It\'s tough approaching an all new hyped up console. When you first see the machine running on a desk and the television set is still slightly out of view, your expectations rise extremely high expecting this exciting new product that will make your senses explode into a shiny bright beacon of colorful metaphors. However, those expectations can be a terrible thing if that explosion never happens and instead you walk off shaking your head in disbelief.
With new equipment, it\'s always a double edged sword because there is no way you can have a successful balance of wonder and pessimism when you approach that screen. Sometimes it just surprises you. This time I can\'t say if I walked in pessimistic or curious, but when I walked away from the X-Box, I felt overly depressed and with the Gamecube I walked away feeling optimistic.
X-Box
I have seen the X-Box in person several times before knowing, and partly believing, all the spiel that was spewed by the public and media sites stating that the games were early and that they had a lot of work left in them. Now however, my original impressions held through today just as they did months ago when I first saw that huge box whirring endlessly, but now with finished games.
The system just dissapoints me. Plain and Simple.
I got a chance to sit down for two hours playing both Halo and Oddworld today so I will break the games and the controller down for all those who have yet to try it out, but I am sure you will once those kiosks start showing up in EB\'s and Sam Goody stores across the nation, which they already have if I understand correctly.
Halo: I love FPS games. I especially love Counter-Strike, Dues EX, and I occasionally play Tribes and I must say, Halo doesn\'t differ too much from them. The vehicles are nice, nothing Tribes or Tribes 2 doesn\'t offer. The FPS is pretty solid in about 80% of the game with it dipping only occasionaly. However, although the presentation is very cinematic and it flows incredibly fast, this was meant to be a multiplayer game. Multiplayer games are the ones that are still considered to be the best by all. If MGS2 even had an I.Link mode hook-up where two players could dish it out to eachother in a snake vs snake battle in the same area as when you fought Olga, the game would be a billion times better. That holds true for any game, but it especially holds true for FPS\' and personally, with that lack of multiplayer goodness, I\'d much rather skip this game for the PC version.
Multiplayer issues aside, the game plays very well. The controller handles decently, but I still prefer the fast keyboard\\mouse combo I am customed to. Those slow turns to see what\'s behind you are painful to execute, especially when most enemy fire comes from the sides or the rear rather then straight ahead of you. I had fun for the first thirty minutes or so, but then after driving the jeep for a bit, I realized this game was merely executing an old console favorite from years ago: Ikari Warriors. Remember though, half the fun of that game was playing with a friend and nabbing vehicles before they did in the co-op arcade action. That\'s just not possible here, sadly.
Oddworld: When I first saw the videos for Oddworld, I was easily impressed. The water, the sunlight, the way the world reacted to everything that the player did and I had been a fan of the early 2D versions of the game and though the videos were faithful presentations of the 2D versions.
Then I played ICO.
Now, Oddworld is just odd. It\'s a nice diversion on a Sunday afternoon if all the football games are not being played on TV and you\'re out of beer, yet too lazy to get up and drive to the store for some more. It\'s nice for what it was a year ago when we all first saw it, but now it just comes up short with some terrible framerate issues. I guess I swallowed the hype of this game then and I could have expected too much, but what do you expect from Lorne Lanning, a guy who fired 90% of his staff when the game was "finished."
It controls exceptionally, but the default camera style is fairly lame and places you in strange angles when you need to make sudden quick turns. I found myself falling into a pit of bombs more often then not while I was trying to navigate a thin unobstructed path. I suddenly needed to turn left and yet the camera helds it\'s position rather then rotating with my character making the navigation overly difficult then necessary.
Graphically, I know the system is early and this is a launch title, but I hope it gets better and quick. Personally, I think Oddworld Inhabitants talked a big game and delivered a very small product.
X-Box controller: Size wise, I had no problem with it at all. It felt fairly comfortable in my hands. The button placement is what I have a problem with. The black and white buttons at the very top are far too out of place for any normal gamer and the L and R buttons are far too deep in the controller for anyone to even care aboutt them. It mimicks the Dreamcast controller greatly and yet it\'s subtle "provements" are short-comings. Perhaps the pictures just made it look comfortable, but honestly, it just came off awkward.
