Review #169: Nightmare Creatures

  Dated... but fun. But very, very dated.

 Nightmare Creatures was a third person horror game that differed from the norm. While most horror games back then would have you managing ammo and a limited inventory space, alongside some simple puzzles, Nightmare Creatures decided to forgo all that, and go for a more action oriented route, and a surprisingly good combat system.

 Game takes place in 1834, London, after an outbreak of monsters take the town by storm. It falls upon the ears of Father Ignatius and Nadia that an Adam Crowley is behind all the monsters running rampart, so both heroes decide to track him down. It's a simple setup, with little more narrative throughout the game, limited to a few lines of text before each stage. Characters don't get any kind of development, but I enjoyed the setting and the art style they used. Monsters look fairly creepy, and there's something charming about a zombie that can sidestep like Muhammad Ali.

 Controls are awful. Well, not completely, combat works fine, the problem lies everywhere else. Firstly, the game employs tank-like controls, y'know, left and right turns you around instead of making your character move. This is very imprecise, and probably remnants of a different direction the game was gonna take. Oh, and don't bother using the analog stick, it makes it even worse. Sidesteps are mapped to the shoulder buttons, but I found no use for them in combat, the circle button(Block) is all you need. Another huge problem the game has is the camera, when engaging enemies in combat, it will move around to give you a better view of your character and the enemy, and this is fine, but sometimes when turning around, it will decide to choose some awkward angles, this is more of a rarity, but it's usually coupled with a second issue: Platforming. I've established that the controls are imprecise, well, some stages feature platforming and it works terribly, worst of all, missing a jump means losing a Life, and trust me, you are gonna need those. Stage 4 is the worst offender, and has all the issues I've mentioned... so far.

 Combat works fairly well, Square and X can be used to start combos, but some combos actually involve the other two face buttons. Both characters, Ignatius and Nadia, have a very decent amount of combos, and both characters play very different from each other. However, as good as the combat is, most of the time, as soon as you land a clean hit on an enemy, you can just mash one button until they die. Rounding up your arsenal are items that you can find, these range from healing supplies, to guns, mines, dynamite or even freezing powers. You can also sever the enemy's limbs with the stronger, longer combos or while using the Berserk item.  If the game got one thing right, it's the combat.

 The game can get fairly challenging, and if you run out of lives, it's game over. One thing I didn't like in the least was the Adrenaline meter. Going too long without killing an enemy will make the adrenaline gauge drop, and once it's depleted, you'll start losing HP steadily. It's a pretty annoying mechanic, levels are kinda large, and you need to explore them, whether to find items or the much sought after extra lives, or maybe to find the trigger that will open the door blocking your path. The game has a ton of secrets, which makes the Adrenaline gauge fairly unwelcome, heck, the N64 port actually allows you to turn it off. I heard that bosses are supposed to be easy, but for the life of me I don't see it. I couldn't finish a single boss without losing, at least, a life. Make it about ten for the last one. You can also use cheats(Or finish the game) to gain the ability to play as the different monsters from the game(Sadly, it seems to be random which monster you get each level), or even get unlimited items and lives.

 The game's graphics have their ups and downs. On the upside, enemies look great, and the environments are highly detailed. The game uses very dark colors, alongside mist effects and the dreary look the textures give to the objects, it looks very nice. However, it's a bit too much for the PS1 to handle, and in turn means that there's a very short draw distance, most of the time you'll be staring at the black unknown. Animations have certainly seen better days though! The music I liked fairly much, it's nothing special, but it suits the game and helps set the mood.

 I'm gonna be fairly blunt here, the game has aged terribly. Controls are a... nightmare, the amount of damage enemies can deal in a few hits is borderline unfair, the animations look very unnatural to say the least, levels can get very confusing and the adrenaline gauge keeps dropping to add to the annoyance, and the platforming sections? Absolutely dreadful. And despite all this... I kinda like the game, it may be partly due to nostalgia, since I loved this game when I was younger, but I can't deny that I can have fun with this game, while acknowledging that time hasn't been kind.
 5.5 out of 10.

Now Playing: Nightmare Creatures

 Ain't no rest for the wicked.

 So, brief overview, since I'm kinda tiredish and my eyes are killing me. Nightmare Creatures was a game I was, for some reason, rather fond of... on the Nintendo 64. Still, I've been wanting to give it another whirl for a while, and lo and behold, here I am.

