Saturday, August 31, 2013

Rayman Review

Oh boy Rayman. We made it past the dark age. Origins came out last year bringing Rayman back into the spotlight of platformers and Legends comes out next week which looks even better. Rayman may be back in the game but he was back then too, before the Rabbids had a TV show and ruined everything for a nice six years. In hype for Rayman Legends, let's take a look back on how the legend began.

Rayman's story begins back in the far off land of 1994, when Michel Ancel made some sketches of Rayman's character. Ubisoft decided to fund Ancel's project and development began on the Super Nintendo. When CDs became all the rage, development was changed from the Super Nintendo to CD based systems like the Atari Jaguar and the PlayStation. The CD format led to Rayman's graphics to have over 65000 colors and run character animations at a hefty 60 FPS with CD quality music and sound effects, so switching to CDs wasn't wasted. Rayman was released in 1995 to critical acclaim
due to its graphics and gameplay, winning awards for the presentation as a whole, even becoming the best selling PlayStation game in the UK, beating out the likes of Tomb Raider 2 and Gran Turismo. So Rayman was pretty popular before Rabbids went and ruined everything, but is the first Rayman adventure still worth experiencing?

The story takes place in Rayman's world, well duh. Here the people and nature live in peace with the Great Protoon maintaining peace and harmony in the world. One day the creativity named Mister Dark steals the Great Protoon, defeating its guardian, Betilla the Fairy in the process. The Electoons that gravitated around the Great Protoon lose their stability and scatter around the world. With Rayman's world unbalanced strange and hostile creatures appear capturing all the Electoons they can find, with no one to stop them. Except Rayman! Its up to Rayman to free the Electoons, find the Great Protoon, defeat Mister Dark, and restore peace to the world.

Rayman is a 2d platformer where your goal is to guide Rayman through a variety of colorful levels while defeating enemies and saving the Electoons. Rayman may be the hero of this world, but he can barely do anything at the beginning of the game. All he can do is run, jump, and make little noises with his face. By getting through levels, Betilla will grant Rayman powers like being able to punch, grab onto ledges, swing from certain things, and even glide. During levels, Rayman can collect tings which, when having 100, grant an extra life, and also grant access to bonus levels where you collect tings to get another extra life. Rayman starts with three hit points which can be increased by finding power ups in the level. They disappear along with all the tings when you die so watch out.

In order to make it to the last world, you need to find all of the Electoons, meaning you will have to backtrack in order to find them all with your new abilities. The end of each world contains a boss that you must defeat by punching them in the face. Speaking of punching, one problem with Rayman's otherwise flawless controls is that you can't really influence where the fist will go. It will only go straight forward, then come back to Rayman. You can't punch while ducking either, so enemies that are shorter than you are missed. Also, and I'm glad time has forgotten about this, knockback. When Rayman is hit by anything, he will jump back. In early levels this is fine, but as soon as you enter world 2, you'll be knocked into pits and instant death spikes constantly. In fact, that's another problem, the difficulty spike. Now world 1 is nice and comfortable, with plenty of space and let's you get used to the game. As soon as you get to world 2 however the levels get much longer, and MUCH harder, with areas with enemies you can't hit dangling over bottomless pits. On area in the first level of world 2 comes to mind, where there are four moving circles that are moving clockwise that are over spikes that instantly kill you. Halfway through the ride there's a flying enemy that will hit you, knocking you into the spikes killing you, which you couldn't hit because of the punching controls. I understand that a game should get progressively harder, or should start hard if its in the genre, but you can't start easy and get really hard in one fell swoop! That's like if I was playing Kirby and then suddenly Touhou popped out of the sky and fired 5372 bullets at the same time.

Now one thing that stays good throughout all of Rayman is its presentation. The graphic look beautiful, running at 60 FPS with nice little foreground events and little animations on things like flowers and water making this world feel alive. The music as well is also great with catchy level tunes that stick with players. Also, that tune that plays every time you clear a segment of the level is so catchy. I'm just saying.

