12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: December

Reign of Fire
bam!

I wanted to go out on a high note.  I really did and I want you to know that before we start.  And you cannot blame me, from all appearances this game promised a fantastic finish to this awesome project.  I mean, come on, its dragons vs. tanks, that can't possibly go wrong. Right?

Oh boy.

Turns out Reign of Fire, the game, is based on Reign of Fire, the movie.  Reign of Fire, the movie, was apparently a film from 2002 starring none other than Christian Bale, that's right, freakin' Batman, Matthew McConaughey (Time to Kill), and Gerard Butler from your silly Spartan movie.  It had to be a hit, right?  Well, if you've heard of it, then yeah, I guess it was, otherwise, this bad boy was direct to DVD.  The movie told the tale of hold-out humans struggling to survive against newly revived dragons that have scorched the Earth.  Why, why I ask you was this not a hit.  Move over Godfather!  Get out of town Rocky.  Back of the bus, Air Bud.  Reign of Fire is here!

So if the movie was that good, the game had to be a equally awesome, right?  Right.  It's dragons vs. tanks!  What better premise for a video game?  The back of the case clearly shows a dragon running down a tank, this is the game for us.  Only it's not.

Reign of Fire is basically a tactical simulator along the lines of Rogue Leader only you trade the Galactic Empire and TIE Fighters for dragons and velociraptors, oh and toss out the fun while you are at it.  The game starts with you as a human resistance fighter recruited to help in the defense of the human stronghold.  You begin by commanding a souped up jeep mounted with a machine gun and missile launcher.  It is my understanding that from there you will upgrade to tanks and other awesome killing machines.  It is also my understanding that eventually you can unlock dragon missions where you get to turn the tables on the insipid humans.  I say "it is my understanding" because I never got past level 3.

I won't say it is because the game is hard.  Sure, there are some difficult parts and the game requires some skill to succeed, but the main roadblock is that Reign of Fire just isn't very fun.  I managed the first two levels pretty well, but when it came to taking on the dragons themselves, I was toast.   First of all, the game controls are miserable.  There are two control schemes, one simple and one advanced, but neither one makes the game terribly engaging to play.  I stuck with the simpler scheme just to keep the frustration low, however it also makes tracking the dragons next to impossible and you pretty much end up getting fried when the heat is on.  The alternate controls are no better, since you are so busy trying to take down the mighty beasts that you fail to pay attention to where you are driving and you end up stuck somewhere or running into enemy fire.  The control scheme is strike one against this game.

The second strike comes from the uninspired level design.  If you have played either Rogue Leader or Rogue Squadron, you have already played these missions and they were more fun.  There are only so many "escort the convoy" missions you can play before it becomes a snore-fest.  Move to checkpoint A, defend convoy, move to checkpoint B, defend convoy, and so on. Ugh.

The final nail in the coffin is the clunky playfields.  I got stuck behind a barricade in the very first level and could not get unstuck and thus had to restart the level.  Mind you this happened during the tutorial, before I left the home base.  The other levels I played featured similar problems including hills that you could climb in your jeep, but you could only climb them at snail's pace and once you started up, turning around and going back down was hopeless.  Every level seemed to have "stuck" points that resulted in mission restarts.

Reign of Fire fails to execute on every level and ultimately provides a watered-down version of many similar games in the genre that are done much better.  The game came and went as quietly as the movie it was based on, and that is, perhaps, for the best.

I'll be back mid-month for a Final Look at this fantastic PS2 project and I'll also let you in on this year's new project!  See you then!

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: November

Godzilla Unleashed
From Atari (sadly)

Ok, so not every game has to have a riveting story, at least it’s fun to play, right?  Ok, so not every game can be really, really fun to play, but at least it’s smoothly executed, right?  Ok, so not every game can be smoothly executed, but at least it looks good, right? Well, maybe.
And that’s what I got for five dollars this month, a game that mostly looks good and does little else.  So I’ll start with that.  The monsters in Godzilla Unleashed look really, really cool.  Pretty much exactly what you would want the classic Godzilla monsters to look like!  They’re big, they’re bad, and they look like they could really tear up town!
Too bad they’ll never get the chance, not really.  Because that is where the greatness of Godzilla Unleashed ends.  The game itself is an otherwise clunky mess.  The plot is honestly below mention and after the second “cut scene” I pretty much skipped the remainder of it, so let’s not waste your time and mine and move on to more disappointing fare.  How much story do you want a Godzilla game to have anyway?  The biggest letdown comes from the lackluster game play.  This is a game that should be nothing but all out action.  Filled with lots of things to crush, military vehicles to chomp, and buildings to demolish, this game should be non-stop fun.  And it is not.  What you get instead is something that feels like a Playstation engine dressed up for the PS2.  Don’t believe me? check out the load times.  The “levels” are ridiculously small and there are only a dozen or so cities to battle in, yet it takes several minutes to load each scenario.  And if you think the load times are slow, check out the responsiveness of the controls.  I think Masters of Tera-Kasi was more fluid.  While we are at it, shouldn’t Godzilla have some really kick ass moves with which to combat Mothra and Rodan?  Well, he ain’t got ‘em here.  Instead you get a kick that would make Pele cry, a standard grapple move, a ducking action, a blocking action, a jump, and a tail swipe.  The only move worth doing is the fire breathing attack, and it is cool, but one out of eight don’t cut it.  Oh, the manual says there is a “special attack” using L2 and R2, but it never seemed to work for me.  So I guess you can kick and swipe your way to victory, or you can spew fire repeatedly and throw in the occasional building toss until your foe relents…or not.

