OneChanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad

I first got my hands on Onechanbara back in 2006, shortly before it was to be released in Japan. At that point, there were no solid plans to bring the game to the US and it looked like importing would be the only way to see the bikini-clad zombie slayers. It took over two years, but D3 Publisher is now gearing up for the US release. And what a steamy release it will be.

Like other games in the budget-friendly Onechanbara franchise, this Xbox 360 release has little shame. The game opens with a cutscene of two sisters at home, one in the shower. While she lathers up, the other is watching a television report of a zombie outbreak. After quickly getting dressed (in a bikini and cowboy hat, of course) the two are off to slay the undead creatures.

 

Of course, just because a zombie apocalypse has stricken the world, it doesn’t mean these two young women are going to stop showing off their, erm, looks. Jump and land and you’ll see some jiggle physics that even carry over into little story vignettes that have little other motion. If you look closely, and I’m not saying that I did, you can even see a little jiggle in the girls’ behinds when they jump and run. With numerous costumes to unlock, as well as other girls to play as, and some DLC promised to hit when the game launches that adds even more fashionable looks, there won’t be any lack of variety in the ways you can ogle the zombie slayers.

As a budget game (Onechanbara is releasing at a suggested price of just $39.99) that was actually released in Japan years ago, the visuals aren’t quite up to par with other current 360 games and the gameplay is fairly basic. The design is one you’ve likely seen in the past with hacking, slashing, and quick little combos ruling the roost. As you clear out one wave of zombies you’ll quickly find yourself surrounded by the next as you move to the next section of the level.

Onechanbara loosely translates to “sisters in blood” and the theme is felt strongly in the game mechanics. Blood flies everywhere as you slash your way through the zombies and some of it will start building up on the girls and their weapons. Build up enough blood on a sword and you’ll find that it gets stuck in the enemies rather than slicing right through. If enough blood gets on one of the girls, she’ll go into a rage mode where the damage dealt is multiplied but a health drain is in effect.

I had the chance to play through the first three stages and take in a few cutscenes during my time with Onechanbara. There isn’t much difference between the stages aside from the scenery and the end boss, though battling through a hospital stage while zombies that someone had lit on fire rushed me was a bit hilarious. In fact, it’s the goofy zombies that made me smile the most here. Even if you lop off their torsos, their legs will keep walking towards you in an attempt at impeding your progress. The zombies carrying the chain saws were another high point for me. It’s just so silly.
There is another Onechanbara title, subtitled Bikini Zombie Slayers, coming out soon on Wii. They might seem the same, but well, they aren’t. The 360 version is a bit fuller with extra cutscenes, locations, characters, costumes and a different storyline. One thing it doesn’t have, though, is English voice acting. During the two years it took to bring Onechanbara to the States, only subtitles have been added.

You can play Onechanbara co-operatively, but only on a single Xbox 360. No Xbox Live support here. If you play by yourself, though, one nice feature that the 360 version has and the Wii doesn’t is the ability to swap characters on the fly. Each girl has her own specialties — one we played with has ranged attacks while the other could do wrestling slams – so there is more than just a visual reason to swap in and out.

From what I gathered, I have strong doubts as to whether the story in Onechanbara will make a lick of sense. But then, if you’re looking forward to the game, it’s probably more for the old-school hack and slash gameplay than it is for any intriguing tale of zombocalypse. Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad should hit store shelves within the first few months of 2009.

Afro Samurai

 

With Afro Samurai, Namco-Bandai is attempting to bring Takashi Okazaki’s original manga series to life on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. While we didn’t get a chance to play the game at an event at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo, we did get the opportunity to see it in action and ask a few questions of Okazaki.

The game follows roughly the same arc as the previous fiction, though will have new developments that a representative for the game said should please fans. You play as the Afro, and using a combo system slice apart your foes into bits and cause them to erupt in stylized clouds of blood. At the game’s outset Afro will have only a limited number of attack strings, but will learn new techniques as the game progresses. By using Afro’s focus ability, which slows onscreen action and drains the color from the screen, it’s possible to power up attacks and pick specific parts of targets’ bodies to strike. On weaker enemies doing this will often cleave them in half with a single stroke, though on tougher opponents it’ll take a few more sword swings.

