About 4 hours into No More Heroes 2, one realizes that this is more than a game, it's a parody of gaming itself. It's not quite as blatant as last summer's Matt Hazard game, but it's there, and it's hilarious.
Again, the player is thrust into the persona of Travis Touchdown, former reigning champion of the United Assassins' Association and resident of Santa Destroy California. However, it's three years later, Travis has lost his rank, and his best friend from the first game and he's ready to do some killing.
The game plays like the original. The player tilts the remote up or down for either high or low attacks. The A button is then pressed to swing the beam katana. This is nice because the player is not left swinging the Wii remote around the with reckless abandon, breaking furniture and maiming spouses. The B button kicks and initiates grappling moves. The analog stick on the nunchuck guides Travis and the Z button locks on to enemies. It's easily the smoothest, most accurately controlled game for Wii.
There are some fundamental difference between NMH 1 and 2. The driving segments are gone now, replaced with a might handy map that lets Travis skip to places of interest. This works very well, as the actual driving in the first one never really contributed to the plot (except for a few key missions) and just took time away from fighting. The job missions are back, but this time, they're all played as 8-bit video games. (The sound of Travis blowing into a cartridge can be heard before Travis starts one of these missions). As you climb the ladder of the U.A.A. again, this time you can be challenged from below. This brings a really interesting dynamic to the game. In the first of these fights, you face off against a school girl who has a crush on Travis. I don't want to give too much away, but it involved deadly bubbles, a two sided beam katana that shoots out of a recorder, and some really really really bad poetry. Needless to say, while making the plot slightly more serious, the game still keeps its sense of humor in tact.
The video game parodies itself and the genre constantly. Aside from the 8-bit mini games, giant chainsaw wielding guys ask "Trouble in your digital world?" sympathetically before taking a big swing at Travis. Travis himself can play a video game on his TV called Bizarre Jerry 5 where scantily dressed anime girls shoot at aliens 1942 style. There's an intro movie for Bizarre Jerry that intentionally makes no sense whatsoever, and by doing this delivers a lot of laughs. In his first interaction with Sylvia (his "love" interest from the first game), Travis and she argue about plot and continuity. Travis of course wants the audience to know what's gone on over the last three years, while Sylvia maintains that most of the audience is playing this as a stand alone game and could care less about what happened in the first game. One thing is certain though, in the three years since NMH 1, Travis's cat Jeanne has gotten fat. Morbidly obese fat. There are a series of mini games that help the cat exercise and lose weight. Could this be a dig at the Wii fit?
No More Heroes 2 does comedy well but also, strangely enough, walks the tightrope into dramatic territory. Moody cinematics of Sylvia explaining the plot between missions set a great tone for game. The music in these scenes recall shades of Angelo Badalamenti's dark score from the old TV show Twin Peaks. Travis conveys his feelings of loss in a quote the both sums up his dark emotions and the silliness of the whole affair: "Everyone deals with grief differently, Some people fuck at funerals, I cut heads off."
Friday, February 5, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
First Impressions: Bayonetta
So, it stands to reason that Hideki Kamiya (the father of Devil May Cry) saw what Capcom did with Devil May Cry 4 (or any of them since the original, if you think about it) and decided he knew what was best for that style of game. Lots of people have tried to "fix" dmc before. More weapons, higher combo counts, bigger monsters, you name it. Bayonetta, at first glance anyway, matches all those bets and raises them one gigantic dose of sex appeal.
You see, in the few hours I've had with the game I have pummelled scores of enemies with fists and feet, blasted them apart with pistols and shotguns (somehow) attached to my appendages and even summoned gigantic hair-dog demons to do my bidding but despite the spectacle of it all, it all feels very secondary to the sexy. Cinematically she subdues enemies with leg locked face rides, boob grazes, and spread eagle gunshots, then in gameplay she gets more naked with each combo hit, the final blow often delivered entirely in the nude. She switches her heels with every flick of the analog stick, blows seductive kisses at magical barriers, and kicks her foes right in the balls before strapping them into gigantic iron maidens and guillotines. And that's just within the first three missions.
I'm not some catholic prude or asexual misanthrope who will never know a woman's touch. I've long awaited the day my many perversions and my long term hobby would join forces against the boredom monster (See: Onechanbara), but Bayonetta just goes about it all wrong. Its one thing to just slap an unrealistic set of assets on your heroine (every female lead since Lara Croft), or throw misguided innuendo into an otherwise unrelated affair (GoW, GTA), or even try to pass off a shoddy half developed game as a sexual experience (rrxx, doax), those things are fairly typical these days. Yet no matter how good I feel about tearing bosses in two, finding well hidden secrets, and unleashing new combo strats in Bayonetta, I have to roll my eyes while she strokes her guns across her face, or makes some glib remark about enemies wanting to touch her.
