Video Game Review #131: Resident Evil VII: Biohazard

Resident Evil VII: Biohazard

PlayStation 4

I have been a giant fan of the Resident Evil series from the very beginning. Sure, if you go back and look at the original game now it doesn’t seem like much. But back in the day, there was nothing, NOTHING more terrifying than the first Resident Evil. The creepy mansion, the unsettling music, the fact that you had a very limited supply of ammunition and health items. If you ran out of those items, you were toast. And then of course there were the jump scares. It is an iconic moment early in the game when those two dogs come crashing through the windows, and for good reason. I never thought a video game would genuinely be able to scare me more than any movie ever could. But this game did. Its follow up, Resident Evil 2, had some scary moments, but it was never anywhere near as scary to me as the first one. Over the years the games have gotten progressively less and less scary. In fact, the last few entries in the series (I’m looking at you, RE5 and 6!) have not been scary at all. They are more geared to shooting and action and destruction than to actual horror. I guess they are not terrible games (debatable), but to me they just aren’t what Resident Evil is all about.

When I heard that Resident Evil 7 was returning the series to its survival horror roots, I couldn’t have been more happy. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the shift to the first person perspective, but I knew that as long as the game was scary and wasn’t just mindless shooting and death I would be okay with it. I looked at it as a much needed change. Change can be good sometimes. Just like Resident Evil 4 changed the formula back in 2005, Resident Evil 7 would change it once again.

I came into this game relatively blind. I didn’t know much at all about the game’s plot or its setting. I didn’t even read any detailed reviews. All I knew was that the game was supposed to be good. I was optimistic I would like it. And like it I did!

For maximum immersion effect I waited until dark to pop this game in. Sure enough, Resident Evil 7 pulled me right into its clutches. The opening segment of the game reminded me a bit of Resident Evil 4 when Leon is exploring out in the woods all by himself. But this game is a lot more unsettling. There is a certain feeling in the air. You can just tell something isn’t right. That good ‘ol “omg I am totally creeped out!!!” feeling that I got in the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill games worked its way back into my brain. It was only five minutes into the game and I was already more scared and unsettled by this than I had been by any game in YEARS.

 Before we go any further I should tell you a little bit about the story line of this game. You play as some random guy named Ethan. He gets a video tape from Mia, his wife who has been missing for several years. Despite her warning not to come looking for her, he comes looking for her. Wouldn’t be much of a game if he didn’t, right? The tape leads him to a remote area in the bayous of Louisiana. There is an old abandoned house here that people visit on haunted ghost tours. Your search initially takes you there. The first half hour or so of the game is you exploring the woods outside of this “haunted” house. The little details really add to the chilling atmosphere of the game. You encounter a parked van that looks like it has been there for quite some time. In it is a journal about how these guys are investigating haunted houses, and this one is next on the list.

 You can see the house, but it is sectioned off by a gate. So you have to go traipsing around in the woods trying to find a way in. But the more you explore, the creepier things become. There’s some weird butchered animal corpses hanging around. You see an eerie man wandering the forest. You start to wonder about what exactly happened to the two guys who came here in the van. You eventually find a side house that you can explore, and it is filled with gross nasty stuff like decaying furniture and pots filled with rotting food and insects. There is a dead bird in the microwave. The more I played the more I legitimately became freaked out. And I was happy to be freaked out. Even though this game was far different in tone than any Resident Evil I had played in the past, it had definitely brought the horror back to the series.

 You find a videotape that you plug into a VCR that chronicles the events of the two journalists. Some of the stuff on the tape seemed like a clear homage to the Blair Witch Project. Again, very creepy. After this things start to go to hell. You discover a hidden passage that takes you into the wet, nasty bowels underneath the house. There you find Mia confined and you set her free. Something is clearly wrong with her, though. She goes all Evil Dead on you and all of a sudden you find yourself fighting for your life with the very person you came to rescue.

I will try not to spoil too much for you, but the game then takes a big turn. You are knocked out in the fight and when you come to, you find yourself seated at a gruesome dinner table with a family of unruly hillbillies. The Baker family, the people who had been keeping Mia captive. We’ve already seen the game pay homage to Evil Dead and the Blair Witch Project; this dinner scene seemed like a clear nod the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Before things get too crazy, you manage to escape your bonds while the family is distracted. This is where the real game begins.

You have to sneak around this big mansion - exploring its many rooms, finding its mysterious items, and uncovering it secrets. All the while you are exploring you must avoid members of the family. If they find you, chances are they will kill you as you are not quite strong enough to take them on just yet. As if the mansion and the whole situation wasn’t scary enough, having to worry about these crazy bastards showing up and spotting you really adds to the game’s dramatic tension.

