Game Curmudgeons

PopCap is excelling in the sequels department lately. Bookworm Adventures 2, Bejeweled Twist, and now Zuma’s Revenge.  It’s every bit as great as the first and better, as one can expect, really. Now there’s a real dose of personality added to the game, new level mechanics, even surprisingly fun boss fights.

Zuma’s Revenge is still, at its core, an action-puzzle. You fire marbles at other marbles moving along a track, grouping them into threes to destroy them before they reach the end. If there are two of the same color bookending the ones you destroyed, they’ll be attracted and the ones up front pull backwards, along with any they’re touching. On top of that there’s a fair few power-ups which alter the mechanics of your shot and allow you to destroy with greater precision, and pull back the string of marbles. Skilled players will create gaps to shoot through for bonus points,  chain reactions of marble pulls, and learn to use the power-ups to their greatest effect. There’s a definite learning curve to the different level layouts, with tunnels, overpasses, and spirals, along with the additions of walls, multiple pads, and sliding tracks in Revenge.

Whereas Zuma left players in one place, a rotating platform to fire from, some levels in Zuma’s Revenge have multiple pads to jump between or sliding tracks, where you always fire straight ahead, but move left/right, or up/down (even while letting you fire left or right), Galaga style. It’s also the form used for boss fights, where a marble track is put in front of players that they have to shoot through to hit the boss, or activate special marbles, or use the power-ups to reach something that allows for damaging of a boss. Bosses meanwhile maneuver over the track, firing status effects. Scrambling marbles, movement, slowing shots, there’s a variety they use, and they’re all going to hamper your efforts to keep the marbles from reaching the end of the track while simultaneously trying to hit a moving target behind them. The boss fights tend to stick with the same basic idea, but twist it enough to make each a unique and damned fun challenge, and are a very welcome addition to the formula.

Zuma’s Revenge could honestly be played in an arcade, with a spinning dial and a few buttons, it’s got a quick pace and a solid challenge, a real combination of puzzle and action that’s rarely seen these days, or at least rarely done right. The pace and complexity move up with every level by adding features, colors, and speed without changing the core gameplay.  The adventure mode is, of course, the mainstay of the game, but on top of that there are challenge modes of several sorts. Like Challenge Mode, a short, timed mode emphasizing speed and accuracy. Heroic Frog, essentially Adventure’s harder replay, and Iron Frog, a brutal survival challenge for the real Zuma masters.

Zuma’s Revenge proudly boasts what might be PopCap’s best graphical work to date, able to run in HD. While the artistic style PopCap uses always holds strong, the extra resolution really shows. Balls are more detailed, the animation smoother, and the backgrounds brighter, crisper. While it is the kind of game that could be played with dots lacking any design at all, the extra color and texture brings the game to life. There aren’t a huge variety of objects or animations, but what there are, particularly special effect animations from power-ups like Lightning, really pop. Balls roll convincingly, smoothly, the framerate stays nice and high, and the backgrounds really do draw one into the game. Again, they aren’t needed, to be fair, a white background and black track outline would make the same game, but it’s the kind of thing that pulls you in.

The wonderful graphical presentation doesn’t hold up so much on the audio, though. Nothing bad, but nothing exceptional either. Stock sound effects and ones re-used from Zuma punctuate the game’s action, though they were certainly as fitting then as now. Balls clack together like billiards, chimes announce combos in a rising pitch with each successive addition, it’s certainly functional if not terribly exciting. I’d have liked a little more oomph to balls that collide from a greater distance, a little more zap with the Lightning, but there’s nothing that ever detracts either. It just never quite pops.

Of course, the game can be played with the speakers off, so in the end, the sound is a very small thing. It’s just a nice bonus that gives ideas of what’s going on and when you did something a little better than normal. Given the rock-solid gameplay and beautiful visual presentation it tends to fall to the wayside. It’d just be nice to get a little more rewarding audio cue when you do something excellent.

Zuma’s Revenge still pulls 4.5 stars. Excellent visuals, an addictive, fun, simple to pick up arcade style, and a few solid extra modes to increase the replay value would be enough, but the level variety and new level styles really raise the bar. It’s Tiki-riffic!

Did you buy it yet? It’s still for sale on GOG.com, damn it. It’ll take a little tweaking sure, but well worth it.

I know, I’m supposed to come here and tell you why. So here we go!

Beyond Good and Evil is the story of Jade, a surprisingly deep female protagonist. A reporter, staff fighting expert, and runner of orphanage. She’s deeply and spectacularly human (which isn’t even easy to achieve when almost the only human in a game), takes lots of pictures, shoots discs at bad guys, and has a pretty awesome charged melee ki-smack to beat up alien invaders with.

The game itself is an adventure game with platforming, brawling, stealth, racing, and vehicular combat thrown in, all of them well. Tall order, no doubt, and it wouldn’t have been faulted for missing a beat or two with all that, but it really gets it all right, even the oft-failed stealth sections, thanks to the game’s humane decision to start you right back in the same room you fucked it all up in, meaning even if you have to go with trial and error you don’t have to go very far since most rooms are quite small and only involve one or two stealthy maneuvers to advance to the next one.

