BRAIN DRAIN

Patapon was practically the reason I bought myself a PSP. At a time when rhythm games seem to be all the rage on the portable platforms — Ouendan or Elite Beat Agents, anyone? — everything about Patapon looked to be heads and shoulders above the rest. War drum-driven tribal warfare? I’m so there!

Overall, it’s easily become one of my favorite games of all time. To begin with, the mechanics are simple enough: beat your drums one way and your Patapons do one thing, beat them another way and the tribe does something else entirely. In spite of this the game has plenty of depth, what with enough customization (and what weapons shall we equip this time?), mission objectives (die nefarious desert sand worm!) and gameplay related elements (will the wind send my arrows far enough?) to rival the best that the real time strategy genre has to offer (because it’s war baby!). The graphics are surprisingly impressive on the strength of artist Rotilo’s stylish designs. But the best part? The Patapons worship you as a deity possessing great juju.

A sequel’s already in the works, and hopefully the folks at Sony will iron out the kinks — the overly random and sometimes unreachable item drops, the inability to replay skirmishes aside from big game hunts, how it’s far too easy to lose one’s beat and doom the tribe to certain death — before the game hits later this year. Nonetheless, believe me when I say that Patapon is a gem and, for the price, a steal. If you haven’t yet, go out and give it a try. Lose yourself in the rhythm — pata-pata-pata-pon! — and discover that maybe you, too, have great juju.

Yes, it’s true: I’m now onboard with Xbox 360. To be honest, I’m tempted to conclude that I hate everything about it except the games.

I think the principal problem is that it’s a Microsoft product through and through, with all the complexities and excesses that such entails. Some have called the 360 a sleek device; personally, I find the unit itself overdesigned. It’s a huge and heavy piece of hardware that looks absolutely menacing. For its size, it surprisingly lacks built-in wireless networking capability out of the box. Further, it has an optical disc drive so noisy it’s actually scary. And yeah, every time I turn it on I can’t help but worry about the wretched Red Ring of Death that continues to plague the platform like a ticking time bomb.

On balance, it’s user-friendly enough. While the interface — the Xbox 360 dashboard — is feature-rich and quite impressive it nevertheless feels less like signal and more like noise. It’s my understanding that this will be improved in the streamlined update scheduled for later this year, so maybe there’s hope. The worst of it? Even before unboxing the console I half expected it to hang or crash at some point just because it’s a Microsoft job. True to form, it did. During the initial setup process. Twice.

Oh, but the games! Compared to the esteemed competition (Sony’s PS3), it’s right there in terms of quality and miles ahead as far as selection is concerned. In fact, my purchase of the 360 was influenced first by the announcement that Final Fantasy XIII would come to the platform, and second by whether I could get a copy of Tales of Vesperia at launch (I did). By and large it has more titles that I’m actually interested to play; given the fact that these are mostly JRPGs, my experience so far tells me that I’ll be in for quite a ride if and when I get around to the ones on my radar.

Overall, I can see why the 360 is emerging as the leader among so-called next generation consoles but still think it’s quite rough around the edges. I’m still of the opinion that the Japanese (Sony and Nintendo) have greater finesse where gaming is concerned, but Microsoft has the better business machine behind the Xbox 360. It came out first, it’s now cheaper than either the Wii or PS3 depending on the model in question, and because of downloadable content on Xbox Live, the console just gets so much more mileage. Whether or not you buy into the canard that the 360 is the hardcore gamer’s platform (I don’t), it’s plain to see there’s a lot of value packed into its imposing packaging, warts and all.

Before leaving for my trip, I got to watch my brother play a lot of Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon. For a title that I never would’ve invested in myself, it was surprisingly much better than I thought it would be.

Composed of equal parts dungeon crawler, role-playing game (RPG) and real time strategy (RTS), it’s a decent enough title for the Wii, albeit marred by a few unusual creative production decisions. Why use a Chocobo as a protagonist? The game’s RTS elements are rather complex for a younger demographic — for which reason it’s actually a title that serious gamers may also enjoy, imagery notwithstanding — and the RPG storyline is generic enough to accommodate the usual hero archetype. And why’d Squeenix skimp on the cutscenes? Sure, the Wii isn’t a graphic powerhouse, but the text-heavy post-dungeon cutscenes can only be described as underwhelming.

