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LA Noire: am I a robot?

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I knew this was lauded for its facial animation, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite so accomplished.  The characters don't suffer from the plastic faces of most games, and the lip-syncing is almost eerie in its accuracy.  Of course, Rockstar claimed this was needed so that players could assess whether the characters in the game were lying or telling the truth, but in reality it's made much more obvious through shifting eyes, stuttering responses, and finding evidence beforehand.

Having said that, I'm doing particularly badly at this, finding it difficult to work out which evidence to present and even if the people are telling lies, much more than when I play Phoenix Wright.  There are quite a few differences between the games, of course, but the idea of solving crimes with an evidence-based approach means that they feel very similar at times - particularly where I'm playing the two at the same time and starting to confuse which bits of evidence I've got in which game.


The other thing I'm bad at is driving in a sensible and law-abiding manner.  I am forever crashing into civilians, almost running them over on the pavements, and bringing down lampposts.  As a result I'm not scoring particularly highly overall, and have had a couple of tellings off from my superiors.  I don't know if the end-of-missions cut scenes do change depending on how well you do, but if not it's a bit of a coincidence that the chief is generally unhappy with me when I've failed to ask the right questions.

Asking the right questions is tricky in itself.  You are given three options - accept a statement as the truth, indicate that you doubt it, or present evidence that it's a lie.  Often if you choose the 'doubt' option, because (say) you don't think that someone can be sure of what they're claiming, your character blunders in and shouts louder than if you were accusing them of the murder itself.  The interviewees get offended and you've failed the questioning session.




So, I'm not doing too well, making me doubt if I have any human empathy at all.  But I am enjoying it a lot, and the world in which it's set is really solid and well designed.  I've been promoted from a rank-and-file policeman to the traffic desk, and then on to the homicide desk.  Most of the murders have been very similar, but with apparently different perpetrators.  I'm hoping that the story doesn't twist to show that I've send a number of innocents to their executions.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies: Completed!

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There's not too much I can say about case 5 without spoiling it completely, but there were some pretty large twists which helped segue case 4 into case 5 and then turn case 5 on its head halfway through.  Really well scripted and thought out, though the quality of the translation dropped a few times.  That being said, there were some excellent lines and situations.




And I didn't get a screenshot, but Athena's line of "The court will note that this is different from the selective hearing men are so good at!" made me laugh a lot.  I particularly enjoyed the references to older games in the series, such as the ladder and stepladder specification.


But now it's over, and there'll be a wait for the next game.

Or not, because there's a brand new case available on the eShop! Huzzah!

Everybody Votes Channel: screenshots

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Back in June of this year, Nintendo closed down a few of the channels on the Wii which relied on someone sitting in head office maintaining some sort of online service.  These included the news and weather channels; while there are far more effective ways of looking up the news and the weather, Nintendo's approach of giving you a globe to grab and spin was more fun than most.

One of the services closed down was the Everybody Votes Channel.  When this first launched I visited it a lot - checking the results every couple of days, suggesting my own questions.  I was pretty good at predicting which option would be more popular.  I'd not used the channel for a couple of years, but when I heard it was closing I went back to look at it.  It seemed to still be quite well populated - there were at least enough people to form meaningful results, at least.

There are few good quality screenshots of the channel on the Internet.  I captured quite a few in June, which are included here.  If you want to use any of these on your websites, feel free - please just include a link to this post.



































Pikmin 2: a disastrous day 4

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As you can see from my to-do list, there are a number games that I want to play and complete before I move onto the next in the series.  I loved Pikmin, and completed it properly by playing through twice and getting all the rocket ship parts within thirty days.  I bought Pikmin 2 for the GameCube, and then never got around to playing it because I wanted to devote time to it.  I bought the original and the sequel when they were released on the Wii, and have bought the third game for the Wii U.  I've never played any of them.

Until now.  Spurred on by the blue Wii U game box sitting on the shelf mocking me, I've started to play New Play Control Pikmin 2 on the Wii.  Yes, actually on the Wii and not on the Wii mode of the Wii U, so that I can take screenshots and video through my component capture box.  One of the best things about the Wii U is the integration of Miiverse, and it's daft that you can't use that while running Wii games.


The Wii seems to output at a bit of an odd resolution which the capture box has difficulty with, but you get the idea.


I'd forgotten how freaky Olimar looks, but compared to other people on his home planet, he's positively plain-looking.




Louie's expressions in particular are pretty horrific, and I was pleased to get into the game with the lovely pikmin.


The idea of the game is to collect rubbish which has a high value back home, so that Olimar's boss won't have his business closed and all assets repossessed.  The SS Dolphin was already taken, and so Olimar and Louie travel back to Earth in a rickety old rocket which has a really annoying metallic twang every time it speaks.

While I'm talking about things that annoy, the font used to show the number of pikmin, the name of areas, the results of the day, and so on, is really ugly.  It's odd that there are two different fonts used, with one nice and neat and the other really scrappy.

The first piece of rubbish indicates that we could be looking at a heavily branded experience ...



... but luckily so far I've not found anything too bad, and most stuff is actually old Nintendo memorabilia, like a Game & Watch, Love Tester, or playing card.  There are, of course, other things that you can collect in order to spawn more pikmin.


On day 2 I went into the first cave, where time seems to stand still and there are treasures aplenty.  The caves are a bit dingy.



The aforementioned Love Tester was also in a cave, and the annoying rocket thing reckons he can use it to make a gauge of some sort.  That sounds like a waste of a good antique electronic device.


I was doing well until day 4, but I then went through a long cave and found a big bug at the end.  I threw loads of pikmin at him, and he then straightened out and started rolling from side to side.  Many pikmin were squashed almost immediately.


They shall not be forgotten.

Red Dead Redemption: Completed!

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While looking for beaver furs in the Northern regions, I noticed a new stranger mission open in Blackwater.  I met a government man who told me that Edgar Ross was living in a shack overlooking a lake.  Suddenly the lack of a previous ending made sense.  Don't read if you've not played ...
On reflection, I think the original 'ending' of Red dead Redemption is one of the best I've seen in a game.  The game makes you care about the character, giving you hope for him in the future, before having it all taken away.  It's brutal, made more so by the last few missions in the game giving you the opportunity to remove yourself from killing.

What's more brutal though is the way in which you feel once you're given control of Jack.  Despite his keenness for Jack to accompany him on hunts and protecting the farm, you get the feeling that John wants Jack to grow up sheltered from the world he once knew.  Jack's keen on reading, learning about the world.  However, once you've been given control of Jack three years on, standing over the graves of his father and mother, what you really want is to go and find the government to have revenge.  John's assassination turns Jack into what John was trying to avoid.

So I rode to the shack and saw his wife.  I rode to Mexico and met his brother.  I rode up the river and found Edgar, who killed me in the first duel because I was trying to shoot his weapon and arm, like I had in most other duels.  When I restarted I shot him four times in the head, because that's what Jack had become.  Then the credits rolled, and the game was properly over.


Well, apart from collecting a few herbs and helping someone kill himself by jumping over a cliff with a flimsy glider.

Great game.