Short Game Review: March 2022

Yoshi's Crafted World:

Mellow Mode made the mandatory secret hunts a lot more bearable, it's still really good otherwise.

Shadow Warrior 3:

Shadow Warrior 3 was the most fun I had with a modern shooter since Ratchet Rift Apart. I had a blast while playing it. It's Doom Eternal with a bit of Titanfall thrown in. It's easily the best game in the reboot Shadow Warrior games.

My only big gripes is some of the glitchy platforming and a little too much story and cutscene reliance but outside of that, the game is a blast to play. It's also nice to play a game with reload cancelling since Vanquish.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island:

Yoshi's Island was pretty good, the only parts that annoyed me where the puzzle parts and enemies attacking you and Baby Mario would keep jumping out. Yoshi's Island was pretty weird in how this game is the earliest examples of a game having regen health, escort missions, AND it being a prequel as weird as that sounds.

Singularity:

Decent Half Life 2 meets Bioshock shooter. Not as good as the former, but better than the latter. The Chaingun seriously breaks the game, but it's entertaining enough for the short game that it is. It is kind of sad that this was Raven Software's last game before the became apart of the CoD machine.

Super Mario: Bowser's Fury:

I already reviewed the base game on the page without Bowser's Fury. I wanted to talk about Bowser's Fury in isolation and overall, Bowser's Fury is great. It's up there with Oddyssey as my favorite game in the series and it's better than the base game. This and the latter are the only collectathon platformers that rival the first Jak and Daxter. Bowser's Fury controls very well and I enjoyed exploring the levels. If this is the direction the Mario series is headed in, I am all for it.

Super Mario 3D World:

Enjoyable game overall but what bugged me about it was more so how easy it was to break after you use the infinite lives exploit. You die a couple of times and then use the White Catsuit to cheese the whole game, all though it did come in handy when getting stars and those auto camera moving levels. Both of them I really disliked, I always dislike it when a game makes me wait during an intense gameplay sequence. The camera can be irritating at times too but it's decent time overall.

The Medium:

Decent enough game, the puzzles and overall flow of the game kept engaged enough especially for a heavy story based title, but whenever that stalker monster pops up, the game becomes really frustrating, luckily he shows up on occasion. Worth getting on a sale.

What Video Game Adaptations Need to Work

 

What Video Game Adaptations Need to Work

This might be a weird pseudo spin off to my Batman Arkham write up because a similar point I made there is going to be the driving point of this one, if you haven't read it, I suggest you should because it will help understand what I am going to say here better.

Video game adaptations have been around for a long time in various shapes and forms. They still release from time to time and they still never really had a huge success story especially in the live action market. There have been many announced recently like God of War, Fallout, Disco Elysium and the recent Uncharted movie came out, also recently the Tekken anime, and they don't seem to be dying any time soon. But why has there never been a genuinely great live action video game movie? Animated ones have worked but not live action, and it has been discussed to hell and back on why game adaptations fail but a major reason why so many of them fail comes down to two things: innovation, market and surpassing what came before. 

I said in my Batman Arkham write up that the developers at Rocksteedy used the Batman Arkham license to stand out from other games that came before and at the time.

To use a movie example, I will be using two superhero movies that helped jump started the superhero craze in recent times: Iron Man and the Dark Knight.

First, Iron Man, what made Iron Man stand out from other superhero movies especially at the time was simple, Iron Man did things that other superheroes of yester year never did. It had a protagonist who was a genuinely terrible person become a superhero. Tony Stark was an arms dealer who profited off the death of millions but when Stark realized how horrific the weapons he made were, he decides to use his weapons for good and to help people. One aspect that made Tony Stark stand out from other superheroes was the fact because like I said, Tony was a terrible person. Compare that to Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Peter Parker where they were good people who want to use their powers to help others. Peter Parker in the Raimi movies only really did one terrible thing before becoming Spider-Man, where Tony's past deeds where much worse. Another aspect is that Tony Stark admits he is Iron Man and the public knows that where the other characters I mentioned all had secret identities. There were other superhero movies like the 00s Fantastic 4 where the public knows that they are heroes but Iron Man put it on the forefront. Many people at the release of Iron Man were surprised that you could be a superhero and not have a secret identity.