The more you play and the more you explore, the stronger you become. You’ll find upgrades, health items, and eventually the weapons you need to be able to put up a fight. The early part of the game is generally pretty freaking brilliant. It is pure, classic horror at its finest. If I had to offer one bit of criticism it is that you often end up wasting ammunition unnecessarily on fights that you don’t even need to take part in. Every once in a while you will encounter a pre-scripted event where you are attacked by one of the family. You can run and hide for most of these and eventually you will lose your attacker and they will just aimlessly wander the halls looking for you. You can then use stealth to avoid them while you explore. But the game doesn’t make this clear. I wound up shooting some of them and knocking them down. Doing this uses up a LOT of ammunition. Later on they end up getting back up and resuming their search for you, and you can end up tussling with them again. Seeing as how you can only stun them for a while and not kill them, it is a major waste of ammo. Ammo that you are going to need for later on in the game when you eventually start encountering enemies you CAN kill.

 Outside of the Baker family, the game only offers a small handful of other enemies. Most of these are referred to as “molded.” They are creatures that appear to be covered in black tar. They are all pretty generic and standard looking. Some well-placed shots to the head usually will take them out. There are a variety of different types of the molded, but for the most part they all look the same. Outside of the molded, you occasionally will encounter some bug like creatures that can be dispatched with your knife. Don’t expect to see any classic Resident Evil enemies like zombies, lickers, or hunters make appearances here. What you really need you ammo for are the boss fights, which in true Resident Evil fashion can be quite intense and over the top.

While the game feels new and fresh and often not very Resident Evil-like, there are a few ties to the original series. The way you manage your inventory with the grid is very similar to Resident Evil 4. The “box” system returns where you can stash items in a large chest. Visit a different chest in a different location and you can retrieve the items you stashed. You’ll use green herbs and other items very similar to what you have used in Resident Evils past. Some of the sound effects are the same. In fact, there is this one sound effect I heard later on in the game that was an exact replica of the sound the game makes when you manage your inventory in Resident Evil 2. It brought some fun memories crashing back. As far as the story goes, the game doesn’t seem like it has much to do with classic Resident Evil until the very end, when ties are established and the *spoiler alert* Umbrella Corps come into play.

The pacing of the game seems a little strange. You will often see the same criticism of the game if you read other online reviews. This is because it is a valid criticism. While the first portion of the game is very tense and horror based, the speed of the game starts to pick up after a while. Things stop becoming scary. They become less survival horror and more of a shooter/fetch-the-item type game. The story line also goes weird places. I can’t say that I really like where it goes either. It feels rushed and uninspired. I wish it had just been kept simple. There were so many directions it could have gone, but instead of going somewhere smart and unsettling it decides to get a little whacky instead. I liked the game as a whole but I ended up being a little let down at the end.

A relatively weak ending isn’t enough to make me dislike the game though. It is true that if the entire game had been like the opening handful of chapters that this could have been an A+ title. But the ending doesn’t drag it down too far. I still left with a very favorable impression of the game. It could have been longer (the game is very short). It could have been more consistent in its tone. It could have tied in to the classic Resident Evil story line a bit more. But was this a really scary and fun game to play? Yes! I am thrilled to say that I have finally been scared by a game again after years and years of stagnation from the genre. Hopefully Resident Evil 7 is the return to form that the series needed, and we can expect to continue to be terrified by Resident Evil for years to come.

Overall:

B+

 If you liked this review, please check out the following reviews:

Resident Evil: Revelations

Alien: Isolation

Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil: Director's Cut

Resident Evil 2

Video Game Review #130: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

PlayStation 2

There are certain games out there that will always invoke an emotional reaction from me. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is one of those games. I originally got it from an ex-girlfriend for Christmas in the year 2002. I wasn't a huge Grand Theft Auto fan back then. I had played II and III, and I had thought they were simply just alright. But I had read all the previews for this game and I thought that it had looked decent. So I put it on my Christmas list along with a couple of other games. I don't even remember what those other games were, but I was kind of hoping that I would get them over Vice City. In fact, I distinctly remember being kind of disappointed when I got this game. Turns out, my initial reaction couldn't have been more wrong.

I fell in love with this game the moment I first started playing it. The graphics in the game's opening sequence blew me away. They may not seem like much now, but back then they were state of the art. It wasn't just the graphics, I remember falling in love with the whole vibe of the game. You hop in the car and Michael Jackson is playing on the radio. You drive around and see the palm trees and the neon lights of Vice City. Watch the sun rise, watch the sun set. It may seem commonplace nowadays, but the fact that the game changed from night to day to night to day, so on and so forth, was huge. Simply taking in the sights was fun as it was, but you could also cause a lot of chaos as well. Run over people, knock cars off the road and do visible physical damage to them. Pick up hookers, attack cops. Heck, you could even assist cops that were chasing down criminals and make a little extra money. The game was just bursting with personality and life, much more so than GTA III.

Vice City was so fun that my ex-girlfriend, who wasn't necessarily the world's biggest gamer, couldn't get enough of the game (Hi Colleen! *waves if you are reading this*). Together we must have played through the game's first handful of missions at least twenty times. The missions got harder as the game went on, requiring lots of precision shooting and so forth. That wasn't really her forte. Plus neither one of us could finish the damn RC helicopter stage. So instead of pressing on we would always just start the game over again from the beginning once the going got too hard. So as you can imagine, I know the beginning of this game like the back of my hand.

