Once in a while, when you have a device that does gaming as well as everything else, a particular game comes along that takes you on an adventure that’s hard to quit. I found one such game recently. Hero of Sparta (iTunes link) is a very remarkable game for being, well, a general hack-n-slash at its core. This means that you basically go around killing monsters using various bladed weapons by mashing buttons like crazy. However, that isn’t to say that this game doesn’t have its rewards.

When you start the game, you’re first treated to an opening movie showing your hero battling it out with a bunch of guys and a nasty cyclops-resembling monster. This was very impressive, but a little misleading as the high-quality animation made me believe that all of the cutscenes would be like that. Cutscenes are, of course, the chocolate-chips in every gamer’s dream cookie. The rest of the game had cutscenes that were impressive in showing you the scope and breadth of where you are in the game, but nothing approaching that cinema quality.

The menu is very straightforward and I had very little problems navigating it and learning what everything does. The options menu has settings for game hints (on/off), music and sound effects level sliders and has localization of several common languages. The new game option has standard difficulty options: easy, normal and a “heroic” mode which is unlockable after beating the game on either difficulty.

Gameplay is a real treat, especially for someone like me that has tried his fair share of most game genres on the iPhone platform. Keep in mind that the iPhone has only one physical button on the front. The game designers give you a virtual control stick with which to move the hero and three action “buttons”: one to swing your weapon, another to shield and use special abilities, and one that appears under certain battle conditions. There’s also life and magic meters on the top part of the screen, along with a menu escape. This game interface surprisingly doesn’t interfere with the rest of the game on screen. The virtual controls worked very well, only being a problem when my thumbs weren’t aligned properly! One thing I should mention about this game: it’s very graphic-intensive; I would recommend installing MemoryInfo and using it to kill all non-essential iPhone memory processes before starting the game.

The goals of the game itself are very straightforward and on-screen game hints will let you know if you’re going wayward. There’s a couple of neat surprises to this seemingly mindless brawler. First, you can search for powerups for your health and magic meters. Most of these are obvoius to find, but some aren’t that easy. Second, there are some puzzle elements to later levels that, while being simple puzzles, still add some needed depth to the gameplay. You can also upgrade weapons that you acquire throughout, and the decisions to upgrade which abilities of each weapon can also make your warrior’s life easy or a living hell.

The game itself is engaging, with a storyline and cutscenes that immerse you into your character. I found myself eagerly looking forward to the next chapter, the next challenge, even the next bigger sub-boss. The designers put some thought into making the game challenging, but not extravagantly difficult for newbies like myself. I got killed a few times, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out what I was doing wrong and adapt.

All in all, I had to give this game a 4 out of 5… whatever symbol you care to think of. I can’t give it my highest rating because, while the entire storyline was bordering on epic grandeur… the ending was just pure anticlimactic crap! If it weren’t for how great the rest of the game is, I would have felt completely bilked instead of merely cheated of a good ending. Still, I would recommend this game to anyone who wants a good adventure. Sans the ending, I really enjoyed being the Hero of Sparta!

I just bought this game Thursday as I was leaving work. I had heard great things about it and I wanted to see if it was better than Super Mario Sunshine, which had left a sour taste in my gaming mouth.

Well, so far I’ve gone through about maybe 15% of the game and I have to say that SMG is really living up to the hype. First, the control scheme for the Wii is pleasantly intuitive (Warning: it requires the Wii nunchuck controller attachment!). Mario is very easy to control, even in an environment that makes your perspective go upside-down and sideways on a regular basis. It seems that Nintendo learned their lesson from the game camera perspective problems in Mario Sunshine. That was one of the reasons why I stopped playing Sunshine. Another thing that they seem to have omitted (so far!) is the crazy obstacle course levels that Sunshine had. Some of those weren’t bad, but others seemed so hard as to make you rely on pure luck (the Pachinko level, anyone? I went through tons of Mario lives trying to get through that one!). Galaxy is easy at first, but I can tell that isn’t going to last very long, seeing as I lost a few lives due to figuring out what to do on some of the later levels. The cinematics are a joy to behold! Visually, as well as in gameplay, this game is a real treat to dive into. Even the physics of the game, namely the gravity effects, are way cool.