2nd example, the Dark Knight. The Dark Knight was a much more darker, gritter and grounded take on the Batman mythos, it had Batman not be the one to clean up Gotham City, it was Harvey Dent and had a Joker who didn't care much about trying to be funny or much of anything. It was, a crime drama that just so happened to feature Batman.

So what do these two examples have in common? Simple, they both provided an experience that you could not find with other superhero movies before and at the time. It provided an experience that couldn't be found elsewhere in the medium they were in.

This where video game adaptations succeed in animation.

The most obvious and well known example is the Castlevania Netflix series. That show succeeded mainly because of what it was: an adult animation show that was mainstream. Before Castlevania, the only adult animation show was Spawn the Animated Series so when Castlevania came out, it was new and fresh, and opened up a whole new market because it provided an experience that was not found in western animation especially. Castlevania opened a market that spawned shows like Seis Manos, Blood of Zeus, Trese, Liberator, Arcane, Invincible and so on. Before, seeing animations that had more mature content was reserved for Japanese animations so Castlevania broke new ground in that regard.

Speaking of Japanese animation, all though not nearly as popular, the Gungrave anime for one of many reasons why it stood out was because it was an anime about the mafia and showed themes where live action works like the Godfather movies covered but Gungrave stands out to many including myself is that it was a Japanese animation that dealt with all that. It's an experience that you have to look hard to find in anime and that is one major reason why it stands out. Shows like Cowboy Bebop and Black Lagoon dealt with this but it never had the characters Gungrave had.

So why doesn't live action game adaptations do not have a major success story? It generally comes down to one thing, most games borrow heavily from movies and a result when they get adapted even when faithful to the story, end up just being a bargain bin versions of the movies they are based on and they never surpass what inspire them either.

Silent Hill? You can watch a David Lynch movie or Jacob's Ladder.

Uncharted and Tomb Raider? Obviously Indiana Jones.

Max Payne? John Woo, the Matrix and Film Noir movies exist.

Mortal Kombat? Big Trouble in Little China and various martial arts movies.

Doom? Predator, Starship Troopers and Aliens.

Hitman? Lots of spy thrillers to choose from obvious example being James Bond.

Resident Evil? Just zombie movies by George Romero.

Assassin's Creed? The Matrix

Sonic the Hedgehog? Traditional Hero's Journey.

Warcraft? Lord of the Rings.

See where I am going with this? All of these movies are just discount dollar store versions of other movie franchises. So if a video game live action video game work is ever going to stand out, it's going to have to be an experience that can't be found elsewhere in the medium or if it is has to surpass what came before.

TV shows of the various game franchises might be a decent format to stand out but only time will tell.

 

Batman Arkham Series and its Impact on Licensed Games

 Batman Arkham Series and its Impact on Licensed Games

The Batman Arkham franchise is a rather interesting series of games. I was not really a Batman fan at all back in the early to mid 00s. I preferred Spider-Man and characters with actual superpowers since it filled my power fantasy as a kid. Whenever I did watch him in anything, it was when the Justice League animated series was on because as previously said, that show had characters with superpowers. When the cartoon series "The Batman" was on, I couldn't help but find him to be lame. At the time, I preferred to watch action shows where the characters had actual abilities. Then Dark Knight came out in 2008 and I did remember liking it if I found the part when Two Face showed up to be dragged out but it did make me slowly change my mind on Batman. Now, I finally get to the thing that made me a Batman fan at the time, Batman Arkham Asylum, I remember really wanting to get the game due to the fact that it came out at a $40 price point for a short period of time and it got "good reviews". I did get it later at the full $60 price point but the game really did change my mind that Batman can be cool.

The game was rather fascinating for its time, it had a combat system based around timed button presses that made you feel fast and cool. It had a stealth system that was about slowly taking guards out and inspiring "fear" into your enemies. The game was a massive hit and won many awards, something a licensed game let alone a superhero game could never do. A few years later, Batman Arkham City would release and while my thoughts on the game overall is more lukewarm than when I first played it, the game was proof that Asylum's success was in fact not a fluke at all. It proved that licensed games can in fact go toe to toe with the best of gaming's original franchises.

