I was in San Francisco for a vacation trip from February 15 to 19. It was my first time there so I had a lot of places to visit.
I really enjoyed the city which looks a lot like some European cities in the mountains.
Everything is close together, you can walk everywhere, but the bus system is great and kinda cheap (reuse your ticket throughout the day) so no real reason to walk long distances if you can't climb those streets. They also have a great metro system that you can take to go from SF airport to Oakland, San Jose and further north which is great if you want to visit the towns in the area.
My hotel was in the Fishermans Warf area which is mostly where the attractions are and its a good place to wander around with all those little restaurants with products from the fishermans day.
I biked the golden gate bridge which is a fantastic way to discover the bridge, the fort museum and the towns beyond the bridge. It was a long biking trip, but it was worth it for long term memories ;) The towns we visited were really charming with good restaurants, shops, beautiful houses and the view on the ocean was great.
we visited the golden bridge, chinatown, financial district, metreon, golden gate park, haight and ashbury area, fishermans Warf and market street area.
it was a great time spent there, but after 5 days it was time to come back to LA...nothing more to visit really after 3 days.
It so different than LA which is huge and cut by highways everywhere.
On the last day I was in the Metreon area and everyone had their GDC passes ... oh I wish I could get to the conferences ... maybe next year :(
I saw a lot of game developpers I knew in the streets of SF that last day.
Interesting town :)
jeudi 28 février 2008
samedi 2 février 2008
No More Heroes (Wii)
I'll start by saying that No More Heroes is a must-play title not only because it's on the Wii and one of the only worth playing Wii titles so far (third party anyways), but because the concept is new, cool and retro.
Designer Suda 51 and his team have accomplished a great game with almost no comprimises from his own style and offers a game that is fun to play with a story that makes fun of the current state of the industry. Unlike his latest game, Killer 7, that was hard to get through without frustration and moments of "why are you doing this to me ?", No More Heroes his fun all the way and keeping the same kind of graphics that Killer 7 had which was a good element to it.
You are playing Travis Touchdown, who talks to the playing during the first moments of the game (kinda weird), who bought a lightsaber on the net and kills an assassin in the first moments of the game. Due to this action, he becomes the 11th assassin and gets in touch with an association of assassins which he needs to get on top of to become the top assassin.
You need to collect enough money to enter each assassination contest to become number 1. To do so you will have to accomplish some Jobs which consist of mini game such as "Get coconuts from trees", "Collect scorpions", "Wash grafittis", etc... and perform some smaller assassinations. These tasks are appreciated because it would have become repetitive if the game consisted of only killing the 10 assassins ahead of you.
You can ride around town using your over the top motorcycle to get to shops, your motel, Jobs, different collect missions and roll over some pedestrians. The town is mostly a way to get from one fight to another and is large enough for the purpose of the game.
Each fight you enter will have a different setting to run around killing minions, getting treasures along the way to the big fight ... the assassin. Each Assassin has a different pattern he will use to move and attack the player which is a great way for players to use their skills in a different way every fight and tends to be less repetitive than killing normal minions.
Suda 51 used a good control scheme using the Wii controller. To attack you will have to press 'A' to use your lightsaber, using the motion control only to perform finishing moves; and using 'B' to perform melee attack and grabs to accomplish a wrestling moves using the nunchuck and Wii controller. This scheme is a lot better, I believe, than having to move the controller all the time which would be tiresome and wouldn't give the same effect for finishing moves.
You will usually kill all enemies with finishing moves except for the main Assassins where Suda 51 is messing with the player by having a cinematic showing the last hit instead of letting the player do it himself. This is one of the ways, the designer messes with the player's mind during the game.
During the first 2 hours I thought killing all those guys was repetitive and would become boring, but I've played more and it became a game I couldn't stop playing because the story was good, the other weapons you'll buy offer any changes to the game that it's cool to watch yourself kill all these characters using moves out of Star Wars movie ;)
I loved the graphics that have a retro look found in the arcade era... icons, arcade game done for the game, Highscore board for top assassins, the music, etc ... all feel they were taken out of the 80s.
We can see he really enjoys playing around with players expectencies... during the story, but also at the end of the game where you have the choice of watching the "Ending", the "Real ending" or continue roaming around the city. Choosing the ending is quite unusual and they offer a different side of the story you'll see!
I think it was perfect to use the Wii to implement this game since its the first Mature game on the Wii, the best third party game they have and hopefully other will join in and make this console great for all kinds of gamers not only the casual ones, it offers a solid use of the Wii controller and its an artistic game found nowhere else.
hope you enjoy too.
Designer Suda 51 and his team have accomplished a great game with almost no comprimises from his own style and offers a game that is fun to play with a story that makes fun of the current state of the industry. Unlike his latest game, Killer 7, that was hard to get through without frustration and moments of "why are you doing this to me ?", No More Heroes his fun all the way and keeping the same kind of graphics that Killer 7 had which was a good element to it.
You are playing Travis Touchdown, who talks to the playing during the first moments of the game (kinda weird), who bought a lightsaber on the net and kills an assassin in the first moments of the game. Due to this action, he becomes the 11th assassin and gets in touch with an association of assassins which he needs to get on top of to become the top assassin.
You need to collect enough money to enter each assassination contest to become number 1. To do so you will have to accomplish some Jobs which consist of mini game such as "Get coconuts from trees", "Collect scorpions", "Wash grafittis", etc... and perform some smaller assassinations. These tasks are appreciated because it would have become repetitive if the game consisted of only killing the 10 assassins ahead of you.
You can ride around town using your over the top motorcycle to get to shops, your motel, Jobs, different collect missions and roll over some pedestrians. The town is mostly a way to get from one fight to another and is large enough for the purpose of the game.
Each fight you enter will have a different setting to run around killing minions, getting treasures along the way to the big fight ... the assassin. Each Assassin has a different pattern he will use to move and attack the player which is a great way for players to use their skills in a different way every fight and tends to be less repetitive than killing normal minions.
Suda 51 used a good control scheme using the Wii controller. To attack you will have to press 'A' to use your lightsaber, using the motion control only to perform finishing moves; and using 'B' to perform melee attack and grabs to accomplish a wrestling moves using the nunchuck and Wii controller. This scheme is a lot better, I believe, than having to move the controller all the time which would be tiresome and wouldn't give the same effect for finishing moves.
You will usually kill all enemies with finishing moves except for the main Assassins where Suda 51 is messing with the player by having a cinematic showing the last hit instead of letting the player do it himself. This is one of the ways, the designer messes with the player's mind during the game.
During the first 2 hours I thought killing all those guys was repetitive and would become boring, but I've played more and it became a game I couldn't stop playing because the story was good, the other weapons you'll buy offer any changes to the game that it's cool to watch yourself kill all these characters using moves out of Star Wars movie ;)
I loved the graphics that have a retro look found in the arcade era... icons, arcade game done for the game, Highscore board for top assassins, the music, etc ... all feel they were taken out of the 80s.
We can see he really enjoys playing around with players expectencies... during the story, but also at the end of the game where you have the choice of watching the "Ending", the "Real ending" or continue roaming around the city. Choosing the ending is quite unusual and they offer a different side of the story you'll see!
I think it was perfect to use the Wii to implement this game since its the first Mature game on the Wii, the best third party game they have and hopefully other will join in and make this console great for all kinds of gamers not only the casual ones, it offers a solid use of the Wii controller and its an artistic game found nowhere else.
hope you enjoy too.
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