It will be my eternal regret that I nearly passed on Darksiders. First it was the THQ logo. Then it was the lack of advertising. Then it was the reviewers. Now that I've played it, though, Darksiders is easily the best games I've played since Batman. Like I did with Dante, I will do it the courtesy of omitting any comparisons to that other game reviewers can't seem to get enough of comparing it to, pretentious as that sounds, if only because at this point that's a like kicking Vigil games when they're down. Do you really think they didn't know that other guy has a hood and hookshot, guys?
So what you need to know is this, Darksiders is a hack and slash action adventure (and you can actually call it adventure, thank god) full of violence and Gothic imagery. The premise was cooked up by Joe Madureira, and even though it has nothing to do with Battle Chasers, the same style permeates the game. Everything is big and exaggerated and jagged and dark, there's no sense of haste or "stylish" to it at all. Just a big guy with a big sword and a big chip on his shoulder. The entire setting is very deliberate and obvious, but compared to all the wishy washy mood swingy nonsense that has cluttered up the industry as of late, its nice to have a world of people you can legitimately get behind or hate.
The story is about War (and only War), one of The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse. At some point, The Apocalypse happens but only War shows up. Despite his efforts (exactly what he was supposed to do is never really clarified) Hell beats Heaven and humanity gets wiped out. Now The Horsemen are charged with maintaining the balance, so the fact that War was on scene and the balance went kablooey looks real bad for him, specially considering his co-riders aren't answering their phones. So, a hundred years of healing later, War gets a chance to go back to an earth ravaged by hot demon on angel action and figure out just what went wrong, with extreme prejudice. He's got a babysitter holding his leash, and he'll need to run a few favors for the angels and demons along the way, but sooner or later he'll get there. The good news is you get to drive.
Now War is supposed to be one of the biggest bad asses in documented lore, so the fact that you start with nothing but a basic combo and an area effect spell is an early stumbling block. You do get some nifty (QTE-less, thank god) finishing moves to play with but despite a launcher and some aerial options, combat is a pretty bland affair in the beginning. There IS a wealth of stuff to buy even from the first opportunity to do so, but you'll be broke and bored for a while before and after, a factor only frustrated if you don't buy your secondary weapon right off the bat. Thankfully, once the game opens up and you're making currency souls pretty steadily the pace picks up. There's still a lot of room to make poor choices and hate your "build", but the prices and gains are measured such that you're never too far from heading back to ole' Vulgrim for more.
The meat of the game is housed in the five or six dungeons full of enemies and puzzles you'll need to familiarize yourself with as War climbs, kills, and collects his way to justice. Each one is decked out with a shiny new toy, a mini boss or two, and then a big boss encounter that requires more use of said new toy than raw brawn. In-between the dungeons you'll be traipsing about an Overworld-like arrangement of smaller connecting zones that present you with plenty of combat practice and places to use your acquired toys in the hunt for additional power ups. You'll occasionally bump into a surprise boss fight or some other action event in the open areas too, but mostly its just a lot of satisfactory slash and traveling. Best of all, you're never locked out of any of it, even up to the last boss fight, save the limitations of the items in your inventory. You can always go anywhere and do anything you already did, in case you missed something or forgot something. The only thing its really missing in that regard is a Shadow of the Colossus style "Reminiscence" for old boss battles.
What does suck? Well, there's the obligatory end of game busy work treasure hunt. Tiny carrots dangled in front of you throughout the entire game. You can see them, even touch some of them, but you can't have them. Not until the end of the game when they make you go back and get them. Then there's the horse, Ruin. War is constantly referred to as The Horseman and Rider of the Red Horse. But where is his horse for the first 60% of the game? He's not there in the opening before War gets stripped of his powers, and when you do find Ruin, somebody else is riding him. Not somebody important, just a nobody that you promptly dispatch and then forget about. Even once you "have" Ruin, the places you're allowed to ride are limited, so did they just think "moving quickly" would hinder the first half of game? Also, the game is too easy. Figuring out some of the bosses and puzzles will take you a minute, but you are going to sleepwalk 90% of the combat without a second thought. Committing to anything other than basic sword combos often makes life more difficult, so all your toys and bought abilities are pretty superfluous. There is an Apocalyptic difficulty that tunes the numbers to a place where the world is almost dangerous, but even then you just block and dodge more, no real strategy change.
