“Tales From the Backlog” is a series of articles in which WingDamage Editor-in-Chief, Jonah Gregory, finally gets around to playing through the many games he has collected throughout the years.

Well folks, it looks like I already blew it. This series of articles was started as nothing more than an excuse for me to play through old video games, specifically ones that I either completely missed or never finished back when they were new. But with Mega Man Legends, it turns out I actually did complete it way back when.

Still, it was a great excuse to play through what is a more enjoyable experience than I was expecting.

That may have come out sounding more like a backhanded compliment than intended. The truth of the matter is, our memories are dirty liars. There are so many games from the PS1 era that don’t hold up (I’m not singling it out, N64 is at least as guilty of this, if not more so), that I was very worried Mega Man Legends was going to fall into that category.

Booting up Mega Man Legends for the first time since the late 90′s ended up being a huge nostalgia trip for me. Once I was re-immersed in the game’s flooded world, I couldn’t help but fall for it’s quirky charm. This is due in large part to some very expressive character models, a fairly well realized world, and even the voice acting. I’m not saying the voice acting is great. It’s actually kind of awful, but it’s the kind of awful that endears rather than repulses. The writing has some anime tropes for sure, but none of them were over the top enough to be offensive. There is an innocence about the characters that seemed to really fit in the story they were trying to tell.

I was also impressed with how well the world is structured. Legends mixes elements from open map structure games, like the Metroid series, with the dungeon crawling of Zelda. Let me put it this way, what if the dungeons in a Legend of Zelda title were all interconnected, and new items let you bridge the gaps between each section? That’s what MML was able to pull off.

"Who stole my helmet?"

Character progression is a staple of a good 3rd person adventure like this. In Legends, not only do you find new weapons that help you progress, but you can also customize them via an upgrade system. The only downside is, unlike in your typical Zelda or equivalent, you can only have one of your special weapons equipped at a time. It’s good for game balance, but bad for exploration, the second major draw in MML.

There are only a few instances where a specific weapon is needed to get to a new area, but it does suck when you have to trek all the way back to the surface just to change out your grenades for your drill-arm. Still, once a wall is broken down or a hidden path opened, it is a permanent change.

Mega Man Legends holds up as a fun and quirky experience that action/adventure fans should go back to. Admittedly, the lack of analog support (it came out before the Dual Shock) does give character movement a bit of a stiff feel. But, if you immediately change the strafing options, it is manageable. It’s also a pretty easy game, and circle strafing is the answer 90% of the time.

My final takeaway is that I’m now much more excited for Mega Man Legends 3 than I was before. Capcom has had a lot of time to contemplate how to expand and improve on this kind of gaming experience over the years. I just hope they successfully pull it off.

More “Tales From the Backlog”:

#1 – Assassin’s Creed (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

#2 – Retro Game Challenge (Nintendo DS)

#3 – Mega Man Legends (PS1)

"Nice to see you Jim. You been working out?"

“2 Player Reviews” is a series of articles in which two members of the Wing Damage staff separately review a game, so as to give our readers multiple perspectives on the subject matter.

Player 1 – Jonah “spambot” Gregory

Player 2 – Luke “masterlookas” Jahnke

In comparison to most other superheroes, Batman is a pretty complex guy. He is one part genius detective, one part silent, stealthy ninja, and one part total henchman-punching badass. So it is pretty easy to understand why developers in the past have had such a hard time capturing the Caped Crusader in videogame form.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is one of the big Playstation exclusives this holiday season and as such has received all kinds of hype. Even my mom, who doesn’t follow games at all has seen enough commercials to ask me about it. Sony and developer Naughty Dog have high hopes for Uncharted 2. The game even made WingDamage.com’s distinguish list of anticipated games.

Let’s get the gushing out of the way. Uncharted is a roller coaster thrill ride. It feels like an awesome Hollywood blockbuster movie. The game moves from awesome set piece to awesome set piece, pausing just long enough to get you to laugh before throwing another huge action sequence at you.

If you consider yourself a gamer you need to see and experience the train level. Drake makes his way over, through and around a speeding train while an attack chopper tries to murder him. This is just one of several moments throughout Uncharted 2 that distinguish it from other games.

