Fresh from Japan and some person’s scanner, we get brand new screenshots of Resident Evil 5 that look just as amazing as what we’ve previously seen from the game. Other than that bad ass chainsaw, which I hope will be a usable weapon with all my heart, the screens and article don’t tell us much new. The story reemphasizes the fact that sunlight and shade will play a big part in the game and that levels will have you running in and out of houses frequently, thus changing the lighting and the way you’ll need to play the game. The guys behind the game say this light/shadow dichotomy is the motif for the entire game.
The article also reveals that despite the game taking place far away from any previous Resident Evil locations, we will be seeing the return of some big, bad bosses from past games. The example given in the story is evidently Nosferatu from RE: Code Veronica. Not my favorite RE boss but still a good one and it’ll be interesting to battle him without moving like a tank. Also, and I believe we already knew this, but three weapons are confirmed for the game: hand gun, sniper rifle and knife. We can also expect a new trailer in the near future.
Now, in order to drive up traffic to my blog, I’ll mention something about race: some of the zombies are black.
I make my living watching and criticizing movies (well part of my living anyway) and thus am a professional. This means that reactionary reviews of movies are right out. My opinion is my opinion and other critic's opinions are theirs. But I can not and will not allow the stuck up douche bag critics of the world to tear down Speed Racer anymore! I mean what the fuck is wrong with the film world when over two hours of seizure inducing car racing and karate fights made up of pure awesome starts getting torn apart for being boring. Were they watching the same movie?
I mean it's based on Speed Racer for God's sake. Here's the plot: cars go fast, cars do awesome things, Speed thinks his brother might be Racer X, cars go fast again. Insert a family lesson and something about morals, Speed Racer wins the big race. There I summed the entire film up for you and I'm telling you right now you still want to go see this movie. If you're going into it expecting more than that then you need to get the stick out of your ass and learn how to have fun. I mean one of the lead characters is a hilarious monkey. Why would you ever critque this film for not being deep enough?
In my opinion the W brothers have crafted their best work since the Matrix. Remember when you left the first Matrix and all you wanted to do was watch all the amazing fights again? Well all I wanted to do after leaving Speed Racer was watch the awesome car chases again. There is one where a car launches a bee hive as a weapon and to avoid it the Mach 5 flips over it. Bee hives! Cars flipping! Epilepsy! I don't know why you would still be reading this and not seeing the movie.
Just in case you're terribly worried that the film plays too much to the kids there is plenty of fan service (along with a cuss word!) in there too. The brothers clearly know the terribly dubbed world of Speed Racer and while they don't go as far as to make the actors voices move out of sync with their mouths there are plenty of obvious nods to the original cartoon. Can you say red ascot under a blue shirt with a white collar? Or perhaps jumping out of your speeding car at the end of a race towards the camera and brining your arm up across your face in a manner that is more than awesome, it's super awesome.
Yes, I will admit that the movie goes on for a bit too long but it does this in order to bring you another F-Zero like race around another insane track. There are far worse reasons for a film to be too long (Lord of the Rings, I'm looking at you) especially when this one never really gets boring. I'm not sure where the critics who got bored at the film derive their fun from because if you can't be brought to the edge of your seat by cars that are basically doing gymnastics then you should see your doctor because I think you're brain isn't receiving whatever brain thing that makes you able to see awesome. Also they must not be able to hear because the score is a wonderful remix of the original Speed Racer theme and if that doesn't get your blood pumping nothing will.
I'm not saying this in the next academy award winning movie, nor is it the next Matrix, I am saying that the Wachowski Brothers have constructed one hell of a thrilling ride for kids and adults that's jammed packed with Anime references, humor, adult material and enough retro love to keep any fan of the series from bitching too much.
Gah! Some times my fellow critics annoy the fuck out of me.
5 out of 5. Even if you hate everything else about the movie seeing the races on the big screen is the only way to go.
