What I'm Playing (Volume 158): NBA 2K20

 

I happened to get this game for free from PS Plus, and being a sucker for free stuff and sports games, I had no choice but to give it a spin. 

I reviewed NBA 2K19 last year, and was expecting a minor revision for this year's title. Boy, was I surprised! NBA 2K20 fixed almost everything that was broken in the previous year's title, and absolutely astounded me with its overall quality. My main three complaints were that the game did little to approximate the varied styles of different NBA teams, that the game modes with micro-transactions were so dependent on using cash to compete that it was an obvious cash grab for people with little self-control, and that the defense was too predictable and easy to exploit, even on very high difficulties. Let's visit each in turn for 2K20.

Unfortunately, they really continued to fail to replicate real NBA style and rotations here. They still just default to the top rated players for starters for each team, regardless of how the real teams use them. My example last time of the Clippers bringing Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell off the bench in real life but starting them in the game continues to be relevant here. What's more, the style of each team is basically identical to the rest, depending solely on player tendencies rather than on the philosophy that undergirds each team. There's no differences between Houston, San Antonio, and Denver in this game, and that's a real shame for NBA fans.

The micro-transactions, on the other hand, have been greatly improved. The game is far more generous with daily gifts than it was previously, and it feels like skilled "free" to play (as free as a $60 game can be) players have a shot against their deep-pocketed rivals. I built a solid team with little effort, and was competitive in the games that I played.

The defense, however, was the single biggest achievement here. They COMPLETELY overhauled the defensive schemes of the AI, and it feels like a totally different game as a result. Defenders handle picks much more skillfully than they did in the previous year, and that injects a great amount of realism into the title. Real teams generally handle screens in one of three ways. They can trail behind the ball handler, bothering him from behind and keeping him from shooting threes, but allowing straight line drives at the rim. They can go under the pick, preventing the ball handler from driving but allowing him to stop and shoot open threes. They can also switch the pick, which allows teams to stop the ball handler from driving or from shooting threes, but opens up the possibility of the screener rolling towards the basket with a smaller man defending him. It's a magnificent game of rock-paper-scissors, and watching skilled defenders, ball handlers, and roll men navigate this dance is one of the joys of watching live basketball. But in the previous game, the defender would basically always get stuck on the pick and both the screener's defender and ball handler's defender would chase him around, opening up wide open opportunities for the screener. Now, the defenders will change their strategies, causing the offense to have to think about the appropriate strategy to deal with it. If they switch, you'll need to punish the smaller man in the post with your big. If they trail, you'll need to charge towards the rim while your big pops towards the three point line, opening up a three or a dunk. And if they go under, the ball handler will have to step back and knock down the open triple reliably. They've also greatly improve defensive rotations for situations where you beat your man, forcing you to think ahead and pass where the defense won't have a chance to get, or make the extra pass to keep the defense on its heels. It's really a magnificent overhaul, and I loved the chess match involved in playing offense in this game. That's not to say there aren't still some unpredictable things that happen (particularly when you're playing defense), but they've made great strides.

The MyPlayer mode's story was honestly pretty boring and not as engaging as the excellent iteration in 19, which was lame. But I enjoyed the actual game play much more, so I'll take that trade.

Commentary is excellent again, with a wide range of commentators and guest commentators holding down the mic. There's definitely some repeat stuff from 2K19, but that's ok.

I was extremely impressed by this game, and think it's one of the best sports video games, ever. It has a few rough patches here and there, but it's a solid improvement on an extremely good title. I'll give it a 9.3/10.

Up next is a game from a series I've been wanting to try out for a long time, but only did in the last few months. Here's a teaser...

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 157): Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

 

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a tactical RPG for the Nintendo Switch. An early title for the Switch developed by Ubisoft, Kingdom Battle places you in a mashed up world of the Rabbids and Mushroom Kingdom, and lends you control over Mario and friends, as well as some Rabbid friends doing their best imitations of their Mushroom Kingdom counterparts, as you attempt to right the world to its proper state. 

