Side-Log: Namco x Capcom
For the record, that little 'x' is pronounced as "cross".
Once in a while, I am actually able to do a review on a game that HASN'T been reviewed everywhere else yet, so you can consider this somewhat of an exclusive, even though the game's been released for 7 months now.
So, Namco x Capcom then. Don't you just LOVE Cross-overs?
No? Well, you're right.
Although the idea of having SNK characters fighting it out against Capcom characters was still good, and made sense in some way, it has spawned a veritable SLEW of crossover games, mostly Capcom related, and this is only one in a long long line.
First there was X-men vs. Streetfighter, then there was Marvel vs. Capcom, SNK vs. Capcom, The United States vs. Capcom, Oprah vs. Capcom, Capcom vs. Capcom and finally Capcom vs. Sexual Harassment, which is still pending results.
First there were rumors Capcom was going to team up with/against Sammy to create a Street Fighter vs. Guilty Gear crossover, but (sadly) this never happened.
So Capcom moved on into territory that did not actually made sense, and Namco x Capcom was born.
At least, up to this point, they had restricted themselves to fighting games, but now they decided to make a huge Mascot-a-thon that had little to do with anything anymore, and what's even worse, they decided to leave the actual production of the game to Namco, meaning you don't even have to expect good gameplay either.
Rather than spawning a Tekken vs. Street Fighter game, which would've been......weird....this game is Namco's attempt at Tactical RPGs, which makes me go "Why don't you try to get more orthodox games to be fun FIRST!?".
I won't hide the fact that I don't like Namco games that much. That's not to say that they're bad, because they usually aren't, but they're never really good either.
The game's design has been left to Monolith Soft, always closely involved with Namco, and previously responsible for the "Love it or Hate it" Xenosaga series and the "Love it or Be An Idiot" Baten Kaitos series. And honestly, Baten Kaitos is the only REALLY good thing they ever did, and Namco x Capcom didn't change anything about that.
Anyway, like I said, the game is a kind of Tactical RPG, meaning you have to move units around grid-based stages, and you have to get your characters as close as possible to the enemies to be able to attack them. As a tactical RPG it's really not very interesting. There's very little variety in tasks, you're facing "Destroy all Enemies" scenarios almost every time, only occasionally interrupted by "Beat the Boss Character". Sometimes there are some enemy characters that you are not supposed to kill, adding a very minor challenge, and most times there are specific characters in your own party that are not allowed to die, adding yet another minuscule difficulty element.
As it is though, the game is exceedingly easy, and I don't even know what the Game Over screen looks like. I think I was halfway through the game when a single character died for the first time, and I laughed at him.
A real tactical or strategical element is nowhere to be found, and fans of the genre are likely to be disappointed by this title. Especially if you're used to Final Fantasy Tactics, this game is absolutely laughable.
The real distinguishing feature though, are the battles themselves. Once one of your troops attacks an enemy character, the game cuts to the battle mode, which is interesting. Each character has 5 moves and 1 Super Combo at his disposal, which can be freely used. Every attack is performed by pushing the O button alone, or in combination with a directional button. Perform all 5 possible attacks in a row, and you'll get a small HP or MP recovery bonus.
At the bottom of the screen, there's a SPECIAL gauge, which fills up as you pummel your enemy. When the gauge reaches 100%, you can pull off a special combo, and do some serious damage. All moves are of course trademark skills of the character in question, which is nice because of the recognition and everything.
Each character has a Branch level, which decides how many times he/she gets to attack. By succesfully chaining moves together, extra damage and extra Branch points can be earned and blahblahblah.
If you've been a close reader of this wonderful blog you'll know that I recently finished this game after a whopping 81:30 hours, and sadly, the above is ALL there is to this game.
The biggest problem is the incredible monotonousness. There are 45 chapters, and a couple of Prologues, and they are ALL pretty much the same. Battle Arenas are not very interesting, you keep fighting the same enemies and bosses over and over and over again, until you finally dispose of them in an incredibly anti-climactic battle in one of the last chapters, and there are basically NO surprises along the road.
The reason for clocking in at 81 hours is that, before long, battles start taking HOURS to complete. New enemies will keep appearing and appearing, and 2 hour battles soon become nothing out of the ordinary. You'd expect some variety and change of pace, but there is none.
Add to that the fact that there is a LOT of dialogue, most of which is totally useless and only meant as "comic relief" and you really don't know why you're bothering in the first place.
Strangely, the dialogue is only really narrated at extremely erratic intervals. You can be in the middle of a conversation, and then suddenly a couple of lines will feature real voice acting, only to completely disappear a couple of lines later, EVEN if the character in question is still talking. Either don't bother, or do it properly, you assholes!
The fact that this style of game and especially the sense of humor are VERY Japanese means that there is VERY little chance of this game ever getting translated and released in the West, but don't worry, cos you're not missing out on anything.
