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Attack of the B-Grade Games
The best games on the market are referred to as AAA titles. This refers to the cost required to make them, but it's often used to indicate the quality of a game title as well. Not every disc you pop in a drive can be God of War, though. Games that honestly give their all deserve at least a little respect; B for effort, as it were. Today I have impressions for two titles that favour style over substance and go down swinging, filling the screen with hundreds of NPCs for sheer shock value. Capcom's Dead Rising and the Dynasty Warriors wannabe Ninety-Nine Nights manage to both disappoint and satisfy. Like B-grade films, they're so bad that you just might love them. Read on for the Attack of the B-Grade Games!
As photojournalist Frank West, you're dropped into the Willamette mall to cover the story of the century. An entire town has gone red-eyed and shambling, and you're there to cover it with your camera in one hand and any weapon you can find in the other. The helicopter pilot will be back in 72 hours, and you have exactly that long (by your in-game watch) to do what you will and still get picked up. Within that three-day span you'll encounter mysterious agents, frightened citizens, armed psychopaths, an annoying photographer, a hungry clown, and a whole lot of freaking zombies.
That sounds like a great set-up for a game, and the first few hours tantalize with future payoffs. Where did the zombies come from? Who are the mysterious agents operating in the mall? What's with the crazy Spanish guy? Why would anyone buy a blue set of slacks with a tweed jacket? It quickly becomes apparent, though, that you're really playing two games at the same time in the same space. One game is all about the 'cases'. Certain events happen at preset times. As you work through the game's storyline, you'll have to show up at a place by a specific in-game time in order to see the cut scene and interact with whatever is going on. The clock works tirelessly against you, requiring you to race around the mall to make your appointments. If you miss even one event in the game's storyline, it's all over. You may as well use the time remaining in the game to randomly slaughter zombies, because you won't be seeing the end of the story.
My real frustration is how much the harsh time-table interferes with the other half of the game. The free-roaming GTA-style gameplay Dead Rising's marketing has been playing up only offers so much given that you have to be in certain places at certain times. In between missions you can attempt to save civilians, kill zombies, go hunting for psychopaths, try on clothes, kill zombies, take pictures, mix new beverages, learn new skills, play on a skateboard, and kill zombies. Unfortunately, there's never really quite enough time to let you fully explore your environment, so all the 'neat stuff' you can do becomes merely something you notice as you're running from place to place on the way to a storyline mission. There are a few sizable breaks between cases, but in the meantime civvies will have died and opportunities will be lost.
TFor me, that's by far the game's most frustrating game-play choice. The 'save the civilians' escort missions are infuriating. Civilians are trapped in locales around the mall, and the building's security guard Otis will alert you to their plight at various points during the game. You can choose to help them or not, but my knee-jerk reaction when playing the game was one of sympathy. Frustratingly, especially at the start of the game, it's nearly impossible to get them to safety. Frightened, and barely able to swing a weapon, these characters are nothing more than lambs to the slaughter. As soon as they join up with you and follow you out into the mall's main corridors, they become two-legged lunchables for the zombie hordes. This becomes less of an issue further into the game, as you complete objectives and gain power. Whereas 1st level Frank can barely make it down an empty corridor without slipping and dying, end-game Frank can fight his way through a wall-to-wall zombie love-in and look good doing it. Just the same, your meek charges are constantly trying to get themselves eaten; that's just not fun.
Top this mess off with bad voice acting, a story that tries to make witty jabs at American culture and fails, and often-challenging combat controls. Like the creatures in Dawn of the Dead, this game shambles forward in time to the cheerful muzak.. All promise and no payoff, Dead Rising will make for a good rental if you worship at the altar of bad zombie flicks. If you're looking for a short term stand-in for GTA or Resident Evil, you'd be advised to look elsewhere.
Set in a somewhat forgettable fantasy realm, N3 tells the intertwining tales of seven heroic figures and their fight against the forces of darkness. Beginning with the attractive Inphyy, you slash and hack your way through hundreds and thousands of goblinoid baddies to make the world safe for us human-types. The identical subhuman antagonists come at you in waves of sameness, starting with a few dozen all in a bunch but ramping quickly up to hundreds at a time. As you defeat your foes, you'll gain levels and acquire items to improve your stats. There's no real strategy to be found here, just an RPG-lite beat-em-up with a grand feel.
The scope of the conflict is the most successfully executed part of N3. The 360's graphics do a great job of showing off huge battle maps, hordes and hordes of enemies, extremely shiny attack effects, and well-done character animations. With a few exceptions, the console handles the load without complaint, allowing you the satisfaction of seeing hundreds of opponents fall before you. There's no abstraction here; you'll get to see every single goblin you put down over the course of the game.
