Originally from Diehard GameFAN

Way of the Samurai has had an interesting history in the United States, but through its low-key releases and near misses to the North American market, the series ultimately has quite the cult following. Billed as a samurai adventure, the series has been compared to established franchises such as Fable, based on its decision making, consequences and themes of morality. Enjoying moderate success, the franchise has jumped from the Playstation 2 format to the Xbox 360 thanks to an effort by UFO Interactive (as well as the Playstation 3, although this entry is published courtesy of Agetec). With the expansive offerings seen in the first two entries, it should be expected the 360 hardware would considerably bump up the replayability and scope of the game. Unfortunately, the answer to this expectation is a mix of yes and no and while Way of the Samurai 3 does a number of mechanics to satisfaction, a number of others fall pretty flat.

Just like the other entries of the series, the title puts players in the role of a wandering samurai in which your past has no bearing in the game, but your character’s future is entirely dependent on the actions and choices made through the course of gameplay. In Way of the Samurai 3, specifically, the player appears to be mixed into warfare from the feudal era, when an attack deals a crippling injury to their player. Miraculously surviving and waking up among a battlefield littered with fallen soldiers, the player begins their quest from here and immediately the factors of choice and story development unfold as villagers scoping the battlefield will show concern for you – you can be nice to receive their help or tell them to piss off either verbally or by unsheathing your sword and scaring them away.

While every story path will revolve around the warring states in the vicinity of Amana and various clans vying for control of the territory and the villages affected by this warfare, it is up to the player to decide how events unfold from the beginning up until the impending invasion of the forces of Nobunaga Oda. Ultimately, the story is decided on by the player, which greatly increases the title’s appeal and, in this manner, players are free to do as they please, whether those actions are good, neutral or evil, in order to uncover the game’s more than 20 different endings. While the scripting is hardly mind-blowing, the story is very serviceable and holds true to its source setting and there are some fairly entertaining bits of dialog to be found, even though it is usually sluggishly told through word bubbles that pop on the screen (and when multiple people are talking, this can be quite annoying). As archaic as the delivery might be in regard to today’s standards, adventure aficionados that have seen their fair share of classic titles might fit right at home with the simple text dialog and menu-based delivery. Most of the game is hosted in the traditional single-player story, which, given the amount of options available to the player isn’t necessarily a bad point, but the title doesn’t feature depth in its modes and even some simple online functionality that allowed players to take their custom character online to duel other players would have taken the title a bit further in its offerings.

Before we dive into the gameplay, I will have to point out that technology junkies will surely be put off by the title’s presentation. Way of the Samurai 3 seems as if it was developed originally for the Playstation 2 or on a lower budget because it definitely shows in the game’s visuals and audio. Everything here is certainly passable, but nothing uses the true processing of the Xbox 360 as you’ll see undetailed character models that lack much animation during conversations, pop-up runs wild in certain parts of the title and players will be sure to notice the lack of detail and jagged model edges in the cutscenes. What is provided for the game’s audio measures up just a little better, but with very little voice acting in the title (with the English voices being a bit shaky in quality for the most part), players will mostly be treated to ambient sounds that get the job done. In perhaps the game’s real shining moment in presentation, during certain situations, players will be treated to music that is fitting for the time period. Overall, I wouldn’t say Way of the Samurai 3 has bad presentation, it just needed a lot more polish than what it received and doesn’t hold a candle to most of the game’s seen on the format.

Thankfully, the meat of the game is ripe with satisfying gameplay that the player can tackle in short bursts or long periods of time. Playing by the rules, players will end up doing a fair share of quests, exploration and decision making instead of haphazardly instigating fights, but given the fact these aspects shape the game as a whole, they become immediately engrossing as slight differences in the player’s actions can create the infamous butterfly effect. If you’re truly thirsting for blood, however, who you attack and off in the game does serve as a significant factor in how the world turns out in the end even though it hinders your overall progress in the game by reducing your samurai points that unlock various features in the game. In Way of the Samurai 3, if the player executes a unique character, they never come back for that specific playthrough, however, more honorable samurai will utilize the game’s new feature to attack with the blunt side of the weapon in order to merely knockout that character and immobilize them for a while. Another new mechanic remedies the problems encountered in many other titles in the genre, by allowing the player to bow down and apologize if they accidentally threaten someone (it also does a few other quirky acts such interact with cats or allow the player to beg for money). Along with dialog choices and the ability to unsheathe your sword during any event, a number of mechanics are in place to keep the premise of the game interesting and the branching series of events keep different elements of the game intriguing to return to.