Finally, I had a big problem with War's final power up; the Mask of Shadows. When active, the mask makes the screen looks a little weird and you can see "hidden objects" like treasure chests and grapple points, but you can't open ordinary treasure chests anymore. You can still see them, you just can't open them. Despite the fact that you can still slay monsters, platform, and otherwise interact with the environment (wield cars, smash statues,etc) as necessary. What reason does this serve except to annoy the player? Maybe they thought just making a bunch of stuff appear on the maps at the end was too stupid (and it is), maybe they thought players wouldn't want a permanent yellow haze on their screen (they don't), maybe they just thought Arkham Asylum's "Detective Vision" was a good idea (it wasn't). Maybe if there were enemies more or less vulnerable in Mask of Shadows mode, puzzles that require you to switch back and forth, or at least different moves available, it would be on, but all it really accomplishes is enabling the aforementioned obnoxious treasure hunt.
Still, those are all very niggling complaints in a very solid game whose sins are just as borrowed as its features. Sure, you can legitimately knock it for originality, what with the boomerang and portal gun, but they have done a far better job of borrowing to create a new experience than just ape-ing other formulas and calling it original. Of course, it is entirely possible that I am just being a huge apologist because it reminds me of the Next Gen Legacy of Kain game we are all still desperately waiting to happen, but that's not its only charm. Needless cliffhanger aside, It manages to traverse its entire narrative without tripping over confused plot twisted feet (Bad guys actually get killed when you kill them! Imagine that, Metal Gear!), its not an exercise in boredom or futility achievement-wise and it certainly doesn't hurt to have another functional 3d member of the action-ADVENTURE game family.
Kudos, Vigil.
-F.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Sam the Fisher...Man.
Ahhhhhh the original stealth shooter franchise is back.After the odd story arc of Splinter Cell:Double Agent; everyone's favorite shadow bound marksman is back. Now I could write a VERY long diatribe about what I love and hate about this game, but I'll keep it fairly succinct for both our sakes. I'll address the game play first, story second.
Firstly the game does NOT punish you as bad for being detected and seems to actually let you try to kill/sneak/distract your way back into the shadows and this makes the game MUCH more accessible to the more casual gamer and first time Splinter Cell players. Now please don't misread that last sentence, if you think you are god's gift to video games, jack the difficulty up and you'll be just as frustrated as ever. Its a hell of a lot better then "the guard heard you fart, game over"
There is a pretty good selection of weapons even if you didn't pre-order the game (dont get me started) and you earn what can only be described as "skill points" which you use to upgrade the weapons. Extended magazines, scopes, different stocks, match grade ammo,etc but only 3 upgrades per gun and the upgrade options are pre-determined, ie no scopes on pistols. In addition to the guns you get a small selection of gadgets, from a personal EMP to frag grenades which also can be upgraded; usually its the effective radius that is upgraded.
Earning said skills points is hit or miss, some challenges are far too easy while others are far too difficult. For the most part you can earn enough to upgrade the guns you use most, the rest is just needed for some achievements. Once you get the FiveSe7en pistol its doubtful you'll use any other pistol, so other then the aforementioned achievement, there really is no need to upgrade any other pistol.
My only MAJOR gripe with the game play is as the levels progress the game it self seems to devolve from a stealth oriented game to more of a run of the mill 3rd person shooter. Sam Fisher deserves better then that. There are certain parts of the game where there is no option to sneak by, you must expose yourself (killing an enemy or otherwise) just to get by. When you get to the big red gas truck you'll understand.
Lastly, the story. I will keep this really brief as to avoid any spoilers. The beginning of the story really grabs you and pulls you in, but as you keep going it gets more and more confusing. I'm not a huge fan of "Tarantino-ing" storylines so maybe when all the flashbacks align I'll be on board, but since I haven't finished the game yet I'm still a little lost.
As of this moment, none of my friends have the game, so I cant comment on multi-player. And no, I have no faith in playing with strangers on this type of game.
The game is a solid 9.1 out of 10
Quick tip for you US gamers with cell phones , text the word weapon to 44144 and you'll get a free bonus weapon. No I wont spoil the surprise, and you are welcome.
~Malenko
Firstly the game does NOT punish you as bad for being detected and seems to actually let you try to kill/sneak/distract your way back into the shadows and this makes the game MUCH more accessible to the more casual gamer and first time Splinter Cell players. Now please don't misread that last sentence, if you think you are god's gift to video games, jack the difficulty up and you'll be just as frustrated as ever. Its a hell of a lot better then "the guard heard you fart, game over"
There is a pretty good selection of weapons even if you didn't pre-order the game (dont get me started) and you earn what can only be described as "skill points" which you use to upgrade the weapons. Extended magazines, scopes, different stocks, match grade ammo,etc but only 3 upgrades per gun and the upgrade options are pre-determined, ie no scopes on pistols. In addition to the guns you get a small selection of gadgets, from a personal EMP to frag grenades which also can be upgraded; usually its the effective radius that is upgraded.
