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Post by UltimaterializerX on Jan 15, 2010 2:06:11 GMT -5
Resident Evil (Gamecube)
Pretty much the best remake in gaming is right here.
9/10
Back in 2002, Nintendo and Capcom came to an exclusivity agreement in which Capcom would make three games -- a remake of the original Resident Evil, Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil 4 -- for the Gamecube alone. Everyone knows Capcom went back on their word and ported Resident Evil 4 all over the place, but that's a whole different can of worms. The point here, as Meat Loaf would say, is "Two Out of Three Three Ain't Bad". Resident Evil 0 might be an abomination that should never have existed, but 4 and the remake are top-notch efforts. Only one remake is good enough to simply be called "Remake" (or "REmake", as the Resident Evil series fans will say), and that game is the Gamecube overhaul of the original Resident Evil.
Survival horror existed before the original 1996 title, but the widely renowned success of Resident Evil made it a mainstream genre. To date, Resident Evil has sold over 6.5 million copies, far and away the most for any game in the series. The obvious problem here is the original is impossible to take seriously because of how bad the voice acting and music are. The game isn't bad by any means, but it's outdated and cheesy and it needed... well, a remake. And boy did we get one.
The day is July 24, 1998. The place is the outskirts of Raccoon City, in the Arklay region. A lot of mysterious murders keep getting reported, and all the victims appear to have been eaten alive. As per any Resident Evil title, the local police is 100% useless. Enter the Special Tactics and Rescue Service, or S.T.A.R.S., to investigate. Right off the bat, there are huge problems. All contact with Bravo Team gets lost, so Alpha Team gets sent in to find them. Before long, Alpha Team finds the downed Bravo Team helicopter. Inside is a half-eaten pilot and a severed hand clutching a pistol. Awesome. Things go from bad to worse when Alpha Team gets attacked by zombie-like dogs (a staple enemy in the Resident Evil series), and they're forced to retreat into an eerie mansion in the middle of the woods.
The only Alpha Team members to make it to the mansion are Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Barry Burton and S.T.A.R.S. captain Albert Wesker. They can't walk out the front door, since the dogs prevent escape. Wesker orders the remaining members of Alpha Team to split up and search for an alternate escape route, as well as to investigate the source of the local murders. At this point, you take control of whoever you picked at the beginning of the game, be it Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine. There is no interchanging, and the two characters more or less have the same game.
There are however enough little differences to warrant playing through the game with each character, though the two are very balanced. Jill Valentine gets 8 inventory slots and can unlock simple doors with her Lockpick as per being THE JILL SANDWICH MASTER OF UNLOCKING THINGS. She also gets a lot of good help from Barry (and his godlike magnum) in some key situations, gets to use the Grenade Launcher and gets the Assault Shotgun really early. But she doesn't have a lot of health and isn't very good at killing zombies. She almost never scores headshots with the pistol and sometimes needs to rely on dodging everything or heavy weapon use, and as such can have some ammo problems for awhile. Chris is a little worse off than Jill, but he's still fun to play through the game with. He only gets 6 inventory slots, and he needs to find Old Keys to unlock those simple doors Jill can waltz through. So even though he has more health than Jill, he's quite literally dying for inventory space. He gets no Grenade Launcher, but he gets a Flamethrower for all of 3 seconds. Rather than a Lockpick, he gets a free Lighter. Rather than Barry Burton, he gets the help of the ever-useless Rebecca "I Fall In Love With All Meatheads" Chambers. So how is Chris at all fun? Simple. He scores a LOT of headshots with the pistol. Headshots matter a lot in this game, because it's one of the only way to keep regular zombies permanently dead. Chris can randomly fire a few shots now and then and land a ton of perma-kills, while Jill is stuck burning them afterwards.
Another huge advantage Chris gets is in defensive items. Defensive items allow your character of choice to melee a zombie with an item once grabbed at close range. Both characters get to dagger zombies in the head, but Jill only gets these little battery pack firecracker things as her alternate item. Chris gets Flash Grenades, where he just stuffs a grenade down some poor sap's throat. A few seconds later, and it's BOOM, HEADSHOT! All in all the two characters are fairly balanced and equally fun in their own way, but who won't like shoving grenades down zombies' throats? You can even expedite the explosion by shooting the bastards and blowing the Flash Grenades up yourself. Needless to say, this is awesome beyond words. Of course you don't get enough defensive items to go nuts on everything, but they're called <I>defensive</i> items for a reason.
The game starts out as a somewhat basic, cute little survival horror. You're going through a mansion, avoiding/killing zombies, getting the occasional help from a friend and more or less having a grand old time. A few people are dead before you, but they were the slackers of S.T.A.R.S., anyway. Who cares about them? But in standard Resident Evil fashion, you learn some truly gruesome details as you progress farther and farther into the game. The zombies stop being lumbering idiots and soon you're face to face with some bloodthirsty freaks: giant snakes, the infamous Hunters, a shark that can eat you whole, horrifying giant spiders, and those freaking dogs. Damn those dogs.
Random files and messages appear all over the place, hinting that the mansion you're in is far more than some rich guy's house. Umbrella, the evil pharmaceutical conglomerate have been rumored to be using this place for their latest experiments. Given all the former-employees-turned-zombies and mutated bugs attacking whatever moves, it's hard not to believe this. As you progress further and further into the game, the atmosphere gets that much darker and before long you'll feel like you're in Silent Hill. The dialogue and story are of course cheesy, but that's expected and welcome of Resident Evil games and REmake doesn't go too far over the top with it. It's a pity anyone who's paid attention to Resident Evil for longer than 5 minutes can see the ending plot twist coming a mile away, but it still comes together in a cool way.
