Monday, August 05, 2002

Review of Mark of Kri for PS2     Publisher: SCEA     Developer: SCEA     Genre: Action     # Of players: 1     Once, long ago, the land was covered in a spell of darkness.  But wise sages were able to break the spell into 6 pieces and entrust them to 6 different families to keep them out of the hands of the agents of darkness.  Time passed, and people forgot out the spell, thinking it simply a myth.  But the darkness has no sense of time, and infinite amounts of patience, and is merely waiting for the time to rise again.     And that’s where you come in.  You are Rau, a young and skilled warrior, and hungry for adventure.  And what turns into a simple quest to rid the land of some bandits turns into an adventure to save the world from being covered in darkness once again.  Featuring very cartoony animation (although this is definitely a grown-up cartoon, as there’s plenty of blood and gore) and a very original battle system.  Mark of Kri tries to be something new and original, and for the most part it succeeds, making it one of the best action games this year on PS2. Graphics: Great-animated designs of characters that make them look straight out of a Disney film (and all the cinemas are real time).  Animation is fluid and flawless.  Enemies and the Hero look great whether they are intensely fighting, or getting their heads slammed into a wall.  Levels are colorful, and large, and just have a great epic feeling to them. Sound: Excellent voice acting on every single character, the music is very well done, as are the sound effects.  Every body part being sliced off, every sword clashing, every arrow whistling through the air, the sound is nothing short of perfect. Gameplay: There are some very interesting ideas here that are actually new, and for the most part, they work very well.  You can use your bird to scout areas up ahead from specific spots, which is very cool.  You can sneak up on enemies and take them out in very gruesome and cool ways, but they way stealth works is a little inconsistent (i.e. you scatter a flock of birds and they will hear you a mile away, but they mostly won’t notice if you took someone out who is right next to them until it’s way too late).  The fighting system is also the best I’ve seen yet as far as fighting multiple enemies goes, but it still has some minor problems.  You use a focus beam to focus onto up to 3 enemies at once, using a different button for each one, which is really clever, but plenty of times you are fighting 4 or 5 guys at once, so they can pretty easily get cheap shots in.  And it’s a minor thing, but I don’t like how good the archers’ aim is since they can kill you in one shot from a distance. Features: Aside from the usual features, you can unlock time attack arenas, cheats, and outfits.  But how about some hidden weapons? Funfactor: It’s original, it’s fun, but like the top 2 PS2 action games of last year, Metal Gear Solid and Devil May Cry, it’s short.  With only 6 levels (even though they are pretty big levels), you can beat this in a weekend, and only real hardcore gamers will actually try to get all of the hidden stuff because it’s not worth the difficulty in the end.  But that doesn’t stop it from being one of the top games of the year so far for it’s originality and sheer fun. --Final Scores— Graphics: 10-Flawless, movie style animation, great character and level designs. Sound: 10-Great voice acting, music and effects and superb. Gameplay: 8.0-Nice, original battle system, but a few minor flaws. Features: 7.0-Unlockable minigames, costumes, and cheats, but where are some unlockable weapons? Funfactor: 9.0-Simply the best action game of the year so far on PS2. 2:02:55 PM    comment []

Review of Gravity Games Bike: Street. Vert. Dirt. For PS2     Publisher: Midway     Developer: Midway     Genre: Sports     # Of Players: 1-2 Gravity Games is the latest attempt to cash in on the Tony Hawk and extreme sports craze that’s been going on.  This is Midway’s attempt to cash in on the craze, and maybe it would’ve been best if they stuck to their blitz style games.  Gravity Games is much worse than a mediocre rip-off of Tony Hawk, Dave Mirra, or Aggressive Inline, or any of those other series, it’s the first real contender among a bunch of bad games for worst game of the year. Graphics: Poorly colored, low textured levels that are jaggy all over the place.  Severe lack of animation as the only animation existing is seeing those wheels on the bike turn.  You gasp in amazement as your guy falls halfway through solid concrete, and not always just when he crashes as your bike will occasionally sink partway into the ground.  This doesn’t even qualify as decent for a PS one game. Sound: Well, there’s a few decent licensed songs by Sugar Ray, 311 and a couple of others, but 90% of the tracks are god awful tracks recorded by some god-awful rap group that I’ve never heard of.  There are no in game sound effects to speak of. Gameplay: Well, the game tries to be original by giving you interesting objectives like freeing a girl from railroad tracks, but the controls are so horribly unresponsive, it doesn’t matter.  Also, in straight up ompetitions, the game doesn’t recognize if you keep pulling off the same trick repeatedly, so just pick one trick you are good at and do it repeatedly and you’ll win pretty much every time.  Also, when you crash, you’ll start back right where you crashed, which can occasionally make you permanently stuck and have to start the whole level over. Features: Most of the standard stuff, but no tutorial or custom arena, both of which should really be standard in these kinds of games by now, Funfactor: Although nothing can really match the horrendousness of last year’s worst game Kabuki Warriors, this comes pretty damn close.  It doesn’t take much to make a bad imitation of something like Tony Hawk, but something this bad almost seems like a deliberate effort on Midway’s part.  A lot of bad games come out every year, but this is one of those that stand out as truly horrible.  There just simply isn’t a worse game available this year.  Only rent out of morbid curiosity. --Final Scores— Graphics: 1.0-Barely qualifies for a decent PS one game graphics-wise. Sound: 4.0-A few good licensed songs, but most are pure crap, and there are no sound effects. Gameplay: 1.5-Idiotic scoring system, unresponsive controls, and a truly bad respawning system as well. Features: 4.0-Missing custom track editor and tutorial which should be mandatory these days. Funfactor: 1.5-Only play if you want to see how bad a game can truly be.  I may be lighter on other bad games from now on just because few come close to this. 1:56:59 PM    comment []

