Gaming Weekend: National Pastime Edition
After trying demos for both of this year’s licensed major league baseball games, I came away feeling that 2K’s “innovative” control mechanisms were egregious and contrary to what I look for in a baseball game. So when I went to the video store to find a game to rent (realizing as I did so that there has been such a shortage of worthwhile titles released this month I’ve experienced a whopping two new games since February) the alternative title, MLB 08 The Show for PS3, was going to be in my shortlist of possible rentals.
Ultimately it came down to dark and violent horror-tinged brawling with Condemned 2 or mild and inoffensive computer-assisted baseball simulation with The Show. I left the decision up to my wife and she heartily recommended the relative tranquility of sports.
The Show is what I guess a good baseball simulator should be. It captures the feel of watching a major league baseball game on TV pretty admirably while allowing you to have some influence on the outcome. I realize that suggests that you don’t actually play the game in its entirety which isn’t precisely true, but while you are given control of the key players and moments in the game, it’s difficult for me to shake the sensation that the outcome of my actions are based exclusively on a series of algorithmic computations in which my button presses serve to, at most, seed some random entropy into the calculation.
Logically I know this is functionally true for all games, but The Show wears its skirt higher and less is left to the imagination.
The way the interaction is supposed to take place works quite well when it comes to pitching. When defense comes into play the interface struggles a bit since the computer selects the player you will have direct control over who is not always the player you would either pick or that you want. As a result you react with a certain concept in your mind about what you need to do only to realize, four times out of ten, that you’ve just sent your shortstop out into center field because you assumed that the ball dribbled down the third base line would be attended to by the third baseman. Likewise throws don’t always execute as you expect and sometimes you’ll miss easy plays because the input for throwing uses two separate mechanisms simultaneously which are sometimes at odds with each other for which should be employed resulting in, say, a sharp grounder to the second baseman who stands calmly in place after fielding the ball while the opposing catcher meanders idly over to first base several minutes later.
Batting has its own share of frustrations; even swiping the slider as far toward n00b-friendly forgiving as it will go, the timing window is punishing and the guess pitch mechanic is more meta/mini-game than actual factor in the game’s outcome. Unfortunately the standard baseball video game problem still persists: The only sure-fire way to score a decent amount of runs is to start slapping longballs over the fence. Manufactured runs are far less common than they appear in a real baseball game and frustratingly difficult to achieve against a CPU opponent that hasn’t been explicitly nerfed via sliders. The result is a game that looks quite good, plays passably and simulates a game that almost but doesn’t quite actually exist.
The Other Games
Lacking tons of time this past week, I spent most of the gaming time on portable systems (I didn’t even turn on my 360 this week). That doesn’t mean the games weren’t fun, of course, but since most of what I was playing was retro or semi-retro, it was almost like a week of gaming back in 1993. Not, in fact, a bad thing.
- Sega Genesis Collection – Despite my general disdain for Sonic games I found myself taking a break from the punishing Shinobi III, by far my favorite game on the disc, and trying to push my way through Sonic the Hedgehog. The Collection’s in-game save feature is a blessing here as I can salvage the limited continues to focus on progressing from beginning to end without the artificial game length expanding that comes from regular replay of early levels. Still, I didn’t realize how occasionally frustrating the game could be, and it regularly baffles me that aside from Green Hill Zone 1, the much-touted speed of both the game and the character is irrelevant because there are so many instant-death obstacles and endless pits you have to really move through each stage at a pace remarkably similar to what you would take with a Mario game.
- EA Replay – I picked this up off of Goozex because it includes the game Syndicate which Garnett Lee on the 1Up Yours podcast cited as an older game worth checking out. I admit that Syndicate is kind of intriguing but after a couple of hours struggling with the esoteric design and clumsy PSP controls, I decided it was something I’d have to devote time to later when I didn’t have a dozen other games halfway finished. Then I went through the rest of the disc and found it all almost universally wretched (Wing Commander hasn’t held up very well, Virtual Pinball is terrible, Mutant League Football is sad, etc). I still have a couple more games on the disc I haven’t tried but lacking any single game on there to warrant keeping it, I’ve already re-listed it on Goozex and won’t be sad to give it up if someone else wants to check it out.
- Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles – My experience with this game have been pretty similar to Leigh Alexander’s in that as much as I enjoy the game I find it to be reminiscent of an ancient time from my past where slogging over a single stretch of a level or engaging one tough boss over and over was commonplace and acceptable. But those past times are gone now and my savepoint-assuming, adjustable difficulty-desiring modern self looks at a game like this and says, “Ouch.” I struggled to work my way through Stage 4 with enough health and usable weapons to make a decent run at the boss for hours earlier in the week until I finally had a stressful but excellent attempt pass and when I finally dropped the boss I realized that one thing the modern game set up and its comparatively forgiving presentation lacks is a sense of real accomplishment. I wanted to drop the PSP and do a little dance of joy when I finally conquered the level, similar to how I felt when I finally beat the first boss in Ninja Gaiden Sigma (a game that is very old school in its approach to challenge, although even it makes life bearable by including save points and—in Black and Sigma—a less demanding mode). I found that Level 5 (The Devil Flies By Night) in Rondo of Blood is possibly one of my all-time favorite sections of any Castlevania game: The variety of enemies, the creepy creak as the ship groans and grinds over the sea, the deceitful and maddening challenge of the boss… it’s sublime and taxing all at once. I’m desperate to beat it and see what else this game has in store but I’m almost glad it’s as hard as it is because I’m not sure I’m ready to move on just yet.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass – When I needed a break from Sonic and Castlevania I decided to try and finally push through the rest of TPH. I made only a little progress in small segments but it’s also been several sessions since I’ve had anything to do besides explore side islands and talk to various villagers so I’m starting to get impatient waiting for the next dungeon. This may be one of the best DS games of last year and a welcome improvement over the disappointing Twilight Princess but one thing it lacks that Wind Waker had to spare is a sense of proper pacing. I think that may be why I ended up kind of stuck somewhere about halfway in.
- Resistance: Fall of Man – After a couple of weeks of trying to feign continued interest in this dull shooter, I listed it on Goozex and it got snatched up right away. Since it was on the way out anyway I put another several hours into it, trying to see how close I could get to the end before I sent it off. I think I ended up only a stage or two away from completion but it wasn’t enough to make me stop the trade and I shipped it out without much reservation. I don’t think the game is bad necessarily, just bland and ultimately uninspired.
Demo Watch
I only played one demo this week, Condemned 2: Bloodshot. As someone who liked the original game but felt it was more of a gateway to something better down the road I think I was hoping the sequel would be more or less exactly what it turned out to be except more in line with the first half of the original game than the second. In Condemned, the first part of the game was this creepy peek into the underbelly of a big city where you rustled around in abandoned buildings and dark alleys and descended into deserted underground cities populated only by crazy homeless people and degenerates. Later in the game it got strangely supernatural and somehow in doing so it also got less scary.
Condemned 2 picks right back up with the supernatural stuff which I guess is okay; they improved most every other area of the game so it’s hard to complain too much. Still, I’m someone who fixates on the setting and story in a game, I’m not sure I’m completely happy with what this demo had to show me.
It was good enough and the strength of the original’s potential was sufficient to put the game on my list of titles I’m interested in, it’s mostly a question now of whether I think it’s worth trying to obtain a copy soonish or wait until the inevitable bargain bin clearance part of its lifespan to give it a whirl.