tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39962347115538685222024-03-13T15:50:36.728-07:00The Q Review - Video Game Reviewsdrqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-79973589271148539822008-03-21T13:16:00.000-07:002008-03-21T13:49:01.209-07:00Rock BandBeing a long-time fan of music games, to say I was hungrily awaiting the arrival of the Harmonix follow-up to <em>Guitar Hero II</em> would be a serious understatement. And while I'd been anxious about the release of some highly-anticipated games in the past, this wasn't quite the same thing. I wasn't just hungry for more, I was emaciated... my interest grew to the point that I was checking the <em>Rock Band</em> Wikipedia entry on a daily basis, hoping for a revelation about a new track or an as-yet-unrevealed feature. Even after Activision's <em>Guitar Hero III</em> arrived a month prior to the competition, presumably to sweep me off my feet and cause me to forget all about the impending release, my appetite remained. And, though I didn't go so far as to reserve a copy, (the steep price tag left me leery) I did finally sprint out to Circuit City on launch day, corner a warehouse associate as he unloaded the boxes and hurriedly snag the first copy to hit their shelves. I've never looked back.<br /><br />While <em>Guitar Hero III</em> served as an evolution of the guitar-based music game, introducing attacks to multiplayer battles, adding a boss fight at the end of each level and significantly upping the ante in terms of difficulty, Harmonix stuck to what they knew. <em>Rock Band</em> isn't the action game that <em>Guitar Hero</em> wants to be, and it doesn't make any bones about that. It's a music game, not an arcade game, and so it's only natural that the melody itself should be the primary focus of the experience. Sure, you'll spend some time customizing your on-stage persona or soaking in the adoration of the fans after a good set, but those aren't the focus of the experience so much as the actual act of playing through these songs. What you do between tunes is your own business, but once you plug in your amp and step out on the stage, it's all about the music. For fans more interested in a glitzy, genre-bending adventure, that may not be a welcome change of pace... yet I found it a great return to form after being a little let down by what had been done with <em>GHIII</em>.<br /><br />Having played with a small number of bands myself, I had very little problem suspending my disbelief and really getting into the moment of jamming out... but what surprised me wasn't how easily I got into it, but rather how quickly and willingly my friends and family did the same. The adrenaline rush of being on stage in front of a crowd is nearly impossible to replicate, but <em>Rock Band</em> gets the mood pretty damn close, especially as you share the experience with more and more buddies. It's good fun on your own, (I've broken my share of living room furniture, flailing about while on the solo tour) but it's a freaking riot with one, two or even three of your best buddies. Once you've worked together to pound out a song or two, most everybody's misgivings and self-concerns seem to fade away, replaced by an innate (and often awkward) showmanship and a deep desire to rock the fuck out. I've yet to find anyone immune to this sickness, it's a sensation that seems to cross all social boundaries. After a brief tutorial and a quick feeling-out process, even my parents were swaying around the living room in their own private galaxy. It's a wholly unique experience, and a big part of what I find so endearing about this game. <br /><br />On that same page, the act of sharing these tunes with your friends is a much more collaborative, friendly experience than I've found anywhere else in gaming. Where most titles encourage or flat-out endorse a fiercely competitive environment in multiplayer gaming, the vibe put forward by a session with <em>Rock Band</em> is exclusively positive. That's something I've never seen... even a seemingly harmless co-op game of <em>Halo 3</em> can turn ugly at the drop of a hat, given the all-too-likely possibility of friendly fire or an accidental grenade drop. With <em>Rock Band</em>, it's a social experiment much more than it is a perilous battle. If one member of the band is struggling, one of his mates is usually there, more than happy to revive him for the big finale. If he blows it for the rest of his buddies, he's met with a pat on the back and perhaps a quick shuffling of the instruments, not a kick while he's down. And while some of that can naturally be attested to the quality of the people you play with, (some of the more competitive rockers online don't fool around) on the whole I've found that the air surrounding a game of <em>Rock Band</em> is much lighter, friendlier and more inviting than most of its peers. It breeds camaraderie, not competition, and even if you do fail a song, you've only "lost" at most five minutes' effort, not upwards of an hour as seems to be more and more common in recent multiplayer titles. You're all on the same team working toward a common goal, and you're only as strong as the sum of your parts.<br /><br />Perhaps most impressive of all is the game's incredible ongoing support for downloadable content, which has been going strong for months at this point and shows no sign of slowing down. I've never been a big believer in paid DLC in the past, especially in its current incarnation, (I think a lot of developers are intentionally leaving finished levels out of their releases to reap the financial rewards of a premium download down the road) but Harmonix has made a believer out of me. In the scant four months since its release, the game's potential track listing has more than doubled, from fifty-eight tracks to over 130... and new releases are unveiled so frequently, even that number will be outdated by the time I actually publish this review! Where I was checking the game's Wikipedia entry regularly before its release for details about the gameplay, I've been returning to that same page every Friday for an update on the next week's DLC. With the pricing moderate (between one and three dollars a track, with the majority carrying a $1.99 price tag) and the track selection outstanding, this setup really is a win-win. While I balked at the concept of paying thirty bucks for an add-on to <em>Oblivion</em>, I've gladly spent at least another fifty on <em>Rock Band</em> since its release. This is what Harmonix had promised when they brought <em>Guitar Hero II</em> to the 360... and then some. In 2008 alone, the developer hopes to add another two hundred tracks to the game. Not only is it a great way to lengthen <em>RB</em>'s lifespan and add to its variety, but it's a relatively risk-free revenue generator for Harmonix... take note, gamers, this may be an early peek at where the industry is headed. I guess I'd better start saving my pennies.<br /><br />The game does pay a price for its accessibility, which specifically manifests itself in the complexity of its note charts. What that means is <em>Rock Band</em> isn't nearly as difficult as <em>Guitar Hero III</em> , although its last set is just about as tough as anything reasonably needs to be. If you're acing your way through <em>Through the Fire and Flames</em>, you won't bat an eyelash at the new game's big guns, but if you counted yourself lucky to finish <em>Freebird</em> on expert, you'll be alternately challenged and humbled by <em>Green Grass and High Tides</em>. It's much more in keeping with the model developed and perfected by <em>Guitar Hero II</em> , of the challenging-yet-achievable song, than with the lightning fast chord changes and insanely intricate solos of <em>GH3: Legends of Rock</em>. <br /><br />Difficulty isn't the only place where the two games differ, either. Apart from the obvious, (the addition of drums and vocals) several minor variations in the actual gameplay experience add up to create a much more user-friendly, informative environment. Gone is the combo-meter from the corner of the screen, replaced by a much more useful star-meter on the opposite side of your television. Speaking personally, I'd much rather keep an eye on how close I am to five-starring a song than how long I've gone without missing a note. <em>Rock Band</em> also adds on-screen indications of where a solo begins and ends, an accumulative band life-meter, (unlike the co-op in Guitar Hero, you don't immediately lose if your partner fails out... you can actually bring them back from the dead twice in a song) a "unison bonus" that doubles your star power, and a "big rock ending," (read: button mashing) which gives the band a rare opportunity to play whatever they want at the end of a tune, provided they can all hit the last few notes at the same time.<br /><br />But it's not all wine and roses. The game's greatest downfall is its start-up time, especially right out of the box. If you don't already have four user profiles set up on your 360, you'll need to do so before you can proceed with a four-piece ensemble... and if you're hoping to dive right into the Band World Tour, you'll also need to create unique characters, one at a time, for each member of the band. What's particularly maddening about this process is that your characters are strictly confined to a single instrument. You can't move your drummer over to play guitar or your bassist to a vocal career, and that flat out sucks. The addition of DLC to the equation had only served to further lengthen the initial loading process, but that issue has recently been addressed by a major patch.<br /><br />Naturally, the biggest additions to the puzzle are the new Fender Strat replica guitar and drum pads that accompany the deluxe edition of the game. These new peripherals generally do their job without getting in the way, although their durability has become an issue since the game's release. I'm already on to my second guitar, and reports abound regarding snapped drum pedals, unresponsive strum bars and malfunctioning fret buttons. Fortunately, EA has really stepped up to the plate here. They've owned up to the problem and provided gamers with free replacements beyond their manufacturer's warranties, even sending out free games to customers who've had repeated problems or long waits. I found the replacement process to be quick and easy, and was rocking with a fresh guitar less than a week after my original strum bar went to the great gig in the sky. While there's really no excuse for a game of this magnitude to have such widespread problems, at least the issue is being rectified. My biggest gripe, the <em>Rock Band</em> Stratocaster's incompatibility with <em>Guitar Hero II</em> and <em>III</em>, however, remains unaddressed. There's a lot of finger pointing going on behind the scenes regarding this issue right now, but it's been four months and the problem still remains. Do I really need to own three different guitars to enjoy multiplayer on these games?<br /><br />Even when they're playing nice, the instruments are a bit different than what you might expect. The guitar has been subtly modified, and the alterations may be just enough to throw seasoned veterans for a loop. The strum bar in particular is a point of contention among enthusiasts - the new model has a lot more give than the old, and is notably lacking the distinct metronome-like tick and snap that signified a strum on my old X-plorer. Harmonix has also added a second set of frets to the neck of the new guitar, which gives gamers an opportunity to put on their best Eddie Van Halen impression and finger tap the notes without strumming...it's a nice gesture but hasn't really entered into the equation for me. I use the new frets to amplify my point total on a "big rock ending," but it's too much of a hassle to use them during a solo, which is what they were actually intended for. Physically, the Stratocaster is a bit larger than its forefather and looks / feels twice as impressive - it's still not quite the size or weight of a real guitar, but it's close enough to make my old GH axe feel like a toy.<br /><br />It took me a while, but I've actually come to prefer the Strat to the old unit, although I seem to be in the minority on that front. I find that while the new strum bar is quite different, it actually gives me greater freedom to cut loose during a song without losing my rhythm. And when I'm playing bass, the strum bar modifications create an experience that's about as close to the real thing as a simulation will likely ever get. The curved tip of the new strum bar feels uncannily like a thick bass string, and recoils after plucks in a way that's startlingly lifelike.<br /><br />The drums, likewise, are going to take some getting used to, especially for musicians familiar with the real thing. The physical setup of these pads, which was my greatest concern going in, is very quick and easy, but the learning process is more troubling than it really should be. The main offender seems to be the game's pad assignments, which change by the song. In <em>Ballroom Blitz</em>, for example, the red drum (furthest left on the set) is the snare, while the neighboring yellow pad is your high hat. In <em>Run to the Hills</em>, though, they swap places without giving the player any notice. Granted, there are bound to be some limitations when you're tied to a simple four-pad layout, but I have to imagine a little more consistency was possible. Since day one I've also had serious problems with hit detection, with the system randomly insisting I've missed notes no matter how deliberately, precisely and powerfully I strike the pads or kick the bass pedal. Either something's wrong with the hardware or I'm a much shittier drummer than I ever imagined, and I'm not willing to accept the latter. As a result, I found the drums to be the least enjoyable instrument of the lot - it's terribly frustrating to be at such constant odds with the game about which notes you're actually hitting in time and which you aren't. <br /><br />These games have never been known for their visuals... really, they're little more than window dressing. Still, some serious consideration has been given to this aspect of <em>Rock Band</em>, with new lighting effects, character animations and camera filters serving to spice up the experience as much as possible. This looks and acts much more like a live music video than ever before, and although the character animations sometimes feel jerky and choreographed, the powerful visual effects that accompany a song make Guitar Hero's setup look like an animatronic Chuck E Cheese stage show. All in all, the visuals are fine, if perhaps just a few steps down from the norm for a current-gen game. Most players won't be willing or able to remove their eyes from the note charts long to enjoy it anyway, so that's really something of a moot point. Besides, the real point of emphasis seems to be on the menus that eat up your time between songs. They feature beautiful art direction and careful attention to detail, which is something that gives them a certifiable leg up on the competition. This is a complete package, with no screen deemed too miniscule for the watchful eye of a talented artist, and that's something that really enhances the experience. Where <em>Guitar Hero</em> often feels like it's geared toward pre-teens with its gimmicky comic book / magazine vibe, <em>Rock Band</em> comes off as much more mature and adult-oriented without losing its edge... it's like comparing Metallica to the Aquabats.<br /><br />Obviously, the final judgment of these games lies in the quality of their soundtracks, and <em>Rock Band</em> is without question the king of the hill on that front. It's a cliché to say this game has something for everyone, but it really does - tracks are scattered across dozens of genres, with music from the '60s all the way up to today. Perhaps most importantly, the vast majority of the tracks are original studio recordings, not a crowd of second rate musicians who sound nothing like the bands who made these songs famous. That's something <em>Guitar Hero</em> has been criticized for over the years, deservedly so, and it's nice to see they're making such a strong commitment here to remedy the situation. Although the disc isn't without its earaches, (the singer they brought in to mimic Geddy Lee on <em>Tom Sawyer</em> is <strong>terrible</strong>) they're much, much more scarce than ever before. While there are probably a dozen songs on <em>Guitar Hero III</em> that I can guarantee I'll never play again, I can really only name two or three that I'd put into the same category in <em>Rock Band</em>. Whether the selection process is that much more meticulous at Harmonix or their taste in music is just in tune with my own... either way, the end product is a happy gamer. I feel confident in saying this is the single greatest soundtrack ever compiled for a game.<br /><br />I also feel confident in naming this one of the all-time best entries the music game genre has ever enjoyed. Even if it isn't the toughest game in my collection, even if the packed-in instruments have proven to be unreliable, even if the graphics didn't blow me away, it's not about all that. It's about how it transcends gaming to become a collaborative experience for everyone involved. It's about how it's simple enough for anyone to understand, but challenging enough to envelope the most war-hardened gamer. It's about the music, and the strikingly close replication of its creation. After about two months of regular sessions on the guitar with my wife providing vocals, spiced up by a near-weekly ongoing party with my coworkers, it struck me. <em>Rock Band</em> could become to this generation what a piano, sheet music and lyrics were to my grandparents. It provides that same kind of atmosphere, suitable for two participants or twenty. It's a community centerpiece, something that can be shared by all, whether they're actually handling the instruments or just observing. Sure, the critics will always be around to point out that you aren't "really" playing the instruments in question, but does that really matter? <em>Rock Band</em> isn't focused on creating your own music, or on even remotely matching the complexity of an actual guitar or drum set, it concerns itself instead with the very basics and, ultimately, more closely matching the excitement of a live show. And, at the very least, this game is opening the mechanics of music composition and basic rhythm up to audiences that never would've even begun to seriously investigate it in the past. <br /><br />This represents a polar shift in the musical landscape, an open invitation to both the musically inclined and the tone deaf to step inside and see what all the fuss is about. It's a new way for listeners to enjoy music, for them to get even closer to songs they thought they already knew through and through. It's everything I'd hoped it could be and more. And, though it does still have its hang-ups, it's a game I'll still be playing literally years from now. I can't even remember the last game I could say something like that about. It's almost completely replaced <em>Guitar Hero</em> in my house, improving upon its every facet of its premise in every conceivable fashion. It's not perfect, but it is incredibly close. If you've got friends with even a passing interest in rock, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 9.4</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-33366498114563110972007-05-25T15:46:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:16:32.818-07:00Grand Theft Auto: Vice City StoriesInitially, Rockstar hinted that unlike its predecessor, <em>Liberty City Stories</em>, this <em>Vice City Story</em> would remain a PSP exclusive and never make the short jump over to the greener pastures of the big PlayStation 2. I guess its life as a portable-exclusive didn't quite reach their expectations, however, since it was just four months before the developers went back on their word and released a value-priced port for indoor play. The original theory I'd heard tossed around was that all hands were needed on deck for development of the upcoming <em>GTA IV</em>, which makes sense... but if the decision came down to hurry this translation through to the PS2, I have to wonder about the quality of the team assigned. Still, so much of this game feels like an afterthought, I can't imagine that the port team alone is to blame.<br /><br />In this latest chapter, the franchise is once again bound firmly in the land of yuppies, new wave music, Reaganomics and androgyny. The magnificent decade that was the eighties continues to provide fertile grounds for parody, and as a resident of south Florida myself, a lot of the regional barbs and comments showcased in <em>VCS</em> landed dead-on. There's no shortage of material for mockery here, and Rockstar has never shied from that kind of an opportunity. But despite such an abundance of cannon fodder, the <em>Vice City Story</em> didn't connect with me in the same way as the first few PS2 chapters of the series. I found it lacking in personality, which is certainly nothing I'd accuse of previous <em>GTA</em>s... or maybe it was just a <b>distinct</b> personality it was missing. After all, you can only tell the same kind of joke so many times before your audience starts yearning for something different.<br /><br />As the proverbial tip of the iceberg, <em>Grand Theft Auto</em>'s cast has always leaned toward the cartoonish, and it's worked thus far because the games themselves function so well as a parody of whatever culture happens to cross in front of their sarcastic crosshairs. Yet the names and faces behind the tale of <em>Vice City Stories</em> take this whole concept notably further than their ancestors. I'm not sure when or where, but at some point, these characters cross over from sharply witty to uncomfortably campy. Their dialog largely exists not to advance the story or inspire you to pursue the next mission, but because it's raunchy and / or funny to reminisce about. And, in so doing, the individuals who drive the story lose much of their charm and intelligence. <br /><br />To be frank, I didn't really care about these characters. Vic, the player-controlled lead, is probably the most straight-laced hero in the series thus far, but he's so easily manipulated it's astonishing. He pines about how drugs ruin families and how he doesn't want to be involved with that kind of a business, but then immediately turns around and accepts a job rescuing floating bags of coke from the bay. He gives his idiot brother more chances to destroy everything that he holds dear than could ever be understood. His love interest, Louise, comes and goes from the storyline at her own convenience. If they need bait for a kidnapping mission, she'll mysteriously appear during the short cutscene leading up to the gameplay, but when there's no call for a damsel in distress, she straight-up disappears. The supporting characters are as good as ever, (I especially liked Reni, the trans-gender commercial director with a heart of gold) but without a good lead cast they really don't get the chance to shine that they did in the earlier games.<br /><br />That's not to say it's all bad. Much of the storyline serves to flesh out the environment we were dropped into as Tommy Versetti, upon the original release of <em>GTA: Vice City</em>. It's nice to get a little perspective on the drug lords who were already installed in the city before Tommy's arrival. That fleshing-out process makes the original stand tall as a much more epic, thought out series of events, and any time a prequel can enhance and improve upon the original, it's good news on all fronts. There's also a lengthy series of missions and interactions with a certain 80's pop culture icon with a receding hairline and a penchant for singing from behind a drum set, which at the very least should be enough to bring a smile to your face. It's still an enjoyable, entertaining rampage... but it doesn't measure up to its daunting legacy.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the game's limitations aren't just restricted to a storytelling capacity. I found the missions to be repetitive, especially if you've played the other games in the series, with very few entirely original inclusions. This is veiled fairly well, with new car types, voice-overs and packages thrown in to add a little variety, but at the end of the day a "capture and retrieve" mission is still a "capture and retrieve" mission. Gameplay is also terribly glitchy, almost to the point that I'd call it unfinished. When you near a car's top speed, it goes into a bizarre shaky sort of convulsion, which affects both the look and the feel of the experience, and the slow rendering of solid objects (such as a telephone pole or a palm tree) remains a major problem, especially at high speeds.<br /><br />Police are EVERYWHERE in this release, too. They must make up around 40-50% of the city's population, and spawn mercilessly from the most unlikely places when you're being chased. Trying to escape your star rating by driving into the back of an abandoned movie studio? Nah, there just so happened to be a cop car or three parked back there... or so <em>VCS</em> would lead you to believe. Enormous initial load times are still a fact of life here, which is disappointing. I'd hoped that they could apply the technology that brought us the obscenely large land mass of <em>San Andreas</em>, doing away with those aggravating load screens as you cross the bridge that separates the two halves of Vice City - not so. Really, this feels like it's running on a PSP emulator within the PS2's technical framework. It plods along in areas that this hardware should be able to handle with ease, and pales visually in comparison to the aforementioned <em>GTA:SA</em>.<br /><br />This is in no means an easy game. It follows the <em>GTA</em> trend of presenting its most difficult missions about three quarters of the way through the story, then lightening up a bit in time for the final showdown. Where other titles in the series would achieve this spike in difficulty through genuinely challenging missions and high-risk scenarios, this return to Vice City chooses to instead amp up on the cheap hits, surprise attacks and, ultimately, the aggravation. After adding it all up, I've determined that at this late stage in its life cycle, the current iteration of the <em>Grand Theft Auto</em> legacy just isn't really all that much fun to actually sit down and play any more.<br /><br />As far as the in-game controls go, some subtle modifications have been made to the gun-wielding configuration, but this system is still in need of a major overhaul. Vic really enjoys turning his back on his enemies, then firing over his left shoulder, for some ungodly reason, which naturally decreases your accuracy substantially. It's also become much more difficult to cycle through a series of targets than ever before, which is bizarre because that's one thing the previously existing setup seemed to accomplish fairly easily. Cars have also become much more difficult to handle, and tires are twice as likely to pop. If there's gunfire and it would suck for your tire to blow out, rest assured that that you'll be on the market for a new vehicle shortly. <br /><br />Likewise, this graphics engine has seen much better days. Not to harp on that same, singular point, but these visuals really <b>haven't</b> aged all that well. Characters are beginning to look cheap and underdeveloped, and the little touches that always set this series apart are becoming fewer and further in between. For instance, I caught sight of a character whose lips kept moving long after he'd finished talking during an important cutscene. While that's a relatively minor thing, and likely something I'd have overlooked in another title, it's something that never would've seen the light of day in an earlier <em>Grand Theft Auto</em>. Sure, it's never going to compare to the kind of visuals a <em>Saint's Row</em> or <em>Gears of War</em> can deliver on the newest generation of hardware... that doesn't mean it can't hold its own all the same. I was adequately impressed by what was delivered with the original <em>Vice City</em>, or even <em>San Andreas</em>, and <em>VCS</em> doesn't even hold a torch to even those elder statesmen. Rockstar's attention was clearly elsewhere, which is a real shame.<br /><br />Fortunately, where the rest of the game underachieves, the in-game music, radio and commentaries don't follow suit. After lagging notably in the audio department with <em>Liberty City Stories</em>, this return to Vice City also represents a return to outstanding radio content. Long a cornerstone of the <em>GTA</em> series, the gamut of genres, personalities and social commentaries present on each vehicle's in-dash stereo system provides much of the game's wry sense of humor and overall personality. The original <em>GTA:VC</em> delivered huge in this department, and remains my favorite soundtrack of the series, but <em>VCS</em> gives it a serious run for its money. The tone remains decidedly new wave, but there's also a strong catalog of hair metal, old school hip hop and jazz, not to mention a couple channels' worth of insane talk radio chatter. Occasionally the programming can get to be a bit repetitive, especially later in the game when you've presumably heard everything twice over, but it's nowhere near as big a problem as you'd imagine. There's a TON of material here, and almost all of it is top notch stuff.<br /><br />Aural excellence notwithstanding, it's a good thing that this will probably be the series' last appearance on this generation of hardware, because it's badly, badly in need of a refurb. Most of the time, I found myself wondering if I was actually playing a legitimate <em>Grand Theft Auto</em> or one of the multitude of crappy knock-offs that have emerged to take a ride on its coattails over the last few years. Maybe as a portable-only release this would've cut it, but as a stand-alone home console title, it feels cheaply made and subpar, which isn't something I'm used to receiving from a box with that classic logo emblazened across its midsection.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 4.8</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-76424114945678653212007-05-13T06:13:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:16:26.911-07:00New Super Mario Bros.If I were asked to name one title in particular that's responsible for my life-spanning interest in console gaming, like so many others of my generation, I'd have to name the original <em>Super Mario Brothers</em>. I can still vividly remember the day I walked into the house of a friend of a friend and saw it shining there on that mildly-sized living room television set. I couldn't tell you whose house it was, who had led me there, how old I was, nor how long I stuck around to absorb the experience, but that one moment remains burnt into the depths of my memory and my imagination. In the twenty-plus years following that meeting, I've enjoyed some ups and some downs with the industry - even walking away from the scene for several years during my adolescence. And, while I've experienced many hundreds of games of comparable stature, magnitude and excellence since that original NES blockbuster, none have really recaptured the sense of ingenuity, imagination and innocence that poured from that first title.<br /><br />Many <em>Mario</em> titles have come and gone since that original side-scroller took the nation by storm, some better than others, and the ultimate goal of reclaiming those old senses has always been paramount. For nearly a decade, the realm of the 2D platformer was owned by the mushroom kingdom. Every argument regarding the series would start and end with Nintendo's front man. But then the series took the leap to three dimensions, and things weren't quite the same. <em>Mario 64</em> was an enjoyable game with a few control and camera hangups, neither of which were problems with previous games. <em>Super Mario Sunshine</em> addressed those concerns, but the game itself felt almost like self-parody with its over-the-top atmosphere and childlike characters and motivations. The series seemed to have lost its way, parallel to the corporation that had produced it since day one. <br /><br />This <em>New Super Mario Brothers</em> carries with it a lofty goal; to marry the white knuckle, high quality 2D platforming of the legendary first games in the series with the refined 3D sensibilities, graphical possibilities and processing power of the later chapters. It presents a two-dimensional world as rendered by a decidedly three-dimensional engine. It grants players a single, uncontrolled camera angle, complete with the traditional limitations. If Mario falls off the edge of the camera's display, whether it be over the side of a cliff or pressed between a line of bricks and the left edge of a self-scrolling level, he sacrifices a life. Simple as that. Once again, you're presented with a short list of limitations and the rest is up to you. No more cheap, surprise deathtraps hiding beyond the camera's unpredictable eye.<br /><br />In the tradition of those which had come before, the basic storyline is kept extremely simple and underexplained. The Princess has been kidnapped, Mario has a hunch about who's responsible, and the best way to make everything right again is to dash through eight worlds' worth of debatably cognizant mushrooms, beetles and turtles. After recent games had lost sight of this simple formula, introducing bundles of new concepts, characters and tools, (what the hell was the deal with that stupid water-cannon-backpack, anyway?) it really is a breath of fresh air to return to such familiar confines. We've reached a day and age where the average gamer must set aside several hours' worth of time just to begin a new title, what with the limitless supply of cutscenes, on-screen text, explanations of in-game mechanics and so on. It's really eye opening to boot up <em>NSMB</em>, see that the princess has been kidnapped and begin your game immediately. <br /><br />That first level, an almost-direct replication of the first stage of that original <em>Super Mario Brothers</em>, immediately sets the tone for what's to come. It's warmly familiar, something that I'll confess brought a genuine smile to my face, an instantly recognizable trip down retro avenue. But just as soon as you reach the point where you're wondering aloud if this is just a hand-held <em>Super Mario All-Stars</em> with perks, it gently reminds you of its own fresh identity. <br /><br />All of the original power-ups are there, from the traditional power-up mushroom to the much-missed fire flower, (complete with the classic white-overall, red-shirt Mario wardrobe!) but they're accompanied by a trio of all-new powers. Two new varieties of mushroom are introduced to the psychedelic fun, allowing Mario or Luigi to grow to an astronomical size (roughly three-quarters the size of the entire screen) or shrink to a miniscule proportion. Additionally, the blue turtle shell that's been heretofore associated with the <em>Mario Kart</em> line is introduced to the main series for the first time. While wearing the shell, Mario can climb inside while stationary to become temporarily invulnerable, or do so while running to smash blocks, ricochet around the screen and unleash all sorts of chaos upon the world before invariably falling into a bottomless pit. <br /><br />These new powers are initially mesmerizing, but ultimately prove to lack the purpose and functionality of their brethren in previous chapters. I found the Mega Mario power-up to be all flash and no substance, since its use is forbidden against later bosses and most levels beyond the first handful of worlds rely more heavily on maze navigation. It's nice to stomp around the overworld, breaking off pipes and blocks and whatnot for the fifteen seconds or so you're granted before the power fades away, but it loses its appeal fairly quickly and there's never a time when you absolutely must have it. Likewise for each of the other powers. Unless you're a completist in search of every last golden coin and each hidden world, there's little reason to bother with the underpowered Mini Mario, and the turtle suit is frustratingly useless. It's nice when you need to smash a few well-placed blocks, but after the first dozen times Mario automatically climbs into the shell at full speed just before making a precise jump, you'll develop an aversion to the power-up as a whole. Each of these new powers is visually very appealing and a great concept, but they just aren't integrated into the progression of the game itself. They're never vital, and for that reason they never really make the leap from cool concept to enjoyable new feature.<br /><br />There's also no flight in this game, which is a significant departure from every title in the series since <em>Super Mario 3</em>, and serves to make things significantly more difficult. Sure, that's not the only thing that makes <em>NSMB</em> every bit as spirit-crushingly difficult as its predecessors, but it's a factor. Make no bones about it, this is a tough game - doubly so if you want to go back and collect all of the hidden extras, as I did. I was still reeling from my recent play-through of <em>SMB3</em>, and how incredibly tough that game really was, when I sat down to play around with this one. It's every bit as difficult, perhaps even more so. If you're looking to complain about a game that's gone soft and lost sight of what a challenge it once was, you're going to have to keep looking. <br /><br />The amount of replay value provided in this tiny package is astronomical, even if the payoff for finally reaching 100% is less than striking. The main game offers two entirely optional <strong>worlds</strong>. Not stages, entire worlds - the only way to reach boards three and six is to defeat the preceding bosses as Mini Mario, which is no small feat in and of itself. Add to that the ongoing hunt for the golden star coins scattered around the land, (three coins are hidden in each level, amounting to a total of well into the hundreds) the dual multiplayer modes and the multitude of touch screen-centric mini games, and you'll begin to see what I'm talking about. This is an amazingly deep game, but the only thing you're rewarded with upon completion is a set of three stars next to your save game on the "load" screen and perhaps a wealth of personal satisfaction. I'd expected something more, but I can't really fault the overall package for that. It just seems like a cheap shortcut for a game that is otherwise overflowing with attention to detail.<br /><br />For all of its new bells and whistles, this is still the game that the original, two-buttoned NES control pad was developed for. That means it had already vaulted over many of the hurdles that usually stand in the way of a simple, effective control scheme, and the developers rightly chose to merely build upon that rock-solid foundation, not reconstruct it from the ground up. The D-Pad moves you around, the A button jumps, B shoots fireballs, sprints and picks stuff up... end of story. Simple, easy to learn, effective, never gets in the way. The touch pad is used sparingly, but not infrequently, and primarily serves as your quick access point for stored power-ups (you're only afforded one slot). That bottom screen also serves as a storage point for information and statistics that would have otherwise bogged down the in-game screen. Inconsequential stuff like your current point total, number of lives and location are displayed down there, easily visible when you're curious, but never intrusive when you don't need them. <br /><br />Visually, this is every bit a 3D homage to the heyday of the 2D platformer. Nearly everything appears to have been rendered in polygons and textured, but that's not the focus - honestly, the modern technology is merely used to add simple touches to the style that would have been impossible with simple sprites. The subtle zoom in for a close-up as Mario celebrates after finishing a level would've been hideous if they'd done it in pixels, for example. The sheer size and number of moving objects on the screen when Mega Mario is present, or when one of the few enormous enemies are on the screen would have unquestionably resulted in some major slowdown if the DS's tiny engine were trying to punch out that many squares. Even something as simple as the fluidity of every creature's motion would have been a major hurdle, were it animated frame-by-frame rather than vectorized and set into motion. This is a game that looks like the best 2D game ever created, and never overtly portrays itself as anything else. An utterly brilliant artistic direction that works beautifully here.<br /><br />Again, true to what had come before, everything you'll see on the screen is overflowing with personality, life and attention to detail. Whether it's something as everyday as the appearance of a hill in the background or the look and feel of a goomba, koopa or squid, it's all handled masterfully and fully realized as it was intended to be. Different creatures walk with a unique bounce in their step. One can gather the personality of a fish from the way it moves. Although he only makes a few strategic appearances, (for the most part, the villainy is conducted by his son) Bowser himself has never looked as menacing and dangerous as he does here. It's a gorgeous game.<br /><br />The in-game audio provides a wonderful combination of old and new, in regards to both the soundtrack and the incidental sound effects that go along with almost any action. The old school <em>SMB </em> power-up noises, from the classic 1-Up ditty to the sound of a spit fireball to the famed Mario jump are all there, classic in their execution but mildly refined in their performance. It's like remastering an old LP in 5.1 surround - it's the same stuff, it just sounds crisper than before. Likewise, these retouched, remastered old songs sound fresh and exciting without losing any of their charm or appeal, which is something that's much easier said than done.<br /><br />This is positively a must-have for Nintendo's current hand held treasure, and goes a long way toward proving the company's dedication to the system. Neither the original Game Boy Advance nor the SP had an original <em>SMB</em> like this onboard, and what the <em>New Super Mario Brothers</em> delivers was worth the wait. It's just long enough, just difficult enough, and while I wish the new powers would have been expanded just a bit further, they are what they are. It's a great game to pick up and play for anywhere from five minutes to five hours, which makes it a perfect candidate for a portable. Add this thing to your library if you haven't already, because they don't make them like this very often.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><strong><u>Overall Score:</u> 9.6</strong></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-36242721502038062032007-03-10T06:04:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:16:20.716-07:00Final Fantasy XIIThe <em>Final Fantasy</em> series has built its name on experimentation, constant reinvention and almost universal adulation. No two games are exactly alike, and fans who understand that basic concept have welcomed the changes between chapters with open arms. It's a risky business - taking a formula that's known, loved and praised, shaking things up a bit, and waiting to see what effect it has on the overall picture. Sometimes these risks pay off handsomely, as with the materia system in <em>Final Fantasy VII</em> or the junctioning of <em>Final Fantasy VIII</em>. Other times they drag it down, as evidenced by the confusing online play of <em>Final Fantasy XI</em> or the job system of <em>Final Fantasy V</em>. Fans of the series generally have a very clear-cut list of favorites and least favorites - it's easy to write the whole line off after a bad choice, as many did with the aforementioned leap into the MMORPG genre, but if you've been paying attention you should know that sooner or later, they'll hit a goldmine and deliver a game that is not to be missed. Look at the amazing jump taken between <em>FFV</em>, generally considered one of the worst of the series, to <em>FFVI</em>, critically acclaimed as one of its best. It's exactly that cyclical nature that keeps me interested in this series, and brought me out to the store on <em>FFXII</em>'s launch day, sixty dollars in hand. I've scarcely put down the controller since.<br /><br />Of course, despite all of their differences, each game in the series has had more than its share of similarities to what had come before. Whether it's the names and effects of your magic spells, the existence of airships and chocobos or the names of a few integral characters, there's always something to remind you whose sandbox you're playing in, that this is indeed the latest in a long-standing line. That tradition isn't broken with <em>Final Fantasy XII</em>. Dozens of familiar names, faces and creatures from previous chapters in the saga populate this world, each altered artistically to fit within their new surroundings. Where the visual direction chosen for many earlier chapters (<em>FFIX</em>, for example) are decidedly cartoony, the last few games to arrive have been stunning realistic, which is a trend continued in this newest delivery. Bearing that in mind, you might be surprised just how effectively some of the more unrealistic monsters have made the transition. The floating orange creatures known as Bombs, for instance, are hard to visualize in a lifelike setting until you see them roaming a desolate, dimly-lit hallway. Traditional summons such as Shiva, Leviathan and Bahamut don't even appear in their typical forms. Instead, they're used as the naming conventions for a fleet of widely-feared military airships. In many instances, the developers at Square-Enix are continuing their old traditions while at the same time hinting that nothing is taboo.<br /><br />Money is come by in a very different, much more traditional manner, as well - the days of finding a thousand dollars' worth of gil on the body of a slain rabbit are gone. If you're after riches, you'll have to grab what you can from your kill (whether it's a sturdy bone, a soft pelt, a horn or any number of more naturally-appearing items) and sell it on the market. It's a long-overdue change, in my opinion, and one that doesn't really have a big impact on the actual experience since you can sell your goods to almost every shop on the map. Where its presence is felt is in helping the player to suspend their disbelief and really dive wholeheartedly into the actual experience. It's just one less subliminal qualm about the game's believability to nag at the back of your consciousness during a session.<br /><br />The entirety of Ivalice, the world in which <em>FFXII</em> (and <em>Final Fantasy Tactics</em>) is set, is just overflowing with amazing scenery. Every city has a million little things that distinguish its culture from those of the other communities on the map. Whether it's a mild difference in dialect, a style in architecture, a unique perspective on the world (from the sky, underground, abandoned in the mist) or an overlying attitude, each city is distinctly its own living being. This is an area in which the <em>Final Fantasies</em> have had long-reaching success over the years, first evident in their SNES-era releases, which has been allowed to progress and evolve with very little recognition. As it stands now, it's truly without peer. Exploring <em>Final Fantasy XII</em> is like learning about a whole new world, in a way that none of its genre-distinct rivals have even approached.<br /><br />The only thing I can really compare it to is the very first <em>Star Wars</em> trilogy. Both stories were a merging point for several different cultures, races and personalities - where <em>A New Hope</em> had aliens roaming a foreign globe and blowing off steam in the same bar, <em>FFXII</em> has lizard-men and humans sharing the same city streets and exchanging goods in the open market. Everyone doesn't always get along. Real-world problems like racism, class-based discrimination and crooked politics are all represented in both stories, which not only makes them more realistic, but allows the viewer / player to relate with what they're seeing and immerse themselves into the story even further. And, just as soon as it's used these environments to capture your imagination and your trust, <em>FFXII</em> matches the breathtaking fantasy and wonder of the first <em>Star Wars</em> trilogy. It shows you things that you'd never accept in another game / film, but because it had first based its world in reality, you react to them differently, more honestly. This newest <em>Final Fantasy</em>, however, has about thirty years' worth of special effects magic in its corner. It can show you things that <em>Empire Strikes Back</em> could only dream about, and you'll never question them. If George Lucas hadn't lost his marbles, this is very close to what I'd imagine the prequels would have looked like.<br /><br />In fact, those are far from the only parallels between the two I could draw. The lead character, Vaan, is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed young rebel with big dreams, no family and a powerful will to succeed. He falls in with a cast of unsavory characters, including a smuggler and his furry co-pilot. Even their <b>ship</b> bears a resemblance to the Millennium Falcon. They meet a legendary, bearded, fallen knight who lends them his wisdom and his strength. They rescue a princess, who goes on to aid them in their resistance against an oppressive incumbent empire. A frail-bodied mastermind pulls the strings from the top, and looks to a dark-armored, concealingly-helmed black knight when the struggle becomes physical. I could go on. Maybe lots of great stories share some distinct plot devices, but the striking similarities just didn't stop as I progressed through the game. On one hand, it tells me that if you liked the films, (which I did) you'll find a lot to like here (again, I did). On the other, it had me scratching my chin and wondering if maybe the writers held a closed-door screening or two during the game's very earliest development.<br /><br />Eventually, both sagas fell into a similar pitfall. <em>FFXII</em>'s story is very, very politically themed, not to mention excruciatingly detail-oriented. If you sat through the first hour of <em>The Phantom Menace</em> and wondered why they were wasting so much time talking about free trade, the senate and the maneuverings that usually precede a full-scale war, you'll be in the same boat for a good portion of this game. Ultimately, that excess of information during crucial scenes is one of the game's greatest drawbacks. If I've just spent half an hour on a boss and I'm full of adrenaline, I want a quick, cool payoff. Instead, you're more often greeted with a thorough discussion about the big picture, the policies of the current government and the problems they're generating among the people.<br /><br />Of course, with many of the negatives inherent with such a rich, detailed story also come many positives. To start with, the game is just incredibly, unbelievably deep. It's not quite to the level <em>Morrowind</em> reached, where you could spend hours next to a bookshelf, catching up on the game's backstory and terminology, but it's very, very close. Besides, I can't imagine any sane being pouring over every word contained on that game's disc... a lot of it is redundant and dull. <em>FFXII</em> trims out much of the fat and leaves behind the interesting and / or important stuff, with little personal touches, anecdotes, hints and accents thrown in that are above and beyond anything you get from even the main story in the Xbox title. If details are your thing, this game has them in abundance.<br /><br />All of those details add up, which means it's lengthier than anyone could possibly have asked for, with well over 100 hours of gameplay... closer to 150 if you take the time to finish all of the sidequests. Amazingly, there's also never any shortage of things to do - there's never a point where you find yourself mindlessly levelling up. An almost bottomless collection of sidequests and character interactions keep you entertained, and are perfectly spaced out. That means that regardless of your level, there's always quest you can be entertaining yourself with. Once you've completed that mission, chances are good that you've leveled up enough to tackle another one.