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VANCOUVER 2010: THE OFFICIAL VIDEO GAME OF THE OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES REVIEW
VANCOUVER 2010: THE OFFICIAL VIDEO GAME OF THE OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES REVIEW 150 150 GAMESFWD

A barebones presentation and somewhat thin event roster detract from an otherwise fun, and often intense experience. Developed by veteran studio Eurocom, Vancouver 2010: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Winter Games allows you to compete in 14 events spread across eight categories while representing one of 24 countries.

The button-mashing gameplay elements of older Olympic video games are generally replaced with fluid mechanics, though a rather high difficulty level and a number of control schemes to master could scare away the casual audience that this game is intended for.

When you first launch the game, you are greeted with an attractive menu system and several options to choose from.

Training mode allows you to repeatedly practice a single event while ranking your progress on the global leaderboards. In Training, you will also find several assists like highlighted gates in the skiing events and tips that will help you tweak your performance.

When you are ready, you can then dive into the Olympic Games mode, though there is very little “Olympic” to be found here. You can create a custom stack of events to play through or have the game randomize all 14 events for you. Unfortunately, there are no opening or closing ceremonies and very little fanfare in general, making the Olympic Games mode feel like a glorified quickplay session. Events are also limited to four computer or human-controlled competitors, so it never really feels like you are in competition with the world at all

The events themselves are broken down into eight categories: Alpine Skiing, Ski Jumping, Freestyle Skiing, Snowboard, Short Track Speed Skating, Bobsleigh, Luge and Skeleton.

Alpine Skiing features the Men’s Downhill and Super-G as well as Ladies’ Giant Slalom and a rather unrealistic Slalom event. The Alpine Skiing events are all controlled similarly, using the left analog stick to steer, the right trigger to tuck and the left trigger to carve. There are also some timing and button-mashing mechanics related to starting races.

Ski Jumping is a brief, but intense event that tasks you with calculating wind and launch angles before attempting to balance in mid-air using the triggers and land within a prescribed zone. Though most events allow you to toggle between first and third-person views, Ski Jumping is played in first-person only which can make balancing tough.

Ladies’ Ski Cross sees four competitors on the track at once and introduces a jump mechanic not present in the other skiing events. Missing the timing of a jump in Ski Cross or missing a gate in any skiing event will result in a fairly severe speed penalty.

The Aerials event is perhaps the most difficult of the bunch, but can also be the most rewarding to succeed at. After selecting a jump based on degree of difficulty, you then calculate push-off and launch angles. The core of the jump asks you to rotate the analog sticks in time with a preset pattern.

Jumps with a degree of difficulty under 4.000 can be handled with the left stick exclusively, but climbing the leader boards will require tougher jumps that ask you to rotate both sticks in sequence. This mechanic will be familiar to anyone that played the diving events in Beijing 2008.

Both of the Snowboard events are multi-competitor races that are controlled much like Skiing, though they feel quite different, like motorcycle racing compared to car racing. The game engine takes a rather noticeable frame rate hit during these events, likely because of snow in the air. Noticeably absent from the event lineup are half pipe and super pipe competitions, which are arguably the most popular Snowboard events with fans.

At first I was wondering why no Long Track Speed Skating events were included in addition to the Ladies’ 500m and 1500m Short Track events, then I quickly realized that any more time spent with the frustrating mechanics would likely result in a thrown controller. Button-mashing rears its ugly head in these events and steering is a bit to sensitive. The Short Track Speed Skating events are definitely the low point of this package.

The sliding events on the other hand are extremely visceral and intense fun. Both the Two-man bobsleigh and Men’s Skeleton  are controlled by steering with the analog sticks, while you steer the Luge sled with the triggers. The idea in sliding events is to get as high into the bank of a corner as possible to maximize your speed without hitting the top wall.

Your run can end in a split-second if you aren’t careful and I often found myself holding by breath as my athletes made their way down the course. A generous helping of blur, shaking camera and depth-of-field effects give the sliding and skiing events a real sense of speed.

Challenge mode gives the game some longevity. This mode is broken up into three mountains; easy, intermediate and advanced. Many of the challenges are fun and require you to do things like hit a certain speed in the Bobsleigh or make a clean run through a Slalom course. Others are not fun at all, like challenges that ask you to beat strict times using reversed controls.

Aside from a distinct lack of cowbell during the sliding events, the sound effects in Vancouver 2010: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Winter Games, including the rumble of skis or a sled and wind rushing past are quite good. The game also features a licensed soundtrack that includes quite a bit of Canadian content.

Graphically, the game holds up well considering it appears to use the same engine as Beijing 2008. Athlete models are large and feature good animation in most cases. Aside from the snowy Snowboard events, everything runs very well also and features a crisp, clean look in line with Olympic TV coverage.

No Olympic video game would be complete without multiplayer options. Vancouver 2010 offers a number of ways to play against your friends including local multiplayer, system link play and of course, quick and ranked matches via Xbox LIVE. It should be noted that when playing online only one person per console can play.

Also, during the first week of release I found it tough to find other Xbox LIVE players, rarely filling a 4 person match. There is however, no shortage of leaderboard competition and the community grew exponentially during the first week.

While I did enjoy most of the events, I can’t see myself or many others playing this game after Olympic hype dies down at all. Aside from some notable event omissions, including a complete lack of Nordic, Figure Skating and Curling events, there is very little to keep players interested for more than 30-60 minutes at a time.

In future Olympic video games, I’d love to see a mode that allows you to create and train an athlete leading up to an Olympic competition. I’d also like to see a more complete event lineup and a true Olympic-style progression through the 17 day festivities.