You see that is the most baffling part of this game: it doesn’t seem to matter if you win or lose.  As a matter of fact, there doesn’t appear to be any obvious goal to the game at all.  If you beat your enemies or if they beat you, no big deal, you’ll still progress to the next level and fight again.  I guess you are meant to defeat the other monsters in each scenario, but there doesn’t appear to be any real incentive to do so.  Oh sure, you get points for the monsters you defeat, as well as the destruction you cause, but those points are pretty much only there to unlock other monsters.  And since the game is so much fun, I can’t imagine wanting to suffer through it all again, but this time with Gigan.

And speaking of destruction, shouldn’t this game be packed with it?  Sorry, not here.  Oh sure you can topple buildings, but they just fade away and disappear.  And you can pick up buildings, but only the smallest ones, and when you throw them, they also disappear.  There are tanks to squash and helicopters to swat at, but they are tiny, hard to see, and ultimately not worth the effort to seek out and destroy.  Where are the fires, the crumbling ruins, the screaming civilians? Sigh.

So I beat the game in about 45 minutes, I think I had no choice, the game just kept advancing me, so I figured I would see it through.  I’d like Atari to give me those 45 minutes and my five dollars back because Godzilla Unleashed was probably the biggest disappointment I’ve encountered during this project.  What should be an amazing monster smash ‘em up, is a slow, lumbering brute that inspires no awe and should forever rot in the bottom of the bin.

Only one more to go….where did the time go?

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: October

October

Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights
by THQ


Waaaaaaaaay back in March, when this project was in its infancy I saw the game I wanted to do for October.  It was the perfect Halloween game and from a genre I am not too familiar with.  The game was one of those horror games like Resident Evil where everything was really dark and creepy and there was a mystery plot and lots of opportunities to be startled.  My wife told me to go ahead and buy it, because it may not be there seven months later and I might miss out, but I told her “no, that is not in the spirit of the project.”  Part of the fun of this is going to MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE every month and picking out a new game for the project.  So I let it pass, but every month I would check for it to see if it was still there.  Back in August when I picked up the Excalibur game, I saw, to my dismay that it was gone.  My wife was right (there, I said it in print).  Little did I know that my loss was also my gain.

You see, Halloween-esque games are slim pickings right now and there wasn’t much to choose from when I strolled into the second hand last week, but I wasn’t leaving without a game that would get me in the mood for trick-or-treating (do they still do that, or have over-protective grown-ups ruined that also?).  So what I ended up with was Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights.  I was doubtful.  This was obviously a kid-game.  There would be no challenge. The game would be based on the newer incarnations of a character that I loved as a child and thus I would hardly recognize the franchise any longer.  Worst of all, the game play would be watered down and trite.
I love it when I am wrong on all counts.  Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights is some of the most fun I have had during this year of PS2 games.  As I said above, I loved Scooby-Doo as a kid, so there is a natural draw here for me, but the plus is that the game is everything an old school fan could want.  From the classic monsters: The Creeper, Red Beard’s Ghost, the Green Ghost, etc. to the classic opening (redone in pretty decent 3D) to the laugh track and classic Scooby background music, you feel like you are playing the cartoon.  And I’m sorry, but what the hell more could you possibly want from a Scooby-Doo game?

The game is a pretty basic platformer with lots of levels to explore, power-ups to find, and monsters to defeat, but it is totally, and perfectly Scooby-Doo themed.  There are Scooby Snacks to collect, you save your game at the Mystery Machine, your pals Shaggy and the rest of the Scooby gang are on hand to help out, you’ll visit classic Scooby-Doo locales like a spooky lighthouse and, of course, a haunted mansion.  In typical Scooby fashion, there is a simple plot revolving around a girl, her missing uncle, and a new monster known as the Mastermind.  Most, if not all, of the monsters I loved as a kid from the original cartoon are in the game either as boss fights or just regular enemies.  Heck they even got Don Knotts to do voice work!

Nostalgia aside, the game is just fun to play.  The platforming is solid; the level design is smart, if not terribly complex.  There are a lot of areas to explore, and new areas become available when you locate the missing uncle’s various inventions that allow you to jump higher, bash into things, or float through the air.  While the game isn’t super hard, there are plenty of areas that present a challenge to even the most veteran gamer (I’m looking at you Creepy Cannery, and Wreck on the Deck).  Apart from the theming, all of your basic platforming elements are there, lots of traps to avoid, plenty of mini-puzzles to solve by hitting switches or finding keys, and of course, several tedious jumping puzzles.  No platformer is complete without a heaping dose of tedious jumping puzzles. Best of all, there is a lot of replay value.  On top of the levels being fun, there are monster tokens littering the game that, when collected, unlock monster profiles and Scooby trivia in the gallery section.  After getting a few, you’ll be stricken with Pokemon Syndrome and working toward that 100% completion.

Even though this game is nearly a decade old (2002), it is still worth its original retail price.  Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights delivers in every possible way.  There is a reason it went to Sony’s Greatest Hits line the next year following its release.  I have no doubt that this game will get repeated play in my house for years to come.  $5 extremely well spent!