<br /><br />This chapter also marks a real return to prominence for the series as far as level of difficulty is concerned. It's the toughest nut I've tried to crack since <em>Final Fantasy VII</em>, although the final stages are a joke if you've made more than a halfhearted swing at any of the tougher sidequests. The roughest bosses in the game break ten million hit points, and I spent over an hour in battle with a sub-boss that had a million and a half. We're not talking about any kind of a cruise control fight, either - this was a mentally taxing, strategic war. Where, in a game like <em>Gran Turismo</em>, you'll reach a point on some of the endurance races where it all becomes automatic, in this boss fight I was constantly confronted with a new problem to solve, a new weapon to look out for or a critical hit that nearly obliterated my party. It was no easy feat, but when I was finished, I felt like I'd genuinely accomplished something.<br /><br />In comparison, the final level (cutscenes, navigating the dungeon, preparing for the fight and defeating all four final enemies) took me about the same amount of time. The final incarnation of the game's end boss tops out at about 200,000 HP. I've never understood how a game could do that to its players - grant the sidequests ridiculous amounts of difficulty and detail, then allow the final enemy, the guy you've spent months of your life chasing, only a fraction of that same attention. In a way though, it once again remains true to what's come before by doing so. I remember jumping for joy when I finally defeated Ozma in <em>FFIX</em>, only to go on, conquer the end boss and ask myself aloud if it was some kind of a joke. <em>FFVIII</em> had Ultima and Omega Weapon, who were both many times more challenging than the final showdown with Ultimecia. <em>FFVII</em> offered up dozens of Weapons of its own, each more powerful than that last clash with Sephiroth. As one of the trademarks for the series, it's hard to complain about its continuation here, but it's been amplified to an almost ridiculous extent in this latest release.<br /><br />Historically, the actual gameplay experience is where the similarities between <em>Final Fantasies</em> end. Every game in the series has introduced a new mechanic or twist on the series' existing gameplay system, and the most noteworthy of <em>FFXII</em>'s innovations is the gambit system. Gambits, which are basically conditional, pre-assigned actions which you can assign to each member of your party, almost completely sever this game's ties to its forefathers. Sure, the "fight", "magic" and "item" options are still hanging around in a menu somewhere, but they've been significantly deprecated. The game actually encourages you to experiment with gambits as a replacement for these more traditional options, which makes for a much more lifelike, real-time battle system.<br /><br />While it feels far more action-oriented than any of its predecessors, upon further experimentation you'll discover that the system delivers a much more strategic, hands-off approach. Simple battles can be completed without even touching a button, while longer battles are much more tolerable than ever before. Monotonous commands such as attacking, healing injured comrades, removing status effects and checking an enemy's level can be completed automatically, leaving your mind and your screen free to think ahead and develop a longer-reaching team strategy. When I'm wandering aimlessly or traveling on foot from one location to another, I'll turn on my "attack any enemy in sight" gambit, steer my party into the same general area as a cluster of weaker enemies and sit back as they automatically destroy anything in sight, heal each other, gain experience and await my further command. The ability to heal your characters' status afflictions are particularly helpful, because the enemies use them much more frequently than in the past, and because curing them usually means a lengthy jaunt through a series of menus. After the first handful of hours, I never had to stop and think about which item cured which status effect - by the time I remembered, my supporting characters had already used it.<br /><br />What's more, your party never actually leaves the overworld screen. Whether you're fighting for your life, talking to a commoner or wandering through an empty plain, you're seeing it all from the same perspective. What does this mean to the player? Well, for one it makes your perspective of things much more familiar. I don't think I ever really appreciated the size of most of the cities in previous <em>FF</em>s, but upon comparing them to the jungles and meadows of the outside world, those tall structures are twice as impressive. More importantly, however, it means there are no more random encounters! You can see an enemy in the distance, decide whether you're ready to face it, prepare for the battle and charge in replenished, rather than diving headfirst into the unknown at half-strength.<br /><br />There isn't really a whole lot to say in the way of controls. The on-screen menus function flawlessly and the buttons are mapped as logically as can be. Seeing as how there's no need for a specific Attack, Dodge or Magic button, much of the PS2's controller is used as an auxiliary piece, meant to enrich the experience without getting in the way. Holding the L2 button, for example, changes from a traditional overhead "floating camera" to a tight shot directly over the party leader's shoulder. Very helpful on the few occasions where the camera gets stuck behind a wall or facing the wrong way.<br /><br />For most of the game, though, your fingers will be exclusively hovering on the analog sticks, the X button and the O button. Naturally, the analogs move your characters around the screen and navigate the menus, the X button is used to bring up the in-game menu or make a selection, and the O button is your "back up one step" or general cancel button. When you're in a menu, L1 and R1 serve as a page up and page downThe layout really is remarkably simple, and makes a marathon session of gameplay much easier on the knuckles, not to mention how much easier it is to learn in the first place.<br /><br />Occasionally, this simplicity does cause problems, however, as the buttons are infrequently asked to perform too many functions at the same time and result in an overlap, which means missed commands and multiple excessive presses. Picking up a special item or pulling a level, for example, can be problematic unless you're standing in precisely the right spot. Otherwise, the screen will be prompting you to hit X and perform the action, when actually pressing the button will only bring up the battle menu. A minor flaw, but a flaw nonetheless.<br /><br />The game's graphics are best thing going on the PS2, which means they aren't the biggest and baddest going on the market today. Many of the cities' lush environments, beautiful views and incredible architectural sights are obscured by long stretches of distractingly jagged, pixelated edges. Occasionally, changing your camera angle at a graphic-intensive moment will cause the machine to really chug and slow down the in-game experience, which only serves to remind the player that (s)he's in the middle of a game. After all of the work that the story, culture, overtones and gameplay have done to break down that wall, it's really a shame to see the system itself break that illusion. This game probably would have been breathtaking on the PS3 or 360, but just can't accomplish what it sets out to do on the dated hardware of the PS2.<br /><br />What it lacks in available hardware power, it makes up for and then some with sheer artistic license and glorious attention to detail. Artistic direction was never something the series has been lacking in past installments, thanks to Square's close working relationship with some of the best artists in the industry today, with the whole project helmed by the legendary Yoshitaka Amano. With <em>Final Fantasy XII</em>, however, they have truly outdone themselves. This game is almost indescribably beautiful. Every inch of every screen has been painstakingly detailed, and the end result is a world that lives, breathes, functions and excels as believably as any I've ever seen in the digital medium. Fine details such as the hem of a pedestrian's skirt or the wave of Vaan's hair in the wind are what makes all the difference between this game and everything that had come before. Perhaps more importantly, however, the artistic director knows when to show restraint. Sometimes a simple, clean, uncomplicated surface can be the most beautiful thing in the world, and that's something that's never lost amongst the amazing details of this world.<br /><br />Of course, the cutscenes are everything you'd expect of a cornerstone Square-Enix production. While the rest of the industry has chased (and, to an extent, caught up to) the renowned developer in this respect over the years, they still know how to knock you on your ass when the moment is right. What was even more impressive to me was the title's slow shift away from using pre-rendered HD cinematics, and the in-game rendering engine's ability to take up the slack admirably. This shift is noticeable, but not nearly as blatantly as you might think. Where the pre-renders handle all of the really major action scenes, the in-game engine really excels at interpersonal relations and face-to-face conversations. Simply enough, when the emphasis is meant to be on the visuals, the pre-renders handle the job magnificently. When you're supposed to be focusing more on the conversation and a flashy animation would only serve to distract, that's where the live rendering picks up. While there's still nothing like one of those mouth watering cutscenes after a crucial turn of events, this handoff to more live-rendered scenes speaks highly for the engine that runs the whole show, and is nearly enough to make me salivate in anticipation of what's to come with the first <em>Fantasy</em> to appear on newer hardware.</p><p>I was scared to death when I first read that Nobuo Uematsu was not involved with the musical compositions of <em>Final Fantasy XII</em>, as his run of incredible soundtracks is one of the true unsung heroes of this series. Uematsu's work is underscored, but crucial. He gave each town a distinct tune that was catchy enough to make the time go by a bit easier, but never obnoxiously so. He lent a unique voice and attitude, back in a day when it was virtually impossible to do so visually, and he always did so without standing in the way of the story. His tunes were there, an incomparably vital part of the series, but much of their beauty was in their tendency to fade into the background and enrich the experience from there. It's incredibly difficult to toe that line, and he'd done it for eleven chapters running.<br /><br />With that said, I was pleasantly surprised by the musical accompaniments of <em>FFXII</em>. It's clearly been inspired by the work that's come before, but also takes several strong steps towards establishing its own voice that's impressively at home in this world. The old master may be moving away from the series, but his replacement(s) have learned all the right lessons from his work. The compositions are beautiful in the same way Uematsu's previous scores were, unobtrusively entertaining, and don't need the spotlight to play their part. The unspoken success of the musical accompaniment works hand in hand with the outstanding voice acting which is present throughout. Both in anime and in video games, it's tough to name a universally great vocal cast, but the one presented here is very close. Each character has a unique voice, annunciation and personality that almost tells you their backstory before it's explained on the screen. Ambient sound effects and noises are present, but never obnoxiously so, and as a result only work to enhance the scenery.<br /><br />Ultimately, a needlessly complex main plotline, a slow start and a few very minor gameplay flaws hold <em>FFXII</em> back from absolute perfection, but beyond than that it's clear sailing. Part twelve is hands down the best <em>Final Fantasy</em> of this generation, and ranks right alongside the three outstanding chapters released on the PSone on my all-time depth charts. If you're a fan of the RPG genre, you need to give this game a try... and I don't just mean a few minutes' worth. For the first hour or two, I was not a fan, but I persisted and found the rewards to be absolutely worth those opening moments of uncertainty.<br /><br />Just don't go in with any heavy-handed expectations. Within those first couple of hours, when I was very uncertain about its direction, I couldn't shake the feeling that this was a fun game, but it wasn't a <em>Final Fantasy</em>. In a way, it still isn't, but it fills me with anticipation for what the new directions will mean to the next chapter in the story. This represents as drastic a departure for the series as <em>Final Fantasy II</em> did, way back on the NES. It's a totally new game, but one that's strangely familiar. Give it a chance and you'll fall in love with it. I know I did.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 9.8</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-13663191952155792582007-02-25T06:09:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:16:13.133-07:00Metal Gear Solid 3: SubsistenceI'll tell the truth: when I first caught a glimpse of this game's direction, I wasn't thrilled. While one of its big selling points was its return to familiar territory - an escape from the technological espionage of the first two <em>Metal Gear Solid</em>s and a revisitation of the jungle-themed environmental warfare of the very earliest <em>Metal Gear</em>s - I was never much of a fan of the earlier games in the series to begin with. The 8-bit games were all too detailed, too slow-paced and too faceless to really grab my attention. They were the kind of games that required you to do some heavy reading to fully comprehend, and just didn't interest me with their setting nor their method of storytelling. I didn't like the idea of constantly monitoring your wardrobe to fade into the surroundings, I didn't like the concept of keeping your character fed in the wild, and I didn't like the repetitive environments - trees in all directions. I could identify with the surroundings of an urban warzone. I liked the variety of moods, personalities and surveillance devices present in a modern building or complex. I could identify them in my everyday life, and in a way that allowed me to identify a bit more with the game itself. I'd sometimes find myself unconsciously documenting all of the good hiding spots in my office, which meant the games were succeeding spectacularly at capturing my imagination. I've never been to a jungle. I've never had a desire to visit a jungle. I'm an indoor person at heart, I like being in the city much more than I like being isolated, out in the wild. I've never been more than fifteen minutes away from a supermarket. I can't empathize with the need to hunt and kill a wild animal every day to keep going. In a way, I allowed those early impression to jade my opinion of the game before it had even been released.<br /><br />I don't think it's any kind of secret that the story of <em>Snake Eater</em> is not that of Solid Snake, the face of the franchise up to this point. Instead, it digs into the first few long-reaching missions in the career of Big Boss, godfather to both Solid and Liquid Snake. Set in 1960s Russia at the height of the Cold War, there's an underlying sense of uncertainty and impending doom that shadows every instruction you're given by your superiors. For his part, Big Boss (throughout the game answering to the handle of "Snake," both for clarity's sake and, assumedly, for familiarity) plays the part of an ignorant, squeaky-clean new recruit from moment one - basically assuming the role of the player himself. As the bitterness, backstabbing and political positioning of the individuals involved in the situation becomes apparent, you'll find yourself going through a set of emotions almost directly parallel to those of your on-screen representation and beginning to feel a little compassion for what he's been through. After all, it isn't every day you get a chance to set your own broken bones from the edge of a lonely river, only to suddenly witness the slow, vertical climb of a nuclear mushroom... even if you ARE a covert government agent.<br /><br />It's beneath that hauntingly familiar cloud of war that <em>Metal Gear Solid 3</em> begins its story. I have to admit - despite the thousands of hours I've already spent behind the reigns of a controller, even I was taken aback by the magnitude of that opening scene. Maybe an hour into the game and already the protagonist has endured a nuclear assault. It was enough to shake some of those cobwebs and allow me to take in the rest of the game from a clear mind. A lot of the preconceived notions I had developed about what the game was about, how it would play and what kind of a story it would contain, those were thrown right out the door when that fiery holocaust climbed toward the sky and Snake shook in his boots at the sight.<br /><br />Eventually, Snake becomes a major player in the unfolding drama, a world-threatening chess match between the United States and the Soviet Union that's dangerously close to checkmate. While I think the game believes itself to be a little more "insider" and intelligent than it really is, that shroud of intellect is pulled tightly enough to convince most gamers that it's for real, and ultimately to succeed. The main plot is kept simple enough, with a clearly defined set of goals and interactions, so the meat of the story is easy to comprehend. Snake's been dropped into the dense jungles of southwest Russia, he's meant to convene with an undercover agent and follow their instructions, and he's asked to deal with any unanticipated situations as he sees fit. Perhaps more importantly, if he's discovered in the field by the Russians it means intercontinental nuclear war. His failure in the mission at the beginning of the game has put considerable strain on international relations between the US and the Soviets, and any action that could be perceived as even remotely offensive (such as dropping a special agent into the field) could cause a catastrophic chain of events. It carries a little more weight than "if you're caught, you'll die" and makes your actions feel much more important as you progress through the game. <br /><br />In addition to that main plot, there are also half a dozen sub-stories going on which tie further into the international dealings and threats that should make this mission feel weightier than all of the others. For the most part, they just feel like excess - they're so detailed and wordy that it's hard to follow their progression and differentiate one from the other. You're given dozens and dozens of names of men who are supposedly major players in these political wheelings and dealings, but because they're often mentioned at length in your radio communications and never actually represented in person, it's hard to differentiate one from the other. Eventually, I found myself skipping over the lengthier radio chats - not just because they were too wordy and hard to follow, but because they were so frequent. I wanted to get to the action, and didn't like the idea of watching a stagnant screen of Snake kneeling, hand to ear, listening to a general who wants to talk his ear off.<br /><br />The existence of more modern technological innovations does cast a shroud of doubt over the timeliness of the story, although I'll trust Team Kojima's historical accuracy above my own suspicions. I have trouble believing that a portable, hand-operated nuclear missile launch-system, an active-camo suit or heat-sensitive visors were around and in active use throughout the sixties, and while it's nice to suspend that disbelief for the sake of a good story, such things do tend to stick out like a sore thumb alongside the game's established dedication to realism and simulation. Don't get me wrong, you aren't outfitted with a bevy of lasers and robotic limbs or anything, but many of your tools are modern enough to raise a few flags about their authenticity.<br /><br />The characters haven't quite returned to the form they enjoyed in the first <em>Metal Gear Solid</em>, but they're an improvement from the ho-hum cast of <em>MGS2</em>. Where the first game offered a lineup that would've looked right at home in the pages of a modern comic book and the second took the "realism" approach just a bit too far, <em>Snake Eater</em>'s roster is a little bit of both. The enemy crew comes fully equipped with a handful of individually-specific special abilities, but their personalities are a little less eclectic and more believably human. The bosses in particular are superbly defined and personified. You'll do battle with a retired Russian cosmonaut who can't let go of the past, constantly radios mission control and comes at you in an insulated, rocket pack-equipped space suit. You'll meet the "greatest sniper in the world," virtually invisible to the naked eye, who's spent his entire life honing his craft. He's so dedicated to his pursuit of the perfect kill that when he's not stalking his prey, he's unconscious. His comrades escort him from killzone to killzone in a wheelchair. It's these little splashes of color and personality that really made the cast of <em>MGS1</em> so memorable, and it's nice to see them recognizing that and even attempting to replicate and improve upon it here. <br /><br />Another carry-over from the previous games in the <em>MGS</em> lineage is the series' trademarked gallows humor and self-deprecating sense of comedic timing. You wouldn't think a war zone would be an appropriate place to crack some jokes and make puns, but it's exactly that tension and serious setting that makes them so successfully funny. Some of the costumes you're asked to wear are just silly, as are the soldiers' reactions to them, and many of the verbal jokes don't even register as such until Snake's wry smile or glance directly into the camera gives it away. It wouldn't have felt like a <em>Metal Gear</em> without them, and I'm grateful not just for their inclusion, but for their continued quality and evolution. There's also an unintentionally hilarious <em>James Bond</em>-homage during the intro credits that had me rolling, and an accompanying theme song that's so cheesy I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.<br /><br />Of course, the main attraction in <em>MGS3</em>, or in any non-PSP <em>Metal Gear</em> release, is stealthy infiltration. The overall goal is to move throughout the entire game, start to finish, without being detected by foot soldiers or surveillance apparatus, which is clearly no easy task. You're slowly provided with more and more gadgets and weapons to aid you in that goal as the game carries on, which meet various degrees of success in their trial by fire. The heat-sensor goggles, for example, are invaluable in later levels, as the last few sub-bosses are nearly impossible to spot in the dense foliage, while the series' famous cardboard boxes are almost completely useless. You can feel welcome to lay down in them and presume safety, but every single guard in the game seems to have an extra sense warning him that there's something warranting inspection about the one box you happen to be crouched beneath.<br /><br />On the inevitable occasions that you are detected and confronted by the enemy, you can stand and fight, potentially alerting more guards to your whereabouts, or try to run off and hide before approaching again. True to my form throughout the series, for the first three or four hours, I would always attempt the second technique. After all, the purpose of the game is to move stealthily and cautiously, and to hurl yourself into battle would contradict the idea the developers were trying to introduce. After that point, however, I quickly found myself jaded to the concept and relying more and more on hand-to-hand and armed combat. It's a nice idea the first dozen times you spend fifteen minutes determining the best route of action, waiting for your opportunity, slowly crawling through the grass and finally having your plan foiled by a surprise animal attack at the moment of truth. After that first handful of hours are wasted on planning, the concept wears thin.<br /><br />For those moments when you do transition into head-first combat, the hand-to-hand system has been completely remodeled and revamped, with extra attention paid to pressure sensitivity and subtle movement. If you grab hold of a guard with a single-hand weapon, for instance, you can use the poor soul as a human shield, (continuing to fire over his shoulder, naturally) use your weaponry to interrogate him in a secluded location or kill him in whatever manner you deem to be appropriate. Of course, if you kill him or knock him unconscious, you run the risk of his buddies discovering the corpse, alerting the troops and bringing hell down on your current position. No action is without ramifications, immediate or eventual.<br /><br />The problems with lengthy monologues and non-interactive cutscenes that inundated <em>Metal Gear Solid 2</em> have reached near-epidemic stage in chapter three. You'll constantly find yourself sitting through well over twenty minutes of film, conversation and action, none of which are you invited to take part in. It's incredibly frustrating to see the potential for all of these ultra cool, action-heroic moments in gameplay, just to have them taken out of the player's hands and wasted on cinematic interruptions. I'm as big a fan of the cutscene as the next, in fact I'd probably consider myself to be one of their larger proponents, but their use in <em>Snake Eater</em> crosses the line, even from my perspective. <br /><br />Likewise, the jungle scenes go on for way too long. That's my main complaint with this game - they took a series that had been reinvented successfully on the PSone. The two preceding chapters were, up to this point, entirely based in urban and technological locations. They uprooted the whole operation, moved it to a jungle setting and hurt its identity as a result. Where I'd rather have been hiding behind boxes or rushing from alley to alley, I found myself climbing through tall grasses and hanging from trees. It feels like a tremendous handicap that's imposed upon the player, and there's no great payoff at the end to make it worth the hassle.<br /><br />One of the more intuitive and attractive new features introduced in <em>Snake Eater</em> is the camouflage index, which teaches the player to select appropriate face paint and wardrobe depending on their surroundings. Climbing through dense foliage, for example, requires a dark green camo, combined with a striped green face paint. If it's after sundown or indoors, you may be better off completely coating your face in black polish and donning a much darker wardrobe. Wearing the wrong colors for a situation will make your job all the more difficult, while successfully implementing these techniques makes life much more rewarding and interesting. On the occasion that you do achieve that rare moment of a 100% on the camo index, (signifying complete invisibility) it's a crowning moment in the gameplay experience. There's nothing quite like slowly crawling directly in front of a guard patrol, never raising his suspicions for an instant, then continuing through checkpoint after checkpoint without recognition. Of course, this raises another feasibility question of where, exactly, Snake hides all those extra pairs of pants when he isn't using them, but you're asked to conveniently overlook such trivialities.<br /><br />As anyone with more than even a passing interest in the game should already know, a large part of its progress lies in Snake's ability to trap or kill wild animals and fauna, eventually eating them as a means of self-sustenance. Really, this sounds like more of a headache than it really is, although I'll readily admit to occasionally yearning for the days of instantly devouring a ration pack mid-stride. Actually chewing down a meal doesn't even refill your life, as one would imagine it would, but instead replenishes your stamina gauge. <br /><br />Your health regenerates automatically over time, assuming you aren't injured, but by maintaining a full stamina reading, you can recover from wounds much more quickly. If, in fact, you are injured, it's time to open up Snake's handy-dandy first aid menu, within which he can perform any number of tasks. If you've been swimming in the jungle, you can grab a lit cigar and burn off the handful of leeches that have affixed themselves to Snake's skin. Taken a few bullets? You'll need to dig the thing out of your body with a knife, apply some disinfectant, bandage the wound and wrap it. Broken arms, burns, stab wounds, poisons, and similar ailments are also treated within this menu. If it seems like a lot of needless detail and extra effort, that's because it is. Really, excessive particulars and over-analyzation are the names of the game in Snake's second PS2 adventure. If you've ever wanted to know just how miserable life was for special forces agents, lost in the jungles in the mid '60s, well, here's your chance. While it's a cool idea to focus on an area-specific injury and its treatment, rather than the simple, black and white "you were shot" or "you were not shot" standards of the previous games in the series, I'm not really all that interested in playing through a medical treatment simulation and understanding when and where to apply a splint after a lengthy fall. In this regard, <em>Metal Gear 3</em> is half espionage and war emulation and half Boy Scout seminar.<br /><br />The controls are kept fairly simple, almost mind-numbingly so. So much of this stuff is automated that I never really felt like I was entirely in control of Snake's actions. You can tell him when to walk or run, to take a knee and crawl or perform a spectacular somersault through a tiny opening in the fence, but when it comes to more elaborate operations, you're generally just pressing the action button and watching him do all the work. <br /><br />First person mode has some problems, most notably the speed at which Snake looks around the field. This should've been something that was pressure-sensitive, reacting with some attention paid to how firmly or loosely the player moved their thumbstick. I mean, if a very light touch in the open field results in Snake moving extremely slowly, cautiously and stealthily, why couldn't a frantic, wild press to the right result in more than a slow, leisurely spin in first person mode? It's nice to have such precision, don't get me wrong, and in the few instances where I found myself sniping in <em>MGS3</em>, the extremely slow-moving controls were a godsend. Where you'll most find yourself employing this view, however, is in the heat of a close-quarters battle, guns blazing on both sides. In that kind of situation, exactly where your first shot lands isn't as important as how long it took you to put it there and how much time you gave the enemy to fire off a few rounds of their own. <br /><br />I've read that one of the major overhauls for the release of <em>Subsistence</em> was with the overhead camera, but having never played the original version I can't really compare the two. I do know that the camerawork was very rarely obtrusive, and generally good enough that you won't even notice it's there. Ultimately, that should be the goal of any good angle - if you don't even detect its presence, that means you aren't regularly complaining about it and it's been properly developed.<br /><br />Continuing where <em>MGS2</em> left off, the <em>Snake Eater</em>'s graphics are absolutely breathtaking, and one of the last true showpieces of the PS2's library. The greatest thing about the <em>Metal Gear Solid</em> series is its cinematic approach to every aspect of the game and meticulous attention to detail, and that overlying theme is inarguably visual. I remember the first time I popped in the original <em>MGS</em>, when I heard that opening monologue overlying the introductory movie and opening credits. I'd never seen anything like it before, a true blend of interactivity and professional cinematography. I couldn't wait for that short speech to end, I was so eager to start. I can also specifically remember the first time I saw <em>Sons of Liberty</em> in action, back when the PS2 was in its infancy. It was like I'd seen the future: incredible character models, obscenely detailed (not to mention interactive) environments, amazingly lifelike animations... it was all there, and it was all new. <br /><br /><em>MGS3</em> is more of the same, on all fronts. The environments, repetitive as they may seem, are truly quite varied. While it's easy to see a bunch of trees and assume it was an easy development, the jungles of this title are every bit as real and varied as the real thing. Just because you're looking at leaves, branches and vines doesn't make every alignment exactly the same, and it's immediately evident that this was a concern to the development team. No two board layouts are even remotely alike, and it makes the experience much more entertaining and explorative than I'd expected it to be. <br /><br />The characters, too, are incredibly detailed and concepted, literally from head to toe. The cosmonaut character I mentioned earlier, for instance, could have very easily gone way over the top and harmed the game's image with its cartoonish tendencies. The way he's treated, however, is awe-inspiring - the visual distortions caused by the heat of his rocket pack, for instance, latch the whole scenario to reality. The fireballs he spews when he takes flight are graphically incredible. The reflections on the glass of his visor, the beads of sweat running down his pale features, everything imaginable is represented in incredible fashion, and it's not just limited to the one character. It's a theme for the entire game, with even the lowliest of foot soldiers enjoying the fruits of the development team's labors. It's a true showpiece.<br /><br />In that same respect, the voice acting within the <em>MGS</em> series is nearly legendary. The first game set the bar incredibly high with a wide cast of characters and personalities, all of them reflected flawlessly by both the vocal talent and script. While the second stumbled in places, the voice acting remained top notch, to the point that I felt like I'd be foolish to skip through some of the notoriously lengthy cutscenes. Where it would've been easy to just click my way through all of the radio conversations, the top notch spoken tracks had me setting the controller on my lap and just absorbing it all. In this regard, <em>Snake Eater</em> had some pretty big boots to fill, and it does so adequately if not spectacularly. It's not quite to the same level that the first game was - a lot of the emotion of the readings has been sapped away. It's like everyone with a speaking role is sullen, trying to look cool, and completely uninvolved in what's going on around them. I suppose a lot of that can be attributed to their training as cold-blooded super soldiers, men and women who have killed hundreds in the line of duty without regrets, but I think expecting that kind of an unspoken leap is asking a lot of your audience. When the action really picks up, so do the emotions, and that's when the game really shines. Any time Snake is surrounded by soldiers, with rockets firing over his head, he drops the facade and lets the emotions cut loose. When he's faced with an emotionally trying final battle, it provides some of the best dialog of the game. I suppose emotion isn't completely lacking from this game, it's just used very sparingly.<br /><br />Also included in the <em>Subsistence</em> package is a second disc, overflowing with additional content and side-games utilizing the <em>Snake Eater</em> engine. As a whole, this disc is almost entirely comedic, and it's surprisingly very successful at it. There's a "Snake vs. Monkey" mini-game, in which Snake is asked to hunt down a horde of cartoon monkeys, (modeled after the chimps in the <em>Ape Escape</em> franchise) tranquilize them and capture them. There's something about the serious jungle setting that is forever misshapen by the presence of these overly cartoony creatures - I especially loved the final stages, in which they've created their own simian-themed Metal Gear apparatus. It's a fun little distraction, and upon completing it you're rewarded with a new costume for use in the main storyline. You'll find a collection of user-created, downloadable skins, which can also be implemented into the main storyline and used at your own discretion. I particularly enjoyed the naturally stealthy nature of the jolly red Santa Claus wardrobe. There's also a wide array of cutscenes, many lifted directly from the main story, which all skewed just enough to make them completely ridiculous and hilarious. Words can't even express what goes on in these things - there's a discussion about why Snake shouldn't eat horse meat in the wild, elderly men climbing along the ceiling of a torture chamber like Spider-Man, a scene in which Raiden (the protagonist of the second game) is, well... violated... by the villainous mastermind of <em>Snake Eater</em> - anything and everything you can imagine, and then a little bit more. I'm under the impression that most of these were originally created for internal purposes, to keep the team behind the game's creation from going insane and to keep them amused, but they wound up being too good to keep to themselves. <br /><br />Also included in the package is an online feature, which I truthfully haven't even tried out (I have zero confidence in my ability to hang with the better players in the world) and an emulated copy of both the original <em>Metal Gear</em> and its direct sequel, heretofore unreleased in the United States. They're interesting looks back at the history of the series, but as I mentioned in the introduction, I didn't care for them upon their original release, and the years haven't exactly been kind to them. Still, it's nice to have a collection like this gathered into one place for the first time. Now I can trash the emulated copies that somehow found their way onto my hard drive.<br /><br />But all of those extra features are nothing more than frosting. The real meat of the purchase lies on the first disc, on <em>Snake Eater</em>, and on its own the game isn't quite up to snuff. It inherits a lot of good things from its predecessors, but it also tries unsuccessfully to innovate upon them. Most of the game's best sections are features which were retained from those previous chapters, while many of its worst are brand new. I loved the main storyline, even if I never fully enjoyed the jungle setting, and both the camo index and the hunt / kill / eat functionality were bold steps in a new direction, but felt too much like work and too little like an enjoyable experience. Many of the action sequences which would've been an integral part of the game itself in earlier chapters were here relegated to a mere cutscene, taking away much of the action, suspense and excitement of the experience. As a whole, <em>MGS3</em> is a good ways above average, but the new systems it introduces are as obsessively detail oriented as they come without rewarding the player for their studious use. It's like the newer innovations were introduced solely to handicap the player, and no amount of beautiful graphics, outstanding boss battles or storied history can overcome that kind of an impact. Good, but not great.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 7.2</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-87409571926110984552006-11-22T06:00:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:16:07.300-07:00Jak 3My expectations going into each successive chapter of the PlayStation 2's <em>Jak and Daxter</em> saga have fluctuated like an unpredictable stock on a busy day. The day I initially plugged in the first <em>Jak</em>, it was amid hopeful feelings and great anticipation, thanks to the critical and commercial success the series had seemed to enjoy from birth onward. When that turned out to be something less than what I was looking for, my motivation to play <em>Jak II</em> plummeted... and when I finally did get around to playing through the sequel, it surpassed every last one of my presumptions and completely threw me for a loop. So, when I only recently picked up the final chapter of this trilogy, it was with those fresh impressions of part two dancing in my subconscious, alongside a set of (you guessed it) newly heightened expectations. I should know better than to anticipate excellence out of a game these days, when any title's hype is usually far greater than its delivery, but such things can't always be helped. As I noted at the very outset that <em>Jak 3</em>'s scene had changed from the busy, dark, industrialized city setting of part two, I remained optimistic. A change of locale had treated the series very well in the excellent <em>Jak II</em>, so what could go wrong with another shift of headquarters at the beginning of chapter three?<br /><br />Fortunately, not all that much. As <em>Jak 3</em> opens, we're smacked right on the nose by the revelation that Jak and Daxter have been hurriedly exiled from the city. In retrospect, this became something of a theme for the series: establish right away that this is not the game its immediate predecessor was. It worked to establish an identity for the series in part one and symbolized the change in tone with part two. And, wouldn't you know it, the same trick works the third time around, this time personifying the saga's reluctance to stagnate. This isn't nearly as great a departure from <em>Jak II</em> as the former was from <em>The Precursor Legacy</em>, but the need for such a radical shift of mood was no longer necessary.<br /><br />In a way, <em>Jak 3</em> is more of a direct sequel to chapter two than it is a continuation of the storyline that was established in part one. I realize that this was meant to be the end of a journey, a "coming of age" story that follows the title character through his innocence, his adolescence, and finally his ascent into adulthood. Bearing in mind, it's only natural that he'd want to distance himself from the people and places that make him feel like an adventuring child, rather than a self-assured saver of globes. "When I became a man, I put away childish things," after all. With that said, there is <b>very</b> little remaining connection to the first game in the series, here in the climactic third chapter. With the obvious exception of Daxter himself, the characters from <em>The Precursor Legacy</em> are treated as an afterthought. Especially so in the case of Keira, who barely has a speaking role - her voice actor didn't even return for this game. Now, I was far from a cheerleader for the cast of the first game - with no exception, they were all squeaky clean, cartoony, bubbly creatures that played a big part in my dislike for the title in general, and I was glad to see the second game distancing itself from that kind of environment. The fact remains, though, that she was one of the slim cast of four central characters from that first adventure, an instrumental part of the ensemble cast of <em>Jak II</em>, and she barely grabs a minute's worth of screen time in the finale. The single motivating figure in that first story, the green sage, doesn't fare much better.<br /><br />As strange as it feels to say, I was hoping for a return to the stomping grounds of of that first <em>Jak & Daxter</em>, as the path of <em>Jak 3</em> eventually takes you back to the city of chapter two. It would've made sense alongside the recurring time travel motif, presented at the conclusion of that second story and continued in bits and pieces here, but also could have delivered the kind of full-circle conclusion that really sets the legendary yarns apart from the very good ones. By the end of this one, though, that tie is severed completely... for better or for worse. <br /><br />Where the inspiration behind the storytelling of <em>Jak II</em> was unquestionably <em>Blade Runner</em>, the main source of direction for this final chapter comes largely from Mel Gibson's <em>The Road Warrior</em>. The outlanders who rescue the title-endorsed duo from their exile and drag them back to their own makeshift shanty town are the textbook definition of an early '80s burly man. They adorn themselves with hundreds of pointy edges, enormous, hopelessly detailed weapons and layer after layer of questionably-hemmed leather. They puff out their chests at every opportunity, and speak like a cluster of throat cancer survivors. They really weren't what I was expecting, after the technological-meets-industrial nightmare of <em>Jak II</em>, but they aren't without a unique charm entirely their own. If the idea of dozens of guys running around the desert dressed like the gimp makes you squeamish, you might want to think about attempting another game.<br /><br />These new characters are just overflowing with personality, which makes the minor cutscenes and motivational speeches entertaining, but I couldn't shake the feeling that they were just going through the motions in an attempt to mimic the successful main cast of the second game. It's like they were trying to match the edge of the gritty, sullen warriors of <em>Jak II</em>, but were missing some intangible element that kept them from reaching that full potential. The twists and turns of their storylines were somewhat transparent (I'd figured out the major twist in Damas's story within an hour of meeting him), their importance to the central plot is thrown into question fairly early on, (when you return to the city around the three hour mark and only occasionally return to the desert thereafter) and for all of their gusto, their emotional impact on the player doesn't hold a candle to the inner-city gangs that ran chapter two. In keeping with that tiding, the new main villain, Veger, doesn't have the same kind of physical imposition that was typical of the villains of previous games. As an intellectual nemesis, he's absolutely incredible - his scenes are consistently the best in the game, and you're immediately pulling for him to fall on his ass, but he's not the kind of guy you're going to be excited about trading blows with. It seems that the game's writers suddenly realized that midway into the script, as Errol - one of the key baddies from Episode 2, is suddenly brought back to reprise his role and accept the brunt of the player's aggressions midway through the game. <br /><br />As the "last" game in the series, (<em>Daxter</em> on the PSP and <em>Jak X: Combat Racing</em> have since been released, continuing the saga, and there are rumors of a new game on the PS3) <em>Jak 3</em> is an atypical grand finale. A lot of things didn't happen that I expected to during the "wrap up" cutscene at the very end, and vice-versa... I was caught off guard by more than a few revelations, including the <em>Wizard of Oz</em>-styled reveal just before the final boss. For the first time, I think the series found its stride in the vein of comedy it had sought since day one. The character interactions are actually very funny in places - I legitimately laughed out loud on more than one occasion, which is not something I'm known to do during a game. Daxter has a few lines about what he misses most about his humanity that are just great, and there are one or two very subtle John Byrne <em>She-Hulk</em> moments, where the characters actually acknowledge that they're in a video game, that I'll fess up to chuckling heavily over. <br /><br />In all, the storyline really finds its niche here, finally filling out the cast with the broad, deep, interesting characters that were missing from chapter one, and delivering an excellent blend of drama and light comedy. It can crack a good joke when the opportunity presents itself, but it also doesn't seem out of place or heavy handed when the situation calls for a more dramatic overtone. With the outline in place and the unexpected twists and turns counteracting the few more obvious revelations, the stage would have been set for one of the greatest final chapters in video gaming history - if only it were a bit longer. <em>Jak 3</em> weighs in at about a dozen hours, which is less than half the length of <em>Jak II</em>, and that results in a much less rewarding experience than you'd hope for in a final episode. It also wasn't nearly as difficult as its immediate predecessor, which means less screaming and shouting, but also less relief and self-assuredness upon reaching that final scene. After completing part two, I had a sense of accomplishment, almost pride, at having finished such an elaborate and difficult game. I didn't get that same sensation upon putting this one to bed.<br /><br />One area in which <em>Jak 3</em> doesn't disappoint is the "holy crap" department. This game is legitimately overflowing with the kind of sequences and situations that bring a smile to your face and force you to do that weird "squat about an inch above the couch and tilt the controller in the direction you want to go" maneuver that you used to give your mom shit about employing when she first tried the original <em>Super Mario Brothers</em>. It just spoils you with these things - you'll control Daxter as he clings for dear life onto a speeding missle, (a live freaking MISSLE!) you'll leap onto a teensy platform while the camera leers above you and displays the dizzying heights below, you'll take down creatures the size of a whale... just unimaginably cool stuff. It doesn't overload on the action in quite the way that <em>God of War</em> did, but it's damn close, and the last full hour of gameplay is one of those long moments that transcends mere video gaming and puts the player right into the middle of a summer blockbuster. I've long considered the last stage of the original <em>Halo</em> to be one of the, if not <b>the</b> greatest level in the history of gaming, and I'd seriously consider the closing moments of <em>Jak 3</em> at least on par with that. So, yeah, damn high praise indeed.<br /><br />In both the grand finale and throughout the entirety of the game, there's a lot of variety in the gameplay. This is not just your standard jump, shoot and explore adventure game. You'll bump into an odd blend of flight stages, <em>DDR</em>-style coordination stages, racing levels and railed first person shooter segments, in addition to the exploring, jumping, punching, shooting and all-around adventuring levels. And, while this is something I had a big problem with when it was shoved into the mechanics of <em>Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas</em>, it doesn't bother me so much here. The main reason is because the <em>Jak</em> series has always had some sort of similar variety ingrained within it, but it's also a bit more admissible here because the setup actually works. Nothing feels like it's been needlessly crammed into the proceedings, like the dance stages or the workout levels of <em>San Andreas</em>... it all just works together, several parts of a whole. Although I won't go so far as to say the approach is flawless, since it's that broad variety that contributes to the game's lack of a serious identity, (I'd never point out a game and say "hey, that plays exactly like <em>Jak 3</em>!") it does lend a much more multi-tiered air to the proceedings and the overall outcome is a much longer-lived gameplay experience. Where most genre-focused titles tend to grow repetitive and dull after a few hours, there's never a shortage of new tasks and things to do in Jak's world.