Video game review by ERIK LEIJON

Ninety-Nine Nights (X360/Microsoft, Q/Phantagram) flies in on the wings of massive hype. You see, the Microsoft brand doesn’t exactly have much clout in the land of the rising sun, and as a result the Xbox console has been virtually ignored there—by gamers and developers.

So when star developer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, whose resumé includes Sega Rally, Space Channel 5, Rez and Lumines, announced that his maiden project with his new studio, Q Entertainment, would be a 360 exclusive, it looked like Gates and Co. had finally made a big move in Japan.

Sadly, not only does Ninety-Nine Nights (N3) fail to live up to these lofty goals, it fails to merely be an interesting game.

Mizuguchi, the man who has created some of the most creative, intuitive and enjoyable games ever, is finally blessed with an unlimited budget, creative carte blanche and the most powerful hardware he’s ever seen, and the end result is this dreck. Given the tools to complete his gaming opus, the former hot shot Sega developer chose to create a Dynasty Warriors-knockoff.

N3 is an intense, action-oriented, 100-enemy on the screen real-time battle game. You go through the story mode as seven Tolkien-inspired characters representing every side of the light/dark war. The story is supposed to carry the game, but developing any sort of rapport with these contrived characters is impossible. The kids are even brattier than those Narnia punks, and the dialogue is stilted and lacking true drama. The graphics are good, but I would recommend Dead Rising if you want to fight hundreds of enemies at once.

Plagued with a limp storyline, the inadequacies of N3’s gameplay only become more apparent. While the characters are different, it does little to change the highly monotonous button mashing involved. The combos are any combination of the two attack buttons, and once you learn two or three of them, you’re set. The number of baddies you have to kill at each level number in the thousands, so you can imagine how boring it gets. It matters little what kind of enemy you are facing, who is in your army, what orders you give your crew, or how many enemies there are—there is almost no variation throughout. There isn’t any conceivable way to improve at this game since there are no real skills to learn.

Coming from the man whose previous titles featured such innovative gameplay, that this game is so flat and familiar is heartbreaking. This past E3, Sony was showing off a similar massive war title called Genji for the PS3, to a completely indifferent, mostly-North American crowd. While playing this game I realized that Japanese gamers and developers must love this type of game, no matter how devoid of content they are. I hope this isn’t Mizuguchi’s last attempt on the 360 (his next title is for the portables), because he’s obviously capable of making a great next-gen game. N3, though, is a major letdown. Mizuguchi will be in Montreal this November 8–9 for the Montreal International Game Summit.

Oh the Maddeness

EA Sports is blushing with pride as their baby, Madden 07, grossed more than $100-million dollars in its first week. The mainstream media has latched on, and the pointless comparisons to the film industry have begun.

After the rights fees EA is paying to the NFL, NFLPA, ESPN, and even Madden himself, that leaves only a small piece of the pie for the publisher and its hard-working developers. Comparatively speaking, Microsoft alleges Halo 2 grossed $125 million in sales in its first 24 hours.