Xbox 360 - Dead Space

Dead Space

My final review for 2008!

Parental Advisory: This game contains graphic violence and mature themes. Parental guidance is suggested.

As is expected from EA, this is standard third person shooter wrapped around an 'Alien' (movie) type story. What makes this one stand out? Nothing specific, but let's explore this game anyway.

Story

The story behind this shooter combines themes from Alien and Event Horizon to create this tale. You're a team sent to investigate what's happening on a floating scientific research station orbiting a planet. When you arrive at the station, bad things begin happening (expected). First, you almost crash into the station. Then, later, your ship explodes and you're stranded there.

As your character explores the station trying to bring the station back to life so you can leave, you find mutated Alien-esque creatures. Of course, you have to kill them.

Graphics

The 3D engine used here works quite well. The imagery and textures are very well done, if not a bit graphic. The lighting used is reminiscent of what's used in the Alien movies (lots of strobes, flashing lights, flourescent lights that flicker, etc).

Audio

The music and thematic elements swell when enemies arrive in the area. It is very cinematic in sound and the eerie sound effects add to the chill-factor. But, even as good as it sounds, it's not enough to save this mediocre title.

Gameplay & Controls

The controls work well enough through much of the game up until Chapter 4 (we'll get to that shortly) where the game completely breaks down.

The suit you are tasked to use has limited protection, but allows you to walk in zero gravity and has a small amount of air for vacuum space walks (nevermind the temperature issue in this game). Anyway, you start off with no guns and obtain them either as you find them (in containers) or you can buy them at the store.

Save Points

The save points are strewn throughout the levels attached to the wall (as if that makes any sense) and opens up to reveal a holographic save area. So, there are limited places where you can save. However, the save points do seem to be in convenient enough places that it's easy to save often. So, in this particular shooter, the save points aren't the issue.

Store

As you progress through killing aliens and opening containers, you will find various items including money, health, ammo and power nodes. Money allows you to buy things at the Stores in various places on the levels. The stores contain ammo, health, weapons, stasis replenishment and various other things. While you wander, you will also find schematics for new weapons and suits that you can buy. The idea that there is a store is ok, the way it's done sucks.

The problems with Dead Space

The problems with this game are many and varied. The primary problem with much of this game is that there is so little health on the levels that you're always one step away from dying. When you do find a store, the health is so expensive you have to practically give away all the money you've found just to get a small container of health. For example, you're lucky to have about 8000-9000 credits when you get to the store and a small container of health costs 1250. That price would be fine if there was abundant health on the levels, but there isn't.

Worse, as you progress through the levels, you end up finding more and more ammo and less and less health.... to the point at which, on level 4, that you don't find ANY health in any containers or after killing the aliens. This makes the game annoying at best.

Nodes

Again, here is another sore point. Nodes are used at work 'benches' throughout the various levels to upgrade your suit, weapons or abilities. The problem, again, is that there are so few nodes found on the levels, you really get no benefit out of the upgrades. Worse, at the workbench, the system forces you to waste nodes on useless node intersections just to get to an intersection that lets you upgrade. This is pointless and a waste. You find so few that you end up wasting over half of the nodes you find on worthless things.

Encounters

There are many times where the game continually throws alien after alien at you simply to use up your health and waste ammo. The encounters are not there to be a challenge because the weapons will eventually kill them. So, it's just a time, ammo and health waster. If the encounters were far less predictable and the weapons were far stronger, then I might feel less this way.

Map

The map is just plain annoying. At first, it seems like a cool idea to have this 3D holographic type map which shows your present level. Unfortunately, you can't leave it on while you walk as it prevents button presses. But, in order to find out where to go, you have to leave it on. So, you have to pray you don't get attacked while you have it open. You also end up having to waste time getting the map into the correct position so you can even see where you are and where you need to be.

Applying health

As you pick up containers of health, they are stored in your inventory. Your inventory is limited, so you will eventually run out of space, which is arbitrarily stupid. When you open your inventory to view it, the game continues to progress. So, the game does not pause and you continue to be attacked while the inventory is open and you try to apply more health.. which is, again, arbitrarily stupid. So, if you need to apply health during a battle, you do so at your own peril.

Level 4

Up until level 4, the game was pretty much a straight shooter with aliens jumping out at you from all over (at very predictable times). Through trial and error, you can work your way through the level by having the character die and then restarting the level. In fact, many sub-levels I had to do this just to try to figure out what the game wanted me to do.

However, after you traverse across the outside of the ship and make it across to the other side (without becoming asteroid smashed), you end up at a chair with a gun. Ok, so here's my BIGGEST gripe with this game. You're working your way through the levels as a typical shooter and here the game completely breaks that stride for a stupid chair based asteroid mini-game. Then, the mini-game starts you off with 85% hull integrity. Each asteroid reduces 8-10% hull integrity with each hit. So, you are tasked to blow up the asteroids and keep the hull safe while you wait for something to happen. That's fine, but the game starts throwing more and more and more (and even bigger) asteroids at you all over the screen. Not only do the big ones break up into smaller ones, like the old Asteroid game, they accelerate towards you faster and faster. In fact, it begins throwing so many at you so rapidly (while waiting), it's basically impossible to complete. All the while I'm thinking, "What the hell does it have to do with the game?".

