Apparently, I am not just the king of video games. I also seem to have dominion over Scrabble, that word game where you yell at your friends for playing words you don't know. Usually I'm one of those friends, kicking ass with words like matey (75 points to victory), advent, and queue. These words have led me to numerous victories, a fact that has no doubt angered a few gods. Why? Well, today, I can confidently say that I was a participant in the most fucked up game of Scrabble. I assure you that none of this is made up at all.
Things started off weird when both me and my foe discovered that we were playing on a French board. "Whatever," we both thought, "we'll play in English. What could go wrong?" How naive we were. My opponent started with the word "revert", and from then on, gained a noticeable lead with words like "quiet" and "Zeus" (with a blank for a Z). Speaking of blanks, I believe the first thing we noticed was that there were four blanks. Frightened, I appeased the deities by playing the French word "haute." This was not enough, apparently; they had decided my fate long in advance.
This is the only image I could find of it on the Internet. And I had to make it. Defying them with balls that had grown to massively unsafe levels, I played Mamon. So many things were wrong with this: proper noun, misspelling, I got it from a video game, but in the end, we accepted the term. But the Board Game Gods did not. This is the part where reality starts slipping apart: I noticed that the first M was worth 3 points, but then the second was only 2. As if that was not enough, guess what I pulled from the box (no bag was available) close to playing that word? Yes, the actually-existing letter on the right.
If you're keeping track of the languages, this is a Spanish letter played on a French board. In an "English" word. Yes, more perplexing is the fact that I managed to play this in a word of my own invention: runñer. Used in a sentence: I will runñer ass over. Again, I am not lying. You may find it funny, but the oft-mentioned Board Game Gods obviously did not. Things progressed further downward as we discovered the following anomalies, like:
A fifth blank, but with a P sneakily written on. I used it as a U in my next word, which by the way...
There were two Qs in play, spread across three words: quiet, qualm, and quiet. Yes, quiet was played twice, no doubt in hubris.
Several letters were missing, like a G and a K. However, there were 8 O's.
I ended up winning, 185 to 158, despite having had my ass handed to me earlier. Not even the gods can keep me separated from victory.
So you may ask yourself, "What was the point of this self-indulgent tale?" or "Why did you post this in Off-Topic?" Well, it is a warning to never anger Scrabblor, God of Scrabble. However, there may be other ways. Therefore, I implore that you post your weirdest board game experience so that others may not anger Scrabblor again. Post your weirdest experiences, damnit! IT IS YOUR DUTY!!!
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(This one should be quite obvious to all gamers.) After all, many gamers (myself included) know that Ghosts 'N Goblins is one of the mostTo give you an idea as to this game's difficulty, this is the first level. Yea. frustrating platformers you can jam into your NES. I say "frustrating" because to describe it as hard would imply some amount of legitimacy that it doesn't have. However, what most people don't know is that Ghosts 'N Goblins is actually the first in the CIA's video game torture program "Codename: GnG." It was meant to drive communists to the point of suicide by being ridiculously cheap and frustrating, at which point an agent would ask them the location of the bomb or whatever.
However, Geneva Conventions declared it to be an inhumane tactic, forcing the US to develop the far more toned down Ghouls 'N Ghosts. For those of you searching for a point in that introduction, it was "this game is easier than its predecessor." There are quite a few fixes to the original formula of "jump, shoot, die", like the fact that you can shoot in multiple directions. Finally, you won't have to worry about flying burritos of death raining down death from above. You just have to worry about a billion vultures pecking your eyes into a fine mush.
Yes, the game is still extremely difficult, but you probably knew that before you read the review. Enemies will kill you faster than you could possibly dream of, and playing the game on an easier difficulty leads to the game calling you a pussy, but it's still not as hard as the original game. The enemies are easier to manage, and you are now able to take a whole three hits of damage. Yes, holy crap indeed. Sure, you don't get extra health as often as you need, but at least Capcom is trying to make the game less frustrating.
They've also tried some new things with this game, a surprising thing to come from Capcom. The most obvious (and arguably, only) change is the addition of a gold suit of armor. It gives you an extra step away from death and a super attack that changes with your weapons. It's a kind of cool system that helps fixes the omnipresent problem of the difficulty, and does so with no real flaws. Yet it does so with a fake flaw: not telling you what your new power with your new weapon is. Yes, it's petty, but I'm still gonna complain about it. At first, I thought all of them would be the Ninja-Gaiden-2-esque doppleganger thing, but then I found out this wasn't the case. All I'm asking for is a tiny little sprite at the bottom of the screen that tells me what I have.
Wait a minute, why am I asking for this game to do something for the player? The GnG series hates players with a passion that has not changed since the last game. One thing Capcom has not changed is the ball busting difficulty. Yea, earlier, I commented on how there are fewer enemies and you can take an extra hit, but you still can't direct your jumps (imagine Bionic Commando or Prince of Persia), and level design still seems designed with the goal of killing your spirit. You know what else hasn't changed? That stupid "play me twice, bitch" gameplay mechanic. Turns out when you beat that giant fly boss, the game says "sorry, but you need gold armor and Hadouken to get to the ending. Go play again." Does anybody like this feature? Oh, you? *kills you* There. You see that, Capcom? NOBODY LIKES THIS FEATURE. *more people raise their hands*.....*kills them off* Don't worry, they were already dying from lethal amounts of stupid.
But you should already know that, Capcom; you hired them as your translators for the ending. Another hallmark of the series included here is the poorly translated ending. Again, a minor thing to complain about, but still....Well, there's not much I can say about it that you can't already decipher. There are several grammar errors and typos in a very text heavy ending to a difficult game. It's like running five consecutive decathlons, and after having won first place overall, the announcer mispronounces your name (and he's not even close). In fact, let me give Ghouls 'N Ghosts the Squidward Tennisballs Award just to prove that point. I would have included a clip, but I couldn't find the damn thing.
Review Synopsis
Still hard as hell, but not as hard.
A few new features, like the gold suit and multi-directional fire, are welcomed with open arms.
There are still things that need fixing.
Quick, tell me what the most random combination is. If you said "Twilight and milkshakes", you are horribly wrong. The correct answer would be "Dragon Quest and Hairspray." The Internet exists, therefore meaning that the latter combination does as well.
Lost Odyssey
(OK, this one is definitely more personal.) However, it caused me more frustration than when my computer restarts (almost as if to deter me from blogging). When I first got this game for Christmas, it was sealed and labeled "New." I opened it up and found NO GAME IN THE BOX. Add in the fact that GameStop (the guys who sold it to me indirectly) wouldn't accept trade-ins of sealed games (they were extras), and you can see why I've developed a hatred for them. However, fast forward a week or so to when I actually have the game. Open it up, and I find three discs where they should be, and one in a crappy paper sleeve. OK, weird.
You have to admit: Gongora would be more badass with a smart-mouth parrot on his shoulder.However, when I got into the actual game, I (eventually) found it to be really, really good. Set in the world of Fashyn Disastera, you take the role of Kaim Argonar, an immortal pretty boy who's seen quite a bit in 1000 years, but can't remember any of it. So of course, your goal is to get his memories back, which, somehow, ties into him saving the world. OK, so the story is by no means original; it's filled with quite a few genre cliches (brooding badass pretty boy, kingdoms filled with royalty and assholes ready to betray them, amnesia all around, etc.) and the villain amounts to little more than Jafar with a thicker mustache, but I made a point last blog that a game can make up for unoriginality in several ways.
Lost Odyssey is definitely one of those games, and it makes up for this with its presentation. Several aspects that would normally cause me to projectile vomit pure rage (like the later-mentioned romance) are now quite loved because of excellent presentation. The dialogue is very realistic, and the voice acting is excellent. Mistwalker hired some of the best voice actors in the business, like Phil/Lil, Ben 10, and other prolific voice actors. Hooray!
Also deserving of a gold star is....well, many aspects, but the battle system in particular. Like many RPGs, Lost Odyssey employs a turn based system as defined by FF10, meaning excellent blending of cinematics and enemies beating your 9-turn-spellcasters into the oblivionth term. So what separates Lost Odyssey from Final Fantasy X (apart from its closeness to the turn based system)? Well, there's the incredible creativity of Lost Odyssey when it comes to the turn based system, but officially, it's the ring system!