Positives:

+ Online Competition
+ Good Audio-Visual Presentation
+ Racing Events are Genuinely Intense

Negatives:

– Thin Event Roster
– Little Pageantry or Olympic-Style Festivities
– Lots of Controls to Remember, No Customization

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FWD PROGRESS: PARDON THE MESS WHILE I BLOW UP A TOWER
FWD PROGRESS: PARDON THE MESS WHILE I BLOW UP A TOWER 150 150 GAMESFWD

As you can undoubtedly see, I’ve re-skinned the site and created a new logo for Game Forward. Unfortunately, it‘s only the first of about a million little steps I’m taking to upgrade the look and functionality and it looks like I’ll have some downtime because of a few small, but very annoying layout and technical issues.

The site shouldn’t be offline for more than a day or two at most while I clean things up and rebuild. I’ve got a couple of iPhone/iPod Touch reviews to go up first though and a few games on the go as well. Over the holiday, I started into The Saboteur and despite a number of flaws and decidedly last-gen technical issues, I’ve fallen in love with it.

First of all, The Saboteur is a great-looking game, at least on the Xbox 360. Like most open-world games, it suffers from a touch of pop-in, however it’s a highly-polished title with a lively colour palette and excellent lighting effects.

The premise of the game is that you are an Irish race driver named Sean that sets out for revenge after his friend is killed as the Nazi forces invade France in 1940. When Sean is in a Nazi-controlled area, The Saboteur is essentially presented in Black and White, with sparse colour effects used to indicate enemies or provide ambient lighting. As Sean liberates areas of France, their colour returns and you catch a glimpse of an absolutely stunning game world set in both city and countryside.

This system may remind you of inFamous. The Saboteur also takes some gameplay queues from Sucker Punch’s 2009 effort and the popular Assassin’s Creed series. Sean is remarkably athletic and can scale just about any building with relative ease. Traversing rooftops proves to be an effective way of getting around without drawing too much attention to Sean.

Though the game can be played as a balls-out action romp, I’ve taken the stealth approach to it so far and it has proved to be very rewarding. Hundreds of ambient freeplay events task you with destroying Nazi sniper and lookout towers as well a fuel dumps and propaganda speakers and I found that a quiet, unseen approach has let me make it halfway through The Saboteur relatively unscathed.

There are a number of other gameplay systems at work including a disguise mechanic similar to Destroy All Humans!, some of which work and some of which are downright broken. There is also a very GTA III feel to movement and animation and there are many ways to exploit clipping and dumb AI routines.

There is also an extremely annoying control issue related to having to hold down a trigger or bumper to fight or sneak around. I’d have liked to see an option to toggle fighting or sneaking states because I’m developing “claw hand” every time I play.

The game itself  plays out much like any Grand Theft Auto title, featuring driving, stealth, sniper and escort missions. The story is very well-paced so far and I imagine it would take about 12 hours to complete if I had gone straight through. As it stands though, I’ve been spending a ton of time seeking out and destroying Nazi facilities.

Because of their proliferation, it’s next to impossible to move 50 feet without picking an ambient freeplay event up on your mini-map. Much like with the orbs in Crackdown,  it’s tough not to get distracted and move off-course from your main objective

Despite it’s rather glaring flaws, I’ve spend almost ten hours with The Saboteur so far and likely will not be done with it by the time my rental period is through. The game world is fantastic and full of Nazi stuff to destroy. The audio is also quite well done and features well-implemented positional effects and a fantastic period soundtrack.

I’ll probably end up buying The Saboteur even though I had no intention to, or even any interest in the game just two weeks ago. The final effort from Pandemic Studios is a bit rough around the edges, but its ironically also the best game the studio ever produced.

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NeuroActive Science Promotes Healthy Body and Mind
NeuroActive Science Promotes Healthy Body and Mind 150 150 GAMESFWD

Brain fitness is one of the fastest growing industries in North America whose value reached $265 million in 2008, according to industry market research leader SharpBrains. Neuroscience research has demonstrated that like your muscles, your brain can grow stronger and more agile through proper training and regular activity. Canadian-based Brain Center International (BCI) is making waves in the field by helping thousands of customers improve their brain performance each year.

BCI is the maker of NeuroActive Program, a brain training software which targets 16 specific brain functions. Unlike entertainment titles which claim to help your brain, BCI prides itself on its science-based, clinically-validated software. Through twenty-two different exercises users train a range of skills including various memory and visual-spatial functions, processing speed, selective attention and behaviour modification.

In an interview with Game Forward, BCI President and CEO Dr. Stephane Bergeron said that clinical trials of NeuroActive Program have shown average improvements of 20 percent in working memory and brain processing speed.

“The best example I can give is of myself,” said Dr. Bergeron. “I have a lot of trouble with facial memory, remembering names and faces. It’s difficult to see your neighbour down the street and not remember their name. Training with NeuroActive Program helped me improve this skill and made an impossible task possible.”

In fact, Dr. Bergeron adds, memory and especially that of names and faces—known as “social memory”—is the area with which people have the most trouble as cognitive decline sets in. But unlike previously believed, the mild cognitive decline that comes with age is not permanent and is reversible with proper training.

“While most people are now aware of the importance of physical fitness, they only start to pay attention to brain fitness when they notice this deterioration, around the age of 45 or 50,” says Dr. Bergeron. “Brain training at this time can completely reverse these effects.”

Research shows that those who perform these types of mental exercises experience less cognitive decline, slow it down and are less likely to suffer from dementia. The Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) research project funded by the National Institutes of Health found that in addition to maintaining high levels of brain activity in seniors, brain training can also slow the onset of Alzheimer’s. The disease is no longer thought to be exclusively tied to heredity but rather mainly attributed to a lack of physical exercise and mental stimulation.

