Saturday, January 31, 2009

Comix Zone

Comix Zone is a late-generation Sega Genesis game that's got plenty of style to spare. Yet it is perhaps more known for its infamous difficulty than its spot-on comic book presentation. It features comic book artist Sketch Turner falling into his own work, forcing him to fight his way through the villain's plot. So, just how fun was it? Well...

What I liked...
-Amazing comic book graphics.
Comix Zone has a style that I've never seen in any other game. Some games attempt to recreate comic book illustrations with cel shading, but Comix Zone accomplishes it not only with comic-style sprites, but also actual panels that our hero Sketch Turner must swing between as if they were 3D walls. Enemies fall apart into shreds of paper. Text, bubbles, onomatopoeia (POW, etc.), and the like all look straight out of a comic book.

-What's alright...

-Simple fighting mechanics. The developers accomplished a lot with just one button for attacking. There are a lot of ways to punch and kick by using the control pad and jump button in conjunction with the attack button. Unfortunately, the fighting is still not particuarly deep, despite all the animation that goes along with it. Enemies block a lot, but I never felt like I learned anything about breaking their blocks, other than getting into a lucky groove.
-Unforgiving continue system. I'm all for a game being brutal and sending you back to the beginning of the game, but I can't help but wonder if Comix Zone goes too far. The game is very short (6 comic book "pages," two pages per level), so it's only right that a game over sends you back to the beginning. On the first level, you have no extra lives. On the second level, you get one more chance. After beating the second level, you have one more life added. In other words, you have only two chances to
die before it's all over. I love the challenge, but the method borders on unfair.

What I didn't like so much...
-Control failure and other quirks.
Mostly, the game controls well, but certain actions are awkward. Rolling, for example, requires you to crouch and then hit diagonally downward. It sort of works, but not always. Grabbing levers was often difficult for no apparant reason, and sometimes as I pushed a box to destroy a trap, Sketch would continue moving straight into the trap even after I stopped pushing the control pad. In one particular place in level 2, sometimes enemies would cause me to lose my grip on a rope and fall to my death, but other times they would not... and I couldn't figure out why. And on level 2, that means if it happens twice in a row, then it's back to the start. Jumping controls aren't well suited to dodging projectile attacks, but it works with practice.


I gave Comix Zone 2/4 stars on my Backloggery for "decent." It's not a bad brawler, and I'm pretty sure brawler die-hards would get a big kick out of it. It's short, but very challenging. It's not perfect, but it's a decent game with an amazing visual style that must be seen to be believed. Check it out if you're into brawlers and can weather the unforgiving lack of extra lives.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Resident Evil: Degeneration

Though not a game, I wanted to write up a few thoughts after watching Resident Evil: Degeneration. If you don't know, Degeneration is a full-length CG animated movie produced internally at Capcom, featuring Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. This is finally a Resident Evil movie that can be taken into canon. Apparently taking place not too long after RE4, it also serves to bridge the Raccoon City games with the newer games by giving a broad view of the workings of the worldwide bio terror situation and the people and organizations that may or may not carry on the Umbrella legacy. In particular, I know from viewing an RE5 trailer that at least one company in Degeneration is relevant to the upcoming game. There's a lot of material in Degeneration that Capcom could draw upon for future games.

I went into Degeneration with very low expectations and came away pleasantly surprised. No, it's not a top-notch story... and the models and animations aren't up to Pixar or Square-Enix standards. But the best thing that I can say about Degeneration is that Capcom didn't bite off more than they could chew. They made a movie that was not more ambitious than their abilities, and as such, none of the quirks seem out of place in that context. By which I mean, the quality of the animation, the story, and the acting is more or less on the same level, so it was very consistent overall, with no particular moment seeming particuarly poorly animated or acted within the context of this movie. It's a far cry from high art, but it should be inoffensive to Resident Evil fans.

The biggest complaint I have about the story is that there are some connections that are just too coincidental without a good explanation. For example, Leon and Claire both have a good reason to be at the airport where the first half of the movie takes place, but it's still a bit much of a coincidence for them to meet up unplanned. There's another coincidence concerning two new characters that I found a bit hard to swallow. The story can also be a bit much to take in, with lots of people, companies, organizations, with convoluted connections and double-crossing. The best thing about this is that it helps set up the game series for a future without Umbrella, but in the context of a hour-and-a-half movie, it's easy to miss some details. There aren't any notable scares, but the story does its job for expanding the foundation of the Resident Evil universe and providing some context for zombie shooting and lab explosions.

Degeneration's visuals aren't of the quality that you would see in a theatrically-released movie, but they are commendable for a straight-to-DVD/BluRay release. The technical quality is flawed, but consistent. My biggest gripe is that the lip syncing is completely off. I assumed this was because it was dubbed from Japanese, but after watching the special features, I found that there was only English voice acting from the beginning. Capcom actually used motion capture to get the animation for facial expressions, which was a fine idea in theory, but no effort was made to match the voice actors' performances with the motion capture data. I find this to be disapointing because when I watch RE5 trailers, I see that Capcom had no trouble syncing up mouth movements for the game.

