Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The Godfather: Blackhand Edition



The Godfather is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. So when Electronic Arts announced that it was making a game based on the license, though it made sense as a business venture, it also seemed like a risky move to adapt such a beloved and well-known story to a video game. That risk paid off with the PlayStation 2, PC, Xbox, and Xbox 360 versions of the game, and now it's the Wii's turn. There are several minor but noticeable enhancements and gameplay tweaks in the Wii version of the game, but, for the most part, this is the same game that was released a year earlier on other platforms. That said, The Godfather: Blackhand Edition is still a satisfying, lengthy action adventure game, and more importantly, it remains faithful to the classic film while also creating a compelling story of its own.

As you might expect from a Wii game, The Godfather: Blackhand Edition incorporates some unique control features. You play the game with both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk, where you interact with objects using the remote and move around with the Nunchuk's analog stick. You can point your gun, throw punches, open doors, reload weapons, and execute enemies using this control scheme. It works well, and it's fun to beat up mobsters and toss them through windows by actually performing the respective gestures. It does get old, though, and at times the movements don't seem to register properly unless you use exaggerated gestures. Using this control scheme you also have to adjust the camera using the directional pad, which makes it difficult and cumbersome to get a good view of your surroundings, especially in indoor areas. In addition to the new controls, the Wii version of the game contains a good helping of new missions, as well as new and redesigned locations. The added content is a nice bonus, but most of it is in no way integral to the rest of the game.

The game puts you in the role of a peripheral character that didn't appear in the film, but nevertheless played a critical role in the story. While the character is by no means an official write-in from Mario Puzo or Francis Ford Coppola, he meshes well with the rest of the story, a large part of which is taken directly from the film. You begin the game by watching your father get gunned down in the streets by rival mobsters. Flash forward a few years to the wedding scene from the opening of the film, and your mother is asking the Don to take you under his wing and offer you work, so the Don sends the imposing Luca Brasi to look after you and teach you how to be a mobster.

You start off as an unofficial enforcer for the Corleone family, which means your job is to muscle merchants into paying you protection money. You do this by simply walking into a store and talking to the owner. Usually the owners won't simply give in, but you can intimidate them by smashing up their stores (or their faces) until they start to see things your way. Sometimes the business owners will ask you to do a favor for them in exchange for a cut of the business. You might have to off a drug dealer who is scaring customers away from a bakery, or take out a troublemaker who refuses to leave a hotel. These favor missions bring some welcome variety to the extortion game, but they're so simple and easy that they'll hardly have any effect on the way you play the game. Once you take over a business, you get a payout each week, and there are dozens of shops you can shake down all throughout the five boroughs of New York. Some stores are fronts for illegal rackets, such as brothels, gambling dens, and illegitimate importing operations, and you can buy out these rackets to further increase your weekly income.

Extorting businesses and taking over rackets isn't all there is to do, though. There are plenty of story missions that you'll pick up as you play. Some missions are taken directly from the movie. Most of these scenes are very faithfully re-created for the game, and it's great to be able to take part in some of the most memorable moments from the film, such as Sonny's ambush at the toll plaza and the assassinations of the Dons intercut with scenes from the baptism of Michael Corleone's niece. In fact, the best part of The Godfather is that it handles the source material respectfully and offers enough new content to feel like more than just a by-the-numbers adaptation of the movie.

In addition to the characters, the city of New York has been rendered in detail, and you can spot specific scenes from the film as you travel the streets of Little Italy, Brooklyn, Midtown, Hell's Kitchen, and New Jersey. For the Wii and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, the map was reworked to make getting around town much easier. You still need to use the map quite often, but you'll run into fewer dead-end streets this time around. There are a lot of indoor areas in the game as well, which you can freely enter without any load times. The Wii version features improved interiors that are more varied than in previous versions of the game. So while you'll still see the same bakery or hotel lobby throughout the city, you'll also see some unique interiors that will help alleviate that sense of déjà vu.


Posted by wii-play at 1:19 PM
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Mario Strikers Charged



Mario sports games are always crazy, but it could be said that the pudgy plumber's first foray into the world of traditional football in 2005's Super Mario Strikers for the GameCube wasn't quite crazy enough. As goofy a game as it was, the dearth of the true Mario brand of wacky was apparent, and the game suffered for it. Mario Strikers Charged for the Wii is essentially a sequel to that game, and its first and foremost goal seems to be to amp up the crazy factor. Developer Next Level Games has certainly succeeded in this area, though the final product ultimately resembles less the game of soccer and more some kind of psychotic episode of flaming balls, thunderous hits, and flying shells coming from every which way. Sometimes this chaotic gameplay gets a bit messy, and some of the gameplay elements, like tackles and the artificial intelligence in single-player, aren't perfect. Still, if you can get a grip on the action, you'll find Charged to be an addictive multiplayer game, especially if you plan to take it online.

