Level Up: Serious Sam

First person shooters are a touchy subject now a day. Whenever the topic of the stagnation or lack of creativity in the industry comes up, first person shooters (or FPSs) are normally the first to be targeted. I’ve had some people say that they like “modern” games less simply because of this genre’s popularity. However, this wasn’t always the case: the old FPS games (like Doom or Wolfenstein 3D) were regarded as some of the most innovative of their time simply due to how it was pulled off. But things changed with GoldenEye 007 and the explosion of 3D gaming. The game I’m reviewing today is a 2001 release, but inspired more by the earlier games of the genre.  Let’s looks at Serious Sam for the Microsoft xBox.
The releases of Serious Sam honestly confuse me. The version I played on the xBox is known as Serious Sam. However, the original on the PC was released in 2 episodes (“The First Encounter” and “The Second Encounter”). This confused me when I heard about Serious Sam 2, as I wondered if that was “the Second Encounter”. Furthermore, the GameCube and PS2 got “Serious Sam the NEXT Encounter”. Is that just the Second Encounter, Serious Sam 2, a wholely different game or just a port of the original?! Well upon looking it up, it seems to be an original game exclusive to the two consoles that don’t have any other Serious Sam game on it. What genius came up with that? Boy, I didn’t think I’d ever have a hard time figuring out where a game with no numbers or subtitle falls within its release history.
The xBox version wasn’t just notable for packaging the two episodes into one; there were obviously going to be some other changes. One that may have been necessary was cutting the size of the levels (however, I have to say that it doesn’t feel small on its own). Also Serious Sam looks different than in the first encounter, no longer wearing his sun glasses, has a T-shirt instead of a muscle shirt and seems generally redesigned in an ironically less serious manner. This is mostly all done to look less like Duke Nukem, and I feel it fits the tone of the game a lot better (he looks and acts a bit like Rocko from Undergrads now actually). They also added a life system (though I was never low on lives), tweaked the save points, put in auto-aiming and did a few other things to polish up the game a bit.
This is obviously not the deepest game ever made. However, it does have a lot of personality and that goes a long way. Serious Sam is just hilarious every time he gets to talk. Again, much like Rocko from the Undergrads, it’s funny when things don’t quite go as he expected. He’s not an over cool guy like Duke Nukem, but he tries. For many reasons (most of which were laid out in the Jimquizition’s “Too cool for cool” episode), this makes him a much better character. You really want to help this guy succeed, because even though it would seem it would come to him, you know he needs a little effort put into it.
Likewise, the game play isn’t astounding, but it is very likable. You’ll walk around and shoot whatever gets between you and your goal (in this case stopping the alien overlord Mental). However, the aliens are a lot of fun to kill, mostly because they are designed in very creative ways or are at least entertaining to look at. The weapons are fun to use too: you get everything from just a pistol to lazers. It’s satisfying to mow down a whole rush of enemies or take down the big guys with these tools. However, stronger level variety could have helped this even more: though there are some ice, fire or alien invasion levels, too many of the ones I remember are basically a desert or field. The levels themselves are very well designed and laid out though, and hide enough wacky secrets to encourage replay.
What else can be said about Serious Sam after saying that Developers Croteam and publishers Gotham Games made a great affectionate parody of Duke Nukem and other popular FPSs of that time? True, the graphics aren’t amazing, but it could easily be claimed that it was to make Serious Sam look like the game it was emulating. Also, the enemies are still unique and distinguishable amongst each other. The music is always fitting for whatever moment is going on, and the voice work for Sam is hilarious in terms of acting and timing, so the audio gets a big plus from me. The plot isn’t very deep, but sometimes you just want to be entertained; if there’s such a thing as a “popcorn movie”, there’s gotta be the same thing for games (I ate cheezies while playing this, can “cheezies video game” be a thing?). Though it could also use more in terms of cut scenes or level variety, for what we get, I’m seriously satisfied. I give Serious Sam for the xBox 7.5 levels out of 10.

Level Up Confessions: Dig Dug

*Regular Level Up theme starts, five seconds in, static hits and it stops. Video game confessions theme song starts up.*

“This is Stephan. Stephan works at a 5 star restaurant called the Pixel Palace. There, some of video game’s most popular characters come in to have a drink. Sometimes, they share stories, and even secrets. For as we all know, what the bartender hears is confidential. Isn’t it?”