I can’t wait to go through the rest of this game so that I can give a more in-depth review. Be on the lookout for this, and more, on The Esoterik Blog! Cheers!

Side Note: I’ll be posting some video of my gameplay on the Wii during various games. These will be separate posts from reviews or anything else, unless I deem it necessary.

Hello to all!! I’m sorry I haven’t written here in a while. As the title suggests, I’ve had my time occupied with some new toys in my life. You know it’s true what some people say; when men get older, they still play with toys… but they’re either more expensive, imported or have tons of neat useless features!

Nintendo Wii

In one of my postings before last Christmas, I was pining for this system. I was also being realistic; I didn’t expect to get one as long as retailers kept jacking the price up because of near-unavailability. Well, since Nintendo boosted production on the Wii, the store I work at finally got them in at the regular price. I just had to buy one that day, especially since one guy earlier in the day was trying to buy all of them!

If you’ve read anything about this console, I don’t need to tell you how cool this thing is. However, for those who haven’t paid much attention to tech matters like this, I’ll fill in the gaps here. This is probably the very first console to have an emphasis on actual physical movement while playing some of its games. Wii Sports, the game disk that it comes with, has five games on it that make full use of this functionality. The bowling, golf and tennis games were rather low impact, but the boxing and baseball games actually made me break a small sweat! There’s virtually no lag time between swinging the wireless controllers and movement on screen, showing just how far this kind of technology has come for home use. Thus the reason why I haven’t been blogging lately… I’ve been on my feet playing video games and being somewhat active at the same time. (speaking of which, I started rollerblading again… but I digress!)

There’s more to the Wii than just its own games. There’s built-in online functionality, with access to Nintendo’s Wii Shop Channel… a place that, admittedly, had me asking my wife to chain down my credit/debit card! You can buy points there, which enable you to get applications and games for download into the Wii console. The games are part of Wii’s Virtual Console, and the shop has access to lots of older games from classic systems, with more being added every week. That leads to another feature; the Wii is backwards-compatible with my GameCube games! Add those things to the Wii’s main home screen, which has other channels such as news, weather and social interaction channels (all free use!), and you’ve got a great diversion from everyday life.

Games And (even more!) New Cubes

In addition to going a bit crazy on Wii’s Virtual Console, buying three classic games, I got two new games for it (ow… my aching wallet!). The first one is The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Yes, I know I already have it for the GameCube, but the Wii version is somewhat different. First, the entire game is right/left inverse and, second, the game makes full use of user movement with the wireless controllers. The first time I swung the sword around with Link, I broke into the biggest grin my face has ever endured! The second game is Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It’s a game where famous video game characters (mainly from Nintendo), duke it out in arena-style combat. It’s a very enjoyable game, with an immense challenge factor. Also, it makes use of the Wii’s online capability, enabling you to play against other players from around the world.

I also finally got the new cubes I had talked about in my last post! These are different than the 4×4x4 and 5×5x5 cubes I have with the Rubik’s name. They’re made by a Far East company called Eastsheen. I’ve worked with them for the past three days and I have to say that they are made better than their Rubik’s counterparts; they turn much smoother and tighter, due to different internal mechanisms. Because of this, my times have improved to around 5 minutes on the 4×4x4 and 11 minutes on the 5×5x5. So what’s going on with my shattered Rubik’s 5×5x5? Well, I’ll probably put that back together and just have it for display, with minimal use.

I won’t be getting any more puzzles or games for some time now; I want to save for better things. However, if I can find a Pyraminx at a good price, that will be the next puzzle. Rumor has it that, in September, a company in Greece is going to be mass-producing their new Rubik’s-style cubes. These will go by the name of V-Cubes, and they have had working prototypes of 6×6x6 and 7×7x7 configurations. Look them up on YouTube; I already featured the video of internationally-known cuber Frank Morris solving their 7×7x7 prototype in an earlier blog entry. If and when these become available, you know I’m going to be in line itching to get my hands on one!

Before I leave, I have one tidbit of useless trivia for you, garnered from Wikipedia and the original paper on the subject. Did you know that a 5×5x5 puzzle cube has approximately 283 trevigintillion combinations in it? Just to give you an idea of the size of the number we’re talking about, that’s 283 followed by 72 zeroes. A research paper stated that the number is also a very rough estimate of the number of hydrogen atoms in the known universe!!