Review of Mike Tyson’s Heavyweight Boxing for PS2     Publisher: Codemasters     Development: Codemasters     Genre: Boxing     # Of Players: 1-2     Well, regardless of whether or not he deserves it, Mike Tyson has another boxing game using his name; possibly to try and recapture the long lost glory of Mike Tyson’s Punch Out way back in the days of the NES.  Featuring Iron Mike as well as a host of boxers I’ve never even heard of (course, I haven’t really watched boxing since Douglas beat Tyson).  But while it tries to make a good balance between simulation and arcade, with tons of moves and flashy combos, it fails pathetically at being either. Graphics: Not bad…. for a first generation PS2 game.  While the character models are fairly solid, they are missing any good details on the boxers you’d see in most boxing games (like good details on the muscles, scars, etc).  And your boxer never changes during fighting, he never looks tired or bloody, just a vacant stare.  Hell, Iron Mike doesn’t even look good.  Sound: Well, the entrances are done fairly decently, but crowd reactions are generic, in-game music is god-awful; commentary is extremely repetitive and idiotic (in all seriousness, they should leave out commentary on games all together, it has never worked well).  Sound effects are done fine, but nothing particularly noteworthy. Gameplay: Controls are way too complicated for an arcade brawler, with about every single kind of punch you can imagine, but adds in cheesy combos that the computer is of course a master at hitting instantly to make it stray from being a straight sim.  Collision detection is absolutely god-awful, as many times you’ll actually hit shots more often from out of range than in close, and the computer A.I. is borderline skitzo, sometimes not even reacting to you, and other times making you its personal punching bag, and this can be the same boxer you’ve fought 10 times already. Features: Well, it features what should be the basics of any boxing, the create-a-boxer is surprisingly decent, giving you better options than most boxing games and even more than some wrestling (i.e. any current one other than Smackdown 3). Funfactor: I’d think I’d have more fun actually being in the ring with Tyson.  There are a lot of merely mediocre boxing games out there, and quite frankly, none have been able to match the pure fun of Super Punch out on the SNES, but this is one that doesn’t even match the fun of getting teeth pulled. Graphics: 4.0-If it came out two years ago when PS2 first launched, it might be considered decent-looking.   Sound: 6.5-Entrances are done well, and sound effects are decent, but in-game music and commentary is painful. Gameplay: 2.0-Useless, flashy combos, skitzo A.I, worst collision detection I’ve ever seen in a boxing game, do I really need to go on? Features:  6.0-Surprisingly decent create-a-boxer, but other than that, just the normal amount of options for a boxing game. Funfactor: 3.5-Looks ugly, plays ugly, is ugly.  So maybe this is a game deserving of Tyson J 1:52:59 PM    comment []

Review of Signs     Mel Gibson plays a reverend and father of two who has left the church after his wife died from being hit by a truck.  It is now 6 months after the accident, and Gibson is living on his farm with his kids and his younger brother (Joaquin Phoenix) when a strange phenomenon occurs in his crop fields.  It looks like a crop circle, but of course Gibson thinks it’s a stupid hoax.  That is, until it starts happening at a massive rate in the rest of the world, and all the strange events can only point to one thing.     Its kind of hard to fairly rate this movie, because I did enjoy it, but not for the reasons I should have.  This movie fails to be suspenseful or terrifying, as it is essentially a poor attempt to recreate a Hitchcock style of movie where the whole movie builds to a moment (instead of a series of moments like most suspense films) keeping you tense throughout, throwing in muddled messages about faith and whether or not there are miracles.  But the reason I actually enjoyed it was because I found quite a bit of it extremely funny.  Some of this is intentional (as a way to break the nonexistent tension), for example, seeing Phoenix become more obsessed with the aliens than the kids are.  But some of it unintentional, such as all the correct information being in a book that just happened to be in the local town bookstore by complete accident, and certain things I can’t say because they will spoil the plot points if you intend on seeing this picture.  Maybe if the director had decided make it straight suspense or pure camp instead of trying to mix both (or at least getting a director who can do that like Joss Whedon) it would’ve been a much stronger film. Final Grade: C+ 1:48:43 PM    comment []