Games Portfolio Journal

Monday 11^th May

 

Well, that’s most of the work for my important modules complete. Only thing left is Supreme Commander Artefact. Downloaded the official map editor today and managed to get it working after a long, long time trawling the internet. Why can’t there just be a single list with links to all patches? I also discovered the SupCom auto-updater is as pointless as translating “How to Speak French” into French.

Wednesday 13^th May

 

Well it was my birthday yesterday so I decided it was more important to go karting and have a couple of drinks rather than do work. But today after a few discussions with various people I have decided that in the time I have left and the amount of effort I am willing to put into this module, I am going to smoke and mirrors the artefact by reversing some footage. And it will look brilliant. But now: lunch! Cheerio.

 

Monday 18^th May

 

Checked the brief again the other day, found we needed a journal every week. Whoops. Still, nothing of any relevance to this module has been done so you haven’t been missing out on much. Over the last week I have been playing around with various scripts and seeing what they do. The short answer is: break. I’m not even trying to get additional models into the game and nothing seems to work. Even friends who are working on it are struggling and these are people who can script much better then me. Suffice it to say I don’t hold out much hope for getting there. On the plus side, I did manage to get a map working in the game. It’s just a blank piece of terrain for now but that’s one little bit of scripting that did function, so thanks out to the internet for that.

 

Monday 25^th May

 

Success! Built my map over the weekend although it’s been slow as my priorities have been leaning far towards Games Narratives work. It’s nothing major but given the camera angles I have recorded from using FRAPS it looks relatively good. Well, decent at least. You can’t see the edges of the map, put it that way. A bit of a problem I had was getting rid of the User Interface, which I eventually did using the help of a console command. Of course the problem with that is the console disappears so it’s hard to get the UI back again when you need it. After a couple of hours of struggle I finally had all the footage I needed. That’s when Richard decided to tell me about the keyboard shortcut that would toggle the UI on or off. Needless to say I’ve written to the mob and he’ll be waking up with a horse’s head in his bed soon enough.

Wednesday 27th May

 

Finished! Well, not the dev video but the artefact itself is. I found when I edited the footage together in Premiere Pro I was left with a few problems. The camera movement was a bit jerky, my slow computer meant the FRAPS videos had a slightly poor frame rate and because of the reversed footage my robot would vacuum up his own footprints. Ben said as a joke I should make it into an old fashioned commercial from the 1930s era, but me being me I thought this was a brilliant idea as the context of a video like that would solve all my camera and reverse footprint troubles. So I threw on a black and white filter, added noise, and did some old-fashioned title cards. I also made the footage shake at various points as if it was having trouble going through the projector.

 

That left me with just the sound and encoding left to do today. I went on youtube and found various old bits of music, including a brilliant little fanfare from a 1913 Chevrolet commercial, and some old jazz music that was actually used in Fallout 3. I was a tad worried about copyright issues but I couldn’t find an official copyright notice for this music and according to the law at the time that would only give it copyright protection for 50 years after its creation. So it is borderline as to whether its completely public domain, although I’m confident no one will worry about it, as there’s no way I’m actually going to put this artefact in my portfolio.

 

Ben helped me write a script for him to read out as an old-timey announcer, much more verbose than those of today. We had to do a few takes of course so Ben could get the speed and tone right, but once he was finished I added some white noise to the background and varied the amplification, and I played around with the EQ a little bit to give his voice a bit of a tinny sound. I also intentionally let the voice peak from time to time, as I felt that was appropriate given the time period it is supposed to emulate. After I edited this into the video and played around with the sound, we were left with a convincing pseudo-1930s advertisement from the future, and I am rather pleased with how it turned out!

 

Friday 29^th May

 

Hand in is in about….5 hours, and my development video is just encoding now! I had another quick look at the brief and discovered 2 slightly worrying things. First of all, I forgot to put this journal online. So I’ll upload it all as one bulk before I hand it in to my blogspot site (fox-review.blogspot.com). Also, I have a CD and case to burn to but the brief seems to imply that I may need cover art, which seeing as my printer is on the fritz and I am low on time just isn’t going to happen. Mine’ll be the one that says “Sony CD-RW” on the case. Oh yeah, the development video!