Even if the story isn’t your thing, this installment of Way of the Samurai eliminates the time limitations placed on the player, allowing them to spend whatever time they wish to in the game world before engaging in the final few events of the game. Much like previous entries of the game, this allows players to collect a huge assortment of weapons that can be stored for later use and the weapon crafting system alone has the potential to keep players engrossed in the management the game has to offer. Not only can players pick fights, but they can also foster relationships with key characters and even convince them to be companions that can aid in battle, provide support or even steal from you if you don’t keep an eye on them. Also, through battle, players can raise their abilities with a given weapon, learning new moves with it, but care will also have be given to each weapon as if a weapon loses its durability, it can break and be lost for good. With such examples to supplement the title’s gameplay, it becomes somewhat of a simulation, supplementing the adventure and action aspects of the title for those that like to tinker with collectibles and inventory.

Battling remains very similar to the way it was executed in Way of the Samurai 2, where parries are performed with timing a block with an enemy’s attack as opposed to the original entry, which used directional controls to manipulate the enemy’s momentum. This becomes quite important in allowing players to execute one-hit kills with counters and play passively to adapt to the enemies’ actions. The parrying becomes crucial since being reckless with your weapons will quickly lead to their durability fading away. While mowing down grunt enemies can become a bit repetitive, as the player progresses, there will be more suitable enemies to test the player’s skill and with multiple difficulty settings, players should be able to find a suitably satisfying fight. At face value, the player has a “weak” and “strong” attack, but when you factor in the numerous weapon types and techniques that players eventually uncover, players can mix in a number of offensive strings to compliment the defensive techniques. To further add to the exploration, players can use some wacky weapons such as garden utensils or wield vegetables and scrappy fighters can opt to go to battle with their fists.

That being said, though, everything in Way of the Samurai 3 is a pretty straightforward game and while there is a ton of interesting aspects to do and see, the execution will most likely fall a bit short from most current-generation gamers’ expectations. The game’s targeting and camera work can be a bit suspect at times and while the fighting is overall satisfying, players will most likely expect a bit more scope from the title, which only has a rough handful of environments to check out. Way of the Samurai 3 is one of those titles that is short at face value, taking only an hour or two to reach an ending, but encourages multiple playthroughs and, as such, it may potentially only hold a player’s attention for a couple of times before they move on to something else. The customization of the character is fairly bare-bones and while a number of features such as dual-wielding weapons and more can be unlocked, players will find themselves going through the same processes multiple times to reach this goal and the game’s samurai points are actually pretty easy to exploit for quick advancement that creates a bit of an unbalanced player progression. Thankfully, the multiple difficulties and satisfying fights level out the game’s balance and the quantity of content makes the title worth its price tag.

However, the questionable aspect at hand for a gamer deciding whether or not to pick up Way of the Samurai 3 is in the quality of its content. Acquire has created a unique approach to the “sandbox” style of gameplay many current gamers are familiar with, but with its behind-the-times presentation and calculating gameplay, Grand Theft Auto this is not, which is made most obvious through the game’s slower pacing. One of the first quests has you fetching an old lady’s underwear, which can be stolen from your inventory by crows, definitely setting up a questionable entry into the game, but as players progress or become more unruly, they’ll begin to find more options and action in quests such as punishing thieves. Regardless, Way of the Samurai 3 can still manage to be a satisfying time sink if players can overlook its downsides. Unlike a game such as Grand Theft Auto IV that revolves around giving a story to the player, Way of the Samurai 3 does the reverse and allows the player to dictate the story, allowing the player to make the character his or her own and this even carries over into the possibility of death, which effectively ends the story for that playthrough. This may upset some gamers, but with the ability to keep all money and items earned through the player’s career, the game features enough appeal and content to keep players diving right back in.

