X-Men: a review

If you've ever played a video game, you probably at least know of this one. You may not have played it, but you know it. Let me prove it.

Yeah. That line that everyone makes fun of? That's from this! And in this XBLA release, nothing has changed. The game's still coated in Engrish, virtually mindless, and incredibly fun with friends. But is it worth $10? Debatable.

First of all, it's a beat-em-up. Just about every beat-em-up has a few things in common: endless baddies, shallow gameplay, and multiplayer that saves the game. The last part is the kicker. Unless you're playing River City Ransom (which is basically the best beat-em-up there has ever been), you need other players to make it fun. Xmen initially seems to have this handled by making the legendary 6 player coop a reality online. Shooting off mutant powers with 5 people online sounds fun, until you realize that Xmen is a game that was fun because of the social aspect. You're better off playing locally and enjoying the silliness that way, even if you can only play 4 player local.

For the few of you who don't know how the game works, you punch loads of baddies in various locations until the game ends. That's it. To shake it up, every character (who otherwise controls the same) has a mutant power that lets them kill loads of dudes and do loads of damage to bosses. You get more mutant power uses as the game goes on, or when you die. This leads to another problem with the game. Infinite continues with no penalty means infinite mutant powers, which means it's impossible to lose. The arcade-y fun of the original is reduced by a lot when you don't have to risk another quarter every three lives. 

This doesn't mean it's a bad game, not by a long shot. It just means that you've got to have company to enjoy it. It's a solid party game, but nothing else. If you've got friends that enjoy games like this, you've got a solid night's worth of entertainment here. Whether or not that's worth $10 is up to you. Personally, I've had a bit of buyer's remorse. Don't let nostalgia goggles make this an impulse buy.

Sorry for the short review, there's just not much to say about something this simple and, well, short.

Steambot Chronicles Battle Tournament: an old review

Sorry folks, I haven't had time to finish what I'm currently working on, so that's going to have to wait for next week. Instead, I have a treat- an old review I wrote back in 2009 for Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament for the PSP. It was...ugh. Just read for yourself.


Today, I'm going to tell you about a game I took back to the store.

Let me start with a little background info. The original Steambot Chronicles was a PS2 game that became sort of a cult hit. It combined sandbox gameplay wth a bizarre but interesting world, along with a system for creating some of the most original mechs you'll ever see.

The mechs in the series tend to look like someone took an old car, removed the wheels, and added arms and legs to the body. That is to say, they're really unique and lend a lot of personality to a genre that's barely changed since it was created. My only gripe with them is that the series calls them "Trotmobiles".

<rant>

What in the hell were they smoking when they thought that "Trotmobile" would be a good name for a car-robot thing as tall as an average house? That's got to be one of the worst names for a main gameplay mechanic I've ever heard. No matter how imposing some of the mechs (that is what I will be calling them from here on) were supposed to be, I could never take them seriously because every single character never stopped saying the word Trotmobile.

</rant>

To simplify things, the first one was a unique sandbox game. But we're not talking about that one today, now are we?

First of all, this game decides that a plot would be below it and gives you the patented Pokemon opening instead, that is to say, you want to be the very best and show your opponents the power that's inside.

The game claims to be a sandbox game like its predecesor. It even says it on the back of the box. That blurb is one of the most blatant acts of false advertising I've ever seen. You do two things in the entire game- take jobs from the job center to earn money and fame until the game decides you've grinded enough, then go to the colliseum for a few fights. Then you'll ascend in rank, and you have to go back to doing grunt work for a while.

You can go back and fight any previous battles over again, but it only earns you money, and you need fame to get to the next rank and progress in the game. Here's something I don't understand- why is it that you can't earn fame from fights? It certainly makes a lot more sense than doing it by delivering a newspaper to a hermit in the middle of the fucking North Pole (not kidding). It's not like he's going to brave the frozen wasteland to come see you, so what's the point?

So no, the jobs aren't fun. But what really makes them bad is the sheer amount of effort it takes to just do one.

<rant 2>

Most games that involve questing use a very similar pattern. You go to point A, find out what you're doing, go to point B, do it, and report back to point A.

Not this game.

