- Joined
- Apr 5, 2001
- Location
- St. Catharines, Ontario Canada
Anybody else pick this up yet? This was a really anticipated title for me. I bought it on Friday but I'm just now getting around to playing it, and I'm having quite a bit of fun with it. It's not a system mover, but it's a good, solid entry into the painfully anemic amount of titles for the Wii 'hardcore' crowd (also, I hate the term 'hardcore'. Just wanted to get that out there).
It's kind of a cross between a side-scrolling beat 'em' up and Super Smash TV. It was developed by Platinum, formerly Seeds, formerly Clover, so it's quite clearly got some pedigree behind it, and it shows. The game is what you'd get if you Goichi Suda and Frank Miller sat down one evening over drinks and tried to hash out something amazing. This would be the resule
The visual style is black and white, with dashes of yellow and red. Lots of red. I mean buckets of red. I mean like, several blood banks full of red. The story is told in comic book fashion cutscenes, and the action is interspersed with typical comic book onomatopoeia of 'vroom' and 'bang' and 'splorch'. That sort of thing. The game pulls it off pretty well, and the cell-shaded characters do stand out well in the world. Well enough to be easily identifiable.
The gameplay is fun, making pretty OK use of the Wii's motion controls in a similar manner to No More Heroes. Using motions for uppercuts and to swing your chainsaw arm (yes, chainsaw arm. Evil Dead fans feel free to foam at the mouth about how they've ripped it off. I'll wait . . . . Done? Good!). The game kind of falls apart here though. Movements and performing simple actions like jumping can be tedious if you're not precisely on target. Enemies are usually plentiful enough to not require locking onto them, but when you need to lock onto them, the game kinda craps all over itself, as the lock-on mechanic just doesn't work all that well. The camera takes some getting used to, rarely pointing in the direction you need it to, in favour of pointing at a dustbin or a nearby bloodsplatter or something. Honestly though, these gripes are relatively small when compared to the sheer amount of FUN you'll be having murdering dudes. To steal a quote from Yahtzee 'If more than a minute goes by without a dude and a murder, you're not playing it right!' This is very very true. There are lots and lots of ways to murder dudes, too! You can beat them into a pulp, throw them into spikes, onto train tracks, impale them with signposts, throw them into dumpsters with spikes on them, drop them into flaming oildrums and then throw the oildrum at other dudes, and even just cut them in half with your chainsaw or use a special move to rip their hearts out, break them in half, or snap their necks all in an obscene 'why won't somebody think of the chillins' way, with lots of blood.
The music is crap. Period, dot, end-of-sentence. It's all crummy trip-hop rap-metal BS that I could honestly do without. Luckily, the game gives you the option to turn it down or completely off, which is great. The announcers are awesome though. Like a sports commentary with Bender Bending Rodriguez (or Marcus Fenix if that's your style). Yes, John DiMaggio voices one of the announcers, and that makes it all worth while to me, really. I love that man in ways that are probably inappropriate. The banter is quite funny, even if the lines are oft repeated. They are also vulgar! Holy crap are they vulgar! I wouldn't play this game with children in the room, or even within earshot lest you want a call from the principal of their school. I've got a mouth like a sailor, and even I wouldn't consider saying some of the things they do. I got to thinking shortly before I switched it off that it was just vulgarity for the sake of vulgarity. I don't know if the ESRB made them cut anything before release, but considering what they left in, I'd be curious to see what they had to remove!
Over all, I really do consider this game a worthy purchase, because despite it's flaws, it in incredibly fun to murder guys, and the commentary is really funny (but vulgar). If you've got a Wii, take it out of the box, or delist it from CL (It's not worth $700 on there anymore, so stop), and go grab this game. You'll be glad you did.
An aside: I was reading the box and noticed the ESRB rating was 'M for Mature' (duh) but that there was also an actual age rating on the box. I've never seen an actual age rating on the box (it was set to 17+) on the ESRB rating, usually just a letter and a description of the content. Also, while I was checking out, the till actually asked for an age verification (which the girl skipped). I asked her 'Wait, did that . . . just ask for an age verification?'. She replied that it did. This strikes me as a bit disturbing, as no store is bound under law to sell check for an age rating (at least not in Canada). The ESRB ratings are for the consumers, not for the retailers. I just found it odd.