Right now, Acquire and Spike have the content feature nailed down with its Japanese releases and if future titles can build upon this with more quality and polish, Way of the Samurai will be a series to recommend without hesitation. There is plenty of appeal and replayability in the series as a whole and this definitely isn’t lost in the series. However, it’s hard to ignore that the title does not take advantage of the hardware, which is perhaps the biggest downside of the game. Sure there are other quirks in the game’s progression and combat, but they can be easily overlooked to find a satisfying title that players can come back to time and time again.

GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5

Much like its predecessors, while Way of the Samurai 3 fails to really flex the system’s hardware muscle, it doesn’t stray from providing the replayability and unique, interesting gameplay the series is known for. The newest installment adds enough new features to freshen up the series while remaining true to its roots, but the fact it does not take advantage of the hardware is one of the title’s crippling downsides. You’ll also have a number of graphical and camera issues along with some questionable quality among the game’s huge scope of content, but at the end of the day, Way of the Samurai 3 is a title you can come back to numerous times and it will most likely have something new to show you.

This morning wasn’t the most splendid way to start off the work week, but, at least I’m still alive and earning a paycheck.  Just shy of 8 a.m., I was using an apple corer and slicer and I would have to imagine this particular one was of the cheap Wal-Mart variety.  Upon using my amazing strength to push down on the apple, the plastic completely broke from the blades and the downward force sent my hands crashing down to the table.  The blades, of course, stuck in the apple, sticking out and giving me small gashes on the outside of both of my hands as physics took over and brushed my hands across them.  It’s a trivial, mostly annoying injury for sure, but it got me thinking today, how it could have been worse and how I would cope with not having opposable digits.  Obviously, not having thumbs would be the bane of any console gamer’s existence, so would you be inclined to agree the gift of thumbs is something we tend to take for granted?

Perhaps the only thing I’ve ever experienced in being “disabled,” was fracturing my arm, very near the growth plate in my right shoulder.  Since it was high on my arm, my mobility in my wrist and such was never in any jeopardy.  Still, I remember looking pretty goofy going to arcades in a coat in colder weather with my forearm protruding out through the gaps of my coat’s buttons.  I received a few questions about my setup while playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it was understandable – I wasn’t going to let a crack in my bone stop me from enjoying video games.

However, given where video games are heading, are thumbs still going to play a part in our hobby?  I could obviously get by using a joystick and button setup without a pair of thumbs, but you really aren’t going to need them, it seems, with items such as Project Natal.  Given the evolution of controllers and gaming, I’ve also noticed you really don’t see as many mentions of “numb thumb” or hand calamities that saw the release of specialized accessories and even gloves that aimed to relieve these ailments.  I’m sure there are some people who don’t know when to quit and waggle their appendages down to the bone (I’m pretty sure we took a look at one such instance on the forum here one time), but you just don’t see magazine print ads selling such items anymore.  Although, I do wish I had a pair of those gloves for the original Mario Party on the Nintendo 64 – winding up the toy Shy Guy burned a friction hole in a few members of my childhood gaming group and remains as one of my most crippling gaming injuries.

Obviously, I’ll survive, but, perhaps the injury leads me to take another look at the many things in gaming we have taken for granted over our time.  What would gaming controllers look like if we didn’t have thumbs?  It would have been quite the interesting evolution and, who knows, maybe we would have still arrived at the same point as Project Natal.  Thumbless gaming just seems foreign to me as even the wagglacious Nintendo Wii still banks on people having thumbs for the most part and the Playstation 3 motion wand would be a whole new ball game if we didn’t have thumbs.  I have nearly 30 years of gaming experience in these two bad boys and I know I’ve got many more in me – hopefully thumb-based gaming won’t go the way of the dodo, but that would be hard to believe for this generation.  As it is, I’m amused at the premise of today’s children not knowing what cassette and VHS tapes are, but I suppose I better start thinking of ways to explain a time where video games didn’t synchronize directly with your brain.

