Saturday, August 24, 2019

Video Game Review #195: Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2
PlayStation 4



Nostalgia Factor:

I’ve never been a colossal fan of the Red Dead series. Not to say that I don’t like the series, it just hasn’t meant a lot to me over the years. To this day I have never even played the first game in the series, Red Dead Revolver. I did play through Red Dead Redemption one time back in 2010, but honestly I remember very little about my  time with the game. I recall it being similar to Grand Theft Auto, but with a western setting. I also remember lots of long and tedious horseback riding scenes. That’s about it.

When Red Dead 2 hit store shelves late last year, it was to great critical acclaim. Best game ever! A modern masterpiece! I was in no major rush to play the game, however. Unless it is a series I am absolutely nuts over, I am not the type of person to run out and play a game right away. I knew I would play it eventually, when the time was right. Well, the time was finally right here in the summer of 2019. What are my thoughts on Red Dead 2? Read on to find out.




Story:

This game is a prequel to the original Red Dead Redemption. The year is 1899 and the age of outlaws in the Wild West is dying. Cities are being built, civilizations are rising. Organized law enforcement is spreading across the United States. It’s not a good time to be an outlaw. Which of course, is exactly what you are in this game.

Dutch van der Linde is the leader of the appropriately named van der Linde Gang. This once feared group of outlaws used to be a force to be reckoned with in the Wild West. But things change. After a disastrous ferry heist in the town of Blackwater, the van der Linde Gang is forced to pack their bags and flee, leaving their accumulated wealth behind. Realizing that the age of outlaws is about to end, Dutch decides that his gang needs to save up enough money so that they can disband, shake the law, and retire from the life of crime.

You take control of a gang member named Arthur Morgan. Arthur is Dutch’s right-hand man and most trusted advisor. Your group sets up camp, and as Arthur, you head out to find work and take on missions that will help the gang out.

All right. So that is the basic setup of the game’s story. What about the rest of the game? Long story short, things don’t always go according to plan. Some missions are succesful, others go disastrously wrong. You’re forced to relocate your camp while evading the law several times throughout the course of the game. Dutch always seems to promise “just one more job, one more big score” but these turn out to be empty promises. As gang members die, plans go south, and money starts to dry up, things begin to fall apart within the van der Linde Gang. I don’t want to spoil too much of where the story goes, but it is very organic and natural feeling, and fascinating to watch and be a part of.

Once the story really gets rolling, you will see that there is more to it than just robbing banks and pulling off heists. The van der Linde gang is composed of twenty some members, all of which you can interact with, and all of which play a part in this story. One of them you will recognize as John Marston, protagonist of the first Red Dead Redemption. Getting to know these characters is a big part of the game’s appeal. You don’t just look at this group as a gang of evil thugs, you look at them as people.

And your character, Arthur Morgan. At first I wasn’t really sold on him and I just viewed him as a generic gruff cowboy type that was more of a player avatar than an actual interesting character. The longer I played, the more he began to grow on me. For being a criminal, he’s got a good heart and a pretty reasonable moral code (depending on how you decide to play him, I guess). By the time the game ended, I had become very attached to Arthur’s character.

This is definitely a well-written game with great, memorable characters and an engaging storyline. One of the best parts of playing was seeing what kind of trouble the gang was going to get themselves into next. Unlike many games, this one’s ending is very satisfying. The lengthy epilogue not only provides a sense of closure to this game’s storyline, but bridges things into the events of the first Red Dead. Like I said in my intro, I don’t really remember much about my time with that game. After playing Red Dead 2 and being introduced to several characters that I KNOW are in the other game, I can’t wait to give it another shot and see what happens to these characters in the future.




Gameplay:

This game has so much depth to it that I could write about its gameplay for hours on end, and still probably miss a lot of important things. I’m not that thorough, however, so I am just going to try to make this as basic as possible.

You control Arthur Morgan from a behind-the-back perspective. You can walk, run, jump, shoot, talk to people, all the kind of stuff you’d expect from a game like this. A basic day in the game consists of you waking up in your camp. You wander around camp, talk to people, get the overall mood of the group. You can do things in camp like donate items to the group, donate money you’ve earned, eat, shave, sleep, upgrade camp equipment, do chores, and take on “fetch” missions for people in the group. You can even go fishing and hunting and bring the spoils of your journey back to share with everyone.