But Dr. Bergeron emphasises that brain training can be helpful at any point in life, including with children. “If you do it while you are still in school you will benefit and make learning easier. Similarly, some businesses use this type of training to boost productivity and improve the performance of their employees.”

Game Forward had the opportunity to test out NeuroActive Program Complete Brain Training, the 2010 version of the all-in-one BCI training software. In this version, the exercises mainly take the form of short 2D graphic games, in which players need to rapidly click, reacting to various audio-visual stimuli or performing a given task in a limited time. Scheduled once every two days, each training session contains four exercises taking about 20 minutes to complete. The software allows up to three user profiles and also offers one guest profile.

A typical training session might look like this: in The Convenience Store, pick out rightly priced items adding up to the bill total; in Clearance Sale, select discounted red tags before they disappear; in The Library, appropriately group diagrams which evoke a similar theme; in The Rehearsal, select the shorter between two flashes of light or musical notes played.

Unlike some other serious brain training software, NeuroActive Program does not use baseline assessment as a snapshot of a user’s cognitive profile. Instead, the software builds a personalized training program by selecting exercises and their difficulty according to the user’s age, gender and education level.

“These parameters are then adjusted during the training, with dynamic difficulty settings that reflect your current abilities at that time—because brain abilities change several times a day,” said Dr. Bergeron. It is for that reason that he rejects the use of baseline assessments. They do not necessarily provide a reliable starting point because this snapshot does not offer a full picture of someone’s abilities, he explains.

When trying to remember a sequence of faces, or a telephone number backwards, you can really feel your mind working. These focused tasks noticeably stimulate certain brains functions leading to recognizable progress. After completing an exercise, users receive a score which they can compare to the average of their reference group.

Between scheduled sessions, players can use the custom training portion of the software to practice every exercise at any difficulty setting to further push themselves. This section is highly informative, providing details about each exercise such as the cognitive skills being used, examples of how these skills are applied in daily life and which regions of the brain these tasks activate.

Training with brain fitness software like NeuroActive Program helps build what is known as your cognitive reserve—your brain’s ability to resist and adapt to deterioration of the nervous system. By developing and strengthening neural pathways and synapses brain training exercises keep them young and healthy, and prevent them from failing.

However, when it comes to an active brain, an active body is more important than some would believe. Physical activity plays a direct role on brain power. As exercise increases your blood flow, the brain receives more oxygen and nutrients. It is with that concept in mind that BCI created the NeuroActive BrainBike, produced and distributed in collaboration with Exergame Fitness USA and MotionFitness.

The BrainBike is a stationary bike augmented with all-in-one computer on which the NeuroActive Program software is used. Available for commercial or residential use, the BrainBike includes a heart-rate monitor and a blue backlit super-twisted nematic (STN) display, which is said to offer a viewing angle of up to 270 degrees and the most comfortable visual colour combination to the human eye. To ensure that users remain active, a special mechanism designed by Gamercize forces users to pedal in order to activate the system’s wireless mouse.

The Gamercize technology “is more commonly seen with our under desk stepper to turn home and office computer time into active time. The patented principle is keep moving yourself to keep your inputs alive,” explains Richard Coshott, CEO of Gamercize. “We’ve seen great success with the low level of exercise on work productivity from (the interface), so I know the combination of moving body to speed the brain works!”

Making physical training incidental to the main activity is important because it improves conditioning in a subtle way, believes Coshott. “The stealth approach of Gamercize means you’re much more likely to have a lower perception of the effort you are expending, which in turn makes the exercise sustainable. The BrainBike gives the same experience.”

BCI struck a new distribution deal for BrainBike in the United States in December 2009. But the device is already found in two Florida fitness centres, in several Canadian gyms, as well as in a growing number of schools.

The concept is lauded by Phil Lawler, a retired gym teacher and now Director of Instruction and Outreach for PE4Life. With his help, the Naperville, Illinois school district boasts one of the most advanced physical education programs in the world which has trained schools in 40 states and hosted observers from ten foreign countries. There students experience what is dubbed “learning readiness PE” which focuses on health and fitness rather than sports.

Based on research outlining the impact of movement on the brain, classrooms are filled with stability balls, podiums, balance boards and stationary bikes rather than chairs and desks, all to improve students’ blood flow to the brain while learning. “In today’s schools, where [physical education] is sometimes taken out to favour academic, sit-down courses, students have less oxygen going to their brains, limiting their comprehension and recalling capacities,” explains Lawler.

To the teacher, the NeuroActive BrainBike is a promising tool which could find a welcome home in more American schools. Lawler is currently looking for funding to upgrade the schools’ stationary bikes with BrainBikes. Students in Wellington, Florida are some of the rare few who already have a BrainBike in their school. “It’s definitely shown a positive impact in my class,” said Kim Murray, a teacher at Panther Run Elementary School.

Tommy Seilheimer, Vice-President of Exergame Fitness USA, explains that there are significant benefits to the BrainBike which schools should consider. Using the device prepares and stimulates the brain for learning and training, counter-balancing regular classes in which kids sit all day and become drowsy. Students that use the BrainBike get so deep in thought that they forget that they are exercising, making it a fun way to get active. And not only do kids feel better physically but they also develop new social interactions. For example, most kids will circle one player and work in teams to answer questions, making it more than a one person workout.

In the future, Phil Lawler wishes to see BrainBikes in the back of every classroom for students to use when they need to stimulate their brains. One day he hopes schools might even offer BrainBikes with targeted exercises designed specifically for a subject area, like science, social studies, or reading software.

