The Great Playthrough - Game 49: House of the Dead III

Firstly, may I say a huge F*** YOU to the blogger app - as I had written half of this blog post and then saved it on there, and it has now decided that it no longer exists. So let us take a moment to mourn the nuggets of well-written criticism and humour that I am now never likely to recover....

*Waits*

And now, let's get on with it!

*Waits for a cry of "Yes, let's get on with it!*

House of the Dead IIIReleased on: Arcade, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3
Played on: Nintendo Wii
Release date: 2002

Hands up who likes zombies? I don't mean those of you who actually like zombies (i.e. those who think that zombies are nice) I mean those of you who like zombie-related media (especially games where you get to shoot them in the face!)

Given the demographic of those of you who read my blog (which I don't have any hard or fast data on - I just make things up to fit whichever blog I'm writing) - I'm guessing that a lot of you are entertained by zombie-related media.

Which is good - because, lets face it, House of the Dead III is all about Zombies. No two ways about it. It's not even about a House anymore...

So a more accurate title would be Zombies Zombies Zombies Zombies (Zombies Zombies Zombies) - Or, alternatively, Boom! Make the Zombies heads explode!

As you may (or may not) have guessed - there is a lot of zombie killing that goes on in this game. And just because I'm a 32 year old video gamer, doesn't mean that I think killing zombies is big OR clever.. however, it is fun. Lots and lots of gory head explode-y maniacal fun.

And that pretty much sums up House of the Dead III for me. It is the second best of the House of the Deads that I have ever played (I also own House of the Dead 2, and House of the Dead: Overkill - and I have played House of the Dead as well) - and that is simply because they have got all of the elements perfectly streamlined.

Big guns? Check.

Zombies that explode when you shoot them? Check.

Different type of Zombies? Check - in fact, this game has standard zombies, slimy zombies, lady zombies, FAT MAN zombies and many many more

Zombie versions of other animals (most notably the bloody zombie vultures?) Check.

A completely nonsensical plot? Check.

So as far as this review goes, this game should be perfect, right?

Well unfortunately,there is an elephant in the room. A giant hulking zombie elephant.(Zombie elephants - thats a great idea!) And that elephant's name is "difficulty."

This was designed to be an arcade game that kept you entertained, and then ate your money - which I can appreciate. However, for this home port, did they give you the option for infinite credits? No. When you first boot up the game, you start with five credits. Which, if you are playing two-player, are shared. Then, every time you play through and die, if you get far enough, you earn another credit....

And this wouldn't be so bad, but the bosses are designed to be almost unbeatable... (And I only know this, because in a previous playthrough, I used a cheat for infinite lives, and it took me and a second player about half an hour to kill the final boss - and we died about twenty times each!) - so it gets very frustrating that you slam your way through the level, and then have to deal with the ridiculous boss at the end of each one!

Apart from all that, though, I did enjoy it. And my enjoyment was increased by playing in two-player with my gorgeous wife! Not only does that just make it loads more fun, but also it meant I got to listen to her wonderful comments on the cutscenes.

Now, bear in mind, that both Neety and I have a love for awful cutscenes in games (why else would we play Resident Evil games so much?) but in this game in particular, she came out with some absolutely cracking lines - mostly due to the ridiculousness of the situation in which all the cutscenes happen.

Basically (for those of you who don't know), all the cutscenes show Dr Curien (the mastermind behind pretty much everything in the HOTD-verse) talking to his terminally ill young son, Daniel, in flashback. But what makes it so ridiculous is that he is asking him hugely philosophical questions, which Neety then kept coming up with comedy responses to. But the best was this one.

CURIEN - "Daniel, have I overstepped the boundries of human morality?"

NEETY (IN VOICE OF DANIEL) "I dunno Dad, I'm eight. I like the Power Rangers!"

This made me laugh so much that I had to pause the game, so I thought I ought to share it with you.

As far as the rest of the game goes - there's loads to enjoy (if you like on-rails lightgun shooters, which I most definitely do!). The graphics appear to be an arcade-perfect port, and the controls are accurate and responsive - so it's great fun all the way through - it's just too damn difficult!

But if you've got the game, and fancy a bit of zombie shooting, mindless fun - there's very few games that offer the simplistic visceral thrills of this one.