Despite the fact that she was content playing the first part of the game over and over again, I eventually decided to move on. After time I would end up going on to beat the game by myself. I don't think our relationship lasted much longer after that. I moved out of the apartment and back home. Vice City came with me. This game actually provided a lot of comfort to me. I was feeling lonely and dejected, but I could always take solace in returning to Vice City. I must have beaten this game an additional three or four times after that.

Every couple of years since then I randomly get the urge to pop this game in and play it. My last play through came a little over three years ago, right before I started this blog. I started to feel the itch about a month ago and I knew that the next PlayStation 2 game I played and reviewed would be Vice City. So here we are.

If you have never played this game before, first of all - shame on you. But let me tell you what it is all about. You play as a mobster named Tommy Vercetti. He has recently been released from prison after a long sentence. He is sent to Vice City by his former business associates, where he immediately gets back into the life of crime. His first order of business is overseeing a major drug deal. But guess what? It gets ambushed, and Tommy is forced to take all the blame. This is where you take over. Playing as Tommy, you must investigate who took the drugs. You take on jobs all over Vice City, looking for clues and earning some cash on this side. The more involved you get into Vice City's crime racket, the more influential you become. Slowly you start restoring your reputation as a major crime lord. By the time the game ends, you are basically in charge of Vice City. But it is not that easy. Your old boss still hasn't forgotten the drug bust gone bad, and he comes to town to take matters into his own hands.

Let's face it, Grand Theft Auto games really aren't known for their story lines. At least not from my perspective. The game is filled with many animated cut scenes where Tommy meets other characters and they chit chat, plan crimes, and try to get to the bottom of the missing drugs. But the scenes are filled with a lot of bad jokes, annoying characters, and useless banter. Most of the time I zone out and miss half of what they are saying. I have played through this game a countless number of times and there are still a number of plot details that are unclear to me. First and foremost - who actually was it who ambushed the drug deal? You would think with as many times as I have played this game I would have a clear answer for you. But I do not.

Game play takes place from a behind the back perspective. Controlling Tommy, you can either run around Vice City on foot or hijack a vehicle. There are several mission points plotted out on the map. You can either progress through these missions and try to complete the game, or you can dick around and just cause chaos and havoc in the city. I am a mission guy, obviously, but I actually know a lot of people who only do missions sparingly. They don't care about finishing the game, they just want to have fun in this massive sandbox that is Vice City. Most of the people I know that do this are just casual players and for the most part are not very good at the game. So I can see why they would want to stay away from the missions. Cool, but it is not the way I choose to play the game.

The missions are numerous and widely varied. One mission may have you simply pick up a character in your car and escort him or her to a location. Another mission may have you leading an assault on a drug baron's mansion. Another mission may have you killing an important target or stealing something of value, and then having you high-tail it back to the safe house with numerous enemies or cops in hot pursuit. These are just generic mission descriptions, but the game gets a lot weirder than that. By the time you are done with the game, you will have used a remote control helicopter to destroy a construction site. You'll have flown a plane around the city dropping promotional porno leaflets into the street. You'll have beaten a man to death with a golf club on a golf course. You will have stolen a tank. You will even have sold drugs out of the back of an ice cream truck. Yeah. The variety of missions and the sheer ridiculousness of some of them only adds to the game's undeniable campy charm.

The game's controls are a little sluggish. The character moves in a very herky jerky fashion. He walks, runs and jumps. You can't jump and use your arms to physically pull yourself up on stuff though, which kind of stinks. It cuts down on a lot of the exploration aspect of the game. If you can't get up on something using just your legs, you can't get up on it. Running is a little irritating. Tommy jogs at a normal pace when you are not using the run button. When you hold the run button, he takes off in a sprint. This sprint is very useful. Unfortunately it doesn't work half the time. He often runs out of stamina, forcing you back into a casual jog. I still haven't figured out the rhyme or reason of running out of stamina. Sometimes I can't sprint when I haven't sprinted in several minutes. Other times I can sprint for minutes on end with no repercussions. My theory is that you run out of stamina faster when you absolutely NEED to be sprinting. It seemed like I always ran out of stamina at the worst possible moments.

The camera sucks too as you can't automatically adjust it to center on your character's back. I fell to my death many times trying to run along a high building or a ledge overlooking the water. I would need to look over the ledge or I would get turned around, leaving the camera at a funny angle pointing at my character's front side. I would try to recenter the camera, but you can't do that. I'd walk in a direction, but then things would flip and I would be going to wrong way. Over the edge I would go!

Combat is flawed too. In an ideal world, you would hold the lock on button and fire away at your enemy until he dies. Most of the time this works. There are hangups though. Sometimes you will be pointed right at an enemy and you can't lock on to him for whatever reason. I had a frustrating mission death once because I was near the end of the mission and only had to get by one guy. But Tommy would NOT lock on to him, and he took me from 100 health points to 0 in about five seconds with his automatic machine gun. You also often have a hard time locking on to enemies who aren't on the screen. The camera will be all jacked up, but you think "well I will just hold the lock on button and I should be able to lock on to them and take them out, even though I can't see them." This does not always work. This is frustrating too, especially when you know an enemy is five feet away but you can't adjust the camera to point in the proper direction.