As we speak, the marketing opportunities for this type of tool are rapidly growing. “We’re looking at getting the BrainBikes into gyms,” said Seilheimer. “Instead of running with an iPod on or while watching television, some people might be interested in working their mind as well, wanting to focus and learn.”

As more people learn about the benefits of brain training as well as the intricate link between physical and mental fitness, Seilheimer expects to see the NeuroActive BrainBike steadily gain in popularity. In the meantime, BCI is developing a new software series, soon to be released, which will address specific sets of key functions for targeted training—further expanding its contribution to the brain fitness industry.

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FWD PROGRESS 12-11-09: COGNIFIT, KURULIN AND PIXELJUNK
FWD PROGRESS 12-11-09: COGNIFIT, KURULIN AND PIXELJUNK 150 150 GAMESFWD

I was having some trouble writing up Pokemon Rumble, so I decided to publish my reviews of Excitebike: World Rally and Frogger Returns separately. I didn’t want the work I’d done on them to get stagnant or go unused. I’m finding it tough to put FWD Download features together because its hard for me to write short, sub-500 word reviews.

Because Game Forward is so heavily focussed on downloadable games now, I’ll likely switch the features so that they only include apps and games that are under $5. The next one will be a look at some of health and fitness apps available for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

I’m continuing to evaluate the CogniFit Personal Coach software and I continue to be impressed by it on a bi-daily basis. I can see and feel myself getting better at tasks that I was struggling with at the start of the process a month ago and though it may sound silly, I swear I can feel my brain “fire-up” when I sit down for a training session and it helps me feel more alert when I hit my afternoon wall.

I started the first 48-day cycle of the program with higher than normal results in many of the 14 cognitive abilities that CogniFit Personal Coach ranks you on. It does an excellent job setting tasks related to my stronger abilities to a higher level to maintain my skills in those areas. It also adjusts on-the-fly when I’m struggling with a task and will bump down the difficulty level so I never feel too frustrated or overwhelmed.

Because I’m an avid gamer, I may look at  this software differently than others, but I genuinely find the training sessions fun and often they provide a rewarding challenge to my memory or motor skills. This program could easily be marketed as a game for the Wii, DS or iPhone/iPod Touch.

It features a clean and polished presentation and the tasks aren’t too far removed from things in the Brain Age or Big Brain Academy games to be intimidating to a casual gamer audience. The difference is that CogniFit Personal Coach actually works and is worth the asking price for a yearly subscription to the online training program. I’ll have a full overview of the program posted in the coming weeks as I finish my first cycle.

Our PSP Go is getting a lot of love these days. In addition to being hopelessly addicted to the surprisingly great Creature Defense that was released in November, we downloaded Kurulin Fusion and Battle Poker this week, one of which is good.

Kurulin Fusion is a puzzle game that reminds me of Columns, Lumines and, of course, Tetris. Two types of objects, Fusion Blocks and Energy Orbs fall from the top of the play field. You can move, rotate and hard-drop these objects into place and matching Fusion  Blocks and Enery Orbs of the same colour will make them disappear.

You can build large rectangles of Fusion Blocks to score more points and create chain reactions. If you clear a 3×3 Fusion Block, it will clear all Energy Orbs of that colour from the play field. Much like Tetris, the game will end if a piece cannot fall below the top of the play field and you are given a hold queue foe assistance.

Kurulin Fusion features four play modes. Arcade serves as a marathon mode in which pieces fall faster as you progress through levels. There are some unique mechanics at work in this mode that I don’t quite understand yet, but sometimes pieces will speed up exponentially for a short period of time. Score Attack is self-explanatory and Mission mode tasks you with clearing preset puzzles. There is also ad-hoc multiplayer which I plan to test using the Ad-hoc Party feature of the PS3 before I write my review.

The game sports a highly polished presentation that rivals Lumines and also features interpretations of the works of J.S. Bach by legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu . For $5, you really can’t go wrong with Kurulin Fusion.

The Remote Play feature is by far one of my favourite things about owning both a PSP and a PS3, though it is vastly underused. Q Games however has embraced the feature with their stylish PixelJunk series of games and that trend continues with PixelJunk Shooter.

The title is a bit misleading and though you do indeed shoot stuff in PixelJunk Shooter, the game has more in common with Lunar Lander or the recently released Gravity Crash than it does Super Stardust HD. Your primary goal is to navigate your ship through cavernous levels and rescue survivors with a sort of grappling hook.

Early on, I’m finding myself solving light environmental puzzles that use a cool water and lava system. I can see these puzzles getting more complicated as I go and I’m really enjoying it so far. The game is fairly easy to control and uses the analog sticks and triggers on the PS3. The control setup is a bit different when playing via Remote Play, but I found it easy to adapt.

The look of PixelJunk Shooter is most comparable to that of PixelJunk Eden and it uses 2D art and slightly contrasting colours to create its world. The water looks particularly good and the whole package seems to be running at 60 fps on the PS3. The PixelJunk games have had great audio to this point and PixelJunk Shooter is no exception, featuring a great atmospheric soundtrack from High Frequency Bandwidth; a project headed by Dr. Alex Paterson of The Orb.

I’ll be digging deeper into PixelJunk Shooterin the coming days and hope to have a review up before our holiday break.

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YOUR SHAPE: FITNESS EVOLVED REVIEW
YOUR SHAPE: FITNESS EVOLVED REVIEW 150 150 GAMESFWD

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is a competent fitness title that provides a glimpse at the future of exercise-based gaming and a large amount of varied content. However, this personal trainer software is dragged down somewhat by a substandard presentation and some frustrating motion detection issues.

