Flower is what happens when a bunch of no-good hippies learn how to utilize the Playstation 3's power.

☆ (out of five)


For years, indie developers have tried to convince themselves -- and, by extension, others -- that conventions are a bad thing; that challenge and complexity -- the cornerstones of any mechanically outstanding video game -- are harmful; that the "experience" -- whatever that's supposed to mean -- is what's important (as if conventions, challenge and complexity aren't what have provided the very best video game experiences, and continue to do so!) Flower is, as I see it, the culmination of this process: a game almost completely free of all those things, and that everyone seems to love. So without further ado, let's take a look.

In Flower, you are the wind. You accelerate by pressing any button except START, which pauses, and control your direction by tilting the Playstation 3 controller. You have one objective: collecting petals. You do this by flying onto flowers, making them bloom. Flowers come in different colours. Activate enough flowers of one colour, and either 1) new flowers of another colour appear, or 2) a new path opens up. The flowers aren't hidden (there are "secret" flowers, but you make them appear simply by collecting enough non-secret petals), and aside from a couple of stationary, easily avoidable obstacles -- that, even if you do bump into them, cannot kill you; they simply destroy the petals you've collected (which really doesn't matter, because they still count; you don't have to go back and re-collect them) -- that only appear on one of the game's six levels, there are no hazards. If Peggle and flOw are casual, Flower is ultra-casual (which is relaxing and pleasant in theory, but dull and tedious in practice) -- there is literally no way of losing, and the only thing required to succeed is a pair of eyes.

Actually, that's not entirely true: you also need a whole lot of patience. The tilt controls are a tad imprecise, so you'll frequently find yourself missing a flower or three, and the rate at which the wind turns makes Leon of Resident Evil 4 seem like the most agile man in the world, making returning to pick them up a huge pain. It's especially annoying in one level, where there's a long path in which the wind -- not your wind, but another -- blows; going against the direction of said wind is practically impossible, so what you have to do if you miss a flower is fly up to a point at which the wind, which moves along the ground, no longer affects you, fly backwards, and then fly back down into the wind to try and collect the missed flower -- and pray to God that the shoddy controls don't let you down again. It's hard to see why the developers couldn't at least have included an option for analogue stick control -- the Sixaxis' imprecision in not exactly a secret, and they must have know that the problems I'm talking about would occur -- or, if they felt that the tilt controls were that integral, that vital a part of the experience, have left out that goddamned wind. It's not like it actually does something -- aside from pissing you off and wasting your time, that is.

For all its failures, there is one area in which Flower undeniably succeeds: it's a beautiful, beautiful game. The lighting is superb, the use of colour better, and the way the grass sways in the wind almost uncannily lifelike. It's possibly the best-looking the game Playstation 3 has ever seen -- were I reviewing it as a technical showpiece, I would have given it a glowing five stars; 10/10; A+. Unfortunately, I'm not. I'm reviewing it as a game, and as a game, Flower is awful. The controls are horrible, the objectives boring (collectathon missions are bad enough when acting as filler in otherwise good games; how anyone could think an entire game based on the concept would work is beyond me) and the level design abysmal. But I guess that's all you can expect when a bunch of no-good hippies who blurt out brain-dead nonsense like "our video game version of a poem" (And keep in mind that they aren't talking about a specific poem. Imagine a comic book artist saying "this is my comic version of a book", or a painter saying "this is my painting version of a movie". They would be laughed at -- and so should these idiots!) learn how to utilize the Playstation 3's power.

☆☆ (out of five)

Ah, Limbo. It has been called this year's Braid; a masterpiece; perfect, even. Let's have a look-see, shall we?

Limbo is a puzzle-platformer. And I'm going to address the game's largest problem immediately: Both the puzzles and the platforming are completely devoid of any challenge.The former virtually never require more steps than can be counted on one hand -- move a box, pull a lever, climb a rope and you're done; that's roughly how most of the puzzles go down -- and since the tools needed are always clearly visible and the way in which they are to be used always immediately apparent, the only thing being tested -- unless, of course, you're an idiot -- is whether you possess a pair of eyes and the physical strength needed to move the analogue stick and press A (jump) and X (grab). The latter demands extraordinary feats of neither precision nor timing; if you can play through the first level of Super Mario Brothers, you'll breeze through even the hardest of Limbo's platforming parts.