During combat, a ring appears on your enemy while attacking. Line up your ring with their's, and you do more damage. And that's pretty much it. There's not much more to the system other than a few status effects that were only important a few times. I can see where they were going with this (trying to get you more involved in battles), but it simply doesn't work, probably because magic doesn't work with it. When your mages start dealing out spells like Flarus and All-Barricadus, you just sit there and watch the effects. Now to be fair, I shouldn't bash such a minor feature, but the game seems so damn proud of it. Throughout your journeys, you'll trip over random components to create rings all the time, and you can create them directly from the menu (as opposed to a shop or anything).
In fact, that's a theme that runs throughout the entire game: immortality sucks. No, wait, I meant pride over the most minor of features. Yes, Lost Odyssey seems particularly proud of several insignificant things, the most notorious being A Thousand Years of Dreams. At random points in your travels, some random NPC you pass in the streets will fart, and that fart will unlock a memory Kaim has of the time 200 years prior when somebody farted and everybody around him stopped being racist. Each dream reads-wait, hold on. You have to read each one slowly and laboriously. It's tedious, breaks the flow of the game, and is generally crap.
Anyway, each one reads like a short story, and the game seems rather proud of them. It asks you if you want to read it immediately, when you sleep at an inn, from the menu, or generally when you want (or more likely need) to. Yes, these things pop up frequently; at one point, I ran into three of the damn things, obviously not seeking them out. Now you might say, "Why are you complaining about them, KIng? They're not a necessary feature, and you don't need to read them." My response would be "You do if you want to finish the game, bitch." There are several bosses (final boss included) that will absolutely murder you if you don't have a certain skill obtained from a certain accessory. How do you it? Side quests, of course! I have no problem with the side quests, but how do you unlock the sidequests? Read a dream! Ugh. UGH!!! And as if to add injury to insult, the side quests really don't connect to the dreams in any noticeable way!
I imagine that this was put into the game to flesh out the story (and to say they found the best talent possible for this game), but why does it need fleshing out? It's fine as it is. Hell, the story manages great things at times, like a romance I actually like (see, I told you I'd get back to this). What turns me off most JRPG romances is this: the guy is a brooding badass introvert who eventually abandons this (Kaim, for example), and the girl is usually some bubbly, overoptimistic twat whose cheerful effervescence makes me want to kill off all the world's stupids. Not so with Lost Odyssey. Instead, you have Jansen Friedh, a womanizing asshole who doesn't take things seriously, and Ming, a queen who can see through his bullshit but decides to humor him anyway. What makes the romance great is that a.) there's no luvvy-dubby dreck that poisons what I previously described, and b.) they mature as characters throughout the story without drastically changing into brand new characters. What do I mean by that? Go play Final Fantasy VIII. Not as legendary as you might think. Throw in things like awesome boss battles and a soundtrack that some (reactionary people) have called a One Winged Angel killer, and you have a game that I would willingly label a "classic." However, there is one crippling flaw with the plot: one that deserves the Butchered Death Award. Spoiler alert: on the first disc, Kaim finds his thought-to-be-dead daughter, who then dies within a few minutes of reuniting. I have no problem with that. Next, V randomly comes by and orders you to collect sticks until he remembers something about November 5th. Again, this is not what I have a problem with, although it does build up to it. Here's the problem: Lirum's (the dead daughter) funeral is boiled down to a minigame. WHAT THE HELL!? Do I need to explain what's wrong with this? Imagine if in FF7, right before Aeris got a sword in her gut, a Quick Time Event flashed on screen. That would remove all the power inv-what's this? I'm getting word that Lost Odyssey actually had Quick Time Events. Well, I suspect only at one point in th-no, I'm getting word that it was on several occasions. At least they were optional, ri-wow, you actually have to go through them if you have any hope of completing the game. Seriously? *walks away, quite displeased*
Review Synopsis
Somewhat cliche characters brought to life with excellent voice acting/characterization.
Creative use of the turn based battle system.
Wow, they were quite proud of even the tiniest, most intrusive features.
(OK, this is where things get weird.) Because The Disney Collection is actually a repackaging of Castle of Illusion and QuackShot into one cartridge, I have to write two reviews. I've made it somewhat easy below, but I thought I'd give you the warning in advance.
Castle of Illusion
Pete: the real victim in this entire ordeal. (You know, I've learned something about Mickey Mouse.) What I have learned is that Mickey Mouse is a complete douche. Yes, I was surprised, too. He spent his early days either getting piss drunk or being racist, and many of his video games follow the same plot: Mickey, bored out of his tiny little mind, decides to find Pete and beat the piss out of him. Oh, sure, in the end, Pete may have done something that could possibly warrant assault and battery, but I'm not fooled. Mickey was doing it for the thrill one gets from flogging a cat thing.
However, what makes Castle of Illusion unique is that this is one of the few Mickey games to not revolve around punching Pete in the face repeatedly. Instead, Minnie has been captured by a witch with the intent of recreating Runaway Brain. Mickey, rather than getting another girlfriend, does what all video game characters do: tries to rescue his only love interest from certain doom. But in order to rescue Minnie, he needs to collect the Chaos Emeralds and form a rainbow bridge to the tower where she's being held. I am not making this up.
The Chaos Emeralds are scattered through various rooms of the castle, and he has to search all of them for the Emeralds. Once in the levels, you'll find that the gameplay is standard platformer fare. You jump about the levels, killing enemies, collecting objects, the normal stuff. The reason Castle of Illusion doesn't do many original things is simple: the game is fun. I know, the word is used as a crutch in many reviews, but that's really the only thing that comes to mind when describing this game. I can picture myself as a little kid enjoying the hell out of this game, and that's not something that happens often.
Why do I think it's fun? Well, aside from the semi-memorable levels, there's the attacks. You have your standard shot that requires ammo, but that's not what I'm interested in. I, ladies and gentlemen, am an ass man, and so is Mickey. If you hold down while you jump, Mickey will present his iron ass to the earth below, destroying anything that dares cross paths with the Mickey Mouse ass. If you don't see anything awesome about this, go to K-Mart and buy a soul. They're not that expensive. And while you're in there, buy this game. It's pretty good, if a bit short and simplistic.
QuackShot
(Hey, remember my last blog?) Remember how I reviewed DuckTales 2? Well, it turns out that QuackShot has the exact same plot. That sort of fucks things up for me, since I usually ease you guys into the blog by regaling the tale that the game regaled to me. I can't do that here, since I pretty much did it with DuckTales 2. The only difference I could find between that plot and the story of QuackShot is that the latter is a parody of Indiana Jones for some reason (my guess is massive irony).
Outside the plot, though, QuackShot and DuckTales 2 share very little. OK, fine, they're both duck-based platformers where you choose your levels, but that's really about it. As I have just mentioned, one of the major features of this game is the level selection, which is a bit perplexing, given how crap it is. The choice is an illusion, as there's a pre-established order you have to play the levels in; all you do is select where to begin the trial and error. This is how it works: you pick a level, get halfway through, discover that you need a certain item to proceed (the game will tell you this bluntly), go pick another level, and repeat the process until you make some sort of progress. What the hell's the point of all that? To give the illusion of choice? Or just to fool me into thinking the game is longer than it actually is?
It can't be to cover up for a lack of ideas, since this game has quite a few of them. In fact, it's the antithesis to Castle of Illusion: rather than being an OK game that takes very few risks, QuackShot is a game that tries several new things but fails on most of them. For example, you have three weapons at your disposal, each one with their own use and feel (from another game). There's the corn gun (ripped from Gunstar Heroes), which is by far the best weapon, but sucks up ammo faster than a Magneto/Deepthroat combination. There's also the gum bomb thing, which is OK, but finicky to use. Yet by far, the weapon you will use the most is the plunger, which coincidentally the worst weapon you have.
Combine them all into one, and you have...well, a game that's better than I'm willing to admit. Yea, the weapons kinda suck and the level system is screwed up, but I can imagine somebody having fun with this. It's hard for me to imagine me having fun with it, granted, but I'm sure one of you reading this will probably like it. Me, I just can't get past the aforementioned problems, along with other minor problems like piss easy bosses and invini-CRAP, I forgot to mention the Temper feature. You know how in most games, all you need to do to become invincible is collect a star or orb or whatever? Not in QuackShot; here, you have to piss off Donald to the point that he brutally slaughters anything in sight. How do you achieve this? Build damage over time (like a Limit Break) would be the obvious answer, but the right answer is eating peppers. Can somebody explain that to me? How did Sega miss such an obvious gameplay aspect? Why can't Donald just get the crap beaten out of him. And to top it off, they only appear in one or two levels in the entire game! WHY!?
