Reviews

Every year, our Staff plays a lot of video games, as you might imagine. As you can also imagine, we're pretty opinionated about them. And now you have the opportunity to bask in the healing light of our infinite gaming wisdom, as we hold forth about dang near every game we can. We may review a few other things here, like video game movies and such. And if we badmouth some game that you hold dear to your heart, just remember: we're mean-spirited pricks because we care.

I first met her 10 years ago. I had heard about her, seen a few pictures, and I liked what I saw. I decided to get together with her, and see what she could do. She really blew me away. I had never seen anything like her, and I spent a lot of time with her. Probably too much. We would get together a couple of times a few years later, but it was never the same. In the end, we gradually drifted apart, growing less and less interested over the years.

Then, not too long ago, I ran into her again. She had always looked pretty good, if a little out of proportion. But it seemed that during our time apart she had slimmed down a bit, readjusted so to speak, and was in better shape than I'd ever seen her in. We got back together recently, running through the old routines and quite a few of the new ones. And you know what?

I'm falling in love all over again.

Tomb Raider: Legend is fantastic.

10 years ago, Eidos revolutionized 3D action platforming. I say revolutionized, when what they really did was invent it. Tomb Raider was the first real 3D platformer I had ever seen. When I saw screen shots, I knew I had to have it. I bought my first copy on the Sega Saturn, and I remember being blown away by the fact that you could actually move the camera and look around. Wow. Have we come a long way.

Love it or hate it, you've probably played something sometime that owes it's existence to Tomb Raider. It was a literally groundbreaking title that paved the way for a whole new genre, but unfortunately it never seemed to live up the standards that the newer titles were finding. Each new iteration of TR became an exercise in disappointment, and after a while I stopped caring enough to even rent them. Lara had been left behind by her younger counterparts, and it was almost kind of sad to see her anymore, being marketed yet again in some un-fun game.

When I saw the re-design they had done for her character model, I was pleased. For the first time, she looked like a real person, with the proportions that a real person would have, especially an athlete. There's a lot more realism in TRL, however, than just the new look for Lara. Her movements are much more like you would expect to find in a mountain climber and explorer. She does do some outrageous stunts, but nothing any crazier than The Prince does. And ultimately, his controls are a lot more forgiving than hers. When the ledge The Prince is on rattles, you know it’ll break as soon as he lets go. When the ledge Lara is on rattles, you’d better move your ass, or it will break with you on it and take you down. On the other hand, Lara can put more effort into her climbing and hustle herself to safety. But there’s still plenty of opportunities to fall to your death. Anyone familiar with POP will laugh when I tell you that the first few days I played TR:L, every time she fell to her death I kept hitting the left shoulder button. No, no, wrong game…

There plenty of good puzzles in this one as well, and some new tools to help solve them. She’s got a magnetic grappling hook that see plenty of use climbing, jumping and swinging, but also in moving items for puzzles or just dragging yourself along on a floating platform. The combat is good, with simple controls and ease of weapon switching. Plus, she can interact with the environment, using smart tactics like shooting unstable walls, explosive barrels or chandeliers to take out more than one baddie at a time. There are also a couple of stages where one is speeding along with Lara on her motorcycle, being chased by thugs on bikes as well as those leaning from SUVs and trains. And there scenes where it’s more like steering Lara through the cinematic than actually playing the game, another blast from the past that works well in this game. The “interactive cinematics” are well used but not over-used, and really add to the excitement of the game.

The character of Lady Croft is also a lot deeper in this one, and she’s far from the smirking overconfident heroine from previous games. They put as much work into giving her realistic facial expressions as they did into finding an talented, experienced actress to voice her. Lara runs the gamut from reverent awe to quiet sadness to vengeful fury (a somewhat frightening sight, right at the end.) She’s also got some backup to play off of, in the form of her two assistants back in England, watching over her shoulder and making pithy comments throughout the game. They’re not totally useless, although on more than one occasion she tells them in no uncertain terms to shut up, but they do offer useful insights in the game and the occasional bit of comic relief. The two sidekicks also seem to be a nod on the developer’s part that not all of Lara’s fans are male, a point which I feel is sometimes neglected throughout gaming in general.

There’s some pretty good replay value to the game, mostly in the form of unlocking the extra outfits for Lara (only one of which is a bikini thankyouverymuch) as well as character and location dossiers. There’s even a Goth outfit for her, which I hear has some obvious references to other Crystal Dynamics titles. (I’m still trying to unlock it.) The Time Trial mode makes you run through each stage as fast as possible, while finding all the hidden treasures makes you run through the same stage as slow as possible, being sure to find everything. These two modes alone are enough to have you spending plenty of time in each stage, and thus playing the game.