Earning said skills points is hit or miss, some challenges are far too easy while others are far too difficult. For the most part you can earn enough to upgrade the guns you use most, the rest is just needed for some achievements. Once you get the FiveSe7en pistol its doubtful you'll use any other pistol, so other then the aforementioned achievement, there really is no need to upgrade any other pistol.
My only MAJOR gripe with the game play is as the levels progress the game it self seems to devolve from a stealth oriented game to more of a run of the mill 3rd person shooter. Sam Fisher deserves better then that. There are certain parts of the game where there is no option to sneak by, you must expose yourself (killing an enemy or otherwise) just to get by. When you get to the big red gas truck you'll understand.
Lastly, the story. I will keep this really brief as to avoid any spoilers. The beginning of the story really grabs you and pulls you in, but as you keep going it gets more and more confusing. I'm not a huge fan of "Tarantino-ing" storylines so maybe when all the flashbacks align I'll be on board, but since I haven't finished the game yet I'm still a little lost.
As of this moment, none of my friends have the game, so I cant comment on multi-player. And no, I have no faith in playing with strangers on this type of game.
The game is a solid 9.1 out of 10
Quick tip for you US gamers with cell phones , text the word weapon to 44144 and you'll get a free bonus weapon. No I wont spoil the surprise, and you are welcome.
~Malenko
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Newest Tomb Raiders are REALLY GOOD!
Now I'll be honest I wasn't quite sure how I'd like Lara Croft as a man, but Naughty Dog REALLY pulled it off. I can admit it is weird tomb raiding with a male protagonist but if Lara had to sacrifice her tits for tighter gun play and better controls, then it was well worth it.
Now I don't now why they changed her story line from British to American, probably to get rid of that annoying fucking accent, but the whole retcon thing really works well for this title. The story line so far is really pulling me in. Unlocking bonus materials and other little trinkets for finding glowing white dots aka treasures is a nice touch but I think they forgot a mini map and or compass.
I do like Lara's new womanizing mentality to go along with her shiny new penis, I think it just proves what we all knew all along, Lara was always more into women.
I am presently only a few hours in but I'm hoping to finish this game up cause I hear Tomb Raider Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is even better!
Now I don't now why they changed her story line from British to American, probably to get rid of that annoying fucking accent, but the whole retcon thing really works well for this title. The story line so far is really pulling me in. Unlocking bonus materials and other little trinkets for finding glowing white dots aka treasures is a nice touch but I think they forgot a mini map and or compass.
I do like Lara's new womanizing mentality to go along with her shiny new penis, I think it just proves what we all knew all along, Lara was always more into women.
I am presently only a few hours in but I'm hoping to finish this game up cause I hear Tomb Raider Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is even better!
Monday, March 8, 2010
Why Retro is always better
Now some people will tell you its all about the graphics, sounds, cut scenes, and story lines that make games so great. While that sounds so fantastic in theory it just doesn't mean shit in practice. Is all you have ever played been on XBOX (or 360) and playstation (1,2,or 3)? Then you probably don't believe me, read on......
I would sound like a crazy person if I were describing some of my all time favorite games. Those games by today's standards have bad graphics, laughable sounds, little to no cut scenes and for the most part no story at all. Yet they are fantastic and still remain just as great today as they were in the past.
Examples?
You're a frog trying to cross a street then a river but you cant swim. You're a guy running up girders and ladders and you have to jump barrels a gorilla is throwing at you. You're a metal tube bouncing a ball up to break blocks to escape space. You are a yellow circle eating dots and being chased by ghosts! The funniest sounding one? You walk across walkways being chased by eggs, pickles, and hot dogs while trying to make buns, meat patties, and lettuce leaves fall into giant hamburgers!
"Retro" games rely on being accessible, FUN, and very replayable; not on superficial things like pretty graphics, snazzy audio, and 20 minute long CGI rendered cut scenes. Now don't get me wrong, I buy the latest and greatest and for the most part play the ever loving crap out of my games (to the point where I'm getting 1k after the fun as faded), but every time I have to drop $60 on a new title I cringe and pray to God its worth the investment. It's getting harder and harder to justify the hunk of cheddar and Ive gone from buying a title or 2 every month to buying a title every 2 months or so.
So to all you kids out there stuck in your Halo worlds or only play games that have Kratos in them...... give old school a try, you'll probably love it and the games aren't $60 a pop.
Just an FYI, PacMan, Ms.PacMan, Galaga, Contra and many others are about $5 on the PSN/Live! networks; so you can get about 12 retro games for the price of 1 shiny new one.
Old is the new new.
~Malenko
PS, gave up on operation finish all the "need for speeds", they are just too terrible.