Now I hear you asking: "Why the HELL did you bother to finish this game then, playing for more than 80 HOURS!? And it's not even really part of the Project! LOSER!"
And you'd be right, because I don't know either.
The fact of the matter is, and I've heard this from everyone who's played it, despite its many many shortcomings, this game is
strangely addictive.
Really.
I found it EXTREMELY hard to put down, even after a 2 hour battle, I wanted to see what was going to happen next, even though nothing
actually ever happened.
I guess the battles are kinda fun, with all those trademark moves, and their complete over-the-topness, but most importantly, it's Namco x Capcom.
This game is completely Mascot Driven, to an almost disgusting degree.
It's filled to the brim with familiar Namco and Capcom characters, and THAT is exactly the strength of this game, because it caters for a VERY wide target audience.
Everyone is going to find some characters they recognize or like, unless they've never played any games before, in which case you really shouldn't bother, cos this game is not going to get you interested in Gaming either.
But all the famous Mascots have been handled REALLY well.
They all have their most recognisable and coolest moves, most characters even have their original voice actors (most Street Figher characters actually sound like in the old game, and then there are characters from recent Namco games, like KOS-MOS, Momo, Shion etc. who are obviously voiced by their respective actors), and more importantly, they
behave like they are supposed to.
They have the same quotes, the same way of speaking, the same personality and are therefore ultimately recognisable. In other words, all characters have been treated very respectfully, so all fans should be pleased.
In that respect, the game is more and more enjoyable, depending on how much of a veteran gamer you are. Street Fighter, Tekken, SoulCalibur, Megaman etc. are likely to ring bells, but also expect characters from lesser known titles like Genpei Toumaden, Druaga's Tower, Ghouls and Ghosts and some obscure stuff even
I had never heard of.
There are some weird choices as well though. I don't see why they chose to include characters from Dino Crisis or Gun Survivor, where Resident Evil would've made more sense, seeing as how the RE games ARE popular. Also, why did they choose for the Megaman from the Legends series, whereas the Megamans from ALL other Megaman series are WAY cooler.
But I complain like an old geezer. The fact is that there is a LOT of recognition in here, which is just cool for gamers who've been around for awhile.
All characters are part of their own story, and there are a lot of events referring to other games, which are pretty cool if you know what they're about.
Problem is, many of these sub-stories have no conclusion, presumably because you're supposed to know the games they come from, or whatever. It can be very unsatisfying if you're not familiar with any of them, cos there are a lot of loose ends that are not tied up.
So to make a long story short, if you're a video game Buff, you're likely to enjoy this, if just for all those mascottes in one game together, but if you're not, there's little here to enjoy, especially if you're a Tactical RPG fan, because this game is ridiculously simple.
An 8-.
Resident Evil
Zombie Time!
Believe it or not, but Resident Evil was the first and foremost reason I bought myself a Playstation way back when. I'd rented a Playstation before, to see what all the fuss was about, and I picked up a game called BioHazard (at that time, videostores and game shops still imported things from Japan) that I'd never heard of, and even the genre "Survival Horror", which was proudly displayed on the front of the box, didn't ring any kind of bell. But it said Capcom on the box, and pictures looked pretty, so I decided to pick it up anyway.
Needless to say, I loved every second of it, and so did the rest of the world, and so the genre became popular and everyone wanted some of the action.
And, yes, I KNOW Alone in the Dark was first, but Alone in the Dark also completely SUCKED and noone's ever played it, so Capcom rules.
Many games would follow, not only in the same franchise, but from other companies as well. Capcom showed Survival Horror was a great and entertaining genre, Silent Hill showed that it could be beautiful, haunting and intelligent, the Alone in the Dark series showed that it could do nothing but copy Capcom's versions of their own idea, and Tecmo even showed that Camera's can be goddamn scary, if I am to believe the reviews, although I have yet to play any of the Fatal Frame games.
And Nintendo showed that Fat Italian Plumbers can be cute, which is probably even more scary.
But, like any other Capcom game, it has aged considerably, and has been improved upon so many times, that the first game that started off the whole craze, is now bland and kinda dull. It's hard to believe that these graphics were EVER impressive, and these are RENDERS we are talking about, and later installments have added so many improvements that this one has become hard to play indeed.
It's hard to believe the Resident Evil series ever had to work WITHOUT Auto Aim (excluding RE4 of course, which didn't need it, because it was too goddamn good), Quick Turn and Leon Kennedy.
The lack of an Auto Aim is probably the most painful problem with this game, since the fixed camera often does not give you a good angle. In fact, more often than not, you can't even SEE the enemy, because he's not in reach of the fixed camera.
He could be right in front of your nose, but you wouldn't be able to shoot him, because you can't bloody see him!