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: September

September

HULK                                                                                        By Universal Interactive

My wife and I have recently been reading Peter David’s truly masterful run on the Incredible Hulk comic book that spanned nearly all of the 1990’s.  David’s writing is inspired and his treatment of the character shows a true appreciation for Stan Lee’s original creation.  Because of this, we both had a renewed interest in all things Hulk.  Thus, whilst scanning the racks at MUST HAVE MUSIC and MORE for this month’s game, the HULK game naturally stood out to us as a potential candidate.  The only drawback was that the game was based, and spawned, from the subpar 2003 Hulk movie, and there was an equal chance that the game would suck just as much as the movie did.  Examining the game case and manual provided some hope: the game did not follow the movie plot, but was more of a sequel!  Even so, there was no promise of a good game, but with our brains enswirled (yep, I just made that up) in Hulkitude (also mine), we decided to just go for it and see what shook out.

The game itself isn’t terrible, just repetitive.  You alternately take turns controlling the Hulk or his alter ego Bruce Banner.  The Hulk levels are pretty straightforward smash ‘em ups, with the occasional mild puzzle (and I mean mild) to solve.  Most of the time as the Hulk you fight off endless waves of bad guys while trying to pursue someone or escape the onslaught of gamma dogs and machine gun fire.  In addition to pulping bad guys, you can also wreck up the place something good because the environments are almost entirely interactive.  A nice feature, but much like punching guys with guns, it can get old fast.  The Banner levels attempt to be more inventive requiring you to use stealth to evade your enemies in direct contrast to the Hulk’s less subtle approach.  As a matter of fact, confrontation as Banner will almost always result in Game Over.  As Banner you must sneak your way around military installations while trying to achieve an objective like synthesizing a cure for your condition or deactivating security controls.  Parts of the Banner levels are kind of like the stuff you do in Red Ninja, only with less finesse and fun.  Also imbedded in the Banner levels are several sequence puzzles that you must unscramble in order to proceed.  These sequence puzzles are generally presented as security codes you must override.  The puzzles are simple, but each one has a time limit that usually means you’ll occasionally need some good old fashioned luck to solve it in time.

In both areas of the game the level design is fairly uninspired.  There are neat parts here and there that give the game potential, but all in all the game is ho-hum.  The Hulk levels are fairly mindless smash ‘em ups, which has the potential to be a lot of fun and very much in the spirit of the character, but the enemies are boring and repetitive as are the Hulk’s limited cache of attacks.  “Oh great, another soldier with an energy shield, first I’ll throw a crate at him, then I’ll pick him up and slam him into the wall.”  Repeat a hundred times…  The high points are all of the various walls and doors you get to smash through as you progress through the levels. The Banner levels provide a little more cerebral stimulation, but the execution is clunky and thus some areas become frustration fests where you begin to question whether or not it is really worth your time to try to sneak past those search lights again and again.  The basic game has a shot at being really fun and the idea of playing as both Banner and the Hulk fully captures the essence of the character, but the game feels churned out instead of crafted and the result is a little dull.

What is not dull is the graphics; I only wish I meant that in a good way.  Everything in this game is shiny.  And I mean everything.  From the Hulk’s skin to General Ryker’s suit, every single surface in this game is shined up to the max.  The cut scenes are the worst.  Everyone looks like they are made of jello in the sunlight.  I think they were going for a cell-shading effect, but the result is a glossy nightmare.  The in-game graphics are better and a have more depth and texture, but overall the game looks over polished.  And if the glare doesn’t blind you, the voice acting might just push you over the edge.  Much like the acting in the film it is based on, the voice acting in this game is extremely heavy handed.  Banner is just as maudlin and gruff as Eric Bana’s film portrayal.  I’m still not sure why he isn’t the Hulk all of the time, as angry and frustrated as he seems…  The rest of the characters are two dimensional and forgettable and I think we are all better for it.

At the end of the day, I will say that the HULK game is far better than the movie it is based on.  Maybe it is because my expectations were less, but unlike the movie I was able to lose myself in the Hulk parts of the game and just enjoy smashing stuff.  I wish the game had inspired me more and was better able to hold my interest, but that may have been asking more than the game was able to give.  At its heart the game has very good intentions, it just cannot seem to fully deliver on any of them.    That being said, I don’t think my five dollars were wasted this month as I was able to eek out at least five dollars worth of entertainment from smashing tanks and tossing oil drums at helicopters.  HULK has the makings of a great Hulk game, but it just wants to be a little more than it is. 

Next month, we enter the home stretch of the “12601” project with only three games and months left!  There are still plenty of…um…interesting games on the shelf, which ones will make their way into my home?  See you next time…

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: August

August

Legion:  The Legend of Excalibur   
Midway

Remember back when I foolishly thought that Mobile Light Force 2 was going to be a dungeon crawler ala X-men Legends?  Well, if I was disappointed back then, this month’s game more than makes up for it.  Legion: The Legend of Excalibur (Legion from this point out) is a fairly traditional dungeon crawler wherein you take on the role of King Arthur recruiting and leading the Knights of the Round Table through noble quests worthy of the son of Uther Pendgradon.  Along the way, you’ll rescue terrified villagers, defend besieged castles, and even seek out the Holy Grail.

For its part, Legion is a fairly complex game.  While the fundamental game play is pretty much the same from level to level, the level designs are dynamic and the variety of quests keeps the game fresh.  The introductory levels do not do the game due justice and if you are initially unimpressed by what the game is giving you, stick with it until Percival joins you on the Avalon mission.  Once you gain a few knights to aid you in your quest, the game’s true strengths become apparent.  Each character has different weapons and abilities and will bring their own unique flavor to your quests.  You can take control of the knights who join you (and sometimes it is almost a must), or you can just command them as the King of the Britons.

