Review: We Ski & Snowboard

LIVING IN AMERICA
Reviews of games released in the U.S.

'Boarders enter the fray in sequel to family-friendly skiing game

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Note: This game review originally ran in the Reno Gazette-Journal newspaper and Web site, and I am posting it here on my personal site as backup.

We Ski & Snowboard
System: Nintendo Wii
Developer: Namco Bandai
Price: $39.99

Duuude.

Snowboarders get to join the snowy action this time around in We Ski & Snowboard, the sequel to last year’s family friendly We Ski on the Nintendo Wii.

For the uninitiated, We Ski featured an open sandbox-type atmosphere that allowed players to navigate a virtual ski resort with Japanese-style cutesy characters or even their own virtual Mii lookalikes. Up to four players can also ski simultaneously via split screen, with each player free to wander off to any part of the resort regardless of where the other players may be.

Now as someone with certain young relatives who love cute stuff and also love seeing their Miis in action, let’s just say I sank a ton of time on We Ski. A LOT of time. We did all the racing events; found all the missing or hidden items, animals and people; found a certain hidden abominable creature -- we even did all the food deliveries for virtual skiers who can’t be bothered to pick up their own virtual food. Fortunately, being able to dress my character in such haute couture fashion as a penguin suit and that yellow Bruce Lee outfit from “Game of Death” made it all worth it.

Which brings us to We Ski & Snowboard -- which I shall now shorten to WSS to save my sanity, not to mention my wrist from carpal tunnel syndrome.

The biggest change in WSS happens to be the most obvious one: the addition of snowboards. Having been quite used to the skiing controls from the first game, I was a bit concerned about having to learn a new skill set. But the snowboarding controls are just as intuitive, so it didn’t take that long to pick them up. Once again, you can use the Wii Fit’s Balance Board to control your board or skis. But just like the first game, use of the Balance Board is still limited to one player so all other players will just have to make do with the Wiimote and Nunchuck combo.

Besides adding variety and a certain touch of rebel cool to the game, the biggest plus with the addition of snowboards is added replayability. One common complaint about the first game is that it’s easy to lose interest once you’ve finished all the events and unlocked all the costumes (then again, after playing any game that long, it’s easy to lose interest in just about anything). But the addition of a trick park with rails, boxes and half-pipes really helps to hold interest in the game, especially once you learn to pull off the commands needed for some snowy trickeration. In fact, I had one young cousin keep visiting the trick park over and over ... and over some more during an extended playing session without really touching the other courses. He didn't even switch to using skis once.

The ability to do replays of your runs on the slopes -- including as a group -- is also a fun feature. And if you're smiling after reading that, well, I don't mean those kinds of runs (those are never fun, even as a group). The game still supports four players and allows everyone to go their separate ways (speaking of separate ways, check out this music video featuring Steve Perry and the boys of Journey. With the exception of the virtual instruments at the beginning, this video has nothing to do with this game or the Wii. But it sure is as funny as heck.)

The ability to independently go off is also great if you're playing with one of those folks with a limited attention span who just likes to wander off. You know, the kind of person who makes you look like an idiot in the mall because you're talking to them and it turns out they wandered off somewhere so now people think you're talking loudly to yourself? Wanna go to the trick park but your friend wants to find out-of-bounds trails? Well, you can both do your own thing, so there's no need for drama. Do keep in mind that everyone still has to stop if one player talks to an event character and also have to magically assemble together if an event is triggered. That could certainly be annoying to others if done without warning.

Multiplayer fun also doesn't extend to online so if you want to play with someone, they better be right next to you. That's fine for folks with real friends but not so great for those who only have MySpace friends. Otherwise, you can have the computer control a virtual buddy who can ski/snowboard with you if you're, sniff, feeling lonely. Folks who just love to subject themselves to Nintendo's "Friend Code" system can still do so by trying to send their WSS photos to friends. And yes, they have to be real friends.

With WSS having two mountains compared to just one from the first game, there’s a lot more to explore this time around. WSS offers one traditional mountain park via the Jamboree Snow Resort coupled with the Howard Beale of slopes known as Mount Angrio. All I can say is watch out for steep drops and avalanches with the latter. Players also still have the option of hitting the slopes during the day or night for some added variety.

Because the game retains the open sandbox structure of the first, all courses are accessible from the get-go and can be explored to your heart’s content. Some out-of-bounds courses are hidden but don’t need to be unlocked -- just found. If you feel your life is meaningless without any goals, the game still allows you to unlock gear by completing events such as races, people searches, and, yes, good old food delivery. As in the previous game, your food still can’t survive you tripping on your face but mysteriously makes it in one piece after a perfectly done corkscrew or Rodeo 540. Then again, I can’t snowboard worth a lick in real life but I’m the bomb in this game so methinks reality is vastly overrated. One fun game that's new to WSS and should be fun for both the young and young at heart is tag. Just make sure to tell the kiddies that chasing down folks down a snowy mountain by bumping into them is a no-no in real life. Hopefully, that'll get the lawyers off my back.