Open up your map to check out missions or tasks in the area. Story missions are marked by a yellow indicator. Side missions and “stranger” missions (where you assist random strangers) are marked by white indicators. The white indicators may disappear after a while, so I always prioritized these over the story missions, which I knew would be around forever. Mark the misison on your map, hop on your horse, and head off to find the mission.

Something interesting about this game are the randomly generated events you encounter as you ride around the countryside. These are similar to stranger missions, but much shorter. For example, you’ll be riding through the woods when you’ll hear someone shouting for help. A small white dot appears on your map. Go to the dot, and you’ll encounter an individual in need of some kind of assistance. It could be someone getting robbed, someone looking to rob YOU, someone getting attacked by wolves, someone who needs a ride because their horse died, someone trying to escape from bounty hunters, the possibilities are endless. You can either help the person out, screw them over and rob them, or ignore them completely. These missions don’t add anything to the game’s main story, but they do add a lot of depth and authenticity to the world of the game. There is a LOT of lengthy traveling in this game, so I am glad they threw in these little events to help break up the monotony of traveling from place to place.

As  far as actual missions go, there are a wide variety of mission types. Rob a train, rob a bank, rob a doctor’s office, rob a stagecoach, rob a mansion, rob a…. okay I am messing with you. You do rob a lot of stuff, but that isn’t all you do. Other missions include burning a tobacco field to help spark a war between two rival families, rescuing people in your group when they are kidnapped or captured by law enforcement, taking on actual legal jobs for people, delivering things, taking on bounties, escorting people from point to point, and attending a fancy party to make friends in high places. There are a bajillion other missions out there to take on, but none of them are immediately coming to mind. Take my word for it that the mission types are varied enough to keep your interest for hours on end.

When you aren’t taking on missions, it is up to you to do… well, whatever you want. Go to a saloon and have a drink. Go to a hotel and take a hot bath (for a little extra money, you can even pay to have an attractive woman scrub you clean). Go fishing. Go hunt for legendary creatures. Go door to door, meeting people and seeing who you can shake down for money. Collect furs, herbs, and other resources that you can either use for yourself, donate to the camp, or sell. Play poker. Play Five Finger Fillet. Play blackjack. Play dominoes. Just ride around on your horse and explore. There is SO much to see and do in this game.

Red Dead 2 pays very close attention to small details. Use your gun too many times, or fall off your horse into a pile of mud and it will make your weapons dirty and inefficient to use. Open up the in-game menu to clean and maintain your weapons. You also have to eat to keep your health and stamina up. You have to feed your horse for the same reason. You bond with your horse as you play, making it faster and more responsive to your commands. I found myself clicking L3, which is the button where you talk to your horse, quite often as I played. Eaaassssy boy. You can also brush and pet your horse to raise your bonding level with it. A lot was made of this horse bonding system in the previews I read, but really I found that it didn’t make too much of a difference what bonding level my horse was at. Same thing with maintaining my weapons too. I probably could have just ignored both of these aspects of the game and had a very similar (maybe slightly tougher) time playing as I did while being on top of maintaining things. The point I am trying to make – you can do these things but you don’t necessarily have to do them to get maximum enjoyment out of the game.

Now we segue into what I didn’t like about the gameplay. And there is a lot here to unpack. But you know what I am going to save that for my overall comments, which seems to have turned into the place where I do all my bitching whenever I write a game review. Stay tuned. This is gonna be good.




Graphics:

Undeniably, this game looks really good. Gorgeous landscapes, detailed characters, small personal details everywhere you look. The grass sways in the wind, the muddy ground splashes beneath your horse’s hooves, the weather changes in a realistic manner. You could just ride around looking at things, not even taking on any quests or missions. This game looks so dang good. Interestingly enough, the game’s good looks don’t really translate well to screenshots. I always think this game looks so dull whenever I see screenshots of it, even the ones I took myself. You almost have to see Red Dead 2 in motion to get an understanding of its full scope. Its graphics are magnificent.