 

I described the issues, solutions, and development the best I could. I was surprised after I completed my voice over that it came out to about 4 minutes, so I cut a few trivial bits out and sped it up after a second read. I grabbed various screenshots from the editor, Windows and the internet, as well as utilising edited and original artefact footage. To fill the gaps I found some relevant pictures on Google, I am quite pleased how I managed to get both Homer Simpson and Crash Bandicoot in there. I wasn’t going to at first as this is supposed to be a serious piece of work, but I figure as long as it makes sense there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun.

 

I’m looking forward to hand in so I can say I’ve got this module out of the way. At the beginning I thought this was just going to be a couple of hours each week to work on your portfolio. No assignments, just something useful for us. But then we end up having to use a high specification, buggy engine that we haven’t used before. I wouldn’t mind having a brief to work to if we could use an engine of our choice, after already having a module using it I would have preferred to use the source engine, as this is much more well supported, much less buggy, arguably more versatile and requires a reasonably low PC spec to run. And because of all these problems portfolio development has felt to me, and a lot of others based on my conversations, to be an unnecessary waste of time, as I doubt even with months worth of diligent effort and ignoring all other modules anyone would have come up with something that is actually portfolio worthy, with the exception of custom models perhaps. Not if they want to get hired anyway.

 

Well, encoding is finished now; I don’t think there’s anything more to say on here! Time to burn the CD and hand in. Cheerio!

Training Camp Assignment

First off, I want to say how disappointed I was come presentation day with this piece of work. As James Smith and I were creating it, we thought it looked pretty fantastic and we were hopeful of a pretty high mark. Come the class presentations, however, it was clear our judgement of the kind of quality we should be expecting from the rest was somewhat off, so ours was somewhat underwhelming.

And this was a bit of a let down. Determined not to repeat some of the same mistakes made in previous assignments, we started work the day we got the assignment, and it didn't take long for the level to be planned out and basically constructed. Our hangar for the briefing was especially cool, and we thought our "cruise ship mockup" was quite impressive as well. Very Call of Duty 4.

I stayed in Bolton for the holidays whilst James went home, but we still communicated often and effectively via MSN, sending each other updates and discussing what each of us should do next. Through this process we finalised our levels, James sent me the texture for our station approach scene, and we started work on the classes. 

Out of all the classes, the power core one gave me more trouble than anything else. Mainly because it decided it wanted to sotp working after a while. I told it to, upon taking damage, span a redeemer explosion class, play an explosion sound, and then destroy. Which it did! The first time I tested it anyway. And the second time. And a couple more times after that. Then it stopped. This baffled me, I hadn't changed anything in the code, so I went back to it. Sure enough, I couldn't see what had gone wrong. I tried everything - changing the explosion that should spawn, replacing the actor class in the level, creating the class again from scratch.... anything I could think of to sort out the glitch. But it wasn't having it so we ended up having a power node that just vanished with no explosion.

At the end of the xmas hold, we started work on the matinee. Which was just as godawful as I had expected. With two of us working it wasn't quite as frustrating as previous assignments, but was still a struggle. James did alot of the camera work and events whilst I did alot of scripted trigger and mover work. The matinee took quite a bit longer than expected despite factoring in extra time for it, so we ended up having to drastically cut down on our script - which was previously rather ambitious and cool - so that we could get voices recorded and put the work in on time. And this led us to our final problem: Unreal's audio import. Now I have been told by numerous members of our class that the only format Unreal seems to accept is 44khz, 16 bit, mono, .WAV. Well...not on mine it wasn't. 22khz was the magic sample rate for me, and if different instances of the engine like different formats, I'm slightly worried that on someone elses machine it might just get confused and explode.

Overall I'm disappointed with the final result as it couldn't quite meet our ambitions, as usual, and the quality from other groups was higher than I was anticipating making ours look a bit crappy in comparison. If I were to do it again... I'm not sure what I would do differently. I was happy with the way we worked as a group, happy with the planning, happy with the work we split, so I think the only way forward is to get naturally better with the engine.

Review - Valkyria Chronicles

When somebody says "SEGA" to you, I somehow doubt your first thought is to JRPGs, or to Real Time Tactics games. But despite this, they have given it a go, by creating a Strategy RPG named "Valkyria Chronicles". So how does the new blood do in this genre?

In a nutshell, it does very well indeed. Valkyria Chronicles is set on an alternative Earth in the year 1935, where the 2nd Eurpoan war has just broken out. The player takes command of Welkin Gunther, a natural sciences undergraduate who has been drafted into his country's militia, and the squad he is given to command. The story begins when the Empire to the east invades the Welkin's homeland, the neutral principality of Gallia, which then has to fight the imperials back to where they came despite massive inferiority in numbers.