To top that off, the gun has an 'overheat' mode that prevents you from firing 5-10 seconds at a time far too frequently. Ok, so what the point of this level is, I have no idea. It's not challenging, it's not fun. In fact, it's a stupid remake of an old Old OLD arcade game from the 70's which, in Dead Space, has no real point.

Worse, you've got your 'friend' chiming in saying 'Just hold them off for a little longer' or 'I'm almost done' or 'Keep it up for a little longer'. It's like, "Shut the eff up!" These little taunts are enough for me to take this game disk and run it through the shredder. There's nothing fun about being taunted while you're trying to concentrate on a near impossible task.

After all that, the gun controls don't perform well, there's no auto-targeting, you always way overshoot the mark and it seems to miss even when you actually are able to aim. Oh, and did I already ask.. What's the point to this Asteroid level?

Overall

This game has way too many problems to be fixable. Was this game even play tested? Did someone actually run this by human beings to find out if it was a passable game? These are the kinds of games that are throw-away commodities. This will be forgotten in less than a year and no one will want to play it. It will sit on Gamestop's used shelves and collect dust. Some random shmoe might buy one periodically to try it, but quickly return it in the 7 day grace for a full refund.

Score

• Sound: 9/10 (best part of this game, keeps the suspense up)
• Graphics: 9/10 (textures and figures are well done)
• Bugginess: 10/10 (no bugs or major glitches found)
• Controls: 6/10 (controls well enough until the Asteroids part)
• Play Value: $10
  
• Bang-To-Buck: 1/10 (if you must play this, rent it or buy it used)
• Overall: 4/10 (inconsistent game play, tedious in places, predictable, not enough supplies)

Note, I would have given this game an even lower overall score, but the first 3 levels of the game were reasonably enjoyable. However, the Asteroids mini-game is so out-of-touch with the rest of this game, I no have no intention of finishing this game.

Happy New Year ... I'll see you in 2009.

Xbox 360 - Rise of the Argonauts

Rise of the Argonauts - Codemasters

This third person shooter tries to be too many different things at once and fails at most of them. But, that doesn't make the game unplayable or unenjoyable. It just makes this game tedious and frustrating at specific times. This game tries to be an RPG, but fails at this. It tries to have multiple quests and fails at that. The only place where this game succeeds is in the story and in the fact that it's a third person shooter.

Story

The story of the Jason and the Argonauts is not new. In fact, it was born out of Greek mythology. So, there's a lot of canon for this game. The story plays like a movie with interaction between certain elements... not very good gameplay, though.

Basically, you play as Jason (King of Iolcus) and you must battle your way across the lands with various helpers (only two at a time). Your helpers include Pan the satyr, Hercules, Argos and various others. Not all of them join your party permanently, but some of them join your party in a permanent way.

Gameplay & Graphics

Here's where the fun begins, or should I say where the fun doesn't begin. Let's start with the graphics. The graphics on this game are really no better than those you would have seen on an Xbox (yes, the old one) or possibly even a Wii. So, don't expect super high res textures or fluid graphics here. The graphic design was somewhat lacking and the final graphics in this game are most definitely sub-par (lots of tearing, slowdowns and glitchy controls). Jason's 3D character handles horribly and gets caught behind every little object (see below). So, be prepared to get frustrated over the controls for Jason. However, I can overlook the graphics if the game works. And, this game does work on many levels, but just not 100%.

Fighting

The fighting is hard to control and has no targeting system. So, you're just swinging in the breeze hoping it'll strike a blow. The bosses and mini-bosses can be challenging because there's really no clue what to do until you figure it out through trial and error. I'm not a fan of trial and error gaming. Just tell me what to do or make it simple enough to figure it out. The game gets somewhat easier as you progress and gain abilities (as far as fighting opponents).

Health and Magic

There is no health meter and no magic meter. So, when the enemy starts hammering on Jason, you have no idea how far he is from death until you start to see a red halo. The problem with the red halo (and this was also a problem in Turok) is that by the time you see it, you're practically dead. In some cases, the red halo doesn't even appear.. you only hear the 'near death music' and see the screen start to echo. Worse, your health does regenerate, but because there is no health bar, you have no idea how much it has regenerated. So, you end up spending time running around in circles avoiding the enemy trying to regain enough health to keep Jason from dying. Game developers.... PUT A HEALTH BAR ON THESE GAMES WILL YOU ALREADY?!!!

This whole part of this game makes fighting a tedious activity when you're working on bosses or mini-bosses.

Character navigation

The character movements and navigation is, to put it bluntly, horrible. The motions are completely stilted and Jason tends to run into wall edges or other small objects and get stuck. So, you are forever getting stuck and then walking around the object. Bad bad design.

Character design

The 3D characters are made from very low mesh objects. The texture mappings are also quite low res. The best looking character in this game, not surprisingly, is Jason. All of the subordinate characters look quite bad. Hercules looks like some hulk, but not like Hercules. Achilles ended up being an arogant self-righteous annoying character (even if after he becomes part of your party).

