Monkeh Memos

Xmen Origins: Wolverine

2009-05-04T05:59:27Z

Version Reviewed

Ah X-men; the story of discrimination and hate, with super cool powers and witty quips. Xmen Origins: Wolverine, is crazily enough focused on the origins of the ever bad-ass Wolverine. Released just in time for the movie, I went against my better judgment (as per usual) and decided to play a Game based on a Movie. Interestingly, the threads that join this to the movie of the same name are so thin that if not for the feature of Hugh Jackman, you wouldn't even know they were connected. That is to say, they are completely different stories. So really, it's not based on a movie. It's one of those alternate universe deals that the comic book world is so fond of. But anyway, on to the game!

Storyline
The game opens with you helicoptering in to the Jungle, as per the movie. That is about as far as we get into the movie storyline before the helicopter explodes and you're flung off by yourself to go kill random angry black people in the jungle (Why? Discrimination! No not really. Maybe.) Other than this, minor scenes link the game back to the movie, such as the adamantium plating and killing key characters, but all roads leading to these key events are completely different. Basically, just pretend this is a different Xmen Origins altogether and you'll feel alot better.

More blood than a backstreet surgery...
From the game's opening of wanton killing you realise; This is one hell of a bloody game. You rip off heads and arms left, right and center. On the odd occasion you shove someone's head into a helicopter blade. Even ol' Logan doesn't escape the damage, with your skin being ripped away by bullets and machetes, revealing your muscles and bones before you heal. And that image doesn't even show the half of it. I don't know how Soldier of Fortune got censored and this didn't. This is at least for the MA15+ Xbox 360 version. Who knows what they'll do for the wii version, maybe just remove the red and pretend it's all a dream?

But you know, if you accept Xmen Origins: Wolverine as a bloody killing games, then it's kind of fun. Well, if you like bloody killing games.

Gameplay
The main gameplay is that you go around killing people who try to stop you (with bullets and machetes) while on your missions or journeys. There are quite a number of combos, attack styles and means of disposing of an enemy (what can I get for you today sir, slice in half, or hung on a tree?). On top of this you have skills and abilities that you obtain through gaining experience, you can find mutagens throughout the game which you can equip to enhance certain areas (more exp, more health, better angry attack etc) and the more of a certain type of enemy you kill the more 'learn' about them so the more damage you do. All in all, this add to make the mindless killing a little more rounded. You can even collect Dog tags for more experience (though this is poorly managed) and find Wolverine figurines for costume upgrades (you ust can't go past classic Wolverine).

Graphics
The game graphics are fine, what you would expect of a game rolled out for a movie premier, but the cut scenes leave a lot to be desired. The action scenes might have well have been recorded on VHS the incorporated back, the close up Wolverine scenes look fine, then the adamantium plating scene is super HD (as it was made to be featured for the opening title) and looks completely out of place with everything else. Basically the big missmatch of quality which makes the poor graphics more obvious than the Wolverine's first movies glimpse at his fake claws (See the movie and you'll understand).

Summary
All in all, for a game supposedly based on a movie this is pretty good. You're not just stuck reliving the movie scenes and the mechanics behind the game are pretty solid and encourage you to stick with it. Or course, being a game that shares the movie name, it is a bit strange that it is it's only completely different story altogether, but at least it works.

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All up rating: 6/10 - Not bad! If you enjoyed the movie, you'll like this. Just don't expect familiarity. MA15+ version totally not for kids.

Bujingai Swordmaster - PS2

2008-03-22T20:03:16Z

Another game with an intriguing cover that told me to buy it. Mainly so that I might figure out whether the person on the cover was a guy or a girl (its a guy), but also since the game looked like something different from the norm.
And you know it wasn't bad?
This isn't to say it was good of course, but its not bad.

Now I'm going to start this review at a time before the little game credits even run. For some reason before you can do anything; Even see a menu/"press start" screen, you have to run around and kill shit. Why? When you've finished mashing buttons to figure out what to do it plays it back to you movie style. You get to feature in your own little game introduction. Its actually pretty neat, although not when you're doing it for the second time because you forgot to save. Luckily once you have a file on your memory card for the game you don't have to do it again. But still, nifty.
Aaaaaanyways.

In the beginning...
The game starts out with the guy/girl/person practicing martial arts while hurtling towards the earth comet-style. Yep, you heard me. Following this it gives us some nice little sepia-rendered flashbacks of this guy "Lau" getting pwned by his teacher yadda-yadda-yadda. To cut many a nonsensical flashback short, basically he's now some awesome magic martial-artist come back for a super fight against his ex-friend come half-demon-revenge-seeking-buddy.
Now rather than give you a beginner level to figure things out as most games do, Bujingai provides you with a series of flash-back that you can select to watch. Its nice to be able to see what it is they want you do, however the quality of the videos are pretty bad. Its what you would expect of someone using a camcorder to record their game then chuck it it. But still, they tried.

