Friday, December 13, 2002

Review of Serious Sam for Xbox     Publisher: Gotham Games     Developer: Croteam     Genre: FPS     # Of Players: 1-2     All you stupid wussy posers like Duke Nukem & Max Payne stand aside, Serious Sam has come to kick some ass and take some names & then kick even more ass.  Throwing back to the old school gameplay of all time great shooters like Doom, the philosophy of Serious Sam is to throw everything including the kitchen sink at you, then drop a few more houses on your head.  Oh sure, there’s a story in here somewhere (something about investigating some ancient ruins in Egypt), but Serious Sam’s main aim is to have you blast apart anything that moves, and there’s a whole freaking lot of it.  And the best part is, unlike all those pretentious shooters that have you doing crap like saving the world and getting revenge, Sam does anything but take itself seriously, which helps make it the most insanely fun shooter I’ve played in years. Graphics: While pretty smooth, these are far from impressive graphics.  The stages don’t look all that detailed, and the enemies remind me of Doom II, in a bad way.  But the impressive part is in how it handles the massive floods of enemies you’ll have to deal with.  It handles them all extremely smoothly, without a hint or flicker of slowdown.  Unfortunately I can’t say the same for deathmatch mode, as the frame rate takes a pretty bad hit there (although it’s not nearly as bad as say, Jedi Knight). Sound: Ok, what the hell is with Sam’s voice?  It’s sounds like he’s a bastard child of Duke Nukem & Ash from the Evil Dead series.  Oh well.  The music is excellently pulse pounding, and really helps you get in with the game. And the enemies all have great, very appropriate sounds as well, from the weird as heck robots to the kamikaze soldiers running straight at you just going AAAAAAAA!!!!  But the best part is some hilarious sound bites, like in the first level, a boulder comes after you, and then when it stops, you hear it actually whistle the Indiana Jones theme music!  Or there’s one scene after a level that is just a massive battle where Sam looks around at all the mass of carcasses and says, “I see dead people!”.  The great sense of humor really helps the insanity of the game. Gameplay: Ok, let’s get the weak part out of the way first, the deathmatch mode.  This game just obviously wasn’t designed for this, it’s very bare bones (just straight death match, no other modes), and the frame rate just blows, it’s not unplayable, but it’s just boring.  Now, the single-player is insanely fun (and you can also play through it with a friend).  The first couple of levels ease you into it, but by the third level, just wave after wave after wave of enemies are thrown at you, and you just blast them down with every single weapon you got (nothing like mowing through a swarm of demon toads with a chain saw).  And they jump out from literally everywhere.  You are never really sure whether an enemy is just going to pop out from behind you or even literally right in front of you, which really keeps you on edge the whole time.  And there are a wide variety of weapons to help you, and you never run out of your basic pistol (which is nice, because there were quite a few times that was all I was down to). Features: Well, kind of lacking for an FPS.  There’s a co-op mode, an extremely basic deathmatch mode, a hidden difficulty (for the truly insane), and that’s really about it. Funfactor: I honestly have not had this much fun (or dealt with so much insanity) in a FPS single player mode since Doom II.  If you have an Xbox, there’s just no excuse not too get this great game.  The developers at Croteam remembered what made FPS games fun, and then added an insane sense of humor to boot.  Granted, if you are looking for a good multi-player mode, you are much better off sticking with Time-Splitters 2, but for my money, this is one of the best games in the Xbox library, if not the best Xbox game of the year. --Final Scores— Graphics: 7.5-The levels don’t look all that great, and the enemies look a little outdated, but the game handles everything so smoothly (well except deathmatch mode). Sound: 9.5-Everything is great, except Sam’s really strange voice. Gameplay: 8.5-Fantastic single/co-op mode with great levels and weapons, but dull deathmatch. Features: 5.5-A couple of nifty extras, but pretty lacking compared to most FPS games. Funfactor: 9.0-Seriously insane, seriously fun, and seriously funny to boot. 7:25:03 PM    comment []

