Heck yes. This game is freakin great. The infinite continues were a Godsend just as they were in the original. While this one was a little easier, I think it fell in the sweet spot of difficulty. Just hard enough to put up a fight, but not so hard that controllers were being broken.
The game was a launch title for the Super NES back in 1991, and was also a retelling of the first NES Castlevania game. It expands on the original's six levels by adding five completely new ones leading up to Dracula's castle. Once inside, you'll start to notice "call backs" to the first game, but it's significantly more than a 16 bit coat of paint on the 8 bit levels - these are designed from the ground up to be bare knuckle action.
I'm actually almost done - I'm on the 10th of the 11th level, hopefully finish it up tonight.
Story.
Nintendo is known for a lot of things - story telling is not one of them. Star Fox 64 is pretty light on story. Essentially, you are part of a group of animal fighter pilots who are trying to save the universe from a gigantic monkey head named Andross.
Your furry and feathered team is about as annoying and shallow as video game characters get, and their laughable scripting and voice acting only make your distaste for them stronger. This gives you absolutely no motivation to see it through to the end. For the time, the amount of voice work in the game was something to marvel, but by today's standards it just comes off as annoying. Luckily, it only takes an hour to beat the game so you won't need much motivation anyway.
Gameplay.
Building off the smooth-as-butter flying and shooting mechanics from the original Star Fox, the game controls like a dream. Controlling your ship is simple and intuitive, shooting is fun, and using upgrades and deftly pulling off special maneuvers will convince you that you could probably be in the air force if you wanted.
The overall level progression design is where I start to feel a little gipped. There are somewhere around 20 different levels in the game, but you'll only see seven on a single play through. The levels you get access to depend on whether or not you meet certain conditions in previous levels. I messed around with a few of these, but ultimately didn't see the value in going back and guessing what to do to open another level. No matter which path you take, the same boss awaits you at the end anyway. And once you beat the final boss of a game and see the credits, the motivation to go back and play through it again greatly diminishes.
The map
The other thing that threw me was just how easy the game is. I could accept the fact that the game has a limited level structure if it took me more than a single try to beat the whole thing in under 60 minutes. Other games with short content shoot the difficulty through the roof. For example, if you're awesome at Contra, you can beat the game in 20 minutes, but nearly everyone I know spent years trying to beat it.
Presentation.
Star Fox 64 is an incredible looking game. Even by today's standards - the ships are well designed, the frame rate is silky smooth, and the music is top notch. It's just a shame I couldn't enjoy it for more than an hour.
In the end, the gameplay and controls are spot on fantastic, its the strange design that really kills this one. The strange thing is how well this game was received. It generally got scores in the 8s and 9s upon release and sold 300,000 copies in its first week on the market. I mean it's not a bad game, just an incomplete one.
Stuff I Loved:
Smooth as silk space combat
Varied levels
Thoroughly decent graphics
Stuff I Hated:
Slippy Toad - worse than Vanille
The length!
Shallow story
To be fair, I'll give this one another day or so and try to discover the alternate paths. If my opinion changes I'll update the review, but as for now I'm sticking by it. Not worth it.
Completion Time: Under an hour Path: Down the right side
So after realizing that my 360 became a worthless white paperweight the other night, I decided to start on Starfox 64, not realizing I would beat it in one sitting in less than an hour. Seriously, first try, all the way to the end, done. It's weird - it's got the old school NES design where the game is really short, but usually in those cases, the games are extremely difficult to extend the length of the game. Star Fox 64 is 7 levels of excruciatingly easy space combat. I don't know what they thought there were getting away with!
It's official. My 360 has suffered its now THIRD red ring of death since I bought it. It is now, however, out of warranty and will cost nearly $150 to get it fixed. Since one of the main points of this blog was to NOT spend money on games, this defeats the purpose. This leaves me with a few options:
1) Screw it, throw out my 360 and erase all twenty 360/XBOX games from my backlog.
2) Buy a used 360 for the same price as the repair
3) Call MS and raise hell
I've had recent problems with Microsoft lately. They automatically renewed my Gold membership for their new price of $60 without my permission, and then refused to cancel it or refund me the money - on a cancelled credit card by the way. I eventually got the credit card to charge back the amount and got it settled, but as soon as that gets worked out the damn system shits the bed.
You know what? I think I'm done with this stupid company and their low quality product. Screw it. I'm done. Any objections? Wanna talk me off the ledge?
Batman. Star of comics and movies and afternoon television, loved by millions of fans the world over, a multi-million dollar industry on the name alone - yet no one has ever successfully made a Batman video game that captured the essence of the movies or the comics in any real way. Freshman developer Rocksteady came out of nowhere with their attempt at a decent Bats game - and holy hell did they deliver.
Story.
Arkham Asylum came out in the Summer of 2009, but it was still riding the immense popularity wave of 2008's The Dark Knight. And while it didn't have story ties with Christopher Nolan's modern masterpiece, Arkham Asylum's main villain is The Joker, and with the hysteria over Heath Ledger's portrayal of the clown-faced maniac, the game really hit a sweet spot in the market.
The main storyline of Arkham Asylum is this: you (Batman) capture Joker and return him to Gotham's home for the criminally insane. Joker seems awfully cooperative as he is wheeled into the institution Hannibal Lecter style in the game's creepy opening. Indeed, you played right into Joker's plan as he takes over the Asylum by setting all the inmates free.