Well since it is all over the front page and I happen to have the demo disk sitting in my Wii right now I figured why not a few hands on impressions of DECA Sports. In all fairness when I first heard of the game I was less than pleased. It seemed like just another quick cash in on the Wii Sports craze except now with even more sports that you'll just avoid in favor of playing bowling....sweet, sweet, Wii bowling. I mean, who really was demanding a chance to play badminton on their Wii or hates Mario Kart so much that they'd rather race in a kart or bike race game that was crammed in with a multitude of other "sports"?
Well it seems, from the demo disc, the my fears were entirely warranted...and unwarranted. The disc came with four playable "sports," figure skating, beach volleyball, badminton and supercross, and just like Wii sports some are actually fun and others are, well, not. Worthy of mention before we get into each individual game is that you can choose what team you want before each sport. Each team has different members with different qualities, some are made up of all quick and little people, some big and strong people and others are more spread out. Characters look disturbingly like Miis but they aren't which is a little sad. I only noticed a bit of a change when playing with different characters in each sport but you can tell it's there especially in steering and running. I'm assuming that in the full game you'll be able to take your team and lead them to DECA Sport glory by defeating all the other teams.
I'm not afraid to say it here, because I am perfectly comfortable in my sexuality, but figure skating is my favorite. There I've said it. I'm a grown man and I enjoy playing figure skating on my Wii...I'm going to need so much therapy. Let's save the best for last though and the worst for first. Badminton, which is a sport I would deem as one of the least in demand to be made into a video game along with curling which is also in the full game, is simply Wii tennis gone terribly, terribly wrong. You don't seem to have to time your swings with when the shuttlecock (snicker) reaches your racket but instead swing when it is high in the air thus triggering what felt like a canned animation once the shuttlecock (snicker) reached your racket. If you swing when the shuttlecock (snicker) is flashing red, which occurs long before it is anywhere near your racket, you do a power hit. It took me a while to get a grasp of this and my girlfriend just gave up because it didn't make sense to her that you wouldn't swing when the shuttlecock (snicker) was not near your racket. Once you've got this strange mechanism down the game really plays out like Wii tennis except a bit slower. There are different ways to slam the birdie and direct it but in the end all you end up doing is swinging your arms around in a far less satisfying way than with Wii tennis. All around this wasn't much fun even with a friend.
Beach volleyball on the other hand can be fun, sometimes. It's fun when the controls work and respond well and not fun when the controls don't work and your computer partner isn't being an idiot. You don't control you character but you can bump, set and spike the ball in the two-on-two games by swinging the Wii Remote in one way or another. The problem is I didn't fine the bumping and setting controls that much different and going up to spike the ball sometimes happened and sometimes didn't. If the game didn't read your swing in time or you swung slightly the wrong wall the ball would simply fall to the ground. Also it was unclear when the computer would attempt a spike or would instead go for a bump or, even worse, decide to pull a Daria and just stand there. This was made even more vexing by the fact that it seemed the computer opponents had just come from their gold winning Olympic tour and decided to pick on a game of pick up that they just saw going on. Much of this became alieviated once I had a friend playing with me as I knew what was going to happen and timing became much easier for spikes and other plays. Sadly the opposing computer players had decided that on one serve they would play like elite volleyball ninjas and then on the next forget that they were on a beach playing volleyball and instead ponder why someone was launching a round ball at their faces. The difficulty was all over the place and it got pretty annoying. Once you got the moves down though and the computer decided to go on a streak of not being insane the game was pretty fun and could definitely be a blast with four friends.
Supercross is far from super but actually isn't half bad, especially if the final game has a few more courses in it. This was also the "sport" that I most saw a difference in the character you used to play with. Bigger guys steered differently from smaller ones and much like Mario Kart I eventually found myself driving with a middle weight. You steer by holding the controller sideways (all controls are explained before each game much like in Mario Party) and tilting it left and right. 2 is go, 1 is stop and when you get some air you can pull off a trick by moving the Wii Remote. Steering is pretty easy once you start over compensating, which is something I do in almost all racing games on the Wii. The nifty part is that when you're in the air you can till the controller backward and forward in order to land better. Land at the right angle and you won't slow down as much from hitting the ground. It worked very well and actually added a layer of skill that I wasn't expecting from the game. I'm going to give Hudson the benefit of the doubt here and guess that the computer opponents will be a bit more challenging in the full game where there are more races and difficulty levels. I wouldn't for the life of me trade this for a full fledged racer, especially when Mario Kart has bikes now, but as a simple distraction it does it's job well.