I would sound like a crazy person if I were describing some of my all time favorite games. Those games by today's standards have bad graphics, laughable sounds, little to no cut scenes and for the most part no story at all. Yet they are fantastic and still remain just as great today as they were in the past.
Examples?
You're a frog trying to cross a street then a river but you cant swim. You're a guy running up girders and ladders and you have to jump barrels a gorilla is throwing at you. You're a metal tube bouncing a ball up to break blocks to escape space. You are a yellow circle eating dots and being chased by ghosts! The funniest sounding one? You walk across walkways being chased by eggs, pickles, and hot dogs while trying to make buns, meat patties, and lettuce leaves fall into giant hamburgers!
"Retro" games rely on being accessible, FUN, and very replayable; not on superficial things like pretty graphics, snazzy audio, and 20 minute long CGI rendered cut scenes. Now don't get me wrong, I buy the latest and greatest and for the most part play the ever loving crap out of my games (to the point where I'm getting 1k after the fun as faded), but every time I have to drop $60 on a new title I cringe and pray to God its worth the investment. It's getting harder and harder to justify the hunk of cheddar and Ive gone from buying a title or 2 every month to buying a title every 2 months or so.
So to all you kids out there stuck in your Halo worlds or only play games that have Kratos in them...... give old school a try, you'll probably love it and the games aren't $60 a pop.
Just an FYI, PacMan, Ms.PacMan, Galaga, Contra and many others are about $5 on the PSN/Live! networks; so you can get about 12 retro games for the price of 1 shiny new one.
Old is the new new.
~Malenko
PS, gave up on operation finish all the "need for speeds", they are just too terrible.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Doing The Lord's Work (Dante's Inferno)
The question I've been asking myself since I first picked up the controller is whether Visceral should be (to use the game's jargon) punished or absolved for expertly remaking another game. On the one hand, they could easily be labeled as thieves or copycats or just plain lazy for having no more aspirations than doing what someone else already did. Yet, in this landscape of terrible, terrible sequels, homages, satires, and just plain rip offs, can there be no commendation for a mirroring a game people are literally salivating for sequels to, and doing so exceedingly well? It would be easy to burn paragraphs contrasting Dante and its progenitor, but that seems more like an exhaustive "dig" than a real review to me. So just know that every little thing I highlight (and rip on) here has already been highlighted (and ripped on) in another better known title.
"Based" on the poem of the same name, Inferno documents one man's descent through the 9 Circles of Hell. Being charged with Christian mythology the tale is quite obviously open to interpretation, done so in this case as an action packed tale of revenge (maybe), love (probably) and violence (definately) chronicling one man's quest to rescue his wife. You see its hard to classify Dante as a hero or his task as just in any way, because he is in almost no way a good guy. The gameplay has him brutally and savagely slaughtering everything in his path including former friends and family members, while the plot gradually paints him a sinner by every single definition the canon has to offer. Truth be told I haven't finished the games entire narrative, but it has become increasingly difficult to get behind Dante's whining to Lucifer about how unfair stealing his wife is when he just finished raping someone else after murdering their true love. His brutal single minded sense of valor seems more intune with those demons he seeks to defy than the dainty innocent flower he's so desperately trying to get back to.
The good news is, plot sensibility is not Inferno's business, killing is. And business is good. With a scythe for close up killing, a magic cross to fire from afar, a smattering of increasingly destructive spells, and a massive tree of abilities to unlock for it all, there is no shortage of mayhem at your disposal. You won't need half of it to undo the legions of hell, and you won't really need ANY of it once you discover the brain dead infinite combo that somehow slipped through play testing, but at least the option for varied combat is there. 100+ hit combos, aerial raves, timed counter attacks, quick time event finishing moves, and all the other modern action game cliches are at Dante's disposal and executing them is just as easy and satisfying as they should be. There is of course a catch to all the awesome hyper violent action, and that is the limp wristed attempt to add depth to the ability unlocking system.
Basically, by absolving or punishing enemies when you finish them, you can advance the holy/unholy levels that govern just what you can buy with your kill points. I find it neat that this also governs which stat modifying relics you can equip, but the actual combat abilities are pretty poorly distributed between the two. For instance, the health up unlocks are on the opposite sides of all the scythe power ups and abilities (because health is good and the scythe is evil, I guess), so if you do decide to focus on close combat (which I always do), you're going to do so with either a child sized lifebar or a pathetically weak set of scythe attacks. You can try and mitigate this by spending an equal amount of time being holy / unholy, but even if it were possible to max out both sides by the end of the game (which I doubt), that practice will keep you from unlocking any of the really good abilities until the end of the game when you don't need them or even want them anymore.