So I’m sitting there tending bar when in walks in someone I see from time to time, Dig Dug. Well, I didn’t really SEE him walk in, fella’s kind of short, but I did hear him come up to the bar. Feet walking, make a distinct sound for some reason. I told him once he should get it looked at, but he just doesn’t really see the problem.

Anyways he sits on a bar stool, orders a mudslide and just sits there. Normally the chap is quite chatty but today he was just looking in his drink. So, I decided to ask him “something on your mind, buddy?” Well he just let out a big sigh and tells me “today I killed again”.

Now, this was a side I hadn’t seen of the guy. I know he kills dragons and… tomatoes with scuba gear or something, but I didn’t know it could get to him. So I lean on the bar and I say “Well lots of video game characters kill, it’s in their programming or something- not to sound racist, but I don’t know how it really works with you guys”

Dig Dug stops me and goes “Oh no, not in my game, I LOVE doing that.” I go “Oh.” He keeps on going “Pumping the dragons full of air until they blow up to bits, guts flying everywhere, nothing left where a monster once stood.” I had never thought of how violent the game could actually get. Can’t think of a worst way to die now.

“No” he says to me “I killed someone who was just at the park”. I stood back straight up and asked him “Well why did you do that?” Dig Dug was deadly silent, his face shifted from sad to serious, looked me straight in the eyes and said “he called me Funnie”.

“Excuse me?” I said, I cocked my head a bit “You killed a guy for calling you funny? Sounds like a complement to me.” He says “No, not funny like a clown, I didn’t amuse him. ‘Funnie’ as a last name. He called ‘Dig Dug Funnie’” I was still confused, “Dig Dug Funnie OOOOHHH!! ” I said “Like Doug Funnie from the show on Nickelodeon” I started doing the theme song, you know *imitates it* but at that point he hopped on the bar and threatened me with his tire pump.

He calms down a bit and then sits down and starts explaining to me. Apparently once the Nickelodeon show came out, anyone with the name “Doug” was mocked because of that show. I said “But your name’s not Doug, it’s Dug, as the past tense to Dig. If anything people should referencing that dog from Up!” “They did” he says “They would randomly look away and go ‘squirrel’, and they asked me to inflate their balloons too.” Cause, you know, he has the tire pump. But apparently they forgot about that Dug and “Doug Funnie” stuck. It was on the air for over 8 years apparently. Can you believe that? I mean, I know it was owned by Nickelodeon, and then Disney, but I thought it was pretty boring. And the characters designs… just bizarre.

Dig Dug goes on “And I WISH people still made jokes about that dog; that dog was interesting, he was a hero. What was Doug Funnie?” I stopped a bit and thought of the best way to describe him. “A loser?”. He shouts “EXACTLY! How would like for people to hear your name and all they can think of is a loser.” At that point I sort of understood.

“But to be so enraged as to kill someone?” I ask him “That’s… that’s a bit of an overreaction. I mean, you said so yourself, people make that joke to you all the time. You need to find a better way of dealing with it. Plus, if people hear why you killed those people, it’ll just spread the word about the joke more and you’ll hear it from everyone”

“That’s ok” he said “After that latest ‘incident’ in the park, I figured out a way to deal with all these emotions. See,” he says leaning in “I invited someone here tonight.” I looked around the bar wondering who could help here. And that’s when I saw him walk in; Doug Funnie himself.

Of course it was a little hard to recognize him at all. I mean Doug just looked TERRIBLE, unshaven, dirty clothes- a real wash-up. I lean to Dig Dug and I ask him “he’s the guy you invited over?” He says “Yeah, but he don’t know it’s me, it was anonymous on his answering machine.” Which makes me think Doug is doing quite badly, because it was “answering machine” instead of “voice mail”. But I don’t know, do people still use answering machines now?

Anyways, Doug is standing around, looking for someone to signal him. Stumbling quite a bit, didn’t seem to know where he was- I think he was “on” something if you know what I mean. Dig Dug and I watched him for a bit before I got curious and asked him “Why did you invite him here anyways”. “Because I knew” he says “I knew he’d be even more of a loser now than he was before. Now, who cares about Doug Funnie? And since his TV series was split between two companies, do you think he’ll see money from that easily? He has almost no legacy.”