I seriously can not get enough of figure skating. The game is creative, challenging, addictive and a really impressive use of the Wii Remote and nunchuck. Basically you are tasked with skating through a routine to some classical music. You control your skater with the joystiq on the nunchuck and perform tricks by flicking your Wii Remote. To complete the routine you follow yellow dots around the ice rink and you need to hit the dots in correspondence with their musical cues. If you swerve off the line you'll get out of whack with the music and if you get to far out of line then you can't complete your routine. As you follow the yellow dots bigger red, yellow or blue dots appear. These are the trick dots. When you skate into them you flick your Wii Remote and perform a different trick depending on the color. Some tricks have you stay stationary while others you must continue skating with, restricting your ease of control. Timing is important as you both have to hit the trick in time with the music and, in order to get the highest score, flick the Wii Remote and the exact center of the shrinking dot. If the dot disappears than you lost your trick. Call me whatever you want but this was actually a lot of fun to do. It's like a fun rhythm game hiding behind a boring sport. Since only one person skates at a time (I doubt there will be doubles in the final game) there isn't much multiplayer fun here other than to compete with your friends, but seeing as suggesting a rousing game of figure skating sounds about as fun as it actually sounds it might be hard to find four people to play.
If DECA Sports crams in a few more surprisingly innovative games like Ice Skating into the package, possibly with curling, archer or basketball, and avoids more generic stuff like badminton and beach volleyball, I could actually see it being a worth while purchase. Get some fun throw away racers, a few challenging games and a few others for the party people and it comes out to be a worth while purchase. Of course that is a big if seeing as Hudson could very easily go the other route and deliver a game jammed packed full of quick one offs and cliche Wii Remote controls. Only time and six more random sports will tell.
As requested in the original post the unedited Japanese arcade version of the game is available to not download via the "Not Here" link which will take you to HarrasmentPanda's not download page.
Welcome one and all to the second and hopefully even more awesome month of Educate Yourself: Destructoid’s Classic Game of the Month Club. If you don’t know what’s going down go here and read up on all the wonders that are the Educate Yourself. So as I said in April’s wrap up post the club didn’t quite meet all it’s goals and that is mostly my fault but that doesn’t mean we can’t come roaring back this month with more awesome than you’ve ever experienced. Awesomeness well over 9,000. How, you ask. Well let’s start with this months game.
Splatterhouse (TurboGrafx-16)
I’ve have literally never played this game at all. This is a pretty big rarity as at some point I’ve usually at least touched a game and played it a bit but between Splatterhouse being insanely violent, my parents and the lack of any of my friends owning a TurboGrafx-16 I never really got the chance to play one of the original games of gore and violence. So that’s one reason I chose it for this month.
There are a few other reasons though, least of which is the fact that the series and its hero Rick are coming back in a big, ultra gory, super pretty way. I’d feel ashamed if I picked up the new game without the slightest idea of where it came from or why I should even care. I seriously doubt they’ll make it so you have to play the first three games in the series to understand this new one but that doesn’t make the previous games any less important. With the glut of new games heading out that are based on retro games (EGM has 35 in this months issue) it’s never been more important to know the origins of gaming classics. Another reason playing Splatterhouse is timely is because, thanks to the recent release of GTAIV, violence in video games is once again at the forefront of media. What better to way to smash down the idea that games cause violence then by diving into the first ever game to have a parental warning. Celebrating gaming’s brutal and bloody heritage while not going off and killing an entire school only helps to prove that isn’t the games causing all this trouble, it’s the media. It’s also a good chance to look back and see if the game is only well known for its blood and gore. A marker in history but not a great game? We shall see.