When starting Your Shape: Fitness Evolved for the first time, the software will ask you to stand on a virtual workout mat so it can begin measuring your body. It calculates your height, the length of your arms and legs, the width of your shoulders and more in order to calibrate the system.

The software also tailors the menu system to the size of your body, which adjusts dynamically should you move around, or even if you sit down to take a break. The calibration system is futuristic and impressive, though users must enter information such as their sex and weight using a menu system rather than the voice capabilities of the Kinect sensor.

Once you have calibrated the system and created a profile, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved presents you with your workout options. Gym Classes like Virtual Smash and Stack ‘em Up are minigame-style activities that test your reflexes, agility and balance.

Fitness Classes offer both high intensity Cardio Boxing sessions and a relaxing tai chi-Yoga hybrid simply called Zen. Completing classes will unlock higher difficulty levels and longer workout sessions.

The bulk of the content in Your Shape: Fitness Evolved comes by way of the Personal Training menu. After completing a quiz and an initial fitness evaluation, the software will recommend content tailored to the user, including content produced in association with Men‘s Health and Women‘s Health magazines.

Users can select from 15 different multi-session programs and the software will highlight which ones are recommended and how long a session will take. Most of the content here is geared towards women, including the Skinny Jeans Workout and a program called Perfect Legs and Butt.

Male-specific content includes the Sleeve Busting Arms workout and the Men’s Health Fat Loss workout. Of course, there are generic unisex programs like sculpting, toning and cardio as well. The software recommends using dumbbells to get the most out of your workouts, an option afforded by Kinect‘s controller-free interface.

In the Personal Training programs you are asked to make your on screen avatar follow along in rhythm with your virtual trainer and are scored on both your timing and movement accuracy.

Though Your Shape: Fitness Evolved tracks your actions consistently and accurately most of the time, in my experience it had trouble detecting me while performing lunges regardless of how well I was doing them or what distance I was standing from my Kinect sensor. In my case as far back as nine feet.

This misdetection can be extremely frustrating during a workout and tough nothing prevented me from completing the exercise, I noticed the software’s calorie counter would slow down and thus not provide a truly accurate statistic.

Attempting to switch users was also an annoyance due to a cumbersome sign-in process, but for the most part I was satisfied with the full-body tracking implemented in Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and it is particularly impressive during Zen classes.

The software has a pleasant, futuristic aesthetic that includes some nice particle effects and touches like flower petals flowing in a breeze, however these flourishes come at the cost of performance. Even at the menu screen, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved struggles to reach 30 fps and slows to a crawl during activities like Virtual Smash.

The visual fidelity is low as well and there are jagged lines to be found everywhere, despite a lack of detail in character models and workout environments. In short, Your Shape: Fitness EvolvedYour Shape looks and runs like the Wii version of from which it was derived.

Another issue I have with the visual presentation of your shape fitness evolved is the onscreen menu system. The buttons are too small and too close together and scrolling menus are hyper-sensitive.  Almost every time I use the software I inadvertently make a frustrating mis-selection.  It should also be noted that the menus require use of both arms to navigate.

The audio presentation is rather barren aside from the narration of your virtual trainer that guides exercises and workout rhythm. I did not find any subtitle options anywhere, so users who are deaf or hard of hearing may have difficulty using Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.

Users with a UPlay account can track their workout progress or compare stats and issue challenges to friends on the web at Your Shape Center and Ubisoft has promised both iPhone and iPad apps in the future so you can track your progress on the go.

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is certainly a passable product and offers a good amount of content, particularly for female users. However, its technical shortcomings and minor, but frustrating motion detection problems prevent it from being a true evolution in exercise-based gaming.

Positives:

+ Lots of content that can be tailored to the user
+ Controller-Free Exercise Allows for Use of Dumbbells

Negatives:

– Frustrating Motion Detection Issues
– Substandard Presentation and Performance
– Menu System is Cumbersome

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How I Make Playing Wii More Accessible for Me
How I Make Playing Wii More Accessible for Me 150 150 GAMESFWD

Like many gamers that live with physical disabilities, I have had my fair share of difficulty with many of the non-traditional control schemes that have become synonymous with Wii software since the console was launched almost three years ago.

Whether coming to grips with the Nunchuck attachment or simply using the pointer of the Wii Remote, sometimes it has been difficult and frustrating for me to play Wii because of the limited dexterity of my left hand associated with Cerebral Palsy and the Arthritis in my hands and arms. I wanted to share a few simple tricks that I use to help me enjoy playing Wii, even on days that my body doesn’t want to co-operate.

From the time we brought our Wii home on launch day, I had problems using the Nunchuck attachment. It became apparent to me that over the years I had spent learning to use game controllers with my left hand, I had become used to having my right hand providing both resistance and support. To this day, I still have trouble pushing up on the analog stick and end up just tilting the Nuchuck down because my right hand is not holding the controller in place.

I have tried a couple of things to help alleviate this. First, though I am right-handed, I tried swapping the Wii Remote to my left hand so I could use the analog stick and small C button with my good hand. This setup reminded me of the way I learned to use an N64 controller “left-handed” and it is how I played through most of Super Mario Galaxy.

Now, I do find it tough to use the pointer extensively and reach the 1 and 2 buttons with my left hand, but for me it was an extremely simple solution to a very frustrating problem and it has allowed me to play and complete quite a few games.

The Wii ZapperSomething else I learned to do early on while struggling with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was to use my leg to stabilize my left hand. I simply rest my left hand on the side of my leg to stabilize it and prevent it from just moving through the air. I find that this also helps me grip the analog stick better with my thumb. It still feels unnatural to play games with my hands so far apart, but it works most of the time.

