Blood! SO MUCH BLOOD!!! Action has come in heavy doses lately, here’s the roundup of what’s good, what’s bad, and what you should know about it all.
Virtua Fighter 5- As long as you’re not entirely new to the series, you can probably tell already if it’s worth having. It’s all about detail and realism(well, Kage-Maru is an exception, but hey, he’s a damn ninja). Defense is key, as is learning an individual character, and how their martial arts style works best. It’s not a game friendly to newbies, and it’s not an easy game by any means, but it’s incredibly rewarding to learn 5 stances(or in one case, over 100), a very large set of attacks, and use them to crush people in a super stylish way. Jeet kun do, lucha wrestling, pancrate, kickboxing, judo, and drunken boxing are among the great list of styles used in the game.
Graphically and aurally, the game does very well. Meaty smacks help to sell heavy impacts, all characters have appropriate(though sparse) voicing. Characters and environments are highly detailed, though there’s an unfortunate overabundance of shine. VF5’s fighters have a definite glow about them, and the more skin is visible, the more it turns into a blinding reflection. Some clipping issues and a few relatively minor collision detection issues pop up. I’ve never seen a clear connection miss, but a few times something that barely missed will register as a hit, and some animations, usually throws, suffer from space between the hands of one fighter and face/body of another, as if the force is being used.
Still, complaints about looks aside, the game is excellent, but takes dedication and has a very steep learning curve. It’s incredibly deep and if fighting is your bag, this one will last a long time.
Virtua Fighter 5 gets 4 out of 5 canes
Dragon Ball Z:Tenkaichi 3- Holy crap, another DBZ game that doesn’t suck! Don’t count on that too often, but it’s not going to hold much appeal outside of the DBZ fan base. Tenkaichi 3 is a relatively shallow fighter with a fun story mode(though prone to being extremely frustrating, and to those who don’t know the story already, the mechanics of waiting on a character switch can be extremely frustrating), and some good extra modes, such as character building and tournaments which will grant points for yet more character building.
The game tends toward some button mashing as the mechanics for throws and guarding can be complex, but a very simple, intuitive combo system captures the feel of the show, as do the many power struggles which rely in spinning the right stick around rapidly. Most characters play in a very similar manner, with some having stronger energy blasts, stronger punches, or better speed, which makes it easy to pick up a new character, but not much in the way of variety. The game’s pacing is much like the show. Flurries of frenzied action, punches, fireballs, followed by someone being out of energy, or both fighters, meaning lots of yelling and groaning until there’s enough power for another set of big attacks or transformations.
The character models are very good, and the voice actors from the show provide the voices, in English and Japanese. Mountains explode during battles with yelling and grunting, craters are formed, and in general, it’s just true to the series and movies as can be, without taking 30 minutes to charge up a special attack.
For fans of the show, it’s an easy purchase, and it’s a good game for casual fighter fans. For people who want a highly polished deep fighter with lots of special attacks, there are better options.
DBZ:T3 gets 3 out of 5 canes. Fun, but shallow, and some major frustrations.
Smackdown Vs. Raw 2008- SvR 2006 was fun, with good stories and decent gameplay. SvR 2007 was limited in terms of story, but excellent gameplay, and marked a time when wrestling games could go mainstream. Unfortunately, SvR 2008 dropped down a notch on both elements, despite adding several good new ideas.
The upside of the game is that there are now 8 styles, each character having two. They grant unique moves and abilities, such as automatic dodging of grapples, viscious flurries, and high flying attacks. And of course, the wonderful hardcore superstar abilities to demolish opponents with tables and chairs, and to get an instant full special meter when someone starts bleeding. ECW wrestlers make plenty of appearances in game, but players are limited to Smackdown or Raw superstars for career mode. Career mode itself is extremely repetitive, and fairly buggy. Storylines rarely deviate, and either the player’s choices have no actual consequence, or they’re mislabeled constantly. And they are, certainly, mislabeled often. Career choices pop up asking “Who do you choose?”, when it’s picking a partner, an opponent, or a style of match. Often the wrong text will pop up, meaning you pick the opposite of what you want with no indication until it’s too late. Once, rather than the choices regarding the next match, I was presented with the next three lines of dialog from the announcers.
There is a stunning lack of polish with this installment of the series, and a complete lack of testing outside the ring.
