eggydez

A few episodes back on a podcast I listen to smartwrestlingfan.com (their name is their address) they were discussing TNA. One of the co-host posed a question about how as a company they can keep losing money as they are and answer to their shareholders. Having a BBA and currently studying for an accounting designation I thought I would attempt to answer this question. So here we go.

About TNA Wrestling (TNA):

TNA has a controlling shared of the company owned by Panda Energy International. What this means is that the only shareholders (owners of the company) they have to please. So the real question becomes, why could Panda Energy purchase a control of a company like TNA? In order to look at this let’s talk about Panda Energy.

About Panda Energy:
It is much more difficult to find information about Panda Energy because they are a privately owned company. They don’t have to finical reports to the general public, don’t have to answer to shareholders and don’t have to follow the more traditional business models.
So let’s go on what limited information we have about Panda Energy. They are a fairly large company with their core business in the United States of America, but also have projects in China and Nepal (south of China). Panda Energy has raised $5 Billion towards their Global projects, and added an estimated $240 Million to the Texas economy alone with their projects. This brings an important point to my thesis: Panda Energy has access to large sums of money.
Also Panda Energy’s main leadership has mainly been kept in the family. The
About the Question:
When a business purchase a controlling share in another business there are many factors, but I would suggest the three most common factors are:
3. Removing competition
2. Gaining advantages/cost savings
1. To make money.
So let’s take a look a look at the reasons and do some breakdown.

Removing competition:
I don’t see TNA or any of it’s staffing as any type of competition to Panda Energy, This isn’t like Target purchasing Zellars stores in Canada to have pre-set location if they decide to move in. I’m going to eliminate this one.
Gaining advantages/cost savings
Now you would think to write this one off also. But TNA may have a use to the Cater family. It appears likely that Bob and Janice Carter would like to see the company go into their daughter Dixie’s hands. But from interviews with former employees and outside stakeholders Dixie may be too nice to be the ruling figure of a company. So why not have her run a smaller business to learn the ropes. Several other higher ranked Panda Energy officials have also been given jobs in TNA (citation needed, Wiki doesn’t count). This would lend itself to an easier learning curve for Dixie, and an oversight form Panda Energy.
Now none of the above statement has any written or spoken facts beyond the writers own viewpoint. Still I don’t find this as a (partial) reason unrealistic.

To make money:
Now grant it TNA hasn’t been doing well in this department but the company appears to have taken many reasonable steps to make money. First with Panda Energy being a billion dollar company spending several million a year on TNA doesn’t hurt their pocket book any. The reason a company would do this is because of the large profits that can come from an enterprise like this.

To illustrate let’s look at WWE’s PPV buy rates. When you look at WWE’s lower PPV buy rates the lowest appears to be 150,00 (form 2010). If you assume that the company gets $30 per PPV (after cable takes their cut) that is still $4.5 Million. Even if I’m overestimating after 4 PPVs like that TNA would easily pay all of its cost. TNA has a low production value with a free venue. Because the costs are so low, and the profit is so high if a company has the money (like Panda Energy does) they can simply ride out a few bad years in order to make a profit. Once they get into a position where they can make profit the money recuperates so quickly your investment is well worth your time.

TNA has also been doing several normal business decisions of trying to get their company turned around. If you were in the position of Dixie and didn’t really know about wrestling you would want to hire people who were in the business to help you with your success. TNA had hired executives from Sony (to their marketing department) later hiring Dan Stevenson from WWE (and Radiate/GMR Marketing) as director of Marketing. These seem both solid choices for Marketing directors. Finally hiring Bishoff and Hogan to help run the company doesn’t seem that bad an idea on paper, epically to executives that don’t know much about the wrestling business.

Obviously the proof has been the in pudding, and these large hires haven’t been successful. I would honestly be surprised to see Bishoff and Hogan stay around in that capacity in TNA. But the company took a direction and let it run its course. Giving a direction the time to fully run its course is a very good and sound business sense. Though there haven’t been any creative business models in TNA, there haven’t been any risky ones either, epically with the financial backing.