There is one more reason too. Look at the picture above. That bad guy has chainsaws for arms. Fucking chainsaws for fucking arms. If that doesn’t shout must play to you I don’t know what would.
Where to Get It Wii VC – 600 points (I would link you but Nintendo doesn’t actually have it listed as a downloadable game on their Wii website. Guess it doesn’t go with the whole family friendly feel. I just downloaded it though so I know it is there.)
Ebay - $10-$20 Amazon - $23 - $84 Not Here
What to Write About I’m not going to list the basics here like I did last time but just some random ideas.
Violence in games - first well known violent game is a great spring board for any discussion.
Good beyond the violence – Plenty of games have notoriety, that doesn’t make them great games though
Why is a 2x4 such an awesome weapon?
Greatest horror game heroes – Where does Rick stand?
Rick? Really, that’s the best they could do?
Jason vs. Rick – This showdown had to happen at some point.
Welcome one and all to the second and hopefully even more awesome month of Educate Yourself: Destructoid’s Classic Game of Your Month Club. If you don’t know what’s going down go here and read up on all the wonders that are the Educate Yourself. So as I said in April’s wrap up post the club didn’t quite meet all it’s goals and that is mostly my fault but that doesn’t mean we can’t come roaring back this month with more awesome than you’ve ever experienced. Awesomeness well over 9,000. How, you ask. Well let’s start with this months game.
Splatterhouse (TurboGrafx-16)
I’ve have literally never played this game at all. This is a pretty big rarity as at some point I’ve usually at least touched a game and played it a bit but between Splatterhouse being insanely violent, my parents and the lack of any of my friends owning a TurboGrafx-16 I never really got the chance to play one of the original games of gore and violence. So that’s one reason I chose it for this month.
There are a few other reasons though, least of which is the fact that the series and its hero Rick are coming back in a big, ultra gory, super pretty way. I’d feel ashamed if I picked up the new game without the slightest idea of where it came from or why I should even care. I seriously doubt they’ll make it so you have to play the first three games in the series to understand this new one but that doesn’t make the previous games any less important. With the glut of new games heading out that are based on retro games (EGM has 35 in this months issue) it’s never been more important to know the origins of gaming classics. Another reason playing Splatterhouse is timely is because, thanks to the recent release of GTAIV, violence in video games is once again at the forefront of media. What better to way to smash down the idea that games cause violence then by diving into the first ever game to have a parental warning. Celebrating gaming’s brutal and bloody heritage while not going off and killing an entire school only helps to prove that isn’t the games causing all this trouble, it’s the media. It’s also a good chance to look back and see if the game is only well known for its blood and gore. A marker in history but not a great game? We shall see.
There is one more reason too. Look at the picture above. That bad guy has chainsaws for arms. Fucking chainsaws for fucking arms. If that doesn’t shout must play to you I don’t know what would.
Where to Get It Wii VC – 600 points (I would link you but Nintendo doesn’t actually have it listed as a downloadable game on their Wii website. Guess it doesn’t go with the whole family friendly feel. I just downloaded it though so I know it is there.)
Ebay - $10-$20 Amazon - $23 - $84 Not Here
What to Write About I’m not going to list the basics here like I did last time but just some random ideas.
Violence in games - first well known violent game is a great spring board for any discussion.
Good beyond the violence – Plenty of games have notoriety, that doesn’t make them great games though
Why is a 2x4 such an awesome weapon?
Greatest horror game heroes – Where does Rick stand?
Rick? Really, that’s the best they could do?
Jason vs. Rick – This showdown had to happen at some point.
Sorry this wrap up for Educate Yourself is so late this month but I just got some time to do it so now I am. So here we are done with the first month of the Educate Yourself Club and I’d like to report that it was a resounding success…but it actually fell short a bit because of how busy my month was. We didn’t’ get an FNF or Failcast spot and it’s really my fault for falling through on all this but this is a work in progress and this month I promise to try at least 1.1 times harder to actually make this happen. Other than these tiny, little, miniscule failures I would say the club was a resounding success in that (a.) I played through a classic game, (b.) other people actually wrote some posts up, (c.) I posted in the forums and (d.) I actually enjoyed it enough to continue on. So without further ado let’s get the second month started…
By talking about the first month!
