Succumbing to the pressure of a black and white society, I will be implementing a rating system in all the reviews I write from now on. This is not necessarily a system that will be enforced across all of Random Gamer but for the people who need a number to determine if they should buy a game, this will be helpful instrument when reading my reviews. To me this is an exercise in conformity. To fit into mainstream, sometimes you have to sacrifice certain artistic liberties. Damn the proverbial man.
The system will be the typical real valued 1-10.
1: Why the hell did I buy this buggy, choppy, broken piece of shit? I'm going to set it ablaze in a garbage can.
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5: Meh, not worth buying and sometimes not even worth renting.
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10: I might run out and buy another copy just in case I'm too lazy to walk across the room to get the copy I bought first.
I've never played a game that was a 1 and no games deserve a 10. The closest to a 1 I've bought and played is Spiderman 3, which is probably closer to a 5, and the closest to a 10 is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. That should give you a good idea of my quality threshold. Remember, if a game is a 10, you wouldn't need to play anything else ever and if it's a 1, why didn't you do your research first and avoid wasting the money on it in the first place?
Background
I've been a Star Wars fan since before I stopped crapping my pants, all of 2 years ago... I was 12 years old when I read the Thrawn trilogy and I've read numerous books since. The original trilogy was great, but I'm a much bigger fan of the expanded universe. It's all one big story line, some happening concurrently, others in a straight line, but only as terrible and fantastic as the author allows. The period in the Star Wars mythos that has the least history containing Jedi is between Episode III and Episode IV. That's where The Force Unleashed comes in.
The Story
Turns out no matter how bad ass Darth Vader is supposed to be, he's too much of a pansy to kill the Emperor and take over the galaxy. It makes sense. With all of that circuitry keeping him alive, his greatest weakness has to be water. The Emperor being the self assured smug prick that he is must have bottled water readily available and in great supply. Fuck force lightening, just toss some Evian on Vader whenever he gets uppity.
Being the aquaphobic that he is, Vader enlists someone else to do his dirty work. He finds a Force sensitive boy on Kashyyyk and trains him as his secret apprentice. This is what makes the least amount of sense to me. Have you ever tried to keep a bastard child under wraps? They don't stay "secret" for very long. The filthy little ingrates always find the worst way to come out in the open. I digress, so Vader sends the now 20 something year old out to kill the remaining Jedi masters, kill the Emperor, and presumably have sex with a bleach blonde empirical trollup.
Along the way Darklighter, the bastard child, learns more Force powers, meets people, and travels to interesting locations. Long story short, you're supposed to make the Force your bitch and it comes down to being good or evil. The same mockery of choice as with so many other games. You are either black or white with no grey area and the only real option is in the very last bit of the game.
The Good
With so many crappy wannabe Star Wars games in the past few years, Battlefronts, Lego Star Wars, the likes, it's about time we get a real Star Wars game. There are some phenomenal effects when you use the Force, you get a meek RPG element with upgrades, and the physics are top notch. It might be hard to tell by the previous section in this article, but the story is actually pretty good, better than the game actually. For the most part the game is fun and shows a lot of potential for similar future installments.
You can murder slews of Wookees and Jawas, which with the latter never gets old.
The Bad
It seems like they redefined the Force just for this game. Up until now the greatest act of Force usage was by Kyp Durron in the Jedi Academy trilogy, the die hards know what I'm talking about here, when he pulled the ship out of the center of Yavin. Now the die hards should find a tissue to clean up the spunk they just messed themselves with. In respect to the series as a whole, a Jedi or Sith can't bring an entire legion of stormtroopers down with a flick of the wrist, let alone a Star Destroyer. I know the Force is supposed to be "unleashed" in this game but if the Jedi were this bad ass, none of them would have died during order 66. They would have sat back laughing, killed Palpatine with a blink of their eyes, and then retired to a cantina for some mojitos.
Oh, there are son of a bitch quick time events.
The Ugly
Something that borderline ruins the game for me is the targeting system. It always manages to lock onto the crate on the ground when I want it to lock on the little bastard Jawa throwing grenades at me. The level designs are good, but much like the combat, are fairly repetitive. Most Force powers prove to be worthless. There's no time when you're surrounded and need to use repulse or lightening shield, the lightsaber throw is mostly novelty only good for killing the aforementioned Jawas, and you can't move when you levitate objects.
