Thursday, May 06, 2004
OPM Disc Review Issue #81
This again eh? Yes, this again. This month was actually pretty damn sweet, and certainly settles some issues and expectations around here. Well, mine anyhow. And last month was lame, so I decided to forgo it. Dig:
Demos:
Transformers - This was a mixed bag. I would have liked it to be sweeter than being kicked in the mouth by a man made of sugar (*tips hat*), just to rub it in Tom's smarmy mug, but while it was certainly fun for a bit, a couple of issues need to be fixed before the final game if they expect me to play it again. The idea is pretty cool, and very motivational - you scour huge landscapes as a robot, car, or, er, glider, looking for mini-cons (adorable lil' robots) that give you various upgrades (missiles, invisibility, toaster). Along the way you encounter various nefarious decepticons to dispatch or avoid, depending on your level of pussy-imitation. The level in the demo was massive, and had plenty to do in it. And combat was fast and fun, and took a fair bit of skill. As far as the different forms, only the car made it into this demo, which looks great and goes nice and fast, but controls like a garbage truck. The glider thingy looks like the coolest of all by far, it's too bad they didn't include it in the demo. Another problem I had was the movement of your basic mech-man. I give him plenty of leniencies for being a giant walking/talking car, but he controls like some sort of even larger, more awkward car (a hummer, perhaps?). As I said, combat is fun and quick, and so is maneuvering in small bursts, but just running and jumping around the landscape is kind of a clunky hassle. OPM also mentions that the final framerate is much better than that of their demo, which I didn't even really notice as a problem. Although more visual smoothness probably equals more smoothness in movement, which is good. In the end, it certainly seems like a simple, fun game, but unless some control issues are corrected before the release, I fear it will never reach its license and game engine potential (anything with giant robots has a ton of potential in my book, especially if they're fighting in a damn rainforest).
Psi-Ops - I've certainly been looking forward to this one a lot, especially after seeing those videos of it a couple of months back, and for the most part it doesn't disappoint. Again, a sweet concept - you have various psionic powers to help you defeat your enemies and traverse the levels. The demo contains the first two missions and a sweet practice room to just mess around with infinite health and powers and bad guy supply. You can lift shit and throw it, set fools on fire, take control of enemies and make them shoot their comrades or kill themselves in some gratifying manner, or use "remote viewing" to see ahead. All the powers are as cool as they sound, and make the gameplay amazingly flexible. In a room full of guys with guns looking to kill you, you could A) shoot them B) take control of one of them and make him shoot the other C) set them on fire D) throw a box at them E) throw a flaming box at them F) throw one of them at his evil friends G) set him on fire, then throw him H) throw a corpse (also optionally flaming) I) pick them up and drop them on some sort of electrical hazard or into a pit where available J) levitate a nearby hunk of metal and administer beatings K) pick them up and shoot them L) hop onto a box and levitate the entire thing past them, or over them M) hurl an explosive gas tank in their midst N) sneak up and mind drain them, making their heads explode in a fountain of arterial fun (not available in the demo, but for sure in the final version) O) etc., etc., etc. There are plenty of options in nearly every situation, all inventive and all fun and/or gruesomely satisfying. It also extends to level design too, not just combat; if a nearby floor is electrified, you can ride a platform over it, via levitation, mind-move some debris to make a bridge across, or take control or a nearby baddie and make him shut it off. This all sounds wonderful in concept, and is, mostly, in execution. The only real complaint is in the controls. They're not bad, by any means - better than most games of this type. But considering what you're capable of, and the myriad things you can do at any given time, it can be tough to throw a box/body/gas tank/wrecking ball in the perfect direction in the heat of combat. Most situations end with you standing amongst a detritus of flaming corpses and shattered boxes, but I imagine later in the game it gets tough when it gets imprecise. The only other, somewhat silly, complaint is the lack of infinite psi-powers. It's obviously necessary from a design standpoint, as they can't have you setting everything on fire, all the time. But having to get it from mind-draining dead bodies and collect it like health just makes me feel like there has got to be a better way to dole it out. I definitely had the most fun in the practice room, just going nuts with all manner of items, alive and dead, but I suppose that's to be expected in a game with such a great physics engine.
NBA Shootout 2004 - It's fun, in that, it's basketball, it's on your TV, and it's a videogame. In comparison to most other basketball videogames, or games in general (including Sorry!), it's a travesty. Lameness all the way. 989 hasn't made or published a good game since the first Syphon Filter. And they've never made a good sports game.
