Austin's Fave Five Games of 2012

5*. Street Fighter X Tekken

SFXT takes Street Fighter's two dimensional fighting game mechanics and combines that with Tekken Tag's multiple fighter system, meaning it's a 2 vs. 2 fight but the round ends after one character is knocked out. Nothing is incredibly groundbreaking despite arguably the two top fighting game developers working in conjunction, but inter-company crossovers are always exciting.  In a word, it is familiar, so there is something for the hardcore fighting game community as well as casual appeal. 

I like me some fightan games. I would even like to believe I possess at least mediocre talent on the sticks (I prefer a Dreamcast controller though), yet this title appears with a major caveat. The co-op mode is perhaps my favorite innovation in the tag fighter genre.  As previously stated the game doesn't push the boundary and the latest Capcom fighting games haven't tickled my fancy, but the co-op mode is something I greatly enjoyed.  The addition seems rather simple but it drastically improves the experience when you are physically gathered to play the game.  A feature like this has allowed my brother and I to utilize the team of King and Cammy like a true tag team as we Frakensteiner and Kinniku Buster all comers.

Zone of the Enders: A Retrospective and Analysis at the End of the Universe

[Note from Jake: As I expand the stable of A Capital Wasteland writers, I introduce the affable, all-seeing Austin Lucas!]

In 2001, a demo for the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released. Oh, and a game came with the demo… Zone of the Enders, a self-described “mecha anime simulator featuring never-before-seen aerial gameplay.”  After the breakout success of Metal Gear Solid, creator Hideo Kojima’s status as one of gaming’s great icons was solidified. Not to diminish from his earlier  forays into the medium, but things were forever changed after MGS. So when Kojima was set to produce a new non-Metal Gear game, people took notice.  The inclusion of a demo for a new MGS really grabbed attention though and would drive sales for Zone of the Enders.  I was just a Kojima neophyte at the time, so clearly my purchase can be attributed to an infatuation with giant robots. 

High Speed Robot Action

Don't worry you'll get to play as Snake too

Gameplay-wise, Zone of the Enders was on the cutting edge as much as the titular Enders were at the end of inhabited space. Z.O.E. was fast, and it was fast before the party really started getting crazy later that year with Devil May Cry. Altitude control, another unique feature, might have seemed unnecessary when you could simply lock-on to enemies.  However, it is a key part of the aesthetic of the game and one that works in conjunction with Z.O.E.’s high speed to give a true sense of movement and a degree of energy to the combat, which stylistically fits in with the sleek mechanical designs of artist Yoji Shinkawa.

FOXHOUND

Instead of a game and a demo, those who purchased Zone of the Enders really just got two demo discs.  One for the previously mentioned MGS2 and one for the yet to be announced Zone of the Enders 2.  It doesn’t take a thorough examination, a moderately quick glance will suffice, to determine that Z.O.E. is essentially nothing more than a proof of concept for future iterations of the franchise.  That might be overly critical of Z.O.E. but anyone who has managed to make it through the final boss encounter can probably attest to this.  It is not that the game is incredibly unpolished or that there are glaring issues that need to addressed, but instead that Z.O.E. as a standalone game just seems to be a taste of things to come.  Despite playtime being padded by cutscenes, Z.O.E. still manages to be a rather short experience, even with a bit a backtracking.  The anticlimactic manner in which the final fight plays out doesn’t help Z.O.E.’s case either.