G-pinions

Ah, the simple joys of writing for my own website. Where grammar ain't no issue and ball licking swearing is perfectly acceptable. With a divine kite of my own creation, I can fly the verbose highways of superfluous metaphors that, honestly, don't mean a gosh darn thing. I must question, though, whether leaving me to my own creative devices is really for the best?

Moving on - as you can see, I cleverly changed the title of X-Men Legends to create a perfect headline for my post on the subject. Clearly, I put more time into this adorable pun than my writeup of Katamari Damacy, which was simply titled Katamari Damacy. You would be surprised just how hard it is to think of a clever title to go with such a foreign name. I could have, like Nick, thrown "roll" up there, along with some silly supporting words to make my reader grin. However, while I will stoop to making poop jokes with Dan, reinforcing the Fecal Fortress name we so rightly earned, I will not make references to drugs, or any other behaviors I find reprehensible. Speaking of which, how went the vodka-a-thon last night Nick? But I digress.

X-Men Legends, available with extra load time for the PS2, has grown to the level of secret love with me. I think the game is really fun, but I want to keep that information on the d/l (down low for all you a-hip cats) if at all possible. For you see, the game is simply riddled with faults. Like you can plainly see the STD's pour out of Christina Aguilera’s every orifice, so too can you see the plentiful faults of this game. But, because it is just so much fun, I look past these glaring problems. Please developers do not take this as a sign that imperfection is acceptable. Ravensoft (the developer of the game is, in actuality, Raven Software, but that is much less fun to say) got lucky with this title. Upon playing a game of this quality featuring any other license or generic characters, I would spit on it with the force of 1000 angry hillbillies.

So what, exactly, makes this game so fun I am able to ignore the arduous tasks this game lays forth? Honestly, I have no idea. In almost every way, this feels like Champions of Norrath's retarded younger brother. It understands the basic premise, like a mentally challenged folk may understand that "food goes in here." But, like that same handicapped fool (is that politically correct?) they (the game and person in question) shovel their porridge all over their face. This method does deliver food to the intended source, but also creates quite a mess in the process.

The one thing that clearly is working are the various mutant abilities. Though every X video game makes the silly mistake of having Wolverine's super power be a slash with his super strong claws (when, in actuality, his self healing and super strength is what makes him a mutant), most other X-Men feature the kind of abilities you would want from them. This means that Nightcrawler can make you nauseous by constantly teleporting around the room and through walls and Gambit can pick up objects at random and kinetically charge them. No other game on the market offers such a wide assortment of characters with completely different, and, for the most part, entertaining abilities.

After putting in about 5 hours, leveling up even becomes quite fun. As characters get stronger, you have to carefully decide if you want to concentrate on one really cool ability and make it ridiculously strong, or work your points around to have a perfectly balanced death machine. My favorite character, Storm, is also one of the most useful in the game. Her normal lightning attack is held back to merely acceptable because it can only attack a mere one opponent at a time. This is fine in a boss fight, but when a swarm of underground mutants are attacking you, not the most effective way to battle.

After playing long enough, you will be able to turn the battle ground into a utopian civilization where the dominant species are powerful electric bolts slamming down on the Earth. With the positively charged particles you control, every being on the playing field can be nicely toasted. Though not as powerful as a single attack from one of the beasts in the game (such as… Beast) considering this move attacks anything that moves, it’s pretty darn effective.

And then there's Wolverine and Colossus, who are simply tanks. Huge amounts of HP, ridiculous strength, throw them into battle and watch the enemy die. And Jean Grey, who Scott monopolized (who realized she was that great?), but when I finally got to play as her I found myself reliving the best Psi Ops had to offer. You can pick up enemies with the power of you mind and slam them into the ground. Or toss them off cliffs. Or, team up with Storm, holding the enemy suspended in air as Storm unleashes her lightning attack. It's all good.

