G-pinions

So I figure a good way to preview/discuss a couple of upcoming/current games is to quasi-review my monthly OPM disc, since we don't have companies sending us demos and betas willy nilly. Yet. So, here ya go:

Demos -

Lifeline: The 'big' demo this month. It ended up getting mostly mediocre reviews, even from OPM, but it's cool that they put such a unique game on their disc (more about that in a second). In a nutshell, you're trapped on a space station overridden with monsters (or aliens, whatever, fuck semantics) with some broad named Rio. You're stuck in the control room, while she's running around taking orders from you. The cool thing (and the only thing that distinguishes this game from any other sci-fi survival horror game) is that you actually talk to Rio with a headset and tell her what to do. Well, cool in theory. Really cool in theory, in fact. If it actually worked well, this game would be a must-buy, just based on the innovation. Maybe I shouldn't have had as much faith as I did in SCEI, but I expected at least a Socom-level of voice recognition. Meaning, you could control everyone easily enough, but still be shot in the back by a teammate periodically. But for a game that relies fully on voice recognition, there's no excuse for this kinda of technological sloppiness. Barking orders in Socom is actually fun, because your troops listen to you. And one of them in Michael Clarke Duncan, for chrissakes. Barking orders at Rio feels like you're talking to someone who has the most tenuous of grasps on the English language, who only understands a handful of very specific words and phrases. Nevermind 5,000 words and 100,000 phrases. Granted, the demo only has a hanful of rooms. At least I assume so; I couldn't get out of the second one. Most of my time was spent telling her to "stop" when she misinterpreted one of my commands. This is a typical conversation between Rio and I:

Rio: "I need to find blah blah blah access card or some such horseshit."
Me: "Look on the table."
Rio: "Alright, I'll leave."
Me: "STOP."
Rio: (stops) "Ok."
Me: "TABLE."
Rio: "Ok I'll check the table."
Me: (thanks the gaming gods)
Rio now stand looking at the items on the table.
Me: "Look at papers."
Rio: "Ok I'll look on the bed."
Me: "STOP."
Rio: "Ok." (starts pacing)
Me: "TABLE."
Rio: "Ok I'll check the table."
Me: "Look at photos."
Rio "Ok I'll leave."
Me: "Goddamit, listen to me you stupid whore!"
Rio: (in a brief moment of pure understanding, no kidding) "The feelings are mutual, dude."
Me: "Go bake me a pie."

I wanted her to check the glowing blue pillar thingy, but I had no idea what to call it. Too bad they didn't set the game on EARTH, where I actually know the name of most objects. Fucking space station. Oh, and turns out the papers/photos were 'pamphlets'. So, as you can see, the voice recognition is a raging bitch, and makes the game borderline unplayable. I'm sure that with enough time and trial-and-error conversation I could figure her out well enough to solve a couple of puzzles, but I have other games to play.

Firefighter F.D. 18: Man, I'm so sick of the market being flooded with firefighting sims. It's ridiculous. It seems like for every non-firefighting game released there are at least three firefighting games released. At least. This one is surprising well-made though. I mean, it's no Flame Fantasy X-2, but it's decent. The intro cutscene is good-looking, with entertainingly laughable dialog. The bulk of the gameplay consists of spraying out fires of varying shapes and sizes so that you can rescue one of, apparently, three different people who keep getting themselves resurrounded by raging inferno's. Masochists. You get a couple different nozzle attachments to change your spray, an ax to smash through boxes, a couple of misc. healing items, and an infinitely long hose. The 'running through mud, not fire' gait of your firefighter is a bit frustrating sometimes, but rescuing people is oddly compelling (and no, not because of moral reasons, despite what the game would try and convince you of). And the scripted events are cool, although I'd probably get sick of them long before my 80th car exploded. One of the best firefighting games on the market.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence: Once in a while OPM throws an older demo on the disc, such as this. I plan on eventually renting and playing through this game, even though the demo doesn't thrill me that much. It's better than most other non-castlevania action games out there, but a 3D Symphony of the Night it is not. I just don't feel as motivated to explore every corner of the castle and smash every candlestick as I did in SoTN. It's more about just getting to the next area to see new enemies and new architecture. Still, it's quality.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm: I didn't play it, because I refuse to play such Socom-similar games at least until I've actually finished the single-player game in Socom.

World Soccer Winning Eleven 7 International: Looks, great, plays great, it's just a little tough if you don't know soccer strategy for shit, like myself. And the camera is a little too zoomed-in by default, but I'm sure you can fix that in the real game.

Harry Potter's Quidditch World Cup: Yes, they (EA) made an entire game for Quidditch, the fantasy sport that Big H plays in the books/movies/merganser. It looks pretty good and plays simple enough. I didn't get to play a real game in the demo though, just some mini-game challenges. I don't know if this is my fault or if there isn't a real match included, but the demo quit after my challange and I wasn't about to start it back up. It's not THAT good.

Stuff besides demos -

Only two videos this month; La Pucelle: Tactics, from the Disgaea people, which I own but haven't even opened yet, and All-Star Baseball 2005, which I could maybe, possibly have less of an interest in. 'Replay' is a section where they (some douche who works at Sony, well, at least half of them are douches) basically show you a tip for a game through an actual video of them playing the game. I usually have some sick fascination with these, maybe because I just like seeing how other people play their games, but this month had nothing special. They have another nice 'Inside the Game' video of FFXI, which makes me consider buying it even more. Damn successful marketing. They also have a feature-length film on the Logitech USB Headset, starring Morgan Freeman, or something like that. And the making of the Quidditch game on the disc, which I figure I don't need to watch.

And last, but not least (most, in fact), a demo of a strictly Japanese game, Chain Dive. I mean, I guess it could make it over here eventually, but none of the games they've done this with so far have, so I doubt it. The game is actually really neat, and has the simplest, most fun gameplay of anything on the disc. The idea is a bit like the Shinobi remake, trying to string together monster kills to get points, but that's where the similarities to Shinobi, or any other game really, end. You traverse a broken industrial landscape (with graphics and side-scrolling somewhat reminiscent of Contra: Shattered Soldier), swinging from floating green dot to floating green dot with an energy chain of sorts. You can run along the ground too, but where's the fun in that? When you encounter an enemy, you can freeze them in a giant block of ice, then shatter them from swinging from them as if they were one of the green things. And you try to combo these shatters, which is hectic but always fun and intense, especially when there's a lot of guys on screen. I wish they had included the full game (as they've done in the past with some import games), but I'd definitely recommend it to anyone with a japanese or modded PS2.