Level Up: Celebrity Deathmatch

Last time, I reviewed a game based on my favorite movie, so I think this week it would make sense to talk about my favorite TV show. Now, I have always been a fan of fantasy fights and it’s obvious that a lot of other people are too, shown by the amazing popularity of things such as Death Battle or the Epic Rap Battles of History (and if you like those things, check out the Geeks Versus Nerds podcast, I’ve been in a few shows). But I don’t think anyone has done it better than MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch. The jokes, the match-ups, the violence, the animation: I would not change one thing about the original series. Even after it was cancelled in 2002, people still wanted to see Celebrities pound on each other, so about a year later, the Celebrity Deathmatch video game was released to the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox (which is the version I will be playing).

Celebrity Deathmatch was a clay animated TV show, and that alone gave it a lot of personality. This game is instead done with polygons and though this is disappointing (since “Clay Fighters” existed on the SNES), it is understandable. Despite this, do the graphics do the show justice? Well the character models do look accurate, but the graphics quality is terrible! I would assume that this game was on the N64 by looking at it. Blood gets added to the fighters as they get injured, but it’s not impressive since I know PS1 games that could do that.

Likewise, the game is not fun to listen to. In the show, there is often music playing in the background relevant to whichever fighter is featured or what they’re doing. Take Garth Brooks for example, who had generic country music playing when he was dominating, or whenever Alfred Hitchcock spoke there was an ominous track in the background. Of course it might be too hard to fit that into a video game, but they honestly didn’t even try. There is no music for the fights and it makes the game much more boring.

While I’m talking about what you hear, a lot of the show’s humor came from dialog: the way Nick and Johnny described the fight or how the two fighters taunted each other. This game tried to recapture that, but utterly failed. Nick, Johnny and some of the fighters have a few selected phrases that come up from time to time, but you will quickly be tired of hearing them, even though it can take a long time between quips. At least the voice actors do a decent enough job.

I’m at a loss to how to explain the game play, but I can say “good” wouldn’t be my first choice. The game is a 3D roaming fighter, so you’ll walk around and punch the enemy if you feel like it. The controls are simple and easy to learn and there are no complex “street fighter” like combos, but that’s reflective of the show, where they just kind of smacked each other around. The problem is it feels incredibly stiff! Half the time you’ll either be trying to hit the enemy unsuccessfully thanks to the game’s poor hit detection, trying to stand up from a cheap combo or just trying to make the buttons work the way they should. Playing against a human player is a lot less frustrating (since it evens things), but it needs a lot of improvement before it would be fun.

The game also has weapons and the ability to knock off enemy libs to handicap them (the latter has NEVER happened for me no matter how I tried), which were both common themes of the show. The weapons rarely show up in the ring, and when they do, they tend to disappear just as quickly. The game play is just one big step away from being a button mashing game.

Celebrity Deathmatch represents one of the reasons why I rarely talk about bad games: it’s hard to explain why this game doesn’t work the way it does without going into detail. Long story short: the TV show did not translate well to video games. I appreciate the attempt made by developer Big Ape Production and publisher Gotham Games, but some things (like the moment specific audio and moves) couldn’t be done, and when they tried to do it (like the simple smacking), it failed and made for boring game play. It can be good for a laugh among friends, but trying to play this by yourself is just a test to get through the whole half hour of stuff you can actually do. Just watch the show on YouTube instead. I give Celebrity Deathmatch for the Xbox 3.5 levels out of 10.

