This is your standard spoiler warning. If you don’t want … umm… whatever games I’m
going to rant about spoiled for some reason then don’t even bother.
Ghost here! Glad you could drop by.
We’re in for a bad one tonight folks. Do you ever get to a point where you’ve just
had enough? I know that I certainly do! And if you are a fan of the gaming industry I’m
sure you do as well. There’s only so
many shameful sequels, Wii Musics, Raiden and Rosemary conversations, and Duke
Nukem Forevers that a person can stand before their brain just explodes all
over the side of the television screen from anger.
I honestly wonder what the gaming industry is slipping
into as a whole. It’s going down a
slippery slope to Satan’s front door rather quickly with all the casual
pandering, useless gimmicks, lazy writing, terrible concepts, and generic First
Person Shooters filling the shelves while leaving those of us who like "actual games"
in the background. Luckily this past
year I’ve seen a light in the distance providing hope for us who consider
ourselves gamers, with the emergence this year of games such as Skyrim, Tales
of the Abyss, and a whole multitude of others that I’m too lazy to look up
currently.
That being said, just thinking about the past few years
makes me rather irritated… you know what… screw it! Since I’m in such an annoyed mood, I’m just
going to make generalized anger be the theme of the day. This review will be all about games that have
ticked me off for one reason or another but don’t deserve an entire review
(mostly). No other intro into this, just
a list and why they are so rage inducing.
=========================================================================
1. No More Heroes
“BOOM HEADSHOT!!!”
Awesome
The main character is Travis Touchdown. At first I thought the name was kind of silly
but the more I thought about it and once I started playing the actual game it grew on me, and he easily made my top 10 most awesome characters list. Why?
Check this out; he’s a video game enthusiast, general nerd, assassin who
owns a rechargeable lightsaber rip-off. Though
I won’t get into exactly how he recharges his beam sword for sake of decency.
OK WHO PUT THIS IN HERE??!!
The entire introductory level is non-stop action packed
awesomeness in digital form. It was
challenging, it was fun, and it told you almost everything you needed to know
about how to kill anything stopping you from your goal. It was
a rollercoaster of sheer epicness. The
introductory level even had the guts to end with your first actual boss
battle. I’m not talking about one of
those pathetic ones where the game pauses to explain how to “attack the weak spot
for massive damage.” No, it’s an ACTUAL
boss battle that’s difficult and leaves you pretty much on your own to figure
out how to beat this guy. When you finally
defeat him you feel a real sense of accomplishment and desire to keep playing. I was stoked to keep playing to the next
level and wanted the cutscenes to end so that I could continue with the action, adventure and bloodshed. Because if the introductory
level was this great surely the rest of it has to be even more awesome…..
Yeah… I wish. It
is at this point that the game hits a brick wall. No, even worse than a brick wall. It’s like the game is running forward then
gets a face full of the Juggernaut running full force the opposite direction. It not only halts progress, it pretty much smashes a reset button and takes you back to basic gaming 101 which is farther back than the introductory level. What do
I mean by this? Well, after your boss
battle you get into a car and are told that you need to go on and kill the next
assassin. However you have to make money
to even attempt to meet him to fight him.
So your informant/partner/whatever suggests you go to an agency to
perform odd jobs to make money. Now I’m
no stranger to this concept as we had to gain money in Kingdom Hearts II, one
of my favorite games, fairly early on in the gameplay. However there’s one small difference here,
and if you haven’t played these games the difference is Kingdom Hearts II doing
everything right, and No More Heroes doing everything wrong.
In Kingdom Hearts II, you start off the game making sure
you understand how to move, talk, attack, all the very small basics of
gameplay. Then you are asked to make
money and the gameplay keeps increasing as the storyline progresses. It is a natural progression. No More Heroes gives you that whole intro
level of constant action and a boss battle, and then takes you back to the
kiddy basics. Yup, it puts you into
everything, throws all it’s got at you, and then takes it all back. I swallowed my anger for a while because I was
at least going to see what sort of job you had to do. Maybe it was raiding a stronghold where there
would be more action. So I made my way
over to the only agency which was open to you at the time. Checked the job board and what did I find? One open job collecting coconuts. COLLECTING… COCONUTS???!!!!!!!!!!