Maybe this would work a lot better if Bayonetta herself didn't look so unattractively ridiculous, even better if there was a plot / premise reason to her acting like a hardass one second and a hoebag the next. Like, if there's a flashback coming up that just says she had to spend the dark ages casting spells on gentlemen in whorehouses, or that being sexy somehow gives her power I'll be fine, but she's decended from a coven of witches who dressed in nothing but habits and hung out in hidden temples. Every other character in the game is conservative and straight laced (to a point), even her evil twin rival sister whatever character (who happens to be a tall leggy blonde), so why is Bayonetta all throwing off her clothes and firing guns between her legs all the time? Is it because she's the ugly sister? Did daddy like her best? So frustrating.
Still, I can't argue gameplay wise that its a perfectly valid member of the DMC wannabe family and its clear Kamiya has a better understanding of it's genetic make up than most. Last night I unlocked a totally unexpected katana to bolster the already over-abundant array of killing techniques, and with all the question marks and things left to kill, it seems like the game is just chock full of content. I just wish I didn't have to wade through so much ineffective sexuality to get to it.
-F.
You see, in the few hours I've had with the game I have pummelled scores of enemies with fists and feet, blasted them apart with pistols and shotguns (somehow) attached to my appendages and even summoned gigantic hair-dog demons to do my bidding but despite the spectacle of it all, it all feels very secondary to the sexy. Cinematically she subdues enemies with leg locked face rides, boob grazes, and spread eagle gunshots, then in gameplay she gets more naked with each combo hit, the final blow often delivered entirely in the nude. She switches her heels with every flick of the analog stick, blows seductive kisses at magical barriers, and kicks her foes right in the balls before strapping them into gigantic iron maidens and guillotines. And that's just within the first three missions.
I'm not some catholic prude or asexual misanthrope who will never know a woman's touch. I've long awaited the day my many perversions and my long term hobby would join forces against the boredom monster (See: Onechanbara), but Bayonetta just goes about it all wrong. Its one thing to just slap an unrealistic set of assets on your heroine (every female lead since Lara Croft), or throw misguided innuendo into an otherwise unrelated affair (GoW, GTA), or even try to pass off a shoddy half developed game as a sexual experience (rrxx, doax), those things are fairly typical these days. Yet no matter how good I feel about tearing bosses in two, finding well hidden secrets, and unleashing new combo strats in Bayonetta, I have to roll my eyes while she strokes her guns across her face, or makes some glib remark about enemies wanting to touch her.
Maybe this would work a lot better if Bayonetta herself didn't look so unattractively ridiculous, even better if there was a plot / premise reason to her acting like a hardass one second and a hoebag the next. Like, if there's a flashback coming up that just says she had to spend the dark ages casting spells on gentlemen in whorehouses, or that being sexy somehow gives her power I'll be fine, but she's decended from a coven of witches who dressed in nothing but habits and hung out in hidden temples. Every other character in the game is conservative and straight laced (to a point), even her evil twin rival sister whatever character (who happens to be a tall leggy blonde), so why is Bayonetta all throwing off her clothes and firing guns between her legs all the time? Is it because she's the ugly sister? Did daddy like her best? So frustrating.
Still, I can't argue gameplay wise that its a perfectly valid member of the DMC wannabe family and its clear Kamiya has a better understanding of it's genetic make up than most. Last night I unlocked a totally unexpected katana to bolster the already over-abundant array of killing techniques, and with all the question marks and things left to kill, it seems like the game is just chock full of content. I just wish I didn't have to wade through so much ineffective sexuality to get to it.
-F.
God Of War III The Demo
Last night I got my hands on the God Of War III demo for the PS3. Here's a quick rundown of what happens in it.
It opens with the familiar GoW title screen: a close up of Kratos's face looking angry as ever. If the title screen sits for a while, he'll bare his teeth and growl. Kratos does not appreciate waiting to kill. There's only one option on the screen: Start Demo.
So I press start and immediately Kratos fighting 5 guys at once. Of course, they're not very tough. The first new move noticed is Kratos's battering ram move. He can pick up an enemy and run him into all of the other ones. I'd be lying if i told you it wasn't extremely fun.
Then it's on to platforming. Kratos can now grab a harpy and have it fly him over to distant platforms. Kratos tips the harpy by stabbing it about five times during the trip. Yikes. After that We get treated to another great outside fight scene with a giant character destroying a city a la God Of War I. Instead of Ares, this time it's a titan that may be Atlas from GoW II. He's getting hassled by Helios, the sun god, and his flaming chariot. Before he can be helped, Kratos has to take out some more sword wielding bad guys and a centaur. No problem.
