Table Salt Review Guidelines

Whenever I finish a game (or feel that I’ve played a game long enough), I’ll write a review for Table Salt. While my Top 52 segment is very subjective, my reviews or newer games will be more objective. Obviously I can't be completely objective, I am human. Rather, I'll just be honest about my views. Reviews may affect how gamers buy their games, so I’ll try not to let my personal biases get in the way of what makes a good game. If I don’t like the genre, I’ll tell you in the review, as my like or dislike for a genre may affect my opinion on its score.

I don’t break down games into separate categories either. I’m not going to rate the sound, controls, and plot in different segments. I will review the game as a cohesive whole, and incorporate the different aspects of gameplay into my review. By separating the review into parts, I fear that the result may be the sum of all its parts. If you don’t feel like reading the entire review however, I will have a “Quick Fix,” where I will just list out the general pros and cons of the game.

I will be using a number system for ratings since that seems like the easiest to me and gives me a lot of choices. Below are my descriptions for games that fit into different ranges starting from the worst to the best.

Rating Levels:

0.0 - 0.9: Absolute Garbage: Hopefully I’ll never need to review a game that is this bad. A game that gets this score is probably not fully functional and in need of improvement in every category imaginable. A game rated this low might make your ears explode upon even hearing its name out loud.

1.0 - 1.9: Horrendous: Not quite the worst games ever, but pretty close. These games probably have near-unworkable controls and are devoid of any fun whatsoever. Homework is probably more fun than this game.

2.0 - 2.9: Awful: Games with this rating probably have one good thing going for them. Maybe the music didn’t suck or maybe the game suffered from poor execution. Regardless, the game was a major disappointment and needed multiple improvements.

3.0 - 3.9: Bad: Simply put, the game’s negatives far outweigh the game’s positives. Maybe the gameplay was well thought out but the controls make it really hard to play. Either way, games with this low of a ranking need a lot of help.

4.0 - 4.9: Poor: A game with this rating might have had a chance to be really good except for some major setbacks. Games with this rating most likely underachieved and suffer from numerous problems.

5.0 - 5.9: Mediocre: This game is average. There were some fun moments and/or creative ideas but the fun of the game was hampered by other faults probably causing the player to be angry at some times.

6.0 - 6.9: Fair: You’ve definitely seen better games than this but you enjoyed the time you spent with this game. Maybe the controls and the music were really lame but the story kept you going. If you like the genre, you may like this game.

7.0 - 7.9: Good: This game was very enjoyable. This game was probably not very memorable and you probably played through it once, liked it, but would not go back to it again. A worthwhile experience while it lasted.

8.0 - 8.9: Great: This game was amazing. You loved the time you spent with it and with a few minor tweaks this game can become outstanding. A must-have for any fan of the genre.

9.0 - 9.9: Outstanding: Games with this rating are near-perfect. The controls were solid; the gameplay was fun; the music rocked. Games of this stature are rare and anyone who has the console probably has or wants this game.

10: Masterful: Masterful games stay with you throughout your entire lifetime. These are games that you enjoyed every second of and the only bad thing about it was that it eventually ended. Games of this level have probably influenced hundreds of other games and innovated an entire genre. As of today, only two games in my mind have reached this perfect score. I can’t tell you those games though, otherwise that would really mess up the drama of my Top 52 segment!

Why am I giving this all to you right now? If you look at my next blog entry, you’ll see my first review! Refer back to this page in the future if you want a reminder about generally what the numbers mean.

Top 52: Metroid Prime (#48)

This week's Top 52 features one of the Gamecube's gems: Metroid Prime. Gamespot's review for this game says it best: "It's not just one of the single most atmospheric games ever created, but it's also quite simply one of the best."

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Title: Metroid Prime
Console: Gamecube
Release Date: 11/19/02 (US)
Genre: First-Person Adventure
My Ranking: #48

I was not excited about Metroid Prime when it was first announced. I thought the first-person camera would ruin the classic platforming/shooting style they had perfected with Super Metroid. I have played first-person shooters before and with all of the FPS’es I’ve played before this one, the environments were boring as the status quo was run into an area shoot some bad guys and move on. The Metroid series, I thought, deserved better than to be reduced to a standard FPS. Apparently, the developers thought the same thing, creating one of the most engaging first-person shooters I have ever played.