But even if you CAN see him, it can still be hard to target. The fight with Plant 42 is one of the most atrocious examples, where you can clearly see yourself AND the huge Poisonous Piece of Lettuce, but you cannot judge your angle AT ALL, at least, not without wasting some ammo, to see where your bullets end up. And this is a battle where you have to keep moving, so you have to adjust your position EVERY time.
But you know what's worse?
Bloody Goddamn Fucking HUNTERS.These assholes have been the thorn in the eye of every RE player around the globe, since day ONE. They're really damn fast, really damn strong, can take a shitload of bullets, and in this game THERE'S NO AUTO AIM. Thanks, Capcom.
And when you're suddenly confronted with a Huge Green Clawed Monster, with a gold medal in 100 yard dashing, it doesn't really help that you don't have a Quick Turn either. Bastards. God, I'm getting angry just WRITING about them.
Also, the series' famous Magical Boxes, which allow you to store items and pick them up somewhere else, are a LOT fewer and further between in this game, than in the sequels. There's a particularly nasty part of the game, where you have to go without any kind of item management for a LONG time, constantly picking up new stuff that you NEED, NO discarding function, and a goddamn Boss Fight coming out of NOWHERE, and THEN afterwards you need your combat knife, which NO sane person EVER carries around, unless you want to waste a shitload of ammo taking cobwebs off a door.
Damn, that bit sucked.
Furthermore, there has been a Director's Cut on PSX, which is already better, because it has more stuff in it, and an arranged mode, and THEN there's the absolutely fantastic Gamecube Remake, which basically deletes any kind of need for the original, unless you can't stand those Crimson Heads, which is understandable.
And of course, this wouldn't be any kind of review of Resident Evil, if I didn't take some time to point out the absolutely brilliant Voice Acting.
Brilliant, in the "so bad it's hilariously funny" way. Really.
This game has become legendary because of its totally awful voice acting, which is really some of the worst EVER.
The actors sound like they've only ever watched crappy B-movies in their life, ITALIAN B-movies at that, but it's not like they have anything to work with either.
I mean, how do you say "You were almost a Jill Sandwich!" or "It might be handy if YOU, the MASTER of Unlocking, take it with you", without sounding like a moron?
As shown by the above quotes, Barry is by far the worst, but then, like I said, he gets the worst lines to work with.
But Jill Valentine is horrendous as well, I mean, you just have to hear it, it's really incredibly funny actually. Many of the lines in this game have become infamous quotes Nerds like me use all the time.
From lines like "NO! DON'T GO!" to "I can't figure this out AT ALL", it's a riot a minute.
Also, there are some other things that make this game stand out from the rest of the series. First of all, to my knowledge, this is the ONLY Resident Evil that got censored. The opening movie was gory and full-color in the Japanese original, whereas the gore was edited out, and it was turned into black and white, for the West. Also, during the Character introduction, Chris is seen smoking in the original, but that was replaced by a cut of him from the movie itself.
And the first CG movie, showing the first Zombie eating at someone's corpse, does not show the head being severed and rolling to the floor.
Secondly, and most interestingly, this is the ONLY Resident Evil to use ACTUAL real(ly bad) actors. The opening and ending movies are all done by real human beings (altough they
might be robots, I'm not sure), which is kinda cool, cos that makes it slightly more legitimate to have the hots for Jill Valentine. She IS pretty though.
I will acknowledge this game for setting a standard, and being totally cool for its time. It "immortalized" the Undead in Video Games, and it became a staple of the genre, despite it's sluggish controls.
Every rerelease and sequel are better, but I have to give credit to the grandfather of all Survival Horror, despite the fact that it's not that much fun anymore.
A nice round 8 seems sufficient.
It Is Here!
Great service Lik-Sang, swift delivery DHL, Merry Christmas Ingen!
Now I have to wait until I can open my presents, cos my mom confiscated it for under the Christmas Tree. D'oh!
Also, I FINALLY finished Namco x Capcom, clocking in at 81:30 HOURS! DAMN YO.
This has to be the longest non-open-ended game EVER. Not a single second of this game has been spent on levelling up or side-quests, because there aren't any.
Expect the full review soon.
I am going to use my 3rd Joker in this project for Reiselied, because it is one of the most atrociously bad games ever. I'm close to finishing Resident Evil, and I'm really looking forward to picking up Resident Evil 4 again, so the next couple of days are looking REALLY good, gamewise.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Woohoo!
I have just recieved word from the lovely people over at
Lik-Sang that my copy of Kingdom Hearts 2 has been shipped (yay!), and that I should recieve it in 1 to 2 days, since I laid down a crapload of money to have it delivered before Christmas.
Also, I have been told Famitsu scored it a whopping 39/40 (meaning three 10s and one 9), making it a VERY good game indeed, almost akin to the perfect scoring Ocarina of Time.
I am excited, to say the least.