The gameplay is fun and engaging, but not always balanced the best. Similar to other tactical RPGs, you command each unit during his or her turn on a grid, and attack or trigger abilities as needed to turn the tide of battle in your favor. The balance issues stem from a variety of issues, but the single greatest issue is the tremendous reliance you'll place on luck to carry you through missions. In games like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics, hit percentages will be in the 80-90% zone for most abilities and attacks, making your choices more about ensuring that you're not venturing out too far for kills and control of more territory. In Kingdom Battle, however, your hit rates will either be 0%, 50%, or 100%, depending on your position and the amount of cover your opponent has. This is compounded by the fact that each weapon has a random chance of triggering a game-changing status effect on your opponents, and some of these random chances are as low as 30%! Unfortunately, triggering these status effects proves essential to clearing some of the missions, so you're really just rolling the dice on these sometimes, which seems inimical to the "tactical" nature of the genre. I tried a mission, got wiped, tried again and got a bit luckier with status effects, and basically cleared the impossible mission unscathed. There are ways to rig the scales in your favor, but most of these are later in the game when you've more fully developed your characters, and some players may quit in frustration before that point (I know my kids did).

There is plenty of fun to be had here, though, and the good far outweighs the bad. The game gives you a tremendous amount of control over customizing your characters actions in comparison to some of their more traditional tactical RPG cousins, and that opens wide ranges of gameplay options that you just can't find in the competition. For example, in a game like Fire Emblem, each character gets a distinct turn with a movement first and then an action (attack or an ability). Attack first, and you can't move, and if you move out of attack range, you can't attack! In Mario Rabbids, each character gets a "turn" that can be ordered in any way you want. Want to unleash your ability and then run away? Feel free! Want to move and then attack? Go ahead! Want to move, attack, and use an ability in a single turn? Go hog wild! Perhaps more impressively than this is the back and forth nature of the tactics, which allows you to go back and forth between character actions to create the perfect strategy. To give an example, you can move Luigi into a sniping position and trigger his ability, which will cause him to fire a shot at an enemy as soon as they move into view. Then, you can have Mario fire his weapon, which has a 50% chance of bouncing an enemy into the air. Upon that successful bounce, Luigi will automatically fire at the bouncing enemy. Upon the enemy landing, Luigi (who still has not technically used his "attack" command, can now attack them at will, despite the fact that he's already moved and used an ability, and someone else has already taken some actions of their own. This opens up a huge world of strategic interactions and gameplay that allows you to totally customize your experience and play style to your liking.

The character development system is a little shallow, but still fun. You have an upgrade tree that requires you to purchase new skills using orbs unlocked from winning battles, and these skills can get pretty outrageous, at times. For example, Luigi's skill that has him automatically firing at moving enemies can be upgraded so that it will trigger two, or even three times following its activation! The game also allows you to re-spec your skill tree whenever you want, allowing you to experiment with different builds and strategies, depending on the level. It does get a bit tiring needing to respect after basically every level (yes, this is mostly necessary), but having the option to do so is a nice touch. There are only about 15 different skills, however, so you'll mostly just be upgrading these to higher levels. It's not as deep as a game like Final Fantasy Tactics, but the depth of the tactical gameplay makes up for it.

The game's graphics are really nice, with a good merging of the Rabbids and Mario universes into one cohesive style. As you move through the world, you'll find artifacts of the Rabbids world strewn throughout the Mushroom Kingdom, and witness the contentious Rabbids squabbling with each other off to the side.

The music is...ok. It is immediately recognizable as a Grant Kirkhope effort (famous for Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64), and there are touches of nostalgia here and there for fans of those classic games. But they just hue too closely to the themes and approaches from these games to be novel, and boy do I hope you like to hear the same instruments arranged for the same purposes as in his previous work.

On the whole, I very much enjoyed this game. There are a few areas that need some improvement, but it's a great deal of fun set in a colorful and imaginative universe, and it's really a must own for Switch owners who are fans of the genre. I'll give it an 8.9/10.

Up next on What I'm Playing is another run through a sports title, so stay tuned! Here's a teaser...

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 156): Ratchet and Clank

I began Ratchet and Clank around last Christmas, and was very close to beating it in January when disaster struck. My laser on my PS2 went out. Despite all the cleaning I could do, I just couldn't get this game to load up (or any game, for that matter). Couple that with an insane market for PS2 stuff when COVID hits, and I was simply stuck. But I got extremely lucky to find a working PS2 Slim for $10 on OfferUp in July, so I finally had a PS2 again and was back in business.

I had never played any Ratchet and Clank games before this one, so I didn't know quite what to expect. The story is a time honored tale of greedy capitalists exploiting the planet for their own profit, the type that can only be told by for profit corporations developing TV hows, movies, and video games. There's nothing particularly memorable about it, despite it's typical early 2000's attempts at humor that appeal primarily to teenage boys. There's nothing wrong with that, but it definitely struck 33 year old me as a bit cheesy.

