All posts in Video Games

Thus far, the showing at E3 has been utterly dominated by Nintendo. At this point, I do not really have any interest in any Xbox games until Halo 3 comes out. Worse for Sony, they have nothing that interests me at all. Now, Nintendo on the other hand is bringing the house. They have several strong series coming out for the Wii and DS this year. It has been a long time in coming, and something they did not do well with the GameCube. I for one, am excited. If I can actually get anyone to pay me for one of my web jobs, I will be getting a DS Lite later this summer. And, if everything does well, I will be getting a Wii this fall.

At the moment, I eagerly await the following games for the next gen systems:

Xbox 360

1. Halo 3
2. Gears of War (only after I get Halo 3)

Playstation 3

1. Nothing

Wii

1. Zelda: Twilight Princess
2. Mario Galaxy
3. Metriod Prime 3
4. Super Smash Brothers Blitz
5. I’m sure there are more…

DS

1. Zelda: Whatever its Name is
2. Mario (already out)
3. Metriod Hunters (already out)
4. Kid Icarus (maybe?)
5. Countless others…

The very status of my favorite Zelda game is called into question.

As everyone should know, since they read my previous post about this, I am going through and beating all the Zelda games that I have not before. However, I also decided to put A Link to the Past in the series as well, since it was my favorite game. Somethings just do not hold up that well over time.

I estimate that this was roughly the twentieth time that I have defeated the game. However, I have not played it in around eight years either. So, I expected to be mighty rusty, as I was playing Zelda 2. Fortunately, that was not the case at all. It seems as though this game has been permanently burned into the back of my skull. As I would play, so long as I was not thinking about what I had to do, I would automatically do it without thinking. At points this seemed kind of weird, because I would blow through a maze, and then suddenly start thinking about it again and not be able to find my way out.

There are several aspects of this game that make it dramatically superior to its predecessors. The first and foremost is that it gives you some kind of idea what exactly you are supposed to do. Heck, the map even had blinking icons where you were supposed to wonder to. This is just the complete opposite of Zelda 2 where they intentionally hid what you had to do so it all worked out randomly. And, the graphics were obviously improved. There are lots of other control issues, and other little things that are quite a bit better. However, not everything is as great as it used to be.

Having played through many of the later games, including one of the gameboy ones, and Wind Waker (and limited exposure to the horrible N64 titles), there were something things that link could not do that I thought he should be able to. Perhaps the most annoying was the fact that you had to pick up pots and throw them to break them, you cannot just hit them with your sword like in later games. Also, there are other issues, like the facts that with the shovel you can only dig to your right or left. I don’t know what that is all about, but as far as I can tell it should be able to work in eight directions (it is my understanding that it does work in four on the GBA version). Also, I hate to say this, but it might be TOO easy. I remember that it was never extremely hard (thought there are some difficult parts), but this time, well it was effortless.

As I watched the ending credits of the game scroll by, I looked to see how many times I had died in various areas. I remember my normal average was about once per area. This time, all that scrolled by were 0′s. That was pretty surprising. I was going to take a screenshot of the final screen that said “Total Games Played 000″ but, I forgot I cannot take screenshots on my SNES. So, you just get the title screen, screenshot.

Now, I just need to some how work up the endurance to play the awful N64 versions. Maybe I will read a few books first.

In honor of the impending release of Zelda: Twilight Princess (hopefully sometime in the not to distant future) I have decided to go back and play the Zelda games that I have skipped over in the past, and to replay my favorite: A Link to the Past. So, my journey began here.
I can honestly say that I have never before beaten Zelda 2. And, having completed it yesterday, I cannot honestly say that it was a Zelda game in any where other than in title. Zelda 2 plays completely unlike any other Zelda game. It has a heavy feeling of being developed as a completely different title, and then being switched to Zelda at the very last moment. This is not completely unlike the release of Super Mario Bros. 2 that was originally a different game and then re-branded as SMB. However, at least SMB was originally a sidescroller, and although the game did feature some different play mechanisms, it still kind of felt like a SMB game. I don’t think this was the case for Zelda 2.

For those of you that do not already know, almost all the Zelda games are done from a 3/4 overhead view. Granted, in the 3D version you can move the camera more, but it still retains the same feeling. Zelda 2 is completely different. There are essentially two game modes. One is an overhead world view, where you walk around and fight random battles (this is not in any other games), and the other is a 2D side scroll that takes place inside random battles, cities, dungeons, etc… Everything in the game feel completely different and wrong. Granted, some of the enemies look better than they did in the original, but at what cost?