Alias - Wow. This was a goddamn shock, I'll tell you what. I mean, I'll never buy it, or rent it, and I'll continue my tradition of having never seen the show, but the demo was hella sweet. The graphics were tasty (polygonal Jennifer Garner is debatable more attractive than flesh Jennifer Garner), and the level was lots of fun. You get to sneak around and disable laser tripwires, hack computer terminals in a Mastermind-type mini-game, and kick dimwitted guard ass with whatever you can find (getting into a fight in a weapons room of a museum is one thing; realizing you can use all of the weapons is another level of badassness altogether). If I was a fan of the show, I would be wetting my overalls. As is, I'm more than satisfied.
Front Mission 4 - Typical Square (er, Square-Enix, I'll never get used to it) level of presentation, sweet CG intro and all. The game itself is quite complex, and I generally don't invest time in demos of strategy games. But I'm sure if you're a fan of this type of thing, you'll go bonkers over it. I have full faith in Square. I suppose it's just not my bag, too much of an investment (this coming from the guy who's playing Disgaea, where you can level up to level 999,999). Again, giant fighting robots are sweet, in pretty much any context.
MX Unleashed - Rainbow has always made fun, beautiful racing games. I just don't like supercross racing games, no matter how realistically my biker flies off his ride.
Future Tactics - Where the FUCK did this game come from? It's great. Possibly the best on the disc, for real. It's the kind of game you don't hear about until you've played it, and then you're hooked. It's kind of a quasi-real time strategy game, with awesome gameplay that borrows the best from many game worlds, and great, great art design. You and the enemy take turns moving around a big, fully 3D map, attacking or defending as necessary. It looks more like a platformer than anything, but plays like the blue-blooded offspring of FF:CC and Worms. And again, I can't blab enough about the awesome art style; it's a bit Mark of Kri with character designs reminiscent of Jak & Daxter. Even simple physics of various objects being shot around the level was fully in-place and well done. The game did have a few slight clipping issues, but that kind of thing usually gets ironed out by release. Oh, and the very best goddamn part of all? The game will only be $15 ($20 for the other consoles) when it gets released next week. I believe I shall be purchasing it. Well done, Zed Two Game Design Studio.
Video, Misc:
There are few months where both the demos and videos are sweet, but this month could do no wrong. They have some great preview videos for Driv3r (I wish that was a typo), Robota, and GT4 (and some other ones), and the ridiculously mind-blowingly awesome intro video from Onimusha 3 I raved about a while back. It looks even more incredulous on a TV. They even had a 'replay' video showing you how to beat the final boss in Castlevania:LOI, which I happily watched, figuring I will never play through the game. All in all, it was a sexy, sexy month.
Demos:
Transformers - This was a mixed bag. I would have liked it to be sweeter than being kicked in the mouth by a man made of sugar (*tips hat*), just to rub it in Tom's smarmy mug, but while it was certainly fun for a bit, a couple of issues need to be fixed before the final game if they expect me to play it again. The idea is pretty cool, and very motivational - you scour huge landscapes as a robot, car, or, er, glider, looking for mini-cons (adorable lil' robots) that give you various upgrades (missiles, invisibility, toaster). Along the way you encounter various nefarious decepticons to dispatch or avoid, depending on your level of pussy-imitation. The level in the demo was massive, and had plenty to do in it. And combat was fast and fun, and took a fair bit of skill. As far as the different forms, only the car made it into this demo, which looks great and goes nice and fast, but controls like a garbage truck. The glider thingy looks like the coolest of all by far, it's too bad they didn't include it in the demo. Another problem I had was the movement of your basic mech-man. I give him plenty of leniencies for being a giant walking/talking car, but he controls like some sort of even larger, more awkward car (a hummer, perhaps?). As I said, combat is fun and quick, and so is maneuvering in small bursts, but just running and jumping around the landscape is kind of a clunky hassle. OPM also mentions that the final framerate is much better than that of their demo, which I didn't even really notice as a problem. Although more visual smoothness probably equals more smoothness in movement, which is good. In the end, it certainly seems like a simple, fun game, but unless some control issues are corrected before the release, I fear it will never reach its license and game engine potential (anything with giant robots has a ton of potential in my book, especially if they're fighting in a damn rainforest).
