Review #389: Dead to Rights

 Just your everyday afternoon cop TV soap opera.

 Exciting. Frantic. Kinetic. Chaotic. Those are but a few words I could use to describe Namco's 2002 third person shooter Dead to Rights, a game clearly inspired by Max Payne, but opting for police drama instead of detective noir. It's a game nobody talks about nowadays, but golly, has it aged well!

 You shouldn't be playing this game for its story, but, in case you are, the game follows Jack Slate and his dog, Shadow, as they try to avenge Jack's father. Along the way he'll get framed, he'll escape jail, face betrayal, discover corruption and follow the entire gamut of action-cop movie tropes you think off the top of your head. The story is silly and cliched, the game knows it and it never takes itself seriously: you'll face thong-wearing ninja twin babes, a mad shooter that heals himself by drinking liquor and a cartoonishly abusive jailer. It's dumb, it's fun.

 Dead to Rights is a very linear game, so you'll be traversing stages as you shoot and punch your way through sometimes endless hordes of mooks. This game was from an era before Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War, so manual aiming is more or less impossible(Although you can enter a useless first-person aiming mode by tapping R2), so you use R1 to lock-on to enemies, and the right analog stick to switch between enemies. The color of the targeting reticule indicate how likely your shots are to land. It works rather well, and dispatching enemies as you strafe around is pretty fun.

 Luckily, Jack has a ton of maneuvers at his disposal to make short work of his enemies. Tapping circle while unarmed will perform an instakill that disarms his enemy, and tapping circle while holding a gun will let you grab an enemy and use him as a meat shield. The triangle button can be use to dive, and if you've stamina, you can dive in slow motion and pump your enemies with lead. You an also use circle while next to a wall to stick to it and take cover. Lastly, there's a fourth gauge, below your health, stamina and armor: Shadow. When full, you can use shadow to instantly kill an enemy and have Shadow bring you his weapon. Everything works really well, and it's a blast to play because landing bullets feels good, and once you get a hang of every mechanic, it turns very stylish as well.

 There's also melee combat, and it works relatively well. Once again, landing blows feels very crunchy and satisfying. That said, it's not the most in-depth of combat systems, but as a complement to the shooting? It's great. Sadly, the developers might've bit a bit more than they could chew, since they also added minigames. Disarming bombs and lockpicking, while somewhat out of place, are relatively fun... but there's also a very weird exotic dance minigame, a weird lifting weights minigame and... punching a sand bag? Most of these are rather boring, and while I appreciate that they might've wanted to add some variety... it wasn't needed, and they work against the game. The game is relatively short(4:30 hours or so), so it ends before it gets boring.

 My biggest annoyance with the game was that sometimes enemies will respawn indefinitely. It's not unusual to be picking up weapons after a firefight only for an enemy to respawn behind you, heck, some of those times they respawn from areas you just completely cleared out of enemies! While I never died to a random respawn or during the endless waves on certain missions(Mission 15 being a big culprit, since until you realize that you're supposed to go through a certain door, you might be tempted to try killing everything) they certainly were annoying.

 I had a blast with Dead to Rights! Everything that matters works swimmingly, and it's only a few little kinks and issues that hold it down from its full potential, and a few extra levels could've helped, since I was left wanting more!
 8.0 out of 10.

Now Playing: Dead to Rights

 Amazing,

 Third person shooters haven't aged very well, you can blame games like Gears of War and Resident Evil for that, but, Jesus Christ does Dead to Rights still has got it! The shooting feels so good, and plays so well, there're many interesting mechanics like disarms or diving and slow-mo diving, and the aim button works pretty well, clearly, the game was designed to make the most of not having to aim with the right analog stick. The melee combat also feels pretty good.

 That said, there're some rather... uneeded minigames included. The Exotic Dance minigame was kinda weird, the weight lifting was just silly and the punching bag one was dumb. The game could've easily done without them.

 All in all, the game's pretty much brilliant, I'm having a blast.

Review #388: Wild Arms

 Ain't a wild ride.

 I love the few Wild Arms I've played. Wild Arms 2 is bloody great, while Wild Arms 3 rests highly upon my favorite JRPGs ever. Some people consider Wild Arms 1 to be the best one, so of course I had to try it... It was not what I expected.