Sound:

The game’s sound is also terrific. I love the voice acting in this game. Okay? I just love it. Arthur Morgan’s in particular. There is something very soothing and comforting about his voice that I just can’t put my finger on. When I am home alone and I talk to myself or to my cat, I do it in his voice. All the other voice work is really good too, and this voice work really adds a ton of personality to the characters of the game.

The world of Red Dead 2 sounds alive. Take a relaxing horse ride through a wooded area at night, and you can hear the wind blowing, the crickets chirping, and the distant sound of cows mooing in the background. All the little towns and cities sound alive with the voices of people and the clanking of machinery. Saloons are raucous, churches are appropriately quiet. The sound of water from the game’s various rivers and lakes is very realistic. The ambient music that plays from time to time always fits the mood of the game. You will notice a lot of really cool small details, like the way your gunshots sound different depending on where you are when you fire the gun. If you are inside a busy saloon, your gunshots crack and are really loud. When you are outside in a spacious area, the sounds of your shots echo and are carried by the wind.

There is literally nothing I can complain about when it comes to this game’s sound.




Overall:

Red Dead 2 gets a lot of hype from reviewers. So many people I know consider this to be an all-time classic and one of the greatest games ever made. Because of this, I came into Red Dead 2 expecting it to completely blow my mind and be a virtual lock for an A+ final score. So would this game live up to its lofty expectations?

Yes and no. To give credit where it is due, the scope of this game is amazing. The world of the game is massive, it is gorgeous, and it is SO realistic with its small details. The amount of work that went into creating such a giant and realistic world is impressive, even more so when you consider that I didn’t run into any technical glitches or crashes that wrecked the game for me, like I saw plenty of in Fallout and Skyrim.

There is so much to see and do in the world of Red Dead. The story of  the main quest is great. The characters are great. The missions are fun and varied. There is a lot to love about this game.

But now we turn our attention to the negative.

The pace of the game is slow. It’s reaaalllllly freaking slow. I would always groan whenever I’d have to come to camp, because things slow down so much when you are in camp. You can’t ride your horse, so you have to get out and walk around on foot. That’s fine. But you can’t run in camp either, so you are stuck walking around at an absolute snail’s pace. Things slow down like this occasionally during missions as well, and it is just infuriating to me. I get trying to be realistic, but it often seems like they slow things down just to artificially make the game feel longer. I’m sure if you were to ask one of the designers of the game, they’d say something about immersion, but to me it did the exact opposite. It irritated the living crap out of me.

A lot of the things you do seem unnecessary and pointless. I already mentioned the horse bonding and the gun cleaning. You also have to feed your character and make sure he gets sleep. You have to do chores around camp, like chopping wood and carrying bales of hay around. There are several missions where you have to go out fishing for long periods of time. I get bored easily by fishing in real life. As you can imagine I wasn’t a huge fan of being forced to fish in a game that I play in order to try and escape from the real world.

My major complaint is all the lengthy travel time. Let’s say you just finished a mission on the very edge of the game map, and the next mission available to you is back at camp. You have to travel allll the way back to camp, hop off your horse, walk like a snail through the camp until you get to the mission marker, watch a custscene, slowly walk all the way back through camp to get to your horse, hop on the horse, mark where you need to go on your map, notice that it’s alllll the way on the other side of the map, and then ride to the next mission marker. It took you ten minutes to get to camp to begin with. Now you’re going to be riding another ten minutes until you get to where you need to get for the mission. A lot of times you can’t even travel at top speed. You’ll have companions traveling with you, and you need to go at their speed or risk leaving them behind and failing the mission. All the traveling is so obnoxious to me. It made things feel like an absolute chore at times.

The combat system seems outdated. The whole lock-on gunplay thing doesn’t seem to have evolved much since the days of Grand Theft Auto Vice City or San Andreas. You barely even have to aim at your enemies. Just look in their general direction and pull out your weapon and you will lock onto them. Now all you need to do is shoot. Most missions were a complete breeze to me, and the dead-eye slow motion mode made things even easier in my opinion. If you are looking for a challenge, this game doesn’t offer much in terms of difficulty.

