MADDY MYERS

Fitter, happier?

MADDY MYERS — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:56:24 GMT

Nintendo offers its new workout plan
Nintendo’s newest runaway sensation is, of all things, an exercise game.

HOT TIP If you jump on the board by accident, you’ll have to start your workout over again.

Nintendo’s newest runaway sensation is, of all things, an exercise game. Wii Fit presents a series of mini games that take advantage of the Nintendo Wii’s motion-sensing capabilities by employing the Wii-mote, the nunchuck, and a scale that comes with the package. The act of playing constitutes all four types of physical exercise: yoga, strength training, aerobics, and balance. Wii Fit takes virtual fitness a step farther than Wii Sports did by recording how much you’ve played and allowing you to track your weight and goals through a calendar system.

Wii Fit tries to make exercising as addictive as World of Warcraft. It wants you to get competitive with your friends and family in an effort to lower your stats. As soon as you get the scale synched up, the game will both tell you your BMI and exhort you to lower it. The numbers can cause some insecurity — the Internet is already littered with stories of traumatized children this game has called fat — but Wii Fit aims to capitalize on that sentiment in an effort to get you to keep playing. Although it admitted that my BMI was “normal,” the game still suggested that I knock it down a few notches.

Instead of a more realistic rendering of your body, you get to use your Mii — the cartoon version of yourself that you make when you first get a Wii. If you choose, say, jogging in the aerobics section, you’ll be watching your Mii jog along with you on a simply rendered scenic route. In reality, you’ll be jogging in place on your living-room floor (not even on the scale). Other aerobic games, like hula-hooping and skiing, incorporate the scale and are more entertaining, but they’re still nowhere near as addictive as they’d need to be to affect your weight. There’s also something incredibly depressing about running in place while watching your Mii “run” through fake scenery as opposed to going outside. Is that what Nintendo thinks gamers prefer? Should I feel ashamed?

I was far happier with the yoga, balance, and strength-training sections, but they too weren’t addictive enough to sustain the patience of your average gamer, or even your average person. Watching my cute female physical trainer bend this way and that certainly helped me understand the moves, but the soothing soundtrack and subpar graphics did not leave me hungering to play again and again. There is nothing inherently interesting about doing push-ups, and Wii Fit did nothing to make that activity more appealing than it would’ve been without my spending $90.

Cosplay chic

MADDY MYERS — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:15:25 GMT

What to expect at Anime Boston this weekend
Why cosplay?

The weekend of Anime Boston ― the three-day Japanese animation convention that runs March 21-23 at the Hynes Convention Center ― has been highlighted on my calendar for months. I’ve spent my spare cash at Blick Art Supplies and my free nights crouched over my sewing machine. I’ve used my cookware to bake Sculpey modeling clay in the oven and mix Paper Mache. I’ve plastered my apartment walls and refrigerator with screenshots from Metroid.

At the convention, I’ll be cosplaying (an abbreviation of “costume play”) Samus Aran’s zero suit from the games Metroid and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The majority of attendees at Anime Boston will be cosplaying ― or, dressing up as ― characters from their favorite anime, manga, webcomics, and video-games. Cosplay is the highest compliment a fan can pay a franchise, and the best cosplayers do as much of the costume as they can by themselves, although this may require learning how to use a jigsaw or perfecting difficult sewing techniques.

Why cosplay? As far as I can tell, there are two main motivations. The first is the creation process of building the costume. If you enjoy sewing and painting, or building a gun out of wood, or crafting a suit of armor out of foam-board, cosplaying at huge conventions will give you the opportunity to show off your skill.

The other main reason to cosplay is what drives me to do it. While I pride myself on my increasing sewing ability and craft skills, I cosplay characters that I truly love, that I connect to ― not because of their appearance, but because of their personality. Samus Aran is one of the only female characters in the entire genre of first-person shooter video-games. As a girl who enjoys shooters, I’m in the minority, and I’m often frustrated with the absence of female characters in my favorite games. My Samus cosplay gave me the opportunity to learn to construct a gun entirely out of wood, but more importantly, the project represents my feminist gaming perspective.

For me, attending a convention has become much more about cosplaying than about hanging around the manga library or the gaming room. Actors ― or those aspiring ― can participate in the competitive theatrical events like the Masquerade, the Cosplay Dating Game, and Cosplay Chess. The Masquerade includes performances of planned sketches, and the other two events involve in-character improvisation. You can also meet voice actors, buy Japanese imports in the dealers’ room, enter videogame tournaments, but you’ll find that the majority of attendees go in cosplay. Conventions become a massive three-day Halloween party interspersed with opportunities to perform and compete.

WW2 is finally over

MADDY MYERS — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:53:51 GMT

Call of Duty goes modern
The Infinity Ward developers must be high-fiving.