So to summarize TNA may know what it is doing yet. If Panda is willing to sit on this investment for a while and measure the success of the company and adjust accordingly they may make their money back quickly. The executive just needs to learn which employees need to go and simply not renew their contracts.
When you have someone like Dixie come into a company like this, where her expertise isn’t in running a wrestling company there is bound to be growing pains. But I would say that promise for payout (even if it takes 7 more years) may keep Panda energy in there. TNA did turn a small profit before, so it is possible. They have the money and there is the market, all the executive has to do is learn a sweet spot to hit the market in. They have the resources to look at the past and learn from their mistakes. It may be a slow process, but not an impossible one. Even if their top 4 PPVs are only as good as WWE’s average bad one, that still leaves plenty of room for growth and profit.

Sources used:

http://www.wrestleview.com/viewnews.php?id=1286478154
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dan-stevenson/4/785/3b4
http://www.licensing.biz/news/5846/Al-Ovadia-joins-TNA-Entertainment
http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/60/60388.html
http://eponline.com/articles/2010/03/24/panda-energy-receives-air-permit-for-texas-power-plant.aspx
http://www.pandaenergy.com (site now under construction)

Welcome to a spoilers free 1st impression review of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (KHBbS). I’ve play the game for a few hours now and wanted to jot down a quick 1st impression on the game. If you reading this out of curiosity, or are thinking about playing the game I’m going to give you my 1st impressions on it.
I believe 1st impressions are importing. Barring any clichés about it you need the 1st of the game to draw the audience in. The same can be said about public speaking, interviews, or just about anything. I’ll be using something similar to the Buy it/Rent it/F’it system of screwattack. Why? I believe opinions are complex and it would disgrace them to be boiled down to a number, also we are on the site.
Anyway a brief paragraph then I’ll break it down.
We start with the usual Square/Enix cut scene then go into a short tutorial level. Afterwards there is another plot point and you have to choose between using three characters. The point becomes mute however as they can access each other’s abilities for most of the battles you care about. I chose generic hitter hard guy and have been having a pretty fun time with the game.

Now for the breakdown
Franchise: Newish people in the game. Disney characters are back here and actually matter. It is the sequel to KH2 I was expecting.

Story: It’s a Square/Enix story. It’s passable with a bit of intrigue thrown in at the 1st. They take a character you care about and do something with him to get you hooked before completely ignoring that plot point. I’m sure they’ll be back to it eventually, it is a KH game. The story is fine but it certainly isn’t The World Ends With You (IMO the best story they’ve come out with for years, if you don’t unlock the secret ending)

Graphics: It looks fine for a PSP.

Sound: They brought back Sanctuary and didn’t mess with the sound much. That works fine for me.

Gameplay: It plays like KH games. Closer to KH2 then other games, this is a good thing as that had the best controls. The one part I would comment on is I don’t like the whole customizing your commands list thing very much. It’s just seems so needlessly complex for a game where you mash the X (or cross) button. In KH, KH2 and KH that disaster for the DS, all you need is mash and heeling. KH 358/2 days was so complex with the grid system (just use level up and heal) and I don’t see this customization thing adding much to the game. There is also bits about combining abilities which may become important later in the game, but if it does chances are it’s just going to be a pain in the bottom.

Difficulty: I find it slightly harder than most other KH games. This isn’t anything to be celebrated as the ones I’ve played were rather easy.

Overall Experience: Overall it has come together to be what I expected, a sequel to KH2. That is good, I don’t feel like I’m playing a pointless bad dungeon crawler that forces me to play a fit the pieces puzzle game every hour. Everything works together nicely.

Rating:

Do You feel ripped off after playing this game?
No

Is this the game I buy a PSP for?
No, unless you… wait just No.

Is this game a solid addition to my PSP library?
Yes, if you have a PSP and are looking for a decent Action /RPG(ish) game.

Is this the game what will get me hooked on the series?
I would suggest tracking down a copy of KH2, but this is still a good game.

So there is my 1st impression. Feel free to leave comments/suggestions for future articles (I try on the spelling, I really do). Should I do a full review of the game when I finish/quit?

Until then a quote from Disney that can summarize the series:
All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.
-Peter Pan

“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.”
~Winston Churchill

Welcome everyone to my blog about where the traditional games have gone. Frist I have to say this blog was inspired by jakeandmikeVGS http://screwattack.com/blogs/The-Jake-and-Mike-VGS-Blog-1/Does-a-traditional-RPG-or-FPS-exist-anymore it is a pretty good read and I suggest you check it out. I wrote this blog when I was 300+ words into a response and found out I had a lot left to say.