Now, Rayman is available on many systems, such as the PlayStation 1, 3, Portable, GameBoy Advance, and even DSiware, but should you still play it? That's a tough question, because while the game is fun, it is punishingly difficult very early on, and that can alienate players. Diligent players however, will find a fun, pretty, and rewarding platformer. Just be ready for a challenge, because there are some parts that can put even the original Mega Man to shame.

The Silent Protagonist wonders why Mister Dark bothered to steal the Great Protoon when the only ones in his way are Betilla, which he can easily defeat and the Electoons which can't do much of anything.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Crazy Taxi Review

Bit of a short one this week because with yet another camp out under my belt, my time to play games was near impossible. With me returning from camp the same day I update the site, the option would be either to skip this week, or talk about something short. So let's come on over and have some fun with Crazy Taxi.

Crazy Taxi was originally released in 1999 in arcades to critical acclaim for its fast and fun game play, and catchy soundtrack. In 2000 it was re-released on the Dreamcast with a new map and the Crazy Box, a number of challenges that tested players in the crazy moves they can do in the main game. This version was later released on the Gamecube, PlayStation 2, and the original Xbox. Then it was released on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network with HD and a changed soundtrack and was also released on mobile phones. So Crazy Taxi has certainly been around, so let's grab it on our system of choice and have some funI shouldn't use that joke again. And the version I'm playing is the Gamecube version, as to avoid confusion.

Because this is a pick up and play arcade game, there is no plot. Okay that makes things easier on to the gameplay. The goal of Crazy Taxi is to get rich. That's it. You get money for being the greatest darn taxi driver in the city, getting the customers to their destinations as quickly as possible while going through as many cars, making as many jumps, or doing as many drifts as possible in order to score extra cash. The controls of take some time to get used to, as for the default controls use the R button for acceleration, and the A and B buttons for turning the gear into drive and reverse respectively. Also doing some of the moves like short bursts of speed and drifts require specific button presses that take time to get used to.

The game can be played in the Arcade Map or the Original Map, the Original Map being the new one, and the Arcade Map being the old one. "Won't that get confusing?"asked one Sega employe. "Why yes it will but we feel really clever about it because original can mean new too." another employee answered. Each map can be played for 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or by the Arcade rules, where each time you pick up someone, you get extra time, and you get more if you get them to their destination quickly, meaning you can play forever in theory, though you'll have to get really good with the games controls in order to do that. Though that's what the Crazy Box is for, which is just nine challenges used to test players in the crazy moves they can do.

On the topic of presentation, the game looks like a Dreamcast title. The characters look like well polished polygons, but since you'll be driving too fast to notice them, its not an issue. Even with the HD of the recent releases it still looks good, though I would expect nothing less from a game made by Sega. The games soundtrack features tracks from the bands Bad Religion and The Offspring, and the songs are catchy and fit well with the fast pace mood of the game. The song "All I Want" in particular stands out for being the most common and the most memorable, as its one of the few things I immediately think about when I think about Crazy Taxi, besides KFC.

So about replay value. When playing by Arcade rules, you'll get a ranking for how well you did. Later versions would have online leader boards for this stuff, but for early versions like mine, your just playing to beat your own personal best. Besides that, there's not much to do after you beat the Crazy Box, besides playing again every now and again just for fun. Which is good because it is fun. Its cheap and available on just about any system, so its worth at least one play, just to say that you weaved through traffic after making a huge jump in order to get someone to KFC in 24 seconds.

The Silent Protagonist recommends not driving after playing Crazy Taxi for at least 12 hours. Everyone in town will like you better if you do. 

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Mortal Kombat (1992) Review

With more camp prepping and the dark shadow of school looming in my future the time to play games and clear my massive backlog is slowly drifting away. So I was hoping to play a few PC games that I bought from from garage sale, but Thief The Dark Project would crash after walking forward, and Diablo II would work for about a minute before bursting into rainbows. Well fine Mr and Ms PC games. I see my middle ground computer isn't good enough for you. Well I can play mean too. I'll just go play Mortal Kombat instead.

