Vandal Hearts II is one of my all-time favorite RPGs. I'm not usually a fan of tactical games and have earned much vilification for being the one gamer on Earth to have disliked Final Fantasy Tactics. But Vandal Hearts II earned sixty hours of my time, something I'm rarely able to devote to any single title but which this game warranted. The first Vandal Hearts, along with Wild Arms, were the games that convinced me that the leap from the Nintendo 64's cartridges to the PlayStation's CD-ROMs was warranted, and I was playing Vandal Hearts II well after the PlayStation 2 was launched. The series thus bookended my experience with the 32-bit gaming era, but I was eager for more.

So I was excited to learn in the past few years that Konami was considering reviving this decades-old franchise, and when news came last year that the form would be an Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network game, I considered it my good fortune, as I'd just gotten an Xbox 360 a few months earlier. Yet no gaming site I followed seemed as interested in the title as I was. I checked them regularly but found updates rarely. Finally, Konami emailed me this week: Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment had been released on January 20th.

As I'm currently in the middle of three other games, including one RPG, I did not rush to purchase this title, but it was easy enough to move the demo to the top of my queue. The trial version of Flames of Judgment, supposedly a prequel of the game's predecessors, consists of two battles with some storyline in between. Having played only that much, I can offer only first impressions.

The most significant, or most immediately apparent, departure from Vandal Hearts II's battle system is the ability to change weapons in mid-battle. Heroes can attack from a distance with missile weapons, then switch to melee gear when the enemy draws close. Although many gamers will appreciate this versatility and realism, I don't prefer it. It's not that the system is inherently bad; few people complained that Final Fantasy VI's espers allowed every character to learn the same magic spells, for example, as doing so did not diminish the party members' unique attributes, such as Sabin's blitzes or Setzer's slots. But I did not expect to see such adaptability in Vandal Hearts. One of my favorite attributes of Vandal Hearts II was that each character was essentially a blank template, to be crafted into any sort of warrior needed: fighter, archer, mage, and more. Whatever the person's equipment was defined their purpose, which was fixed for the battle. What I've seen of Vandal Hearts: FoJ is that characters can more easily fill each other's voids should one fall, which for me eliminates some of the tension of battle.

Beyond gameplay and into mechanics, the animation style has taken a turn for the cartoonish, which doesn't match the game's mature themes and Teen rating. It also seems harder than I remember to adjust the camera to get a good view of the 3D playing field. Cinematic interludes feature voice acting, but the game's main dialogue is presented via text — unusual for this generation of RPGs, but not for a 500-megabyte download.

It's been more than a decade since I first played Vandal Hearts II, so my memories and expectations may both have been distorted by time. Even if not, it's unfair to expect a franchise to remain unchanged over so long a period. Either way, I'm not sure Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment will draw me into the tactical RPG genre the way its predecessors did.

Today, April 22nd, is not only Earth Day; it's also the day that, after a year of waiting, Lode Runner arrives for the Xbox Live Arcade.

Lode Runner was originally released in 1983 for the Apple II computer, where its combination of frenetic activity and puzzling gameplay made it an instant classic. You can play the original online — it looks something like this:

Lode Runner has always been one of my favorite games and one that I return to in any year and medium. I drop quarters to play the coin-op at FunSpot every year, and courtesy the Wii's Virtual Console, I have the Nintendo version of Lode Runner — though that game's limited resolution requires the screen to pan to see everything, limiting its effectiveness. There's even an iPhone version called Gold Runner, reviewed in the March issue of Juiced.GS.

I've been waiting for the Xbox sequel for awhile, as evidenced by my blog post last August, when I counted it among my reasons to buy an Xbox 360. My desire formed well before that — a year ago this month — when Xbox Live's Major Nelson interviewed Ross Erickson, who detailed the lengthy legal path to finding out who owned the rights to Lode Runner. This week's podcast interviews Brett Ballow of Tozai Games, the company responsible for Lode Runner. (You can follow Tozai Games on Twitter — but only nine followers? Following zero people? That's not effective networking.)

