Observations from the gaming goodness that is Xmas vacation... (VJ, PoP, Crimson Skies, MMZ)
PostPosted:Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:35 am
<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>-Beat Viewtiful Joe. Woot! It was funny...after I beat it I read an FAQ to see what you could get by beating the other difficulty modes, and found out about the Slow-Zoom-Red Hot One Hundred for the first time (I must have missed it when the zoom tutorial was happening and just did slow-zoom-whale on the punch button). So, essentially, I beat it for the first time (on Adults) without using the best move in the game. Does that mean I'm pretty good or just really stupid for never holding down the damn punch button in the first place?
-Beat Prince of Persia. While it was a good game - gorgeous graphics/animation, decent music, fun combat, excellent story, nifty gimmick, etc., etc., I don't think it really deserves the mega-critical acclaim and "game of the year" votes, for a couple reasons.
1) Too short. It only took me 10 hours to beat it. 20 is more the time I like to put into an action game these days (Metroid Prime, VJ).
2) Too easy. With the exception of one particular fight the combat was never really that hard - mash X, fiddle with the stick if necessary, vault over everybody but the blue guys (and wall-vault over the blue guys), rewind if you get nailed by an attack you didn't see coming, rinse, repeat. And as far as the making it around the castle part goes, there was usually only one way to go and it was blatantly obvious what that way was most of the time. And when it wasn't, it was usually because it took a minute of looking around to see it. There wasn't much skill needed to beat it - just a rudimentary sense of timing. It feels like the game was made more to be looked at than played, if you get what I mean.
3) Little/no replay value, unless you want to look at it again.
4) Slightly buggy, especially in regards to Farah. Several times I had to commit suicide because she'd be stuck/waiting somewhere and wouldn't follow me, I'd move a block out of the way, she'd say "look, a crack!" and then just stand there thus leaving me completely stuck.
5) I have the Xbox version, so I'll just mention this - the controls on the original PoP are abysmal. I remember playing PoP on SNES back in the day, and I don't remember it handling this badly at all.
It's not that I didn't like the game, I did. However, if I were ranking it, I'd only give it an 8/8.5 or so.
-Crimson Skies = fun. It's a very arcade-y flight game, and I'm somewhat annoyed that there's no options for a cockpit view or to make the left stick act as a real flight stick would (like Air Force Delta had), and the lack of "targeting" messes with my head, but it's very fun nonetheless. I love the music, and the voice work is pretty good as well, although I wish there was an option for subtitles on important plot-related chatter. The thing I'm most impressed with is the lack of loading time - once you're in the air, the game flows extremely well.
-So I also got myself a GB Player this week, and Mega Man Zero is everything I wanted MMX7 to be. Yum. Got Aria of Sorrow too, but it'll be a while before I get around to that.
<i>-57</i></div>
-Beat Prince of Persia. While it was a good game - gorgeous graphics/animation, decent music, fun combat, excellent story, nifty gimmick, etc., etc., I don't think it really deserves the mega-critical acclaim and "game of the year" votes, for a couple reasons.
1) Too short. It only took me 10 hours to beat it. 20 is more the time I like to put into an action game these days (Metroid Prime, VJ).
2) Too easy. With the exception of one particular fight the combat was never really that hard - mash X, fiddle with the stick if necessary, vault over everybody but the blue guys (and wall-vault over the blue guys), rewind if you get nailed by an attack you didn't see coming, rinse, repeat. And as far as the making it around the castle part goes, there was usually only one way to go and it was blatantly obvious what that way was most of the time. And when it wasn't, it was usually because it took a minute of looking around to see it. There wasn't much skill needed to beat it - just a rudimentary sense of timing. It feels like the game was made more to be looked at than played, if you get what I mean.
3) Little/no replay value, unless you want to look at it again.
4) Slightly buggy, especially in regards to Farah. Several times I had to commit suicide because she'd be stuck/waiting somewhere and wouldn't follow me, I'd move a block out of the way, she'd say "look, a crack!" and then just stand there thus leaving me completely stuck.
5) I have the Xbox version, so I'll just mention this - the controls on the original PoP are abysmal. I remember playing PoP on SNES back in the day, and I don't remember it handling this badly at all.
It's not that I didn't like the game, I did. However, if I were ranking it, I'd only give it an 8/8.5 or so.
-Crimson Skies = fun. It's a very arcade-y flight game, and I'm somewhat annoyed that there's no options for a cockpit view or to make the left stick act as a real flight stick would (like Air Force Delta had), and the lack of "targeting" messes with my head, but it's very fun nonetheless. I love the music, and the voice work is pretty good as well, although I wish there was an option for subtitles on important plot-related chatter. The thing I'm most impressed with is the lack of loading time - once you're in the air, the game flows extremely well.
-So I also got myself a GB Player this week, and Mega Man Zero is everything I wanted MMX7 to be. Yum. Got Aria of Sorrow too, but it'll be a while before I get around to that.
<i>-57</i></div>