WHAAAATTT??? NO NO NO!!! I refuse to believe for a single minute that
this is happening!! After an hour or two
of battling the only way I can continue the game is finding and collecting
coconuts???!!! This is NOT how you make
a video game. This isn’t even how you
troll people with your video game. This
is just vulgar and horrible! I’d be OK
with having that as an optional task but this is the only one, so to continue
the game it is REQUIRED that you do this.
I’d also like to point out the VERY obvious here. Why do you need money to even get a chance to
seeing the next assassin you are taking out?
The opening custscene before the intro level had you bursting into the
mansion where the guy is, eliminating any and all guards and resistance and just
heading in to take care of business. And
Travis’ personality is one that doesn’t care about formality of procedure. He just gets the job done. So why are we suddenly being constrained by
required meaningless tasks? This is
making no sense already in the rules of the world and character that have
already been established to us. This is unacceptable! So I decided that this would be a good time
to walk back out of that building and just mess around with the world a bit.
Sadly it was also at this time I found my second major
complaint with the game, the Overworld.
Earlier I mentioned Grand Theft Auto in the list of
things that should go in the blender.
That is because fans of the GTA series would find this overworld theory
very similar. Basically the overworld is
a dumbed down version of GTA Vice City. Now
if the mechanics worked anything like a GTA game I’d have no issues at all and
would have had a TON of fun for hours and hours just messing around with people
and vehicles. I can’t begin to tell you
the amount of time I’ve wasted in Vice City just stealing cars and chasing
people on the sidewalk for kicks, or even getting bored and trying to follow
the traffic pattern (which is far more difficult than one would expect.) Alas, to this games detriment, GTA Overworld
this is not by any stretch of the imagination.
The first major difference is that you cannot at any point in the
overworld pull out your weapon or attack anything. You also cannot get into any vehicles other
than the motorcycle you own, and you can’t destroy any property or any other
cars. You CAN however jump and hurt
YOURSELF. Yes, that’s right, if you
crash into something hard enough you won’t hurt your vehicle, or the person or
vehicle you crash into, but you can fly off the bike and hurt yourself! What’s the purpose of stylizing your
overworld like GTA if you can’t even have fun in the overworld. Might as well not even have an overworld and
just usher us from place to place. This is beyond asinine!
I still haven’t picked up those coconuts because I just
felt so betrayed, so disinterested, and completely unmotivated that I just
refuse to do it. I want the game that
the introductory level and trailer said that the game was, not this pile of
absolute trash!
2. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Kingdom Hearts is a series that I love to death but I also
find frustrating at times. The games are
more cinematic than anything else. It’s
an experience more so than it is a game which is perfectly fine with me as long
as the experience is breathtaking, and the portions of the game are challenging
but not overly difficult, and most of all it has to be fun. For the most part the series as a whole does
this. It relies heavily on your
nostalgia for Disney movies such as Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, The Little
Mermaid, Lion King etc, while also giving their original characters and Final
Fantasy characters a good amount of work and thought as well. I never have any problem with the writing or
characters in these movies. They just
fill my heart with warmth, even the angsty Riku.
The Series frustrates me because this is one of the few
series in which every single game released has its place in the timeline. Now wait a second. I’m sure you’re thinking that’s kind of a
normal thing. Even something as bizarre
as the Zelda timeline has every game in a place sort of. While that’s true, Kingdom Hearts takes it a
step further. This series has released
games on Playstation 2, Gameboy Advanced, Nintendo DS, Verizon’s VCAST Mobile
in Japan ONLY, PSP, Nintendo 3DS, and soon to be Playstation 3. That’s a lot of specificiations and formats
there. But what makes it even worse is
that EVERY GAME released either progresses the story or adds backstory to the
existing story, meaning that EVERY GAME IS CANON. Nothing is there just for the fun of it. Everything is there for a purpose and to
fully understand the story you have to play EVERY game. That’s a lot of crap to buy, but luckily some
games were re-released in different formats so that everyone could play them.