The controls and gameplay here are actually very good. It's a mid generation game for the PS2, and they had clearly learned some lessons from other games on the console that had already been released. Much like Insomniac's previous Playstation property Spyro, the game is a 3D platformer that has you exploring open 3D environments and collecting tons of stuff. Unlike it's peers, Ratchet has a significant number of weapons you can select and use, opening up a wide world of possible options in combat. Some of these aren't particularly useful, but there's enough diversity and quality here that you can tackle situations with a variety of strategies that keeps game play fresh and interesting. There are some situations that are more frustrating than fun, however, as 3D platforming has always been a little sticky in terms of communicating depth and distance to the player on a flat TV screen. The camera is also a little wonky at times, but is not noticeably worse than its peers. 

The game still looks very good today, which is an achievement for a title that's nearly 20 years old and is rendered in 3D! The cartoony art style helps, as does the extra few years of experience learning about tips and tricks to get the most out of the PS2.

The music is not noticeably good or bad. You'll get the typical range of environmentally influenced themes here depending on your biome, but there's nothing to really discuss.

Ratchet and Clank is a fun game, but not particularly memorable. It'll distract you for an hour at a time, and you'll enjoy it, but it's not a classic for the console. I'll give it an 8.2/10.

I teased the wrong game last time, so check my Tekken 7 review for the teaser!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 155): Tekken 7

 

Tekken 7 is the newest edition in the long-running 3D fighter series. The series is a personal favorite of mine, starting with some epic showdowns in Tekken 2 on my friend's Playstation. Tekken 3 solidified the series for me as an all-time classic, but I honestly fell off a bit after that. I got into RPGs and retro platformers, and my fighting game time was most spent on 2D fighters like Super Smash Bros. and Street Fighter. But I always intended to get a copy of Tekken 7 and try it out, and Amazon had a really cheap price on it a few months back, so I jumped on it and went to work.

At it's core, 7 feels like Tekken, but there are certainly some substantial editions. Tekken has finally jumped on the "meter" bandwagon so popular with just about every fighter out there, which allows fighters to build up a power meter that they can spend to unleash moves that are more powerful than usual. This feels a bit cheap and hackneyed, as I felt that Tekken was significantly different from its 2D peers to give a unique experience. It also suffers from the fact that the super moves are a bit more muted than its more colorful 2D cousins, so they don't pop in quite the same way. Tekken, and other 3D fighters, have always leaned far more towards the "realistic" side of fighting, with the ability to manuever more freely, and reduced numbers of fireballs and magical effects for everyone. Tekken is certainly more experimental than its 3D peers like Dead or Alive or Soul Calibur, but its grounded in a way that Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, and Marvel v. Whoever are not.

But the fighting system is still strong, and the vast majority of your favorite characters are back again, so it's hard to complain too much. The game also looks better than ever, with smooth animations and delightful character models.

The single player story mode is ok, but not quite as fun as a game like Mortal Kombat XL. There are plenty of modes to play in, so you won't be lacking for things to do.

The online multiplayer is actually very good, with very little lag. I played far more online multiplayer than is typical for me with games, and enjoyed it a ton.

This is a fine adaptation of Tekken, but there's nothing really special about it that makes it stand out from the previous 6 (plus tag spin-offs). If you like Tekken, you'll like this game. If you've never played it, it's super fun and easy to start, but extremely difficult to master, so give it a shot! I'll give it an 8.8/10.

The next game up in What I'm Playing is teased below. Check back soon!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 154): Gran Turismo Sport

 

Sorry for the long break, faithful reader! I have been working on another (paid!!!) video game reviewing project, and as such this blog has suffered. But I have several finished games in the can, and hope to catch up a bit in the next few weeks. On to the review!

Gran Turismo 3 was the second game I bought for my shiny new PS2 (after Marvel v. Capcom). When you're young, and you have very little money, you play games to death and Gran Turismo 3 was my most-played PS2 game for a very long time. I still remember every curve to every track in that game, and despite the fact that I'm not really a car guy, I greatly appreciated the love for cars that oozed out of every pore of that game.

