A Boring Premonition
crafted by: PaulI already espoused my difficult love for Deadly Premonition here, but now that I have played further in, I have to re-emphasize how shitty the game can be. I'm gonna break this down piecemeal so I don't drive myself cuh-razy!
(make sure you listen to this song while you read for maximum Deadly Premonition-ness)
The Open World
Driving around is such a chore. The cars I've driven max out at 50 MPH, which is to say that instead of any acceleration they just stop moving faster when they hit 50. This becomes a hassle when the distance to travel is quite long: I went from the police station to the crime scene in the woods, and it took almost 5 minutes to get there. Even going slow, it would have been more interesting if there was any scenery. Ancient driving games like Need for Speed II (one of my secret favs of all time) have much more to see. It doesn't help that the same goofy saxophone music loops the entire time you're driving and often drowns out any dialogue.
Speaking of which, I appreciate being able to listen to Agent York talk to Zach (am I Zach?) about cult 80's movies (The Spawn, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes) while driving. But it almost comes off like they producers are ramming quirkiness down the throat listing off these movies, their directors, the year they came out, etc.
I'm curious if there is any branching paths because I have already pissed off the Sheriff (by accidentally getting out of the car, which means the Sheriff has to go ahead to the crime scene) and has led to cutscenes talking about how annoying I am/York is.
Most annoying? The full screen map doesn't stay fixed. When you press the "Back" button to view the town, it looks different every time as the map rotates around the arrow (you), not the other way around. Match this with a zoom that doesn't zoom out far enough and it's impossible to become familiar with the town and its surrounding area.
The Missions
There is a sort of Silent Hill thing going on where the world turns "dark". There is almost no explanation for it, and no one else seems to notice any changes. I'm sure that York is crazy in the head.
When you're in these missions and you "kill" a "zombie" it takes them forever to disappear. This wouldn't be a problem if they weren't impassible until they disappear and if most of the mission area weren't very narrow hallways. Often I could not progress in an area until a "zombie" had finished it's slow, clunky death animation and disappeared.
The quick time events that ended the last mission I played found York being chased by the main killer of the game so far. I haven't played Heavy Rain, but I imagine the QTE's are much better implemented than this. Not only are Deadly Premonition's QTE's cheap and annoying, but the game can't seem to handle what is happening on screen. The framerate drops considerably even with the ultra-low-rent graphics.
The Investigation
I've never been one who is interested in murder mysteries. This game just grabs you so hard with it's quirkiness that it's hard to stop thinking about it. But every time I've played the game this past week, I've become so enraged by the game's crapiness, that I have turned it off to play something that is of AAA quality. I haven't felt this love/hate with a game in a lonnnnnng time, and I think I honestly have to say that the game is interfering with the investigation!
SNES-A-Day: Arcana
crafted by: Paul
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Arcana
Time played: 4 minutes
Beasts slain: ARSFja;lsdkjfals;j
I only played this for four minutes so that I could get a picture that full encapsulated how boring this game is. Because... it's super boring. I really hate dungeon crawlers, especially unimaginative ones with slimes and 16-bit pain-graphics. I'm not going to dignify this game with a check of Wikipedia to see if anyone cares about it.
One good thing, the main character says "Take this!" when he hits an enemy. S'pretty funny.
SNES-A-Day: Animaniacs
crafted by: Paul
Animaniacs
Time played: 3 minutes
Times laughed: 0
I think I remember renting and playing this game when I was an Animaniac maniac (ugh) back in the day. At the time I found it incomprehensible, and what do you know, it still is. Like the Aah! Real Monsters game I wrote about several weeks ago, this falls into that "multiple character cartoon platformer" genre that existed solely for crappy licensed games back on the SNES. You gotta use all the Warners (Yakko, Wakko, and Dot) to get around obstacles and shit. If one of them gets captured, you have to jump all the way to the top of the Warner Bros. water tower to rescue them. That alone is impossible and made me turn the game off.