That said, I did experience some moments of frustration. Often I would want to just talk to somebody, but if you have your weapon selected, you will point your gun at them and it will cause an issue. They could try to fight you, or run from you, or sic the police on you. So many times I ended up “Wanted” with a bounty on my head over some stupid mistake or wrong push of the button. One time I was in Saint Denis, and I was a few steps from a mission marker when I accidentally bumped into someone with my horse and knocked him down and trampled him. All of a sudden I am wanted for murder, the mission marker disappearing until I shook my wanted status. I tried to escape, but I ended up getting in a gunfight with the feds and racking up a massive bounty that I had to pay off at the post office. A 20 minute detour that cost me money and reputation points, when I was soooo close to the mission marker. Really, really annoying. I hated going through Saint Denis because I always seemed to get in some kind of trouble with the law that would sidetrack my progress through the story missions.

As you can see, I had a lot of issues with Read Dead 2. Overall I liked the game, however. Is it a perfect game, deserving of one of my rare A+ final scores? No. Too often this game felt like a chore. Too often things dragged on and on and on unnecessarily. Too many times something annoying would happen that would put a price on my head and hinder my ability to advance the game’s story. Too many long horse rides, fishing expeditions, and boring conversations that were almost enough to put me to sleep. This game definitely has its flaws.

That said, I still enjoyed it. The creative missions kept me interested. You bust a man out of prison in a hot air balloon, for cripe’s sake. But what really kept me going was the storyline. Watching the van der Linde gang fall apart after failed mission after failed mission. Watching Arthur’s reactions to the shit-show around him, and how much the tone of the game changes late in the game when you *spoiler alert* find out Arthur has something very wrong with him. Tuberculosis. His diagnosis adds an extra layer of desperation and finality to the journey of the gang.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a good game, maybe even a great game. I can’t argue with that. But is it a masterpiece? Is it one of those games that will go down as one of the best of all time? In my opinion, no. I do plan to play this game again sometime in the future, so maybe my mind will change on my second playthrough, knowing what to expect from the game this time around. But for now I simply consider this a really good, really detailed and well-made game with a great story and a memorable cast of characters. I REALLY want to play Red Dead 1 now and see how this journey ends because honestly, I don’t remember any of it. And I am invested now.



Final Score:
A






Sunday, August 11, 2019

Video Game Review #194: The Order:1886

The Order: 1886
PlayStation 4



Nostalgia Factor:

Nothing to get nostalgic about here, as this was the first and only time I have ever played this game. I first became aware of The Order: 1886 a few years ago, when it was featured as a cover story for Game Informer. I thought it looked pretty cool back then and I made a note to myself to check the game out someday. Well, someday finally came.




Story:

*sigh*

I know that this game’s storyline is one of its major selling points, and when people try to pick a bright spot from the game they usually point to its story. Not me. I have a very short attention span and if a game doesn’t grab my attention in the first hour or two, my mind wanders off and I completely lose track of what is going on. That is what happened here.

Not to say that this game has a crappy story. If you pay attention and have a good idea of what is happening, you might actually enjoy this. I just… couldn’t. Things moved too fast at the beginning, with little to no explanation of what was going on. I didn’t know who my character was, I didn’t know any of the backstory of the game’s world, I had no idea what was happening. After a little while I stopped paying attention completely, and simply played the game for its shooter-based gameplay.

Here is what I know about the game: it takes place in an alternate history steampunk London. That’s about all I was able to gather before I started to zone out. Informative, I know!

Here is what I think happened the rest of the game: You control a man who is part of an ancient order that is out to protect London’s interests. I believe this group is actually the Knights of the Round Table, still in existence in 1886. They’re battling against a rebellion, while at the same time fighting evil mutant creatures that occasionally pop up from time to time. Some kind of conspiracy is unveiled involving the werewolf creatures. Your character’s family is somehow involved. Corruption within the Order? I don’t freaking know. Like I said, I paid little to no attention to the game’s story once I lost interest in it.

It’s kind of a shame I wasn’t paying closer attention, because the final moments of the game deliver a big moment that probably would have been quite emotional if I actually cared what was going on. Oh well.




Gameplay:

There’s no other way I can describe this game than as a Gears of War clone. You run through linear hallways and outdoor areas, shooting enemies and ducking for cover. Get shot too many times and you die. If you need to recharge your health, just wait in cover and your health will start to regenerate over time. It looks just like Gears of War. It handles just like Gears of War. The weapon selection menu thingie operates just like the one in Gears of War. If I didn’t know anything about this game coming into it, and someone had told me it was a prequel to Gears of War, I might have believed them. It’s just so damned similar. The only things that are different are the characters, the setting, and the enemies. As far as gameplay goes, it is nearly identical.

