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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 agree that N3 is a B-Grade game, but the XBOX360 does not really have too many turn-your-brain-off button mashers. I am fairly happy with the game as it allows a winding-down from playing something heavy and involved like oblivion and yet still maintains a sense of scale and grandeur. Although the 300 enemies pouring over the hill are the same you have faced before, it still feels good to use some of the orb moves and cut through them all. I think N3 is the type of game that you say you dont like, you dont recommend to anyone, but play more than you think you should.
Warhammer forums
Actually, I like Zonk. It's just so damn fashionable to make fun of him that I couldn't help myself. It's the peer pressure, the peer pressure made me do it!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Snakes on a game!
sigfault. core dumped.
I saw the TV commercial ads for Dead Rising on cable the other day. I bet you just on those commercials alone, that this will become a slightly popular game. The ads were very impelling. It made you look like you were about to buy and play the next Resident Evil - like zombie killing game.
Furthermore, Where does Duke Nukem Forever fit into all this??
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
Jones in the fast lane? I spent many a break while at college playing this game with friends.
Too bad the review here also fails to live up to what it promises... He's definitely not played enough Dead Rising to understand what's available. Yes, the whole storyline is discovered through time-critical case files that make it tough to just go around and slaughter zombies and play in the mall. But here's the amazing part - you don't have to do them! That's right, if you decide to skip out on the storyline, you'll get notified that "The Truth has Fallen Into Darkness", but you can just continue on and save survivors if you want, kill psychopaths, and slaughter zombies by the thousands. In fact, some of the game's achievements pretty much require you to do just that - there's no way you'll get Zombie Genocide, for example, playing the storyline. There's just not enough time to kill 53,597 zombies and still do the cases. (That amount is the population of the town, if anyone's wondering about the odd number)
It's not as freeform as GTA, but it does offer you a LOT of flexibility in how you play it and what you do. And with the hundreds of weapons, if all you want to do is kill zombies, there are plenty of ways to do it.
Oh, and don't forget the unusual save system - when you die, you can reload your game, which is normal. Or you can save and restart - all your gained levels, experience, and skills remain with you. So you can play again, only with a stronger main character. This is almost necessary - trying to go through the game from a Lvl 1 character is tough. Restart a few times with saving experience, though, and it becomes easier. Not easy, but easier.
Yes, there are flaws in the game. The aiming system for guns and throwing items, for example, is slow and clumsy. And the survivor AI could definitely use work. But it's a HELL of a lot better than this review implies.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
When theaters showed a Double Feature, they usually showed the ticket-selling movie first, then tacked an inexpensive movie on the back of the first. This way they were able to advertise a "two for one" type of special, without investing in two major motion pictures. Since the second film (known as the "B" movie) was usually of lower quality than the first movie (the "A" movie), the "B" Movies in Double Features became associated with poorly acted and produced films that rarely had much of a plot.
And now you know... the rest of the story. Good day!
</paul-harvey>
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It seems like this article really just wants to push the games in question, considering they're all "AAA" (whatever that means) titles with lots of marketing and existing online following. It's too bad he doesn't review some real B-rate titles. In Japan there is a budget line of games titled Simple2000 (costing 2000 yen, or 20 bucks a pop). Some of these games are the best entertainment I've had in years. One in particular, Earth Defense Force 2, is some of the most insanely fun gaming I've ever experienced. You defend the cities of earth from giant 1950s-esque alien invaders in a fully destructible environment with the most weapons and action I've ever seen in a game to date. Look up some videos of it, it doesn't disappoint (co-op too).
All the Simple2k games are relatively shallow, made on a basement-development budget, but have a few gems here and there, so it's too bad coverage of them doesn't make slashdot on occasion. Titles like "Zombie Vs. Ambulance" just scream B-rated movie-game.
"Buy two of our burgers, get the shakes for free."
I hate to tell you but Space Rangers 2 comes complete with Starforce copy protection and can render your CD drive useless.
What the hell? What rock has this guy been living under that he thinks Dead Rising is a B Grade game? This game huge in both development costs and anticipation. It's been one of the A-List anticipated titles on the 360 for months.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Let me admit that I'm actually having a good time playing N3. While at the outset you can plow through hordes of enemies by random button mashing, some attention becomes necessary at later levels as power ups get scarce. Some combos work better than others in certain situations, and most have a window of vulnerability.
