Monday, September 30, 2002

Review of The Tuxedo     Jimmy Chong (Jackie Chan) is just your everyday cab driver.  Until he gets hired to be the driver of billionaire playboy Clark Devlin, who is actually an agent for the CSA, and he has a billion dollar tux that makes him able to do just about anything.  Jimmy & Clark become fast friends, but one night while driving him around, somebody blows up the car, leaving Devlin incapacitated, and Chong has to take his place (along with Devlin’s super tux).  This puts him in the middle of a dangerous mission to save the world’s water supply and having to deal with an extremely inexperienced agent (Jennifer Love Hewitt).     This sounds like your standard Chan film, with an everyday guy getting in way over his head, and that’s the problem.  The fighting scenes for the most part lack any real energy (although the final battle is pretty good), and most of the physical comedy in the movie falls flat on its face.  Jennifer Love Hewitt has proven to be a pretty good comedic actress, but few people could make this stuff funny, and she’s not one of them.  The sad thing is that she and Chan work pretty well together, so it’s not good that their first outing together is such an unoriginal effort.  This is not a bad film, but it’s an extremely formulaic and unoriginal one, and just not worth really worth my time or yours. Final Grade: C 8:42:26 AM    comment []

Review of Terminator: Dawn of Fate for PS2     Publisher: Atari     Developer: Paradigm Entertainment     Genre: Action     # Of Players: 1     The T-800 is back, and in a bad, bad way.  Loosely based on the upcoming third chapter in the Terminator series, DoF brings you into the future, where a relatively small force of humans led by John Connor is all that stands between the evil Skynet and total annihilation of the human race.  Skynet has nearly completed a time machine, and you as part of the resistance, must stop them from sending a Terminator that looks human into the past to kill John’s mother, Sara (any of this sound familiar?).     DoF tries to be a big super action game.  Lots of firepower, lots of enemies, and lots of explosions, even some martial arts mixed in.  But unfortunately, this is one the most laughably bad uses of a license I’ve ever seen. Graphics: Ok, while the graphics in game are perfectly serviceable, they aren’t great, and the game literally freezes for a second every time you reload.  Everything lacks a certain polish you see in most games these ays.  And the cinemas in the game aren’t even good quality for a PS one game, especially since the characters can’t seem to stand still for two seconds and feel they need to constantly make gestures as they are talking (and really awkward ones at that). Sound: The voice acting itself is fairly solid, but the dialogue is god-awful (let’s pray it’s much better in the actual movie).  Music is nice, with some instrumentals stolen from the first two movies, but no really epic music to get you pumping.  The effects are extremely lacking however; as explosions sound weak, the terminators make no real sounds, etc. Gameplay: The setup control is completely idiotic and inefficient, plus half the time the game will switch me back to hand to hand for no reason.  In the days of competent enemy & ally A.I. in games like Halo, Half-Life and Medal of Honor, the just stand there till I get shot A.I. of characters on both sides is fairly inexcusable (or at least you need cool things to compensate, like they did with Max Payne), and the A.I. in DoF is just about some of the worst I’ve seen on a next gen console, and the fighting is dull as hell, and annoying since there is no way to lock on to a target. Features: Surprisingly packed, with dvd extras and unlockable cheats, but where’s multi-player? Funfactor: There have been a couple of really good shooters, and a couple of really mediocre shooters to come out this year, but this is the worst shooter of the year by a long shot, with horrid graphics and controls, and just plain lack of originality (if this game teaches us anything, it’s that games will continue to steal badly from other games).   Let’s just pray that the movie isn’t nearly as bad as this. --Final Scores— Graphics: 2.0-Cinemas aren’t even top notch for a PS one game, constant stoppage when you reload, and just plain lacks polish. Sound: 6.5-Solid voice acting, and decent music. But totally lacking in effects. Gameplay: 4.0-Horrible setup, couple of bad bugs, and A.I. is an insult to the ass-backwards A.I. you find in many other titles. Features: 8.0-Loaded with unlockable cheats & dvd extras, but needs multi-player. Funfactor:  4.0-Horrible use of an awesome license.  Again, let’s pray the movie is better. 8:40:03 AM    comment []

Review of Commandoes 2: Men of Courage for Xbox     Publisher: Eidos Interactive     Developer: Pyro     Genre: Strategy     # Of Players: 1     Commandoes 2 is a somewhat unique game.  It’s not completely unique in concept, as you do in games like Rainbow Six where you lead an elite squad of commandoes on complex and dangerous missions.  But the presentation and engine is borrowed from games like Warcraft, so it’s an unusual mix (actually kind of reminds of the classic genesis game General Chaos, if anybody still remembers that one).  This is no game for pansies who need shields and lasers guns or a massive army.  It’s unique on console, but it’s clearly designed for PC, which, in addition to the unrelenting difficulty may turn off some gamers. Graphics: Well, let’s be honest, the graphics suck.  Everything is colorful and moves very smoothly, but there are no great effects or touches and the style is somewhat minimal.  The soldiers lack any distinguishing features, as do the buildings and towers.  It looks a lot like army men games, but with a little more color. Sound: Decent voice acting, sound effects are somewhat minimal, however, are there is very minimal voices in the actual game, and you don’t hear the normal sound effects you’d hear on a real battlefield (like in say, Medal of Honor).  The music is actually very well done, however, I enjoyed the pseudo-orchestral score quite a bit. Gameplay: Despite all those damn buttons on the Xbox’s massive controller, the designer’s tried to make this kind of simplified, as the entire control scheme is handled by about three buttons, which keeps it hard to remember what does what (the tutorial was so long I couldn’t only get through the general basic training).  The levels are creative and the objectives are pretty varied, but again, the difficulty is relentless.  Every mission is pretty much trial and error, and enemies quite easily spot you, and if they do before you are prepared, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be game over.  Plus, every mission has to be done in a very exact way, sometimes with specific timing. Features: No real extras.  This game could be awesome multiplayer (and especially online) Funfactor: This is the only game of its type on Xbox or any of the next gen consoles for that matter, and it’s quite a bit of fun, and one of a very select amount of games that are genuinely challenging without being cheap (*cough* STUNTMAN *cough*).  So if you are up for something a little different and genuinely tough, go to war with Commandoes 2. --Final Scores— Graphics: 2.5-Ok, the graphics just suck; these could possibly be done on Super Nes (although they probably wouldn’t run nearly as smoothly). Sound: 7.0-Lacking in effects, but music and voice are done quite nicely. Gameplay: 7.5-Controls aren’t laid out well enough, but missions are nice and varied, but extreme difficulty may turn off some. Features: 5.0-Bare minimum, where the heck is the multi-player? Funfactor: 7.0-Hard, but a rare to find experience for console owners, and a real challenge for those hardcore gamers who are always looking for one. 8:28:50 AM    comment []