Videogame Reviews
Titles Covered: Skyward Sword, TIE Fighter, Red Dead Redemption, Renegade Ops, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Binary Domain, Hell Yeah, Jet Set Radio, Viking: Battle for Asgard
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (****)
Also known as “the motion-control Zelda game,” Skyward Sword was generally well received by critics and fans alike. However, it gets a lot of hate from some circles of the Internet, generally from those who either hate motion controls or just couldn't get over how Skyward Sword didn't live up to [insert Zelda game that came out when you were 10].
That's not to say that the game doesn't have some legit flaws. There's definitely more than a few: the game doesn't teach you how to fly the bird correctly (read the instruction manual!), sidekick “Fi” is annoying and overused, there's not enough interesting locations in the sky world, and the game gets off to a very slow start. The slow start is probably the biggest problem, as the game takes about 4 hours to ramp up from “meh” to “wow, this game is awesome!” Frankly, the entire opening chapter on Skyloft could have been pared down to 15 minutes. Cut out redundant cut-scenes and tutorials (the forest world already serves that purpose!), and just get on with the adventure!
But hang in there... Once you get to your first major dungeon the game starts to pick up, and it just gets better and better from there. The game looks great, has ambitious and varied level designs, and uses the motion control to differentiate it from other Zelda games. The motion controls are used very extensively, and I really enjoyed the tactile feel that they lent the game. Each new tool felt like a new skill to learn, rather than just an option that you select before pressing the same old buttons.
Also, I liked a lot of the story elements, particularly in the third act. Some highlights include Zelda's playful personality, the use of time travel, and the origin story for Ganon and the Master Sword. However, the strongest story element is the character arc of “Groose,” a conceited bully in Link's hometown who goes through a stunning and believable redemption arc. Also, props to Groose for realizing that if you know exactly where the monster is going to appear, you can do something about this!
The Zelda formula is so well-worn that it's hard to make a new entry stand out. I know I've played well-regarded entries such as the Minish Cap and Link's Awakening, but I couldn't tell you much about them. But Skyward Sword stands out, flaws and all, as a different Zelda game, so I'm willing to put up with an annoying sidekick in order to enjoy the beauty underneath. The graphics, story, and unique gameplay make it a worthwhile experience.
TIE Fighter (*** and a half)
I almost gave up on this oldschool classic.
If there's one reason I've always preferred consoles to PC gaming, it's that console games actually work. You plug in a game, plug in the standard controller, and are good to go. When I first found TIE Fighter in a store back in the 90's, I knew my computer couldn't run it. Now, 20+ years later, I found the game has a crazy control scheme that requires you to either get a joystick or get carpal tunnel syndrome. Joysticks are not standard input devices for PC's now, nor were they back in the 90's. Maybe this isn't a huge deal, but it epitomizes the flawed design philosophy of PC games: they don't actually work for most PC owners.
Fortunately, my wife had an old PC gamepad lying around that the game interpreted as a joystick and... wow, this game is actually fun once you get it to work!
My previous experience with Star Wars space-ship games was with the Rogue Squadron games. Rogue Squadron is an arcade-shooter experience, in which relatively slow-moving ships blast each other in small arenas using a certain degree of auto-aim. TIE Fighter is more of a flight simulator, in which a complete array of instrumentation and complicated controls are necessary in order to chase tiny spaceships rocketing along at about 600 miles/hour as you peer out your tiny window into the deep void of space. It's an entirely different experience than I was used to, and a very rewarding one. It takes time to learn, and getting used to moving your hands between the flight-stick and the various power/targeting/engine controls.
The game is linear, but it offers a lot of optional objectives. Throughout the game, Sith-like figures give you additional orders from the Emperor, which usually involve reconnaissance/spying actions. It can be a bit overwhelming to keep the battles straight, but the objectives usually start to make sense once you peruse the “goals” checklist.
Oddly enough, TIE Fighter is actually too long, with somewhere around 80 flight missions across the whole story campaign. Granted, about half of those were originally packaged as separate expansions. I do think that the length would have been better justified if the battlefields had more variety. As is, every mission takes place in deep space, with no relevant celestial bodies. This is an area where Rogue Squadron brought improvements, by making each mission very distinct.
On the whole, TIE Fighter mostly holds up, and I haven't really seen a more modern Star Wars game quite like it. The hard-core flight simulator design makes it a very involved game, albeit one with a steep learning curve.
Red Dead Redemption (**** and a half)
Hurray! I'm finally catching up on games that everyone else beat at least 9 years ago!