The subject of this is not where have the traditional games gone, but what is a traditional game.

JaM’s blog gives FF6 (or FF3 on the American cartridge) and Lufia 2 as examples of traditional RPGs. The blog states these examples after mentioning “Traditional RPGs”, which is not what I defined as a traditional RPG.

What I'm talking about a traditional RPG I mean Ultima for the Commodore 64, or Might and Magic, the stuff that came out before the RPGs in JaM’s blog mentioned (I probably aged myself really well in that sentence). These were often 1st person perspective, and needed text to do most of the story telling and visuals.

And to answer JaM’s question “do they exist anymore?”, yes they do. In addition to Nostalgia and The Dark Spire released for the DS there is a large community that uses RPG maker. There are hundreds of games you can get in FF or Dragon Quest style.

I'm going to call what JaM call traditional RPGs "Golden RPGs" because they were of the age when RPGs were dominate in the market.

Which is prelude to my main point: There are no more Golden RPGs because that age of gaming is finished. With new technology and new marketing comes new markets, and a different genre becomes the dominate.

I’m going to draw the comparison to a genre near and dear to me: platformers. How many 2D platformers are being released (go Battle Kid)? Frankly besides Mario, which is a throwback, there are none. Few 3D platformers either. There may be a few Action platformers, but nothing like the days of Sonic and Mario.

This is a shame because that is what many consider the Golden age of games. Everyone knows who Mario is; if it wasn’t for the plumber we wouldn’t have gaming today as we know it. But the genre he created is gone, and it’s not likely going to dominate the market anytime soon either.

Change some franchise names and the same can be said for Smups!

During the Last SNES early PS1 era there were tons of amazing RPGs with many different battle systems and perspectives. Turn base, active turn based, grids, real time, even side scrolling real time (Tales of Phantasia). Now some of those systems have disappeared and others have evolved to keep up with technology, and an increasing demand for Golden Age fans.

I also want to look at another genre form JaMs blog FPS. This is undoubtedly the dominate genre for this generation of gamers. They are the biggest titles and largest sales. Co-op FPS have become popular, perks are added, different modes are available. Thanks to online play, and marketing pushes the FPS is king.

In JaM’s blog it is questioned where the traditional FPS have gone. I remember playing a Freeware version of Wolfenstine on my PC. I though (and still do) that it was the bomb. But what makes them traditional or developmental (or does it matter)?

When you compare FPS to RPGs at the time the RPG had years to develop.
When you compare RPGs to Platformers/Smups when they were at the time, the Platformers/Smups had the time to develop.
Continuing with that comparison we are now in the “Traditional FPS” era, and something eventually will replace it.

Further to this point if Wolfenstine/Doom were the traditonal FPS wouldn’t JaM (or many people for that matter) have defined the old Masters of Magic as the Traditional RPG. Shouldn’t I have defined the text based ones as the traditional?

The truth is, a Mr Churchill suggested in my beginning quote, that if define traditional as what we want it to be our medium will be lost to us forever. And what is also suggested in that quote is that it must evolve, or simply die.

But that’s just my though on the matter, I could be wrong.

So stuff happened, by computer got flattened, and I got distracted form posting (that never happens). But I’m going to finish this list damn it.

Number 5 is Puzzle Quest for the DS. I’m sure this game is great on the computer and console too, but I got it for the DS for $1, so that’s why I’m reviewing it for the DS.

This game is a puzzle game, and an RPG. I really like puzzle games, and really like RPGs. Therefore, I’m liking this game. The puzzle element is that when you enter battle it goes into a Bejeweled like battle, where you match same color runes, coins, purple stars (exp), or skulls (damage). Depending on your class, and your mount, you can cast spells, or other effects based on the color runes. Damage your opponent to 0 HP and you win. Simple enough.

The RPG element is you level up getting new spells based on your class. You also purchase/find different equipment to increase stats or give you new spells, as well as find mounts which increase your ability, as well as a party which can add a bonus based on certain conditions. Finally you can have forts where you collect gold after a period of time.