VIDEO: The trailer for Call of Duty 4

The Infinity Ward developers must be high-fiving. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the latest installment in the successful series, has earned raves from every game critic out there. The first few weeks of laggy on-line multiplayer speak for themselves — gamers everywhere have abandoned futuristic fight (like Halo 3) in favor of modern battling.

The game works in part because of its new angle. No longer are we refighting World War II. Russian terrorists have replaced the Nazis as Public Enemy Number One, in the form of a fictional Russian ultranationalist movement headed by the nefarious “Four Horsemen,” who are hoping to spark a Communist revival. The lead Horseman, Imran Zakhaev, stages a coup in the Middle East to draw American attention away from Russia.

CoD4’s level locations range from Azerbaijan to Russia. You play two characters, a British operative and an American recon agent, stationed in the Middle East. The campaign mode gets your attention with its detailed plot and the exceptional visuals. (Look out for “All Ghillied Up,” possibly the best level of all.) The voice actors go to town with the dialogue, which snaps with refreshing realism.

The game feels like a good film in several ways: well-wrought plot lines, well-developed character personalities, stunning graphics. It’s also like a film in that you can complete the campaign in an afternoon (well, maybe six hours, but still . . . ). If you’re in it just for the killing, the lifelike firearms — the accuracy of the physics, the responsiveness, the explosive sound effects — will sate your bloodlust. But CoD4’s staying power comes from the depth of the on-line multiplayer offering, which has 12 different game modes including “Sabotage,” in which you plant a bomb, sneak away, and wait for another bomb to respawn.

There are now RPG elements in on-line multiplayer. Levels determine what guns and perks you can have in your initial loadout, but you can always pick up new guns when others drop them. The lower-level weapons don’t put you at a significant disadvantage, but it is nice to move up to new toys. Completing “challenges” (e.g., a certain number of kills or head shots with a given weapon) unlocks attachments for your weapon, like better scopes or grips.

CoD4 uses a ranking system to give more-experienced players seniority over the newbies. The longer you play, the more damage you can take and inflict on others. That means you have to be alert to what perks your enemies might have — higher health points, for example, or the ability to sprint farther, or drop a grenade when they die, or draw a pistol and take a few extra shots while bleeding out on the ground.

Battling as usual

MADDY MYERS — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 22:29:21 GMT

Pokémon Battle Revolution is hardly revolutionary
After you boot up, the receptionist at Pokétopia tells you that Pokémon: Battle Revolution ’s Pokémon battle park has plenty of features.

NEW VIRTUAL CLOTHES?: Hey, your character’s gotta look good on the Internet.

After you boot up, the receptionist at Pokétopia tells you that Pokémon: Battle Revolution’s Pokémon battle park has plenty of features. These all involve battling (putting the “battle revolution” in, uh, “Battle Revolution”), and though the battles are the best part of every Pokémon RPG, fighting without pause can lead to wavering enthusiasm. The one thing Pokémon: Battle Revolution doesn’t have is the one thing you want: an RPG mode.

If you don’t already own a Nintendo DS and a copy of Pokémon: Diamond or Pearl, Pokétopia will give you a rental roster of six Pokémon. (See whether you can guess which six they give you. I’ll give you a hint: one of them is a pigeon.) Your not-so-magnificent six are neither unusual nor strong, and with no opportunity to level them up, you don’t stand a chance fighting on-line. Here’s hoping you have a DS with a slew of high-level rare races. (Transferring Pokémon wirelessly to the Wii is extremely simple.)

The single-player mode offers a seemingly endless stream of coliseums, at which your character battles other Pokémon trainers (usually eight per coliseum). Your six Pokémon all begin with full hit points every time you face a new opponent, and that limits the tactical aspects of each battle to its final moments. Despite the repetitive nature of constant turn-based battling, your challengers’ strange outfits (many are dressed as Pokémon) and bizarre battle cries (“I just like to be normal and fit in . . . except in battle!”) ensure some sustained amusement.

You can use the points you win to buy items at the shop — anything from Pikachu merch to new hairstyles, glasses, and clothes — but the gear isn’t for the Pokémon, it’s for your character. Or you can save up your points to buy a Mystery Gift to be used on your Nintendo DS in Pokémon: Diamond or Pearl. A Mystery Gift costs several thousand points, however, and you earn only 200 to 400 points per coliseum. Familiarity with your Pokémon breeds success (by way of “perfect” battles in which none of your Pokémon faints and you score maximum points), but it also breeds boredom. Once you’ve purchased new virtual clothes, it’s time to bring your Pokémon to the Internet, the biggest coliseum of all. That is, if you aren’t already sick of battling, more battling, and then still more battling — because on-line fighting isn’t that different from fighting the trainers in the coliseums.