This is where things get interesting, Batman Arkham Asylum and City while you can criticize them for their simplistic melee and stealth mechanics and I will genuinely turn into the Hulk if someone mentions the whole "feeling like Batman" argument. It can't be stated how much of a standard both games set for licensed games. Licensed games before Arkham were mostly just awful, mediocre or forgettable with your occasional gems like Hulk Ultimate Destruction, Spider-Man 2 and Ultimate Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, X-Men Origins Wolverine, the Volition Punisher game, X-Men Legends, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Dredd vs. Death, Turok 1 and 2, Ghostbusters the Game and some of the Star Wars games like Jedi Outcast, Academy, Lego Star Wars, KOTOR, Battlefront 1 and 2, Matrix Path of Neo, King Kong, and the Warriors. While my examples of good games can appear to be numerous, with everyone of those games that came out, there was a terrible movie tie in game or something really forgettable. You don't need me to tell you, you can look them on Youtube and find over a dozen terrible licensed games to laugh at and mock.

The thing that separated Arkham especially Asylum from those good games I mentioned is due to three reasons, 1st being production values, 2nd being in how Arkham uses its license to stand out from other games, and 3rd being in how Asylum starts as a game.

I will talk about the 1st reason: Product Values. There is no secret and Warner Brothers proudly shoves into everyone's faces that they love to put a lot of money into their licensed games even their later games like Injustice, Middle Earth, and Mad Max all have has that feel that WB didn't make them as cheap cash grabs and that they were actually putting effort into the game adaptations that they are making. Batman Arkham Asylum was the first time they did this and they pulled no punches in providing Rocksteedy the budget they need to make Asylum the Batman epic they wanted. It's why WB never made games with their other characters like Superman and the Flash. They don't want to sink a ton of money into games they know won't be good. You can make a bad Superman game in the late 90s to mid 00s but certainly not now. Back to my initial point, the visuals look dark and gritty, but they look stylized enough that it can look like a comic book but also realistic enough that it has its own visual flare. Having the voice actors from the Animated Series from the 90s also added a nice degree of fan service while also further cementing how much money WB was putting into the game. Now compare this to other licensed games at the time, Hulk Ultimate Destruction mainly had its story told through audio with no actual cutscenes, and a lot of the other games I mentioned tend to told their stories through CGI cutscenes and the in engine cutscenes tend to lack the directing and composition that Asylum did. To put it simply, even the good licensed games before Asylum never came close to the visuals and cinematic composition that the latter had. Which one big reason why it stood out. That and Asylum not being based on a movie like many of the games I mentioned gave the Rocksteedy more freedom to do want they wanted instead of trying to stick closely to the movie with only occasional leeway.

On to the 2nd reason: How Arkham uses its license to stand out. Licensed games before Asylum for the most part tend to play it safe there were exceptions that had more unique gameplay like Hulk Ultimate Destruction, Jedi Outcast and Academy, Ghostbusters the Game and Spider-Man 2. But here is a big problem with many of them: most of the games tend to play like "knock off" versions of other already existing titles. Here are some examples, Ghost Rider was basically Devil May Cry and God of War, Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End was Ubisoft Prince of Persia, Dragon Ball Z Budokai was Tekken and Soul Calibur, Star Wars Battlefront was Battlefield, X-Men Origins Wolverine was God of War, the Transformers movie tie in game was an awkward third person shooter and brawler, X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance were typical top down action RPGs, and Volition Punisher was kind of like Max Payne. What I am trying to say that all these games to varying felt like other games that came out before. Asylum was different in that both combat and stealth were unique at the time. The "free flow" combat while gets bashed excessively now for its simplicity was a novel system. Instead of having button combos like many other games, it used a rhythm game like system of maintaining "flow" to beat your enemies like how a Kung Fu movie is choreographed like a dance. Batman is a martial artist after all so having a system that shows off his martial arts prowess in game form is an example of using the license to stand out. Asylum doesn't just stop there. The stealth was a huge deviation from third person stealth games like Metal Gear Solid, Tenchu and Splinter Cell. Asylum gave you a heightened sense of awareness through the "Detective Vision" it gave the player a level of empowerment that the former never provided, stealth gameplay was about feeling venerable against overwhelming odds but Asylum put a twist on the formula by having the stealth be more about guerrilla warfare and inspiring, "fear" into your enemies rather than avoidance with the occasional knock out. Asylum with the Detective Vision and enemies slowly being "scared" of you also made it different from predator stealth like Tenchu. It's in line with how Batman depending on the comic would handle situations regarding enemies with guns and it's used to make the game stand out from what was on the market.