Cut to 2020, and I was feeling a brand new Gran Turismo experience, facilitated by a delightful 9.99 deal for the reasonably new Gran Turismo Sport on Amazon. Sport is considerably different than the other Gran Turismo games, as it's focused primarily on online multiplayer. This is probably a smart decision for the developers, as online multiplayer is the feature that gets people to stick to a game, engage in microtransactions, and, perhaps most importantly, berate their friends until they're playing it, too. Gran Turismo is a smart choice for online multiplayer as well, given the lack of organized esports for racing games in general, the ease of adapting a racing game to a professionalized online sports experience, and the success of other sports simulation games in the same arena (NBA 2K, FIFA, Madden, etc.). The other big change up for Sport is its focus on VR. I don't have Playstation VR, but boy would I like to try this game in VR. It's astonishingly lifelike and beautiful, and I don't know if there's a genre of game with more ability to mimic real life than racing simulations. Give a man a steering wheel, a chair, a copy of Gran Turismo, a headset, and it really would feel like driving an actual car.

Much of the criticism of the game when it came out was for the lack of a serious single player campaign, for which Gran Turismo is well known. This is pretty fair, and is the primary reason why I didn't buy it when it came out. It's not that hard to slap together 50 cups composed of courses you've already developed with cars you've already included, and I think not including a mode like this was a mistake. Following the release, however, they have added this feature in, improving the game's accessibility to a wider range of players, and giving novices the ability to hone their skills before jumping into the online modes. However, slapping a single player mode in the game makes you realize why they didn't do it at first-the game's economy just isn't built for single player.

The old Gran Turismo experience had you starting the game with a beater on simple cups, building up funds to get the car you need for the next cup or earning that car as a reward for clearing cups, and upgrading your cars along the way. Sport features an economy that will be familiar to those who've played primarily online experiences recently-daily login bonuses of cars for those who drive a certain number of miles. What's more, these cars are randomly selected, and apparently done so without the slightest consideration of the player's level. Very early on, I received a $1,000,000 car as a random reward, something that would have been unthinkable in the older games. What's more, there are no longer any specific rewards for completing a cup, likely due to the fact that the existing system is already very generous.

All of this combines to create a game in which you're heavily at the mercy of RNG for which cups to do next, the shop is far less important than it's ever been, and you miss out on the periodic boost of endorphins that comes with finishing a cup. Add to that the fact that the vehicle upgrading system has been significantly simplified to accommodate new players, and you have a single player Gran Turismo experience that feels disjointed and out of sorts compared to its predecessors.

With all that being said, the game is still extremely fun. The engine, as you'd expect, is tremendous. The game is beyond beautiful. There are tons of courses to race on, and the online experience is excellent and generally devoid of the rancor and bullying you'll occasionally find in other games. There's a huge selection of cars for any fan, although the persistent online experience has had some licenses lapse, removing certain cars from the shop. But, they add new ones as well, so this is probably a wash, in total.

This is an excellent racing game, but it left me wanting a more traditional Gran Turismo experience. The game is designed for an excellent online and VR experience, and it delivers on both (I'm having to trust other reviewers on the VR experience). The single player mode is clearly patched in as best they could, but leaves a lot to be desired. I'll give Sport a 8.5/10.

I've already teased my next game to be reTROviewed here, so stay tuned!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 153): Dr. Mario 64

Dr. Mario 64 is a puzzle game released for the N64 in 2001. Developed by Nintendo, it is an enhanced remake of Dr. Mario, one of my all-time favorite NES games (I ranked it 8th on my list of top ten NES games). So, what does this one add, compared to it's classic progenitor?

First, most importantly, and by far best, Dr. Mario 64 uses the native four controller ports on the N64 (a greatly underappreciated feature) to allow four players to play Dr. Mario at once. In a day and age where we can now have 99 players playing Tetris against each other, this could seem pretty underwhelming. But in 2001, the opportunity to play a really good puzzle game with several players is awesome, and we still use this version in my house today. It used to be the case that we'd have entire mornings of playing Dr. Mario on the NES in my house, but with only two players, there's a lot of downtime and controller passing involved. This game allows you to have four at once, which is a really nice feature.

Other than that, it's pretty much just Dr. Mario (nothing wrong with that). There are some new music tracks, new backgrounds for your play field, and characters you can pick from (these are entirely aesthetic). There's a story mode that will be familiar to those of you who have played the story mode in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, in which you play a series of games against increasingly challenging AI opponents. There's a tiny story here, but for the most part, it simply lets you feel a sense of progression and challenge against tougher opponents, and an endorphin rush when you beat the game. There are a few other ways you can play Dr. Mario as well, but for the most part these are gimmicks that will distract you for a round or two, only to return to the classic action.

