Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact

 

The Good

• Captures the current anime storyline well  
• Character graphics are nicely done  
• Lots of content to unlock and collect.

The Bad

• Combat lacks variety  
• Background graphics are not so nicely done  
• Much too easy on anything but the hardest difficulty.

There's a lot of potential to make good games using the Naruto license. The comics and anime series are filled with elements that can transition well to games: a huge cast of ninja characters with varied motives and personalities, an interesting fantasy setting, and, of course, lots of supernaturally powered ninjutsu battles. Sadly, Ultimate Ninja Impact fails to capitalize on all the great things the Naruto universe has to offer.
Ultimate Ninja Impact adapts the storyline of the most current Naruto anime series, Naruto Shippuden. In the Ultimate Road campaign, Naruto has returned to Hidden Leaf Village after three years of intense training to be reunited with many of his friends and comrades. However, his dear companion Sasuke, who has defected to serve the insidious Orochimaru, is not among them. Naruto learns of some pressing events happening in the village and elsewhere, and he immediately sets off with his teammates to try to set things right, only to get tied up in a much bigger plot that involves several different factions. The way the game adapts the story is admirable, though if you're already familiar with the way events play out (having read the comic or watched the show), there isn't much in the way of surprises.

The main game is divided into several chapters, each of which contains a map screen that allows Naruto and company to advance to various events and stages. By completing certain stages or objectives (some mandatory, some optional), new playable characters, missions, and special ability cards can be unlocked. Successfully completing levels and performing skillfully in battle also earns you ninja points, which allows you to purchase character-enhancing card pieces and upgrades, along with extras like music or wallpaper. Each chapter has a separate completion gauge that lets you know how much further you have to go before you've found and collected everything available. There's a lot of emphasis on collecting bonus goodies in Ultimate Ninja Impact, and this element of the game is well executed. Visuals and sound are also quite nice: The character models are faithful to the original designs and are surprisingly detailed. A heavy amount of voice-over also accompanies the story in both English and Japanese audio tracks.
The actual combat, however, is considerably less exciting. Ultimate Ninja Impact borrows liberally from the design of Tecmo Koei's Warriors games, for all of the good and bad that may entail. Controls are easy to grasp: You can jump, air-dash, or guard, as well as perform basic attack combos and throw weak projectiles with simple button presses. The chakra attacks are slightly more complex; they require you to first charge up your chakra meter sufficiently by holding down the triangle button and then either execute them at the end of a basic combo string or hit a set button sequence. Some of these skills require specific timing, which the game doesn't always teach well, but for the most part, screen-clearing, mega-damaging attacks are merely a few button presses away. Filling both your chakra and awakening gauges while fighting allows your character to enter a special, temporary powered-up mode. While chakra and awakening attacks have varying properties for each playable character, the basic means of execution is the same for each fighter, which allows players to quickly adjust when the game requires you to use a different cast member. However, it also means that the number of different actions each character can perform is strictly limited. Characters can gain levels and equip stat-boosting character cards to enhance their abilities, but their combat capabilities rarely expand beyond a basic skill set.
Limited fighting capabilities would be perfectly fine if the action itself was intense and engaging. Unfortunately, this is the area in which Ultimate Ninja Impact falls flat on its face. Much like the Warriors games that seem to have inspired it, Ultimate Ninja Impact puts you in small maps to fight big packs of enemies. While mowing down a crowd of ninjas is fun at first, it quickly becomes less satisfying when you realize just how utterly stupid and ineffective most of the enemies are and how easy they are to wipe out with a basic combo. Each mission contains several objectives, most of which are simply variations of "go to this place" or "beat these enemies." You quickly find yourself repeating similar objectives for each new mission you reach, putting up with annoying background pop-in as you carelessly wipe out another platoon of generic ninjas. Every now and then, you might encounter a slightly tougher enemy, an enemy with a gimmick, or a boss. These enemies are unique in that they actually pose something of a threat and will aggressively attack you. However, they still fall quickly to basic evasion and rapid-fire damaging chakra combos. Ultimate Ninja Impact on anything but the hardest difficulty is a very easy game, and unfortunately, said hardest difficulty doesn't unlock until well into the campaign. As a result, the combat quickly turns into a boring slog that you only put up with to try to collect NPs and nifty new cards.

