Level Up: Metroid Prime

Once again, August is upon us and it’s time for my theme. This year, I decided to look at something that’s been sincerely lacking in this show: women. Now, much like Ninjas from last year, I have talked about games where women are playable, but very few where they are the only choice. The only one that comes to my mind off the top of my head is Lady Sia. So this August is Femme-month, where I will be looking at 4 games starring female protagonists. And of course, much like Ninja Gaiden last year, the obvious choice needs to come first, so we are looking at Metroid Prime, originally for the Nintendo GameCube, but I’ll be playing it on the Wii as part of the Metroid Prime Trilogy collection.

Metroid was never a series that was ever high on my radar. Not because I thought it was overrated like Zelda, but just I never heard much about it for the longest time. The first generation of games I remember paying attention to was the 5^th one, and there wasn’t a Metroid game released on the N64 (for the better, I suppose). Despite knowing about the Metroid-vania game play style and it being one of my favorite variations on platforming, Metroid Prime was the first Metroid game I played, and still that wasn’t until the collection came out on the Wii.

So as a first impression to the series- HOLY CRAP IS THIS GAME AWESOME. Like I just said, it was probably better that this game waited a generation. On the N64, it might have been a platformer, but by the GameCube, first person shooters were starting to get big. Metroid was re-envisioned as a first person game, and that might have added a whole new level of immersion to the discovery. The element is there in 2D, but seeing it from the point of view of the character gives you a whole new experience.

Though the main attraction to me is the exploration, I do need to talk about the fighting. The variety and scope of enemies is amazing, and they ease you into the more difficult and frustrating ones. You get a variety of weapons and upgrades, and eventually learning how to switch on the fly is an essential skill. Of course, if you’re having trouble with an enemy, you can also switch visor modes, either to help you see weak points or use the scan function to read their database entry.

I could go on, as there are a lot of little things that make the game play fun, but it would take far too long (perhaps I’ll explain a bit more on the sequels). From the great maps, to the intuitive combat, to the range of gadgets you get, the game play is simply great.

The story is as basic as it gets, not just in what it has to say, but the way it tells it. It starts with Samus on a bounty hunting mission when she is struck and loses her equipment (a convenient reason for having lost them between games). She follows her targets, the Space Pirates, to a nearby planet. After that, it’s just hunting on the planet and figuring out some mysteries that pop up. It leaves a lot to be desired in Samus’ motivations, but people who like immersive new worlds will enjoy this.

But again, it’s not just what this says, but how it tells it. There’s no voice dialog in this game except the occasion computer message. Samus’ reactions are done through body language, and though she’s kind of a blank slate silent protagonist here, it does make the game more of what you want it to be. But what really gets me are the music and sound cues, along with the short scenes from discovering a new area. It pretty much says “look at what you found, now enjoy exploring!” There’s a sense of wonder put into this new world, which sucked me right in. In a Metroidvania game, that is exactly what you’d want.

Metroid Prime is an amazing game that I would recommend to almost anyone, as there is such a variety offered. That being said, I don’t think it is a perfect game: the story is a little lacking in motivation (at least for someone new to the series) and near the end you’re required to do this big annoying “treasure hunt” that I feel ruins the flow (you should want to explore, not be forced into it). Those are the only things really worth mentioning, and they are pretty easy to look over. Awesome space shooter based around exploration, what else can I say? I give Metroid Prime 9.5 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Jackie Chan Adventures: Legend of the Dark Hand

Can we just talk about Jackie Chan Adventures for a bit? I talked about Jackie Chan at the start of Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu, and while my enjoyment of his work was exaggerated there, Jackie Chan Adventures still remains one of my favorite cartoons. I know almost no one who’s seen this show that didn’t like it. It had everything you could want from a Saturday morning Cartoon: action, adventure, comedy, magical elements, a little girl who grew up in Hong Kong but has less of an accent than the her uncle who grew up in America… Ok, that’s a personal gripe I’ve always had, but the point still stands that the show was fun. Of course, at the height of its popularity, there was a video game based on it… kinda, I’ll get to that in a bit. For now, let’s start our look at Jackie Chan Adventures: Legend of the Dark Hand for the Game Boy Advance.