The 3rd and final reason. This might be the most important reason depending on your point of view. To me, a game has to have a good beginning or something engaging to make want to see the game all the way through to the end. Gaming isn't like say a TV show, where I am expecting it to slowly get better since I am not actively engaging with the latter. A game has to capture my attention right away or I tune out. This is where Asylum succeeds where other licensed games even those I like, fail. Asylum uses the original Half Life's opening tram ride sequence as an on the nose inspiration to ease the player into the world. It uses mystery and intrigue to capture the player's attention and the Valve inspirations don't stop there. Asylum like Half Life 2, slowly eases the player using into the various mechanics throughout the game. Asylum has simple melee combat encounters, simple traversal puzzles and simple stealth encounters all early into the game and slow ramps up the difficulty after each section, the player slowly starts to understand all the underlying mechanics of the game. It might be annoying for some people who like to replay games constantly but as a starting point for a new game series, Asylum's opening works very well for what it tries to do. I am now going to compare this to a game I really like but I can't deny that the way it opens isn't nearly as effective as Batman Arkham Asylum. That is Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Outcast. This opening has a number of problems, first it's a typical first person shooter where the guns are projectiles that take awhile to hit their target, then there is the level design that can annoy many who aren't used to 90s and early 00s game design and even then has some rather obtuse parts, even if you get past all of this, these sections tend to last way longer than they should and for a game that sells itself on its lightsaber combat, taking this long to get the weapon will irritate many. These early sections does do a decent enough job at empowering the player when the lightsaber is finally awarded but it's quite a road to get there. When you get the saber after an okay tutorial on the weapon, the player is already thrown into the heat of things and probably aren't used to combat yet. I do love Jedi Outcast but there is a reason why Arkham Asylum set such a high bar for video game adaptations.

Overall, I made this write up because while I am not a big Batman fan or as big of a fan of the Arkham games as I used to be, Asylum and City did help mostly destroy the cash grab licensed tie in game and I want to give the games the massive credit where credit is due.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Review

I can safely say that Zelda before BOTW I never ever got the hype for. The games just bore the crap out of me. They have exploration and combat in which neither are that compelling. 

Exploration just boils down to looking around in the overworld and banging your head against a wall to know where you are going and Dungeons while more interesting just revolve doing a bunch of mini puzzles and then get an item and do more mini puzzles then boss.

I can see why I prefer stuff like Darksiders mainly because they had better combat and they also had more involving traversal due to them having actual platforming. I can see why I prefer Metroid, in those games the exploration and world design is more compelling than just Overworld, then Dungeon, Overworld then Dungeon rinse repeat. People bash Prince of Persia Warrior Within for being confusing when this game is even more so. 

I will give this game credit in that the Peagsus Boots makes the world faster to traverse, the world being smaller, and combat having a quicker pace does make it more tolerabe than most of the 3D games but at the same time, it still has everything as to why I was lukewarm on the Zelda series to begin with. This series gets away with too much because it was "the first" in gaming. 

A lot of the games in the series just has that whole, "doing this in a specific way" kind of design I dislike so much and it doesn't help that combat carries it very little. As much as I bash BOTW, at least that game made the mini puzzles and exploration interconnected. BOTW doesn't have a boring overworld because the whole point of that game is to explore the overworld. 

This review was mostly a rant on Zelda as a franchise but playing this game reminded me why I never liked it that much.