We continue our look at Super Street Fighter IV, this time eyeing a number of Japanese sites that touch on the future of Super Street Fighter IV in the arcade.  You can get the full story over at Arcade Heroes, but here is a snippet from my submission to the site:

"Only time will tell if the expansion lands on arcades, which would predictably work very well as the arcade machine has had a dedicated following and being able to switch the game up for an upgraded version in an old cabinet would no doubt be a welcome addition to arcade owners’ collections all over the world. Given how much has already been exclusive to the consoles, Super Street Fighter IV would undoubtedly be a huge leap for the game in arcades. Today’s information has made it clear the real focus is on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the standalone title and its upgraded online capabilities, but at least a chunk of people can breathe a little easier knowing an arcade version hasn’t been completely shot down yet.  EVO interviews with Street Fighter IV champion Diago noted Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix isn’t available in Japan and he believes the title would make a huge impact in arcades so at least someone believes in the cause."

Being upfront and honest, I will have to say NBA 2K10 Draft Combine is one of the oddest titles I’ve had to review in a long time. That being said, however, I mean that in a good way. What appears to be a $5 demo upfront (and still is in many online gamers’ minds) for me unraveled into a satisfying short-burst simulation experience that gave me a taste of what to expect in NBA 2K10 and keeps providing content to me in short chunks with solid b-ball gameplay. In all, this taste of the court won’t be for everyone, but sports fans will be pressed (that’s an unintentional pun … honestly) to find a better sports package on Xbox LIVE and I can easily give you a list of far worse items you can spend 400 Microsoft Points on.

NBA 2K10 Draft Combine really cuts to the chase: You dream of playing in the NBA and as part of the draft, the player will need to play as well as humanely possible to flex your value to the NBA teams. The better you do, the higher your draft stock raises and players will see themselves slated as an early draft pick, meaning these teams really want to hand you a large chunk of money to lure you to their city. It’s really as simple as that and when the mission is accomplished, players can upload their player to the 2K server so if they choose to pick up the full NBA 2K10 game when it releases, that player can be plucked from said server and imported into the upcoming My Player mode. With such a straightforward premise, Draft Combine actually provides a good amount to cycle through, with the menus presented in the trademark 2K Navigation. What seems like a simple demo upfront, turns into a bit more when you add in drills, free shooting, scrimmage practices, a robust character creation, stat boosting, leaderboards, statistical analysis and a good bit more.

While you might assume the gameplay has been dumbed down for a watered-down $5 experience, that isn’t the case – the full gameplay functionality of NBA 2K10 is said to be here and the list of individual controls ranks in at more than 100 pages in the game’s help menu. Layups, leans, fadeaways, bank shots and more are at the player’s control, much like in recent NBA 2K titles, and unless the player studies the full list from the beginning, they will most likely discover a new control mechanic each time they play. What does differ from the standard gameplay, however, is the fact that Draft Combine has the player focus on nothing other than their created character, thus where the simulation aspects roll into this otherwise straight-forward basketball affair.

The main hook of the game stems from the six official combine games the player will participate in – these are the games that count, awarding skill points with performance and determining whether or not your character is fit for the NBA. The title measures your team ability and decision making, however, so the player is forced to play smart if they want to go anywhere in the title, making the game much more interesting than it could have been otherwise. Much like a grade card, players are measured from a scale of A-F (with appropriate plus and minus grades inbetween) and the game grades players in real time. Taking smart shots, dishing out good passes, throwing out assists, making highlight plays and playing well consistently adds to your grade, but playing poor defense against your matchup, fouling and giving away the ball through turnovers docks it down.

Overall, the mechanic handles how it should and reflects being a team player, however, sometimes the player will question the accuracy of the feature and there are times where a few items beyond your control will diminish your grade. For instance, if you dish a pass to a wide open player to improve your position toward the basket, you get a “good pass” boost, but if the CPU teammate bobbles the ball and can’t hold onto it, this mark suddenly turns into a bad pass. The grading is pretty rigid as there will no doubt be times where players feel they have taken a good, wide-open shot without receiving a grade boost for it, but, still, it forces players to play smart and pay attention to everything that is going on during the game.