 First thing I noticed: The controls are terrible, really. But the combo system is pretty decent, even if the movement is kinda choppy. I'm diggin' the art style and the sidestepping zombies, pretty agile bastards! The "Virus meter" seems like a dumb handicap, but oh well, let's see how it goes.

 One of the main characters is named Ignatius, the ultimate name of baddasery, which makes Nightmare Creature the GOTF(Game of the Forever).

Review #168: Rampage 2 - Universal Tour

 Who... who makes a sequel and takes away features? WHO DOES THAT?!

 Rampage World Tour was a passable remake of the classic Arcade game. It seems like they wanted to up the ante with Rampage 2, thus "Universal" Tour... but somewhere along the way it seems they forgot that a sequel is supposed to add features, not take them away(Unless they were bad or broken).

 The game actually has a story, not that it matters, but it has the previous three heroes(Lizzie the Lizard, George the Gorilla and Ralph the Wolf) captured by the soldiers. As one of three new Monsters, it's your job to rescue them(AKA unlock them for subsequent playthroughs) and lay waste to earth. As the title implies, eventually you'll take on to space, except that you'll only destroy the other planets on the Milky Way and one Alien Planet, pretty disappointing for an "universal" tour. To be honest, I preferred the "Hell" motif that World Tour used for its latter levels over the new alien theme the game eventually uses. For all intents and purposes, these themes don't affect gameplay, but it's a matter of taste.

 Gameplay is almost the same as the previous game, but with less features. Really. Just as before ,the game only has one mode and one mode only, and can be played with up to three players... just remember that all three players are confined to the same screen, so it can get cramped. As one of 9 monsters(6 having to be unlocked!), you can punch, kick, climb buildings and eat people. Your objective in the game is to destroy every building in each town. This is done by climbing them and either kick or punch both sides, which allows you to destroy sections of the buildings and, hopefully, uncover items(Either good, like food that heals you, or bad like electric appliances which hurt you), or to climb to the top and smash it by repeatedly jumping on it. You can no longer get on top of tanks and ships to help you destroy buildings or the Toxic Ooze item that would transform you into VERN. This is a very, very repetitive game, and removing features that allowed for more variation in how you play is extremely stupid. And you'd think that having 9 playable characters would help, but while their stats and special attack vary, they play the same. Exactly the same. After playing 10 of the 125 stages, you'll have thing everything the game has to offer. Sure, by stage 75 aliens are introduced, but they don't change the gameplay, just the graphics.

 They also removed continues, the previous game had unlimited continues, this time around, if you lose all your lives, you are done. This is pretty dumb considering that the game is rather tough. You monster is huge, and avoiding damage is almost impossible, particularly since enemies respawn indefinitely, and if you take too long to level a city, an airstrike will fly by and kill you. The trick to surviving is to make the most of each Bonus Stage, and amass as many lives as you can before the Alien levels begin.

 Graphics are pretty decent. Monsters consist of digitalized sprites, while buildings and people where made by hand. You'd think it'd be jarring seeing both styles at the same time, but it kinda works to make the monsters stand out from the rest of the world. Monsters look pretty nice, and people's animations are pretty funny. The soundtrack is surprisingly good, I thought the music fitted pretty well, and while I won't be caught humming any tune any time soon, I liked it. The sound effects are pretty fitting as well, but they do get old after a while.

 Rampage 2 is a very repetitive game. And I do mean, VERY repetitive, it's needlessly long, and you'll have seen everything the game has to offer by level 76(Level 10 if you don't count aliens). And while having many monsters sounds neat, they all play the same. Removing features from World Tour was pretty dumb. All in all, I'd stick with the prequel over this one.
 3.0 out of 10

Review #167: Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations

 They even made videogame-filler, hot damn!

 Ah! I remember Ninja Storm 2, it was an... interesting game. I'm still more fond of the Clash of the Ninja series, but that's as far as gameplay goes, for Fan service, I'd go straight to Ultimate Ninja Storm. It'd seem Namco-Bandai found their cash cow. But y'know what, I'm OK with the milking as long as the quality doesn't drop. This time around, they brought back the Pre-Timeskip characters from UNS 1 and added a few new ones, made a gameplay tweak and called it a day. Really!