Rating: 7.5/10
Time played: About 45 minutes - I couldn't bring myself to start again after dying.
Wouild I play it again? Often!

Next time - it's back to the SNES for the wonders of Street Fighter II: Turbo - join me, won't you?

The Great Playthrough: Game 47 - New Super Mario Bros Wii and Game 48 - Grand Theft Auto III

You may have noticed that I am, once again, reviewing two games in the same blog,  I am doing this primarily because I think it is absolutely hilarious that these two games turned up next to each other - mostly because you'd have a harder job picking two games that were more different!

It's-a-picture!

New Super Mario Bros Wii
Released on: Nintendo Wii
Played on: Nintendo Wii
Release Date: 2009

I keep running into a problem when writing some of these blog entries. And that problem is simply that when I am reviewing a game I play regularly anyway, it becomes very hard to write about it - simply because I must enjoy it or I wouldn't be currently playing it! And as you all know, I'm a huge fan of 2D platformers...

But is Super Mario Bros Wii a step too far?

Have they finally made a Mario 2D platformer I don't enjoy?

Am I asking too many questions?

The answer is No, No and Yes.

I'm sorry to be as predictable as the outcome of a boxing match between Mike Tyson and a particularly inebriated one-armed lemming, but it's true. I love this game.

Certain critics are very unkind to this game, saying that it is very similar to every Mario game ever, that there is no variation and that Nintendo are flogging a Findus Lasagne.

(LEGAL NOTE - I had to cross that out due to a cease and desist letter from the National Equine Institute of Great Horses (or NEIGH for short) who have advised that they do not wish the good name of horse to be associated with the tasteless meat that one finds within a Findus lasagne!) 

However, I find these criticisms to be silly and unfounded. Yes, it shares a lot of similarities with many other games in the Super Mario Bros series - however, it is incredibly fun to play. And that's the point. (And yes, I am aware that I didn't really deflect any of those criticisms, I am merely ignoring them, but that is my prerogative. And if you don't like it, feel free to stop reading...

NOTE - Please don't stop reading. I like people reading my blog! 

Oi! Italicised text, don't argue with me! 

But I like being read 

No. 

But.. 

Behave. Or else. 

... 

That's better.

Anywhere, where was I?

Lost.

Don't start with me....

New Super Mario Bros Wii is great. Of course I was going to say it was great, and you all knew that. The graphics are cute, the level design is spot on as always, and best of all, Yoshi is back!!

The only things I would criticise? Apart from the fact that multi-player can make any friendship turn sour (whoever made it so that you could bounce off each others heads while jumping over pits, condemming the person you landed on to fall to their doom was evil!) my only minor criticism is that I would love it if we could have a 2D mario game that doesn't have a desert world as World 2 and an ice world as World 3.

Just saying....

Rating: 9/10

How long did I play for? An hour and a bit...
Would I Play it again? Regularly

So from cutesy "childlike" gaming, to the game that was deemed "horrific" and "horrendously violent" by a lot of over-reactionary newspapers when it was released...

Grand Theft Auto III
Released on: Playstation 2, Xbox, Mac OSX, Playstation 3, iOS, Android

Played on: Playstation 2

Release date: 2001

I was really unsure how I would feel about Grand Theft Auto 3. I remember playing the original top-down game, but had never ventured into the open-world of this infamous threequel. 

I remember when it came out, was a period where I didn't play a lot of games, and I disliked the "adult" theme games appeared to be taking at that time, mostly because of the dearth of FPS's it seemed to be creating. So mentally, I had tarred GTA3 with the same brush. Which was unfair.

Because actually, when I booted it up? I had a lot of fun...

My first attempt at the opening sequence basically consisted of me getting into that first car, starting to drive, realising that the driving controls are in fact really good, and then smashing through lots of scenery, people and cars until my car exploded.

Then I started again. And this time I attempted to actually proceed with the mission as suggested, trying not to destroy everything - which led Neety to mock me, stating that I'm such a nice man I even stop at red traffic lights when playing Grand Theft Auto! 

But I got to the first location, accepted my first mission, and went to collect a prostitute. Which I successfully did. As I was driving around, however, I kept noticing wierd graphical glitches, with sections of road shimmering, disappearing, and at one point it felt like a road just looped around on itself. 