Review of Metroid Prime for Gamecube    Publisher: Nintendo     Developer: Retro Studios     Genre: First Person Adventure     # Of Players: 1     Space’s most kick ass heroine is back for an all-new adventure on the Gamecube.  This game is a direct sequel to the original Metroid way back on the original NES meaning it takes place before Super Metroid on the SNES and even before Metroid II on the Game Boy.  The storyline goes something like this: Samus Aran (that’s you) finds a ship of her mortal enemies, the space pirates, but it’s been totally destroyed, and she must go down to the mysterious planet nearby for some answers.  Retro Studios took a big risk by putting the game in first person perspective, a radical change that had everyone crying foul when they first heard about it, but not to fear, they have implanted it incredibly well, and out of it comes the best game yet for Gamecube, and in my opinion, the front runner for game of the year. Graphics: The word stunning comes to mind.  Amazingly realized space wrecks, lush forests & arid deserts, with plenty of fluidly animated & exotic enemies that really do make you feel like you are in another world, and it moves with an inhuman smoothness, with no hint of flicker or slowdown no matter how much is going on. Sound: The sound is right up there as well.  There really isn’t any voice, but it’s a one- person space adventure, how much talking do you need (besides, it’s always really stupid when the hero has to talk to you like you can’t figure out what’s going on)?  The music perfectly fits the exotic atmosphere, and knows instinctly when to pump it up for big battles and when to tone it down to just make you all paranoid.  The effects do a great job also, as you’ll hear the crawling of seemingly harmless, but deadly bugs, the quake of weird spiny things, and dangerous big mosquitoes buzzing all around you as well. Gameplay: Ok, although it looks like an FPS, and you fight as if you are in one, this doesn’t really qualify in my opinion as an FPS (hence calling it a “first person adventure”).  The game isn’t straight shooting; there are plenty of creatively designed bosses that all take more strategy than games like Serious Sam, where it’s blast them until you run out of ammo (not that that’s a bad thing).  But there’s also plenty of complex puzzle solving and even platform jumping (and I always say any good FPS has very little to no platform jumping).  There have been other attempts to mix genres like this, but none have been even close to as successful.  Unfortunately this does lead to my one gripe about the game: the control setup.  Oh sure, it works fine, but let’s face it, jumping in first-person perspective is awkward as is, and to add to that, instead of doing the traditional using one analog to move and one to look around, they have you hold down a shoulder button to do so, which is just so unnatural for us gamers who have played games somewhat similar to this. Features: Well, while the game itself is bare minimum in features, if you have a game boy advance, Metroid Fusion, and a link cable, you can link up the two for a new costume (joy) & to play the original Metroid (but it is getting a bit pricey at that point). Funfactor: This is simply one of the finest games ever made.  There’s just no excuse not to have this game regardless of whether you have a Gamecube or not.  It combines the best from great shooters like Halo; adventure games like Zelda, and even throws in some Resident Evil quality scares to keep you on your toes the whole way through.  This is the kind of game people will desperately try & copy, but never get the formula quite right just because games like this come along so rarely, especially in this day & age when you were sure everything really had been done as good as it can, but Metroid blows that belief out of the water.  I’ll say it again, there’s just no good excuse not to go get this game (food can wait, go get it now!). --Final Scores— Graphics: 10-Genuinely amazing environments and enemies, and everything runs super smooth. Sound: 10-Great mix of music and effects, and using them at the right moments. Gameplay: 9.0-Lots of great originality & action, but jumping is a little awkward and it’s weird having to hold a shoulder button to look around. Features: 5.5-If you have a GBA & Fusion, there are a couple of cool extras, but it’s too expensive to buy just for that. Funfactor: 9.5-Just an amazing blend of graphics & gameplay and reminding you that you have never seen everything that can be done. 7:17:12 PM    comment []

Review of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance for PS2    Publisher: Midway     Developer: Midway     Genre: Fighting     # Of Players: 1-2      The tournament that decides the fate of Earth Realm comes upon us once again. Many warriors return for the fight, including action star Johnny Cage, agent Sonya Blade, bad ass ninjas Sub-Zero & Scorpion, as well as Shang Tsung & Quan Chi, who have now teamed up to accomplish their goals of conquest (hence the name Deadly Alliance), and of course there are plenty of new faces as well ranging from a drunken master to a vampire to a blind warrior.  But Mortal Kombat has a troubled history as a series, from the ridiculous excess of blood & guts to the cheesy super combo fighting system that actually got worse with each passing chapter.  And at first look, this does seem to be a totally revamped and revitalized game, but a little deeper inspection shows it’s still under the surface the same game we’ve played before, albeit it improved over the last couple of incarnations. Graphics: An obvious improvement from the stupid-looking photo-realistic graphics of previous versions, this new Kombat does sport better looks, but there’s still plenty of work to be done.  First, the blood looks rather silly, especially if you leave it on the default setting of maximum, where it comes in floods.  The animation on the characters is decent, but there are plenty of just stupid moves with obvious frames missing (I’m especially thinking of Johnny Cage’s double bicycle kick which literally consists of a whopping 2 frames of animation).  But to be fair, the characters do overall look a lot better.  The stages look all right, but just boring and uninspired, the only cool one is “Portal” which really just looks like the end of the world. Sound: The music is actually fairly decent, but all the men sound pretty much the same, as do the women.  The hits all have the some sickening crunch sound to them (whether it’s a fist or a sword or nunchucks), but the weapons do sound cool when clashing together. Gameplay: So Midway, you promised on more depth did you?  Well it certainly seems that way.  Many of the cheesy moves have been removed from previous versions, and now all characters have three types of fighting, one of which includes weapons.  And the pseudo 3D style fools you into thinking it’s more realism based.  But then you fight guys like Sub-Zero who can just continually uppercut you into the air and freeze you until you die, Kano with his cheesy out of nowhere cannonball attack, and the extremely incredibly (not too mention new Goro wannabe Moloch, who just throws you into the ground whenever you get close) spotty A.I.  It doesn’t matter what difficulty, sometimes you are fighting the equivalent of Richard Simmons, and next round it’s Jet Li.  The fatalities for the most part are extraordinarily lame, even most of the new characters just stole their ones from other characters.  And the Konquest mode is just a really boring training mode (I thought that was what practice mode was for). Features: Beyond loaded in this area.  Aside from your fairly basic modes of arcade, vs., practice, and konquest, possibly the biggest draw of this game is the graveyard, where you buy stuff with different colored “koins” you earned while playing in the various modes.  There are well over 600 coffins to unlock, with stuff like concept art, hidden characters, stages, costumes, videos more koins, etc.  Funfactor: Midway didn’t really think this one through enough.  Even though it’s still over the top & filled with incredibly cheesy (and cheap) combos & fatalities, it is way down from previous versions, which will most likely alienate the hardcore fans of the series (if there are even any left these days), and it’s nowhere near deep or intuitive enough for people who bashed it for being so shallow in the first place.  I appreciate that Midway tried to create a happy medium, but there just isn’t one, and this game more than proves that. --Final Scores— Graphics: 7.0-Although better than digitized previous versions, still plenty of bad animation & good looking, but boring stages. Sound: 6.0-Music is pretty good, but voices all sound the same as do hits. Gameplay: 4.5-Fatalties suck, still has cheesy cheap combos, A.I. is incredibly schizophrenic, Konquest mode is just training. Features: 10-Just unlocking all the coffins could keep you busy for a few years…. Funfactor: 6.0-Only the most dedicated kombatants should even bother applying. 7:09:31 PM    comment []