That said, I didn’t enjoy this game as much as I did Gears of War. I can’t even really put my finger on what the difference is. It could be because I didn’t care for the game’s storyline, but at the same time I didn’t care about the story in Gears of War either and I still enjoyed that. Maybe it was more of a setting thing? I don’t know. All I know is that this game felt like much more a chore to play. Even though it is a game you could beat in one sitting if you were really dedicated, it felt a lot longer than that.

I think maybe the fact that there is SO MUCH story is what I found off-putting. Be prepared to watch a lot of cutscenes and be prepared to spend a lot of time walking your character down hallways as he talks to other characters. If you don’t care about the story, like me, you will find these sequences to be very boring. Even though the shooting sequences are fun, many of them are few and far between. This could be a huge reason why the game felt like such a chore to me.




Graphics:

The graphics are the best part about this game. I may not have been too infatuated with the rest of the game but at least it looks pretty darn good. I do have to give it credit for that. The characters are lifelike, distinct, and well-animated. The outside environments are breathtaking. The inside environments are extremely well-detailed, down to all the little things like food sitting on a table, the wall hangings, the type of bricks that are used in the walls, and the way the lighting effects play a role in this. So much work was put into making this game look beautiful, and it definitely shows.

I was playing Red Dead Redemption 2 at the same time I was playing this, and I can safely say that this game, which came out a few years ago, looks just as good as Red Dead 2. That’s high praise from me. If I do have to offer some kind of criticism it would be that things are a bit too gloom and doom-y for my taste. I would have liked to see some more color in this game.




Sound:

Everything checks out in the sound department too. Don’t get me wrong, the audio quality of the game isn’t quite as good as its visual quality, but it is comparable. The sound effects, such as the sounds of explosions and gunfire, are terrific. The music is not memorable in any way, but it does its job.

The voice acting seemed good. I’d offer more praise for it, but like I said I rarely paid any attention as to what was going on when the characters were talking. I’m sure it is great. It sounded good from what I did hear.




Overall:

I have very mixed thoughts about this game. Its story sucks, but its graphics and sound effects are very good. These things kind of negate each other a bit in my mind. What really matters to me is if the game was any fun or not. So, was it?

Sort of. If you’ve played Gears of War you should know what to expect out of this game’s combat. If you haven’t played Gears of War, picture Uncharted’s combat but with stiff, awkward controls and less maneuverability. All you do is run down narrow hallways or open outside areas, ducking for cover and peeking out to shoot your enemies. When you’re not doing this, you’re watching big long story sequences involving the characters gabbing away at one another.

To me, this kind of combat isn’t exciting enough to carry a game, especially when you’re spending SO MUCH time watching long story sequences. Why did Gears of War work, despite having a very similar formula to this game? For one, there weren’t as many boring story sequences in that game. Its play/sit there and watch ratio is a lot more even than it is here. Gears’ weapons, its enemies, its futuristic setting, and its characters were a lot “cooler” than anything you see here as well. Combat sequences were more plentiful, and mowing down crowds of enemies at a time made you feel like a real badass, especially when you’d whip the chainsaw out and get up close and personal. In general, things moved along fast enough in Gears of War to keep me interested.

None of that happens here. This game is slow, it is boring, the setting is very “meh” to me, the characters are not memorable, and you do too much idle watching rather than actually playing. The combat is okay, but at the same time very unoriginal and uninspired. I was just going through the motions as I played this game. I probably would have had a lot more fun if I’d been a fan of the game’s story, but I just wasn’t, and there is no way around that.

I stand by my statement that the game felt like a chore to play. There is some fun and enjoyment to be had in combat, plus the production values of this game are very high. If anything, it was a very easy platinum trophy for my collection. I am not going to give it TOO low of a score for those reasons. It’s not like the game is a complete failure or anything. There are some bright spots to be found here, for sure. But I’d be lying if I said the game was great, or even above average. It’s just very forgettable.