Psi-Ops - I've certainly been looking forward to this one a lot, especially after seeing those videos of it a couple of months back, and for the most part it doesn't disappoint. Again, a sweet concept - you have various psionic powers to help you defeat your enemies and traverse the levels. The demo contains the first two missions and a sweet practice room to just mess around with infinite health and powers and bad guy supply. You can lift shit and throw it, set fools on fire, take control of enemies and make them shoot their comrades or kill themselves in some gratifying manner, or use "remote viewing" to see ahead. All the powers are as cool as they sound, and make the gameplay amazingly flexible. In a room full of guys with guns looking to kill you, you could A) shoot them B) take control of one of them and make him shoot the other C) set them on fire D) throw a box at them E) throw a flaming box at them F) throw one of them at his evil friends G) set him on fire, then throw him H) throw a corpse (also optionally flaming) I) pick them up and drop them on some sort of electrical hazard or into a pit where available J) levitate a nearby hunk of metal and administer beatings K) pick them up and shoot them L) hop onto a box and levitate the entire thing past them, or over them M) hurl an explosive gas tank in their midst N) sneak up and mind drain them, making their heads explode in a fountain of arterial fun (not available in the demo, but for sure in the final version) O) etc., etc., etc. There are plenty of options in nearly every situation, all inventive and all fun and/or gruesomely satisfying. It also extends to level design too, not just combat; if a nearby floor is electrified, you can ride a platform over it, via levitation, mind-move some debris to make a bridge across, or take control or a nearby baddie and make him shut it off. This all sounds wonderful in concept, and is, mostly, in execution. The only real complaint is in the controls. They're not bad, by any means - better than most games of this type. But considering what you're capable of, and the myriad things you can do at any given time, it can be tough to throw a box/body/gas tank/wrecking ball in the perfect direction in the heat of combat. Most situations end with you standing amongst a detritus of flaming corpses and shattered boxes, but I imagine later in the game it gets tough when it gets imprecise. The only other, somewhat silly, complaint is the lack of infinite psi-powers. It's obviously necessary from a design standpoint, as they can't have you setting everything on fire, all the time. But having to get it from mind-draining dead bodies and collect it like health just makes me feel like there has got to be a better way to dole it out. I definitely had the most fun in the practice room, just going nuts with all manner of items, alive and dead, but I suppose that's to be expected in a game with such a great physics engine.
NBA Shootout 2004 - It's fun, in that, it's basketball, it's on your TV, and it's a videogame. In comparison to most other basketball videogames, or games in general (including Sorry!), it's a travesty. Lameness all the way. 989 hasn't made or published a good game since the first Syphon Filter. And they've never made a good sports game.
Alias - Wow. This was a goddamn shock, I'll tell you what. I mean, I'll never buy it, or rent it, and I'll continue my tradition of having never seen the show, but the demo was hella sweet. The graphics were tasty (polygonal Jennifer Garner is debatable more attractive than flesh Jennifer Garner), and the level was lots of fun. You get to sneak around and disable laser tripwires, hack computer terminals in a Mastermind-type mini-game, and kick dimwitted guard ass with whatever you can find (getting into a fight in a weapons room of a museum is one thing; realizing you can use all of the weapons is another level of badassness altogether). If I was a fan of the show, I would be wetting my overalls. As is, I'm more than satisfied.
Front Mission 4 - Typical Square (er, Square-Enix, I'll never get used to it) level of presentation, sweet CG intro and all. The game itself is quite complex, and I generally don't invest time in demos of strategy games. But I'm sure if you're a fan of this type of thing, you'll go bonkers over it. I have full faith in Square. I suppose it's just not my bag, too much of an investment (this coming from the guy who's playing Disgaea, where you can level up to level 999,999). Again, giant fighting robots are sweet, in pretty much any context.
MX Unleashed - Rainbow has always made fun, beautiful racing games. I just don't like supercross racing games, no matter how realistically my biker flies off his ride.
Future Tactics - Where the FUCK did this game come from? It's great. Possibly the best on the disc, for real. It's the kind of game you don't hear about until you've played it, and then you're hooked. It's kind of a quasi-real time strategy game, with awesome gameplay that borrows the best from many game worlds, and great, great art design. You and the enemy take turns moving around a big, fully 3D map, attacking or defending as necessary. It looks more like a platformer than anything, but plays like the blue-blooded offspring of FF:CC and Worms. And again, I can't blab enough about the awesome art style; it's a bit Mark of Kri with character designs reminiscent of Jak & Daxter. Even simple physics of various objects being shot around the level was fully in-place and well done. The game did have a few slight clipping issues, but that kind of thing usually gets ironed out by release. Oh, and the very best goddamn part of all? The game will only be $15 ($20 for the other consoles) when it gets released next week. I believe I shall be purchasing it. Well done, Zed Two Game Design Studio.
Video, Misc:
There are few months where both the demos and videos are sweet, but this month could do no wrong. They have some great preview videos for Driv3r (I wish that was a typo), Robota, and GT4 (and some other ones), and the ridiculously mind-blowingly awesome intro video from Onimusha 3 I raved about a while back. It looks even more incredulous on a TV. They even had a 'replay' video showing you how to beat the final boss in Castlevania:LOI, which I happily watched, figuring I will never play through the game. All in all, it was a sexy, sexy month.
// posted by Nick @ 11:07 PM 
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