There are a wide variety of enemies and strategies. I didn’t find the game hard, but you may die a few times because of the randomness of drops. You’ll also win battles because of this randomness. The enemies have different abilities, that make a spider fight different then an elf, then a two-headed ogre, then a harpy, then a lich. There is not one universal strategy, and classes will have their bad match-ups, but this can be overcome with different equipment.

As for other game play, the text and story is kept short. I found this a good thing, because I wasn’t looking for a traditional RPG when playing this game, and the story element would have hurt the game. You get to explore a world map, and fight random battles based on creatures on the road and missions. This is the one gripe of the game I had. Sometimes I needed to simply get from Point A to Point B, but there were so many small enemies in my way. They were not going to offer any challenge, but you still had to face them.

This game also had several other good RPG elements. You could make your own weapons by combining material. And the best ability of them all was you could lean enemy spells. All enemy spells. You got to be a blue mage for free. After defeating an enemy five time you could go solve a puzzle to capture it, and then in your fort (guess what) go solve a puzzle to get the spell. I know not much variety, but it’s a puzzle game.

Finally I have to comment on the controls and DS. This game works great on the DS. The touch screen is wonderful. I noticed the graphics when sketchy sometimes, but it was only for a few seconds, and always corrected itself. I would guess the controls on the computer is just a good (mouse) and the console versions might be hurting a bit less because of having a control stick. I doubt either of them would hurt the game play.

Overall Puzzle Quest is a good puzzle game that add in the right RPG elements to make it a good game. You have a reason to push forward to the end. It’s more customizable then most RPG, which is a good statement for Puzzle Quest but bad for RPG. What it lacks in the story line it more then makes up for in everything else. It was really worth my $1, and much more.

This game was a Mario game. Great platforming, cools powerups, variety of worlds, and BOWSER, messing your shit up.

This game is a solid edition to Nintendo’s titles on it’s counsel. The story is the same as every other Mario platforming game. Bowser’s kidnapped the princess again (silly bitch), and you have to rescue her. You’re off in space thanks to some convenient plot device (I don’t remember) and away you go.

Everything about this game artistically works. There worlds are colorful, cartoon, and vibrant. Goombas squish properly to make you satisfied, surfing on shells are cool, and flying around is just neat. The level well varied, are short.

This is one of the few 3d platformers that camera does a good job. The controls are also great, allowing you to use the Nunchuck for movement and buttons for auctions. There is some gimmick thrown in there, but nothing that ruines the game. I’ll mention another platformer that isn’t on the Top 10 (Nights: A Journy of Dreams) for good controls, which confuses me because a certain blue hedgehog can’t see to get the controls right (I can’t even blame Sonic Team as they made Nights).

They make the levels repayable due to Luigi and having to find hidden stars. Every time you visit a level it is different enough you don’t feel stuck doing the same things over (ie getting to the top of the hill again).

I didn’t bother playing the collect all the purple whateverthefucktheywere levels, because that isn’t why I purchased a Mario game. Luckily (or possibly by design) they are not ‘necessary’ until after the game. Nintendo, making 8 red coins to give you a star, fun. Redo a level so you need to collect 100 purple things, not fun.

My biggest issue with the game is that Bowser was too easy. I just destroyed him 1st go. I never destroy Bowser 1st go. It was sad. I mean the buildup was good, and his different ‘froms’ for lack of a better term, were all unique and good, but it was so ‘meh’ in difficulty.

Overall still a great game, you need to play it if you have a Wii, and it is one for the family. Nintendo knows how to deal with it’s plumber.

This is actually the game that locked in my purchase of the 360. This game didn’t disappoint. Anyone who knows me knows I hold he Tales Studio in high regard, as well as Tales of Symphoina. This was made by team Symphonia and it does not disappoint.

Everything about this game is above average: sound, music, artistic style, story, and combat system. Characters are all believable, different, well made in both design and personally. I adore Tales Studio for being able to make children actually act like children. In this game Carol was an excellent character. Like most children put into a hard situation he was scared, but always tried to hide it. And as the game progresses and event happen he eventually grows up and overcomes his fear. Very depthful (yes that’s a word now) character especially given the time they had to put on each one.