And then when I got the prostitute back to the club, the cut-scene crashed. 

So I tried again - from the beginning of the game. Completed the first mission (the tutorial one) and then.. it crashed again.

Turns out the disc is broken. So I can't play any more. Which made me sad, because I was quite enjoying the game - even though the radar is horribly tiny and hard to read, there's a distinct lack of visual differentiation between curbs you can drive up, and curbs that you cannot, and the button mapping when controlling your character on foot seem unintuitive and wierd...

Because I managed to play about 25 minutes worth, I do feel I can rate the game - although this rating might have been altered if I had played longer - both positively (if I had discovered new bits I really enjoyed) or negatively (if the open world setting had caused me to run around pointlessly too much).But for now, this rating will suffice, although if I get another copy, I shall come back to it!

Rating: 7/10

How long did I play for: About 25-30 minutes, until it broke...

Would I play it again? Yes - if my disc worked! 

So after that huge long blog post, what is next? Well... I'm just checking the list...

Awesome. Next time it is HOUSE OF THE DEAD 3!!!!

See you then....

The Great Playthrough - BONUS ROUND PART II!

Yes, it's another bonus round! Basically, I have ended up buying a couple of games recently, so rather than insert them all into the list - I decided to review two of them in one go here - they are both on the same disc, so it was exceptionally easy for me to do both at once...

Yes - I'm back to logo pictures for this blog....
I'm sure none of you miss my smiling face that much!

Sonic The Fighters

Released on: Arcade, Sony Playstation 2, Nintendo Gamecube, Xbox
Played on: Playstation 2
Release date: 1996

I don't understand bad games.

(I know that's a strange start to a blog - but bear with me, it'll get better)

Let me clarify - I understand that games exist that I don't like, or games that have good ideas buried under some awkward design flaws, or games that could have been good but were rushed to prodution - but I don't understand the mindset that creates a BAD game.

In case you hadn't guessed - I'm not about to heap loads of praise on Sonic The Fighters - and yes, I know I am a huge Sonic apologist (and by that I mean I apologise for the hedgehog, not that I apologise using soundwaves. I mean, I do apologise using soundwaves, except when I apologise in writing, like I am here, but ....

*A crunching noise occurs and then reality folds into itself due to the circular nature of that sentence*

You get the idea. I will forgive an awful lot of "bad" Sonic games - I enjoyed Sonic Generations, I think that Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is OK, I even have a soft spot for Sonic Heroes (although, you do have to be hyped up on sugar before you play because otherwise the irritating voices and bright colours do make you want to rise up and attack the nearest person. But I digress... again) But Sonic the Fighters is just bad.

Let's approach this logically and look at the mathematical equation behind the game:

Virtua Fighter (adult, violent game) + Sonic the Hedgehog (Cute, Kidsy fare) + Rushed production (cheap and ugly polygon graphics) = Sonic the Fighters.

In other words, it wasn't worth creating! It barely even has "so bad it's good" entertainment value - Neety and I played it for 10 minutes and our attitudes can be seen below:

1 Minute in - *Smile* This is awful

3 Minutes in - It's an exercise in pointless button mashing

6 minutes in - "Frowns" This is REALLY awful

10 minutes in - *Rips disc out of machine and throws it across the room* GO AWAYYYY!!!!

I am aware that I have said very little about the game itself, rather than just moaning how awful it is, but there's not much to say. It's Virtua Fighter with worse controls, uglier polygonier (is that a word?) Graphics, and music so annoying that you end up wanting to stab yourself in your eardrums just so you NEVER have to hear the bloody music again!

Seriously, this game is awful...

Rating: 1/10
Time Played: 10 Minutes
Would I play it again? I would rather play any FIFA game for a week with only celery to eat than play this game again. 

Sonic R

Released on: Sega Saturn,  Nintendo Gamecube, Sony Playstation 2
Played on: Playstation 2
Release date: 1997

Do you know what the unique thing about Sonic R is? It's the first (and as far as I know, only) game in which Sonic races against people on foot - which makes sense, because he is a speedy hedgehog! Sounds fun, doesn't it? Could it be a diamond in the rough?

....

No.

It's worse than Sonic the Fighters.