To take out the baddies, you'll be doing combos, stringing attacks together in long chains. N3 is incredibly combo-focused, and 'success' is measured by your ability to dive into a mob of baddies and destroy the whole bunch without ever giving your sword arm a rest. Each character levels up to new abilities as you move through their tale, but you start the game with several simple and efficient moves. XXX, YY is a typical combo, allowing you to cull the goblin horde like a farmer working his field. Unfortunately, you'll never need much more than that efficient first move. Despite the initially very satisfying experience of tossing hordes of baddies aside with a mere wave of your arm, you'll quickly realize that the entire game is going to consist primarily of XXX, YY repeated ad nauseam. Worse, the game actively works against your efforts to combo. Enemies often stupidly stand out of the range of the fight, and your NPC soldier buddies are the worst kind of ineffectual. Most frustrating of all, cut scenes interrupt your combos; running out of enemies I can handle, but falling just short of a 1000 enemy combo because a pretty-looking guy has to spout inane dialogue is just frustrating.
You do get to occasionally loose an 'orb attack', a cool-looking screen clearer earned by collecting shinies from your defeated enemies. Each hero has two different orb attacks, and they're all ludicrously entertaining. Even the satisfaction of the orb attack is muted somewhat, though, by the slowdown it prompts in the hardware. If the screen is wall-to-wall enemies, loosing an orb attack can result in chugging movements and choppy graphics. It's particularly jarring because the rest of the game looks so good, and never fails to distract when it occurs.
All around, N3 just isn't very good, but I couldn't help but enjoy the mediocre and repetitive gameplay. It's pretty, it's unpretentious, and there's something ridiculously satisfying about tossing a dozen goblins into the air with a single sword swipe. That said, this game is strictly a rental. You'll be able to complete the storyline for the first hero in about three hours or so, and it's not hard to imagine working through all seven heroes in a single weekend. It was fun for me in a Krull/Dragonslayer/Conan kind of way; light fantasy with no storytelling to 'get in the way'. If that's all you're looking for, you won't be disappointed. Those looking for goblin-bashing with a little more substance might want to try something a little more traditional.
- Title: Dead Rising
- Publisher/Developer: Capcom
- System: 360
As photojournalist Frank West, you're dropped into the Willamette mall to cover the story of the century. An entire town has gone red-eyed and shambling, and you're there to cover it with your camera in one hand and any weapon you can find in the other. The helicopter pilot will be back in 72 hours, and you have exactly that long (by your in-game watch) to do what you will and still get picked up. Within that three-day span you'll encounter mysterious agents, frightened citizens, armed psychopaths, an annoying photographer, a hungry clown, and a whole lot of freaking zombies.
That sounds like a great set-up for a game, and the first few hours tantalize with future payoffs. Where did the zombies come from? Who are the mysterious agents operating in the mall? What's with the crazy Spanish guy? Why would anyone buy a blue set of slacks with a tweed jacket? It quickly becomes apparent, though, that you're really playing two games at the same time in the same space. One game is all about the 'cases'. Certain events happen at preset times. As you work through the game's storyline, you'll have to show up at a place by a specific in-game time in order to see the cut scene and interact with whatever is going on. The clock works tirelessly against you, requiring you to race around the mall to make your appointments. If you miss even one event in the game's storyline, it's all over. You may as well use the time remaining in the game to randomly slaughter zombies, because you won't be seeing the end of the story.
My real frustration is how much the harsh time-table interferes with the other half of the game. The free-roaming GTA-style gameplay Dead Rising's marketing has been playing up only offers so much given that you have to be in certain places at certain times. In between missions you can attempt to save civilians, kill zombies, go hunting for psychopaths, try on clothes, kill zombies, take pictures, mix new beverages, learn new skills, play on a skateboard, and kill zombies. Unfortunately, there's never really quite enough time to let you fully explore your environment, so all the 'neat stuff' you can do becomes merely something you notice as you're running from place to place on the way to a storyline mission. There are a few sizable breaks between cases, but in the meantime civvies will have died and opportunities will be lost.
TFor me, that's by far the game's most frustrating game-play choice. The 'save the civilians' escort missions are infuriating. Civilians are trapped in locales around the mall, and the building's security guard Otis will alert you to their plight at various points during the game. You can choose to help them or not, but my knee-jerk reaction when playing the game was one of sympathy. Frustratingly, especially at the start of the game, it's nearly impossible to get them to safety. Frightened, and barely able to swing a weapon, these characters are nothing more than lambs to the slaughter. As soon as they join up with you and follow you out into the mall's main corridors, they become two-legged lunchables for the zombie hordes. This becomes less of an issue further into the game, as you complete objectives and gain power. Whereas 1st level Frank can barely make it down an empty corridor without slipping and dying, end-game Frank can fight his way through a wall-to-wall zombie love-in and look good doing it. Just the same, your meek charges are constantly trying to get themselves eaten; that's just not fun.