I say engaging because the gameplay environments are so crisp and rich with color. The water honestly looked so real that you could see the separate water drops in the waterfall. Heck, you could even see the water drops form on the visor that Samus sees the world from. The atmosphere did not feel realistic though, which was excellent. The environment looked as though the developers took Super Metroid, made it 3-D, and then made the graphics as sharp as possible. The caves and space pirate buildings felt just as creepy as they did before and the grassy environments felt reminiscent of the fantasy world created in Super Metroid.

I quickly realized that this game was much more than a first-person shooter. The world was so open that I felt the need to explore every nook and cranny. I was even rewarded for doing so because by looking in the odd spots I often found energy tanks or missile upgrades. I also never felt lost in this game despite the open environment. The map system would tell you the general location of where you need to go without giving you a direct route nor would it tell you what puzzles you would need to solve to move on ahead.

While most of the game was in first-person, when you do switch into morph ball mode, the game switches to a third-person camera where you can control Samus in a ball. You can roll around in this mode and use your bombs jump up or to hit some enemies. Metroid Prime utilized this mode very effectively, often giving you morph ball puzzles where the game’s camera would move out to show a 2-D tunnel landscape (both vertical and horizontal ones) that you had to navigate through using the morph ball. These areas were surprisingly fun as the mazes often had special power ups in them that were hard to get.

Figuring out how to get where you need to go was probably the most fun part of Metroid Prime. After taking out some ghost pirates using the X-Ray visor, there was one point where you had to use the morph ball to find a tunnel to weave your way through, switch your weapon to the correct type to unlock the switch, get fired out of a cannon and then use your spider ball mechanism to hit another switch that would lead to another morph ball maze. The game required you to use all of the abilities you got and to execute them properly.

Combat in the game was also incredibly fun. You’re able to lock-on enemies that you saw but, often times enemies would come at you in huge numbers. So, while you’re shooting you would need to jump, strafe and dodge incoming enemies while taking out as many guys as you can. Not every enemy fell to your basic shooting power however. Sometimes you would need to switch to your wave gun to stun enemies or maybe their weakness is only located in a specific spot on their body. Battles became little arenas where you are constantly moving trying to gain a good angle for some shots.

Bosses were never as simple as fire and get cover as well. For almost every boss battle, figuring out how to beat the boss was the challenge. Once you figured out the pattern to the boss the battle was pretty easy but figuring out that pattern involved some creative use of your abilities once again. Sometimes you had to use a specific gun at a certain time or maybe you would have to use the morph ball to get into a tunnel and set a bomb underneath them.

The reason why this game isn’t ranked higher though is for some little things that could have made this game even more amazing. For one, there is no multiplayer mode in this games, either co-op or competitive. On-screen co-op might have been difficult to implement but would have been amazing considering how creative and smart the enemies were. Metroid Prime is also a little bit too easy. Once you get four or five energy tanks, it’s really hard to die as the game gives you a lot of health back. The story is also kind of bland, but I like it that way, as there was little text and a very open adventure.

Many people disliked the Nintendo Gamecube as a whole. Metroid Prime is one of the Gamecube games that made me love the system. Metroid Prime not only provided a stunning environment to explore but it also redefined how deep and diverse a first-person shooter can be.

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My Top 52:

#52 --- Star Fox 64 (N64)

#51 --- Kirby's Adventure (NES)

#50 --- Roller Coaster Tycoon (PC)

#49 --- Grand Theft Auto III (PS2)

#48 --- Metroid Prime (GC)

#47 --- Revealed on 08/12

Big Budget Disappointments: GTA IV and MGS4

The two biggest games for 2008 that have come out already are, undoubtedly, Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. I have owned these games pretty much since their release dates and so far, I have beaten neither of them. These games received so much fanfare and numerous gaming sites have given these games perfect scores. I played through about 30% of both of them and for whatever reason I just could not get back into either of the games.