The majority of the story is that setup alone - there's no real big twists or turns or story arcs. There's a ton of atmosphere and sense of place, most of which is derived from a series of Batman comics based around Arkham. But in terms of driving plot, it's a single mission: stop Joker. There are story threads that are told through hidden audio diaries - these are actually recordings of doctor/patient sessions with some of Arkham's most infamous villains. They give a lot of depth to the game's plot and characters, but don't really advance the main plot that much.
Regardless, the amount of story that is here is just right. Because this game is all about the action, baby.
Gameplay.
Finely tuned doesn't even begin to describe this game. The developers captured every element of Batman's character and then some. Doing so meant blending several different game styles which can often result in a mess of a game, but Rocksteady studios absolutely nailed it.
One of the first things to comes to mind when one thinks of Batman is the gadgets. In Arkham Asylum you have eight gadgets to play around with - from the iconic Batarang to the remotely detonated explosive foam, to the ridiculously-fun-to-use zip line, you will feel like a fully equipped Dark Knight.
In addition to sweet gear, Batman also has to be stealthy. There are specific rooms within the Asylum that are swarming with armed thugs - the most threatening enemies in the game. If you're seen, it only takes two or three shots to take you down. To make sure you aren't seen, you are given the all important "detective mode". This is activated by a single button press and allows Batman to see through walls to see the position of the thugs and whether or not they are armed. You can also hang from gargoyles around the to evade and hide from trouble.
Detective Mode
These rooms are all about pattern recognition and patience. But once you start methodically taking out the guards and hearing their shouts go from taunting to pleading, you actually feel like the all powerful caped crusader. These are by far the most exciting parts of the game once you get it right.
Even with all this coolness of knocking out baddies, Batman's original occupation was a detective. The Detective Mode which allows you to see enemies through walls, also allows you to track down clues and follow invisible footprints. There are quite a few times throughout the game where you're tasked with finding an answer to a puzzle rather than finding the soft spot in a goon's head. While these sections were relatively easy, they were challenging enough to be enjoyable, and offered a welcomed break in the action.
In addition to the campaign based puzzles, there are also "Riddler Challenges" scattered everywhere. Almost every room in the game has a pun-based riddle associated with it and solving it will give you experience points and will usually unlock character bios for you to peruse. Many times you can ignore the riddle and just point at the thing that sticks out in a room, but other times they can be real noodle scratchers. But Riddler didn't only leave riddles for you to solve, he also hid little question mark trophies everywhere - sometimes easy to track down, other times deviously difficult. I was obsessed with finding as many trophies and answering as many riddles as possible. I got about 75% of them, but the time I spent trying to figure out these puzzles easily extended the game's length by 3-4 hours for me - easily my favorite aspect of the game.
Probably has something to do with that elevator...
The final thing I'll mention is that you are in a mental hospital for the criminally insane - that's a scary place, and this game reminds you of that every chance it gets. You won't be jumping out of your seat or trading in Silent Hill 2, but the creepiness is definitely there real thick. The best component of this is the Scarecrow's induced hallucinations.You'll start to see the environment around you change radically in a way specifically targeted to terrify Bruce Wayne - and you in the process. It's freakin scary. Here's a non-spoilery sample:
How much poop is in your pants right now?
The amount of variety of gameplay in this game is immense. I didn't even mention the Metroid elements, Zelda elements, or the hand-to-hand combat. While it doesn't quite match the pacing of Uncharted 2, it destroys it in the amount of gameplay styles packed in there. You will never be bored while playing this game. Never. Never ever. For real.
Presentation.
Batman has always been dark, and gritty and sort of gothic (well, except for that stupid Batman and Robin movie), and Arkham Asylum captures that aesthetic perfectly. Its appropriate use of the gray scale is spot on, but the game adds variety by pushing you through a lush greenhouse garden or the night-sky lit Asylum courtyards, or Batman's alternate batcave - bathed in the blue glow of technology, its environments are just as varied as its styles of gameplay.
The voice acting and scripting is damn near perfect. Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill voices the Joker, reprising his role from the animated series. Batman still has that goofy, over-the-top gruffness to his voice, but at least its consistent with the movies.
"No! That's not true! That's impossible!" I mean..."Let's put a smile on that face..."
The little details in the game are fantastic too. For example, as you play through, Batman's suit gets ripped and his cape gets shredded - evidence and reminders of your physical struggles through the experience.
The music is awesome and reminiscent of the Tim Burton Batman music. Swelling horns and orchestration punctuates each area and victory.
The only thing I didn't like was how close the camera hung on your character. Batman took up like the entire left third of the screen, which made it hard to see at times. It's totally nit-picky and you definitely get used to it after a couple hours, but it's the only negative thing I could say about the game. Here, see for yourself.
Yo, you all up in my business. My biznass.
Stuff I Loved:
Perfect blend of seemingly endless gameplay styles
Top notch voice acting, scripting, and graphics
Freakin scary when it should be, exciting when it needed to be and methodical when you wanted it to be. Awesome.
Stuff I Hated:
Literally nothing. I was never frustrated throughout the entire game. Ever.
If you don't own this game, change that. It's by far one of the top ten games of this generation. Here, let me help you. Batman Arkham Asylum on Amazon
Hell yes. This game is tippity top notch. Extremely well developed, thoroughly engaging, right mood, right controls - it's a legitimate gem of a game. Definitely in the top three of the games I've played so far in this blog.