Back-log: D2
Or "D no shokutaku 2" in Japanese, which means "D's Dinner Table".
And as much as that may sound like a Kitchen Furniture Simulation Game, it is in fact none of the above. It has NOTHING to do with any kind of tables, let alone other types of furniture, unless you include beds, which I think I saw somewhere once.
Also, the 'D' part of the game is completely gone.
The original D game was a 7th Guest/Myst style first person puzzle game, which actually DID feature a huge Dinner Table, which was actually an important element of the story. I don't want to spoil too much about that game, but D stands for Dracula, referring to the fact that Laura, the main heroine, and her father are descendants of the aforementioned Count who is famous for decorating his castles upside down.
Together they ate Laura's mom, and depending on your choices in the game, you could even end up getting eaten by your father yourself, which was rather sick.
By the way, I just spoiled everything, so you can skip playing that game altogether.
The original game on PSX was actually rather clever. It was one LONG CG movie, but it was actually interactive. You were inside a big mansion (aren't you always?), and by pressing left, right or forward you could move Laura about, as she walked over a fixed path, which was basically a movie showing.
It looked nice, for its time, but due to its nature, it was immensely slow, and short. Despite the fact that it was spread across 3 CD's, it only took about 1 hour to finish, and it had hardly any voices or music.
And then there was D2, on Dreamcast, which is COMPLETELY different.
The only thing that points back to its roots, is that, when you're inside buildings, you can only walk along set paths in a first person perspective. It's all in Real-time though, so it's more of an homage to its ancestor than anything else.
All the rest of the game is in full glorious 3D, although Full Snowy 3D would be more accurate.
Why? Because there's a lot of snow. And I mean a LOT.
Laura is back, although NOTHING indicates the events of the first game ever took place. This time, Laura finds herself in an airplane, which gets hijacked by, say it with me now, Terrorists (amazingly relevant this game is) and eventually the plane crashes in the middle of some Alaskan Mountain Range, if I'm not mistaken. A very Snowy environment anyway.
As it will turn out, Laura is not the only survivor. She is found by Kimberley, a young black woman, who talks WAY too much and is a real whiny bitch. Those who did survive are behaving very strangely and before long, Laura finds herself surrounded by freaky monsters, and Kimberley gives her a machine gun to get rid of them.
"Oh you regained consciousness eh? Here's a gun, now get to WORK!"
What ensues is a kind of exploration based puzzle/action game. You have to walk a LOT in this game, although you'll get a Snowmobile later. Battles occur at random, but are fought on the spot, and in first person perspective. The directional pad moves the cross-hairs, and X and Y make Laura turn left or right (only during battles).
Occassionally you'll move inside buildings, usually to solve some puzzles or talk to people, but the majority of your time is spent walking and walking and walking.
Did I mention there's a lot of snow everywhere?
Well, there is. A LOT.
On the one hand, I have to admit, the graphics are very nice, and they do a great job of creating a cold and alienated atmosphere, as does the sound and the presentation. In fact, it would be pretty accurate to liken this game to the movie The Thing, even down to the Alien Life form that can take over people's bodies.
It's like they turned The Thing into a game, only they gave you an open outside environment and a young woman wearing a suit that cannot possibly be comfortable in that kind of circumstance.
Still, what WOULD you wear to Alien Combat, right?
Right.
Puzzles are few and far between, and usually pretty easy. Combat is fun to some extent, and there are some cool and gory boss-battles, but the game does kind of suffer from the tremendous amount of walking you have to do.
The story is good, although the ending is kind of non-sensical, and seems to exist only to preach about how we should treat Mother Earth (where the Hell did THAT one come from!?). Still cut-scenes are good, there's lots of twists and turns, freaky and gory scenes, good voice acting and believable characters (except for Laura, who's a Mute for some reason, until a key scene late in the game).
All in all, this game could've been really good. The atmosphere is really spot-on and presentation-wise it's all good, it's just that there is simply TOO much walking (straight ahead AND back and forth) to be fun.
Since everything you'll get to see are Snowy Mountains, you can only take so much of running endlessly before you start getting bored, since there's literally NOTHING to do, except for random battles, and the occasional collectible that''s lying around.
Still, it's very original, and atmosphere and good storytelling go a long way in my book, so I give this an 8.2. If you want to see a...different look on survival horror, this game will likely entertain you.
In other news:
Holy Shizznat! My game clock has reached about 53 hours (!!!) in Namco x Capcom and I'm at Chapter 36 now. Thing is, I recently discovered there are 45 GODDAMN CHAPTERS, so I'm looking at at least another 15 hours or so, I think.
Damn, this has to be the longest game EVER, considering not a second of those 53 hours was spent on side-quests or levelling-up, since NEITHER OF THOSE ARE POSSIBLE.
Damn.
Back-log: Croc, Legend of the Gobbos.
Yeah,
Legend of the Gobbos.