With Grand Theft Auto IV, the game just felt monotonous to me. I was doing similar tasks over and over again for different people. In general, almost every mission while you are still in Brooklyn involves you driving to a green dot, killing a red dot and then driving back to your original destination in one piece. Niko’s story does get pretty interesting along the way and there are some interesting twists (I won’t spoil anything) but, the gameplay itself was pretty much the same as all the other entrants in the series.

The new aspects of Grand Theft Auto IV are things that I really don’t care about. I don’t want to surf a made-up internet system. The writing on the various sites is pretty funny, but I don’t want to check my e-mail for some car stealing missions. It’s slow, unnecessary and only wastes time. I also don’t care about dating the various girls and taking them to places. They don’t build up the story or gain interesting characters, with the exception of the first girl you date.

GTAIV also suffers from having poor control in every aspect of the character’s movement and actions. Driving isn’t as fun as it was in the older iterations of the series as the driving has gotten more realistic. You can’t blast through close corners anymore without having to brake and the cars move more sluggishly, like actual cars. GTAIV is a video game however, I want to able to do things with a car that I can’t normally do.

Aiming and shooting is also still unnecessarily awkward as the control stick makes the aiming cursor move to choppy and taking cover isn’t very smooth at all. The camera for driving, walking and shooting is also not very helpful, which really hurts my enjoyment of the game. Even if Niko’s story is amazing and later missions are different and fun, it’s hard to get to that point when the controls are not top-notch.

Metal Gear Solid 4 suffers from a slightly different problem. Surprisingly, the game is just too short. I know I haven’t beaten it yet, but every area I’ve been to already has been really small. In some areas, you sneak around three sets of guards and then another cut scene shows up that lasts a good 10 minutes. You get through another set of guards and then you’re having a long talk with Naomi Hunter and Octocon. I expected Metal Gear Solid 4 to have a ton of dialogue and a ton of cut scenes (which I don’t mind) but, I also expected there to be a ton of tactical espionage action and there just simply isn’t.


Metal Gear Solid 4 is also surprisingly easy to get through. Even if you’re seen by the guards you have a litany of weapons available to you and you can order more ammunition at any time. Tranquilizer guns also make taking out guards a little too easy. There’s almost no need to sneak around tight corners since you can knock guards out with one shot. Bosses are also incredibly simple as most of the strategy is fire, find cover, wait, and fire again. Crying Wolf in the snowfield provided a little challenge but once you find a spot to fire from, sniping her is a piece of cake.

Normally, I’m not so critical of a game, as I find most of them fun, but these games have had huge budgets and a lot of time to work on these games. They were hyped up like crazy and they were also very expensive for the PS3 at $60. Luckily, I was able to get GTAIV for free (thank you Jesse!). I expected near perfect games that I would fall madly in love with. I ended up being very disappointed with these two titles but, I probably will finish them before the summer is over. I’ll definitely go back to Metal Gear Solid 4 first, since the story is very engaging. Liquid Ocelot is pretty badass, I must say.

Once I completely finish these games (if I do), I’ll give a full review. This post is more of a rant, I know, but these games aren’t perfect as every other site says they are and I felt it necessary to share my early impressions.

Fearing the Fat Princess

Two feminists (kinda) are speaking out against the obese portrayal of women in the upcoming PSN game, Fat Princess. In general the problem they have with the game is that part of the game mechanic is to stuff the princess you captured with cake, making her bigger and harder to bring back her original base. Fat Princess is essentially a game of capture the flag, with a fat princess being the flag.


No, I’m not kidding. Shakesville’s Melissa McEwan writes:
“I sure hope there's a clever dénouement like the Fat Princess magically becoming thin once she's rescued! 'Cuz that would rock, yo! Anyway, congrats on your awesome new game, Sony. I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes.”

It doesn’t stop there though. Feminist Gamers’ Mighty Ponygirl writes:
“Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry. Oh, but that’s not as “cute” as cake and fat chicks. Right.”