Everything controls fine when you are in a car however. There are many different types of cars and vehicles in the game and they all feel unique as you are driving them. They are very responsive and easy to handle. No real complaints there.

The game's music, sound effects, and voice acting are some of its major highlights. Many famous actors lend their voices to this game's characters. Tommy Vercetti is played by Ray Liotta. As you play, you will notice many other famous actors make appearances as well. I won't name them all, but Burt Reynolds, Gary Busey, Fairuza Balk, Dennis Hopper, and Tom Sizemore are some of the standouts. Vice City's soundtrack is one of the best I have ever heard in a video game. So many classic 80's hits are on display here. I was constantly playing with the radio stations in the car as I drove, looking for the perfect song. It was never a long search. Some favorites of mine are Keep on Loving You, Your Love, Owner of a Lonely Heart, Billy Jean, Africa, Sister Christian, 99 Luftballoons, Sunglasses at Night, I Ran (So Far Away), Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', Run to You, and I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight. I am sure I am forgetting a bunch too. Vice City also introduced me to a ton of songs I never would have heard if I didn't play the game. Songs like Obsession, Broken Wings, Waiting for a Girl Like You, Never Too Much, Kids of America, and Keep Feeling Fascination are now among some of my favorite songs of all time.

Between the great music, fun driving, and its wild and outrageous missions, it should be clear to everyone reading that I really like the game. Nostalgia aside, I tried to look at Vice City from a more neutral and unbiased perspective during my most recent play through. While this is undoubtedly a fun game that means a lot to me, it is not without its flaws.

I touched on the graphics earlier, but I will touch on them again. They have NOT aged well. The landscapes are dirty and messy looking. It seems like there is a fine layer of grit on things as you are zipping through the city. The amount of background draw is really bad too. You'll be driving along and things will appear in front of you or in the middle of the road. Buildings just pop up in the distance. There's a shocking lack of detail when you get in close to the game's buildings and structures. The character models are basic and not very pretty either. I wouldn't say the game is ugly, but compared to the crystal clear perfection you see in games today, it doesn't really hold up. It is funny how I think back to when I first played this and how I would think "wow, video game graphics can't get any better than this!"

I also touched on the game's character movement earlier, along with the crappy camera system. I won't beat a dead horse with that. It is what it is. One of my major sources of frustration is in the game's cheap deaths and mission failures. I could have trimmed several hours off of my play through if I didn't have to restart so many missions because something flukey would happen to me right before I was about to complete the mission. This happened SO many times. My car would flip and explode while I was trying to escort someone to the checkpoint. I'd accidentally back over a pedestrian and a cop would be RIGHT there and pull me out of my car and arrest me. One time I was in eyeshot of my final destination. I had several people in pursuit of me. I got rammed and my car started on fire. I hit the triangle button to bale out of the car several times. I could have just WALKED to the checkpoint. But because I was in the process of being rammed and pushed for some reason I couldn't jump out. Car explodes and I die. Another time I was in eyesight of the final checkpoint, crossing the street on foot with someone I was escorting. A random car barreled through the intersection and killed her. I was so, so pissed when that happened. One time I was lining up a sniper shot on ledge and accidentally fell into the water and died right at the end of a mission. Stuff like this happens constantly in the game. When you get bad luck it seems to come in bunches. It almost seems unfair sometimes. There are a lot of difficult missions. A lot of throw your controller moments. It doesn't help when it feels like the game is out to screw you too.

Another criticism is that the game seem a bit too sparsely populated, especially when the cops are after you and you have a high wanted level. Vice City turns into a ghost town. You can run around for minutes and not be able to find a car to highjack. This can get frustrating. You're running from someone, there are no cars to steal, and you are constantly running out of stamina so you can't get away. Super annoying.

Outdated graphics, clunky controls, poor game mechanics, and a system that seems rigged against you are all flaws here. No matter how fondly I reminisce on my good times with this game, I have to admit that it is nowhere near perfect. If I was playing this for the first time here in 2018, I would probably think the game sucked. But that does not ruin my enjoyment of Vice City. The game is just so iconic to me. I think it is a great game despite the flaws.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a game that I always know I can count on whenever I am looking for a sure-fire good time. It is just so easy to lose myself in the world of the game. I always have a much better time earlier in the game, though. Some of those missions are so memorable for me. Even the RC helicopter stage stands out as one of my favorites. Perhaps it is because my ex-girlfriend and I used to play through the opening missions so many times they now have a soft spot in my heart. I actually think the game gets weaker as it goes along. Every few years when I play this, I start off having a great time. But by the time I get to the end I am glad it is over. The game goes from super fun to sometimes a real chore around the same time you get access to the entire map.

Does this mean I don't like the game though? No. It is a great game. Brilliant in some spots, even. Just because there are some rough edges and some clunker missions doesn't mean it is not a really good title. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Looking back at my review, I actually think I am being overly harsh on it. GTA: Vice City is a game for the ages. Not only fun to play, but revolutionary for its time in so many ways. And it holds a very warm spot in my heart. If I had graded this back in 2002 or 2003, it undoubtedly would have gotten an A+. I can't give it that grade now, seeing as how I nitpicked it to death in this review. But it for sure still falls in the A range. Barely, but it falls in there.