Gamecube
Optimistic is probably the nicest word I can use for this system, but like the X-Box, it dissapoints me to a degree as well. The Gamecube has that same type of graphical effect as the Dreamcast where a lot of the games look similar with the much brighter colors and cartoony feel rather than something overly realistic and detailed. That could be the artist in me spewing BS, but even Rogue Leader follows that trend to an extent.
I play all three Japanese launch games a few weeks ago and all three games are less then spectacular in their own ways be it concept, graphics, or originality. I\'m having a hard time finding reasons why I like the Gamecube over the X-Box this holiday season now that I compare it to the PS2 games that I have played that will be releasing or released at around the same time these systems launch. However, I have hight hoped for Star Wars Rogue Leader while I have no hopes for anything coming out for the X-Box this holiday season, and that includes the MS fanboy favorites, DOA3 and Project Gotham.
Super Monkey Ball: Marble Madness in extreme 3D with monkeys. Much to my chagrine, it\'s too much like Marble Madness and nothing but a quick thirty minute pick me up every now and again. I can never see myself setting up my Cube for a 3-hour romp with Monkey Ball and that\'s unfortunate for a Sega game. Pilot the monkey in a see-through sphere and collect as many bananas as you can and reach the goal. It sounds original, but take away the monkeys, and remove the bananas and you have Marble Madness, plain and simple.
I can\'t comment on the multiplayer aspect, but that\'s what everyone raves about who has the game so you should all keep that in mind when you finish reading these impressions.
Wave Race: Ble Storm: The acronym, Wave Race: BS is fairly accurate here. The water is pretty and yet the game is overly stale. Why or how Nintendo fanboys raved about this game is beyond me. The physics engine is pretty sharp and the graphics all around are pretty and decent, but the gameplay, unlike the water, is shallow. Tricks on jetskis is a great concept and all, but nothing about it makes me wanna pick this game over any other Nintendo launch title. However, it looks like I will seeing as how EB is screwing me with a non-cost-effective bundle. Thanks a lot guys.
If you want a game where you do tricks in an extreme kind of way with lots of multiplayer options, go with Tony Hawk 3 and go with the online play and just skip wave race. I\'m not even a huge tony hawk fan, but I know a good game when I see it and Wave Race is definitely not a good game.
Luigi\'s Mansion: To think that I thought this was the most graphically impressive game at Spaceworld 2k over a year ago. Funny how things change rapidly. I thought the lighting effects were some of the best I had ever seen in a game in the videos I had downloaded from the Nintendo site.
Then I played Silent Hill 2.
Now the lighting effects are nothing special. A flashlight creates real-time shadows, that\'s great, but why are the textures so N64-ish?
The of course there is the repetetitve gameplay. You can tell that Miyamoto, being the gaming genius that he is, was more focues on a game that interested him moreso then a game that was just a side project which is what Luigi\'s Mansion clearly is. A sidenote in a great man\'s career. In an hour, you\'ll be bored out of your mind, I know I was. Repetetive gameplay is the worst kind other then having none at all. Go to room A, find the key. Go to room B, find the ley. And so on. Sad, really.
Gamecube Controller: This is pobably the finest controller to date. The N64 pioneered the analoge stick, and now it creates buttons embedded within buttons. Genius. It\'s overly comfortable and the buttons feel great when you run your thumb over them with the L and R buttons placed correctly for your index fingers. Probably the most impressive Cube feature at launch.
Well, that just about does it for my impressions. So far, the Cube is still my favorite for games and the X-Box needs to overcome that whole "4x\'s as powerful" theory before it REALLY hurts them. Still, both consoles needs plenty of improvement before they are worth every cent of your hard earned greens. Think of it as an investment though, it only gets better from here... I hope.