One of the reasons I’m reviewing this game now is because it’s July and time for Adamant Ditto’s Beat ‘em up month. *Possible clip of “BEAT EM UP MONTH!”*You play as Jackie as you go through different areas and beat up members of the Dark Hand and find legendary Kung Fu scrolls. The scrolls aren’t just a McGuffin either, as beyond being able to punch and kick, these scrolls will allow you to use more attacks as the game progresses. To me, it makes sense that a Jackie Chan based brawler would have that extra focus on different moves. As well, it also makes for Jackie Chan to use what’s lying around as weapons, and while it’s not as varied as the Kung Fu legend is known for, nor as iconic and satisfying as something like the lead pipe in Final Fight, there is something to be said about whacking your enemies with an umbrella.

Despite all these efforts to make the game play match with Jackie Chan, there is one very important aspect where they didn’t match it: speed. Sure, the animations in this game are really fluid and make the action clear and visible, but it feels slower than it should be for both beat ‘em up and Jackie Chan levels. It doesn’t even make the button response better (as a matter of fact, since you need to wait for certain things, it might make it worse). To be fair though, your speed while walking is pretty fast, unlike most Beat ‘em ups.

As much as this affects the game play, I can look passed it. What really bothers me though is that Jackie Chan Adventures was famous for magical items, the talismans, bur hey are barely mentioned and never used in this game. Perhaps it would have too heavily affected the beat ‘em up style to have Jackie moving at lightning speed or be invisible, but I would have liked to have known they tried. They show up in the PS2 game though, but it’s still a big missed opportunity here.

The graphics in this game aren’t really good, but they aren’t too bad either. You’d expect, since this is based on a show, they would attempt to make the in-game graphics look just like the show. While this is true for the cut scenes, during the game play it actually looks like they were trying for a faux 3D look. There is a lot more detail than you’d expect and it seems like the developers Torus Games and publishers Activision (hey, that’s too Activision games in a row I review!) wanted this to look more realistic than the show. Like I said, it’s not bad, it’s just really weird.

The music is pretty stock, if that’s possible. From the standard “oriental” vibe from the intro music, to the level music that’s obviously simply made and doesn’t really get you pumping, it’s obvious music just wasn’t a priority with this game.

Jackie Chan Adventure’s is a significant disappointment from the TV show, but does that make it a bad game? No, though I do have to take off points for that (if you’re making a game based on something, actually base it on that). It is still playable and beatable as a game (save for some frustrating bosses). I wouldn’t recommend this if you want to get your Beat ‘em up fix for this month since it just doesn’t have the same satisfying impact most other games in the genre would have, but you can easily find worse games in general. Not really more to say to that: it’s no Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu, but it gets the job done if you can find it cheap enough. I give Jackie Chan Adventures: Legend of the Dark Hand on the GBA 6.5 levels out of 10.

Level Up: X-2: Wolverine's Revenge

Sorry about that, I just need a drink. Not because it’s Canada Day, but I kind of need it for this game (sorry for stealing the AVGN’s Rolling Rock schtick here). Otherwise, there’s just no help for me. You may have noticed in the past that most of the games that have failed have been 2D. In my mind, it’s harder to recognize a bad game in 3D over one in 2D. In 2D, it’s simple and when something doesn’t work, it’s pretty clear it should. In 3D, we seem to have a bit of leniency because it’s more complex. Well, today’s game doesn’t have even the semblance of competence. Here’s… *sighs and drinks from bottle* here’s X-2: Wolverine’s Revenge for the Microsoft XBox.

I’m among the minority of fans of the X-men movies in that X-2 falls pretty low on my ranking list. That being said, this doesn’t cause a bias for me since it has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. As a matter of fact, this game seems to have more to do with X-men Origins: Wolverine (oh yeah, I went there). At least for the start. Later they just start throwing any random thing from the X-men universe at the player, without regard of what was previously established or how well they fit with the tone of the game. Yeah, Juggernaut and Magneto are two of the most well-known X-foes, but they don’t need to be in EVERY GAME. The tone just doesn’t work as the story feels like a mish-mash of other plots. It actually made more sense once I changed Wolverine’s costume to the Brown and Yellow comic book one, as THAT has an excuse to be silly.

It’s obvious that the developer GenePool Software (under Publisher Activision) had a really hard time balancing this game… because it isn’t. First off, Wolverine has a healing factor. This sounds like it would make the game pretty easy: just wait and heal, right? Well not really. To counteract this, most anything can kill Logan quickly and cheaply. Many times you will get knocked down easily and stand back up only to get knocked back down again (like a reverse Thubthumping). To be fair, part of the game is meant to be played out as a stealth mission and you get bonus points when you avoid fighting. Yeah, because that’s what you think about when you picture Wolverine, right? Muscles pumping, claws out, healing factor angry mutant ready to AVOID FIGHTING!