 Remember Ninja Storm's 2 fantastic story mode? How you could go through Konoha and Suna? Those awesome boss battles(And I'm no fan of QTEs!)? Yeah... all of that is gone. The Story Mode is now made up of various individual stories, Each one is prefaced and concluded by a short anime movie, as far as I noticed, all the footage is brand new, and the quality varies between clips. The rest of the stories are told by anime stills and voice-overs. This is... a mess, if you are not familiar with the series, you probably won't make sense of it, it mentions names and plot devices every now and then, assuming you are familiar with them. Worst of all, each story is focused on different characters, which makes it very disjointed, not to mention how the game barely covers any new ground after Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. You'll also get to fight some fights from both fighters point of views, but you can't change the outcome, so it feels like padding. Speaking of padding, why do Zabuza and Haku get a Story Mode? No, really, they get a complete story mode just to cover their short fight, which you already read about in Naruto's story mode. And Killer's B story is also just filler, but at least it's hilarious.

 The gameplay is basically the same as previous games, one button performs attacks, which you can slightly change the "ender" by holding(or not) a direction on the analog stick, another button performs jumps(for movements on any direction), a button for shuriken and another one to use chakra-related moves. There's been one change, which I'm still not totally sold on, to how evading works. Previously, you'd have to tap Block just before getting hit, and you could do it indefinitely, which certainly became tedious, particularly since you could just mash block and hope for the best. This time around, dodging is tied to a new 5-gauge meter, which refills itself after a little while, and you no longer need to time it. Frankly, I'm not sure how much I like the fact that you have to wait for it to fill, or the fact that you no longer need to time it. What the new system means is that whoever uses the Substitution jutsu first, is the one who is gonna lose the trade and take damage.

 There's not a whole lot to do, Story Mode, Free Battle and Online Battles. I talked about the Story mode previously, but it's worth mentioning that it can get really hard. You are to fight beefed up opponents(Eventually they'll be able to easily take more than a fourth of you health bar with just one combo) and it seems that their Substitution gauge refills rather fast. These fights are much harder than any other CPU in other modes. Free Battle allows you to do simple VS matches, Survival, Tournament and Training, all of these can be played in Single or Teams. Most of the non-character collectibles are unlockable through playing the various Survival courses, and there's a lot of them, so at least it's a little extra to keep you busy.

 There's no denying it, the game looks beautiful, and the animations are oh so smooth. However, it's not as impressive looking as Ninja Storm or Ninja Storm 2 for the simple fact that the incredible boss fights are gone. Most returning characters saw little to no changes, which means that the animations are the same, these is only an issue for a few of them, like Jiraiya, that as good as the animations are... the attacks "look" very slow and lack any punch(He doesn't punch either!). Voice Acting is done by series regulars(Both Dub and Japanese), and as for the music.... it's eh. I've never been a fan of the UNS soundtrack, and this game is no exception.

 This game is filler, plain and simple. Namco wanted money but couldn't wait another whole year for Naruto's storyline to develop, so they just produced this game to earn some money in the mean time. It's hard to even recommend to Naruto fans, since the story mode covers so little new ground. The new characters are nice 'n all, but the next game kept them, added even more and has a proper story line, so there's no point to this game. At least the basic gameplay is fun.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Rampage 2 - Universal Tour

 Backstory time!

 I used to play Rampage World Tour on the N64, and I... kinda liked it, I think? I don't remember much, but I do remember playing it quite a bit. Back in the day I'd purchase the occasional Gamepro/Xpert Gamer/Electronic Gaming Monthly to put my English to the test and read about videogames, and the ad for Rampage 2 was one I came around fairly often. I don't remember just how interested I was in it, but y'know, I've been wanting to add some variety to my PSOne library, why not get one of the Rampage games? IT has a 2 on the title, so it should be better. It should.

 Except that it's the same game but with less features. You can't ride Airplanes, you can't ride tanks, you can't transform into Vern, there are no landmarks with bonus points, you can no longer pick your next destination by smashing the billboards... The new monsters are nice 'n all, but every monster plays basically the same, it's not a good trade off! So... yeah, I'm unimpressed.

Review #166: TMNT - Mutant Melee

 They didn't even have enough budget to write the full title. For shame!

 Well, turns out I was wrong and this game came out before Mutant Nightmare, my bad! Mutant Melee is a 4-player arena fighter based on the TMNT franchise... it's also a game that screams of low budget. From the reused assets on the cover of the game(Featuring a character that isn't in the game), to the lame character roster filled with clones(10 clones!) and shared moves... this game is a disappointment.