Game play is pretty solid and despite the instruction manual’s attempt to confuse you, the controls are pretty much pick-up-and-play with a few things to learn here and there.  Controlling each character gives you command of different abilities, strengths and weaknesses and there is enough variety to keep the game interesting depending on how you want to tackle a level.  Stamina stats keep you from using your heaviest attack incessantly, and the swarms of enemies require you to think out your approach to a given a situation.  Navigating the various menus is uncomplicated and keeps from making a simple crawler a logistical mess, a shortfall of the aforementioned X-men Legends game.

If Legion has problem areas they are minimal.  One thing that struck me was the difficulty.  The game isn’t terribly hard, but there are spots that seem insanely difficult.  They seem insanely difficult until you realize the games other major flaw: patience.  With flashbacks to Robotron: 2084, there are parts of this game where the enemies swarm you in what seems like an endless push guaranteed to send you to the game over screen.  However, all is not lost in such a situation.  When faced with overwhelming odds (like the castle siege in level 2) there is usually a place you can retreat to and let the enemy come to you in smaller bunches where you can knock them off with relative ease.  If you are really lucky, this retreat point will also be near a healer so that all of your knights will stay refreshed.  This strategy works for most areas where the game jumps up and bites you in the butt.  So the difficulty in Legion is kind of schizophrenic, but outside of that the game is pretty solid and a lot of fun.

Most of all, it passes the $5 test.  If you can find Legion: The Legend of Excalibur for five dollars, not only is well worth the coinage, it is a shame to pass it up.  If dungeon crawlers are your kind of bag, baby, then Legion is definitely worth adding to your collection.  I hereby declare this five dollar find a winner! 

Next month…Green…

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: July

Twelve Months, Sixty Dollars, and one Playstation2…

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!
 


July

Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano                                                              
Valcom

In the modern era, there are two kinds of racing games:  simple, fun games for everyone (kart racers and the like) and complex, hardcore racing games that are only for those who are totally into racing.  Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano is the latter.  I am better suited to the former.  Complex, hardcore racing games demand at least a rudimentary knowledge of how racing cars work, things like gear shifting.  They require finesse, and understanding of car handling, and other car-knowin’ stuff  that I ain’t got.  I knew within 5 minutes of “playing” Alfa Romeo that this game was not for me.  I made just such a comment to my wife and the conversation went something like this:

                                               
Me: This game sucks!
Her: No, it doesn’t, you just aren’t any good at it.
Me: No, this game sucks, it’s too hard to steer, you have no control going around corners, the car sucks.
Her: It might help if you used the brakes.
Me: It’s a racing game, you don’t use brakes, you go forward, fast and you win.  No one ever won a race using the brakes.
Her: You might also consider down-shifting.
Me: Down-what?  What the hell is down shifting?  You just hold down the accelerate button and let off just when you go around curves.  There’s no shifting.
Her: Yes, there is.  In games like this you have to drive like it’s a real car.
Me: Nuts to that.  This game sucks and I’m going to go write my review and tell everybody that this game sucks.
Her: Maybe you’re not qualified to write this review…


And it pretty much was downhill from there.  I’ve not played much Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano since that conversation.  My wife continued to play for another half hour or so, but her car kept exploding just as much as mine did.  She still defends it, and I guess she is right, to a point.
Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano is probably an alright game if you are big into Gran Turismo or racing games of that ilk.  The game seems to have some depth, from what I read in the instruction manual. Both you and your car gain experience points for doing well in races and you can use those points to improve your driver stats and your car’s components. There are different challenges to take on and cars to win, plus you have this bizarro "Tiger" power that enables you to roll back time about five seconds during a race in case you need to correct a fatal error or salvage a cheap win by an opponent. Had it been more user friendly, I might have been able to get into this game, but as it stands, I pretty much gave a five dollar bill to a crackhead and said “have at it.” (not sure how much crack $5 buys these days, but all the same).  There is a "quick play" mode that is more fun, where your car doesn't explode after a few collisions, but that is not enough to prop up a game billed as a "racing RPG."

If anyone wants a barely re-used copy of Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano, leave me a comment and I’ll send it off to you for the low price of $5 and you can try it for yourself.  I’ll even cover the shipping.  I promise this will never make it back into my PS2.

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: June

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!

June

Gladius
Lucas Arts

This game just kind of showed up on the shelves at MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE over the course of the past couple of months and I considered it for May, but my guy there said it was pretty involved and I knew I would be traveling so I decided to wait.  It turned out to be a good decision.  For you see my friends, what we have here is a steal.  An honest to goodness, steal.  Gladius is worth every penny of its original MSRP, and I know in 2004 someone bought it from Blockbuster for $20 I have the receipt (to the right), heh.  So the fact that this bad boy can be obtained for a mere Lincoln is truly a crime against high quality video games everywhere.  Especially when another local second hand is asking $19.99 for the Wheel of Fortune for the PS2.  What the hell?