Really? Why are these two people picking a fight over this game? I didn’t know that having a fat character in a video game will actually change people’s perceptions about how fat people act. Fat princess isn’t a cute game because the princess is fat. The game is cute because of the character design and because of how over the top it is. Sure, you could have gold coins go into a treasure chest and take the treasure chest, but that isn’t as crazy of an idea as stuffing a princess with cake. It’s a neat, harmless idea that shouldn’t affect anybody. Gamers won’t look down on the princess because she is fat and then look down at people in real life who are obese. It’s a game. It is over the top and the “plot” should not be taken seriously.

I highly doubt that these two writers are steadfast feminists. Good feminists fight for more righteous things like equal pay for men and women, women’s health issues and representation in governments. Good feminists know that this isn’t news. I understand that the portrayal of women as equals to men is important, but Fat Princess does not hurt perceptions. Honestly, it’s a non-issue. Everybody knows that overweight men and women exist and reasonable people know that obesity is a growing problem, especially in the United States.

In my opinion, these writers show a subtle fear of showing obese women on a television screen. The problem here is not that a game is showing a fat woman but that some people are actually upset about what a fat woman can do to the minds of the masses if seen on television. Yes, as a culture, we casually stereotype obese people as lazy and ugly. It isn’t fair or justified but we do have obesity in our culture; why should we hide it and have every video game character (male or female) be perfectly fit? The first step is not to get rid of this fat princess character but for us, as a collective populous, to be able to look at any fat person and not feel shame or pity. Don’t count on Fat Princess to be a muse for this paradigm shift in our psyches though; this game is not trying to make a political statement nor were they trying to offend anybody.

For the developers of Fat Princess; these pseudo-feminists (I hesitate putting them in the same group of women who have actually made a difference) have given the Fat Princess game more press then they could have expected. The overwhelming reaction to these bloggers’ responses to this game has been that the bloggers are taking this too far. People are defending this game and they haven’t even played it yet. For every time a writer knocks down these two female writers, they mention how cool the capture the flag style game will be.

This was probably an accident, but the developers of Fat Princess have made a game that was just controversial enough to offend some radical people, which caused people to disagree with those radical people and talk about how good Fat Princess is. Gamers, for the most part, have discredited the controversy, putting the game in the positive spotlight gaining a ton of press. I couldn’t think of a better marketing strategy myself.

BC Advanced Strategies: ABC Game

I recently got back from a trip to Wisconsin and I had so much fun seeing all the different sites and spending some alone time with my awesome girlfriend. Needless to say, I didn’t play many games while on the trip. I brought my DS but it didn’t get any play time for a variety of reasons.

I did however, play games of a different sort. The drive to Wisconsin from New York City took about 16 hours and since my girlfriend doesn’t drive, I drove all of those hours. Aside from listening to the CDs we had brought along, we had to keep ourselves occupied in other ways, and one of those ways was playing Road Games. I’ll share with you my favorite road game, the ABC game, and some strategies in this week’s edition of BC Advanced Strategies.

ABC game:
This one is easy to play and highly addictive. All you need to know is the alphabet. Starting with the letter A, you need to find a word, any word anywhere outside the car that begins with the letter A. Once you find the word, you just call it out, possibly even point to it to confirm it to the other player and then move on to the next letter. The only letters you can skip are Q and X since they are really hard to find and tend to slow down the game almost to a standstill. The way I play is that when I reach the letter Q, I skip it and move on to R but, if you find a Q, you can call it out assuming you reached that point. Also, the beginning of license plates count for a letter assuming, of course, if the beginning of the license plate has the letter you’re looking for.

This game is surprisingly a lot of fun and as a driver, it keeps your mind active which is really helpful on long trips. Here are some tricks to give you an edge if you’re interested.

1. Know what State you are in. If you are driving in New York, N and Y should be a cinch. If you’re driving in Ohio, O should go by really fast. If you’re driving on an interstate, keep in mind what states are nearby as that will help you find some letters really fast.