Cliché? Absolutely, but there are enough twists and turns to make the main premise interesting, and it serves well to push the true focus of the narrative along, which is that of the characters. Valkyria Chronicles puts a large focus on the development of relationships between members of your small squad, and it builds them in a believable manner. Each has their prejudices, their flaws, and a distinct personality. The focus on such a small group allows the game to go into great detail with each one, and the net result is you actually truly care for them all, something few games in the last decade have manged to achieve.

The game is pushed forward via a series of "Episodes", which are selected from a book, and more unlock as the game progresses. This allows you to view cutscenes and briefings before starting the battle, but at the same time can break the flow from time to time. Battles themselves are epic, and something JRPG fans will have to get used to. The player can have up to ten soldiers on the battlefield at once, and can move each around the battlefield separately by spending "Command Points". For example, one command point will allow one character to move and perform a single action, such as attacking or healing. When all your command points are spent, it's the enemies turn, which does the same.

The system works well, and manages to cleverly combine a turn based battle system with real time action. There is a limited amount any character can move each turn, and emphasis is placed on proper weapon selection and positioning, so careful planning is required. In many ways the system is like a game of chess. Except with more explosions. Longer battles can sometimes become tedious, especially when you have to sit through 10 minutes of the enemy phase without the ability to speed it up or skip it entirely, but for these situations are rare and for the most part the system is consistently rewarding.

Winning battles gains you EXP and money, which can be spent on training up your soldiers and developing new equipment respectively. Additional content can also be "purchased", which allows you to explore sub-plots and get a more in-depth look at your squad. Doing these things adds plenty of depth and playtime to the game, and as you level up your soldiers by class rather than individually, it isn't a tedious process either. Another element of strategy comes in when developing tank upgrades, as there is only a certain amount of space on your tank for certain types of upgrade, so it is important to choose carefully and prioritise for offence/defence etc.

Valkyria Chronicles doesn't just get by with its story and gameplay alone, it has over 30 hours of playtime, a new game + feature, and some of the most beautiful graphics of this generation. Abandoning "realism" for an anime themed cell-shading technique, the result is a watercolour masterpiece. The soundtrack is strong as well, as although composer Hitoshi Sakimoto falls down a little with his ambient tracks, set pieces such as the Main Theme are incredible, and some of the best music of the genre. Voice acting as well is superb across the board, with the original Japanese dub included for good measure.

In conclusion, SEGA has done a cracking job at something a bit different, to the extent that it is one of the best titles of this generation so far. It is one of the few games that manages to make you feel somewhat saddened as the credits roll, because the experience is over, and the ability to manipulate the players emotions to the extent it is able is simply astounding. There are some minor gameplay flaws here and there and parts of the story can be a tad predictable, but as a gaming experience this is right up there with the top. If you have even a passing interest in JRPGS, anime or just a mind blowing experience, you need this game. Period.

Overall: 9/10

Overgrown City Assignement

I wanted to be a bit ahead of the curve on this one so I started storyboarding as soon as the assignment came out. Unfortunately this assignment coincided with a large 3D Modelling and Art task, and as that was in earlier that was my focus until it was completed. Which left me with only a week with which to dedicate my full attention to UnrealEd. Still, by then I had a draft storyboard (which got scrapped and redrawn) and a basic city plan in Visio, which I didn't spend enough time on so it was largely unhelpful to me.

The level itself didn't take too long to construct, although I wish I had included a few more static meshes. Having said that I found some good textures available for free of gamespot so the archietecture at least was relatively convincing. I wasn't too worried about the level itself as I was focused on the scripting which, having used it before, I expected to be a major challenge.

And UnrealEd did not disappoint. Certain actions such as "show hidden" worked fine, although the majority of commands caused masses of problems. For example, "Setviewtarget" plus "waitforanimend" is supposed to cause the pawn to turn to face the target he is supposedly viewing. Yet after triple-checking all the tags were 100% right (and going back through webCT tutorials to double-check again), my pawn still would not turn. I tried various other commands/combinations and various websearches, but according to all logic it should have worked. I tried to fake it by simply telling the actor to "movetopoint" and attempting to move it in a path that would make it naturaly face the other way. But to turn the actor around this command would simply be ignored. If I put the pathnode in FRONT of him to simply move him twenty yards forwards, the pawn would reach the pathnode and then turn to face the other direction.