All the same, it has enough elements from the Final Fantasy universe — remixed, rehashed or otherwise reused — to make the game both interesting and challenging enough to try out. Granted, it isn’t cutting edge by any stretch of the imagination and does come up quite short in some areas, but it’s ultimately a Square-Enix production — and rarely do they ever truly disappoint.

My brother got me a copy of Touch Detective for Christmas that I’ve only managed to try out and wrap up recently. On the whole it’s a decent enough game, yet because it falls short on several fronts it is at best only an average title for the Nintendo DS.

In broad strokes, everything about the game seems to be right up the alley of someone with an affinity for the mystery genre and for casual gaming. Players play the part of the titular Touch Detective, Mackenzie, who aspires to make it into the ranks of the Great Detective Society. To do this, she must prove her mettle, and thus players undertake four unusual cases, directing Mackenzie to investigate people, places and things by tapping around on the touch screen. In this regard, it’s simple gameplay akin to ye ole point-and-click mysteries on the PC of years back. More, the visual style of Touch Detective is quite unique, presented as it is in a pseudo-anime fashion that is above all else eye-catching.

So what’s not to love about Touch Detective? In truth, the game often feels disjointed, mostly because the gameplay feels broken in so many areas. Particularly, the main problem lies in that the script is often too obtuse, so much so that there are some points in the game where players are left with absolutely no idea what to do next. Granted, it is a mystery title and thus not everything should be spelled out in big bold letters; yet even taking that as given, sometimes experimentation becomes useless because the game depends so much on sequence. Far too often, the story can only be pushed along if players “touch” the appropriate items on the screen in the correct order, which would not be a problem if there was the slightest hint that such is actually required. Speaking from experience, there were maybe two or three instances where I found myself stuck after performing an action, and no amount of exploring helped me move the story along — until, that is, I clicked on the character beside me, something I had no reason to do in the context of how the story was unfolding.

This doesn’t mean that I hated the game; personally, it’s something I fancy if on principle: it’s a detective game on the DS, after all. At best, perhaps only one of the four cases in the storyline is really worth playing through, while the remaining three have slivers of brilliance that just don’t live up to their potential, for the reasons identified above. So yes, I liked the game enough, warts and all — but certainly not enough to go and invest in the sequel.

I have become quietly addicted to Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

It’s not like the game is new: it’s prior release on every platform in at least two other separate incarnations allowed me to hedge my bets (correctly, I might add) and just wait for a collected Wii port. Nor is the game particularly well designed: in fact, it is mostly quite the opposite, with many a frustrating moment caused by terrible camera angles, character control, or stage layout.

Yet for all that I can’t keep from playing the game, struggling to unlock all the extras and gain “True Jedi” status in every level. Why? Simply because none of what’s wrong with the game really matters, because it gets so many other things right.

Ultimately, the combination of Lego and Star Wars is just ripe for a geekgasm and utterly irresistible, to boot. In many ways, it brings back much of the charm that made the original trilogy a smashing success, warts and all, while also doing justice to what the prequels tried to be but never were (while they were a travesty in theaters, in Lego Star Wars they’re fantastic!). All this while poking fun at the Star Wars legacy with a lot of off-kilter and insider humor that’s just right on.

It also helps that, even in Lego form, Darth Maul is wicked cool. That alone is enough reason to pick up the game and lose oneself a long time ago in a (Lego) galaxy far, far away.

Some time ago, I picked up a used copy of Kirby Canvas Curse, a relative oldie but goodie for the Nintendo DS. Built around the premise of guiding Kirby (who’s been transformed into a ball) through several stages by drawing paths for him to follow on the touch screen, it’s good clean fun that’s as simple as it can get.

Although it isn’t a groundbreaking revolution in gaming and lacks the gloss of other titles — every time I play, I half-expect Kirby to rocket through each stage much like Sonic the Hedgehog — what will prevent even serious gamers from writing this one off are Canvas Curse’s level design and unlockables. With regard to the former, some of the stages can be positively devious (in a fun sort of way), requiring multiple playthroughs just to find everything that they have to offer. As for the latter, the game has enough unlockables to keep obsessive completists at it for hours. While the resulting rewards are admittedly a tad underwhelming, they nevertheless give this otherwise short game a little more mileage: I finished it the first time a shade under six and a half hours and later on completed it after logging in over twenty.

Anyone who can find a copy (did I mention I got mine used?) would do well to add Kirby Canvas Curse to their library.