So I'm heading to school listening to Major Nelson's podcast when Major mentions one
of the many games he has to play through (Jumper - like the movie) and says that
while playing through the tutorial 50 gamer points gets unlocked. As he leaves the
controller to do something on Twitter, another 50 points is unlocked. He says that in
the span of 3-4 minutes, he unlocked between 150 and 200 points without really doing
much. This got me thinking.

What if you were a company that knew it was putting out a mediocre game? How could
you sell as many units as you could? The answers appears to be, at least on the 360, to
add easily obtained achievement points. This was apparently the case with Avatar: The
Burning Earth which did very poorly in terms of reviews yet sold a very decent amount
of games.

Imagine people buying a game for $50 and unlocking all the achievements within 30
minutes and selling the game back to a Gamecrazy or a Gamestop. You wouldn't have a
game, you'd have a Money for Points product. This would let game developers create
even more horrible games than the already released god-awful licensed products.
Instead of trying to actually make a decent game with that IP, you'll get products that
looks like it was developed by children in sweat shops.

This could also potentially screw up the whole Gamerscore idea. But how would you
regulate something like this? How can you tell if one achievement is real while the
other is just a gimme? For example, I rented The Simpson's game and it probably has
the easiest achievement ever:



I think this is a real achievement with a twist of Simpson's humor added in but
someone could always argue that it was the last achievement they added because they
needed more to hit 1000.

So what do you guys think? Is a trend starting with crappy ass 360 games?

I came into this kicking and screaming. There was something about the way the
characters would, or rather wouldn’t, respond to my requests. Like a stubborn child my
character thought that it knew more than me and ultimately failed. I guess this is what
feeling old is like.

I grew up playing a lot of 2D fighting games and when the 3D ones came out I thought
the golden age of fighting games had arrived. But reality soon set in and I found myself
playing as if I had a fist full of thumbs. The characters wouldn’t block when I wanted.
The moves were too slow. Too slow! To think, my addled mind was too fast for a
fighting game.

So I stopped playing them. Occasionally I’d dip back into it maybe because I still had
some hope but in general, the 3D Fighting genre wasn’t really all that great for me.
Time past and I felt like I hadn’t really given the genre a fair and honest shake. So I
decided instead of just picking and playing the games, I would actually try to learn it. I
was already renewing my interest in fighting games, so I figured, “What the hey. Why
not?”

Virtua Fighter 5 Online (X360)

I picked this game because I figure if I can get a handle on this game, all the other
shouldn’t be much harder (easier if anything). My favorite character in the series has
always been Shun Di. He’s got style that can get so off the wall that it looks funs to play
and watch. A lot of people say that’s a horrible choice to make when you start out but
I’m in it for the long run so here’s a good a place to start as any.



Let me run down what I know and some questions I have:

- I’ve read the “5 STEPS to Memorize – An Introduction to Virtua Fighter’s Game
System” and understand Steps 1 & 2 but from 3 on it gets a little hazy.

- There are soo many moves! I’m so used to having only a small handful of moves and
utilizing that. The command list for Shun Di, hell for any character, is overwhelming. If
you had to choose only 3 moves (High, Mid, Low), which would you pick?

- Why don’t some moves come out? I have the game display my inputs and it shows
that I’m pressing the right buttons but I get nothing.

- What’s the key to good blocking or defense in general? This is going to sound weird
but Prince of Persia Classic seems to help train my reactions.

So far I’ve reached 5th Dan on Quest mode but those 6th Dan are really making me
think about how I’m fighting. I can win about 1 match out of every 3 I play against
them.

So, any hints, suggestions, or comments?

Let the weeping and gnashing of teeth commence!



There's a part of me that enjoys games like these. It's the same part that makes you
play Ninja Gaiden BLACK or Halo on Legendary mode. But with these kinds of shmup’s
we're talking about an entirely different level of digital sadomasochism. While those
other games let you continue without penalty or give you numerous save points, these
shmup's laugh at you with little bits of spittle hitting your face while wipe out your hard
earn score. Some of these are a bit gentler offering you unlimited continues but the fact
remains, you start at the back of the line!

I'm by no means a shmup expert and my exposure them have been mainly through
MAME and an arcade stick but I've come to truly appreciate the genre and the skill it
takes to be good at games like these. There was always something about the "bullet
hell" shmup's that drew me in more than the other ones. To me it was a stylized way to
look at flight combat and gave me the same chills when I watched 2D fighters go at it.