To do a job in SCBT you have to head near point A, get out of your mech, walk slowly to the job center, go through an unnecessarily long menu to confirm, walk veeeeery slowly back to your mech, ride to point B where you receive instructions, go to area C where the job needs to be done, find location D deep in the area, do whatever the hell you need to do (usually takes 10-30 seconds tops) ride all the way back to point B to report, park, and WALK YOUR SLOW ASS BACK TO POINT A TO GET YOUR ALL TOO WELL DESERVED CASH.

The exhausting feeling you have after reading that last run-on sentence is but a fraction of what you'll feel during each and every task in this game.

</rant 2>

I've made a visual aid. Let's look, shall we?

HOW HARD IS THAT, STEAMBOT CHRONICLES? IS IT TOO COMPLEX?

It doesn't help that the fights are boring too. Every fight lasts for two minutes. You run and hop like a fool while clobbering the other person. The fights are laughably easy- the AI doesn't seem to grasp what a combo is until the last fight of the game, meaning that they'll only hit you once or twice at most before exploding, assuming you don't stop and sit perfectly still too often. And as if they were trying to minimize the enjoyment, the higher ranked fights are fewer in number. Yes, you end up spending less and less time actually fighting as the game progresses. Brilliant.

There's actually quite a bit of customizing to do, but it's really all for naught because nearly all of the weapons are inadequate. Firearms are almost all useless because using them forces you to stand still and shoot straight in front of you. This process can be interrupted, and if it is all you did was let them hit you. The only firearm worth using is the missile launcher because it homes in with distance, but you get it right before the end of the game and it runs out of ammo extremely fast unless you spend a shitload to upgrade it.

So all that's left is melee combat, and most of that is garbage too. Any weapon that forces you to charge an attack is even worse than a firearm, and most of the others just swing too slow or not enough times. However, there are two weapons that, if used as a pair (meaning you pay for two of them), get a special combo that actually attacks quickly and can do good damage. For the first third of the game this is the mace, and for the last two thirds this is the claw.

Believe me, I tried to use other equipment. I really did. I bought almost every weapon in the game and tried them all. Nothing stood up to the claw. Combined with a light fast mech, the claw rapes everything, including the final boss. Everything else is inferior.

Oh, and there's multiplayer, but I'm fairly certain no one will ever play it. There's no online, so you have to play local, and to actually use a decent mech (CLAWS) you have to have your own copy of the game. I'm fairly certain rounding up 4 people that actually enjoy this garbage and putting them in the same room would destroy the planet somehow.


So the game is boring and easy. Fortunately it's short- I beat the entire game and got the best ending in just over 6 hours, and almost an hour of that was me dicking around with the claw and fighting repeats. This leads to another oddity- there is no credit sequence in the entire game. And I searched, believe you me. I went back and got the other two endings- no credits for them either. I looked online, and it was confirmed. The game will not tell you who was responsible for its creation, I'm assuming because they know what they did and feared for their lives. All we know is that Atlus made it, and if it weren't for the fact that I love Snowboard Kids I would storm their headquarters for this abomination.

The only nice thing I have to say about the game is that the detail for the mechs is quite good. Everything else looks fairly bland (they kept the theme), but presentable. It's certainly not the ugliest PSP game. The voices are ridiculously over the top, but they were actually the most enjoyable part of the whole game, simply because they were worth a chuckle. The music, on the other hand, is composed of a 5 second loop of noise for each area. It's bad. Really bad. Ironically, the most annoying sound bite in the game is the one that plays when you win a fight- a blast of bagpipes with only the faintest idea of what notes they're trying to make. You'd almost rather lose.

In fact...maybe you would. Hell, it can't be worse than continuing the game. Maybe the best way to stop the pain is to submit to the cold harsh grip of death.

Followed by the cold harsh smash of a hammer on the fucking UMD.

Normal stuff resumes next week!

Stacking: a review

Double Fine has become famous for creating very unique games with each offering. This time around, they've taken a stab at puzzle games with Stacking, a new game on XBLA. Let's take a look and see if it stacks up.

Stacking is a game based entirely around Matryoshka dolls, aka Russian stacking dolls. The game is based around a simple concept: you, the smallest size of doll, must stack into other dolls that are progressively larger and use their abilities to solve puzzles. The solutions to these puzzles usually involve causing some sort of mayhem, making them especially satisfying. For example, one of the first puzzles of the game requires the player to clear trainyard workers out of a private club. One of the solutions is to find a lady doll that is -ahem- rather stacked, lure the guard away from his post, and invade the club, running everyone out.

