I have to start this reviewing by being annoyingly British by saying; It's spelt with a U! D-I-S-H-O-N-O-U-R-E-D. I understand that it's an American game with the American spelling, but is it so hard to change the box art for British release?
Now that's out of the way I can actually talk about the game. The game that has been getting 9/10 reviews everywhere, the game that won tons of awards at E3 and the game that I... Was hugely disappointed by.
Dishonoured, as I will refer to it, is set in a sort of Steam Punk style Victorian Britain-ish empire of no particular name other than "The Empire" Confined to one particular city due to a plague outbreak in that city. You play Corvo, the Lord Protector of the Empress and her daughter. At the beginning of the game you arrive back in the city after two months away, requesting help from other cities on dealing with this plague to no avail. You meet the Empress' daughter Emily as you enter the city, she treats some what like a young girl might treat an older brother, and you are even given the chance to play hide and seek with her, partly to practice stealth and cover use and partly, I assume, to show the emotional bond between Emily and Corvo. After this you report to the Empress, during this exchange a group of assassins over power you, kill the Empress and kidnap her daughter, you are immediately blamed and arrested, the game then leads to finding out who the assassins are, finding Emily, clearing your name and freeing the city.
IGN called it "A breath of fresh air." which it is, in many ways, and I love what Bethesda and Arkane are trying in this game, so many new and old things mixed and matched in a game unlike most on the shelves today. I loved using the Blink ability to silently jump from place to place, allowing me to use perches normally unreachable, such as the top of a lamp post. In particular I recall clearing half of a mission without killing or being spotted, purely with the use of Blink, which even though this is obviously it's intended use, in a game full of so many choices, it still leaves you feeling proud of what you've done. I enjoyed the choice of killing or non lethal take downs too, this leaves the player feeling like they really do control the fate of the city, not just on a general scale, but a person to person scale.
Graphically, this game is beautiful, I think the only other games who's scenery I've looked at with such awe are the latest expansion for WoW and Skyrim. The style is unique, slightly cartoony but not over the top. Everything is crisp and realistic. The Steam Punk shows through largely in the clothing, over sized top hats, an array of waistcoats and Victorian style dresses among a very industrial environment works well. What I didn't find to be as beautiful as I do in other games was the story, I am a gamer who is very interested in story. I even made up my own back stories for my various MMO characters, story is a driving force behind my gaming. The story in this, well, it's intriguing but it's also weak, it doesn't keep secrets well, I was able to predict most of the story within the first 30 minutes of playing and it was so predictable I felt no drive to even watch my predictions unfold. Despite the hide and seek sequence I felt no connection with Emily and no drive to rescue her. It's even said in the story that she's to young to take her mother's place and stop the tyrannical new rulers.
My other major complaint, and what let the game down for me, was the combat. Stealth games and I have a love hate relationship, in that I love them, but can't play them for sod all. I rarely finish them and have never got the hang of them. Dishonoured sold itself largely on the basis of "Hey! If you fail at stealth you can still fight your way through!" Which I liked the idea of, a lot. I did try to play through killing as little as possible and staying in stealth as much as possible, however as I say this is not my niche, and I was spotted quite often and had to defend myself. Combat is equal to stealth for all of the first two missions, beyond that I found the enemies grew stronger much quicker than I did leaving me defenceless. My second big reason for buying this game was CHOICES! I love games that let you choose the route to go, or how to do something. What I didn't realise is that if you choose anything but perfect stealth, you will be punished, not much of a choice huh? The more people you kill, be it intentional or in unexpected self defence, the more weepers and rats will appear. What does this mean? Weepers are people infected with the plague on the verge of dying, they wander around weeping rather loudly, louder still if they see you, and attract a lot of attention. Rats, in large packs, will attack you, and can actually be a pain to kill due to their size, again, enemies will see and hear them, leaving you more likely to be spotted.
For these reason I could only give Dishonoured a 4 out of 10. I bought it honestly thinking it would end up one of my all time favourites, only to find out it punishes you for not being good at it straight away. Why would I want to play a game that won't give me the chance to get better at it?
P.S. The autosave sucks too.
~Rusty Mongrel.
Saturday 20 October 2012
Monday 9 July 2012
Homefront!
So last night I picked up a few games from the local Blockbuster, one of these was Homefront.
Homefront is a game I saw the trailers for before it's release, but never really saw any reason to buy it. I only picked it up because it was part of a 4 for £20 offer. Buy boy am I glad I bought this game...
WARNING: This game does contain distressing events and scenes, while I will try not to go into detail on them they will be mentioned from the very outset of this article. Do not read if you're easily upset/distressed.
Set in (If I remember correctly) 2026, you play an American military pilot, living in Korean occupied America. Kim Jong Il has died and Kim Jong Un has taken his place as North Korean leader (Slightly worrying, as since the game's release this has actually happened). Un has set out on global domination, probably saw his father's depiction in Team America and got pissed off or something, and America was one of his first targets after taking Japan and South Korea, among other less powerful countries. You are rudely awoken and literally kicked out of your house to be bundled into a bus, on your way for something referred to as "Repatriation". On the journey you see many atrocities, such as men being hooded and shot, a couple being shot on a street corner while their young child watches and other such events, it's clear from the off this game is not for the easily distressed. You learn from another prisoner on the bus that you are all in fact pilots, you've been picked especially. Before you have time to think this over there's a massive crashing noise and your bus flips over, killing the pilot prisoner who'd been talking to you, a man enters and kills the Korean soldiers while they're still disorientated, you grab a gun and follow him.
