Find your way way through Castle Oblivion with these secrets.
Reverse/Rebirth Mode
To get Reverse/Rebirth Mode where you play through the story as Riku, simply beat the game once as Sora.
Special Cards:
Complete the following requirements to unlock these cards for use in your deck.
Ansem
Beat Reverse/Rebirth mode and obtain from a chest in Castle Oblivion.
Axel Enemy Card
Progress through the story
Demyx Enemy Card
Atlantica: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth
Diamond Dust
Beat Riku’s story and obtain from a chest in Castle Oblivion.
Getting Mushu and Xigbar card
Go to Hollow Bastion and use key of rewards and there will be two chests one containing Xigbar
Larxene Enemy Card
Progress through the story
Lexaeus
Beat Reverse/Rebirth mode and obtain from a chest in Castle Oblivion.
Luxord Enemy Card
Agrabah: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth
Marluxia Enemy Card
Progress through the story
One Winged Angel
Beat Riku’s story and obtain from a chest in Twilight Town.
Roxas card (Doubles attack strength)
Go to Twilight Town in Sora’s mode and enter the treasure room. There should be two chests with one of them containing the Roxas card.
Saix Enemy Card
Traverse Town: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth
Ultima
Beat Riku’s story and obtain from a chest/shop in Castle Oblivion.
Vexen Enemy Card
Progress through the story
Xaldin Enemy Card
Monstro: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth
Xemnas Enemy Card
Wonderland: Key to Rewards after beating Reverse/Rebirth
Zexion’s Card
Beat Riku’s story and retrieve from a chest in Destiny Islands.
1970’s style PSP Metal Gear action hits the PlayStation Store today.
Although the game doesn’t hit until next May, Konami has put out an early demo of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on PSN today. The download, dubbed Demo-Ops features four different mission types.
In case you’ve not been following all the pre-release hubbub, the game is set in Central America in 1974, and players take control of Naked Snake (Big Boss) the “legendary hero who had once saved the world from the brink of nuclear war,” (says the press release.) Snake has now turned his back on his country and established what he calls “An Army without a Government” in South America, and is approached by visitors from “A Nation without a Military” (how convenient!) to investigate suspicious activity in Costa Rica.
Assassin’s Creed II Unlockables
Equipment
The following items can be unlocked by performing the actions below:
Condottiero War Hammer – Collect 50 hidden feathers and the Condottiero War Hammer will become available in the blacksmith’s shop in the Villa Monteriggioni.
Auditore Cape – Collect 100 hidden feathers and then talk to Mario in the Villa Monteriggioni. He’ll award you the Auditore Cape.
Abilities
The following items can be unlocked by performing the actions below:
Climb Leap Ability – Complete Rosa’s mission “Monkey See, Monkey Do” in Sequence 7 to earn the climb leap ability. With this ability, you can make longer jumps while climbing, letting you grab hand holds that’d normally be out of reach.
Disarm Combat Technique – Complete Mario’s “Evasive Maneuvers” mission in Sequence 5 to unlock the disarm technique. Disarms let you counter incoming attacks from weapons that are normally too heavy to counter (like axes).
From Uncharted 2’s blockbuster action scenes to Modern Warfare 2’s gut-wrenching airport level, video games are pushing the boundaries of storytelling, leveraging the power of modern day hardware to deliver cinematic experiences that reach unprecedented levels of quality and impact. Quantic Dream’s upcoming cinematic thriller Heavy Rain looks to push the envelope even further by offering gamers something that can only be described as an entirely new genre: the fully-realized interactive movie.
Heavy Rain is not the first game to exhibit traits of an “interactive movie”: games such as Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace paved the way in the 80’s, even though they offered nothing more than rudimentary experience which relied on timed button presses and joystick movements during critical moments in the story. In the mid-90’s games like Sierra’s Phantasmagoria pushed the cinematic experience even further, showcasing adventure game mechanics paired with an adult story and full-motion video capture for every character in the game. Spanning seven CDs, the game was a massive adventure-horror experience not for the faint of heart.
Now, the tradition of storytelling in video games comes to a head with Heavy Rain. Building upon the work they did in their 2005 psychological thriller Indigo Prophecy (known as Fahrenheit outside of the U.S.), developer Quantic Dream have crafted a title so unique and life-like that it has the potential to represent an evolutionary leap not just for the genre but the industry as a whole. I was recently given an opportunity to play through the first 11 chapters of the game, and though I was only able to scratch the surface of the game’s creepy murder-filled story, it was a terrific glimpse into what Quantic Dream hopes to achieve with their next cinematic thriller.