This is the part where I explain the history of Mortal Kombat, but come on, its freaking Mortal Kombat. Everyone has at least heard of this game and its infamous reputation, but I'll explain anyway. Released in 1992, Mortal Kombat was an arcade game that was made popular by its digitized actors and its copious amounts of blood, mainly through the use of fatalities, where once the opposing player was defeated, the winner could use a specific combo to rub their victory in the others face by taking their heart, blowing them up with lighting, or ripping their head right off of their shoulders. So yeah, it was violent, so violent in fact that parents wanted the game banned from arcades, which lead to the creation of the ESRB or the Entertainment Software Rating Board for the uninformed. It was through this that the game was a success giving it a huge following and massive legacy, leading to many sequels, spinoffs, and even a movie. So this game is big in its history, so let's take a look at the game that started the series.

First of all, it should be noted that the version I'm playing is the Sega Genesis version of the game, which boasts a better sounding, well, soundtrack, and just being easier and cheaper to find. I've never played the SNES version and playing the arcade version is later on the previously mentioned backlog, so this version will have to do. Also in order to save on paragraphs in this review, the first Mortal Kombat has no explanation of the plot. You can get biographies of each of the characters that explain their motives for entering the tournament, but overall, no plot is explained until the sequel, so for right now let's just say that...all of the fighters entered the tournament to claim the last Twinkie in existence.

As for the gameplay, well, its a fighting game. Your goal is to defeat your opponents by using the regular fighting moves of punching , kicking, uppercutting the usual stuff. By beating your opponent, you move onto the next one, and repeat the process until you beat the final boss. Because this is an arcade game, you'll gain points for violence during the fight, performing fatalities, time left at the end of each round, and making it through a round without taking any damage, or a flawless victory as its called in game.

There are seven characters in the game, and while they all have the same punches and kicks, they each have their own special moves too, like Scorpion is able to grab opponent, pull them over to him, and deal damage at the same time, and Subzero, who can freeze opponents, setting them up for an uppercut. As I mentioned before each character has their own biography detailing why they entered the tournament which you can see by beating the game, but this leads to my next point. Mortal Kombat is hard. Very hard. I still haven't beaten this game, and I was playing on easy with six credits. The first few matches are easy, but after that the opponents won't hold back and you will lose.

On the topic of graphics, the digitized actors look good, and the environments look good as well. The game looks good, but its nothing great. The soundtrack is great however, containing catchy fighting tunes that stick with you while your playing.

Of course, you don't play Mortal Kombat for the soundtrack or the graphics. You play it for the bloody violent action during the fights. Mortal Kombat is still a satisfying, and fun game to play. Just expect to be given a challenge, because you will lose, and you will need to practice in order to win. Mortal Kombat is available on multiple systems such as the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 meaning you can get your daily dose of fatality on just about any system.


The Silent Protagonist made it to Endurance 3 on his Easy run. Beat that!

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Pikmin Review

"Hey, guess what?" said the world. "What?" asked I. "Pikmin 3 just came out! And you don't have a Wii U!" the world giggled. "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" went I. Pikmin 3 finally came out after so many years of waiting, and I can't play the bloody game because its on a system I don't own. And adding salt on the wound is the fact that every source possible is reminding me that its out, that its great, and I can't play it. However, I can still partake in playing the other games in the series just to remind myself how great it is.

Pikmin is a game that was released in 2001 on the Nintendo Gamecube, designed by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. The game was designed to show just what the Gamecube was able to handle and while not a system seller like other Nintendo games like Super Mario 64 or *cough* Pikmin 3, the game still sold well and was successful enough to have two sequels and appear in other games such as Smash Bros. So yeah,  Nintendo likes Pikmin and the series has quite the fan base, but has the first game in the series withheld the test of time?