This brings us to Trigger Heart Exelica; one of the few shmup’s that have graced the
360. Originally released in the Japanese arcade market in 2006 and later ported over to
the Dreamcast (both having the most excellent NAOMI hardware) it never hit our
shores. In fact the game was made after the production of the Dreamcast stopped and
the last game was made (Puyo Pop Fever). Just goes to show you the kind of love the
Dreamcast gets.

Let's get on with the review shall we?

Like with most vertical shmup’s, a lot of screen real estate isn’t used and the situation
becomes more apparent when you have a widescreen display. In order to remedy this
“problem”, Warashi included a special mode accessible through the options menu that
allows you to rotate the game either right or left to utilize that extra screen space.
Oddly, the menu’s themselves don’t seem to rotate along with the setting. My advice is
to adjust the screen orientation setting last to avoid any unnecessary neck cramping.

Another issue with this option is the view angle on a lot of LCD displays. Mine in
particular made it hard to play because the angle wasn’t that large. I had to keep my
head level with the plane of view otherwise the contrast would shift in and out which is
a lot more annoying that you think.

When you start the game asks you which character you’d like to use. One has a wider
spread of fire while the other as a much narrower line of fire. I guess it comes down to
your preference. While the wider shot covers more ground, it seems to send out less
shots per angle than the linear based fire.

The difficulty level in this game varies depending on the settings and how well you do.
Playing through it on easy to hard wasn’t that bad in the beginning levels but it begins
to ramp up on you if you’re not careful. One thing I noticed on the easy setting was the
ability to shoot down certain types of enemy fire so those of you new to this genre
might want to start there.



The other system for increasing difficulty, as far as I can tell, is the collection of these
gold little objects that determine the level of the V.B.A.S. (Variable Boss Attack System).
Basically this attempts to put you in that sweet spot while playing. I guess the logic
behind it is that if you are able to collect a lot of gold objects then you’re good enough
to fight harder boss battles. You can definitely see some influence from shmup’s like
Progear. Even the mechanism for sucking them into is the same.

Another game play aspect is the Anchor. You can fire it at various enemies with
different results. Hitting a boss or ground enemy will initiate something of a lock-on
system allowing you to concentrate your firepower on a single enemy (or any enemy
that get trapped in its wake). The most interesting situation is when you fire at flying
enemies. You have the option of either swinging them around and knocking into other
airborne crafts or using it as something of shield where you can get right up close to
them and knock them out of the sky.

So how does this game compare to something like Omega 5? To be honest I like this
game better and it has more to do with the controls and the orientation rather than the
content of the game. I’ve always had a preference for vertical shooters and the control
on Omega 5 are somewhat off-putting to me. It has that Geometry Wars kind of control
that seems to be so popular these days. I like the classic 2-3 button set up from the old
days. Maybe I'm becoming like that old guys who keep talking about the golden age.

Looking back on my gaming youth I realize that I didn't finish many games. Out of all
the games that came my way, I maybe finished 2. Maybe it was due to the difficulty of
the game or just my lack of dedication to anything in my life but I would get midway
through and just stop preferring to catch reruns of Captain N The Game Master instead.

Even well into my teens I remember getting a gift certificate and buying up three
Dreamcast games and ended up not playing one of them until I let my friend borrow it.
It wasn't until I got my 360 where I started progressing through at a regular pace and
actually finishing games!

With the achievements, I can gauge how far I've progressed through a game.
For example, a game like Gears of War outlines how many Acts you have to complete to
finish the game. Sometimes I get the urge to pick up a new game and achievements
give me a sense of whether I'm just buying a game to have one or if I've actually put
the time and effort into completing a game. If I've netted a good amount of points then
I can walk into the store and confidently hand over my money knowing that I started a
task and finished it.

Another aspect that didn't hit me until recently was the fact that people can see your
progress through a game. Being a little kid with no one to really share my love of
gaming with probably contributed to my inability to finish any games. One of the things
I enjoy is going through my friends list and seeing how far people have gone in
a game or how "good" they are. Likewise, I want to share with people my progress
through a game. Grant, nobody but me will look at my record but it's nice to know that
it's out there.

So with that, check out the picture below. Maybe my score is a sign of things to come.
:D