The gameplay takes place in a third person perspective with fixed camera angles, which can be weird to get used to if you've never played a game like this before -- especially given how movement takes place entirely from the character's perspective. So you could potentially enter a room and press forward, but the character will move to your right or something. It doesn't take a terribly long time to figure out, and all the running around, shooting, the exploring and using the map or items becomes second nature after a few minutes. It's all a necessary evil, because they need to tuck zombies away in some good places so you run into them and die now and again. Some of the horror elements are pretty silly and predictable ("I wonder if that dead zombie on the ground will jump up with the music going all high-pitched, oh man this trick has never been used before or since and it will totally scare me all 248 times I see it!"), but some things are legitimately scary and the Gamecube graphics are good enough to make all of it work well. There's a good-enough soundtrack, but none of the songs are particularly memorable outside the Moonlight Sonata -- and that's obviously not a Resident Evil original piece. The game also loves to play by the rule of anticipation of the moment being scarier than the moment itself. By game's end, the atmosphere is thick enough and scary enough to cut through. Literally. It's not so bad on replays, but good luck the first time through this if you aren't expecting what's coming. And be a man: avoid using a guide so you get the full experience.
Most important of all, there's a true emphasis on simply surviving. If you come into this tempered on Resident Evil 4 and getting ammo thrown at you like candy, you'll run out of ammunition and get stuck. Every action you take requires planning, because you have to conserve ammo; you won't have a comfortable ammo supply until you're about 2/3rds through the game, and even then you can get in trouble if you're too liberal with using weapons. Do you want to clear out a particular busy hallway for future safety, or save that ammo for the big bad boss coming up? Even saving is limited. You get ink ribbons and typewriters, not infinite saves. Some gamers will find treating saving as a privilege a point of contention, but it makes sense in a survival game. There should be no free passes.
The one huge flaw this game has, and it's annoying enough to prevent this from getting a perfect score, is how terrible the audio is in cutscenes. If you're playing at a normal volume, a scene can potentially pop up and you'll hear nothing of what's going on. So you turn the TV up, and by then the scene is over and you've no idea what happened. So you think of resetting, but you don't remember where you saved and you don't feel like going backwards. You don't want to compulsively save after every room to counter this, because you get finite saves. This wouldn't be too big a problem if there weren't bad ending scenarios that potentially robs you of fighting a final boss. Bad endings are fine. Bad endings disguised as good endings where you don't even have a final boss are not. This is the best remake of any game ever made, even better than Zero Mission and Final Fantasy 4 for the DS, but the audio issue in cutscenes is unbearably stupid and plagues a <I>ton</i> of Capcom games across multiple series. Audio problems are Capcom's version of Cindy Crawford's lip mole -- the imperfect blemish that's impossible to ignore, yet so easily corrected you wonder if it's left as such intentionally.
Still, this game doesn't get the one-word moniker "REmake" by accident. It's a damn fine game, a very important part of gaming history and worthy of a playthrough from anyone who calls themselves a real gamer. You don't have to be a big Resident Evil fan to enjoy this one, and being the original title it's obviously a really good spot to jump into the series.
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Post by UltimaterializerX on Jan 22, 2010 2:49:39 GMT -5
Final Fantasy
WARRIORS. Revive the power of the ORBS!!
8/10
Everyone knows the story by now. Squaresoft, a fledgling and tiny gaming company during the mid 1980s, was close to going bankrupt in 1987. They more or less borrowed ideas from other games, but somehow made all of those ideas worse and released nothing but failures. They couldn't get anything right; if you've never experienced Rad Racer or King's Knight, you're better off not ever knowing them. As Square came closer to their inevitable demise, a college dropout named Hironobu Sakaguchi started creating one final foray into the video game business based on the Nintendo hit, Dragon Warrior. He called it "Final Fantasy", thinking it would be Squaresoft's last video game.
Little did Sakaguchi know, Final Fantasy would become a <I>giant</i> success that would single-handedly save the company and cement its status in the industry for years to come. Square would immediately get to work on Final Fantasy 2, which was objectively terrible and in the running for worst RPG ever made. Final Fantasy 3 would go on to be better than 2, but not by much. And none of it mattered. The original Final Fantasy made Square so much money that they could afford to screw around and release a couple of stink bombs. Then as we all know, they would get back on track with their first SNES release. "Final Fantasy" to this day remains the biggest oxymoron in gaming vernacular.
The obvious questions here: What made Final Fantasy so good? Is it still worth playing today? In a nutshell: Everything, and yes.
Squaresoft never claims to not borrow other games' ideas, but before Final Fantasy came along everything it borrowed was objectively awful; they made everything far worse. Final Fantasy's success came in taking a game already amazing and influential -- Dragon Warrior, in this case -- and improving upon it in every conceivable way. It was Square's first time with taking a good idea and making it better, but they made it count this time. Dragon Warrior was about one lone hero's quest to slay the evil dragon via trading blows with one enemy at a time, one enemy at a time. It was good for its time and undoubtedly influential, but it was also rather hollow. Final Fantasy offers more of everything. More characters, more spells, a bigger world, a much deeper and riskier and meaningful storyline, more weapons, more enemies, more bosses, more people to save, better graphics, better music, and pretty much a better everything else. Final Fantasy is the gamut of "Dragon Warrior is good, but we can do it bigger, better and have more people care about it".
The game starts with you choosing a job class -- Fighter, Black Belt, Thief, Red Mage, White Mage or Black Mage -- for four characters. Thieves don't actually steal anything in this, but the other jobs are self-explanatory. There is eventually a side quest where the job classes all promote to powerful versions of their former selves, with the most notable upgrade bring Thief -> Ninja. The world is covered in darkness, with the four elements of our earth twisted by evil. Four warriors of light show up, each holding an orb. Kill the fiend controlling a natural element, and the orb lights up. Consequently, the world gets a little more order restored to it.