Inside the ring, things have been simplified and at the same time, complicated horribly. The plethora of grapples has been severely cut down, resulting in four total holds of varying utility. Characters get a grapple for their main and secondary styles, and two ultimate control grapples. Four attacks are available for the main and secondary styles, but it’s profoundly difficult to know whether a grapple has taken. Ultimate control grapples have two or three attacks, normally, but they’re easily escaped and ineffective until midway through a match. The system feels sloppy now, and far too limited.
The new struggle submission system is a good idea in theory, but doesn’t have any player skill involved for the person trying to escape, and not much for the one applying the submission. Both players hold the right stick out. That’s it. To not lose grip, the one applying the pressure can let go, and press again with better grip to do more damage. The one receiving the pain just sits there, waiting. The game has, on the whole, dropped to button mashing and no finesse.
Graphically, the character models are good, well detailed, but never seem to actually touch each other, there’s a perpetual floating space with grapples and throws. Sure, punches don’t land in real wrestling, but you still have to actually grab someone to throw him. Hair clips poorly and seems to be made of three polygons for the longest hair with lots of transparency. Faces and body parts clip through parts of the ring fairly often as well. Before and after matches, the same select few cutscenes play, with appropriate characters selected(though the names can be wrong at points). Divas suffer terribly in the sequence they’re featured in, with animations and textures that make them look like anime clowns.
The audio is poor. Characters are almost entirely mute, superstars speak three lines throughout the entire career mode. JBL has taken his new announcing spot, but rather than being given original dialog, he’s re-recorded most of the dialog from last year that wasn’t formerly done by Taz. Only a few new pieces with he and Michael Cole are done in story mode, and it’s clear how poorly JBL’s dialog was fit in, like placing the wrong piece into a puzzle by sawing the edges until they’re close enough. A few generic grunts are in place during matches, and while the sound effects are authentic(and when hitting someone with a ring bell, hilarious), it just can’t make up for it.
Smackdown Vs. Raw 2007 caused me to spend many a night without sleep, wrestling away because it was so damn fun. Not this time.
Smackdown Vs. Raw 2008 gets two canes. It’s only going to appeal to WWE fans, and given the lack of variety and story quality, maybe not them. A severe lack of depth and a lot of glitches bring the title down. It’s playable, and some fun can be found, but it doesn’t last long.
Alpha Prime-Moving away from fighting to the FPS genre, we hit Alpha Prime. This budget shooter is available on Steam for 20 dollars, which is about the right price point. There’s some solid FPS gaming and some good map design with this title, and it’s a good first outing certainly. It’s marred, however, by very generic enemies and rather ineffective weapons compared to what enemies dish out. While I have the same chaingun, mine does very little damage and is highly inaccurate, but an enemy can kill me in a second if I make a bad move, particularly due to the warm-up time. The shotgun is extremely underpowered and slow to fire, and takes 3 or 4 point blank shots to kill enemies. Grenades are very powerful, but hard to use, and the flamethrower, while fun, is too slow killing to be much use.
The game is apt to hide enemies behind doors, slightly offset, so when players walk in they’re dropped to a very low health amount rapidly, and as such, the game is very reliant on quicksaves, and many points can be highly frustrating. To help make up for it, lots of health dispensers and packs are scattered about. There’s also some bullet time type functionality, though in reality, it’s just a little more time to aim. Weapons still fire slowly, enemies still do big damage.
The game makes use of an interesting concept of long distance hacking. Within a certain range, players can look through security cameras, overload electronics to damage/kill enemies, or use vehicles/equipment. When it works, it’s great, but there’s not enough use, especially when it could be used to prevent a lot of ambush situation.
Graphically the game is toward the high end of the last generation. Special effects aren’t terribly special, but there’s certainly no issues with them. When something blows up, it blows up well. Models have good textures, and I’ve never been busy counting jagged polygons during cutscenes.
The audio, however, leaves a lot to be desired. With one exception, the voice acting is terrible, and sounds like it was recorded by the designers in studio, and is on par with most mods. The weapons have a high pitch and sound tinny at points, or just plain weak. There’s very noticeable gaps over radio communication in game, when the message is full of static, but between lines of dialog, perfectly quiet. And the robotic enemies just doesn’t sound threatening. They sound like kids stomping on an old metal jungle gym.