Lode Runner costs 1200 Microsoft Points, which is the equivalent of $15, the high end of XBLA games. I hope it's worth it, as this gameplay video looks a bit mundane:

The lack of background music combined with the somewhat confusing graphics (I can't quite tell where the player can go and where he can't) might not represent the final product. I'm also hoping the Xbox version is somewhat frantic, as I'm used to playing Lode Runner at a slightly accelerated pace.

I'm delighted when Apple II games inspire today's greats, but I'm overjoyed when they are resurrected, heart and soul, in a form that any geezer can recognize.

Today marks one month with my Xbox 360, which makes it timely to reflect on my experiences thus far. When I brought it home from Christmas festivities, I found the system easy to hook up: the same A/V cables as my original Xbox worked, requiring less rewiring, and a nearby AirPort Express I'd previously installed provided the wired connectivity that my Wii gets wirelessly. I didn't appreciate the need for this additional hardware and cabling.

But once the connection is made, the Xbox's superior online experience is immediately evident. Though Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) games may not be superior to WiiWare, the availability of free demos for both downloadable and retail games gives any gamer hours of free entertainment. I immediately queued up 57 downloads, playing one while others continued in the background. Eventually I turned the system off and let the remainder continue into the night.

However, the transition from Wii to 360 has not always been easy. With the Wii being the only current-gen console in my household for more than two years, I've grown accustomed to its innovative and intuitive controls. Though I was excited to finally have hands-on experience with all the 360 titles I'd heard so much about, I found their controls both daunting and archaic. I actually have to push buttons to make things happen? How quaint! One look at the complex control scheme for Dead Space, and I quit. It's not that I'm incapable of learning detailed controls, but my gaming preferences have shifted sufficiently that I prefer pick-up-and-play approaches.

It's no wonder, then, that a month later, I've yet to put a single disc in my console. In a recent episode of the Major Nelson podcast, the observation is made that a new Xbox owner who downloads the top XBLA games will be set for awhile. Such has been my case. Not counting freebies like Dash of Destruction and Aegis Wing, I without hesitation bought Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Pac-Man Championship Edition, and Portal: Still Alive. A demo of Braid assured me it, too, was worth purchasing, and I was delighted to discover a remake of the original Apple II game Prince of Persia. It didn't take me long to beat Bionic Commando and Portal, but I still play Pac-Man every day. I knew these games would appeal to me more than Halo, BioShock, or Mass Effect, and so far I was right; for less than $50 USD, I've gotten hours of accessible and replayable entertainment value. But what's surprising is that, after reading reviews or playing demos, the six retail games I originally listed as reasons to buy an Xbox 360 are now ones I have no intention of buying. And, given the use I'm currently getting out of my 360, I don't see that I need to, either

The 360 is more than just games, of course. I've never purchased movies or television shows via iTunes, but upon a friend's recommendation, I did buy an episode of Scrubs from Microsoft's Video Marketplace. I also registered Rivet (upgraded this week to v2.0), a Macintosh program that lets me stream most audio and video from my Mac to my 360 (though I had to upgrade my OS to Leopard before Rivet would run). I like that the New Xbox Experience allows me to peruse the Xbox Marketplace from my computer at work and queue downloads for when I get home; it provides more opportunity and immediacy for acting upon various news and thoughts I come across during the day.

Without many multiplayer games or even a Gold membership, I've not yet engaged in any online competitions, but that's okay. I've always enjoyed sharing the couch with my fellow gamers, and I don't know that I'd enjoy the remoteness of online play.

In the meantime, I am a very happy, if unconventional, Xbox 360 gamer.

This past week, Microsoft launched the New Xbox Experience (NXE).  The NXE is a major update to the Xbox 360's dashboard that adds several new features and generally improves the user interface.  The new UI is faster, prettier (the boring text-based menus have been replaced with appropriate images), more informative (selecting games now brings up a wealth of screenshots and other details), and generally easier to navigate.