Kratos runs up the ramp to help Atlas, but there's another problem, the first new villain we get to see from God Of War III: The Chimera. This monster has the body of a lion with goat head above the lion's head, and a snake for a tail. Oh, and if combining three vicious animals (yes goats are vicious, anyone who's been to a petting and is unfortunate enough to be holding feed in the vicinity of one knows this) isn't enough, the Chimera blows fire. The monster is about as big as a standard minotaur from the GoW series. This fight is split in to three segments. First the snake is cut off. Then the Lion's body is stabbed in the chest. After that, Kratos rips off a horn and stabs it through the head. If anything, Kratos is thorough.
After this, Kratos shoots Helios with a nearby harpoon gun. The titan catches him and crushes him. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get fight Helios, but oh well. Kratos then catches a ride on a harpy and beats up some more low level thugs. He then runs through a building and kills more goons. (This is where the battering ram is formally introduced). There's also some more ledge hanging and creeping. Kratos can speed a long ledges by moving the right analog stick in the same direction as the left. That's very helpful actually. We pass a guy who laments about his lost possessions. He'd probably lament about his crushed skull too, but Kratos throws him off the side of his house very quickly. That's just the way Kratos takes care of business.
After this Kratos lands on a veranda with a very very beat up Helios on the ground. Consider my earlier disappointment gone.
It's not going to be simple though. A group of guys with shields and spears surround Helios. Think 300. And then some sword guys and a Cyclops drop in for a big fight. The cyclops is subdued much easier than expected. Then Kratos gets to ride around him and crush the remaining swordsmen and the shield dome over Helios. The sun god is now prone. Kratos walks over which initiates a mini game that starts with a neck snapping, keeps the pace steady with some head pounding and ends with Helios's head being messily liberated from his shoulders.
This leads to the first new tool in Kratos's God of War III arsenal: The Helios Head. It shines like the Medusa head, but instead of turning enemies into stone, it reveals secret hidden doors. To use the head, the player has to push L2 and R1 at the same, an odd button combination, but I imagine I'll get used to it. Helios's head immediately reveals a hidden door. After going through the door there's a vent of air that uses the Icarus wings from GoW II. Kratos then flies through a maze wood framing avoiding fireballs. It's intense. Even more intense is the way the demo ends.
Once Kratos gets to the top of the vent, we see Atlas again. But Kratos lunges at him like he's about to attack. The screen then goes black. Has Kratos turned on the Titans? Has he struck a secret deal with the Olympians? Or, in typical Kratos fashion, is he just going to kill everyone?
I'm betting on the last option.
It opens with the familiar GoW title screen: a close up of Kratos's face looking angry as ever. If the title screen sits for a while, he'll bare his teeth and growl. Kratos does not appreciate waiting to kill. There's only one option on the screen: Start Demo.
So I press start and immediately Kratos fighting 5 guys at once. Of course, they're not very tough. The first new move noticed is Kratos's battering ram move. He can pick up an enemy and run him into all of the other ones. I'd be lying if i told you it wasn't extremely fun.
Then it's on to platforming. Kratos can now grab a harpy and have it fly him over to distant platforms. Kratos tips the harpy by stabbing it about five times during the trip. Yikes. After that We get treated to another great outside fight scene with a giant character destroying a city a la God Of War I. Instead of Ares, this time it's a titan that may be Atlas from GoW II. He's getting hassled by Helios, the sun god, and his flaming chariot. Before he can be helped, Kratos has to take out some more sword wielding bad guys and a centaur. No problem.
Kratos runs up the ramp to help Atlas, but there's another problem, the first new villain we get to see from God Of War III: The Chimera. This monster has the body of a lion with goat head above the lion's head, and a snake for a tail. Oh, and if combining three vicious animals (yes goats are vicious, anyone who's been to a petting and is unfortunate enough to be holding feed in the vicinity of one knows this) isn't enough, the Chimera blows fire. The monster is about as big as a standard minotaur from the GoW series. This fight is split in to three segments. First the snake is cut off. Then the Lion's body is stabbed in the chest. After that, Kratos rips off a horn and stabs it through the head. If anything, Kratos is thorough.
After this, Kratos shoots Helios with a nearby harpoon gun. The titan catches him and crushes him. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get fight Helios, but oh well. Kratos then catches a ride on a harpy and beats up some more low level thugs. He then runs through a building and kills more goons. (This is where the battering ram is formally introduced). There's also some more ledge hanging and creeping. Kratos can speed a long ledges by moving the right analog stick in the same direction as the left. That's very helpful actually. We pass a guy who laments about his lost possessions. He'd probably lament about his crushed skull too, but Kratos throws him off the side of his house very quickly. That's just the way Kratos takes care of business.