 You play as a team of Dream Chasers: Rudy, the dull mute hero type who has the power to wield the fearful ARMs, Jack Van Burace, the victim of a poor localization who's got a few skeletons in his closet, searching for 'Power' and lastly, Cecilia, the princess who loves escaping out of the castle, because every JRPG princess loves escaping her castle. While Wild Arms 2 and 3 had this fantastic and original Spaghetti Western theming to them, Wild Arms 1 is more of a generic fantasy game. There're golems, ancient steampunk-ish technology waiting to be found, princesses, castles, an ancient race of elves-equivalents named Elw and, lastly, the enemy race: The Machines. While there're a few twists and turns, a few more obvious than others, the story was a bit too 'me-too' as far as RPGs go for my liking, and characters were too one-dimensional. It fails to engage the player, but at least it has a few interesting ideas.

 This, being a JRPG, plays like one to a tee. Run around, explore towns, traverse dungeons, fight a few random battles and defeat some bosses for good measure. What's interesting about Wild Arms is how they deal with exploration: All three characters have their own set of 4 tools, which are used to solve puzzles while inside dungeons, Take Rudy, he can use bombs to destroy cracked walls, or use the Power Glove(It's so bad) to hit stuff, while Jack can use a grappling hook or send his pet flying mouse to grab stuff from afar. It really sets Wild Arms apart from other games... but, sadly, this time around puzzles are rather lame and simple, to the point of the use of tools feeling more like sorting obstacles than figuring out how to deal with situations. The series will really get the most out of the Tool system in subsequent games.

 But what's really puzzling is how the game progresses. More than once will the game expect you to just roam around, suffering dozens upon dozens of random encounters, until you somehow bump into where you are supposed to go next. It's poor game design, add to that the poor translation and you've a recipe for annoyance. Some puzzles are a bit too vague as well. There's this instance in which you have to speak with a nun, of course the game doesn't tell you that you need to, but she's blocked off by a kid that mentions being scared of the giant rat monsters. Somehow you have to realize that you've to use the flying mouse on the kid to get him to move and then talk to the nun... Seriously?

 Combat fares much better, using a more primitive set of mechanics than future games. Battles follow the traditional turn based system, and on each turn you've a decent variety of things you could do. You can swap out a character's equipment, you can use items, use spells/skills, attack or use FP attacks. FP is built as you take and deal damage, there're four levels to the FP gauge, and each character has four unique FP skills they can use. It's a rather fun system that works really well... .and which would be refined to a shine in latter games.

 It's interesting to see Wild Arms' origins, but this first game leaves a lot to be desired. Sure, battles are fun, but not as fun as they are in future games thanks to all the added bells and whistles. It lacks the fantastic customization that you could do on your party, and while I'm sure the tool system was original at its time... the puzzles get SO much better and so much more creative than this game. Heck, even their stories are much more engrossing and original than this generic pastiche of tropes. Wild Arms 1 is not a bad game, but it stands eclipsed by its much superior sequels.
 5.5 out of 10

Review #387: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

 Who'd knew The Force was fond of skating?

 There's no denying that Tony Hawk 3 was the bees knees at the time of its release. It was the culmination of all that was Tony Hawk, and a brave new step into the next generation. And while the game has stood the test of time... Tony Hawk 4 and the other sequels happened.

 You can play either Career, Single Session(2 minutes to score points), Free Skate(No time limit, fool around any level), create your own skate park and a few two player modes. Career has no story, no fat. It's just you, 8 levels, 2 minutes and their goal lists. If you ask me, it's rather... archaic. Mind you, I adore arcade-like games, but you need to finish a certain amount of goals in order to progress to the next level, and considering that about 70% of the goals require you finding something or figuring out how to do it(Because 'Start the Earthquake' totally means grinding 4 rails), and running on 2-minute limits is rather tedious. This was tweaked with Tony Hawk 4's mission based approach, which I think works much better. Regardless, the game's levels are distinct, fun and well crafted, and the goals on each are very varied.

 While some may argue that subsequent games overdid it with mechanics and what not, and would claim that Pro Skater 3's mechanics are all that's needed... I digress. Climbing stairs is a pain in the butt, and if you messed up, you are better off losing time and finding another way up instead of trying to fight gravity and grind a rail upwards. This was fixed with the ability to get off your board. Sticker-Slapping/Wallplanting was another fun mechanic that would be added later that would let you continue combos even when riding straight into a wall. What I mean to say is that, yes, the mechanics present in Tony Hawk 3 work, and work well... but future games added so much more to the game, and mostly fun or useful tools, it's hard to come back to this one.