I know what you're thinking: "But Brawny! How can it be WORSE than Sonic The Fighters? You implied (about three paragraphs ago) that Sonic the Fighters was one of the worst games ever. "

Yes, yes I did. And do you know why Sonic R is worse? Because Sonic is IMPOSSIBLE to steer in a straight line! And he takes aaaaages to get up to speed, whereas all the other characters (who are in vehicles, no less) are much quicker. The courses are horribley designed, the gameplay is duller than the water you would find in the bottom of a ditch that was running through a Coldplay concert in Swindon.

DULL!

These two games, between them, have made me so angry that I can't continue writing.

Rating: 0.1/10 (Only because I refuse to give anything 0)
Time played: 8 Minutes (and that was pushing it)
Would I play it again: *Transforms into the Hulk and smashes your face with the game case for suggesting that I would ever play this rubbish again*

Next time - A better game. (Well it can't get any worse - I HOPE!)

The Great Playthrough - Game 46: Star Wars - The Clone Wars

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Released on: Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, PS2
Played on: Nintendo Gamecube
Release Date: 2002

Yes, it's time for a Star Wars licensed game. (I apologise, I didn't realise how many of these I owned until I compiled this list!) And it's one many of you may never have heard of - as it was released around the time that Episode II: Attack of the Clones was released in the cinema.

(I'm sure you remember that film. It's the one that feels like it might be a good Star Wars film, except for the horrendous black hole of charisma that is Hayden Christiensen, but is then redeemed in the last five minutes when Yoda pulls out a lightsabre and fights Christopher Lee. Which is awesome!)

So although this game deals with the Clone Wars, it is not linked in any way to the first Clone Wars TV series, the animated Clone Wars feature film, OR the second Clone Wars TV series (or any of that series' spin-offs). Are we clear?

"So Brawny, you've told us what this game is not about or related to - what IS it about?"

It's a vehicular action game interspersed with third-person "on-foot" sections. And you know what? It's much more fun than that description suggests. In fact, to be honest, it was much more fun than I had expected it to be!

You see, I bought this when I first got my Gamecube, and I only ever remember playing it for about ten minutes - so I was not expecting to be blown away by it. And while it's not a superb ten-out-of-ten life-changing game, it's still a lot of fun - and not too easy! (A common problem with licensed games in this day and age)

The third person sections are OK, although marred by some slightly clunky movement, but it's when you're in the vehicles (which are mostly low level floating military craft - much like tanks but with no wheels) that the fun begins properly.

The controls are just the right-side of floaty, and the aiming and combat is engaging. The voice acting is wonderfully laughable, but luckily there's not too much of it, so it doesn't impact in a negative way. And the difficulty? Well it's not an easy game, but it's also not unfair. Very rarely did I die feeling like I had been cheated - mostly I died because, just like in FPS's - I always forget that moving out of the line of fire is a GOOD IDEA!

Do you know what game it reminds me of with it's vehicluar sections? Starfox 64. (Or Lylat Wars as I technically should call it, being from the UK and all). I know that may sound strange as the vehicles were all land based (as far as I played through it anyway), but it's true. In Starfox / Lylat Wars, there are a couple of levels where you have to drive a land-based vehicle, and the controls and style of it is the closest match I can think of to equate with this game. And believe me, that's a good thing.

Most of all - in a day and age where most licensed games are a vaguely disguised rip-off of other, more popular games - Star Wars: The Clone Wars feels different enough to be it's own game. And maybe it's just that I haven't played whatever game it ripped off - but hey, for now I'm impressed with how entertaining it is.

Rating: 7/10
Time Played: 1 hour 5 minutes
Would I play it again? Yes. I think I would.

Coming up next time.... I'm not sure yet! (Sorry, the list isn't with me)

P.S. I apologise for the multiple uses of vehicle and vehicular in this blog. I have used my quota for now

P.P.S. I shall try and get these blogs on a more regular timescale from now on!

The Great Playthrough - Game 45: Bubsy the Bobcat

The pictures are back! Look at me, clutching
that very damaged looking cartridge. It still plays though :)

Bubsy the Bobcat

Released on: Sega Megadrive, SNES, PC
Played on: Sega Megadrive
Release Date: 1993 (except PC, which was 1995)

This should be a game that I absolutely love. It's a colourful, 2D platformer on my favourite (non-Nintendo) console.... but do I love it? Well that's a question I shall answer throughout this blog...