This is where your four characters come into play. Your party is plopped right in front of a castle town called Corneria, and trouble is immediately afoot. The princess has been kidnapped by the former good knight, Garland, and it's up to you to save her. Thus, the first of the millions of Final Fantasy fetch quests begins. It was also the first sign that Final Fantasy would think outside the box with its storylines. Final Fantasy has a reputation for being convoluted nonsense; whether you agree with this assessment or not, the roots of it are clear. You have to rescue the princess before you even see the game's title screen. Once you succeed, the king doesn't give you a conventional reward. He instead doesn't let his daughter out of his sight, and has a bridge built to make sure you get the hell out of his kingdom ASAP and go about saving the world.
For its time, Final Fantasy was very unconventional and edgy with its plot. It's easy to look at the game now and see rather rudimentary work, but there were good things done here for it being 1987. There is the simplistic "save four elements, light up four orbs, save the world" thing, but you're traveling into volcanoes, going to the bottom of the ocean in a submarine, getting teleported up to a castle in outer space and traveling 2000 years into the past while doing all of this. A good story is told even though NPCs are all limited to whatever can fit in one text box. Only the final boss gives any sort of soliloquy, and he gets a grand total of three text boxes -- and they had to move him and give him an entirely new text trigger after each movement to make him work, no less. Best of all, Final Fantasy's entire story gets told without the heroes ever speaking. Not even once. By today's standards, this game would have been laughed off the production table for there not being 20 minute monologues between characters about their imaginary personal lives and contrived inter-personal relationships. There are no pretty boy teenagers with murdered parents, no slaves from persecuted kingdoms, no long-lost sibling anti-heroes, and no grand epiphanies. Just four mute heroes saving the world and wreaking total havoc upon any monster that dares look at them the wrong way.
Actually this isn't completely accurate, since Final Fantasy monsters can be quite a challenge. You can fight up to 9 enemies in some random encounters in this game, and some of the monsters have rather nasty tricks and spells. To make matters worse, the Fighter and Black Belt are the only jobs that aren't completely puny early in the game. There's no way to revive people outside a Life spell, or by using a clinic in town. If your White Mage/Red Mage dies in a battle, you're boned. The meat of Final Fantasy comes in dungeon crawling, conservation of items and spell charges (Side Note: Spells use set charges rather than magic points in this, and there is no way to restore charges other than Inns), then fighting a boss and coming out alive at the other end. Only after you've leveled a lot or find some infinite spell-casting items will you be able to plow through dungeons a little easier.
The gameplay choices might seem a little weird, but they were a good experiment given this was made in 1987. Battles take place randomly, on a separate screen. You input a command for every character -- fight, cast a magic spell, use an item and so on -- and there's a round of text-based effects. For the most part, characters with higher agility go earlier in the round. The battle continues until one side wins, unless you try running away. Winning nets you gold and experience, then you continue onward. Random encounters have been a debated topic in gaming circles for years and years, but the staple of any Japanese RPG is to fight monsters, gain experience, grow stronger and win. One can question how much strategy is truly involved when you could potentially lose to a boss, then back out, level for an hour and smash said boss with the exact same strategy once you've gained a level or two; however, a lot of gamers have loved it from the beginning and continue enjoying it to this day.
There are two major aesthetic problems with the original FF battle system. One, your character will not change targets if the monster he or she attacks is dead before their turn comes. So if you attack an Imp and it dies, your character will attack empty space rather than switch to an enemy still there. This is inarguably the worst part of the game. The other huge in-battle problem is how group spells target one character a time. If your Black Mage blasts a group of enemies with Fire 2, you have to sit there and potentially read [Mage] [FIR2] [Imp] [100 Damage] [Terminated] 9 times. Even on the fastest battle speed, it gets old fast. The random encounter rate is also rather high and not altogether random in this game. Without getting into too many technical details, know that you'll fight a lot of battles and will consider running from many of them.
Outside of battles, there are other annoying things to deal with. The worst of them all is having to buy one item a time, so it's a real strain on your gaming thumb to buy 99 Heal Potions for that next dungeon. Weapons and armor have no descriptions whatsoever, so you have to trade everything among party members to see who can equip what, then check status screens to see which one is best to go with. On top of this, armor and weapons are held by characters in an entirely different screen than items. It's not so bad, until your armor gets full and you have to drop something in order to take whatever armor is in that next treasure chest. Then there's the annoying status effect's side effect, where characters inflicted with a bad status are reordered to the back of the party. So after a fight where someone gets poisoned, for example, you have to go into the item or magic screen, cure the poison, back out to the main screen, press Select and reorder everyone to where you wanted them in the first place. This gets stupid really fast when you're in a dungeon with a lot of status effect monsters.
Lastly on gameplay, there are some rather famous bugs in it. A lot of the spells are either bugged or flat-out don't do anything, like SABR or XFER. The weapons that are supposed to give you bonus damage (Ice Sword, Flame Sword, etc) against certain monsters don't actually do anything. Then there's the infamous Giant's Step and Hall of Giants where you can cheese demigod levels of experience with no effort at all. There's the Luck stat not being at all relevant in your running chances; if one of the top two characters has a character in perfect condition two spots below them on the battle screen, the run chance of any applicable battle is 100%. There's the hilarious armor bug for the Black Belt/Master where you can level up, go into his armor screen and he ends up with more Absorb naked than he does equipped with armor. To this day, new bugs are being discovered and exploited. Even a spider's web would be jealous. This is to be somewhat expected when your game only has one programmer -- the enigmatic NASIR -- but you'll honestly wonder if Square played this before releasing it. As a completely hilarious side note, the game's ultimate weapon can be equipped by any job class. This is important because characters don't really have their own strength stats; a weapon doing 50 damage means it does something in the range of 50 damage, with the difference being how some job classes get more hits on the enemy than others. Ultimately, you can have some girly White Wizard doing more endgame damage with the ultimate weapon than some beefcake Knight. It's quite awesome to witness.
