Well, what can I say? This is prolly the first title on a lot of people\'s games lists this month and it releases in just under three days. Well, today at the Sony Metreon, I got to give this puppy a short test drive on the 14-inch vasaline covered screens (yes, they are very blurry). Well, on with my 5 minute impressions:
First of all, the graphics are BREATHTAKING. They had a 40+ inch trinitron tv showing it off ont he outside of the event with full surround sound and my god, i have never seen anything so beautiful. The game is SUPER SMOOTH and it has a DEFINITE cinematic feel to it. When I watched the video outside on that crystal clear flat screen TV, I nearly fell over. It blew me away and literally made people stop and admire it\'s beauty. I can\'t think of a game looking better then that (except MGS2 of course).
Now that is about it\'s only redeeming quality. If there ever was a game to be shown on the PS2 to all your friends just for graphical display, this is THE showpiece. However, just don\'t let them play it. I got to play about 5 minutes and in those 5 minutes, I spent all 5 minutes fighting battles. I BREEZED through all the enemies and skipped numerous cut scenes just so I could get the maximum amount of play time in. In those 5 minutes, the game got boring fast. There are the combos from numerous button presses, the psuedo lighting effects when your punch or kick connects with an enemy, and of course the repetetive enemies on screen at all times. Then there\'s the breath taking backgrounds, which you can\'t interact with, and the stale enemy AI (i dunno what difficulty it was on, but it was a joke).
All in all, graphics wise, it\'s damn stunning. Gameplay wise, its poor and lukewarm at best. What happened to the depth in games by DreamFactory when it came to fighters? Damn, Tobal 1 and 2 were sweet, but then to see something like this from them, gameplay wise, is just sad. This is definitely a game to WATCH rather then play. It\'s rental quality at best and to charge 50 bucks for it is pretty sad. Hopefully, we\'ll soon see it at a 29.99 or 24.99 price tag.
On a more important note, I got to meet 2 of the IGN.PS2 freaks over at the Denny\'s right across from the Metreon. In fact, my friend even told them, flat out that Brandon Justics of IGN.Dreamcast was retarded. The PS2 crew laughed and clapped their hands in approval, porbably the highlight of my day.
At the showing, I got the Bouncer soundtrack, a third Vivi doll, a PS2 keychain, a Bouncer money clip, and PS2 port covers (for the USB and I-Link ports). All in all, it was a break even kind of day especially since I waited in line for two hours for it. Rent it, then beat it, then take it back, but that\'s all you\'ll ever play of it.