If that doesn't spell Gore, Mayhem and Carnage, I don't know WHAT does.
Gobbos are small cute, fluffy creatures, and by nature this kind of creature is prone to getting kidnapped, because in some way they are important to someone, you know, like
Mice.
By the way, is it me, or is that the most disturbing Nintendo commercial EVER!?
Anyway, like I said, the Gobbos of Legend have been kidnapped by the Evil Baron Dante, and not the Demon-slaying Wise-ass with the Red Cloak we all know and love, but the rather hideous Frog-like Green Dude with a taste for small fluffy creatures.
So it's up to you, as the loveable Croc (he's a Crocodile! Get it!? It's insanely original!) to rescue these creatures and give Baron Dante the ass-kicking he deserves.
At your disposal is your tail, which packs quite a punch, and.....well, that's it really. No huge arsenal of moves in this game, just jumping and whacking.
There are 4 worlds each with 6 regular stages, 2 boss stages and two hidden stages, which can be unlocked by finding all six Gobbo Cages in every stage up to that point.
Find ALL Gobbos, and a new world will be opened, to give you access to the REAL final battle, and a totally crappy ending which is not worth your bother.
And a bother it IS, make no mistake. This game goes into the exact same category as Rayman, being the Platform game that looks deceptively cute, but sports an extreme difficulty and immense frustration. The fact that the controls are very rigid doesn't help in the least. Croc is not very versatile, but quick turning is often required, making for some very annoying bits in the game.
Throughout the levels you will find Crystals, which are Croc's Trademark collectibles, and very much like Sonic's Rings, they also act as a kind of Health Insurance, meaning that as long as you have at least one Crystal, you can be hit without dying.
I mean, it's fun and all, every stage is divided into several areas, which aren't so big, so exploring is easy meaning you won't easily miss anything. There's bonus levels and extra lives to be found, as well as those elusive 6 Cages you need to find in every level, and it would be fun if it hadn't been so TERRIBLY frustrating.
Of course in the beginning it's all nice and good, but later levels are VERY hard, and you'll die A LOT, mostly because of some unfair jumps and not so tight controls.
One particular problem is that Croc has a hipdrop. I think you'll find that MOST platform game mascottes have a hipdrop of some kind, but they are usually activated by jumping and then pressing an attack button or some other button, which is good, but in Croc, the hipdrop is activated by pressing jump AGAIN in mid-air.
Now, considering that there are some truely nerve-shatteringly annoying jumps in this game, you might imagine that sometimes you're pressing the jump button SO frantically that you accidentally hipdrop yourself into oblivion, which is just stupid. Awkward and unnecessary.
Like I said, it goes straight into the Rayman category, also because the main reason I bought it was because I had rented it before, and really liked the music. High quality synth and some live instruments make this game a joy to listen too at least, even when you're swearing at that Goddamn Crocodile for being a Total Asshole.
I'm going to give this a 7, which is my standard score for games that are good but too frustrating.
PS: blame the recent lack of updates on the fact that Namco x Capcom simply REFUSES to end. Damn, this game takes a SHITLOAD of time.
In other news, I pre-ordered Kingdom Hearts 2 yesterday, and I hope to get it in time for Christmas, because I payed the full smack of dough to get it here ASAP.
I haven't been this psyched by a new game since Resident Evil 4, which was almost a whole year ago (yes, it HAS been that long), and RE4 definitely didn't dissapoint, so I'm hoping the same for KH2.
Side-log: Capcom Fighting Jam
Or Capcom Fighting Evolution, whatever.
Ahhhhh. Capcom. Once upon a time, they were the absolute Gods of beat-em-ups, and anything that had the letters "Fight" on it in some form or other, was a guaranteed success!
And for a long time, it was all good, but THEN, Capcom became lazy. They decided that sprites from a game from 1998 were good enough to still be used, many many years later for EVERY new game they make.
And to compensate for lack of evolution, they decided to just throw in tons of characters from different series. The Age of Cross-overs began, and many companies like Marvel and SNK tried their best at a bout of fisticuffs against age-old sprites.
The Marvel vs. Capcom series were great fun, because at least they offered an entirely new way of fighting, which was very frantic and over the top, and even the SNK vs. Capcom series wasn't that bad. Well, the second one wasn't, at least, but it mostly lived off the novelty value of pitching two rival companies against each other.
Now, it has become time for Capcom to take a big step back (how the HELL did they find the guts to put that "Evolution" staple on this game!?), and offer LESS characters, NO selectable fighting styles, and really crappy 2D visuals.
Capcom Fighting Jam features characters from a variety of Capcom games, 4 characters per series, and includes well known characters such as Chun Li (SFIII version), Rose (SF Alpha), Demitri (Darkstalkers), Ryu (SFII Version, and where the hell is Ken?) as well as some that you've probably never heard of, and one entirely new character called Ingrid.