Afro won’t be able to use the focus mode indefinitely — it’s something that can be used for longer periods of time up as more attacks are landed. In the build we saw, there wasn’t a UI present on screen so there wasn’t really a way to tell how much focus Afro had, but we were told there’ll be an option to toggle a limited interface if you’d rather see a few onscreen statistics.

As for the overall structure of the game, things will proceed in chapters which sound like they’ll play out more or less in a linear fashion. Included in the game will be new music from the RZA, the title track of which is in its final stages of mixing. Samuel L. Jackson has also recorded a slew of new lines of the game, most of which serve as comic relief through the Ninja Ninja character who’ll appear in non-playable form.

Speaking through a translator, Okazaki talked about his inspiration for the fiction. “[I] first came up with this character about when [I] was still a student, about twelve or thirteen years ago. Back then [I] liked hip-hop music, also spaghetti westerns, and also samurai movies so the original Afro Samurai comic is kind of a blend of all the things that [I] like. That’s how it came about.”

As far as his involvement with the game goes, Okazaki doesn’t appear to have been very close to the project. “[I] was only involved with the checking of the 3D modeling of the characters. As [my] policy [I] think that anime is best left to the professionals and so also for the game [I] thought that it would be best to leave it to the professionals of video games. Also [I] was a great fan of Namco games from [my] childhood and so [I] just asked them to please make a fun game, and that was it.”

Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Afro Samurai are being readied for release on January 27th 2009 in North America and the content will be identical between both versions.

Tomb Raider: Underworld

 When it comes to game icons, Lara Croft ranks as one of the most well known in the world. Eidos’ popular heroine has explored the ruins of various cultures, fought human and supernatural threats, and solved countless puzzles on her way to becoming one of the greatest archeologists (or treasure hunters) in gaming. Two years ago, Eidos and Crystal Dynamics rebooted the franchise with Tomb Raider: Legend, a title that revamped the combat, control scheme and brain teasing puzzles that the series was known for. The follow-up to this adventure, Tomb Raider: Underworld, was recently released with hopes to expand on this formula. But has Lara learned some new tricks, or is this an old journey in disguise?

Underworld is a continuation of the storyline established within Legend, and even presents a quick summary in the form of a recap video for players that are new to the storyline or want a quick refresher. Covering both the mystery surrounding her mother as well as the last research that her father did before he died, Underworld starts as Lara explores coordinates that lead her to an ancient ruin on the Mediterranean Sea floor. As she investigates, she uncovers a rather surprising find: a site dedicated to both Norse mythology and evidence that indicates that Thor’s hammer, the mythical weapon wielded by the God of Thunder, actually exists. While I won’t give facets of the story away, I can comfortably say that for the most part, the story is pretty good; it manages to present the kind of adventure that you typically expect from a Tomb Raider title and while there are some moments of predictability (particularly if you’ve played Legend), the game’s mix of cutscenes and exploration keeps the action moving just as you’d want it to.
The pacing that you see is slightly due to the expansion and refinement of the some of the gameplay mechanics. For example, in Legend, players were given the largest amount of flexibility yet in a Tomb Raider game, with a lot of freedom provided to your agility, the speed at which you climbed or moved around ledges, and other control elements. That is pretty much retained within Underworld, so you still are able to easily manipulate Lara’s acrobatics when it comes to swinging on poles, scaling walls and other moves. Underworld attempts to build on these basics within a few adjusted gameplay systems. One of the first refinements is the removal of the quick time events from Legend in favor of Situational Adrenaline. Instead of having a button prompt that pops up onscreen that tells you what you need to do to survive a particular moment, the developers tried to give you a feeling that you simply need to react by moving and avoiding that particular threat.

Another adjustment that has been made within the gameplay is some minor adjustments to combat. Lara still retains the agility that allows her to perform actions like tumbling and firing weapons at the same time or aiming at targets from ledges or other perches. In Underworld, Lara now gains the ability to aim at and fire at two separate enemies that happen to be targeting her at the same time. This is particularly useful if you’re trying to take out swarms of bats or other creatures, but can also be used to hamper the progress of other enemies that attempt to close in on you and perform melee attacks. What’s more, Underworld provides Lara with sticky grenades that she can throw, ensuring that an explosive that you want to go off in a specific location will detonate at the desired place and cutting down on the frustration that frequently occurred in Legend.

