Perhaps I'm rushing things, but I might have just found a game that's too retarded to play. And I'm talking story, not gameplay. But let's take it one step at a time.
A while ago my curiosity made me download the PC version of Onimusha 3. The thing had been idling on my hard drive (very much like many other games, I must say) until my latest gamepad purchase (a very sweet Logitech Dual Action with a disarming "Works with Windows Vista" label on the box) provoked me to play a console port and that's where Onimusha came in handy.
And let me be allowed to say this: oh, my, god. To say that the cutscenes I saw during the first 15 minutes of gaming made me cringe would be an understatement, I think. Ok, so there was a lot of blood -- and I presume that's supposed to be a good thing here. However, the amounts of rubbish coming out of the characters' mouths, the sheer volume of cheap cliches packed into just a few minutes of action and dialogue... Somehow, silly games from the days of old don't really bother me. I remember playing a solid share of dumb games when I was younger, I can also enjoy a dumb SNES rom on my emulator with no problems, of course as long as it's fun to play. I guess I assume it was "back then" and they "didn't know better." But here we have a game that came out in 2005. A game with frikkin' Jean Reno -- so somehow I'm assuming Capcom should know better. But no, we have modern-day Frenchmen speaking French and medieval Japanese men speaking, naturally... English, we have ghoulish Samurai monsters falling from the Paris sky, we have people running in the streets and getting slaughtered the way only C-movie extras know how, we have the most cliche Japanese duel you could imagine practically first thing after starting the game, we have French tough guys shooting way too many bullets, yelling "Eat this!" and a bunch of other macho talk even The Rock would refuse to utter, we have one of them getting hit and telling the other to leave him behind, and naturally we have the said other refusing to obey... And yes, all of that within the first dozen minutes... I'll be honest: I'm really afraid what might come next.
I hate being judgmental, but somehow I feel this game embodies all that is wrong about the Playstation 2 generation. For while in the distant past most games were just as silly, they were simplistic enough for people not to get bothered. There was nothing compelling about the story itself, and nothing "realistic" about the whole premise. But this to me is another thing altogether. Today we have means of putting together something which is "good," even if just as fantastic (for instance, I've also recently been playing Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones -- and there's a game which pulls it off quite nicely). Why dumb it down that much for the all-to-eager teenage audience?
And yeah, I guess I'm just getting old and preachy, and the next thing I know I'll be burning piles of GTA boxes in the middle of a street, wearing an "I love Jack Thompson" t-shirt. But maybe not...
I'll still give this game a chance. Maybe I will have to take back all the crap I said here. Watch this space.
PS. On an unrelated note, I've just found a bunch of user reviews dissing the hell out of the Dual Action, saying how damn faulty it is. I've always trusted Logitech and it's been nothing but good to me, so this has me puzzled... On the bright side, this gamepad seems to be second generation (it looks just a little bit different than in all the pictures online, including a different -- better, I think -- d-pad and one extra button labelled "mode") so maybe it's been improved. Not to metion the lovely Vista tag I mentioned above.
A while ago my curiosity made me download the PC version of Onimusha 3. The thing had been idling on my hard drive (very much like many other games, I must say) until my latest gamepad purchase (a very sweet Logitech Dual Action with a disarming "Works with Windows Vista" label on the box) provoked me to play a console port and that's where Onimusha came in handy.
And let me be allowed to say this: oh, my, god. To say that the cutscenes I saw during the first 15 minutes of gaming made me cringe would be an understatement, I think. Ok, so there was a lot of blood -- and I presume that's supposed to be a good thing here. However, the amounts of rubbish coming out of the characters' mouths, the sheer volume of cheap cliches packed into just a few minutes of action and dialogue... Somehow, silly games from the days of old don't really bother me. I remember playing a solid share of dumb games when I was younger, I can also enjoy a dumb SNES rom on my emulator with no problems, of course as long as it's fun to play. I guess I assume it was "back then" and they "didn't know better." But here we have a game that came out in 2005. A game with frikkin' Jean Reno -- so somehow I'm assuming Capcom should know better. But no, we have modern-day Frenchmen speaking French and medieval Japanese men speaking, naturally... English, we have ghoulish Samurai monsters falling from the Paris sky, we have people running in the streets and getting slaughtered the way only C-movie extras know how, we have the most cliche Japanese duel you could imagine practically first thing after starting the game, we have French tough guys shooting way too many bullets, yelling "Eat this!" and a bunch of other macho talk even The Rock would refuse to utter, we have one of them getting hit and telling the other to leave him behind, and naturally we have the said other refusing to obey... And yes, all of that within the first dozen minutes... I'll be honest: I'm really afraid what might come next.
I hate being judgmental, but somehow I feel this game embodies all that is wrong about the Playstation 2 generation. For while in the distant past most games were just as silly, they were simplistic enough for people not to get bothered. There was nothing compelling about the story itself, and nothing "realistic" about the whole premise. But this to me is another thing altogether. Today we have means of putting together something which is "good," even if just as fantastic (for instance, I've also recently been playing Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones -- and there's a game which pulls it off quite nicely). Why dumb it down that much for the all-to-eager teenage audience?
And yeah, I guess I'm just getting old and preachy, and the next thing I know I'll be burning piles of GTA boxes in the middle of a street, wearing an "I love Jack Thompson" t-shirt. But maybe not...
I'll still give this game a chance. Maybe I will have to take back all the crap I said here. Watch this space.
PS. On an unrelated note, I've just found a bunch of user reviews dissing the hell out of the Dual Action, saying how damn faulty it is. I've always trusted Logitech and it's been nothing but good to me, so this has me puzzled... On the bright side, this gamepad seems to be second generation (it looks just a little bit different than in all the pictures online, including a different -- better, I think -- d-pad and one extra button labelled "mode") so maybe it's been improved. Not to metion the lovely Vista tag I mentioned above.
2 comments:
You missed an H there bud.
Thanks. Note to self: "will read what I write" ;)
Post a Comment