Each character plays like in the game he or she was taken from, and it is not possible to choose alternate versions, which is a huge step back from SNK vs. Capcom 2, where you could even have Ryu play like a Samurai Shodown character if you wanted to.
The character sprites all look absolutely HORRENDOUS. Bald and extremely pixellated characters, lacking color fight against boring STATIC backdrops that look worse than some fighting games from the year 2000 even. Come ON, Capcom! Time to fucking move ON already! At least SNK vs. Capcom 2 had decent 3D backgrounds, but this is ridiculous.
It's like they wanted to make a new game with as little effort as possible, using old sprites, crappy music and a rather unresponsive control system.
With the Guilty Gear series showing that 2D can still look incredibly good, if you just use High defition sprites and put some effort into it, Capcom still seems to think they can get away with the same sprites they used in Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Street Fighter III, which, like I said, ARE FROM THE LAST MILENNIUM. Seriously, check the release dates.
I'm not saying that games are all about graphics, but I AM saying it's stupid and REALLY cheap to be using the same damn sprites forever.
The only positive thing I can think of to say, is that this is, after all, still Street Fighter (mostly), which means you DO get good gameplay, but it's so much lesser quality than we are used to.
Also, the only really nice surprise is that, finally, we get Character Specific endings again. After dozens of fighting games with a crapload of characters, all getting the same ending, you can finally see some nice personalized artwork again, if you play through the incredibly cheap 1p mode again.
There's no real text, just a one-page comic of sorts, but it does look nice, I've always loved Capcom Artwork, and it makes you think what they could do if they tried implementing this kind of graphics FOR IN-GAME, maybe? Assholes.
So what we have here, is a game that is in no way interesting, good-looking or fun, and only lives off its legacies.
Paris Hilton? Yes, that sounds scarily similar.
Yeah, I like that. This game is the Paris Hilton of the Capcom fighting games, a cheap skanky parasite, too lazy to do anything new.
Now, I am going to wait patiently for that sex tape starring Rose.
A 6.5
In between VI
Status Report!
Yesterday was the day of my graduation!
In itself, this is enough of a feat, but it becomes even more bizarre when you consider I started studying in bloody
1997. I am now officially a Master of Arts, as the boring English title would have it, but I vastly prefer the Dutch terminology of Doctorandus, which even means I can put a nice Drs. in front of my name. THAT'S why I was doing it, after all.
My guidance teacher held a very nice speech, even though he admitted not knowing me so well. So what he did was, he actually went onto the Internet to perform a search on my name, AND HE FOUND THIS SITE. D'oh! *waves*
I'm sure he suddenly understood why it took me so long to write the damn thesis in the first place :S
Still, he made some very nice comments about it, so it was all good, and I was able to dodge out of the room, skillfully avoiding any nasty questions from the family.
So I'm a certified Japanologist now, which also automatically means that I'm unemployed, unwanted and a bit of a laughing-stock. At least I have my games, which don't laugh at me or call me names or put tacks on my seat just before I'm sitting down.
But I know that my regular readers are ALL wondering when the Hell I'm going to know if and when I can go to Japan with that nice scholarship. Well, I had a nice talk with my teacher the other day, who kindly made use of his contacts at the Japanese Embassy, and his insane Japanese Ambiguity Skills, and he found out for me that I will recieve the final results come MID-JANUARY
at the frigging earliest.
Great.
Game-wise, I'm working on Namco X Capcom at the moment, which is consuming EXTREME amounts of time. Battles get longer and longer every time, and the other day, it took me about 2 HOURS to get through one particularly nasty fight. Over-the-top fun aplenty, but very time-consuming nonetheless.
Also, I'm playing the recently released Rockman EXE 6 on GBA (emulator), which is great fun, since they decided that the older games were better so they made one in the same vein again. Good stuff.
Well, that's my two cents for today, in the near future look forward to perhaps a Backlog, or maybe a review of Capcom Fighting Jam.
Drs. Ingen out!
Side-log: Shadow of the Colossus
Once every decade, amidst a plethora of boring tripe and things you've seen a thousand times before, a game will come along to prove that video games aren't dead yet.
To totally overwhelm you; To show that fantastic things can be done, even with consoles that are running on their last legs. To provide proof that there still ARE brilliant game designers out there with a HUGE imagination and great originality.
To deliver an experience that is unlike anything you've ever seen before, one that can ONLY be felt through playing games, because books or movies simply can not get away with this kind of thing.
And this year, we've had TWO of those.
One is of course Resident Evil 4, which I will be getting to soon.
The other is Shadow of the Colossus.
THIS, my friends is interactive motherfucking ART. It's a wonderful experience that you have to FEEL rather than play. A dream-like adventure with monsters of incomprehensible magnitude awaits those who dare to cross the Treshold.