Some fans may be sad to see that the second half of the movie has almost no zombies, but there's plenty of boss monster action to suffice. Since I went in with such low expectations, I'm not sure that I knew what I was looking for. If anything, I was hoping for some more classic "so bad they're good" lines from Leon, but I didn't really get that.

I would definitely recommend that fans of Resident Evil see Degeneration to get a better view of how the world of Resident Evil works without Umbrella. It may make you roll your eyes once or twice, but it's a commendable effort from Capcom and I would very much like to see some more projects like this, so long as they save the best scenarios for the games themselves.

Friday, January 2, 2009

We Love Golf!

Developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Capcom, We Love Golf is a cartoony golf game for the Wii that should look familiar to fans of Hot Shots Golf, Super Swing Golf, and Mario Golf. Camelot is, in fact, the company responsible for the original Hot Shots Golf on Playstation, as well as the Mario Golf and Tennis series, not to mention Golden Sun and Shining Force. Did they draw on their past experience to produce a ground-breaking golf game for the Wii, or is it (painful pun incoming) par for the course?

What I liked...
-Excellent online gameplay.
One of the main selling points to me was the online element. For whatever reason, I'm not interested in golf games with realistic graphics, and this is the only cartoonish golf game on Wii with an online component... and it does its job quite well! Unlike Nintendo's online efforts, there is no "connecting to Nintendo WFC" phase in the process. The online selection is available on the main menu, and you set up a room seamlessly. Actual online play performs very well, but with the game simply being golf, what else would you expect? Of course, there are friend codes. And there is no way to chat, unfortunately, so keep Skype or instant messaging on hand. For online on a Nintendo console, however, this is good stuff.
-Unlockable Capcom costumes. Every character in the game (and there are quite a few) have alternate costumes that allow them to dress up as familiar Capcom characters. These include cameos from Resident Evil, Ace Attorney, Street Fighter, Zack & Wiki, and more. These characters are so much fun to play as, I doubt I'll ever play as the admittedly generic cast in their regular costumes.

What's alright...
-Controls.
At first, the camera controls threw me off, but they are actually quite intuitive. Pointing the Wiimote horizontally draws the camera to a shot of the area where the ball will land, pointing to the ceiling gives an overhead view, and pointing downward prepares your shot. You can also adjust how closely zoomed in you are, and the angle. Actual swing controls are on the iffy side. After pointing the Wiimote downward, you hold the A button and pull back, just like a real golf club. This sets the power, but you must set it quickly, because once you've started this process, it must be executed in a second or two. Sometimes it can be very difficult to place the power in just the right spot, but most of the time I found that I did fairly well. Then, a swish of the Wiimote will finalize the shot once the meter reaches the sweet spot. This can be performed with a "real" golf swing or any way you wish to do it, really. Unlike other Wii golf games, the actual angle and accuracy of your swing is irrelevant. This makes the gameplay a little less deep, but also a bit less suceptible to Wiimote confusion.
-Shot trajectory display. We Love Golf has no happy medium between spelling out almost exactly how the ball will roll and giving you no information at all. With beginner rules, you are shown where the ball will land and how it will roll, minus the effects of wind and of course your own inaccuracies while swinging. This is much more detail than other golf games I've played. On the other hand, master rules essentially tell you nothing, not even showing a grid where the ball may land. I feel like beginner rules make the game too easy and that master rules make it unfair.
-Course design. We Love Golf has fine courses, but they aren't very bold. I miss some of the really crazy stuff that I've seen in Mario Golf and Super Swing Golf, but "normal" courses are always fine too. Of course, golfing in jungles and desert ruins is still pretty crazy by Tiger Woods standards, I'm sure.

What I didn't like so much...
-Too easy.
There are unlockable versions of tournaments and CPU players that are more challenging, but having played all normal tournaments and most CPU characters, my opponents simply can't stack up, considering I end up with birdies on most holes. This is disapointing, but online play was the main appeal for me.
-You'll never find anyone online. If I want to play with a friend, we can choose to play a friends match or a worldwide match... it doesn't matter, it's not like anyone else will be searching.

I gave We Love Golf 2/4 stars for "decent" on my Backloggery. I've certainly played better-made golf games, and unfortunately this one is just not quite up to Camelot's own standards. The swinging mechanics work most of the time, but aren't particuarly praise-worthy. An excessively detailed shot trajectory makes the game too easy, or almost no information makes it less fun. Aside from the appeal of the Capcom costumes, the game is visually too generic for its own good, losing the appeal of Mario Golf and even the Hot Shots and Super Swing franchaises, which offer similar designs. On the other hand, if you know someone else with the game, or agree to buy it together, I think Wii owners will have a good time with We Love Golf online. I got it for $10 and it is certainly worth at least that much. It's worth a look for fans of cartoony golf games, Capcom, or Camelot's earlier work, but don't expect anything to be top-notch.