I would talk about the problems, like having lame, one player story elements interrupt the 4 player chaos, but I really don't care about those right now. Though not nearly as cool as Norrath was, having the ability to team up and level up X-Men in an action RPG setting was one of the best ideas for a licensed game ever.

It seems like there's been a lot going on recently in the industry, but it's probably just because I've been playing more games than usual. Not so much more per hour, but a larger variety of games. Burnout 3, Fable and Katamari Damacy have been the order of the day so far, with a solid evening of X-Men Legends a couple of days ago with Tom and Scott.

As for X-Men, it's a pretty good game with even better intentions, and a few unfortunate blemishes holding it back. The atmosphere, the characters, and the general X-Men vibe are all very well done, and there is a ton of fan service to mess around with. Trivia, playable flashbacks to famous missions, items named after relatively obscure characters (Black Tom's Cane, Sunfire's briefs), etc. etc. etc. I'm not a huge fan of the cel-shading/toon-shading/line-shading/whatever technique that they chose for the graphics, but each character still comes across well and besides some spotty voice acting (Gambit sounds like a redneck, at best) stays mostly faithful to the source material. The problems start arising a bit deeper into the gameplay; it's undoubtedly an Action/RPG, but only the action half of it can hold it's own. Churning through the more linear levels is lots of fun, tearing down walls and infantry alike. Even the bosses are well done (and challenging, thankfully). The enjoyment comes from the chaotic battles, which sees everyone trying to use all of their mutant powers effectively, manage their health and energy (power meter), and attack the most opportune enemy (some are resistant to physical attacks, etc.). I can't vouch for the single player game, but co-op was definitely fun when it was flowing. Unfortunately, as I said, the RPG elements really bog things down. The larger levels that require "exploring" (or escorting) can be a bit of a headache if you miss the tiniest detail, talking to NPCs is informative but interrupts the action a bit too frequently, and the stats/item management is just ass. Not only do you have to sit through a loading screen to pull up your inventory (I assume the GC and XBX versions don't have such a thing), but only one person can manage things at a time. I'm not sure why they didn't just adopt the fairly intelligent Norrath interface, where the other players can always mess with their stuff while you're doing your own. In general, everything outside of the bulk of the action made me wish for the spit-shined polish of Norrath. The license really does add a lot (more so than most any game I can think of, in fact), and will reward X-Fans top to bottom, but if you didn't at least watch the cartoon, I'd say wait for Champions: Return to Arms if you're into this type of game.

Man, everyone needs to watch the new San Andreas trailer. It's way better than the last one (the trailer, not the game), and makes me start to believe that this ridiculously ambitious game just might be pulled off (and that I might indeed end up sinking 130 hours into it, like they say). It's tough to imagine it won't be game of the year at this point, but you never know.

Another couple of new trailers that DEMAND watching are Okami (from the minds of the Viewtiful Joe crew) and Wanda and the Colossus (the follow-up to Ico). The former is a very inventive action/adventure game set in a gorgeous mythical landscape, the latter is a very inventive action/adventure game set in a gorgeous mythical landscape. Oh, and one has you playing as a perpetually flaming wolf, the other a small boy who scales giant rock monsters. I'm hoping that the pedigree behind both games is enough to bring them to our friendly shores, but you never know. In the meantime, I implore you, watch and worship these trailers.

All I will say about the PSP is that while it may just be a portable PS2, any handheld that can do this deserves everyone's respect. Moving on...

Goldeneye: Rogue Agent is finally starting to look decent. I have no doubts that it won't live up to it's previous namesake, but it should turn out to be a quality FPS good for a playthrough or two. I suppose they could always surprise me with some fantastic multiplayer, but I will be sincerely shocked if it ends up being half as good as Halo 2's. It's one thing for EA to fuck up a movie license, which they rarely do, but another thing entirely to fuck up a revered name in gaming. While it might not be the perfect sequel (or really, not much of a sequel at all), I'll bet it turns out pretty well.

And on a massively unrelated note, go see Shaun of the Dead now that it's finally out. And if you don't like it, stop reading our site because you're a boring asshole.