Much like the original Strikers, players begin by selecting a team captain from primary Mario characters such as Luigi, Bowser, Peach, Daisy, Wario, and, of course, Mario himself. There are 12 captains in all, each with unique stats in movement, shooting, passing, and defense. Once you've got your captain, you then select three teammates from the lexicon of lesser Mario characters (Shy Guy, Monty Mole, Birdo, and the like). For those who played the original Mario Strikers, you'll note that this is different from the team selection in the last game, where you could only pick one type of teammate. Here, you get to choose three different ones, and they're every bit as varied as the team captains. They even get their own unique megastrike shots, the big power shots that goaltenders tend to have a difficult time with, which you can pull off by holding down the B button.

Of course, they're not quite as powerful as the captains' shots. While someone like, say, Boo can essentially go transparent and try to fly his way past the goaltender, and the Hammer Brothers can toss a gaggle of hammers at the goalie before eventually kicking the ball, these shots are not guaranteed to go in. But the captains' shots are a whole different ballgame. When you hold down the B button long enough with a captain, a golf-swing meter pops up that begins by counting up toward the number six. This actually determines how many balls you're going to fire at the goaltender in rapid succession. The meter then swings backward, and depending on how well you time the button press on that return swing, it'll be more or less difficult to stop the forthcoming shots. Once all meters are set, your captain leaps into the air and starts firing off shots like some kind of Dragon Ball Z castoff.

Against the artificial intelligence, you're practically guaranteed at least one goal out of the proceedings (though you often end up landing more), but when you're playing against another player, or you're forced to stop one of these shots yourself, a little goaltending minigame pops up. You simply point the Wii Remote at the screen, and as balls come flying, you aim the onscreen reticle at each one and press A to try to stop all the shots. It can get pretty hectic, but it's actually a fun and clever way to handle the perspective of the goaltender in these situations.

Of course, that pales in comparison to how hectic the action can get during normal gameplay. Knowing how to do a megastrike shot and actually pulling one out are two entirely different things. If it's not some random opponent running up behind you and shoulder-checking you into the pitch before you can pull out the shot, it's a gigantic red shell or a chain chomp running amok across the field, slamming into you and everything else. Weapon power-ups don't come constantly, thankfully, but many of the different fields have their own pitfalls that lend toward even more chaos, like electric bolts that move up and down the pitch, and huge balls of magma that lay waste to anything in their path. Frankly, the game would be crazy enough if all you could do was check your opponents. All you have to do to knock an opponent silly is quickly wag the remote back and forth while standing near an opponent. It's the only significant bit of motion control in the game, and it works well--perhaps too well. You can usually get shots off against the weaker AI settings, but on higher settings, and against live opponents, prepare to get checked, and checked often.

Even with that prospect in mind, Mario Strikers Charged is a game best played in multiplayer. The single-player modes don't extend beyond a standard versus mode, a challenge mode where you're presented with a series of different scenarios (making a comeback from a three-goal deficit, maintaining a shutout, and so on), and the road to the striker cup, where you choose a team and compete for a variety of different cups in round-robin-style tournaments. The mode selection is solid, but playing against the AI tends to be either too easy, or obnoxiously difficult, as catch-up AI tends to be a big factor on the higher settings.

Not so in multiplayer matches, which is a big part of why the multiplayer is just inherently more fun. Up to four players can play both offline and online. The online play is obviously the big draw here, and we're pleased to say that it's pretty much what makes the game worth owning. Though you still have to go through the silly song and dance of getting game-specific friend codes for all your buddies if you want to play against them specifically, you can play in ranked matches against random opponents and bypass all that nonsense. You can engage in four-player play online, but it's with a limit of two players per console. There are also leaderboards that track daily stats as well as cumulative records. Though lag popped up in spots during our time with the game, practically every match we played with a good latency rating worked seamlessly. It's a shame there's no communication options online, but that issue aside, the online works nicely.

The one area where Mario Strikers Charged still lacks is presentation. The in-game graphics are certainly a step up from the original, with better-looking character models, far more crazy crap happening onscreen, and a frame rate that stays steady throughout. But smaller details are decidedly lacking. The megastrike shots, while neat-looking, also feel kind of generic, specifically the captains' shots. Each captain has a unique personal flavor, but all the shots just kind of look like cheesy anime fighting-game posing. Interestingly, the new shots for the sidekick players are arguably a lot more interesting and unique than the captains' shots. Cutscenes are sharp looking, but not much goes on in them. You get the same shot of one of the captains skydiving into the arena before every match, and that whole sequence feels kind of silly and out of place to begin with.

The menus and the soundtrack are also pretty dull, and while there's a bit of voice acting from the various on-field characters, as well as some amusing chants from the crowd, there's no announcer in this game, so you don't get the big "GOOOOAAAAAAL" exclamation whenever you score.

Presentational quibbles and single-player opposition issues notwithstanding, anyone who enjoyed the last Mario Strikers game will certainly find Strikers Charged to be an improvement, and those who took issue with the previous game will find some of their complaints properly addressed here. That this is the first Wii game to do online play and do it well is a huge bonus. Those looking for a deep and consistently entertaining single-player experience won't necessarily find it here, but anyone out for some good, solid multiplayer fun, either offline or online, would do well to check out Mario Strikers Charged.


Posted by wii-play at 1:14 PM
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