With graphics and music, Square's only necessary result was being better than Dragon Warrior. Square ended up going above and beyond all expectations and releasing a true masterpiece on both fronts. Nobuo Uematsu has gotten his fair share of hate through the years, but there's a reason he's been around making Final Fantasy music so long. He, like the original game, was made famous from the first installment in the series. Nearly every track in Final Fantasy is memorable, and a couple are reused to this very day. Some reuses can be very subtle. Everyone knows about Prelude and Victory Fanfare, but take a really close listen to Beyond the Cave next time you listen to Final Fantasy 6's Forever Rachel.
Graphically, Square began their habit of going above and beyond with the original title. The only major graphical flaw was treasure chests not opening once you procured their items. Other than that, the graphics and atmosphere were top-notch. For an NES title, you really do feel like you're walking across plains, in caves, or inside some gigantic futuristic space castle that miraculously has plants growing inside of it. This game also started the trend of separate races living in every town. The world of Final Fantasy had humans, elves, dwarves, scholars, robots, dragons, and even a class of mermaids. This was extremely imaginative, and all of it was done with some gorgeous sprites. For the limited number of colors NES sprites could offer, Square did an outstanding job of creating a world for you to feel a part of. The big benefactor here was Yoshitaka Amano. As Square continued progressing, the Amano's surrealist artwork drew more and more ire from fans. Perhaps we shouldn't have been so critical of Amano, because our reward for Amano's excommunication was a character designer who thinks every lead has to be a pretty boy with zippers growing out of belts, which in turn pop out of the flowing blond hair of seemingly transsexual males. Were Amano in the Final Fantasy series as long as Uematsu or Sakaguchi, you'd have to wonder how differently Sephiroth would have looked. Regardless, it's easy to see how Amano, along with Sakaguchi, Uematsu and the Final Fantasy series itself lived on reputation for years and years because of the original title's success. Most of the Amano hate is somewhat justified, but not in the first game. Amano's art influenced some <I>outstanding</i> enemy sprites in Final Fantasy, and the only flaw here is how the sprites are given a ton of palette swaps throughout the entire game -- even right at the beginning. More Amano art would have been very welcome here, while he was clearly at the height of creativity.
Overall, the obvious comparison to make with Final Fantasy is to Dragon Warrior, but there is no comparison to be made; Final Fantasy is better in nearly every way. Has Final Fantasy showed its age all these years later? Of course; the game has been ported and remade more times to count, and those ports and remakes are all improved from the original title. Did Final Fantasy's success create a wholly unnecessary fanbase split between Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy fanbases, that rages on to this very day? Of course it did; everything that comes first goes through the "get off my lawn" phase once something younger and better shows up. It's the reason senior citizens have the world's highest suicide rates. Society cruelly tosses them aside once their perceived use is over. Most telling of all is how the Final Fantasy series went on to become bigger and better than anything the Dragon Warrior series will ever experience. This isn't even debatable; sales and history have remembered Final Fantasy as the premiere, influential JRPG series. The only thing Dragon Warrior has going for it is showing up first, but gamers do not subscribe to manners. "Dance with the one who brought you" is not something the gaming audience has ever believed in. Gamers have proven throughout history that they will jump ship at the first sign of improvements elsewhere.
Final Fantasy may be old, but it's worth playing once or twice even today. It might be an old house that's really weathered and infested with Lord-knows-what in the basement, and it might not be something you'd want to live in, but it's still a hospitable house. You just have to appreciate it for what it used to be, rather than comparing it to that brand new home just around the corner.
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Post by Yamazaki on Jan 26, 2010 12:52:37 GMT -5
Muramasa: the Demon Blade (Wii)
The spiritual successor to Odin Sphere, Muramasa does not disappoint. In the a nut shell, this is a 2-D side scrolling hacky-slashing demon slaying action game. With amazing hi-def spirit based graphics, amazing story, and enough difficulty to keep you on your toes, Muramasa is one of those titles that makes having a Wii worth it.
Story: There are 2 seperate stories: Momohime's story - a princess who's been possessed by a great swordsman (by accident); and Kisuke's story - the cliche ninja with a forgotten past and a horde of enemy ninjas chasing him. While this sounds fairly basic in concept, the story builds from this, weaving a fairly epic story which ends with you fighting gods by the end. Both characters use demon swords, most of which have been forged by Muramasa, and use the Oboro fighting style. There are 3 endings per character, and I've only seen the first for each character.
Graphics and Sound: The entire game is done with 2-D hi-def sprites, leading to some gorgeous gameplay. There's almost no slow down ever (only a couple of boss fights really strain the system). The characters look unique. The bosses are massive and impressive. The animation is solid and moves smoothly. No complaints here.
The sound effects are good, although nothing truly impressive there. The music is nice and fitting, but nothing to write home about. The voice acting, however, is awesome. Now, this does come from a guy who loves anime and watches everything in subs if he can help it, so my view on it is skewed. A few well known Japanese voice actors make an appearance in the game (Saber, from Fate/Stay Night plays a major role in Kisuke's story, but that's the only one I recognize by other roles).
Gameplay: Insanely fast and a little chaotic, you need to be paying attention to stay alive. Controls are fine and responsive (except for jumping, I hate hitting up on the control stick to jump). You can attack or use a special attack (secret arts). You carry 3 different swords at any one time - if one breaks, you can switch to another until it repairs itself. Occassionally, you can quick draw a blade and attack all the enemies on the screen. There's blocking, dodge rolling, uppercuts, power slashes, all sorts of extra commands to help you in your way to cut down everything. Plenty of enemies to kill, bosses are hard, and you will likely have to burn through many of your items for the later bosses.
Overall: So far, in this has been a kick ass game. A 9/10 easily.