Ask me in ten years what I thought of The Order: 1886 and I will probably not be able to tell you much of anything. That should tell you right there whether you want to check this game out or not.



Final Score:
D




Check out a complete index of all my game reviews 



Video Game Review #193: Fighting Force

Fighting Force
PlayStation


Nostalgia Factor:

I remember there being a lot of hype for this game when it was released in 1997. Magazine covers, commercials on the TV, word of mouth, Fighting Force was everywhere. I, for one, was very excited for it. I didn't have money to buy anything at the time, so I ended up renting the game for the weekend. I recall being glad that I rented it and didn't buy it, because the game was very short and I beat it in one sitting. I mean, I probably played through the game a couple of times just to get my money's worth out of it, but to be perfectly honest with you I remember very little about my time with it.

Fast forward 22 years later to the year 2019. Aside from seeing this game for sale on the PlayStation Network and being vaguely interested in buying it, I haven't given Fighting Force much thought since 1997. That changed when my friend at work told me that she found a copy of this game while cleaning at home, and asked if I wanted to borrow it so I could review it for my blog. Heck yeah, I'd play it. I didn't remember much about the game, other than it being short and relatively fun. But that was perfect. I've been playing a lot of longer games lately, and Fighting Force would be a nice change of pace.

Or would it?





Story:

My friend didn't have the instruction manual for this game anymore, so I don't really know what is going on with its story. The game itself gives you absolutely nothing. No dialogue, no cutscenes, nada. It just throws you right into the action. Fighting Force is all about beating people up and destroying things, so I don't think the story really matters anyway.

All you do is beat up a bunch of bad dudes until you get to the end of the game, where you take on the head honcho, Zeng. Beat Zeng, and he goes to jail and the game is over. The end.




Gameplay:

The game begins with a character select menu, where you are given the choice of picking between two girls and two guys. Each character has their own unique strengths and weaknesses. One of the characters, based on his size, is clearly very strong but slow at the same time. The other guy looks more well-rounded. The girls are most likely weaker, but faster. I don't know all of their strengths and weaknesses, as I only played through this game twice with two different characters. I intended to give each character a shot, but once you make your selection at the beginning of the game, you can't switch out your character for a new one. Yup, you're stuck with them for the entire game! Most games of this nature give you the option to pick a new character when you die or have to use a continue, but not this one.

As far as gameplay goes, Fighting Force is clearly inspired by classic beat-em-ups such as Final Fight and Streets of Rage. You go through levels, beating people up until there is no one left to beat up anymore. You have your standard punch and kick attacks, in addition to being able to throw your enemies. You can also jump, but I never found much use for doing so in the game. Hold the trigger button and your character goes into a sprint. Hit the kick button as you are sprinting, and you do a special jump kick attack that knocks your opponent to the ground. I found myself spamming this attack more often than I would like to admit, since enemies are constantly surrounding you on all sides, making it hard for you to engage in one-on-one combat.

What sets Fighting Force apart is the ability to destroy things in your environment. See that police car over there? Go up to it and smash the hell out of it. It'll eventually break apart, allowing you to use the pieces to attack enemies. You can pick up barrels and throw them, pull metal pipes off of walls, destroy crates, boxes, telephone booths, and fire extinguisher containers for weapons, and you can even destroy vending machines and drink the soda cans they drop to regain a little bit of health. Make sure you are destroying everything in the environment, as you get bonus points at the end of each stage that can go towards extra lives for your character. You are going to need them! In addition to using the environment to craft weapons for you, enemies sometimes come into battle carrying things like broken bottles, knives, and guns. Knock them down and take their weapons and use them against them!

Every so often you will fight a boss character. These characters take a little bit of trial and error. I found them to be the toughest things about the game, as they can drop your health bar to zero FAST if you aren't on top of your game. The game saves very sporadically, only every few levels or so. It can be very, very frustrating to get killed by a boss and have to reload your last save. Likely, you are going to have to play through the last several levels of the game to get back to that boss character. While this game is relatively short, most of the time I spent playing it was replaying old levels again after I would run out of lives in the boss fights. Very annoying, very repetitive, and very unnecessary. Why can't there be a save point after every level? It felt like a cheap way of artificially lengthening the game, from my perspective.