What I really miss is the strategic element of the Dynasty Warriors series. In Dynasty Warriors, you have to decide whether to go after the enemy generals, close the enemy reinforcement gates, attack the enemy leader, defend your generals, or defend your leader. N3 is almost completely linear, with few choice points. Plow through grunts, fight a boss, do it again. And no save points, so if you fall to the last boss, it's repeat the whole mess. That can get old fast.
Still, the game is undeniably beautiful. There are none of the fog or draw-in problems of the Dynasty Warriors series on XBox or PS2 (I understand that there's an XBox 360 DW title, but it's not really next generation, with only modest improvements). It's great to see 2 or 3 dozen enemies and friends on the screen at once, each apparently acting independently (although the game takes care to space them out a bit to limit what it has to deal with). Still, there are some wild melees. Perhaps fortunately, you can't hit your allies; you can charge through a crowd of friends, staff swinging wildly, and nobody but the bad guys will get a bump on the noggin. Characters are beautiful, and whereas every battle in DW seems to take place on a blasted plain, some of the N3 battles occur in lush forrest settings (although curiously "dead"--as you charge through the forest, weapon flailing, not a leaf or frond stirs in response to your passing). However, while the levels are big, and often with long sightlines, you are still constrained to well defined paths, and frequently you are unaccountably barred from going in a direction that appears passable.
The game succeeds mostly on flash. It is one of the first 360 titles that really screams "next generation." For now, it's fun--in 6 months, the sharp graphics and high character count will be old hat, and nobody will be interested in playing such a crude beat-em-up
I'd like to point out that you can't play Dead Rising unless you have an HDTV. On an SDTV the text is so tiny it looks like a white blur. This makes it impossible to figure out what Otis is telling you to do and you can't read the map.
In all fairness, some other X360 games have really small text, too. PGR3 car descriptions, for example. I've just never seen it make a game impossible to play before.
Everybody has them, but nobody wants to hear from anyone else's.
For a title that got an 8.4 from Gamespot reviewers and a 9.0 from the players, I'd have to say that this reviewer is just another opinion.
I'll let you know in 2012...
"But this one goes to 11!"
I think grinding is typically described as doing the same thing over and over again, almost literally. Fighting the same monsters over and over again in an RPG, whether it be Dragon Warrior or WoW, is considered grinding. Now a lot of people don't mind the grind, because the reward of being power-levelled is often greater than the work put into it. There are some games that I personally have not minded grinding at all, because I just liked the game that much. That part is subjective.
... I'm only at 10k anyway). But some people don't mind it at all, and the rewards at the end are pretty sweet: a 360 achievement, and a very cool weapon unattainable any other way.
I wouldn't consider the game mechanic of saving survivors in Dead Rising to be grinding. The types of survivors, the situations they're in, and even the story surrounding them, can all be quite different. Couple that with whatever time limitations you have, regarding the main storyline and the case files, and you've definately got a very challenging game experience, that's different every time. A lot of people don't like it because it can be very hard (thus prone to failing and lots of reloading). I felt the same way, but only at first. Once I leveled up and restarted a few times (with my stats carried over to each new game), I found it a LOT easier to save survivors, and a lot more fun as well.
I think true grinding in Dead Rising would be to go after the "Zombie Genocide" achievement, which requires something like 50,000+ zombies to be killed. The "easiest" way to do this is to get into a vehicle and go driving around the maintenance tunnels repeatedly. Unfortunately, it'll still take a few hours to get this achievement. For me, that's definately grinding, and I'm not enjoying it too much anymore (and to be honest, I'll probably stop the grind
Games nowadays are just providing more options to gamers. There are many folks who do have the time, patience, and competitive attitude necessary to want to grind. The popularity of MMORPGs (which some would call one very long grind) is a testament to that. These gamers want to find every little hidden package, purple star, extra ending, etc. Then there are more "casual gamers" who just want to see the main story and beat the game. I'm fine games providing more options, as long as it doesn't impact overall quality too much. After all, if you don't like a certain game mechanic (like the button mashing "killing enemies grind" in games like Dynasty Warriors or Ninety-Nine Nights), then just don't buy the game!
-- jchenx