As I mentioned yesterday, finding out when and where to eat at E3 is important business. While there is food on site, like at the Convention Center’s Galaxy Cafe, it’s just so-so and fairly overpriced. “Either eat on a budget or pay for a decent meal,” is my motto. But what’s the best way to go?

On day one, after exploring the grounds a bit, my friend and I left the Convention Center and found our way to Lucky Strike Lanes & Lounge. They offered an $8 lunch special that included a round of bowling (yes, there are lanes on the site). That atmosphere was very laid back and comfortable, and the cheeseburger and fries were very satisfying. Sadly, we had no time for bowling. A fine meal, but a little pricey and time consuming.

For day two we decided to go totally budget. Unfortunately, there isn’t any fast food around the Convention Center, but we were still in luck. To promote the game Homefront, an upcoming FPS about North Korea taking over the US in the future, THQ subsidized a traveling food vendor to sell themed food items, like Korean BBQ tacos and kimchi quesadillas (clever, if not controversial). The food was pretty good for its simplicity, and two tacos and a quesadilla cost a mere $4.

But the best way to go is eating for free, though this may take investigation and connections. When we finally found Activision’s area (which was separate from the two main halls) and saw a presentation for Call of Duty: Black Ops, we realized they were serving free pizza. It was awful, but shoot, it was free. A little later we got free beef and cheddar sandwiches from Capcom, as we were invited to their swanky special event on site. I should also mention that there are plenty of people in and near the Convention Center who will give away free energy drinks, so keep your eyes peeled for them.

Boy, all this talk is making me hungry. Let’s get on with some games. Today I’m here to give impressions on NBA Jam, Bionic Commando ReArmed 2, Okamiden, Ghost Trick and Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes. And yeah, that’s me and Charles Martinet up top! Woohoo!

NBA Jam

Back in the 16-bit days, NBA Jam was one of my all-time favorite games. I never owned it, but rented it constantly — remember when you could just go down the street and rent games for a dollar a day? At any rate, it’s kind of funny. Since then, sports games have strove to become more realistic and complex, and this factor made me a little worried when I first heard that NBA Jam was being reborn. But I’m glad to say NBA Jam for the Wii is still all those things that made it great: a baller jumping 20 feet into the air, smashing down a flaming slam dunk, and the announcer yelling “Boom-shaka-laka!”

So far as I can recall, everything I loved about the original is the same. The only major improvements to my eye are the graphics, which now use 3D models for the players, but various facial photos of the available players for the faces. It looks silly, but in a fun way, and really fits the vibe of the game. Another element that was new to me, though I believe it’s been employed in past successors of the original NBA Jam, is having two-player coop, with a total of four players in a game.

Much like in Donkey Kong Country Returns, my rustiness really showed in this game, and I was really ineffective at playing with my friend, Cheston. Once our two opponents got a knack for the alley-oop dunk, they crushed us pretty handily. Similarly to Wii Sports Resort’s basketball, the game uses thrusting the remote up to jump and then slamming it back down to shoot/dunk. I think I got a little too into it and got careless, but being able to dunk on people as Stoudemire felt awesome (when it worked).

I have to admit, this E3 really brought me back to my 16-bit days, and I think this game might have taken me back even more than DKC and Kirby. As a testament to how fun this game was, even though we played it just once and I sucked, my friend is considering buying a Nintendo Wii just for this game. I’m looking forward to it too — then I can set right that darned Lakers/Celtics championship.

Bionic Commando ReArmed 2

Bionic Commando is a fine game, but it’s one I could never get into. While not one of Capcom’s more renowned series, it has a devoted following. But with each new attempt to bring back Bionic Commando, Capcom has simply lost me — that is until now. Playing their newest installment in the works, Bionic Commando ReArmed 2, I finally get it. I finally feel like a master of my own universe. I can finally jump.

Even though it’s just a mere, unenthusiastic hop, being able to jump really changed this game for me. Leaping up and grappling onto objects just feels better than positioning yourself carefully and then grappling. The ability to grab and throw barrels from ReArmed is back. The demo also started with three weapons: the typical gun, a more powerful but short ranged shotgun, and a grenade launcher that created such a wide explosion that you risk killing yourself if you don’t get out of the way. These same weapons may have been in the first ReArmed, though, and I’m not sure if the final game will let you start with them.

Despite the added ability of jumping, the game is still challenging, and I wasn’t able to clear the initial demo stage. I still don’t know if I’m sold on Bionic Commando, but I think with a game like this I could definitely get into it better. The visuals are nice, though I do wish they were brighter and more defined. Still, it’s a nice homage to old school values, and it’s interesting to see that ReArmed is outliving its big budget, cinematic adventure counterpart. Oh, and Nathan “Rad” Spencer, the protagonist, has a mustache now, which is pretty cool.

Ōkamiden

Ōkami is a game I unfortunately never got into. While it certainly does have unique concepts and a glorious visual style, these things alone didn’t make it a great game to me. But with its successor coming to the Nintendo DS, I think there’s a good opportunity to fix some things up. After all, a game that has drawing shapes as a major mechanic would be most suited on the DS, don’t you think?