Review Synopsis
(I'm not doing bullets for two reviews, OK?) Moving on, as I said earlier, The Disney Collection is nothing more than a 2-for-1 deal. Ultimately, the quality of this game hinges on that of the two that make it up. As I have proved, both the games are decent, meaning...well, you should know. And now, as I do for all reviews, I shall end the review by giving this game the Ass Award. Why? One character kills with their ass, the other can moon enemies. Enjoy it, Disney Collection. You deserve it.
I'm going to assume that most of you don't watch TV. In that case, here's a crap commercial I found on several channels. Wait, did I say crap? I meant crapé.
Gears of War 2
(I can already hear the alarms in your heads blaring so loud that I can hear them.) In fact, I'm quite sure a lot of you have already typed up your response to this blog, memories of Halo 3 still fresh in your minds. Well, I have a few things to say. One: let it go. Second: let me reacquaint you with my reviewing process, this time with one little step added. That step may seem weird, but trust me, it's there for a reason. Third: I actually liked the game, it just took me a while to decipher how I liked it.
Now then, let me piss you guys off by starting with this statement: I played the game on Normal. No, wait, that's for later. I meant to say "I have not played the original Gears." I've seen it in action from firsthand experience, but that's about as close as I can get. However, none of that matters, as the enitre beginning of the game is meant to welcome neophytes to the series. There's an optional tutorial framed into the story (a bit dickishly, if you give it some thought), and the first cutscene explains what happened in the last game: they thought they killed the Locust, but didn't. Now they have to do it again (even though they didn't AGAIN). Why? Well, that's where Gears 2 somewhat falters. The Locust really don't get any development throughout the story, and I was never told why I need to kill them. All I found out was that they were having a civil war, but again, no explanation. Hell, I would've easily accepted "the glowing ones were keeping the non-glowing ones up at night."
The protagonists also have this problem, but not as severely. I could make a joke about how they're all ultra-manly to the point where Duke Nukem wears a skirt and curtsies in their presence, but egoraptor beat me to it. I could also go on about how Dominic mentions his wife too often, but by now, we all get it. However, I'll delve further into it by saying that I found the moment where he finds his wife to be fucking hilarious. For those who haven't played the game, let me explain: after many long fought battles, Dominic finally reunites with his only love in what seems like a luvy-duvy moment that makes me hate so many romance stories. And then finds out she's a walking corpse on the verge of death. I can imagine this being a sad moment (Fire Emblem 4 did the same thing, albeit knocked up a few notches), but I just found it to be incredibly funny. Does that make me a bad person?
Then again, most of you have already judged me to be a bad person based on past actions/opinions (the latter I stand by). Yes, I'm bringing that game back into the spotlight, but trust me, it makes for a good transition. One of the problems I had with it was the inventory limit. You guys say it was for balance, but seriously, just stop. Everybody always goes for the energy sword and the bulky laser pointer of death. In Gears 2, however, the inventory limit actually kinda feels balanced. Rather than just getting a limit of 2 weapons, you get a limit of 3 types of weapons (grenades not included), each with their own use. There's the small handgun for when you use enemies as a shield, the powerful weapon for when I feel like sniping (all the time), and the medium-power-shotgun category for every other time. As I've just said, it works really to make to you think about what the hell you're carrying.
Another thing that works better? Cover system. There's a very good reason I like it, but I'll address that near the end. All you need to know for now is that it doesn't get in the way of me feeling like a badass. I can still go up and shoot my enemies shitless and not feel patronized when I need to hide behind a nearby chest high wall. Hell, I actually liked it when I peaked out from behind cover, saw an enemy do the same, and blew their brains out with a sniper rifle. (Oh, and one thing I've learned from this and COD4: I love sniping.)
Which one looks better?...That's what I thought. But of course, there are some flaws with this game. What, you thought I'd just declare it the best thing ever made since BioShock? Hell no, of course there are going to be a few errors with it. This isn't Conker's Bad Fur Day or anything! The first flaw that comes to mind is that it rips off a few games. About halfway through the game, you encounter a mansion with this very System Shock-esque feel to it (quite weird, since I've never even played the game but can still identify rip-offs of it), and a few hours later, you're riding a Reaver in a Panzer Dragoon-esque scenario. I actually loved this portion of the game in the same way I loved Panzer Dragoon.
Just replace all the artistic charm and brilliance of Panzer Dragoon with the muddy, greyed up graphics of Gears 2. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are excellent from a technical perspective (everything is high detail, shooting your environment has noticeable effects on it), but from an artistic standpoint, they quickly experience a sharp dip in quality. As I just mentioned, copious amounts of grey and brown. Essentially, Gears of War 2 looks like just about any other shooter you'll find on the market: manly space marines beating up squishy aliens in the drabbest of environments. However, as I've pointed out time and time again, a game doesn't have to be original to be good (see Banjo Kazooie, Star Ocean 2, the Genesis version of Aladdin, etc.), and Gears 2 is one of those games that manages to prove that. Hell, it doesn't even need to be original to win the Best Cowboy Game So Far Award. What, you're confused?
Let me explain: throughout the game, I kept getting the impression that the experience would be better with a cowboy theme slapped on it. Can you imagine how awesome that would be? Hiding behind tables you kicked down, wildly firing your Colt Revolver at drunk men with funny mustaches, riding your horse into the distance as I described the Panzer Dragoon thing. It wouldn't even be a hard conversion, since most of the characters already fit perfectly into it. Hell, there was a character early on who could only be classified as an "old coot." Why hasn't this happened yet!?........Well, that's about all I have to say on the review. Might as...something feels weird. *checks list of beaten games* OH MY GOD!!! GEARS OF WAR 2 IS THE DEVIL!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!! *tears off clothes, runs around screaming*
Review Synopsis
Cover system is fun, does not get in the way of being awesome.
Graphics are technically good, but artistically lacking.
Characters thinner than the disc they were written to.
(This is the third time I've had to type this blog.) The first time I tried typing this, I hit backspace while not in the text box, which apparently translates into "DELETE ALL." The second time, Firefox exploded on me and then oh so coincidentally asked if it could install some updates. Yea, I'm not buying it, either. So here's to hoping the third time doesn't end with the police breaking into my house and confiscating my laptop for some reason. Now then, DuckTales 2.
Lacking any sort of transition, let's start with the most obvious place for a reviewer to start: the story. Scrooge McDuck has just found out that there is a some treasure somewhere that he has not yet stolen. Why hasn't he plundered it yet? He hasn't found the map to the treasure, which, for some reason, has been split into seven pieces. Pissed that there is treasure not stored away in his vault, Scrooge decides to travel the world, stealing money from foreigners and bashing their skulls in with a golf club (I am not kidding, he actually uses a golf club this time around).
In enters Main Gameplay Feature One: the cane bouncing thing. In any given level, there's a plethora of enemies and secret things to bounce on. It's a really fun feature, and the fact that the game encourages it only makes that better. However, there is one major problem with it: this is your only form of defense. That's right, the only way to kill your enemies is by bashing their heads in haphazardly. In situations where jumping would be a very stupid idea, this problem becomes evident quickly. There aren't even any power-ups or anything you can buy to circumvent this problem.
Wait, what was that about buying things? Oh, right, there's a little shop in this game, where you can buy life, extra lives, pieces of the map, etc. How do you get the money? The treasure you're collecting, obviously. Instead of increasing some arbitrary score at the top of the screen, the items you collect go towards your money amount. Automatic plus in favor of this game, since it means that the score actually has some meaning in this game. In fact, the entire treasure-hunting aspect nets this game an automatic plus.
There are no major flaws that I could find with it. Sure, the secret paths sometimes overlap the main path in a slightly confusing way, but the fact that it encourages you to explore the levels more than makes up for that flaw. I guess that was meant to make you feel like an actual treasure hunter rather than just Mario tripping over priceless artifacts, but I also guess that the feature was put in the game to stretch out the length. And it fails in that regard. The game is so short, you could probably complete faster than it takes to read this sentence. I wouldn't mind the shortness, either, if not for the bad ending. It's so bad, it earns the Shame on You, Capcom Award for Double Fooling. Joke's on you; this never appears in the game. "What's so bad about the ending", you might be asking. Well, let me explain: after taking down the T-1000 (why is there a Terminator parody in a Disney game?), Scrooge runs off the ship and watches it sink from a distance. He lost all his treasure, but he discovers that the greatest treasure of all is friendship. Fine, it sucks, but that's not the worst part; that goes to the total lack of the Duck Tales vault anywhere in the game. WHY DO NONE OF THESE GAMES HAVE THE VAULT!? One of the best parts of the show was seeing Scrooge swim in the vault, and you don't see that anywhere in the game. The main feature of this is treasure collecting, so wouldn't it make sense to see the vault fill up with treasure, then Scrooge diving in for a swim? But no, that's not here, nor in the original DuckTales. Why, Capcom? You didn't do this for other games. You had Monty Jack satiating his drug habit in Rescue Rangers, so where's my damn vault? I know it's petty to pester a company about a game made 16 years ago, but I can't help it, OK?