In Shadow of the Colossus, you play as a nameless Hero. This game was made by the same creators as Ico, and thus has a very similar look and direction. The characters speak in a made up language, although thankfully there are real subtitles this time round. You get very little information about the story which helps establish the surreal kind of atmosphere that was also present in the prequel.
All you know is that your girlfriend or some kind of princess at least, has died and there is only one way to bring her back, which is to slay the 16 Colossi roaming the Cursed Lands.
You start out in some kind of Castle with the Princess lying on an altar, waiting to be revived, like women tend to do. From the immediate get-go the graphics are ASTOUNDING. If you've played Ico, you'll know that the team in question has a real knack for displaying bright lights as if you're playing in someone's dream.
It offers a beautiful and surreal atmosphere that fits the mysterious mood of the story and the strange huge world perfectly.
At your disposal, you have a sword, a bow and a horse.
By raising your sword to sky, the reflecting light will point you to where the next Colossus is. Once you have found it, you can use the reflecting light to find its weak spot, and use the sword itself to violently stab it to death.
The bow is used for very minor damage, and is most appropriate for long distance attacks (mainly to hit certain key points on some Colossi) or just for drawing a Colossus's attention.
The horse serves mainly to make travelling across the vast plains a bit faster, but it can also be used to gain some extra height for jumps, and for swearing at.
If you've read my Ocarina of Time review, you might remember that Epona's presence in that game annoyed me to no end, but fortunately, this game is slightly better.
First of all, it looks and moves MUCH more realistically, so much so that I'm wondering if they didn't in fact Motion Capture a real horse (now that would be something to see) and it also feels like you're actually riding a horse, despite the fact that I've never done that so I can't possibly know, but it's still true.
You can jump on or off its back at any time, although jumping on can be slightly unresponsive sometimes. The good thing is that the Horse, which seems to be called Arro or something is very clever and can usually find you in no time.
The triangle button calls him, and if you keep it pressed, the camera will focus on the direction where he's at.
Even when facing a wall he won't jump off, you can just jump off yourself (you can take an amazing amount of damage when it comes to jumping from heights) and then let the horse figure out for itself how to get to you, but it will always be quick and clever about it.
The same applies for the Hero. Motion Capture is magnificent, and what's even more special is that they've gone for a believable kind of motion system. You don't get some kind of cool Kick-ass Warrior with impossible moves, no, instead you get a normal guy with a sword, who stumbles when he drops from a great height, who is knocked over when an Enormous foot is stomped down nearby and, in short, who moves as clumsily as any REAL human being would. I'm sure this is not bad programming, because they've taken great care to make his stumbling looks as realistic as possible, and it just makes the character all that more human.
When battling a Colossus, the L1 button focuses on the beast so you can quickly check where it is, should you lose sight of it, despite it's gigantic proportions.
And HUGE they are. With the exception of two or three rather small ones, every single Colossus is, well, COLOSSAL for lack of a better term. The major challenge in the game therefore, is figuring out how to get to their weakspot. Usually you have to find a way of climbing the beast, but sometimes it's just a matter of exposing its Vitals (that's what the game calls it) and stab away. The Final Boss is INSANELY big, and might very well be THE biggest living thing you've ever seen in a Video Game. The beauty is also that the game has NO loading times whatsoever. The entire world is one big whole and everything blends into everything else.
This means that if you climb up something really big, and you fall, that you will end up at the bottom, instead of getting a cheap fade-out or game over screen.
This makes the world much more believable and really gets the impressive size of the game across.
And every battle is completely different from the next too. Great care and inventivity have been put into making these battles as varied and fun as possible, and you really truely won't believe some of the things you have to do. I've battled on land, in water, and even in the air (those fights are REALLY a sight to behold).
It takes guts to make a game that is essentially nothing but Boss Fights, but Sony Computer Entertainment has done a truely fantastic job at it.
This does unfortunately mean that the game isn't very long.
In 7 to 8 hours, you should be able to finish it, and there are Time Challenges and a Hard Mode, leading to some unlockables, to increase replayability, but even if the adventure is really short, it is absolutely worth playing. There's literally NOTHING like it.
On the real downside the Camera can be a REAL pain in the ass sometimes, but as I've said numerous times before, 3D games with a good camera can be counted on the finger of one hand, so I've given up criticizing games for it.
Also, there's a rather large amount of pop-up, even when up-close, you can see that some textures or objects are pretty much realised at the last moment, which can be a bit disturbing. As a small disclaimer, this is a ridiculously big world we're talking about, with lots of eye-candy and hidden rooms so I guess we can cut the game some slack.
It's like having a beautiful girlfriend with MASSIVE boobs: Great to look at, and a lot of fun to play with, but still a girl, so that means she's gonna bitch about things.
Technical short-comings are MORE than made up for with content, gameplay and originality. The story doesn't move along very quickly, but when it does, it's great. The ending is particularly chilling and orchestrated in a truely masterful way.