Other small bits, things lost in translation, show up, but don’t really damage the game. It’s just strange, for example, to read “You picked <item>” whenever you get something.
Alpha Prime gets 3 of 5 canes. It’s thoroughly average and has some major moments of frustration, but a few good ideas keep it interesting.
Timeshift-Much like the movie Jeepers Creepers, for the first half, you’re entranced. Then the second half starts, and it’s all right down the shitter.
Timeshift has bland level design and bland colors, but good weapons and, hey, time manipulation. That’s always fun. The combat is fun, the AI is competent, and while you’re fighting through a ruined city, things are really good, though there’s a high amount of gotcha kills players have no chance to react to. Again, quicksave is your friend in this.
Time based puzzles, combined with physics elements, provide some fresh ideas, though they start to wear out quickly due to repetition.
Good graphics, decent acting, and nice special effects hold the game up for 7 hours. For the next 7, new enemies which are completely unfun, bad driving sequences, and lots of cheap deaths suck the fun right out of the game. Overpowered enemies, and enemies with their own time manipulation ability ruin the experience of being a time-skipping bad motherfucker who kills in the same amount of time other men blink.
Timeshift gets 3 canes. At the start, it was a 5 cane game and the quality dropped perfectly proportionately to time played, and was a 1 at the end.
Conan-Whee, another God of War clone. I wasn’t that fond of God of War anyway, to be honest. This does a good job of imitating the style with its own Conan twist.
First off, the story is very true to Howard’s world. Giant guys with big swords? Check. Evil sorcerers? Check. Naked chicks chained to various objects? Oh, very, very check. Ron Perlman and Claudia Black put in excellent performances, and help sell the story very well.
Gameplay revolves around brutalizing enemies, stealing their weapons to use two-handed and large weapon styles(both of which have advantages and disadvantages), and hacking up anyone in your way. Occasionally a puzzle is thrown in, but it’s never complicated and killing people tends to be the answer to them.
Graphically, mixed bag. There’s somewhat of a comic book style. Characters have a bit of a halo effect, popping out vividly against the muted backgrounds. Textures are good, well detailed, but unfortunately they stretch like goatse at some points. When Conan kneels and spreads his knees as he sits, for example, rather than dangling down, his loin cloth streeeeeeeetches accross the gap to stay firmly anchored to his knees. As people turn or move tattoos or other marks stretch and distort, and the detail suddenly isn’t so appreciated.
The sound is supreme, and some masterful foley work has been performed here. Every clash of steel, every breaking barrel, every shattered jug and snapped bone is a treat. The acting, as noted earlier, is great, and the characters are all believable. The music is, like the rest of the game, big. Orchestral scores, heavy on the bass, extra forboding as needed.
The game’s weaknesses are the standard genre weaknesses. As the game goes further on, many attacks become useless, leading to repeating the same combo over and over until an area is clear. Some enemy types are highly unbalanced and difficult to damage at all, and used with regularity, especially at the end of the game, when enemies that knock you down or send you flying off cliffs to instant death are common. Boss fights are massive enemies with no clear weak points and not much of a hint as to what to do, leading to big frustrations.
Conan gets 3.5 out of 5 canes. An above average brawler that gets far too repetitive and draws a lot from a game that isn’t that super amazing to begin with.
Assassin’s Creed- This one has been eagerly awaited since E3, 2006, and with good reason. While the devs don’t like it being called a spiritual successor to Prince of Persia, it’s hard to avoid the comparison with the free running and some of the combat elements.
Most of AC is running from rooftop to rooftop, climbing tall buildings to get a better view and finding intelligence on one’s target. Killing guards, helping out fellow assassins, pickpocketing people with information, beating up despots, and killing a lot of guards to help out citizens, who reward you with big strong guys who’ll brawl with guards, or monks and scholars to blend in with and get to guarded areas.
The free running is stunningly smooth. It’s easy to climb walls, make big jumps, dash along support beams and essentially to do all sorts of crazy acrobatics with no effort. It’s an extremely seamless experience, and a hell of a lot of fun.