I had never really played Kid Icarus beyond the third level of the first world. Once I started playing again I remembered why. That third level is ridiculously hard. In fact now that I have beaten the game, without any cheats (bow before me), I’m will to say that that first level is the reason the entire game has a reputation for being insanely difficult. The rest of the game, while challenging, really isn’t as hard. So in view of what the club is all about – seeing why games are classics and learning about them – I’m going to discuss why Kid Icarus isn’t that hard…unless you’re a bitch. You’re not a bitch are you?
To begin with we’ll talk about the first world which is a vertical level in which pit must escape hell or Hades or whatever myth Nintendo wants to claim they’re actually basing the game on. This world is hard, the first level is challenging, the second is aggravating and the third had me fake throwing my controller at the screen like I hadn’t done in years. Then after all this you get to a maze like castle with no direction and any power-ups you’ve gained removed, but more on that later. What makes these first levels so much more difficult than the rest of the game is that you don’t have any upgrades and you won’t be getting any really useful ones until after the first castle maze. Instead of realizing this and making the beginning of the game simpler than the rest the designers just kept the difficulty and a standard level throughout the whole thing. Thus once you do get more life and more powerful weapons via not playing like an idiot the game actually becomes progressively easier instead of harder. By the last vertical level before the final one I was pretty much charging through with enough upgrades to be pretty much invulnerable.
So some tips on getting past that first world. Most people have problems in these levels with falling since the levels are constantly creating new pits or repeatedly getting killed by the seemingly endless procession of annoying enemies. Jumping and falling I can’t really help you with. You gots to have some sort of skills or won’t be able to pay your bills, son. But the baddies, and subsequently your powering yourself up, are all a case of patience. The trick I found is that the bad guys do stop coming you just need to stand still and kill them all. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way you rack up points and you also get a bad guy free chunk of platform jumping until the next attack is triggered. The screen isn’t scrolling up so there is absolutely no reason for you to jump upwards before you have to. The only time this strategy changes is when those fuckers come up from the bottom of the screen and start hopping all around. Then you run, you run and you don’t look back until you’ve got a safe spot to snipe them from. So there, you’re passed the third level of the first world and now all you have to do is find your way through the castle.
Which is a fucking pain in the ass and only really because of one simple reason. Eggplant wizards. I’m not sure if there has ever been an enemy more aggravating than these guys simply because they don’t just kill you, in fact I don’t think I ever died directly from an Eggplant Wizard’s hand. No, instead they just render you useless, force you to travel back through a winding maze and find the Eggplant Curse Cure room, which you fucking forgot where it was because it was an hour ago and you weren’t paying attention then and there are about fifty bad guys between you and that stupid bitch who cures you and does jack shit else (I mean really you just turned me from an eggplant into a human and you can’t give me some life!!?) and then you realize you went the wrong way and you have to go back through all that same shit again and once you get to where you think you need to be it turns out that that room doesn’t actually connect so you go down one floor and end up in a room with a bunch of monsters you can’t dodge because they’re flying around like maniacs with there stupid fucking single eyes or whatever and so your life gets drained to almost nothing but you make it through and you finally recognize where you are and you realize the cure room is right across the screen and there don’t seem to be any monsters so you breathe a sigh of relief and then start walking but you forgot about the stupid, god damn purple flying snakes, that don’t fucking fly, falling from the ceiling and just as you’re about to get cured and everything is going to be OK cause once you have your arrow you’ll go reap your revenge on those bitch ass bad guys who attacked when you were clearly turned into a shithead purple vegetable, just before you reach that door, a snake falls on your head and you die and you have to start the entire flipping castle over and while you remember the first room and a few other rooms you really have no clue where the hell you are or what your doing so it’s really just like starting over from scratch, but instead of the three or four life bars you made it in with you only have two and the life filling pond is twenty rooms away and you know you’ll just have to meet up with some Eggplant Wizards and start the whole terrible cycle over again. Sorry, I had some aggravation built up there.