(You will die, however. You might wonder how this is possible when the puzzles are easy and the platforming easier. It's quite simple, really: The developers have implemented a number of trial-and-error challenges; parts in which survival is nigh impossible unless you already know what's ahead. I find this decision very puzzling. The game's checkpoint system ensures that you always reappear mere seconds away from whatever hazard killed you, and the aforementioned challenges are just as easy as -- if not easier than -- the rest of the game once you've died on them once, so all these trial-and-error parts serve to do is waste your time.)

So if there is no challenge to the game, what is there? Not much. The monochrome graphics look quite nice -- the animations are smooth, and there are some really neat-looking multi-layered backgrounds and depth-of-field effects -- and the sound design isn't half bad, but it is by no means a visual or aural masterpiece on the same level as Vanillaware's Muramasa: The Demon Blade or Konami's Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, or even fellow Xbox Live Arcade games like Braid, Metal Slug 3, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved and others.

But I must mention that while there's nothing exceptional about Limbo, there is nothing particularly terrible about it, either. It's not broken, it doesn't waste your time with boring tutorials or needless exposition, and the controls are both sharp and responsive; however, not being bad does not equal being good (something people who declare games like Portal and, yes, Limbo "perfect" don't understand), and I cannot with a good conscience recommend Limbo to anyone but the most devoted puzzle-platformer fan, who makes it his mission to play any and all entries in the genre. If you aren't that person, there are much better games to spend your money -- and, more importantly, time -- on.

A while ago, I picked up a used copy Silent Hill 2. I knew a lot of people consider it the best horror title ever made, and I'd been wanting a new survival horror game for a while. I got home, put it on the shelf and... just kind of forgot about it, I guess. It's been sitting there for a good two months.

Two nights ago, I decided to fire it up. I also decided to chronicle my experience with it in a series of blogs. This is the second of those blogs. There will be spoilers, of course, so if you haven't played the game and don't want it ruined for you, you should probably stop reading now. Again, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.



I go to the trash chute on the building's second floor and drop cans of juice I found earlier in it, unsticking some garbage containing an important item. Why specifically cans of juice when there were about a million other available objects that could've done the job just as well, if not better? I don't know. The only reason I even knew I was supposed to use the canned juice was that I'd read Video Game King's review of the game -- if I hadn't, I'd probably have had to consult a walkthrough. I continue exploring the apartment buildings, doing fetch quest after fetch quest, until I encounter the woman from the graveyard who, from the looks of it, is about to commit suicide. Stilted, poorly written dialogue ensues, and she leaves. I move on, only to run into Pyramid Head again. This time, I actually have to interact with him; I'm stuck at the top of a flooded stairwell, and have to continuously evade his attacks (which is pretty easy -- he moves about as fast as a crippled snail). After a while, he walks down the stairs into the water. The water then drains. Why did Pyramid Head leave? I don't know. Why did the water drain when he did? I don't know. Why am I still expecting this game to make sense? I don't know.

I get out of the apartment buildings and enter a new area of the town. There, I meet the annoying girl who kicked away that key back in the apartment building, who promptly leaves. I keep walking, and eventually encounter someone who's more or less identical to James' wife Mary, only her name is Maria, and she's a b****. James agrees to escort her. I walk to a bowling hall, which Maria refuses to enter because she "hates bowling". Inside the building I meet Eddie and the little girl, whose name is revealed to be Laura; the former is eating pizza, and the latter runs away. James is convinced that she won't survive on her own, follows her with the help of Maria, and ends up in a hospital. I explore a little, kill some monster nurses, and eventually reach a patient room where a cutscene plays. Apparently Maria has a hangover -- James tells her to rest, and that he'll be back as soon as he has found Laura. Yes, James. Great idea. Let's leave a defenseless, drowsy woman alone in a hospital full of murderous nurses.At this point the sun is starting to rise, and since I refuse to play survival horror games at day, I save and turn the game off.

I'm now three hours in, and I'm still really not feeling it. The game is still not scary, the story is still asinine, most of the time is still spent doing vacuous fetch quests, and the "puzzles" range from stupidly easy to borderline nonsensical. That ending better be damn good.