<br /><br />While the basic gameplay model (and its dedication to consistently bending genres) has remained mostly intact, there are three notable variations from the functionality of <em>Jak II</em> that become abundantly clear within the first couple of hours. First and foremost is the much, much heavier emphasis that's placed on the driving stages, more so than in <em>The Precursor Legacy</em> and <em>Jak II</em> combined. In the first game, the concept of climbing aboard a moving vehicle was all but an afterthought. There were a few race stages, but they were very few and far between, and had little to do with the big picture. In part two, they were primarily used as a means of transport. You'd steal a flying car, because it would otherwise take you a legitimate ten minutes to get from one side of the city to the other. Races were introduced in that second title, as well, but it was clear that the emphasis of the gameplay was elsewhere. In this third chapter, they're vital to the completion of half the game's levels, including the final boss fight. It's almost to the point that I'd call this an "action / racing" title, because you'll find yourself spending as much time behind the wheel as you are on foot... and the functionality isn't really all that different. There's a jump button built into each car that, depending on that particular model's configuration, will launch you into the air with varying success. Each car has, naturally, its own unique front-mounted weapon, as well as a rocket booster attached to the back that can work alongside the jump functionality to pretty much fire you into orbit. It's an interesting transformation, to be sure, and one I'm not altogether sure how I felt about. When it was successful, the vehicle-based gameplay was a blast, something that's never really been tried before - a sort of supercharged platformer on wheels. On the few stages that failed, however, the wheels felt like a gimmicky death trap. Incredibly frustrating, like trying to shove a square peg through a round opening. Largely, the vehicle stages were a roaring success, however.<br /><br />The second innovation is the continued emphasis on weaponry, and the existing weapons' insane increase in power and flexibility. This was actually a trend that started with <em>Jak II</em> and merely continued here, but it's to the point now that the hand-to-hand attacks are virtually useless out in the real world. And that's something I'll mourn, because despite all of its shortcomings and tendency to result in a barrelful of cheap hits, there's a certain satisfaction to dealing with an enemy up close and personal that's lost when you merely focus the little red dot on them and unload a round or two. The power level of the new weaponry is just obscene, and took a lot of the technique and difficulty out of the general gameplay. Especially destructive is the new heat-seeking ricochet gun, which essentially seeks out and destroys every enemy on the screen without requiring much in the way of aim or timing. You could turn your back on a bad guy, fire a few rounds at his buddy across the room and turn around to see that the bouncing shells had not only taken out the man you were vaguely aiming for, but also the man behind you and the three guys around the corner that you hadn't even seen yet. I didn't use anything else once I'd acquired this thing, which is itself far too early in the game's progress.<br /><br />Finally, there's the revelation that there is a "Light Jak" to mirror the beastial "Dark Jak" that was unveiled in the second game. Where Jak's darker persona brought with it a variety of new attacks and offensive maneuvers, his light side focuses more on exploratory aids and defensive mechanisms. As such, it's not quite as exciting to play as "Light Jak" for the first time as it was to burst into "Dark Jak" mode near the opening of <em>Jak II</em>. It's just not as much fun to grow wings and casually flutter around a room as it is to fire purple lightning out of your fingertips and fry the opposition. These light powers enable a few new modes of exploration for the die-hard fan, but are generally fairly useless and go unused until the situation demands that you employ them. For the most part, the emphasis has been taken off of these powers in <em>Jak 3</em>, where they were a vital part of his progression in <em>Jak II</em>. <br /><br />As far as controls are concerned, it's a pretty tight ship at this point in the series. Most of the infuriating glitches and bugs from the first game were ironed out in the second chapter, and the third game actually improves upon the near-perfection attained by the second. A few jump commands go unrecognized, and I had some problems with touchy collision detection during the faster races (which meant I had to hit the checkpoint dead center or risk doing it all over again) but those are minor gripes at best. I seriously found myself trying to dream up a few flaws, so I could write a little more than "this thing controls like a dream," which says something about how easy and successful this scheme really is. Also, considering how big a part of the game they play, the vehicles don't control all that well in <em>Jak 3</em>. But they're manageable, and become just another bump in the road (har har) after a few rollovers, peel-outs and violent deaths, which is to be expected when an established series branches out to a new style of play like this.<br /><br />Visually, this could pass as <em>Jak II</em>'s identical twin. The characters look almost exactly the same as in the previous chapter, and all of the little quirks, cartoony exaggerations and background puns that gave the first two games their identity are here in living color. It's not the best looking game I've ever played, and I didn't notice much of a difference upon switching to progressive scan, but it's near the top of its genre all the same. I'd imagine the phrase "ain't broke, don't fix it" could be applied to <em>Jak 3</em> without hesitation. Some of the particle effects and inclement weather situations are worth seeing, and the visuals really hit it out of the park on the few occasions where such an effort is truly called for. The character designs, which have long been the series' calling card, remain top notch in this third chapter, both for the new faces and for the old. Jak has a new hairstyle, a different outfit and a slightly older frame, but you can still recognize him on a crowded street. <br /><br />The musical selections were one of the few areas that I had a problem with in the second game, and sadly that hasn't been completely addressed here. The soundtrack, which was plodding, repetitive and boring throughout about three quarters of <em>Jak II</em>, is only plodding, repetitive and boring through half of <em>Jak 3</em>... which is a bit of an improvement, I suppose. Across the board, regardless of level, situation or tone, the original score borders on overwhelming repetition for most of the game, but does finally start to come through near the end. They could've improved twofold the mood of many crucial cutscenes and conversations twice as good with a full orchestral arrangement, pulling out all the stops - but instead, that's saved for the very tail end of the story, and is very limited even then. Granted, that kind of a treatment isn't always appropriate, but used sparingly, it could've nailed the kind of atmosphere I think they were looking for in many of the late scenarios. <br /><br />The voice acting is one area that's been kept fairly high in quality throughout the series, and that legacy is kept up here. Where the story falters, the voice actors often revive it, and vice versa... it's a good collaboration. The scenes are routinely stolen by Daxter and / or the villains, who go above and beyond in their pursuit of a good reading that matches the circumstances, while Jak is kept fairly low-key and stoic. It's for the best, too, because on the few occasions where he does decide to go all bad-ass and tries to spit out a line like "let's go kill us some metal heads," it doesn't fit and he comes across as awkward and unsure. Even the new characters contribute to the success of the voice acting, although they do occasionally go a bit too far over the top and distract from the events at hand. One minor qualm that kept me amused, however - the boss of the desert city, Damas, sounds a <b>lot</b> like Harvey Fierstein. So instead of this tough warrior spirit, boldly leading his people through the difficult desert life, I kept envisioning him as a gay, out of shape Jewish guy. Apples to oranges, I guess.<br /><br />To summarize, (and to be blunt in so doing) <em>Jak 3</em> is not the game that <em>Jak II</em> was. It's shorter, easier, less rewarding and quite a bit lighter on character development. The story has its highs and its lows, and would have made a great improvement over the original <em>Precursor Legacy</em>, but as a successor to the outstanding <em>Jak II</em>, it falls well short. At the end of my writeup for the second game, I likened it to <em>The Empire Strikes Back</em>, in that it took a fairly light-hearted series and transformed it into a more adult-oriented saga, with incredible results. For what it's worth, that <em>Star Wars</em> parallel carries over fairly accurately with this third chapter - you'll get lots of warm fuzzies at the end, and it's not quite as weighty or substantial as the second chapter, but overall it's still a very entertaining experience with a cast of characters you can't help but love. The big action scenes are really done fabulously, and there's rarely a dull moment, but this game suffers from the unbelievable quality of the game that immediately preceded it. <br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 8.7</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-44475161986830980332006-11-22T05:58:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:16:01.245-07:00Mortal Kombat: DeceptionI'm one of those <em>Mortal Kombat</em> enthusiasts who sees the past through a pair of the ever-popular rose tinted glasses. Even though I'd never fought a single round of 3-D rendered <em>MK</em> prior to purchasing <em>Deception</em>, I unconsciously deemed every game since that switch to be of lesser quality than their vid-captured predecessors. I'd spent far too many quarters on the first three games in the series to see its trademark live-action cheesiness cast aside in favor of the polygonal rendering and three-dimensional environments that had become all the rage in the fighting genre. In a way, I want to stand by my pre existing pompous, know-it-all attitude. A lot of the charm and personality of the series was based around its B-Movie aura and the macabre sense of humor apparent therein. But the series will likely never be returning to that form, and it's probably for the best to wipe the slate clean and give these new-look <em>MK</em>s a chance before I blindly shit all over them.<br /><br /><em>Deception</em> succumbs to many of the problems I'd feared it might, but it also contains a few successes I couldn't have foreseen. For instance, it's more of a variety pack than a straightforward fighting game. In addition to the standard "fight to the top of the ladder" single player brawl, the package contains a strangely provocative translation of chess, complete with death traps and damage amplifiers. Additionally, it hides a truly challenging and entertaining <em>Puzzle Fighter</em> knock-off, (with a handful of post-match fatalities thrown in for good measure) a sort of hybrid fighting RPG that reminds strangely of <em>Shenmue</em>, and a gift shop-styled "Krypt," where the credits you'll earn throughout your gameplay experience can be used to purchase production art, hidden characters, alternate costumes, movies and the like. As someone who's always shied away from purchasing fighting games in the past, due to the problems with longevity and depth that I instinctively associate with the genre, these additions were a blessing in disguise. If I found myself fed up with a particularly tough fight in <em>MKII</em> on the SNES, for instance, the most I could do was turn the system off or retry the battle with a different character. Maybe I'd aim for a Friendship or Animality, something to add a little spice to the repetitive process of constantly climbing to the top of the mountain and then starting it all over again. With <em>Deception</em>, I can step away from the fights for a minute, entertain another portion of my brain with "Puzzle Kombat" or the "Konquest" RPG, and then try again with a clear mind. Even though these extra modes aren't the most elaborate, well-executed things I've ever tried out, the rounding-out they add to the overall package can't be overstated. <br /><br />Upon reflection, I probably spent more time working through the Konquest mode than I did actually fighting my way up the ladder in single-player Kombat. Superficially, Konquest is probably among the worst games I've ever played. It's wooden, it's blatantly hurried, it's insultingly elementary in both visuals, audio, controls and motivations. Speaking to the commoners that frequent a city's streets, for instance, is like reading dialog from a story written by a third grade student with a D in English. Central characters don't fare much better. The quests you're asked to complete are absolutely comedic. The storytelling is paint-by-the-numbers, and familiar faces from around the <em>MK</em> universe stroll in and out without reason. What's worrying is that this story was evidently supposed to be the backbone of the whole of <em>Deception</em>, with every character's ending sprouting from ideas presented within. Shujinko, the martial artist you control throughout Konquest mode, is the tale's pivotal character. He's obviously meant to be something of a replacement for Liu Kang, which is a nice shift, since the series' reliance on Kang was becoming borderline obsessive. As a distinct personality, however, Shujinko could barely pass as Liu's much older brother. The two share a sticky-sweet innocence that sticks out like a sore thumb alongside evil, tainted characters like Scorpion, Kabal or Baraka. It's easy to recognize that the creative minds behind <em>Kombat</em> are much more interested in developing their villains than they are in fleshing out their heroes. <br /><br />Yet, despite all the horrors contained within, underneath the surface of Konquest resides some intangible element that just kept me coming back over and over again. It could've been my endless drive to reach 100% completion, but I've quit only halfway through on lesser games before. I think it was an underlying interest in understanding and mastering the nuances of the game as a whole. Although it's fairly elaborate and large-scale, the meat and potatoes of this RPG mode is a training regimen for every character in the game. Since Shujinko's fighting style is a mix of special moves and combos from each combatant, (I refuse to spell that with a K instead of a C) it makes sense for him to spend time learning each character's fighting style. The end result is not only a close familiarity with Shujinko's story, but also a clear understanding of both basic and advanced attacks with every playable character. As the story unfolds and the number of characters you haven't yet trained with dwindles, the lessons give way to challenges and strange sets of circumstances. Characters will challenge you to defeat them without blocking, or using only throws. They'll intimidate you by inflicting triple damage, or setting an incredibly short time limit, and they'll make Shujinko's life extremely difficult in so doing. Likewise, these strange circumstances and seemingly insurmountable requirements make that sense of pride and confidence twice as rewarding if and when you finally do overcome the handicaps and emerge victorious. I think I can safely say that I've never spent twenty hours working through a tutorial before, but in Konquest mode I scarcely noticed. <br /><br />As with any long-standing fighting franchise, a new chapter brings new playable characters, and <em>Deception</em> is no exception. Nine fighters are making their debut this time around, including the non-playable final boss, Onaga. Yet, with only one or two exclusions, these new faces can't even compare to the classics, neither in form nor function. They seem much more faceless than the creatures we've come to expect in a <em>Mortal Kombat</em> game. Their fighting styles are much more subtle and martial arts-based, and while there's something to be said for going the way of realism for a change, the new warriors just don't look formidable alongside Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Raiden. Their special moves are far weaker and overspecialized than those of the more established names, but their hand-to-hand skills and combos are much more refined and potentially damaging. You take some, you leave some, I suppose.<br /><br />The sheer number of fighters in the game is quite deep, weighing in at a whopping twenty four playable faces, especially considering each character comes equipped with two distinct fighting styles and a unique weapon style. Having avoided the franchise for almost two full console generations, I'm not sure if that was something new for <em>Deception</em>, but the concept of more than one fighting style per character really appealed to me. I liked the additional depth and individuality it gave to each character, along with the potential it opened up for some explosive combinations, branching fluidly from one form of combat to another. Although the boundaries between styles are very rigid, (you're either fighting straight-up Tae Kwon Do or straight-up Vale Tudo, there's very little overlap outside of lengthy combos) the game's heart is in the right place and it functions very well. Should you find yourself struggling with a particular style, a transition to a completely different approach is just a press of the L1 button away. <br /><br />The inclusion of weaponry to this scheme throws something of a wrench into the equation, both in terms of playability and believability. It can be incredibly disruptive to attempt a transition between a quick-striking hand-to-hand style and an attack with a slow, powerful weapon. Suddenly, rather than the quick aggressor, you're the slow brawler who's picking his shots. Of course, with experience comes familiarity with the process, but that such a learning curve exists in the first place only serves to defeat the otherwise-impressive style branching system. In terms of feasibility, I'm sure I don't have to explain just how far one's disbelief must be suspended before they can buy the idea that the guy on the screen just successfully blocked a sword attack with their bare arms. What's more, how does an uppercut to the face induce exactly the same amount of damage to one's opponent as a slash across the throat with a heavy axe? I don't want to come right out and poo-poo the whole concept of weaponry within the <em>Mortal Kombat</em> mythos, but maybe these items could be a momentum-shifter, only available to fighters struggling through a battle or under special circumstances? Something must be done, whatever it may be, because the blades and knives aren't working all that well in their current incarnation.<br /><br />Carrying over that question of feasibility is the continuation of the series' more questionable offensive maneuvers. Now, as I've said in my opening paragraphs, I consider myself to be something of an older-minded fan as far as the <em>MK</em> series is concerned. I liked the old games, complete with their goofy projectile attacks and inexplicable teleportations from one side of the screen to the other. It was taken for granted that such silly abilities would still be present with this year's model, and that surely is the case. Unfortunately, in their unyielding quest to constantly top themselves, the special move as a whole has become so far over the top and hard to believe that it's really starting to hurt the gameplay. If I'm fighting an eight foot dragon and he breathes flames over 97% of my body, I can accept the fact that my fighter may have trouble continuing. If I'm picked up, flown to a height of thirty feet, and spiked down directly onto my head, I'll cope with the knowledge that I probably won't be moving around too much any more. Hell, I'm still totally OK with the idea that a ninja can fire a mystical, freezing blast from the palms of his hands. Where I start to have questions, however, is when my fighter is knocked unconscious by a guy stomping really hard on the ground fifteen feet in front of me. Or when I'm KO'd by that same dragon from an earlier example merely flapping his wings and firing a stiff breeze in my direction. Something tells me it's time for the team at Midway to take a step or two back and think about where they're going with their special attacks, because <em>Deception</em> is really stretching it with some of these things.<br /><br />In that same vein is the series' infamous cherry-on-the-top fatalities immediately following a fight. These, too, occasionally go too far over the top, but are granted a bit more leeway than the special attacks I mentioned above. For the most part, they're at once hilarious and horrific, with little touches and nuances making them all the more disturbing. Like the way an impaled torso squirms for a moment, after being separated from each of its limbs and its head, before falling into inactivity for the last time. Hilarious, because it's so unabashedly violent, but also sickening, because the layman wouldn't even think of something like that before witnessing it in all of its polygonal glory. In <em>Deception</em>, as with each supplemental chapter in the series, finishing maneuvers take a number of shapes and sizes... just not quite as much so as in previous episodes. <em>Deception</em> represents more of a back-to-basics approach to its finishers, with merely two fatalities and one hara kiri (a suicide move, meant to steal the glory from your opponent at the last moment) per character - no Animalities, Babalities, Friendships, Brutalities or the like. On one hand, it's refreshing to see the emphasis moved away from frivolous finishing maneuvers with no effect on the outcome of the fights, but on the other it seems like a lot of content is missing. After all, it was the fatalities, the blood, and the guts that brought this game to the dance in the first place. <br /><br />One method of incapacitation that's still in use, despite that trimming down, is the stage-specific fatality. In earlier games, these were limited to something basic - you'd uppercut somebody and they'd fall off of a platform to a grisly demise, or maybe send them plummeting into a vat of acid. Within <em>Deception</em>'s three dimensional world, the stakes have been upped considerably. Not only can a stage fatality occur at any point during the battle, but they often do so in a chillingly unexpected fashion. Take a powerful blow in the wrong spot and your fight is over in the blink of an eye, regardless of how far ahead you were in the brawl before that moment. It would probably be somewhat challenging to continue a round after a trip through an eight foot meat grinder, after all. For the most part, these stage fatalities are a nice addition that allows every player, regardless of skill level, to have a puncher's chance. Unfortunately in a single player fight, they allow for a quick, cheap win for the computer more often than not. The AI will <b>always</b> find a way to jump over your head and perform these things instantaneously, which does get a bit aggravating after a few performances. You'll find yourself groaning when a few specific maps load, thanks to the stage fatalities contained within. <br /><br />Even on those fields with a handful of cheap, easy-to-use stage fatalities, one can't help but admire the game's universally outstanding level designs. Truly, the attention to detail, variety of interactive objects, and all-around size of these levels are an outstanding accomplishment. Each board is multi-layered in the style of the <em>Dead or Alive</em> series, with each section presenting its own set of unique hazards and extras. That means there's constantly something to find, or something to run into, that you hadn't noticed before. The presence of these cool little surprises and nods to the past keep the experience fresh and rewarding for more experienced players. I must've fought on the "dead pool" two dozen times before I noticed Shang Tsung, in his full <em>MKII</em> wardrobe, enjoying the battle from a tiny balcony in the corner. Speaking of which, one stage I especially enjoyed was Tsung's "nethership," where four or five corpses, long-dead, sway to and fro during the fight, tethered to the ceiling by their nooses. Competent fighters can use these poor souls to their own aid, by shoving them into their opponent or using them as a sort of human shield to deflect blows. Totally gross, but utterly cool and undeniably at home within the world of <em>MK</em>.<br /><br />The controls have been tweaked since I last played the series, which was inevitable considering the changes in the engine, and arrive fully-equipped with a handful of snags, bugs and problems. I had significant troubles with blocking consistently, especially when being attacked vigorously by a frenzied computer opponent. He'll be rattling off combo after combo, while my man stands there and stares, completely oblivious to my wishes. I also found that it was far too easy to throw, as blocking seems to be no deterrent to a character who wants to grab you and throw you across the tile. Furthermore, there's a noticeably longer pause after firing a special maneuver than in almost any other fighting game, which seems to be exclusive to the man-controlled characters. It's common practice to force a pause after a fireball, something to give the other player a chance to take advantage of their own ability to avoid the attack, but those pauses are just a beat too long in <em>Deception</em>. <br /><br />At this stage in the consoles' lives, I think there's very little room to impress with the PS2, Xbox or Gamecube's visual capabilities. As such, <em>MK:D</em> is a strictly average graphical performance. There are some intriguing touches, such as the way fighters begin to display facial damage as the rounds carry on, but for the most part it's by the books. The stage designs and accompanying backgrounds, as I mentioned before, are stellar, which may give the impression that things are looking better than they actually are, but under close scrutiny it's easy to discover a few shortcuts and trimmed corners. Especially bothersome is the endings, tailor-made to each character in typical series fashion. Where there's a lengthy FMV introduction to the game that's close to five minutes in length, the endings are at most three slides of still renderings with half a paragraph of subtitles and a voice-over. I'd have much rather been entertained with an introductory paragraph at the outset and rewarded with a beautiful series of cutscenes after finishing the game with each character, personally. <br /><br />Of course, the series made its name on its bloodletting, and on this front, <em>Deception</em> certainly doesn't disappoint. Rather than spraying abstractly into the air after each strike, the player's crimson fluids take the shape of thick, rotund blood droplets which slowly roll their way down the player's body after a rough attack. In a way, it's like watching a tree bleed syrup. When those globs hit the floor, you'll notice that a series of intertwining blood trails left behind. After a fight, if you look closely enough at the ground, you'll notice a map of where each major strike occurred during the brawl, as evidenced by the trail of blood splatters and puddles. In a way, it's kind of like a twisted version of the <em>Family Circus</em> maps that followed each child around the neighborhood, just with more broken bones and dislocated spines.<br /><br />The audio is hit and miss, with a great set of original tunes in the soundtrack, but some downright awful voice work. The entire game seems to be missing the aural ambience and subtle sense of humor that filled previous chapters. The narrator's laughter after a fight doesn't have the same authenticity that it once did... it feels like a guy in a studio trying to sound evil and failing, rather than the belly laugh of someone who's truly amused by the way the fight ended. But that's nothing compared to the voice acting and dialog, which is beyond bad - almost to the point that it becomes a part of the game's charm, like a bad horror film. Note that I said "<b>almost</b>." One can only use the "that's what we were trying for" excuse so many times before it stops being cute and starts feeling cheap and underproduced. <br /><br />Despite my early concerns, <em>Deception</em> really does retain a lot of that old-school <em>Mortal Kombat</em> personality. The instances are frequent where I find myself laughing at a fatality in the same way I did in '92, upon catching first glimpse of the original arcade machine. However, those instances do appear to be shrinking. It seems to be the right time for this series to reinvent itself, as the initial concept has been stretched to the point of breaking on more than one front and the threat of a descent into complete self-destruction looms on the horizon. I'm really looking for this series to re-establish itself as pushing the envelope, as it seems to have slipped into complacency in the last decade. What made it so special and so unique in the first place was its willingness to do what other games wouldn't. That's not to say that it's commonplace for other fighting games to feature fatalities, because that's still something unique to the <em>MK</em> franchise, but the freshness has worn off. It's often very difficult to determine when the right time really is to draw the line and jump blindly into something new, but for <em>MK</em>, there really is no time like the present. <em>Deception</em> has a lot of good elements - it's still a very challenging game, it provides a lot more variety than many of its peers, and it provides a good blend of comedy and stone-faced sobriety. As a "greatest hit," there's no question I'm happy with my purchase. What it doesn't do, unfortunately, is bode well for the future of the franchise if this path is continued for much longer.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 6.0</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-26588639712384318502006-11-22T05:54:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:15:54.428-07:00Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams<em>Silent Hill</em> is a franchise that I'd always managed to somehow avoid, though never deliberately so. Despite my curiosity about the cult following the series had developed and my lifelong affinity for similarly-themed games, films and stories, the town of Silent Hill and I just kept narrowly missing one another. We were like two ships passing in the dark, not altogether unaware of the other's presence, but never really reaching out and making contact. Ideally, I'd have begun playing through the series with the first chapter, released on the PSone way back in 1999, and perhaps my hope of finding an affordable copy of that game are responsible for my hesitation to begin the second. After a lengthy hunt, however, and the understanding that the two have very little to do with one another aside from the setting and the mood, I decided to finally give my aged copy of <em>Silent Hill 2</em> a whirl in the Xbox machine.<br /><br />My initial fears that this was just an overhyped <em>Resident Evil</em> clone were quickly put to rest - although the two games share a genre and pieces of a control scheme, their personalities couldn't be further apart. Where the first three <em>Resident Evil</em>s focused on the cheesier, blood-n-guts style with a hint of puzzle solving in the name of variety, <em>Silent Hill 2</em> concentrates much more on the unknown, the unexplained and the psychologically disturbing. Where <em>Resident Evil 2</em> is horror in the vein of <em>Dawn of the Dead</em>, <em>Silent Hill 2</em> is more along the lines of <em>The Ring</em> or <em>The Shining</em>. There's a lot of grey space, a lot of quiet minutes, followed by staggeringly loud moments of hectic chaos, followed by more silence and more tension. No matter where you are in the city of Silent Hill, there's always that awkward, distressing weight on your shoulders, that sense of impending doom just around the corner. <br /><br />It's that establishment of <b>potential</b> horror, not the actual moments of battle where the monster lies revealed, that are most successful in <em>Silent Hill</em> and, honestly, in most of the better films within the genre. To say that this game is lacking in real scary moments would be both unfair and untrue... I jumped more times than I'm comfortable to admit while playing through this one in the dark... but it properly uses such moments as an accent, rather than a crutch. It's been said that the most horrific monster in the world can never be captured on film, because it resides within the collective imaginations of the audience. Hollywood can never frighten you as badly as you can frighten yourself. It's this kind of mentality that I see reflected in <em>Silent Hill 2</em> from the very get-go. Sure, they do eventually show you the monsters, and they're significantly horrific on their own, but they're all little more than pawns in this scheme, even the bosses. They're just around to nudge your mind in the right direction, so that the little shadows you'll catch darting around at the edge of your field of vision can be more effective and more relative to the story. <br /><br />In terms of atmosphere, there's very little that this game does wrong. It's learned all the right lessons from the progression and evolution of cinematic horror and applied them to the incomparably personal experience of a quality video game. It's established a unique style, a great cluster of settings, and a wonderful premise (the lead character, James, receives a letter from his wife three years after her death, pleading with him to visit the town of Silent Hill) but the actual follow-through of the story and the accompanying character interactions are lacking. This reminds me of <em>Eternal Darkness</em> in a way, in that a lot of the strange occurrences and developments seem completely random and are never connected to the story itself. Almost universally, the cast is detached from reality, lacking in personality and in emotion, which works within the confines of the plot but results in the player never being fully drawn into the game's world. The one exception to that rule is James himself, who does react somewhat believably when he witnesses something completely horrific, but those reactions are so over the top and overdramatic that I couldn't really tell you which I prefer. <br /><br />I came away from this game feeling as though I'd read a short story that had been padded out and enlongated thanks to the inclusion of a dozen different unrelated asides. It's a fifty page story stretched over the course of a three hundred page novel. You'll meet five non-playable centric characters around the city, but only two of them have a real bearing on the plot, which is itself little more than a series of vague insinuations. It's a real shame, too, because all of the pieces have been set in the right place to accommodate for a much more striking, intriguing tale. There's a solid premise, but very little follow-up. The proverbial pins had been set up, but the bowling ball was MIA... and that carries over to the ending, as well. A variety of potential endings is something the <em>Silent Hill</em> series has been known for from its inception. I suppose it adds some replay value to what would otherwise be a very short gameplay experience. Regardless, that tradition is carried on here as half a dozen potential conclusions are available, depending on how you play the game and your tendencies in battle. Thanks to the magic of YouTube, I've seen them all and have my favorites, (the "Dog" ending is worth a look, if just for the sheer inanity of it) but none of them offer the kind of closure and satisfaction I'm looking for after eight or nine hours' worth of play. <br /><br />Controlling James as he explores the city is fairly easy, if not entirely ideal. As I mentioned in the introduction, several elements of the <em>Resident Evil</em> control scheme have surfaced with <em>Silent Hill 2</em>'s configuration, most notably the "boat steering" movement controls. If you didn't like standing in one place, pivoting and then running directly forward or backward in Capcom's zombie-fest, you aren't going to like it here. Personally, I've grown used to it and the steering doesn't seem to get in my way any more, but I can certainly see why some players would have developed a bitter hatred for it. One thing that differs from <em>Resident Evil</em>'s traditional setup, however, is a fully polygonal environment and a free-roaming camera. What that means is less cheap scares and monsters hiding in plain sight, and a much more interactive experience. I didn't feel like I was guiding a little man around a series of paintings, as was often the case with Claire and Leon in <em>RE</em>, but along with that freedom comes a whole new set of hurdles.<br /><br />Fortunately the integration of camerawork is solid, not to mention completely original, stamped with the <em>Silent Hill</em> brand of creativity. Rather than opting for the standard, "float six feet behind the player's head" approach, the developers introduced a much more interesting series of angles that carries over the stylization and ingenuity of the series. This camera has personality. It moves quickly, almost shockingly so, and is strongly reminiscent of the speedy, chaotic movements of a modern feature-length horror film. Even walking through an empty room in broad daylight is a chilling experience when the camera pans wildly behind you... it reinforces the sense of urgency and tension that runs throughout every aspect of the title, and really helps to further establish the game's visual identity. My sole complaint lies with this camera's occasional hesitance to stay behind the player in a crucial moment, choosing instead to go off and shoot the action from somewhere across the room. But that's such an infrequent occurrence that I can let it slide for the time being. It's so unlike anything else out on the market, and works with the graphics to establish such a cool mood, that I can't even imagine how different the experience would have been without it.<br /><br />I'll come right out and admit to savoring every last bit of the visual direction and graphical representations of <em>Silent Hill 2</em>. If there's one area that this game absolutely nails, it's this: everything from the character designs to the environments to the simple, yet undeniably successful, film grain texture that overlays every moment of gameplay... it's all an unbridled success. This is among the most thought-out, fully realized visual productions I've ever seen in a game, and even the hardware limitations of the original Xbox are addressed in a concise, effective manner that works within the confines of the big picture. The dreamlike state of your visit to the town explains away the boundaries around the playable area... you don't run into an invisible wall, there are just mysterious tarps or bottomless pits sealing off certain parts of town. You'll accept it at face value because, hey, you just fired three rounds into a set of animated mannequin legs. It's a perfect example of form over function - you distract the player with a hazy, ethereal environment, beautiful graphics and all sorts of indications that the normal rules don't apply here, tell them they can't do something, and watch as they accept your statement as law without a fight. Draw distance isn't an issue for the hardware to tackle, thanks to the series' trademarked thick fog, which not only masks the weaknesses of the system, but adds a dense atmosphere and allows for a much more detail-rich environment without long load times between city blocks. The attention to detail on building facades, street corners and decrepit alleyways is truly breathtaking, not to mention widely varied. It would be a straight-up lie to say I never saw any sort of repetition from one storefront to another, but that's to be expected of games on the original Xbox and the PS2. Among those peers, especially considering its age, <em>Silent Hill 2</em> annihilates everything else I've seen. <br /><br />Another noteworthy visual innovation is the complete lack of any kind of heads-up display or on-screen indicator. With the multitude of potential actions and inventory items that seem to have completely overtaken the industry, it's a nice change of pace to see a game with just a character and an environment on the screen at any given time. It not only keeps the playing field open for some of the more subtle effects, but also makes the experience even more akin to that of watching a movie.<br /><br />The character designs, few and far between as they may be, are just outstanding and really say everything you need to know about the character before they've opened their mouths and spoken word one. Remember the first time you saw the vehicles and surroundings in <em>Star Wars</em>? How they stood out from the objects in every other science fiction film out there at the time, because they actually showed various signs of wear, use and dilapidation? It's the same kind of effect with James, Maria, Laura and the rest of <em>Silent Hill 2</em>'s cast. These guys <b>look</b> like they've been fighting unimaginably horrific creatures on a dirty, abandoned city street for the last two days.<br /><br />The appearance of the monsters, likewise, remains among the most successfully frightful I've ever seen. It's easy to throw sharp teeth, bumpy skin and red eyes onto something, call it an enemy and commence with the cheap scares. What's not so easy is introducing a baddie that's horrifying if just because you have no idea what in the living hell it really is. The bad guys of <em>SH2</em> are, obviously, the latter. They don't always look so much like they're attacking you out of anger, so much as they're lashing out because they're constantly in pain and see anything that moves as a possible cause. I almost felt pity for these things, their existence is so pitiful, so filled with tragedy. Then they spit some kind of sickening green mist at me, and all that went out the window. I guess there's only so many ways I can say it: these character designs are top notch, and looking back it's easy to see when, where and why they were imitated but never duplicated. There's a reason Pyramid Head is among the most respected and revered bosses in all of video games.<br /><br />I can't rightfully discuss the visuals of this game without giving some love to the incredible lighting effects, either. I'd truthfully rank this game ahead of the original <em>Splinter Cell</em> in that category, and Sam Fisher's first romp was released almost specifically to show off everything the Xbox could do in that respect. In <em>Silent Hill 2</em>, you travel the entire city with just a flashlight, which (needless to say) is handled magnificently. Everywhere you go, that single light source is playing with your surroundings to cast all sorts of bizarre, frightening, downright malicious shadows throughout the room. In a way, that lonesome illumination, combined with the environments you're asked to explore, become characters completely unto themselves.<br /><br />For the most part, the audio continues in the footsteps of the visuals. The original soundtrack is everything the scenario could ask for and more. It shows restraint, which is important in a lengthy game, and accompanies the moody grey scenery perfectly. These tunes are so hopeless, so utterly, depressingly simple, that they paint a picture almost entirely their own. Accompanied by the stray ambient noises and whispers that occasionally surround you, they're almost enough to drive you completely into madness yourself. Playing this game alone, in the dark, with a set of surround sound speakers is an absolute blast. You'll swear that the voices aren't coming from the speakers themselves, but are actually inside your own head. <br /><br />The one area in which the game's audio does fail, however, is in its voice acting. The delivery is universally terrible, completely lacking in emotion and personality... a stark contrast to the rest of the package. Everyone speaks in a long, hopeless monotone, and while that would work once in a while, given the surroundings, it gets to be a bit much. It's hard to make an emotional investment into a story without an identifiable personality, and when everyone is speaking as though they've been soullessly roaming the streets for their entire life, there's something of a disconnect. I didn't identify with any of the characters, and as a result I wasn't as interested in what ultimately happened to them as I should have been.<br /><br />But despite its few stumblings, I adored the majority of my experience with <em>Silent Hill 2</em>. The story, while thin at times, is generally workable and never really insultingly self-indulgent, and voice acting is still little more than a perk in the video game industry. I'd be hard-pressed to name more than a dozen games with truly outstanding voice work, so I won't rail on <em>SH2</em> too hard for being a little light in that department, either. The length of the game bothered me a bit, as the main game map is quite elaborate and seemed to have a lot of unrealized potential, but that goes back to the weakness of the basic plot and the lack of any major side stories of consequence. If you've got a weekend to kill and want to be emotionally shaken, this is exactly the game for you. It features one of the best all-around identities in the history of the industry, takes dozens of hints from the lessons learned by its predecessors in film, and is truly horrifying on several levels. If the story had been a little thicker and the cast had been fleshed out a little further, this would've been close to perfect. As it is, I'd say its recognition and following are well deserved. This is a tight little package, well worth further investigation if you remain uninitiated, as I once was.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 8.9</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-49577112090730214292006-09-22T20:40:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:15:47.789-07:00Blinx: The Time SweeperYou know, it's rumored that Blinx the Cat, star of both <em>Blinx: The Time Sweeper</em> and its eventual sequel, the imaginatively titled <em>Blinx 2</em>, was meant to be Microsoft's answer to Mario, Sonic and Crash Bandicoot - a sort of unofficial franchise player for the Xbox. The feeling was that <em>Halo</em>'s Master Chief was too maturely themed for outright mascot status, and that the system needed something cute and fluffy to fit in with the competition. Of course, in hindsight it's easy to see that the Xbox and PS2's lack of emphasis on any one trademark character led to more evenly-spread attention throughout the consoles' respective libraries. Not to mention that the so-called "coming of age" of the industry, which had begun in earnest midway through the previous generation, was already working to make the kid-friendly mascot a thing of the past. At the time, though, it was deemed important for the Box to have a single public face, and only after Blinx's first in-game appearance failed to make immediate waves was the plan aborted.<br /><br />Just something of an interesting aside I discovered while digging into the short history of Artoon's Xbox-exclusive platformer. But then, promising big things and completely falling flat on the follow-through is something of a moral for this title. IGN ranked it highly, Microsoft clearly thought good things were in the cards, and even the game's packaging proclaims it as the "Best Xbox Game of E3, 2002." Truly, at a glance it would appear that all the pieces are in place for an absolutely wonderful game. Playing is believing, I suppose.<br /><br />From the outset, I thought something smelled a little fishy. As the opening cutscene introduces you to Blinx, the supporting cast and the particulars of his upcoming adventures, I found myself trying to wrap my brain around the basic premise of the story. The idea is that a secret, off-world clan of humanoid cat creatures, armed with souped up vacuum cleaners, are responsible for the development and dispersal of time itself to every known plane of existence in the galaxy. It seems that time, when compressed tightly enough to be transported by said cats, takes the form of one of five different brightly-colored shapes. If these crystals are left out on the open for too long without being properly decompressed, they turn into monsters. I could go on, because the game certainly doesn't stop there, but I think you get the point. I like to think that there's a fairly thick line drawn between cartoony fantasy and super-detailed realism. Generally, a lot of the physics and environmental details are taken for granted in a realistic game, because they're almost exclusively set in a photorealistic, lifelike location. Cartoons, on the other hand, generally don't worry themselves with the particulars and are primarily concerned with delivering a good time. How much fun would the Wile E. Coyote cartoons be if every time the lead character suffered a grisly fate, it strictly obeyed the laws of gravity and aerodynamics? <em>Blinx</em> tries to straddle that line by delivering a story that's overly detail-centric in an environment that's right out of a kid's variety show. The result is a tale that comes off as way, WAY out of left field and almost completely abstract. It focuses on things that would be better left to the viewer's imagination and ignores the importance of a good underlying story along the way.<br /><br />Beneath the needless discussions of why there are monsters in the world, how time compression works and how cats are actually responsible for all that we hold dear, the actual plot is almost laughably straightforward and generic. There's a princess, evil pigs have kidnapped her, and it's up to you and you only to rescue her and save her world. That's it, no side-stories, no reasoning, no subplots - just a straightforward rush from Point A to Point B. And here I thought the phrase "save the princess" was universally recognized as an ages-old cliche.<br /><br />Now, I don't want it to sound like I'm railing on this game just because it's got a few more nitpicky details than its peers and it reuses an old phrase from way back in the platformer handbook as its sole driving factor. It's also completely lacking in character development, general storytelling and ongoing motivational factors. None of the characters in <em>Blinx</em> really establish themselves as individuals, including the lead character himself. You don't hate the pig on the spaceship because he's trying to destroy the world, you hate him because every time he shows up he tries to steal your money. I honestly forgot there was a princess at the end of the game after level three, because she's never mentioned between the game's start and its finish. I mean, the very first <em>Super Mario Brothers</em> at least reminded you that the princess was in another castle at the end of every boss fight. <br /><br />I'll freely admit that platformers are not traditionally known for telling good stories, so naturally I wasn't looking for a whole lot in that respect anyway. Historically, the genre is more known for delivering mindless fun and action-packed adventures than thought-provoking tales of conquest and character enlightenment. That's one of the things that really made <em>Jak II</em> stand out from the pack - a great story to go along with all of the raucous and firefights. So, of course, a great story is not a prerequisite for a great platformer. It's too bad, then, that not only does <em>Blinx</em> spin a dull tale, but it's also not a whole lot of fun to play.