OK, not gonna be as bad as the last one, I promise.
By Video_Game_King 9 Comments
Skullmonkeys is one of those rare games that uses claymation effectively, unlike Clayfighters, Claymates, or any other game with the word "Clay" in the title. It starts off with the villain, Kloggmonkey, falling from the sky and dominating the titular skullmonkies. Apparently, this wasn't his first attempt, as he's also the villain of the "I haven't played it" game, The Neverhood. However, this didn't prevent me from enjoying the game. THIS IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT, EVERYONE!!! But back to Skullmonkeys, there isn't much of story, but what's there is told through some f'ing hilarious cutscenes. I could type up countless paragraphs on them, but I've got video!
In terms of gameplay, Skullmonkeys is decent. It's a regular platformer with very little frills. Aside from just jumping and collecting currency units, you also get bullets to collect and numerous power-ups/other weapons. The game doesn't urge you to use them often, but they're there for anybody who wants them. Each level seems to have a certain theme, and I'm not talking purely in aesthetic terms; there's usually some random platform with a twist (floats on water, makes other platforms, etc.) or item that they copy and paste through this and other levels. It seems lazy, but it's pretty effective; it makes the levels more memorable, but they never really feel same-y.
However, this is one major flaw I want to address: really tiny platforms. It seems like there's a lot of them strewn throughout the game, and like any other game, these things are a pain to jump on. The controls are fine, it's not that.....OK, it is that, kinda. You know that feeling when you jump on that REALLY small platform, only to slip off half a second later? Happens a lot in this game. The game tries to balance this by giving you an abundance of lives through an overload of currency units, but let's be honest here: that's just trying to compensate for one flaw with another. I didn't have much of a problem with this, but I can see how somebody might.
And back to the space issue, that didn't seem to work, did it? There are a lot of load times in this game. They're not long, but frequent. Like the tiny platforms (I could end the sentence here, couldn't I?), they weren't a problem for me, but they could be for somebody else. I guess that could sum up the whole game, couldn't it? "I didn't have a problem with it, but other people might" rings true for all of the game (not counting the frustrating final levels (for reasons already mentioned)). So instead of giving an award for the hell of it, I'll try to make this one more relevant: the Crusader of Centy Award for Imagining the Feelings of the Other Side, For Once.
For those who don't understand that last joke, go play Crusader of Centy. Right now. For those who did get the joke, enjoy my review of Resident Evil 2. I should add that I played the DualShock Edition (I couldn't find the regular version), but that doesn't matter. I also played on Original mode, Normal difficulty (as much as it pisses off a lot of you in the crowd, for some reason), and the only changes I could spot were a few dialogue clean ups. Other than that, same game. Quite literally.
On the actual review, this is going to be hard for reasons I'll mention later. Right now, I'll mention what has changed since the last game: not a whole lot. You still walk through prerendered environments, collecting esoteric items, solving puzzles, and shooting zombies and....bio....thingies. So the enemy design isn't remarkable; what stands out about these guys is how much ammo it takes to kill them. Most of these guys take a really high amount of lead to go down, and when combined with the relatively low amount of ammo you get in the game, it's a really effective way to get you to avoid the enemies. Combine it with the frustratingly tight hallways, and I can see how people might get a cheap scare out of this game. I didn't, but the point is others might.
Speaking of tight hallways, the graphics. Again, all the environments are pre-rendered, which, again, makes control a pain in the ass. However, the pre-rendered environments, for all their flaws (like the one pictured here), still look better than those from its predecessor. While the original Resident Evil's environments were static and quite clearly looked like they were ripped from a PC point-and-click adventure, let's say The 7th Guest. RE2's environments, on the other hand, feel more vibrant and alive (ironically), and sometimes have some sort of animation, like a flame flickering or a light...flickering.
Yet on the point-and-click thing I mentioned earlier, what hasn't changed is the crappy point-and-click puzzles. They rarely form any sort of logical pattern, most of them following the model of "insert jewel, receive bacon." The only difference from the previous game is that you do them twice this time, only from a different perspective and a few things switched around. Resident Evil 2's main distinction from the rest of the series is the A/B playthrough thing. You play as one character the first time, then the other time you play as the other character. Who you play as first has an effect on what the game for the second character is like, but we all know that you'll just go for Leon first and then Claire, you unoriginal hack. And I know that this is nothing more than a cheap ploy to get me to play through the same game twice.
Character choice aside, RE2's story and voice work are definitely better than RE1's. There are still horrible cliches and incredibly stupid lines (Leon's yell to "ADA!!!" comes to mind), but they're few and far between. So I guess Resident Evil 2 is a weird game to review. It fixes key problems in certain places, like story and graphics, yet others, like bad controls and length, seem to be blatantly ignored. Ooh, quite the conundrum. Where would I rank it, and what score would I give it?.....Well, it certainly isn't Silent Hill, but the game is good in its own regard. (If you want a score, try scrolling through my beaten games list. That is, if you're masochistic enough.) So I give it the Torneko Taloon Award for Character Superfluity. And the exact same score as Skullmonkeys.
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