Another problem I had with the game was the aimlessness it employed. I know if the first one, you did not really get much of any kind of direction, but you could always wonder around and figure stuff out. In Zelda 2, I am not sure how you are expected to do half the stuff you have to do. There are several parts in the game where you are left to wonder and have to find the right spot to hit “A” to reveal an area. Seriously, how are you supposed to know that?

In retrospect, the only good thing that I can think of to describe about the game is the way Link handles. He can jump. Jumping is so important. It is the one feature I miss the most in the other games. That is why I was so glad when they added it in a very limited way with the Rok’s feather in later games. Hell, in the new 3D ones you still cannot, but thats to ActionReplay you can . But I digress, in Zelda 2, since it is a side scroller they added in the lame “you have to jump over the hole or die” mechanism featured in all side scrollers. I have always hated that. I guess that it one of the benefits of the other games, is that when/if you fall down a hole you don’t die. But, there are two other features that are pretty sweet that you don’t see for a while. up thrust and down thrust. Up thrust is never really featured in another game, and does not really serve much of a purpose in this game so that does not really surprise me. However, down thrust is kind of featured in the later 3D game, though it is a slightly different mechanism. Down thrust is one of the coolest things in Zelda 2, and also the most under utilized. Sure, you can use it, but once you get it pretty much all your enemies are immune to it, so what is the point?
All things considered I would not recommend this game to Zelda fans. I suppose that if you are a huge fan of NES style side scrollers you would enjoy the game. But, you just have to remember it is not a true Zelda game, and it makes the game at least a little bit better. Actually, the game reminded me a lot of another NES game called, Faxanadu, so if you imagine it is that game, you might like it better too.

So, without further ado, I guess I should start playing, A Link to the Past.

Buy Black at Amazon ($39.99 or less)

Do not be fooled, Black is all about the cover.

From the trailers you see floating around on the internet, to the ads and TV spots, everything seems to emphasize rushing, and full on action. However, the chances are that if you actually try to do that in this game you are going to die, quickly.

If you actually play the game “intelligently” there is actually very little action in it, because you can usually pick off the enemies from medium to far range, because they will not shoot you unless you are relatively close, or miss a head shot. However, having said that, there are some places in the game where they force you into the thick of things, because a door closes behind your, or whatever. In these areas that key in finding the side rooms, and using cover wisely.

Unfortunately, this game is very short. It only contains a handful of stages, and is easily beatable within eight hours. Do not be fooled by the progress statistic, it will only be at 30% when you beat the game the first time (assuming all you did is play through). The short length of the game is compounded by the fact there is no multiplayer.

Replayability is a major problem for this title. It only offers a single player mode. No co-op, no death matches, no nothing. The game really could have benefited from a co-op mode. In fact, there is even a definite difference in the stages where you have AI allies. It just makes the game feel more interesting.

The graphics are decent, but nothing special. It is pretty obvious that this game was a direct port of the PS2 version so it does not take full advantage of the Xbox hardware. This is exacerbated by the slow downs that occur occasionally during intense combat.

The sound is fantastic. If there is one area that they get it right, it is here. Everything ranging from sound effects to licensed music seems to be spot on. Granted not everything necessarily sounds realistic, it all sounds good. My only real complaint is that some of the “intense” music intended for shootouts is triggered by walking into an area rather than engaging the enemies from the area. So, I frequently found myself triggering the music after I had picked everyone off from a safe distance.

The gameplay also leaves something to be desired. Since the game only has a single player campaign, I would have assumed that it would be well polished. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The biggest problem the game has, is that you cannot adjust your free look speed. It would be one thing if it was fast and you had to practice to keep up, but it is slow, dog slow. Seriously, you are going to get yourself killed slow. I contribute this to lazy coding. The developers claim that since each weapon requires a different look speed (pistols are faster than RPGs) that it should not be modifiable. Also, the movement speed is too slow. It feels even slower when you are dashing for the much needed cover.

I may not be a gun expert, I would suspect that it does not take an AK a full clip of ammunition to kill someone. This is on aspect of the game that I never really accepted. Functionally, it is kind of like playing Halo, where you have to first fill the enemies with ammo until their shield breaks and then deal the kill shots. Except…these guys don’t have shields. After getting utterly fed up with this style of play, I resorted to sniping for head shots. I guess that is why the cover of the game is just a huge pile of bullets. I figure that it will probably take at least that many to take down the lowliest guard.

Ultimately, the game is decent, and the price point of $40 is not horrible. However, the lack of replayable is a big problem. I would say that is you really want to play the game, pick it up, else wait until the price drop to $30, or $20. It would be a strong buy at $20.