Well, while Gladius is no Wheel of Fortune, what it turns out to be is one incredibly deep and fun turn-based strategy game.  Closer to what the original Dungeons and Dragons role playing game was founded upon (wait, WAIT, come back, I realize that I just made reference to the three most socially awkward words in the English language, but I promise I’m going somewhere good with this, just hang out a second), Gladius makes use of real role-playing elements like customization and character building and blends it with a well crafted, turn-based battle system.  The result is a strategy game that requires intelligence and cunning and ends up being a great deal of fun. (see, if I had left out those three difficult words, you’d be thinking about how great this game is and not worried about telling your friends you actually like this game, stick around I promise the game is sweet)

Gladius is a game all about combat, most of which is meted out in various arenas scattered throughout the land.  You command a “school” of fighters who travel throughout the region contesting in these arenas to improve their prowess and win fame and glory for their kingdom.  When the game begins you may chose to fight for the Kingdom of Imperia (think Romans) or the Kingdom of the Barbarians (think Barbarians or “Fringe Peoples” if you are caught up in post modern political correctness).  Whichever you select, you will start with two warriors from that kingdom from which to build your school; ultimately you will be able to support twenty warriors!  The remainder of the game is all about battling it out in the various contests across the land, constantly improving your characters abilities and equipment and recruiting more and better warriors to your school.  There appears to be some manner of plot that is centered around an evil being and the Kingdom you chose to represent, but honestly, that seems more like the trappings of what is expected from adventure games like this and less like an integral part of the game experience.  Oh sure, there is a world map to explore, “random” encounters to engage in , and side quests to help you increase your might, but make no mistake, this game is all about the battling.

Gladius is also all about the time commitment.  Don’t expect to pop this game in for a quick ten to fifteen minute play.  It’s not going to happen.  This game wants most of your Saturday afternoon and all of Tuesday night.  It took me about an hour and half to work through the tutorial levels and really get my school off the ground.  From there, however, the entire world opens up and you are literally free to explore the land and construct your adventure however you want.  The game play is engaging enough to make you want to invest whole chunks of time into it, so don’t worry about the game becoming more like a job.

If you are like me and these kinds of games tend to suck you in (I spent  72 hours straight playing Might and Magic VI back in 1998 when it first came out, but I had a girlfriend at the time and she played it with me, believe it or not), then taking home Gladius for $5 is like finding that rare Oreo that has the double stuffing in the regular pack.  But even if you cannot find it for the steal I did, you should still have this game in your PS2 collection.  I doubt you’ll have trouble finding it for more than $15, and you are going to get every penny’s worth of fun from it, and more!


(final note: I must tell you that this game also sucked my wife in and she has spent more time than I have playing it!  Say that about Dungeons and Dragons! Ha!)

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: May

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!

May
 
One Piece: Pirate’s Carnival  
Bandai Namco

Why are these games always so poorly executed?  Why?  I mean, Mario Party is an amazing game and a consistently fun franchise, but no one else seems to be able to get the formula right.  Long time fans of my Closer Look article will fondly remember my treatise on Sonic Shuffle for the Dreamcast.  Well, One Piece: Pirate’s Carnival is no Sonic Shuffle, but it’s no Mario Party either.

Before we get too far into all of this, allow me to mention that I have virtually NO knowledge of anime whatsoever.  If you have been reading this from the get-go then you know that I am roughly familiar with Robotech and I have seen Akira and maybe two episodes of Dragonball Z (in which Goku ran across clouds for nearly thirty minutes), but that is about it. So when I picked this game up, I had no idea that it was based on yet another widely successful anime program.  Furthermore, if I am to understand the game’s interpretation of the show, it’s some kind of Gilligan’s Island gone wrong with tentacled pirates and giant, flesh-eating rabbits and something called Jugons.  But I don’t think knowing the content of the program really helps untangle what is going on in this game.

Much like Mario Party, One Piece: Pirates Carnival (OPPC) is a board game that is constructed of a barrage of mini-games, events and other party-game bric-a-brac.  Characters vie for control of a gridded game board by taking control of certain squares on the board.  Taking control is achieved by battling the other players in various contests and succeeding.  Success will not only net you the square up for grabs, but it will also net you other squares in classic Othello fashion.  At least that part is simple.  Playing the main game makes sense and seems doable.  However, to play the main game you must constantly engage in the mini-games.  To be fair many of the mini-games are quite playable and fun, however the ones that are not are nearly incomprehensible.  It seems that the most playable games are the ones that are rooted in games I already know: Concentration, Seek & Find, and others.  One of the better games asks you to take a periscope and hunt through a crowd for someone called “Panda Man.”  Good luck, turns out “Panda Man” is a bare-chested man with heart tattoos on his pecs and a panda mask.  Another game I enjoyed was Kung-Fu Jugon Battle, in which the object is to “have the fewest jugons at the end of the match.”  Hilarious jargon aside, basically you just have to push (fight) all of these strangle little walruses into your opponents part of the playfield while they do the same to you.  These parts of the game are very fun and engaging.  Heck, even the snowy mountain climb where you have to show your respect to bears by bowing is interesting once you figure out what the point is.  (Fail to show proper respect and you’ll get a lecture from the bear, I promise.)

It’s the games that are very hard to understand and thus play that create speed bumps in the enjoyment of the overall game.  Some games have baffling objectives, like the one where you have to catch food the opponent characters throw excepting that they rarely do and while you wait everything else in the world is also happening.  Other games are simple, but nearly impossible to execute: a certain stilt battle game comes to mind.  This means that some mini-games will be competitive and others will be incomprehensible messes and you’re ultimate success will be given partly to chance.  I am sure that most of the games can be tackled with enough experience, but games like this need to be instantly accessible to pretty much everyone and not require dense study to master.  That is the nature of the party game, particularly if they are going to be played by casual gamers.
The other major stumbling block for OPPC is the story.  For whatever reason all of these party games feel the need to clutter up what is otherwise a board game with some manner of asinine story.  It’s a board game.  The story is: TAKE TURNS, TRY TO WIN THE GAME. THE END.  That is all you need.  I promise.  But no, OPPC makes a half-assed attempt at giving the characters things to say and do before and after every single game event.  Every single game event.  And they aren’t quick little quips, they are oft lengthy diatribes about being “merman” or cooking or something else irrelevant to anything at all.  Compound that with absolutely ridiculous load times for each diatribe and you end up with a game that takes nearly two hours, half of which is “story.”