The one shining weakness in this game, which during development was supposed to be a strength, is the involvement of George Lucas. He has no idea how to implement realistic human elements in his stories. Is it too much to ask to have a genuinely mean heartless prick as the story's main character? If he's supposed to be nice, fine make him a savior. This guy, on the other hand, is supposed to be a Sith but he finds the right path, or not depending, but I was under the impression that very few return from the dark side.
Closing Comments
The targeting sucks, the story is fairly good, and this is the first real current generation Star Wars game. No Star Wars game story will top KOTOR but I'm going to throw my treatment for this out there just to see what everybody thinks.
Darklighter follows Vader until he kills the Emperor, then when Vader is basking in his feeling of accomplishment, Darklighter shoves his lightsaber down Vader's throat like a terminal blow job. He then slays the entire non Jedi having rebellion he previously befriended and finishes the day with a Jedi mind trick fueled three way between Leia Organa and Juno Eclipse. After he leaves and doesn't call them back, he dies of a black membrosia overdose, and the galaxy is left to take a collective shower from the anal raping Darklighter delivered... all before he was 27.
Score: 7.7
I am going to come out and admit it, I am a whore for retro games. When I heard that there was going to be a collection of classic SNK games available for the Wii, I just needed to know what dotted line to sign on, in order to secure my copy. Thankfully, Goozex was created for this very reason. After one night of staying up late, I was first in the queue and eagerly awaiting its arrival.
When the game arrived at my door, it took every ounce of restraint that I had, not to explode in a manic fit of childish glee. With classic SNK games like Samurai Showdown, King of Fighters '94 and the ever popular Metal Slug, I knew many nostalgic hours of retro gaming were ahead of me. Then came the realization that rattled my faith in humanity, some of the games would not support the Wii Classic controller.
I was so shocked that I didn't know what to do with myself. It was just assumed that because the all games were of the classic variety, one would think that this was a no-brainer. Apparently I was very, very wrong. Though greatly disappointed, I decided grit my teeth and venture on.
Determined not to let the controller controversy destroy my experience, I dove into Metal Slug. I started to feel like a kid that started his meal with desert, because his parents were out of town. Metal Slug went down like the sweet flavored ice cream that I had been missing for oh so long. It took me back to a simpler time when I was a prepubescent boy, running through the arcade with pockets puckering out, full of as many quarters as I could muster from my meager allowance. Ah, those were the days...
After getting my fill of ammunition and carnage, I decided to move on to the timeless fighter, Fatal Fury. The control system consisted of a basic 3 button setup that seemed to give the Wii-mote a bit of a fit. Once you got the hang of the controls, the gameplay would come to you, but if you didn't use the classic controller, something just seemed to be awkward and missing.
There is much more of this game that needs to be played through before the final judgment is passed. Expect the full review in the coming weeks.
Check out the trailer for SNK Arcade Classics: Volume 1, below:
First Impressions: Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection
When I initially heard about Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection for the Wii and PSP, I will admit that I was a bit skeptical. After all, there have been so many pinball games released over the past few years, that I have learned to stay as skeptical as possible, just to keep from getting burned. That's when things started to get weird, because I kept hearing from numerous people who had played it on the Wii and absolutely loved it! Well, I figured it was time to check it out and see what all the fuss was about.
The first version of the game I played, was on the PSP. I figured that if nothing else, it would be a safe platform to try it out on, to get a feel for the pace and flow of the action, as well as get a base familiarity with each table. As you would assume from the name, the pinball tables are an assortment of classics, from different eras in the history of the company. There are two "floors" that feature tables like, Pin*Bot, Funhouse, and Black Knight.
Instead of just playing for a few minutes, here and there to pass the time, I found myself making time to play the game. This was definitely not what I expected, but was a welcome shock. At one point, my father, who is a self professed pinball fanatic, and I were sitting on the couch in my dimly lit house, madly passing the PSP back and forth, frantically trying to top eachother's high score. Not only was it a genuine bonding experience, it was the excuse that I needed to get the Wii version.
The Wii version was pretty much a straight port of the PSP game, with waggle-ish controls that have been thrown onto the game to make it feel special. I was originally confused about how the controls would work on the Wii, especially considering how a Wii-mote has always felt so wonky in my hands, but in fact, they are more intuitive than you might think. A Wii-mote is combined with a nunchuck, using both controller's trigger buttons to control the flippers. Oddly enough, when you spread the controllers apart in your hands, it almost fells like you are playing on a real table.
This is a game that could become a serious time sink for me. Look for the full review coming soon!
Check out the trailer for Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, below:
