OK, here\'s a little review for Kopking, and anyone else out there who is curious of this unique and innovite game:
Freak Out (aka Stretch Panic) has been our for a week in the UK, but they\'ll be very little numbers of it going around, as it really is not mass-market material for the US/Europe regions. I work in HMV, and even store only got 1 copy of it.
The plot is superficial, but crazy nevertheless, and it revolves around you, Linda, having to rescue your 12 vain sisters who have been whisked away by monsters, and the only aid you have is your trusty possessed scarf (!!!). I know, please bear with me.
WHAT\'S IT ALL ABOUT THEN?
Essentially, this game is a 3rd-person action game, that revolves around a single, hub-style room. From this room, you can travel via doorways, to 2 different style areas: Ex Worlds and Sister \'rooms\', where your sisters are being held.
In order to enter the sister rooms, you have to earn points (1 point unlocks each door), and to get these points, you enter the Ex Worlds. These are fairly small environments that are populated evil Zako, which are basically nasty women with big hooters who you destroy to gain those needed points. When you have gained enough, enter the main room again, and fight a boss.
GAMEPLAY
Fighting in this game is truly unique, as your main weapon is a large possessed scarf. The left analogue contols Linda around the landscape ala Mario 64, and the right controller moves your scarf around Linda. The great thing about the scarf is that it has the ability to stretch and snap onto ANYTHING in the game world (i.e the ground, trees, enemies etc), and by letting go of L1 (i think), the scarf lets go, and the object that was grabbed snaps back into place. So when you come to an enemy, aim your scarf, grab for example, a weak spot(e.g the head) and snap it to inflict damage. The more you stretch the object, the more tension you cause, and therefore the damage will be greater. You can also reach other parts of the landscape by snapping onto pieces of the land, etc.
And then there\'s the boss, who are utterly crazy, yet wildy imaginitive looking. They have the usual weakspots which you should try to stretch, but there are many ways to take them on. And for every 5 points you gained in the Ex Worlds, you can activate a superb bomb, which will cause a good deal of damage, but the bomb takes around 5 seconds to explode, so you have to be wary of attacks from the boss.
GRAPHICS
God, this is hard to judge. On the one hand, it\'s a technicolour tour-de-force, and on the other, it\'s barren and oh-so=plain.
The main hub room is incredible to look at. Remember the stylish pencil-look that Yoshi\'s Story had? Well, imagine Miyamoto went on a drugs rampage, and scribbled all over the place with black pencil lines!!! When you move around, the lines run all over the place, and you\'ll smile to yourself at just how cool this looks, and it\'s all almost black and white!!!It looks utterly unique.
Then you enter the Ex Worlds, and there\'s a huge anti-climax. The first Ex World I entered was very barren, composed of a green landscape, punctuated by the odd palm tree and the enemies. There is a sea surrounding the environemt which moves and is pleasant, but the sparseness is evident. In fact, it\'s not much better looking than anything 32-bit, and the polygon count is very low. Even the enemies are rather lacking, but the humour of the whole scenario carries you through this. Only when you attack an enemy, do you see a sudden psychadelic blaze of colour and stars of the explsion which looks great, if a little confusing.
The bosses are varied and original, and play host to beautiful graphical touches, such as motion blur, warping effetc, and everything is super smooth with no slowdown whatsoever.
In a sentence from what I have seen, dull landscapes, but beautifully coloured with great PS2 effects.
SOUND
Well, it does the job with neat sound effects, and typical Japanese music.
PRESENTATION
neat and uncluttered, but very little options to choose from: New Game, Continue and OPtions, which allows you to change the cofiguration.
**NOTE FOR PAL USERS**
NO 50HZ/60HZ OPTION (not needed, as this game is very smooth and has no slowdown)
NO SCREEN CENTERING (which is annoying as we\'re talking Onimusha-style borders, here)
CONCLUSION
If ever there was need for the cliche "Try it before you buy it", then this IS the one. Some may find it repetitive, apparently is too small and easy (I\'ve only mucked about with it), and there\'s no a lot of variety, BUT it controls great (yes, you lock onto enenies Zelda-style), is great just to even stretch the environment around you, and is one of the most original and innovative created.
I like it, not love it, but as i write this, I\'m compelled to go and
stretch some bosses!
I hope this \'review\' helps anyone out who is unsure of this game, but you really have to have a go to expreience this piece of software.
The consensus will be either I love it, or I hate it. Have a go and see.
Cheers for reading this. Apologies for any typos up there.
Topic: Freak Out (aka Stretch Panic) reviewed... (Read 1147 times)