Overall:

A-

If you liked this review, please check out the following reviews:

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Batman: Arkham Knight

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus

Video Game Review #129: Rime

Rime 

PlayStation 4

Most of the time I am unhappy with the games that the PlayStation Network offers for free. I want big blockbuster titles, not indie games that I have never heard of before. But this means every once in a while I will stumble across a fun little title that I never would have even thought to play otherwise. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Journey are a few examples. I can now add Rime to that list as well. Which is funny because this game has a lot in common with both Brothers and Journey. Sprinkle a little ICO in there too, and you can clearly see from where this game drew its inspiration.

Rime's story does not offer much in the way of an explanation. You play as a young boy who wakes up on the shore of a mysterious beach. Where you want to go is up to you. Immediately the game's art and graphical style caught my attention. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker came to the forefront of my mind. The world of the game is beautiful. Bright colors, cartoon like characters. Cell shaded graphics. It is like you are walking into a living, breathing animated world. I have always loved that graphical look.

The world of the game is seemingly very big and expansive too. Seeing as how they don't give an explanation of who you are or where you are supposed to go, I didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing. So I just picked a direction and started walking. The more you explore, the more of the game's breathtaking graphics you get to take in. You can only see so much from the rocky beach area where you wash up. Once you get higher, you can see big white towers, sweeping green landscapes, crystal clear waters, and some very climbable looking cliffs.

It didn't take long to discover that there was indeed a destination that the game wanted to direct you to. You can see several beams of blue light shooting into the sky. When you arrive at the source of the first beam, you free a mystical energy source that activates part of a statue in front of a locked, out of reach area. If you have ever played a video game in your life, it becomes clear that you must find and activate the remaining energy sources to unlock the area and advance the game.

Once you do this, the statue comes to life in the form of a mysterious barking fox. From this point on, the fox acts as a guide of sorts. If you are ever stuck and unsure of where you are supposed to go next, you can listen for the fox and once you find it, it will point you in the right direction.

The controls of this game are extremely basic. You run. You jump. You climb. You can pick up things and throw them. You can push blocks around. You can activate switches. You use the triangle button to shout with your voice, which at times will activate items and help you solve puzzles. There is no attacking in this game, however. There are enemies, but the best way, or in some cases the only way to deal with them is by running away. Everyone once in a while the game will allow you to shine light on your enemies, which will kill them. Or you can pick up light orbs and chuck them at your enemies. But there is no real combat in this game.

Which is cool, because that is not what Rime is all about. What is the game about then? Exploration and puzzle solving! Yaaaaay! Don't worry, the game is not dull by any means. Simply exploring the world of the game is a joy in and of itself. Magical creatures, mysterious ruins. A wonderful feeling of mystery and wonder fills the air. It is incredibly atmospheric. I felt like I was exploring a fantasy wonderland ripe with its own history and dark past. I'd advise putting on headphones and playing this in a dark room. This game will pull you right in and make you forget about your real life.

The game is not very challenging at all. Rime doesn't necessarily hold your hand through its puzzles, but it always makes it pretty clear what you are supposed to do and where your next destination is. The game is not only pretty easy, but it is short too. You can probably beat it in a small handful of two or three hour playing sessions. I don't remember my exact total, but I would be surprised if I spent more than six or seven hours with this.

One criticism of the game that I have read online is that it borrows too heavily from other similar games like Journey and Ico, but that it is not as good as either of them. I agree with the borrowing thing, but I would say that it is just as good as them, if not better.

There is a big, emotional twist at the end of the game. It didn't make me cry, but I have a feeling that it did for a lot of gamers. If you don't want to be spoiled, skip the rest of this paragraph and begin reading down below. If you do want to be spoiled, continue on by all means! The game ends with the boy's father having a flashback. He is on board a boat with his son (your character) in the middle of the ocean. A storm is raging all around them. The boy goes overboard and the man tries to save him, but he just ends up ripping a piece of red cloth from the boy's outfit instead. The boy is lost in the storm. I think the ending is open to interpretation. Both of them pretty much point to the boy being dead, as is evidenced by the titles of each of the game's chapters being the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). One idea is that the journey of the game is the boy as he makes his way to the afterlife and accepts his fate. Another theory is that the father is imagining these events in order to process the death of his son. Many items you discover in the game, like the child's toys, can be seen in his room during the epilogue with the father. Normally I hate open ended endings, but it actually seemed quite appropriate here with Rime. I approve.

Now that you have been properly spoiled, or not spoiled if you skipped over the last paragraph, I can tell you that this game is definitely worth checking out. I got it for free since it was featured as one of the free games on the PlayStation Network. If you are looking to buy the game, though, I would say don't spend more than five to ten dollars on it, if only for the very short length of the game. The game doesn't seem to have a lot of replay value either. I replayed a few areas in order to mop up some trophies I missed, but I had no desire to play the game over again. Maybe I will someday, though.