All in all, I paid $5 for One Piece: Pirate’s Carnival and just playing the game once pretty much means I got my money’s worth.  I don’t think I’ll be playing it regularly and if a party breaks out in my living room I’m pretty sure this won’t be what causes it. If you are a big One Piece fan, then you will probably have fun checking this out just by virtue of you know what is going on and who these characters are.  If you are not a One Piece fan, just go get Mario Party 50 or whatever and be done with it.

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: April

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!

April

Mobile Light Force 2  


Ok.   Do me a favor.  Take a look at the cover art for this game.

Now, tell me what kind of game this is going to be and just wager a guess as to what some of the themes the story might be rooted in.  If you said, “Stan, this is going to be an action game, perhaps top down perspective ala X-men Legends and I think it might be based on a team of Charlie’s Angels types taking down a hostile robot force,” not only would you be completely wrong, but I would laugh at you.  For you see, I made the same mistake.  And honestly, how could we not.  Nothing about this game’s packaging even remotely hints at the game inside.  So with that in mind, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Mobile Light Force 2 (which suggests there was a Mobile Light Force 1 at some point)

Now perhaps you were the crafty sort and instead answered the above question, “Stan, this is going to be a vertical scrolling shooter with anime themes and fast-paced action,” you would have been dead-on.  That’s right, MLF2 is a vertical scrolling shooter in which you take the role of one of six generic (and yet strangely specific) Japanese anime characters hell bent on blasting their way to the solution of a mysterious serial murder case.  But don’t worry too much about the resolution of the story, MLF2 is all about shooting.  Non-stop shooting.
Mobile Light Force 2 is traditional vertical scrolling shooter that allows you to select from six different characters with unique abilities that fly over various landscapes blasting away at numerous kinds of enemies.  There isn’t really too much new to see in this game.  The graphics are decent, but nowhere near what the PS2 is capable of.  Not that amazing graphics are required for a game like this, but at the very least the game could utilize the entirety of the screen, instead of the middle third.  The level of challenge is also fairly low, and most decent players will make it to the third or even final level in their first attempt.  This is partly due to the hefty allotment of continues you are given and partly due to the simple level design.  The only real challenge comes from some unique and bizarre bosses and the choice of character you play with.  The bosses range from a giant butterfly with a baby’s face to a Bahamut-like dragon to some kind of dude that taunts you by making old Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids jokes (I am not even remotely kidding you.  First time I heard this I nearly pissed myself).  Some of these bosses are standard and go down with plenty of shooting, but others require more careful tactics.  For instance, one of the bosses from level 3 surrounds you in a barrier of energy then flies around the screen launching various attacks while you remain trapped within the barrier.  As the fight progresses, the shape of the barrier changes and you have to adjust your attack strategy accordingly.  Character selection also adds a dimension of difficulty to the game.  Some characters attack with curved shots or have secondary attacks that send fireballs across the entire screen.  Each character has its own strengths and weaknesses and it is fun to play through with each to see how far you can get.  But overall the game isn’t terribly hard.

I must say, Mobile Light Force 2 took me completely by surprise in a lot of ways.  From its lackluster packaging, (see the “special features” on the back of the case to the right) I expected a really cheaply made futuristic dungeon crawler with meager features and extremely rough game play.  Instead I got a moderately fun, if incredibly short, fast-paced shooter.  I‘ll say that I probably got my five dollars worth, but not a penny more.  If you are a fan of shooters and just want a new one to play, I can see going in five on this, otherwise, I think your life will be complete without it.  Personally, I don’t think it is a bad addition to my collection, but had I paid full price (whatever that might have been) I would be sorely disappointed.  If you see Mobile Light Force 2, and you just really need to spend $5, you could do a lot worse, of course you could do a lot better.  Either way, I certainly didn’t get what I expected with this one…

UPDATE:  Apparently, there IS a Mobile Light Force 1 (just called Mobile Light Force, ‘natch!) for the PSX. The kicker?  It has the exact same cover art for the CD case!  What. The. Hell.

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a PS2: March

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!