Next games - Assassin's Creed 2, Mass Effect 2, and most importantly, No More Heroes 2 (because NONE of you will even touch that game...)
-Max, playing way too many games again...
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Post by Yamazaki on Jan 30, 2010 11:47:20 GMT -5
Bayonetta (PS3/360)
Take Viewitful Joe and add Devil May Cry, and you have Bayonetta, the latest game from Platinum Games (formerly known as Clover). While their previous game of Mad World was decent, but nothing truly great, they managed to pick up a few people from the DMC team and pulled out a great game.
You play as Bayonetta, a powerful, gun-slinging witch who woke up 20 years ago with no memory and has been killing angels to fulfill her contract with demons. Following a lead, she heads to Vigrid to discover her past.
Story: for being a tad on the cliche side to start, the story is very well told. Quality flashbacks, good dialog, and interesting characters. And since this is the DMC and God Hand team here, everything is over the top in action and sheer ridiculousness, giving some good laughs to be had too.
Graphics and Sound: Gloriously beautiful graphics with some truly slick texturing and modeling. Add in some great animation to boot, and interesting character designs (Cone hair, seriously?) too.
The music is decent, although it is a little odd at first that the main battle theme is a remix of 'Fly Me to the Moon', but they make it work well. The voice acting is solid and fitting. Can't complain at all about the voicing.
Gameplay: Like any good action game, the gameplay is where it shines, and Bayonetta does not disappoint in the very least. It plays a lot like DMC, only now you can shoot, punch, and kick instead of shoot and melee attacks. The Time Witch mechanic rewards you for dodging everything with perfect timing. Takes a bit of time to get the hang of it, but it becomes somewhat natural after some practice. The weapon selection isn't bad either - several guns (handguns and shotguns), a katana, fire/lightning claws, ice skates, and I've been told there's nunchucks in the mix too.
The game's hard though - I had to play on Easy mode once I hit the first major boss. It's not kind in the least, even on easy mode. A few quicktime events will hit you, but most of the time it's just mash a button to get more halos or hit the jump button in the right time to avoid getting crushed (that one has killed me a number of times).
Overall: Did you like Devil May Cry? Did you like God Hand or Viewitful Joe? If so, you will love this game. Otherwise, rent it at least. Not too great of replay value though... Only real flaw there. 9.8/10
-Max, finally has No More Heroes 2...
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Post by UltimaterializerX on Feb 6, 2010 7:21:07 GMT -5
This was my 100th review on GameFAQs:
Resident Evil 2
"Good game, but it shows its age and needs the REmake treatment."
7/10
By 1998 standards, Resident Evil 2 was one of the most defining survival horror titles of the genre -- or at the very least, the 1990s. By today's standards, there isn't much survival and even less horror. The atmosphere not holding up with age is to blame for this. If you play the game today, the only scares you'll experience are jump-out-and-yell-BOO-type stuff when your volume is high. Very few enemies and areas have any intensity about them, and those breaking the mold are in B scenarios. This essentially means you have to play through the game a second time before you're in "I'm legitimately afraid to turn the corner" mode. There's still a good game in here, but don't go in expecting game-breaking atmosphere or a lot of frights. There aren't any, and the Gamecube port is just that: a port. It wasn't the remake Resident Evil 2 desperately needs.
Shortly after the Spencer Mansion incident in the original game, a viral outbreak lays nearby Raccoon City to waste. In events taking place before Resident Evil 2 begins, surviving S.T.A.R.S. members Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Barry Burton and Brad Vickers all attempted to get the word out that Umbrella was responsible for the mansion incident in which the viruses rose hell and tore up the place. Only by blowing the mansion up could it be contained, but in reality Umbrella needed to keep the research out of public view. Umbrella, being the biggest company in Raccoon City -- and, thus, the biggest provider of jobs there -- was able to keep public opinion under control and begin efforts to hunt down the remaining members of S.T.A.R.S. Predictably, Umbrella cuts loose their latest toys in an effort to silence Raccoon City. Nearly everyone in the city becomes infected with the T Virus and turns into zombies, and rumor has it Umbrella is using this incident to research an even newer form: the G Virus.
This is where you come in. Resident Evil 2 introduces something called the Zapping System, in which there are two characters playing through simultaneous scenarios through the game. You choose one of the two characters, play through their story, then switch discs and go through the other one. Then you can start all over and choose the other character first. For a full playthrough of the game's entire storyline, you're essentially going through four times. It gets rather repetitive, though thankfully only Claire A/Leon B is canonical. Leon A/Claire B is only slightly different in gameplay, with a couple bosses switched around. You only really need to play through Claire A/Leon B to get a full sense of Resident Evil 2's place in the series storyline, which is good because even one scenario playthrough can be repetitive. Playing both scenarios close to each other requires some rather crazy dedication.
Zapping creates an interesting dichotomy, albeit one that makes little sense at times. A lot of the things you do with one character affect how the second character goes through the game. For example, there are two hallways where you can use a Cord to close the shutters, preventing a horde of zombies from busting though later. When you come back with the other character, the cord shorts out and that hallway becomes dangerous to traverse. Essentially you're deciding on short-term safety for yourself, or long-term safety for your partner later. Either way, one of you has to deal with zombies overrunning a hallway; your actions determine who gets what. Another great example is how the A character gets to choose between a Sub Machine Gun or a Backpack for extra inventory space (which matters a lot, because RE2 is nice enough to have the two characters get 8 inventory spaces each). Whatever you don't pick gets picked up by the B character later on. But at the same time, a lot of effects aren't taking place. The A character will run through the game picking up a ton of key items and ammo, yet most of those key items and ammo magically appear elsewhere for the B character. The order of some key items is a little different, but they're both going to more or less go through the game the exact same way. There's not quite as much variety as one would expect from a system like this, but it was a good first attempt.