This man, you later learn is Connor, he's part of the resistance, a group of people fighting for the freedom of America against Korean occupation. Connor's somewhat of a loose cannon, something you see later in the story as you witness mass burials of American citizens, which he reacts to by picking a fight with around 20 - 30 Korean soldiers and 2 automated sentry turrets, leaving you and Hopper, the techy guy, to sneak around and take out the soldiers and turrets before Connor gets himself killed. Other key characters are Boone, the resistance leader, an ex state policeman, with a calculative mind and way with other people, whether they support him or not (Many people you come across are happy living in the terrible conditions the Koreans allow them, for fear of the backlash that may be brought by fighting them), and finally Rianna, the caring one of the group.
Without going too much into what happens in each mission and the story as a whole (as I highly suggest you buy and play this game for yourself, it really is worth it), I should say that this is possibly the first time I've played a game with an American soldier protagonist who I actually sympathise with, and it's so refreshing! In other big franchises, Call of Duty and Battlefield being the two most obvious, the American protagonists are almost always the stereotypical, movie style, American marine hero, never showing any emotions until their best friend dies and then finishing the mission in the name of revenge for their friend. They're often unbearable characters who are represented as the 'every-man-soldier' and yet at the same time are some sort of super soldier who can take any sort of physical punishment and emotional torment without shedding a drop of sweat. Being the son of an ex British soldier, and friend to many an American airman and a few soldiers/marines (I live near quite a few US air bases) I know this is not how they are. They are normal guys, like you and I, the only difference being that they're job is to kill terrorists in foreign countries and generally protect our freedoms. This is how our character, and his team mates, are represented! They're every day guys trying to help their country! I normally end up playing through the campaign to save the world or whatever the objective is without caring when a character dies, but when one of these guys died (I won't say who) I genuinely felt sympathy, it was like losing an acquaintance, not a friend of course, but almost like losing someone I'd actually known, the characters are that well done that you actually end up caring about them and their cause.
A character I must mention, who's so special that he gets his own paragraph, is Goliath. Goliath is a piece of Korean technology captured by the resistance, he plays a vital role in one of the major operations carried out by the resistance. He is a remote controlled vehicle, driven by Hopper, with 6 wheels, each with their separate suspension systems, making him very manuverable, and a mounted guided missile launcher which you get to control. He is your only defence against the many Humvees and tanks the Koreans send your way and withstands a lot of punishment. I got very attached to Goliath while playing, partly due to his suspension systems giving him quite goofy, yet fast and precise movement, but also due to his total obedience reminding me of a dog, specifically my own dog. I was actually quite sad to see him go when he does, especially the way in which he goes.
The graphics of this game are astounding, for a so far stand alone title. Usually a stand alone title will have worse graphics than that of the big franchise titles, however this has obviously been made with the aim of creating a unique game, rather than making the most profit, something not seen so often now. The environments are incredible, well designed and well constructed, not the samey, generic environments displayed in previously mentioned big name titles. Despite them being designed in such a way that you can only go the way your are supposed to, it still feels like you can explore, simply because there's so much detail and variety, you could easily spend a few minutes after each fight just examining the area around you.
One last major feature worth noting (this does contain some spoilers from later in the game, but doesn't give away the ending) is that when you enter a survivors camp, ignored by Koreans, they turn on you because Hopper is Asian. While sneaking your way through the camp you come across many cases of American survivors torturing captured Korean soldiers and in some cases Asian American citizens who've gone to them for help. They are slowly going insane and taking their now racist hatred out on anyone Asian, putting them through torture equal to what the Korean occupiers are putting American citizens through. This game makes no attempt to pretend Americans are morally superior, it shows you with no pretence that anyone can do anything given the excuse and opportunity. One such shocking scene, when sneaking through a stream and under a bridge in this camp, you see a some boards from the bridge fall down and an Asian man, clearly not wearing a Korean uniform, drop through the newly formed hole, eyes wide, until the noose stops his drop and he swings. This of course comes after seeing a group of American survivors shoot a Korean after he digs his own grave. Such distressing scenes show this game has no intention of glorifying war, or making Americans, as I said earlier, appear morally superior. It shows war as war, and humans as humans.
I'd give this game a 9/10. It's very different from most, challenging, fun, shocking. My only problems would be the campaign is too short (I rarely buy games for the multiplayer, unless it's a purely multiplayer based game of course) and the automated sentries with the spotlights got a little boring the third time around, well, not so much boring as straight up annoying. Otherwise a great game, a real bargain bin gem that I highly suggest you pick up and play when you have the chance.
I was originally going to do a 4 part "Bargain Bin Review", however that went by the by as I'm finding the other three games hard to get along with. I shall explain why for each here, though please do not take these as my long term opinions of them, they're more first impressions.
Fallout: New Vegas - This is the first Fallout game I've actually played. There are two reasons I'm not getting along with it, one is that I think the disc may be damaged (it is pre owned, after all) and as such I'm getting a rather laggy effect when I move, it stutters a bit, which after 20 minutes or so gets really irritating. The second is I'm finding the idea of guns in open world RPGs really hard to get used to. I play Skyrim a lot, and love open world RPGs in general, but what I think of is a more Skyrim style combat and setting, swords, spells, bows and arrows. Guns feel weird in this type of game, but that's purely personal preference. That said of course, I enjoy GTA thoroughly and loved Fable 2, which both heavily feature guns, so maybe it simply is just this game. In the future I shall look out for Fallout 3, as I'm told that's better anyway.