One thing I should mention before I move on is the fact that this game occasionally gives you the option to choose where you want to go next. For example, one area gives you the choice of whether you want to move on to the Bronx, the mall, or the park. Pick the park, and you miss out on the Bronx and the mall stages. This gives the game a little bit of replay value, as you want to play through multiple times and see what each area looks like. I only had the energy to explore two of these paths, however, as the thought of playing through this very repetitive game a third time held no appeal to me whatsoever.




Graphics:

Most modern gamers will probably get a good chuckle out of this game's chunky, pixelated graphics. But not me. I don't know what it is about this era of gaming, but I just love this graphical style. I find it to be incredibly charming and fun. It is probably because I grew up playing games in this era, when graphics like these were considered state of the art. I know they don't look great now, but I still love 'em.

Not only do I love the game's pixelated graphics, I love its color scheme too. That fight at the top of the office building, with the potted plants and the broken windows and the papers blowing in the breeze? Perfection. The levels with the darker colors aren't as cool in my opinion, but they are still charming. I guess that sums up my thoughts on this game's graphics: charming.




Sound:

I'm pretty sure the copy of the game that I played was glitched, as there wasn't any music playing for the entire duration of the game. I know the game has music. I looked up some gameplay videos online and saw that there was music playing during the stages. But I didn't have any music. It is probably because I was playing a PS1 disc on a PS3. I always play PS1 discs on the PS3 and have never had a problem before, so I don't know what the deal was. Whatever. It happened.

The sound effects for the game are pretty good. All the punches, kicks, smacks, grunts, groans, and explosions all sound over the top and perfect for this genre of game. I have no complaints in this area whatsoever.




Overall:

There is a lot to like about this game. I enjoy the genre. I love the graphics and the sound effects. I like how it is a throwback to when video games were simple and didn't have to rely on complex storylines to keep you entertained. Fighting Force keeps you entertained with its gameplay, and nothing else.

I had some fun with this game. I really did. But as you all know this area of my review is where I drag out all of my criticisms, no holds barred. And unfortunately this game has a lot to criticize.

The controls aren't great. There is a little bit of a delayed reaction sometimes when it comes to you pressing the buttons and your character responding on screen. Animations are clunky and it is hard to perceive depth at times. This will often result in you missing with your attacks and kicking and punching at the air while your enemies walk around you and hit you from the side.

As I said before, enemies often crowd you from all directions, which makes it very hard to engage in one-on-one combat. You'll be in the middle of punching an enemy and someone will hit you from behind and break up your combo. Then all of a sudden four people are pounding on you at once and you can't get away, and half your health bar is gone. It is really irritating. I often resorted to spamming the jump kick move, as it knocks multiple enemies down at a time and gives you a few seconds to focus on fighting people one-on-one before the others get back up from the ground and start coming after you again. This method has its flaws, though, as the kick misses a LOT. When it does connect, it doesn't do a whole lot of damage either. Since I had to resort to using this attack so much in the second half of the game, it made the game feel MUCH longer than it really is, since battles would take so long to complete. And if you happen to die in that battle and have to start the stage over again... oh boy. This happened to me multiple times and it made me rage uncontrollably each time. Even that anger isn't as bad as the anger I felt when I'd run out of lives and have to reload a save and play through multiple levels again that I'd already beaten before. So, SO obnoxious.

I had a tough time with this game, and I don't remember it being so tough when I played it back in '97. There are a lot of enemies to kill, and a lot of them can do some major damage. My most hated part of the game goes to the underground laboratory part where you have to fight an ungodly number of respawning enemies. What makes this part so terrible is the fact that there are certain enemies who regenerate health whenever they take damage. So you have to try and beat them fast, which can lead to you making a lot of dumb mistakes. I HATED this part of the game, as I died and had to restart the area (and the obnoxiously long subway area before it) multiple times on my two playthroughs. It makes me mad just thinking about it!

I really wanted to like this game. I had an.... okay time with it. Its repetitive nature and its difficulty spike in the second half of the game are keeping me from loving it. As a nice little walk down memory lane, I am glad I revisited Fighting Force. Thank you, Amy, for loaning me this game. I'm glad I played it and got the chance to review it. Truth be told, however, I am never going to play this game again. And I am totally okay with that.



Final Score:
C-




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