I actually have idea for an attachment that would basically be an arm/wrist rest that hooks over your leg. I think my problem with pushing the Nuchuck through the air stems from weakness in my elbow and forearm and that resting my left arm/wrist on something allows my hand to grip harder.

While the lefty flip method works for some games, there are obviously others it is not practical for. The Trauma Center games are some of my favourites on the DS, but the Wii versions proved to be difficult for me to control because of extensive Nunchuck use that needed to be executed with precision and pointer-heavy gameplay that I needed to use my right hand for.

My solution here is the Wii Zapper accessory. It lets me turn the Wii Remote and Nunchuck into a single, two-handed controller that allows me to better use the analog stick.  It also lets me guide the pointer with my right hand and though using the A and B buttons in concert took some getting used to, I found that this also provides me with greater pointer stability.

When I’m having a day that sees me struggling with Arthritis pain, even holding up the Wii Remote and keeping it still enough to use its pointer can be difficult. While the Wii Zapper is great for games that require a Nunchuck, it isn’t very comfortable and it’s impractical for games that use only a Wii Remote or genres like third-person action that tend to require shaking the Wii Remote and/or Nunchuck.

An accessory like the Nyko Perfect Shot is affordable and allows for a more ergonomically sound grip on the Wii Remote while allowing free movement of both the pointer and Nunchuck attachment. The drawback here is that using the A and B buttons at the same time is virtually impossible with one hand.

Of course, the pistol can be gripped with both hands in the case of Wii Remote-only games like Zack & Wiki or my import copy of Another Code: R, which allows for operation of all the Wii Remote buttons and also for shaking, twisting and tilting of the controller.  The Wii Wheel attachment is also effective as a two-handed grip for pointer-based games, though I tend to use it for something else.

The Wii WheelWhen I was playing Super Paper Mario I grew to hate playing games for any extended length of time while holding the Wii Remote sideways “NES Style”. The controller is simply too small and the left side of it is very thin. I found it tough to grip it properly and my thumb would tend to slip off of the d-pad and accidentally hit the A or B buttons.

While the Wii Remote Jacket that Nintendo introduced some time later does help by creating a larger surface to grip on the left side of the Wii Remote, the right side is still small and quite often I’ll feel myself getting “Claw Hand” from trying to grip it, especially on days when my Arthritis is flared up. I find that the Wii Wheel not only makes the controller symmetrical, but slightly thicker as well, allowing me a more comfortable grip. It also makes the B button on the back easier to detect and it still allows for shaking, tilting and pointing.

The first thing I do when I play Wii software is check to see whether it supports the Classic Controller or GameCube controller. For many games it simply feels more natural to play on a traditional controller and I do whenever it is possible, which is sadly not nearly as often as I would hope.  Many of the “traditional” Wii games like platformers are ported from, or simultaneously developed for the PS2 and/or PSP, so implementing a traditional control scheme on the Wii version should be easy enough for a developer.

While the Wii is arguably the least accessible home video game console ever produced for people with physical limitations or disabilities, adaptations can be made to make it more enjoyable for those of us that struggle with its standard control setup.

I would love to see Nintendo or a third party step up and actively try to make playing Wii more accessible, whether through specifically-designed accessories or by making traditional controls more standard. Nintendo has gone to great lengths to bring video games to a wider audience, now it’s time to bring it back to millions of gamers living with physical limitations and disabilities who grew up and learned to play with them.

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Health and Medical Games News Roundup: 11-02-2009
Health and Medical Games News Roundup: 11-02-2009 150 150 GAMESFWD

There has been a lot of news relating to health and medical technology and games in recent weeks. From video games for medical research and disease management to health education games, here is a summary of some of the stories which have caught our attention.

A new study by the University of Florida is looking to determine whether exergaming can have a positive impact on osteoarthritis. The disease is the most common form of arthritis, caused when joint cartilage wears down. Knee and hip joints are the most frequently affected by the disease. The research focuses on women between the ages of 50 and 70. More…

We hope to learn from this study the impact of pain on physical activity and if participants who enjoy the exercise will report less pain,” said Bridgett Rahim-Williams, lead researcher of the project. “If women find a physical activity that is fun, perhaps they’ll do it even in the face of pain. (…) And when people are more physically active, their health outcomes improve.”

A website entitled Generation Cures is taking an active role in promoting healthcare research. Built as an online community, the website offers games for children to play. Every time someone reaches a new game level, sponsors will make a donation to the Children’s Hospital Boston, helping to fund some of its important research.

Game technology is also being used directly for medical research by physicists and engineers at Ohio State University. They created a device which could help examine tumour cells, using magnetic fields to separate cancerous cells from healthy tissue. In order to manipulate these cells, the researchers use a video game joystick to switch the magnetic field on command.

“You can look at each cell rather than averaging it out,” said physics professor Ratnasingham Sooryakumar, main researcher on the project. “When you actually have 10,000 of them to analyze the data, you can understand stat distributions that we normally would not have gotten in ensemble measurements, and that’s a huge thing.”

Researchers at the University of Chile and Harvard Medical School have been developing audio-based PC games which allow visually impaired and blind children to develop spatial, cognitive and social skills. The study focuses on three games which let players navigate a labyrinth, a subway system and real-world buildings based on audio cues. While the games can’t yet replace traditional rehabilitative techniques the team hopes this research will provide complementary means of helping the blind.

“(We’ve) concentrated on developing the gaming software as a rehabilitation tool to allow blind users to survey unfamiliar buildings before actually navigating through them in real life, as well as conducting brain imaging studies to uncover how the brain of a blind individual accomplishes this task,” said Dr. Lotfi B. Merabet, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.