The point being patience will also get you through this. The patience to play that level 50 times over until you’ve memorized the correct path and don’t mind running back and forth between the Eggplant Wizard who keeps hitting you, the Eggplant Curse Cure room and the golden pool of piss that heals your life. In fact once you have that route mastered you’re pretty much invincible in the castles because you can just keep refilling your life and the game becomes much easier. Plus, usually the Eggplant Wizards signal that you are somewhere near an important room. All of this leads you to a castle boss which I find disappointing in every case because of the ease in which I defeated them. Even the final boss didn’t stand up to the cruelty of the level design in this game.
Speaking of the final boss why does no one ever discuss the last level where Pitt busts out the old armor and wings and shield and the game suddenly becomes a shooter. A terrible, terrible shooter. I mean really. The controls are loose and sloppy, the enemies don’t make sense and the level just repeats itself over and over (possibly until you’ve scored enough points, but I wasn’t sure). It’s like the people who were in charge of the first three levels decide to call it quits before the game was over because they realized they could never top the evil of the Eggplant Wizard so instead they just handed the game to a guy who thought it would be cool if blocks fell uselessly from the sky. Why take some of the most challenging platforming you’re ever going to find and then ditch it for some half assed shooting. Maybe they figured no one was going to make it there.
So those are my main points for Kid Icarus. Basically I loved it once I got good at it but that last level. I will now join other gamers who have played through the game in cursing eggplants and their wizards and also wonder why there aren’t more games that scroll upwards constantly creating deadly traps below you. I mean really, that is an awesome game mechanic and it needs to be utilized more often.
Forum You can hear people bitch about those first levels in the Forums if you like.
Again, I’m sorry this kind of got away from me this month as I really didn’t do a good job in keeping it fresh in everyone’s mind. I got a shit ton of new work to do but everything is ironed out now so this month I’m going to keep on top of the forum post, we’re doing FNF and I will make my computer record sound if I have to kick it off a building so Failcast will also happen. Tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on work, I’ll fill you in on what this months game is…it starts with Splatter. No that’s too obvious…it ends with house.
Montgomery County Recreation Department To Host Wii Tournaments for Seniors
The Montgomery County Recreation Department will host a Wii tournament for Montgomery County seniors – age 55 and above – beginning May 1. Nintendo Wii is the new interactive video sports game that is popular with seniors because it offers stress-free exercise and a fun social atmosphere. Games include video bowling, tennis, baseball and golf.
The tournaments will take place according to the following schedule:
* Thursday, May 1, 10:30 a.m., Margaret Schweinhaut Senior Center, 1000 Forest Glen Rd., Silver Spring;
* Thursday, May 8, 10:30 a.m., Holiday Park Senior Center, 3950 Ferrara Dr., Wheaton;
* Monday, May 12, 10:30 a.m., Long Branch Senior Center, 8700 Piney Branch Rd., Silver Spring; and
* Friday, June 5, 1 p.m., Damascus Senior Center, Rtes. 109 & 27.
Seniors can get a free introduction to Wii at any of the four senior centers.
Seniors can register for one of the four tournaments at their local senior center. Winning participants will advance to the Senior Wii Championship which will be held at the end of June.
I really, really, really never thought I'd see the day that senior centers were holding events centered around a gaming console but here we are. A government sponsored senior event based on gaming. Of course it appears the press release person decided to do absolutely no research on this. I love that the Wii itself is the "interactive video sports game" not the game the Wii plays. I mean really, how fucking unprofessional is that? Every time I poke my head out of the world of people obssesed with videogames I just get depressed but how uneducated the majority of the population is on the topic.
You’ve probably all seen the concept art above from The Incredible Hulk game, heard the news that Tony Stark will be making an appearance in the new Incredible Hulk movie and also heard that the Hulkbuster armor will be making an appearance in the Iron Man game. Putting these three news items together one could easily jump the conclusion that Iron Man is going to make an appearance in the Hulk game. Well I’m here to tell you that that assumption would be completely and totally correct.
