Superman 64
( Oh god, why am I doing this?) Every fiber of my being told me not to do this, but I did it anyway: not only did I play Superman 64, I actually beat it! Do you realize what that means!? I had to push through this piece of crap, despite fully knowing that it would not get any better! What possible reason could justify such a horrible act? *checks last blog* Oh, that fucking bet. Well, it turns out that we never came up with some type of condition, and he didn't come to claim his victory. But it didn't matter, as I made up the one condition that I beat a bad game as punishment. This, however, is too much.Even the plot is fucked up. Lex Luthor has somehow stuck Superman in a virtual world. A lot of people take this to mean Metropolis is covered in a green Silent Hill fart, but since I was emulating this game, I instead got pink nothingness. Anyway, Superman does not do what Neo does in his Matrix ( destroy a franchise before it can even get off the ground); instead, he decides to rescue Lois Lane (who skips, sometimes, for no reason) and some other fuckers with mysterious teleportation powers. Already, we have a major problem: why is he rescuing virtual Lois Lane? What's gonna happen if he doesn't? Is he gonna be taken to virtual jail, where he'll fall into a virtual depression, leading to an actual suicide? More importantly, though, why does he rescue them so incompetently? Instead of just punching a wall and flying them out of their cage, the game forces you to wander around aimlessly, hoping something happens.
Of course, these rings only serve to get Superman from objective to objective; let's look at what these objectives are. You'll have to clear a path for a skater, throw a car that's doing donuts, clear....a path for....a random w....yea, these aren't feeling too epic. I'm not too familiar with Superman, but isn't he known for turning back time in the stupidest way possible? Wait, what's that? I get to blow away tornadoes and beat up enemies for some of these missions? Fuck you and whatever diseases cause you to defend this game! You blow tornadoes away with all the enthusiasm of the person playing this game, and combat largely consists of whacking things in anguish until they explode. Sure, you have powers like x-ray vision and heat vision, but you'll rarely use them because explosions work fine. No, everything explodes in this game, and it takes little to provoke these explosions. This may not sound like much until you realize that motion-sensitive explosions will cause damage to you every five seconds. OK, to be fair, the enemies also die in, like, one or two hits, but it still feels cheap that Superman has fists made of C4, along with a face made of Charlie Brown.
Oh, right, I forgot to mention that those aren't the "main" things you do in the game. By that, I mean that they're the only times when the game allows you to save. (Yes, this game has a save feature.) Obviously, though, this game is rather consistent in its crap factor; in fact, if it was crap, it'd be the steady stream of diarrhea where you look down and find yourself amazed that a toilet can hold that much shit. Find yourself confused? Now you know what this game feels like. Most of the big levels consist of you wandering around the area, looking for something to do. The game doesn't tell you what to do unless you've already done something, meaning your first goal is to wonder what the fuck you have to do. So is there ANYTHING at all redeemable about this game? Well, it's not as glitchy as others have made it out. Granted, it's still pretty easy to get stuck in stuff, but I only launched out of the in-world geometry once. Also, the easy difficulty does something I'm not willing to do with this blog: cut it short. Why? Well, probably so you don't notice how shit it is. But I want you to know. So much that I'm willing to give this game the Great Mighty Poo Award for Excellence in Being a Huge Mound of Shit.
Review Synopsis
- Looks like crap.
- Plays like crap.
- Is like crap.
As long as we're on the subject of shitty games...
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
( You may not know this about me, but I actually know a bit of French.) I know you're confused as to how this relates to the blog, but shut up, I'm going somewhere with this. Anyway, it grants me an understand of the phrase, "déjà vu", which is French for, "already seen." As in, "I know I've already seen this shit somewhere before." It's Silent Hill 2: a stupidly short survival horror game with tank controls and slight combat issues. Yet unlike Silent Hill 2, shit actually happens in Resident Evil 3.In fact, the shit that happens in Resident Evil 3 is pretty confusing, at least when compared to the nothing of Silent Hill 2; it takes place before, during, and after Resident Evil 2. I'm not sure if there's a term for that, but I'll make one up if there isn't: sandwichquel. Anyway, this sandwichquel tells the tale of Jill Valentine as she explores Raccoon City in its last days. Umbrella did something bad with zombies, they sent in a mercenary force to take care of it, blah blah blah, entire city gets covered with mushroom cloud. Note that this is considered a happy ending, which I find weird, since that's not how movies do things. Again, I realize that you're confused, so let me explain: RE3 is written like it was a movie. That mercenary force I mentioned earlier? It seems to be fielded by some shallow stereotypes (Russian, Mexican, and Dead Russian). Wait, it gets worse: this shit.
Apparently, I have a vagina (in reality, only sometimes). The game confirmed this by throwing Nemesis into the mix. If you're the type of asshole who wants to skip this paragraph, then screw you. But I'll help you by saying that Nemesis is what saves this game from mediocrity. I first met him in Umbrella Chronicles, where he was the slimy Cookie Monster who chased you throughout the game. Here, though, he can barely manage to burp up the word "STARS" without dry heaving...but he still chases you throughout the game, something I really, really like. You never know where he is exactly, but one thing's certain: he will beat you down. He is intent on that; he will not rest until you are dead. This brought about a genuine sense of horror in me, as I found myself pushing a step ladder in front of a door as a barricade early in the game. It was at that point that I decided to redeem myself as a man, the way the Mayans would: by downing a jar of jaguar testicles. I then faced off against Nemesis and sadly found out that he's a total pussy. The only difference between him and regular zombies is exactly how much lead you pump into him. It's a lot, especially considering he doesn't die. I appreciate that feature, but it's hard to consider him scary when the game encourages me to kill him as much as I can.
I also appreciate the quick-time choices. There's no joke there, I actually like these. Every now and then, you'll be presented with a choice you have to make on the fly. You either choose one, choose the other, or wait too long and die, ensuring that those too stupid to make choices don't get to play the rest of the game. Again, like Nemesis, it's a nice twist that keeps the game from being crap...barely. You'd think that EVERY choice would lead to a different ending, like Silent Hill Everything, but the reality is that only, like, the last three choices actually change the ending. Trust me, this game needs all the artificial lengthening it can get, since it's 6 hours with one character. It tries to fix that with an open-ended way of tackling certain puzzles and limiting your inventory quite a bit, but it really doesn't help much. First, 10 items is more than enough for healing, weapons, and puzzling about. Second, the puzzles in this game are a bit easy. Yes, even that stupid water purification one was easy. I can see why they were put into the game (it'd kinda suck without them, wouldn't it?), but I still wish they put a bit more effort into a few of these puzzles.
Hell, just look at the map feature. Yes, this game has an actual map feature, which helps you navigate a world that looks exactly the same and is smaller than my first blog here. (Go ahead, look. It'll make me cry.) Granted, it doesn't exactly tell you where key puzzle elements are, but whatever, it's a step in the right direction. You know, unlike Resident Evil 3. Damn it, I wish this game wasn't so damn easy! Oh, wait, hard mode. OK, I could've played that, but again, there's no normal difficulty, which kinda destroys a game. One option places you in a tea party where the only challenge is to be found how much cream you should put in; the other option places you at a Tea Party rally, trying to tell them what communism is without coming off as an actual communist. (I made that mistake once; it ended with a pretty cool battle.) JUST GIMME MY NORMAL DIFFICULTY! In fact, you don't get an award until you do. I fully expect Nemesis to strangle one out of me. Bring it on.
Review Synopsis
- Every Hollywood stereotype wrapped up in a video game.
- Everything but Nemesis dies in three shots. He dies in seven.
- Kinda short, and it almost admits it.
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