He goes on “Me, I gots a legacy. My original game is going to keep getting remade and rereleased over and over again; game collections, Xbox Live Arcade, Virtual Console, whatever. Plus all the other games in my series AND I have a side series, Mr. Driller. My game is a classic, I was even in Wreck-It Ralph; that is some good Disney coin there. Doug, who was owned by Disney, is getting nothing from ‘em”.

I nodded my head and put my arm on his shoul der. He said “I know, no matter what people call me, I am not that loser.” It was a beautiful moment of self-realization. I would like to think he grew past it all at that moment. … Of course, after a few second of silence, he jumped off his stool, a shoved his tire-pump into Doug Funnie’s behind and popped him like a cheap balloon.  He starts yelling “Not so Funnie anymore” and “This is for years of hearing your name!” He kept going on like a crazy person until the bouncers had to drag him out. So much for the moment of self-realization…

At that point my shift was over and I traded off with Dominique. He saw a bit of what had happened and asked what he missed. I explained it to him and… he seemed to understand. I mean, I don’t quite get why someone would be that mad, but Dominique did. Maybe he knows someone who went through something similar, I don’t know.

What I do know is that you see a lot of strange things as a bartender and you see a lot of strange things at the Pixel Palace. So, I see a lot of strange things as a bartender at the Pixel Palace, and that aint no lie.

Level Up: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

When I reviewed Super Mario RPG, I mentioned that it was one of the most demanded games to be ported onto the Game Boy Advance. However, with the relationship Nintendo had with Square at the time, it was clear that probably wasn’t going to happen. The demand for a Mario RPG on the GBA was obviously too great for Nintendo to ignore though, so they made a new Mario RPG series specifically for their hand held systems. What we got was Mario & Luigi: SuperStar Saga for the Game Boy Advance.

The game begins at Princess Peach’s castle, where we see that she is meeting with the ambassador of the neighboring Bean Bean Kingdom. However, the ambassador reveals herself to actually be a witch named Cackletta and steals Peach’s voice. Mario is immediately contacted and rushes over to the castle, dragging Luigi along (literally). Once they get there, they see it’s too late, as Cackletta and her sidekick Fawful have escaped already. Oddly enough, it’s Bowser that restores hope, as he shows up to kidnap Princess Peach, but realizes there’s no point without her voice. He enlists the help of the Mario brothers as they take off in his battle ship. However, when they come close to getting the Princess’ voice back, Mario, Luigi and Bowser are knocked from the sky. The two brothers wake up and find that they are at the Bean Bean Kingdom boarder and have no choice but to explore this strange land.

The story is just solid fun. It’s light hearted and classic (Mario saves Peach), but with enough new elements to make it original (like the new villain and the new setting). There is also a weird sense of humor that is carried throughout the game (which is probably hyperbolized through Fawful). It is really impressive when you can make a rather odd game, but still make the story play out in a really smart way. There’s a plot twist about half way that I just didn’t see coming and completely turns the tables. You will want to help the brothers out just to see what happens next.

The fact that this is Mario & LUIGI is a really big deal: Luigi had not been playable in a Mario adventure for a long time, probably not since Super Mario World. As a matter of fact, this might be one of the few times where it’s actually necessary to play as him in a game that has his brother. It seems Nintendo (or possibly developers Alpha-dream) knew they had to make this part of the game play, and they managed to integrate it rather well. Mario and Luigi follow each other around and you can switch up who is the “leader”. This is important, because each brother can use a combination of jump, hammer and “hand power” skills that will change depending on who is leading. For example, if Mario is leading, Luigi can jump on him to give the two brothers an extra high jump, but if Luigi is leading, Mario can do a spin jump to allow the brother to fly over gaps. These techniques are also used in the game’s battle system as “bros. attacks”, but if one of the brothers is knocked out, you can’t use them anymore.

Learning when you should use these skills on the map is important, as the map is not linear. I resist calling it Metroidvania style, since you could almost stretch it so most RPGs, but it gives off that impression. The map is mostly open to you (though there are moments where places only open after cut scenes) and the only thing preventing you from accessing everything is the fact that you need every skill. There are several parts in the game that make use of areas you’ve already visited, but since you can use a new skill on the map, you’ll find whole new area there. Granted, the game tells you where you need to go most of the time, but it’s well thought out when compared to games where you visit an area once and never need to go there again.