Known as one of the most detailed games ever made, Red Dead Redemption encompasses a huge, living world set in the Old West. Wild animals populate the landscape, people move about towns and converse with each other, trains carry passengers around the entire world in real time, and horse riders travelers will even pull over occasionally to take a pee break. Yes, really. The scale and scope of the game is astounding, especially with the large variation in beautiful terrain, which encompasses chaparral, desert, forest, prairie, canyons, and snowy mountains.
Of course, being such a large and open-ended game, there's lots of room for minor gameplay flaws. So, let me get the nitpicks out of the way: The non-story activities and random encounters are fun, but don't really help you become any stronger. Your main reward is money, which you rarely need since your starting horse is really good (a new one magically appears if it dies) while guns and ammunition are found lying about. The entire game mechanic in which you can become an outlaw (like in Grand Theft Auto) is poorly integrated; there's one minor use of it in the story, and no reason to go criminal ever again. Actually, the time to use the outlaw mechanic would have been in the Mexico chapter, but it mysteriously goes away during story missions that have you fighting the Mexican government. Speaking of Mexico, the game pretty much loses the plot in that section. And... there's a bunch of minor glitches, the landscape has too many wolves, and the day-night cycle feels way off.
Anyway... aside from that long list of nitpicks, Red Dead Redemption is pretty awesome and lives up to the hype. I've never liked Grand Theft Auto, but Red Dead Redemption takes similar mechanics and turns them into a more exciting and engaging open-world RPG. The sprawling landscapes are beautiful and fun to explore, the shoot-outs are fast-paced and engaging, and the sense of adventure is awesome. The combination of cover-based shooting and slow-motion multi-shot targeting works extremely well, and the option to capture outlaws alive with the lasso is a nice touch. There is a lot of travel time, but it rarely feels wasted. You'll either be looking for something, listening to dialogue, or participating in a chase. Or, if none of the above applies, mark your destination on the map and warp to it. The story is about average for a videogame, and it is helped by above-average writing and voice-acting. The player character is nuanced and diplomatic (he's sort of the anti-Kratos), and comes off as a believable, normal person.
Also,an interesting moment happened when I exited a saloon. A prostitute propositioned my character, and he immediately turned her down. I turned to my wife and said, “that's the difference between Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto.”
Red Dead Redemption is awesome and you should play it, even if you haven't liked other games from Rockstar.
Six Sega Games I Got For Free on Steam (I honestly forget how...)
Renegade Ops (** and a half)
It's fine.
I'm not sure what to say about this game. The whole gimmick is that they took the 3D engine from an open-world game (Just Cause) and made a simple arcade shooter out of it. You drive a car around, shoot things, blow everything up, and try not to get blown up yourself. That's pretty much it.
Renegade Ops is fun but shallow. I think if the enemy design were more creative or the powerups more exciting I'd give it a thumbs up, but as is... it's fine.
Condemned: Criminal Origins (*** and a half)
I'm a big fan of spooky first-person games such as Thief, Doom 3, and Bioshock. However, one that never resonated with me was F.E.A.R., an awkward amalgamation of standard military shooter gameplay and spooky interludes that felt like they belonged in a different game. Thus, I was skeptical that the company behind F.E.A.R. would have gotten horror right with their other 2005 spooky shooter.
Fortunately, Condemned is simple and compelling. Rather than following the usual pattern of zombies, body horror, and jump scares, Condemned is a more grounded horror game that saves its supernatural elements for the end. Meanwhile, game takes you on creepy trip through the bad parts of town, as you climb through the wreckage of various abandoned buildings filled with violent drug addicts. Along the way, you'll analyze crime scenes, use CSI tools to look for clues, and try to figure out why birds keep dying everywhere you go. It's weird, it's scary, and it's a very unique atmosphere. The use of melee combat in a first-person game works brilliantly well to make the game feel more visceral and brutal.
It occurs to me that Condemned is the perfect “reviewer game.” It's short, to-the-point, and engaging for its entire playtime. However, if I'd bought Condemned for $60 back in 2005 I might have been disappointed by the lack of difficulty and content. But don't let that stop you from checking out its frightening and twisted atmosphere now.
Binary Domain (***)
I'd never heard of this game before, and actually assumed it must be some obscure indie game. Nope! It's a pretty big-budget 3rd person shooter with epic setpieces. Man, I really haven't been paying attention to the videogame market in recent years...