One of the main reasons the game works so well is the protagonist Nathan Drake. He is genuinely likable and funny without feeling like Naughty Dog was trying too hard. Even when he is acting a little shady you find yourself pulling for him. The other characters also work well and add little touches of humor to the proceedings. The story takes you from Turkey to Tibet to mythical locales, and each one is gorgeously rendered.

The game is beautiful, and I don’t just mean in a ‘wow that game has a really high poly count or super nifty textures’ sort of way. Uncharted 2 is beautiful in the way a sunset is beautiful. The game takes you to all sorts of exotic locales and the views are simply stunning. This is one of, if not the best looking game I have ever seen. What really sets the game apart is the animation. Drake braces himself against walls, he slips, he stumbles, he moves more realistically than just about any other game character out there. There are a few moments when you’ll see the game take a little skip to make sure you grab the ledge but these are more for gameplay purposes.

Uncharted 2 can best be summed up as Tomb Raider meets Gears of War meets Metal Gear Solid meets Steven Spielberg circa 1981 (the year Raiders came out). I know that’s a lot of meets, but it really does blend together all these disparate styles. You want to sneak around and take out guards silently? The game lets you do that. You want to go all guns a-blazing? The game let’s you do that too. Unlike a lot of games that try to cram different style of gameplay together, Uncharted 2 executes each style to perfection.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune seemed to be broken up into platforming parts, then shooting parts, then some more platforming. Uncharted 2 does a better job of integrating the two segments together. At one point I was hanging off the side of a billboard trying to shoot hordes of machine gun toting bad guys.

My only complaint is that sometimes it is tough to figure out what Drake can grab onto versus what is background textures. I plummeted to my death a couple of times because what looked to me like a handhold was actually just a path to doom. It is frustrating when you are in the platforming zone, then suddenly plummet to your death because the game decides that you can’t hold those particular bricks.

The biggest surprise was the multiplayer. Matches were fast and fun. They play out like a faster paced Gears of War match with players lobbing grenades, taking cover and rolling around trying to shoot. The biggest difference is in the games verticality. Characters can jump up on ledges and shimmy to new locations which changes up strategies when you have to think in three dimensions. My favorite match type was Survival, where your team tries to survive wave after wave of steadily tougher enemies.

There is some talk circulating out amongst the interwebs that the Uncharted franchise is going to be made into a Hollywood blockbuster. I seriously doubt that any movie could really capture the intensity and fun of this game. When you play this game you will understand. This is my number one contender for game of the year right now. This is more than just a game, this is an experience. If you own a PS3 you need to play this game.

As much as I dislike using the word “metal” as an adjective, I simply cannot think of a better way to describe Brutal Legend. How else do you describe a game set in a fantasy world inspired by classic heavy metal album art? With it’s impressive 107-song soundtrack, cameos from heavy metal icons such as Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmister, it’s impossible to describe Brutal Legend as anything but metal.

Being a Tim Schafer game, it’s pretty much a given that the writing is top notch. The metal references and inside jokes are good for a laugh here and there. All of the dialogue is very well written, and expertly preformed. Jack Black is Eddie Riggs. He fits the part perfectly, and his enthusiastic performance is really what makes the character so lovable.

The variety of metal cameos are just great. Lemmy Kilmister plays a badass bass player with a sweet hat (so, he pretty much plays himself), and the dialogue between him and Eddie is some of the funniest in the game. Ozzy Osbourne also does a great job as the “guardian of metal, ” but I would have liked to see a bit more of him.

From the moment you step into the shoes of Eddie Riggs, you are immersed in all things metal. Trapped in an alternate fantasy universe where demons control the earth and most of the human population toils their lives away in slavery, Eddie is tasked with leading Ironheade, the human resistance (the extra “e” so you know they mean business). He recruits the head-bangers, builds the stages, directs the battles, protects the tour bus, and kicks plenty of demon ass. In short, he’s the road crew for the resistance.

The gameplay is a pretty mixed bag. Split between open world exploration, 3rd person action and, most notably real-time strategy, Brutal Legend tries to be a lot of different things all at once which hurts the overall experience. It’s not that any of the specific gameplay styles are bad, but none of them are great, either. It feels like Tim Schafer was trying just a bit too hard to keep Brutal from being pigeonholed.