Level Up: The Mask

Once again, it’s time for the Valentine’s Day Special, but once again, that’s the least interesting thing I have to talk about. Sure, this game is based around rescuing your love, but the real reason I’m talking about this game is because it’s based on a movie that I love: the 1994Jim Carrey movie , The Mask. I can honestly say that I would not have the sense of humor I have now if not for it. It was hugely popular: it had toys, a cartoon series and it was all based on a comic book. So there was only one thing left: a video game. Let’s see how that came out with The Mask for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
It’s pretty obvious that this game would be a platformer, but it’s far from straight forward. The levels are somewhat maze like, but rarely will you get lost and exploring can net you bonuses. The challenge is really in finding what barriers can be broken or what can be used as a gateway to access another area. And here’s where I have one of my first issues; the first few times you need to use something, there’s a little sparkle on it, but after that you’re pretty much on your own. The graphics are part of the problem (and I’ll get to that in a bit), but there are so many “doors” that I just discovered by a complete fluke.
Anyways, as you’re walking around you’ll be fighting people trying to stop you. Your basic attack is just to bop them with boxing gloves, but you also have “Morph power”. This powers your other attacks, such as the hammer used to smash that alarm clock in the movie, the “living horn” that took out the car and the iconic tornado (among others). I think these are great ways to reference and use the movie in a way that is useful to the game. Again, these use “morph power” which can run out, but you can find more in the stages and it refills automatically to a smaller amount (like the gun in Earthworm Jim).
But MAN, can enemies take abuse! Even the first enemy you meet can take a lot of hits from your basic attack. This might be a leftover from the fact that this was supposed to be a beat-em-up, but if you change your game to a platformer, make enemies go down faster. There’s no time limit, so if you don’t want to use your Morph powers on every enemy you can wait it out, especially since they don’t put up much of a fight. However, this brings up another balancing issue: if you get hit by an enemy you go FLYING. This can really screw you over in the maze like levels and it’s irritating how much you go back.
Despite being live action, the Mask movie drew heavy inspiration from cartoons for some character movements and mannerisms and used special effects to give it an “animated” feel. However, this was noticeable due to how gritty the world was. Does the game’s graphics do this justice? Short answer is yes. The style is great, and it’s balanced to make the regular people seem real enough, but not have the Mask look out of place. Speaking of which, the animations for his attacks are superb; it’s sometimes worth the Morph Points to use the living horn just to watch it go off.
That being said, there are some characters that look more like caricatures. For example, the 3rd level boss is a fat guy (resembling the one from Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life), with a tiny shirt so his gut hangs out and bounces around on that belly. It’s mostly the bosses that look silly and unreal, but it also happens for a few common enemies.
But I can easily look past that. My biggest issue with the graphics however is how hard they make it to get around. I mentioned that you’ll need to use pathways: these are in the backgrounds, but don’t stick out. There are also ledges that you can hop on, but you wouldn’t know it until you tried, as these are flushed out in the background too. It makes things a lot harder than it needs to be.
The Mask on SNES was NOT what I was expecting. What I thought I would get was a half-assed, movie-tie in basic platformer who either didn’t work right or was really simple. What Black Pearl Software managed to develop is a game that actually kept things interesting, but made almost as many good choices as they made poor ones. The powers are fun to use, but the bad guys take too long to die. The maze like layouts is cool, but the graphics makes it hard to get around. I could go on, but here’s the game on the whole: the graphics are great when they work, the game controls fine and, most importantly, the game play is enjoyable, safe for a few hiccups. It’s quite easy to play through this game and have fun with it while avoiding any frustrations. Far from a landmark experience, but for a game based on my favorite movie, I could have been a lot more disappointed. I give The Mask for the SNES 6.5 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

This intro is going to be a little different. See, the reason I’m reviewing today’s game is because roughly 3 years ago, my dad passed away. Now, I think it goes without saying, many of us wouldn’t be gamers if not for our parents, and that’s the case with me, my dad is the one who got me my SNES with Donkey Kong Country (and like I said in that review, it’s what started my collection). Of course, he would also play some games with me when he saw I had something that interested him: he wasn’t a gamer by any means, but he would be up for Diddy Kong Racing or Wii Sports. But today’s game is the one I remember playing with him the most, and we would have tournaments that would last for hours or continue for weeks. He was always into Tetris and Dr. Mario style puzzle games, so this game was really right up his alley. Today’s review is Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine originally for the Sega Genesis.

Before talking about Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, I first have to talk about another series: Puyo Puyo. Kind of like Pokemon Puzzle League in relation to Panel De Pon, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine is a re-skin of an already existing puzzle series to help it break into North America. As a matter of fact, this isn’t the only version of this game to come out around that time, as the Super Nintendo would get Kirby’s Avalanche. Eventually, the series would be released on its own in North America under the name “Puyo Pop”. Oddly enough though, the development rights to Puyo Puyo now belongs to Sonic Team, since Compile, the game’s creators, went bankrupt. However, this is because they helped first release the game into arcades, and not because of this game, which ties the two series together.

Another thing that makes this game interestingly tied to other sources is the fact that this is the only game that directly references the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog TV cartoon. It has many of the familiar characters like Coconuts, Grounder or Scratch and he other adversary robots used in the game also have the feel of the show. There’s even a plot- yes, a plot for a Tetris style puzzle game- that resembles the show (which is to say, it’s just silly). Dr. Robotnik kidnapped the “jolly citizens of Beanville” and put them in his Mean Bean Streaming Machine to make them into his robot slaves. But the lamest part is there is no mention of Sonic what so ever. In Kirby’s Avalanche, we clearly saw that you were playing as Kirby, so we are pretty much left to assume that you are playing as yourself in this game. It saddens me that this is the closest thing to a “Dr. Eggman game” that we have so far.