Speaking of A and B characters, you get a choice at the start to play as Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield. Leon Kennedy is a rookie to the Raccoon Police Department's new special forces. He's extremely green and overzealous, especially when it comes to protecting other people, but he's a very good person at heart. It isn't until Resident Evil 4 when he dons the brooding loner archetype that avoids women. He's also kind of dumb, as he oversleeps his first day on the job and ends up having his first Raccoon City police shift be an overnight, after the virus outbreak consumes the city. Whoops. Leon gets the superior weaponry of the two characters and can annihilate anything in the game if all available upgrades are procured. He gets to upgrade his handgun for three-round bursts, upgrade his shotgun to powerful straight shots that unleash total hell on things, and most importantly his magnum upgrade laughs at every single enemy in the entire game. His character specific two-panel, unreloadable Flamethrower is decent at best, used for wailing on enemies with arsonphobia. His one weakness is having to carry around Small Keys (a throwback to Chris needing Old Keys and Jill getting the Lockpick in the original title) for the simple locks, but it barely matters. Only three suck doors exist; two lead to ammo, and the one important unlocking is the custom handgun parts. Leon is by far the better-equipped character for dealing with hordes of zombies, plus he gets the lighter naturally. Claire is stuck having the Lighter in her inventory if she needs to start fires.
Claire Redfield gets the superior personality, but the ass end of gameplay balance. She doubles as a student and fan of motorcycles, and heads to Raccoon City in search of her missing brother, Chris Redfield of Spencer Mansion and S.T.A.R.S. fame. Claire is always collected and confident, which is odd given she's little more than a civilian. Most Resident Evil characters are hardened military demigods; Claire is a bumpkin with a pistol and a gear shift, yet she has more balls than 90% of the cast in the entire series. The drawback is her weaponry. Her handgun cannot be upgraded, and her bowgun (Claire's equivalent of Leon's shotgun) is awful at crowd control and also cannot be upgraded. She gets no dominate-all-enemies magnum, and even her specific two-panel weapon, the Spark Shot, is fairly awful. She gets by however, because she gets a grenade launcher very early in the game and it covers all enemy types. There's regular grenades for basic crowd control, acid grenades reserved for OHKOs on Lickers, and flame rounds for those annoying Plant 43s. She also gets a free Lockpick, and any Resident Evil fan knows what this means.
All of the same core gameplay mechanics from the original Resident Evil return for the sequel. You control a character from a third person perspective through their own eyes (meaning if you push up, the character walks forward relative to their own position, not yours), through areas with fixed camera angles. You're given limited ammunition for your weapons until well into the game, and liberal use will potentially ruin you. It's an acceptable gameplay vice for survival horror, because the ability to peek around a corner before turning defeats the entire purpose of hiding enemies there. This also applies to using weapons, though you can adjust the controls to auto aim if you're that bad at video games. There's a certain sense of trial and error going on, but overall Resident Evil 2 is not a difficult game compared to others in the series. With intelligent weapon use and knowing when to leave enemies alone until later, you can kill nearly every enemy in the game and have more than enough ammo left over to nuke the bosses to hell and back. Capcom knew what they did wrong with the original title, and remade it accordingly. With Resident Evil 2, it only got a port. And given we're well into the next gaming generation with the Wii/PS3/360, a remake for Resident Evil 2 at this point would be superfluous although not altogether unnecessary.
Two main problems will stick out with this game, as well as a lot of minor stuff. First, calling this a "survival horror" because Capcom's nomenclature dictates such is fallacy. Survival only really applies to the first part of the game, where Capcom's obvious goal was "Hi, we can fit 7 zombies on the screen at once now, aren't we awesome?". Past that, there isn't much you'll have to dodge if you want sustainable ammunition. As for the horror, the atmosphere of Resident Evil 2 is downright nonexistent. The original Resident Evil was special -- a creepy mansion in the middle of creepy woods, with creepy hallways and creepy monsters. Resident Evil 2 is a cheap spy flick from the 1960s, with cheesy music to match. It's not a bad game, but it's not at all atmospheric. Again, the only "scares" come from your TV's volume being up too high when a window breaks or something. None of the enemies, even the traditionally nerve-wracking stuff like giant spiders, are scary. The game says it's a survival horror title, but it plays more like a bland 3D action. A good 3D action game, mind, but still very bland. Your first time through a B scenario will alleviate this somewhat, since you'll have no idea when or where Mr. X will show up next. But other than Mr. X himself, there is little tension to be had in a game that's supposed to scare people. Most of the scares are extremely predictable, and wholly not scary.
Graphics are actually a well-developed area for Capcom here, even for a Playstation game. The aforementioned improvement to zombie hordes was difficult to pull off -- although the execution is horribly and obviously forced at times -- and a lot of new animations are put into Resident Evil 2 compared to the original. There are now visual cues to your character's health. They'll be noticeably hurt if they're about half health, and they'll slowly limp if they're near death. The enemies also have a ton of new animations to discover, including the always-fun scenario where you shotgun an enemy through the waist, but the top half follows you and starts biting at your ankle. Then you stomp its head clean off, but the whole thing still twitches after it's dead. Animations like this are all over the place, and really need to be commended given gameplay graphics aren't a trademark of the Playstation 1 anymore.
Resident Evil 2 is overall a good game, but not a great one. It's in dire need of a remake that will probably never happen, and it simply doesn't feel special like the original did. It's worth a playthrough, but you won't miss anything if you decide to pass. Good, but not in the absolute must-have class of REmake and 4.
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Post by Yamazaki on Feb 9, 2010 12:13:30 GMT -5
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle
"By the way, when you see your brother in hell, tell him HE'S STILL A DOUCHEBAG!!"
Finally, we see the triumphant return of Travis Touchdown, now with more character develpment and more story!