After this Kratos lands on a veranda with a very very beat up Helios on the ground. Consider my earlier disappointment gone.
It's not going to be simple though. A group of guys with shields and spears surround Helios. Think 300. And then some sword guys and a Cyclops drop in for a big fight. The cyclops is subdued much easier than expected. Then Kratos gets to ride around him and crush the remaining swordsmen and the shield dome over Helios. The sun god is now prone. Kratos walks over which initiates a mini game that starts with a neck snapping, keeps the pace steady with some head pounding and ends with Helios's head being messily liberated from his shoulders.
This leads to the first new tool in Kratos's God of War III arsenal: The Helios Head. It shines like the Medusa head, but instead of turning enemies into stone, it reveals secret hidden doors. To use the head, the player has to push L2 and R1 at the same, an odd button combination, but I imagine I'll get used to it. Helios's head immediately reveals a hidden door. After going through the door there's a vent of air that uses the Icarus wings from GoW II. Kratos then flies through a maze wood framing avoiding fireballs. It's intense. Even more intense is the way the demo ends.
Once Kratos gets to the top of the vent, we see Atlas again. But Kratos lunges at him like he's about to attack. The screen then goes black. Has Kratos turned on the Titans? Has he struck a secret deal with the Olympians? Or, in typical Kratos fashion, is he just going to kill everyone?
I'm betting on the last option.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Mass Effect
For a change I'm behind the times. With everyone I know wholeheartedly GUSHING about Mass Effect 2, I figured it was time to pick up the original. I can say I am pleasantly surprised so far. I'm only about 90 minutes in but the story has me hooked; not a single cliche` to be found (except maybe that the humans are a blight on the galaxy).
I'm not mad that I only have 1 achievement unlocked either, and I like the game so much I haven't bothered looking at the entire cheevie list. Speaking of, this game better be pretty fucking epic to expect not one, not two, but THREE play-throughs in order to unlock the full 1k, and there better be a new game+ option because you start off pretty crappy at shooting for a marine.
Keeping with the WAY BACK theme, I finally put some hours into Need For Speed: Most Wanted. I am a self admitted gamer score whore and I plan to 1k all the "Need for Speeds", since for some ungodly reason, I have them all. To be honest I don't think its entirely possible, because a few of them require participation in EA's "community race days" so I may have to settle for the high 8 or 9 hundred on those.
Project Need For Speed:
Most Wanted: 9/15 = 165/1000
Carbon 2/50 = 25/1000
Undercover 7/50 = 80/1000
Pro Street 40/50 = 865/1000
Shift: 8/29 = 325/1000
Gamer tag? LLiNRAC
I'm not mad that I only have 1 achievement unlocked either, and I like the game so much I haven't bothered looking at the entire cheevie list. Speaking of, this game better be pretty fucking epic to expect not one, not two, but THREE play-throughs in order to unlock the full 1k, and there better be a new game+ option because you start off pretty crappy at shooting for a marine.
Keeping with the WAY BACK theme, I finally put some hours into Need For Speed: Most Wanted. I am a self admitted gamer score whore and I plan to 1k all the "Need for Speeds", since for some ungodly reason, I have them all. To be honest I don't think its entirely possible, because a few of them require participation in EA's "community race days" so I may have to settle for the high 8 or 9 hundred on those.
Project Need For Speed:
Most Wanted: 9/15 = 165/1000
Carbon 2/50 = 25/1000
Undercover 7/50 = 80/1000
Pro Street 40/50 = 865/1000
Shift: 8/29 = 325/1000
Gamer tag? LLiNRAC
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Gamefly + Anxiety = Gamefliety
There's always an akward anxiety for me in between gamefly games. The excitement of playing something new, the worry that it will suck, the fear that some titanic mail screw up will leave me liable for money. The last few games its been particularly brutal as things have seemed to take a little longer than when I first signed up, but how much of that can be laid on the holiday season or my natural impatience is open for debate. Either way, I'm in the lull right now, and that means frequently, often compulsively, I'll log onto gamefly.com and shuffle around a few titles in my queue like i can somehow predict when the mail will get there or what will be "now available" when that happens. Its maddening. Right now it says I have a shot at Borderlands, but failing that I fall nearly 10 games down my queue to Condemned or Rise of the Argonauts. I'm not really in the mood for a garbage game, but there's really no way to guarantee the gamefly game selection machine won't send one along short of taking all the garbage out of my queue and waiting even longer. And how do I feel about waiting longer? Well, see this entire paragraph.