March

Red Ninja: End of Honor
Vivendi Universal


Ladies and Gentlemen, I am going to tell you right away that we have a winner!  Red Ninja is great and soon I’ll tell you why, but first an admission: this game was not priced at $5.  But fear not, our sacred bond remains unbroken, despite the sub-title of this month’s game, I retain my honor.  You see, I was browsing the stacks at MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, and I commented on this game as I inspected its jacket art (and the buxom young Japanese lady spilling out all over it), “too bad this isn’t $5,” I remarked and put the game back on the shelf.  After about ten minutes of hemming and hawing, really more hawing than anything not big on the hemming, I selected Corvette: 50th Anniversary and headed to the counter.  “Looks like this month it’s going to be Corvette,” I said to my guy behind the counter.  “I can’t let you do that,” says he.  “That game is miserable.  Don’t do it.  What was that game you put back that wasn’t five dollars?”  “Red Ninja, it was $6.95.” “I’ll let you have it for five, you do a lot of business here, I don’t mind giving you a break if it saves you from Corvette.”  And so you see, my friends, because of the good nature of my guy at the second hand, I was able to bring you the following review of a game that can be found for $5, even if you have to work a deal every now and then.  I’ll probably still go get that Corvette game at some point; you people don’t get off that easy…
But before you think this column is some kind of “Day in the Life of Stan” soap opera, let’s talk about killing people with stealth and lots and lots of blood!  
As I said before, Red Ninja is a sure winner and I have no idea why this game isn’t a heralded classic alongside its contemporaries like God of War.  If you are not familiar with this title, imagine Lara Croft as a petite, badass Japanese girl who can, and will, kill with a whisper.  Yeah, I know.  Red Ninja is a platforming game that requires an inordinate amount of stealth and cunning as well as problem solving and fighting prowess.  As a matter of fact, if you conduct yourself properly you won’t do much fighting at all.  This game is all about using your vast ninja skills to infiltrate the deadly Black Lizard Clan and seek out those who left you for dead.  During the course of your missions, you’ll encounter deadly assassins, savage betrayals and a mystery that runs as deep as the blood you’re going to spill.

The game play is phenomenal.  Levels are complex and require a variety of tasks to reach completion.  There are small puzzles to solve, enemies to evade or dispatch, and tricky jumps and maneuvers that all work together to create an interesting and engaging game.  Each level is capped off by a boss fight that is generally a blend of ninja strategy and carefully executing fighting.  The boss fight at the end of level two is an amazing blend of cunning tactics and straightforward blood-letting.   To succeed in your mission, you will have to execute a series of serious ninja moves.  From ripping bad guys in half with your line, to dangling upside down from trees to slit the throat of unsuspecting passers-by, to running up the side of buildings, and even using your feminine wiles to seduce horn-dog guards, you will run the gamut of very cool ninja skills during your quest.
Graphically, Red Ninja is gorgeous.  Lush backgrounds and highly interactive environments frame this epic adventure.  The cast of characters are nicely rendered with fine detail and minimal polygonal dithering.  Not to reveal my supreme dorkiness, but this game is about an extremely hot Japanese girl in very little clothing.  You do the math. But be warned, there is a lot of blood.  The game is aptly named, not just for the kimono that Kuranei, your character, wears, but for the copious amounts of blood that is spilled in combat.  Sometimes this game makes Mortal Kombat look like a Disney title
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If Red Ninja has one flaw, it lies in the inconsistent camera angles.  Most of the time the camera is fine and when it is not, you can readjust, but occasionally the camera will get stuck in a bad position and there isn’t much you can do about.  Couple that with the fact that, depending on where you are standing, you sometimes have an incredibly limited view of your surroundings, even if it would seem logical that you should be capable of a better view, and frustration can quickly mount.  Another minor quibble comes from the difficulty of executing some of the more advanced ninja skills.  In level 3 you gain the ability to tie enemies up with the Fundo.  Part of this ability enables you to string bad guys up and literally hang them noose-style or by their feet for a good throat slashing.  Sounds like fun, huh?  Well, despite hours of practice I have been unable to successfully execute this maneuver (pun unavoidable).  I have no doubt it can be done, but some of the moves are not as intuitive as they could be.

Despite those minor criticisms, I have to say that Red Ninja is easily one of the coolest PS2 games I have played and certainly one of the best action-platformers I have played for a modern system.  Being a big fan of Tomb Raider, this game certainly strikes a chord with me, but I think there is something here for anyone who likes this genre.  The gruesome nature of this game may give it an adult rating, but the game play is straight up fun and the graphic nature is incidental not gratuitous, well, not entirely…
Anyway, if you can find a copy of Red Ninja, I highly advise you add it to your collection!  Next month, I have my eyes on a game that cannot be very good, but who knows what I’ll find when I wander into the shop…

Twelve Months, Sixty Dollars, and a Playstation 2: February

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!

February

ROBOTECH: Battlecry
TDK

When I was a kid, ROBOTECH was that super awesome cartoon that was unlike anything else I had seen because it was like a regular action cartoon, but the story kept going from episode to episode and the characters actually developed over the course of the series.  This was revolutionary in a world of GI JOE, He-man and Transformers.  So naturally, I developed a fascination with ROBOTECH and all things related.
The point being, when I was wandering through my local second hand last month and I saw ROBOTECH: Battlecry on the shelf I was drawn to it.  A chance to take command of the Veritech forces was too good to pass up, and for $5 no less! 

Fortunately, the game does not disappoint.  You take command of a Veritech fighter in numerous battles that more or less span the storylines from the cartoon.  During each battle you can switch between Fighter, Guardian, and Battloid modes as the mission parameters or personal preferences dictate.  Missions range from space dogfights to search-and-destroy ground missions and everything in-between.  The action is fast-paced and the missions are diverse enough to maintain your interest throughout the various chapters of the game.

Graphically, the game is beautiful.  The cell-shading is used to great advantage translating the feel of the cartoon into an interactive environment.  The cut scenes are cartoon stills that appear to be created specifically for the game.  As mentioned above, the story roughly follows the storyline of the cartoons and features characters from the same.  However, to knit everything together, some of the cut scenes are surprisingly long.