The default camera also puts a tight focus on your player, meaning action going on at the other side of the court will sometimes occur off the screen. I shouldn’t have to mention that this is bad for the player’s defensive awareness, but players can press down on the d-pad to switch up the camera. It’s a minor annoyance at most, but the remedy is a bit unintuitive to the player trying to keep tabs on the action. Also, it should be noted to players that while it mostly makes sense, your character will not play to the likes of Jordan or James. For the duration of the title, you’ll be in the shoes of a player with an overall rating that barely scratches the 40s and will be placed among players of the same caliber. What this will lead to is a good amount of embarrassingly-missed close-up shots and even layups. It doesn’t help that your teammates will feature a lot of poor AI issues, trying to weave in weird patterns that result in some really infuriating backcourt violations and out of bounds calls and taking some odd liberties that would no doubt kill your teammate grade if you did the same.

Otherwise, even with some frustrating issues, Draft Combine is still a satisfying quick-play basketball title fitting of its $5 price tag. You essentially get the refined gameplay of the 2K series without the flair of the big-time NBA spectacles. All of the shooting, passing and defensive maneuvers are as fluid as they should be and there are a ton of options available to the player while on the court. The game’s stanima indicator is also provides another nice touch that will force players to play smart or else they will start to see their player suffer in stats and speed. The amount of action in the downloadable will no doubt hold players hungry for a new NBA season over until the release of NBA 2K10, but on that same token, players will most likely not come back to this version unless they want to pump another player into the retail release. On the other hand, though, the $5 price tag is much more attractive to a casual fan of the sport or anyone wanting to get into the series at low price, so the appeal sort of works in both ways.

Even in downloadable form, the character models still hold up very well, with some good detail that can be fashioned to ridiculous levels in the character creation mode. Each of the game’s characters also animate very well, even though a few of these animations do seemed canned and fight with the player’s controls a tad. The ball itself also carries itself well with appropriate physics – I can’t say the ball ever bounced in a way I didn’t expect it to and the only weird instances I found were ones where the ball was kicked by one of the characters but this results in a violation so it doesn’t affect the gameplay. You do get a lack of variation outside of the characters, however. All games take place in a single, empty training gym and some of the bystanders look a little ugly due to a lack of polys. It’s not enough to distract players from the game, but if you pay attention, you will be able to nitpick at a handful of graphical nuances.

Unfortunately, the sound in the title doesn’t hold up to the par set by the graphics. The most glaring annoyance is in the paltry three music tracks featured in the title that are repeated ad infinitum. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the tracks themselves, not everyone will agree with the genre and the lack of variety had my girlfriend demanding I turn the music off. Yes, Kenan Bell, I have heard something like this before because I heard it about five minutes ago (that would be a reference to “Like This,” featured in the game’s soundtrack for those that haven’t played Draft Combine). Outside of the music, you won’t find any commentary, crowd ruckus or organ music here, which makes sense, meaning the majority of what players will hear stems from the on-court action: Sneakers squeaking on hardwood, the ball echoing through the gym, the clank of the rim, the swish of the net and the barking and trash talking of the players. Everything sounds like it should and the 2K Insider is a decent HUD companion, but once I blocked out the music, I felt there was no punch to the sound and that some more variation could have went a long way. The sound package is appropriate, but it has a few voids that could be filled to flesh out the experience.

GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5

NBA 2K10 Draft Combine is an interesting experiment that pays off overall. Even though it has a few nagging issues, some frustrating bits and a gratingly-repetitive soundtrack, players are still offered a bite-sized simulation that gives them a fully-functional 2K Sports experience. The ability to import a player into NBA 2K10 is a good hook for players that can’t get enough of the hardwood franchise and the low price tag will fit the bill of the casual sports fan. With drills, free shooting, scrimmages and combine games, there is a surprising amount of variation in the title and the serviceable presentation make for a satisfying quick-play basketball experience. Draft Combine might not blow players away, but it gives players another interesting downloadable approach to tie in with a long-running console franchise.