The Puyo Puyo game play works a bit like Dr. Mario, in which that you are given 2 blocks of random colors at a time and matching 4 of the same color together will make the blocks disappear. However, there are a few key differences. First off, there isn’t anything to clear, this just a competition game, so whoever can keep matching blocks the longest and not pile them to the top wins. There are also more colors, but those differences are really small potatoes; here’s where the game really becomes unique. First off, the blocks (which are called “beans” in this game or “slimes” in regular Puyo Puyo) aren’t stuck together as two, so if there is nothing under a bean when you place a couple, it will fall down. Secondly, you don’t need to make a straight line; as long as a bean is touching another of its color either horizontally or vertically, it will connect to it, and once 4 connect in any way, they will vanish.  Of course, this connection isn’t strong enough to keep the bean from succumbing to gravity, so if whatever is below a bean disappears, the bean will still fall. The rest is pretty much the usual; you can rotate the pieces to place them however you want, try to create combos to send garbage to the other ride, links of beans that touch garbage will take away the garbage and if your beans reach the top of the screen, you lose. I really think that this might make it easier to learn than Dr. Mario, but might be harder to master in terms of making combos.

My position on Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine is a little complicated. I mean, obviously I love the game play, as it’s addictive, yet requires a fair bit of forward thinking to exploit it fully. However, there’s not a whole lot done with it in this game, just the competition and survival modes (I’m sure future Puyo Puyo games would do a lot more). I also don’t like how it labels itself as the only Robotnik/Eggman game there currently is and that it’s his crappy TV show counterpart that gets the spot light. However, I do understand that it got more people to play this game, and finding it on collections such as the Sonic Mega Collection (like I played it) or Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection and the ports on the Game Gear, Sega Master System or Virtual Console makes it so it still might be some people’s first exposure to the game. Not really a Sonic game, not the best version of the game, but still a lot of fun and it succeeded at what it wanted to do. I give Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine for the Sega Genesis 8.5 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Guitar Hero World Tour

Man, that was one hell of a new year’s eve party, only getting over it now. A couple of years ago I celebrated this occasion by talking to you about DJ Hero, a spin-off series from- Oh haha, spin off, that’s a joke-… Where was I? Oh right, Guitar Hero. That series really created a boom in music rhythm games; I’m sure they existed before, but now you could easily pretend to be your favorite rock star in your own home with a real fake guitar. For a while though, the name explained the big, obvious hole in the series: what if you fantasized about being the next Mick Jagger instead of Keith Richards? Well the fourth game fixed that by letting full band join in. Let’s see how that turned out with Guitar Hero: World Tour available for a bunch of consoles I don’t feel like listing off, including the Wii as I have it.

I now realize that I haven’t yet talked about the Guitar Hero series directly, only mentioning it in other rhythm game reviews. Like most of them, Guitar Hero will have you quote-unquote “playing” a song by hitting certain buttons at certain times to play “notes”. Continuously hitting correct notes will increase your score and make the Rock Meter go up, while missing them or hitting incorre6ct ones will make it go down and eventually fail the song. If you find yourself in danger of failing, you can activate Star Power (provided you’ve collected enough Star shaped notes earlier).

That’s the basic Guitar Hero format, so what’s new? I already mentioned the new instruments: they work basically in the same way, hit the right note at the right time to get a higher score. There are also some game play changes due to the fact that they wanted to concentrate more on allowing a bunch of people of multiple skills levels to join in. This includes shared Star Power (which I don’t like), a beginner mode, and the ability to change your difficulty at any point in the career mode (a great change).

Another new feature in this game is the song creator, where you can make your own music and send it out for other people to hear. Some of the ones I’ve downloaded are really good. Since I have the Wii version, there are a lot of great remakes of Nintendo songs (I don’t know if there are as many on other versions of this game). There are also a lot of covers of other famous songs, and a few original (which I doubt get as many downloads). However, this mode does have its limits, most noticeably that you can’t do anything with a microphone. I also find this mode to be a distraction at best (I seriously forgot about it until I wrote this review) and the controls for creating music a little user unfriendly. Not something I consider and attraction for the game personally, but some may have a lot of fun with it.

However, the final big addition is the custom character creator, and it’s the one that caused me the most problem, and I’ll try my best to explain why. See, for this version of Guitar Hero, the makers decided to give you the option of putting “yourself” in the game by creating an avatar. My problem is that in Guitar Hero 3, we got a story, and a very fun one at that, which they were able to make due to showing the rest of the band. However, since you can be the “rest of the band”, it’s also fully customable. So, they can’t be shown in any cut scenes (there are ones at the beginning and at the end of career, but it hardly counts as a “story”). You can play as the old characters too (and a few celebrities) but the game doesn’t seem to care for them and just makes the main focus your blank slate. And that’s where my main problem is: there is no “personality” to this game. There are a few other aspects to it, but basically it becomes “play the songs and move on”. It’s just so disappointing when the previous game (the one that got me into the whole music rhythm genre) did it so well.