2. Trucks have a lot of words on them. Trucks usually have warnings about crossing on the left or right, or something about their mirrors. Try to read all of the messages on the trucks; it really helps out when there are no exit signs or billboards. The most useful truck is a Fed Ex Ground truck as that gives you E, F and G all in one go. My girlfriend got me that one. She’s a clever one.


3. Quality for Q, Xpress for X, Zone for Z. Q, X and Z are the hardest letters in this game. Quality is probably the most common Q letter word you’ll see on the road as billboards sometimes say they have the best quality, or you may pass by a Quality Inn. Xpress for X is not common everywhere but in general, some billboards and trucks think they are fancy by leaving off the E in those “ex” words. Lastly, you should see Zone for Z in a lot of places while you’re on the road. Construction signs usually say that this is a “work zone” or maybe you’ll see a “fallen rock zone” sign if you’re traveling in high altitudes.

You can also play with a point system if you want to make things competitive. The point system I suggest is that Q, X and Z are all worth two points while every other letter is worth one. Under that system, there can be some climatic comebacks at the end of the game.

Yes, I know this isn’t a board game or card game yet it’s under the BC advanced strategies segment. It’s close though, I think, and damn it, I think it’s a lot of fun. :-P

Post Tradin'

In case you didn't notice, the previous post was made by Will, a friend of mine that I met at NYU. He has his own blog at Will and Beyond. His blog pretty much talks about everything from food, his everyday life, movies, news and games. It's really a lot of fun to read (and it has been around for years!), so check it out if you have the time.



We will be trading posts on each other's blog about once a week, which will hopefully expand both of our readerships. I made a post on Will's blog earlier today, "For Puzzles, the Bell Tolls" so take a look at it.

It is really nice to have a different voice on this site every now and then; it creates more content for the site and you have information shooting from different angles as a result. That being said, if you want to talk about games and publish it on Table Salt Games, leave me a message, an e-mail (rpr236@nyu.edu ) or a comment. I say "game" very loosely since I'm cool with people writing about video games, board games or even sporting events. If you can call it game in some sense, then it fits for this blog.

In addition, if you have a blog of your own, I'm down for doing the same deal I have with Will where we trade posts to each other's blog every week. I write primarily about games but I can write about other things if that doesn't fit the scope of your blog. Just drop me a line and we can work things out.

R.I.P. Scrabulous

Hi, Table Salt Games readers. I'm Will of Will and Beyond fame, and I'll be contributing a post approximately once a week to the site here.

In case you haven't heard of Scrabulous, it was a Facebook application where people can play Scrabble online with each other. Scrabulous was great because you could have so many games going at once with different people, and you didn't have to be online at the same time. Sometimes a game would take a few days to finish, other times it would take a couple months. It kept track of your ranking, and all the bingos you ever played.

Why was that paragraph written in the past tense? Because, as of recently, the Scrabulous application has been shut down by Facebook/Hasbro. Scrabulous was being put under a lot of legal pressure by Hasbro (who owns the US rights to Scrabble), since it was essentially a clone of Scrabble. It had been taken done one or two times here and there for a day or so, but never permanently, but this seems like it's for good.


The creators (two guys from India) have quickly put up an alternative game called WordScraper. They obviously anticipated the day when Scrabulous would get shut down, so they probably had this on the backburner just waiting for their d-day. From what I can tell, Scrabulous had ~600,000 daily users. For some reason, I can't imagine WordScraper reaching that status, but time will tell.

It's also worth noting, that Scrabulous is only shut down in the US and Canada, because Hasbro only owns the rights to Scrabble there; so you can still use it in other countries. Would it be worth setting up a proxy to make it look like I'm viewing Scrabulous from out of the country? No, because odds are very low that anybody else would.


I've mentioned on Will and Beyond before about how I love Scrabulous. Not just Scrabulous, but anything Scrabble-related. I'll still take a traditional game of Scrabble over anything else, but that's not always feasible. Some other great variations are Crapple, Anagram, Speed Scrabble, and Science Scrabble. Richard's already covered Speed Scrabble, and maybe I'll go into some of the others at a later time.

Photo: Flickr

Godspeed.