I guess I should be grateful that there is an easier way to do things, because fighting is a pain in the ass. Beyond the whole “repeated knocked down” thing, hit detection and button response can be a little iffy. To be fair, it’s not terrible, but it’s nowhere near where it should be and makes fights harder than they need to be. Often it leads to frustration or feels just plain cheap. These don’t compare to the boss fights though, where, while you’re fighting against the controls, they ask you to do specific strikes at specific times. It doesn’t work, and near the end they can instantly kill you for this!

Even adventuring around levels without bad guys can be annoying, as stages can be big and confusing. Stage hazards can be as annoying as enemies and it can be unclear on what you need to do, even when you know where you need to go. You do have a feral sense to help you track down enemies or see where you need to go, but they messed that up to, as there is no way of knowing the difference between coming and going! I’ve even turned a corner to sneak on one henchman, only to be greeted by 6 others in eye line that my senses didn’t let me know about. Nothing ever feels fair in this game.

X-2: Wolverine’s Revenge is simply a terrible experience full of frustrations. The start may not seem bad (boring but regular action adventure stuff) but as the game tries to be more “difficult”, it just magnifies the blunders. Basically, when you start at the bottom, the only way you can go lower is to dive into a sewer or go to hell. In order to beat this game, I required so many walk throughs, FAQs and videos just to make sure I wasn’t an idiot and trying to do the wrong thing (though playing this game is doing one big wrong thing), so beating it didn’t feel like an accomplishment at all. Same goes for the story, it seems really pointless and confusing, so you end up not really sure what was accomplished in terms of the narrative either. Oh, and it looks terrible too. Bottom line, this game was a real disappointment and it mostly just provides frustrations; avoid it. I give X-2: Wolverine’s Revenge for the xBox  2 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Astal

People talk about underrated games a lot, and I can understand why: uncovering those hidden gems that no one got the chance to appreciate feels like getting that new game you always wanted. However, these underrated gems always seem to come from the most highly rated game systems: it’s easy for someone to talk about Totally Rad on the NES, but when you have a system that no one’s played with a game that no one’s played, you have something no one’s ever played (I think I’m done hyperbolizing for now). So this week I’m looking at Astal for the Sega Saturn.

Astal stars the title character, which has many similarities to Knuckles: he’s a gruff loner who is in charge of protecting a giant green gem of amazing powers that gets stolen to start off our game. He even looks a bit like Knuckles, with a focus on his big hands and the color red. Anyways, the whole back story of Astal is really more complicated than it needs to be, but I supposed they wanted to establish a story arc for Astal where he changes over time to become less jaded. That does happen, thanks to a tiny bird that he saves and befriends him over time. As often with platformers, it’s not something that hasn’t been done before, and in this case the story doesn’t affect the game all that much, but it is cool that they tried to have the events and the journey affect the hero as it goes, instead of just a basically going back to the status quo at the end.

As already mentioned, Astal is pretty much a typical platformer, but it’s so polished and well done. It’s not one of those speed based ones, like a Mario or Sonic though. If I’d have to compare this to another game, I’d have to say it’s more like the original Rayman or Ristar (another failed Sega mascot series). The challenge comes not from wanting to move quickly and figuring out how to avoid obstacles in time, but more from how to deal with what the environment is throwing at you.

Oddly enough, another thing that makes Astal like Ristar is the fact that his main skill is grabbing. Most of the time he’ll just grab baddies and throw them aside for a kill, but there are moment where it gets used for puzzles (though, never really that creatively). However, Astal has other skills, such as a ground pound and super breath. If that’s not good enough for the scenario, the bird that he rescues can lend a hand, either by pin-balling across the screen and attacking all the enemies, or by bringing Astal some health, both of which are more potent depending on when you use them. All this makes for a game that is very intuitive, but still presents enough of a challenge.

As the game revolves around gems and crystals, it’s no surprise that Astal is a beautiful game. Although this game is in 2D, Sega decided to put the extra capabilities of the Sega Saturn to good use. Sure, it’s not enough to warrant a whole new system, but it’s still stunning. The game makers really dedicate themselves to the gem/jewel motif for everything and it really works in the game’s favor.

