Monday, July 15, 2002

Review of The Way of the Samurai for PS2     Publisher: Bam! Entertainment     Developer: Acquire     Genre: Adventure     # Of Players: 1 Way of the Samurai presents a very unique experience for PS2.  You play Kenji, a masterless samurai wandering the land, and you can pretty much choose whether you want to be a true a noble samurai, an evil warrior, or just someone who does things his own way.  With a deep fighting system and intricate plot, you’d figure this to be the next PS2 classic, but a few key flaws keep it from being more than a solid action game. Graphics: Well, they get the job done, I guess. Poor use of colors, animation is ok, but nothing noteworthy, towns are bland and lifeless.  It gets better outside towns, as there is usually a lot more action, but still, this is strictly first-generation level graphics. Sound: No voice acting, the npcs just make a weird sound when they talk.  The music is a weird fusion between techno and the ancient style music you usually hear in games taking place in similar time periods but it sort of works since it is a fresh change of pace from the usual.  The sound effects are pretty well done, however, especially in battle, as you’ll hear every sword slash, kick, grunt, and so on. Gameplay: A mixed bag.  While the system in concept is incredibly deep, offering a wide variety of swords, each with their own style and moves, the fighting is kept rather simplistic, as doing anything fancy will usually cost you dearly in intense battles.  In a lot of the fights, when your bar or an enemy’s bar gets halfway down, the fight is considered over which sucks in a dead even duel (which I had more than one of).  You can only save at the end of “stages”, which doesn’t really inspire you to try again.  And while the game claims that only one guy fight you at a time, others still get the occasional cheap shot in. Features: You can choose difficulty, and to a certain extent how your character looks, but it doesn’t make a difference, so why bother? Funfactor: Despite my complaints, this is an extremely solid straightforward action game on a system that is surprisingly lacking in them.  The deep combat system and ability to choose your own path makes it a unique experience well worth trying in a slow summer (especially if your done blowing away Nazis in Medal of Honor). --Final Scores— Graphics: 5.0-Lifeless towns, drab colors, only decent animation. Sound: 7.5-Music is refreshingly original, and sound effects are solid, but no voice acting. Gameplay: 7.0-Deep combat system, but can’t save enough, and some battle inconsistencies. Features: 5.5-Couple of decent extras, but nothing truly noteworthy. Funfactor: 7.0-A solid and original action adventure for fans of the genre. 11:52:24 AM    comment []

Review of Men in Black II: Alien Escape for PS2     Publisher: Infogrames     Developer: Melbourne House     Genre: Shooter     # Of Players: 1 Just in time for the release of the sequel comes a game that oddly has little to do with this week’s big theatrical release: Men in Black II.  In Alien Escape, you can play as either agent J or agent K (although who would know since they don’t look anything like their real life or cartoon counterparts).  In it, a gang of the some of the worst alien criminals has escaped from a prison ship that crashed into Earth more than 30 years ago, and you are sent out to capture them.  But what could’ve been a solid run n gun game or action/adventure is a boring simplistic crap use of a good license. Graphics: Again, these guys look like real poor impersonators.  If they can’t use Smith or Jones’ likenesses, why not use the cartoon as a basis?  Animation is minimal, as many enemies seem to simply float across the screen, and gun effects are right of cheesy old games like Areas 51.  The levels are extremely boring and generic as well. Sound: Music fits the style of the game pretty well, and voice acting of main characters is decent.  Aliens all have the same generic grunts, and guns don’t have any unique sounds either.  Here’s a wild idea: use music from the freaking movie!  What is the point of this license if they aren’t using anything from it? Gameplay: No jump button.  The guns are stolen from 5 billion other cheesy shooters.  Getting out of the way of shots is difficult because you have to turn, than run.  There are no real differences between J & K.  Levels all consist of shot everything that moves with no real variety in tactics or otherwise.  There’s very little real variety to the levels.  This game would’ve really benefited from being 2-player and a light gun game.  Features: Boss mode, but it’s boring.  Again, no 2-player, but can unlock nifty extras like the making of MIBII. Funfactor: What a horrible waste of a good license.  This has very little to do with the movie and especially the MIB franchise in general.  It’s a poor excuse to milk a few bucks out of name.  But it isn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last.  The sad thing is had this simply been switched to a light gun game and made 2-player, it could’ve been pretty good. --Final Scores— Graphics: 5.0-Poor animation, characters don’t even look close to their counterparts, and levels and effects and unimaginative and unoriginal. Sound: 7.0-Voices of main characters and music is decently done but effects and aliens need work. Gameplay: 5.0-Needs jump button, better game variety or just change it to a light gun game. Features: 6.5-Lots of extra footage to unlock and boss battle mode, but where’s two-player or unlockable characters? Funfactor: 5.5-I want to be neuralized so I can forget about playing this game. 11:48:25 AM    comment []