 The game has two modes: Arcade and Versus. Arcade has you following one of 10 characters as you fulfill missions. These courses get old really quick, some missions are dull, some seem to go on forever, some are incredibly unfair, and so on, but it's the only way to earn money and unlock characters and stages. Then there's versus, where you can play with up to three other human players, and, for some reason, can only be played with four characters, no 1 on 1 duels or anything or the sort. There's three game types: Deathmatch, King of the Hill(Stay in a certain spot to earn points) or Keep Away in which you are to hold a chest in order to earn points... but you can't attack in any way while holding it. Which stage you pick determines the type of game, which is pretty dumb and restricting, and you can't have more than one of each character, so no Duel of the Leonardos, probably since they couldn't be arsed to come up with different color schemes(And seeing how Gold Shredder is just, well, a golden Shredder, it would've ruined one of their original characters!).

 Gameplay is fairly simple, you have a weak attack, strong attack, pick-up button, jump button, block and a Modifier that allows you to use your three special moves, and when your special gauge is full, unleash your Super move. For as simple as it is, I had trouble, sometimes, remember how the controls were, maybe it was an issue on my end, but I kept messing up jumps with the special modifier. Stages are... a very mixed bag. Some stages are very cramped and small, while others are larger and have hazards or interactive objects. Boxes will appear on stages, some carry buffs(Or debuffs if you pick'em up and throw them against an opponent) while others hold weapons. These boxes always spawn on the same places, some might consider it a good thing, since you can predict them, but I really doubt anyone would play this game competitively, so I guess most of us would've preferred a more random spawning. Items are also fairly disappointing, all ranged weapons(Minigun, Rocket Launcher, Homing Missile Launcher) function basically the same, and melee weapons(Maces, axes, Swords, Lances) function the same as well. It feels very cheap. For what it's worth, I actually kinda liked the core system of the game, it's simple and functional, and at times fun. The game has a very floaty feel to it, it's not necessarily a bad thing though, I didn't mind it.

 The character roster has an impressive 22 character roster... until you realize that only the initial 12 are 'legit'. The entire bottom 10-character row has all the unlockable character, and they are nothing but clones. Gold Shredder and Oroku Saki are Shredder clones, even though all three of them have different Supers(Shredder borrows Splinter's while Oroku Saki borrows Donatello). Winter Casey and Summer Casey play exactly like Casey Jones, while Winter April and Summer April play just like April O'Neal. Young Hun and 'Monster' are Hun clones, 'Monster' has a different Super... which he shares with Raphael and Sleeg, while Hun and Young Hun have the same Super as Traximus. Then there's two different variations of the initial Foot Soldier, two of them sharing a Super. It's not just supers, you'll see plenty of similar Special attacks between all the characters. Where's Karai? Where're the Utrum agents? Where's Dragon Face? Where's Hamato Yoshi? Couldn't they squeeze in some form of Baxter Stockman? And what about some other Triceratons, there's a model for the one that had a robotic arm, but he isn't playable. It's not like they didn't have characters to pick from, they just were incredibly lazy or didn't have the money. I would've taken 3 other unique characters, for a total of 15, over 10 disgusting clones. And know what the saddest part is? It's still a better roster than TMNT: Smash up.

 The graphics are a step down from previous games, understandable since there's a lot going on at the same time and the game manages to keep a solid framerate even with 6 or more characters on screen at the same time(Story mode battles only). Still, that's no excuse for some of the off-looking animations(April is a good example of this). Stages are a mixed bag(Again), some stages are very pretty, some were inspired from the show... while others are lame and boring, still, all the stages in the game seem to be missing some kind of spark, they are very lifeless. Music is incredibly forgettable and dull, hardly fit for a fighting or party game. As for the voice acting, they come straight from the show and do a good job. Especial mention goes to the extras in the game, the little videos and images you can unlock... they all look terrible. The resolution makes all of them look blurry, thanks for including the entire first comic book... even though it's impossible to read it.

 Mutant Melee is not a bad game, it's just filled with missed opportunities, and an undeniable lack of funds or motivation. I think I'm gonna go with the former, as Konami did pretty good with the three previous games. As it stands, Mutant Melee is the worst game TMNT game Konami produced during the PS2/GC generation, any of the other three make for a better single player or multi player game, this one's just for hardcore fans, and even then it's hard to justify unless you've nothing else to play.
 5.0 out of 10

Now Playing: TMNT - Mutant Melee

 It lacks... somethin'

 Erm.... it's weird, because functionally, it's sound... yet it lacks something, some kind of punch? I dunno, it feels rather... lifeless, bland, even though the mechanics are fairly alright.

 Maybe after logging more gameplay time I'll be able to pinpoint just what exactly is missing from this one.