Heavy Rain begins inconspicuously enough with the player in control of Ethan Mars, who wakes up to a sunny morning on the day of his youngest son’s birthday. Wandering around Ethan’s house, players are afforded a chance to adapt to Heavy Rain’s unusual control scheme. Almost no two actions share the same controller commands, though many of the contextual movements are performed by moving the right analog stick in a specific motion. For instance, to open Ethan’s dresser you might need to rotate the right stick counter-clockwise, or to turn on the water faucet so Ethan can brush his teeth you might push the stick downwards. Other actions require more precise movement: move the stick too quickly while Ethan shaves, for instance, and he’ll cut himself. In other games these mundane activities might grow tiresome fast, but in Heavy Rain it’s a great way to learn exactly how the game operates; it also has the added benefit of fully immersing you within the game world.
Aside from learning the control scheme, the opening section of game succeeds in establishing a sense of security. Ethan spends the day with his family, playing in the backyard with his kids and helping his wife set the table (and possibly giving her a love pinch while she’s doing dishes)-it’s all so nice and serene. The scene that follows is anything but, however: while Ethan at a crowded shopping mall, he loses track of his son. What starts as a feeling of parental unease slowly builds into genuine anxiety and the game changes visually in order to give players a feeling of Ethan’s panicked state. The skewed, pulsating viewpoint not only provides a glimpse into Ethan’s mindset but emphasizes the feeling of claustrophobia that comes from being surrounded by hundreds of strangers. The scene then escalates to a gruesome conclusion: Ethan finds his son wandering outside and just as he calls out to him, he runs across the street right into the path of an oncoming car. At this point, the game makes a very visible shift in terms of its presentation. Gone are the bright colors and brilliant sunshine that dominated the early scenes, and in their place are dull tones and the constant oppressive rhythm of the ongoing rainfall.
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The Legend of Zelda franchise has been a gaming staple for decades, starting with Link’s glorious debut on the NES, and though the culture of gaming has undergone dramatic changes over the years, it has managed to remain relevant by staying true to its core values of epic storytelling, interesting characters and vibrant worlds. But the true secret of Nintendo’s success has been in its ability to fully leverage the power of its consoles in order to move the franchise forward: A Link to the Past used the SNES’s 16-bit capabilities to create a large vibrant world full of colorful sprites while The Ocarina of Time brought Zelda into the 3D realm using the N64’s more powerful hardware. More recently, Twilight Princess, originally a Gamecube title, used the motion controls to good effect and helped prove that they could work for things more complex than virtual bowling.
Spirit Tracks, the latest portable Zelda title, continues the tradition of taking full advantage of its respective platform: You’ll find yourself scribbling on the DS’ touchscreen with the stylus, playing a flute by blowing into the mic, and attacking enemies by smacking them on the touch screen. The game also offers up a deep experience, and while the sense of overall challenge is minimal, there are a number of engaging and fun tasks such as rabbit collection and train improvements waiting to be unearthed. Traveling around the world in the locomotive is also a unique and novel solution to the problem of long-distance movement, and it’s particularly well handled, a good thing considering it’s the major distinguishing “feature” that helps separate Spirit Tracks from the other titles.
It’s a quirky, eccentric, yet utterly enjoyable game but it also suffers from a few issues that keep it from reaching the high bar set by other Zelda titles. For one, the initial pacing is rather poor. The first two hours are dedicated to introducing the world’s backstory — the game’s world is inhabited by people who have been fending off a demon using railroad tracks — and this requires a ton of reading, a problem which is exacerbated by the DS’ relatively small screens. To add to those early pacing problems, players are handcuffed by the limited set of actions at their disposal, specifically during the train-driving portions. While this is all in line with the genre convention of gradually rewarding progress, Spirit Tracks would have benefited from a much more compelling intro to counteract the slow narrative.
When the game does start to pickup, it plays very similarly to The Phantom Hourglass and while this isn’t necessarily a problem — Phantom Hourglass was a great title, after all — it would have been nice to see more innovation applied to the overall gameplay; aside from the unique modes of transportation, there really isn’t much to differentiate the two. I also noticed a very kid-friendly vibe to the title — an idea that solidified when I dispatched a smilely flower monster with a leaf pinwhee — and while it fits the overall spirit of the game (excuse the pun), it might also alienate older gamers who may have grown up with Zelda but whose tastes have matured past the cute and the cuddly.
And yet, while it isn’t perfect, Spirit Tracks does enough things right that you won’t regret persevering through the initial sluggishness. Once the game picks up momentum and speed, it packs a locomotive sized punch, one that doesn’t reinvent the wheel but still manages to do the storied franchise proud.
PROS: Makes good use of the DS’ capabilities; offers a deep experience with plenty to do
CONS: Game drags in the early going; doesn’t innovate much beyond Phantom Hourglass