There have been a couple of games focusing on HIV/AIDS released in the past year, but another new project is currently under way. Dr. Lynn Fiellin, assistant professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine, has received a five-year, $3.9 million research grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to support her study.

She is working to develop and test an interactive virtual reality video game called Retro-Warriors that will teach adolescents of various ethnicities how to make healthier choices. The research plans to create a world in which users can engage in role-playing to learn to avoid risky behaviours—such as unprotected sex, as well as drug and alcohol abuse—that could lead to HIV.

“The game could travel with the player—it could be used at home, on a console, a cell phone or a personal digital assistant,” said Fiellin. “Access to the Internet is growing in developing countries and these technologies could be transferred to adolescents in countries experiencing a growing HIV epidemic but which have limited access to targeted risk-reduction strategies.”

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SUDOKU REVIEW
SUDOKU REVIEW 150 150 GAMESFWD

Sudoku lovers have a new way to play their favourite game on the go. Sudoku for PSP minis is a very polished version of the popular puzzle game which will likely draw you into its peaceful atmosphere. The game also innovates by allowing users to create, edit or solve any Sudoku puzzle using the convenience of a digital platform.

Unlike most handheld versions released in recent years which make use of touch controls, Sudoku for PSP minis manages to get by without feeling awkward. Players simply use the d-pad and face buttons to select spaces on the Sudoku board and the numbers they want to insert, for a straightforward game play experience.

Sudoku for PSP minis offers three difficulty settings that are unlocked from the start. Sudoku Points are awarded after each completed puzzle and added up to unlock two tougher game modes.

Very Hard mode gets unlocked after collecting 300 Sudoku Points and the Insane difficulty at 600 Sudoku Points. The greater the difficulty of the puzzle selected, the greater its starting Sudoku Points value. Using hints will diminish your final score. The game does not score you on the amount of time it takes to solve a puzzle.

The game offers a hint system and other typical aides such as auto-fill and auto-check options, the ability to pencil in potential solutions using annotations and the option to highlight every occurrence of a specific number across the board.

What really sets Sudoku for PSP minis apart from any other Sudoku titles I have played in the past is Newspaper mode. Through this mode, you are free to play any of your favourite puzzles from books or newspapers by entering them into an empty grid and solving it with the game‘s engine instead of a pen. The mode can also be used to solve any puzzle automatically by entering a minimum number of cells.

Clean and attractive graphics create a perfect Sudoku playing environment. Accompanied by a nine-song traditional oriental soundtrack, the game absorbed me in no time. Sudoku for PSP minis is an enjoyable title. It does everything the a digital version of puzzle game should and more, for a thoroughly pleasant experience. I would recommend it without hesitation to any Sudoku fan looking for a solid version to play on the PSP and PSP Go.

Positives:

+ Relaxed Atmosphere
+ Pleasant Music
+ Newspaper Mode

Negatives:

– Limited Wallpaper/Background Options

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Tetris Review
Tetris Review 150 150 GAMESFWD

Tetris makes its way back to a PlayStation system as part of the PSP minis series. This version from EA features 12 different variants to unlock and play in addition to the classic marathon, many of which are all-new. However, a distinct lack of personality and multiplayer features hold it back compared to recent Tetris games on other platforms.

Control can make or break a Tetris game and thankfully the PSP minis version is tight and responsive. The spin mechanic has been tweaked here to provide a more classic feeling compared to Tetris Splash or Tetris Party, all but eliminating the “infinite spin” that plagued some recent versions of  the seminal puzzle game from Russia.

When you boot Tetris you are greeted with a sleek, modern-looking animated menu. This blue-themed look permeates the game and makes this version of Tetris come off as cold compared to other entries in the series. Aside from some all-new variants to play, Tetris for PSP minis lacks any real identity of its own.

Variants, three of which are unlocked by default, task you with clearing 40 lines after choosing a starting level of speed at which the Tetriminoes will fall. To my surprise, the speed level does not increase as you play a Variant as it does in a standard Marathon session. Your clear time and score are both tracked, but are essentially useless to progress and there are no online leaderboards to share your statistics.

Some of the Variants are unlocked by simply clearing 40 lines in others, but some require more specific tasks like clearing a Variant at level ten or an entire Variant in less than four minutes. The game has a completion meter that appears on the title screen, but it seems irrelevant. By the time I unlocked the final Variant, I had played for about three hours and was at less than 25% completion.

The completion meter goes up as you complete in-game achievements called Feats. Most of these will occur naturally as you play like accumulating 90 minutes of play time, but some are quite tricky such as trying to clear 44 lines in a variant or 12 in a single turn.

As for the Variants themselves, some are ones we’ve seen before like Gravity and Origin, but Tetris for PSP minis also has a number of original ones, most of which are quite good. Highlights for me were Treadmill, Scanner and Split.

Treadmill creates an ever-changing puzzle by moving the entire matrix to the right every time you drop a Tetrimino. Scanner will clear any lines you have made every four turns and reminds me very much of the way Lumines is played. Split only allows you half of the matrix to work with and alternates which side you can play in with each Tetrimino drop.

Other Variants include Laser, Flood, Ledges and Chill. I can’t say there were any bad Variants included and there is certainly no shortage of content to play in Tetris for PSP minis, however enjoyment of this title will hinge on how much you enjoy playing Tetris by yourself and beating your own scores.

There are no ad-hoc or online multiplayer modes and no online leaderboards. For me, this is a real step back compared to the wonderful Tetris Party and will likely affect how much time I end up spending with this version. In all fairness, had this version of Tetris had any online components, it would not be classified as a PSP mini and would have likely cost more than $9.99.

A unique feature found in Tetris for PSP minis is the Pro Trainer. In addition to a Glossary, it contains a Master Replay for each Variant that will show you how to play them at high levels and likely make you question your own Tetris skill.