A while ago, I picked up a used copy Silent Hill 2. I knew a lot of people consider it the best horror title ever made, and I'd been wanting a new survival horror game for a while. I got home, put it on the shelf and... just kind of forgot about it, I guess. It's been sitting there for a good two months.

Tonight, I decided to fire it up. I also decided to chronicle my experience with it in a series of blogs. This is the first of those blogs. There will be spoilers, of course, so if you haven't played the game and don't want it ruined for you, you should probably stop reading now. Again, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

The game starts out with the main character, James, standing in a public bathroom, looking at himself in a mirror. I walk out of the bathroom, and a cutscene explains the basic gist of the game's story for me: James' wife died some time ago. He's received a letter with her handwriting, saying she's in the town of Silent Hill. James, of course, assumes that the letter was actually written by his dead wife, and isn't just a cruel prank/trap by someone who's copied her handwriting. He's now driven to the outskirts of Silent Hill, where a roadblock forces him to walk the rest of the way.

I grab a map lying in the car, and start walking down a foggy path. It's really, really long. I eventually reach a graveyard, where a woman advises me not to go to the town, because there's something "wrong" and potentially dangerous about it. James promptly tells her that he doesn't care if it's dangerous, asks her for directions (even though he got a map from his car like two minutes ago, and there's only one path), and leaves without even asking what exactly is wrong with the town. What if it was full of lethal gas or had become a testing ground for military weapons or something? Dying would make it kind of hard to look for your wife, you know.

Anyway, I walk down another absurdly long path, only to find a door leading to another absurdly long path. (Seriously, what is up with the paths in this game? Why are they so damn long? Is it some atmosphere thing? Because if it is, I don't think it's working.) After about five hours I reach the town, where I see some creature running away. I follow its trail of blood, find an enemy-detecting radio, grab a stick with a nail at the end and beat the monster to death. As I walk back through the town streets, I see several more monsters. At this point, I do what any normal person would do: I try to get the hell out of the town. I run all the way back to the door dividing the last long path from the first two, and James says something along the lines of "I have no reason to go back, I have to find my wife". Listen, James. I know you're not the brightest dude in the world. But seriously, discovering that a town is full of creepy monsters that are out to kill you is a pretty damn good reason to leave. You can always come back and look for your wife when you've, you know, gotten the police or the army, or at least bought some weapons.

Being a fictional character without any will of his own, James won't have a bar of it. So back to town it is. I explore a little; most paths are either temporarily or permanently inaccessible, but I manage to find a key and two maps. With the help of these, I get into an apartment building. I walk around a bit. Kill some monsters, find some keys; you know, standard survival horror stuff. There's this one part that's pretty dumb, where James tries to get a key by sticking his arm through a grate. Just as he's about to reach it, an annoying little girl appear and kick the key away. The ridiculous thing is, he could easily have reached the key before the girl even got there by using the stick he'd been carrying around since he encountered the first monster. I suppose it's unfair for me to expect the amount of brain activity required to realize that from someone who isn't the least bit alarmed by the fact that he's in a town filled with gross, violent, humanoid monsters, but still. Come on. Either way, I find a dead body that kind of looks like James, solve a fairly simple clock puzzle, run into Pyramid Head twice (once when he's just standing around, and once when he's having sex with a mannequin), and then, in an apartment with a dead guy lying in the kitchen, I encounter a dude puking his guts out (not literally; I usually wouldn't have to explain that, but this is a survival horror game, after all). And this right here is probably the most bizarre part of the game so far. The two have a conversation that basically amounts to:

"Hey."
"Hey."
"I'm James Sunderland."
"I'm Eddie."
"So... who's that dead guy in the kitchen?"
"Don't know. I didn't kill him!"
"Are you friends with the the pyramid helmet dude?"
"Don't know what you're talking about. I saw some monsters, though."
"So, uh, what's up with this town?"
"I don't know. I'm not even from here."
"Uh... you should probably get out of here soon."
"Yeah. What about you?"
"I'll leave when I'm done. Be careful."
"Yeah, you too."
"See ya."
"See ya."