Medal of Honor - Firstly, it's spelt Honour, EA. There's a U there. That bugged me from the off, but I guess that's what comes of being British. Secondly, while the story seems interesting enough, it's another FPS set in the middle east. Chasing the Taliban. Originality (as mentioned in the above full review) is nice, EA, but then I guess it doesn't sell so well. I've played 2 or 3 missions and couldn't drag myself any further, the controls are loose, that's the only way I can describe them. A flick of the control stick that a minute ago barely made me move will suddenly make my character run half a mile, it's very unpredictable. Dice, the developers, have obviously decided to try out a cover system, if you hit B while running towards cover your character will slide behind it. Well, that's what happens in theory. Sometimes it does, sometimes he just stops and crouches in the middle of cross fire. As for graphics, it looks like the guys developing the characters and animations split off from the guys designing the environments, and then they just stuck them together at the end. It does look like the characters and animations come from a different game from the environments.
Viking: Battle for Asgard - Another open world RPG, I thought this looked great, and having played it it still does. The graphics are beautiful, the killing is gory and action packed. The opening sequence has me excited as a child on Christmas day, a game developed by Sega (who did my all time favourite game, JSRF) about Viking's with various English and Scottish accents (I'm not being patriotic, I just find the idea of Vikings with English and Scottish accents hilarious) narrated by Brian Blessed! What's not to like? Well, the one big problem with this game is there is almost no help whatsoever. Very little guidance as to what you're supposed to do, how to do it or anything. This kind of freedom can be good in games, often games don't have enough freedom. When I finally found who I was supposed to be talking to and what I was supposed to do, I did it with little trouble and a lot of fun, however once done, found myself again with no idea what I was to do next. So I wandered around looking for something to do, I ended up wandering into an enemy camp which I was severely under prepared for. This lack of guidance got really infuriating after the 5th or 6th time being slaughtered by going to the wrong area.
That's it for my review of Homefront, a solid 9/10 and my first impressions on 3 other games. I will go over most of my other games hopefully before buying any more.
~Rusty Mongrel.
Homefront is a game I saw the trailers for before it's release, but never really saw any reason to buy it. I only picked it up because it was part of a 4 for £20 offer. Buy boy am I glad I bought this game...
WARNING: This game does contain distressing events and scenes, while I will try not to go into detail on them they will be mentioned from the very outset of this article. Do not read if you're easily upset/distressed.
Set in (If I remember correctly) 2026, you play an American military pilot, living in Korean occupied America. Kim Jong Il has died and Kim Jong Un has taken his place as North Korean leader (Slightly worrying, as since the game's release this has actually happened). Un has set out on global domination, probably saw his father's depiction in Team America and got pissed off or something, and America was one of his first targets after taking Japan and South Korea, among other less powerful countries. You are rudely awoken and literally kicked out of your house to be bundled into a bus, on your way for something referred to as "Repatriation". On the journey you see many atrocities, such as men being hooded and shot, a couple being shot on a street corner while their young child watches and other such events, it's clear from the off this game is not for the easily distressed. You learn from another prisoner on the bus that you are all in fact pilots, you've been picked especially. Before you have time to think this over there's a massive crashing noise and your bus flips over, killing the pilot prisoner who'd been talking to you, a man enters and kills the Korean soldiers while they're still disorientated, you grab a gun and follow him.
This man, you later learn is Connor, he's part of the resistance, a group of people fighting for the freedom of America against Korean occupation. Connor's somewhat of a loose cannon, something you see later in the story as you witness mass burials of American citizens, which he reacts to by picking a fight with around 20 - 30 Korean soldiers and 2 automated sentry turrets, leaving you and Hopper, the techy guy, to sneak around and take out the soldiers and turrets before Connor gets himself killed. Other key characters are Boone, the resistance leader, an ex state policeman, with a calculative mind and way with other people, whether they support him or not (Many people you come across are happy living in the terrible conditions the Koreans allow them, for fear of the backlash that may be brought by fighting them), and finally Rianna, the caring one of the group.
Without going too much into what happens in each mission and the story as a whole (as I highly suggest you buy and play this game for yourself, it really is worth it), I should say that this is possibly the first time I've played a game with an American soldier protagonist who I actually sympathise with, and it's so refreshing! In other big franchises, Call of Duty and Battlefield being the two most obvious, the American protagonists are almost always the stereotypical, movie style, American marine hero, never showing any emotions until their best friend dies and then finishing the mission in the name of revenge for their friend. They're often unbearable characters who are represented as the 'every-man-soldier' and yet at the same time are some sort of super soldier who can take any sort of physical punishment and emotional torment without shedding a drop of sweat. Being the son of an ex British soldier, and friend to many an American airman and a few soldiers/marines (I live near quite a few US air bases) I know this is not how they are. They are normal guys, like you and I, the only difference being that they're job is to kill terrorists in foreign countries and generally protect our freedoms. This is how our character, and his team mates, are represented! They're every day guys trying to help their country! I normally end up playing through the campaign to save the world or whatever the objective is without caring when a character dies, but when one of these guys died (I won't say who) I genuinely felt sympathy, it was like losing an acquaintance, not a friend of course, but almost like losing someone I'd actually known, the characters are that well done that you actually end up caring about them and their cause.