Review Synopsis
It's really fun to pogo-kill your enemies and the treasure you find along the way.
(Remember how I said Duck Tales 2 was the better game of this blog?) Well, here's where you get to find out why. But first, I'm sure you would like to know what the hell a Clockwork Knight is. Back in 1995, the industry was going through some major changes. The big three consoles each tried to prove that they were doing 3D best, so all of them tried it in their own various ways. Sony launched with that rabbit platformer whose name escapes me; Nintendo had Mario; and Sega launched with...well, Panzer Dragoon, a much better game. For those still not ready to make the big 3D leap, there was Clockwork Knight, a simple little platformer.
Tasked with the....task of rescuing the princess, you take the role of a cuckoo clock figurine modelled after a French knight (the French part striking me as a bit odd). But for whatever reason, the clock's in a children's room and the princess is in the attic, and rather than going straight to the attic (which he is capable of from the beginning), he embarks on a circuitous journey through the entire damn house.
Also, for whatever reason, the French knight uses a key as a weapon, as he's a very illogical character. He's the complete antithesis to the gameplay, which is incredibly standard. There's really nothing here in terms of gameplay that other games haven't done before. Platforming is standard, you only get one attack that I can describe as adequate, and each world follows a very strict pattern: two levels and a boss. Copy and paste a few times, throw in a final boss, and you're done with the game.
That's most of what I have to say about the game, honestly. Nothing really stuck out for me, and I can't remember much about it (although waiting a day or two to type up this review probably didn't help). The only points I actually have about the game are either vague or incredibly simplistic. However, they're all I have, so let's list them off, one by one! First, there's the incredible brevity of the situation. It's a challenging game, don't get me wrong; you're going to die quite a bit in this game, but you can still complete the game in the course of a day. As I mentioned, there are only about 12 levels in the entire game, and the time limit on each one is five minutes long. Not counting the final boss and assuming you never lose a life, that's an hour of gameplay. Come on.
And as I've mentioned, this isn't a particularly memorable hour. The only thing I could remember about it was slippery controls and some OK CGI (compared to Panzer Dragoon's simplistic cinemas), but that's not really enough to flesh out this review. Neither are the crappy attract mode or the gambling mini-game. I really don't want to end this review ridiculously early, but I really have no choice in the matter. I'm gonna give it the Why Did This Have a Sequel Award, and apologize for the high concentrations of crap found within this latter half of the blog. Just ignore it, as you will inevitably ignore this blog :P.
(If you said "six," you are horribly wrong.) The correct answer was "this blog." See, both these games are somehow related to the number three. Since you guys probably don't see that for the latter game, let's start with the obvious one: Mega Man 3. Well, after the success of Mega Man 2, Capcom decided to find the jail that was housing Wily and not only free him, but give him enough funds (presumably from the MM2 profits) to build more Robot Masters, a death castle, and tons of other robots. Now the Blue Bomber is back to put Wily in jail again (until Capcom decides to release him AGAIN). I finally get an opportunity to use this picture. In order to do this, he must, as always tackle the Robot Masters in any given order that he chooses. That mechanic still works fine, each level feeling like a piece to a larger puzzle or one smooth line, but things started to fall apart by the third installment. Don't get me wrong, the game is still great; it's just that this was where the truoble started for the series. The first weird thing I noticed was that there are two weakness circle things instead of the usual one, which makes things kinda confusing. Hell, I walked into the Needle Man battle thinking a few sparks would kill him, only to find out the previously stated fact. On the actual bosses, though, I felt the aforementioned desperation. Why the hell were they resorting to the Zodiac, and how the crap does he beat needles?
Speaking of needles, the weapons are as fun as ever, but again, things were creaking downhill at a slow pace. You have the standard weapons, like the homing missile and metal death blade (admittedly not as "death-y" as that of 2's), but then you have some weird ones, like Gemini Bouncy Laser (awesome) and the ballerina pirouette of death (suffice to say, it's as threatening as it sounds). There's also the Rush items, which were more uniformally good than the regular weapons. Each one has their own specific, easy use that comes up often enough in the game to justify it.
The Rush items are not the only thing I liked about this game (despite what the last few paragraphs might have led you to believe). For example, the new Doc Robot levels add a new and interesting twist to the game, forcing you to refight Mega Man 2 bosses under different circumstances. We also see the introduction of the more-permanent Proto Man, a prototype of Mega Man. That probably explains why his battle strategy is "jump and shoot," which would be somewhat disappointing if not for his cool whistle. On that note (no pun intended, honestly), the music, as always, kicks serious ass. Just about everything in this game is an instant classic, from Spark Man, Gemini Man, and Snake Man to Top Man and those two greatWily songs. So consider these factors either one of two things: cherries on the Mega Man sundae, or patches to cover up the stagnation of the series. I'll consider it the former, and in lieu of an award, I present Mega Man 3 with a sundae. Well, I would if there was a funny picture of a sundae on Google Images. But there isn't, so both me and the game must now enjoy a moment of very awkward silence.
...................Silence over. Silence must be renewed. I know! Which was better: Mega Man 2 or 3? 2, obviously; a lot of people say "You know, everybody says 3 was better, but we all know 2's the best", which is odd, since I've never met anybody who has said 3 is better. Can somebody direct me to them, as I don't want to go on the odyssey on which you are about to embark. Instead, I want to introduce this new feature of mine:
Review Synopsis
Great music, items, and new features.
The bosses and weapons are still good, even if the age is showing.
Mega Man 2 was better.
Now instead of a video for this blog, I'm going to show you something that I found outside the Internet. OK, not exactly: You may ask me what's wrong with this and why I'm putting it in this blog. Here's why: it's just a collection of pictures somebody ripped right from Google. And they're making money off this. I am surprised colleges have not seen a massive downward spiral in enrollments.
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
(Oooh, a part where I get to indulge in my own personal history.) A long time ago, before the existence of Giant Bomb, I had a rather torrid love affair with strategy RPGs. We had some great times with some great games like Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, Shining Force II, Bahamut Lagoon, and many others. Yet somewhere down the line, we went our separate ways. Maybe it was Warsong's difficulty level or Treasure Hunter G's major lack of quality, but for some reason, I ran from this genre to the hands of JRPGs. But here we are, a DS in my hands, and Fire Emblem in my DS. Could this be the game that returns me to the genre? Yes. Kind of. Another major change: Marth kicks serious ass. This next part is also going to be in my full fledged review of this game, so consider it a preview: Fire Emblem DS (technically, SD) is actually a remake of the first game in the series. The original was pretty good for its time, but was killed by the lack of a save system of any kind. It seems Nintendo knew this, as not only does Shadow Dragon have the save system, but there's also a mid chapter save system. Put in this game to relieve the frustration of resetting every time a character permanently dies, it helps fix what is essentially an irreparable problem. No matter what Fire Emblem game you play, you're still going to reset the game when characters die. Even Seisen no Keifu (which, as I must remind you of once again, is the BEST VIDEO GAME IN ANY REALITY EVER), a game that let you save every turn. Oh, and you didn't have to waste a unit doing so, like you do in this game, meaning that if you're like me, your strategy becomes "save with weak unit, then keep that person from dying a horrible death."
Speaking of strategy, this game is a strategy RPG. I know that's kinda obvious to some of you, but I feel like it needs to be included. Anyway, gameplay consists of selecting from a menagerie of characters to send into battle against pirates or dragons (depends on how far you are into the game). What makes it better than other Fire Emblems is how it utilizes the DS's features so damn well. The top screen displays either a map or the stats of any given unit, freeing up the bottom screen; battles also take place up there, and are skippable if you wish; and the touch screen controls are just plain awesome. The point and click controls reduce the amount of menus you have to navigate by some high%, removing a lot of the reasons why people don't play these games. Sure, trading is a bit finicky, but the ability to control it with the traditional D-pad eliminates that.