No "Dude, what the hell is going on with this place? There are monsters trying to kill me and a creepy guy who has sex with mannequins -- it's seriously messed up." No "You probably won't make it on your own. You should stick with me; I've got a stick with a nail on it, and I found a handgun not too long ago." No sensible conversation at all. They just exchange names, establish that neither of them knows what the hell is going on, and part -- that's it. Even cheesy horror movies don't have scenarios this absurd, and when they do, the sure as hell don't get away with it.At this point, I saved the game and stopped playing.

An hour and a half in. My first impression? Not good.So far, the game has been mind-numbingly boring (it's basically been fetch quest after fetch quest, with the occasional button mashing combat segment), shockingly stupid (the story makes no sense -- mostly thanks to James & Co., who are about as believable as the average set of Uwe Boll characters), and worst of all, not scary in the least (the way I can tell I'm playing a creepy game is that I'm too anxious to use the run function outside combat; in this, I run everywhere). It's still too early to pass any sort of proper judge on the game, and I am open to the possibility that the rest of it is amazing, but... let's just say that I'm not exactly looking forward to playing more.

God of War III (½*/four)

The first ten minutes of God of War III could be described like this: The Greek gods are standing in ****ing badass poses atop Mount Olympus. They jump down in ****ing badass ways, engaging the approaching Titans. Poseidon summons ****ing badass tentacles from the sea, shackling Gaia, the Titans' leader. A bunch of ****ing badass soldiers jump onto Gaia's shoulder, where Kratos kills them with his****ing badasschain blades. Then, he runs up her arm, and a ****ing badass crab-horse-water thing pops up (which, incidentally, happens to be the tip of one of the tentacles holding Gaia, which is ****ing badass). You fight it for a while, and then, the tentacle twists Gaia's arm, leaving Kratos hanging underneath it. Being a ****ing badass, he keeps fighting the crab-horse-whatever thing, and eventually, Gaia's arm changes position again, leaving Kratos hanging on its side in a fashion best described as ****ing badass. He slashes the ****ing badass... Greek mythology creature thing some more, and Gaia flips her arm back to its original position. Here, Kratos finishes off the ****ing badass miniboss by ripping its jaw off (****ing badass!).

The first ten minutes of God of War III could also be described like this: First, you watch a cutscene. Then, you press the square button some. Then, you press L1, and hold left on the right analogue stick. After watching a very brief cutscene, you press the square button some, occasionally pushing the left analogue stick to the side. Then, you press the square button some more, occasionally pushing X. You keep doing this for a while. You're getting kind of bored. You go back to pressing the square button, occasionally pushing the left analogue stick to the side. Now you're getting really bored. Then, you play a grossly simplified version of Simon Says (in that there are only four possible actions, and you do them whenever the leader tells you to, regardless of whether or not he actually says "Simon says"). At this point you're so bored out of your mind, you're not sure you want to keep playing.

And that's God of War III's problem. It's boring. All this neat stuff is going on on the screen -- centaurs being gutted, gorgons getting their heads torn off, cerberi spouting fire all over the place -- and I'm sitting there on my couch, so bored, so utterly indifferent to it all that if the game crashed, I would probably not notice, and definitely not care. It's a video game designed by people who can't possibly have ever played good video games. At some point early in development, Santa Monica probably had a meeting than went something like this: The lead designer asks "How can we make this game fun?". A rookie employee says "Well, video games are fun, right? So we should make it like a video game". Approving murmur spreads throughout the locale: "Yeah". "This guy knows what he's talking about". "I would never have though of that". The producer thinks to himself: "I should give this guy a raise. Maybe a promotion, too". The lead designer says: "Hmm... I think you're onto something there. But what are video games like?". The murmur stops. The rookie replies: "Well, you press buttons. And then stuff happens on the screen". The team cheers. The producer blurts out: "This guy is definitely getting a promotion". The lead designer writes the following on a whiteboard, with capital letters:

VIDEO GAMES ARE FUN. VIDEO GAMES ARE ABOUT PRESSING BUTTONS AND WATCHING STUFF HAPPEN ON THE SCREEN. THEREFORE, PRESSING BUTTONS AND WATCHING STUFF HAPPEN ON THE SCREEN = FUN.

"This", he says, "This will be the foundation of our design philosophy".