All in all I thought Rime was terrific. Is it flawless? Of course not. But considering it was free and that I came in with little to no expectations, I would say that my experience with the game was a major win. It is a fun, engaging, deep, and gorgeous little roller coaster of a video game. Check it out! If you don't like it you are a soulless, heartless, terrible monster of a human being. Just kidding, except for the part where I am not.

Overall:

A-

If you liked this review, please check out the following reviews:

Journey

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Flower

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Video Game Review #128: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Xbox

Disclaimer: I hope you don't expect me to type out "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords" every time I refer to the game during this review. What a mouthful! Can you imagine me having to sit there and type that out twenty times just for the sake of this little blog entry? Thanks but no thanks. Kotor 2 will suffice.

Anyway, I finished the first game in the series about six or seven months ago. I thought it was great. It had a few slow moments and a bit too many technical issues for me to give it a perfect score, but it was a well deserved A. I was very eager to dive right into the second game, but I figured I'd wait a bit so I didn't experience any Kotor burnout. Late February seemed like a good time to dive into it again.

I had played through this game once before, but it had been a really long time ago. I'd say about 2005 or 2006. I was a different Dan back then. I never saw my family. I hated my job. I lived with a girlfriend who drove me nuts. I was just very unhappy in general. As a result I was almost always inebriated in some way, shape, or form. I tried to think back on my memories with this game, but I could not for the life of me remember what this game was about. A few bits and pieces came back to me here and there, but for the most part playing through it now was like playing through it for the first time.

The premise of the game is that you are a former Jedi Knight. You had a hand in the end of the Mandalorian War (referenced often in Kotor 1). The Jedi Council disapproved of your actions in the war and cut you off from the Force and sent you into exile. Now your Force powers are coming back, but the Jedi are losing their war with the Sith and are scattered all throughout the galaxy. You have to round up these Jedi Masters and find out why you were stripped of your powers and exiled... and why your powers are now coming back. There is a lot more to it, but it is hard to explain without going into spoiler territory. The game's story gets a good bit of praise because it dives into the grey areas of the Force, whereas typically Star Wars is all about the light side and the dark side.

Graphically, the game looks a lot like the original Kotor. It sounds like the original Kotor. Even the combat system is almost exactly the same as the original Kotor. But I'll just come right out and say that I am not a huge fan of this game. It is a bit of a disappointment after I liked the first game in the series so much. I'll tell you why.

First off: the glitches. The first game had a lot of bugs, but this game is just ridiculous. Every few minutes the game (or at least my copy of it) would make this really loud staticy boom sound. There was nothing I could do to fix it either. I just had to deal with. I think I became pretty good at drowning it out over time, though. Combat would often glitch out too. Occasionally in the heat of battle things would start moving at an extremely choppy rate. While it was doing this I couldn't move, pause, or make any menu selections. I just had to hope I didn't die. Sometimes at the end of a fight my character wouldn't be able to move, and I would have to reset the game and pick up from my last save. There was even a point in the game where it would freeze completely every time I entered a certain area (the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine). I tried to enter it multiple times but could not get in. And you have to get in to be able to advance the game's plot! I was already over 35 hours in. If I would have had to start from the beginning I would have thrown the game in the trash. Luckily, when you enter the area the game introduces it with a small cutscene. I discovered that if you skip the cutscene you could avoid the game locking up. Man, I would have been fuming if I had played for so long but could not finish the game.

So as you can see, the technical glitches alone were enough to put a serious damper on my enjoyment of the game. But that is not all that is wrong with Kotor 2. Many of Kotor 2's worlds, particularly at the beginning of the game, are some of the most boring I have ever seen in a video game. The game starts with a glitchy, bug filled tutorial that teaches you the basics of the game. That's fine. I didn't mind the refresher. And it least it was brief. But after the tutorial, your character wakes up on an abandoned mining colony. Again, fine. Well, would be fine if you didn't have to spend four or five hours, mainly by yourself, exploring it. It is SO dull. The game's next world managed to be even duller, which I didn't think was possible. It is an orange and grey monstrosity of a space station. Seriously, so fugly and bland I could barely stand it. There is not much to do but wander around and talk to people, exploring multiple conversation branches.

Okay, so you may be thinking: you had to talk to people and explore conversation branches in the first Kotor too. What is the big deal here? I'll tell you the big deal. They are boring and forgettable! Ithorian politics? Fuel supply lines? Might as well be talking about the taxation of trade routes for hours on end. And I mean hours on end. Not to mention it has you backtracking back and forth through different sections of the station, each section taking a super long time to load. This area of the game takes another four or five hours to slog through. I had to battle to stay awake. Ten plus hours into the game and nearly nothing exciting had happened at all.

The good news is that once you get off the station things start to pick up. The game offers you a selection of different worlds to visit. Unfortunately, I picked the wrong world to start with. I picked Nar Shaddaa, AKA the Smuggler's Moon. It is a seedy, dirty looking place filled with the scum of the galaxy. Another boring and dull place to visit. The color scheme is all black and grey and depression. The missions are marginally more interesting than the missions on the space station. And it takes even longer to complete than the station. I must have spent a minimum of seven hours on Nar Shaddaa. And I hated every second of it. I was approaching twenty hours spent on the game and I was not having a good time whatsoever.