Personally, I think Guitar Hero: World Tour was a misstep at a horrible time for the series. At the inevitable turning point, Activision published something that failed to really charm anyone. It also didn’t help that there were numerous issues with the instruments that came with it and a lot of compatibility problems with other instruments that made you rely on them. However, Guitar Hero: World Tour isn’t a  bad game, as it does build on the game play mechanics that came before it and provides more songs for people to rock out to (though personally, I’m not wowed by the selection). It also had all of the original recordings for the songs used, which they managed to do before Rock Band.  This isn’t a bad game, but by far failed to live up to what was required from it. I give Guitar Hero: World Tour for the Nintendo Wii 7 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Spider-man & Venom : Maximum Carnage

The holiday season is once again upon us. This year, I’ll be bundled up inside, by the warm glow of my television set waiting for a visit from one of my favorite persons wearing red: Carnage! Among my favorite villains ever, Carnage ranks pretty high (possibly even number one). His complete disregard for life, desire for chaos, lack of humanity and powers that can rival one of the greatest super heroes of all time makes him a force you surely don’t want to go up against. And when it comes to Carnage, one story always comes up that is said to demonstrate what he is all about: the 14 part series Maximum Carnage, where he pushes Spider-man to his limits as a hero. Or so I’ve heard, I haven’t read it myself, but I have played the video game Spider-man and Venom: Maximum Carnage, available for the Sega Genesis, but I’ll be talking about the version given to me as a gift, the one on the Super Nintendo.

Since it’s the first thing you’ll see in the game (and since I just played a clip from the song) it’s worth starting off by mentioning that the sound track was composed by the metal/rock band Green Jelly (and yes, it’s pronounced JELL-O; the umlaut makes the Y sound like an O. If Ke$ha’s dollar sign can be pronounced like an S, we can grasp this concept). This gives most of the music a pretty “hard core” feel, and for want of a better term, it sounds so “90’s”. Of course since the technology of the time wouldn’t allow for recorded music, we get computerized versions. The down sampling is obvious, but not enough to ruin it. As for the other sounds, they vary. Some of them boarder on stock, some of them are too goofy and some are 100% satisfying (I really do like the punching noises).

I also like the graphics too. They keep them comic book style, but not cartoon like and silly. I think I’ve said before it’s easy to make Spidey look too buff or too lanky, but here the balance is good (maybe a bit too many details around the pecks). The other licensed characters are done in this same “that IS what they should look like” manner. Obviously nothing is uniquely interpreted, which is good because this is based off the comic and should reflect what it contained. Speaking of which, this game has cut scenes directly redrawn from the comic panels and… I like don’t like them. They look authentic I suppose, but also flat and really pixelated. It’s nice that they tried though.

The game play is pretty much your standard brawler, with a few extra spidey skills thrown in. You’ll walk through areas and fight generic, pallet swapped bad guys with names like Bret or Billy. Who, with the hair, looks like Billy Bob Thornton? *Clip* How so? *clip* Okay, well sorry. Anyways, you can punch, block and jump like in any game, but you can also climb walls to attack from them or hide or use your web to swing into enemies, grab them from a far or tie them up.

Unfortunately, this game is only one player for some reason despite having two protagonists. I think it might have been to keep in line with the original story, but again, I haven’t read it yet. As fun as this game is, I could only imagine it would be a lot more fun if it was multiplayer. It would also be a lot easier because I found this game hard, almost up there with Double Dragon NES. There are secret recovery items, lives, assists and continues that you can find throughout the game to help you out though. Personally I had to find them all to be able to get a shot at finishing this, because this game makes you earn your fight with one of the best villains ever.

Spider-man and Venom: Maximum Carnage is a surprisingly good game. It’s fast paced, offers a challenge that will make you want to find all the secrets and its simple, classic, beat-em-up fun.  Being a direct adaptation of a story many people have enjoyed probably helps too. However, it’s worth mentioning that this isn’t a perfect game, and I’ve had people with legitimate complaints explain to me why they don’t like it: there is no two player mode, there isn’t enough variety among the super villains (though this was to keep it as close to the original story as possible), Spider-man being beaten up by random thugs is not something you want to see and the game can be too hard, with no save features, passwords or option to change the difficulty. However, I still say that none of these things ruin the game for me at all. This really is a title worth checking out, brought to us by developer Software Creations and published by…  LJN?! They made a game that’s not just ok, but really good? Who knew that was possible? Anyways, I give Spider-man and Venom: Maximum Carnage for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System 9 levels out of 10.