Coming Up!

I'll be doing a review of Mafia II and Dead Rising 2: Case 0 soon, as well as a hardware review of a monitor.

Mafia II (360, PC)

Mafia II is a wonderfully rendered and written game with top notch voice acting. For all the stellar effort that the programmers, developers and distributors put into the game, it still falls horribly short of the bar set by almost all other GTA Clones on the market and released in the last ten years.

The game takes some obvious cues and steps straight out of GTA IV as well as gameplay cues from several other games, what it lacks compared to others, is any sense or semblance of freedom. Mafia II at first seems like an open world game, but quickly exposes itself to be a completely linear experience. You cannot tailor the gameplay or story to your own preference. What makes it even worse is that any work you do towards advancing your character's home, bank and weapons are taken away multiple times in the course of the game. It does little to promote the idea of freedom.

Empire Bay, the city in which the game is set, is an absolutely stunning and beautifully rendered city. The problem with this is that the city feels as though it exists solely for the protagonist and that nothing happens without the player's consent. The stores are all identical, the police are inconsistent about chasing after you and the citizens of the town double up worse than GTA III. In the same block, you're liable to see the same woman or man four or five times.

The game also seems extremely rickety when it comes to testing. I encountered several glitches in the game that didn't break the game, but rather amused. I witnessed more than a couple of cars spawn upside down, at least one AI character repeatedly climbing stairs and jumping off the ledge over and over again and a magazine capacity of 1022 for the .38 Revolver. None of them made the game unplayable, but it did detract from the over all production values of the game.

The selection of cars and weapons is pretty pitiful compared to several other games, but still satisfactory. Often, a street would be littered with 30 of the same car. The weapons are neat, but why do I need a Thompson 1928, M1A1, M3A1, an MP40 and a Riesling for? They all do the same thing, why not just let us carry more ammo? The variation of the pistols made sense, but the variation of rifles and SMGs was rather perplexing. I did enjoy the variation, being a gun nut, but I saw no purpose. The cars all drove rather well, and given that the game starts in the winter of 1945 with 80hp RWD cars with no traction control the "speed limiter" came in quite handy. I was able to keep the cars under control in conditions that were less than ideal.

That isn't to say I didn't enjoy the game, I absolutely loved it when I could ignore all the issues with the game. But I didn't enjoy the consistency of the missions. A "chapter" of the game consists of Vito waking up, answering a phone, doing a mission, driving home. It was annoying that in order to complete the mission you had to make an insanely long drive in slow driving cars back to your apartment to go to sleep. The story is a classic "gangster" story from any GTA Clone ever made, it even has a facsimile of Roman from GTA IV. The character of Joe Barbaro is almost identical to Roman in every way, lacking only the accent.

I would recommend this game once the price goes down, but a $60 ten hour experience that you expect to be open world seems a bit much, especially considering the lack of a soundtrack, each of the three radio stations plays the same few songs OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again, it gets annoying. The collectibles are pretty neat, playboy centerfold pictures and wanted posters, but that's it. Not to mention the game takes place in 1945 and 1951, but features music from the late 50's and playboy, which wouldn't exist for several years. If you pick this up, look out for the nod to the first Mafia game. For the PC version, modders have already added a "Free Roam" feature similar to the first Mafia game, so if you're interested in that aspect, the PC version will be your console of choice for the game.

Definitely worth $20-40 bucks, but not the full $60. Although, a car full of drunk Italians singing along to Dean Martin is well worth it

Sound:6/10
Graphics:9/10
Story:8/10
Overall:6/10
Pros:Looks beautiful, interesting story, awkward semblance of morality in the game.
Cons:Restrictive world, no free roam, guns sound crappy, only 5 or 6 different cars per era.
Play if you like: Story missions in GTA and like games, being teased by the idea of free-roam, good old fashioned racism.

Big News!

So, I've set up a youtube channel dedicated to "Let's Play" videos of odd games. The first series is Eco Quest 1: The Search for Cetus and Westwood's Blade Runner will follow suit.

http://www.youtube.com/user/LetsPlayThomme

Also, I've recently submitted reviews to the website Abandonia and their subsequent E-zine Abandoned times. The submitted reviews are for Lucasart's X-wing, Gremlin Interactive's Realms of the Haunting and Iguana's Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Look for me in Issue 2!

http://www.abandonia.com/en/abandonia-times

As well, upcoming game reviews on this site will most likely include From Russia With Love on the PS2 and hopefully Deadly Premonition (how long have I been talking about this game?). I'm as well considering doing a write up of 007:Quantum of Solace on the 360, but I feel that it's little more than James Bond mixed with Call of Duty 4. (I'm not saying it's a bad game, it's honestly the best bond since Goldeneye)

So, that's what's up right now. Classes have started up for me and I'm knee deep in Hemingway and waist deep in Spanish, but I'm planning on continuing along with this blog!