I tried setviewtargets, stopanims, waitforevents, and even moving the pathnodes so he wasn't hitting them at even the slightest angle... but this made no difference. "Forcemovetopoint" and "teleport" were also commands that did not function, so I instead used "sethidden" commands to fake these. The problems I faced with these commands made me unable to create a gun battle between character and aliens I included, so I tried to create the illusion of a battle there as well. What ends up happening is the aliens shoot each other, which I don't have too much of a problem with as it could be thought that the bullets are coming from the player. Unfortunately "freezeonanimend" for the death animation was rather argumentative as well.

Still, I am moderately happy with the camera work and the scripting I used, but the overall result is not what I had hoped for thanks to unscaleable problems with the engine.

Machinma in UnrealEd

PART 1

Okie dokie. It's Saturday the 18th at the moment with this assignment due on the 24th. Plenty of time right? Well, after a bit of a lazy year last time out, it's catch-up time and that means working real hard real early. I went into town this morning for two reasons; 1) I decided to buy a sketch pad and 2) I was told there was a fundamentalist evangelical preacher in the high street who I could have a good argue with. Alas, the preacher had gone by the time I got there so I had to settle for the pad on its own.

Still, it only cost a couple of quid for 30 sheets of A3 from WH Smith (who, by the way, never called me for an interview! Slimy rats) so no complaints there. When I got back I forsaked...forsook? What is the past tense of that? Anyways, I kept LittleBigPlanet firmly in its box seeing as I blasted through the story yesterday anyhows and opened up my pad, where I spent 2-3 hours designing a floor plan and coming up with some concept art for a couple of key areas for my museum.

On a roll, I opened up UnrealEd. I was eager to start early seeing as the deathmatch level last year took something like a month, and having Level Design in semester 1 that time around I am pretty rusty with the tools. Still, I took to the basics again easily enough and set about carving a basic shape to match my floor plan. It was a bit hit and miss and I had a million textures to sort out etc, but a couple of quick light bulbs saw the thing ready for a test play!

And that, children, is how I learned to test levels more regularly! I built the thing to realise it was hideously small! It was less of a museum and more of a shed, and I must admit I was struggling to figure out where my elaborate staircases were going to go. So, lesson learned and I've just started over, this time working from the courtyard out (as I did in my floor plan) and testing it after every geometry change. I only have the courtyard done so far (done refers to geometry only!) but it is the right size now, and the rest of today and tomorrow will be spent sizing up the rest of the level, before I nag Brian on Monday to remind me how you do bloody sky boxes.

PART 2

It's 8:45 on Friday morning. Assignment is due in at 3. After working for hours each day on this cursed thing I finally finished it at 3AM this morning. I'm not 100% happy with the result, let's be clear. If I had another couple of days on it I would have done a voice over on the audio, for example, and my lighting could be improved a bit, and one of my rooms is a little empty. But overall I'm pleased with the result. One of the biggest difficulties I had to overcome was scale, as although I was testing regularly, my Museum was still far too big, so I had to scale everything accordingly so as not to be left with too much empty space. I also couldn't a good way of doing tables and chairs, which put my plans of a museum shop and café somewhere in the bin, so i changed that area into an "under construction" zone.

Lighting properly was horrible as well. On my Sphinx mesh I wanted an effect where 4 spotlights were shining on it, each from a different angle. And it's hard to tell when you're rotating a lightbuld, and there's no arrow to indicate where the light is gonna be when you rebuild. Although it has just occured to me as I type this up that that is what the "Lock to Selected Actor" button is for. Damn!! Ah well, live and learn.

The matinee tool also is, whilst simple in theory, a real bitch. There's no point locking the camera to an actor for a duration of 4 seconds, because it will keep looking at the actor indefinitely until a contradicting command comes in. Which is a system I hate. As a result, my sub actions are horribly convoluted affairs as I tell things to look at a certain actor, then to look at the path as the camera repositions, THEN no orientation... and for the record, the sideways tracking shot I have was by far the most difficult shot. I spent over an hour on that one alone trying to get the camera to look in the right direction and even then I couldn't get it 100% right!

In the end, I was just glad to get it finished and put some audio in. Which was pretty simple actually, although I would have liked the music to start when the movie begins, rather than as soon as the player spawns, as this throws the timing off slightly.