The Bottom Rope for 7/7     Ok, sorry for no column last week, but I was burned out from doing a lot of game reviews and working some extra hours at my job that actually pays (plus there just wasn’t much I wanted to write about).  This week a lot has changed.  Russo has apparently come back (and that fat toad Mark Madden crawled out of whatever sewer he’s been living under to sing the praises of the man who put the final nail in the coffin for WCW the company he worked at for so many years), and left in the same week because Vince was wise enough not to give him a lot of leeway.  I didn’t really have a problem with him being hired, as under Vince’s supervision, he had plenty of good ideas, but in WCW he was given complete creative control, which resulted in crap gimmicks like “Oklahoma”.  But I have no problem with him being fired either.  I’m sure he’ll find some nice work writing for Mexican soaps :)      Moving on, I would just like to say that it was kind of freaky that Hogan & Edge became tag champs this week, when I got Wrestlemania for Gamecube a few weeks ago, first thing I did was make Hogan & Edge my tag champs.  Just a very odd coincidence.     No on, to the real issue of this week:  the so-called “downfall” of the WWF.  You don’t even have to be a wrestling fan to know that the WWF is not the massive powerhouse it was only two years ago.  It’s even been reported by CNN (which is owned by one of Vince’s top rivals Ted Turner, gee I’m sure that’s coincidence since no other major news outlet considered it newsworthy) about the WWF’s loss in revenue and ratings.  And again we are hearing that wrestling has gone way downhill, it has peaked, and it won’t be real popular ever again.  Geez, I really hate fair-weather fans.  The bottom line is that this is nothing new.  Wrestling is, as Vince McMahon has consistently said, a cyclical business.  This has been going on ever since wrestling started, and especially when Vince took it global over 20 years ago.  It has had more than a few periods where it’s been hugely popular, then suddenly seems to go off the map in the public eye, then is hugely popular again.  And the fact of the matter is, that WWF isn’t doing that badly.  Yes ratings are down, but still very high for any cable channel, revenue is down, but they are still making plenty of money.  Yet of course, all the bandwagon jumpers and pessimistic wrestling “purists” (you know, those people who think the only good wrestling is in the indies or Japan) are proudly hailing the end of the big evil corporate WWF so they can go back to the dark ages of only having regional promotions.  Is the WWF down right now?  Yes, but it’s far from out, and while it needs work, it still is has plenty of good things going for it and it will rise again and be bigger than it ever has been before because history tends to repeat itself. 11:45:28 AM    comment []

Review of Men in Black II     Agent J & K are back in action in the sequel to the megahit of 5 years ago.  Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones reprise their roles as secret agents who protect the Earth from the scum of the Universe.  The evil and tentacle-heavy Serleena (Laura Flynn Boyle) is desperately searching for something called light of Zartha.  K knows where it is, but of course, he was neuralized at the end of the last movie, so J has to get his memory back so he can help find out where the light of Zartha is.     Of course, in a movie like this, the plot isn’t all that essential.  You go to movies like this to see great special effects, good action, and hopefully so good humor, and MIB II knows that, as it serves up plenty of all three.  Every single joke is really clever and funny (including Michael Jackson’s much publicized cameo, the special effects are great, and the action for the most part is great.  My only major complaint is that in a couple of the action sequences, K & Zed (Rip Torn) start doing some Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-style maneuvers, and it just looks absurdly stupid.     The movie, much like the first one, also plays real well off the great chemistry between Jones & Smith with a lot of great little interactions and character developments.  This is one big summer movie sequel that doesn’t disappoint and is actually just as good as the original. Final Grade: A- 11:42:43 AM    comment []

Review of Road to Perdition     Tom Hanks plays a bad guy.  In this gangster drama, he plays Michael Sullivan, a ruthless hitman for crime boss Rooney (Paul Newman).  Unfortunately, his oldest son, also named Michael, witnesses him and Rooney’s son kills some men.  Rooney’s son, worried that the kid will talk, kills his mother and younger brother in a botched assassination attempt.  Now, Hanks must protect his son while also trying to kill Rooney’s son, who is under protection from the mob, and a hitman (Jude Law) who has a major fascination with death is also after Hanks.     There is plenty to like about Road to Perdition.  The cinematography and score are very well done, and Hanks and Newman both do a great job.  But unfortunately, there are also some major flaws.  Jude Law’s character is a cheesy mobster cartoon with no real dimension (a hitman whose fascinated with eath, how original).  And Hanks and Newman’s characters both do a lot of things that don’t fit their characters (a guy as ruthless as Rooney would’ve killed a son as troublesome as his right after he killed Sullivan’s wife and youngest son because of the trouble it would cause him, and talking about the out of character things Hanks does would spoil some major plot points so I won’t reveal them).  The picture also has some trouble deciding whether it wants to be an action or a drama and as a result, it gets kind of muddled.  Overall, I enjoyed Road to Perdition, but it’s nowhere near great crime dramas like The Godfather. Final Grade: B- 11:40:54 AM    comment []

Review of Reign of Fire     Apparently, Dragons have existed on the Erath for thousands of years.  They wiped out the dinosaurs, and whenever they arise, they scorch the earth until there are no resources, and then they go to sleep, waiting for the earth to heal itself.  That’s the premise behind Reign of Fire.  It starts off in the present day, where a mining crew discovers a nest in England.  Of course, this spells disaster for the human race (but we only get hints of what happened).  We fast-forward about twenty years.  Few humans are left, and the boy who saw the first dragon (and survived) is now a young man (Christian Bale), who is leading a small band of survivors in a castle outside of London.  He thinks he can simply outlast the dragons, but soon a gung-ho American dragonslayer (Matthew McConaughey) comes along with troops, a couple of tanks, and a chopper.  He plans to go to London where it started and kill the male (because there’s only one of them, and if you kill him, no more can be spawned).     Humans vs. Dragons using modern weaponry sound like a fun cheesy action flick, but Reign of fire is lacking fun and surprisingly lacking in action, but not in cheese.  McConaughey’s character is as cartoonish as you can get, literally spitting and hacking out every single line.  You only really see two dragons throughout the entire movie, and there’s more fighting between the humans.  It would’ve been a lot better if they cut out about twenty minutes and the finale was an all out massive battle.  As it stands, this might be a good free rental. Final Grade: C 11:39:18 AM    comment []