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.
posted by Ingen! @ 9:21 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home