There are a couple of problems I had with the game, most of which had to do with it being too short. However, I think that the developers knew they had a limited number of times that they could make you run back through the same gimmicks over and over, and they decided to cut it short, which I can respect. Frankly, the ending leaves you wanting, and made me wonder if I simply hadn’t done enough to get the real ending. However, one good thing about that ending: it does leave you wanting more Tomb Raider games.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

I played through Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and I really enjoyed it. The control, setting, music, voice acting, animation, puzzles and platforming were great. What really sold the game, though, was the development of the main character and his interactions with Farah, a supporting character.

This is not to say that the game didn't have problems. The puzzles only had one solution, which diminishes the replay value. There were times that you had to baby-sit Farah. And there was too much fighting for my taste, especially since the combat repertoire of the Prince was fairly limited.

All in all, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was a great game. I would give it a 9/10.

I was stoked when I heard that there would be a sequel. It seemed to have a darker tone. The trailer from E3 was sweet. And they beefed up the combat engine. I started to have some reservations when I saw an ad that said that the game featured music from Godsmack.

I tried to play Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within shortly after it was released and I just couldn't do it. The Prince, to swipe a phrase from Penny Arcade, burned with generic rage. He was pale and poofy faced, like he'd just come out of rehab. He was even sporting a generic tribal armband.

When there was music it was almost universally awful. A pounding, power chord afflicted metal soundtrack played on seemingly endless loop. There was hardly a respite from it, and when they would play good music, it would never go on long enough. Either it would stop for no apparent reason, or it would be interrupted by the trash metal that would play on and on.

The combat engine was beefed up, but there was also a lot more combat. Even worse, there was combat while you were trying to navigate a puzzle or trap filled room. Every leg of you journey of platforming would come to a halt as you stopped to dispatch the most recent wave of cannon fodder. Also, it becomes readily apparent that you can only use your full repertoire of combat techniques against the lowest caliber of enemy, you revert to doing the tried and true vault and slash technique from PoP1 way too much. Oh, and whenever you fight The Prince has a handful of phrases that he'll spout. And, sadly enough, so do the enemies. You will fight and you will be treated to repetitive dialogue that would make 80's superhero comics cringe.

Then there was The Prince himself. His constant, seething, bad dialogue drove me away. I couldn't keep playing after he proclaimed at another character in his faux-tough-guy voice that he was The Prince of Persia!

I couldn't do it, Despite my friend telling me that it really did get better later on. In trying so very hard to be XXXXXTREEEMEEE!!!!!, it had lost me. I returned the game to GameFly and played other games.

Months pass. Bakudan sees Prince of Persia 3 at E3 and tells me it looks good. He tells me that the demo has all sorts of cool stuff, like stealth action, and that the Prince was going through some sort of inner struggle that would manifest itself as the Dark Prince.

So, I did a little research. And what I found was interesting. Apparently, the guy that voiced the Prince in Sands was coming back to voice the Prince, while the guy who voiced the Prince in Warrior would voice the Dark Prince. Also, trailers showed this stealth element, as well as a new character and the return of an old one.

I really wanted to know as much story as I could before trying out PoP3. I steeled myself, turned down the volume, and gave Warrior Within another shot. And you know what, my friend was right, it does get better later in.

It appears that the designers were so intent on showing off it's extremeness (ooh, the Prince just swore, ahhh...) that they loaded it on too much too fast. The worst part of the game to play through is the first 25% or so, after that you have about 60% of the game that hearkens back to Sands of Time with much smaller pockets of annoyance. Unfortunately, it does try to get more edgy and in your face during the final 15%, but it never reaches the obnoxiousness of the first quarter of the game.

I've played through it once and I got the bad ending. Of course, I didn't know about the good ending until I had beaten the game and researched why the ending I got didn't seem to lead into PoP3 very smoothly. So I'm actually playing through it again for that smoother transition to the next game.

There is still too much fighting, and there's still crappy voice acting, but once you get past the "xtreme" garbage in the beginning, it's actually a decent game. I would have preferred a more despairing note than the generic angst and anger that they put into it, and it would have benefited from more setup in the introductory movies, but it's worth playing.

I give Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within 7/10. Not a bad effort, but not as good as the first one. I paid ten bucks for a brand new copy, I would advise you to do the same.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi

I'm gonna share a little secret with all of you: every Dragon Ball Z fan secretly wishes that they could fly, fight, and shoot just like the characters in the show. It doesn't matter who your favorite is, you just want to be able to do all that amazing stuff. That's the secret, the appeal to the show. (Honestly, I think that's the appeal of all superhero stories. You can tell a lot about a person by what superheroes they like.) Whenever they put out a game, it's your chance to get one step closer to that dream, or at least a more direct and involved method of pretending. There's been a lot of standard fighting games put out for DBZ. It works well - they're two great tastes that taste great together. Some of these games are really good, but DBZ doesn't always lend itself to the limited framework of your standard fighter, because the fights are so big that a basic 2-D or 3-D fighter is too small a space. When major characters destroy entire planets in their fight, well, you need a larger framework. And they've finally done it.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is the best damn DBZ game ever.

