Scarygirl review
Posts Tagged ‘PSN’
Interview with Nathan Jurevicius on creating Scarygirl
I had a wonderful chat with Nathan Jurevicius, creator of the Scarygirl brand (see the new PSN/XBLA download title). You can read the interview here.
PSN review: Acceleration of Suguri X Edition
My very first review for GameZone has hit the front page scroll. Check it out, and if you’re really nice, you’ll give me some comment love … right?
PSN Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Scott Pilgrim is a nerd’s dream-come-true. The adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s beloved comic book series tosses a little manga, romance, and 8-bit video game love into a hurricane of evil exes, setting an indie music scene against a Canadian backdrop. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game isn’t a thoughtless retreading of the movie or comics. If anything, it plays to the tune of both while composing its own melody: a side-scrolling, one-to-four player beat-em-up with the bells and whistles of an RPG.
The environments might mimic that old school style, with countless homages to classic games strewn visibly throughout, but the game’s energy and creativity paints a new world over top. Broken down into sections, levels usher in loads of enemies, smashable and throwable objects, and secrets—from subspace highways to convenient shops, for when you need a quick pick-me-up. Bosses definitely rank as the highlight of each area, and you’ll throw down with them in charming ways, but that doesn’t mean enemies are forgettable or even easily bypassed. Each type attacks with a signature pattern and blocks or counters with his own defensive strategy.
Players can choose between Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Kim Pine, and Stephen Stills as they plow through all seven of Ramona’s old flames. Food and drinks can be taken as snacks, rescuing players from total health depletion in a pinch (gut points are life-savers, too), and other purchasable items raise stats even when the max level (16) has been reached. These RPG elements do sprinkle on extra charm, but moreso they hinder gameplay, forcing players to labor through the early levels with few moves and weak stats.
There’s a lot of replay value in Scott Pilgrim, with unlockable modes and co-op action, but beating the game the first time around is a headache-inducer. Multiplayer is infested with glitches, and there’s one glaring, fundamental oversight: Unless you completely finish a level, checkpoints won’t stick around for good. That often means pointlessly working through half a level, only to restart from the beginning (with more lives and a better chance) after you die.
From fights to shopping sprees, Scott Pilgrim doesn’t play fair. You’ll have to guess at the benefit of each espresso, meal, or hipster tee, as details aren’t available until after you buy. Don’t bother paying off Scott’s late rental fees, either, unless you have additional cash to burn—the massive debt returns after you exit the vendor. If the developers were aiming to design a game that could be plucked from an early console era, then they achieved their goal. The only problem? They forgot about all the bad mechanics, bugs, and frustrating gameplay that made those games painful to bear. 9/10
Also available on Xbox Live Arcade.
PSN Review: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Lara Croft returns, but this time she’s not raiding any tombs. Paired with a spear-chucking Mayan warrior named Totec, Lara must shoot her way to stopping Xolotl, an embittered god who’s broken free from the legendary mirror of smoke.
Finally, a next generation Croftian adventure that reminds me of why I adored the series to begin with—only Guardian of Light doesn’t bear the Tomb Raider namesake. Available on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, this downloadable title keeps the usual mechanics—shoot and jump and solve puzzles—and introduces a few new ones. Think of it as co-operative Tomb Raider on a smaller scale.
Of the fourteen levels, each one masters its creative potential. Gamers will face exciting and relatively glitch-free challenges in every arena and spider pit. Controls are tightly implemented, weapons practically fall into your lap, and enemies never bore, stomping onto the screen in hordes that can easily overpower negligent players. But for the vigilant archeologist, Guardian of Light rarely disappoints. Puzzles range from straightforward to brain-teasing, but unlike most Tomb Raider obstacles, these ones won’t induce a headache upon approach. The game plays fair.
Visually, the game looks amazing, rich in environmental detail and with careful design for bullet patterns and enemy rampages. Content-wise, the game delivers enough for two or three replays: point bonuses award extra weapons and the artifacts and relics that supplement them. Players can collect special red skulls and shiny gems that boost individual scores, but besides the constant friendly competition for points, the interaction between Lara and Totec constitutes most of the enjoyment. Overcoming traps or pitfalls by grappling Totec to safety, throwing spears for Lara to leap across, or tight-roping across the British bombshell’s rope makes excellent use of the moves at the characters’ disposal. Each encounter feels fresh and defined, and the game is packed with much-welcomed surprises.
The single-player campaign eliminates the obligation for Totec to assist, giving Lara everything she needs to complete an area by herself. Troublesome AI, begone. Of course, your partner’s removal also diminishes some otherwise complicated situations, so it’s up to players to choose which game mode will satisfy them more.
The music sticks to the standard Tomb Raider brand, and the story is cheesy fun, with Xolotl retreating at nearly every turn after a melodramatic speech about humans and the end of the world, but the gameplay definitely takes the gold in Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Crystal Dynamics, after years of frustration, pulls off a new and improved Tomb Raider property. If ditching the middleman name was the requisite, than bring on the new adventures of Lara Croft. 9/10
DeathSpankin’ in July
What do you get when you toss in the style of Hothead Games (Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness), add Ron Gilbert’s creative thinking (The Secret of Monkey Island), and top it off with a team of ex-Radical Entertainment developers (The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction)?
Why, the humorous, gigantic, rapid questing of the action-RPG title DeathSpank, of course—coming July 13 to PSN ($15) and July 14 (my birthday!) to XBLA (1200 MS points).
To quote designer Chris Mitchell, some of the game’s quests include “gather quests, kill stuff quests, defend things quests, destroy things quests, protect people quests, recover body parts quests, build condominium quests, design golf courses quests, assemble magical body parts quests, cooking for the wretched quests, scientific discovery quests, wholesale destruction of villages quests, unicorn poop quests, leprechaun mobster quests …”
Sounds like my kind of quest.
Bomb up!
For $10 you can purchase Bomberman Ultra (published and developed by Hudson Soft) on the PlayStation Network. I downloaded the demo to start and sat down with a few other players for a local game, and judging by the three hours we spent chugging away at the same Zombie stage over and over again while laughing our asses off like crazy people … ten bucks goes a long way.
The demo only allows you to switch between the Normal and Zombie modes and customize your bombers a little, but the experience of facing off against another player quickly amps up the fun meter. (Yeah, I just wrote “fun meter” without shame.) The full game, on the other hand, allows up to four local or eight online players to go head-to-head in fourteen arenas and mix and match between around fifty different costumes.
I decked out my bomber as a Roman pirate—an eye patch- and Centurian helmet-wearing, one-legged maniac! All he needed was a green parrot on his shoulder, although all those flames might have made its feathers fly …