(See! I learned from my last blog and am retaining a little mystery at the start! Look at me, I'm learning and growing...)

From the title screen, my hopes were high. The game has bright, lovely graphics and the full title is the brilliantly pun-tastic title "Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind." But as soon as I started to play, I started to notice a whisker of a problem.

This tail was not garnering a lot of A-Paws as I began the playthrough. The difficulty was quite high, with the game often making me-owt to be a much worse player than I am.

(Ouch - That's four Cat-Based puns in just over one paragraph. Oops. I'll stop now, I promise.)

But anyway, behind the awful puns, this game is far from purrfect...

*Ducks*

Sorry.

But it's sadly true. And while I am not usually one to bemoan a difficult game, the difficulty really is a problem here. And it's a design flaw - I'm not complaining that the levels are badly designed, or that the enemies are over-powerful, it is simply that one hit kills Bubsy stone dead. Which is a problem with a speedy platformer. Sonic has his rings, Mario has his mushrooms, even Earthworm Jim has a health bar! But no, Bubsy gets no second chances whatsoever. Run into an enemy, or get hit by a falling egg, or fall off a too-high ledge, and that's it. You are dead.

Which is bloody irritating.

Especially when coupled with really erratic collision detection, which this game is sadly riddled with.

There are other faults as well, the levels are awkwardly designed - not necessarily badly designed, just so large (both horizontally and vertically) and repetitive, that on successive playthroughs you tend to get completely confused as to which sections you have done, and which you don't recognise. The music is repetitive and irritating, which isn't a game-breaker, but is mildly annoying, and the fact that there are two different jump buttons (a normal jump and a high jump), just adds confusion to the whole thing.

It isn't all bad news - the lovely 16-Bit cartoon-style graphics are a joy to look at, and the controls (apart from the jump buttons issue) are reasonable, if slightly wooly. But at every turn you are thwarted by the awkward difficulty level.

It's such a shame, because it is SO close to being an entertaining game, but the difficulty issues just totally ruin it for me. And the programmers were obviously aware of the issue, because instead of starting with 2 or 3 lives (as you would do in either Sonic or Mario), you start with nine. And I get why (yes, he's a cat so he has nine lives! Isn't that funny!) But it just highlights quite how easy it is to die in the game.

Sorry Bubsy, You may have come within a whisker of greatness, but you definitely failed to land on your feet...

Rating: 5/10
Time Played: 35 Minutes
Would I play it again? Unlikely....

Next time on Brawny's Great Playthrough, it's another Star Wars game! But which one? Come back and find out!

The Great Playthrough - Game 44: Worms World Party

Worms World Party
Released on: Dreamcast, Playstation, Game Boy Advance and Windows
Played on: Sony Playstation 2 (Don't you just love backwards compatability?)

(Before we get started, I would like to apologise for the lack of photograph on this blog - I am finshing up writing this not at home, so I don't have a picture. If anyone really wants me to include one, I'll add one later. But for now, no picture, so you won't get to see me holding the Worms World Party case - poor you!)

There are games that you know you like, and there are games that you remember that you like, but are disappointing when you go back to them. And then, there are games that you forget quite how amazingly pant-wettingly good they are. The last game in this playthrough where a game surprised me positively was Flashback, and as you can tell from my overtly enthusiastic introduction, Worms World Party belongs in this category.

(And yes, I know that I have broken all of the rules of any kind of review, by telling you how I feel about the thing I am reviewing in the first paragraph, but sod it, it's my blog!)

I have had many good times playing various iterations of Worms (at least in 2D) - starting with the original which I used to play on the PC, through to the the two iterations that I have for the Playstation - and it has provided many hours of entertainment both in single player and multi-player (and indeed, I have spent many hours sitting on a canal boat playing this game while drinking my own body weight in alcoholic beverages).

But why is it such a good game Brawny? I hear you all ask... OK, I didn't hear you ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

When it came out, I remember it being a rather new type of game, best described as "Lemmings with Guns". And if you try to describe it in genre, it sounds the dullest thing ever. A turn based game where you control a team of worms attempting to fight others. But it works, and it works so very very well.