Shields with no purpose...oh, you better believe that's a paladin. All the previous features are ones that really don't have any downside; the following ones do have one. With all the mandatory improvements come the new features either borrowed from previous games or completely new. For example, there's the new reclassing system, allowing you to change a character from a healer to a paladin. Why anybody would want to do this is beyond me, as I (and from the looks of it, everybody else) barely used the damn feature. This feature wasn't in the original version, so all the characters pretty much fit into their designated categories. I can see how this would work with a new game, but since this is a remake, not so much.
Another feature that kinda fell flat was story. OK, it doesn't fall flat, it just doesn't age well. Here's the basic concept: long ago, some guy killed an evil dragon. Now, 1000 years later, that dragon's empire is slowly reviving itself and swallowing the continent of Archanea into the tides of war. Marth and his group of rebels are tasked with putting down Medeus once and for all (as far as America knows *cough* sequel *cough*). Pretty standard fare, right? There's nothing wrong with the basic outline, but rather in how it's presented. The links between chapters seem kinda tenuous, as if each one exists independent of the other. Also, characterization, one of the strong points of the series, isn't very strong in Shadow Dragon. Granted, there's a large cast of characters with their own individual backstories, but for the most part, their development is limited to their recruitment speeches. The only characters who get any real development are Marth, his two girlfriends, the villain, and a few late-game powerhouses. However, I can't complain too much, since all of the characters in this game went on to become the far more developed characters of Seisen no Keifu.
Before I continue on with my review, let me say this: I am biased when it comes to this game. Let's face it: I've played all but one game in this series (two if you count the Satellaview thing), played this particular game twice before, and my favorite game is a Fire Emblem game. Of course my opinion will be affected, there's no avoiding that. However, there are some things that I can comment on without coming across as biased, like the gaiden chapters. I have nothing against gaiden chapters, but again, it's how Shadow Dragon does them. All of them are inserted for the idiots who killed so many of their units that they make the French look competent in battle. No, seriously, go check it out for yourselves.
However, as I said, there are things that Fire Emblem can't affect, and one of them is my taste for music. Using that, I deduced that the new soundtrack is actually really good. In fact, I'll say that of the three iterations of this, Shadow Dragon's the best one. The NES version was OK, but the DS has a wider variety of instruments, so it wins over the original. "But wait", you say, "what about the SNES version?" Oddly enough, the melodious NES soundtrack was destroyed by the atrocious instrument choice in the SNES version. So clearly, as I have stated before, the DS version kicks the most ass.
Unfortunately, a kicked ass does not stay kicked over time; no matter how hard the ass was kicked, the pain slowly dissipates over time, and that's obviously what happened here. What I mean is that most of the game's problems relate to the fact that it hasn't aged well, like the story, the erratic difficulty, the brevity of the experience, and the lack of character development. If you can get past all that, you'll find an enjoyable game. A game that deserves the Sequel for all Spacetime Award. Why? Well, the ending hints at a possible sequel in the future, and I wouldn't put it past Nintendo. After all, it's already there, and it's a really good game that I hope makes it over here.
Review Synopsis
Some very nice new features, but a few others that I really can't give a crap about.
Ah, the game that caught my attention the most at this E3, and the one I'm most torn about. On the one had, it's Metroid and Team Ninja. It's going provide closure about Samus' adviser from Fusion, and she's finally going to speak. I guess that means more focus on story, maybe? Not that it needs story, what with the gameplay looking good. It seems very combat focused, as though Samus will have a wider variety of moves than in previous games.
Wait, this is what's on the other hand as well: the Team Ninja part. Does anybody else feel like this will be Ninja Gaiden with a fresh coat of Metroid paint? I know that this is just a trailer, and that it'd be hard to fit exploration elements into that, but at least throw me a bone. The only other problem I had was the dizzying change of perspective ("OK, weird, 2D-sort-of, that's k-did it just go third per-why are we in her vi-STOP CHANGING VIEWS!!!"). Other than that (and the previously listed complaints), pretty cool. I'd mention that the graphics are great and that this is directly related to Team Ninja's involvement, but that same team managed to make the blood in Ninja Gaiden II look like red Seran Wrap strewn about. So....
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Does anybody else think this could easily be a DS game? It looks a lot like the first game, it seems to play a lot like the first, and the new features would only become better when moved to the DS. Dout me? Let me ask you something: how many people have you seen playing New Super Mario Bros in some random locale? Quite a few, right? Imagine how much larger that would get if the demonstrated multiplayer and power-ups were inserted. That would be DS GOTY, by far. Like Metroid, it's bound to be a good game, but I feel like it shouldn't be on the Wii.
Super Mario Galaxy 2
No complaints here. A lot of what I loved in the original is still there, but enough new elements have been introduced to warrant another game. New elements like RIDING YOSHI IN 3D!!! WHY DID IT TAKE YOU SO LONG, NINTENDO!?!?! *goes on happy rampage*
Final Fantasy XIII
Wait, wait, hold on, let me change something. *changes music* There. That's better. With 13, it seems like the series is finally getting back to Final Fantasy goodness. Let it be known now that I found Final Fantasy XII to be a pretentious, narciccist piece of crap that seriously damaged my perceptions of the series. The early stages of 13 didn't help, since they were developing sequels and spin-offs before the actual game was released. However, after watching the new trailer, I was convinced otherwise. The story seems understandable, and there's actual gameplay. No, not in the trailer; in the actual game. Sure, it's a tad reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts, but keep in mind that Kingdom Hearts rules. Overall, I'd say that this is going to be a great game that will revive my hope for this franchise.
Final Fantasy XIV
*changes music again* And that hope has now been obliterated beyond all....hope. What the hell, Square-Enix? I just spent an entire paragraph saying how you had moved away from the pretentiousness of Final Fantasy XII and sequels to games that hadn't been released yet, and you give me another Final Fantasy when the current one is still in development? That's something you're supposed to keep secret until you're finished with the current one! (Look it up.) And an MMORPG? Come on, Square! Just....nevermind, let's move onto the next item of interest.
Vitality
Like everybody else here, I was confused and baffled by this. What exactly is the point of this? I guess maybe for Wii Fit and the new Wii Sports, but that's a VERY limited range. So what other purpose could this device serve? I'll repeat that purpose, as I have in various other places: innovation for innovation's sake. They're simply trying to maintain their image as the innovative company, which, in my opinion, isn't needed (the DSi plays that role adequately).
Well, that's it. Now I know that I've missed some games, mainly because they weren't announced yet (Final Fantasy XV), there wasn't enough info on them (the new Metal Gear game), or they just plain didn't interest me (mostly everything else :P), but just take this for what it is, OK? I am not disrespecting the game I have not listed here, nor am I praising those I did (as if that wasn't made obvious by now). These are just the games/things that caught my interest enough that I thought I could write about them. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish up Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. *runs off to play* 16 Comments
(Unfortunately, you're gonna miss out on some good games.) For those not averse, just keep reading. Undoubtedly, the first thing you noticed about the first game I'm reviewing is that it's a sequel. However, the original Star Ocean was a Japan only game for quite some time, making this one of the ballsiest games out there. Don't think the balls stop at the title, as this game makes it well known that it's a sequel: one of the characters is from that game, the story continues that of the previous game, and.....well, that's all the joke I can get out of this. No, wait, here's another: I would not have been surprised if Enix decided to include a pair of truck nuts with each copy of the game. OK, that's all.
Seriously? Am I the only person who noticed?But if you believe that the end of my joke is the end of Star Ocean 2's balls, then you are sadly mistaken. Another way this game shows its bravado is by ripping off Final Fantasy VII on numerous instances. Aside from the examples included in the picture, there's the characters. Let's play a game: I describe a character, and you tell me if they're from Star Ocean or Final Fantasy. Ready? Go: a kind flower girl with mysterious healing powers, dubious origins, an adopted mother, and a completely useless stone that becomes important later on. A blond jerk swordsman with ulterior motives and the name Cloud/Claude. An annoying animé girl.....OK, that's just unfair, I apologize for that.
And to be perfectly honest, the game doesn't rip off Final Fantasy VII as much as you'd think from that description. Star Ocean 2 does a lot to separate itself from many JRPGs out there, the most noticeable separation being in the battle system. Rather than a turn based system, this game employs a real time battle system, and it works really well. Rather than depending on a statistic to inform you of whether or not your attack connected, you have to make sure it actually hits the enemy. It may not sound like much, but trust me, this becomes really important when you use attacks that issue 20 hits to the same enemy.