I suppose its just. I'm sure there was some poor soul going through the same rigamarole during the three or four months Prototype sat patiently on my stack of games while I played through Batman and god knows what else. The solution is of course is to upgrade my account to allow more games at a time. A two game rotation would guarantee I always had something not mine to play, but that would also guarantee I had more games lying around my house not being played, which is the habit I'd hoped to skewer in joining gamefly in the first place.
Last time I had a break like this I had Shadow Complex. A gem of a game that turned out to be less of a Super Metroid homage and more of Super Metroid itself, not that there's anything wrong such a thing. Complex's only sin is that it vainly assumes bgm is optional, a demonic trend in gaming I wish I could exorcise. I will agree there are a few situations if not entire genres where the concept of ambient noise as music is passable, but it certainly isn't the 2d adventure genre. Imagine what a game like SOTN, or, in this case Super Metroid would be like without that rich soundtrack lighting the way for you. Kind of loses something, doesn't it? Thankfully, the xbox / zune tag team is adequately equipped to custom soundtrack any game with such an affliction, but that's a crutch not a feature.
This time around I have Mass Effect, which I will freely admit I am finally getting around to soley because of all the ME2 hysteria. Not that I'm much for the gaming "scene" anymore, I just don't want to be so far out of date when people start talking ME3. Nothing against ME of course, I've heard how good it is, first hand from trusted sources in fact. I'm just tired to death of RPGs. RPGs require a mental and often physical commitment I just can't make, not without dragging it out over 100 hours. I don't think there's a script in the world that I could feel good about 100 hours of digestion later. We shall say. Mass Effect makes the bold claim that it is worth not two but THREE playthroughs with its achievements, each time with increasing difficulty. I'm certainly not going to even try, but their hubris says a lot about how good my initial play through oughta be.
In closing, the more I listen to the Afro Samurai Soundtrack, the more I want to say about it. Find a way to defend it, maybe. Sadly, I can't. It's really a bad game. If I had anything interesting to say on the subject, it would be to somehow explain how I can play through Afro twice in pursuit of a 1k, but couldn't even do Mirror's Edge once. Puzzling moreso that when I tried Mirror's Edge, not only was my social circle's gamerscore competition much tighter, I even had a friend who stuck through it for 700 or so points. Maybe I was just in the wrong mood at the time for a crappy game. It was pre baby, and pre a lot of other personal life stresses, so maybe I just had a more discerning mood for what I did with my evenings. Now, burning the 1-2 hours on a crummy game seems perfectly acceptable, the exhaustion of the other 22 somehow numbing the crap.
I suppose its just. I'm sure there was some poor soul going through the same rigamarole during the three or four months Prototype sat patiently on my stack of games while I played through Batman and god knows what else. The solution is of course is to upgrade my account to allow more games at a time. A two game rotation would guarantee I always had something not mine to play, but that would also guarantee I had more games lying around my house not being played, which is the habit I'd hoped to skewer in joining gamefly in the first place.
Last time I had a break like this I had Shadow Complex. A gem of a game that turned out to be less of a Super Metroid homage and more of Super Metroid itself, not that there's anything wrong such a thing. Complex's only sin is that it vainly assumes bgm is optional, a demonic trend in gaming I wish I could exorcise. I will agree there are a few situations if not entire genres where the concept of ambient noise as music is passable, but it certainly isn't the 2d adventure genre. Imagine what a game like SOTN, or, in this case Super Metroid would be like without that rich soundtrack lighting the way for you. Kind of loses something, doesn't it? Thankfully, the xbox / zune tag team is adequately equipped to custom soundtrack any game with such an affliction, but that's a crutch not a feature.
This time around I have Mass Effect, which I will freely admit I am finally getting around to soley because of all the ME2 hysteria. Not that I'm much for the gaming "scene" anymore, I just don't want to be so far out of date when people start talking ME3. Nothing against ME of course, I've heard how good it is, first hand from trusted sources in fact. I'm just tired to death of RPGs. RPGs require a mental and often physical commitment I just can't make, not without dragging it out over 100 hours. I don't think there's a script in the world that I could feel good about 100 hours of digestion later. We shall say. Mass Effect makes the bold claim that it is worth not two but THREE playthroughs with its achievements, each time with increasing difficulty. I'm certainly not going to even try, but their hubris says a lot about how good my initial play through oughta be.