I got into Kingdom Hearts fairly late in the process when
Kingdom Hearts II was set to release in only a couple weeks. So I played Kingdom Hearts and loved it. Since the next game was called Kingdom Hearts
II I figured that would be the logical next segment of the game. NOPE!!
The first two hours of gameplay made no sense to me and I had no idea
what was going on with basically NO explanation whatsoever. Apparently a game called Kingdom Hearts II
was NOT the second game in the series.
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories was.
So I was already off on the wrong foot with this
game. I was annoyed that I had to track
down a Gameboy Advanced game to see what happens in between games 1 and 2. The opening seemed ominous, the premise
seemed interesting and I was just about to get into this game when it
happened. Point blank shot to the face
with a turd cannon, and the reason why I HATE this game.
The Gameplay!
Your
first ever battle in this game is explaining how to fight. You fight USING CARDS TO ISSUE COMMANDS. That’s right, we spent all of Kingdom Hearts,
a cinematic masterpiece of a game which the combat was a button masher’s dream
and very simplistic and amazing and now we're stuck having to learn how to use cards. Well…
this shouldn’t be that difficult right?
WRONG! Just see if you can follow this. During a battle you have to avoid damage by walking around and avoiding attacks from enemies. At the same time you have rummage through your card deck to select which set of three cards you want to attempt to use in order to attack. You have normal attacking cards, you have magic cards, you have item cards, and you have character summon cards. Each of the cards is issued with a power number from 0 to 9 and the number on the card determines the power and position of the attack. The enemies are also fighting with cards and if the number of the card they play at the same time as you is higher than your card then your attack fails. There are also combinations of cards you can use to pull of super moves but you have to know the exact combo of attack, magic, item, or summon cards to perform these intricate moves. Once you perform the move those cards are gone from your hand until the next battle. If you get blocked by the opposing character using a 0 card, then you still lose the cards. OH did I mention that you can only have a certain number of cards in your hand at all times and you have to purchase new packs of cards during each world to hopefully get some combo that’s worthwhile and…
WRONG! Just see if you can follow this. During a battle you have to avoid damage by walking around and avoiding attacks from enemies. At the same time you have rummage through your card deck to select which set of three cards you want to attempt to use in order to attack. You have normal attacking cards, you have magic cards, you have item cards, and you have character summon cards. Each of the cards is issued with a power number from 0 to 9 and the number on the card determines the power and position of the attack. The enemies are also fighting with cards and if the number of the card they play at the same time as you is higher than your card then your attack fails. There are also combinations of cards you can use to pull of super moves but you have to know the exact combo of attack, magic, item, or summon cards to perform these intricate moves. Once you perform the move those cards are gone from your hand until the next battle. If you get blocked by the opposing character using a 0 card, then you still lose the cards. OH did I mention that you can only have a certain number of cards in your hand at all times and you have to purchase new packs of cards during each world to hopefully get some combo that’s worthwhile and…
ENOUGH!! ENOUGH!! I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! This is just FAR too much to deal with at the
same time. I understand strategy but
this is like playing risk on seven boards at once and being required to do a
different move on each game board. HOLY
CRAP! And this really is a crying
shame. The cutscenes and overall
dialogue of this game are brilliant. The
story is amazing; the new characters are original and some of my favorite characters
in gaming history. Namine in particular
is such a fresh and awesome character with such good motivation. Everything is set in store for this game to
be breathtaking. But they forgot the key
factor. To play a video game you have to
actually make the gameplay fun and they failed miserably here.