During my eyes-on (Is that a term?) time at NYCC with the 360 version of the new Incredible Hulk game, scheduled to be released on all major platforms, the friendly person at Marvel’s massive booth where the game was being demoed started talking about the other heroes and villains that were appearing in the game. I of course instantly asked about the concept art I had seen with Iron Man in his hulk buster suit. To which the gentleman replied, “Oh yea, later in the game the Hulk kind of goes on a rampage and they call in the military who is being helped by Iron Man. He is definitely in the game.” Is your appetite for destruction whetted yet?
Like I said the game was only there for us to watch and hear about. The entire day, for all three days, SEGA had the controller well manned by representatives who were perfectly fine with refusing to share the controller while they discussed the game and rampaged around New York City destroying anything and everything. In all honesty the game looks a lot like The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction but with more realistic graphics. Of course this isn’t a bad thing at all since UD is one of the best super hero games out there.
You can run around the city, climb walls, punch buildings and hurl pedestrians and cars to your heart’s content. In fact I didn’t see a single thing you couldn’t pick up and hurl or tear apart. You can even pick up a car, tear it in half and make car parts gloves for hulk to punch with. The entire city is entirely destrucutible so you can go from one end of Manhattan to the other and level it completely. Eventually the buildings come back, hopefully in a more creative way than just reappearing. Hulk also will have unlockable special moves. The only one they were showing at the con was a sort of ground smash that leveled almost everything around the big green beast. Basically, SEGA has taken the “Hulk Smash!” slogan and shoved it into a game.
Plot wise the game should take its cues from the film but also take plenty from the comic book. Actors from the film are all signed on though I didn’t get a chance to hear anyone speaking, just the shouts of the pedestrians as Hulk picked them up and threw them into walls. Thankfully you’ll never be forced to play as Bruce Banner either. SEGA realizes you’re playing to crush things with the Hulk not wander around New York in torn jeans and no shirt. There will of course be missions to complete and super villains to battle it out with though we didn’t get to see any of the latter while watching the people from SEGA play. I’m sure there will be much more coming out about the game as we get closer to it and the movie’s release but for now Iron Man showing up in his Hulkbuster armor is getting me plenty excited.
You might be asking why, with the plethora of interviews, hands on experiences and interesting panels that I got to do at New York City Comic Convention, would I choose Konami's Target: Terror to be the first game to tell you about. Well, there are two reasons. The first is that the game comes out this week so telling you about it soon is a good idea to keep the story timely. The second though is because Target:Terror, at least from my hands on time with it, is the first game I have ever played that is literally so bad it becomes good. The third is I'm guessing that Nick Chester, who is actually a 20 foot tall Transformer in person, is probably not covering it.
The game is a direct, and I'm mean direct since there is almost nothing added to it, port of the arcade shooter of the same name. You know how this works, shoot the screen, kill the bad guys, progress, shoot some more, die a whole lot and pump in more quarters. Subtract the quarters and add some Wii remotes and Wii Zappers (not included) and you've got yourself Target: Terror (the name itself is ludicrous). So what is the big deal with something that, in all honesty, should be the very epitome of what is wrong with the Wii? There is only one way to find out and that's reading more.
Maybe I ramped it up a bit too much. The game really isn't a big deal like, say, BioShock was. It's still just a shooter but, unlike any other game I've ever played, this one is pure and unadulterated camp. It's just so absolutely ridiculous that you can't help but laugh and have fun while you're playing it. The first thing you'll probably notice is that the enemies are all real people who are put into a digital background. This style of game had it's heyday long ago in 90's arcades and even back then it was cheesy so you can imagine how much more cheesy it has become now that it's also out of date. I was actually laughing out loud almost every time a bad guy popped up while Jason and I were playing through the game co-op style. The best instance being a suicide bomber who pops up in the front of the screen, opens his stereotypical trench coat in an over the top motion and shakes his dynomite laden chest at you before blowing up in your face.