I will hand it to this game that the sprites are well animated, and that each Warner reacts differently to NPC's and other events happening in the levels (for example, the boy Warners checking out that hot nurse).
I think I remember the Tiny Toons game being better, but I'm not sure. I'm certainly glad there was never a Freakazoid game because I still love that show.
Horsin’ Around with Deadly Premonition
crafted by: Paul
I first saw some cutscene footage from Deadly Premonition via some links on Twitter from Shane Bettenhausen - a long-time writer for EGM and 1UP who now works at the company that localized the game. Judging by the baffling cinemas and overly-enthusiastic Tweeting by Mr. Bettenhausen and some other notable game journos, I just wrote the game off as a "so bad it's good" horror game. It wasn't until a few reviews popped up here and there that I picked up on the game's "quirky" slant - comparisons to cult classic Twin Peaks abounded, and my interest grew. It wasn't until I saw Deadly Premonition get a "it's so terrible but really, actually great!" write up on Something Awful by Lowtax himself that I knew I had to have it.
In most ways this game is awful. Like, awful to the point of questioning even paying $20 for it. Load times are long, text crawls along and makes annoying "beeps" when there is no recorded dialogue. The control scheme for combat doesn't make any sense (right trigger to ready weapon, left to aim, A to fire??), and combat tools (pipes?) wear out too quickly. Most sound effects are laughable (and even inappropriate: a cat squeel for a squirrel), though the voice acting is surprisingly decent. Driving around town is next to impossible, the steering is so broken.
The prologue section wherein our hero Agent York arrives to town was super linear and visually tedious - narrow paths with wooden fences all around. I almost quit playing so I could go back to the comfortable world of Batman: Arkham Asylum (which I am playing for the first time, and yes, it's awesome). But when I emerged from the woods and found myself on the long road into town, I really realized the potential in the game (even with the scenery of PS1-grade mud textures and pixel trees).
Once in town, I slept up at the hotel and had breakfast with the "wacky" proprietress. Then I drove (more like crashed) the short distance to the Police station where I had to find keys with squirrel-shaped fobs and sort out which was a Southern Flying Squirrel so I could progress to the evidence room. It should be so terrible but I couldn't stop!
I actually think an apt comparison for this game would be Earthbound. Like Deadly Premonition, Earthbound was not a pretty game when it came out in the USA, but it's specialness was in it's tone. There is a charming Japanese-take-on-American culture here that I haven't seen since and it is funny and successfully self-aware just like Earthbound.
Anyone who really likes video games and has for a long time will find a lot to appreciate in this game. I know that I am more excited to play this than to beat Arkham Asylum. I woke up thinking about Deadly Premonition, and I've been thinking about it all day. Unlike Arkham Asylum, which is polished to a T and made to appeal to as many people as possible, what's appealing about Deadly Premonition isn't obvious. In fact, it dares you to probe its mysteries and eccentricities.
The only thing nagging me is the "what if?". Imagine if a studio like Rockstar had put their all their technology and gold into a game like this? This is THE game I wanted to play high school: a game combining the atmosphere of Silent Hill with the open-world possibilities of GTA III. If this came out for PS2, Xbox or (even better) Dreamcast, it would have been one of the best of its generation. As a 2010 game it can barely compete, but the game is so ambitious and honest in its quirkiness that I have to love it.
On a side note, I actually read on Wikipedia (snort!) that Deadly Premonition was so similar to Twin Peaks at it's E3 debut in 2007 (?!) that it was significantly delayed to find a more distinct identity. If you haven't seen Twin Peaks, I strongly reccomend you do. I think that Twin Peaks' first season (only six episodes) is fantastic - one of the best examples of what TV can achieve as a medium. It combines the supernatural and offbeat characters with soapy melodrama to be really interesting and unique. But the second season is boring and aimless enough to rival anything on TV in the 90's or 00's - with a leaden sense of confusion drowning any plot development. If you thought Lost was bad at having no purpose, Twin Peaks alredy did that twenty years earlier.