A character I must mention, who's so special that he gets his own paragraph, is Goliath. Goliath is a piece of Korean technology captured by the resistance, he plays a vital role in one of the major operations carried out by the resistance. He is a remote controlled vehicle, driven by Hopper, with 6 wheels, each with their separate suspension systems, making him very manuverable, and a mounted guided missile launcher which you get to control. He is your only defence against the many Humvees and tanks the Koreans send your way and withstands a lot of punishment. I got very attached to Goliath while playing, partly due to his suspension systems giving him quite goofy, yet fast and precise movement, but also due to his total obedience reminding me of a dog, specifically my own dog. I was actually quite sad to see him go when he does, especially the way in which he goes.
The graphics of this game are astounding, for a so far stand alone title. Usually a stand alone title will have worse graphics than that of the big franchise titles, however this has obviously been made with the aim of creating a unique game, rather than making the most profit, something not seen so often now. The environments are incredible, well designed and well constructed, not the samey, generic environments displayed in previously mentioned big name titles. Despite them being designed in such a way that you can only go the way your are supposed to, it still feels like you can explore, simply because there's so much detail and variety, you could easily spend a few minutes after each fight just examining the area around you.
One last major feature worth noting (this does contain some spoilers from later in the game, but doesn't give away the ending) is that when you enter a survivors camp, ignored by Koreans, they turn on you because Hopper is Asian. While sneaking your way through the camp you come across many cases of American survivors torturing captured Korean soldiers and in some cases Asian American citizens who've gone to them for help. They are slowly going insane and taking their now racist hatred out on anyone Asian, putting them through torture equal to what the Korean occupiers are putting American citizens through. This game makes no attempt to pretend Americans are morally superior, it shows you with no pretence that anyone can do anything given the excuse and opportunity. One such shocking scene, when sneaking through a stream and under a bridge in this camp, you see a some boards from the bridge fall down and an Asian man, clearly not wearing a Korean uniform, drop through the newly formed hole, eyes wide, until the noose stops his drop and he swings. This of course comes after seeing a group of American survivors shoot a Korean after he digs his own grave. Such distressing scenes show this game has no intention of glorifying war, or making Americans, as I said earlier, appear morally superior. It shows war as war, and humans as humans.
I'd give this game a 9/10. It's very different from most, challenging, fun, shocking. My only problems would be the campaign is too short (I rarely buy games for the multiplayer, unless it's a purely multiplayer based game of course) and the automated sentries with the spotlights got a little boring the third time around, well, not so much boring as straight up annoying. Otherwise a great game, a real bargain bin gem that I highly suggest you pick up and play when you have the chance.
I was originally going to do a 4 part "Bargain Bin Review", however that went by the by as I'm finding the other three games hard to get along with. I shall explain why for each here, though please do not take these as my long term opinions of them, they're more first impressions.
Fallout: New Vegas - This is the first Fallout game I've actually played. There are two reasons I'm not getting along with it, one is that I think the disc may be damaged (it is pre owned, after all) and as such I'm getting a rather laggy effect when I move, it stutters a bit, which after 20 minutes or so gets really irritating. The second is I'm finding the idea of guns in open world RPGs really hard to get used to. I play Skyrim a lot, and love open world RPGs in general, but what I think of is a more Skyrim style combat and setting, swords, spells, bows and arrows. Guns feel weird in this type of game, but that's purely personal preference. That said of course, I enjoy GTA thoroughly and loved Fable 2, which both heavily feature guns, so maybe it simply is just this game. In the future I shall look out for Fallout 3, as I'm told that's better anyway.
Medal of Honor - Firstly, it's spelt Honour, EA. There's a U there. That bugged me from the off, but I guess that's what comes of being British. Secondly, while the story seems interesting enough, it's another FPS set in the middle east. Chasing the Taliban. Originality (as mentioned in the above full review) is nice, EA, but then I guess it doesn't sell so well. I've played 2 or 3 missions and couldn't drag myself any further, the controls are loose, that's the only way I can describe them. A flick of the control stick that a minute ago barely made me move will suddenly make my character run half a mile, it's very unpredictable. Dice, the developers, have obviously decided to try out a cover system, if you hit B while running towards cover your character will slide behind it. Well, that's what happens in theory. Sometimes it does, sometimes he just stops and crouches in the middle of cross fire. As for graphics, it looks like the guys developing the characters and animations split off from the guys designing the environments, and then they just stuck them together at the end. It does look like the characters and animations come from a different game from the environments.
Viking: Battle for Asgard - Another open world RPG, I thought this looked great, and having played it it still does. The graphics are beautiful, the killing is gory and action packed. The opening sequence has me excited as a child on Christmas day, a game developed by Sega (who did my all time favourite game, JSRF) about Viking's with various English and Scottish accents (I'm not being patriotic, I just find the idea of Vikings with English and Scottish accents hilarious) narrated by Brian Blessed! What's not to like? Well, the one big problem with this game is there is almost no help whatsoever. Very little guidance as to what you're supposed to do, how to do it or anything. This kind of freedom can be good in games, often games don't have enough freedom. When I finally found who I was supposed to be talking to and what I was supposed to do, I did it with little trouble and a lot of fun, however once done, found myself again with no idea what I was to do next. So I wandered around looking for something to do, I ended up wandering into an enemy camp which I was severely under prepared for. This lack of guidance got really infuriating after the 5th or 6th time being slaughtered by going to the wrong area.