While you think that would solve a lot of the problems people have with JRPG combat, the reality is that it doesn't. If you're the type of person who thinks that the combat in these games consists of nothing more than mashing attack, then this game won't really change your mind (but Lost Odyssey will). In a lot of battles, I found myself just hammering on the killer move button until everything in front of me was dead. Boss battles require more strategy, but for the most part, combat consisted of sending my three fighters to gang up on one enemy, kill it, and repeating for nearby foes. There's also magic, but since many spells don't work in real time, I'd rather take my chances with three fighters. Nothing against spellcasters, it's just that they interrupted the flow of battle.
Speaking of characters, the amount of characters you can choose from is actually fairly large and varied. There are the aforementioned three characters, but there's also the little spellcasting kid, the guy with two dragons on his back, the animal lover (not Claude), and several others. Add in the various relationships each character can have with each other and how this affects the ending, and the amount of time you will spend on this game could potentially skyrocket to some high number. However, there is one problem that threatens to bring this down: the character development, or lack thereof. Aside from the two protagonists (and anybody related to them), the only growth they receive is mostly through the few cutscenes around the time you recruit them. There are Private Actions to fix this, but I feel like it's one of those features that you need a walkthrough to fully exploit, so for the most part, I ignored them.
However, there was one thing I liked about the story: the second half. Just about everything improves from the second disc onward. The sci-fi part is much more fleshed out; there's an actual set of villains and something at stake (as opposed to the first discs' "find this globe thing" mission); and overall, everything is just better when you insert the second disc. The only problem I had was that it didn't fix all the problems I mentioned before, like character development or really long cutscenes (not much to say on that), but I still found it to be more enjoyable than the first half of the game. Uh....you keep it. Well, I guess that's the end of the review. I covered the story, the combat, what else is th-oh wait, I forgot! The item/ability system! Just like the real time 3D combat, Star Ocean 2 also distinguishes itself from other games with how it works items. When you level up in combat, you gain a certain amount of skill points that you can allocate to whatever ability you want, whether that's cooking, conducting music, or pissing off the enemies (that is a real skill, I am not kidding). I can see why they'd put this into the game: make the items mean something (example: restoring MP with foie gras instead of an elixir), and the age-old conundrum of trying to customize yor characters down to every little detail. On that last one, though, the game falls flat on its face, since it seems each character is made for a certain task, and finding that one task is mostly trial and error. Even late in the game, when my characters had many of their skills at the maximum level, they were still making crap items like Crumpled Paper, Bounced Checks, and Weird Lumps.
However, there was one skill I found to be really fun to use: Pickpocketing. Level this ability up as high as possible as early as possible, and each town will become a dungeon in itself, each person a treasure chest waiting to be plundered. Hilarity will ensue in some cases (like the few listed in my gallery). Confusion will also ensue, like the example I am about to list. At one point in the game, you're stuck in a room with all your companions, allowing you to rob them of their precious items. When I did this, I found that I had stolen weapons from my allies, and that these weapons were far better than anything I had seen up to that point. This raises many questions, like "Where the hell did they get these things?", "Why didn't they get any for me?", "Why weren't any of you pricks using these?", but most importantly, "How could Enix/tri-Ace see no logical problems with this?" If anybody can answer these questions for me, then you're probably the type of person with more important things to do than waste your time reading an amateur gaming blog. So go cure cancer or discover how to manufacture uranium-laced bullets for our next World War, while I sit here, giving games like this the Apathy to Paradoxes Award.
Keeping with the tradition of blurring the line between dimensions, here's a cool video I found on GameTrailers.
(The title is Japanese for "Fucking Brutal.") But that aspect shall be fleshed out later; now is the time to elaborate on just what the hell an Umihara Kawase is. After reading this blog, I decided to find out what the game was and what it was about. Apparently, it's a Bionic Commando-esque game starring a 19 year old schoolgirl. There's no story given to you, so, as always, I made one up: she's trying to get to school (obviously), and somehow tripped into another dimension, where fish are trying to kill her, and she must swing around on a fishing rod until she reaches a door. Will it lead her back to her own world? Of course not! It's just going to drop her in another level. A mere warm-up compared to Umihara Kawase. And in that other level, she must do what she just did: grapple about with her fishing rod. This is where the game gets good and sets itself apart from similar games. As I just said, your weapon in UK is a fishing rod, which allows for many things that a grappling hook wouldn't allow, like bending around corners and manually controlling the length of your line. UK pulls this off amazingly well, with creative level design and wacky physics, the latter being a major part of the game. I've heard that the physics engine in this game pushed the SNES to the limits, and I believe it. The swinging mechanics in this game can range from "barely moving" (although you never stop moving, a major physics flaw) to "I'm surprised the line hasn't snapped." Control over your line is integral to completing this game.
Oddly enough, the necessity of control over your character is also where the game starts to spiral downward in quality. As I stated in the first sentence, this game is fucking brutal. Many of the levels assume you have COMPLETELY mastered the swinging concept, and because of this, introduce challenging aspects like having to swing yourself up shafts, grabbing small objects with incredible accuracy, and grappling onto something midflight. And remember the controls I mentioned earlier? Turns out they could use some work. Pressing down pulls the line into you and up lets more out, which can be confusing when you're dangling in the air on said line. Worse yet, it makes it somewhat hard to extend/contract your line, since pressing vertical and horizontal directions simultaneously (which you shall do, there is no doubt) will result in a kind of awkward diagonal.
And don't think the developers didn't know that the game is hard; if anything, that was just their little joke on the player. For example, if you take too long trying to swing to a particular platform, UK will pull the old Darius trick on you, by which I mean it'll place enemies right where you wish to go. Even if you're not swinging towards a platform, enemies can still be there, which while in itself isn't annoying, produces results that are. You can grapple onto enemies as well, but they're dragged towards you, meaning if you latch onto one by mistake (instead of the wall nearby), you'll plunge to your untimely death. Bosses are also difficult, since the goal isn't to beat them, but rather to avoid them (and the minions they summon). Then again, I only fought one boss, mainly because the game became impatient and dumped me in the final level before I could reach other bosses.
I do have other complaints about the game, like how the graphics are a bit too pastel-y for my tastes, but my main criticism rests with the difficulty. If you are able to complete levels like these as if they're nothing, then you're probably friends with the same jerk from before who knows why my party members in Star Ocean 2 weren't using those super-powerful weapons they had hidden away at all times. The only thing harder than this game is the sequel, which I've heard is in 3D. If that's true, then it has reached a level of difficulty that cannot be allayed even by sacrificing your soul to Satan................It's a hard game, OK? That's the whole point of this, so I'll give it the Hardest Game Ever Award. *looks at blog* Wow, that was a longer blog than I thought it would be. No idea if it's any good or not (a weird quirk of mine). For now, I'll take a break with a Legaia stint. *runs off to reluctantly play Legend of Legaia* 6 Comments
(For the former, I guess that's a somewhat fitting question.) As to why, more on that a bit later. Right now, it's review time, and lucky you, both of these are games that everybody has heard of. The game I speak of...well, that's obvious, since it's blatantly written at the top. What isn't so obvious is what I think of the game, so let's start with my belief that this was Sony's response to Donkey Kong Country. Come on, how could you not know that? It's a crazy mammal jumping around in wacky jungle environments.
Let me say that this was not a negative statement on the game, but rather a little historical observation. I liked the game, and I'm sure I would've loved it when it came out (I was an N64 kid, mind you). The first thing that would've caught my attention would have been the word "bandicoot" and what the hell it was (along with echidnas). But once I got past that, I'd notice that it's all about the fun. The main goal of each level is just to jump about and avoid enemies until you reach the end. No gimmick or catch; just jumping.
Normally, this would make for a crap game without some sort of twist (as was the case with Shadow of the Beast, an old PC game where you walk to the right until you get bored), but Crash doesn't have that twist. Instead, he has to rely on conventional tactics, like level design and charm. First, the level design: many of them are memorable, fun to play through, and...not 3D. Yea, there are only two kinds: a sorta-3D perspective where movement is relative to the screen (IE forward/away), and the 2D stages which prove my theory that many developers in the early days of 3D were very, very lazy.
Yet there is another, more serious problem with the 2D perspective thing. You know how in most games, when you press down, your character crouches? Not in Bandicoot; since the game still thinks you're in 3D, it just makes the....whatever-the-crap-he-is move torward the screen, leading to many unfair deaths until you adjust. At least it would lead to many unfair deaths, if not for the game's overgenerosity when lives enter the picture. I ended the game with about 90 lives, and given the frequency of the bonus levels, I find that number to be completely average.