The Argo

The Argo is the boat you end up with that takes you sailing to the various places. Unfortunately, it's just another static object. There's no real navigation with the boat. The opportunity here would have been to allow sea warfare on the boat. But alas, it wasn't to be.

Audio

The audio to this game works ok, but there are far too many times where voices are cut off in mid-sentence when the screen cuts to a new scene. There were at least two cut-scenes where the volume was so low that turning my TV's volume up 100% just barely allowed me to hear it.

RPG aspects

While it appears they tried to make this game somewhat RPG-ish, they failed. The game has no treasure to speak of and nothing really extra to quest for. While you can level up, you can't really role play.

Overall

The game was quite rushed. There were many things that were unfinished. Again, there were two cinematics at the end of the game that were so low volume, you couldn't even hear them. I can't even believe that someone didn't playtest this thing, let alone proof it. Frankly, in the shape that it is presently in, I'm surprised any publisher would touch this release.

The linear aspects (no pun) and the shooter portions of the game makes it not an RPG. If you're really desperate for a new RPG-ish game, then by all means buy it. If you're not thrilled by mashup games that are basically unfinished, then I'd skip it or buy it used when it gets to about $20.

Score

• Sound: 7/10 (voiceovers are very well done, fluidity sucks)
• Graphics: 5/10 (lacking, raw, unfinished, low res textures, bad movements)
• Bugginess: ?/10 (not rated yet)
• Controls: 7/10 (not outstanding, Jason hard to control at times)
• Play Value: $20
  
• Bang-To-Buck: 1/10 (won't play it through twice)
• Overall: 6.5/10 (plenty of save points, graphics & controls seriously lack, tedious in parts)

PS2 - Persona 4

Persona 4

Yes, you read that corractly... this is a PS2 game. I originally bought this game because it was represented to me as an RPG. Well, it is sort of. This is a Pokemon / Final Fantasy turn based fighting game with limited 3D roaming aspects and annoying 'time limits' on quests.

Note, I generally do not play turned based RPG systems because they always end up with far too many unavoidable random encounters. These games also end up far too one-sided favoring fighting over questing. Persona 4 is no exception.

Game Play

The game play starts off with this very very very long dialog-based almost cinematic sequence with lots of button pushing to get past dialog. After probably 1-3 hours of playing, you finally get past all of the intro stuff that really leads nowhere.

After you get past the exceedingly long and boring intro sections, you finally get to the point where you get some action. Unfortunately, the action consists of Pokemon style battles where all you're doing is leveling up.

The idea is that you get playing cards which give you personas. These personas help you in battle.

Story

You've moved to the country from a big city. You're staying with a family that consists of a dad and daughter. While staying there, you end up investigating some mysterious deaths. Because of your investigation, you find that there are supernatural forces at work. These forces lead you into an alternate dimension of 'shadows'. You constsantly fight these shadows as you roam through the dimension.

You ultimately find that as the fog arrives in the 'real world' city that a shadow crosses over and kills the victim. So, you are tasked to roam into this alternate dimension and kill the shadows before they can do more damage and kill someone else.

It's an ok premise, but where this game fails is in the execution.

Fighting

The fighting is ok, but it's not outstanding. It's a typical turn-based game. Sometimes you have the advantage, other times the enemy does. You have no control over the strength of the enemy that appears (or how many appear). It's all a random tossup when they occur. You can avoid the enemy (sometimes) by running around the enemy before the battle sequence starts. But, they do chase after you reasonably fast, so you sometimes cannot outrun them.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for this game is actually quite good. In fact, they include the soundtrack CD with the game. So, the only redeeming thing for this game really is the soundtrack. But, it doesn't make it worth the money just to get that soundtrack CD.

Game Save Locations

This is the sore spot of this game. Once you get into certain parts of the alternate dimension, you are stuck. For example, in one quest you end up going into a castle. As you enter the castle, the castle is multiple levels. I got the 6th floor and realized there are no save points, there's no way out and it would take far too long to go all the way back down just to save.

So, you're stuck in the middle of a bunch of battles with limited supplies, no way to save and no way out. You're ultimately going to just "game over" at some point without winning the final battle. The intermediate battles just serve to whittle down your supplies, health and points. Worse, this castle quest is the first you receive. And, you're only level 8-9 (weak) and they're throwing level 15-20 monsters (or higher) at you on this quest. Not really that much fun.

Overall

I am not impressed by the concept, layout or realization of this game. In the beginning, it goes far too slow. Once you get into the action, it's completely one-tracked (fights). The fighting is limited and boring. The personas are weak and, overall, the game is just not that fun. There's really very little to do other than fighting.

Score

• Sound: 9/10 (best part of this game)
• Graphics: 7/10 (decent for PS2, but could be better)
• Bugginess: ?/10 (not rated yet)
• Controls: 7/10 (look controls reverse, no way to change them)
  
• Bang-To-Buck: 1/10 (may not even play anymore)
• Overall: 5/10 (lack of save points, one-tracked, limited questing, too much dialog, too many encounters)