SNES-A-Day: Andre Agassi Tennis
crafted by: Paul
CHEH!
Andre Agassi Tennis
Time played: 4 minutes
Balls hit: 5?
The problem with my approach to playing through all the SNES games I found is that I chose to go alphabetically in my play order. Alex and Brendan took an easier route in which they just pick at random or go for whatever looks good. Not me, if Andre Agassi Tennis is next on my list, I have to play it.
And play it I did! Nothing to say. It's a boring tennis game. The first tennis game I actually liked was Mario Tennis for the Virtual Boy - that was rad. The only good part about this game is that it had a "practice" mode that let me slap around some balls from a ball machine. I haven't seen this in many other tennis games, and it made the process of realizing how terrible the controls are relatively painless because there was no opponent or breaks in the action. Just pure suck.
SNES-A-Day: An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
crafted by: PaulAn American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Time Played: 1 minute
Cats killed: 0
Cats are forever given the bad rap in modern American media. Thankfully the internet's obsession with cats being cute has started to shine a positive light on our feline friends. The crappy SNES game adaptation of the crappy wild west mouse movie An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, however, is terribly biased against cats. Also it is just terrible. Another floaty movie-based SNES game. But check out this Game Over screen, it is legit terrifying:
You die now!
A New Review System Approaches!
crafted by: PaulIf there is one area in the realm of writing about video games that is always under debate is the manner in which games are reviewed. It used to be that a magazine could just slap a score (or 3 or 4, thanks EGM) on a game and call it quits, but in the internet age the notion of a number-less review has gained much more credibility.
Probably better than Alex can draw.
We've been doing reviews in the titular theme of our site, staging "boss battles" between games and writers. While that approach was fun, it was often hard to sum up a game's review in one fantastical sentence, so we've decided to shake it up a little.
In an age of GameStops and Amazons and Cheap Ass Gamers, a game's price is easily determined and highly fluctuating, meaning that a game's price (new or used!) is just as important to a purchase as a good review. Taking this idea, we will be rating new games on the scale of it's MSRP. For example, if Halo Reach is a great game, truly worthy of your spending $60 on, we'll give it a $60/$60. If it blows, on the other hand, we'll rate it appropriate to what price we'd pay to pick it up (so, say, $25/$60). If it's not worth buying or playing ever, it gets a Final Fantasy X/$60. Just kidding! A TURKEY/$60. Keep in mind that we are telling you what we think the game is worth, so this may mean in rare cases that we think a game is actually worth more than the MSRP. In situations like that, likely a downloadable or budget game, you may see a score of $15/$10. Don't forget, these are OUR opinions, but at the same time, we have YOUR money in mind.
We're using this scale to bring some quantitative measurement to our reviews, but also because we think it is a useful scale for real gamers, like us, who don't have a ton of money to spend on games. We're also brewing some more review tools for use down the line that take our system a few steps farther.
So look for our inaugural review using this system soon. It's Final Fantasy XIII!
Image: MaccaMacca91 - DeviantArt
SNES-A-Day: American Gladiators
crafted by: Paul
Be still my heart fart!
American Gladiators
Time played: 6 minutes
Events won: 0
More like, events understood: 0! This game makes no sense. On several occasions I found myself in the "goal" zone after dodging bullets to get there, but the clock still counting down. They wouldn't let me leave the game! I'm no American Gladiators expert - I know enough to think references to the colorful "cast" of gladiators is funny, but I don't know most of the actual events besides the padded-q-tip duel.
Fortunately the game let me zip right along through the contests, and fortunately the computer was dumb enough that often both of us lost the event.
I won't lie, I played this several days ago still in a haze of sickness so I can't remember most of what happened. But I took lots of pictures.
None of me are champions!
Boobs vs legs! Both muscley!