God of War III is a video game about pressing buttons and watching stuff happen on the screen. God of War III is not fun. The reason it isn't fun, is that it's just a video game about pressing buttons and watching stuff happen on the screen. Let me explain: At one point in the game, there's this boss that runs around a lot. As long as you keep pressing the square button, he can't attack you; he, however, will take damage. So what you do is, you just keep pressing the square button until you've done enough damage to trigger the quick time event finisher. Then, you press a couple of buttons, and Kratos cuts his legs off. At another point in the game, there's a bunch of scorpions. If you press the circle button near one of these scorpions, Kratos rips its tail off and stabs it to death. So you press the circle button until all the scorpions are dead, and then you move on, and run into even more scorpions.

This is what I'm talking about. This boss fight, these scorpions… it's just filler. In most other games this wouldn't have bothered me too much. See, most other game have filler to, well, fill the void between the parts that actually matter (which, admittedly, is sort of stupid; why not ditch all that excess fat, and make a game whereeverythingmatters?). In God of War III, there are no parts that actually matter. It's just boss fights for the sake of boss fights; enemies for the sake of enemies; brutal kills for the sake of brutal kills. It's just "Look, you're pressing buttons, and cool stuff is happening on the screen! You're having fun, right? Right? Hey, I've got an idea! If we put even more scorpions on the screen, you can press the O button even more, and then, then you'll have even more fun, because pressing buttons is fun!". There's never any oomph, or crunch, or snap, because the connection between what you're doing and what's happening on the screen feels loose at best (and, at worst, nonexistent). There's never any motivation to succeed, because the main character is a complete douche, and you don't want him to triumph. There's never any sense of accomplishment, because there's never any real challenge. It's just dull, meaningless, insufferably boring filler.

Well, that's not entirely true. At some point in the development cycle, something happened. Maybe someone on the team had a chat with someone who actually knew a thing or two about video game design. Maybe that rookie was promoted, and replaced by someone who wasn't a complete dolt. Maybe someone suffered a concussion, and temporarily forgot about what the lead designer had written on the whiteboard. The point is, something happened, and the guys at Santa Monica decided to throw in an Escher-inspired puzzle, as well as end the final boss fight with a chill-inducingly clever sequence. The puzzle is really neat. The last sequence of the final boss fight is, too.

Playing through this game just to experience those parts though, would be like camping outside a bakery in the bad part of the city on a cold, rainy autumn night, just to get as fresh a bun as possible.

Ico (**/four)

This is what happens in the first hour or two of Ico: Ico, a horned boy, is brought to a castle by warriors from his village. They put him in a sarcophagus-like container, ask him not to take it personally ("Do not be angry with us. This is for the good of the village."), and leave. Ico manages to free himself and finds Yorda, a young girl, locked up in a cage. He frees her, kills some sort of shadow creature that attempts to capture her, and takes her to the castle gates. The gates start closing, and the two make a run for it. They nearly make it, but Yorda trips, and the gates close. The castle's queen appears, revealing herself to be Yorda's mother and telling Ico to give up ("So you're the one aimlessly leading my Yorda around. Do you know who this girl is? That girl you're with is my one and only beloved daughter. Stop wasting your time with her. She lives in a different world than some boy with horns. Now, know your place and leave here."), before leaving. Ico pushes on, determined to get the gates open and escape with Yorda.

When I reached this point in the game, I couldn't help but wonder what the hell was going on. Yorda had never asked Ico to save her. In fact, she had never asked him to do anything. And here's her mother, telling Ico "Hey, leave my daughter alone and get the hell out of here", and he ignores her, resolute in his decision to rescue the princess. But really, who is he to say that she needs to be rescued? Maybe she had been put in the cage because she had misbehaved(or maybe she was a werewolf, and needed to be there just one night for the safety of others. Ico's world is, after all, one of horned boys and shadow creatures; werewolves would fit right in). Maybe the reason she followed Ico was that she, as rebellious children tend to do, had gotten the temporary notion that "I hate, hate, hate my mother, and I'm going to run away from home and never, ever return!", when really, running away is a terrible idea, and she'll regret it right away. Of course, this is all resolved at the end of the game where(spoilers I guess, but then again, not really)it's confirmed that, surprise surprise, Yorda's mother is evil, but before the final boss fight, neither I not Ico knew that. Well, unless he and Yorda somehow had secret, telepathic conversations. I'm probably thinking about this too much, but it's just so very, very odd that he'd try to take a girl away from her mother for no reason at all besides hey, she's pretty cute, and why not?