However, the game is still worth playing, despite some of the flaws I have listed and have yet to list, like graphics that have poorly aged or MIDI music with like results. But as I said, this game is still worth it, if only to relive whatever random piece of your childhood contained batshit insane animals beating up scientiests. Speaking of which, most of the boss battles are pretty good; I can only remember one that was pure crap. Add that to the numerous reasons to get Crash Bandicoot, along with the Best Shirtless Hero Award.
Oh, wait, I forgot one little asterisk to this whole review. Inevitably, some of you will ask me to compare this game to Super Mario 64, the definitive 3D platformer. My response would be that these games are two completely different animals with dissimilar results. Super Mario 64 is a kind of open world platformer with cool power-ups and levels, while Crash Bandicoot is more of a traditional platformer filled with zany charm. Personally, I'd go with Super Mario 64 out of sentimental value, but I wouldn't fault you for choosing the latter.
Now I know this next video will earn me nothing more than baseless controversy, so let me say it now: I ONLY PICKED IT BECAUSE IT WAS FUNNY.
As we all know, Wolfenstein 3D concenrs itself with the story of an American soldier infiltrating the various Nazi cast-OH WAIT. Yea, Nintendo kinda demanded that id edit out all the Nazi parts of the game, making it a weird experience where I had to make up my own story: FDR sends an American soldier into various fun-land castles, mainly because the damn guy needs a break. But for whatever reason, Mr. America (the soldier, as I will refer to him from now on) decided to smuggle weapons into this fun-land castle, so all the nine foot security guards tell him to stop in very clear English. Mr. America does not comply, so they must unleash the mastiff-size rats (ratstiffs?), disco zombies, and shaven Hitlers in mecha-suits. Let me reiterate that the circumstances made this incredibly strange, not me.
But what isn't strange is the gameplay (which should be incredibly obvious, given how it was essentially a blueprint for the entire FPS genre). Standard FPS fare: you point a gun, you shoot, fun-land employees die or don't die. Repeat ad infinitum. Sounds pretty boring, right? Well, not really. The game mainly focuses on shooting the crap out of anything that moves, giving it that simple, violent feel that several other games lack. However, there are some screw-ups, like the sometimes harsh difficulty. Should you die, you go back to the beginning of the level (that's not the bad part), left only with a crap pistol that can barely kill a single employee, let alone a bunch of them (that's the bad part). In the later levels, where there can be enough enemies on screen that their corpses cause slowdown.
Although the death system cannot be entirely blamed: the graphics also contribute their fair share of problems. Dear God, they have not aged well at all. Everything has this very pixelated feel to it, everything looking blurred from a distance. By contrast (as I alluded to earlier), anything close to is nine feet tall and will jam their crotch in your face. And I know this was supposed to be in Nazi castles filled with whatever gold Dr. Jones didn't already swipe, but why are there so many f'ing portraits of Der Fuhrer? Did some Nazi see that old Donald Duck cartoon, thinking it would be hilarious to see the real-life application of that? Or, continuing on that train of logic, did the developers fail at making the game any easier? Mission failed, id.
OK, I think I've wandered a bit from my original point to the extent that I've forgotten it. So instead, let me speak of the other flaws, like mouse controls. You'd think that a PC game in a PC genre would control perfectly with the mouse, but I guess a weird space vortex created by the lack of Nazis turned the mouse controls to shit. Yea, you can move perfectly fine, shooting's OK, but what kills it for me is the doors. Opening them with the mouse is a finicky process that destroys the game when you realize that the door count goes up with each level, and the only way to keep them permanently open is to hope that somebody dies in the door. The maps could be better, and the weapon selection is a bit meager, but my main complaints were the graphics, controls, and the things I actually fleshed out. They don't make the game worse; they only reveal how old and outdated it is compared to other games. So I give it the Original Trilogy Award for Poorly Aged Quality, and anybody who posts here this key advice: before insulting me for calling a game crap, keep in mind that I score them. Complain about the scores, if you feel the need to. (Also a warning for future blogs.) 1 Comments
(*rocking in fetal position*) How can I suck at it? How can I suck at ANY video game? I'm the Video Game King! Once t-*gets poked in face by Queen* Huh? Where am I? I think I was supposed to do something.....oh yea! Review some games! Let's see what we h...*sees game on reviewing list* Ooooooohhhhh...*returns to rocking in fetal position, gets poked in face again by Queen* Alright, I'll review the game. Now then, for those of you watching a depressed king on the Internet, you noticed two things: that I'm reviewing Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix IX X4 Alpha Rebirth Limited Collector's Edition, and that I suck balls at that game (there's no way I'm typing that all out again). You know it, I know it, the game knows it: I suck at puzzle games. You know it, I know it, even the game knows it.
However, I was still able to enjoy this game, sort of. Seeing as how I sucked at this game, this will be particularly hard to review. So let's start with something that's easy to judge: the graphics. The main reason this game was made was to parody Capcom fighting game, and it all starts with the graphics. You can select a Street Fighter/Darkstalkers character to play as, but from a gameplay standpoint, it doesn't do anything. The only benefit is that your super-chibi-fighter now does different moves when you score a huge combo and has a different set of insults. That's the only reason you pick characters. Sure, there's a counter combo thing, but I have no idea what the hell that is or how it works. Mission accomplished, Morrigan. In theory, the fighting mini-game should work: after all, what better way is there to declare victory than to have a 9 foot tall hadouken follow your super sweet combo? Imagine an extension of the emotive faces from Mean Bean Machine. But remember, all of this is in theory. In reality, it doesn't work out so well, since you'll be looking at your own screen too often to catch a glimpse of what's going on to the right. When you do get a chance to look at the kickass moves, it's an effective way of highlighting your awesomeness, but as I mentioned, more attention will be paid to the actual game part.
Is that bastard flipping me off?But even while I was looking at the screen, I kept having my ass handed to me. In case you haven't caught on, the basic idea is to build up a bunch of like-colored bricks and then blow them up with orbs. The complex idea is to line them up in a specific enough way that several chain reactions start, initiating a shoryuken of epic proportions. Yet I never really seemed to be able to grasp the complex idea; all I did was gather bricks in one corner, building up what could have been decent combos if I ever remembered that you need those stupid spheres to pull off combos. So understandably, I had my ass handed to me constantly.
I don't blame the game for that, but I do blame it for insulting me after I lose. What the hell!? I understand that this is supposed to be a parody of those insults SF2 characters yelled out at the end of each match, but imagine how I (and many other gamers who suck at puzzle games) feel when Ken flips you off. On a lighter note, I at least like the replay value. There's an extra mode for unlocking several new things, like characters, modes, and other crap I didn't pay attention to. Again, I suck at this game, so it's hard to judge it. I don't hate it, I didn't have whatever the opposite of fun is with this game, it's just that reviewing a game is hard when you're not good at it (and you don't write it all in one stint). So in an attempt to wrap up this shorter than intended review, I give SPF2THDR9X4ARLCE the Most Unreviewable Game Award. Notice that I am the subject. And that it's hard to post the word "I" in all caps.
Keep in mind that the clip I wanted to post was too filled with racism and horrifying things I cannot ever discuss for me to post it here. So I give you a completely safe version with kinda choppy animation.
Super Nova
(Yay, a game that is incredibly easy to review!) No more trying to combine words into something that can be called a review! Finally, I have something that quite clearly sucks! Should've expected this, given the circumstances. Before I review the game, a brief history: long ago, before Giant Bomb, I played (and disliked) many shmups. Eventually, somebody called me out for this practice, saying that the reviews were poor and that I should take a more in-depth look at the games. I have listened to him with all future reviews, but with crap like this, it's getting pretty hard to adhere to such guidelines.
On the game itself, Super Nova is actually an entry in the Darius series, which should have been a big red warning light against playing this game. I played it anyway, and kinda regret it. Since it's a Darius game, it has all the Darius features, like robotic fish bosses, multiple paths, one really bad feature I'll mention later, and mediocrity. As I just mentioned, this game lets you choose which levels you go to, and which (of three) ships you play as. While this would logically mean stupidly high amounts of replay value, I get the feeling that this game just put it all in to give us the illusion of replay value. The three ships play exactly the same, and as the game goes on, the levels begin repeating themselves. There were a few sloppy Mode-7-rotaty levels, some of those levels where you have to shoot through stuff to make a path, etc.