TBB Summons “The Games of April!”
crafted by: PaulMarch was such an orgy of A, AA, and AAA titles, how could April begin to compare? Well, it can't. It looks like a real snoooooozer of a month. I guess that April is what March would look like any other year.
Just like every month, Paul and Alex weigh in on April's game releases:
April 13
Splinter Cell: Conviction (360, PC)
Paul: Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn. Splinter Cell? No thanks. While the games were charming on the old Xbox, they were also incredibly frustrating - control and gameplay never being as precise as the environments demanded. While some of the ideas here are interesting, especially the naturalistic mission markings, it looks too much like more of the same, old, unfun Splinter Cell.
Alex: I never liked Splinter Cell, and I was never interested in Conviction. I was even less interested when I heard that it still felt like a Splinter Cell game. I think this might be on a lot of people's big hitter list but, I doubt I'll care when this comes out.
Quantum Theory (PS3, 360)
Paul: Tecmo asked Gears of War and anime fans what game they should make next, and this is what they made.
Alex: What is this shit? I heard the Gears of War comparison, but I wasn't expecting to a see a game that looked exactly what Gears of War would look like on PSP.
April 20
Monster Hunter Tri (Wii)
Paul: Never played any Monster Hunter for more than 2 minutes of a PSP and it seems like, unless you're a Japanese school boy/girl with a million friends to play with, it isn't fun.
Alex: Hunting dinosaurs with a giant sword, a giant missile lance gun thing, and dual wielding swords? Yes please! Terrible controls, grinding for items, and complicated equipment system. No thanks. I own Monster Hunter Freedom Unite on PSP, and Pokemon Trainer Kev and I played quite a lot together. But ultimately I find the game really frustrating and repetitive.
April 27
Super Street Fighter IV (PS3, 360)
Paul: I am so bad at fighting games.
Alex: I might pick this game up, likely only because i'm sure I'll get an urge to spend money and this will be the only thing out. I like fighting game but I suck at them. I've never been very much into street fighter. But now that I have a PS3 I would like to put the best first party fighting pad to use.
Dead to Rights Retribution (PS3, 360)
Paul: Dead to Rights? Really? Oh, and it's "darker" this time? Wow. Never in a million years.
Alex: The only remotely interesting thing about this game if is that you get a dog. I like dogs.
Record of Agarest War Really Naughty Limited Edition (360)
Paul: This is fascinating because instead of letting the big boobs on the box of this generic strategy RPG sell themselves to fat, sad nerds, they have to explicitly call the game naughty. The limited edition comes with extra boob and panty shots, and even a mouse pad with big boobs to put your wrist on. Also being releases sans box on PSN.
Alex: Wow, I googled shit for like 10 minutes and I still have no idea what this game is about other than the boob mouse pad. You now I almost respect it going for a really old school look and feel during the 3 seconds of gameplay I saw. I also respect how shameless it is, but am offended that they think I play JRPGs for the boobs... alright I do but not when they make it so obvious.
Nier (PS3, 360)
Paul: Action game with a lot of RPG magic flavor. Going by preview videos, it mostly involves a floating, wise-cracking book that hovers around your character.
Alex: I watched a game play trailer and it reminded me of Quest 64. Good or bad? You decide.
Infinite Space, Finite Patience
crafted by: Paul
Show me your photon torpedo or get out
When I first heard about Infinite Space many months ago, it sounded so cool that it made me want a DS. A portable space-RPG where you customize and build your own spaceships? That was good enough for me, but then someone said "anime Mass Effect" and I fell out of my chair. I didn't go out and buy a DS then and there, but Infinite Space wound up being a game that was on my radar for a long time.
But, like most Sega games these days, the actual release of the product came and went with nary a peep or review online. Instead of buying it, then, I waited for a hint to whether it was worth it. I heard some mixed-to-good things over a few days, debated buying Resonance of Fate instead, then was struck with a savage bug that left me in bed for several days. The mere thought of an idiosyncratic JRPG made me barf.
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