Binary Domain is another entry in the cover-based shooter trend that started with Gears of War and was immediately copied by games that are way better than Gears of War. Binary Domain's main “hook” is that it takes place in a futuristic cyberpunk setting and features lots of cool looking robots. In fact, nearly all the enemies are robots, and some of the most fun you'll have is tearing the mechanical warriors apart. As you attack the droids, armor plating falls off, mechanical joints break, and optical sensors can be removed. It's a really fun effect, and affects the gameplay. This also plays into some of the boss battles, as you'll need to break certain parts of the giant robots in order to limit their movements and give yourself a clean shot at the weak points.
And... then there's your squad of supporting soldiers. This is supposed to be a key aspect of the game, as you're supposed to build up “trust” with your fellow soldiers so that they obey your orders (spoken through a microphone). The only problem is that the actions that build trust are pretty simplistic, and the only gameplay effect is that the trustworthy team-mates might be 95% useless instead of 100% useless. The squad is awful. You can sort of forget that they're there in many parts of the game, but some area are designed to require squad cooperation. For example, there's a boss fight with a gorilla robot where you have to keep reloading a large gun. You can't do this if the gorilla is chasing after you (which it does for nearly the entire battle) so you're supposed to get your squadmate to reload the gun while you lead the gorilla on a wild goose chase. If she doesn't reload the gun you're SOL.
Binary Domain is the sort of game that makes me feel like a spoiled brat. Its ambitious design and fun core gameplay makes me feel like it should be the most awesome game ever, but the lack of polish is hard to ignore when I've played better similar games. Still, it's worth a playthrough, and I could see myself coming back to it someday.
Hell Yeah (**)
The phrase that comes to mind is “trying too hard.”
The premise of Hell Yeah is that the Prince of Hell is a rabbit (how random!) and he likes rubber duckies (how random!) and someone takes a picture of him with his rubber ducks and posts it on social media (how random!) and so you journey through many random environments fighting many random monsters. Every inch of the game is screaming “Isn't this quirky and random?!” Sure, but is it clever? Eh...
Anyway, the game is basically an indie version of Earthworm Jim mixed with bits of Warioware. Some of the randomness can catch you off-guard and produces a few nice surprises. But as the same tricks repeat themselves, the game gets tiresome.
I've played much worse, but Hell Yeah doesn't really stand out to me.
Jet Set Radio (***)
When Sega debuted the Dreamcast, they announced a series of new and innovative games, including Samba de Amigo, Space Channel Five, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, and Jet Set Radio. When the Dreamcast was canceled, many hip gamers raved about how amazing all these titles were, and how unappreciated Sega was. We didn't deserve the Dreamcast, you plebeians!
Fortunately, most of these titles got ported or remade on other systems, and I finally got around to playing the legendary Jet Set Radio on steam. Does it hold up after 19 years?
The gameplay is certainly unique. The idea is that you're a rollerblader who needs to race around town collecting spray cans, and then you must tag walls in order to claim territory for your gang. The graphics are presented in a cel-shaded style (a relatively early example that pre-dates Wind Waker), and the music consists of funky original tracks.
On the other hand, I'm not crazy about “skate” controls in videogames. Videogame characters typically run way faster than a normal human without getting winded, so what's the point of giving them roller skates? It either makes them too fast, or too slippery, and either way it's harder to control than a traditional 3D platformer. I guess these are magic skates that go faster when you grind on rails for some reason.
Jet Set Radio is creative and amusing, but also kind of frustrating. I'm glad I finally played it, but I think one playthrough was enough to satisfy my curiosity. I'm still convinced that Sega's real masterpiece on the Dreamcast was Skies of Arcadia.
Viking: Battle for Asgard (*** and a half)
Also known as Open-World God of Total War.
Viking combines a few different gameplay styles, being sort of a brawler, an open-world RPG, a single-player tower defense game, and a stealth game all in one. You play as a viking warrior, and run around slicing up undead legions while looking for other vikings to rescue. Each section of the game has a formula: complete the quests, rescue a bunch of vikings, sneak into the badguy fortress to get a MacGuffin, and then lead your army of vikings in a massive battle that feels a bit like Dynasty Warriors. Repeat that five times and that's pretty much the whole game.
Viking is a lot of fun. The combat combos are intuitive and satisfying, and the quests are entertaining enough that I can overlook the repetitive nature of their design. Getting other vikings to help you is a cool mechanic, and rewards you for sneaking in and freeing your comrades rather than berserking into every fight. The big battles can feel a bit slow, as you push uphill against huge waves of enemies trying to take out their spawn points, but they are certainly technically impressive.
One area that could have used more is the enemy design. I'd hoped to see more monsters from Norse mythology, but alas, you pretty much spend the whole game chopping up different classes of Viking Zombies.
On the whole, Viking is a satisfying experience. It's not a must-play, but I recommend it.