Anyway. Yorda, being a frail girl, can't jump and climb nearly as well as Ico, so you need to create paths for her by lowering bridges and opening doors; stuff like that. That's the meat of the game. Environmental puzzles. You know those awful point-and-click adventure games, where the challenge lies not in clever design, but in how it takes an hour to find that one pixel you can click on? Ico's puzzles are sort of like that. The actual solutions are about as straightforward as they can be; if you know how to pull levers (press the O button), light torches (press the O button while standing next to a fire) and push boxes (hold the O button and push the analogue stick in the desired direction), you should be able to solve pretty much any puzzle in a matter of minutes. That is, provided you find those torches, levers and boxes immediately.

See, the game's visual styIe is pretty unique. It's got this thing going where the light is really bright, and the shadows are really dark, making for a very sharp contrast. On the one hand, this makes the game look gorgeous. On the other, it makes it awfully hard to see in the game's darker areas. There was one puzzle where I needed to destroy a pillar. There were a couple of bombs in a dark corner, only they looked more like blue urns than bombs; see, the corner was so dark, you couldn't see the fuses. I must've walked past those bombs at least thirty times while scouring the environment, thinking "Maybe I'm supposed to do something with these urns? Nah, that can't be right; I need something destructive". Not until I had exhausted virtually every other possibility did I pick one up, take it to a brighter area and go "Wait... why does this urn have a fuse? OOOOHHHH". Then there was this other puzzle, where I needed to light two torches. Thing was, though, the torches didn't look like torches. They just looked like bronze ornaments. I ran around that room for a good twenty minutes before accidentally lighting one.

Either way, the game is gorgeous. Did I mention that? I guess I did. Oh well. It really is gorgeous, though. The contrast between light and dark is so intense, the environments so grand, the sound so peace-inducing (there's no real music to speak of in Ico; just the sound of birds chirping, water flowing, wind blowing... Fumito Ueda really knew what he was doing when he made that decision)... it makes you stop playing, you know. You just stop playing, and then you just sit there and think. You just look at the screen, and you listen to the sound, and you think. You don't think about anything in particular, though. You just... think.Then Yorda gets assaulted by shadow creatures, and you wake up, and you keep playing the game. The game isn't very good. You wish you could go back to thinking about nothing in particular. You can't, though, because if the shadow creatures capture Yorda, it's Game Over, and then you'll never see how gorgeous and grand and peace-inducing the next part of the game is.

Ico is sort of like hiking with your little sister on a beautiful spring day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and a gentle breeze slowly sways the foliage. The forest is so majestic, so lush, so peaceful... it's perfect. Almost. See, your sister lags behind. Then, she trips on a superterranean root and starts crying. Then, she lags behind again. You put up with her though, because she's your little sister and you love her. Yorda is not my little sister. I put up with her not because I love her, but because I have no choice; without her, I can't get to the next part of the game. That's not a great reason to put up with someone.

Maybe if she had some personality, I wouldn't have minded her so much. She never really shows any sign of emotion, or even of having a mind of her own; unless you call for her, or grab her by the hand and physically pull her around, she just stands there, doing nothing. She doesn't even try to run when the shadow creatures come for her. How exactly am I supposed get emotionally invested in someone who lacks not only personality, but also the will to live? I can't.

If you've never had a younger sister (or any remotely similar relationship like, say, a little brother, or a close female friend), I suppose you might find Ico emotionally engaging. You could be excused for it, too, just as someone who has never played actual bowling could be excused for thinking Wii Bowling feels visceral and tactile and, well, right, or how someone who has never played Pokémon Blue could be forgiven for thinking Pokémon Red is awesome. It's probably the closest you're going to get to the real thing, and hey, I can respect that. However, if you count yourself among those who have experienced the real deal, Ico's only truly great moments are the ones where you don't play it.