That's it for my review of Homefront, a solid 9/10 and my first impressions on 3 other games. I will go over most of my other games hopefully before buying any more.
~Rusty Mongrel.
Sunday 8 July 2012
Jet Set Radio Future!
For my first review it seems fitting to write about my favourite game of all time; Jet Set Radio Future.
No matter how much I play this game, I've never got bored of it, but of course, to understand this I must explain the game.
As previously mentioned I picked up this game from a bargain bin in some independent game shop in some wet, dull and dreary town no doubt near some manor house or some such other old building that we went through on holiday about 6 years ago. Released in 2001, Jet Set Radio Future (Or JSRF, as I will refer to it as from now on in) is a Sega title for the original Xbox, a sequel to a game called Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast (Or Jet Grind Radio as it was known in the US). Set in Tokyo in the 'futuristic' 2007 you play various members of a roller blading gang called 'The GGs' (I always assumed this stood for 'Good Guys' but on some research I found it stands for 'Graffiti Gang Gangsters') as they claim territory, battle rival gangs, gather new members and battle the 'Rokkoku Police'. All the while aided by the commentary of my personal favourite npc, DJ Professor K.
You start off as Yo-Yo, the newest member of the gang, which at this point only comprises of Corn, the leader, Gum, the only girl in the gang to start and Roboy, an old prototype robot who acts as an in game main menu, letting you save your game, change your graffiti styles, change character, change your Garage (The gang hideout) background music track and later on letting you do test runs, which shall be explained later.
Upon entering the first area of Tokyo, Dogenzaka Hill, you are tasked by DJ Professor K to cover it in graffiti, and shown how to do so. After this you are put to race against another skater, who, if you beat him, joins your gang, this guy's called Beat and is famous due to his being featured on the cover art. After this you go through your first cop battle and are then guided to the next area. For a first area set of tasks, this all sounds rather hectic, but it's set out in such a way that you can do it at your own pace. This is pretty much your tutorial and is actually designed in such a way that it doesn't feel like a tutorial at all, it flows well and feels like you've been thrown straight into the game, yet you are able to cope.
The controls are simple, to grind just jump onto the rail with A, to do a grind combo hit X or Y, move with the left stick, spray graffiti with R trigger and boost with B. With this basic combination you'll never need to hit another button while playing, yet it still takes some skill to master the harder tricks, as what you can do relies on the environment. This way you can master the button functions early on and focus on timing and speed as you get to more complex areas, rather than learning new button combinations at the risk of forgetting others, a problem I see in many modern games.
The graphics style is one I've not seen in many other games, based on a manga/anime style of drawing it doesn't quite fit the usual conventions of video game graphics post 1990s. It doesn't try to look realistic, effort has clearly been put into main characters and explorable areas, but beyond that it's very basic, which suits the style it's been done in well, plus it was produced in a time when only a minority of gamers cared about graphic quality over gameplay and story, something that seems to be switching around as graphics improve. Movement blur of your character is implemented well for determining how fast you're moving as is the colour of the sparks when grinding, helping the player decide if they're going fast enough to make a particular jump.
The challenges of JSRF come in all areas. Throughout the story the player is faced with different battles to overcome, this includes; story challenges, Graffiti Souls, Area challenges and Test Runs.
Story Challenges- From your basic racing, to police battles. Racing is as it always is, race another rollerblader or gang around a circuit, first to the finish wins. Police battles range from basic to insane, basic being knock police over inside a certain area and spray their coats while they're on the ground to defeat them, to the Golden Rhino police who can take a few knocks with boost before going down, and even then will take a few knock downs and sprays to completely defeat them. Other challenges consist of chasing and spraying other gang members, getting more trick points than other gangs in certain time limits and boss battles, such as fighting the Police tanks, a spider like machine and the end boss battle against Rokkoku Gouji, the mayor of Tokyo and owner of the Rokkoku Police, in his power suit called A.KU.MU.
Graffiti Souls - Items dotted around the various maps to be collected by the player, when collected these shiny, alien like heads (also used as the JSRF logo) unlock new graffiti tags for the player to use. Collecting all the Souls in one area takes you halfway to unlocking the Test Run for that area.
Area Challenges - These are initially unlocked by finding a golden cassette tape with a red question mark on it. There's one in each area and to complete the Area Challenges this needs to be found first, when found your journal for that area will update with 5 challenges. Completing these challenges is often tough and very time consuming, but finishing the challenges for an area, along with collecting all graffiti souls for that area will unlock test runs.
Test Runs - Available after beating the main story (which in itself can take around 10 hours, depending on whether it's your first time or not), collecting all Graffiti Souls and finishing all area challenges in a particular area. Test Runs consist of 4 types, Jet Tech; Scoring as many points as possible in a set time. Jet Tag; Tagging all the graffiti spots as fast as possible. Jet Speed; Racing around the area as fast as possible and finally, Jet Flag; Collecting flags from around the area as fast as possible. Each area will have three of these four modes to complete. Upon completing them and achieving Jet ranking in each you will unlock a new playable character from each area. Usually this will be an enemy from the story, more often than not a rival gang. However, one unlocks my favourite playable character; Potts, the dog who hangs around with the GGs in their Garage.