The main focus of Brutal Legend’s many gameplay styles are the explosive stage battles, the backdrop of which are huge rock concerts. The stage is your base and where all of your units spawn. If your stage is destroyed, it’s game over. Your resources come in the form of fan geysers spread throughout the map. Playing a “fan tribute” solo near one of these creates a “merch booth” on the geyser and directs the fans (resources) to your stage. The more merch booths you have, the faster your fanbase grows.

Ironheade’s metal themed units range from the basic head-bangin’ infantry to the mighty fire breathing Metal Beast. What’s unique about Brutal Legend’s stage battles is the interaction with each individual unit. Each unit has a unique attack that they can preform with Eddie. For example, when Eddie teams up with the Head Bangers, they form a mosh pit around him, knocking enemies out of the way. These “double team” attacks are what make the stage battles really fun.

One of the best things about Brutal Legend is it’s setting. Every area of the game looks like it was ripped from a classic metal album cover. Fire rains from the sky, jagged mountains reach up toward space, and monuments to the great titans of metal are scattered across the land. Everything is on a very over-the-top, epic scale.

While the combat is pretty basic, it still manages to be fun. The “A” button attacks with the battle axe, “B” blocks and “X” attacks with the guitar. The variety comes in the form of the guitar attacks, which electrify or burn enemies from afar. There are a few guitar/battle axe combo moves, which help keep the combat interesting. Sadly, you can only decapitate so many emo kids before things start to feel repetitive.

As I played through, I never really felt like I was doing anything new or original. After a while it feels like the same old hack and slash gameplay that’s been done a thousand times before, but with a heavy metal paint job. Sure, the RTS elements are fun, but with only a handful of stage battles, by the time I really fell into a groove and started to kick some ass, the game was over. It doesn’t make the game any less fun, just a little disappointing.

This brings me to my biggest complaint with Brutal Legend. Even though I completed about a third of the side missions, unlocked most of the hidden songs and searched the land for various other collectibles,  I reached the end credits within roughly 5 hours.  I imagine a 100% play through would take maybe only an hour or two more. Even if there is some after game content, this is simply too short for a single player campaign.

The high point of the game is the music itself. The soundtrack boasts an epic 107 tracks from every sub-genre of metal, (and believe me, there are a lot of sub-genres of metal) everything from Def Leopard to Dethklok.  If you’re a metal head, your favorite band is probably represented in Brutal’s epic soundtrack (unless you’re an Iron Maiden fan, that is.) At the start of the game, about 35% of the songs are unlocked. While most of the tracks are unlocked as you play through the story, there are 23 songs hidden in relics throughout the world known as buried metal.

The best way to experience Brutal’s epic soundtrack is through the “Mouth of Metal,” a playlist-like upgrade for the Deuce that lets you select a specific song, create a custom playlist, and sort the music in a variety of ways, such as genre and alignment. What I really love about the song selection isn’t necessarily the tracks themselves, but how many of the songs tie directly into the theme of the current mission.

As you drive the deuce through a burning arena and meteors fall all around you, “Through the Fire and the Flames”  by Dragonforce blasts from Eddie’s speakers. It really ties the whole experience together. A game about metal, with a great metal soundtrack, and songs that suit the action during every mission.

Brutal Legend is an enjoyable game, if not an entirely unique experience. The writing is wickedly funny, and the inside jokes and metal references make it a must play for any metal head. But at only 5 hours or so, It’s not exactly worth the $60 price tag.

We all have those games that we miss the first time around. With the busy release schedule of modern gaming, no one has time to play everything. That is why we at WingDamage present to you “Fashionably Late Reviews“. This is our series on games from the current generation of consoles that we may have missed on their initial release, but have gone back to experience now.

Back in August, I wrote a piece on Piles of Shame, and had our readers vote on which game I should play through to completion and review. “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune” won with 48% of the votes. There is much love for this game and, while it isn’t perfect, it is easy to see why.

Everything about Drake’s Fortune is designed to give the feeling of a big summer blockbuster movie. The plot revolves around ancient lost treasure, the odds are stacked overwhelmingly against you, it is full of exotic locations, and there are lots of explosions. Oh, and don’t forget the sassy female sidekick.