The music is really good, featuring arrangements of the songs from the original as well as some original tracks. The arrangements are nice, although you'll probably, like me, end up listening to "Fever" over and over again. You can't really improve on it that much!

The graphics are nice, and are a good adaptation of the classic game. There's some Paper Mario-ish character illustrations of the main characters that will react when you do good plays, win, or lose, but this is, again, just garnish on the original game.

This is a game that would be very thin as a single player experience, and is absolutely geared towards party fun. It has all of the advantages of the original Dr. Mario, including the opportunity to handicap players according to their ability, and it's a great time with multiple players. I can't help but feel that I should have gotten more out of this, but I'm also grateful for the chance to play Dr. Mario with my wife and two of my many, many kids. I'll give this game an 8.8/10. If you like Dr. Mario, and have several people with whom you like to play, this is a must-buy.

Up next is a game I'd been looking forward to for a long time, and have already finished. Check back soon (?) for a review!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 152): Mario Tennis

Despite my love of Mario Golf, I've actually spent precious little time with the tennis side of the Mario sports universe. I love Mario Tennis: Power Tour for the Game Boy Advance, but my experience with Mario Tennis on home console basically consists of getting slaughtered by my cousin at his house, turning it off, and going back to playing Goldeneye 007 and Mario Kart 64. But, I was feeling some Mario sports action, and figured that if I was going to play one, I should go back to the beginning, rather than jumping into Power Tennis or Ultra Smash. 

Mario Tennis is a Tennis game that mostly shies away from some of the more arcade-like additions in the Game Boy Advance game, preferring a more simulation style to the gameplay. No flaming or tornadic tennis balls here! You can hit several different kinds of shots with two buttons, depending on the order you press them. You can hit lobs, drop shots, top spin, back spin, and smashes, and even a beginner will be able to be playing competently in minutes. As with real tennis, the big advantage that you get is if you can set your feet a bit, drive through the ball, and strike with power and control. So the game is basically trying to keep your opponent on the move by sending the ball as far away as possible, making them hit weaker returns, while you gradually grab the advantage. It feels like real tennis, which is the main hallmark of why these Mario sports games are so very successful.

Unfortunately, this is a really thin game, single player wise. They put time and effort in making sure that the tennis engine was right, but there isn't a ton else to do in this game besides play standard games of tennis. You have a set of three tournaments which increase in difficulty, but you can easily clear all of these within an hour. There are very few unlockable characters, and they are really easy to get. You also have your standard ring attack mode (like in Golf), and can play in singles or double. Weirdly, the doubles tournament mode cannot be played coop with a friend. In comparison to Golf, which had several modes and (most importantly) multiple distinct courses, this is a pretty basic game. While the comparison to Golf is a little unfair (there's only so much you can do with a tennis court), the comparisons to the handheld Mario Tennis from the same era are more damning. In Power Tour and Mario Tennis (Game Boy Color) have long and rewarding RPG modes in which you train up your character through the ranks to become the best in the world. They basically have the same physics, too, so there's really no reason that they couldn't have included some more depth on the single player side in the 64 version. 

Playing, with friends, however, is far more fun. You can play in doubles matches against the computer, there are plenty of different characters with different play styles available, and head to head tennis is just more fun against a real human than it is against a CPU. The game uses the 64's native 4 controller ports well, offering a lot of party fun for a console that is well known for it. This is where the deep and well-tuned game play pay off, but I can't help but feel that there was more that could have been done with this game. 

Graphically, the game looks nice. It's an N64 game, so don't expect too much. But the courts and characters are brightly colored and charming, and the game runs very smoothly.

The music is your typical late '90s early 2000s Camelot game, composed by Saturaba. It's not as good as the music in any of the Mario Golf games, but it's solid.

All in all, I was left a bit dissatisfied by my experience here, but if the game did not have the word "Mario" in the title, I think I would have been more appreciative of what they've accomplished, so I have to try to be fair. They made a game that was explicitly intended to be accessible to a wide group of people, playable with multiple friends, and that feels like tennis. They accomplished all of these goals. I just wish that they had gone just a bit farther with those goals, as this could have been a really tremendous game, much like Power Tour. But they what they delivered is good, so I'll give this game a 8.3/10.

Up next on What I'm Playing is a game I picked up in a lot a while back and had been meaning to give a try for a while. Check back in soon for my next review! Teaser below:

-TRO