To unlock all the characters you could well be looking at a good 20 - 25 hours gameplay, not including time spent just messing around and having fun in the open world. This game, in my opinion, brings more to the table in variety, gameplay and uniqueness than 99% of modern games. This is the sort of game I would one day like to develop, it stands out.
This summer, it should be noted (Hopefully within the next month or so) an HD remake of the Dreamcast original is being released onto the XBLA, PSN and PC (Probably via Steam for the PC, although nothing's been said yet). I'm eagerly looking forward to this as having never owned a Dreamcast I've never had the chance to play the original.
In conclusion I would say if you have an original Xbox or an Xbox 360 (It's worked on my old 360 arcade and my new 360 Slim); Get this game and play it now! It really has stood the test of time, and in my opinion easily holds it's own against big names like Halo, Call of Duty, Forza and other such titles. It is a game of it's own genre, something not seen often. If you need more testament towards it's greatness, it still sells for a good £25 online, compared to games released to high acclaim only 2 or 3 years ago that now sell for £2 - £3.
This gem even includes a very unique soundtrack, including artists such as Scapegoat Wax and Hideki Naganuma. I still listen to it on my iPod on a near daily basis, well worth looking up on YouTube.
Link to Jet Set Radio HD official page: http://www.sega.co.uk/games/jet-set-radio/
~Rusty Mongrel.
No matter how much I play this game, I've never got bored of it, but of course, to understand this I must explain the game.
As previously mentioned I picked up this game from a bargain bin in some independent game shop in some wet, dull and dreary town no doubt near some manor house or some such other old building that we went through on holiday about 6 years ago. Released in 2001, Jet Set Radio Future (Or JSRF, as I will refer to it as from now on in) is a Sega title for the original Xbox, a sequel to a game called Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast (Or Jet Grind Radio as it was known in the US). Set in Tokyo in the 'futuristic' 2007 you play various members of a roller blading gang called 'The GGs' (I always assumed this stood for 'Good Guys' but on some research I found it stands for 'Graffiti Gang Gangsters') as they claim territory, battle rival gangs, gather new members and battle the 'Rokkoku Police'. All the while aided by the commentary of my personal favourite npc, DJ Professor K.
You start off as Yo-Yo, the newest member of the gang, which at this point only comprises of Corn, the leader, Gum, the only girl in the gang to start and Roboy, an old prototype robot who acts as an in game main menu, letting you save your game, change your graffiti styles, change character, change your Garage (The gang hideout) background music track and later on letting you do test runs, which shall be explained later.
Upon entering the first area of Tokyo, Dogenzaka Hill, you are tasked by DJ Professor K to cover it in graffiti, and shown how to do so. After this you are put to race against another skater, who, if you beat him, joins your gang, this guy's called Beat and is famous due to his being featured on the cover art. After this you go through your first cop battle and are then guided to the next area. For a first area set of tasks, this all sounds rather hectic, but it's set out in such a way that you can do it at your own pace. This is pretty much your tutorial and is actually designed in such a way that it doesn't feel like a tutorial at all, it flows well and feels like you've been thrown straight into the game, yet you are able to cope.
The controls are simple, to grind just jump onto the rail with A, to do a grind combo hit X or Y, move with the left stick, spray graffiti with R trigger and boost with B. With this basic combination you'll never need to hit another button while playing, yet it still takes some skill to master the harder tricks, as what you can do relies on the environment. This way you can master the button functions early on and focus on timing and speed as you get to more complex areas, rather than learning new button combinations at the risk of forgetting others, a problem I see in many modern games.
The graphics style is one I've not seen in many other games, based on a manga/anime style of drawing it doesn't quite fit the usual conventions of video game graphics post 1990s. It doesn't try to look realistic, effort has clearly been put into main characters and explorable areas, but beyond that it's very basic, which suits the style it's been done in well, plus it was produced in a time when only a minority of gamers cared about graphic quality over gameplay and story, something that seems to be switching around as graphics improve. Movement blur of your character is implemented well for determining how fast you're moving as is the colour of the sparks when grinding, helping the player decide if they're going fast enough to make a particular jump.
The challenges of JSRF come in all areas. Throughout the story the player is faced with different battles to overcome, this includes; story challenges, Graffiti Souls, Area challenges and Test Runs.
Story Challenges- From your basic racing, to police battles. Racing is as it always is, race another rollerblader or gang around a circuit, first to the finish wins. Police battles range from basic to insane, basic being knock police over inside a certain area and spray their coats while they're on the ground to defeat them, to the Golden Rhino police who can take a few knocks with boost before going down, and even then will take a few knock downs and sprays to completely defeat them. Other challenges consist of chasing and spraying other gang members, getting more trick points than other gangs in certain time limits and boss battles, such as fighting the Police tanks, a spider like machine and the end boss battle against Rokkoku Gouji, the mayor of Tokyo and owner of the Rokkoku Police, in his power suit called A.KU.MU.
Graffiti Souls - Items dotted around the various maps to be collected by the player, when collected these shiny, alien like heads (also used as the JSRF logo) unlock new graffiti tags for the player to use. Collecting all the Souls in one area takes you halfway to unlocking the Test Run for that area.