On the side of audio, it’s ok. The music suits the atmosphere fine in that somewhat mystical sense, but never really gets me pumped or excited. The sound effects kind of have that element to them as well, especially when you toss an enemy to have him break into pieces. However, I think the cut scenes have the most interesting audio since it’s just still images. The music is kind of too soft and the voice acting is really awkward. However, as I said earlier, I don’t think the plot is all that amazing, so it doesn’t take away too much from it.

That’s all I can really say about Astal (once of the few times I’ve managed to talk about story, game play AND esthetics). It’s just a really competently put together platformer video game. The only thing that works against it is that it plays it pretty safe (despite the risk of being on the Saturn- heeeyyyyooo). There’s no moment where it gets really intense or tries for some unexpected twist, and there’s nothing that keeps you coming back for any reason. Other than that, this is a really good game, and if it were on the Genesis, I have no doubt it would be fondly remembered and often talked about. However, this isn’t what’s expected out of a new console. With the cost of the system and the game itself starting online at around 30$, it’s just not worth it for most people, but as someone who tumbled upon it, I was pleasantly surprised. I give Astal for the Sega Saturn 9 levels out 10.

Level Up: RoboCop

RoboCop is kind of a weird phenomenon to me, because despite everyone knowing the name, in my experience only a fraction of those people have ever actually seen the movie. That might have changed now thanks to the remake which comes out on DVD soon, and though my thoughts on the remake are a little complex, the original movie is GLORIOUS and should be seen. RoboCop is easily one of my favorite super heroes, and with his premise you’d think he’d be a great concept for an NES side-scroller, right? Let’s check it out with RoboCop for the NES.

Graphically speaking this game is not great. I get that, back in the NES days, it was hard to make a game look like the movie, but there is still much to be desired. RoboCop himself doesn’t look too bad, but he’s washed out in teal and looks really scrawny for someone who is supposed to be a walking tank. Other people look like brown smudges and other odd color choices. Though, for how bad the graphics are, the animation is what bugs me. The way Alex Murphy walks (especially on stairs) can look like he’s walking backwards, and while he moves slowly, his punch is a really quick animation. There’s even a part where you can only aim upwards while facing one side, making it awkward to set yourself up for the shot you WANT to make. Probably not the worst looking game, but it’s obvious just by looking at it that this was one of those rushed movie tie-ins the NES was infamous for.

As for the sounds, while I do like the chiptune version of the RoboCop theme, the sound effects are really lacking. Though the gun noise is pretty cool, the dog ones are pathetic (both the barking and dying). The punch noise seems to have the same problem as the animation (in that it’s very quick and without the visual, you’d have a hard time knowing that’s what it’s for.

However, the big issue with audio visuals is the mission titles. After some fairly decent animation, they all seem to feature an awkward drawing of RoboCop sometimes with his mouth flapping about, and an annoying beeping as the letters spell out. I don’t need to know the mission, I saw the movie! I just want to go shoot some dudes!

The game play of RoboCop is… not too good either. Yeah, if you didn’t get the hint when talking about the animations, it makes a lot of things really awkward (I’m saying that a lot this review). RoboCop himself plays pretty stiff. I know that he’s not the fastest moving character in the movie, but just doing something simple like trying to dodge someone’s attack feels really slow. Also, there are parts where you need to use stairs and finding the right spot can be a task. Even something as simple as shooting or hitting someone becomes questionable, as your hit box seems be more easily in your opponent’s reach that their hit box is to yours, and because of that weird punching animation, your window of opportunity is so small. Eventually you learn how to time things correctly, but you only get that due to trial and error: it’s not intuitive at all! This is one of those games where you have to do things mostly just the way the makers intended you to. Like, they have to program you to play this one certain way, like some kind of machine or a Robo- WHOA TOO META!

It’s sad to say, but yeah, RoboCop on NES is just one of those games that confirm the stereotype of licenced games not being very good. Granted, this could have been a lot worse, but there are too many simple things that are done wrong; moving, hitting, sounds, the look, etc… it has such an awkward feeling. The game is beatable, that much is true, but it’s not really fun at any point. There are even moments where what you need to do is just a bit too hard to guess for my liking (like a room where you need to punch a wall MULTIPLE times before it gives out despite showing no weakness as you punch it). It’s not a terribly frustrating game, it just really shouldn’t be this much of a chore to get through. I give RoboCop for the NES 4 levels out of 10.