We’re gonna need a bigger … wait, we’re gonna need a boat!

While Legend allowed players to bounce behind an enemy and shoot them in a bullet time enhanced motion, the flip has simply been included into her normal repertoire. The focus system from Legend has been somewhat replaced by the inclusion of an adrenaline system, which is built up after each successful melee attack or bullet that hits its mark. Players can trigger the adrenaline at any time, which instantly slows down the actions of your enemies and makes your shots much stronger. Alternatively, you can store your adrenaline until you’ve maxed out your holdings, at which point you can get close to an enemy and bounce off of them, lining up a reticule into a highlighted area to potentially perform a one-shot kill. It’s not guaranteed, but if you can get in place, it does allow you to get satisfying takedowns that are worthy of Lara’s athleticism.

However, while the adjustments for combat do help to make the fights you go through a bit more accessible, it does wind up raising a few other problems. For one thing, the adrenaline system manages to make a large number of the battles a bit too easy. Because you’re always replenishing your adrenaline, you are frequently able to continually move in and out of gunfights or other combat situations with an edge over your opponents. Even though you can manipulate the game’s difficulty thanks to the player-tailoring system (making it harder to kill enemies), hits with your firearms still wind up adding to your meter, allowing a player with an accurate flick of the analog stick to effectively combo his or her slow motion attacks, giving him or her an advantage in battle. Another issue comes in the fact that while you are asked to select a weapon at the start of a stage, you still have access to all of the weapons within the game thanks to your PDA, and between quick swapping and accessing these weapons with your pause menu, you’re more than equipped to take out any enemies that you face. In fact, thanks to the unlimited bullets that you have with your basic pistols and the lack of penalties for carrying this arsenal, battles are relatively easy to get through regardless of who you’re up against. While combat still isn’t the primary focus of the game, it occurs frequently enough in a level to stand out as a weakness.
One of the last adjustments that Crystal Dynamics made is something it lovingly termed “What Could Lara Do?” What that essentially means is that if a player believes or expects that Lara should be able to perform a specific action, she most likely is capable of doing that within the game. For example, if you want to pick up an object and fight off opponents with your free hand, or want to bounce from one wall to the other to climb a narrow vertical shaft, you can do that as well. In many ways, this was designed to help unshackle the player from constantly focusing on the older platforming and “leap from Pillar A to Ledge B” mechanics that the Tomb Raider series had become known for. It also added a bit of realism to Lara’s movements, as you’d expect her to brush plants aside or naturally prep for a jump before leaping forward, much more than any animation would ever convey.

This system also extends to more than basic controls, because it winds up affecting the exploratory nature of the game as well. For instance, if you can see a ledge that’s just out of reach, chances are that you can scale a nearby wall to reach it or swing from a pole and grab it with your fingertips. This verticality plays into the expansive feel of the stages, which seem to be much larger than any previous Tomb Raider level thanks to the non-linear approach paid to many of the game’s puzzles. Players will frequently move from one direct hallway or corridor into an open area dominated by one or more complex puzzles, and they’ll be able to pick and choose which side or way they want to attempt to solve problems from and move forward. This makes traversing many of these larger areas much more interesting, because you’ll have at least two or more ways that you can choose to accomplish a task as you go through each level. While this can also add to potential confusion that you might face thanks to the size of each area, Lara fortunately comes with a sonar map that works on both land and underwater, allowing players to continually get a three dimensional sense of where they happen to be at all times.

Lara’s quest for the Omega 13 was extremely dangerous…

What’s more, Crystal Dynamics decided to throw players a bone by including something known as Field Assistance if you find yourself completely confused or stuck. By accessing this feature from your PDA, players can get a hint as to what you need to do for a particular action or get a more detailed explanation to help you through a trouble spot. The inclusion of this feature will definitely be a welcome addition for those players who wind up having trouble visualizing where they need to go as they explore the vast locations or just want a little nudge as they try to move through each environment without having to rely on a guide, FAQ or other hints from the Internet. It also allows people to determine just how much handholding they want, because they can completely avoid this system and charge ahead, making the challenge of exploring the locations of the game as easy or difficult as they want.