In closing, the more I listen to the Afro Samurai Soundtrack, the more I want to say about it. Find a way to defend it, maybe. Sadly, I can't. It's really a bad game. If I had anything interesting to say on the subject, it would be to somehow explain how I can play through Afro twice in pursuit of a 1k, but couldn't even do Mirror's Edge once. Puzzling moreso that when I tried Mirror's Edge, not only was my social circle's gamerscore competition much tighter, I even had a friend who stuck through it for 700 or so points. Maybe I was just in the wrong mood at the time for a crappy game. It was pre baby, and pre a lot of other personal life stresses, so maybe I just had a more discerning mood for what I did with my evenings. Now, burning the 1-2 hours on a crummy game seems perfectly acceptable, the exhaustion of the other 22 somehow numbing the crap.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Afro Samurai
Its truly refreshing to come across a game OST that's worth listening to, much less worth listening to outside the game. Unfortunately, Afro Samurai has one such OST. If you're into beats and hip hop that is. Afro Samurai actually makes a big deal of point out The RZA was involved with the soundtracks conception, but its clear no one was consulted for anything else.
As a result, everything else in the game from story to the gameplay is a mess. Oh sure, the graphics are delightfully cel-shaded, but the characters all betray their beautiful textures with sticky jerky animations. This may be somewhat intentional with the gameplay's focus on preemptive Matrix dodges, parries, and bullet slicing but all the stylish cuts and screen edits in the world don't take away from the fact that you very rarely have any idea if an enemy is attacking, dodging, taunting or recoiling. Not until they fall to pieces and fountain with blood anyway.
And in that regard the game proves itself fairly functional, slicing enemies to pieces is both easy and enjoyable. But Afro's combat options are unlocked almost randomly, and when you get them they're still sticky to execute with collision weirdness all over the place. He's got a ton of moves with posing and bloodletting and style and grace galore, but they all require between four and nine uninterrupted slashes to execute, a feat rarely allowed by enemies and their assortment of dirty ai tricks. Loaded with old school tactics like striking from camera blind spots, hiding beyond movement barriers, recovering spontaneously from stun, and ignoring the invincible properties of your defense altogether, group battles call upon every bad beat'em up memory I have. This isn't so bad most of the time since life is over abundant and easily recovered, but sooner or later you will be killed by the last enemy in a massive checkpointless melee because he ignored your ordinarily safe basic slash animations.
Now just in case you're saying; "All licensed games play like crap, I'm just here for the story" I assure you they've made steps to louse that up pretty good too. Using flowery nonsensical and totally unskippable dialogues between lifeless stationary characters the game poorly illustrates this tale of violence and revenge. When all is said and done you can comfortably say "Afro killed everybody" but the character relationships, even WHY most of them got dead are lost in a sea of flash backs and dream sequences and Ninja Ninja profanity. Oh sure, hearing Samuel Jackson curse at me can be entertaining, but it doesn't make the how and why any easier to follow. To make matters worse, I have since discovered (in desperately trying to reconcile the gaps in my understanding) that most of my confusion resulted from the games plot being outright changed from the canon.
Now I don't think a bunch of suits threw money at game-izing the Afro Samurai property because they thought its story needed work. I don't care what "approvals" were gotten, it takes serious stones to totally 180 key elements of somebody else's work. Granted, some of it makes sense to insert a level here or a boss fight there, but to fundamentally change the ending? There's actually a fairly amusing point in the game where right before something important doesn't happen Ninja Ninja remarks "I know you seen how this is in the TV Show, but this ain't no TV Show" but since at the time I hadn't seen the TV Show, so the significance was totally wasted on me. In fact, it seems as if the entire closing chapter of the story was changed for absolutely no reason.
So, the bottom line is. Afro Samurai is a pretty crappy game with great music. And I'm gonna have to watch the darned series anyway because the good people at Surge couldn't even be bothered to leave the story intact. Hours invested, with all the abilities unlocked and a full understanding of all the combats glitches, you can have a lot of fun precision slicing people to hip hop beats, but that feels more like an apologist attitude than an optimists. At the very least, its a (fairly) easy 1k addition to my gamerscore, but that still wouldn't comfort me 10 hours of my life later if I'd spent a single red cent on the game. It didn't make me physically ill to play like say, Mirror's Edge, but a number of times I did catch myself saying "Why am I still playing this?" So, I'm sorry Samuel Jackson, big thumbs down.
As a result, everything else in the game from story to the gameplay is a mess. Oh sure, the graphics are delightfully cel-shaded, but the characters all betray their beautiful textures with sticky jerky animations. This may be somewhat intentional with the gameplay's focus on preemptive Matrix dodges, parries, and bullet slicing but all the stylish cuts and screen edits in the world don't take away from the fact that you very rarely have any idea if an enemy is attacking, dodging, taunting or recoiling. Not until they fall to pieces and fountain with blood anyway.