One noticeable change with events is that most of the characters you need to talk to to trigger them are now huddled in one place. That means the need to scour the mountainside to find them has now been thankfully reduced.

Speaking of events, WSS obviously tries to strike the same balance its predecessor did between making it accessible to young players while not making it so easy that more seasoned players won’t find it a challenge. But as with any compromise, you always end up with something that falls somewhere in between. Some events in WSS will be too be too hard for younger players. Veteran gamers, on the other hand, may still find the events too easy overall.

Although the stages are new, the character sprites and some of the gear also appear recycled from the previous game. Given that WSS is priced more like a regular game than its predecesor, one would expect a completely new offering as opposed to an expansion. On the plus side, costumes now don’t have to be unlocked for each character and are available to everyone once unlocked by one character.

Bottom line: Overall, WSS is a nice addition to the Wii library. Self-described “hardcore” gamers who thumb their noses at cutesy graphics and more “casual” fare may want to look elsewhere. But for more well-rounded folks who want a fun slope sim that offers enough challenges while also being fun for the whole family, We Ski & Snowboard delivers. If you fall into the latter category, then I give WSS two skis up -- or is that two snowboards up? SHINGENMOCHI

Final verdict: RECOMMENDED

Resident Evil 5: The final autopsy, er, review

 

LIVING IN AMERICA
Reviews of games released in the U.S.

Note: This game review originally ran in the Reno Gazette-Journal newspaper and Web site, and I am posting it here as backup. Resident Evil 5 was also picked as part of our Friday A-List recommendations.

Resident Evil 5
System: Xbox 360, Playstation 3
Developer: Capcom
Price: $59.99, $89.99 for Collector’s Edition
* Also available as a pack-in game for the Xbox 360 Resident Evil 5 Elite Limited Edition ($399)

Evil’s afoot for a fifth time as the latest incarnation of the Resident Evil survival/horror franchise takes its bloody act to Africa by way of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

As the first true Resident Evil game to hit this current console generation’s “beefier” systems (at least as far as technical specs go ) Resident Evil 5 has been much anticipated. The fact that Resident Evil 4 for the Gamecube was widely lauded, particularly for the way it rebooted the series’ control system, only stoked the anticipation for RE5 even more. Then there was the whole online debate about whether the game had potential racist overtones or not, which just kicked up this game’s profile to a whole new level. There certainly was no way that RE5 was going to sneak up zombie-like on anybody.

So the question now is: Was RE5 worth the wait? Let’s try to dissect this beast and see what we’ve got.

THE SETUP

Resident Evil 5 has players taking control of one of the series’ original heroes, Chris Redfield, as he finds himself knee-deep yet again in the latest mess to arise from the mutation-inducing viruses pioneered by the former Umbrella Corp. For the uninitiated, bans on stem cell research were definitely not a concern for these guys.

With the latest nasty virus getting in the hands of terrorists, Redfield is sent to Africa by the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance to find out what’s going on. For this mission, Redfield must work with a new partner, an African woman named Sheva Alomar, to unravel the mystery behind this case. At the same time, Redfield also has to work out some lingering personal issues, which I won’t be touching on here as I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun for those who have yet to play the game. Let’s just say it’s not a problem that can be solved by buying a Bowflex.

OOH, SHINY

Looks aren’t everything. But if they were, then this game is definitely a keeper. RE5 serves up the best-looking game in the series to date, featuring crisp details and textures that hold up even when viewed on a 63-inch high-definition TV.

There are some noticeable stylistic differences from the game’s predecessors. For one, this game seems a lot more, um, shiny. It’s not quite Tekken shiny (or for you movie buffs, “Nacho Libre” Ramses shiny). If I were to use a photography analogy, I’d say RE 4 had a more subdued, matte finish to it while RE5 has a high-contrast, glossy paper look, with the daylight scenes also featuring bumped-up saturation. The inclusion of settings with harsh daylight seems like a departure from the traditional visual formula of RE. But the high contrast and saturation adds a gritty look to daylight scenes that I think goes well with the RE theme.

Use of sound was also quite good and retains the general feel of the series. You know you’re playing RE the first time you hear an infected human call attention to your location and the music changes. That’s when you start looking at windows, doors and what-have-you because you know those monsters are gonna be barging in soon.

Voice acting is a bit of a mixed bag, though, ranging from excellent to comical, or maybe cartoonish would be more accurate. Rat fink character Irving, for example, sounds overly rat-finkish. It's seriously hard to keep a serious face during what should be serious scenes when the bad guy sounds like Curly from the Three Stooges. Seriously.

A MATTER OF CONTROL
One of the key additions to RE5 is the addition of a second player to help hold your hand — in this case, Redfield’s partner Sheva. Your partner is always with you and is controlled either by the computer or a human player. On one side, it makes RE5 less of a lonely affair, which can be either good or bad, depending on what you want to experience from the game. On the other side, having a second human player helping you out certainly makes the game more fun, provided that your human partner is not, for the lack of a better word, an idiot. The computer AI also does surprisingly well when controlling Sheva. I’ve played my share of games where you have a computer controlled partner who’s AI is more artificial than intelligent, which is never fun. But Sheva holds her own pretty well and doesn’t need to too much babysitting.