<br /><br />I don't honestly think the game was really designed to be enjoyable so much as it was geared to be overly challenging. The first level and a half are set up in the standard "get to know you" format, with the simplest of enemies, the most routine of stage layouts and plenty of opportunities to mess around with your tools. Shortly thereafter, you're thrown to the wolves. For the most part, the level designs are very short, with more of an emphasis on cheap hits than on complexity and true challenge. I noticed a lot of overlap in the stage layouts, whether it's retracing your steps time and time again or walking along a catwalk (har har) way above the beginning of the stage and invariably plummeting back to the start point. You'll almost always know what needs to be done, but actually accomplishing that act is the real trick. I just can't overemphasize how unbearably cheap most of this game really is. If there's a bottomless pit nearby, (and chances are very good that there is) Blinx will find a way to force himself into it, regardless of what you're hitting on the control pad. If there's an enemy two feet in front of you and you hit the attack button, he'll aim at a random switch on the other side of the room, rather than the imminent threat. <br /><br />That's not to say that the entirety of <em>The Time Sweeper</em> is totally without merit, because it does bring a few fresh ideas to the table, but for the most part those insights are hampered by their surroundings. The ability to control time, for instance, was at the time a really fresh, interesting new play mechanic and still stands out today, despite the limited field of imitators that have since emerged. You can rewind a few seconds to catch an enemy unaware or to rebuild a crumbling bridge, pause the action and take advantage of the frozen time, knock the level into slow motion, etc. All the while, Blinx is moving around in real time. It's a great idea, but the implementation is painfully short and underutilized. Why can't I use two controls at the same time? Why don't more aspects of the stage encourage the player to experiment with and solve problems with these powers? Why doesn't the ridiculous ten minute stage time limit pause, speed up or rewind when I use my time powers? Why is their duration so brief, and why can't I hold more than a dozen uses at a time? I mean, this could've really been a fantastic experience if the time control aspect had been beefed up a little further and treated as more than just an auxiliary function of an otherwise run-of-the-mill game.<br /><br />Likewise, the concept of using a vacuum cleaner as weaponry is a fresh idea that just doesn't live up to everything it could've been. Throughout each stage is a variety of discarded objects (a love seat, an old fridge, a rusted pipe) that can be sucked up, stored and fired at an enemy, which is admittedly a unique twist on the "limited ammunition" angle used in modern third person action titles. The vacuum's storage capacity is a bit limited, even when powered up, so constantly finding a new source of ammunition is a needlessly constant headache. In a few very isolated instances, the developers introduced some truly interesting, playful applications of Blinx's vacuum-of-doom, but I think they really only scratched the surface and cut short the potential in this area, as well. For instance, you can suck a thick, dangling chain halfway into the cleaner and use it as a sort of makeshift tarzan vine, or pull the cord of a giant balloon into the pipe and float across the board. It's obvious that, when they put their minds to it, these guys can produce some really unique, smile-inducing ideas, so why are these occasions so few and far between?<br /><br />The controls, too, are an undeveloped, undertested nightmare. Blinx himself is often sluggish to respond, especially when implementing his time controls. He has difficulty making a precise turn, whether in midair or on solid ground. He stops to briefly celebrate when gaining an item in the field, which leaves him open to constant enemy attacks. He routinely moves in the direction of certain death, as though pulled by a magnetic field, whether you've instructed him to do so or not. He'll occasionally refuse to perform a double jump, particularly when attempting a difficult, precise leap across a gaping chasm. As I mentioned above, he'll aim his weapon wherever he pleases, regardless of where you're specifically pointing him. I can recall an instance where I spent several minutes asking him to stand still and fire straight ahead, yet his head kept locking onto something on the other side of the map and that's where he'd continue to aim. It's a nearly limitless list of complaints already, and I haven't even begun to scratch the surface. <br /><br />I think it's the controls that most make <em>Blinx</em> so mind-squashingly aggravating. At a glance, you'd imagine they'd be fairly difficult to screw up. You've got a jump button, a suction / fire button, a time control button and an analog stick to control movement. Not to mention the long, established line of three-dimensional platformers released to the market in the years before the title's release, paving the way to an ideal control experience. <em>Super Mario 64</em> had its issues, sure, but nothing like this, and it was the trailblazer for the entire genre's jump to the world of 3D. It's like they had a map leading them right to the treasure and decided to forge their own path anyway.<br /><br />I can't even say I'm impressed by the graphics showcased throughout <em>The Time Sweeper</em>, either. With the exception of the lead character himsef, (who I'm sure was the subject of dozens of stuffy board meetings, endless criticisms and hollow committees) these are some incredibly cheesy, preschoolish character designs - they feel unfinished and hurried, less purposeful than you'd imagine (especially in contrast with Blinx himself). Particularly insulting is the large population of simple blobs that roam around the levels, tirelessly attempting to bump into you and cause a fatal injury. Here's a finely detailed main character, with such close attention paid to his wardrobe that even the gloss of his shoes was obviously debated time and time again, and he's pitted against a set of monsters that could've sprung to life directly out of the pages of a four-year-old's sketchbook. I felt like I was working my way through an acid-influenced segment of <em>3-2-1 Contact</em> or <em>Sesame Street</em> in the late '70s, with all of the primary colors, numbers, letters and google-eyed monsters floating around. Everything mobile is super-bright and minimal, which isn't my cup of tea, and really looks obscene next to the dull, dreary muted colors of the environments and building structures. Even the main characters themselves are really scary-looking: imagine an entire society of child-sized cats that walk upright with a full set of sparkling, human-proportioned teeth. Yeah. Yikes.<br /><br />I did, however, really like the barbershop quartet-bred-with-bovine appearance of the villain masterminds, if just for the pure tackiness of it all. If the entire game were a battle between Blinx and these vaudevillian clutzes with a penchant for flying machinery, maybe it would've earned a higher mark from yours truly. Although, upon closer inspection, they do bear more than a passing similarity to Dr. Eggman of <em>Sonic the Hedgehog</em> fame. That should probably come as no surprise, since Naoto Oshima, who founded <em>Blinx</em> developer Artoon, is generally credited with many early <em>Sonic</em> character designs.<br /><br />Despite featuring a spoken dialog track, there's no English voice acting. I couldn't pinpoint the language, but Autumn seems to think it's either French or some close variation of it. It certainly didn't sound Japanese. While this does add a touch of personality to the title, and it's not every day that you get a chance to hear a cat shouting something in the language of love, it all seemed really odd and out of place coming out of my television. Everyone's vocal personalities are so black-and-white, too, that I feel like a great chance to establish some much-needed individuality amongst the cast was once again lost here. The bad guys all have the same deep, gravelly, transparently evil tone, while the good guys are all bright, cheery, squeaky and high-pitched like the monkeys in <em>Super Monkey Ball</em>. It's almost a parody of the games that had come before, but I won't give the developers enough credit to assume that they were doing it on purpose.<br /><br />The game's original soundtrack is largely a miss, as well. Well, maybe calling it a "miss" is a bit harsh - let's just say it's far from the most memorable arrangement on the market today. I'd believe it if you told me Artoons ran out of time and budget before the guy they'd hired to score an original soundtrack had begun his work. It seems like the development team rushed out to the store and bought the cheapest "royalty free music" CD on the racks. At the very least, they grabbed the disc with <b>CARTOON</b> written in big black letters on the front cover, because it matches the environment fairly well. It's suitable, but I wouldn't bother trying to find a CD of it.<br /><br />Overall, <em>Blinx</em> is really just a few promising concepts thrown together in one package, strapped to the shell of a far-below-average third person platformer and unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. At the time of its release, it was still in need of a lot of polishing, some serious scrutiny behind closed doors and a re-evaluation of just how far some of these concepts and half-hearted character designs could be conceivably stretched without losing any quality. On top of that, I really don't know which audience they were targeting with it. The game is ridiculously difficult, which betrays the childlike demeanor that surrounds it and leads me to believe it was meant for the serious gamers out there. But it's so bright, kid-friendly and annoyingly cutesy that I can't imagine anyone in the hardcore demographic rushing out to the stores on release day. The sheer number of spontaneous controller hurls in my living room shot through the roof during my time with <em>Blinx</em>, reaching near-<em>Marvel vs. Capcom 2</em> levels with its unashamed, excruciatingly cheap hits. Especially in later levels... I have no idea how I acquired the willpower to finish level eight. The game is adequately lengthy and offers some replay value, with hidden cat medals in each stage. Collecting sets of these medals will eventually unlock production sketches, promotional materials and the like. Once you start hunting for floating cat heads in those super-tough later stages, though, you'll remember why you were so happy to be finished with the game in the first place. This is a weak title that falls well short in almost every category. Unless you feel like pulling your hair out in clumps (I shaved my head after the experience as a part of the cleansing process) and enjoy self-mutilation, I'd recommend you stay far away.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 1.9</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-61782493375730513432006-07-10T05:52:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:15:41.583-07:00Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City StoriesThe latest PS2 chapter of the <em>Grand Theft Auto</em> legacy arrived amidst startlingly slim fanfare this summer in the form of <em>Liberty City Stories</em>, a PSP original ported over to its immediate predecessor. Rockstar didn't make any bones about this release - they knew it had been available for the portable a good six months, that fans might feel burnt by the exclusivity of the original delivery, but that they also might have been turned off by a full-priced release on the PS2 six months after the fact. The developer had been down that road before with <em>GTA: San Andreas</em>, releasing the Xbox port of the title at full price several months after the PS2 release, and I'll readily admit to feeling a little shortchanged by that. Especially considering the lack of any real difference, both in the form of graphics and load times, between the two. Realizing that not only were they releasing an old game on a new system, but that they were actually <b>taking away</b> functionality, rather than adding to it, <em>LCS</em> was introduced at an original price point of $19.99 amidst much rejoicing from the general public. Speaking personally, that move alone changed my "wait and see" attitude about the title into an immediate purchase on launch day. Due credit to Rockstar - you probably could've gotten away with releasing this thing at full price, no doubt to great profits considering the completely recycled gameplay engine, maps and vehicles contained within, but you took the more honorable route and delivered a midsummer gift to your hardcore fan base.<br /><br />Yep, aside from the storyline, the audio selections and a few very minor gameplay tweaks (the inclusion of motorcycles, for instance) this is an entirely recycled game. Top to bottom, it's the sights, streets and sensations of <em>Grand Theft Auto III</em> wrapped around a new set of missions, newly distributed hidden packages and a strangely familiar new protagonist. Toni Cipriani should be familiar to anyone who played through <em>GTA3</em>: he's the momma's boy who handed out odd jobs from his family restaurant midway through the first section of the game, and <em>Liberty City Stories</em> is the tale of his short, deliberate rise to that small semblance of power. Seeing as how this is meant to be a direct prequel to <em>GTAIII</em>, you'll find dozens of little hints, nods and foreshadowing to the events that transpire in the series' first PS2 jaunt, which really made me ache to go back and play chapter three again.<br /><br />However, aside from a few recurring characters and (obviously) locations, the direct links to the activities in <em>III</em> are few and far between. In my eyes, that's a big missed opportunity - I would've loved to have seen not only the backstory and events leading up to that epic first story, but also some of the things that went on elsewhere in the city during the course of the game. How cool would it have been to bump into the nameless lead character from <em>GTAIII</em>, exchange a few words, and then hear about his successes elsewhere in the city while your own fortunes turned for the worse? <em>LCS</em> was in the unique position to not only deliver a solid standalone tale, but to also expand upon an earlier yarn, perhaps even casting it in a new light. Instead, the storytelling of <em>Liberty City Stories</em> wraps up several years before the explosive arrival of the nameless one, serving as only a traditional prequel with absolutely no overlap. Hopefully this is an area they can address in the future, as the teasers for <em>Vice City Stories</em> have already begun to circulate and one can only imagine that <em>San Andreas Stories</em> won't be far behind.<br /><br />As the latest member of the GTA legacy, <em>Liberty City Stories</em> continues the family tradition of taking its hints from a big, influential motion picture. Where <em>Vice City</em> was obviously a <em>Scarface</em> homage, and <em>San Andreas</em> took its inspiration from <em>Boyz N Tha Hood</em>, <em>LCS</em> draws its lifeblood from Martin Scorsese's <em>Goodfellas</em>. This is an extremely romanticized view of organized crime and its leaders, emphasizing the familial tendencies of such a large organization, recognizing a few key players and highlighting their brotherly relationships with one another. Toni is like the little brother that everybody picks on, all grown up and sick of being taken advantage of, but deep down at heart content with his position within the family. He talks big, and never hesitates to verbally berate someone that he perceives to be further down the ladder from himself, but always gives in to an authority figure. Whether it's mob boss Salvatore Leone or his own mother, Toni seems to constantly entrench himself in the kind of situation where he'll be told what to do, outshouted and overruled. In that sense, he's far from the typical GTA hero and presents a real change of pace for the series. Even in his moment of victory, after outshooting the big boss and helping the Leone family conquer the city, he's pushed around by his superior, given less of a cut than he was promised, and scolded for even asking why he's getting less cash than he's due. Just like Ray Liotta's character in <em>Goodfellas</em>, Toni is a weak personality at heart, easily dominated by an authority figure and led into conflict by an adept puppetmaster.<br /><br />Despite the outstanding source material and superb pre-existing characters it had to work with, the actual storytelling of <em>Stories</em> does stumble from time to time, which is something that had never been a problem for the series beforehand. Both the pacing and the personality of the story don't quite match up with what had come before, which isn't to say it's an especially bad tale, just that it's not quite up to the level of the preceding stories. That trademarked unforgiving, sarcastic GTA world view seems tamer this time around, and I'm not sure if that's because I've grown used to the approach or because the plot is actually much thinner than those that came before, but something is certainly missing here. Every once in a while I'll catch a glimpse of something outstanding, but it'll vanish just as quickly and leave me hungry for something closer to what the series had delivered before.<br /><br />Those same comments could apply to the gameplay system in use with <em>LCS</em>. At its heart, it's the same old GTA - same free-roaming capabilities, same methods of transportation, same theme - but there's something missing that I can't really put my finger on. It's still a hell of a lot of fun to sit down and play, just not quite as much so as <em>Vice City</em> was. Sure, it's cool to drive around the streets of Liberty City on a souped up motorcycle for the very first time, but that doesn't match the kind of excitement I felt when I first boarded a Moped (sorry, "Faggio") in Vice City. The mini-games and side quests have been expanded and improved upon, to the point that climbing into almost any non-standard vehicle will give you the option to try something different, but the feeling isn't the same. When I stole my first police car in <em>GTAIII</em>, hit R3 and went on my first vigilante search-and-destroy, it was an almost magical moment. The sky had truly become the limit. I didn't get that same sensation when I boarded a garbage truck and started collecting specially marked dumpsters.<br /><br />A few of the innovations and new gameplay mechanics from <em>San Andreas</em> are put to use here, specifically the non-numeric health indicator (it's been replaced by a standard life bar) and the ability to change your wardrobe. I was glad to see that some of the more ambitious mechanics had been removed, mostly because I wasn't a fan of the dance levels, long afternoons in the gym to build endurance, or dating levels of <em>GTA:SA</em>, but sorely missed the ability to swim and the inclusion of functional aircraft. Driving your car into a pond of knee-deep water and watching Toni slowly drown is twice as bitter now as it was in <em>Vice City</em> or <em>GTAIII</em>, because you know that the capability was there and it merely didn't make the cut for the handheld release. The lack of a means to traverse the water was a big problem with previous chapters of the <em>Grand Theft Auto</em> legacy, and taking that step back after finally solving it in <em>San Andreas</em> is a major issue here. The same can be said for the complete lack of an above-ground alternative to standard transportation. Flight has been an option, however limited, since chapter three of this series... hell, you got an honest-to-god jetpack in <em>San Andreas</em>, and it's actually painful to go without in Liberty City.<br /><br />At this stage in its lifespan, the GTA engine has really been stretched, tweaked and exploited to its fullest potential, which makes me wonder why a few all new bugs have snuck into the system. Most notably is Toni's occasional hesitance to re-enter a vehicle after exiting, which is especially common when you've parked near a wall or fence. You can punch the car, you can push the car, you can stand on the car, but you can't enter it. Toni won't even try, he'll just stare at it like it's an empty box. If you've grown particularly attached to the vehicle, sometimes you can force him to acknowledge it by shoving it around a little bit, but the bottom line is that's something that should've been caught in testing.<br /><br />After I finished <em>Liberty City Stories</em>, I popped in <em>Vice City</em> for a few minutes, just for comparison's sake, and the one thing that immediately struck me was how much faster <em>GTA: VC</em> moved, especially while on-foot. Playing one of the previous chapters and then jumping right into <em>LCS</em> is like pressing the slow motion button in the middle of a DVD. You'd think Toni was wandering around in a pool of molasses, his reactions are so different. Once you're on-board a moving vehicle, the speed issue becomes much less prevalent. Truthfully, driving the fastest cars in Liberty City is much more thrilling than it was in Vice City, but because you do wind up spending so much time on your feet, it becomes a big problem.<br /><br />The controls are standard issue this time around, following the same guidelines and restrictions of the previous chapters. I've always liked the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule, and that's something Rockstar seems to respect as well. The only real change is the continuation of the right-analog camera control from <em>San Andreas</em>, a welcome tweak. The rest of the game controls exactly the same as its forefathers, which were themselves specifically geared for the PS2 audience. After giving the series a try on the Xbox in <em>San Andreas</em>, I can confidently say that GTA is twice as easy to control on Sony's console. How that will carry over to the next generation and <em>GTAIV</em>, set for a simultaneous launch on both platforms, is anyone's guess. In the present, you can't go wrong with the dual shock. They've got that setup down to a science.<br /><br />One area that I had a hard time coming to grips with was the graphics. I'm not sure if it's the limitations of the engine, the hardware or the original target console, but the visuals of <em>Liberty City Stories</em> really don't look all that hot. It suffers from what I'd call <em>Final Fantasy: Origins</em> syndrome, in that they've delivered a precise translation of a game that was developed for a less visually intensive system. <em>Origins</em> would've been right at home on the SNES, but fell a little flat on the PSone. Likewise, I'm sure <em>LCS</em> looks outstanding on the PSP, but on the PS2 it's lacking. With that drawback, however, is something of a blessing: load times are significantly smaller in this chapter than they have been in the past. Where a three minute wait after loading a saved game wasn't a big deal for <em>Vice City</em>, you won't wait more than a minute to get into the action with <em>Liberty City Stories</em>. That's a nice tradeoff if you're looking to sit down and goof off for half an hour in between classes or on a lunch break, but if you're a serious player, I'd imagine you'd trade a longer initial load time for a better picture any day of the week.<br /><br />It's also tough to regard the city as the living, breathing entity it's been in previous GTAs, as its textures, storefronts and citizens aren't quite as visually or audibly distinct as they had been in the past. I still giggle when I think of the guys from <em>GTAIII</em> who would proudly announce "I'm gonna start joggin' soon..." while hauling their heavy asses around the crowded city sidewalks. The GTA image of a decaying city, of a people so completely oblivious to their own degradations, hasn't aged well to begin with. It's due a major league face lift, and all indications say that's in the very near future. In the visually-challenged world of <em>Liberty City Stories</em>, however, the actual need for that revamp has never been so obvious. This is the rare instance of a game environment that actually looked better the first time I visited it.<br /><br />Hand in hand with the disappointing delivery of the graphics in <em>LCS</em> is the strikingly downgraded quality of its audio selections and radio stations. Liberty City's airwaves feature a substantially smaller selection of recognizable artists and tracks, which may or may not speak to the need to get it out onto store shelves shortly after the PSP's release. Where <em>Vice City</em> and <em>San Andreas</em> were watershed moments for the integration of great music and pop culture references within the confines of an elaborate video game, <em>Liberty City Stories</em> feels like a pale impersonation. Of the in-game radio's selections, only the rap and classical tunes seem to have been given any kind of real attention, and even those broadcasts seem much more shallow than in previous installments. You'll hear DMX on the rap station and the usual suspects on classical radio, (I particularly liked the use of "Anvil Chorus" from <em>Il Trovatore</em>, which seems to have been written exclusively in anticipation of the kind of carnage GTA revels in) but the entirety of the other stations are filled with underheard and / or originally concocted tunes that can't match the power of the last two PS2 soundtracks. I did get a big kick out of Radio Del Mundo, however, featuring entirely Arabic / Indian tunes... some really good stuff there that only served to further my curiosity about the genre, even if it seems to have been included only as an in-game joke. Every taxi driver in the city is foreign, so naturally they needed a station to have pre-set in every cab throughout the town.<br /><br />The voice acting in this chapter of the saga continues in the sound footsteps of <em>San Andreas</em>, albeit missing the significant star power of its immediate predecessor. The vocal cast of this most recent chapter could possibly be the best to date, which makes the second-rate delivery of many of the game's other elements even more distinct by comparison. When Toni and Salvatore are having a long conversation, you don't even need to listen to what they're saying to get an understanding of who they are and how things are going to turn out. Great stuff, I've got no qualms whatsoever about it.<br /><br />Probably my biggest gripe about <em>Liberty City Stories</em> is the lack of multiplayer functionality that was built into the game's PSP release. Upon reading reviews of the title, I couldn't wait to try out these first forays into online play within the GTA universe. It sounded like Rockstar had covered all their bases, introduced a little something for everybody and, more importantly, hinted at what might be coming in <em>GTAIV</em>. One would think that continuing this functionality into the PS2 release, maybe even including cross-platform play between PSP owners and PS2 owners, would be a boon for both the portable system and for the in-home console's meager online offering. Instead, any kind of multiplayer functionality was completely removed from the game's PS2 delivery, as developers claimed it "wasn't in keeping with the spirit and story of Liberty City." Why it was included in the PSP version, then, is still a mystery... and the end result is a disappointment for gamers who know the functionality is there, but commented out of the PS2 translation.<br /><br />It's that kind of "wow" factor that I think is missing from this entire package. It's a solid game, a continuation of a proven formula, but lacking in that one big punch, one big moment to push it over the top. This felt like a much more shallow, shorter game than <em>Vice City</em> or <em>GTAIII</em> did, when in actuality it took me exactly as long to finish 70% of <em>Liberty City Stories</em> as it did to break 90% on <em>Vice City</em>. I've got to attribute that perceived shortness and incompletion to the lack of "wow." Even the ending seems anticlimactic and lacking in punch, which was one area that I distinctly remember as being wholly satisfying and exhilarating last time out, with <em>San Andreas</em>. This is a really fun game, sufficiently lengthy, with plenty of replay value and some outstanding voice acting work. What it isn't, however, is <b>great</b>. And, considering the lineage that came before, that's a disappointment. It would appear that ongoing greatness, like all other things, is not eternal.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 7.7</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-75817819812963292622006-06-12T05:51:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:15:35.197-07:00Jet Set Radio FutureThe sequel to one of the Dreamcast's few honestly meaningful hits, <em>Jet Set Radio Future</em> takes the mechanics, visuals and all around style established by its proud poppa, <em>Jet Grind Radio</em>, ports them over to Microsoft's platform and ties in a few new bits and pieces to keep things fresh. It's been a few years since I played the original, but the impression it left on me was largely a good one, particularly on the graphics and audio fronts. I don't remember it as being an overly difficult game to pick up and learn, and although it wasn't the lengthiest adventure in the world, I'd often find myself slowing my momentum mid-stride so I could breathe in the atmosphere and enjoy my surroundings. It was such a gorgeous melting pot of cultures, one couldn't help but appreciate it in that respect alone. If you jumped in and sped through on a single-objective mission to work your way from start to finish, you were overlooking the most enjoyable part of the game.<br /><br />That's something <em>Jet Set Radio Future</em> merely carries over, almost unaltered. While it's not quite as immersive and impressive the second time around, the subculture vibe emanating from your television is still unmistakable. For the uninitiated I'm sure it's a completely different experience, but if you've seen the Dreamcast-housed launching pad, you'll be moderately pleased with what you're seeing continued from chapter one, but may have been hoping for a little more progress this time around. It's not as immediately impressive as the first was, despite the change in platform, and to expect that same kind of sensation on the second pass was probably a little unfair to the game itself.<br /><br />The story isn't all that remarkable, but honestly neither was that of the first game. You play as one of the three founding members of the GGs, one of half a dozen rollerblade-adorned street gangs fighting for territorial rights to the whole of Tokyo. The ultimate goal is to fill the streets with your crew's graffiti, slowly assimilating members of the other gangs along the way, until the entire underground knows and respects your crew. It's more than a little reminiscent of the original, where the locations were different but the eventual goal was exactly the same. The two storylines are almost dreamily interconnected, with several returning characters, none of whom seem to have any recollection of the events of the first game or their relationship with the others. One character whose role <strong>is</strong> bulked up this time around is DJ Professor K, the voice of "Jet Set Radio," an underground pirate radio station which provided the tunes and the news updates in the Dreamcast edition, but never really took much of a role in the actual goings on. In <em>JSRF</em>, the professor moves from a supporting role to something a little more proactive. His broadcasts are much more pointedly directed to the GGs, and are your only real indication of where you should be and what you should be doing at any given time. This puts a slight drain on the credibility of the world, as it's tough to imagine such a station getting much support from its core audience (the street gangs) while promoting such a biased look at the big turf war.<br /><br />Regardless, in a game filled to the brim with lukewarm, cookie cutter characters, I wouldn't trade Professor K's presence in the sequel for anything. If there's one thing that was missing from the original <em>Jet Grind</em>, it was an attractive, varied cast of personalities. Every character looked like a zombie from Michael Jackson's oft-imitated "Thriller" music video... beautiful wardrobe, excellent dance moves, but the same blank stare and limp-wristed charisma. With the exception of the professor, that's one of the more unhappy aspects that was carried over to the sequel. Every one of these guys is incredibly designed. You've got characters from every possible clique - the goths, the ravers, the punks, the emo kids - but none of them have even the faintest trace of a mind to call their own. Just that same deer-in-the-headlights stare and a dopey little "biding my time until you decide to play as me" dance. Like I was saying, though, that's one thing Professor K brings in spades, and something the game really needed. He'll provide the personality in between levels, but when it comes to the actual gameplay, you're on your own. Pity he didn't make the list of playable characters.<br /><br />While you'll find yourself more often than not facing off against rival gangs, the main struggle throughout the game is that of rebel vs. authority, with the GGs naturally playing the more youthful, inspirational of the two. The face of the establishment in <em>Jet Set</em>'s world is that of a thousand identical twins in full Nazi regalia, a few nicely detailed sub-bosses (of which only one is ever given any sort of real attention... the others seem to just drop out of the sky and attack randomly near the end of the game) and one big, bad cyberpunk mayor. Yep, villain numero uno just so happens to be the man in charge of everyday business in all of Tokyo. I know this game is meant to be set in the not-too-distant future, but even keeping that in mind, I had trouble accepting the idea that a city of this size could be run by a guy with a robotic arm, a crazy biker helmet and a long, colorful trench coat.<br /><br />While neither game in the series has much in the way of an epic storyline, at the very least the actual gameplay experience of the first was enough to keep me coming back for more. No matter how much of the game you'd completed, it was always a blast to play. I wish I could say the same for the sequel, but it seems to have grown both too simple <strong>and</strong> too complicated for its own good. I'll explain. Something as basic as grinding a rail, for instance, was never much of a problem in the first game. You jumped in the air, and if you happened to be within spitting distance of a grindable object when you landed, your character was automatically bumped over to it and began railing along. It was simple, effective, and didn't cause too many headaches at the time. For the sequel, however, the programmers have really bumped up the number of rails in any given map, which makes actually navigating from point A to point B much more of a nightmare. I can't even begin to count the number of times I'd be trying to reach a difficult spot on the map, would jump away from the rail in an attempt to land on said spot, would visibly land on the spot I was aiming for, and would watch my character automatically clamp onto the rail again and sail off into the abyss. After about fifteen minutes, I was <b>screaming</b> for the simple, one button grind functionality that was done to perfection in the <em>Tony Hawk's Pro Skater</em> series, which is funny because it was precisely this kind of problem that led Neversoft to introduce the ability to actually climb off your board and roam freely around the map. <em>JSRF</em>'s grinding system is far too simple and mistake-prone for its own good.<br /><br />Add to that your characters' newly-acquired ability to grind up and down vertical poles, and your recipe for disaster becomes even more complicated. The theory, I'm sure, was to make your eventual ascensions from street level to skyscraper level much easier and faster than they had been in the past. In action, as always, things got a bit hairy. If this game's insistence upon grinding anything and everything on a horizontal plane weren't already irritating enough as it was, now you've got to keep an eye out for objects on the vertical plane as well. If you're unfortunate enough to clip one of these poles in mid air, your forward progress will completely halt so that your character can grind their way directly into the ground, resulting in an awkward about-face that leaves you skating full-speed the wrong way. Grinding your way along a rail, up a telephone pole and on to the building tops is a really cool experience the very first time you manage it, but I don't think that moment of revelation is worth the amount of headaches the new system drags along with it.<br /><br />I think my main problem with the control system is twofold. For one, far too many elements are automated, to the point that I never felt like I was fully in control of my character. You'll want to perform a short hop and they'll instead do this wild, crazy, flipping leap. You'll want to move from the inside of a halfpipe to grinding along its lip, and instead they'll hurl themselves into the air, performing an unrequested trick along the way. Half the time, I felt like my characters was spitting in my face, his actions were so wildly different from what I wanted him to do. Secondly, I felt like <em>JSRF</em> far too accurately represents the physical act of skating, and all of its downfalls and limitations. It's one thing to simulate the sense of speed, balance and adrenaline that I'm sure a great rollerblade pro feels every time he's on wheels, but it's something else entirely to handicap your gamers just for the sake of simulation. If you'll pardon the repeated comparisons, this is a translation that I felt the <em>Tony Hawk's Pro Skater</em> series had absolutely nailed down. All of the sensations of actually riding a skateboard are there; speed, control, balance, restraint... but very few of the really bothersome limitations made the leap. When you order your rider to stop moving on an incline, it's understood that you don't want him to move again on his own. <em>JSRF</em> sends you slowly sliding down the hill. Maneuvering your way to a hard-to-reach spot is difficult, but ultimately rewarding and entertaining in <em>THPS</em>. In <em>Jet Set</em>, it's almost impossible and utterly humiliating. There's no such thing as a nuance of control in this game, at least as far as the basic commands are concerned. Jumping, grinding, standing still, moving forward, whatever... they all feel over-analyzed and needlessly nitpicked. Where's the fun in moving at incredible speeds if your character steers like a boat in mud?<br /><br />I've seen a lot of reviewers claiming that <em>JSRF</em> is too easy a game to complete, and while the actual challenges themselves aren't very... er... challenging... I found that it's the physical act of accomplishing a lot of them that delivers a lot of the game's difficulty (and, naturally, leads to plenty of aggravation). I think nine times out of ten I knew exactly what I needed to do to finish any one area, but found myself trying over and over and over again, because I couldn't get the controls to do what I wanted.<br /><br />Now, with all that said, I'm actually a fan of a few aspects of the control scheme and the newly introduced gameplay mechanics. One of the more imaginative additions is the combo system, which works like a sort of hybrid action / sports / music game. You've got the fast pace and loose grip on reality of an action game (like the sky-high jumps in <em>Tony Hawk</em>, there's no way some of <em>Jet Set</em>'s tricks are physically possible), the balance and strategy of a good sports game (planning where you'll jump after the rail ends, in the hopes of continuing your combo) and the timing and universal coordination of a great music game (you've got to time your manual tricks while grinding or grabbing air so that they hit precisely along with the beat). Fully realized, it's a truly inspiring little addition, although it's such a small part of the big picture that it's likely to go completely overlooked in most people's books.<br /><br />In the same vein as the replay camera / film editor in <em>Sega GT 2002</em>, Sega has included a few imaginative new interactive components to the world of <em>Jet Set Radio</em>, most notably the fully-featured new "create a tag" editor. As you skate around the Tokyo of tomorrow, spraying the mark of the GGs on every street corner, you'll probably notice that there are five very distinct sizes your graffiti must adhere to. It's either extra small, extra large or somewhere in between. The tag editor grants you access to a slimmed-down version of MS Paint, gives you the ability to create your own spraypainted works of art in one of those five sizes, and allows you to import your creations directly into the game. As a graphic designer with a lot of experience with such applications, I was hoping for a bit more versatility in the editing software, but it is what it is. I found workarounds, and seriously enjoyed every minute I spent crafting these personalized marks. There's really nothing in the world like watching your on-screen character tag a building, quickly producing a work of your own design and leaving it behind for all to see. While it'll take quite some time to create something worth using in-game (and I can't imagine this is something everyone will do with nearly as much interest as I had) the end result is totally rewarding, and the whole system is a really cool little add-on. The game would've worked well enough without it, but I had a much closer personal attachment to what I was doing as a result. So, big ups to Sega for its inclusion.<br /><br />As I'd alluded to earlier, the two areas that needed the least attention were the visuals and the audio, both of which were true shining points of the original, almost single-handedly responsible for its high profile and its accompanying success. On that front, not much has changed. This is still a visually sensational game, and although many of the environments and non-central characters seem blocky and undeveloped for the Xbox platform, the incredible strength of the character designs and art direction make up for it and then some. This is one of the most complete games I've ever seen, graphically. Everything a player could possibly get onto their screen is brilliantly detailed, with dozens of little surprises tucked away to keep the game interesting. I think I'd spent close to an hour wandering around a crowded city street on one map, before I noticed the not-so-steady stream of air traffic that would fill the skies every once in a while. The airport must've been two or three blocks beyond the edge of the playable area, too, because these things were flying low to the ground, and they were HUGE.<br /><br />The only downfalls I can even imagine on the visual side of the coin are the occasional bits of slowdown (which are quite frequent, actually, if you get more than a dozen moving characters on the screen at any one time) and the mildly noticeable jagged linework throughout most of the game's borders. I'm tempted to not even hold those against the game, either, I enjoyed the rest of the visuals so much.<br /><br />The audio is, on the large, a huge success. The tracks are entirely fresh, without a single tune I've ever heard on the radio, and almost exclusively excellent. Occasionally you'll stumble across a song that sticks out like a sore thumb, (one song in particular maddened me to no end... almost start-to-finish middle aged screaming Japanese woman) and that's a problem that the first game certainly didn't have, but such tracks aren't very frequent. I'd have preferred to have a functionality similar to that in <em>Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4</em>, (to continue the endless comparisons) which allowed gamers to single out tracks they didn't like and eliminate them from the active rotation, but a couple bad songs are really a small price to pay considering the quality of the rest of the soundtrack. The style and beat of the tracks range from completely ambient to overwhelmingly vocal, (Mike D of The Beastie Boys appears on several songs) but none stray too far from the central theme of youth, rebellion, motion and energy. As a result, despite the occasionally wild differences in genre, the tunes all seem strangely interconnected and help to further the identity and personality established for the game by the visuals.<br /><br />Visual and musical choices aside, I was really let down by this game. Sega had such a firm foundation upon which to build an absolutely dynamite sequel, success seemed like a foregone conclusion... but where there's a will, I suppose, there's a way. And, much as it pains me to admit it, Sega's M.O. this generation seems to have been creating software that really isn't up to their old standards. While it's a blast to watch, <em>Jet Set Radio Future</em> just isn't that much fun to play most of the time, thanks to an incredibly shallow, inattentive, under-tested control scheme. The characters are difficult to identify with, since most of their brain waves appear to be flatlined, and the story is difficult to follow and non-motivating. Although I completely fell in love with the imaginative breeding of several genres in the combos and the outstanding inclusion of a create-a-tag function, (which I'd actually place above customizable soundtracks in my list of "really cool game-shaping add-ons") I can't look past the weaknesses of the rest of the package. Even if a game looks beautiful and sounds breathtaking, nobody's going to play it if the gameplay and controls aren't there. And that's just the case with <em>JSRF</em>.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 6.6</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-78353262220566722892006-05-24T14:01:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:15:30.076-07:00Jak III didn't care all that much for the original <em>Jak and Daxter</em>. Let's just get that out of the way right now. I found it was too short, the gameplay too straightforward and repetitive, the characters too sticky-sweet and friendly, and the visuals completely lacking for a first wave next-gen title. Where it did shine was in the gameplay, although even that had a few hiccups, and in the occasional character and level designs. It was, generally, a really fun game to play, but you had to be willing to ignore a few bugs and completely shut your brain off during the storytelling sequences, which were yanked right out of a Saturday morning cartoon show. I felt like I was playing something marketed toward seven year olds, and that worked to put me off of the package as a whole. <br /><br />That seems to have been a frustration heard by the developers at Naughty Dog a time or two, as well, as it's precisely that image that's confronted and shed like an old skin within the first five minutes of the sequel. They even played off of that old vibe by totally cheesing up the opening moments of <em>Jak II</em>, only to hurl the cast into an entirely different, deeper, darker, more mature-themed universe before the player hits button one. Where you wouldn't be surprised to see the Easter Bunny stashing eggs behind a bush or a unicorn prancing by in the bright, obnoxious world of the original game, the setting of <em>Jak II</em> is more along the lines of <em>Blade Runner</em>. It's a cold, dark, repressed new world, complete with downtrodden, defeated city residents and a stuffy, filthy rich ruling class. Nothing that hasn't been seen in the realm of gaming before, but also a complete about-face for the series... and the immediate improvements you'll notice are more than just environmental. Though the entire cast of heroes returns from the first game, (albeit mildly altered and scarred by their experiences in this new world) an entire platoon of darker, grimacing new faces is there to join them and, strangely, don't seem out of place or at odds alongside the more innocent characters from chapter numero uno. What's more, the visuals are much better realized, most of the blips in the gameplay have been ironed out, and the experience as a whole feels twice as deep. In short, my immediate impressions were universally good.<br /><br />The story picks up just hours after the conclusion of the original, with the heroes just outside a mysterious, giant gate, unlocked by their epic battle with the first game's boss. As they stare on, doe-eyed with wonder, the gate opens and an enormous army of dark creatures floods through. Eventually the lead characters are dragged in as their world is torn asunder, separated from one another, and dropped onto the cold pavement of this tough new world. Cue the white-on-black "two years later" type face, and the game really begins. <br /><br />None of the four main faces have had any contact with one another since the accident at the dark gate, and Jak in particular has had a rough time of it. After crashing to earth without his friends, he was grabbed off the streets and thrown into a scientific lab specializing in military experiments. There he was poked, prodded and experimented upon for the entire two year lapse in storytelling, until Daxter arrived to pseudo-heroically set him free. As you can imagine, this didn't exactly leave him with the same glowing, childlike disposition that defined him in the first title, and his own personality changes are an excellent parallel to the abrupt change of tone and direction of the series itself. In fact, I felt like the typically lazy "two years later" setup actually functioned beautifully in allowing the main characters to grow, both physically and internally. My own anticipation of their new quirks and fresh outlooks made the eventual re-introductions and accompanying new personality tweaks of these familiar faces that much more rewarding. The time off also made what would've been a horribly abrupt change from <em>Thundercat</em> to <em>Akira</em> a lot easier to swallow, and helped to immediately shake off the "kids-only" image that the first game had been labeled with. <br /><br />The mission-based system of objectives from the first title has returned for round two, and remains your only true means of progressing through the main story, although it's been revamped and improved to function a little more easily within the broader scope of this large new world. Where the first game was divided into a half-dozen themed chapters, with no overlapping missions in between, <em>Jak II</em>'s basic structure feels a lot more like the games in the <em>Grand Theft Auto</em> legacy. The entire story takes place in one enormous city, with Jak taking instructions from a few key characters spread around the map, and involves frequent backtracking and re-explorations of familiar locales. This goes quite a ways toward establishing the city itself (not to mention the faceless nobodies who call it home) as a major character, much in the same way as Gotham City itself represents one of the top players in the Batman mythos. Take one away from the other, and the stories aren't nearly as entertaining... but together, they add up to more than just the sum of their parts. <br /><br />The city in <em>Jak II</em> is truly alive; as you play, you'll see the time of day change, the ebbs and flows of traffic increase or decrease, depending on which section of town you're in, and the horrified reactions of the general population as the scenery around them continually changes. As a part of an underground movement dedicated to unseating the dominating local government, you'll have to work around the law, which adds a whole new dimension to the time spent in-between missions. I won't go so far as to say that these little bits of downtime are as deep and entertaining as <em>Grand Theft Auto</em>'s, but there is something to be said for speeding through a crowded farmer's market on a <em>Back to the Future</em>-style hoverboard, spraying fruits, vegetables and other wares in your wake. You're quickly and easily identified as an outlaw by the constant patrol of law enforcement officers, which means that nine times out of ten your journey between missions will involve a frenzied run from heavily armed government agents. These crazed dashes for freedom force players to memorize the twists and turns of the city's streets under pressure, but doesn't really result in any negative ramifications should they fail. Jak has an unlimited stash of lives, and you'll spawn almost exactly where you were killed should a chase turn sour, so the need to run from the law isn't really all that pressing unless you happen to be aboard a particularly nice vehicle at the time. <br /><br />One of the pitfalls of this large, mission-based system, of course, lies in the incredible size of the landscape and the means of successfully moving the player from one destination to another without getting hopelessly lost along the way. <em>Jak II</em> confronts this by adding a new overworld map to the corner of the screen, complete with tiny indicators that fill you in when a new mission is available and try to point you in the right direction as you navigate the streets. It's not entirely successful, but it gets the job done and is a welcome addition to something that was mildly annoying in the first game. Perhaps a more useful addition to the between-missions gameplay is the introduction of a vehicle-snatching function. The constant presence of bumper-to-bumper traffic is there for more than just eye candy in Jak and company's new home, and makes the whole process of getting from point A to point B much less headache-inducing and a bit more of an adventure unto itself. The entire city revolves around the use of hover-cars, which clog the airways but leave the streets themselves open for foot traffic. The floating autos move at roughly 5x the speed of a running Jak, and the title character can almost supernaturally cover the twenty-foot distance between foot-level and car-level, which makes car theft more of a necessity than merely a possibility. Once aboard, you're given the option of flying at the car's regular height or skimming underneath the traffic jams at ground level, plowing over civilians along the way. After flattening your first dozen innocent bystanders, you'll stop feeling that little twinge of guilt in the back of your head, and will more intimately understand the necessity of fast driving vs. safe driving, at least in this bleak, futuristic town. <br /><br />The vehicles provide more than just a method from get from one mission to another, though, and are featured much more predominantly in the missions themselves than in the first game. Where chapter one had you occasionally climbing aboard a giant bird for a few moments, or trying to get through a set of glowing rings aboard a scooter in a goofy sidequest, part two uses vehicles as more than just a mindless accessory. They're a major part of your life as an outlaw, and are essential in rushing illegal goods past a border patrol or breaking prisoners free from an armed motorcade and rushing them to safety. In this instance, it's nice to see the attention paid to improving that previous system, and the conscious effort to invent and introduce new staples to an ongoing series.