My favorite new feature is definitely the Community Games section, where you can download games made by various hobbyists and indie groups for 200-800 Microsoft points each (that's $2.50-$10 in US dollars).  The system started with a few dozen games; today, there are already about 50.  They range in quality from atrocious (most of the 3D shooters) to must-buys.  Of the games currently available, Weapon of Choice is easily the best — a Metal Slug/Contra-style run-and-gun game with great graphics, multiple paths and playable characters, an intriguing death system (one-hit kills, but when you're about to die, time slows down, giving you a chance to change your fate), and insane weaponry.  A whip with a machine gun on it?  Check.  Flame thrower that doubles as a rocket pack?  Check.  A gun that shoots out more guns?  Check.  At a mere 400 points, I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys action games.

A few of the other community games that are definitely worth checking out include Artoon, a bouncy ball platformer with very stylish graphics; In the Pit, an audio-only game where you're a monster in a dark pit eating people; Biology Battle, a high quality Geometry Wars-style shooter; Blow; a puzzler that has using fans to navigate bubbles through levels; Endless Swarm, akin to Tower Defense crossed with Missile Command; Word Soup, word creation puzzle game; and StarPilot, avariant on the light cycle game from the movie TRON.

My second favorite feature is the addition of Netflix Watch Instantly support, allowing you to watch any of the movies and TVs shows on Netflix's streaming service on your Xbox.   This feature has more requirements than I feel it should: being a Netflix member is a natural prerequisite, but you must also be an Xbox Live Gold member. It could be more convenient by allowing you to adjust your Netflix queue directly from the Xbox. Even with these limitations, my wife and I have been greatly enjoying watching episodes of The Office on the monitor that my 360 is hooked up to, instead of our usual method of streaming to her laptop's small screen.  The picture quality isn't amazing, at least with our DSL connection's speed, but it's adequate and is a great feature that I dare say will sway a few people who were on the fence about a 360 purchase into buying one.

Avatars were probably the addition that Microsoft was advertising the most, and they work.  They're basically the same as the Miis that Nintendo's Wii has, except a bit more realistic though still cartoonish.  Judging from my own avatar as well as my friends', it seems to be much easier to make your avatar look like yourself than it is with Miis.  Avatars are a decent addition that will probably draw more casual gamers; my eight-year-old daughter loves them and spent an hour or two this morning customizing her own.

One last feature that needs to be mentioned is the ability to copy 360 games to the hard drive for quicker load times.  How much it reduces load times varies from game to game (the worse the programming, the bigger the improvement). I installed Earth Defense Force 2017, which took about 5-10 minutes. After installing it, the loads all seemed to go a bit faster, although by exactly how much, I can't say.  More precisely, I did a before-and-after test installing Burnout Revenge and found the load times to be drastically better after installing: level loads went down from around 18 seconds playing from the disk down to around 8 seconds playing from the hard drive. Unfortunately, installation takes up quite a bit of hard drive space since it basically copies the entire game to the hard drive and I only have the 20 GB hard drive.  Oh well, maybe I'll pick up a large hard drive when the prices go down.

All in all, I'm really enjoying the new Xbox 360 dashboard, so much that it almost feels like I just bought a brand new system.  The addition of Community Games alone would have been enough to make me thrilled, but the additions of Netflix support, avatars, hard drive installations, and a vastly better looking interface that offers more information make the new dashboard a fantastic new addition to the Xbox 360 system.

Sega announced today the spring 2009 release of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, which has not only six 16-bit Sonic games, but at least 34 other games from the Sega Genesis. A complete list is available at their Web site and includes Golden Axe I-III, Phantasy Star II-IV, Streets of Rage 1-3, Shining Force 1-2, and several others. As much as I love the Virtual Console and its ilk, paying $40 for such a comprehensive package is far preferable to being nickeled-and-dimed to death at $5-10/game.

The Ultimate Genesis Collection also offers a feature not found in a pure emulator: Scale2x, a "real-time graphics effect able to increase the size of small bitmaps guessing the missing pixels without interpolating pixels and blurring the images." That means that graphics can be upgraded on-the-fly to be smoother and less pixelated. As an example, observe this before-and-after comparison of a scene from Sonic & Knuckles, one of the many games on the disc:

Purists need not worry, as this upgrade filter is optional and can be disabled.

In my heart, I'm a Nintendo fanboy, and though I'm more cosmopolitan now, in my youth, I eschewed anything without the Nintendo Seal of Quality. That focus has robbed me of the history and nostalgia necessary to fully appreciate a collection such as this, but it is nonetheless a great offering to Xbox 360 & PS3 gamers everywhere.

After reading my reasons to buy an Xbox 360, you should've seen this coming: I finally ordered myself an Xbox 360. It was the holiday bundle, coupled with a 15% (or $45) off coupon (hat tip to ChatterBox), that finally did me in.

But the arrival of this new hardware will put me in an awkward position. I have 50 games for the original Xbox, and though it was the previous-generation console I played the least, I always figured I'd go back and start or finish some of its games. That's where backward compatibility comes in. Unlike the Nintendo Wii which has GameCube hardware, ensuring 100% of old games will work on the new console, the Xbox 360 must be coded for each of its predecessor's individual titles. That list stopped evolving in November 2007, two years after the console's launch. I went through my personal gaming library to see which were on the list. These 24 titles were:

I'm reassured by some notable games on the list, such as Panzer Dragoon Orta and Shenmue II, but there are also a lot of sports games that I care nothing for.

Here are the 26 games that won't work:

There are some significant games on that list! Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance? Lord of the Rings? Some of them are multiplatform titles, but it's the original Xbox versions I own. And I'm not going to download them as Xbox Originals. (Buying games I already own is reserved strictly for the Virtual Console)

There's no room in my entertainment center for two Xboxes, so I've little choice but to forsake more than half of my original Xbox software library in favor of the newer console. In reality, I'd probaby never go back to those older games anyway, and I know that even 52% backward compatibility is better than what I had when adding the Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and GameCube to my setup. But it's still frustrating for a retrocomputing enthusiast such as myself to leave history behind in the name of progress.

Of the previous generation of game consoles, the Xbox earned the least of my attention. I'm not a fan of first-person shooters or of sports games, so its appeal was sorely limited. I enjoyed the few exclusives I tried, such as Shenmue 2 or Panzer Dragoon Orta, but in my book, two games generally do not warrant the purchase of an entire console.

It's been easy for me to exclude the Xbox's successor from my current entertainment setup, as my main criteria was that I would only purchase an Xbox 360 that came with a hard drive, and I would not spend over $300. But now, the current and limited availability of the discontinued 20 GB Xbox Premium 360 meets those minimums, which has me reassessing my purchasing decisions.

Considering that my library still has unopened or unfinished Wii and PS2 games, buying an Xbox 360 does not make a logistical sense, as it will not add hours to my day. But I'm becoming unable to deny that it has enough games to justify wishing my day had more hours — especially since many of them are RPGs, which we previously discussed the 360 is prime for. Here are the retail titles that I'd be first to try:

1. Lost Odyssey — an RPG from the creator of Final Fantasy and with old-school gameplay mechanics.
   
2. Blue Dragon — the last RPG to consume 80+ hours of my time was the eighth installment of Dragon Quest, a franchise I've supported for 20 years. Blue Dragon uses the same visual designer as Dragon Quest, and the same composer (Nobou Uematsu) as Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger. Sounds like a winning combo to me.
   
3. Silent Hill 5 — another entry in a series I've always enjoyed letting me scare me crapless.
   
4. BioShock — as noted earlier, I'm not a fan of FPS, but the environment and mechanics of this game sound intriguing.
   
5. Fable II — I always wanted to play Peter Molyneux's first game in this series, but never got the chance.
   
6. Dead Or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball 2 — the first DOAXBV was just silly, and the sequel sells for only $10.
   

Even more so than the above big-budget titles, the downloadable content for the Xbox 360 draws me in. My time is limited, and the short, fun games offered by the Xbox Live Arcade are reminiscent of a simpler time in gaming history.

1. Bionic Commando Rearmed — I have fond memories of Capcom's NES original, and the Game Boy Color remake. As with Mega Man 9, I'm interested to see what they do when revisiting this classic.
   
2. Lode Runner — I grew up playing the original on my Apple II, which was one of the first games I bought for the Virtual Console.
   
3. Portal: Still Alive — I bought the "Still Alive" single and am eager to try the game to which it originally lent itself.
   
4. Braid — both the ChatterBox and Major Nelson podcasts have spoken highly of this game, saying it's a puzzle in a platformer as much as Portal is a puzzler in a first-person shooter. As much as I enjoy classic games, I'm also all for new experiences, and Braid sounds like it could be one.
   

Other arcade-style games I'm eager to try include Crystal Quest, Tron, Discs of Tron, Jetpac Refuelled, Marble Blast Ultra, Space Giraffe, and Pac-Man Championship Edition.

I've done my part to convince myself to buy an Xbox 360; now it's your turn. What games best represent this generation of gaming and can't be found anywhere but on the 360?

Last month, Microsoft had an RPG conference in Japan.  The biggest news out of the event was the announcement that Star Ocean 4, previously thought to be a PS3 exclusive, is in fact, an Xbox 360 game and might not show up on the PS3 at all.  Xbox owners can also cheer that The Last Remnant, a multiplatform Square-Enix RPG, is going to be released earlier on the 360 than on the PS3.  Other highlights from the conference include additional media and information on Tales of Vesperia (a 360 exclusive by Namco in the series made famous in the US by Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube) and Infinite Undiscovery (a 360 exclusive by Square-Enix that looks similar to Rogue Galaxy).

I'm reminded of this quote from Vic Ireland, the president of the now-defunct RPG localizing company, Working Designs:

For the future, there are still great opportunities. I have been in touch with a number of other publishers and manufacturers and I will be working with some of the WD staff to do games for other publishers for the time being, but not as Working Designs. One thing that holds a ton of promise is Xbox 360 RPGs, and I've contacted Microsoft about getting what's underway in Japan out in the US and helping to get more done worldwide. We'll see what happens on that front, but please let them know that you want more rpgs here. There's some amazing stuff coming for the '360 in Japan, and I know I want it — I think you will, too.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who read those words from Vic Ireland back in 2005 and laughed in disbelief.  The Xbox 360 being a great RPG machine?  Aside from a couple Bioware games (Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire), the Xbox's library of RPGs was practically non-existent.  Why would the 360 be any different?  And yet, here we are in 2008 and those words of Vic sound more prophetic than crazy.

How did we get to the point where the PS3, aside from Final Fantasy XIII, is sparse in the RPG department, despite the PSOne & PS2's utter dominance in the genre? How did the Xbox 360 come to look so impressive compared to the original Xbox's pathetic showing?  There are a number of factors: Microsoft's courting of Japanese developers and their own investment in Mistwalker Studios (Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey); the Xbox 360's one-year head start; and the cheaper price tag are all factors. But I believe the biggest contributor is that Microsoft published good RPGs significantly earlier than its competition.  RPGs tend to be games with low replay value; thus, fans of the genre tend to buy more RPGs than fans of other genres with greater longevity might.  The early availability of RPGs on the Xbox 360 combined with RPG fans' tendency to buy many RPGs created a snowball effect: a good RPG comes for the system encourages more fans of RPGs to buy the system, which in turns encourages more companies to make RPGs for the system.  The system has momentum now — Western RPGs like Too Human and the Mass Effect trilogy, Japanese RPGs from companies like Square-Enix & Namco, Strategy/RPGs from Atlus — and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Will the PS3 or the Wii be able to catch up and overtake the 360 in the RPG field?  I don't think so.  Final Fantasy XIII, though a big title, looks like it'll be too little, too late.  And with Square-Enix showing more and more support for the 360 and less support for the PS3, there's always the chance that FFXIII could end up as a multiplatform title.  The Wii has a fair chance of developing a good RPG library simply because the system is selling insanely well and the dominant system inevitably gets strong game developer support, but I don't know.  Whether it's true or not, the Wii is getting a reputation as being the console of choice for casual gamers and so developers may prove hesitant to develop RPGs for the system.  The Wii might end up with a strong lineup of RPGs, but as of now, that's merely a hope; there's nothing particular noteworthy in the genre on the system at the moment.

In the meantime, I plan on enjoying the 360's RPG library while marveling at the strange and bizarre world we live in.