Video Game Review #298: Snatcher

Snatcher

Sega CD

Nostalgia Factor:

Snatcher is one of those games that I have always known about, but never had much interest in playing. It was for the Sega CD, a console I didn’t have. It was a text based adventure, a genre I didn’t have any interest in. As the years passed, the game started to slip out of my memory to the point where I began to forget it even existed. I was randomly reminded of Snatcher’s presence in a Facebook group about retro games. The OP ranted and raved about Snatcher, saying how it was such an amazing game and how it had completely changed his mind on story-based adventures. He even went on to say that Snatcher had become his favorite game OF ALL TIME – a pretty bold claim that is not one to be taken lightly.

Since I’m emulating now and have access to the Sega CD library, I figured this would be a good time to check out Snatcher and see if it was any good myself. Read on for my full thoughts.

 

 

Story:

Seeing as how this game is almost 100% story-based, this is probably going to be the longest segment of my review. I don’t want to spoil too much, however, as one of the joys in playing Snatcher is making discoveries and uncovering the truth yourself. But hey I can still give you a quick rundown of the game’s premise.

It’s the 2040s and the world has become the cyberpunk fantasy we’ve seen in things like Blade Runner and Shadowrun. Prior to the events of this game, a lethal bioweapon had wiped out a significant chunk of the Earth’s population. In present times, strange Terminator-like machines known as Snatchers have started appearing, killing affluent people and replacing them with near-perfect replicas. It seems as if there is some connection between these two events, but no one can figure it out.

That’s where you come in. You control an investigator known as Gillian Seed, who arrives in the Japanese city of Neo Kobe. Gillian is hired as a Junker, someone in charge of hunting down and destroying Snatchers. Gillian is paired with a robotic assistant that goes by the name of Metal Gear. If you think this name is a coincidence, think again. References are made later on in the game that your little helper was named after destructive weapons that nearly tore the world apart during constant wars years and years ago. Is it possible that Snatcher is actually a futuristic sequel to the Metal Gear Solid series? I like to think so.

Gillian is an amnesiac. Both he and his wife have no memories of their life before Junker training. Hmmm… that’s pretty suspect, don’t you think? Of course this will come into play later, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Things start out fast for Gillian, as one of his fellow Junkers (Jean) is killed during an investigation. It becomes clear that Jean was on the verge of a major breakthrough regarding the Snatchers, so it becomes your job to search through his office, investigate his findings, and retrace his footsteps through Neo Kobe. This comprises the bulk of your adventure. If you ever wondered what it would be like to be a private investigator in a dystopian cyberpunk future, then boy do I have the game for you.

This is where we wander into spoiler territory. Without giving too much away, you eventually uncover one of Jean’s most significant findings regarding Snatchers and possible “tells” that give away their identities. Investigating even further, you uncover an underground hospital where Snatchers are serviced and created. Before long, things get really crazy as Gillian’s past is revealed, the secret of the Snatchers is uncovered, and several bombshells (figuratively and literally) are dropped on the characters.

You know a lot of the crazy twists and turns that take place during the Metal Gear Solid games? Some of the same kind of stuff happens here. I really, REALLY wish I could dive more into the intricacies of this story with you, but like I said the discoveries you make in this game are just so so satisfying when you uncover them for yourself. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that.

Gameplay:

If you come into this game looking to find intricate and detailed gameplay, you are going to walk away disappointed. Most of this game’s action takes place from a text menu. Here’s an example. You arrive at the Junker Headquarters. One of the characters starts giving you a tour of the facility. From the menu, you get to pick which room you’d like to check out next. When you arrive in the room, you’re given the option to either Look, Investigate, Talk, or use something in your inventory. Generally when you arrive in a new area you’re going to want to exhaust all of your options. Look at everything, investigate everything, explore all conversation paths, and show the items in your inventory to everyone you encounter. When you are done, you move on to the next area.

While this is fine and dandy to begin with, it does become a chore after a while. There were several points where I got completely stuck because there was ONE thing I didn’t look at, or ONE conversation branch I missed. Missing these things is easy to do, because often when you are checking things out, new options appear in a menu you’ve already looked through. So let’s say I’ve investigated everything in the room. I talk to the person in the room and explore all conversation branches. One of the conversation choices opens up an option of something new for me to investigate – but because I’ve already investigated everything I don’t think to go back into my “Investigate” option menu and look for new entries. I think I’ve explored everything in the room, so I leave, and I proceed to get stuck for 20 minutes looking for where the hell I am supposed to go next. It’s a pain in the ass.