Having someone watch your back especially helps when it comes to the biggest problem with the game — it’s cumbersome control system. Accurately targeting an enemy can take way too much time, especially for those used to playing the Wii version of RE4, which allowed you to target by aiming the Wiimote. Also, unless you’re already facing the direction you want to run toward, dodging enemies is like watching your character — who’s in physically great shape, mind you — having a brain fart-induced seizure. That’s because faced with the threat of impending death literally inches right in front of you, your only choices are to either sloooowly back away a la Slowpoke Rodriguez or to turn and THEN run away. The inability to just quickly dodge or do a quick side roll pretty much means massive damage or instant death if you ever find one of the monsters directly in your face. In fact, the great majority of my dates with the “You Are Dead” screen in this game happened after I ended up around kissing distance with an enemy for some reason or another (e.g. reloading, trying to save my surrounded partner, my own stupidity...) and couldn’t turn and run in time. Lord knows how many times I would’ve pulled my hair because of this if I wasn’t so worried about losing my valuable locks when I get old.

IN THE MOOD

Mood is a key part of any Resident Evil game and the same holds true for RE5, albeit somewhat differently. Although the older Resident Evil games actually scared me via both surprises and my own active imagination, I noticed that I did not feel the same kind of dread when playing RE5. Maybe it’s the added daylight in some stages. Perhaps I’ve just gotten used to the genre. Needless to say, I could play this game at night with the room darkened with no problems whatsoever. Oddly enough, the only exception didn't even involve monsters. Instead, it was the stage that required me to guide my character through waters that were infested by alligators (well, that or crocodiles). As someone with a very active imagination, knowing there’s something out there but not knowing exactly where that something is always scares the living you-know-what out of me. Other than that, no problems with my bladder whatsoever.

Then again, being less scary isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Although the mood in RE5 certainly retains certain aspects of the series, it also has its own atmosphere, which makes it stand out in its own way. As someone who has seen shanty towns and even commuted through one daily while studying overseas, the first chapter in the game struck me on a personal level. The details in the first few stages of the game even reminded me of experiences I’ve forgotten through the years and made me think hard about social issues that may be uncomfortable but really have to be thought about nonetheless. These issues include poverty, human rights and the tendency of some in power to either ignore, exploit or marginalize those in the lower part of society’s ladder. In that regard, any game that makes you think should be commended, provided that’s the true goal as opposed to exploiting a powerful scene for some cheap thrill.

Since we’re here, I might as well offer my two cents on the racism question as well. Based on my experience with this game and its predecessor, which had the hero fighting mutated humans in Spain, I don’t think RE5 is racist. Granted, I’ve seen my fair share of games by, say, Japanese developers that abound with racial stereotypes and sexist overtones. In fact, you could make a case for characters in another popular Capcom game, Street Fighter 2, being predominantly based on racial and ethnic stereotypes.

In the case of RE5, the notion of having a main character who is white shooting up mutated citizens who are predominantly black may sound potentially problematic. But having actually played the game and viewed it in the proper context — it is set in Africa, after all — I don’t think the game is racist in that sense.

Not that the game doesn’t have its issues. In fact, if anything made me raise my eyebrows, it was the sprinkling of some Caucasian zombies in the shanty town, which was apparently done after the racism debate came to the fore. Yes, Africa has white people as well. But some of the additions seemed forced, especially one shanty town resident you try to save who also happens to be a hot, blonde woman in a sexy dress (she eventually turns into a monster so you end up having to do the exact opposite of saving someone as far as she’s concerned). And since no context was given, I have no idea where that all came from, much less what the developers were thinking when they came up with the idea of plopping that character in that particular scene. I guess someone thought sexy blonde women have a monopoly on the damsel-in-distress role in video games or something.

In one more housekeeping note, I also noticed some loooong loading issues with the game while trying to load a save file. Since I got this game with one of the brand-spanking new, Jasper chip-equipped, blood-red Resident Evil Xbox 360 Elites, I assume it isn’t because I have a dying system on its last legs. So I looked it up on the Interwebs and lo and behold, other people were having loading and disc reading issues as well. Fortunately, I had more than enough memory to install the game to my hard disk, which fixed the problem. I haven’t played the game on the PS3, though, so I’m not sure if that version has loading issues as well.

THIS BODY AIN’T QUITE DEAD YET

After conducting my own checkup on RE5, I have concluded that despite some health issues, the latest entry into the series is in good shape overall.

Yes, certain parts show signs of aging and the control system also has signs of nerve damage. But the game is still in good condition for its age and can still outperform some of the young upstarts out there. On production values alone, it's safe to say that the newest RE5 still knows hot to put on a good show.

Fans of the series will find something soothingly familiar in RE5, along with a few new tricks that spice up this old dog, so to speak. I also think most newcomers will find RE5 a worthwhile and satisfying gaming experience. Just don’t expect to be able to duck and roll your way out of trouble. And keep your hands off your hair when things get ugly. It’s a valuable and irreplaceable resource, after all. SHINGENMOCHI

FINAL VERDICT: Recommended