The game features a few additional modes as well. Tag Battle lets you team up with either a computer-controlled companion or a friend (with his or her own PSP and copy of the game) to take on specially scripted missions for NP rewards, while Extra Missions offers more challenging single-player objectives to try to complete for additional rewards. (Given the game's typically lax difficulty, these missions are only slightly more taxing than your standard story fights.) You can use your full army of unlocked characters in these fights, which makes them the main place to play and level up favorite cast members that don't get much attention in the central plot.
But when the fighting itself is lacking in excitement, it really doesn't matter how many extra modes you throw in--inherent mediocrity is rarely remedied by putting it in different dressings. Ultimate Ninja Impact doesn't try to do anything beyond offering a bog-standard action game where you fight a lot of enemies at once. As a result, it winds up being a game that is mildly entertaining for short periods of time but quite tedious in extended play sessions. In the end, Ultimate Ninja Impact simply doesn't live up to the intensity of its title.

 

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep 

 

The Good

• Combat is fun and flashy, and it evolves as you play  
• Boss fights put a fun spin on Disney characters and sets  
• Great visuals capture the spirit of the source material  
• Multiplayer arenas are entertaining  
• Good-sized campaign.

The Bad

• Camera can be a nuisance  
• A lot of repetition, from environments to music  
• Terra's voice acting is abysmal  
• Long load times and frame rate drops.

Kingdom Hearts fans have spent quality time with Sora and Roxas; now they can add three new characters to the list: Ventus, Terra, and Aqua. These close friends are the protagonists in the newest entry in the series, Birth by Sleep, and you play as all three of them on your way to unraveling mysteries that shed new light on the events of the original Kingdom Hearts. Yet while the playable characters may be different, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep treads familiar ground. You piece together an overarching story with themes of friendship, light versus dark, and true identity all while exploring colorful Disney-themed worlds and interacting with classic Disney characters. This intriguing Square/Disney mixture has served the series well, as have great boss fights and flashy keyblade action. This prequel inherits those assets but also some of the awkwardness that has plagued previous games. The platforming is a bit clumsy, and the camera and lock-on system can both lead to awkward moments. The game's structure also leads to some repetition. You explore many of the same areas, fight many of the same enemies, and view some of the same cutscenes three times over, which might make you wish Birth by Sleep featured the never-ending parade of cameos and Disney worlds of the console games. But mechanical flaws and occasional tedium aside, both series fans and newcomers will feel at home with this good, fun third-person adventure.

There's no hiding from the unversed--even in space.

An opening cutscene introduces you to Birth by Sleep's three main adventurers, and you must decide which you wish to play as first. Eventually, you repeat this step twice more and explore the developing tale from three angles so that you can reveal every truth the game harbors. The overarching story has all the hallmarks of a brooding Square/Enix story--internal struggles, strained friendships, battles between good-hearted heroes and menacing villains. In the midst of all this drama are charming Disney vignettes that see you experiencing familiar tales from a unique perspective. You fight alongside Prince Charming, protect Snow White from attacking fiends, and see the dark side of the infamous mirror, mirror on the wall, among many other scenarios. As these three characters, you witness some of the same scenes, venture down many of the same corridors (which feature the same enemy attack patterns each time), and even repeat a boss fight or two using the same tactics. The repetition is part and parcel of Birth by Sleep's structure, but you will eventually long for more environmental and storytelling variety.
Nonetheless, there are still plenty of character-specific tasks on each of the three play-throughs. You fight (mostly) different bosses and cross paths with Disney characters at different points during their own tales, occasionally meeting up with one or both of the other leading players before once again departing on your own personal journey. Time spent with Ventus and Aqua is largely rewarding. The young and energetic Ventus is well meaning enough to be appealing but not so earnest as to be annoying. Aqua is thoughtful and focused, and she provides a mature counterpoint to Ven's gung-ho attitude. Both characters are voiced well; unfortunately, the same can't be said of the brooding Terra. The character struggles with the darkness within him, yet the actor voicing him can't express angst, excitement, sincerity, or any other emotion for which the script calls. Every line sinks like a stone, and the story suffers as a result. Terra's terrible voicing is most noticeable when he shares scenes with Disney characters, mostly because their voices are uniformly excellent and absolutely comparable to the original source.

Fortunately, great care was taken with each familiar environment. A few of them are on the bland side, but most capture the spirit of the film that inspired them. You meet Snow White in a field drenched in sunlight; Cinderella's pumpkin carriage is as magical as you remember. Every character looks perfectly parallel to the animated forms that graced the silver screen, so you immediately understand and empathize with them. Birth by Sleep is a great-looking game, though the bright and attractive visuals come with some caveats. Most notably, the long load times are a real drag, even if you select the full install option from the main menu. The frame rate also takes the occasional dip, usually after one of the lengthy loading screens, though one dungeon battle suffers from major, uncomfortable slowdown throughout. The audio is occasionally annoying (the siren that signals low health is one such nuisance), but Kingdom Hearts and Disney fans alike will enjoy hearing some familiar tunes as they hop from one world to the next. It's unfortunate that some of the musical loops are so short and repeat so often; you may never want to hear "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" for the remainder of your days.