Much Love!

coming up!

I'm going to start including a ranking of "sound," "graphics" and "story" in my upcoming reviews. On prior posts that I feel I need to add things to, I'll add information regarding these issues. Upcoming reviews will include this at the bottom:
Sound:x/10
Graphics:x/10
Story:x/10
Overall:x/10
Pros:x
Cons:x
Play if you like:x

Silent Hill 4: The Room (Xbox)

This is a "Legacy Review" of a game I just recently decided to play.

Silent Hill has long stood as one of my favorite series of games, but I've always written off the fourth installment, The Room, as an afterthought of the series. That being said: I've left playing it off for far too long.

Upon playing the game I was introduced to a first person perspective that played opposite of what I'm used to (when I play FPS, I play with reverse up and down axis, I'm'a freak, ok!?) and with poorly written controls. But I quickly found myself placed into something far more "Silent Hill" than the initial few minutes of the game.

It should be noted that this game was initially created as a new IP for the company, and not a continuation of the Silent Hill story. This is apparent in the extremely different gameplay and flow of the game. Upon playing the game I found the ebb and flow of this "non Silent Hill Silent Hill" was much better than any Silent Hill I'd played before (I've played ALL of them, including the GBA Play Novel) and found that this game's flow was more organic. It uses the character's (Henry Towmshend) apartment as a staging ground. It gives you a chest in which to keep excess inventory items, as well as a place to restore health (in the earlier parts of the game, everytime you return here, your health returns to full), as well as a way to keep an eye on your neighbors, watch the your world change and even futz around. When a hole opens up in his bathroom Henry ventures into it and it's magically Silent Hill-esque!

Once you venture into the "other world" the view changes from the broken first person view into a perfect "Survival Horror" style third person view and the accompanying controls. At this point: the game becomes natural. As with any SH game, you're in a subway, working your way through and finding out why the character was trapped in his own apartment. And this is where you start to find out why a character living in an apartment outside of Silent Hill has any connection to the world of Harry Mason (I know, I initially wrote Henry, but H-names confuse me!) and James Sunderland.

The first half of the game plays fantastically beautifully (if that's not the most broken description ever, let me know what is!) and the introduction of the apartment as a healing option allows you to play the game fairly casually. Examining the life and times of a serial killer connected to both the main character of the game and the Silent Hill universe. It's a fairly easy to play game compared to prior titles, as well as later titles, in the series. Compared to the health and weapon systems in Origins, 1, 2, 3, Homecoming and Shattered Memories, this game was easy and flowed, story wise, much better than all of them. It was almost magically well made!

Then the second half rolled around. And wow, did things go downhill. Upon entering "Hospital World" you find that you're magically attached to a female neighbor that you know nothing about and your character has no connection to at all (other than spying on her through a hole in your wall throughout the game). To top that off, your apartment becomes haunted and stops healing you when you visit it. Without the use of special objects, your apartment will essentially kill you when you visit it to save. You also visit all of the same worlds you've already visited.

It's not as bad as it sounds, since you can "cleanse your apartment." The change in game style not only includes a new "dangerous" save zone and potentially deadly "home world," but an escort mission for the rest of the game. It took me a lot of "trial and error" to figure out I could leave the "escorted" in certain areas of most worlds in order to avoid damaging her. The game quickly takes a different turn, and honestly, I stopped playing for a while once it changed.

This change is where it becomes suspiciously like a Silent Hill game. I hated the switch from a perfectly flowing and made game to one that hated you like all other games of the series, but upon taking the time to really delve into the game, I found it made sense and was completely playable. The change was abrupt and upsetting, but it was worth it.

Honestly, it fits well into the Silent Hill mythos, but isn't necessary, but it's also one of the more poorly made Silent Hill games made. It doesn't stand a chance compared to any of the other games, including Origins. It also doesn't add anything to the story, but if you haven't played it and you're a suvival horror or Silent Hill fan, it's well worth the 5 to 10 hours it takes to play.

Overall: 7/10
As a Silent Hill fan: 5/10
Pros: Good gameplay, awkward hauntings that will haunt you, adds to the story of Silent Hill, better camera than most earlier Survival Horror games
Cons: Gets too hard too fast, flow of the game gets messed up, seems superficial
Play if you like: Silent Hill games, fucked up FPS controls, a game that changes flow completely at the half way point.

News on the blog!

You may have noticed that I'm posting from a different name. Well, I attached my G-mail account to this blog. So, don't worry, I'm still the same horror lover. I might try some "old" reviews on here, digging up some back catalog games and throwing up a review. I'm still trying to get my hands on Deadly Premonition (360), but I'm unwilling to pay full price (even though it's only $20) for a "broken" game and it seems it's not a very "available" game when it comes to the used market.