 If you don't care about unlockables, you can be done with the game in little more than half an hour. In order to unlock every secret skater you'll either have to complete the game 100% with every skater or... use cheat codes. The extras are worth it, what other game lets you skate as Darth Maul or Wolverine!?

 Is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 still a good game? Undoubtedly. Has it aged poorly? Not at all... but as far as I'm concerned, the subsequent games are all much, much more fun to play, and offer a whole lot more than simply 'bells and whistles', they improved and evolved the formula. But, hey, if you still prefer the older format, this one still plays like a dream.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Wild Arms

 Where's my Wild West?

 I thought the Wild Arms games had a western motif... why am I fighting with Swords?! Where's the sand? Where're the desserts!?

 Ah well, first impressions are good. I love the sprites, while they have a quasi-3D feel to them, they also feel very... SNES-y, in how the world looks and characters move. The combat, too, while being polygonal, it still feels very SNES-y.

 I'm liking it a lot!

Review #386: Super Bust-a-Move

 Maybe it's time for a 'Worst Cover of the Year' category?

 Welcome to Super Bust-a-Move, the fifth Playstation release of the long-lived Bust-a-Move series, and it's kinda... it's kinda dated.

 What is Bust-a-Move? It's one of those puzzle games in which you have to clear a screen filled with colorful bubbles by throwing your own colored bubbles at them, from the bottom to the top. Your bubbles will stick against the bubbles at the top, and matching three or more bubbles of the same color will make them pop. You can't waste too much time as the ceiling is constantly lowering, and if a bubble touches your character at the bottom of the screen, it's game over.

 There're three different modes: 1-Player Puzzle mode, which is an arcade ladder of sorts in which you pick your own route, VS CPU and VS 2 Player. Longevity is something this game lacks. Also, for whatever reason, the entire cast of playable characters is new, and they went for a sort of Monster-pop-culture look that is kinda hideous.

 Super Bust-a-Move is relatively good, since the concept is so undeniably good that it's been cloned and ripped off to death, but it's also a victim of time. While the lack of modes was unforgivable even at its time of release, there's no denying that this kind of game has become easy to access, thanks to Facebook or mobile games, and free to play. There's absolutely no reason as to why you'd want to play this version instead, except maybe the original characters, and, if you ask me, there's a lot to be desired in that front.
 4.0 out of 10

Review #385: Star Wars Episode 1 - Jedi Power Battles

 Jedi's lamest battles.

 It was a great concept: Take a Jedi from the many introduced in Episode 1, and take them through various levels of beat'em up action, heck, take a buddy with you as well! It was a great concept. But why was the end result so bad?

 While Episode 1 dealt with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's adventure, this game is a very, veeeeeery loose retelling of the movie, and in addition to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, you can play as three other Jedi: Plo Koon, Mace Windu and Adi Gallia. There're few but noticeable differences between all Jedi, from the speed and power of their moves down to their force powers. This is a beat'em up game, which means you'll traverse linear stages slicing and dicing your enemies. As you go through all 10 levels, scoring high amount of points will let you earn new combos, more health, more Force power gauge or even new force powers. And heck, you can even unlock a few other playable characters!

 It sounds awesome, doesn't it? But it all goes down the drain as soon as you gain control of your Jedi. You've three attack buttons, Low, Medium and High, and while performing the simple 2 and 3 button combos is easy, using the unlockable combos require some very weird timing. Moving while pressing buttons will perform unwieldy dash attacks, so you have to be staying still before pressing buttons if you want to use the useful attacks, which is kinda annoying, but you can get used to it. The force powers are a decent addition, but you have to unlock them by getting the highest amount of points possible in a stage, which, to be honest, is a drag, as you must search every nook and cranny for collectibles or destructible objects, which also halts the pace of the game.

 Level design is pretty bad as well, chief of its problems being the unnecessary amount of terrible platforming sections that have no place in this game. Your character won't project shadows over certain types of terrain, which is one of the worst sins a 3-D platform game can commit. Then there's also the cheap enemy placement that is sure to shoot at you as you jump towards platforms or push you off stages with their knock-up attacks. The game runs on credits, so hope to god you don't lose all your credits to botomless pits. Or to glitches, like getting stuck on a veranda. Or to poor checkpoint design which respawns every single enemy and might just respawn you in the middle of harms way. It's not an enjoyable game. At least you can bring a buddy along to lessen the tedium.

 Jedi Power Battles falls short of its fantastic concept. There were some great ideas at play, it could've been a great game, but... it's not.
3.5 out of 10