 

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

• ccasionally fiddly controls  
• No checkpoints in the long story missions.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, a portable addition to the celebrated stealth series, is a rich, fully fledged Metal Gear Solid game with top-notch production values and masses of content, packed onto the PSP. It complements a great-looking stealth-action campaign with a strong co-op offering and bite-sized challenge missions, framed with a neatly presented resource management system in which you establish a private army. The game's many sideshows, ranging from tech development paths to member recruitment and a versus mode, add further value and depth to a commendably well-rounded experience.

Two players are better than one.

Peace Walker is set shortly after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, returning to the 1970s to tuck a characteristically twisty plot into the series' timeline. You play as Big Boss--Snake, to his friends--against the backdrop of the Cold War, with the CIA and KGB covertly meddling in Costa Rica. Snake and his mercenary startup, the Militaires Sans Frontieres, are enlisted to bring peace to the troubled country, which has no military of its own. Naturally, this demands that you sneak and shoot your way through various Central American environments, battling tanks and giant mechs at regular intervals. The plot, which veers between quirky comedy, conspiracy thriller, and military melodrama, is never less than compelling--even poignant towards the end, as Snake ponders the fate of his former mentor, The Boss. It plays out in stylish, animated graphic-novel snippets. Though these artsy cutscenes aren't overly long, you can conveniently pause them or, with the exception of some interactive segments, skip them entirely.
The stealth action at the heart of Peace Walker is tense, challenging, and tightly executed. It requires patience and strategy, not gung-ho combat. Outside of forced combat sections and boss battles, you're encouraged to go methodically and stealthily, putting the growing collection of gadgets at your disposal to good use. These range from the sonar vision of the Sonic Eye, to the distracting power of a well-placed nudie magazine. The cover system lets you put your back to a wall with a press of the action button, but it's meant for peeping around corners and planning your next move, not for popping out and shooting enemies. Still, the shooting is satisfying, and a generous auto-aim toggled by the Select button is a particular mercy.
Using the default control scheme, you control the camera and manual aiming with the face buttons, move with the analog nub, and access the menu and perform context-sensitive actions with the directional buttons. These controls mostly succeed at being fluid and intuitive, though they can be slightly fiddly on occasion, as can the two other control set-ups on offer. When trying to scroll through your gadgets or weapons, for instance, by holding a face button and a directional button simultaneously, Snake is frozen in place while you rifle through your inventory, since the game doesn't pause. This vulnerability can be frustrating in the heat of a boss fight if you need to switch gadgets while out of cover.
At the end of missions, you gain experience points and--depending on your play style--either earn or lose heroism points. These reward you for favouring sneaking over killing and invite smarter, more strategic play rather than skin-of-your-teeth running and gunning. Peace Walker doesn't overly punish you for falling short of stealth perfection, but it never stops encouraging you to do your best.
The environments are handsome, though not hugely diverse. There are long spells in which you're mostly looking at green and brown jungle, but at least it is scattered with deft little visual twinkles: a hazy rainbow in a waterfall or a flitting butterfly. These are understated reminders of Peace Walker's significant graphical achievement. The real spectacle comes less often, though with added impact, during the key boss fights. These are dramatic and challenging--pattern-based, but never tedious. In one standout battle, staged among misty Mayan temple ruins, a huge hovering AI weapon drifts in and out of the fog, crooning electronically like it's singing in the shower. The sound design is intricate and superb, and the musical score is typically rousing. The game's melodramatic ballad theme, "Heavens Divide," takes a good gaming moment and makes it unforgettable, kicking in partway through a battle with an attack helicopter.

Snake also acquires an offshore facility, Mother Base, to house his burgeoning private army. As if liberating Costa Rica weren't work enough, the day-to-day running of Mother Base also falls to you. As you work your way through levels, rescued prisoners and downed enemies can be recruited and swiftly airlifted off the battlefield with a Fulton recovery balloon to be transported back to the base. Then, between levels, Mother Base is your home screen: an expanding array of menus through which you assign roles (combat, research, medical, mess hall, or intel) to your new recruits, plus dispatch combat squads to far-flung conflicts, send care packages to other players, and eventually start piecing together your own metal gear.