When you’re not dashing about with people commenting that you’re a lunatic and if you fall, they won’t help you, and that you’re acting like a child, you’ll be hearing a lot of “Die, infidel!” and fighting guards. The combat system is just fucking brilliant, and designed toward realism, without killing the game. Countering attacks is the main method of killing, and striking enemies who are showing fatigue or fear when there’s an opening. Enemies tend to attack one at a time, though rarely the one you’re looking at. Some complain about this, but it’s the more realistic method, and more fun with this style of game. Guards that attack at the same time are just as likely to hit each other at the player, and it certainly is helpful when it happens. Combat isn’t just swinging a sword and a number being taken off an invisible counter. Enemies genuinely react to blows and situations. Kill a lot, some may run away in fear. After being blocked repeatedly, some will get tired and run out of breath, becoming easy targets.
Do enough shit around one of three major cities(Jerusalem, Acre, or Damascus), and assassinations open up. While killing these targets is rather the goal of the game, it’s actually among the weaker sections at points. Planning a route, getting into an area quietly, and making the kill are fun, but there’s a lot of hassle. Beggars just won’t stop bothering you, for example, and as much as I loved hurling them into a wall, guards get mad, and if they’re already suspicious from having seen a few of their friends knocked off, they’ll charge right over to hack my head off. Crazy shirtless assholes are wandering around the cities as well, and unlike the beggars, I can’t just ignore them. I get too close, they shove me into a crowd, and guards blame me.
When you get to the kill point, a long, long cutscene starts, and it stops you from getting to your optimum planned position usually. And in one instance, when you can get there, it won’t trigger the cutscene. Stabbing people in the neck is extremely fun, but there’s a lot of hassle in the process, and it’s not all fun. The game definitely gets repetitive, and some things, like assassin helper missions, end up forcing you to listen to the same speech over and over again.
The graphics? Fucking stunning, quite possibly the best of the year. This is what I expect when I hear next-gen graphics. Every character looks absolutely real. The animation is smooth, amazingly so, and interactions always line up right whether it’s walls, enemies, or beggars being hurled.
Sound is top notch as well. Most of the acting is very good, though hard to hear at a few points. Metal scrapes and falling rocks are the most common sounds, and they’re completely authentic. They’re so authentic they’re easily taken for granted, in fact. Most players are so absorbed they don’t even realize that yes, that rock hitting the wall sounds like it should.
A few other things bring the game down. For one, the story is told in a very disjointed way, due to reasons that are spoilery, you probably know anyway, but that I’m not going to say. Beyond that, always with the long runs throughout Maysaf, where you start and prepare for missions. You must travel all the way from the sanctuary to the city gates, then, a total of four times, you’re forced to endure The Kingdom. It’s a very large, very boring, very annoying nexus area where guards are always hostile. You’re on horseback for most of it, except when a guard knocks you off, or you have to climb a building to get a piece of the map revealed. The combat on horseback is terrible, and I recommend avoiding it at all costs. Really. Just run right past the guards. Don’t bother to hide or anything, just run to the next checkpoint, and as soon as is possible, skip directly to the cities. Once you’ve gotten to each one once, you can warp right over.
Assassin’s Creed gets 4 canes. Some repetition brings it down, as does The Kingdom and horse combat, along with other annoyances like crazy medieval shirtless dickweeds and beggar women who won’t shut up and get the fuck out of the way. Fortunately, the latter is a 5 point achievement for throwing enough of them around, so it’s safe to unleash your inner Ike Turner.
The Simpsons Game-Great production values, great writing, bad gameplay. Excruciatingly bad platform brawling, very often, struggled through to see the next cutscene which will be completely hilarious, or just to see some great gaming parodies.
Honestly, that’s it. It’s a game about gaming, with some great writing that will keep you laughing the whole way. Comic Book Guy points out video game cliches, EA gets mocked in its own game, and the feel is perfectly Simpsons. But the platforming and fighting are terrible, and frustrating. Expect to die over and over, spend a lot of time getting back from checkpoints, and trying to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to do next, especially with a terrible camera system. And again, like so many brawlers, by the end of it extremely difficult enemies with little weakness are hurled at you en masse, sucking what fun there was right out of the gaming sections.
The Simpsons Game gets 3 canes. It’s hilarious and would be better served as a movie or episodes of the show rather than an actual game. Rent it and blow through it over a weekend, it’s fairly short anyway.
That’s it. 8 reviews of varying length and quality, much like the games themselves. I’m now going to pass out, and if you don’t like what you see here, you can lump it! Or comment, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong, that works too.