ROBOTECH: Battlecry is a lot of fun to play.  The quick and responsive controls are simple to learn and get you right into the action.  The playfields are expansive and although not infinite, the borders are seamless and do not feel like matte paintings framing a playable area.  But be forewarned, the game is hard, at least for me.  Perhaps it demands more strategy than I have time to devote to it right now, or perhaps it assumes intuitions I do not possess, but the game is rather challenging.  It took me several tries just to complete the first chapter of the game, particularly due to a tough boss fight at the end of the third level.  At this point I am into the second chapter and am stuck on a level that wants you to protect a civilian structure that is under attack.  Needless to say, the bad guys are getting there and pounding the crap out of the building before I can fend them off.  More than anything, I’d say the game takes practice and wants you to master its idiosyncratic skills in order to succeed.  Not a challenge that I am incapable of, but one that is currently demanding more time and attention than I can really give the game.  The game has enough appeal, however, for me to take a longer look at it in the future.
 
So is ROBOTECH: Battlecry worth $5?  Most definitely, particularly for fans of the series.  How this game ends up with a $5 price tag is really a mystery to me.  It should at least be fetching upwards of $12 on a regular basis.  Perhaps its age (2002 release) is partly to blame, perhaps it was extremely popular in its day, but for whatever reason this game is now available for the more than reasonable sum of five American dollars.  Whatever the case, it would appear that I have once again found a possible classic among the discards of the PS2 library! If you happen across it and don’t have it, pick it up!
  
What’s coming next month?  I really have no idea, I haven’t had a chance to make it over to the second hand.  Maybe this week…

Twelve Months, Sixty Dollars, and a Playstation 2: January

Prologue
Okay, so my favorite local second hand, MUST HAVE MUSIC AND MORE, has a slew of Playstation 2 games and recently I discovered that a great number of them are being sold for the low, low price of $4.95.  For those of you who have been following along at home, this is how I came across Pryzm , Chapter One: The Last Unicorn, that little gem that I alone made famous last year!  As I was browsing through the stacks the other day I saw a good number of these $5 games that looked at the very least interesting, if not potential diamonds in the rough.  After thinking it over I came to a conclusion:  The PS2 has a vast library and very few catch the attention of the popular culture, but lots and lots of games get released. Somewhere in those stacks of discarded, unloved games must be some really great games just looking for someone to play them and at the risk of five dollars a go, I think it’s worth finding just what is out there.  The result is this on-going experiment, a journey that you and I are going to take through the unwanted library of the PS2.  So strap in, kiddies, we’ve got twelve months, sixty dollars, and a Playstation2 and we’re about to discover what we’ve been missing!

January

Brave: the Search for Spirit Dancer
Evolved Games

Our journey begins with the little game that could: could have been better if it had been more challenging and a little deeper.  Brave: the Search for Spirit Dancer is much like a “my first adventure game” for 10-12 year olds.  There is plenty of action, but only a mild level of difficulty. The story is simple and the quest straightforward.  There are things to discover and areas to explore, but not terribly much to find.  The game follows the tale of a young Indian brave, aptly named, who sets out in search of the great Shaman Spirit Dancer to help save his tribal lands from the evil Wendigo.  Brave’s quest is one of personal growth as he learns who his true father is (I’ll let you guess…) and discovers his own potential.
The game isn’t bad, as a matter of fact it is very fun and the story and characters are engaging despite lacking depth.  The game’s biggest weakness is its lack of challenge.  Some parts of the game are tough, beating the rock monsters in the Volcano level, but any part of the game can be overcome with a couple of tries.  Sometimes levels seem impossibly short when a much larger, deeper level would be extremely welcome.  Conversely, the game’s greatest strength is its great variety of level design.  Some levels are straightforward adventuring, some have you guiding an out of control canoe down rushing rapids, others have your soaring on the back of a giant eagle dropping boulders on enemies or plucking them off the back of stampeding buffalo.  Like I said, there is a variety of things to do.  And best of all, the levels are fun to play; heck they’re even fun to replay, which is good because the game doesn’t have too much else in the way of replay value.  The game boasts hidden totems in each level to seek out and find, but the only thing you unlock by finding them is concept art, and that’s really a hit and miss kind of reward.  That said, I’ll probably play through the game again at some point to find them all, because that’s what I do.  The final battle with the Wendigo is pretty awesome as are many of the action sequences, but there just isn’t as much game here as there should and could be.  It took me a little over 5 hours to beat it on the first try. Not really want you want from a modern game that probably retailed at no less than $30.

Graphically, the game is pretty sound.  The environments are lush and the colors are vibrant.  I cannot decide if the character renderings are slightly racist or just highly stylized, but all in all they are harmless and sometimes bigger social hang-ups are only really there if you want them to be, so I’m going to assume that they are just stylized and whimsical and be happy with that.  The music is very cool and moody and fits the game perfectly.  And for once a game features voice acting that, while a bit cartoonish, isn’t the most painful thing I have ever heard.

But the big question remains, is Brave: the Search for Spirit Dancer worth the Lincoln I sacrificed to obtain it?  Absolutely.  There are far worse ways to spend $5 on a video game, heck there are far worse games to spend ten times that on.  Brave isn’t going to be the next Castlevania, despite the recent Wii release entitled Brave: A Warrior’s Tale which by all reports is the same game with a few extra levels, but it is certainly a game worth playing, and doubly so if you have smaller kids who are looking for something fun to play without having to resort to games about gang violence or WWII.  I would venture to say that my first foray into the $5 world of the PS2 was met with moderate success. 

Next month I’ll be spending my allowance on ROBOTECH: Battlecry, is it worth $5?