In addition to the sterile presentation, I was disappointed by the music in Tetris for PSP minis. Yes, there are a number of versions of the “Tetris Theme”, but you are unable to select which version you want playing as you clear lines. There is also no option to use custom music stored on your PSP Go or Memory Stick Pro Duo. I’d really have liked to have seen some unlockable backgrounds and songs to help change up the look and feel of the game once in a while.

In my opinion, Tetris is the greatest puzzle game ever made and this version from EA should, by default, be in any PSP or PSP Go owner’s collection that is a fan of the series. Despite lacking any multiplayer or leader board components, there is plenty content to play and the control is arguably the best a Tetris game has seen in some time.

Had there been some more personality and multiplayer features in this game, I would have scored it higher, but as it stands I feel that the PSP minis version of Tetris is an adequate representation of the game and nothing more.

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FWD PROGRESS 10-19-2009: ROCK BAND IPHONE HANDS-ON
FWD PROGRESS 10-19-2009: ROCK BAND IPHONE HANDS-ON 150 150 GAMESFWD

I tend to not get much real work done on Mondays and today is unlikely to be an exception to that trend. I usually take the day to do stuff like site maintenance and in the case of today, I’m harvesting an old computer for its hard drives so I can find a font I’m looking for.

Woke up with an unusual pain in my heel today. I think it may be from the time I spent with the Island Biking activity in Wii Fit Plus yesterday. Sadly, it seems that the majority of the new activities will not be playable sitting down and that my second Sit on It! experiment probably won’t go as well as the first did.

I’m pretty much finished with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games on Wii now. I really liked the game at first, especially the Balance Board skiing, but its appeal was stretched quite thin while playing through the main Festival Mode. The Olympic and Dream events are all decent enough, but like many Wii games, sketchy, inconsistent and inaccurate controls mar the experience. I’ll be starting my review of this game sometime this week.

Nathalie and I started playing the a boy and his blob remake from WayForward this weekend and we both like it quite a bit so far. The original is one of my favourite NES games and I am not disappointed in any way with how the remake was handled. The art is beautiful and the music is quite pleasant as well. The only knock I have against it is that there is little to no direction for the player, though it is easy enough to figure everything out.

Once I’m done with my website maintenance stuff and old computer part salvaging, I’ll be turning on my Xbox 360 and playing Brutal Legend some more, tackling a few levels of Axel & Pixel and hopefully polishing off South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play!

I meant to pick up .detuned and Mushroom Wars on PSN over the weekend but never got a chance, I’ll likely get around to that after lunch too.

[10:33 AM] I managed to salvage the font I was looking for from my old PC and I tweaked the Game Forward logo a bit in anticipation of the upcoming redesign.

Rock Band for iPhone and iPod Touch[10:47 AM] Feeling pretty nauseous right now, which is always unpleasant. I’m downloading Rock Band for iPhone/iPod Touch right now and will likely add my impressions to this post later on if I manage to play it enough. 20 songs for $10 is a pretty good deal as far as I’m concerned though, I can tell you that much already.

[12:17 PM] Well I played through the first two cities of the World Tour mode in Rock Band for iPhone/iPod Touch and I can’t say that I’m very impressed at all with the product. On the plus side, you are getting 20 songs to play for $9.99 and current offers in the in-game music store are two songs for $0.99. These songs are all recycled from previous Rock Band games however and their sound quality is suspect to say the least. The compression used here is heavy and the songs have a muffled, scratchy sound. At first, I thought they were mono, but it seems more like they used joint stereo encoding here.

When starting or continuing a World Tour, you have the option of playing solo or online. I’m honestly not sure what playing online does, but it is certainly not what I was expecting. Once you do that, you are presented with five cities to choose from, each of which has four songs to complete and 20 stars to obtain. After selecting a song, you choose which musician to play as. The band members are pre-set and you are not given a chance to create or customize the rockers, or even choose a band name.

I got frustrated with the controls of Rock Band for iPhone/iPod Touch very quickly. The game is played with your device in the vertical position and when playing one of the three instrument a series of buttons appears at the bottom of the screen. The gameplay is straightforward and familiar and it makes great use of the multitouch capabilities of the iPhone/iPod Touch .The on-screen buttons however simply feel too small and I find myself missing notes, seemingly for no reason. The lack of any tactile feedback hurts and can make it difficult to nail multi-note chords.

Another thing that I frankly find very odd is that the game doesn’t seem to be calibrated properly. I find myself having to tap the buttons a bit early to score properly, even though the hit timing window feels very loose. This could have to do with the fact that this version of Rock Band is seemingly running at about 15 frames per second and is really showing its mobile phone roots. I’m not sure, but in any case it doesn’t feel quite right compared to the console versions or Rock Band: Unplugged on PSP.

What frustrates me the most so far is the lack of a lefty flip option. While it really doesn’t make a lot of difference when playing the instruments, I found the vocals very hard to control. The vocal mode places all of the buttons vertically along the left side of the screen. It is expected that you’ll play using your left thumb only, but in the case of someone like myself with limited dexterity in my left hand this is next to impossible. I found myself flipping my device on its side in order to play the vocal mode. Had Harmonix provided the option to flip the game to a horizontal mode it would be much easier to play, despite having less room for the note highway.

Even with these complaints, Rock Band is the most full-featured music game on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform and most definitely worth playing for rhythm game fans.

I can’t help but feel like Harmonix missed an opportunity here though. Since Apple now allows apps to access your iPhone/iPod Touch music library, they could have incorporated an option to play along to your own music like they did with the iPod game Phase some time ago.

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