But having not played it for... ooh, nearly 10 years or so, I did wonder if newer games would have sullied my memories of Worms. So imagine how delighted I was when I booted up the game and began to play. Firstly, it gives you ridiculous levels of customisation. You can name your own individual worms, choose which weapons are used, choose a landscape, special features, weapons drops etc - I spent a good ten minutes of my playthrough on the customisation screen, but unlike other games that have this sort of customisation / statistical options (and yes, I'm looking at you sports games, and particularly Speedball 2) - I didn't get bored at all, and that's pretty rare in an options screen!

Once I had my team and my setup, then I jumped into the game itself, and immediately took great delight in bombing and bazookaing (and yes, I have decided that IS a word, because I want it to be) the opposition until they were all satisfyingly dead. And then, I did it again. As well as the normal weapons (Uzis, Shotguns, Grenades etc.,) there is also the selection of idiotically stupid ones that are always available in these games. The Sheep (which runs across the terrain before exploding), the Concrete Donkey (which is exactly what it sounds like) and the Holy Handgrenade of Antioch. (Python alert!) And it's all couched in silly music, cartoony graphics and stupid sound effects.

But (and I know I have said this before) - it is FUN! Loads of fun!!

I'm not really sure what more to say. There are only minor downsides to the game - it can be awkward to enter names etc when you have to do so with a joypad, scrolling VERY slowly from letter to letter, and almost all of the labelling on menu screens is done with cartoony graphics, rather than text, so it can be a bit hard to figure out what you are selecting, unless you have had experience of the game before.

But if that's the worst I can think of? Then it's really not a bad game in any way whatsoever is it!

In conclusion then, I would much rather spend an evening playing Worms World Party with a group of friends, rather than any of the FPS's people seem to happily go around each others houses to play. Speaking of which - anyone fancy a Worms Tournament evening?

Rating: 9/10
Time Played: One Hour Ten Minutes
Would I play it again?: Of course!

Next time - The Megadrive gets dusted off for some platforming action! (And no, it's not a Sonic game)

The Great Playthrough: Game 43 - Toy Racer

Toy Racer

Released on: Sega Dreamcast

Played on: Sega Dreamcast

Release date: 2000

Looking back over the games I've done so far, this is the first Dreamcast game I've played in the playthrough, and now I think I've played at least one game on every console!

I like the Dreamcast. I like the controller, the VMU, and it produces very good quality graphics and sound for it's generation. However, my game collection for it is fairly limited - I don't have many of the games that people recognise as Dreamcast games (Jet Set Radio, Shenmue etc) because, when I bought my Dreamcast at a car boot sale, the previous owner had obviously been a fan of racing games. So I have quite a few of those.

And so I approached Toy Racer with trepidation. On the one hand, I like a good arcade racer (a sentence I seem to say more and more nowadays), but on the other hand, I can find racers to be boring after a while...

Before I continue, I should point out that I very rarely do any research before I play a game that I already own. I don't look up its details, I don't read reviews, I just pop it in and give it a try. Which is what I did here.

The first race I played, I was aware there were no other racers on the track - but I quickly realised that I had  selected the Training mode, so that was fine. I used the five lap race to adjust to the handling (which was pretty good), and to admire the graphics and smooth framerate of the game. 

So I finished that race, and then dropped back into the menu system, and I was mildly confused as the options available are the following:

Training - This is a training Mode, obviously.

Local - For playing locally

Network - This is for playing online - sadly, the Dreamarena online system is long defunct!

So I assumed, "Oh, you need to select local, because that's the option which will give you the one-player mode!".

So I did, and I selected a different track and vehicle, and started the race. Sure enough, the HUD proclaimed I was in first, and so I zoomed off competitvely. About a minute later, I realised I hadn't seen any other cars, although I had picked up some offensive weapons (in-keeping with the Toy theme, these were pencils as missiles, and boxing gloves on springs as mines!). And then I crashed. And no-one overtook me. So I got nosy and waited, not moving at all. Still no competition.

Confused, I finished the race, and then looked the game up on Wikipedia.

It turns out? Toy Racer is a multi-player only game. And I have only one Dreamcast pad. 

Oops!

Rating: N/A (How can I rate a game that I can't play properly?)

Time Played: 10 minutes

Would I play it again?: Maybe, it was fun, but only if I have some other people and Dreamcast pads!