The game is broken up into two very distinct sections. By that I mean there are the exploration sections and the gunplay sections. While the exploration and gunplay flow seamlessly into one another, they do feel like two very distinct chunks that the game flips back and forth between.

The exploration sections were my personal favorite. While a little more linear than I would have liked, they give you a chance to stop and appreciate how gorgeous this game is. If you need a graphical showcase for the PS3, look no further.

Drake is guided by where the next safe hand-hold is, which is fairly obvious most of the time. Occasionally, these sections would have camera problems when they were in tight quarters, but the ones that took place outdoors made good use of dramatic angles to further the summer blockbuster look and feel.

This is the part of the game that adds the “Tomb Raider” part of the equation when people describe this game as “Tomb Raider” meets “Gears of War”. It does feel very reminiscent of Lara Croft’s adventures, but with tighter controls and way less tigers and dinosaurs.

Gunplay is something that many third-person action games fail at. It can be the aiming, a broken cover system, or a host of other problems that can ruin the game. Uncharted’s firefights were a mixed bag for me. While the cover system was fun and forced your to use the terrain to your advantage, I would occasionally have trouble getting Drake to hide where I wanted him to.

My biggest gripe with Drake’s Fortune is that enemies take too many shots to kill. Maybe it just expected a level of precision not easily achieved on a PS3 controller, but sometimes enemies would take three head-shots to take out. I also should not have to unload half a clip from an automatic rifle into a regular human’s torso to kill him. It’s a small complaint, but it did make a few sections drag on more than I would have liked.

"FAL-CONE PUNCH!"

There is also some basic melee combat. If you run up behind a guy, you can take him out in one very well animated move. You can also just run up and start punching guys in the face. There is a combo system, but it didn’t seem very responsive. I generally ended up just button mashing my way through these confrontations.

One of the design goals with Uncharted was to make Drake feel like a regular guy. While most regular guys I know could not scale walls, heal in a few seconds, or shoot a gun nearly as well as Drake, they did do a good job of making him feel vulnerable and mostly ordinary. You can’t jump ten feet into the air like Mario or run at super-sonic speeds like a certain blue hedgehog. When Drake pulls himself up to a higher ledge, you hear him straining. When you barely make a jump, he reacts. When you fall from too far, he clearly sounds like he is hurting (or dies instantly).

By all accounts, “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune” is a great game. This is why the flaws that are there stand out as much as they do. There were a few parts I found very frustrating, but they weren’t enough to kill my overall enjoyment. While the last few sections lost some of the magic set up by the first 3/4 of the game, I still recommend this to anyone looking for a great action title for the Playstation 3.

We all have those games that we miss the first time around. With the busy release schedule of modern gaming, no one has time to play everything. That is why we at WingDamage present to you “Fashionably Late Reviews“. This is our series on games from the current generation of consoles that we may have missed on their initial release, but have gone back to experience now.

“Heavenly Sword” has just about everything wanted in a launch title. Though the reviews from the big names only pegged it as “Decent”. From my admittedly average gamer’s point of view, this game was surprisingly awesome.

Even on a standard definition television, the graphics are gorgeous. I am especially impressed by character expressions. Little nuances that make dialogue and character development more believable, lifelike and compelling. I’m sure we’ve all played games where the camera zooms in on a character’s intense expression in order to indicate “It’s on now” and we’re left sitting, waiting for some kind of change, that is never quite as fulfilling as we want.

Another often overlooked aspect that really contributes to the story is the voice acting. “Heavenly Sword” takes place in what appears to be an amalgamation of Eastern Asian countries, yet everyone speaks with a vaguely British accent. At least those are well done. Both Nariko, the heroine, and Bohan, the villain are brilliantly played out, with no cringe-worthy cutscenese dragging down the game.

The gameplay is smooth, intuitive, familiar and yet still innovative. All the talk of this being “God of War” with a chick? Completely true. You dual-wield two swords which can be utilized in one of three modes: Ranged, Normal and Heavy.

Ranged has you swinging the Heavenly Sword and its mate on chains just like the Chaos Blades. Like God of War, the real trick to combat is stringing together long lines of combo attacks. Not just because it looks wicked, but because you unlock new abilities, artwork and special features by doing so. Movement also has some clever moments with timed-button presses that allow Nariko to perform crazy acrobatics in order to scale walls, fall down a mountain and in general, look like raw pwnage.