Then there are the odd weapons you can pick up. Of course there's the machine gun and the shotgun but there's also a freeze ray and a flame thrower and an electric zapper. Each weapon triggers some sublimely stupid animation when it hits a person - freezing a guy grabbing his nuts was my favorite - and it's all so bad it easily becomes good again. This is all without even mentioning the random mini-games, all of which are unlockable, that pop up when you complete certain tasks like shooting 25 windows or something. The one we played involved ninjas popping out of the grass and hurling turkeys strapped with bombs at you. If they hit you the ninjas grab their belly and chortle at you. I mean, come on, who thought of this stuff?
So moving away from the fact that thanks to the game not being updated it's now one of the most unintentionally funny games ever created, the controls are exactly what you expect. The Wii remotes sensitivity is adjusted via the plus and minus buttons on the fly during the game and you just point and shoot with targets on the screen telling you where you're aiming. After each level you're ranked and given awards for your killing skills though there's no online component so your score can't be shown off. Unlike some other arcade shooters that have been ported to the Wii, reloading is done by either shooting off the screen or simply shaking the controller. Each chapter in the game, which you can play in any order, is introduced by a short clip from a news reporter telling you about the terrorists or criminals or whatever who have taken over the different locations which include the airport, the bridge and the nuclear plant.
There has also been an extra mode added in called Justice Mode where one player can dual wield two guns. We didn't get to play this on the floor so I'm not sure how it differs from just playing two players and picking up the other gun other than only having one life bar but it defintley sounds promising. After all, if there is one thing we learned from Hot Fuzz, it's that nothing is cooler than shooting two guns whilst flying through the air. Also of note for the Wii is the serious level of blood in this game. If you blow someone up with a barrel or other explosive limbs go flying and you can literally shoot someone in the head repeatedly as blood sprays out. The best part about this is once again the humor in it since the same actor animation is triggered over and over.
The real question then is if the humor and camp of the game justify the $39.99 (ouch) price tag. Obviously I can't tell you since I've only played two levels of the game so I don't know if the campiness wears off when you play all the way through it but I can tell you it's been a long while since I've actually laughed this hard at a game. Camp is such an incredibly tough thing to produce since it is by definition not intentional that just experiencing Target: Terror on the Wii is probably something everyone should do.
We all knew that people who play Grand Theft Auto games can be very dangerous as every last on of them turns into a homicidal mainiac, but did you know that the game itself is a threat to the safety and well being of people too? In fact one man feels so threatened by the game that he has filed a restraining order for the game. That man is prisoner 40948-018, a.k.a. Jonathan Lee Riches, and he feels that GTAIV and its predecessors are a direct threat to his well being.
Riches, who was put into FCI Williamsburg in South Carolina, a medium security prison that is currently home to 1,638 male inmates, for wire-fraud, claims in his filing (seen above) that "Defendants contributed to Plaintiff committing identity theft. Defendant's games show sex, drugs and violence which offends me." But this isn't the only horror the as of yet unreleased game has committed upon this troubled soul. Riches also states, "Defendants put me in prison. I face imminent danger from violent inmates who played Grand Theft Auto who will knock me out and take my gold Jesus cross." Damn you, GTA! Damn you to hell for what you have done to this man!
As if this wasn't enough for one man to endure, the Job like Riches filed a complaint against NFL quarterback Michael Vick last year for "$63,000,000,000 billion dollars," alleging Vick had ties to Al Qaeda. Sadly, he did not win. He has also unsuccessfully sued Martha Stuart, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, President George W. Bush, Steve Jobs and Britney Spears. Will the horror wrought by these foul people on poor Mr. Riches ever end? I for one hope that GTAIV is allowed no where near this man, for sake of his gold Jesus cross and all that is good in the world.
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Hi,
Names Matt Razak and I'm just a gamer with a Wii and a 360. I'm also really, really, really, ridicously good looking and a ninja...and humble. If you haven't noticed from my selfless self promoting or my Monday reviews I'm a film critic for a living at a local newspaper in Northern Virginia. I write at That VideoGame Blog but my heart will always belong to D-toid.
Right now I'm working on these games:
Contra 4
Lost Odyssey
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