Video Game Review Hullabaloo!

Because that's really what I've been spending my time with. And they fit under the banner of trash culture, especially if you're Roger Ebert. I'm going to try to go over every video game I've played in the last two months or so, whether I have any business doing so or not. So that should be fun.

Mass Effect- Other than the fact that some of the various alien races sound like they belong to a Canadian Theatre Troupe, I am completely in awe of this gang. The level of production value and design is amazing here; all of the aliens feel like they're from distinctively, well, alien cultures, and more so than any other game (especially one so steeped in as well trod ground as the Sci-Fi genre), it feels like there's a living, breathing world here. So yeah, I'm very impressed by this game, especially as some who usually doesn't care for RPGs. The action elements of the combat and the interactive nature of everything from your character's backstory to every conversation you take part in certainly goes a long way in overcoming the prejudices I have against RPGs, and they also make this one of the few non-sports or fighting game I can see myself revisiting multiple times. It also one of the few games I've ever really not wanted to beat, because I don't want it to end. So yeah, color me impressed here.

Assassain's Creed- The gameplay on this one is incredibly intuitive despite being so different from every other platformer/open world game on the market. Much like Mass Effect, it's an incredibly polished product. I haven't been able to dig as far in to it as I have ME, but from what I've seen, it lives up to the hype. Even if it's as redundant as its reputed to be, I could live with that, because the experience is so damn polished. Beyond that, how many other games have you played that are set in the Middle East during the Crusades? I really appreciate novelty in games, and this has it in spades. Also, it has Kristen Bell as a voice actress, so that's one for the plus column right there, even if she isn't playing my favorite sluething teenager. At least she's not an amoral social retard who shoots lightning.

Fire Pro Wrestling R- Well, at least something here can tie in to the nominal theme of the blog. This incarnation of the venerable Japanese wrestling franchise has made it state side as a budget title for the venerable PS2, and as much as I enjoy the Smackdown games, I'm really glad to have finally have an alternative again, even if it lacks Funk Master Flex as a playable character.

It does have almost everyone else you can think of not under contract with WWE, though. Every Japanese fed is represented, including ROH regulars Takeshi Morishima and KENTA, with hilarious, copyright evading monikers to avoid lawsuits. There are quite a few American guys in there, as well, from Sting and Vader to AJ Styles and Petey Williams. Hell, even the Great Kahli and Andre the Giant are present, so you can put on that anti-dream match if you so desire.

The game's an anchronism compared to the Smackdown series in a lot of ways. The graphics are sprite based, and not even super detailed Capcom sprites; the diffrences between this and a really polished Super NES game is negligible. While this means that you can get 8 wrestlers, a referee, and a variety of weapons on screen without any slowdown, the characters lack detail, more important to me, personality. No one seems to have any distinctive mannersims or animation.

There's also the gameplay, which leads to some annoyances, the main one being that you have to be in just the right position to hit any of your strikes, lest you wind up flailing around like an dead fish on the mat. While it comes across as a nice change of pace compared to the ultra sim direction the Smackdown games have gone in, I've never been a huge fan of the quirks involved in Fire Pro's unforgiving, timing based gameplay, although it seems less punishing with a controller than it was trying to play it with a keyboard via an emulator.

There's also the lack of bells and whistles. While it's not really fair to compare this game to the Smackdown games, it's kind of hard not to, given the fact that it's the closest basis of compairson. Things like the Mactchmaker Mode (the closest thing to Smackdown's addicting (for me) GM mode) have too many annoying quirks to make them fun; the translation is Engrish at its most broken, which applies to everything form the game menus to the instruction manual (which makes figuring some things out a real pain); and things like the entrances and arenas are strictlt no frills.

But, given the price tag and the sheer depth on display in the roster, create-a-wrestler mode, and gameplay, its failings in the technical categories are middling at worst. The animations of the actual moves are beautiful, the action's intense, and with the use of the Landmine Deathmatch, you can finally relive Mick Foley's explosive Japanese Missadventures in the comfort of your living room. This is the closest thing to the vaunted No Mercy that's been released since its heyday (well, other than the download of the game on the Virtual Console for the Wii), and worth checking out if you're a wrestling fan with a PS2 (especially if your an ROH fan and/or someone bemused by the Smackdown vs. Raw games).

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men- I wasn't so in to this one. Not as much as this guy, mainly because I don't mind how "ugly" the story was, given that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips crime comic Criminal has given me a primer on the crime/noir genre, and encountering it in video game form was the whole draw of the thing for me. I wasn't looking for anyone to root for, I just wanted a compelling story that hit all the notes you accept from this sort of thing; broken people looking for a sliver of redemption and not finding it, with all of the double and triple crosses that entails. I shouldn't give the guy too much shit over this, given its probably why he was apparently fired over it and all, but still.

The story more or less gave me the jet black sensibilities, but it wasn't quite compelling enough to make me put up with the flawed gameplay that any longer than I had it out for a rental. In its attempt to throw you in to the action, it veered to close to incoherence for my taste, as opposed to the in media res quality I assume they were going for. But mainly, I just wasn't in to the whole idea of a squad based shooter where your squad isn't functional. With these kind of games, I always wonder if it's the game or me, since I'm not sure if I'm playing it the way it was intended to be; given that the reviewer had similar complaints, I don't
feel so bad about giving up on the game. It also means I feel obligated to put the reviewer up if he needs a place to live after losing his job and all.

I've played a lot of other games lately, but after making light a of a man's missfortune, I don't feel like talking about them in any depth. I just can't top/go any lower than that, especially when talking about solid but unspectacular games like Conan and the Simpsons Game (especially since I said everything I need to about them already in a sentence apiece earlier anyway), or the very good Tomb Raider Anniversary, which is a great spin on the acrobatics/deathtrap-centric gameplay I loved so much in the Ubisoft Price of Persia games; which is pretty amazing, given that it's a remake of a ten year old game at this point. While there's still some trial and error based gameplay that leads to some nasty deaths in there, it's nowhere as random as the sequels that followed it (I know developer Crystal Dynamics streamlined the game a bit), which took frustration to a new level. So its worth giving a run through. That went on longer than I wanted it to.