throughout the day and even some that weren't. From there, we were bussed to a yacht for a cruise around the San Francisco Bay. The yacht was setup like a casino and everyone was given $500 worth of fake casino chips to play games like Blackjack and Craps without the fear of losing any real money. Talk about liberation!
At the party, I met several people from other gaming mags and sites and even helped a husband and wife duo take home a model
Gran Turismo car signed by the
GT producer by convincing everyone at our Blackjack table to give them any leftover chips they had at the end of the night. Of course, all the free drinks we had might have had something to do with that.
All in all, this was a great experience on so many levels and for numerous reasons... but no reason was more fulfilling than knowing I was here to be the eyes and ears of every John and Jane Gamer of the GAF community. Being able to play the games in advance, ask the questions you can’t ask and provide feedback to these producers based on what I hear from my fellow gamers - that my friends, is what we call priceless.
Here’s to Sony for giving us this opportunity and not letting their dominance in the industry give them a reason to slack off... and here’s to looking ahead to Sony Gamer’s Day 2004!
Insomniac brought back everything we loved about the first game, and threw a pile of new stuff on top. Venturing into the realm of RPGs, the game now allows you to earn experience points that are used to upgrade your hit points, weapons and armor. In addition to five weapons from the first game (which you can access immediately with an R&C save file), there are also tons of new weapons in the game each with its own upgrade. Use them long enough to earn the appropriate amount of experience and you can go from a Gravity Bomb to a Mini Nuke, or a Pulse Rifle (aka Sniper Rifle) that upgrades to become the Vaporizer.
Sounds great, right? Well trust me when I say that you will need all those upgrades if you want to survive in this game! Enemies have now been given as many as 120 hit points, some can hit you for 35 points of damage per hit, their AI has been beefed up, and they exist in levels 2-3 times larger than in the first game.
Another new addition to the series is what Insomniac likes to call "mega"-games. Gone are the days of mini-games that hold your attention for less than 5 minutes. This game seeks to destroy that stereotype by making the games larger in scope and also a larger part of the overall story. The hoverbike racing, for instance, looked more polished than half the futuristic racers you see out there as full games. There is also the addition of spherical worlds that, if nothing else, seek to bowl you over with their insane visuals. The first time you see one you will be impressed that the oldest of the current next-millennium systems is actually rendering it - that's how impressive it is.
If Insomniac is able to pull all of these ideas together and create a fun and seamless adventure that incorporates the gameplay of R&C, a little bit of RPG, and a dash of mega-games, Jak II may very well find itself running neck and neck with another first party platformer this holiday season.
Even more ambitious than his level of involvement is the revolutionary control scheme they decided to go with.
Saying they could never seamlessly capture the look and feel of Jet’s fighting style with the four face buttons,
they set out on a daunting mission to bring us full 360 degree fighting via the right analog stick. Yes, you
heard me correctly - the analog stick ultimately controls all the punching and kicking you will do in this game.
Point the stick in the direction of the enemy you want to attack and Jet will throw a punch or a kick depending
on where they are standing in relation to his body and what he just finished doing. Did someone just sneak up behind you while you were beating on his pal? Whip the analog stick in his direction and you’ll have him wishing he hadn't even tried.
While the moves look extremely cool and really do seem much more realistic than what you see in most games, one has to wonder if this revolutionary way of fighting isn’t going to get boring after a while. With the exception of a shoulder button here and there for certain actions like throws, jumping and climbing, you are going to be restricted to the two analogs for nearly the entire game.
Perhaps that’s what the producers were combating when they added the John Woo style gunplay to the mix. One level has you running through a hospital, gun in each hand, taking out bad guys with bullet time diving that allows you to move in 360 degrees while still in the air. We even watched the video game Jet hop on a gurney and roll himself down a hallway that suddenly became overrun with people to shoot at. Very cool, but it was the only "gun" level we were able to test. Let’s hope the rest of the gunplay levels can live up to it. As any impartial person should do, I will reserve my final judgment for the finished product. Hopefully this game can rise to the occasion (pun intended) and do what it set out to do - change the face of action gaming as we know it.
Sound boring? Don't be so sure of it. I thought the same thing until I actually saw people trying it out - and guess what? They were having a blast. EyeToy has been at the top of the sales charts for weeks in Europe, and while we'd all like to believe that all of Europe is crazy, the fact that it is selling so well over there could mean Sony is on to something here. One interesting use that I heard them list for the EyeToy was entertaining people at parties. Think how much fun it would be at your next party to just leave the EyeToy on and watch it catch people's attention as they walk by and see themselves onscreen - I guarantee you, within minutes, there will be a line of folks waiting to try it out.
Even more interesting than the mini-games are the many potential uses the EyeToy presents beyond them. Sony showed us how it can be used to record video messages that can then be sent to other PS2 users, which in and of itself was not all that exciting but the fact that it's one step closer to video-conferencing on a PS2 has got to have the long distance companies worried. Another interesting demo we saw was the EyeToy being used to specifically capture the movements of someone's head and using that in a first person shooter. Think back on how often in an FPS you find yourself stretching your neck out to peek around a corner as your onscreen character does the same, as if that were going to help you get a better view - well how cool would it be if it did?
After watching these demos it's obvious that the EyeToy has hardly reached it's potential. Unfortunately, some people will read this and still think, "gimmick." Considering the track record of most add-on peripherals, it would be hard to blame them for taking that stance. Heck, I was a little skeptical at first, but after seeing it with my own two eyes I think it looks like the real deal and I hope gamers will give it a chance. After all, the Europeans aren't that crazy... are they?
Once the EyeToy presentation was over it was time to breathe a huge sigh of relief. The "work" portion of the day was over... and this is where the perks of being a member of the media came in. We were wined and dined and given access to dozens of consoles running all the games presented throughout the day and even some that weren't. From there, we were bussed to a yacht for a cruise around the San Francisco Bay. The yacht was setup like a casino and everyone was given $500 worth of fake casino chips to play games like Blackjack and Craps without the fear of losing any real money. Talk about liberation!
At the party, I met several people from other gaming mags and sites and even helped a husband and wife duo take home a model Gran Turismo car signed by the GT producer by convincing everyone at our Blackjack table to give them any leftover chips they had at the end of the night. Of course, all the free drinks we had might have had something to do with that.