And in that regard the game proves itself fairly functional, slicing enemies to pieces is both easy and enjoyable. But Afro's combat options are unlocked almost randomly, and when you get them they're still sticky to execute with collision weirdness all over the place. He's got a ton of moves with posing and bloodletting and style and grace galore, but they all require between four and nine uninterrupted slashes to execute, a feat rarely allowed by enemies and their assortment of dirty ai tricks. Loaded with old school tactics like striking from camera blind spots, hiding beyond movement barriers, recovering spontaneously from stun, and ignoring the invincible properties of your defense altogether, group battles call upon every bad beat'em up memory I have. This isn't so bad most of the time since life is over abundant and easily recovered, but sooner or later you will be killed by the last enemy in a massive checkpointless melee because he ignored your ordinarily safe basic slash animations.
Now just in case you're saying; "All licensed games play like crap, I'm just here for the story" I assure you they've made steps to louse that up pretty good too. Using flowery nonsensical and totally unskippable dialogues between lifeless stationary characters the game poorly illustrates this tale of violence and revenge. When all is said and done you can comfortably say "Afro killed everybody" but the character relationships, even WHY most of them got dead are lost in a sea of flash backs and dream sequences and Ninja Ninja profanity. Oh sure, hearing Samuel Jackson curse at me can be entertaining, but it doesn't make the how and why any easier to follow. To make matters worse, I have since discovered (in desperately trying to reconcile the gaps in my understanding) that most of my confusion resulted from the games plot being outright changed from the canon.
Now I don't think a bunch of suits threw money at game-izing the Afro Samurai property because they thought its story needed work. I don't care what "approvals" were gotten, it takes serious stones to totally 180 key elements of somebody else's work. Granted, some of it makes sense to insert a level here or a boss fight there, but to fundamentally change the ending? There's actually a fairly amusing point in the game where right before something important doesn't happen Ninja Ninja remarks "I know you seen how this is in the TV Show, but this ain't no TV Show" but since at the time I hadn't seen the TV Show, so the significance was totally wasted on me. In fact, it seems as if the entire closing chapter of the story was changed for absolutely no reason.
So, the bottom line is. Afro Samurai is a pretty crappy game with great music. And I'm gonna have to watch the darned series anyway because the good people at Surge couldn't even be bothered to leave the story intact. Hours invested, with all the abilities unlocked and a full understanding of all the combats glitches, you can have a lot of fun precision slicing people to hip hop beats, but that feels more like an apologist attitude than an optimists. At the very least, its a (fairly) easy 1k addition to my gamerscore, but that still wouldn't comfort me 10 hours of my life later if I'd spent a single red cent on the game. It didn't make me physically ill to play like say, Mirror's Edge, but a number of times I did catch myself saying "Why am I still playing this?" So, I'm sorry Samuel Jackson, big thumbs down.
Monday, December 28, 2009
This weekend's findings
So, the pursuit of reviewing games on the regular has proven both futile and irrelevant, but I don't really want to waste yet another blog roll with my name on it, so I'm just going to start using this to document whats going on with me gaming wise. At the very least, I'll be able to look back weeks at a glance and remember how much I hated a game without having to have the kind of experience I did this weekend with Street Fighter 4.
You see, a situation on that site I run required someone to do some SF4 research, which involved not only popping the game but actually playing enough matches to identify the absurd win quote behavioral patterns. I even took it online for a few rounds to make sure that every base was covered in my search. The good news is, I was able to get to the bottom of the mystery for FAB, the bad news is I still don't like Street Fighter 4.
You see, I was never into Street Fighter 4. Ever, not during its arcade release or for its home port. Oh yeah, I got excited about all the new characters they were adding, and the promise of a competent story and functional online play, but I was never "on board". It just looked to stupid to me. The entire unchanged cast of every game named Street Fighter and a bunch of newly designed failures wrapped in a "basic" gameplay package just different enough to stand out, but not enough to really be noteworthy. Then a bunch of my friends bought it and said it was marvelous and could not wait to put me in my place. So, I bought it, and for a time, I can honestly say I enjoyed it. Something kind of new, and also kind of familiar, some funny animations, and pretty graphics, even a few songs I didn't hate. But the more I played it, the more all those initial nags started to get to me, and when all my friends moved on to their brand new sports games, and shooters, and rpgs, SF4 just lacked the legs to hold me up.
And now that I look back on SF4 with the smug self-satisfied knowledge of being right about Capcom's compulsive need to fleece their supporters, I see that my enjoyment was never actually from SF4. It was at beating my friends face in" which, to be perfectly honest, I would rather being doing in an interesting game like Facebreaker, than Capcom's desperate attempt to dry hump a few more dollars out of the Street Fighter 2's legacy.
So, SF4 sucks and also BlazBlue has worn out its welcome. It is not so much that BlazBlue is bad. Flawed in many of the ways fighters are typically flawed, but not bad to the core. When my wife posed that question I replied simply that BlazBlue is like a roll, or biscuit if you must. Now there is nothing wrong with a good roll, or biscuit, but you can certainly do a lot better. BlazBlue has a bunch of characters that I'm sure appeal to somebody, a plot that sucks but at least is involved with the fighting, and fairly masterable gameplay that grants enough satisfaction in felling your opponents that you don't easily realize every character really only has one card to play competitively. My problem is, Guilty Gear already did all that and did it better, and then did it again and again-again each time with varying degrees of success.