Top this mess off with bad voice acting, a story that tries to make witty jabs at American culture and fails, and often-challenging combat controls. Like the creatures in Dawn of the Dead, this game shambles forward in time to the cheerful muzak.. All promise and no payoff, Dead Rising will make for a good rental if you worship at the altar of bad zombie flicks. If you're looking for a short term stand-in for GTA or Resident Evil, you'd be advised to look elsewhere.
- Title: Ninety-Nine Nights
- Publisher/Developers: Microsoft Game Studios, Q Entertainment, Phantagram
- System: 360
Set in a somewhat forgettable fantasy realm, N3 tells the intertwining tales of seven heroic figures and their fight against the forces of darkness. Beginning with the attractive Inphyy, you slash and hack your way through hundreds and thousands of goblinoid baddies to make the world safe for us human-types. The identical subhuman antagonists come at you in waves of sameness, starting with a few dozen all in a bunch but ramping quickly up to hundreds at a time. As you defeat your foes, you'll gain levels and acquire items to improve your stats. There's no real strategy to be found here, just an RPG-lite beat-em-up with a grand feel.
The scope of the conflict is the most successfully executed part of N3. The 360's graphics do a great job of showing off huge battle maps, hordes and hordes of enemies, extremely shiny attack effects, and well-done character animations. With a few exceptions, the console handles the load without complaint, allowing you the satisfaction of seeing hundreds of opponents fall before you. There's no abstraction here; you'll get to see every single goblin you put down over the course of the game.
To take out the baddies, you'll be doing combos, stringing attacks together in long chains. N3 is incredibly combo-focused, and 'success' is measured by your ability to dive into a mob of baddies and destroy the whole bunch without ever giving your sword arm a rest. Each character levels up to new abilities as you move through their tale, but you start the game with several simple and efficient moves. XXX, YY is a typical combo, allowing you to cull the goblin horde like a farmer working his field. Unfortunately, you'll never need much more than that efficient first move. Despite the initially very satisfying experience of tossing hordes of baddies aside with a mere wave of your arm, you'll quickly realize that the entire game is going to consist primarily of XXX, YY repeated ad nauseam. Worse, the game actively works against your efforts to combo. Enemies often stupidly stand out of the range of the fight, and your NPC soldier buddies are the worst kind of ineffectual. Most frustrating of all, cut scenes interrupt your combos; running out of enemies I can handle, but falling just short of a 1000 enemy combo because a pretty-looking guy has to spout inane dialogue is just frustrating.
You do get to occasionally loose an 'orb attack', a cool-looking screen clearer earned by collecting shinies from your defeated enemies. Each hero has two different orb attacks, and they're all ludicrously entertaining. Even the satisfaction of the orb attack is muted somewhat, though, by the slowdown it prompts in the hardware. If the screen is wall-to-wall enemies, loosing an orb attack can result in chugging movements and choppy graphics. It's particularly jarring because the rest of the game looks so good, and never fails to distract when it occurs.
All around, N3 just isn't very good, but I couldn't help but enjoy the mediocre and repetitive gameplay. It's pretty, it's unpretentious, and there's something ridiculously satisfying about tossing a dozen goblins into the air with a single sword swipe. That said, this game is strictly a rental. You'll be able to complete the storyline for the first hero in about three hours or so, and it's not hard to imagine working through all seven heroes in a single weekend. It was fun for me in a Krull/Dragonslayer/Conan kind of way; light fantasy with no storytelling to 'get in the way'. If that's all you're looking for, you won't be disappointed. Those looking for goblin-bashing with a little more substance might want to try something a little more traditional.
I realized I could ignore all the missions and kill to my hearts content. Now I just pick it up and play for an hour, and put it down feeling rather satisfied. You see, once you fail a "case mission" (the main storyline), the game gives you an option to keep playing. And since your learned skills and abilities carry over to new games, the game gets better with each restart.
... and calling ... and calling. The dude just doesn't take a hint.
My biggest gripe is the phone. There's no ignore function. Otis will keep calling
Now *that's* a B-grade game! Well, maybe a D.
I've had the game for a week now and I still haven't been able to get out of the non-optional tutorial section. I don't have 8 hours a night anymore to devote to a game and being forced to go through a tutorial is UBER annoying.
Hell, I've already began to replay games I've already completed. Thankfully, I only spent $20 (US) on B&W2.
"I actually like the idea of a game dominated by a ticking countdown."
In that same vein, the ticking countdown levels are the exact reason I stopped playing GTAIII 3 years ago and never looked back. I have about 20 deadlines in my real life, where my livlihood actually depends upon it. I'll be damned if I'm going to take that kind of stress from a video game that I paid for.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!