In Ōkamiden you play as Chibiterasu, the little pup variation of the previous game’s antagonist, Amaterasu. Also joining you is the boy Nushi, who rides on Chibiterasu’s back. While the player controls Chibiterasu, they can dismount Nushi and command him to go somewhere by drawing a path on the touch screen. This gives a bit more depth to the game’s puzzle elements, and in the demo I was carefully guiding both Chibiterasu and Nushi to different switches, one at a time, in order to clear obstacles and proceed.

At any time you can use the celestial paintbrush to draw different figures and cause effects, like repairing bridges or cutting down obstacles. I can tell you this feature works so much better on the DS, as I have painful memories from the Wii Ōkami in taking over 20 minutes trying to draw a straight line with the remote. The game’s battle system has also been simplified; I never really understood how it worked in the original game, but in Ōkamiden I seemed to pick it up a lot quicker. There were also minor enemies that appeared on the map which you could attack with a boomerang-like weapon, instead of always shifting to the battle mode.

Despite its improvements, Ōkamiden still seems to be the same slow-paced, adventure puzzle game, not unlike the DS Zeldas, and it’s not my cup of tea. But for fans of Ōkami and adventure games, this new installment should really please you.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Ghost Trick is a game I’ve been excited for long before I knew I’d be going to E3. I’m a huge fan of the Ace Attorney series, so seeing an original concept from the same team was great news. In Ghost Trick you play Sissel, a man who’s already dead but his spirit lives on, sans memory. But before he can make heads or tails of things, he sees a dangerous looking man about to shoot a girl in cold blood. A mysterious voice urges Sissel on to rescue her with his new ghostly abilities — namely being able to possess and operate inanimate objects… and he fails. But death is only the beginning.

Ghost Trick takes the logic-based gameplay and story driven scenes from the Ace Attorney series and adds in action elements. Yes, action. The two chapters available in the demo started with the death of someone or something. As a ghost, you can talk with their spirit. But you also have the ability to rewind time four minutes before the person’s death (small trivia: four is an unlucky number in Japan, since its pronunciation, “shi,” also means death). You first get to see how things play out, which give you an idea of what items you’ll want to interact with later. Time then rewinds again, and now you must find out what objects to possess in order to avert the person’s fate.

During a “mission,” you can enter the Ghost World, which is how you possess objects. Your reach from an object only goes so far, and you must have other points nearby to connect to. Then you can return to real time, and manipulate the object with whatever ability it has (turn on a lamp, strum a guitar, extend a ladder, etc). But events occur in real time, and you may have to wait for someone to move to the right spot before using an object effectively. Some objects can only be used once as well. Every time you successfully alter someone’s fate, it acts as a restore point for you to return to later, and the mission ends when you successfully prevent a person from being killed. But with the grains of the hourglass constantly falling, you can get real tense when you don’t know what to do (fortunately a thought bubble icon gives you hints).

The storytelling and characterizations seem to be right on par with the level of quality that Ace Attorney has. One thing I’ve always loved about Ace Attorney that seems to transfer over to this, is how lightly they take the subject of death. Despite this, however, a Capcom rep told me that the story gets pretty heavy early on. Like a good book, it sounds like Ghost Trick will be hard to pry from your hands.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes

This is really the third installment of the Sengoku Basara series in Japan, and the funny thing is, I remember playing the first one back at E3 2005 when it was being called Devil Kings. I actually don’t know much about the series, and the only reason I wandered over to it was because it was open. But Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes turned out to be one of my surprise favorites at E3.

To the best of my knowledge, Sengoku Basara takes place in a fictionalized version of feudal Japan, and the characters are based on real life samurai integral to Japan’s history. Of course, the game really has about as much to do with feudal Japan as do giant enemy crabs. But being a stylish action game, Sengoku Basara doesn’t take itself very seriously, and that’s part of what makes it fun.

What REALLY makes it fun is mowing through countless hoards of enemy troops as they run at you. As many of the troops are virtually harmless, the point becomes to chain up as big a number of combo hits as you can, which lets you perform even more powerful attacks. It may seem simplistic, and I certainly wasn’t trying to pin down a technique when I was playing, but it’s supremely enjoyable to smash through mobs of troops, and watch their health meters bounce around as you continually demolish them. On the other hand, the bosses do pose a real challenge, since they can chain-attack you much in the same way.

Each stage is about taking over enemy territory; defeating the sitting regent or whatever and replacing them with your own (doing this is what actually clears an area). What’s more, the game offers split screen co-op, allowing you to have a friend join in on the fun. We played the Wii version, which wasn’t quite as pretty as the PS3 version, but I doubt it was any less fun. Only complaint I have is the voice acting, which sounds pretty campy. Other than that, this was an immensely fun game that I’m now looking forward to.

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Tune in tomorrow for my last round of E3 impressions. We’ll look at some of Nintendo’s and Capcom’s heavy hitters, as well as a game that’s not by either of those companies. See? I’m not biased or anything!

Tags: Bionic Commando ReArmed 2, capcom, DS, E3, E3 2010, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, hands-on impressions, NBA Jam, Nintendo, Ō, Okamiden, Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, Wii

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