It was not until I got off Nar Shaddaa that I finally started to enjoy the game a little bit. My character finally got her lightsaber, which made battles a bit more fun (yes it takes you THAT long into the game before you get a lightsaber if you pick Nar Shaddaa first!). The rest of the planets are much more colorful, bright, and diverse looking. The quests become much more interesting. The game began to feel like the Kotor that I knew and loved from the first game. I will say I had for the most part a good time from this point on. Until I got to the end of the game.

I didn't know this at the time, but Kotor 2 was originally intended to be a lot more polished. It was rushed out to meet a holiday deadline, and as a result the quality suffered. That surely had something to do with the game's glitches and its bad pacing at the start. But as I neared the end I suddenly hit a certain point in the game where it became painfully obvious that things were getting cut short because they didn't have enough time to finish it properly. There are unexplained plot gaps. The game goes from being based on conversation and exploration with the occasional battle mixed in to nonstop battles and sabering through crowds of identical looking enemies for hours on end. I had enjoyed the story of the game, for the most part. But when the end of the game arrived it completely disintegrated and I had NO idea what the crap was going on. It is not good story telling at all when you have to Google what in the heck did I just watch?

So suffice it to say, the game ended poorly. Which is appropriate because it started poorly too. The middle of the game was decent, but man - I really don't know how to feel about this game.

Another thing for me to complain about: the difficulty level. Things are fairly easy once you get your lightsaber. But wow Nar Shaddaa was tough without it. There was this one group of criminals in the refugee sector that I could not beat to save my life. My party kept getting decimated instantly. I had to  end up selecting my guy with the good long range skills (Atton) and constantly run away while firing behind me to pick off my enemies. A fight that should have been over and done with in two minutes took twenty instead. There is another section where a group of alien marauders took over my ship, the Ebon Hawk. I had to board the ship and take them all out. But I was SO absurdly under powered that they were wiping the floor with me. It took me multiple attempts before I finally resulted to cheap hit and run tactics to take them out. Then the game whisks you aboard a shuttle and takes you to a ship orbiting Nar Shaddaa to rescue your party leader. But you can only take two people aboard the ship. I made a bad choice and took a crappy character. Again, the game handed my ass to me. I began to think I wouldn't be able to beat the section at all because I was so thoroughly getting beat down. I couldn't even go back and reload an old save, because I only had one save file. But I kept at it and eventually was able to move on. I learned my lesson about multiple save files after that.

Again, the game gets much easier after you get your saber and learn more Force powers. But holy Jesus. Between the boredom of the first several planets in the game, the long load times, the glitches, and the high difficulty level, I was NOT enjoying myself early on in this game. If I had graded it at the twenty hour mark, it would have been an F for sure. But things do pick up after that.

And that is the saving grace of Kotor 2: the middle of the game. If only the whole game had been like that. Unfortunately, it was not. I wish they had had more time to work on this game and smooth out the rough edges. I wish they could have pieced together the plot so there weren't so many narrative leaps that confused the player. This game had potential to be really good. But instead it felt like a major chore to play at times. Despite Kotor 2's flaws, the majority of reviews out there for the game are positive. It's true, just Google Kotor 2 reviews. I guess I am in the minority when I say I didn't like this very much.

Overall:

D+

If you liked this review, check out my reviews for the following games:

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

Final Fantasy IX

Video Game Review #127: Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series

Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series

PlayStation 4

It seems like in the three year life span of this blog I have reviewed a countless number of Telltale games. Despite the fact that the formula of each game hasn't changed much over the years, I still really enjoy playing them. I have had two bad Telltale experiences and those were The Wolf Among Us and Back to the Future. Everything else I have played I've had a great time with.

About that never changing game formula... I have recapped it in just about every Telltale review I have written and (in case you are new to this blog and have never read one of my past reviews) I am going to recap it again. These games are always very heavy on story line and light on actual gameplay. Most of the content of each game takes place through conversations with other characters. They talk to you, and then an option of four different responses pops up on the screen. The choices you make in conversation can affect the way your fellow characters perceive you. For example, in this game if you are a dick to Gamora, she will remember that and chances are that you and her will clash later on down the road. If you are nice to Rocket, he will appreciate that and have your back till the end.

Conversation responses aren't the only choices you make in this game. Many of the physical decisions you make are much more game-altering than that. Do you fight or do you flee? Do you send character A into battle or character B? Who do you bring along with you on your "away mission?" Do you sacrifice one character to save another? You could play through this game a number of different times and make different choices each time. While the basic direction of the game heads the same way, the path you take can be much different. I finished the game with one major party member dead, one severely injured, and then I made a controversial decision towards the end of the game that I can only imagine severely altered the game's ending.

When you aren't talking to people or making choices, you are exploring on foot. These foot exploration scenes are not very exciting. You walk around and you examine stuff by pointing your cursor at items and then clicking on them. Click on or examine the right things, and the story line advances. Every once in a while a battle will break out too. You don't really have control of your character during these battles. Battles mainly consist of Quick Time Events. A button pops up on the screen and you have to press the corresponding button. It says X, you press X. It tells you to swipe up, you swipe up. Every once in a while it will throw in a wrinkle and have you - GASP - hit a direction and a button at the same time!!!!1! Or even more exciting, line up the cursor with an enemy and hit the R2 button. Wow!!!!11!

