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Saturday 9 February, 2008
GAMELOG #2
GAMEPLAY:
On the overworld map, you get from place to place on your motorbike. During this time, the only entertaining thing I've found to do is mow over as many pedestrians and streetlamps as I can between points a and b. The real downside, however, is the contact between other objects. If you hit a wall or something solid, you fall off your bike and take about 5 seconds to stand back up again. There is no reason to put this long of a wait, or any wait at all, if the only consequence is increasing the length of monotony.
The lawn mowing reference I made happened to be the second of the odd side jobs. If it weren't for my roommate and a friend of mine being in the room and laughing about it with me, I don't think I would have appreciated the event as much as I did. It was silly and relatively short, and scored me a few bucks.
There are also other side jobs that DO involve combat. It started with targeting some big business guy with no real story meaning, and killing a bunch of no-names, both for money. After, I notice the jobs involve stylistic challenges as well. One of them is to kill as many guys as I can in 'x' amount of time using only wrestling moves. These have a cash reward as well, but things like time limits and combat challenges make them more interesting.
As you rank up, more places become available in the city, including a weapon shop, a gym, and a clothing store for a little customization. Some look useless, some look necessary. Though one thing is pretty constant: everything is expensive.
DESIGN:
The art style of this game is pretty amazing. They took full advantage of the fact the Wii doesn't have good graphics quality and had fun. It's almost entirely cell shaded, with a really gritty feel to it. The menus, GUI, icons, and all that other stuff is in a very 8-bit looking style. The sounds for acquiring items, ranking up, etc go with this theme, playing midi-like sounds reminiscent of Mario Bros or Metroid.
The gore and violence is very over-the-top, to where it's almost silly. This trait seems to make the game though. Bodies split in half and heads fly off as blood sprays everywhere and it just makes each death feel so much more visceral. Without it, the game would seem quite dull. Word is the Japanese and European versions censor most of it out, but I just can't see this game being complete without it.
The missions are given to you one at a time from two buildings in town. When you accept one, a marker for its location shows up on your minimap. The division of missions was done well, and the completion of each one is fun (those including combat at least). While I say the division is good, I mean the literal separation. They did well in creating lots of small, fun events. The division in distance on the map is not so great. I have a similar complaint in my Shadow of the Colossus review, so I guess I'm just becoming less patient with games. At least give me something to do while I wait.
Once again, I'll talk about save points. If you are between missions, you can't simply save on the overworld map. You must go all the way back to your room. They could at least let you save and send you back to your room when you turn the game back on. And if you fail during most missions, you not only have to start over, but you have to accept the job and drive back to the location a second time. There's really no reason not to just start you back at the beginning of the mission, or just outside the building. They are all instanced, so I would imagine it's easier to keep it loaded and respawn the enemies than to kick you halfway across the city.
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