The whole Un/Holy thing attempts to permeat the entire thing, but its all executed very flat and superfluous. In addition to most enemies being disposable via punishment/absolution, Dante will occasionally be presented with a prominent character from the poem who can be used similarly for massive points in either direction. Still, outside of the points and note in your "journal", they don't effect the narrative and you never hear about them ever again. I am sure there's some totally black and white good / bad ending selection process at work that will force me to go through the game twice, but the net result of being Holy / Unholy is just whether or not I prefer to use the blue button or the yellow button on my controller while I do it. I'm still going to kill the same procession of "bad guys" in the same ways getting there, and that seems like kind of a waste.
Still, I cannot in good conscience call Dante's Inferno a bad game by any really sense of the term. Its based in a universe you certainly don't see games about every day, it looks, sounds, and plays like someone actually put some thought into it, and its damned fun. Fate has kept me from a complete play through of Visceral's previous effort, Dead Space, but my experience with both has made it clear that they know their way around both game design and execution, even if all they seem to be able to come up with is other peoples ideas. Dante's Inferno is filled with spectacle, style, and above all else violence, so if any of that is your thing, I sincerely recommend you "Go To Hell". And if by some chance you've missed out on that other game series where all the mythology gets brutally murdered by a morally gray anti-hero (or you just don't own a PS3), you pretty much have no excuse.
-F.
"Based" on the poem of the same name, Inferno documents one man's descent through the 9 Circles of Hell. Being charged with Christian mythology the tale is quite obviously open to interpretation, done so in this case as an action packed tale of revenge (maybe), love (probably) and violence (definately) chronicling one man's quest to rescue his wife. You see its hard to classify Dante as a hero or his task as just in any way, because he is in almost no way a good guy. The gameplay has him brutally and savagely slaughtering everything in his path including former friends and family members, while the plot gradually paints him a sinner by every single definition the canon has to offer. Truth be told I haven't finished the games entire narrative, but it has become increasingly difficult to get behind Dante's whining to Lucifer about how unfair stealing his wife is when he just finished raping someone else after murdering their true love. His brutal single minded sense of valor seems more intune with those demons he seeks to defy than the dainty innocent flower he's so desperately trying to get back to.
The good news is, plot sensibility is not Inferno's business, killing is. And business is good. With a scythe for close up killing, a magic cross to fire from afar, a smattering of increasingly destructive spells, and a massive tree of abilities to unlock for it all, there is no shortage of mayhem at your disposal. You won't need half of it to undo the legions of hell, and you won't really need ANY of it once you discover the brain dead infinite combo that somehow slipped through play testing, but at least the option for varied combat is there. 100+ hit combos, aerial raves, timed counter attacks, quick time event finishing moves, and all the other modern action game cliches are at Dante's disposal and executing them is just as easy and satisfying as they should be. There is of course a catch to all the awesome hyper violent action, and that is the limp wristed attempt to add depth to the ability unlocking system.
Basically, by absolving or punishing enemies when you finish them, you can advance the holy/unholy levels that govern just what you can buy with your kill points. I find it neat that this also governs which stat modifying relics you can equip, but the actual combat abilities are pretty poorly distributed between the two. For instance, the health up unlocks are on the opposite sides of all the scythe power ups and abilities (because health is good and the scythe is evil, I guess), so if you do decide to focus on close combat (which I always do), you're going to do so with either a child sized lifebar or a pathetically weak set of scythe attacks. You can try and mitigate this by spending an equal amount of time being holy / unholy, but even if it were possible to max out both sides by the end of the game (which I doubt), that practice will keep you from unlocking any of the really good abilities until the end of the game when you don't need them or even want them anymore.
The whole Un/Holy thing attempts to permeat the entire thing, but its all executed very flat and superfluous. In addition to most enemies being disposable via punishment/absolution, Dante will occasionally be presented with a prominent character from the poem who can be used similarly for massive points in either direction. Still, outside of the points and note in your "journal", they don't effect the narrative and you never hear about them ever again. I am sure there's some totally black and white good / bad ending selection process at work that will force me to go through the game twice, but the net result of being Holy / Unholy is just whether or not I prefer to use the blue button or the yellow button on my controller while I do it. I'm still going to kill the same procession of "bad guys" in the same ways getting there, and that seems like kind of a waste.
Still, I cannot in good conscience call Dante's Inferno a bad game by any really sense of the term. Its based in a universe you certainly don't see games about every day, it looks, sounds, and plays like someone actually put some thought into it, and its damned fun. Fate has kept me from a complete play through of Visceral's previous effort, Dead Space, but my experience with both has made it clear that they know their way around both game design and execution, even if all they seem to be able to come up with is other peoples ideas. Dante's Inferno is filled with spectacle, style, and above all else violence, so if any of that is your thing, I sincerely recommend you "Go To Hell". And if by some chance you've missed out on that other game series where all the mythology gets brutally murdered by a morally gray anti-hero (or you just don't own a PS3), you pretty much have no excuse.