Setup
Eventually you get to the first level with a dead, empty town feel to it. Think Devil May Cry 2. The path is blocky with buildings that reach to the sky. In fact, think DMC2 for just about everything as far as this game goes; level setup, attack sequences, enemy spawning and enemy attack abilities. Really its DMC2, but chinese. As for the bad guys... for the most part look like various deli meats strapped to a big wooden pike. Oh, with some cutlery shoved in there for good measure. SRYSLY.

GamePlay
Really there isn't much skill to this game. You can get through basically all the levels by pressing the Square button repeatedly. Although for some reason they like to kick it up over 9000 for the 'super fights' against your nemesis, whereby 3 to 4 hits will wipe you out (as opposed to the meatmen who barely make a dent). This can pretty easily be avoided however by just targeting him and walking out of the way. Go figure. The only other thing you are required to do in this game (other than press 'square') is to "gather a lot of" various items. It's an odd, if not poorly-worded translation by the makers, but at least its what you do; Go collect some marble things, go collect green marble things, go collect words by smashing things with 'square'. Fo real.

Is there anything good aboot it?
Why yes in fact there is... a little.
As far as your move list goes on top of slicing and magicing things, you can also run up walls. Honestly, its fun. You can run and jump-flip up all the walls for quite a long way. Its a shame there aren't more places to go, but still it is enjoyable just running up and sideways and backwards through a whole level, skipping everything for the sake of it. And when thats not enough, you can FLY! Well, glide. Whatever. You can just and shoot through the air for a little bit. Far more amusing than rolling everywhere like in Zelda. And last but not least, in this game its sometimes just fun to hack and slash things. More often than not I would go to every corner I could find to combo-out every last meatman and collect the funny little marbles they drop (my exp comes in marble form. quiet you.)

Conclusion (yes we are now reverting to assignment-style write-em-ups)
Its not good, but it can be amusing.
If you like devil may cry, try it. If you didn't hatewithafierypassion DMC2 then try it. If you want to feel like you're a realy good gamer because you can press the same button for 3 hours, try it. Its worth buying/renting, playing it cos you're bored, then returning it the next day.

All up rating: 4/10 - not crap, not good.

_Monkeh_

Deadly Strike - PS2

2008-03-22T18:56:00Z

I decided to try this out on the principle that it had an anime-esque cover. Not the best start but hey it worked for Lunar Genesis. Anyways I think the idea behind the game is you're in some form of tournament.. where you run around in the woods and kill feudal japanese guards. I don't think it goes much beyond that but I must admit I couldn't bear to play it for very long. Your main character is a guy or girl who is either average at everything, fast or strong. Same drill as usual. I of course chose the run-of-the-mill girl (in the japanese school girl uniform). Cos i could.

During this game you seem to run through the flat image of a forest and kill guards that appear from nowhere. After this you stand in a blue circle which transports you to another flat forest where you kill more guards. Which is great if you like pressing the square button. Liek, alot. Or say only have a working square button on your controller. Although you can also turn your staff into a big gun and shoot people, but it is even slower than the guards it shoot. So much so that it feels like she is physically constructing and deconstructing this gun every time you try to shoot someone.

As far as the bad guys go there are the guards... and the red guards (which I don't think do much more, so luckily people who are red/green colour blind are at no loss). Then there are the black samurai, and the black samurai who have dart pipes and wear big paper bags on their heads. Further levels also have ninjas which do little more than run at you... just like everyone else. I will admit I did stick with the game for a good 10 minutes just so I could punish these characters for ever existing. Each level seems to consist of killing 10 or 20 feudal japanese before you go on to the next lot of culling. Following several of these levels there was a giant bear-man-boss-thing. Which took as long to kill as the past twenty guards and did little more than fall over a lot.

All up this game is great if you prefer repetitive button mashing and character sounds to anything actually enjoyable. If you like hitting things I would suggest any DOA or Tekken instead.

PROS: Music didn't suck, and if you left it on pause long enough it almost sounded like the ocean.
CONS: Everything else/

All up rating: 1/10 (filled with suck)

_Monkeh_

Hallo

2008-03-22T18:23:56Z

All opinions posted in this journal are mine.
If I knock a game you like, sorry - but it just wasn't my thing.
If you think this journal is a waste of time, awesome - don't read it ^^
All in all these are my rantings, read if you wish. Comment also, if you like.

Jya'

_Monkeh_