Area Challenges - These are initially unlocked by finding a golden cassette tape with a red question mark on it. There's one in each area and to complete the Area Challenges this needs to be found first, when found your journal for that area will update with 5 challenges. Completing these challenges is often tough and very time consuming, but finishing the challenges for an area, along with collecting all graffiti souls for that area will unlock test runs.
Test Runs - Available after beating the main story (which in itself can take around 10 hours, depending on whether it's your first time or not), collecting all Graffiti Souls and finishing all area challenges in a particular area. Test Runs consist of 4 types, Jet Tech; Scoring as many points as possible in a set time. Jet Tag; Tagging all the graffiti spots as fast as possible. Jet Speed; Racing around the area as fast as possible and finally, Jet Flag; Collecting flags from around the area as fast as possible. Each area will have three of these four modes to complete. Upon completing them and achieving Jet ranking in each you will unlock a new playable character from each area. Usually this will be an enemy from the story, more often than not a rival gang. However, one unlocks my favourite playable character; Potts, the dog who hangs around with the GGs in their Garage.
To unlock all the characters you could well be looking at a good 20 - 25 hours gameplay, not including time spent just messing around and having fun in the open world. This game, in my opinion, brings more to the table in variety, gameplay and uniqueness than 99% of modern games. This is the sort of game I would one day like to develop, it stands out.
This summer, it should be noted (Hopefully within the next month or so) an HD remake of the Dreamcast original is being released onto the XBLA, PSN and PC (Probably via Steam for the PC, although nothing's been said yet). I'm eagerly looking forward to this as having never owned a Dreamcast I've never had the chance to play the original.
In conclusion I would say if you have an original Xbox or an Xbox 360 (It's worked on my old 360 arcade and my new 360 Slim); Get this game and play it now! It really has stood the test of time, and in my opinion easily holds it's own against big names like Halo, Call of Duty, Forza and other such titles. It is a game of it's own genre, something not seen often. If you need more testament towards it's greatness, it still sells for a good £25 online, compared to games released to high acclaim only 2 or 3 years ago that now sell for £2 - £3.
This gem even includes a very unique soundtrack, including artists such as Scapegoat Wax and Hideki Naganuma. I still listen to it on my iPod on a near daily basis, well worth looking up on YouTube.
Link to Jet Set Radio HD official page: http://www.sega.co.uk/games/jet-set-radio/
~Rusty Mongrel.
Saturday 7 July 2012
How I Got Into Gaming
I feel and good place to start, on a blog about gaming, is how I started gaming. So here goes, let's see how much my ever unreliable memory can recall.
Gaming began for me at quite an early age, being the young'un I am (18's still young, right?). I remember at age 5 or 6, going to a friend's house and playing Worms on his Playstation 1, progressing pretty far through it too. When that got boring we'd play Command and Conquer on his PC, which we never got very far in at all. In all honesty, at this young age, it was mainly my friend who played them, while I sat and watched, bored out of my skull. I could never understand how he could play the same game for so long, when he had so many other toys like pokemon cards and toy soldiers. To look at me then, you would not predict my interest in gaming.
After a few years, this friend got given an Xbox, the original one, as this was long before the 360 and suddenly gaming became interesting. He had, to my memory, around 40 games after just a few months of owning this Xbox, but the one we always played, along with so many like us, was Halo. More often than not we would play the mission 'Assault On The Control Room', as he didn't have Xbox Live to play online. We could play this mission over and over for hours on end, never getting bored of it. But as time passed and I moved from Primary to Secondary school, I lost contact with this friend.
At age 11, I began to play Runescape, an in browser, free to play RPG. I got ridiculed constantly at school for it, but it never put me off. Sure, it's repetitive and takes ages to get anywhere, but it was fun, it held my attention, and the little set of fireworks that used to appear above the character's head when you gained a level in a skill was just so satisfying! I played this, on and off, for a good 7 years, meaning I still do to this day, however this may soon change, although that's another story for another blog post. Runescape was great, in fact, it was the first game I paid for with my own money, while it was free to play, certain aspects are only accessible via 'membership' payments.
When I was about 12, I was given an Xbox for my birthday, having spent years playing it at my friend's house as a child, I was ecstatic when I saw Halo in the box, within a few hours of opening I had completed the campaign, and was a little lost on what to do now. So I looked into the other games that had come with it, and found Midtown Madness 3. Midtown Madness, I have since learned, was a racing series often overlooked in gaming, though for the life of me I can't understand why, such a big open world environment wouldn't be seen again in racing games for at least 3 more years, and such a vast collection of cars, challenges and mixed gameplay in the racing genre not seen again until Forza Motorsport. I adored this game and spent hours on end playing it. It got to such a point my parents began limiting my time, forcing me outside to play with friends.