While Underworld may be more open and accessible to players, as well being more non-linear than ever before, it does seem as though this has come with some technical downsides, which happen to be some of the largest detractors to the gameplay. For one thing, slowdown and framerate drops happen quite a bit within the game. While it occurs more in the PS3 version of the game than the 360, it is distracting enough to break you out of the immersive nature of the visuals and aural presentation, which is generally very good, and the striking scale of the levels themselves. However, another thing that will stand out will be texture pop-in, which will snap into place before your eyes even if you’re not moving through the environment. Odd shadows, flicker and lack of specific details will also crop up in some of the linear pathway sections, making some parts and enemies of the game feel like repurposed areas from previous games. For example, spiders and bats look horrible in this game – almost PS2-like. While that can be overlooked for the overall strength of the visuals and the presentation of each environment, as a minor aside, what’s with some of the treasures and health packs blending into the background? It can be hard and at times almost impossible to tell what the treasures and the health packs are because they don’t stand out, particularly if you have icon prompts turned off or you’re in a darker section of a level.

However, these are no match for the two biggest technical issues for the game. The first is that there are a number of clipping and object detection issues that frequently plague the game regardless of the console you play it on. Lara will frequently move into or through walls or blocks, sometimes forcing her into an animation loop as the game tries to reconcile her movement with her location in the game world and an object she shouldn’t be in. Coworkers and I have also seen instances where Lara has jumped onto a pillar and landed inside of the column up to her waist, or tried to grab a ledge and phased into a wall – not onto, into. This makes it much harder to gauge your next jump, or even be sure that you’re on the part of the game environment you think you are. I’ve also seen segments where Lara has leapt onto invisible platforms as she’s tried to make jumps to other areas, which makes it rather hard to determine whether or not you’ve got your timing down when you accidentally wind up exploiting a technical hiccup. Similarly, I’ve also seen sections where enemies have moved cleanly through Lara without any damage caused or explanation as to why

The other serious problem comes with the camera, which is perhaps as infuriating, if not more so, than previous Tomb Raider games. As you move through the environment, the camera will perform zooms, pans and tilts of its own accord, without any instruction or direction from you. Technically, this would be fine if there was a particular thing that it was trying to frame while not hampering the gameplay. But frequently the camera will either lock onto a specific perspective, making it nigh impossible to figure out the right jump angle or location to move to. Other times, the camera will fight you for things that you want to look at, making the screen visibly shake as it tries to reconcile what you are seeing and what it would prefer to show you. The camera can also throw you and Lara off with your jumps, because it can push her away from specific jumps or turn her head at the last second, making it harder to lean and jump in the right direction. This is infuriating, and I hurled many an invective, as well as a controller and furniture, as I fought with the game.

One wrong step and it’s a Croft BBQ.

As I mentioned earlier, this is rather disappointing, because the visuals that are presented within cutscenes and in very impressive location shots are quite good. There are some sections in levels that will simply make you say wow, especially when you realize that you have to traverse that location or a specific area to unlock some puzzle. Lara’s animations are quite well done as well, from the handstand to a cartwheel that she’ll do as she flips over an edge to the desperate grab for a handhold. The spoken dialogue though the game is very well done, and the musical score is great.

The only other distinction is the inclusion of achievement points for the 360, which don’t translate over into Trophies for the PS3, and the inclusion of upcoming downloadable content for the 360, which the PS3 won’t get. While it’s a shame that the two console versions won’t be equal, the addition of these two features, coupled with the slightly more stable framerate, gives a mild edge to the 360 version of the game

Prince Of Persia

 

They might not be hip anymore, but you have to hand it to old-fashioned monarchies for saving everyone a lot of time. Forget endless campaigning and painfully long-winded speeches — if you’ve got the blood, you’ve got the job.

And despite a brave new look and total mythological reboot, the same royal blood that gave life to his critically-acclaimed forbears now pumps through the veins of Ubisoft’s new Prince of Persia. You jump. You twirl. You run on walls. Occasionally, you fight and solve puzzles. Coming from a long line of vital platformers, it’s got great genes, although a few key missteps keep this prince from ascending to the throne.