~ Fox.

Review: The Black Mages III: Darkness & Starlight (ALBUM)

After making a name for themselves with their first two albums, The Black Mages are back. With them they bring 10 new tracks, most of which are arrangements of classic Final Fantasy tunes, including a 15 minute rock version of the 'Mario & Draco Opera" from Final Fantasy VI. So here's a track by track review for fans of the Mages, because, niche audience or no, I know you're out there!

Opening - Bombing Mission (Final Fantasy VII)

One of the most famous pieces from the series finally comes with a Black Mages album, and it is promising right from the start. Beautiful synths play the quite opening before the main theme kicks in, and there is a pretty special moment where it does, the drums and guitars coming in do incredible justice to that memorable moment.

The Bombing Mission part plays well too at the start. Although the piano sound is a little dry, the rhythm guitar compensates well. The melody kicks in with the Hammond organ and all seems well; until the solo's start. Messy at best, these solo's are treading a thin line between "not great" and "unpleasant to listen" to, so prepare yourself well. From there things pick up a little bit, but nothing else is really memorable and the rest of the track is an irrelevance.

6/10

Neo EXDEATH (Final Fantasy V)

Most people on this board won't be familiar with Final Fantasy V, which immediately puts EXDEATH in a bit of a precarious position, as nostalgia value is so important in these pieces. Luckily however, the Mages have put together a really good arrangement here, and even listeners without the experience of the original will thoroughly enjoy.

Just beyond the opening the main motif plays, which is simple yet memorable - anyone familiar with "Force Your Way" from Final Fantasy VIII (and The Black Mages I) will recognize the style. But even past that, this piece will keep listeners on there toes as bouncy organ parts pop up here and there to break up the main line, and the solos are crisply performed and interesting as they follow a surprising, but pleasantly so, chord progression.

8/10

The Extreme (Final Fantasy VIII)

Fans have been calling for this one for a long time, and it's finally here! The anticipation builds as the familiar and almost unchanged piano and guitar part plays....and fans of the original piece will almost be fooled into thinking they are listening to it. Before the rhythm guitar kicks in in a moment I can only describe as "Hell yeah, I'm drowning in a sea of awesomeness and win".

Unfotunatlely...a few seconds afterwards the main melody kicks in and it's being played by a string synth. Whilst the lead guitar does pick it up a few phrases along, those first few bars of the melody were begging for a bit of force behind them, and when the lead finally does come in the modulation and balance are a bit wrong and it doesn't overwhelm as the original extreme did so well. And from then on the whole track feels more bland and empty than it should, and whilst the ending solo is pretty strong and it certainly isn't a bad piece, The Extreme certainly disappoints.

6/10

Assault of the Silver Dragons (Final Fantasy IX)

This track is a tale of two halves. The first half is...reasonable. A bit synth heavy, with the lead guitar really suffering. The first organ part works well, but then you just want the guitar to come in and finish off the section, but it doesn't. And this happens for a repeat or so. Following this is another big but rather boring part, where thankfully the guitar does come in at appropriate times to give the listener something interesting to listen to, but this whole first half feels rather unstructured and there are some really dodgy synth effects used at times.

But from 3:40 onwards (OK I lied, this is about three quarters in) is brilliant. Perfect balance of all the instruments the mages have available, and although a bit repetitive octave switches and a solo near the end keep the ensemble interesting. So much do I love this last minute or so I'm tempted to reuse or at least paraphrase my earlier "sea of awesomeness" remark.

7/10 - First three quarters earned a 4 but the end is just THAT good!

KURAYAMINOKUMO (Final Fantasy III)

No doubt you read that at least twice with a few stutters before you could pronounce it, and from the sounds of the opening 30 seconds this track seemed to be having the same problem. It was boring and seemed to be going nowhere.

But luck intervened and kicked in with a pretty exhilarating track with an awesome melody that the lead guitar really works well with, as there's plenty of room for subtle variations that weren't risked in "The Extreme". From 3:14 listeners are treated to a pretty powerful new melody, that changes some of the rules from earlier in the piece and is a joy to listen to, before a brief return to the original motif for a satisfying climax.

9/10

Distant Worlds (Final Fantasy XI)

A forewarning: don't take the change of pace as a red herring, because the relaxing sounds of Distant Worlds' opening certainly isn't leading into a typical Black Mages rock out.