If the thought of doing more of the same kind of stuff with dust loops and tech traps and roman cancels that you've already done is just so exciting you're going to die without it, then BlazBlue is probably a good idea, but that's all that's there. More of the same gatling combos to jump installs to tech trap loops to oki resets. Oh sure, this time around Jam has gigantic boobs and a stick, and Sol has vampire powers, but when the action gets going it still all blends together in a hail of glowing shields, remote projectiles, horribly unsafe supers, and gigantic full screen collision boxes. Suffice to say, as soon as I finish this particular FAB homework assignment, BlazBlue is going back to gamefly.
Other than that, there was some gears (still awesome), worms (still awesome), and even some Turok (still sucks) online play this weekend, but nothing really new to report. Turns out the Star Trek Blu Ray has an Xbox 360 demo (way to go, marketing geniuses) of the Star Trek DAC game, but that game sucks a whole lot so who cares. Finally, I brought down and bought Shadow Complex because it was on sale, but I haven't played it yet. I don't need anything else keeping me from sending BlazBlue back, so it will have to wait.
-F.
You see, a situation on that site I run required someone to do some SF4 research, which involved not only popping the game but actually playing enough matches to identify the absurd win quote behavioral patterns. I even took it online for a few rounds to make sure that every base was covered in my search. The good news is, I was able to get to the bottom of the mystery for FAB, the bad news is I still don't like Street Fighter 4.
You see, I was never into Street Fighter 4. Ever, not during its arcade release or for its home port. Oh yeah, I got excited about all the new characters they were adding, and the promise of a competent story and functional online play, but I was never "on board". It just looked to stupid to me. The entire unchanged cast of every game named Street Fighter and a bunch of newly designed failures wrapped in a "basic" gameplay package just different enough to stand out, but not enough to really be noteworthy. Then a bunch of my friends bought it and said it was marvelous and could not wait to put me in my place. So, I bought it, and for a time, I can honestly say I enjoyed it. Something kind of new, and also kind of familiar, some funny animations, and pretty graphics, even a few songs I didn't hate. But the more I played it, the more all those initial nags started to get to me, and when all my friends moved on to their brand new sports games, and shooters, and rpgs, SF4 just lacked the legs to hold me up.
And now that I look back on SF4 with the smug self-satisfied knowledge of being right about Capcom's compulsive need to fleece their supporters, I see that my enjoyment was never actually from SF4. It was at beating my friends face in" which, to be perfectly honest, I would rather being doing in an interesting game like Facebreaker, than Capcom's desperate attempt to dry hump a few more dollars out of the Street Fighter 2's legacy.
So, SF4 sucks and also BlazBlue has worn out its welcome. It is not so much that BlazBlue is bad. Flawed in many of the ways fighters are typically flawed, but not bad to the core. When my wife posed that question I replied simply that BlazBlue is like a roll, or biscuit if you must. Now there is nothing wrong with a good roll, or biscuit, but you can certainly do a lot better. BlazBlue has a bunch of characters that I'm sure appeal to somebody, a plot that sucks but at least is involved with the fighting, and fairly masterable gameplay that grants enough satisfaction in felling your opponents that you don't easily realize every character really only has one card to play competitively. My problem is, Guilty Gear already did all that and did it better, and then did it again and again-again each time with varying degrees of success.
If the thought of doing more of the same kind of stuff with dust loops and tech traps and roman cancels that you've already done is just so exciting you're going to die without it, then BlazBlue is probably a good idea, but that's all that's there. More of the same gatling combos to jump installs to tech trap loops to oki resets. Oh sure, this time around Jam has gigantic boobs and a stick, and Sol has vampire powers, but when the action gets going it still all blends together in a hail of glowing shields, remote projectiles, horribly unsafe supers, and gigantic full screen collision boxes. Suffice to say, as soon as I finish this particular FAB homework assignment, BlazBlue is going back to gamefly.
Other than that, there was some gears (still awesome), worms (still awesome), and even some Turok (still sucks) online play this weekend, but nothing really new to report. Turns out the Star Trek Blu Ray has an Xbox 360 demo (way to go, marketing geniuses) of the Star Trek DAC game, but that game sucks a whole lot so who cares. Finally, I brought down and bought Shadow Complex because it was on sale, but I haven't played it yet. I don't need anything else keeping me from sending BlazBlue back, so it will have to wait.
-F.
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