Mario & Luigi: SuperStar Saga might not be as great as Super Mario RPG, but it might be better because of that. What I mean is, while Super Mario RPG is a great game and I would have liked more people to experience it with a GBA rerelease, this first Mario & Luigi game is not only a great NEW experience, but also started off a pretty solid side series (with a 4^th installment, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, coming out this summer).  It also makes great use of timed hits and defensive moves (which I explained a bit during the Partners in Time review) and the graphics style of the game is so good that some online communities pretty much re-sprited the whole Mario universe in this style (it looks simply amazing for the GBA). What else can I say but the story is fun, the game play works from every angle and it’s just a high quality game. I give Mario & Luigi: SuperStar Saga for the Game Boy Advance 10 level out of 10.

Level Up: Chop Chop Caveman & Dino Cap 2

If you would have told me ten years ago that paying to download games with no physical copy of them would become a common thing I… would have believed you. At the time, I was playing Flash games online, downloading free games from sites and even trying to make my own. However, if you would have told me that phones would be recognized as a gaming platform, to the point where one is sitting on GameFAQs’s quick search bar, that’s where I would have drawn the line. How would I have known they’d eventually be accessible enough to allow people to easily play games on them? So I thought today I’d talk to you about some of the games I’ve played on my phone that revolve around dinosaurs. Why dinosaurs? Why not? Let’s start with Chop Chop Caveman available for the Android, but I’ll be playing it on the iPhone (also compatible with iPad and Ipod Touch, but not all generation and blah blah blah. Just check the iTunes store for each iPhone game I talk about to see if you can play it).

I’ll be honest here and just start by saying I think Gamerizon ripped off of the Wario Land games for Chop Chop Caveman (though, it’s more linear). The similarities start off at the premise: you play as a gluttonous and greedy man who scours the land looking to satisfy his selfish desires. Once we get to the game play, the similarities continue, as the controls start out with your basic run and jump stuff, but the main attack is to charge forward and if you’re in the air, you can do a ground pound. There are even points where you’ll need to pick up objects and throw them in order to advance.

However, the physics and in game style are different. Wario Land is more about exploration, whereas Chop Chop Caveman has more to do with just platforming. This also affects the physics of the game and makes it feel more loose and free: the distances you jump and run are sometimes astounding. This might a bit too loose though, because as much fun it is to go through a stage as fast as possible, it sometimes gets weird when trying to be precise or a piece of meat you’ll need to gain health can go flying. Still works within its own world, but a small bit of tightening up could have improved this.

Our next mobile dino game is by a company named Trinity Interactive. I’ve downloaded quite a few titles from this company, mostly because they have a selection of free games that are simple beat-em-ups or platformers. Today’s game is no exception: Dino Cap 2. You play in a world that is overrun by dinosaurs (and eventually cyborg dinosaurs) where you have a selection of missions. They’re mostly standards, such as run a certain distance, survive a certain amount of time or kill a certain number of dinosaurs, but they are pretty well executed and shouldn’t cause trouble if you’re well stocked. You’ll also get money in this game so that you can upgrade your weapons or buy ammo.

However, upgrading your weapons seems to have very little impact on the game, but you’ll do it anyways as this game has little to offer otherwise. Again, the missions are all pretty similar and it can get a tiresome (especially since there’s an achievement for doing 500 missions). This game is also just set on a 2D plane, so the game play can become really mindless very quickly as dinos can only come from one of 2 directions. Not to say this game is easy, but rather there’s not enough variety in the core game mechanic.

Chop-Chop Caveman and Dino Cap 2 are two games that each have a flaw that prevent them from being great games. Again, Dino Cap 2’s problem is a sever lack of variety that boarders on monotony. Chop-Chop Caveman’s problem is that it is simply too short; the levels are big, but don’t feel like they offer enough, so it seems like it’s over rather quickly (especially considering your speed). However, since this is a downloadable game, it’s likely that there will be more levels added later on to fix this (they have before). Dino Cap 2’s problem is so ingrained in its game play that it would be hard to fix: they’ve added a character in the past, but it still leaves you doing the same thing. While Chop-Chop Caveman is a really good game whose only problem is “I want more from it”, Dino Cap 2 is fun but easy to get tired of. I give Chop-Chop Caveman 8 levels and Dino Cap 2 6.5 levels out of 10.

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.