This time around, the eponymous star is tossed into a conflict between light and dark as the evil god Ahriman is released from his prison beneath the Tree of Life. His touch has corrupted a nearby kingdom; alongside the mysterious princess Elika, it’s your job to cleanse the world of gooey blackness and put the bad guy back in the ethereal hoosegow.

Mostly, that involves jumping, sliding, gripping and slipping through over twenty levels worth of platforming mania. It’s billed as an open-world experience, and in a sense, it is: based on which magical powers you choose to unlock, you will tackle the world in a different order. It’s a nice change of pace from the linear approach typical of most adventure games.

Central to the game’s plot is the relationship between the star and Elika. More goofy vagabond than steel-jawed hero, the new Prince seems to have a tacky one-liner for every situation. His nonstop flow of snappy retorts is distinctly modern — think Han Solo meets Ryan Seacrest — and, eventually, a bit irritating. Thankfully, the interplay between the two characters goes beyond their at-times romantic, at-times rambling dialogue. Loads of incidental animations draw the two together. As the Prince scampers up a cliff, he’ll wait for Elika, gently grabbing her arm to help her reach a ledge. When he scales a wall, she’ll latch on to his back. It’s in these countless simple moments that the game perhaps hits its highest notes.

And it turns out the real hero is Elika, who pulls double duty as the Prince’s guide and safety net. You cannot die in Prince of Persia, as Elika will magically yank you from the brink of death, even if you hurl yourself off a cliff. That might sound like a cop out, but it’s really no different than actually letting you die and forcing you to retry from a checkpoint. If anything, it saves you the bother of reloading.

In another break from classic action/platforming, Prince of Persia runs light on the combat. Four main bosses make multiple appearances; toss in a handful of nondescript enemies and you’ve got only a few dozen fights through the whole game. The fighting system is a good one, emphasizing timing and combos over button-mashing, and some of the later boss battles are cinematic and memorable. But the aforementioned inability to die sort of takes the oomph out of the action. Get whacked too hard and Elika will pleasantly just rewind the fight back to zero.

Prince of Persia further eschews its past with a strange lack of puzzles, although one could argue that finding your way to the top of a giant tower using wall-runs and crevices is something of a puzzle in and of itself. But more concrete puzzle-solving would have worked well to break up the flow. As it stands, you’ll wish there were more than the half-dozen or so haphazardly thrown into the mix.

That’s because the gameplay grows repetitive. After regions are healed, 45 collectible “Light Seeds” suddenly appear. You’ll need these to open up more levels, which means you essentially have to play through each area twice just to proceed through the game. Plus the game constantly reuses elements; you’ll see the same columns, poles, and well-placed rings over and over again, giving the whole adventure an unfortunate sense of deja vu.

But while you might get used to seeing the same sights, you’ll never get used to seeing Prince of Persia’s gorgeous graphics in action. Paying homage to forgotten classics Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, the game oozes dark, quirky style. Sumptuous vistas seem to go on forever, and with zero load times between regions, you can actually run from one end of the massive world to the other. Thanks to some of the best motion-capture this side of a Madden game, the cel-shaded characters quite nearly pop off the screen. When things get moving, you’ll forget you’re playing a video game and think you’ve suddenly leapt into the boots of a Cirque du Soleil performer, randomly foreign costume and all. Kudos also goes to Prince of Persia’s sweeping orchestral score, which does it part to seal the game’s epic scope.

That the game sports an ending screaming for a sequel shows Ubisoft’s commitment to this franchise, and to be fair, Prince of Persia’s stunning delivery yields quite a few breathtaking moments. Flaws aside, credit this prince for breaking many of the rules his ancestor set forth some two decades ago. He’s just not quite ready to wear the crown.

It’s just not as open-ended as you might think. Telltale signs point you towards certain run-able walls, which will in turn send you tumbling directly towards the right pole, which is handily placed right in front of that useful column, and onward. Simple controls make the whole thing easier than past Prince of Persia games — you never have to press loads of buttons or get fancy with the analog stick — but more seasoned gamers might find it plays more like a guided tour than a truly free-roaming experience.