Make no mistake-Beyond Good and Evil is not a sandbox game, despite the variety of things to be done. There’s some freedom in when to do what and some optional things, but the affair is driven by the story and character, despite the need to hunt down pearls and other currency for upgrades. At first, players will just see a world invaded by aliens known as the Domz, but just a short way in they’ll discover a massive conspiracy, an underground rebellion, and all sorts of “Holy crap, what?” that I won’t say here to avoid spoilers. It’s a memorable story that’s told very well through excellent characters, and it sticks with you.

The presentation is no small part of it, mind you. BG&E has a crisp, bright color palette, even in the darkest areas, with a gently stylized cast of friends and enemies (okay, not always gently, but it all blends together wonderfully). The visuals never fail to convey genuine feeling, more than location even, and they’re matched by the audio. Great acting combined with great effects and music ties it all together. Players will get lost in the world, with orchestral scores in minor keys exploring caves on foot, fast beats racing a hovercraft, and a reggae groove with the Rastafarian rhinos. That statement is not an exaggeration. There really are Rastafarian rhinos who serve as your black market connection, and you’ll need them to upgrade your ship. The world of Hylis has quite a few interesting species around (which you’re also paid to catalog), and just as many interesting characters.

Beyond Good and Evil is one of those classics like Psychonauts. You didn’t play it, but it’s an all-time classic.  The graphics have a few times when they look a little dated due to relatively low polycounts, but the textures and style keep it looking excellent anyway, along with smooth animation. The story is still fresh, and the characters are memorable. It’s one of those games that should have been instantly immortalized but never got the proper support. Fortunately it has a chance to live again now on PC, and hopefully it’ll get the Xbox Originals treatment on Xbox Live Arcade.

BG&E gets 5 out of 5 stars. Occasional frustrating moments, occasional bugs, but the way everything comes together is nothing short of masterpiece. Play it, love it.

Because NFL 2k1, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, and Seaman still own my soul.

Now let’s have a 10th Anniversary collection on PS3/360, damn it. 9/9/99 is eternal.

Here’s a few quick likes and dislikes with recent (or not so recent) games. All currently available.

Like-NHL 10′s demo. Will the rest of the game live up to it? That I don’t yet know, but it seems like it’s building on the solid foundation of the last three years, and after the puck action is great. So is putting someone against the board and really getting in there to fight for the rubber. But when there’s a full on melee after the play ends, you know it’s authentic hockey.

Dislike-Madden 10. I haven’t loved a football game since NFK 2k1, to be fair, and Madden seems to be going the wrong way still. This year’s version is a major improvement over 09, particularly in the superstar department, but it just seems to be missing the fun. And certain “helpful” features causing me to lose a game. Example-3rd and Goal, 2 yard line. 19-21. 60 seconds on the clock. I make the halfback toss, it fails, but I can burn 30 seconds, make the field goal and take the lead with 22. Means it’s damn near impossible for the other team to get within field goal range if I keep my defense up. And sure enough, I did. When that 30 seconds was over, I had them at their own 30.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to burn the clock, because the AI decided to call a time out for me, in Play Now mode, where I didn’t expect it to do, well, ANYTHING, for me.

That next 30 second lead to my 30, a field goal, and a score of 24-22 with 1 second left. You can guess how that went.

Oh, and there’s some really bad texture streaming going on when they show players on the sidelines. It didn’t bother me in Mass Effect but it really bothers me here for some reason. Likely because I’m looking for detailed human faces.

Oh, and I wish I could still pick plays by quick/medium/deep passes. It had a nice balance between hardcore and helpful calling, though they still should just steal 2k1‘s playcalling mechanism.

Like-Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. Great story, great puzzles, great characters. 12 solid hours of fun to get through the story and most of the puzzles within, and some extras after, plus weekly downloadables. Good times.

Dislike-The Guitar Hero 5 soundtrack. Coldplay doesn’t rock. They don’t. They’re 5 minute long intros. Listening and enjoying, hey, everyone likes different things, but they definitely don’t fit the game.

Like-Retro Games Challenge. It’s cute, it’s charming, it’s a little short, but the games are fun and well crafted, even if there’s a good deal of repetition.

Dislike-The end of the current 1 vs 100  Live season. Damn it, it’s so fun, but it’s still buggy as hell. It needs more beta, especially if it’s going to come at a premium.

Like-Beyond Good and Evil. It took me about an hour to get it up and running properly for some reason, I had tremendous issues with video being out of sync with audio, so much so at two points that the game itself started during a cutscene, but didn’t know it had started, so I had no control, just aliens attacking me.

Dislike-That BG&E still doesn’t support a joystick. Damn it Ubisoft, it plays okay with a keyboard, but why the cheap port job? Xpadder is a good option, but still not true analog support. This wonderful game really got the shaft all the way through from the publisher.

Like-Shin Megami Tensai-Devil Survivor. The story is great, it’s very tense, and it’s a unique turn based mechanic. You get a few teams of three, one human, two demons, but you can switch demons in and out all you want, even when one gets killed. As long as the human is up, a team is up, meaning you can throw brute force waves if it comes to it. Demon fusion is great, and there’s also lots of reason to switch demons on the fly, since there’s usually more victory conditions than “kill everything.” Defending people, getting to a spot quickly, preventing demons from reaching an exit, they’ll all require you to change things up for different abilities. It’s as good as you’d expect from the SMT series.