But it is executed with a great deal of care. Piano, pan pipes and the acoustic guitar all have a go at various melodies, and all perform admirably. The transitions are simple but elegant, and the whole piece is relaxing but with enough variety to be thoroughly enjoyable to listen to and even pretty memorable. The electric lead does come in for the climax, but without changing the pace of the piece and it works surprisingly well with the traditionally calmer instruments it surrounds. In fact whilst it may not be my personal favourite, Distant Worlds is very hard to fault.

9/10

Premonition (Final Fantasy VIII)

What is there to say about Premonition? It is...what could be expected from an arrangement of this piece! It's well done without ever being out of this world, and whilst there are a couple of iffy synth moments where I can't identify the sound that was used, the guitar parts completely make up for it. A good addition to the album if not a classic.But by the way, this is a kick ass track to Audiosurf to.

7/10

Grand Cross (Final Fantasy IX)

The opening part is a direct audio rip from Final Fantasy IX, and it's something to sit through for the sake of establishing the piece in the way the original did rather than really listen to. But fear not, it certainly picks up once the arrangement starts. The drums and rhythm guitar throughout are top notch, and there are a couple of classic moments from the original that translate really well to the rock stage.

The solo's aren't the best though. The guitar sounds a little muffled and the organ isn't entirely appropriate, but on the whole this is a really enjoyable track and whenever it sticks to the source material it does a really good job.

8/10

Darkness and Starlight (Final Fantasy VI)

Let's get a couple of things out of the way. If you have never played through the opera scene in Final Fantasy VI, or if you don't speak Japanese, or if 15 minutes of opera singers is too much WHATEVER the context - then you are going to struggle with Darkness and Starlight.

The track jumps quite obviously from scene to scene. There are alot of mood changes which generally fall into one of three categories: haunting, catchy, or touching. In most tracks this would ruin the experience, but with 15 minutes to play with nothing really moves on too quickly. The worst part of the track are the spoken sections which introduce the scenario. The voice is soft and emotional, and in English would have been fine. But the language barrier is a real problem here.

Which leads me onto the next biggest problem: Maria. The vocalist here really over sings the part, which called for a much lighter voice and against the backdrop of a really thought out arrangement this is a real shame.

But, in spite of these things, I thoroughly enjoyed Darkness and Starlight, despite not being particularly familiar with the source material myself. But it is a very acquired taste and I hold few delusions that most laymen listeners will have the same experience. If you have an open mind about such things, I recommend giving this a go, but those who like their music a "certain way" should pass. This is unlikely to fit into your niche.

7/10

LIFE: In Memory of Keiten

A few years ago Nobuo Uematsu composed a short piano piece, "LIFE", for a fan suffering from Leukemia. Her name was Yoshitaka, and she became very special to Uematsu-san before recently passing away. Thus, Uematsu-san decided to include that piece on this album, and added dedication to the title.

The piece itself is under two minutes, but two very emotional minutes. The piano part is always interesting, and the player masters the subtle use of expression. As one would expect from Uematsu, there is a very prominent and memorable melody, which varies slightly to keep the piece interesting but never really changes.

Simple but elegant, time flies when listening and the 1:20 seconds will feel quite a bit shorter. The piece is over far too quickly, but even if it wasn't intentional, the symbolic effect of this is quite overpowering when you come to understand it.

Emotional, beautiful, and a touching piece to accompany a touching story, this is my personal favourite of the album.

10/10
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So, how does the album fare as a whole? What I've noticed in the previous Black Mages albums is that alot of truly memorable arrangements stand out from the bunch, and create an album which is greater than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, the reverse is true here. Whilst there are no pieces that are "bad", there are alot of disappointments and alot of niggling issues here and there that will disrupt the experience, which when listening to music is nearly always a big negative. As a result, whilst each individual track is generally strong, the album as a whole is a let down.

Overall: 6/10

Review: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

After one lazy afternoons mistake where the suits at Sqaure Enix decided to outsource the "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" to their housekeepers wives, gamers soon found themselves wasting their money on the likes of the incredibly dire "Dirge of Cerberus" on PS2 and the ill-fated "Before Crisis" on mobile phones. There was some relief with Advent Children - although a bit of shiny floor wax wasn't enough to cover a poor script and an even weaker plot - and the anime "Last Order" wasn't even given an English release.