Not only that but this game has been re-released MULTIPLE times!! More times than any other Kingdom Hearts game. And with the announcement of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 for the PS3, it’s about to be released AGAIN. WHY would they want to continuously flaunt something so flawed instead of, you know, the games that were brilliant and worked amazingly well? I just don’t understand it. Now for Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix + they released Chain of Memories at the beginning of the game and gave it the classic hack and slash style of the other two games, and they FINALLY were able to get it right and do it justice…. BUT THEY ONLY RELEASED THAT IN JAPAN!!!!! All us here in the rest of the world get stuck playing Beelzebub’s card game over and over and over, and I SWEAR KH 1.5 better not be the card gave version of this!!
Not only that but this game has been re-released MULTIPLE times!! More times than any other Kingdom Hearts game. And with the announcement of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 for the PS3, it’s about to be released AGAIN. WHY would they want to continuously flaunt something so flawed instead of, you know, the games that were brilliant and worked amazingly well? I just don’t understand it. Now for Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix + they released Chain of Memories at the beginning of the game and gave it the classic hack and slash style of the other two games, and they FINALLY were able to get it right and do it justice…. BUT THEY ONLY RELEASED THAT IN JAPAN!!!!! All us here in the rest of the world get stuck playing Beelzebub’s card game over and over and over, and I SWEAR KH 1.5 better not be the card gave version of this!!
3. Sonic and the Secret Rings
I appreciate that they are trying to keep a nostalgic
veteran of the old gaming era alive and in a new generation’s mind. BUT THEY’RE DOING IT ALL WRONG and this game
is proof of it. The fact that sonic
doesn’t stop and go but rather in constant motion is beyond annoying, the
controls are so clunky you’d probably get better results just handing it to
your toddler and having him flail the stupid thing around, and certain elements
are just bizarrely and insanely difficult at the most random of times such as
the flying pots. I still haven’t got
past those flying pots and I’m nowhere near the end of the game. This whole thing just feels wrong like I need
to take a long shower because it’s dirty.
It’s the same problem with most of the 3D Sonic games. Granted Sonic Heroes wasn’t bad, but it’s
still nowhere near as good as Sonic should be.
He was the Sega powerhouse and now he’s basically a joke. I applaud them for trying something new, but PLEASE,
just stick to side scrolling Sonic please!
4. New Super Mario Bros Wii
This game has two modes, laughably simple and nuclear
holocaust! I understand and expect a game to have difficulty and challenges;
that’s just part of what gaming is. Figuring
out puzzles, learning to overcome difficulty, and figuring out your personal
playing style to victory is part of the fun.
But the single player mode in this game is relentless. You want to jump inside of a castle? That’s fine let’s just send a green fireball
at the exact moment so that you THINK you’ll miss it but it barely brushes the
top of your hat killing you. You think
restarting the level and attempting again will help you? Let’s just change the jumping mechanics
slightly so that now instead of hitting the magic fire ball you fall into the
pit of lava. It’s like the developers
decided to set the game on maximum troll mode especially once you get into
World 6 and higher. I started having
trouble around World 3 mind you, but was able to continue on through sheer
willpower despite the number of Mario’s I’d killed in my attempts. But eventually I just had to throw the wiimote
down and say forget it.
So what’s this simple mode you ask? Well that is the multiplayer. This game boasts of its multiplayer ability
where you can choose between Mario, Luigi, Toad and..um… Toad again. Really?
Couldn’t throw in Yoshi? Peach? Wario?
I’d even take Waluigi at this point in the road. We’re really going with two toads???? Whatever.
Well, ignoring that little bit of stupidity, let’s take a look at the
Multiplayer aspect. When this game was
in development, Nintendo was going to praise this game for what all you could
do with Multi Player. It was the kind of
Mario game that was intended to be played with more than one person… kind of
like Mario Party except not a massive pile of Yoshi excrement. Humorously enough though, the Multi Player aspect
makes everything easy. Your partners can
save you from death, you can share lives in case someone is doing pitiful at
this level, you can use each other to bounce around to reach higher goals, and
honestly the game is just so much more fun with more than one person.