With that thought, I bid you all a good day. Cheers!

This year was better for the family get-togethers than last year was. Last Christmas, more than half of the family got really sick from one of the earlier family gatherings. They encouraged us to stay home and keep well. Well, this year we definitely made up for that, at least on Christine’s side. The downside to all this is that I couldn’t see anyone on my side of the family. I’m thankful for phone conversations, but I do miss everyone that I couldn’t see this year. Also, I’m thankful that this year’s holiday didn’t have any bad surprises (ie. deaths) to mar future memories. This seems to happen to more families than I care to think about. All in all, I’m just thankful, and that is one of the main points of the holiday, as it is a gift in itself.

Now that I’ve said that, it’s time to bring up the gift bag so I can talk about the cool stuff I received! Just to let you all know, the order that I’m going in does not dictate most favorite or anything like that.

First, I got a neat little toy called a Rubik’s Revolution. I say “toy”, instead of “puzzle”, because that’s really what it is. At first glance, it looks like a super-sized Rubik’s Cube, but the centers are hollowed out and have lights in them. Plus, the layers really don’t move. What is cool about it is that it is an electronic game device with six games built-in. Most of these games are themed on turning off multicolored lights within a time limit. However one game, “Pattern Panic” is fashioned like the classic Simon game where you repeat a growing pattern from memory. Another game, “Code Cracker”, has the player figure out a hidden pattern in the fewest turns possible. While this is a fun little thing, I only have two small caveats about it. One, you can reduce the volume, but there’s no way to mute it. For that reason, it stays downstairs per the wife. Two, I don’t like the fact that Rubik’s name is being used for a mere toy when that name has been synonymous with brain-busting puzzles. Still, I’ll be enjoying it for a long while.

Next, I was given an awesome box set of the second season of Doctor Who . I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have this, and it’s also a gift for both me and Christine because she loves the show, too. We have seen some of the episodes on it, but not all of them, so we’re going to have a fun time watching the unknown ones. The extras on some of the discs, I can tell, are going to be awesome. I’ve already watched the out-takes, because I really love blooper reels. There’s just something about watching your favorite actors flubbing up lines or breaking out in lunacy. Maybe after we watch all the episodes, I’ll make some episode reviews.

Also of note, I was given a CD of Lunatica’s “Fables & Dreams”. I just recently heard a few songs of theirs and I got hooked on their smoother form of Symphonic Metal. So far, the whole CD is just great and I’ll do a review of it on this site soon. Speaking of new music, we just received a late-arrival gift today for Christine: Din Fiv’s “Escape To Reality”.

We also got the usual assortment of clothing and gift cards, which are equally appreciated. However, I figured that the above mentioned items were most interesting and worth talking about in detail. I will say that the only bad thing about the DVD box set is that I’ll be tempted to get the other two season box sets later this coming year!

Cheers!

Talking to my mom yesterday during Thanksgiving, she suggested that I make another wishlist for Christine and I, like I did one other year. It’s nice to know that it’s still a good idea. When you don’t actively live with family members and/or don’t talk to them every day, it helps them to know what you have your eyes on instead of going on the tried-and-true gift card road.

However, looking at Amazon today (their wishlist implementation is unmatched!), I decided to leave one thing out: a Nintendo Wii system. Even though it’s technically the lowest-priced system out of the Big Three of Gaming Consoles (at $249), it’s in such high demand that Amazon is quoting prices starting from $549 on up! I can’t realistically ask anyone to spend that much on me!

A big part of the reason for the high price nowadays:

FOXNews.com – One Year Later, Wii Still Hard to Find in Stock

I knew I should just have gotten it six months ago! Before anyone else asks, no I don’t want the Playstation 3 nor Microsoft’s X-Box 360. There’s some good reasons why I’m a Nintendo fan!

So, I’m going to lower my sights a bit and use my Amazon list for the little things we’d like. Click here for the list, but it may not be completed just yet.

Cheers!

(However, if anyone would like to get the Wii system for me, I’d also like the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess game for the Wii… wink, wink, nudge, nudge… kthanxbai!!))