My gaming life from here trundled along as most do, going from game to game, not finding anything hugely special, until one day, about 6 years ago I found a game for 50p in a bargain bin, in some shop in the back end of no where. This game was Jet Set Radio Future, for the original Xbox, which, at the time, I still had one of. I bought it, came home from whatever wet, English, manor house filled holiday we happened to be on at the time, and began playing it. I cannot sum up Jet Set Radio Future, unfortunately, but to say that other than Runescape it is the only game I have continued to play for more than a year or so (not counting Halo, as for the majority of the years in which I played it, I didn't own my own copy). To this day I still play JSRF, it's a manga style Japanese game produced by Sega, published in 2001 it is set in 2007 Tokyo, in which the mayor has his own private police force, stopping roller bladers from, well, roller blading. You have to mark your territory with graffiti, battle police with graffiti and battle other gangs... You guessed it, with graffiti. This may sound repetitive but each situation has it's own mechanics, and police battles vary from simply knocking over PC Plod and spraying his jacket with graffiti to grinding down the barrel of a tank gun to spray the driver to entering a 'Dream Tower', grinding up floating scenery to the top, only to face the mayor in his madness power suit, now named A.KU.MU for no explainable reason. This game provided hours of fun, and over my Xbox and various Xbox 360s I've racked up a grand total of over 300 hours gameplay time, on a game who's story takes around 10 hours to complete, or 20 hours for 100% completion. This is by far my all time favourite game.
As for my gaming now, as an 18 year old, I have an Xbox 360, an Alienware M17x gaming laptop, and a PS3, which is technically my father's but I bought it and then gave it to him (Long story). I play the usual games, Call of Duty, Runescape, World of Warcraft (Although I recently quit WoW after only a year and a half of playing it), The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Battlefield 3 and so on and so forth. What I'm waiting for is to come across another JSRF... Games like this are rare, but special. I hope to one day, after my Games Design course, help develop another gem of a game.
~Rusty Mongrel.
Gaming began for me at quite an early age, being the young'un I am (18's still young, right?). I remember at age 5 or 6, going to a friend's house and playing Worms on his Playstation 1, progressing pretty far through it too. When that got boring we'd play Command and Conquer on his PC, which we never got very far in at all. In all honesty, at this young age, it was mainly my friend who played them, while I sat and watched, bored out of my skull. I could never understand how he could play the same game for so long, when he had so many other toys like pokemon cards and toy soldiers. To look at me then, you would not predict my interest in gaming.
After a few years, this friend got given an Xbox, the original one, as this was long before the 360 and suddenly gaming became interesting. He had, to my memory, around 40 games after just a few months of owning this Xbox, but the one we always played, along with so many like us, was Halo. More often than not we would play the mission 'Assault On The Control Room', as he didn't have Xbox Live to play online. We could play this mission over and over for hours on end, never getting bored of it. But as time passed and I moved from Primary to Secondary school, I lost contact with this friend.
At age 11, I began to play Runescape, an in browser, free to play RPG. I got ridiculed constantly at school for it, but it never put me off. Sure, it's repetitive and takes ages to get anywhere, but it was fun, it held my attention, and the little set of fireworks that used to appear above the character's head when you gained a level in a skill was just so satisfying! I played this, on and off, for a good 7 years, meaning I still do to this day, however this may soon change, although that's another story for another blog post. Runescape was great, in fact, it was the first game I paid for with my own money, while it was free to play, certain aspects are only accessible via 'membership' payments.
When I was about 12, I was given an Xbox for my birthday, having spent years playing it at my friend's house as a child, I was ecstatic when I saw Halo in the box, within a few hours of opening I had completed the campaign, and was a little lost on what to do now. So I looked into the other games that had come with it, and found Midtown Madness 3. Midtown Madness, I have since learned, was a racing series often overlooked in gaming, though for the life of me I can't understand why, such a big open world environment wouldn't be seen again in racing games for at least 3 more years, and such a vast collection of cars, challenges and mixed gameplay in the racing genre not seen again until Forza Motorsport. I adored this game and spent hours on end playing it. It got to such a point my parents began limiting my time, forcing me outside to play with friends.
My gaming life from here trundled along as most do, going from game to game, not finding anything hugely special, until one day, about 6 years ago I found a game for 50p in a bargain bin, in some shop in the back end of no where. This game was Jet Set Radio Future, for the original Xbox, which, at the time, I still had one of. I bought it, came home from whatever wet, English, manor house filled holiday we happened to be on at the time, and began playing it. I cannot sum up Jet Set Radio Future, unfortunately, but to say that other than Runescape it is the only game I have continued to play for more than a year or so (not counting Halo, as for the majority of the years in which I played it, I didn't own my own copy). To this day I still play JSRF, it's a manga style Japanese game produced by Sega, published in 2001 it is set in 2007 Tokyo, in which the mayor has his own private police force, stopping roller bladers from, well, roller blading. You have to mark your territory with graffiti, battle police with graffiti and battle other gangs... You guessed it, with graffiti. This may sound repetitive but each situation has it's own mechanics, and police battles vary from simply knocking over PC Plod and spraying his jacket with graffiti to grinding down the barrel of a tank gun to spray the driver to entering a 'Dream Tower', grinding up floating scenery to the top, only to face the mayor in his madness power suit, now named A.KU.MU for no explainable reason. This game provided hours of fun, and over my Xbox and various Xbox 360s I've racked up a grand total of over 300 hours gameplay time, on a game who's story takes around 10 hours to complete, or 20 hours for 100% completion. This is by far my all time favourite game.
As for my gaming now, as an 18 year old, I have an Xbox 360, an Alienware M17x gaming laptop, and a PS3, which is technically my father's but I bought it and then gave it to him (Long story). I play the usual games, Call of Duty, Runescape, World of Warcraft (Although I recently quit WoW after only a year and a half of playing it), The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Battlefield 3 and so on and so forth. What I'm waiting for is to come across another JSRF... Games like this are rare, but special. I hope to one day, after my Games Design course, help develop another gem of a game.
~Rusty Mongrel.
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