Steve Watts

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Stories By Steve Watts

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    Entertainment
    Entertainment By Steve Watts

    Deja Review: Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix

    This is a Deja Review: A quick, unscored look at the new features and relative agelessness of a remade, revived or re-released game. More than a decade before Disney Infinity hatched its brilliant scheme to squeeze all of the House of Mouse's properties under one roof, Square Enix took a try in its own inimitable fashion. The result was Kingdom Hearts – a bizarre marriage of Disney magic and Square's Final Fantasy characters, with a liberal dose of director Tetsuya Nomura's new designs thrown in for good measure. The series has gained fans at the intersections of both properties, and a healthy base of players who truly care about the trials of protagonist Sora and his associated Keyblade wielders. I enjoyed the first Kingdom Hearts, which had an elegant simplicity that felt like a fairy tale who's-who as reinterpreted by Japanese fantasy tropes. While the fusion of third-person action and RPG mechanics was hit-or-miss, it worked well enough to carry me through the game and several of its sequels. I'll confess, though, that as the series has worn on, my interest has waned. If any criticism has dogged Kingdom Hearts most justifiably, it's that its internal myth-building has grown too complex and impenetrable for the casual fan. As the long wait for Kingdom Hearts 3 continues, Square Enix must have decided it's a good time for us all to take a step back and get our (Donald) ducks in a row. Hence, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix: a compilation of the three early stories in the KH chronology, detailing just about everything you need to know before the seemingly inevitable Kingdom Hearts 2 compilation paves the way for a proper sequel.

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    Entertainment By Steve Watts

    PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale review: Smashing

    Nintendo's presence looms large in the fledgling category of game mascot fighters. For years, the company has had a monopoly on the concept with its Smash Bros. series, essentially making it a genre of one. Sony may be the only other publisher with a large enough bench to support such a concept, and as a result PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale has been subject to many comparisons with Nintendo's beloved franchise (not all of them favorable).All-Stars certainly wears its influences on its sleeve, but thanks to some clever ideas, it also earns its keep. This isn't just a carbon copy, but a well-designed game that could go toe-to-toe with Nintendo's fighters.%Gallery-171477%

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    Reviews
    Reviews By Steve Watts

    LittleBigPlanet Vita review: Small wonders

    Counting portable iterations and spin-offs, Sackboy has made a new game appearance every year since the LittleBigPlanet franchise was born. It's been easy to grow fatigued, adorable as he may be, especially as the series' major improvements came to its creative tools instead of its platforming chops. For the Vita version, co-developers Double Eleven and Tarsier Studios must have been studying the series' progression closely and taking notes, as they have produced the best LittleBigPlanet game to date.That's not to say that it's terribly different from its predecessors. You'll still find the same physics-based platforming, robust building tools, and customization options as before. Rather than redefining the franchise, LittleBigPlanet Vita is more of a "greatest hits" compendium of everything Media Molecule built in previous incarnations, with a few welcome bits of tinkering to improve the already-strong formula.%Gallery-165047%

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    Entertainment
    Entertainment By Steve Watts

    Finding the right touch in LittleBigPlanet Vita

    While PlayStation Vita games output gorgeous visuals on its screen, use of its alternate control mechanisms – like touch and tilt – have often felt flat. But our recent experience with LittleBigPlanet Vita has reinvigorated our interest in tapping and tumbling about with our Sony handheld. Somehow it seems fitting that the first-party series known for its creativity is the one to show developers how to use touch correctly.The touch and tilt features in LittleBigPlanet seems additive to the experience, rather than wasted, unnecessary, or tacked on – a typical error of such functions. And since you're reaching in the adorable and tiny world, impacting small objects in aid to your little sack-person, the conceit of touch makes perfect sense within the LBP theme.%Gallery-130817%

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    Reviews
    Reviews By Steve Watts

    Mario Tennis Open review: Holding court

    Mario Tennis Open, like most of the Mushroom Kingdom's forays into the world of athletics, isn't really a sports game. All of the pieces are set in place to look like a tennis game, with a layer of Mario's signature whimsy on top, but the game itself is all rhythm and pattern recognition.This simplicity makes it easy to pick up and play, with the unfortunate side effect of making it lose its challenge too quickly. It's a satisfying game and packs some exhilarating moments, but it exhausts its mechanics too soon.%Gallery-152514%

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    Gaming
    Gaming By Steve Watts

    Portable gaming's 'Race to Zero'

    Despite their occasional protests to the contrary, both Nintendo and Sony have seen the pervasive mobile market take chunks of the portable gaming industry. The mobile app space burgeoned as game developers undercut each other constantly, in a race toward 99 cents that set a buck as the de facto price point for the new marketplace. This, in turn, made a massive price disparity between mobile games and their handheld competition, which tends to retail for much more. Why buy a $30 DS game, when you can buy 30 games for the same price?However, we're now seeing yet another race all the way to the bottom: free. Even as the PC space is largely adopting a free-to-play, microtransaction-driven business model, the shift is similarly occurring in the mobile market. Recent F2P hits have started a run of similar titles, with some paid apps adopting a free-to-play option.The change began subtly. Rovio's breakout hit Angry Birds may have stuck near the top of the Top Paid Apps charts, but the Top Grossing arena was ruled by little blue men early last year. Smurfs Village spent months as the Top Grossing app, no doubt bolstered by co-marketing for the then-upcoming film. Still, the free app had an inviting price point, and even a few 99 cent purchases per user would easily push it above the revenue for a one-time dollar fee. Then, Tiny Tower became the talk of the iOS App Store blogosphere, using a similar model inspired by social gaming on Facebook, even garnering recognition as Apple's official Game of the Year.

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