Rather than harp on and on about how awesome it is, let me narrow it down to some bullet points:

1. It is not a fighting game. It is a DBZ game, and possibly the first ever. It plays more like a 3-D action beat-em-up than any fighting I've ever played. The stages are large (though it might be nice if they were larger) and you have complete freedom of movement and attack throughout them. You can sit back and pummel your opponent with ki attacks and super moves, or zip in close and pound the hell out of them, knocking them through buildings, mountains and even the ground. You can move freely throughout the air and even underwater. I think the only reason the stages aren't bigger is that the game is on the PS2, which can only handle so much.

2. Every damn character ever is in this game. Characters you never thought you'd see in a DBZ game, and characters that have too long been absent. Bad guys from the movies, minor characters from the original Dragon Ball, even some of the new crap characters from Dragon Ball GT. Sure, some of these characters aren't nearly the level of others, but you're happy to see them nonetheless. Also, the various "powered-up" versions of the characters are separate characters themselves, as opposed to being a move or function for the main character. This I like, because it gives the opportunity for more depth to each character, and changes their play style. Each character uses the same game elements, but they use them differently, so there's a distinct difference between playing Piccolo and playing Goku. Also, from fighting the computer all week, I've noticed that the AI plays each character differently as well, mostly in tune with their personalities and fighting style from the story: Vegeta will sit back at a distance and hammer you with massive repeated ki attacks, because he's a shitty close in fighter; and Bardock will sit just inside or outside of your range and wear you down slowly, playing very smart, just like a veteran warrior would. It's really enjoyable for a fan to watch this in action.

3. This game is hard. Every element of DBZ fighting is under your control, to use when and where you please. Attack, defense, movement, ki attacks, melee attacks, super attacks, counters, blocks, teleports, flight...it's very complicated and difficult at first. But it's absolutely true to the series, and once you've got the hang of it, you genuinely feel like you're in the game, which is one of the highest complements you can give any game. When you've just barely beaten Vegeta with your Spirit Bomb, and your heart rate and breathing are faster because of it, you know you're hooked.

4. Lastly, the most important element, and the factor which sold me on this game: you can switch the fucking American voices to Japanese. Yes, I'm a purist. Blow me.

In all, if you or anyone you know (other than me) enjoys DBZ, buy this game. It's given me a week-long fightergasm, and I see no end in sight.

F.E.A.R.

In recent years, there's been a trend towards horror-action games. I certainly don't mind this, as I enjoy almost all of them. I've played through Clive Barker's Undying many times, and I still enjoy it. The challenge comes in balancing action gaming, and the associated concepts, with creating and developing a sense of dread. These two things are not easy to do, as your typical action game super-hero isn't prone to fear. But the folks at Monolith have gotten it right.

At first glance, F.E.A.R. is a tactical action game, with a twist. You're a special operative, assigned to the First Encounter Assault Recon force. You've got the basic bad-ass skills, with one special exception - you have boosted reflexes, allowing you to slow down time and gain a serious advantage against your opponents. This is very groovy in more than one instance, and the fact that this Max Payne-like ability can be used in multi-player intrigues me. At one point, I was fighting through an office building, and I was pinned down outside an office by enemy troops. I hit the boost, charged into the office and killed two soldiers before they got up. A third tried to flank in behind me, and I kept running out the back door, still boosted, turning around a corner and coming up behind the third one just as he was crouching outside the door I had just run into, waiting for me to come out. Blowing him in half with my shotgun gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

So you're super-bad, you fight off power-armored rocket launcher-wielding opponents by yourself, you're awesome. That's great. So what do you do about the ghosts?

Ghosts?

That's right, ghosts.

This is where I was sold on the game. Turning a corner, checking all angles for traps, when suddenly something comes down the hall towards you, tiles popping off the wall as it passes, and a horrific vision pops across your view. Shoot that, tough guy. Or you're moving through an office, checking your corners and moving from cover to cover inside the cubicles, and suddenly a little girl comes scrabbling along the wall of one of the cubes towards you. I wasted more ammo in that game, shooting at things like that that appear from behind corners or through doorways or in the spot you were just standing in.

The game does a very good job of mixing and combining the two types of tension you encounter in these games. Firstly, you're checking all corners and angles, making sure you spot the enemy before they spot you. You're naturally paranoid, and you get sucked in when you're feeling that way. Then, all of a sudden, when you're already sucked in, it throws this curve at you, a totally different type of tension, and it's like nearly getting into a car wreck - you're glad you're okay and nothing happened, but you never want to do that again. It's great, if you can stand it.

In all, this is a game worthy of purchase, or at least borrowing. The ending alone is perfect horror-movie fare, and while it bespeaks a possible sequel, I almost hope they don't. Some things should just be left to end they way they are.

07/22/06

Our Damn Opinion!

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi

F.E.A.R.