They also have believable relationships between character, even if some of them feel like wacky transplants form Symphonia. Rita and Carol act brother and sister, much like Genis and Rein. Still everything is well done, different form Symphonia, and still familiar enough so fans of the franchise will enjoy it. I didn’t expect them to deviate form the money train too much.

The combat system is really good. The AI is probably the best in the Tales series, with only a few battles where they go stupid and you have to tell them to back off. AI is very customizable, and they do a good job of keeping everyone healthy. The combat system is once again a 3D free roaming style like their other games. It handles very well.

All the different cities and designs are above average for the genre. There are many of your standard cities but a few stand out as exceptionally cool, the city protected by the Tree, Technology, Magic hybrid, and the floating city in the Jellyfish come to mind. Of course you have the usual arena, castle city, etc. but Tales studio does a good job of keeping these fresh.

The music is excellent. Always there and noticeable but not overpowering. The villains seem vile, and suspenseful events are kept perfect. I didn’t find any track annoying or too repetitive for the length of time you were in an area.

This game was also very large. There was need to go back over areas for harder boss battles, better items etc. The map wasn’t that large, but there was always just one more place on the map you could go. The boss battles were good, and the final boss battle was outright hard. I consider this RPG harder then most because I actually had to use items. And I don’t mean had to because of a quest, I mean had to or I would die. It is still a good curve and possible to beat. I did beat the end boss on my 1st try, but I did have to take my time and use the proper items and stragities.

Above average in all ways, and excellent in some. With 60 to 80 hours of game play on a 1st run, diffcult achievements, and bosses. Plenty of side quests, and secrets galore, if you liked RPGs and have a 360, you should get Tales of Vispeira.

This is originally posted by me for my blog on screwattack.com in response to the sidescroller pod cast. This is just a copy/paste.

I was just listening to Side Scrollers at work today (I usually listen on Wedbesdays) and on hard news there was a quote form Sony's VP of Marketing. It was talking about how everyone “…would love for the PS3 to be free, so they could just sell razorblades.” Craig, Dustin, and Cory sound confused about the term. Craig questioned if it is a marketing term.

Yes, razor blades are an actual team. Or rather Razors and razorblades is a strategy of marketing was (simplified version) you see something at a loss, with the intention of selling units to go with that produce at a higher profit. This was originally used with, surprise…surprise, razors. Using my local EB of even the ads that appeared as the background of screwattack.com with Gillette trying to get gamers to buy a razor blade form them, so we have to purchase their razorblades. All the razorblades have a large markup so the company makes a lot of profit.

The Senior VP of Marketing of Sony is saying he is worried about the long term stability of Sony and therefore doesn’t want to take a large loss on the sale of a PS3. Fair enough, he has shareholders that he has to answer to. The only problem with the comparison is that it is a false one.

When you purchase a razor, your final decision isn’t going to be based on color, or tight grip, or whatever. Those are all nice to have, and you may make a choice based on what you prefer, but it’s unlikely you would pay $10 form a green one with mega-ultra grip, rather then a blue one with triple grip. After you have the razor you just continue to purchase blades for it until the razor breaks. Repeat process. All the razors are the same, so as soon as you have your razor blade you should be happy until your razor’s life ends.

So with this comparison we are going to say when the speaker for Sony was speaking he was comparing the games for the PS3 as razorblades and the PS3 as the razor. And this is where the comparison fails. Were in all razors are more or less the game, games are different. The whole reason we purchase a consol is to play games on it. I really couldn’t care less which company makes a box to play games I enjoy, so long as they play it.

To have it his closer to home when this generation started I believed I was going to get a Nintendo and Sony. I’ve had Nintendo since the NES and loved RPG so PS1 and PS2 played a large role in what I played. On the contrast I don’t care for FPS or online gaming, so the Xbox didn’t appeal to me.

Then the grit dropped and Sony came out close to a year after the 360, and at a large price tag. Of course this was discouraging, but I was still waiting to see what was coming out for the PS3. Then lots of RPG came out for the 360. Eternal Sonata came out for the 360. I wanted that game, but I wasn’t going to purchase the 360 for one game. Sony got it a bit later. But there was a lack of RPG for the Sony. Then FF13 was announced to be coming out for the 360. Then finally Tales of Visperia was announced as a 360 exclusive. Then Sony had officially lost any chance of me purchasing a consol. There was not enough games I liked, let alone exclusives, for a warrant to purchase a PS3. All the razors I wanted to buy were on another razorblade. Because it wasn’t about the best razor, it was about the best razorblades.