It's kind of a cross between a side-scrolling beat 'em' up and Super Smash TV. It was developed by Platinum, formerly Seeds, formerly Clover, so it's quite clearly got some pedigree behind it, and it shows. The game is what you'd get if you Goichi Suda and Frank Miller sat down one evening over drinks and tried to hash out something amazing. This would be the resule
The visual style is black and white, with dashes of yellow and red. Lots of red. I mean buckets of red. I mean like, several blood banks full of red. The story is told in comic book fashion cutscenes, and the action is interspersed with typical comic book onomatopoeia of 'vroom' and 'bang' and 'splorch'. That sort of thing. The game pulls it off pretty well, and the cell-shaded characters do stand out well in the world. Well enough to be easily identifiable.
The gameplay is fun, making pretty OK use of the Wii's motion controls in a similar manner to No More Heroes. Using motions for uppercuts and to swing your chainsaw arm (yes, chainsaw arm. Evil Dead fans feel free to foam at the mouth about how they've ripped it off. I'll wait . . . . Done? Good!). The game kind of falls apart here though. Movements and performing simple actions like jumping can be tedious if you're not precisely on target. Enemies are usually plentiful enough to not require locking onto them, but when you need to lock onto them, the game kinda craps all over itself, as the lock-on mechanic just doesn't work all that well. The camera takes some getting used to, rarely pointing in the direction you need it to, in favour of pointing at a dustbin or a nearby bloodsplatter or something. Honestly though, these gripes are relatively small when compared to the sheer amount of FUN you'll be having murdering dudes. To steal a quote from Yahtzee 'If more than a minute goes by without a dude and a murder, you're not playing it right!' This is very very true. There are lots and lots of ways to murder dudes, too! You can beat them into a pulp, throw them into spikes, onto train tracks, impale them with signposts, throw them into dumpsters with spikes on them, drop them into flaming oildrums and then throw the oildrum at other dudes, and even just cut them in half with your chainsaw or use a special move to rip their hearts out, break them in half, or snap their necks all in an obscene 'why won't somebody think of the chillins' way, with lots of blood.
The music is crap. Period, dot, end-of-sentence. It's all crummy trip-hop rap-metal BS that I could honestly do without. Luckily, the game gives you the option to turn it down or completely off, which is great. The announcers are awesome though. Like a sports commentary with Bender Bending Rodriguez (or Marcus Fenix if that's your style). Yes, John DiMaggio voices one of the announcers, and that makes it all worth while to me, really. I love that man in ways that are probably inappropriate. The banter is quite funny, even if the lines are oft repeated. They are also vulgar! Holy crap are they vulgar! I wouldn't play this game with children in the room, or even within earshot lest you want a call from the principal of their school. I've got a mouth like a sailor, and even I wouldn't consider saying some of the things they do. I got to thinking shortly before I switched it off that it was just vulgarity for the sake of vulgarity. I don't know if the ESRB made them cut anything before release, but considering what they left in, I'd be curious to see what they had to remove!
Over all, I really do consider this game a worthy purchase, because despite it's flaws, it in incredibly fun to murder guys, and the commentary is really funny (but vulgar). If you've got a Wii, take it out of the box, or delist it from CL (It's not worth $700 on there anymore, so stop), and go grab this game. You'll be glad you did.
An aside: I was reading the box and noticed the ESRB rating was 'M for Mature' (duh) but that there was also an actual age rating on the box. I've never seen an actual age rating on the box (it was set to 17+) on the ESRB rating, usually just a letter and a description of the content. Also, while I was checking out, the till actually asked for an age verification (which the girl skipped). I asked her 'Wait, did that . . . just ask for an age verification?'. She replied that it did. This strikes me as a bit disturbing, as no store is bound under law to sell check for an age rating (at least not in Canada). The ESRB ratings are for the consumers, not for the retailers. I just found it odd.