Travis Touchdown is, without a shred of doubt, an otaku with a plasma beam katana (aka a light saber) and a number of wrestling moves that I'm sure you'd see in WWE. The first game was Travis's rise to fame, fighting his way through the ranks of the UAA assassin ranks, in a desperate attempt to get laid. We discovered a number of things throughout the game, including Travis's love of anime and loli's, that he has a half sister who is the final boss (a revelation that includes a Duke Nukem Forever joke), and that he has a secret twin brother, Henry (who was the secret boss of the game and made even more 4th wall breaking jokes).
In the sequel, a few years have passed. Travis walked away from his crown as the top assassin shortly after reaching the top. He returns, starting with taking out number 51, the brother of number 11 from the previous game (who you never got to fight). Travis's reason's for fighting quickly go from attempting to get laid to revenge as his best friend is murdered and the guy's head thrown through Travis's window. Travis must, once again, fight his way to the top to avenge his friend.
Story: A fun, yet dark story is waiting for the players, as they show the grim reality of these assassin battles (which have become famous thanks to Travis) and just how messed up these assassins really are. On the flip side, a great deal of humor is present, from a giant robot battle, to silly bosses (and even the return of certainly dead ones from the last game), to Silvia's constant flirting with Travis, a series of 4th wall breaking jokes, and the occasional Star Wars joke.
Unlike the last game, there actually is some character development with Travis, as he slowly starts to see the UAA matches to be cruel and unusual.
Every character has personality, although some more than others. Unlike the first game, however, the assassins aren't quite as memorable, since your time with each one is a lot shorter than it was in the first game.
Graphics and Sound: For a Wii game that isn't sprite based, there's some pretty nice graphics here. A cel-shaded style and smooth animation all around. The camera could use a little work, however.
The music, while at first not as good as the first game's, grows on you. It's good enough that I want to find the OST for the game. The sound effects are solid, just like the last game, and the voice acting is great (especially for the main cast). My only complaint is that the random thugs that you cut down do not have enough variety of voice clips. It kinda gets annoying when you hear "Are you ready for this?" all the damn time.
For the mini-games, the 8-bit style is great. There's not much to say about it, since it is 8-bit style. It's supposed to be old school sillyness.
Gameplay: Hacky-slashy action is the name of the game here, and NMH2 does it with style and a lot of blood. You can change stances (high and low) by holding the Wii-mote either vertical or horizontal. Basically it's either a fast or strong stance. You can also pummel enemies, and if they're stunned, go in for a wrestling move (which kills basic enemies). The deathblow system returns, allowing for the Wii-mote gimmicks to remain. Thankfully, you can now plug in the classic controller if you wish. The slot system also makes its comeback, although with some small changes. Also, darkstepping remains, although its harder to pull off and not quite as useful against bosses.
With this game, they added in new mechanics. The Ecstasy Gauge builds as you attack enemies, while dropping when you get hit. Once it's maxed out (it'll be a red glowing tiger), your combos get longer and you do more damage and can enter a special 'darkside mode', in which you are invincible and super fast for a short time. You also now carry all your beam katanas with you, so you can switch on the battlefield. Mind you, this is a slow process, but you are invincible during the switch (which can save you sometimes...).
Unlike in the first game, dodge rolling is far more useful, while blocking isn't so great. I've beaten a boss because I dodge rolled into a move, avoiding the hit and moving in to attack.
Many of the bosses are right out brutal, even on normal difficulty. #50 was a pain in the ass, and he was the first real boss fight! Be ready to get your ass handed to you a lot. I'm still stuck at the final boss...
Overall: It's kind of short, but damn is it good. If you liked the first game, you will love this one. And if you like hacky-slashy games with a sense of humor, this is a good one.
9/10
-Max, making his way through Mass Effect 2 and hoping he can scrouge up the money for Bio Shock 2.
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The Lord of Blades
Game Masters
Ero Sennin
Please allow me to introduce myself: I'm a man of wealth and taste
Posts: 1,314
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Post by The Lord of Blades on Feb 9, 2010 14:10:48 GMT -5
Two things Max:
1) Spoiler warnings are a common courtesy for the fact that, had I not played No More Heroes 1? I would've murdered you for your post. There's a level of acceptable spoiler, saying something like Aeris doesn't make it through FF7 alive is a given. Vader is Luke's father? Also a given. Jesus dies at the end of The Passion? Sure. But the first No More Heroes has only been out for two years now (just recently, original US Wii launch date was Jan22, 2008 and the first one hasn't even come out on 360 and PS3 yet).
Long story short? When reviewing a game, keep the spoilers to a minimum about previous titles unless you're making references from extremely old and obvious games. Revealing every shocker/surprise/twist moment from the previous game when it then never comes up again in your review of the sequel is a dickpunch move. Stop it next time at the end of: "in a desperate attempt to get laid." No more needed to be said and you threw two major spoilers out right after that without warning or care.
2) Quit posting reviews and not joining any games.
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Post by UltimaterializerX on Feb 9, 2010 14:47:39 GMT -5
To be fair, video games are more fun than DnD by a factor of roughly 10000.
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The Lord of Blades
Game Masters
Ero Sennin
Please allow me to introduce myself: I'm a man of wealth and taste
Posts: 1,314
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Post by The Lord of Blades on Feb 9, 2010 15:28:31 GMT -5
Actually, that isn't being fair at all. You're interjecting an opinion as though it were fact. That's being opinionated and biased. Moreover, I continue to insist you've only played D&D games that sucked and yes they do exist no differently from videogames that suck. If your first three videogames were Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 5, and Guitar Hero: Smash Hits; your opinion of videogames would likely be the same place as yours is of D&D.
Furthermore, not the place for posting this. Makes me regret not being a mod of this subset of the forum so I could simply delete your post for its pointlessness.