And Sony this Razor and Razorblades issue is hurting you in the long run. Your consul is known to be problematic to program for. So if I’m a developer not only is your system a higher cost to make a game for, it has less resale potential, because less people have it. Since I’m looking at cost of items as well, I need to make my games available to 360 users as well, so I can make a profit. This in turn leads to people like me, who are late adapters jumping ship to the 360 because they have most of your games, and a much larger exclusive library. This in turn leads to less sales of your system, because I’m not owning both, and more sales of 360. This in turn makes it easier for a 360 exclusive, because of a larger market share.

Note: I in the article I could have said Wii and 360, but chose not to, as the Wii is not really a substitute to a 360 or PS3. More business terms (thought you can probably figure this one out yourself).

Now Sony has been saying they are going for a longer term strategy, saying they are going to outlast the 360. Now this will be true if for two reasons:
1 – The PS3 capabilities are far beyond the current generation of consul. This was discussed more in detail on a G1 Sunday Submission, who knows more about the technical aspects of it so I’ll just provide the link.http://screwattack.com/g1Submission/020809 (believe cannot url in a blog.)
2 – Sony’s been losing money. Not just the PS3, but the company hasn’t been doing that great. They can’t (reasonably) afford to develop another consol.

IF that is the strategy they are going by that’s fine, but with the exclusive cycle stated a couple of paragraph above, you’re burying yourself more then not. I have a friend who likes Sony and owns a PS3. Whenever he says “This system is going to last a while” it sounds like a compilation prize, rather then a selling point. Two of my other friends are “just waiting for that price drop” before they purchase it.

Sony, you do have an impressive piece of equipment there, but consumers are not buying a consol, they are buying games. Now maybe when the PS3 becomes “it” I’ll be happy to pay the money for it. And it has managed to have a few games I would like to play. Folklore, despite all the bad reviews I’ve heard, still looks good to me, and I’d like to try it. I loved playing Little Big Planet at my friend’s house, and KillZone 2 looks great. But with only 3 blades that I’m truly inserted in, as opposed to Nintendo’s 30 and Microsoft’s 50, I’m going elsewhere for my razor.

Final Notes: Sorry if the explanation was somewhere else on the forms. I did some lurking but didn’t see anything. If anything was confusing, or I lost anyone with the business terms I threw in there please post a comment or drop me a message and I’ll clarify for you.

Hope you liked my 1st post.

Finally looking at the best graphical artistic style we have the consoles. This means I’m looking at Wii and 360, as I don’t have a PS3 (yet). Now let’s take a quick run down.

Boom Blocks (Wii) – Simple paper cut out creatures to go with a simple game. Nothing ground breaking, but nothing wrong either.

Eternal Sonata (360) – Uses an anime/cartoon style of charactors and combat. Everything is bounch which lends itself to the soft humor of the game. The settings are very pretty, and even the final part manages to be dark, but not too dark (it is a bright and cherry game after all).

Guilty Gear XX (Wii) – A fighter with a unique range of characters and stages. Everything looks good and you can really see the graphical differences between characters. Charctors like May and Bridget really don’t look threatening, where characters like Sol and Testament look badass. Character stages match them to a tea.

No More Heros (Wii) – A great auction game done in the style of anime. Over the top bloods and slicing people in half fill this game. Everything looks good enough and consistant enough you never find a flaw that would drag you out of the game, but still cartoon enough that for people like me you don’t get sick form the blood.

Mario Galaxy (Wii) – A graphical upgrade from Mario 64. Looks like a Mario game, works for a Mario game.

Nights:AJoD (Wii) – This game looked a bit old, like it should have been a late 64 game, or an early GC game.

Smash, Brawl (Wii) – This game graphically didn’t get the attention I thought it diserved. The sprites did very well, but I though the levels could have been crisper. Still also suffers from the seeing through your character problem occasionally. That however seems to add to its charm.

