G-pinions

While the idea of a Halo movie isn't anything to rave about, a Peter Jackson-produced one with WETA doing the special effects kind of is. Solid writer, too. It's this kind of thing that makes every geek worth their salt tingle with glee. Only if Gary Gygax played Master Chief could this production get nerdier. Seriously though, who can fill such a role? You can't have a movie where you don't see the protagonist's face, so that helmet is coming off to reveal - Vin Diesel? The Rock? Bruce Willis? Dustin Diamond?

The movie will be a success in the minds of fans regardless as long as every environment, weapon and vehicle is recreated faithfully - how cool would it be to see a live-action energy sword fight? I'll tell you, it would be very cool. Anyhow, the strengths of the Halo universe, disregarding the gameplay for a second, all translate well to such a medium - strong characters, great visual design and fantastic music. There are several dozen ways that they could easily screw this up, but things seem to be coming together quite well at this early stage. Wouldn't you agree?

I am quite new to the genre, so if I sound naive please just laugh with me, but are all action/RPGs the same frickin' game? If you'll remember from the early days of G-Pinions, Nick and I played through Champions of Norrath two and a half times. This is not only abnormal, but is actually a certifiable sickness in a future where sloth is punishable by death. Granted, almost every minute of the 80 some hours we put into the game was pure joy, but the entire game hardly varied except in background palatte and enemy type. Repetitive? You betcha. But somehow, so rewarding as well.

Later in the year X-Men Legends came out. Same basic game, only this time you can play as the X-Men! So Nick and I, along with Scott, logged a few more hours we'll never get back, fighting a legion of similar enemies as we smashed and levitated everything (included destructible wall coverings and The Blob) that came in our path. I remember saying a few times when we played "How has this not been done before?" It seems like such as easy formula - create a world that mirrors the one from Diablo and all those other PC games I've never played, buy whatever license is hot with the kids, release during the buying season. Why isn't there an action/RPG for all of my favorite licenses? Why is EA sitting on their ass making football games when they could have you controlling Tom Brady (great leader) and Ray Lewis (real life murderer, would love a shot at genocide) in a battle against the Whips or something?

So then, after playing through both Norrath and a healthy chunk of X-Men and finding no differences except depth (Norrath is much deeper) and characters (even with Bi-clops, X-Men is way better), I was ready for something different. So Nick and I, all fired up for another Norrath game, ran out and rented Norrath II the second it came out. What do we find? The same exact game, only with two new characters. Is this a joke? Norrath 1 was already the same as every action/RPG before it - why make a game that is a complete derivation of a copycat title? Needless to say, after logging more than 60 hours in the Everquest universe, Nick and I had our fill of skeletal companions and fighting over leather leggings.


Sunfire is a girl's name

What's my point? Nick and I (do you sense a pattern here?) played about six hours of X-Men Legends II tonight and, guess what? It's the same frickin' game as the first! I don't know why I continue to be surprised. This time they team the Brotherhood up with the X-Men, so you can fight with Magneto (pretty cool) and Toad (pretty worthless) as well as some people I never heard of (Sunfire? Come on!).

I was hopeful since the first game was so fun that this would not only be fun, but different and original enough to actually warrant a purchase. Don't let my excess amounts of mooching fool you - I actually do spend money on games when it's worth it. But why would I buy X-Men Legends II when I can get the original for much cheaper? Who is the target audience for this game? Sure, they threw in Iron Man, who appears in less than ten games in the history of gaming, but I'm sure he's the same as everyone else. Heck, there are only a few different character types in the game. Do you really need Juggernaut and Colossus when you have Wolverine? Or Sunflower when you have Bi-clops? These are the opposite of palatte-swapped characters in the Mortal Kombat universe - they look different but all of their moves are the same.

Furthermore, it takes forever to manage your characters. The game actually loads when you pause the game - this clearly wasn't optimized for the Xbox - and then you are only allowed to toy with one of the four characters at a time. Granted, without the cool equipment that Norrath has (this still has equipment, it just isn't cool) leveling up only takes a few seconds, but it still would have been nice to be able to tweak my Magneto while Nick was admiring Wolverine for the umpteenth time.

You want a recommendation? Don't buy this game. Please, for the love of God, don't buy it. Yes, it's a blast. And if Nick didn't leave at the early hour of 11pm we would have played straight through the night. But sometimes, it would be nice to see a developer put a little effort into a title. Buy this used if you must, or simply buy last year's edition, so maybe Activision will understand variety is truly the spice of life. With Ultimate Spiderman and X-Men Legends II out (along with the unmentionable Nemesis...) it seems like developers are just banking on a hot license to sell a game. Maybe I'm just being overly cynical again.