<br /><br />Perhaps the most noteworthy change from part one to part two is Jak's occasional <em>Incredible Hulk</em>-like transformation from heroic humanoid to killer albino rabbit, seemingly implanted during his years under the knife at that evil military lab. After absorbing enough dark eco from the bodies of fallen enemies, (and, naturally, accepting a gentle prodding from the player) he grows white fur, develops sharp black nails, dark black eyes and a penchant for hurling purple lightning at anyone in the remote vicinity. After a short period, Jak returns to his normal state and things pick up where they left off. As you delve deeper into the story, further powers are unlocked and these little spells become more impressive and useful, but the length of the power-up grows shorter and shorter. In action, it's a quick way to get yourself out of a tough spot, and if you build up your dark eco and save it for just such a moment, you'll step out of the smoke feeling like an action hero. <br /><br />Also worth noting is the sudden introduction of gunplay and weaponry to the series, which was lacking entirely from the previous chapter. It goes hand-in-hand with the coming of age of the characters and the story, as well as with the tone of the new environment, but was actually pretty shocking to see after the simple punches and kicks of the first game. One of the characters you'll wind up accepting missions for is actually a weapons smuggler, and your association with him leads to bigger and louder toys as the yarn spins longer. They're somewhat cumbersome and underthought, just as the vehicles were in the last game, and though they play a much bigger part in the overall story than the bird and scooter did in <em>The Precursor Legacy</em>, (you can't finish the end boss in part two without a gun of some sort) their inclusion leaves something to be desired and overall they felt clunky and unnecessary. If that's meant to be some sort of tongue-in-cheek parody of the value of worldly technology, job well done... but I don't think deft satire is what they were aiming for when they added a shotgun to Jak and Daxter's repertoire. <br /><br />As I mentioned previously, the flaws in the previous game's control scheme have been addressed and largely ironed out here, leading to a much more enjoyable, less distracting in-game experience. You'll occasionally run into an undetected double-jump, which was a huge issue in chapter one, but it's a much less common occurrance, and the issues with ledge detection and Jak's refusal to grab onto some cliffs after a death-defying leap have been completely erased from the picture. I did continue to notice some problems with out-of-bounds areas that were somewhat bothersome: if you try to leap up to an off-limits area, Jak will go into this strange floating crouch and slide around as though he were on ice until his feet touch solid ground again. The idea in itself wouldn't really be so bad if that disembodied slide didn't have such a penchant for hurling you off into a bottomless pit. Chances are good that, if there's certain death anywhere nearby, Jak will find a way to slide into it if you get fruity and try to explore uncharted waters. <br /><br />Otherwise, for a game with so many functions and potential actions, the actual control scheme is fairly straightforward and easy to grasp. X is, as always, your primary action button, which means jumping if you're on foot or accelerating if onboard a vehicle, while O and square reprise their roles as physical attacks. R1 pulls a weapon and automatically pulls the trigger, which can get a bit hairy when you're scooting along in a flying car, as R2 is used to change levels from car height to people height and vice versa. It's easy to get caught up in a big chase scene, hit the wrong R button and wind up starting a horrible explosion that leads to your own demise, when your intention was to simply float a little bit closer to the ground. <br /><br />The camera floats in the standard third person position, high above the back of Jak's head at a three quarter angle, but is easily controlled with the right analog stick should you prefer a profile view for some tricky platforming action. As with any 3D action platformer, you'll sometimes run into a few tight spots with the camera angle, but such instances are very infrequent in <em>Jak II</em>, not to mention easily remedied through the use of that right analog. All things considered, my only real complaint about the controls lies with the use of the hoverboard, and even those issues are largely due to it not utilizing the flawless <em>Tony Hawk's Pro Skater</em> control scheme. The hoverboard is largely a novelty act, though, and as such I can't really tear the game apart if those controls aren't entirely up to snuff.<br /><br />One of my major gripes about the first title was with the graphics, which I perceived to be lacking, especially for an early next-gen title. When the PS2 and Xbox were first released, it seemed that everyone set out to impress, to flex the new hardware's muscle, and <em>The Precursor Legacy</em> looked like the nerdy guy who gets sand kicked in his face at the beach. In this area, the sequel provides a much better showing. The characters, who were primarily lumpy and dull representations of a truly gorgeous original design, are much more finely detailed this go-around. Eyeballs have the right glint to them, skin doesn't look like it's wrapped around a pile of rocks, and clothing is finely textured and well done. The environments are suitably decayed so as to meet the vibe put out by the story, but to also not lose touch with the fact that this is supposed to be a somewhat cartoony setting. Even more exciting, HD output is supported with beautiful results, although the option to turn it on is buried deep within the options menu and is turned off by default every time the game loads. Still, the lush environments, beautiful live-rendered cutscenes and tight character portrayals are worth the extra minute it takes to hunt down the option and check i at the start of each session. The visuals of the J&D series can be panned no longer, as chapter two provides a great turnaround in that respect.<br /><br />Of the game's vital components, only the audio leaves much to be desired. While the voice acting work is usually in the "good to very good" range, with a few characters in particular standing out from the pack, the in-game soundtrack is extremely dull, not to mention maddeningly repetitive. For the main cityscape, where you'll spend about three quarters of the game moving from zone to zone, point to point, to only have a single, minute-long looping theme, is beyond inexcusable. It's downright lazy. Every sector has its own personality, whether it's a bustling market, a smokey industrial zone or a ritzy, canal-riding high-income residential area, and that's something that could've been keyed into and heightened through the game's music. Instead, that single, dull, looping theme carries across the entire city and tears a lot of the personality away from what is otherwise a lush, densely populated metropolis. On the positive side, Dolby 5.1 has been implemented. I'll always applaud a title that uses that effectively, and the ambient noises, speaking parts and explosions all sound great in surround sound.<br /><br />In all, I came away feeling much more impressed with this sequel than I expected to be, considering the quality of its predecessor. It is in every way a successful step forward from the ideas and executions that came before: the graphics have improved boundlessly, the controls have been nearly perfected, the characters have grown and developed of their own accord, and the difficulty has gone up considerably. This is a much, much deeper, more involved game than <em>The Precursor Legacy</em> ever could've been, and earns special marks by not only shifting the series into a more contemporary, interesting setting, but by doing so in a way that also makes the first game seem a lot more intriguing and thought-out than it ever really was. There's still room for improvement here, which means I'm expecting a lot out of <em>Jak III</em>, but this is in many ways the <em>Empire Strikes Back</em> of this trilogy. Dark, and in many instances utterly hopeless, but a much better tale than the first, with a better cast, better effects, more variety and a great open-ended story that leaves plenty of room for expansion in the threequel.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 9.1</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-62074270104388126832006-05-24T13:59:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:15:24.688-07:00FlatOutA novel concept is generally the first step taken by any developer with aims at creating a new franchise amidst the crowded market of today's gaming landscape. There's been a lot of ground covered over the last thirty years, but there's also plenty of room left for innovation, and if you're going to stand out on the shelves, you're going to need a hook. In <em>Flatout</em>, that hook is certainly not lacking, (it's the only game I can think of that features... no, downright <b>flaunts</b>... a fleet of fully-ejectable drivers) but it falls into the very first pitfall in its way. This game takes that unique twist which gives it an identity and attempts to use it as a bandage to salvage what would otherwise be an underdeveloped, unremarkable, entirely forgettable title. What's worse, that single little identifying gimmick has an incredibly short shelf life and only serves to irritate beyond the first hour or two of gameplay. If you're looking for the short recap, well, I'm obviously not here to sing <em>Flatout</em> any praises. If you're here for the elongated review, I'll warn you: this won't be all that pretty.<br /><br />There's really no storyline to this one. Although hints and shades of an intended single-player tale are revealed from time to time, it seems to have been the victim of some last second editing and only winks at you from the cutting room floor once or twice. For instance, there are a few different driver body-types that you'll glimpse should they sail past your driver-side window. There's a red-headed tomboy, a heavy set biker and what appears to be the lead character's identical twin, clad in the kind of white T-Shirt and jeans that would make any greaser proud. It hints at the possibility of inter-driver feuds, individual personalities and sweet, sweet revenge, and would've added some much-needed depth to the proceedings, but in its current representation is nothing more than a passing detail. The different faces are pasted over opposing drivers at the start of each race, seemingly at random, and nothing more is meant to be read into them.<br /><br />Basically your only motivating factor is the ongoing quest for checkered flags, faster cars, golden trophies and freshly unlocked mini-games. There's your standard chop-shop, as seen in <em>Gran Turismo</em> and <em>Sega GT</em>, to improve your car's performance, and as you finish a tier of racetracks, you'll gain the ability to purchase newer and faster cars to keep up with the competition. Sadly, I can't really say I found any of these objectives to be all that motivational, since the extent of the cars' differences in handling seemed to be how quickly they could jump off of the starting line, and most of the mini-games were twice as mindless and annoying as the races themselves. I didn't even find myself developing any sort of affinitiy for the vehicles in my garage, as is usually the case with a straight-up racer, since every car in the game looks virtually identical, regardless of paint job. Even a scrap of storytelling, a hint of motivational effort, would've made a big difference. Instead we get nothing.<br /><br />The actual gameplay is in dire need of some serious polishing, with minor bugs resulting in big-time dilemmas as the races grow more difficult. As I've already mentioned, the big story here is the engine's ability to eject a car's driver following a rough collision, which gives it a bit of credibility as far as the reality crowd is concerned, but any points awarded for the feature's mere existence are immediately negated by its implementation. Sure, it makes a revenge kill twice as rewarding when you can actually see the opposing driver suffering a grisly death after you've forced his car into a telephone pole, but the first time you hop a curb and watch your own lifeless driver hurl himself through the windshield, you'll start to curse the day you thought rag-doll physics were the least bit amusing. Of course, no real dire circumstances result from your driver slamming unprotected into the side of a barn at 82 MPH, as you'll respawn a few moments later, but the act of losing a few seconds every time it happens completely derails your own momentum and often takes you completely out of the race. Playing catch-up is the real game in <em>Flatout</em>, as two or three driver ejections per race are par for the course and there's always one holy lord of computer drivers out there, who doesn't seem to have any trouble navigating the track's obstacles. <br /><br />The finer details of the title's engine are never fully explained in-game, as I had to consult more than one online guide before realizing that nitro boosts are awarded in the middle of a race, depending on how many obstacles you actually hit, and how large said obstacles actually are. Debris only seems to award these bonuses the very first time it's struck, but remains on the track throughout the race. This adds a touch of additional personality to the game, as almost every car is seeking out the big landmarks like a guided missle on lap one and the track is usually thoroughly trashed and tough to navigate by its conclusion.<br /><br />Of course, it must've been a little bit too much to ask for the development team to leave well enough alone in this regard, and sure enough, there's a flaw or two. What's destructible in one track (and thus, the object of desire, as it carries with it a small nitro bonus) is frequently rock-solid in the next, resulting in (you guessed it) a brutal driver ejection and, usually, the loss of any lead you may have accumulated. As I'm sure you can imagine, this results in an uncontrollable flinch every time your car comes close to a fairly-sized obstacle, for fear it will result in death rather than rewards. Even more wonderful is the way small items such as a stray tire or a dislodged bumper, which frequently litter the track after lap two, react in wildly unpredictable fashion upon coming into contact with the front of your car. Sometimes they'll bounce harmlessly off to the side of the track, others they'll hang out on your grill for a while, killing your momentum, and occasionally they'll result in driving the nose of your car toward the sky, which <b>always</b> leads to a terrible highlight reel wreck, complete with cartwheeling car and airborne driver. Considering how frequently these things appear, it's not a matter of if you'll hit them, but when, and how kind they'll be to your car.<br /><br />I keep wanting to whine about how the computer cars never suffer the same terrible fate as your own, which is a cheap trick that seems to be cherished and handed down from one successful racer to the next, but in actuality I must admit that <em>Flatout</em>'s drivers are among the most realistic I can remember taking on in this regard. You'll routinely see the computer making the same mistakes you are, whether it's taking a turn too fast and sailing off into the distance spectacularly, colliding with the edge of a wall, (and, naturally, ejecting the driver into oncoming traffic) or clipping another driver's bumper and causing a major pile-up, which is a refreshing thing to see and usually makes you feel a lot better about the fine mess you made the last time you attempted a course. So, credit where it's due: they could've taken the low road here and potentially elongated the length of the game by an hour or so, but they didn't and the result is a somewhat less nerve-wrecking experience.<br /><br />The mini-games you'll unlock while progressing through the single player mode, which were featured significantly in the game's promotional bits (and were probably single-handedly responsible for my own purchase) really aren't even remotely as much fun as they appeared on TV, and are limited at best. They really highlighted the "HAHA LOOK WE'RE PLAYING DARTS WITH PEOPLE" aspect of the game in these ads, but neglected to mention the fact that you get three tosses per game, with no option to play a legitimate game of 301, cricket or anything even partially entertaining. It's a straightforward three tosses, with the highest scoring player named the victor. The same goes for bowling, the long jump, the high jump, etcetera. They're like the mini-games of <em>Super Monkey Ball 2</em>, just significantly limited, drained of all the fun and difficult for new players to grasp. Oh yeah, and the multi-player aspect of these party games, evidently <em>Flatout</em>'s big draw, only allows the use of a single controller. Yeah, instead of handing out four controllers and struggling through these short, dull little games, you're further punishing your guests by passing around a single control pad. Nice.<br /><br />In-game controls are tough to think about without wanting to curl up and cry for a spell. Whether you're driving the cheapest car on the lot or the most souped up monster available, turning is almost laughably bad. Your cars don't turn, so much as they rotate and slide. Whether you're on a filthy patch of snow or fresh asphalt on a sunny day, your car handles exactly the same. Likewise, no matter which vehicle you're sitting atop, every single computer driver on the track is faster off the line than you are. I didn't think I'd noticed any change when I poured all of my race-earnin's into a new engine, guaranteed to deliver faster acceleration right out of the box, and sure enough, when I was driving the fastest car available with ever possible enhancement applied, I was still being kicked off the line by the slowest car in the race. It's always nice to have a handicap, I guess.<br /><br />The graphics are par for the current state of the Xbox, which basically means they're the best part of this package. They aren't completely fugly, but they're far from the most impressive thing I've ever seen. Some of the particle effects are fairly well done, especially during and after a nasty wreck, but you're usually so preoccupied by your car's hesitance to take a turn that you won't even notice. The speed effects of using up some of your stashed nitro is cool, but doesn't really hold a candle to what <em>Burnout</em> did before <em>Flatout</em>'s release. Ongoing visible damage is always nice to see (especially since freaking <em>Gran Turismo</em> has yet to do it) but gets to be kind of silly when the damage reaches its upper limits. I have a hard time believing the car with a running fire behind the grill could not only continue running, but make a big comeback and actually win the race. Still, I suppose it was a nice touch. The terrains and surrounding textures are imaginative, but very sparse, especially when you take away the standard break-away objects that litter the roadways and are shared by all courses. This isn't a game that's going to completely blow away your impressions of what a game can do, visually, and occasionally shows evidence of being hurried out the door in a state of incompletion.<br /><br />Where <em>Flatout</em>'s visuals are mediocre at best, the game's audio is a downright disaster. The revs, grinds and hums of the cars, engines and tires are far too loud by default, and again fail to distinguish one car from another. Is that my car struggling up the hill, or is another driver right up my ass, ready to make a pass? Don't look to the audio for the answer. While most racing games contain similarly lame, repetitive sound effects, there's just something about what <em>Flatout</em> brings to this table that's a little bit more irritating than its peers. That engine is a bit more piercingly shrill than the one I heard in <em>Project Gotham</em>, the tires much more vague, hollow and shy of personality than those I heard in the most recent <em>Mario Kart</em>.<br /><br />If the sound effects should bother you enough to force a change of volume in the options menu, the in-game music punishes you for doing so. This is one of the most uninspiring collections of butt-rock and mullet roll I've ever heard. Fortunately, every time a new track starts, the bottom of the screen is eaten up by an MTV-style artist / song title visualizer. I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to know whose music I'll be avoiding the next time I hit Tower Records. Naturally, the need for custom soundtracks was completely ignored. After about two hours of game play, I quit turning the receiver to my Xbox input, and instead tuned my digital cable to one of those uninterrupted music channels, left the speakers to play whatever those faceless DJs chose, and enjoyed that in its place.<br /><br /><em>Flatout</em> isn't a finished product. It is, at best, a great concept stretched far too thin over a below-average mullet-themed racing title. It's barely worth a rental, and certainly not worth busting out at a party, for all to enjoy. The graphics are unrefined, the audio is the kind of garbage that forces fingers to race for mute buttons, the controls are completely ridiculous, and there's nothing around that's driving you to reach that next goal. If you enjoy crap, or are easily amused by floating human bodies, you've found the promised land, but if you're looking for a breath of fresh air in a crowded industry, your holy grail remains elusive.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 4.4</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-68162675711987844262006-03-29T21:03:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:15:19.581-07:00Eternal Darkness: Sanity's RequiemIf you own a Gamecube, chances are good you've heard of this one. It's one of the few titles released for the current Nintendo system that's gathered any sort of industry-wide noteriety, and has amassed what I'd almost dare to label a cult following. If you've had a discussion with friends about the more high profile games available on the Cube, or even had a passing conversation with your local EB sales clerk about the console, this game has probably come up. Originally penciled in as a late addition to the N64's library, <em>Eternal Darkness</em> was eventually shifted over to the freshly born GC, where it was meant to be the first of many mature-themed first party titles brought to the system. Of course, looking back over the years that have come and gone since, that string of adult-leaning N-published games never really came to be, and the Cube faltered in a similar fashion to its immediate predecessor. But this is now, and for <em>Darkness</em>, that was then. The birth of a new console meant an opportunity for a clean slate and instant anticipation. This game was the product of heightened hopes, a long, detail-centric development cycle, and the desire for new beginnings. It's too bad I can't really say I'm overly impressed by the end result. <br /><br />The storyline revolves around a blonde-haired, blue eyed, athletic woman named Alexandra Roivas. Constantly haunted by dreams of the undead, she's awakened late one night by a telephone call, informing her of her grandfather's brutal, untimely demise. As the man's only living relative, she's asked to meet with police about the situation, and quickly finds herself drawn into the web of magick, satanism and otherworldly struggles that had defined her late relative's life. The entire story effectively transpires on the grounds of the old man's mansion, which isn't nearly as dull and repetitive as you'd think, thanks to the inclusion of a single intuitive plot device. Hidden among her deceased patriarch's things, Alexandra discovers the necronomicon, a book bound in human flesh (and instantly recognizable to fans of the <em>Evil Dead</em> series) that holds the secrets of her family's legacy and the majority of the game's variety. Most of the book's pages have been torn out and scattered throughout the mansion, naturally, but upon discovering a new chapter, Alexandra will dive right in - somewhat literally. Each new set of pages tells the story of a different character and his or her interactions with the book itself, and as Alexandra reads, you'll take control of that character, playing your way through their tale. As such, <em>Eternal Darkness</em> feels more like a series of intertwined short stories than a single, game-spanning epic... a welcome change of pace. What's more, it allows players to travel unbound throughout time and space, adventuring through a Roman war expedition one chapter, conquering an <em>Indiana Jones</em> style Aztec temple the next, without the need for a silly, out-of-place object like a time machine (or worse).<br /><br />Truly, there are a lot of really good ideas at play here beyond the introduction and implementation of the necronomicon to facilitate the storyline. I loved the idea of playing the role of an 18th century noble with medical aspirations, performing rudimentary autopsies on the bodies of demons after a battle. The suggestion of a steep tower of corpses, a sacrifice to an ancient, forgotten god, is an amazing mental image. Even the continued use of the book itself as a means to explain Alexandra's growth as a character and a magician was extremely well-concepted. Understandably, upon reading in explicit detail about a distant relative's discovery of a magical spell, she'd have a fairly good understanding of how to go about casting it herself. Imagination most definitely isn't the weak spot in <em>Sanity's Requiem</em>, it's the execution and realization of those ideas that bothers me. <br /><br />Take the system of magic, for example, what should've been one of the most important aspects of the game. The idea is that there are three distinct pools of magical energy, (a red pool, a green pool, and a blue pool) that simultaneously have power over one color while falling victim to the other. Green is stronger than red, for instance, while blue overcomes green, and red conquers blue. It's a brilliantly simple idea, but one that falls flat due to being underexplained and overly detailed. You'll know that the boss you're fighting is using a green special attack, and that you should be counterattacking with a blue assault, but exactly which spell you should be using is only revealed through an abysmal series of trial-and-error kamikaze strikes. Even then, half the time you aren't casting at the right time, or you're not standing in the right place, or the boss has shifted to another form. If I had a dime for every time I had to resort to an online FAQ after reaching the point of frustration during this game, I'd be able to buy a replacement copy and hurl the original into the wall, frisbee style, as stress relief. <br /><br />It's this maddening sense of frustration and helplessness that really strikes the most damning blow to my overall opinion of the game. After a half-dozen hours or so of gameplay, you'll be so utterly defeated and annoyed that your motivation to continue will begin to pay a heavy toll. As Alexandra learns more and more about what's going on with her heritage and what was really behind her grandfather's murder, you'll find yourself actually comprehending less and less. It's a problem I had with what was formerly one of my favorite comic books, <em>Hellblazer</em>, a year or two ago: because the story is supernatural and underworldly in setting, the writer(s) assume that the solutions to problems don't necessarily need to make sense, so long as they sound spooky and look cool. I'd read through an entire, six issue story arc, close the final chapter and realize that I had no idea what the fuck had just happened. A demon had revealed itself, Constantine had said some nonsensical words and waved his hands, and the world had been saved... never mind how. It's the exact same thing with much of <em>Eternal Darkness</em>: you'll watch a cutscene, see the characters talking, and never really comprehend the message that's supposedly behind it all. Almost every major item you'll struggle to attain is like this. You'll have no idea what the main characters intend to do with it (even after they've done it) but you'll know that you needed it, and now you have it, so that's supposed to be enough. Suffice to say, it isn't.<br /><br />Much of the gameplay is in keeping with that same ongoing trend: stupendous ideas, lame execution. Probably the most unique element of the game is its "fright meter," which slowly drains as the on-screen individual sees freakier and freakier things. I know I'd be a little weirded out if a rotting hunk of meat and bones suddenly climbed out of the wall and started lurching toward me... we're conditioned to expect our heroes to immediately continue their quest without missing a beat, so it adds a new dimension to the proceedings when you realize that video game characters can get scared, too. If your fright meter gets too low, you'll even start to experience some hallucinations and so-called "horror effects," which are a real blast and range from the minute to the absurdly out of place. Sometimes you'll see something moving in the corner of the room, other times you'll actually foresee your own death, but the hallucinations will always subside at some point. Unfortunately, due to a gamer's natural tendency to want to keep all statistical meters filled to the brim, most experienced players will miss out on the majority of these effects in their drive to actually finish the game in optimum condition. Refilling the fright meter is usually accomplished by casting a spell, or if that's unavailable, through the use of a few courage-inducing items. My personal favorite was the "liquid courage" one or two of the guys would indulge in. The horror effects are a lot of fun, but they're really nothing more than garnish. They don't move the plot along, like the amusing asides in the original <em>Metal Gear Solid</em> did, and only seem to exist to provide a few extra "holy shit" heart-skipping moments. Which is par for the course with a horror game, I'll concede.<br /><br />As the game carries on, though, you'll start to hate the existence of that fright meter. Particularly the way it actually begins to drain your character's life away if it hits empty, and your enemies' tendencies to "scare" you at every possible opportunity. All a creature needs to do to sap away a bit of your fright meter is stare in your direction. It doesn't matter if it can't reach you, if you can't see it, or if it's <b>lying on the floor in a pool of its own fluids, gasping for life</b>... if it's looking at you, you're scared and you're going to start going crazy and / or losing life. I can't say how many times I'd stride into a room, confidently level a monster in one swipe, and then watch my character grow scared as they move in for the killing blow. It just doesn't make sense. <br /><br />Gameplay in general is fairly slow-paced and monotonous, with few action-heavy sequences and a whole lot of aimless wandering and exploring. Even the boss battles are usually relegated to long sessions of striking, wandering around avoiding attacks for a few minutes, and then striking again... like a hilariously slow chase scene. There's a wide inventory of era-authentic weaponry in the game that just screams of quality research and great attention to detail, but it's all rendered null and void by the fact that most enemies are extremely flammable and can be easily wiped out with a single swipe of a torch. Why should I master the two handed sword when I can jab with a flaming stick and have a greater rate of success? Still, perhaps curiosity and a search for variety would have motivated me to experiment with the other weapons a bit more if actually using them weren't such an incredible headache. For a game that's so overflowing with narrow corridors, doorways and exquisite surroundings, you'd think that collision detection with the walls wouldn't be such a handicap, but in <em>Darkness</em> it quickly becomes your worst enemy. If your weapon should happen to strike a wall in mid swing, your character will immediately halt their attack and stumble backwards for a few moments, giving your enemies all the time they need to either attack or angrily stare to their heart's content. Attempting to fight a single enemy in a hallway is often like threading a needle: you'll miss half a dozen times before you get it right. Fighting more than one at a time is downright suicidal. <br /><br />In the same vein as the <em>Resident Evil</em> series, the teenage bonding moments that are used to fill out a blockbuster horror film are replaced here with a series of riddles, puzzles and tricks. I expected as much, but couldn't have anticipated how easy and linear most of <em>Darkness</em>'s riddles really are. With only a few exceptions, every item is miraculously found just before it's needed, to the point that the pieces basically solve the game's problems for you. If you find a statue, chances are good you'll find a peculiar, statue-shaped hole in the next room. <br /><br />Controls harken back once again to that theme of an unrealized original vision, specifically in regards to the title's original limb-targeting attack system. By holding the right trigger, you're given the opportunity to target a specific region of an incoming enemy's anatomy, be it his head, chest, right arm or left arm. Some enemies have specific weaknesses in certain regions of their body, (which are pointed out by the wannabe doctor's "autopsies" midway through the game, a nice touch) and lopping off an arm would, in theory, make it that much more difficult for a bad guy to hurt you. In action, removing an arm, leg or even a head doesn't make much of a dent in most creatures' damage-dealing potential, because it apparently hurts just to touch them. That's one thing I've really had a problem with over the last few years... titles that cling to the idea that enemies secrete some sort of mysteriously damaging substance that causes instant pain upon contact. It made sense in the days of the NES and even the SNES, when the hardware wasn't up to the task of animating a variety of different movements and attacks. In today's market, where the sky is basically the limit, I have a hard time dealing with something like that. <br /><br />Each character you'll take control of throughout the game functions vaguely differently than the others, whether it's a fatter character moving noticeably slower than his distant relatives or a religious man having difficulty with weaponry, and that's something that was nice to see. Such nuances definitely helped to establish a discernible identity for every personality in the tale, which is no small task considering the relatively large cast. Unfortunately, one thing that everyone's control scheme included was a tendency to tire very quickly when running, which meant they'd need to slow down for a few minutes to catch their breath. As I'm sure you can imagine, this made exploring the game's various dungeons and passageways a lengthy experience, and the continuous backtracking a chore.<br /><br /><em>Eternal Darkness</em>' visuals have aged even worse than the rest of the title, and I'm not entirely sure they were ever really up to snuff. Sure, there's always the argument that these graphics were "stunning when they first came out," but I didn't play this game when it was first released, and even though it's just four years old, today they look shoddy as hell. Human skin textures are particularly bad and lumpy, but even the environments and items suffer from weak textures and a ragged, blocky basic structure. The one exception to this rule is with the creatures themselves, which are all brilliantly designed and extremely well-executed. I'd compare the lot of them to most of the bad guys in <em>Silent Hill</em> and perhaps the most gruesome baddies of <em>Resident Evil</em>. It hurts just to look at most of these guys, the way their flesh seems to stretch and strain to withhold the ugliness that's going on underneath. The only thing I could wish for is a wider taste of variety, since the rogue's list seen here is extremely shallow. Start to finish, there are maybe half a dozen flavors of enemy you'll encounter, bosses non-inclusive, and that's a shame considering how well concepted they all were. Perhaps gathering some inspiration from the title, almost every room in this game is dark to the point of handicap, and while that does add a sense of spirit and mystique to the events as they unfold, it makes actually exploring this world painful and unappealing, especially when you're asked to find an extremely small, yet vital, item somewhere amidst the blackness. One thing I will praise the graphics engine for is its decision to work with an entirely 3D world, rather than the static, photographic background-oriented realm of most previous survival horror titles, particularly <em>Resident Evil</em>. And while that does add a little flexibility to your explorations, the lack of any system of camera control is sorely missed at times.<br /><br />A lot of emphasis obviously went into the attempted lip-matching you'll see throughout the game, and it was a noble effort considering the amount of dialog that actually goes down, but the illusion is rarely successful. The only real difference between these characters' expressions and the expressions of other games, where characters seem to continuously mouth "babababababa," is <em>Darkness</em>' cast seems to know how to pronounce vowels. Likewise, the in-game cutscenes, few and far between as they may be, are hampered by an overly ambitious visual goal. The basic idea of the game is to allow the player to choose a particular magical color to have an affinity with early in the game (green, red or blue) and then to allow that choice to dictate the events that actually happen in these cutscenes. The goal seems to be that, to see every potential event, the player would need to go through the entire game three times. Instead of teasing you with the potential of more stunning visuals, however, these scenes look no better than the live-rendered scenes that usually precede them, accompanied by a few ugly compression artifacts. Even more infuriating, the transition between the two styles of storytelling are so jerky and unexpected, you'll feel as though the disc is actually just skipping and cutting out whole sections of story. It'll seriously go from a wild, visual explosion of magical power, complete with subwoofer-thundering noise, and then cut away mid-blast to near silence and moody music, as your character reacts. The first couple times it happened, I really thought it was my disc, but as it continued, I realized it was because they were cutting away before revealing any of the other magical colors' effects. <br /><br />Considering all that came before it, <em>Darkness</em>' audio is surprisingly well done. The Cube does everything in its power to deliver a solid surround-sound experience, and those effects come as close to accomplishing the spooky vibe these developers were obviously shooting for as any other aspect of the game. Musically, the title's soundtrack is uneventful. It swells and sways as necessary, and occasionally gives a nice bit of mood to a location. It isn't repetitious, which is probably my greatest pet peeve about in-game music, and it doesn't get in the way, but it also doesn't stand out on its own. Let's put it this way: I wouldn't rush out to the stores to buy <em>Eternal Darkness: The Original Symphonic Score. </em>The voice acting in general is very good, with a few exceptions, and though the dialog the actors are asked to deliver is usually stilted and unbelievable, they go beyond the call of duty to give their roles a personality and motivation that was sorely lacking in the script. Especially good are the noises, shallow screams and ambient ticks of the insanity effects, and each character's resulting reaction to them. While the same phrase is sometimes repeated at the conclusion of one of these sequences, it's not something that ever really bothered me and actually took steps to reveal the characters as more honest and true to life. If you're freaked out and seeing things in an unfamiliar mansion, I doubt the first thing to enter your mind is "come on, let's at least get a little variety into the dialog." You're going to scream whatever comes into your mind, whether you've said it before or not.<br /><br />To summarize, this feels like a series of very good concepts that were just drawn too thin, which is odd because the game itself, clocking in around twelve hours, is fairly short. There were so many superb, imaginative concepts that died on the way to the screen here that it really became something of a sad theme for the whole picture. Whether it was the truly surprising insanity effects, the unique limb-targeting system or the original system of magic, no matter how good the idea, the execution straight-up killed the potential for me. Despite the lingering invitations for replay value here (there's supposedly a super secret ending if you finish all three potential paths) I just didn't find myself motivated to go through it all again, especially considering how slow, plodding and ultimately dreary the majority of the actual gameplay was. I got the sense that this game was essentially Nintendo and company trying so hard to be cool, hip and edgy that they sabotaged themselves and came off as overdone and lame. Considering the amount of people that had pimped this game to me, and the incredible reputation it seems to have gathered in the years since, I found myself more than just a little disappointed. As a "must-have" title for the GameCube, <em>Eternal Darkness</em> is nothing but a major league let-down.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 4.2</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-4934347144253859342006-03-07T13:58:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:15:12.520-07:00Tales of SymphoniaIt's true that the GameCube doesn't have a lot of depth to its exclusive RPG offering. Actually, I don't think I could name more than two or three console-exclusive role players for Nintendo's current gen cosole. Interestingly enough, that number seems to be dropping, rather than growing, as more Cube-exclusive titles are brought to Sony or Microsoft's consoles, while less wholly original games seem to be in the works for the system going forward. Such was the case with <em>Tales of Symphonia</em>; originally brought over as a Gamecube exclusive, it was eventually ported over to the PlayStation 2 after gathering some mild critical praise and very little real visibility. Sadly, the title's notoriety didn't exactly explode upon arriving on Sony's RPG-heavy system, either, and it's since been left in the dust as the focus has turned to a follow-up, <em>Tales of Legendia</em>, recently released exclusively on the PS2. <br /><br />I didn't realize it when I made my purchase, but Namco's <em>Symphonia</em> is only the latest chapter in an ongoing series of RPGs, featured on both the Super NES (<em>Tales of Phantasia</em>... noticing a trend?) and the Gamecube, as well as a fair share of the consoles released in between. In the vein of <em>Final Fantasy</em>, none of the chapters seem to have anything to do with one another and are related via name and battle system only. <em>Tales</em> is more widely recognized overseas, where the vast majority of the series was exclusively released (of the dozen games in the run, only two were brought to America prior to <em>Symphonia</em>) and that's really a shame, as it seems many US-released Action RPGs have adapted (and been subsequently praised for) more than a few elements from the <em>Tales</em> style of gameplay. The battle system, for instance, is eerily similar to the one I fell in love with in <em>Star Ocean: The Second Story</em>, and I'm not really sure which series, if either, brought that particular style of battle to the table first. My first experience was with <em>Star Ocean</em>, though, and even if my way of thinking is flawed for feeling so, I can't help but immediately recognize that game as the originator and <em>Symphonia</em> as the imitator. I wasn't blown away by my first few hours with <em>Symphonia</em>'s battles like I was with <em>Star Ocean</em>'s, because the concept wasn't totally new to me any more, regardless of how just or unjust that might be. It's really a case of withholding innovation from the English-speaking audience for too long... if the games in the <em>Tales</em> franchise had washed up on our shores about ten years earlier, it's entirely possible they'd be up there among the elite of the genre from my perspective. <br /><br />But despite that excessively lengthy back story and my apparent claims of ignorance, I <b>had</b> read a few good things about this one before I chose to pick it up. I'm not sure where, exactly, I'd read that it was "the GameCube's best RPG" (which admittedly isn't all that impressive a feat, considering the aforementioned lack of releases in that specific category) but those words must have had some kind of an effect on me, as it wasn't long before I found it as a part of Nintendo's "greatest hits" line and added it to my collection. I'd been itching for a good RPG for a few months, and despite the calls of <em>Dragon Quest VIII</em> from my media shelf, this one got the nod. <br /><br />A few hours of rambling, shiny-happy dialog later, and I wasn't entirely sure I'd made the right decision. As an extensive, multiple disc-spanning role player, I'd assumed that the story would have been the one surefire area that wouldn't let me down, and that assumption was pretty much dead wrong. The quick summary is that you'll play the role of Lloyd Irving, a teenaged boy with a cloudy past, who stumbles (along with several friends, naturally) into the adventure of a lifetime, culminating in the rescue of not one, but two endangered worlds. It seems that Lloyd's lifelong friend, Colette, is at the center of a once-every-generation pilgrimage that leads to the mysterious salvation of the world, and that everyone but Lloyd realizes that this journey will not end well for Colette. Basically, it's the plot of <em>Final Fantasy X</em> with more of a homogenized, Saturday morning cartoon flair, and less hideous flying monsters named "Sin." I had a really hard time enjoying the progression of the story, as not only was the writing a bit suspect and the characters largely unlikable, but the pacing was jerky and off-putting. After a handful of hours of treading water and building toward an ongoing climax, just as things would begin to get interesting, the story would slam on the brakes and go right back to treading water again. If the writing was feeling particularly exotic, maybe you'd gain or lose a party member in the process. Almost without fail, every single time you'd be riding a wave of adrenaline after completing a dungeon or ready to kick some bad guy ass after a sour betrayal, rather than taking advantage of its own momentum, the storyline would stagnate and deliver some sort of eye candy or lame change of scenery. After dealing with this the first couple of times, I found myself soured to the potential of the storyline for the remainder of my experience.<br /><br />Perhaps most accountable for the slow death of the story was the inclusion of far, far too much unnecessary dialog, without any sort of payoff to validate its existence. This is a game that would have benefitted tremendously had it been basically halved in length. The plot isn't without its intricacies and shining moments, but they're so few and far between that they lose a lot of their impact amid the tedious, back and forth discussions and repeatedly dull, fetch-and-return styled missions. Conversations almost always go on well beyond the point of good reason, even in key situations. It's understandable to have a silly, one-sided conversation with an unimportant character on the outskirts of a city somewhere... such dialog is the bread and butter of RPGs as a whole. Where such meanderings are less acceptable and more damaging, however, are in the key scenes after crucial battles or big plot twists. About two thirds of the conversations in <em>Symphonia</em> are delivered via written text, while the more important chats are spoken by a cast of voice actors... it's a fairly good way to indicate to the player that they need to pay special attention to what's going on, because what's being discussed is going to affect the way the game plays out from that point forward. Yet even these spoken scenes are usually marred by poor writing and unnecessary asides that only serve to elongate the experience. I had to laugh when, after defeating an important mini-boss around the midway point of the game, one of my characters went back and forth with that boss in an argument that sounded like something straight out of the playgrounds of an elementary school at recess. It wasn't a discussion or even an argument, so much as it was two characters shouting "no, you're wrong" back and forth at each other for what seemed like an eternity. And, while that example is a little more extreme than most instances, the fact remains that empty, meaningless conversations dominate way too much of this game. RPGs earn a little more leeway than other genres in that lengthy monologues and lots of reading are to be expected, but <em>Symphonia</em> takes advantage of that situation and crams the screen full of stuff that really should've been left on the cutting room floor. I spent fifty two hours shoveling through about twenty hours' worth of really interesting material.