Tales of Symphonia: A New Dawn (Wii) – Following form the highly successful Tales of Symphonia its graphics have only changed slightly. One really issue I had with it was the drawings of the character on the menu screen. The two new ones got Wii graphical details, well everyone else kept their GC ones. Looked really inconstant and really stood out. Just wish they would have redone the old character, or made the newer ones look the same.

Tales of Visperia (360) – A very smooth nice anime/cartoon style game. Looks really polished graphically. The style works well for the Tales series. Each character looks different enough and matches their backstory. Not pushing the 360 graphical capability, but goes well with the game.

Comments – ToS: A New Dawn, and Nights:AJoD are not in contention. They are not graphically where they need to be. I just found flaws where it really bothered me, making sure I stepped out of the game play expierence.

Smash, Brawl and Boom Box and the next two out. Boom Box can have the wired camera, and was not graphically good at all. I know you wanted to make things simple and everything, but you should have had more faces and different backgrounds for the levels. Brawl is out because it’s not where it needs to be for a high caliber game.

Mario Galaxy, Tales of Visperia, and Eternal Sonata are the next three out. They are all games where graphics are on the high end of their genre. All the levels look great, they all have a variety of settings, and they all do everything they do well. But they didn’t push the envelope graphically or for the style of their genre. I don’t feel they need to, as they have a profit making formula, but for this award they get the boot.

This leaves No More Heros, and Guilty Gear XX.

And the winner is….

Looks like Guilty Gear XX get the shaft again, as I put No More Heros as the winner of this category.

Guilty Gear XX is really good, different, and pulls everything off well. It probably is artistically one of the most different fighting games out there (besides Killer Instinct), but it just can’t beat No More Heroes.

This game’s art style is off beat. Yes I know there were other games like it before, but it is hardly status quo by today’s standards. It manages to be an anime/a cartoon, but not remind me of that. Even when the screen froze and I needed to swing the Wiimote it seemed natural. All your different power up really change how you look at everything as well.

Going into darkmode was very cool. It was done well slowing you down like a moment of insight. Finally everything matched their characters (which is a feat as they have screwed up characters). They got all the cell shaded personalities down well.

This game is really good artistically. If you have a Wii (and are appropriate age) I would recommend this one.

Form the number of times you’ve seen this game on lists it’s obvious it was going to be on my Top 10. I really don’t know what I can say about the game I haven’t said already.

PacMan CE is an extremely well done remake. The facelifts were perfect, making everything brighter and clearer well still maintaining the old school fill. The music is still stupidly catchy addicting. The game starts off slow and becomes fast paced. Everything is done correctly about this game.

The new modes are good to. The dark level was a good and original way to add depth to the game. It still has the tone and setting right. The feature where you can eat the ghost 32 times and get lots of power up is fun, and since it is long and they speed up at the end also remains exciting. Some of the modes are just hard. 5:00 minutes and the ghost are auto fast, yikes!

I would highly recommend downloading this game. The final game for the Xbox Live on my list (yes, we finally move to consuls/computers/handheld). If you liked PacMan style games at all, this is a solid investment.

I just opened up a DS game made by THQ today called Lock’s Quest. It’s made by the same people who made Draw to Life. I though I’d give a first impressions article about it.

This game is suppose to be a cross between an RPG and a Strategy game like Gemcraft. Clockwork monsters are attacking a target. You need to both build walls and torrents to defend against the invasion, as well as engage the enemy yourself. I really liked the concept, which made me purchase the game.

From the 1st missions the concept seems to be pulled off very well. Its not very difficult, but the difficulty should kick in until later in the series, so I’m unworried. There appears to be 8 different torrents, and 8 different traps as well. Right now I have the basie shoot stuff torrent, as well as a torrent that slows enemies down when it hits them. No traps, which is a shame because I wanted to see what they were like.

It controls very well with the stylus. I have no problems placing buildings. You sometimes get dumb stuck on walls but if you are paying attention it’s not an issue. Even the combat/repairs make good use of the stylus. There is a simple punch the number in numerical order mini-game in combat so you deal more damage. For repairing you move a leaver back and forth. I’m sure the latter will get annoying later, but I’m hoping it is a good way to balance off the game, and still give the player something to do when they are running around madly repairing the walls and torrents.

Overall the game made a very good 1st impression. If the difficulty curve ramps up properly, and the torrents and traps are all different form each other, this looks to be a very good game.