-F.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
"Just Call Me a Bad Video Game. That's What Everyone Calls Me" A Look At Deadly Premonition
Bargain basement games are almost always worth looking at, and as someone who grew up watching Twin Peaks (a show I probably shouldn't have been watching when I was in sixth grade, but that's a subject for an entirely different article), I couldn't pass up Deadly Premonition. Of course being 12 when Twin Peaks was on, I wanted an NES video game for it. I mean they made NES games out of everything else I enjoyed, why not a prime time murder mystery / soap opera? (Admittedly, this question sounded much more rational to a 12 year old D.O.M. than it does to a 30 year old D.O.M.)
The NES game never came though and years later (In 2007) to be exact, I saw an E3 trailer for a game called "Rainy Woods". I was excited. This was it. Finally a Twin Peaks game, or something that was ripping off Twin Peaks, but still it was as close as I was going to get. Finally the game was released as Deadly Premonition in 2010 at the bargain price of $20.00 and with some really terrible reviews.
Much to my detriment, I've never let bad reviews stop me from wanting to play a game, so of course I bought it. Here you have what may be my longest justification buying and actually somewhat enjoying a game that would nicely be described "unpopular", so let's just get to the review.
The plot is the plot of Twin Peaks almost exactly. The main character is Special Agent Francis York Morgan (Just call me York, That's what everyone calls me) who travels to the small town of Greenvale in the Pacific Northwest to solve the brutal murder of a teenage beauty. York is a quirky fun character very reminiscent of Twin Peaks' Agent Cooper in that he has an affinity for coffee, strange dreams, and the small town lifestyle. Also like Cooper speaks to Diane via a small tape recorder, York talks to Zach. Zach isn't a tape recorder though, he's the player. This was a fun way to break the fourth wall as well as including another nod to Twin Peaks. Other Twin Peaks similarities seen in Deadly Premonition include but aren't limited too: Crying Deputies, powder blue waitress uniforms in the diner, large hotels, eccentrics who own greenhouses, gruff sheriffs in cowboy hats, and creepy jazz music.
The graphics are abysmal. They look to be about PS2 level, which is probably the system this game was originally developed for. This really can't be justified in way other than saying Deadly Premonition is, after all, a $20.00 game.
The gameplay was an ambitious undertaking. Elements of Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil 4, and Silent Hill are all present. The execution, however, is questionable at best. The GTA element would be York's driving from mission to mission. The developers failed miserably in this aspect of the game. The car controls are are jerky and driving is not very steady. The mission points are a long way from each other. Yes there are plenty of interesting places to visit in town, but there never seems to be enough time to do this in between missions. The interesting part about driving is York's monologues about films. These are quite funny and entertaining.
In true Silent Hill style, York will suddenly be in a parallel universe version of Greenvale with zombie like creatures stalking him. Unlike Silent Hill, ammo is infinite for the pistol, so these fights aren't too tough. These are over-the-shoulder Resident Evil 4 style shooting scenes. It's not that the developers have done a terrible job with this, it's just that RE4 has done a much better job with tighter controls.
The rest of the game is talking to the locals to find clues. Gamers have been doing this since The Adventures of Link, so it's a pretty obvious element of the game. The characters are fun and strange though which makes this probably the most entertaining part of the Deadly Premonition experience. Other neat aspects of the game include the fact that York needs to be fed, needs to sleep, needs to shave (or a beard grows), and needs to change clothes (or flies start swarming him). This sounds like it may get tiresome after awhile, but food, beds, razors, and clothes are found everywhere throughout the game, even in hard mode.
Deadly Premonition is a fun game for me probably more because of the Twin Peaks references than any actual aspect of gameplay. Would I recommend to anyone who isn't a huge fan of Twin Peaks? Probably not. But hey, it was after all, only $20.00.
The NES game never came though and years later (In 2007) to be exact, I saw an E3 trailer for a game called "Rainy Woods". I was excited. This was it. Finally a Twin Peaks game, or something that was ripping off Twin Peaks, but still it was as close as I was going to get. Finally the game was released as Deadly Premonition in 2010 at the bargain price of $20.00 and with some really terrible reviews.
Much to my detriment, I've never let bad reviews stop me from wanting to play a game, so of course I bought it. Here you have what may be my longest justification buying and actually somewhat enjoying a game that would nicely be described "unpopular", so let's just get to the review.