<br /><br />The characters likely suffer from this, as the monologues get in the way of what could have been good characterization time. That's not to say <em>Symphonia</em> is completely devoid of character development, as every time I seemed ready to throw up the white flag and completely write the story off, it would come through with a solid bit of interaction between the members of your party. For the most part, though, your comrades are treated like a collection of inflatable love dolls... there to be used if their specific talents and traits should be necessary, and then cast aside and forgotten as soon as their usefulness is exhausted. What individual development there is seems like an afterthought and is generally very transparent and flat. Raine, for instance, has a deathly fear of water which surfaces from time to time, but isn't handled with any kind of subtlety. Rather than trying to hide her insecurities or make excuses for herself, she'll basically come right out and say "Ohh, I don't like water..." and that'll be the end of it. Lloyd will still force her to cram herself into a tiny boat and send her off across the ocean, and she arrives no worse for wear on the other side, as if the whole episode had never happened. Their hearts were in the right place, I suppose, but the execution is just terrible.<br /><br />Finally, I found the almost complete lack of self-direction the storyline offers to be totally aggravating. While you'll find yourself faced with "yes or no" decisions from time to time, your answer never really factors into the direction of the storyline in any way. Even if you specifically choose not to do something, Lloyd will usually opt to sleep on the question and then awaken the next day to announce that he's decided to do it anyway. Comparably bothersome is the way the storyline chooses to force your characters into inactivity when something preventable is occurring during a live-rendered cutscene. For example, Colette is kidnapped on more than one occasion as the storyline slowly lurches along, and almost every single time she's just grabbed by a bad guy, as Lloyd and company stare on awkwardly, then whisked away to the tune of their protests. Even more entertaining is the repeated occurrence of easily defeating a cluster of enemies, then watching as your team screams "We're outmatched! Run!" and sprints away, as the very same creatures give chase. It doesn't make any sense, it's never really explored, nor explained... I think the story would just prefer you ignore the glaring holes in what's going on and pretend it'll all be answered in the end. Which, of course, it isn't.<br /><br />Assuming you can look past the majority of the story, however, the actual practice of playing the game (beyond pressing "A" relentlessly during the speaking portions) is an extremely enjoyable ride, with plenty of innovation to go alongside the more universally applied elements. All fights occur in real-time, and more resemble a limited <em>Final Fight</em>-style beat-em-up than a standard, turn-based RPG. You're limited to four party members in the field at one time, and will be routinely facing off with as many as six enemies at once. At first glance, the system looks to be nothing more than button mashing and a little luck, but as you become more familiar with your special attacks, working in conjunction with your teammates and shifting your strategy to fit each battle, the actual depth and flexibility of the system becomes much more evident. To tell the truth, I was far from a fan of this battle system until roughly the ten hour mark, when that tiny switch flicked in the back of my brain and I finally understood the intricacies of a fight in the world of <em>Symphonia</em>. The in-game instructions aren't exactly helpful in explaining the full potential of its own mechanics, which leaves you to sort things out on your own... and actually, I preferred it that way. It's much more rewarding when you develop a particularly successful strategy and apply it than it would have been, had you merely followed instructions and begun to paint by number. <br /><br />There is no such thing as a random encounter in <em>Tales of Symphonia</em>. When exploring a dungeon, you'll see a variety of independently moving critters roaming around the map, and upon touching them you'll be launched into a full-on battle. Out on the world map, roaming from one town or dungeon to the next, the enemies are a bit more faceless, and really resemble the little silhouetted monsters that populated the overworld of <em>The Legend of Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link</em>. I'd imagine this was to give each dungeon a personality of its own, and to keep you guessing as to what you'll encounter in the wild. <br /><br />There are, basically, two types of very easy-to-identify characters for use in a battle scene: magicians and melee fighters. Casting a spell during a battle in <em>Tales of Symphonia</em> isn't as easy as it is in other RPGs and is in actuality quite a bit more strategic. Magicians lose their concentration very easily, and must stand completely still for a set amount of time while they cast for the spell to be successful. If an enemy strikes them or they move to block a foe's assault, they've got to start the casting over from the beginning. Your melee fighters are fairly run-of-the-mill. They can attack with a basic attack or a special attack, which usually consists of a lengthy string of automated physical attacks, followed by a special "cherry on top" flashy final strike. These special attacks function almost exactly like a magician's spell, in that they drain away at a character's "TP," (magic points) but don't require the lengthy period of casting that a magic spell usually necessitates. Naturally, some melee fighters can use limited magic and some magicians have somewhat notable physical attacks, but each character's designated strength is in one of those two narrow fields. Most enemies are, likewise, assigned to one of these two roles, and are suspect to the same kind of strengths and weaknesses... but the more difficult bosses usually straddle the line between the two. A good team will find a way to disrupt an enemy's spell before the casting is completed, while also keeping the opposition's melee fighters from striking its own magic-users.<br /><br />During a fight, you take direct control of only one member of your party. The rest of your crew is either casting a spell, using an item (both of which can be initiated through a well-organized battle menu that freezes time while you strategize) or following your loose instructions, which range from "all out physical assault" to "concentrate on healing allies" and are defined in the field menu before encountering an enemy. Of course, it's my belief that any battle system that involves A.I. controlled teammates is inherently flawed, as the computer routinely makes idiotic mistakes (such as dropping everything to run directly into a fiery explosion) and single-handedly changes the course of the battle in the wrong direction... however, <em>Symphonia</em> has introduced two options for those looking to avoid an all-A.I. attack of stupidity. Most likely to be utilized is the single-handed manual method, which allows players to individually direct their team members. This mode is probably the most proficient, but also results in epic, lengthy battles every single time you encounter an enemy. I found particular success with this setup, as I'd try to have two melee-centric team members and two magicians on the field, would instruct the magicians to cast a specific spell, allow the computer-controlled fighter to live and die by his own merit, do everything in my power to keep the enemy away from the magicians with the other swordsman until they could cast their spells, and then repeat. More intriguing, however, is the second option: four player multiplayer support. I can't speak to how well-done it was, since I'm not exactly overwhelmed with friends who want to gather around the TV for a six-hour marathon session with an RPG, but I've got to applaud the ingenuity all the same. I can imagine how much easier an experience it must be to merely ask your buddy to concentrate on healing, and then trust his ability to get out of the way, should an errant fireball come his way, but I didn't experience it myself and can't really comment. Role playing games aren't exactly the right genre for shared screen multiplayer, but any attempted solution to the plague of stupid computer-controlled teammates is a welcome change to these eyes. <br /><br />Once you manage to find a setup that works for your own needs, the game becomes quite a bit easier... too much so, actually. By the time they reach the later stages of this game, I'd assume almost everyone will have discovered a specific roster and strategy that all but assures them of victory, and the final bosses don't ramp up the difficulty quite enough to ensure a competitive fight. I disposed of the final series of bosses without even breaking a sweat, and felt a bit let down by the ease with which I completed things. If you're willing to go through another fifty hours of gameplay, there's a hard setting that unlocks once you finish the game for the first time, but that's a bit excessive for my tastes. I'll always have a problem with a game that features more than one secret sidequest boss that's exponentially more difficult than the final battle, and that's absolutely the case here. It feels like the game's priorities are in the wrong place, and drains a good part of the thrill that defeating a particularly difficult boss has traditionally provided, by basically telling you in no short words that you can take that final battle any time you want to.<br /><br />The controller setup works well with the way the battle system functions, and never gets in the way, even when things are at their most frenzied. Successfully using the GameCube's controller is usually just a matter of how effectively the "A" button is mapped, since it's basically the sole point of focus on the hardware, with every other button and even the analog stick playing a secondary role. Fortunately, <em>Symphonia</em> handles the button in question admirably. In a battle, it's your driving force, working in conjunction with the direction you happen to be pressing on the analog stick to begin one of your basic attacks. While enduring one of the game's lengthy speaking segments, it both increases the speed at which the text appears and acknowledges that you've finished reading that passage and are now physically and emotionally prepared to enjoy the next sentence fragment. It's basically the only button you absolutely, positively have to have. The rest of the buttons are laid out, declining in button size as they also decline in order of importance. The "B" button activates both your special attacks and your magic, depending on the type of character you're controlling. The "Y" button brings up whichever menu is appropriate for the time, the trigger buttons momentarily pause the action while you choose a primary target, and the tiny "Z" button initiates incidental conversations at seemingly random points around the map. Because if there's one thing this game needed, it was more incidental conversation. The "Z" button also initiates your party's "Combined Attack," which is indicated by a slowly-filling bar at the bottom of the screen during battle, and amounts to little more than a series of combined special maneuvers. <br /><br />One area in which the controls run into a snag is in the world map, where roaming around the land can quickly become a headache-inducing experience. The camera angles chosen for this view are typically an three quarter overhead perspective, following the player from behind and perhaps zoomed in just a little bit too close for comfort. Should the camera nudge anything above ground level, such as a cliff or small building, however, it'll shift to a godawful view, directly over your party. It'll also kindly zoom in beyond the point of any comprehension, so that you're basically seeing your lead character's scalp and a few feet in either direction around him. Naturally, this makes navigating the map extremely difficult, and usually requires some maneuvering to get back into something resembling a workable view. Inside dungeons and during battle, no such issues are evident.<br /><br />The visuals are one area in which this title really excels. Although most characters are rendered via cel shading, which is a technique I'm starting to see overused more and more, they never look forced or unnatural. Set against the beautiful, painterly appearance of the entirety of the game's backdrops and surrounding textures, the shading gives the impression of a big budget, animated motion picture. It's a truly lovely combination, and gives the title a style and look all its own. The character designs are provided by Kosuke Fukishima, well known for his work with the "Oh My Goddess!" and "You're Under Arrest" animated series, and is truly a shining point for the title. The world is filled with a unique visual flair, which is both represented and enhanced by the characters' appearances and their choice in clothing (aside from Lloyd himself, who wears a jacket that he may as well have lifted from Vash the Stampede of <em>Trigun</em> fame). The enemies are universally outstanding, and rarely fall to the RPG trend of merely recoloring a design and unleashing it as an entirely different villain. While I'd be fibbing if I said that it absolutely never happens, on the occasion that an enemy's physical characteristics are reused, enough license is taken with their appearance to justify the existence. Truly, in many instances, the newer enemy is even more visually intriguing than its predecessor. Almost every area of the game is bright, cheery and colorful, but it never really comes off as overly cheesy and childlike. Well, maybe that's a bit much... there are a few instances where I found myself wishing for a more subdued palette... but for the majority of the title, you'll be reveling in what's brought to the plate. My only real complaint lies with the notable lack of cutscenes during dramatic moments, and that's more a personal preference than anything else. From start to finish, there are three animated cutscenes in this title, and none run for longer than a minute and a half. That makes the giant shot of an animated cutscene right on the back of the case a bit misleading, and there were surely some moments that would have benefitted tremendously from a little additional visual flair. Instead, 99% of the game is live-rendered, and while this is an example of one of the GameCube's better looking titles, I really would've preferred to see a little bit more than cel shaded polygons after a big fight from time to time.<br /><br />The audio has its ups and its downs, honestly. Some of the voice acting is really top notch, such as the brooding, secretive speech of Kratos and the unintentionally snooty tone of Raine, but for every character with a quality voice, there exist two or three that are absolutely wretched. Most of the summon monsters have irritating voices, and the leading duo of Lloyd and Colette are so super-nice and cheery, I want to take after them with a rusty butcher knife and a bag of salt. Even more enraging is the decision to borrow the "post battle closing remark" from <em>Star Ocean: The Second Story</em>, which is probably one of the only problems I had with that game. Basically, after dispensing with your opposition, the character who delivered the killing blow chimes in with something cute and / or witty and the scene fades to black before returning you to the world map or dungeon... except, "cute" and "witty" are terms which don't seem to apply to the writing of this game. Such remarks wear thin extremely quickly, and only serve to increase my hatred for most of the voice acting. The music, as well, goes beyond the point of no return with the inspiration gathered from colorful nature of the graphics, and is almost entirely forgettable. If I weren't such a stickler for listening to every last moment of spoken dialog in a game, I'd have more than likely played this from start to finish with the television muted and my iPod providing the audio input.<br /><br />I really held a strong dislike for <em>Symphonia</em> for most of my first handful of hours with it, but eventually developed an inexplicable attachment to it. I knew that I didn't like anything about the story, but I still had a strange fixation with seeing everything though to the end... maybe it had something to do with a sudden grasp and understanding of the battle system, which I really fell in love with after a brief, frustrating period of discovery. Maybe I just wanted to see a definitive ending, so I knew I'd never have to endure another of those terrible lengthy conversations. I can't say for sure, but there's definitely something about the experience that changed after about a dozen hours. <br /><br />Regardless, if you're a GameCube owner and you're jonesin' for an RPG, this will fill your need adequately. The battle system is outstanding, if you've got the patience to figure it out via trial and error, and the visuals are worth a look or two, because they use the Cube's hardware fairly well. If you're also the owner of a PS2 and / or an Xbox, I've got to say there are far better titles out there in the genre. The story stinks, the characters need some serious work, and there is a LOT. OF. NEEDLESS. CONVERSATION. I'd call the entire package above average, but it's not really anything I'm going to recommend my friends go out of their way to try out.<br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 7.0</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-6111540816699025792006-03-07T13:56:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:15:04.076-07:00Project Gotham Racing 2I don't know that I'd call myself much of a racing enthusiast, even in the broadest definition of the phrase. I grew up about an hour from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the world-renowned Indianapolis 500, but never once bothered to attend a race. Maybe it's the ADD in me, but I've always had trouble sitting still for lengthy periods of time without something unique and / or interesting happening directly in front of me. The idea of sitting on a rock-hard bleacher, watching improbably loud vehicles from another world scoot past every couple of minutes, no matter how incredible the description may sound, just didn't appeal to me. It still doesn't. I don't get a rise out of the idea of watching NASCAR at home, (even a "nastiest wrecks" compilation wouldn't really interest me) I miss the allure of rally cars and I'll only watch a few minutes of a live GT race if I happen to recognize the track from my lengthy sessions with the <em>Gran Turismo</em> series. Sorry to dispel the myth that all Hoosiers are born, bred race fans, but I rest secure in the knowledge that I'm not alone. Unless, that is, I lived in a one-in-a-million patch of anti-racing households, right in the middle of the sport's supposed heartland. Another thing you'd be hard-pressed to call me is a gear head. I don't know enough about an automobile to change my own oil, and while I respect the incredible rush it must be to seat yourself behind the wheel of a monstrous Italian muscle machine, it's not near the top of my list of things to accomplish before I die. Truth be told, it doesn't even <em>make</em> the list. Some of my buddies almost froth at the mouth in anticipation when the subject of sports cars comes up, but I can't say I've ever felt any sort of unique sensation in my nether regions when in the proximity of a shiny, pricey new vehicle, so I guess that's one bit of my masculinity that arrived DOA.<br /><br />Despite all that deep-rooted disdain for almost all things automotive, however, I somehow nurtured and developed a good-sized appreciation for driving and racing video games. Actually controlling these exotic, expensive street machines on the pavement is, naturally, quite a bit more interesting than watching them blur past once every minute or two, and the opportunity to race them on challenging courses at breakneck speeds against professional opposition doesn't usually present itself if and when you're given the opportunity to physically sit behind their controls in the real world. So, enter the race-drivin' video game; all the thrills that the chosen few get to experience during their competition on the race track, sans that whole "risking life, limb and finance every time you strap in" thing. Taking a rough turn just a hair too quickly doesn't result in the loss of months of preparations and thousands of dollars, it's usually nothing more than a press of the restart button and a new beginning. <br /><br />Most games within this genre are generally very easy to divide into sub-genres; there's the straight simulation, the action-leaning cartoon / kart racer, and the arcade racer, which lands somewhere in between. <em>Project Gotham Racing 2</em> isn't exactly the textbook definition of an arcade racer. It's stuffed full of the physics, modeling, real world location selection and intense competition you'd expect to find in a simulation racer, which results in something of a sim-flavored credibility, but streamlines most of the meticulous, detail-oriented specifics that usually turn off casual gamers and anyone, really, without permanent oil stains on their fingers or a rice burner in the garage. It's a nice blend of action and practicality, without going to an extreme in either direction. This is a game that excels at delivering the sensation that you're really behind the wheel, with the force of several hundred horses behind your right foot, (or thumb, as it were) but also at keeping away from the monotony and mindless repetition that's usually associated with a race of more than one or two laps.<br /><br />Separating it from straight sims, such as Sony's <em>Gran Turismo</em> and Sega's <em>Sega GT</em> titles, is <em>PGR</em>'s heavy focus on the acquisition of "Kudo Points." The driving force behind each of the two previous chapters in the <em>Project Gotham / Metropolis</em> series, Kudos are gathered through a variety of methods, some common and everyday, others more difficult and unpredictable, and always pivot around the theme of "driving stylishly." In short, you're expected to drive an exciting race every single time you hit the track. While almost every other racer in the history of the industry concentrates exclusively on the clock and the ongoing pursuit of faster laps and more efficient driving, <em>Gotham 2</em> places a much higher emphasis on showmanship and flashy tricks. You'll gain a flat sum of Kudos for passing an opponent's car or taking a turn properly, but more elaborate maneuvers, such as drifting wildly around a curve or catching some air, reward with higher sums depending on the duration of the trick and your willingness to go on longer and longer stretches without complete control of your vehicle. If you aren't leaving behind a patch of burnt rubber and a cloud of foul-smelling smoke, <em>PGR</em> wants you to think you've done something wrong. <br /><br />The idea is to shake up the usual formula of "drive three identical laps and force the other cars into the wall if they try to get around you," and on the large, it works. Instead of enjoying a track the first few times you drive it, then giving in to brainless replication, you'll find yourself constantly challenged and interested in a course. Actually racing is a lot more fun when you can make the most of your big lead by firing off a few donuts at the finish line or allowing the back end of your car to slide well beyond the point of good reason while taking an easy turn. Since there are no true cash prizes for winning a race and your only means of unlocking newer and better models of cars are the accumulation of Kudo Points, you'll soon find yourself looking out for potential goldmines throughout the track, in addition to fighting a constant battle to capture and maintain a lead over the other drivers. The key is finding a good middle ground between a dull, straightforward race and an excessively daring, mistake-filled hunt for bigger and better tricks, since most of your opponents' cars are merely looking to win the race and couldn't care less about looking good in doing so. <br /><br />Actually racing in <em>Gotham</em> is largely very enjoyable, despite a few snags, and though it can make you almost blindingly filled with rage, there's a certain something that keeps you coming back for more, looking to improve and show the game who's boss in the end. There's a vibe you'll get from controlling one of these cars that's difficult to put into words, something that's perhaps not immediately obvious when it's there but absolutely glaring when it's missing. It's something of a sense of reality, that feeling that you're actually moving as fast as the speedometer says you are, that your car really is as powerful as it claims. It's... well, it's really cool, for lack of a better phrase. When you accelerate in one of <em>Gotham's</em> more thrust-heavy high end machines, you'll feel something pressing down right in the center of your chest... that, and just a tiny bit of adrenaline. <br /><br />As I'd hinted, however, the gameplay isn't all wine and roses. There are a few aspects that leave me scratching my head, for instance the decision for the player-controlled car to always, ALWAYS begin the race in last place, without any sort of a qualifying lap or anything. This means you're always fighting an uphill battle, working your way around the painfully slow cars that start just in front of your position while the speedy pole-sitter gets a chance to create as much distance between himself and your car as possible. Building this minor annoyance into a near-plague is the other drivers' almost ruthless dedication to team driving and headhunting. It's not something you'll notice at first, but as the races become more heated and the stakes grow higher, there's no doubting the pack mentality of the other cars on the track; they'll push you nose-first into walls, they'll speed around a turn to get in front of you and then slam on the brakes to slow you down, and they'll almost NEVER do the same thing to one another. All the while, that mysterious front car's lead grows larger and larger. It's a really tough thing to swallow, especially near the end of the race, when one kamikaze driver is all that stands between you and a glorious triumph, but it isn't something that just shows up out of nowhere. It slowly, gradually builds over time, starting with something harmless that you'll barely even notice in one of the earlier races and climaxing with something downright sinister as you reach the finale, so your game plan slowly begins to adapt around it. Sure, I'd rather it weren't an issue at all, but it's all part of the package and, like it or not, it's part of why <em>Gotham</em> stands out from <em>Turismo</em>.<br /><br />Another area in which <em>Gotham 2</em> really makes its case as a front-running title is the amazing variety of its maps and race tracks. You'll find yourself globe trotting from Moscow to Barcelona to Sydney and back, driving on tracks that vary in length from excessively minute to inexplicably long. Seriously, one course allows the driver to finish four laps in under three minutes, while another demands fifteen minutes of dedication per lap! The environments are incredibly lush and detail heavy, and each course is allowed several different racing layouts, providing endless hours of replay value on courses that look similar at a glance, but are laid out completely differently. What's more, the selection of locales lends the game an exotic, yet dignified air that furthers the illusion that this is the real deal. Driving around a dirty track in Laguna Seca just doesn't feel the same as driving against the backdrop of Moscow's onion domes or cruising under Chicago's "el" tracks.<br /><br />As with almost any other current-generation racer, <em>Gotham 2</em> provides a slim variety of gameplay modes, although the actual racing within said modes is more varied and interesting than the opening selection screen lets on. There's the single player "Kudos World Series Mode," the equivalent of other games' Career Mode, an "Arcade Mode," a simple "Time Attack" and a variety of in-person and online multiplayer modes. Speaking of which, <em>PGR2</em> really does a jaw-droppingly good job of tying the online aspect of the Xbox in to every little bit of the experience, signing you in at startup and constantly providing an analysis of your performance in comparison to the times and scores posted by the online community. It can get a little depressing to finish what you consider to be the finest race of your life, only to see your efforts ranked somewhere in the mid-900s all-time, but if anything it just goes to show you improvement is always possible. Rather than begging for an angry outburst and a near-immediate hurling of the disc across the room, <em>Gotham</em> all but invites you to download the "ghost runs" of one of the top scores for that track so you can see where on the course you need improvement, what car(s) the top racers are using, and any little secrets that might not be so obvious at first glance. It's one of the first games I've seen to make the online component such a valuable, deep contributor to the overall package, and it's an amazing glimpse at what could be just around the corner, if Microsoft sticks to its guns as far as Xbox Live and the Xbox 360 is concerned. <br /><br />In "Kudos World Series" mode, rather than giving players a course, a rundown of opposing cars and a quick "good luck," <em>Gotham</em> shakes up the status quo by not only introducing a few new (and almost entirely successful) game types, but by making them an integral part of the single player experience, to boot. As you'll progress through "World Series" mode, you'll work your way through a healthy mix of seven different spins on the traditional gameplay model. Each variation seems to emphasize one aspect of becoming a successful driver in the straightforward street races, which remain the bread and butter of individual play, and surprisingly enough, none come across as forced, unnecessary or aggravating. In addition to the aforementioned "street race," (where you'll take on a fleet of anywhere between three and seven opposing cars in races of varying length and difficulty) and the occasional "one on one" race, there's the "cone challenge," a "speed camera" challenge, the "overtake" mode, a self-explanatory "timed run" and a "hot lap" test. In a way, this variety compensates for the lack of any true training module by setting the bar fairly low in the beginning, allowing players to gain their bearings while learning the basics, and then tossing them into the fire as the difficulty ramps up near the halfway point.<br /><br />Of the different gameplay options, my absolute favorite was the Cone Challenge, which aims to teach the art of the Kudos combo. Simply enough, by fluidly moving from one Kudo-worthy trick to the next within the span of a few very short seconds, you'll not only earn the combined value of the two tricks together, but also an additional sum that climbs higher and higher as the number of chained tricks grows longer and longer. Naturally, this isn't something that can be performed with much success in the middle of a close race, but in the world of the Cone Challenge, where you're granted a small sum of Kudos for simply passing through the middle of a pair of cones (which almost fill the streets, staggered at intervals of maybe twenty or thirty feet), the possibilities are almost limitless. Naturally, there's a catch or two... wait too long between stunts and the combo is closed, forcing you to begin anew, just as the size of your Kudo stack is beginning to reach epic proportions. Chaining your tricks together is far from an exact science, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that there were a handful of times where my controller was sent airborne as a result of what I deemed to be an unnecessarily short period of time before my combo was reset. Since there's no on-screen indicator of how long you've taken between tricks and the official time restraints are never explained, it can get quite frustrating when you've built up an enormous combo and it all falls down because the Xbox determined that you passed through those cones less than a hundredth of a second too late. The other catch involves human error: touch a wall (or cone), even fleetingly so, and not only is the combo halted, but your entire bonus stash is forfeit. This can also get to be a bit hairy, since the collision detection on cones and your rear tires can be questionable at times, but you'll either learn to take this in stride or die a frustrated, furious death many years later, having never forgiven the computer for its indiscretions. The main goal of the cone challenge is, obviously, to teach drivers how to build toward bigger and bigger Kudo stacks during the real races, but with the luxury of three or four dozen "cone gates" to breach on your side, the Cone Challenges themselves quickly become the biggest moneymaking races of the entire "World Series Mode." They're extremely challenging, make no mistake about it, but they're also highly rewarding should lady luck smile upon you one afternoon and allow for a flawless run.<br /><br />While the occasional "Cone Challenge" spotlights the glamour of driving with style and precision, the "Speed Camera" challenges place a lot of emphasis on great cornering and knowing when to punch the gas to the floor. Each speed camera track is extremely short, usually nothing more than a turn or two and a pair of straightaways, but the goal isn't to finish in record time, it's to cross the finish line at or above a specific speed. The lesson is that while taking a turn one way may get you through to the open road a fraction of a second faster, approaching it with consistent speed in mind will always win out in the end, as your car reaches faster speeds down the straightaway and makes up for lost time and then some. Each "Speed Camera" race is extremely difficult, with the required speed almost always just one or two MPH away from the speed you're most likely to achieve, and while your rewards don't show up in the form of immediate Kudo points, the end result is a constantly improved performance while cornering in the Street Races a little further on. <br /><br />Following the previous challenges, which focus almost exclusively on improving your performance as an individual, the refreshing "Overtake" mode aims to teach the art of passing a much slower opponent without needlessly killing your own momentum and, as a result, missing a chance to pass the lead car before the end of the race. You're given a time limit and a set number of cars to catch and pass before the clock reaches zero, placed at the start / finish line, and given the task of catching up to your opponents who are staggered throughout the course, some with as much as a full minute's head start. Naturally, the lessons you've learned in the previous challenges are put to the test here, as great cornering is essential and the overall goal is still the accumulation of as many Kudo points as possible, but you're also learning how to use other cars to aid your own driving and beginning to understand how to pass an aggressive prick who just won't quit blocking your path. And, as I mentioned earlier on, that's a situation that's not entirely uncommon in the street races.<br /><br />Finally, the aptly named "Timed Run" and "Hot Lap" challenges are similar to the "Overtake" mode, as you're using all of what you've learned in past challenges together in the hunt for more Kudos and more efficient driving, but in these rare instances, the almighty Kudo isn't nearly as important as the tireless countdown of the clock. The only real difference between these two challenges is the number of laps involved, as a "Timed Run" involves completing two or more laps within the provided time limit, where a "Hot Lap" is a one-shot deal. Either you beat the posted one-lap time or you try again. I found the "Timed Runs" to be somewhat easy, as there's a small margin of error built in that can be easily taken advantage of, especially on tracks featuring more than two laps, but the "Hot Lap" is constantly difficult since it lacks that extra bit of padding and demands immediate perfection.<br /><br />The multiplayer aspect of the game is a nice addition, if occasionally underdeveloped, but should never be mistaken for the star of the show. For starts, there's no support for more than two players in the in-person multiplayer mode. Now, admittedly, four player split-screen could get to be a bit much considering the number of independently moving objects in the field and the number of gauges each player would need to see within their tiny piece of visual real estate, but a two player challenge just feels lacking in its absence. The online multiplayer, fortunately, allows for more than straightforward head-to-head matches, but could have done with a little more thought when all is said and done. You're afforded a completely separate stack of Kudos for online play, which can't be redeemed for rewards in the single player mode and as such have no real purpose aside from online bragging rights. I guess that in and of itself is reward enough for much of the game's hardcore audience, but as a casual racing fan it didn't seem all that substantial to me. Additionally, the actual system of joining a race online is a tedious, boring affair. You'll find a room with slots available for more racers, find that a race is more than likely already in progress, and then find yourself relegated to observing the remainder of the race from a stale, overhead map with tiny colored squares to indicate the location of each car. There's no fly-by observation mode, or really any kind of visual flair in the slightest. If you have the misfortune of attempting to join an excessively lengthy race just after it's started, your options are either to stare vacantly at the screen for upwards of ten minutes or drop out of the room and look for another race. The latter option isn't even a good solution, as the game's age is starting to affect its online popularity, and available opponents are becoming more and more difficult to track down. Once you gain entry to a race and start driving, the rules favor the quick and all but spit upon the slow. Once the lead car finishes the race, the other drivers get thirty seconds to wrap up their final laps before the whole party is dumped back into the lobby. It's almost not even worth the hassle if you haven't gone through the entire single player game and unlocked every single car, since that's exactly what you'll be racing against every time you test the waters of online competition. And, as if that weren't enough, nine times out of ten you'll find yourself disconnected from the server after finally participating in and finishing a single race. Or maybe I just kept getting booted in an act of spontaneous hostly spite at precisely the moment the next race was set to begin, however (un)likely that may be. In short, the multiplayer mode is quite weak and borderline unfinished, which stands in sharp contrast to the polished, beautiful nature of the single player game it accompanies. Very disappointing, and something that brought my opinion of the game down a notch or two.<br /><br />Controls are, by default, mapped to a layout that all fans of the genre should be familiar with; the right trigger presses the gas, the left trigger handles the brakes. While I had traditionally preferred the D-Pad for racing, the sensitivities of the Xbox's analog controller, (not to mention the game's specific programming with that analog stick in mind) along with the horrible impracticality of the system's sculpted D-Pad, made the transition an easy one for me here. I can't imagine controlling this game with anything other than that analog stick, it just feels right. The controller's face buttons are used somewhat frequently, with the A button controlling both the handbrake and your hopes of landing a huge stash of Kudos in a single, glorious moment of carelessness. The X and B buttons handle the transmission, if you're a fan of going the manual route (personally, I had enough to worry about without taking regular up and down shifting into consideration) and the Y button switches to a rear view when held. The black and white buttons are employed solely for camera control (<em>Gotham</em>features half a dozen different angles, but I had trouble with anything but the standard behind-the-vehicle angle) while the right analog enables a quick, free-roaming camera that returns to its default position when released. If you're feeling froggy, the back button blows the horn... which led to hours of amusement while I waited for the race to begin. There's no denying it; this configuration was as tightly monitored, tuned and perfected as the high-performance cars it's meant to control. It does what it needs to do with precision, and doesn't try to needlessly reinvent the wheel. I can't say anything bad about it.<br /><br />And if you thought that was a particularly glowing review of the control setup, don't even get me started on the graphics. Even today, three years after its release, it's the cream of the crop on the original Xbox. The amount of work that went into every visual aspect of this game is obvious from the very first moment you boot up. Everything from the menus to the surroundings to, obviously, the vehicles themselves is unspeakably gorgeous. It's a shame the HD output is limited to 480p, because I can't even imagine the kind of impact this would've had at 720p or 1080i. The little touches are what grabbed me the most: they didn't have to include that flock of birds, flying ignorantly over the roads, or that enormous, spindly ferris wheel off in the distance, but they did, and they take unprecedented steps toward furthering the illusion that you're actually there, in person, participating in these races. Not only will you feel the difference in the texture of the roads in Europe vs. North America thanks to the excellent implementation of the controller's built-in vibration, you'll see it in exquisite detail. Jumping from a cobblestone road to a smooth stretch of asphalt doesn't seem awkward, seamed or forced... it just is. In fact, nothing about this game's visuals seem to underachieve, even areas that have provided nightmares in other games. The glares and reflections off your car's exterior, which could've very easily been tacky and overdone, seem just right. My sole complaint is that the dynamic lighting is sometimes too realistic, as it occasionally grows difficult to see where you're going when racing among the long, dark shadows of a dusk-time race. <em>PGR2</em> is just a gorgeous bit of digitized visual realization, something that set the bar way too high for any competition to even hope to match.<br /><br />Where the video is almost unmatched by anything else in its respective generation, the audio is somewhat lacking. Sure, the squeals of tires on highway are spot-on, the angry growl of an opponent's engine still shouts loudly enough to realize when the opposition is gaining on you, but the accompanying musical tracks are fairly generic and unmotivated. Fortunately, this flaw is somewhat corrected through the simple step of allowing custom soundtracks to be introduced in the middle of the race. The in-game radio stations had made an effort to further the feeling of immersion, as each city has its own unique voice and musical accompaniment, so switching over to your custom tracks serves to immediately take out that feeling of relocation. As I said, though, even if the intentions were interesting in doing so, the end product was sub par. Not a great showing in the audio department, but not a totally poor one, either. As long as I've got that custom soundtrack option, an absolute necessity in racing titles, where long races have traditionally meant long loops of the same tracks over and over and over again, I can't complain too loudly.<br /><br />In summary... well, I'll say this in no uncertain terms; this game is a hell of a lot of fun. The controls are simple, easy to comprehend and staggeringly effortless to pick up on. The courses, set in landmark cities throughout North America, Europe and Asia, are challenging and varied without completely throwing the player for a loop every time they load a new track. The incline of opposition is steep, progressing upwards from relatively simple-minded Sunday drivers to blood-hungry maniacs who know exactly what they want and precisely how to get it. Even the gameplay, which is largely relegated to simple "race against the computer or race against your friends" in other titles, gets a breath of life here, in the form of half a dozen different modes of play. It lacks the fine, fine details of tuning a racing auto to perfection, but seeing as how I'm not all that intrigued by that aspect of the business as it is, I didn't miss those options one bit. If the multiplayer mode had been just a little more well-developed, I'd be giving this one a rating well into the nines, but as it is right now it's still far above average. It's definitely worth adding to your collection if you have even the slightest interest in driving a car around a track at insane speeds, and remains one of the most visually stimulating experiences I've enjoyed in gaming.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 8.5</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-52032616327016357652006-01-06T20:36:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:14:55.626-07:00Bad DudesI vividly remember the long wait for this one's release. Originally sent to the US as a stand-up arcade game, dubbed Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja, this little puppy swallowed far too many of my youthful quarters as I attempted in vain to save our beloved president from the evil hands of... uh... left-leaning ninja assassins. The seemingly endless pause between the arcade version and the home console release was almost too much for me, especially considering I had no idea if it actually was coming to a home platform near me. Alas, the day did come when my middle school chum, Chris, managed to snag a copy and the two of us sat down to kick a little masked assassinass.<br /><br />We were pleased to see each of the arcade machine's levels were faithfully reproduced, and in a day and age when graphics were the primary concern, (for me, at least... "gameplay"? What the hell was that?) I was immediately appeased. Though the blocky 8-bit chunks weren't an exact duplication of the buff, sweaty, black-wife-beater-adorned heroes of the quarter-muncher, they at least looked somewhat similar to the men I remembered from the arcade. The guy at the end of the first level still had bright red pants, and each of the ninjas had remembered to color-code their attire to match their choice in weaponry--that was all I needed to give it a thumbs up.<br /><br />Now that I've gone back, some ten years later, to play the little cart that saved me from a lifetime in a bowling alley arcade room, I'm a little bit less impressed. Time has not been kind to our Bad Dudes, I'm afraid.<br /><br />Our little gem has two levels upon which to fight the ninja hordes which descend upon you mercilessly: a street-level and a 'balancing on top of a fence' level. As a seriously bad dude, you can jump between the platforms at your own leisure, frightening the blue men that were in the process of charging you and providing means for a quick escape. Unfortunately, this feature only seemed to work when the dudes felt up to it. Occasionally I'd attempt to escape assault by jumping to the top of the fence, only to watch my little man offer a halfhearted skip, directly into the enemy's punches. No matter.<br /><br />The difficulty's a little high, and the cheap hits are a-plenty. There's a level on the roof of a speeding tractor trailer, providing means to an easy suicide if you choose to take the plunge down to the street-level, although the dudes do their best to keep up on foot until they meet the crushing force of the left side of the screen. Bless their hearts, that's gotta be worth something.<br /><br />Oh yeah, and I'd hate myself if I didn't mention how absolutely, mind-bendingly awful the audio in this game is. Seriously. Go scrape a full set of forks, knives and spoons against the edge of a rusty sign for about half an hour. It's probably a more enjoyable audio experience. It's unbelievably funny listening to the NES audio hardware strain and struggle as it attempts to broadcast the trademark "I'm BAD" voice-over that accompanied the end of every stage in the arcade version.<br /><br />I grew tired with this one within about 5 minutes, as that's about how long it took me to lose my first collection of three lives. I went back and MAME'd the original arcade machine, just for completion's sake, and breezed through it on the buoy of an unlimited supply of free "quarters." It wasn't much better.<br /><br />Decent.. nothing more, nothing less.<br /><br /><div align="center">On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><strong><u>Overall Score:</u> 4.7</div></strong>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-34005629806294041622006-01-06T06:17:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:14:49.155-07:00R.C. Pro-AmI'll put this bluntly; anyone who grew up in the late '80s without any exposure to this game was severely impaired. Now, by impaired I don't mean handicapped, disabled or any of the other politically correct terms that might have become associated with the word in the years since... I mean they weren't given the same chance as the rest of us. They weren't given the proper boundaries within which to grow, the tools to make something of themselves. This game is that good.<br /><br />Well, perhaps I'm exaggerating a tad. <em>RC Pro-Am</em> was the stuff of legend only days after its initial release. The formula was simple enough to understand right out of the box: race RC (radio controlled) cars around, avoiding oil slicks, puddles and the occasional roaming thunderstorm (!) and arrive at the finish line first. It was easy. Perhaps a little too easy. By the time you'd arrived at track number two, this friendly little race had thrown aside the kid gloves and assumed a much more disturbingly serious guise. Those friendly little RC cars could suddenly fire missles, they could lay bombs... if you snagged the right powerup, you could even send your opponents sailing into the walls with nothing more than a nudge. What was once a jog in the park was now a hustle through the minefield. The jolly blue and yellow computer-controlled drivers were suddenly packing heat and out for blood.<br /><br />Naturally, this violent streak was the real selling point, and it called out the similarly vicious child audience in drones. If you think about it, the children of the '80s thrived on destruction. They saw GI Joe and Optimus Prime vanquishing their foes with lasers every weekday, and ran right out to attempt the same resolution to their own everyday problems. Toys were manhandled. Sisters were bruised. Army men were mutilated by the amplified rays of the sun. So, naturally, everybody seemingly jumped at the opportunity to drive these helpless computer-driven vehicles off of the road, laughing all the way to the victory lane... and I'm sure more than a handful had hoped to do the same to their friends. Unfortunately, it just wasn't meant to be... the developers at Rare, ltd. couldn't get a worthwhile head-to-head mode off the ground and the original <em>Pro-Am</em> shipped as a single player-only affair. A real loss, and one of only two major downfalls I can find in this game... the other being the sound.<br /><br />Now I'm sure many of you can recall the themes to <em>Metroid</em>, <em>Super Mario Brothers</em> or <em>the Legend of Zelda</em> on cue. Some of you are humming them right this very moment, cursing my name for even mentioning them. Such is the result of a youth spent entirely before the television. I can guarantee you, nobody in America remembers the in-game music to <em>RC Pro-Am</em>. That's because there was no music, only the ongoing monotonous drone of the engines. Sure, once the discovery was made that the alternate button blew the horn, a new tone was added to the cart's deep repertoire of gaming melody, but that just wasn't quite enough for me.<br /><br />Otherwise, the game's stupendous. Great handling, more than enough challenge for older players but easy enough for the lil' ones (and parents, I guess) and an addictively simple premise. If it weren't for <em>Pro-Am</em>, it gets a little tougher to imagine developers taking a risk with future titles like <em>Super Off-Road</em>, <em>Cruisin' USA</em> and <em>Twisted Metal</em>. If you've still got this one laying around from your youth, count yourself lucky... if not, do what I did. Nab it at a flea market for a couple bucks. Strongly recommended.