However, this pales in comparison to my main complaint: the difficulty. Simply put, this game is too hard for extremely cheap reasons, the first one being how death works. You know how in most shmups, when you die, your ship comes back to life in the exact same place (real time), has that brief moment of invincibility, and then continues with the shooting? Super Nova will have nothing to do with any of that. Instead, should you die (and you will), you go back to the beginning of the stage. Yes, you read right: no matter how far you got (even to the boss, if my memory is correct), you get sent back to the BEGINNING OF THE STAGE!!! And to add insult to massive injury, you lose any power-ups you had with you. At times, I think this game wants me to die. Wait, I'm getting word that the game does wish death upon its players.
The best example was this one boss battle against a whale thing. I had died previously, so I was stuck with the bare-bone weapons. (Speaking of weapons, the power-ups are kinda meager and don't offer much choice. Come on, even the first Darius did that!) That worked up to a point, but there was this one cannon mounted on the whale's ass that I just couldn't reach with my regular weapons. I tried to reach it, but the game grew impatient, and decided that my stupidity must be punished with invincible enemies whose sole purpose is to kill you. Not that the actual enemies aren't built for that purpose, either; at any given time, there are enough bullets on screen to put games like Perfect Cherry Blossom to shame.
So we've established a few things already: mediocre weapon selection, thin illusion of replay value, high difficulty, and I forgot to add one thing: a poor translation. It may not seem like much, but to me, it was. Now that I look back on all this, I feel like Super Nova is a game that doesn't want to be played, and quite frankly, I don't want to play it. So I give it the It's Best for Everybody not to Play This Award. 7 Comments
(Seriously, nobody had ever heard of those games.) And oddly enough, that was what made it so inflammatory. But as happens with all my controversial blogs, I learned some good things that make me a better gamer. For example, this important question: if a game sucks and there's no-one around to play it, can it still be called overrated? According to me, Wiktionary, and the question I just plagiarized, yes. But I'll avoid that stance and move onto games I liked and ones you've probably heard of. Not this one, though. (Hey, I can't beat Marios and Final Fantasies all the time.)
Hell, even I hadn't heard of it when I saw it. The only reason I played was because Treasure (the guys behind Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, and a bunch of other awesome games) made it, and no matter the quality of the game itself, a Treasure title is at least unique. So I decided to play this game, and found it to be an enjoyable, shallow, short, but enjoyable experience. Like the last Genesis shooter I reviewed, Burning Force is a behind-view shooter utilizing Space Harrier-esque graphics and lots of enemies.
Your goal is to blast through each level (at whatever speed you choose, a feature more important than it lets on) and kill baddies along the way. There are a few power-ups for your ship, but only three of them are worth getting: the chlorine gun, the super-cheap wide shot, and the only-half-as-cheap homing missiles. Everything else is pure crap, and nothing else. This isn't to say that the game is easy, even though it kinda is; the difficulty falls somewhere between easy and ball-busting. Often times, there's a bunch of crap on screen that you have to avoid, but paradoxically, the enemies all die easily to one or two bursts of your cannon.
And that's what makes it fun: dodging enemies at high speeds and shooting down anything heading toward you. Or coming at you from behind; unlike the last game I played like this (Super Thunder Blade), Burning Force pulls off the 3D perspective thing rather nicely. The objects scroll towards you smoothly, things are moving all over the place, and the ground doesn't look like a striped monstrosity. Sure, the graphics can edge on the simplistic side at times, but for the most part, it looks really good, especially given the early release date.
Whoops, seem to have digressed from the gameplay onto some random graphical tangent. Let's get back to the gameplay, shall we? In addition to the normal biker/shooter portions, there's also a plane flying thing, transforming the game from 3D Worldrunner without jumping to Space Harrier with a 150% badass increase. It even comes with a pretty cool bonus level where you try to see how many points/orbs you can get. It's a nice diversion from the shooting action, and, in my opinion, a needed one. After all, there's not much to the actual game other than "shoot, shoot, dodge that, shoot." It's still a fun game, but not exactly the deepest experience you'll have with a video game. Therefore, I give it the Tetris Award for Shallow Fun.
Last blog, I also got a bit of crap for the musical link things I use as my blog introductions. I like the feature, so instead of omitting it from future blogs, I'll do the opposite: torture you for 90 minutes. VWEEEE-HEEE-HEEE!!! (Seriously, though, it's pretty cool.)
RayMan
(How can you not know about this game?) It's not big enough to be Mario or Sonic, but it's not small enough to be Little Samson or Metal Storm. But does its semi-importance to gaming make it a good game? No, all the great gameplay mechanics make it a great game.
As soon as you turn your PlayStation/Saturn/Jaguar/whatever on, you're greeted with a delightful Rayman-creature-thing in a top hat. Despite his pleasant, relaxed, almost-hippy exterior: he has some bad news: his home land has been invaded by an evil villain named Mr. Dark, also wearing a top hat. Mr. Dark arrested all the Electoons and threw them in hard to find (a key point for later on) cages. RayMan, the only being in the universe not wearing some sort of weird hat, is the only hero these poor creatures have.
So how does he plan to save them? By punching the crap out of anything that comes his way. Lucky for him, he has no limbs, meaning he has the only punch long enough to beat Chuck Norris in a fight. However, he does not start off with this godly gift; RayMan must learn it, like he dubiously does with other abilities. I can understand the helicopter hair and grabbing onto rings, but why does he have to learn how to run? That just seems like something he'd automatically understand, like breathing.
Whatever, at least the game itself if fun. As I hinted at a few sentences ago, there are a lot of abilities and elements to each level, and Ubisoft never seemed to run out of steam, even until the end. Each level has its own distinct feel to it, other levels being unable to replicate this. There's a mini-exploration-based level, a level that behaves a lot like a side-scrolling shooter, the typical "stay on the platform for 9 minutes" level, and many others. Boss battles are also creative, but not by much. Sure, no other game has you throwing your fist into the face of a fat space viking, but no other game makes that same space viking victim to easily predicted patterns. (The game isn't exactly easy, but I'll touch on that later.)
Yet the gameplay isn't the best part about the game. No, that honor goes to the aesthetics, which are great from both an artistic and technical perspective, especially for such an early PS1 game. RayMan has a very sweet, sugary, saccharine feel to it, each level featuring more colors than a rainbow. This, along with the aforementioned/incredibly rare cartoon FMVs, give the game a lot of charm. The music also helps with this, but I don't have much to say that a YouTube playlist already can't.
What little 90s attitude there is to be found within this game. For a lot of the game, I had trouble finding any sort of real faults with the game. The most I could come up with was, "Well, he has a bit of misplaced 'tude." Not that valid a complaint, right? Well, RayMan heard this complaint about the lack of complaints, and decided to give me a bunch of reasons to hate it by making the last few hours as unenjoyable as humanly possible. Before you can even get to the final level of the game, you must free every single Electoon in the known universe. Yes, this game does what Blast Corps and Jet Force Gemini did: force you to 100% it in an attempt to get you to stop playing. I tried bypassing it with the password system (there's also a password system, in case you don't have a memory card), but the mystical voodoo forces of this game prevented me from doing so. So I went back through each level, slowly growing to hate my once former love. I had no choice; the game would not accept less than perfect (which really sucks when you have JUST ONE CAGE LEFT in a certain level). So you'd think that the game would allow you to exit a level you've already finished once you get everything you need, right? Like Mega Man? No, you still have to finish the damn level, turning what were once enjoyably challenging platforming sections into frustrating obstacles that waste your precious time.
Keep in mind that while I made it through, I had to do it with maps, walkthroughs (or rather, walkthrough), YouTube videos, and a bunch of things that people in 1995 did not have. But I made it through to the final level, only to find out that it was a hellish nightmare. Mr. Dark pops up throughout, sprinkling you with annoying magic spells, like a perpetual state of running or reversed controls. Obviously, a deep hatred for Mr. Dark started brewing within me, so you can tell how much I wanted to get to the final boss so I could beat his face in for his crimes against humanity. But the final boss isn't even Mr. Dark, it's some crappy fly thing on a stone body! But the ending has to be good, right? Well, let me stop you right there: no. You want an ending? Here's a ten second clip saying you beat Mr. Dark and a credits sequence. That's your ending. Because RayMan gave me a crap ending, I'll give the review for it a crap ending. It gets the Ghosts 'n Goblins Award for Frustrating 2D Platformers with Shit Endings, and also the crappy ending to Prince of Persia. That's your ending.
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