So the omens were poor, to say the least, for the latest installment in the series, An action RPG on the Playstation Portable. Crisis Core sees the player take control of Zack Fair; SOLDIER 2nd class and a key, if brief, player in the plot of Final Fantasy VII. Zack is desperate to become first class, and to do that he must impress his friend and mentor Angeal on a number of assignments. Predictably enough not everything goes according to plan, and Zack soon finds himself rooting out the mysteries behind a mass desertion of his unit. So does Crisis Core redeem the mistakes of the past? Or is it just another failed experiment?

Fortunately, Sqaure Enix have taken Crisis Core back into competent hands, and the results shine through. The plot is well written, and although some players will be surprised at the direction it takes, it leads more than satisfyingly into the start of FFVII. Fully voiced cut-scenes are well placed, so they arn't every five minutes but at the same time players don't have to wait too long to advance the story - which is perfect for portable play.The gameplay takes an interesting direction as well, abandoning the turn based combat of the original game as well as, mercifully, the shoot-em-up style disaster that was Dirge of Cerberus. Instead, combat works as a cross between Final Fantasy VII and Square's other big name franchise: Kingdom hearts. Attacks are selected in real time from the bottom of the screen, using the "X" button to select and the shoulder buttons to cycle through the various available abilities, which are determined by equipping the appropriate "materia" (stones containing magical power). Also available with the square and triangle buttons respectively are the dodge and guard commands, which will become an invaluable part of any successful battle.

The most intriguing and, at first, confusing part of the battle system is the DMW, or "Digital Mind Wave", a slot machine like system that constantly spins in the top left of the screen. The slots spin three reels of character portraits and numbers. Matching any three character portraits grants a power boost, whilst matching triple 7s will gain Zack a level. Other combinations will level up materia or grant Zack temporary abilities such as invincibility. Whilst for the first hour or so of the game it's the most confusing system this side of the stock market, players quickly see learn that it isn't entirely random and it isn't long before it becomes intuitive, and it is sometimes not hard to predict when a level up is coming around.

Outside of battle Zack can equip accessories and materia to give him new abilities and raise his attributes, but materia can also be fused together in a myriad of different combinations. Whilst in "normal" mode this function isn't vital, for players who challenge themselves on the games "hard" mode understanding this system well will become key to success.Exploration is dumbed down in Crisis Core, instead making way for a "Mission" system which allows Zack to perform various side quests from any save point. These generally involve warping to a location, fighting a few enemies and defeating a boss. Whilst by no means over complex (indeed it is near impossible to get lost in these repetitive sections), they provide an excellent way to level up whilst finding useful new items and materia. The fact that only a select few exceed ten minutes in length also makes these missions perfect for portable play, and in small doses few players will become too bored of them.

On the presentation side of things Crisis Core sets a bar for the PSP so high even a David Beckham penalty couldn't reach it. Gorgeous CGI sequences that would not be out of place in Advent Children grace the screen every so often, and are even intergrated into gameplay with each summon monster activating a skippable sequence when called upon. The lip syncing has been completely made over for the English release and is near flawless, which is highly preferable to the script alterations seen in earlier reases to match the Japanese animation. Real-time renderings are top-notch as well, with character models as detailed as those seen in the PS2 iterations of Kingdom Hearts and animations to match. The environments can be a bit of a let down, Midgar in particular will come across bland and lifeless, although fans of the series will undoubtedly get a twinge of nostalgia as they see the lobby of the Shin-ra building in all its glory.

The soundtrack is generally impressive, with arrangements of FFVII themes fitting nicely beside original Crisis Core pieces, although the combat music will become a little irritating after sustained periods of play. Voice acting where applicable is top of the line, Andrea Bowen is the third actress to attempt to voice Aerith Gainsborough, following Mandy Moore and Mena Suvari, and finally Sqaure Enix have found the woman to pull it off. Also deserving of a special mention are Rick Gomez and Carrie Savage, who voice Zack and new "Turk" member Cissnei, respectively.

On the whole, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is an incredible outing that will grip the player from start to finish, and with a good 20 hours of gameplay, even without alot of the side missions, players certainly get good value for money. Bland environments and repetition can be a drawback at times, but these minor flaws shouldn't deter anyone from experiencing this game. Crisis Core is due for a European release sometime in June, and for fans of Final Fantasy VII this is a must buy, though heartily recommended for all.

Overall: 8.5/10