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 8.6</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-72646703111511659502006-01-06T06:16:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:14:43.408-07:00NFL Blitz<em>NFL Blitz</em> is about as strong a definition for the Midway style of gaming as you'll ever see. After redefining themselves with the classic arcade series <em>Mortal Kombat</em> and cutting their teeth in the sports genre with <em>NBA Jam</em>, the renowned developer aimed to combine elements of the two on a twisted version of the gridiron. <em>NFL Blitz</em> is not a simulation game, of that there can be no doubt. In fact, the name of the game here isn't really PLAYING football, so much as it is doing all the things you've wanted to do in other sports titles, but couldn't for fear of a hefty penalty. Everyone who's ever given up a touchdown knows the kind of white-hot anger that courses through your veins immediately afterward. This game not only embraces that fury, it encourages it.<br /><br />Several variations of <em>NFL Blitz</em> have come and gone over the years, but as with any ongoing franchise, no sequel can ever recapture the freshness and excitement of the original. Funny, then, that Blitz itself is really a sort of delayed sequel to <em>High Impact Football</em>, Midway's 1990 arcade game utilizing the same premise. Rather than merely converting the same system and implementing newer graphics, however, Blitz took High Impact's basic concept and built an entirely new game around it. You're still hitting hard, fast and late, but you're having a more enjoyable time while doing so.<br /><br />As I alluded to earlier, Blitz is a very easy game to understand. It's football stripped to its very core, a game without penalties. If you understand how American Football is played, this should be cake. But, where other sports titles concentrate solely on the strategy of the sport in question, Blitz throws that out the window and focuses on the game's inherent violent nature. The goal is still to get the ball into the other team's end zone, but there's also a great encouragement to hit the ballcarrier as often as possible after the play, before heading back to the huddle. Just because you can.<br /><br />Due to the enormous nature of most of the game's plays, first down requirements have been extended to thirty yards. It's something that might seem like a major change when seen in print, but in actuality is almost a necessity. The realism is skewed in this game to match the changes made in the rulebook, a ten yard pickup in Blitz is about the equivalent of a three yard gain in any other game. <br /><br />On the whole, this is an extraordinarily fun game to play. The very style of it SCREAMS arcade, and it's an intense ride from start to finish with very little time to breathe between plays. Hints of the Midway sense of humor abound in <em>NFL Blitz</em>, from the calls of the announcer to the various codes which can be implemented while the game loads. Last night, for example, I played as a team of headless Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The game plays best as a two player face off, but functions very well as a one player hunt for glory as well. No matter what portion of the game you're occupying, rest assured there's a timer counting down somewhere. Even when selecting plays, a red clock quickly ticks down from ten. It adds a manic feel that further drives home the spontaneous nature of the game.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the game's sense of fair play doesn't even appear to be turned on. For perhaps the first quarter of the game, both teams play on an even field. If you're good, you can jump out to a quick twenty point advantage within the first two minutes. Once you've passed that point, the game slants the difficulty exponentially, handicapping one player while making things much, much easier on the other. While this is a relatively cool way of keeping things fair when playing a less experienced friend, it gets completely out of hand when playing the computer. It's gotten to the point where every time I'm on offense, I'll either fumble or throw an interception. Even when I hit my wide receiver in the numbers with no coverage, the game will find a way to force an interception. Your offensive linemen generally provide next to no coverage after the first half, if you're doing well, and every receiver has several men covering his pattern. I haven't counted, but I'd be surprised if the CPU hasn't snuck an extra couple guys onto the field. It's incredibly frustrating to look at the stats at the end of regulation, only to discover the computer threw one interception all game, but managed to recover three fumbles and five interceptions of its own. Maybe I could pass this off as a fluke if it didn't happen with such regularity. <br /><br />There are two single player modes, "Arcade Mode" and "Season Mode," and a special "Tournament Mode" for big gatherings of players. Arcade mode is identical to the system first presented in NBA Jam. You enter your initials (which can now include up to six letters) and a four digit code, and the game will track your individual stats for you throughout your career. This is something that's really fun when sharing your Playstation with several friends / roommates / neighbors, as it'll rank your stats against one another, keeping hall of fame records for as long as you've got your memory card. I threw in my copy of Blitz last week, only to discover that I'd managed 29 sacks in one game three years ago, that I'd played 149 games in the past. Blitz was a popular pastime in the halls of my college dorms, and it was really cool to see everybody's name preserved on my card, years later. In single player, the goal of arcade mode is to defeat every NFL team in existence, while the multiplayer goal is to merely defeat one another.<br /><br />The single player only "Season Mode" and multiplayer only "Tournament Mode" are exactly as they sound. Season mode carries you through a regular NFL season, complete with off weeks, playoffs and the Super Bowl. As you do better and better, the competition becomes stiffer and stiffer until you reach the big championship game, which I found to be nearly impossible. Tournament mode, meanwhile, serves to eliminate the paperwork from organizing a small scale Blitz tournament amongst friends. <br /><br />The game suffers somewhat from the Playstation controller's design. While I've long considered Sony's consistent PSX / PS2 control to be one of the best of all time, it's not entirely appropriate for Blitz. The lack of analog support hurts, both psychologically and physically. Due to the sheer amount of sudden direction changes necessary with any sports title, blisters start to show up after a couple hours of hard play when limited to the D-Pad. Just typing this up, it's been nearly 24 hours since I last played and I can still feel the impression of a PS-style pad on my left thumb. And this is coming from a guy who's played games religiously for upwards of eighteen years. If I don't have calluses strong enough to take this kind of punishment, nobody does.<br /><br />In addition, <em>NFL Blitz</em> suffers from an outrageously poor passing system. Instead of utilizing the L and R buttons or any of the other buttons accessible with the right thumb to choose receivers, Blitz has you picking the ball's destination with the D-Pad itself. That's right, you're using the same pad to carefully select a wide receiver as you are to evade the defensive line. The end result is constantly misthrown passes and immediate frustration. If you've got a man open in the endzone but need to avoid a sack to get rid of the ball, it's tough luck... the guy on the left or the right is getting the pass, because you've got to avoid a tackle. Looking for a quick pitch to the running back? Half the time you'll throw the ball into a lineman's chest instead. <br /><br />In terms of graphics, the game is really starting to show its age. The polygons that make up the players are overly simple, yet still very ragged. The cinemas players can unlock as a sort of "reward" for solid play are almost insultingly bad. There's no question when Blitz was released; developers hadn't yet realized the full capability of the Psone, and as such were releasing games that are today leaps and bounds behind the system's abilities. Midway was trying really hard to make those cheerleaders sexy, but lined up next to the girls of Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball, they look more like something that fell out of the ugly tree and hit each and every branch on the way down. Now that I mention it, these girls are nasty, even compared to the princess in the original <em>Super Mario Bros.</em> Now THAT should be saying something.<br /><br />The players themselves are animated very nicely, with some hits resulting in a visual cringe every time. There's a hint of professional wrestling in this game, with players occasionally choosing to powerbomb their opponents or drop a Hulk Hogan legdrop after the play. You'll high step when you get close to the end zone (sometimes without merit, as defenders are breathing down your neck), and celebrate like a moron if and when you get there. Occasionally your teammates will do something stupid, like stop the ballcarrier in his tracks, only to lift him up above their heads and throw him across the first down marker. Such instances are spread pretty universally, though, and it's accepted as "just part of the game."<br /><br />The audio is acceptable for a Playstation title, with the heavy drums, proud horns and dark rock sound that accompanies every television broadcast of American Football. Crowd noise isn't anything to get up in arms about, and the announcer doesn't repeat himself TOO often. It can get comical at times, as his phrases seem to be chosen at random; I've heard him tell me it "looks like a running play," with my quarterback in shotgun formation and three wide receivers. Likewise, the wrong sound clip will come up occasionally, telling you a two point conversion attempt was unsuccessful when it obviously was. For the most part, though, the audio matches the mood of the game very well.<br /><br />Blitz is a very unique concept, one that's wholly appropriate and called for considering the target audience. It satisfies the most basic instinct of anyone interested in American Pro Football, and strips the sport down to its bare essentials to ease the transition for anyone who doesn't know the first thing about it. It's remarkable fun, especially in multiplayer, but really kills itself with unnecessary spikes in the level of difficulty. That, paired with below average graphics and a terrible passing system pull the game back down to the bottom of the NFL heap. It had a chance to be completely revolutionary, but lost out in the end because of a few stupid calls in production.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 6.25</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-31695041689060766522006-01-06T06:11:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:14:36.510-07:00NARCAll right, I was a big fan of this one in the arcades. Whenever my folks and I would take that big trip to local Castleton and the shopping mall contained therein, almost every one of my quarters seemed to find its way into the <em>NARC</em> machine at the back of the arcade. How could one not love a game that allowed players to obliterate their enemies with point-blank rocket launcher shots, steal Porsches and dodge giant, festively colored hallucinogenic needles... all in the name of the law? In arcades, this one was beauty. It had a strong two-player mode, superb graphics, an interesting artistic direction and a silly-but-intriguing plotline. And, of course, the rocket thing was just gorgeous. Unfortunately, the 8-bit translation leaves a lot to be desired.<br /><br />The gameplay is horrible, for starters. This was one area where the arcade game admittedly lagged, as well, with the strong graphics and unusually high level of gore (again, those rockets... you'd seriously have to dodge a rainfall of flaming limbs after gleefully pulling the trigger) making up for it in spades, at least in my adolescent eyes. Instead of making the obvious graphics sacrifice in exchange for an improved control scheme, Acclaim just said "fuck it" and poisoned them both. Maybe they were hoping to ride on the "Just Say No" wave alone. Instead of offering both a jump button and a fire button, which would seem to make the most sense, we're awarded with a fire button and a completely unnecessary "crouch" button. If you want to jump, you'll have to tap the "crouch" button twice rapidly and pray the NES doesn't think you just want to duck two times in a row. Where leaping into the air may have helped your little blue man in his effort to dodge the hundreds of oncoming pixels that spelled his eventual doom, the provided "crouch" button only serves to simulate random sexual favors, while the recipients fire away in unbridled joy at the top of your head. Good for a laugh once, but not something I'd like to see more than three or four times in a row.<br /><br />Aside from the terribly translated graphics, unimproved control and thoughtless soundtrack, NARC did offer one saving grace; a two player mode. This added a whole new element to the game, as both players would get do their best to avoid playing the role of "human shield" for their partner any longer than necessary.. and I suppose it made the game a bit easier, as well. If anybody still rented NES games, I'd suggest this for a rental, if just to relive those old missle launching memories. As is, I'd recommend you avoid it as though it carried a skin-eating bacteria. <br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 2.7</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-77549813831307343712005-12-29T13:55:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:14:29.225-07:00Sega GT 2002I guess I've been in something of a racing mood over the last few months. For what must've been most of the fall, I spent the majority of my spare moments in front of Bizarre Studios' excellent <em>Project Gotham Racing 2</em> for the Xbox, which I found to be a solid combination of strict simulation and overly flashy street racing. Perhaps it was for direct comparison's sake, then, that upon completing that classic, I was moved to immediately jump over to another Xbox racer. And it must've been fate that <em>Sega GT 2002</em> was sitting right there on my shelf, barely touched since the day I pulled it out of the box alongside my original Xbox, those few short years ago. It isn't often that I'm so overwhelmed by a game that I'm actually compelled to try out its direct competition in the hopes that they, too, will surprise me with a similarly brilliant end product, and it's even less often that said competitor actually meets and / or surpasses those expectations. <em>GT 2002</em> didn't break that latter trend. I don't know that it's fair to even begin to compare this game to <em>Gotham 2</em>, the experiences are so completely different, the products such worlds apart. <br /><br />I know that doesn't bode well for where this review is headed, and honestly it really shouldn't. I won't sugar-coat your expectations here; this game is bad. It's almost worse than bad, and it's no wonder Sega had to resort to giving copies of it away with the Xbox in the winter of '02 just to clear out a few warehouses. It simply wouldn't move on its own, the entire package is so shoddy and second rate. Word tends to get out fairly quickly about next-generation games of this quality, but if it's bundled with the system, well, that's a different story. Your expectations for a pack-in game are already a little bit lower than they would have been if you'd spent an extra fifty dollars on it, but even with those downgraded standards I can't fathom how word about this game's ugliness didn't quite reach me before that fateful day when I finally decided to give it a shot. It's so bad, I'm surprised I didn't notice a foul odor coming from the clam shell. Well, maybe that's a little harsh... it's not all darkness and grit for <em>GT 2k2</em>, more like a really, really dark shade of grey with a few fleeting glimmers of hope and promise thrown in just as you begin to think all hope is lost. But look at me, getting ahead of myself already. Let's take a look at the specifics.<br /><br />Actually taking a seat in front of this beast is a completely different experience than almost any other racing title, and does quite a good job of showing you just how far the genre has come over the last couple generations by playing the role of everything outdated and mothball-ridden. Where the average racer performs well at delivering the sensation of control, the feel of horsepower underneath your thumb and a fair idea of how most cars respond to such insane acceleration, <em>Sega GT</em> accomplishes none of these. Its use of vibration, an oft-overlooked key component of the experience, is slim at best and often amounts to nothing more than a quiet stir, should you happen to drive over a huge patch of rocks. Acceleration feels more like a ride on the ferris wheel than a moment behind the wheel of a earthbound rocket ship, as your car will join four or five others in ever-so-gently building their way up from a standstill to a moderate speed. It's like jumping into the body of a sixty year old woman, mildly confused behind the wheel of her Lincoln Continental, and racing against similarly-maligned spirits in one of the most anticlimactic experiences I've ever put myself through. Turning is a slow, arduous process and more closely resembles a series of soft, graceful slides on a toboggan than precision cornering. I'd assume that the idea there was to emphasize a rally-style drift racing not unlike that of Microsoft's <em>Rallysport Challenge</em> or Sega's own <em>Outrun 2</em>, since that seems to be one of the developer's ongoing obsessions, but it really doesn't work right in this instance and the quality suffers because of it. The overall physics of <em>GT 2002</em> have some issues, especially as far as collision detections and responses are concerned. While it's not something I do often (no, really!) the ability to completely screw an opponent's chances with a well-placed nudge are a tremendous last-gasp weapon that often serves to hinder just as much as it helps in other games throughout the genre. Rather than dealing with that by improving the computer intelligence or penalizing the driver, <em>Sega GT</em> just seems to ignore it altogether. Ramming into the side of an opponent's car at top speed only really serves to push him a foot or two to the side and initiate a bit of mild damage to your own asphalt warrior. It's like bumper cars, softly, painlessly pushing but never affecting traction or anything remotely real-world about the situation. Opponents' cars don't give the first hint of losing control, nor does your own vehicle, while something as simple as brushing up against a wall occasionally seems to trigger some sort of a magnet on your grill, resulting in an enraging uninitiated turn face-first into the barricade and a slow halt as your enemies speed by. <br /><br />Racing against "live" computer-controlled competition can be challenging, although that's largely because you'll always start a race in the last position and the opposing cars are usually more powerful than your own. Even though it lacks the obnoxious "kill the human" pack-hunt attitude of <em>Project Gotham 2</em>, the A.I. generally leaves a lot to be desired. It took me all of ten minutes to realize that the opposing drivers are easily-intimidated cowards, and rather than risking an accident by driving directly up your ass, they'll often let off the accelerator and give you a few extra milliseconds of padding. CPU drivers <b>always</b> seem to take their turns at half speed, and mysteriously make up the time with a sudden burst of unfathomable speed on the straightaway. Or so it seems... again, that could be the constantly vast difference in the quality of their cars versus my own. They're cautious to the point that it's almost laughable. Not that they need to be... although player-controlled cars bend to the will of an bar graph styled on-screen damage meter, (no visual damage ever shows up on your cars) the computer's drivers seem to have no such problem. The doling out of punishment with said meter is stern but fair: grazing the edge of a nearby car will result in a tiny deterioration, while ramming head-on into a wall results in a huge dip on the deathometer. Although it's disappointing that ongoing visible damage wasn't possible, it's not really on the list of my biggest gripes with this one. After the race, your winnings are reduced, depending on how banged up your car is and how much those repairs will set you back. That works for me.<br /><br />One unique, surprisingly cool add-on to most of <em>GT 2k2</em>'s races is the inclusion of a post-race replay editor and photo system. In action, this is a nice shift from the norm, allowing players to slice and dice the best video angles of all of their past racetrack exploits, saving them to the Box's internal HDD to show off to friends later, or to revisit with a bag of popcorn, lonely and afraid on a Friday night. Whatever suits your fancy. The photo editor is, likewise, something that sounds completely stupid at first but is, in actuality, extremely cool in action. After an important race on one of the career mode's circuits, the game will automatically jump right into a replay of your efforts, but rather than sitting back as a mere spectator, you're given the ability to change angles, zoom and capture up to six different in-action shots. After you've used up all of your film, you're taken to a screen to review the shots and select your favorite of the bunch, which is then displayed on the wall of your in-game garage, right above the trophy case. It's a fresh way of giving the player a sense of personal accomplishment, visually identifying your achievements with the actual act of achieving them, and is one of the few aspects of the game that's an unbridled success.<br /><br /><em>Sega GT 2002</em>'s variety of differing modes for game play are conspicuously similar to those of Sony's <em>Gran Turismo</em> series; you've got a straight "day in the life of" career simulation, the standard "try to beat my best time" so-called arcade setup, a head-to-head competitive racer with support for a maximum of two players, and a mildly interesting storyline option dubbed "chronicle mode." Even at first glance, the B-studio nature of this production begins to take hold. Following a visually solid introductory movie that seems to set the stage for bigger and better things, you'll find yourself staring at a main menu that looks chillingly like a default template from one of those corny "make your own DVD" software packages you'll find littering the shelves at the nearest Best Buy. It seriously looks like the programmers had wrapped the game up, sent it off for production, and then realized they completely forgot to pack in a menu system. It's a weekend rush job, if that. It's also not the first time you'll find yourself surprised that a supposedly-renowned developer like Sega could shovel out such a dingy display of effort.<br /><br />The career mode, officially titled "Sega GT Mode," certainly aspires to be a <em>Gran Turismo</em> killer, but opts for a more straightforward, linear path in contrast to <em>Turismo</em>'s famous free-form career progression. Sure, you start in the same place: a couple thousand dollars in your pocket, a dream, a knack for the track and endless amounts of free time to dedicate to your craft. The similarities, however, really end once you've chosen a bottom-of-the-line car with which to begin your journey and actually start to take part in a few races. In Polyphony's PS2 pack-leader, you'll first learn the basics in a stern series of license tests designed to function as a quick-and-dirty introduction to the basics in racing dynamics, as well as to the game's button configurations. Once you've gained your first license, you'll climb out into the world to try your luck and find yourself immediately overwhelmed and astonished by the humongous amount of possibilities, options and locations. It's amazingly similar to actually climbing into a wide-open global racing scene (or so I'd assume) and the process of trying to decide which race you'll try your luck in first is a truly monumental task. The staggering scale of <em>Gran Turismo</em>'s world and that game's amazing ability to project a feeling of awe directly onto the player is a big part of what makes it so highly respected, so iconic among gamers. In the world of <em>GT 2002</em>, you'll buy your starter car, perhaps spend a few minutes tuning and improving its performance, and head out into a world filled with... wait for it... a stiflingly narrow career path and <b>maybe</b> one or two choices to make along the way. You won't even take your first "license test" until you're already three races into your career (how, exactly, does someone race professionally without a license?) and the tests themselves are as bargain-basement as they come. Instead of slowly working your way through each important aspect of racing a high-performance automobile, (showing the judges that you know how to accurately brake, to turn without nipping some off-turf terrain, to pass without ramming your opposition into a stationary object) you drive a game-specified car around a game-specified track for one lap. That's it! If you don't finish with a time that the judges deem to be acceptable, you fail. For the purposes of license testing, your standard race-time damage meter is temporarily replaced with a strange sort of "failure meter," which quickly drains if you nudge a wall, allow your wheels to leave the track at any point, perform a power slide around a corner or potentially turn your head the wrong way. If the meter hits empty, you guessed it, the test is over and you automatically fail. So, in addition to timing you on your run, the judges also expect you to drive like a grizzled veteran along the way, which is cute because there's no sort of training module to introduce you to the title's flipped-out physics engine. Hope you like flying blind, because Sega is here to dispense the blindfolds.<br /><br /><em>GT</em>'s career mode also includes a set of different options for the racing enthusiast interested in souping up and improving the performance of his or her chosen vehicle: the standard parts shop and the used parts shop. You'll find most every standard option here; weight reductions, new suspension, turbo charging, new tires, racing brake sets... the works. Buying from the standard parts shop may cost a little more than buying them used, but the catch is that once used, these upgrades slowly deteriorate in quality until they're almost completely useless. Yep, there's no such thing as a completely maxed-out car in this game, because if you've raced it then it needs a tune up and a few new parts. Needless to say, I found this aspect of the process a bit unnecessary and nit-picky. There are just some things that don't need to be simulated, and the constant deterioration of upgrades to your car is one of those things. It isn't enjoyable, it doesn't make me feel like I'm any closer to the real deal, it's just a hassle and an obnoxious necessity of life in <em>GT 2k2</em>'s little world. Really, it reminded me of the wear your weapons take in the PS2 RPG <em>Dark Cloud</em>, in that it's something that is introduced to the game for the sole purpose of aggravating the player. If it doesn't need to be there and it's got no eventual reward, take it out. I don't think anyone will be missing it. Aside from parts, the used auto parts shop also sells useless little nick-nacks and doo-dads, which (as far as I've been able to tell) do nothing more than drain your bank account and make your garage look a little more interesting. For instance, you can purchase an electric guitar for about the cost of a new set of brakes, which then sits uselessly behind your car for the rest of your career. Nice. Little experiments like this occasionally pay off, as I mentioned in the "photo mode" of the post-race replays, but I really can't see how anyone thought scattering expensive little 3-D items around your garage would be even remotely compelling. <br /><br />While the head-to-head mode is your standard split screen affair and the "Quick Race" option is run of the mill, the "Chronicle Mode" seems to have its heart set in the right place, even if the results are less than spectacular. Aiming to fill gamers in on the history of circuit racing, as well as the trends in car manufacturing that have come and gone, "Chronicle Mode" asks you to climb behind the wheel of one of a dozen different '70s muscle cars and race against opposition from three historical decades. Should you choose to drive a classic Corvette Stingray, you'll work your way through the historical ranks by racing it against cars from the 70s, early 80s, late 80s, early 90s, late 90s and "21st Century," observing as its early strengths are surpassed by the rapid progression of technology and toiling as the older model's inherent weaknesses become harder and harder to ignore. Before each race, the game gives you a little historical lesson in the form of a three or four paragraph essay, explaining what advances had been made in the automotive industry over the five years in question. As you complete your run(s) through the decades, new cars become available for use in the aforementioned head-to-head mode. It's a great concept, but the historical essays seem to have been written by someone with only a passing knowledge of the English language and considering the inherent flaws in the standard game itself, the last thing you're going to want to do is handicap yourself by racing an antique against a souped-up 21st century monster.<br /><br />Even the initial control setup for <em>GT 2002</em> is more than a little lacking. Rather than sticking with what familiar gamers would be comfortable with, it attempts to craft a new control scheme, mapping the gas to the "A" button, the brakes to "X", and the transmission to the trigger buttons. Personally, I've never been so into a racing title that I've been moved to try out the manual transmission, so I had no time for a layout that featured them in such a central location. Fortunately an alternate, more user-friendly control scheme is readily available. It follows the rules laid out by those that came before; the right trigger accelerates, the left hits the standard brakes, "X" represents the hand brake, initiating a mild power slide... but one somewhat important thing seems to be completely missing: the ability to shift from drive into reverse. Either I'm completely stupid and couldn't manage to press the right button to get the wheels spinning the other way or the development team completely left the ability to back up out of the game's programming. And, considering the computer's reluctance to do anything but spin its tires head-first against a wall after an accident, choosing to wait for the front end to eventually grind its way to facing the correct direction rather than merely shift into reverse and drive away, I'd imagine the functionality just isn't there. How do you develop a racing title without the ability to shift into reverse? The same way you can race professionally without a license, presumably. <br /><br />As far as visuals are concerned, this isn't really a game that you're going to want to show off to friends. It's mediocrity at best, topping the visuals of its immediate predecessor, <em>Sega GT</em> on the Dreamcast, but failing to live up to the standards established by its direct competition, <em>Gran Turismo</em> and <em>Project Gotham Racing.</em> The car models look oversimplified, the environments are lacking in detail and the spectators are blatantly two-dimensional, animated cardboard cutout fare. Maybe that last one wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't staring me right in the face around almost every turn. They've planted people in the stands, on the median between the pits and the track, under trees... almost everywhere you look, here are these jolly, pixelated, hideous semi-beings, waving and trying to stare at you through their blurry, one-dot eyes. Even the pre-renders featured on the front cover of the DVD casing are sub-standard, attempting to simulate the brilliant reflections, glares and textures later accomplished by <em>Project Gotham 2</em> and failing unspectacularly in the process. This is a game that could've benefitted tremendously from a few additional months of focused concentration and development in the graphics department, but for whatever reason that potential was never realized and we're left to deal with yet another visually unimpressive also-ran. There's nothing wrong with the modeling nor the direction, but the realization and execution are half hearted at best.<br /><br />About the best thing I can say about the sound is that it allows for the use of custom soundtracks, although they aren't exactly easy to utilize. Truth be told, I never managed to find the option to turn on my saved tunes, although both the game case and IGN assure me it's in there somewhere. The pre-packed tunes are so generic and dull, they'd make fans of Sega's classic tunes, such as the theme to <em>Sonic the Hedgehog</em> or the original <em>Outrun</em>, burst into tears and go after their own ear drums with a sharp pencil. It's almost like listening to a parody of a parody, these songs are so bad, and they get even worse when "Chronicle Mode" tries to get exotic and match musical genres with the decades in which you're meant to be racing. The 70s are matched with a horrible mockery of the Dick Dale surf guitar style, the 80s with a dirty rock ballad, the early 90s with more generic guitar rock, and the late 90s and 21st century with, I kid you not, J-Pop. Compared to titles like <em>Gran Turismo</em>, which has always been accompanied with an outstanding collection of licensed music, geared almost flawlessly toward the speed, adrenaline and heart-pulsing excitement of a race, this is a bad joke. It's like somebody farted in my mouth and somehow forced me to hold my breath for a few minutes. Even the non-licensed generic music of <em>Project Gotham 2</em> surpasses this crap, because it makes no secret of what it is and never gets in the way. <em>GT</em>'s melodies may as well trip over their own feet and fall under the front of your car.<br /><br />I know it's tough to compare a game like <em>GT 2002</em> to such a well-established, universally-praised behemoth such as the epic <em>Gran Turismo</em> series, but by positioning itself so directly as a supposed competitor to the industry-leader, Sega leaves me little choice. I'd liken it to passing around a platter at a huge social gathering where tiny slices of two-week-old baloney sit right alongside flawlessly steamed slices of ham and gorgeous, mouth-watering hunks of turkey. When all of the good meat has been picked over, the slower-moving guests who find themselves stuck with the smelly, discount-brand baloney to snack on will be complaining. Loudly.<br /><br />This is about as loudly as I feel like displaying my disgust toward <em>Sega GT 2002</em>. There's not one area in which it excels. The gameplay is rotten, the story modes are redundant and unpolished, the controls are missing pieces, the graphics are a generation too late, and flat silence would be an improvement over the existing audio. I don't know how a developer I hold in such high regards could possibly go so wrong, but this wouldn't be the first time Sega has managed to accomplish what seems to be impossible. Despite a few mildly amusing developments with the replay system, I can't recommend you do anything but run from this one.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 1.7</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-69027365648568176002005-12-07T13:54:00.000-08:002007-06-11T16:14:20.618-07:00Jak and Daxter: The Precursor LegacyI think it would be safe to say that most heavy-duty video gamers raised in the mid-80s are fairly familiar with the cartoon platformer. For those uninformed, it's that "series of bottomless pits" genre, the one <em>Super Mario Brothers</em> kick-started at the very outset of the 8-bit generation, with a huge wave of imposters not all that far behind. Given the limitations of the hardware and the potentially lightened burden on level design, (why deal with the multitude of potential repercussions when a player missteps, when the simple "unending fall of doom" rule can be applied and immediately understood almost universally?) the immediate emergence of imitators isn't really all that surprising. The 8-bit and 16-bit platforms were so geared toward 2-D, sprite-based animation and the specific genre of platforming, it's amazing any other genres saw the light of day over those years. However in recent times, as the average age of gamers has steadily risen and the hardware has grown stronger and stronger, the style has been noticeably downplayed and disregarded in favor of first person shooters, third person adventures, MMORPGs and their 3D brethren. While most of the formerly industry-leading titles survived the transition, (and others, like <em>Sonic the Hedgehog</em>, struggled with the leap from two dimensions to three) the constant influx of new heroes and different titles was almost completely choked in just a single generation. That's not to say the genre was entirely left to the old-timers, as new faces like <em>Crach Bandicoot</em> and <em>Spyro the Dragon</em> were generally very successful of their own right at the outset of the PSone's life cycle, but much of the competition was missing and the new polygonal platformers more closely resembled action / adventure titles than their forefathers.<br /><br />Which makes it interesting that the famed <em>Crash</em> developer, Naughty Dog, would take a gamble with a new title in this otherwise-fading genre. The studio had enjoyed success in the field before, giving <em>Super Mario 64</em> a run for its money with the early games in the <em>Crash</em> franchise, but with Vivendi Universal taking control of that series and farming it out to another studio, Naughty Dog was left without a face and their final addition to the series, <em>Crash Team Racing</em>, had seemed to hint towards a branching out into other genres and flavors. Instead, the team returned to what had brought it to the dance in the first place with <em>Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy</em>, their first effort for the PS2 and the first true addition to the genre on the new console. <br /><br />With <em>Jak and Daxter</em>, Naughty Dog basically retreads over the successes of their past, stopping to make a few necessary tweaks that had been sorely lacking in previous efforts along the way. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, because like I'd mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, platforming had by this time been hammered down to a few absolutely key elements that are necessary for such a title to be successful. At a glance, the game presents nothing all that noteworthy; a gratingly bubbly cartoonish cast, a story pulled right out of a coloring book, bright and shiny graphics to match, the existence of an occasional power-up, and yes, a large cluster of bottomless pits. Make no mistake, if you cringe at the thought of spending a few days in front of a game that looks and speaks like something you'd expect to see on a Saturday morning cartoon, this is absolutely not the game for you. You'll find yourself embarrassed to be seen playing it, unlike the Mario series which is mysteriously immune to such sensations. If you share a house with more than just a pet or two, your roommate(s), spouse(s) or family member(s) <b>will</b> be making fun of you. If you're at a point, spiritually and emotionally, where you can deal with that... there's a somewhat enjoyable little game buried underneath it all.<br /><br />The storyline is easy to establish, short on dialogue and heavy on gameplay, and that's just about the extent of the good things I can say about it. You know those kid's shows that you'll occasionally find yourself really getting into, no matter which audience they're supposed to be targeted toward? Whether it was <em>Invader Zim</em>, <em>Pokemon</em>, <em>G.I. Joe</em> or <em>The Fairly OddParents</em>, I'm sure everyone's stumbled across one at some point in their life. Yeah, well, whichever show it was that you found yourself strangely drawn towards, <em>Jak and Daxter</em> can't hang with it. The story is bare bones at best, establishing the good guys and the bad guys right off the bat, (the bad guys are the ones with tusks) introducing a conflict (the guys with tusks want to unleash chaos on the world) and a motivation, (Jak's buddy Daxter falls into a pit of mystery goo, transforming him into a furry critter) eventually unleashing you out onto the world to fight evil or some such nonsense. The characters themselves are just paper-thin and almost completely devoid of emotion or appeal. Jak, the main character, (naturally) is conspicuous in his silence throughout the tale, leaving the majority of the speaking parts to the green sage (an elderly wizard who grants you a miniature nugget of motivation at the outset of each level) and Daxter, (the aforementioned furry sidekick, equipped with enough cheesy one liners to make Rodney Dangerfield spin wildly in his grave) both of whom are way, way over the top in the "flamboyant personality" department. Once in a while, the sage's daughter will pop in to share a new bit of technology or something, and as you visit new towns you'll meet a new character or two, but for the most part it's Daxter and the sage bouncing off of one another and Jak standing around to make confused or frustrated faces. I was surprised at the lack of a population to the game's world, as the idea is supposedly that you're traveling from one side of the globe to the other and you'll only encounter maybe a dozen different individuals, start to finish. It feels like the entire race is about to be completely snuffed from the planet, regardless of the baddies' success or failure, the game's per-capita population is so sparse.<br /><br />The story tells us that hundreds of years ago, a mysterious, ancient race of beings wandered the planet, built enormous temples and did eclectic, confusing things before disappearing without a trace. Their architecture and technology remain scattered around the globe, like a race of super-intelligent, supernatural Aztecs, and a lot of their influence is seen in the machinery and architecture of the modern world, not to mention the actions and beliefs of its inhabitants. Especially curious are the thousands of "precursor orbs" dispersed throughout the countryside and the hundreds of spouts of gaseous "eco matter" that appear randomly around the land. While the precursor orbs are treated as a sort of currency and respected as such, (think of the coins scattered around the skies of <em>Super Mario Brothers</em>) the eco spouts immediately affect the appearance and abilities of anyone (un)fortunate enough to inhale their fumes. Eco appears in several colors, which coordinate with the substance's affect on the individual; yellow eco, for instance, grants a man the ability to launch fireballs from his fists, while dark eco almost always leads to death or disfigurement. A run-in with dark eco is responsible for Daxter's transformation into the strange, furry, groundhog look-a-like, but always leads to pain and / or death should Jak bump into it. While the various characters' attitudes towards the precursors and the different colors of eco they left behind suggests a mild religious drama, it's never confronted and remains dangling in the background throughout the story, disappointingly. Instead, the tale focuses on the existence of various sages, each asked to play chaperone for every single spout of a particular shade of eco. There's a blue sage, a yellow sage, a red sage and a green sage, with a dark sage thrown in for good measure. When the dark sage unsurprisingly turns out to be the bad apple of the bunch, the others recruit Jak (with Daxter in tow) to join the fight and move on their enemy. Which, I suppose, segues us right into the gameplay.<br /><br />If you've played any of the post-SNES three dimensional platformers that preceded it, you've probably got a good handle on how <em>Jak and Daxter</em> feels. You've got an overhead camera dangling just behind you at all times, a couple very basic attacks, and the vital ability to jump. As you progress through the game, you'll discover different variations upon Jak's abilities as they're necessitated, such as the ability to somersault, to crouch, to double-jump and to long jump. What's cool is that these abilities aren't something you need to unlock... they're available right from the get-go, so there's a process of experimental discovery that makes you feel directly involved in Jak's progression as a character. On the other hand, the existence of these abilities and instructions on their use are never truly explained, so if you haven't discovered the long jump by the time Jak needs to clear a large canyon by his lonesome, you're in for a long, painful series of trials and errors. Occasionally, Daxter (who clings to your shoulders throughout the game) will chime in with what's supposed to be a helpful hint, but even that only serves to state the obvious and doesn't help you out as far as the actual controls are concerned. If you're trying that canyon-spanning long jump, for example, and have failed miserably multiple times, he'll contribute to your efforts with a half-hearted "Hey, why don't you try a LONG JUMP on this one?" Which seems to demand the obvious gamer response of "No shit, Sherlock, you feel like telling me the actual button configuration so I can move on?" <br /><br />Despite the occasional difficulty in explaining its own controls, the actual gameplay of <em>Jak</em> is largely a lot of fun. Obstacles are challenging without being frustrating, most of the puzzles are just difficult enough to whirl your gears without forcing you to seek out a walkthrough in a moment of fury, and the boss fights are wholly entertaining. It makes good use of the power-ups, staggering them early to get you used to their intentions and then introducing them at just the right times as they become more and more important later in the game. It does have a few small hiccups that will continually bother a refined gamer by failing to function as designed at critical moments. For example, Jak doesn't always latch onto the corner of a ledge, <em>Prince of Persia</em>-style, like he's supposed to. Nine times out of ten, he'll perform the brave feat without hesitation, but it seems like the most important jumps are usually where he has the most trouble, slamming into the edge of a platform and then awkwardly vibrating for a moment before falling to his death. Likewise, the extremely touchy nature of the double-jump system also provides for its share of headaches. Unlike past games which have utilized this bizarre play mechanic, (I remember playing <em>Ghouls and Ghosts</em> as a kid and immediately running outside to see if I could double jump, too) Jak can only hit a double jump if he's on the ascent of his initial leap. If his first jump has hit its peak or begun its decline, he'll refuse to perform a second, midair leap. While this may not sound like much, it basically cuts the potential length of his jumps in half and requires some reverse behavioral training in gamers, such as myself, who have come to expect that ability to act a certain way. I guess that's their way of emphasizing the long jump over the double jump as a means of clearing a large amount of real estate, but I can't understand why they'd limit players to one method, when the option to choose between two is much more interesting and involving.<br /><br />Occasionally adding a new layer or two to the gameplay is the introduction of a limited array of vehicles and driving-based objectives, hinting at where the series was headed in the not-too-distant future. In this first title, you're restricted to a series of hovercrafts and a bizarre, awkward, chocobo-resembling bird creature. The hovercraft levels are good fun, and a nice change of pace, while the bird is only used to clear certain portions of otherwise platforming-only levels. Both of these vehicles were a little unrefined, with a turn radius that leaves a lot to be desired on the hovercraft and a whole array of control difficulties on the bird, but do a fairly good job of shaking off some of the monotony that would've otherwise begun to set in and helping <em>Jak</em> to stand out a bit from its peers. <br /><br />Although I complained a bit earlier about the game's hesitancy to fully explain its control scheme, once you've experimented enough to actually discover all of the characters' possible actions, the full controller layout is really very basic and easy to grasp. The way some games map out their button setups, I wonder if they're expecting players to have an extra arm installed to make some certain actions possible (the Xbox release of <em>Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas</em> springs to mind.) <em>Jak</em> overcomes this potential flaw by keeping things extremely simple and never requiring the use of more than two or maybe three buttons at the same time, analog stick included. By limiting themselves to the R1 button, the four main control buttons (X,O,Triangle and Square) and the analogs, they ensure you never need to move a finger into an awkward position and allow you to really envelop yourself in the game. While the gameplay will sometimes betray that sensation by doing something you don't expect it to do, (see a couple paragraphs back) the nearly-perfect controls can't really be blamed for that. You could more than likely sit down and master the basic controls in less than a minute, given an open field to practice, which is exactly how I'd describe the first level. The primary button, X, is used for the genre's primary action, jumping (and, naturally, double jumping). The R1 button works alongside the X button and / or analog sticks to provide a variety of abilities, such as rolling, long jumping or squatting. Square and O are your basic attacks, which can be performed both on the ground and in the air. Entertainingly, each attack involves striking the enemy with the horrified body of Daxter, whether you're snapping him at them like a whip, twirling him around your body in a circle or driving him headfirst into the ground. His little encounter with dark eco seems to have made him immortal, as he doesn't seem to mind being used as a blunt object, and he's always on-camera to give you a piece of his mind should you fall in the heat of battle. The ability to repeatedly slam him into a wall with ferocious velocity makes it a bit easier to withstand some of the comments he feels inspired to share throughout the game. <br /><br />Even the camera, often the bane of third person platformers such as this, is handled with precision and almost never trips over its own feet. It's manageable through the use of the right analog stick, should you run into the rare occasion where the automatic camera clips a wall and gets stuck, and generally does a really solid job of keeping up as you change direction, jump around and do the different things you've gotta do. <br /><br />I think I was expecting a bit more out of the graphics, since this was an early title for the PS2 and that's usually when developers are frothing at the mouth over the new hardware and going out of their way to show off everything it can do. The visuals of <em>Jak and Daxter</em> just feel like a marginal improvement over the visuals of Naughty Dog's PSone titles, and certainly didn't age well in the almost five years since it was released. Part of that is due to the cartoony direction taken by the art, but you can't blame the lumpy renderings of the sage's face when speaking or the overly simplistic appearance of most of the game's enemies on artistic direction. Some things, such as the distant skylines in the forest and the radiating glow of eco matter in the wild, are very well executed, but on the large this is no showpiece for the PS2's visual capabilities. The system's inability to anti-alias was a handicap even this early in its life, as edges are almost always jagged and pixely, and you'll find yourself staring more often at the things the hardware's having trouble with than reveling in the things it does well. Bluntly, if you're looking for an exceptional early graphical display on the PS2, keep looking. You won't find what you seek here.