The plot is the plot of Twin Peaks almost exactly. The main character is Special Agent Francis York Morgan (Just call me York, That's what everyone calls me) who travels to the small town of Greenvale in the Pacific Northwest to solve the brutal murder of a teenage beauty. York is a quirky fun character very reminiscent of Twin Peaks' Agent Cooper in that he has an affinity for coffee, strange dreams, and the small town lifestyle. Also like Cooper speaks to Diane via a small tape recorder, York talks to Zach. Zach isn't a tape recorder though, he's the player. This was a fun way to break the fourth wall as well as including another nod to Twin Peaks. Other Twin Peaks similarities seen in Deadly Premonition include but aren't limited too: Crying Deputies, powder blue waitress uniforms in the diner, large hotels, eccentrics who own greenhouses, gruff sheriffs in cowboy hats, and creepy jazz music.
The graphics are abysmal. They look to be about PS2 level, which is probably the system this game was originally developed for. This really can't be justified in way other than saying Deadly Premonition is, after all, a $20.00 game.
The gameplay was an ambitious undertaking. Elements of Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil 4, and Silent Hill are all present. The execution, however, is questionable at best. The GTA element would be York's driving from mission to mission. The developers failed miserably in this aspect of the game. The car controls are are jerky and driving is not very steady. The mission points are a long way from each other. Yes there are plenty of interesting places to visit in town, but there never seems to be enough time to do this in between missions. The interesting part about driving is York's monologues about films. These are quite funny and entertaining.
In true Silent Hill style, York will suddenly be in a parallel universe version of Greenvale with zombie like creatures stalking him. Unlike Silent Hill, ammo is infinite for the pistol, so these fights aren't too tough. These are over-the-shoulder Resident Evil 4 style shooting scenes. It's not that the developers have done a terrible job with this, it's just that RE4 has done a much better job with tighter controls.
The rest of the game is talking to the locals to find clues. Gamers have been doing this since The Adventures of Link, so it's a pretty obvious element of the game. The characters are fun and strange though which makes this probably the most entertaining part of the Deadly Premonition experience. Other neat aspects of the game include the fact that York needs to be fed, needs to sleep, needs to shave (or a beard grows), and needs to change clothes (or flies start swarming him). This sounds like it may get tiresome after awhile, but food, beds, razors, and clothes are found everywhere throughout the game, even in hard mode.
Deadly Premonition is a fun game for me probably more because of the Twin Peaks references than any actual aspect of gameplay. Would I recommend to anyone who isn't a huge fan of Twin Peaks? Probably not. But hey, it was after all, only $20.00.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tatsunoko vs Capcom
It's not every day I get to play a wii game for any length of time, so I figured write ups for Dante and Bioshock could wait a day or two. Almost out of the blue, I was invited to a Tatsunoko vs Capcom tournament at a friend of a friends house, and as a result came into contact with the game having missed out entirely on the bias the gamer web inevitably provides on a game. The result was pleasant, to say the least. Far less tournament than semi-organized get together hinged on a fighting game, I was allowed ample time to play and observe the game being played without the hostile environment true competition usually demands.
In the same vein as Capcom's previous efforts with Marvel, TvC is a totally over the top look at a make believe conflict between martial artists, super heroes, giant robots, succubi, samurai and even a photo journalist. If the game has a plot I don't know it because we only played vs mode, but there is no post fight dialogue, and the instruction booklet includes only basic bios. The games introduction is similarly vague, presenting a bright and colorful mashup of all the characters shouting and posing in front of starburst and hyperspace backgrounds to an infectuous j-pop rhythm that haunts you long after you're done listening to it but little else. This sort of presentation permeats the entire product, with characters flashing and glowing and shouting and posing before even the most simplistic of actions. This manifests most comically in the games combo counter, which often reports a two to three hit combo of jabs has delivered something on the order of 4.76 billion damage.
The gameplay takes a similar "less is more" attitude towards execution with few characters having to execute more than a qcf or dp to accomplish any of their moves. If your character does have a more complex notation in their movelist, its probably some situationally specific or otherwise overpowered technique that they just don't want you whipping out at the drop of a dragon punch motion (i'm looking at you Karas). The knee jerk impression is that the whole game is some sort of MvC2 light because of the big VS in the title, but its far more kin to Rival Schools. That is to say, besides super jumps and dashes, the combat never gets truly bonkers until somebody expels some super meter. There's tagging, partner assists, air combos, and a guilty gear style combo breaker, but its all very low rent in terms of raw devastation.
The super moves, on the other hand, take center stage at all times. Coming in level one and three variations, your single objective in battle is landing any other move and linking it into a super, and then doing it again, and again. Because a great many of them are single hit all or nothing type affairs and even less are safe on block, very few of them have true fire and forget use. If you want to win, you need to learn some combos. The good news is, with the exception of a select few everyone in the game can do a basic weak to hard chain into a super. Once you get that down you can start styling it up with assists to pressure, or mid combo partner swaps, or even Baroque cancelled juggle strings, but none of those mean anything when your opponent pulls a lvl3 combo off a jab and takes 75% of your life away.