Oftentimes you even have to explore all of your options multiple times before you are allowed to advance in the game. I remember one specific area where I looked/investigated/checked out everything in the room like 8 times before a new option opened up – the one I needed to advance the storyline and move on to the next part of the game. I don't know what triggered that option to appear or what I did differently to make it happen, but it was something. This became especially obnoxious about halfway through the game, when I had to investigate two locations with possible Snatcher activity. No one was home at either location, despite me having gone through EVERY possible look/investigate/talk/show item in the game. I was beginning to think my copy of the game was busted. I must have wasted at least an hour looking around for something I’d missed. I come back to the suspected Snatcher apartment and bam he’s there. I have no idea what I did to trigger his arrival, or why he wasn’t there to begin with. But again – it was something. I think. And it wasn’t just something simple like I needed to leave and come back. I had already done that multiple times without triggering his arrival.

You play as an investigator, so you’ll find yourself doing investigator things like checking out crime scenes, making phone calls, creating suspect photos based on their physical descriptions, questioning people, meeting up with illicit “contacts”, searching for things on a computer, and getting into the occasional fire fight. While most of these things are handled from a menu, like always, combat is a little different. The screen is split into different sectors and you use the keypad to move your cursor around from sector to sector, firing at the enemies that pop out at you. It’s almost like a light gun gallery ala Virtua Cop, but much, much simpler. If you have played the bonus stages of the SNES version of Sunset Riders, it is like that.

Graphics:

I think this game looks freaking fantastic. The art style in Snatcher is so distinct. They really did a great job creating the living, breathing cyberpunk world of Neo Kobe. The characters look great, the settings are magnificent. Everywhere you look this game just exudes charm. My favorite area of the game has always been the Computer Room in Junker HQ. I can’t even really explain why, but this room is just so cool to me with its colors and displays and blinking lights. Reminds me a bit of the bridge of the Ebon Hawk, if you’re familiar with the KoToR games.

I imagine some debbie downers out there will say that this game looks outdated or that it could do with a complete overhaul, but I disagree. I think it is absolutely perfect as it is. It has this comic book/anime feel to it that I just love.

Sound:

Snatcher has some truly terrific music too. It really helps add to the sometimes haunting/sometimes humorous atmosphere of the game. Wherever you go, the music is going to fit whatever’s happening onscreen perfectly. Okay, maybe sometimes the music is a bit too overly dramatic, but I’m willing to forgive it because even at its most dramatic, the music is still catchy as hell.

The voice acting is a little spotty. Sometimes it is perfect and other times it makes you scratch your head a bit. I think some of this can be blamed on the writing. While I didn’t have any problems with it, the game’s characters do make some outdated sexist/chauvinistic remarks from time to time. There were a few occasions where I was like “did he really just say that?”

Overall, though – the game sounds good. I hate to come back to Metal Gear Solid again, but remember the Codec conversations from these games? Oftentimes in Snatcher conversations play out in nearly the exact same manner onscreen. Another reason to think of this game as a distant sequel to Metal Gear, or at least heavily inspired by that series. But wait, this game came out long before Metal Gear Solid. Is it the other way around? Was that game inspired by Snatcher?

Snatcherception, yo.

Overall:

Despite the limitations I experienced with Snatcher’s gameplay, I really liked this title. I would recommend this game to anyone, with one caveat: you have to know what to expect coming in. This is a heavily story based game. 99 percent of the time you spend playing is going to be spent going through text menus. Don’t expect Heavy Rain. Don’t even expect something from Telltales. Snatcher is much more text and menu intensive than any of these games.

While the gameplay may be a bit weak, everything else makes up for it. The graphics, the music, the story, the incredible atmosphere. I could not put Snatcher down. This is one of those games that sticks with you. I found myself thinking of it quite often, even when I wasn’t playing the game. It has that kind of hold on you. And when I was done with the game, I actually began to miss it. No, this isn’t a flawless game by any stretch of the imagination. It certainly has its limitations, but I find that the pros most definitely outweigh these cons.

If you’re a retro game fan and you’re interested in checking out something classic and unique, you definitely need to check out Snatcher. It’s a Sega CD game, so I know that not a lot of people got to experience it. That needs to change!

Final Score:

A-

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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