For the time being, enjoy the FFIV review, it's keeping me up tonight.

Fatal Frame IV: The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse [Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen] (Wii)

I'm a horror game fan, through and through. And I gotta say: it takes a lot to frighten me. Sure, Exorcist gave me a run for my money, true I got freaked out by the dogs jumping through the windows in Resident Evil, it's true that Silent Hill 2 made me uncomfortable when I beat it. But nothing, and I mean absolutely no movie or game, has ever given me the shakes quite like Fatal Frame does.

I can't really say that I've noticed a ton of differences between Fatal Frame games, I've played 1 & 2 on Xbox and 3 on PS2, and now 4 on Wii. It looks no different than the Xbox versions of yore, but it definitely looks better (although not a whole lot better) than the PS2 version of 3 that we got. The version that I have is a "patched" version that was modded to have English subtitles in it, the audio and some messages in the game are still in the original Japanese, but overall, the patch was wonderful. I was led to understand that this "mod" was done in conjunction with the Project Zero team, so I felt apt in my use of this mod. The story of this game was fairly formulaic for a Fatal Frame game, but a better one for the genre of Survival Horror on the whole. I honestly don't recall the names of ANYBODY in this game, due mostly to the Japanese names, but the story is about a group of girls abducted by a serial killer. Nothing surprising ever happened in the game, but the atmosphere and ghosts freaked me the hell out while I was playing.

Another odd occurrence that they brought back (that I didn't really enjoy the first time Tecmo implemented it) is the idea of multiple playable characters. But they did implement a control scheme/camera set-up more closely related to Resident Evil 4 & 5 than previous entries on the genre. I thought that was a nice way to tighten up the overall feel of the game, while the multiple characters was a move in the wrong direction. My problem with the multiple character approach (same goes for most other games) is that I feel a terrible disconnect from the game when I'm suddenly Madoka, when just a few minutes ago I as Ruka, or whatever the fuck their names are. I'm also always put off by characters in many Japanese games. I was uncomfortable with how attractive they made near prepubescent girls look in the previous titles, but this one was a bit more acceptable. The characters showed age a bit better. Except for the man! This guy looks like he's 20, but he's supposed to be a seasoned detective. I was unaware that you could be a seasoned detective before your liver goes out! But, yeah, wow. That Japanese are weird.

The new "Wii" controls are fairly intuitive. It's a hard system to describe, but it seems that they solved the drifting camera issues that I suffer from in other games. The motion/IR controller sticked to the up/down axis when not using the Camera Obscura and it turns into a straight up FPS style control when you are in control of the Camera Obscura. But the controls were extremely well worked out and very well set-up.

This game scared the hell out of me. The Fatal Frame games have always scared the hell out of me. And this one kind of ruined my night. I sat down with a bottle of wine (Bolla 2009 Pinot Grigio) and played the last few hours of the game tonight. I had to take a couple of breaks through the night to calm down, and unfortunately I was out of cigarettes and couldn't smoke, and was too scared to go to the corner store to get some. I mean these are scary, scary games. Anyone looking for a good, scary gaming experience should look into this series.

There's really not a whole lot more to say about this game. It's on par with previous titles in the series, it's probably the best true "Survival Horror" game released for the current generation of consoles. I wouldn't say it's a better game than Resident Evil 4 or 5, but it's definitely better than Obscure 2: The Aftermath, Silent Hill: The Homecoming, Alone in the Dark and most likely Deadly Premonition. Definitely worth a play for any horror enthusiast.

Note: This game was released solely in Japan. Unfortunately Nintendo felt that we should not be allowed to play this game on their system over here. I'm'a supporter of Homebrew software, as well as unlocked systems (regarding regions, as well as disc type), but I understand why the companies do what they do. In order to get this game to work on my system, it took me about four hours of tinkering and softmodding. I'm a little afraid that Goldeneye won't work on my system when it's released due to this modding, so, I should warn you to be aware of this. Also, you have to use all sorts of weird software mods and patches to get the game into English, and then you'll still have to burn it onto a disc, even if you own the original Japanese version. So, it's a headache to get to play, but it's well worth it!

Overall: 7/10
Pros: A new Fatal Frame game, great controls, scary as fucking hell, awesome audio
Cons: A pain in the ass to get it to play on US systems, graphics that don't impress compared to current standards, only released in Japan, scary as fucking hell
Play if you like: sleeping with the lights on, survival horror games, Japanese horror movies, tinkering with your system's "nand" or whatever the hell it's called

Edit: it turns out that I got my patch for the game from the wrong source: http://www.fatalframe4.net/ gives you an instant patch with no modding or burning. That wouldn've have saved me a lot of trouble, and made me alot happier to spend the $70 on the game. As if stands, the way I did it frustrated the hell out of me and I redact some of my complaints regarding the game.