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Post by UltimaterializerX on Feb 9, 2010 15:56:03 GMT -5
Actually, that isn't being fair at all. You're interjecting an opinion as though it were fact. That's being opinionated and biased. Moreover, I continue to insist you've only played D&D games that sucked and yes they do exist no differently from videogames that suck. If your first three videogames were Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 5, and Guitar Hero: Smash Hits; your opinion of videogames would likely be the same place as yours is of D&D. Furthermore, not the place for posting this. Makes me regret not being a mod of this subset of the forum so I could simply delete your post for its pointlessness. Oh, sorry. "In my humble opinion", video games are more fun than DnD by a factor of roughly 10000. I keep forgetting how some people online have no reading comprehension and can't discern opinions from facts if the former isn't prefaced with "I think" or some other derivative. And, as usual, you're assuming things based on conjecture. You have never been around when I've played DnD, so the assumption of me not having ever played it extensively is as unwarranted as your pissy little attitude. If you're going to get butthurt over every post I make, keep it to whining at me on AIM. Playing up to whatever authoritative image you think you deserve is completely laughable.
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The Lord of Blades
Game Masters
Ero Sennin
Please allow me to introduce myself: I'm a man of wealth and taste
Posts: 1,314
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Post by The Lord of Blades on Feb 9, 2010 16:19:18 GMT -5
When did I ever assume you hadn't played it? When did I ever say you weren't stating an opinion? When did I get an attitude? The only assumption was that the D&D games you played sucked and NOT that you hadn't played it? All I said was that I imagine the ones you played sucked if you didn't like it since it seems like something you'd have fun playing in the right environment. Also, you said: "In fairness" when it wasn't in fairness whatsoever. That'd be akin to me saying: "In fairness, resident evil 4 blows." when in fact, that isn't being fair at all. So yeah, attitude? butthurt? No. Just pointing out your phraseology was crap and that your post had no merit whatsoever.
Read my post instead of just quoting it.
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Post by UltimaterializerX on Feb 9, 2010 16:30:45 GMT -5
Dude, this is a gaming/DnD/anime forum frequented by maybe 5 people a week. Lighten up.
And yes, you get butthurt and yell at me on AIM whenever I post much of anything here for reasons I don't care to know. Don't even deny it. I don't know why you act like a different person here, and frankly it's none of my business, but getting so unnecessarily uptight over a forum no one knows about is all kinds of stupid.
Bug. Ass. Remove.
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Post by UltimaterializerX on Feb 9, 2010 17:02:31 GMT -5
ShadowSigna (3:29:50 PM): As always, thanks for your useless contributions to the forum. Auto-response: Ultimaterializer is away (3:29:50 PM) Studying my animal science. Go away. Ultimaterializer (3:46:00 PM): And as always, thanks for crying about any opinion that disagrees with the ALMIGHTY James Ultimaterializer (3:46:05 PM): Forgot you had an image to keep up ShadowSigna is available (4:17:37 PM) "I'ma do the things that I wanna do, I ain't got a thing to prove to you" ShadowSigna (4:17:36 PM): Hah. Wow. Auto-response: Ultimaterializer is not available (4:17:36 PM) Studying my animal science. Go away. ShadowSigna (4:17:41 PM): Way to quote me instead of read it. ShadowSigna is available (4:48:47 PM) "I'ma do the things that I wanna do, I ain't got a thing to prove to you" ShadowSigna (4:48:46 PM): lol, this is hilarious, you think I'm angry about that. Next time just read my posts dude. Really. Auto-response: Ultimaterializer is not available (4:48:46 PM) Studying my animal science. Go away. ShadowSigna is available (4:54:14 PM) "I'ma do the things that I wanna do, I ain't got a thing to prove to you" ShadowSigna (4:54:13 PM): Only one getting "butthurt" here is you. Auto-response: Ultimaterializer is not available (4:54:13 PM) Studying my animal science. Go away. ShadowSigna is available (4:56:35 PM) "I'ma do the things that I wanna do, I ain't got a thing to prove to you" ShadowSigna (4:56:32 PM): also, debating a review of a game because I feel you unfairly or inaccurately assessed part of it is not me yelling at you on AIM. Auto-response: Ultimaterializer is away (4:56:34 PM) Studying my animal science. Go away. ShadowSigna (4:57:44 PM): Only time I did that was when you posted in that one thread about "omfg real girls are better anyway". That's just trolling. It's pointless, so yah, I told ya to knock it off. The ranked FF titles I just told you that I was hearing a lot of people ask: "is this guy just a troll? Should we ban him?" so I figured you might want to reign it in. ShadowSigna (4:58:13 PM): So, yeah, you were wrong, get over it. Does anyone else here have to deal with this EVERY SINGLE TIME they post anything? I'm honestly curious. It's like my very clear and obvious "I'm trying to study, stop bothering me" away message doesn't exist. Oh, and once again: Bug. Ass. Remove. And you could maybe even consider growing up a little. Just food for thought
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Post by Cadic's Devoted on Feb 9, 2010 17:12:36 GMT -5
Actually this is a small forum made by a small group of friends for the same said small group of friends to continue playing D&D with each other. It just happens to have a few small sections for discussion on games and Anime, for us to suggest things to each other.
And just because it is only frequented by a handful of people doesn't mean 'no one knows about it'. Its known about by those people that it matters for them to know about.
Also... You get onto him for getting onto you here, yet when he attempts to take the conversation to AIM (As you asked him to) You derail it right back to the forums? Isn't that a bit.....well honestly its a bit retarded. Either you want him to talk to you about it on AIM, or on here. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Oh, and no, none of us have to 'deal with this' everytime we post, because we actually post in the things that the forum was originally created for, and not just troll the game and anime sections.
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Post by UltimaterializerX on Feb 9, 2010 17:17:41 GMT -5
not just troll the game and anime sections. Which I haven't done, and I can't recall once posting in the anime section. Not liking FF11 doesn't make one a troll.
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