Also like God of War, there is a focus on puzzle-solving to move past an area. These frequently utilize the most rewarding, yet frustrating feature of the game, “AfterTouch” controls. AfterTouch allows the player to slow down time and control where a thrown or shot projectile goes by using the motion sensor in the PS3 controller itself. The one drawback is that I frequently had to keep my arms raised to get the angles right, which was very tiring when the level requires you continue firing arrows for a good twenty minutes.

However, the game takes full advantage of this system, whether it is firing cannons, throwing shields or just about any object on the ground…turning a stool chair into a lethal weapon.  The core fighting is still done with your blades and like all good hack-and-slash titles, this one delivers fast-paced action with brutal graphics, though little blood.

The story doesn’t hold too many mysteries. Nariko, cursed with a sword that will drain the life-force from her in exchange for its power, seeks vengeance on Bohan, a suspiciously Crusader-like King who seeks to subvert her clan along with all the others of the Land. Between his freakish generals (the snakelike Whiptail, the creepy Flying Fox and Bohan’s unfortunate son, Roach) and his seemingly endless horde of soldiers, Nariko has her bloody hands full. The strength of the story rests in how seamlessly the game moves from full motion cutscene to normal gameplay to minigame to in-game cutscene and back again.

“Heavenly Sword” may not have brought anything significantly new to the table. It is Dynasty Warriors meets God of War with a prettier, sassier protagonist. But what it does accomplish is take familiar characteristics and revamp them for the next generation of consoles. The graphics and gameplay it boasts could not have been done on a Playstation 2, thus allowing it to showcase some new features while taking advantage of a tried formula of melee-and-puzzle fun.

I would suggest a one-day rental. If after the first hour or so you’re not convinced you want to buy this game, the next four hours will not change your mind. If you like what you see though, the replay value is sufficiently high to warrant shelling out for your own copy.

Lone Wolf and Cub is the story of a former samurai turned assassin and his infant son as they travel the path of meifumadō , “the Road to Hell.” The epic fight scenes go hand in hand with historical detail and philosophical lessons.  This manga has influenced everyone from Frank Miller to Quentin Tarantino and popularized the idea of the Ronin (the masterless samurai).

There have been 7 films, 2 television shows, and a futuristic sci-fi comic retelling. Yet here in the west, Lone Wolf and Cub has remained at best a cult hit. I was thinking how amazing a video game based on this series would be.

I was even going to write an article about how kick @#$ a game based on this would be. Then, like the good phony journalist that I am I started doing a little research and found someone had already made it. But it doesn’t exist.

Read on to learn more about the mythical Lone Wolf game and why it needs to be remade for XBLA. 

The mythical game is called “Kodure Ookami” and was a japan only beat-em-up arcade release. It featured Ogami Itto, the titular assassin slashing through wave after wave of assassins while carrying his infant son on his back. Every once in awhile, you get a baby cart power up which enables you to mow enemies with a baby cart machine gun.

Where things get weird is there are no known instances of the game being owned (which means this game is so rare it almost doesn’t exist). Basically we have a side scrolling beat-em-up where you can get a baby cart machine gun.

I am no scientist but I am pretty sure that would have to go on the periodic table under kickassomium (its a rare earth metal). Any game that encourages babies to use guns would surely get the endorsement of the NRA, which means sales my friend, big sales.

This game needs to be remade for XBLA. It is perfect because it is old school awesome, and yet completely new since most people have never even heard of it. Take the old game, slap a fresh coat of HD paint on it so the buckets of blood look extra crisp, add a few achievements, and an unlockable version of the original and you are good to go. This needs to happen.

Come on Universe. I have been a good boy. I have eaten all my vegetables. So what if they were on a pizza? That still counts.

Or if the Universe truly loves me, someone will make a full on modern action game. They can take the art style of Lone Wolf and Cub and use that as the in game graphics. A hyper stylized literal moving manga of sword fights and blood. Think Afro Samurai done really well, and with the slightly dirtier and more raw Lone Wolf art style. You could still have the machine gun baby cart so the NRA will still love it.