NOT playing this game because of some slight technical issues WILL be the biggest mistake you make this year, even if you decided to go on a condom-less sex-tour in South Africa.
With marvellous dream-like graphics, phenomenal and epic battles, a majestic orchestral soundtrack and a HUGE gaming environment, this is one of the most unique and impressive games you're EVER likely to play.
It has rekindled my faith in video games as the best form of entertainment on earth, and it has even reminded me of why I love games so much in the first place.
THIS is why I keep playing, THIS is why I wade through cash-ins and commercial crap; to find that one true diamond amongst your grandmother's cheap pearls.
I cannot see this getting anything lower than a 9.8
Rayman
And yet another Ubisoft game for today.
This game was released in 1995, WAY before the Splinter Cells, Beyond Good and Evils and Princes of Persia of today, when Ubisoft was still a relatively small company with a rather uninteresting logo.
Still I wouldn't be the die hard gamer that I am, if I hadn't discovered this talented company WAY before anyone else, because I'm cool and the rest of the world is not. Did I mention I invented sliced bread?
Back in the SNES and PSX days, I was the kind of person who just played every game he could get his hands on, and if he had to, he would rent them. I stopped doing that when I first went to Japan, where I found out you can actually BUY games at rental prices, and besides, I now have Japanese consoles mostly, and modding is not always an option, so I'm stuck with Japanese junk anyway.
In any case, this is one of those games I just decided to rent for a couple of days, because it looked nice, and I like platformers, so what the hey.
And it IS lovely. Ubisoft's talent is unmistakeable, with even an old title like this still looking very good, great colorful cartoony graphics, with lots of detail, a great and varied soundtrack, although the tracks are WAY too short, and a likeable mascotte, in the shape of the Limb Flinging Rayman.
The ever-so-important story is that The Evil Mr. Dark has stolen the Great Protoon, which keeps balance in the world, and kidnapped all the Electoons which orbit around it, presumably because they're annoyingly cute. So, now it's up to Rayman to retrieve the Protoon and rescue all those little pink buggers from their cages, to once again restore harmony to the world, and maybe get laid, if he's lucky.
At your disposal are your fists, and.......well, that's about it. You can jump, and you can send off a flying punch, and that's the gist of your attacks, so there's no wondering why the game's manual is thinner than Kate Moss.
It's also equally likely to kill you if you try to eat it.
In the course of the game, you will learn some new skills like hanging off ledges, running and using your hair as a helicopter (that's not a joke).
There are around 20 levels in the game, and each level is built up of several stages, most of which are pretty long. Every level has 6 cages with Electoons you have to find, and some of them are hidden very well.
You HAVE to find ALL cages in EVERY stage if you want to get to the final stage, which makes the game rather cumbersome, since a lot of cages are INVISIBLE.
That is to say, you have to trigger their appearance by touching some invisible triggering point by walking or jumping over it. Usually, some clever and logical thinking will lead you to finding these triggering points, but it's very easy to miss one, meaning you'll have to replay an entire stage over and over again, just to find that one elusive cage, IF you want to see the ending.
On the other hand, the ending is really not worth the bother anyway, so you might just stop without playing the final stage.
In fact, you might even stop long before that because, nauseatingly cute graphics and cuddly charaters notwithstanding, this game is frigging HARD. In a very definitely FRUSTRATING way.
Seriously, for a game that is obviously aimed at kids, this is INSANELY difficult.
If you want your kids to go even more mental than they already are, and start breaking things around the house and beating you up, give them this game.
It's the effect it had on me, and I'M 26.
Controls can be frustrating, and some jumps require absolute pixel precise timing and a lot of stuff will kill you in one hit.
A Platform game wouldn't be a platform game without some kind of collectable (except for the brilliant Prince of Persia of course, but Ubisoft didn't realise that until MUCH later), and Rayman has "Tings" to collect. 100 Tings constitutes an extra life, in a total surprise of Gaming logic, but if you die you'll lose ALL the Tings you collected so far. So basically, Ubisoft gives you the finger by saying "You died hunh? Well, just to punish you, we're going to make getting an extra life EVEN harder for you". Bastards.
Still, the main difficulty lies in frustrating controls, and very cheap situations that require lightning reflexes, perfect timing and precision, and often even blind leaps. Good Job, Ubisoft. And this is aimed at young kids you say? Brilliant!
Seasoned gamers will find a good challenge here, if they can stand the bright colors and suffocating happiness (and blinding frustration), and if you persist, you'll find a very decent platform game here, with some nice tricks up its sleeve.
This is one of those games I decided to buy because I liked the music more than anything else though, but it's still entertaining for as long as it lasts.
Children need definitely not apply though, which is kinda stupid, considering the subject matter.
A 7.5 seems about right.