<br /><br />Voice acting aside, I can't say much nicer things about the audio. I suppose it's of a higher quality than the tunes found on the old PSone, albeit not by much, but the compositions themselves are so aggravatingly bouncy, joyful and happy that if you aren't, in actuality, a Care Bear, you'll want to rip your hair out by the roots. While I'm not sure a selection of heavy metal or R&B would suit the feel of the game much better, I was expecting something a little more contemporary and interesting, considering the marketing that announced the game's launch (remember the commercials with the title characters reclining, poolside, with a cluster of bikini-clad young ladies? Yeah, I don't think they were aiming those at the 7-10 year old market.) While a soundtrack in the vein of Pantera may have been completely out of place here, I was hoping for something with a little bit of edge to it. What was delivered is so weak and stereotypical of the genre, it went a long ways toward turning me off to the package as a whole. The voice acting is sound, for the most part, with a few performances standing out above the others. The dark sage's voice perfectly matches his demeanor and appearance, while the green sage really feels like an old man tired of the world that surrounds him, but determined to aid in its resuscitation, all the same. On the other side of the coin, the bad voice acting isn't exactly missing, either, and the dialog is so bad that even the competent actors have trouble making their lines come to life. <br /><br />When stripped down to its very basics, <em>Jak and Daxter</em> is an entertaining play. While there isn't anything the actual gameplay does badly, nit-picky flaws aside, there's also nothing that it really excels at. It's a good next-gen translation of an already enjoyable system of mechanics, controls and direction. Basically, <em>Jak</em> reads the map drawn by its predecessors and follows it to the gold buried at the end of the path. If it weren't for the abysmal storytelling, the hot and cold voice acting and the sub par graphics and sound, this would probably be deserving of a score well above average, that imaginary map is so well-drawn. Unfortunately, I can't honestly say that those factors don't affect my opinion of the disc itself, and they drag my score down by quite a bit. If you can shut your brain off or go to make a sandwich during the speaking parts and accept the visuals for what they are, you'll really enjoy this one. For those of us looking for a complete package, well, we're somewhat disappointed.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 6.1</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-33996171933182290052005-09-12T10:09:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:14:10.638-07:00God of WarSony needed a hit. At least in my house they did, as my early preference towards the PS2 due to its onslaught of exclusive titles was almost completely giving way to the dark will of Microsoft and the Xbox's slow acquisition of said exclusives, paired with its vastly superior hardware. I think it's a somewhat widely-recognized trend that most gamers (if not only those pesky "hardcore" gamers) have been slowly embracing the Xbox over the PS2, thanks in no small part to Sony's ineptitude with peripherals (yeah, thanks for supporting that HDD, guys) and the undeniable superiority of Xbox Live to the PlayStation's weak online offering. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Sony needed a big, exclusive hit for the summer of 2005, probably in more locations than my own living room. Their offering was <em>God of War</em>, heavily promoted on the internet and hailed by more than one noteworthy gaming authority as the second coming of Christ after a particularly strong showing at the year's E3 convention. After a few minutes with the game myself, I had a hard time disagreeing. Surprisingly enough, it would appear that Sony's in-house developers can really deliver when the chips are down and they put their hearts into it.<br /><br /><em>God of War</em> is, at heart, a beat-em-up action game, pulled straight out of the genre's heyday in the early '90s and amped up tenfold. It's set in ancient Greece, a time period that's been surprisingly underexplored by previous titles, and benefits greatly from both the physical setting and the notion that this world, where Gods would toy with men and monsters still roamed the land, operated under a different set of rules. There's a lot of stuff that this game does right, but at the very top of the list is its ability to overwhelm the gamer with jaw-droppingly effective "holy shit" moments, paired with the dramatic camera angles to completely drive the message home. It's something I can only really liken to a great summer Hollywood action movie; the ability to completely and utterly captivate an audience with an astonishing visual, to marry them to the entire package with just a few well-placed, well-executed surprises. I've never, ever played a game that's so effectively drawn me into its world as <em>God of War</em> did, when I stepped through a nondescript doorway in a nearly-obliterated Athens and saw the two hundred foot tall physical manifestation of Ares, the God of War, bearing down on a legion of troops without mercy. Usually these moments are directly related to an upcoming boss battle or the opening of a previously-sealed pathway, but occasionally they'll drop in from out of nowhere, which is when they're really at their most effective.<br /><br />As Kratos, a former Spartan warrior with a violently checkered past, you're unleashed upon the armies of the undead as they make a move to overthrow the legendary city of Athens. Along the way, you'll run into just about every noteworthy inhabitant of Greek legend and, nine times out of ten, wind up brutally dismembering them in some sort of memorable way. Not much is revealed about Kratos' motivations initially, although you do catch a glimpse of what appears to be his forthcoming demise, and, with just a quick introduction setting the stage, you're thrust into a romanticized view of Greek culture at the height of its influence. Truly, the story itself is merely passable. It serves to carry you from one famous setting to the next, from mythical beast to mythical beast, but it's not something I'm going to go out of my way to commend. Kratos' past especially leaves a lot to be desired, and follows the carefully-established path of cliche from start to finish. Occasionally you'll catch a moment of inspiration, like the time a civilian catches an arrow in the back of the head, right in the middle of a conversation with Kratos, but I was hoping for a bit more depth than what I got. It feels like they finished a rough outline covering all of the game's big moments, and then forgot to fill in the areas in between with substance. On that same hand, the story doesn't get in the way by forcing too much dialog or over-detailed plot development, so I can't say it's totally wretched. I was motivated throughout the game, constantly prodded by the promise of new wonders just around the corner, but found it to be overall a bit shorter than I'd have liked. Start to finish, you'll run through maybe half a dozen different levels. Some are emphasized to the point of redundancy, (I could've done with a little less Athens) some are cut painfully short, (the imaginative level in Hades is just starting to get good when you're pulled away) and others are just long enough (The dungeons and puzzles in Pandora's Temple are very solid). I kept getting the feeling that they were holding some things back for a sequel, and that really started to irritate me by the time I reached the end. Simply enough, the premise of a mythological battle in an ancient setting is enough to carry this game quite a ways, and the story needs almost all the carrying it can get.<br /><br />The gameplay is a refreshing change of pace from the usual button-mashing fare you'd expect from a third person action title. Sure, there are plenty of moments where you'll find yourself completely surrounded, madly pounding on the square button in the hopes that it will somehow allow you to live through the ordeal. There are also dozens of instances where you'll have no chance in hell if that's the only offensive tactic you've learned. As you progress through the game and slowly build the strength of your weapons, (a pair of short swords, attached to Kratos' arms by chains and swung recklessly in battle) you'll unlock more and more potential attacks, which give you the capability to execute longer and longer combos. What's cool is that none of these attacks are particularly difficult to pull off, and there's a great deal of tact and timing involved in successfully using them. The most difficult combination doesn't require the use of more than three different buttons, and is open-ended to allow you to seamlessly float from one attack to the next. However, try to jump in with a super-powerful assault right off the bat, and your enemies are likely to catch you with a quick jab before you've landed a single blow. There's almost an art to building up a monstrous combination, starting with light shots and slowly, surely increasing in power until you're taking out fresh troops with a single blow and starting to resemble an unstoppable human hurricane of blood, guts and glory. Watching someone who knows what they're doing behind the controller is like watching a great martial arts flick on the screen. The good guy acrobatically takes out three dozen heavily armed baddies, casually sidestepping their attacks and flattening them impressively, never even stopping to take a breath before moving on to the next battle. Watching an inexperienced player, on the other hand, is like watching an early fight on Spike TV's <em>The Ultimate Fighter</em>. Slow, plodding, awkward and wholly unimpressive. The real fun lies in watching the latter slowly transform into the former.<br /><br />Where <em>God of War</em> really makes its name is in the almost disturbingly violent throws and special maneuvers that are a part of any good combination. Every action / fighter since <em>Double Dragon</em> has had a grappling or throwing system of some sort, however simple and underdeveloped it might be... but in this department, <em>God of War</em> takes all that have come before and literally tears them to shreds in a crimson mist. After sufficiently weakening most enemies, you're given the opportunity to either finish them off traditionally with a few additional shots, or to seal the deal in style by grabbing them and performing some sort of horrific finisher that often leaves them missing limbs, vital organs or entire mid-sections. Naturally, the stronger the enemy, the more impressive the killing blow... but weaker enemies offer a lot more variety than the bosses or their immediate superiors. For example, grab a foot soldier and your options include tearing him in half with your bare hands, driving a gory stampede of steel into his innards, or (my favorite) attaching him to the end of one of your blades, swinging him over your head like a lasso and whipping him into one of his buddies, effectively obliterating the both of them. Some of the things you can do to the bosses almost defy description, and although performing them requires a series of timed button presses, (not unlike the action system of <em>Shenmue</em>) you'll almost always feel like Rambo upon their successful completion thanks to the end result. When you slay a minotaur after a grueling battle, you'll actually feel like you <b>slayed</b> a freaking <b>minotaur</b>. I wanted to call all of my friends and tell them about it, the victory was so satisfying.<br /><br />As he advances through the game, Kratos also gains access to a few mythical spells to utilize as he pleases. Legendary weapons such as the spear-like lightning bolts traditionally hurled by Zeus and the stone-encasing gaze of Medusa are on the short list of designated magic attacks, but their use is limited by a strict gauge at the top of the screen. Most spells are really just a novelty, rarely coming in handy during a battle and only absolutely necessary on a few specific occasions. As you decimate the enemy hordes, you'll slowly accumulate a collection of red balls of light, which are never actually explained and seem to emanate from the bodies of slain enemies, the occasional treasure chest and the multiple destructible background objects strewn about the game. Once enough of these balls have been saved, you're able to spend them on magic upgrades (which usually just allow you to strike a wider range or to cause more damage) or weapon upgrades (which unlock additional combinations and attacks). I'm fairly sure you can imagine which of these power-ups I concentrated on first.<br /><br />Physically controlling Kratos, as I alluded to earlier, is just a breeze. The buttons you'll find yourself pounding the most (aside from the analog sticks, of course) are the X and square buttons, which are your jump and basic attack buttons, respectively. The left analog seamlessly controls your movement around the screen, while the right allows you to quickly roll in any direction, avoiding damage and providing an escape from the sticky situations that fill this game. Magic is usually implemented with a combination of the square button and the L2 button, with the triangle button performing a more powerful physical attack and the circle button activating those barbaric grapples and throws. Occasionally you'll run into problems with the grabs, especially when you get further into the game and most enemies aren't susceptible to them until they're extremely worn down. A grab isn't very precise, and routinely targets the wrong enemy when you're facing a crowd. Factor in the speed of these enemies' counter-attacks and the moment's pause a missed grab causes, and I'm sure you can imagine the accumulated hours of cursing I spent on blown attempts at grabbing an enemy. Once you've launched into an attack or leapt into the air, though, these buttons change purpose to allow for a wider variety of attack combinations. For example, rather than causing an abrupt jump into the air and spoiling a combo, the X button usually adds an additional attack when pressed in the middle of a series of other attack-based buttons. Once you're in full-on attack mode, it's all about furthering the punishment you deal, and <em>God of War</em> is very forgiving in that regard.<br /><br />The cameras control themselves, which is a welcome solution to the camera angles that have plagued so many other third-person games. Although this does cause problems once in a while, giving off-camera enemies the chance to catch you completely by surprise and hiding special items in places that would have otherwise been in plain sight, I think the benefits far outweigh the sacrifices. Without a computer-controlled camera, none of the astonishing visuals I mentioned earlier would have been possible, and the carefully-directed angles throughout the game do an excellent job of highlighting the most visually exciting sections of the screen. It feels like you're controlling a movie from time to time, these angles are so overbearingly cinematic.<br /><br />The game's visuals are outstanding, especially the high-definition cutscenes that show up once or twice per level, and shows off what are surely the absolute limits of the PS2's graphical potential. I'd put this game in the same class as <em>Final Fantasy X</em> and <em>Gran Turismo 4</em> visually, at the very top of Sony's heap. The hardware's lack of any anti-aliasing capabilities are occasionally noticeable, which leads me to believe the game would look even better on the Xbox or Gamecube, but on the PS2 it just isn't going to get much better than this. Add a unique visual style that fills every facet of the game, an outstanding set of enemy designs and some top-notch environment detailing and you've got a surefire winner. I really can't commend the cutscenes enough... their ability to transition from faux-historical paintings documenting the events of the game to full-on motion is truly impressive. While the character models aren't as realistic as some of the characters in <em>FFX</em>, they have enough stylization and expression to make up for that difference and then some.<br /><br />The audio does a fine job of accompanying the visual superiority it's asked to accent, with some very good voice acting stealing the show. A lot of times voice-over work in video games just doesn't feel professional, like the actors are afraid to really let it all hang out and ACT. That's no problem here, as the voices of Kratos, the gods, and even the civilians are strong, well-read and believable. The way some of the dialog was written, many of these lines could have come off as excessively cheesy, (Kratos shouting ARRREEEEES spontaneously on the field of battle immediately springs to mind) but are performed almost spectacularly and add to the game's ability to draw a player in like a great motion picture. The music swells and crescendos as you sail into battle, and calms down as you wander an empty hallway. It rises to meet the arrival of an important cutscene, but never to the point that you notice it building.<br /><br />Upon completing the game, you unlock a wealth of extras, such as a "making of" documentary, a collection of internet trailers used to promote the game before its release, deleted levels with commentary from the development team, a look at the testing process, an in-game glimpse at the progression of each enemy's look and feel (complete with a penis and pubic hair on a developmental model for the Cyclops monsters) and much, much more. The extra materials do a great job of further establishing this as a cross-breeding of Hollywood and video games, and truly expand your appreciation for the game and the amount of detail that went into it. Also available upon completion is the mind-crushingly difficult "challenge of the gods," which is a series of ten challenges that range from very difficult (defeat about twenty enemies within the time limit without taking a single hit) to completely insane (kill four specific enemies from a crowd of thirty without annihilating any of the others) and really push your abilities to the limit. If you manage to complete "Challenge of the Gods," you'll unlock a series of comical costumes for Kratos to wear throughout the game, as well as the opportunity to enjoy them, as you'll have probably developed the ability to finish the whole thing again without even breaking a sweat.</p><br /> <br /><p>With an unprecedented amount of gratuitous violence, blood, guts, gore, full-frontal nudity and various sex scenes, I can't over-emphasize <em>God of War</em>'s rating as an M title. It's not for kids, and it's probably not for some weak-hearted adults. If you've been to a summer blockbuster over the last few years, however, you've seen it all before. For a tough-to-offend guy in his mid-20s such as myself, this game is a hell of a lot of fun. The battles are deep, but not over-detailed and confusing. The story is exciting, if not totally compelling. The graphics are top-of-the-line, and the audio is very, very good. Despite a few missteps in the battle system and a few weak moments in the story, I haven't played a more enjoyable game on the PS2 all year. The difficulty is set firmly on a slow curve, the fights grow to be very difficult, but never infuriatingly so, and the boss fights are something special. The length from start to finish is bothersome, as things are just starting to get really good when the credits begin to roll, but for the time you'll spend actually playing, this is solid gold.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 9.0</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-29973467939469645942005-09-06T10:08:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:14:02.860-07:00Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasOver the last few months, the gaming world has been understandably shaken by the events and potential implications surrounding Rockstar's latest magnum opus, <em>Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas</em>, and the now-infamous "hot coffee" patch it's become immediately associated with. Debates are raging anew, politicians are spouting that same old line about "this time they've gone too far," the media is clapping their hands and squealing like a toddler with a new toy and Rockstar is, more than likely, benefiting financially from the whole ordeal. By this point I've almost come to expect a new moral debate with the nigh-annual release of a new chapter in the <em>Grand Theft Auto</em> story. Whether it was the anti-police sentiment of <em>GTA 1</em>, the mass-genocide potential of <em>GTA III</em> or the heavy drug use of <em>Vice City</em>, the entire series hasn't exactly distanced itself from controversy over the years. The concept of pushing the envelope to the point of cultural war is far from novel to the men and women behind these games, so your average gamer is by this point powering up each new <em>GTA</em> with a certain set of expectations. If you remain loyal the series today, you're expecting to be shocked by the vulgarity and humbling potential reality of it all. Bearing that in mind, there's no denying the fact that <em>San Andreas</em>, "coffee" or not, is Rockstar's most ambitiously adult-flavored outing yet. Whether or not that makes this the game for you comes down, basically, to your taste in gaming and your own limitations as far as questionable content. If you can be offended by a word or action, you will be offended by something in this game. <br /><br />After a brief hiatus into semi-homage with the <em>Scarface</em> meets <em>Miami Vice</em> storyline of <em>Vice City</em>, <em>San Andreas</em> effectively brings the series back into the territory of wholly original storytelling. The saga begins as Carl "CJ" Johnson, the story's focus, returns home to the city of Los Santos to discover his mother in the ground and his friends and family on the losing end of a bitter gang war. His old running buddies resent him for leaving them to try his luck in Liberty City five years ago, the streets where he was raised have been overrun by drug dealers, his brother hasn't forgiven him for missing out on their mother's funeral and a corrupt police department is breathing down his neck, just waiting for him to make a mistake. In short, things could be better. Fortunately, despite their uncertainty in his loyalties, CJ's friends have no qualms about bringing him back up to speed in the gang's business and allowing him to prove himself through blood, sweat and tears, (or various, mission-based tasks, as it were) and the driving force of the story revolves around this struggle to regain CJ's previous level of respect among his peers while making things right around the homestead. The main characters of the story are rock solid, and Carl is easily the most realistically flawed lead in <em>GTA</em> history. He made some mistakes before the story began and he'll make a few more before it ends, but he never crosses that thick line between sympathetic hero and irredeemable monster, even after curb-stomping a few grandmas. I think it's the game's incredible comedic timing and dry wit that keep CJ appealing; whether it's his brother constantly prodding at his driving or his often-venomous conversations with random pedestrians, there's always time for a snide comment or sarcastic remark after a brutal hit and run. His buddies and family have their own vulnerabilities, strengths and personality traits as well, many of which become major points of conflict as the gang war heats up and tempers flare. <br /><br />Carl's tumultuous years in Liberty City, the setting of <em>GTA III</em>, isn't the only reference to previous games in the series, which have been masterfully threaded into dozens of situations throughout <em>San Andreas</em>. You'll bump into familiar faces, hear little comments about memorable locations and even get a chance to revisit a scene from an earlier title, and it never feels like a foreign element to the story. It's nice to see some continuity between titles, no matter how unrelated the subject matter may appear at first glance, and these clever little nods at the past only serve to deliver further depth to the game itself.<br /><br />The setting, a dead ringer for early-'90s Los Angeles (with clones of San Francisco and Las Vegas playing supporting roles) is as much a player in the story as the individuals themselves. You can almost feel the weight of the town's imminent civil unrest pressing down on your shoulders throughout the early chapters, and as things build to a climax, that impending explosion just gets closer and closer to reality. There's an extremely angry tone to this game, even when compared to those that came before, and on the whole it feels much more mature (for lack of a better word) and true-to-life than its often-cheesy immediate predecessor. Conversations feel less rehearsed and scripted, and more spur of the moment and heartfelt. The lower-class pedestrians are justifiably angry and frustrated with life, while the rich seem nervous and shaky at all times and the folks that live off in the woodsy suburbs are completely oblivious. The feel of impending doom you're charged with throughout the game slowly, casually builds to a horrific boiling point that provides the backdrop for one of the most enjoyable, seat-of-your-pants final levels I've ever played. I never thought I'd play a game with a more rewarding, exciting, Hollywood action movie-style climax than I saw in the very first <em>Halo</em>, but if <em>San Andreas</em> doesn't surpass it, it undeniably comes extremely close.<br /><br />Unfortunately, while the storytelling elements of <em>San Andreas</em> have markedly improved in the years since <em>Vice City,</em> the actual gameplay experience has taken a hit or two. Don't hear me wrong, the open-ended style of gameplay that defined the previous titles in the series is still here in full effect. It's still a blast to jog around the city with a blunt object and beat random civilians into submission, or to stand in the middle of the street and look around as motorists become more and more frustrated with you for blocking their way. The appeal of doing everything you can't do in the real world and enjoying the aftermath is still there, and it's still evolving, but the progression of gameplay seems to have hit a speed bump with this round. While I found constant amusement with the added ability to stomp on a car's hood while you stand atop it, (and the driver's sudden, reckless acceleration and swerving in a vain attempt to throw you off) there wasn't as much room for innovation here as there was between <em>GTA3</em> and <em>Vice City</em>. The addition of motorcycles, airplanes and helicopters were substantial changes to the game, natural steps forward from what had been established before. This chapter's additions of bicycles, an intricate character customization system and a variety of level-based skill power-ups isn't quite the same, and often serves to aggravate rather than amuse. Instead of pulling up to a destruction derby or BMX race and trying your luck right away, for example, you must first spend hours building up your "driving ability" or "biking ability." Some missions require you to gain some weight by eating a dozen fast food meals, while others ask you to lose some weight by running aimlessly on a treadmill for fifteen or twenty minutes. Occasionally something redeemable is achieved through these tedious means, such as the ability to dual-wield weaponry or the chance to jump your bicycle six feet into the air from a standstill, (I'll never tire of using a bike with a banana seat as a lethal weapon) but on the large I found the renovations to be unnecessary and distracting. I wholeheartedly agree that the time was right to shake things up with a new direction in the gameplay, and to some degree the ability to swim around in the ocean accomplishes that, but most of these changes feel more like a burden than a blessing. Playing a game shouldn't feel like work, and that's what a lot of the activities required to build your stats feel like.<br /><br />Additionally, some of the newly-restyled missions feel inappropriate for the genre and completely out of place when compared to every other game in the series. For instance, you'll occasionally stumble upon a mission that asks you to press different directions on the analog stick in time with the in-game music while CJ cuts a rug in a late-night club or participates in a low-rider hydraulics competition, sort of a poor man's <em>Dance Dance Revolution</em>. Problem is, these little missions are nowhere near as polished and enjoyable as <em>DDR</em>'s various levels. If I were in the mood to play a game of <em>Beatmania</em> or <em>Samba de Amigo</em>, I'd probably pop one of those games into my entertainment center and go to town. I'm not looking for that style of gameplay in a <em>Grand Theft Auto</em> title, and even if I were, the representation seen here is so shoddy and unrefined that it's barely even worth playing. I don't mean to paint a dark picture of the overall gamplay experience, because this remains a largely exciting, entertaining game despite a few missteps, and I have to admit that not all the innovations made were negative (I loved the turf wars, which divide the city into two dozen color-coded zones to indicate which gang owns which territory, and ask you to slowly overtake each one by brutally murdering the opposition on their own doorsteps). I just can't say that I was impressed by the direction the series may be headed in the future, if the majority of this is any indication.<br /><br />This was my first experience with the series on the Xbox (I own PS2 copies of the last two <em>GTA</em>s) and I found the translation of controls to be a little awkward, to say the least. Most of the buttons are a simple, literal masking of the PS2's functionality onto the Microsoft controller, such as the "A" button as a run / fire button or the "X" button for jumping. Where the box really loses ground is with its lack of a second "L" and "R" trigger, as well as the additional freedoms bestowed upon players with the right analog stick and the camera angle it controls. Where the L2 and R2 buttons gave players the freedom to easily look to the left, right and behind them while behind the wheel of an automobile, that same functionality is mapped to the Xbox's mysterious black and white buttons with disastrous results. On my Type-S controller, those particular buttons are so small and out of the way that I was almost immediately screaming for the return of my old Dual Shock. Performing a precise drive-by shooting, which is a necessity on several missions, is nearly impossible with these tiny buttons... and forget about looking behind you while you roam the highways of Los Santos. Similarly, the inclusion of a more player-friendly camera control system with the right analog stick only seems to cause headaches and rarely, if ever, aids in the completion of a mission. As soon as you climb into a vehicle, the camera hovers almost directly above your car and looks down. If you have any interest in seeing the road in front of you, you're almost condemned to holding the right analog stick forward, while steering with the left and working the gas and brakes on the triggers. Throw in the aforementioned "look right" and "look left" buttons, along with the "A" button to actually pull the trigger on a drive-by, and you'll find yourself wishing for an extra appendage to remove some of the strain from your overworked fingers. Common movements and commands, such as roaming around the streets, slapping a homeless man with a dildo or leaping off the edge of a building are cake, as well they should be. It's when you start getting deeper into the missions and asking more difficult motions of CJ that things start to get really tough on the digits. To its credit, this is a very complex game with literally hundreds of possible actions, but I have trouble believing a few of these button placements couldn't have been just a little more thought-out before release.<br /><br />Where the series has really begun to show its age with this installment is in its graphics. Though the size of the map is just insanely large, close to three times the size of <em>Vice City</em>, the contents are almost identical visually. Though the old engine from <em>GTA III</em> has been tweaked to the very limits with this release, it's still that same old engine at heart. Player models don't exactly hold up when compared with similar games released within the same year. The variety of city buildings and wall decorations is still impressive, but the actual quality of those textures leaves a lot to be desired. After hearing almost endless praise about the differences between the last two games on PS2 and on Xbox, I was left feeling extremely underwhelmed after my first experience in <em>San Andreas</em>. What's twice as unforgivable as the slow decay of the graphics, however, is the sudden and infuriating problems I experienced with late-to-materialize objects and textures. One building in particular, located in waterfront San Fiero, is notoriously slow to load, and cost me my life on almost half a dozen occasions. I'd be running from the law, as usual, at top speed... zigging, zagging, winding my way down streets and through back alleys, until out of nowhere my car would slam to a halt, explode into flame and leave me all-but-decapitated. As I tried to figure out where I'd gone wrong, an entire building would suddenly fade into view directly in front of me, where before there was nothing. It's surprising to see such an obvious flaw come to the surface in a game of this magnitude, but that's par for the course as far as the graphics are concerned. You'd expect better.<br /><br />Fortunately, the same shortcuts apparently taken with the visuals are not repeated in the audio department. The soundtrack to <em>San Andreas</em>, while not quite as awe-inspiring as that of <em>Vice City</em>, is still a behemoth of its own and does an outstanding job of setting the tone for an area and covering a wide range of genres, tastes and ethnicities. Hop into a car in the ghettos of Los Santos and you're likely to hear an excellent collection of the founding fathers of hip hop or the pioneers of gangsta rap. Steal a car in the forest-coated, far less populated towns well outside the city limits, and you're much more likely to hear some country. While the obvious focus is on rap and hip hop, there really is something for everyone here, and the collections showcased on each station are almost indisputable. Almost every musician who experienced mainstream success in the mid '90s is represented with a track or two here, and a few of them even go so far as to lend their voices to the DJ commentary that fills the airtime in between tunes. Speaking of which, the famed comedy of the on-air commercials, personalities and programming choices, while not quite up to the same level as the last two games, is still good for a laugh or two and far, far above the level of <em>GTA</em>'s closest competitors. The sophomoric humor herein takes a step away from the sarcastic tone of previous games in favor of a slightly cheesier bathroom joke or two. I guess, since the actual story itself works as such a grim commentary on the state of things in the 1990s, that the DJs and advertisements needed to take a break from parody for a change. Like I said, it's a bit of a step down from where Rockstar had set the bar beforehand, but it's still miles ahead of anything else in the business today.<br /><br />The one exception to that rule? The in-game voice-over work. The series was honestly no slouch in this department before, but <em>San Andreas</em> just takes it to a whole other level on the backs of Samuel L. Jackson, (who steals the show as Ten-Pin, the crooked cop) Ice-T, Young Maylay and Faizon Love (as CJ and his brother Sweet, respectively.) I wouldn't quite say the delivery is consistently on the level of a major motion picture, but this is far from your usual, B-grade at best video game fare. <br /><br />Well, when push comes to shove, I can't say that I got all I was expecting out of this package. I intentionally waited for the Xbox release for this one, hoping to enjoy it in all its glory on what's quickly becoming the most desirable platform, but in the end I would've been better off just buying it on the PS2 in the first place. The Box offered little to no visual separation over previous titles on the Sony system, and what difference I did notice in load time was balanced out by an occasionally poor control scheme and horrible problems with invisible buildings. Despite some weak innovations in the gameplay, this is still a lot of fun to play and I'd recommend it just for the ongoing insanity of that final stage, but don't expect to be completely blown away, because this is hot-and-cold stuff. As far as the missions go, you've either played it before and enjoyed it or it's something new they're playing away with and it doesn't feel finished. The story blows its predecessors out of the water, with outstanding new characters and a surprising respect for previous games in the series, and the physical size of the map is a true sight to behold. This is still a very good series, but the step from <em>GTA III</em> to <em>Vice City</em> was much more noticeable than that same stride from <em>GTA: VC</em> to <em>San Andreas</em>. Worth checking out if you're a fan, but it's not going to do anything to change your mind if you weren't already on the bandwagon.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 8.7</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3996234711553868522.post-50070821416354618622005-07-18T10:07:00.000-07:002007-06-11T16:13:56.374-07:00Max PayneI'd heard conflicting reports from my friends on the original <em>Max Payne</em> over the years, ranging from glowing positives to discouraged negatives and dating all the way back to the actual date of the game's release on the Xbox. This was Rockstar's first venture onto the console that Gates built, (and a relatively hands-off venture at that, as they lendt little more than distribution and noteriety to the game) and landed only a few months after the runaway success of <em>Grand Theft Auto III</em>, late in 2001. It's possible that some of my buddies allowed the open-ended, enveloping style of GTA to set their expectations a bit too high for this unrelated, albeit similarly-mooded, would be follow-up. Then again, it's also possible that they'd seen past that smokescreen and recognized the game as an entity unto itself and just didn't like what they got all the same. Me, I had resigned myself to basically ignoring it until I found it for a pittance in a pile of used games at EB and took a chance. How much can five dollars hurt in the long run, anyway? Well, I was bound and determined to find out.<br /><br />Undeniably the best thing <em>Payne</em> has going for it is a tremendously effective immediate atmosphere. From moment one, you feel like you're a part of this gritty, grimy, underground world. You're convinced that drippy, rusty pipes, crusty, decaying stone towers and dirty snow are the only constants in your own life, and all of that helps to make the central character, Max himself, much more understandable and sympathetic. All of the little things work together, from the graphics to the storytelling to the various ambient sounds to the characters themselves, to paint this immersive picture of a city overflowing with criminals, corrupt cops, self-centered politicians and very few true good guys. Even Max himself is far from a squeaky clean do-gooder, and seems more like a comedically poetic Punisher than a Superman as he fires out one overly wordsmithed sentence after another like so many dirt-encrusted bullets. Really, Max only distances himself from the guys on the receiving end of his wrath through an admirable drive to discover the truth and a tragic origin, and this lack of any true, identifiable hero works toward that aforementioned greater good, delivering a more realistic setting and allowing the story to take some liberties with its subject that would have otherwise been taboo.<br /><br />Max's tale plays like a solid motion picture; you come in just as the action gets interesting (a rookie cop living the "American Dream" comes home one night to discover a set of intruders in his house, and fails to gun them down before they slaughter his wife and infant child) and hang around as the anti-hero quickly loses his inhibitions and his mind, accepting an undercover job that predictably goes bad and leaves him cut off in the middle of a criminal underworld that feels he's betrayed them. Things grow more and more twisted and far-sighted as the tale progresses, culminating in Max's discovery of why those seemingly-random hoodlums were really in his house in the first place and just how far up the food chain his hitlist will need to reach in order to achieve any sort of vengeance. The story is compelling, and is always laid out in one of two ways; either through a live-rendered cutscene in between scenarios or by way of a series of narrated, graphic novel-reminiscent storyboards. It's nothing new to see a game featuring speaking parts in the middle of a mission any more, but the paneled storyboard work that serves to bookend each sub-level is an interestingly novel concept that somehow manages to avoid the cheesiness you'd think it would be drowning in. Although the frames themselves are obviously based off of source photography, and that photography looks like nothing more than a half dozen programmers and their friends out goofing off on the streets and occasionally shooting stills for a game they happen to be working on, there's a certain charm to these pages that helps the player to further identify with the events that are going on within. It's a nice break from all of the tense, blood and guts action of the rest of the game to sit back and take in a quick comic book-based scene, even if that scene does happen to involve just as much blood and violence as the gameplay. <br /><br />As Payne slowly begins to lose friends and brain cells, he also loses his focus on reality and slides into several amazing, if frustratingly tedious, hallucinogenic nightmares and fantasies. These are the scenes that really help to set the storyline apart from its peers, while at the same time dragging its gameplay a notch or two below that universal standard. The world spins hazily and blurrily around you, your field of vision is always clouded by a sort of dizzying grey fog, things seem to move just a little bit too fluidly, and time slows to a crawl... they really are some of the best in-game visualizations of a dream-like state I've ever seen, and are crawling with the same sort of bloody, twisted, hopeless tone that fills the rest of the game. You'll hear the last wails unleashed by Max's wife and the occasional wounded scream of his child off in the murky depths, and the first three or four times they'll send shivers down your spine. Once you find yourself on your sixteenth jaunt through the area, however, they grow more than a little annoying. Still, if it weren't for these little bits and pieces of horror, the game would tread dangerously close to straight action, with absolutely no respite. <br /><br />Gameplay itself is slick and easy to master, with the first few levels acting as a great primer for what's to come. There's no real "lock-on" mechanism, as is so prevalent in similar games, but there is <em>Payne</em>'s infamous "bullet time" function, which makes the process of aiming precisely at a moving target a bit less hairy. If you've seen <em>The Matrix</em>, then you probably already knew what I was talking about when I said "bullet time" and thus don't need a more detailed explanation, but for those who haven't; Max leaps into the air in some sort of dramatic, gun-wielding swan dive, and from the moment he leaves the ground until the moment he touches dirt again, time slows to a crawl. It's the same sort of thing that was employed previously in <em>Conker's Bad Fur Day</em> and made you groan when you saw a CGI cow performing it in the trailer for <em>Kung Pow</em> a few years ago, but is actually handled with some restraint so that it doesn't feel all that gimmicky and truly blends in as a helpful new gameplay element. You get a limited amount of "bullet time" to dole out, (exactly how much depends upon the difficulty level you've chosen) so you're not doing it over and over and over again, and you're given enough control of your actions in the middle of a dive to keep it from being an easy, surefire kill every single time. Besides, all the times you wind up jumping headfirst into a wall in awkward slow motion make it that much more more rewarding on the one or two instances where you'll dive magnificently around a corner, shoot an explosive barrel, take out a dozen guys before you hit the ground, and feel like an untouchable action hero.<br /><br />Everything else controls pretty much by the books. Max can run, jump, open fire, look around and snipe at any given moment, and anybody who's ever played a third person shooter before could jump right in without any sort of primer to explain the button configuration. There's rarely a moment where you'll find yourself bored with this one, (aside from the aforementioned occasions where the dream sequences drag on a bit too long) as even the genre's more common actions have been amped up with some sort of unexpected, entertaining twist. For instance, if you get a clean headshot off with the sniper rifle, time slows to a crawl and you're rewarded with a slow motion bullet's-eye view of the aftermath. On the occasion Max falls in battle, the camera cuts to a gritty close-up, so you can see the cloud of gunfire that pulled you down, and where the men who killed you were hidden. In general, <em>Payne</em> is just a load of fun, and while occasionally the tasks necessary to complete a stage aren't made abundantly clear, there's usually enough stuff to screw around with on any given stage to keep you from getting too upset. I found myself stuck in an underground stronghold one evening, and having eliminated every living being in sight and tried every door in the area, I just gave up, set a checkpoint (which is another welcome addition; the ability to save your progress at any moment, even if you're taking heavy fire) and passed some time by standing atop a cannister of compressed, explosive gas that I found laying on its side, shooting the top off of it and riding it across the hall to a fiery death. I did this, literally, for upwards of an hour... trying to see exactly how many explosions I could catch on-camera as Max died and the screen performed its spinning tribute to the fallen hero. Of course, I'd been drinking beforehand...<br /><br /><em>Payne</em>'s graphics have long been hailed as a measuring stick of sorts for the Box, and while I'll certainly agree that they're far above the standards set during the N64-PSone war, they haven't aged all that well as this generation's battles near their end. The textures and character animations have become almost run-of-the-mill over the years, and while that may say a thing or two about the game's long-lasting impact on the industry and the trends it may or may not have set, it doesn't necessarily come across that way when played for the first time today. The characters themselves have always appeared to me as though they lacked real weight and mass. They look like scarecrows, especially in profile, with regularly-sized heads and hands, but stick arms and bodies with thick clothes just draped over to give the illusion of substance. The facial textures, while beautiful, don't look particularly professional and feel more like user-submitted skins wrapped around the same body several times over. The constant smirk adorned by Max himself only serves to further reinforce this sensation. The environmental textures that wow you from the ground level don't carry over as the skyscrapers near the roof level, and while that's not something you'll notice in the game's first few levels, later stages take place almost exclusively atop high rises and warehouses, where the poor walls are featured, front and center. Building interiors are sufficiently varied, with little bits and pieces of black humor thrown in like a porno poster on the wall or a hidden video camera facing the bedroom behind a false wall in a seedy hotel, but occasionally distract you with sealed doorways that look identical to the doors you'll need to be breaking open or casually pushing aside as the game progresses. This isn't a bad looking game, but I wouldn't say it's deserving of excessive praise, either. It's close, but the effort and attention to detail seems to drip away as you reach the later levels.<br /><br />The sound, especially the voice-over work, is very well done. Although the majority of the game is merely accompanied by ambient noise, (and, more often than not, screaming and gunfire) you'll occasionally run into some music or white noise that is particularly effective in setting a mood or getting a laugh. The programs running on the few functional televisions you'll discover are especially funny, and smack of the kind of comedy you'd expect from the various radio stations in modern chapters of <em>Grand Theft Auto</em>. When somebody's speaking, which is really quite often, the voices suit the situations almost shockingly well. Payne himself sports a deep, gritty, exceptionally noir-detective baritone, and pounds out the game's sometimes over-the-top dialogue to terrific results. The random wiseguys and crackheads you run into sound like precisely the kind of villains you'd expect to run into on the streets in this kind of a situation, and the traditional TV and radio newscasters fill their roles more than adequately, as well. Sometimes I have trouble discerning whether this game was meant to be a revival of the noir genre or a parody of it, as the acting varies from extremely camp to chillingly effective, and that's a fun line to walk as the events progress. <br /><br />Well, I went in with low expectations and what I got in return was an appealing title that would've been worth every penny of a twenty or twenty five dollar investment. Playing a game of <em>Max Payne</em> is like owning a passably good movie on DVD. It's not great, it won't be bringing home any Oscars and it isn't quite my definition of an epic, must-see production; it <b>is</b> solid entertainment for a couple of nights. You'll pop it in once in a while when you don't want to have to think about anything in particular, and it'll deliver a fun time. It's got just enough depth to keep you motivated throughout a long session, but momentarily entertaining enough not to demand your time in huge, six hour bunches. I can see how those who rushed out to pick up their copy on release day were disappointed... this isn't substantial enough a game to justify a full fifty bucks. It's short, relatively easy and overly linear. There's no immediate replay value, despite the ability to unlock a few new modes of gameplay, because they're all essentially applying questionable new rules to the exact same game. It introduced a few new gameplay elements and represented itself strongly in both visual and audio, but just doesn't have that undefinable "it" factor to push it up and above the rest of the pack. Every time the story would take a step forward, the gameplay would take a step back, and vice versa. At this point in its lifespan, and for the price you're likely to discover it for today, I'd say <em>Payne</em> is worth the expense, but I can see why some of my running buddies felt betrayed by it back in '01 when they were expecting another GTA, which is pretty much what it was advertised as, and got a straightforward noir-era third person shooter.<br /><br /><center>On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is poor and 10 is amazing...<br /><b><u>Overall Score:</u> 7.7</b></center>drqshadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14114632623890865250noreply@blogger.com0