Bayonetta (***/four)

As a little boy, I liked Spider-Man a great deal. Consequently, I had quite the number of Spider-Man related toys. Hobgoblin, The Lizard, Hydro-Man, Venom, Carnage and, of course, several versions of the friendly neighbourhood spider himself. As you can imagine, playing with the same characters got boring quickly, so I did what kids usually do: I made characters up, using the toys as representations. For instance, Hydro-Man could be The Hero, while Hobgoblin was The Cynical Sidekick and The Lizard played the part of The Criminal Mastermind Bent On Destroying The World(kid me wasn't very good at coming up with names). These characters would have powers that made "real"(in the sense that they were, and possibly still are, famous) superheroes and supervillains seem weak, and their encounters would often(always, actually) end in ridiculous, gravity-defying fights. These imaginary battles were perfect. They were elaborately choreographed, but never confusing; long enough to be satisfying, but never so long as to be boring; they were thrilling, fast-paced, explosive and bombastic; they had everything anyone could possibly want from a fight scene.

I'd like to think that Hideki Kamiya was exactly the same way when he was young. He probably didn't play with licensed Spider-Man action figures and he may or may not have been better than me at coming up with names, but the point is that as a kid, he too dreamt of fantastic fights between imaginary characters. That even after going to school, growing up, and getting a job as a game designer, he still remembered those fantasies. And he thought to himself, "Hey, self, those fantasies were pretty awesome. I should make a game out of them!". And so, he made Devil May Cry.

Kamiya later formed Clover Studio with fellow game designer Shinji Mikami and producer Atsushi Inaba. Seeing as Clover was a video game development studio, he had to come up with an ideas for a video game. He thought to himself, "Hey, self, Devil May Cry was based on my childhood fantasies, and that game was pretty awesome. I should make another game based on my childhood fantasies!". And so, he made Viewtiful Joe and Viewtiful Joe 2. Then he made Okami, based on who the hell knows what. Drug trips, probably("Ancient Japanese mythology, actually", you might accurately point out. But let's be honest here: is there really a difference?).

Shortly after Okami's release, Capcom's Board of Directors(which is a fancy way to say "bosses") had a meeting. Apparently, not enough people liked good games(you know who you are) to make Clover Studio financially viable. The Board of Director's doesn't like things that aren't financially viable; at least not when they don't belong to their competitors. So they decided to dissolve the studio. The Clover people weren't big fans of the dissolution, so they formed a new, independent studio called Seeds Inc. Seeds Inc. later merged with the company ODD Incorporated to form Platinum Games.

Seeing as Capcom owned all of Clover's intellectual properties, Kamiya couldn't make another Viewtiful Joe or Okami. He he had to come up with something new; something fresh. He thought to himself, "Hey, self, Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe were both based on my childhood fantasies, and those games were pretty awesome. I should make another game based on my childhood fantasies; but since we've got better hardware now, I'm going to use the really good stuff, the stuff that just wouldn't have been possible on the Playstation 2 or the Gamecube!". And so, he made Bayonetta.

Of course, this is all guesswork. Maybe Kamiya never dreamt of ridiculous gravity-defying fights; maybe the only thing he did as a kid was play house. Maybe he isn't making these bombastic, explosive action games because of childhood memories; maybe he's making them to compensate for and conceal a gentle, feminine psyche. Maybe the being we know as "Hideki Kamiya" doesn't actually exist; maybe he's just a vessel for an ethereal being; an alien visitor; a demon from the netherworld; an angel from one of heaven's many spheres. Who knows! And really, who cares? I don't(actually, I do. Don't tell anyone, though!).

Okay, let's review what we've established so far:

• I liked Spider-Man when I was a kid.
• Hideki Kamiya probably didn't play with licensed Spider-Man action figures.
• Clover Studio was a video game development studio. It is now dissolved.
• Bayonetta is a game that may or may not be based on Hideki Kamiya's childhood fantasies.