I kid, I kid. Like I said, the gameplay of this game is like every other Telltale title out there. It doesn't suck, but it is nothing to get too excited about. I can see why some people may get tired of the same thing game in and game out. But surprisingly, it hasn't outworn its welcome with me yet. I play for the story. And the story of Guardians of the Galaxy is pretty darn good. I'll offer a quick recap below, but be warned: spoilers will abound.

The game starts off with the Guardians getting a distress call. Thanos is raiding an ancient Kree temple and has wiped out all of the forces that were dispatched to stop him. The Guardians swoop in and engage in a massive fight with Thanos. They end up killing him (man, Infinity War is going to suck now) and discover the artifact that he was after: the Infinity Forge. Turns out another faction led by Hala the Accuser is after the same artifact. Star-Lord is killed trying to fight them off. But in a shocking twist of events, we discover that the Infinity Forge has the power to bring dead people back to life. You didn't think Star-Lord was going to stay dead, did you?

The Guardians escape, but suddenly become haunted by visions of their past. Star-Lord sees his mom. Rocket sees the death of Lylla, a fellow experiment from his days when he was confined in a laboratory. Drax sees his dead family. Gamorah sees when she was betrayed by her sister, Nebula. Together, the Guardians decide that these strange visions are because of the Infinity Forge. They head off to investigate the origins of this mysterious artifact. On their journey, they discover Mantis. She is an empath who has a special connection to the Forge. When the secret destructive power of the Forge is revealed, Hala swoops in and steals it for her own personal and nefarious use. A final assault is launched to stop Hala and reclaim the Infinity Forge. At the end of the game, you are given the choice to use the Forge to bring back one dead character from the game's past. I chose to bring back Lylla, because Rocket's back story was so darn tragic. Yes, I nearly cried over a scene where a sentient otter died in the arms of an equally sentient raccoon. I can be such a sap some times.

This is only a basic recap. You will encounter many twists, turns, and challenging decisions along the way. My playthrough ended with Nebula dying, Groot suffering grievous burns, I brought Lylla back to life, and Hala was murdered by her own son. If I had made any number of decisions differently, who knows how my game would have ended?

The story of the game really made it work for me. I was unsure how they would be able to stretch out a Guardians of the Galaxy story into five different chapters, but they made it happen. I was fascinated by the opportunity to get a sneak peek into the back stories of each main character. These back stories were a lot more interesting than I would have expected. I always thought of the Guardians as this funny, goofy rag tag group of heroes. But there is a lot more depth here than that.

I really started to pull for the characters the more I played. I felt a connection there, even when they were being obnoxious, irritable, fight starting jerks who couldn't control their emotions. But that is part of their appeal, particularly when they are able to put aside those differences and work towards a common goal. They may be a bunch of unique, crazy individuals who don't seem to have a lot in common, but at heart all they have is each other. They are family. When the game ended, I kind of missed them. I was sad to see them go. That is a feeling that video games rarely are able to inspire in me.

Is this game flawless? Of course not. The game is not as buggy or glitchy as other Telltale games I have played in the past, but it did freeze up on me on once occasion. It glitched out on me another time where all I could do was wander the ship without being able to make any selections or advance the plot. I had to restart the game. While the graphics are nice, this game looks like it easily could have been done on a PS3. There are a few slow points in the game where I zoned out a bit because there was just TOO much conversation going on. Also, it is a bit annoying how the characters keep arguing and picking fights with one another when they have bigger problems at hand. Each of the five chapters seemed to have some kind of big argument or blow up in it. I wanted to slap them because they were being so unreasonable. Also, Star-Lord has one of the most douchey, punchable faces I have ever seen in a video game. Could they not have done any better with his design than THAT?

One thing I won't knock is the game's music. The soundtrack is not as good as either of the movies', but it is still pretty impressive. A few of my favorite moments in the game were set to the tune of "Dancin' in the Moonlight", "You Make My Dreams Come True", and "Crazy on You." Good stuff. Also, the game's voice actors do a tremendous job here, particularly Drax. I thought it wouldn't be the same without the voice actors from the movies, but I was wrong. They all do a really good job. Even Groot, although they do overuse jokes about "I am Groot" just a tad in this game. Not that I mind. I have always found him to be one of my favorite Guardians, and I like the schtick. But I can imagine that if I wasn't a Groot fan I would have gotten tired of the constant jokes about his famous one liner very quickly. 

So I would say that this was altogether a pretty good experience. Does it offer anything more as far as gameplay than previous Telltale games have offered in the past? No. But that is not why I play these games. I play for the story. I play to make decisions and see all the different ways I can alter the game's progression. I play for the characters. I play to be entertained. And I was entertained here. Not the perfect experience, no. It might not even be in my top five Telltale game list. But I still enjoyed it much more than I had expected to.

Overall:

B

If you liked this review, please check out the following reviews:

The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead Season Two
Batman: The Telltale Series

Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series

The Wolf Among Us