Pikmin begins with the protagonist, Captain Olimar, on vacation, flying through space without a care in the world. Until he's struck by a meteor and crash lands on the closest planet. When he comes to, he sees that his beloved ship, the Dolphin, is in pieces, and that he's now stranded. On top of that, the atmosphere of the planet contains oxygen, which is poisonous to Olimar, and that his life support system only will last for 30 more days. Olimar stumbles forward and finds a strange red object on the ground. Upon approaching it, it springs to life and drops a single seed. When plucked, the seed turns out to be a small red creature with a leaf on its head, which Olimar names a Pikmin. After sprouting more Pikmin, Olimar find the engine to the Dolphin, and with the Pikmins help, gets it back to his ship making it fit to fly him around the planet and keep him in the air to avoid the creatures that come out at night. And now with the Pikmin at his side, Olimar must go around the planet, find his missing ship parts, and escape the planet before his life support system fails.

Pikmin is a Real Time Strategy game where you must guide the Pikmin around the areas to get pellets to get more Pikmin, defeat enemies to do the same, build bridges, break down walls, and find the missing ship parts. There are three types of Pikmin you must use in order to find the ship parts. The first is the red Pikmin which are the strongest against enemies and are resistant to fire. These are the first Pikmin you get, so don't be surprised if you have more of these Pikmin than the others. Then there are the yellow Pikmin, which can be thrown higher and can use bomb rocks, which explode after thrown or dropped. Yellow Pikmin are used the least, so when breeding Pikmin, it's better to focus your numbers elsewhere. Finally there are the blue Pikmin which can go in water. That's it. Though it doesn't sound like much, later areas in the game are littered with water areas, so it's best to always have a group of these at hand. Though you can breed an infinite number of Pikmin, you can only have a hundred on the field at once so you have to manage your numbers so you can get as much done as you can.

Each day in Pikmin lasts roughly fifteen minutes. Once the fifteen minutes are up, Olimar will head back to the Dolphin and all the Pikmin under his command and around the Dolphin will return to the Onion for the night. All Pikmin working on something or idle in the field will be left behind and eaten by the predators of the night. In order to get the most done in a day you will need to multitask. For example you can have one group of Pikmin breaking down a wall, you can have another carrying a ship part back to the Dolphin, while a third group is exploring the area with you. Depending on how much multitasking you do, this game can be beaten rather fast. There are only four areas in this game, five counting the final boss area. Though many of the areas are large, they can be cleared in a matter of a few in game days.

Speaking of large, the scale in Pikmin is pretty amazing. According to the manual, Olimar and the Pikmin are only supposed to be about an inch tall, and the size of the areas and the creatures in said areas show that. While talking about presentation, Pikmin, for a launch title, looks great. The mix of realistic environments and cartoony character designs means you get a great looking game, yet you'll still be reminded that your playing something made by Nintendo. The soundtrack has many catchy tunes in it, though a few won't stick in your head after the system is turned off. While playing however, these tracks get the job done, and add to these environments.

While I mentioned that Pikmin could be a short game earlier, this game holds replay value. First off, there's multiple endings. Now, there's 30 ship parts in the game, but only 25 of them are required. Not finding the required parts gives you the bad ending, finding the required 25 parts gives you the normal ending, and finding all 30 gives you the best ending. Also, there's challenge mode, where your tasked to breed as much Pikmin as you can before the days end in all five areas. So there's still something to do after your first play through.

So here we are, 12 years after Pikmins initial release. I asked in the beginning of this review if Pikmin withheld the test of time, and I believe it has. It may be a bit short, but its a fun adventure to experience. However, finding copies of this game can be a bit pricy, even if you buy the Wii re release. If you happen to find this game or the Wii re release cheap. I recommend you pick it up.

The Silent Protagonist thinks that with how generous Nintendo has been recently with sequels, will we see a true sequel to Star Fox 64 soon?