Not to say that's a bad thing. There's really no way to highlight the hyper cinematic nature of the Tatsunoko guys combat repetoires without laying it all on bodacious super moves. Projectiles and sword slashes are one thing, but if you want Gold Lightan to pull out somebody's soul and still call it balanced it has to be a glorified cinema. Then once you've got the giant zippo lighter pulling out souls, it only makes sense to have the little maid robot mopping up tsunami sized tidal waves and the vampire firing homing missiles from her wings. And lets be honest, isn't that the sort of absurdity a crossover game like this needs?
In short, TvC is not going to light your world on fire unless you've never played one of Capcom's Marvel games and you have a penchant for 20 year old japanese cartoons. As much of a japanophile as I once was, I can still only say with confidence that I knew maybe half of the Tatsunoko cast. Similarily, the Capcom side is full of guys who aren't exactly classics (The guy from the crappy Onimusha?) or even traditional fighter fare (PTX). But that shouldn't scare you away from it, especially if you own a Wii and love fighting games because there aren't a lot of other options. Extra content wise, the game doesn't seem like it offers a whole lot besides providing a vehicle for these characters to beat the snot out of each other, but that alone should keep you entertained for quite a while.
-F.
In the same vein as Capcom's previous efforts with Marvel, TvC is a totally over the top look at a make believe conflict between martial artists, super heroes, giant robots, succubi, samurai and even a photo journalist. If the game has a plot I don't know it because we only played vs mode, but there is no post fight dialogue, and the instruction booklet includes only basic bios. The games introduction is similarly vague, presenting a bright and colorful mashup of all the characters shouting and posing in front of starburst and hyperspace backgrounds to an infectuous j-pop rhythm that haunts you long after you're done listening to it but little else. This sort of presentation permeats the entire product, with characters flashing and glowing and shouting and posing before even the most simplistic of actions. This manifests most comically in the games combo counter, which often reports a two to three hit combo of jabs has delivered something on the order of 4.76 billion damage.
The gameplay takes a similar "less is more" attitude towards execution with few characters having to execute more than a qcf or dp to accomplish any of their moves. If your character does have a more complex notation in their movelist, its probably some situationally specific or otherwise overpowered technique that they just don't want you whipping out at the drop of a dragon punch motion (i'm looking at you Karas). The knee jerk impression is that the whole game is some sort of MvC2 light because of the big VS in the title, but its far more kin to Rival Schools. That is to say, besides super jumps and dashes, the combat never gets truly bonkers until somebody expels some super meter. There's tagging, partner assists, air combos, and a guilty gear style combo breaker, but its all very low rent in terms of raw devastation.
The super moves, on the other hand, take center stage at all times. Coming in level one and three variations, your single objective in battle is landing any other move and linking it into a super, and then doing it again, and again. Because a great many of them are single hit all or nothing type affairs and even less are safe on block, very few of them have true fire and forget use. If you want to win, you need to learn some combos. The good news is, with the exception of a select few everyone in the game can do a basic weak to hard chain into a super. Once you get that down you can start styling it up with assists to pressure, or mid combo partner swaps, or even Baroque cancelled juggle strings, but none of those mean anything when your opponent pulls a lvl3 combo off a jab and takes 75% of your life away.
Not to say that's a bad thing. There's really no way to highlight the hyper cinematic nature of the Tatsunoko guys combat repetoires without laying it all on bodacious super moves. Projectiles and sword slashes are one thing, but if you want Gold Lightan to pull out somebody's soul and still call it balanced it has to be a glorified cinema. Then once you've got the giant zippo lighter pulling out souls, it only makes sense to have the little maid robot mopping up tsunami sized tidal waves and the vampire firing homing missiles from her wings. And lets be honest, isn't that the sort of absurdity a crossover game like this needs?
In short, TvC is not going to light your world on fire unless you've never played one of Capcom's Marvel games and you have a penchant for 20 year old japanese cartoons. As much of a japanophile as I once was, I can still only say with confidence that I knew maybe half of the Tatsunoko cast. Similarily, the Capcom side is full of guys who aren't exactly classics (The guy from the crappy Onimusha?) or even traditional fighter fare (PTX). But that shouldn't scare you away from it, especially if you own a Wii and love fighting games because there aren't a lot of other options. Extra content wise, the game doesn't seem like it offers a whole lot besides providing a vehicle for these characters to beat the snot out of each other, but that alone should keep you entertained for quite a while.
-F.
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