So, let's cut to the chase. Bayonetta is a game that may or may not be based on Hideki Kamiya's childhood fantasies. Is it based on his childhood fantasies? I don't know. Maybe I never will. Either way, that's not important. No, the important question is: Is it as good as my childhood fantasies? So, is it? Well, yes and no. When everything works, Bayonetta is bliss. It's like one of those neat CG cutscenes action games usually have, except playable(which makes it about a square bazillion times better). And not Quick Time Event playable, where you see symbols pop up on the screen, press the corresponding buttons, and watch your character do stuff that has zilch to do with the buttons you just pressed. No, we're talking actually, really playable; you press jump, your character jumps; you press punch, your character punches; you press dodge, your character dodges(yeah, Bayonetta has an entire button devoted solely to the dodge move. It also has the best dodging ever in a game. See the connection?); you decide your characters actions, not some game designer who thinks what essentially amounts to a grossly simplified version of "Simon Says" is "visceral" or "engaging" or, god forbid, "entertaining"(Bayonetta does suffer from Quick Time Events, though; more on that later).

So yeah, when everything works, Bayonetta is pretty much the best action game ever made. But what about the parts where everything doesn't work? Yeah, those parts. I'm talking about the parts where obnoxious Quick Time Events pop out of nowhere; Quick Time Events that don't even have the courtesy to give you more than a split second to stop thinking about how awesome it would be to have a hoverboard(or whatever it is you're thinking about) and press the damn buttons, despite the fact that they always appear when you least expect it. I'm talking about the parts where the game devolves from a finely tuned Childhood Dream Simulator to a Moderately Entertaining Button Masher Video Game. I'm talking about the parts where the game hides all those weapons a reasonable game would simply give you in locations no ordinary human being could possibly find without checking an online guide; the parts where the game expects you to not only care about, but also understand its convoluted, poorly told story; the parts where you have to do battle with bosses that, while impressive in size, just aren't all that fun to fight.

I'm torn on Bayonetta. I really am. On the one hand, I liked it enough to play through it three times, on three difficulty settings, over the course of less than a week, and was sort of tempted to start a fourth playthrough; on the other hand, I could point out a myriad issues that, when the show up, more or less ruin the experience. In the end, though, Bayonetta is the closest we've come to a proper Childhood Dream Simulator, and for that, it more than deserves its three out of four stars.

Today, I realized that I'm excited for God of War III. Heck, I'm excited as hell. What I don't know is why.

See, God of War: Chains of Olympus, my introduction to the series, was an absolute joy to play. The combat was simple yet immensely satisfying; the boss fights were spectacular; the story somehow managed to use Greek mythology in ways more epic than actual Greek mythology; the graphics were incredible, both technically and artistically; and the controls were perfect. It was a bit on the short side, but I've replayed it several times and could certainly see myself going back to it again.

My second and as of this time latest visit to the God of War games' brutal world, God of War II, wasn't nearly as enjoyable. The graphics were, at moments, stunning but for the most part they looked gray and lifeless. The combat wasn't as good as I had hoped either; the secondary weapons were practically useless, forcing me to play through the entire game with the Blades of Athena(which, granted, are awesome, but the Gauntlet of Zeus was just so good), and the dodging mechanic felt really wonky now that I had to do it with the right analogue stick. The sequences that deviated from the core gameplay -- namely the pegasus riding and the part where you had to protect the scholar -- suffered from poor design, as did most of the game's boss fights. Then there was the story... suffice to say it almost approached Gears of War 2's in terms of stupidity.

While I haven't actually played God of War III's demo, what I've seen and heard has given me the impression that the game will be a lot closer to God of War II than Chains of Olympus in terms of design philosophy; and yet, I'm so goddamn excited. I just can't understand why.

Is it the mouth-wateringly delicious Ultimate Trilogy Edition, the one that comes with the God of War Collection, exclusive gameplay content, skins and behind-the-scenes videos, the series' excellent soundtrack, a heavy metal homage to the series' excellent soundtrack, an artbook and some postcards, all neatly packed in an absolutely gorgeous replica of Pandora's Box? Maybe. Is it the fact that the soon-to-be-released Bayonetta -- which I suspect, no, make that expect, will surpass anything and everything in the genre -- and Dante's Inferno have revitalized my interest in the genre? Maybe. Is it that I, somewhere deep inside of me, have a suspicion that God of War III will completely blow away not only its predecessor, but also better games like Chains of Olympus and Devil May Cry 4(I can understand why people dislike DMC4, but there are few action games I've enjoyed as much)? Maybe.

The only thing I know for certain is that I'm excited, and that I plan to pre-order the Ultimate Trilogy Edition as soon as possible.