This touches on one of the most interesting aspects of Stacking: every puzzle has multiple solutions. It forces the player to look beyond the one or two obvious solutions and really use the doll abilities to their fullest extent. If you're getting stuck on a solution, the game has a built in 3 hint system for each one that can keep the less patient from blowing their stack. Unfortunately, the third hint blatantly tells you the solution, so it's a bit too easy if you abuse it. Each puzzle only has to be solved once in order to progress, but there are rewards for those who go the extra mile in the form of paintings and statues of all unique dolls, which are made by your hobo friend Levi in your secret base. Did I mention Stacking was unique?

There are also Hi-Jinks conditions that you can achieve by using doll abilities, usually to bother other dolls. These are rewarded in the form of some sort of award on the doll; for example, a man's glove will turn from white to gold after you use it to slap a sufficient amount of unsuspecting dolls. Double Fine knew what we would do given the opportunity to bother people, and they not only allow but encourage it.

The game's presentation is also fantastic. It's one of the best looking XBLA titles, and the soundtrack, though limited, is very enjoyable. The cutscenes in particular stand out, in that they're presented in a silent movie style- music and overactive pantomime, interrupted by cards with the dialogue on them. When actually playing the game, however, the sound is plentiful. The sound effects and actions of the NPCs are expressive and often hilarious, and the fact that you can control almost all of them makes them even more so.

So, is Stacking worth the stack of MS points ($15 worth)? I'd say yes. It's enjoyable from start to finish, and actually has quite a bit of meat to it. And really, even if you 100% it, you'll probably go back for more at some point, as there's really nothing else like it. It's the sort of thing you can easily recommend to just about anybody, whether they're a hardcore pro gamer type, or someone who's normally not even interested in video games. The appeal is there regardless, and it's deserved. Double Fine has once again proven that they can tackle just about any genre of game they want and not only make it fun, but create an entire world around it.

And sorry about the stack puns, it's really irresistible.

Bit.Trip Runner: a review

The Bit.Trip series has become an odd staple in downloadable titles over the last few years. Immediately recognizable, undeniably popular, and simultaneously bizarre yet familiar, Bit.Trip games provide a unique twist on rhythm games that you really can't get anywhere else. With the release of Bit.Trip runner on the PC as of 2/28/11 on Steam, I figured it'd be appropriate to review it before Steam's infamous deals snag everyone's money.

Bit.Trip Runner is, at its core, a rhythm game. However, it's presented as a platformer, and although you cannot control your movement across the level (due to keeping with the beat), you perform jumps, slides, bounces, and other techniques to navigate the level. All of these actions correspond with the background music in some way, making it fairly easy to tell when you need to do things, though exactly what it is you have to do may not be immediately apparent. It's difficult to describe exactly how the game plays, so I'll be linking a video here of a later level (taken from Wii version).

This ties in nicely to my next point, which is that the game is incredibly fun to look and listen to. The music is great, especially in the boss stages, and the graphics are almost guaranteed to make you feel nostalgic for the 8bit games of your youth. It's the kind of game that can draw a crowd, much like the other Bit.Trip titles.

However, this game suffers from the same issues as the other Bit.Trips. The game is very unforgiving. Any mistakes whatsoever can ruin your run and make you start from the beginning. In Runner this is less of an issue because of the short level structure, but it was a common complaint of other Bit.Trip games and it's clear Gaijin Games doesn't intend to make things any easier. This is not a bad thing in and of itself. Challenge is good, so long as there's a reward for completing said challenges. But unfortunately, the game ends almost too quickly for there to be a real feeling of accomplishment. There are only 3 worlds, and again, the levels are short, meaning you've only got about 4-5 hours of gameplay here tops unless you're not particularly great at rhythm games. There's not much reason to play the game again afterwards, unless you're determined to 100% every level, but again, there's no real motivation to do so.

Does this mean Bit.Trip Runner is a bad game? Certainly not. It's a great experience from start to finish, it's just that there's hardly anything in between. It's certainly not worth the $10 suggested price, though when it's inevitably dropped to $5 you should consider picking it up. Alternatively, you could watch the entire game played perfectly starting from here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGH_yoDnC30&feature=related

And really, that's the issue with the game: it's more fun to watch than play. If, after watching some (or all, time permitting) of the videos you still feel compelled, go for it. But for me, the lack of depth and replayability left me dissatisfied once I had completed it, though admittedly I did enjoy what there was quite a bit.