So excuse me while I go pop in the disc to go
play some multiplayer online.
OH wait I forgot.
This is a game which is prided on being a multiplayer game, you know ,a
game designed for more than one person to play, and it DOESN’T EVEN HAVE AN
ONLINE OPTION!!!. Exactly what was the
through process here?? I know that games like this are somewhat geared towards
kids (or grown up kids), but it’s like Nintendo doesn’t know their demographic at
all. Sony and Microsoft have come to
grasp with their demographics and realize that video games aren’t just for
kids. Why do I say that? Well kids are more likely to be in school
with other kids who like video games, and they are more likely to come over to
each other’s house and play this. This
fact would be fine if that was the intentional all along, however a game featuring
Mario, one of the most nostalgic and well-loved video game characters of all
time, is going to be played by old and young alike. The likelihood of an adult gamer having other
friends come to their house to play a video game is significantly less likely
than that of a child. This is why online
gaming is quickly becoming the norm and a feature sought after by developers
because it’s marketable and highly profitable.
Effectively Nintendo has produced a game that is not only
better, more enjoyable, and simpler when played with more than one person, but
they have limited it to where I and several other adults most likely can’t
regularly play it the way it was intended unless I so happen to have a gaming
neighbor or a particularly skilled cat.
5. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
What do I LIKE about this game? Well I do like how they were inventive with
some of the items and mannerisms of the DS.
Drawing a line for the boomerang was great, blowing out fires by blowing
on the mic was good, and at one point you have to make a copy of the map…what
do you do? You close the screen on the
DS to “stamp” the map from the stone onto your paper. Now that’s pretty awesome and I have to give
them mad props for their inventiveness with that.
What do I dislike about it? Pretty much everything else. Using the touch screen to both move and attack
makes things bulky and irritating, and usually ends up sending our hero doing
the exact opposite of what we wanted him to do, if not to immediate doom. Though with the irritation levels of this
game half the time I really DID want him to dodgeroll right into a spiked wall
rather than safely stand near a jar and break it for health just so I wouldn’t
have to play it anymore.
One of the BIGGEST issues I’ve had with this is one that
most people who also hate this game have, the Temple of the Ocean King. This temple is basically the worst thing ever
created in a Zelda game. I’d rather take
50 consecutive playthroughs of Ocarina’s Water temple than go through this
stupid thing. Anyone who thought the
Zelda series was already repetitive with the dungeons and the same clichés over
and over had another thing coming with this.
If those games were repetitive, this game is like Drew Barrymore in 50
First Dates. You keep having to go back
to this same area, through the exact same floors, with the exact same enemies
over and over and over and over. Do you
get a chance to skip a section cause you’ve already completed it? NOPE!
You keep getting stuck in the temple and need either the power of an
elemental temple, or the secret item held within to get to your next section of
the Ocean King temple. Every time you
exit the temple you have to do every single floor you’ve already done over
again. Meaning you’ve probably done the
first five floors infinity times by the end of the game. OH and to make matters worse, did you know
there’s a TIME LIMIT??? It’s not enough
that you have to re-do every single area of this temple multiple times but each
room you can only stand in certain places for a few minutes before you just
start dying because… magic?
I’d rather be playing a 24 hour marathon play of Zelda 2
blindfolded with Navi screaming in my ears than play this. It’s been rotting in my gaming shelf for 4
years now and will continue to rot there and never be played again.
Well.. I feel a little bit better. Sometimes you just have to let your
frustrations out in a manner that won’t mean a thing to anyone else but saying
it is half the fun.
Next week it’s back to basics! Until then, I’m E-Rod and I’m the
Blockbuster Buster!
Wait… no… sorry been watching too much
thatguywiththeglasses.com. You know what
just forget it. I’ll see you next time.
This is Ghost, fading into the darkness
This is Ghost, fading into the darkness
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