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Saturday 9 February, 2008
GAMEPLAY
This game still stays exciting even if you don't play through the storyline. I found the odd jobs to be very fun to play. I could collect coconuts from trees, mow lawns, or even pump other people's gas for them. Each of these jobs had an interesting way to use the controller since it was the wii remote. The jobs were challenging but were also very fun to do using the wii remote in the many different ways. I earned copious amounts of money performing the odd jobs.
The two lead characters in this game are very unique and have odd personalities. Travis is one guy that likes to have fun with his job as an assassin. All he really cares about is becoming number one and hooking up with the girl. The girl is Sylvia and she works for he United Assassins Association. In the first cutscene after the 10th assassin, Travis asks Sylvia if she would hook up with him if he becomes number one. Not every guy would be this forward with someone and Sylvia doesn't exactly say no either. Throughout this game I thought it was fun see how these characters interact with one another.
Fighting the bosses can be fun but also frustrating at times. The very first boss is very hard for a first boss in any game. He has a huge amount of health, is really good at blocking, and my Beam Katana only does minimal damage. Since the players health is so very small, I had to use a lot of strategy in order to defeat this boss. It took me a couple of tries, but each time it was a learning experience. As the game progresses, there are more bosses and each one has a certain strategy that I had to use to defeat them. Even though I died many times fighting bosses, it did not frustrate me. I enjoyed learning about each boss and developing new strategies that might or might no work. I found this strategy exploration more interesting than just constantly fighting the same types of bosses with just some more health.
DESIGN
The controls are a very crucial, unique, and fun design element in this game. This game utilized the wii remote very well. Using them in the odd jobs is one fun way, but I found other parts it was used in ways I didn't take into account. The most surprising thing about this game is it uses the speaker on the wii remote as an ear piece on a phone. I didn't find this out until the remote started ringing so I put it up to my ear. Then Sylvia started talking and I couldn't believe it! No other game I played on the Wii had used the speaker to this extent. It was very fun listening in and before every boss, I would hear another one of Sylvia's phone call conversations.
Another great thing about the wii remote is the way I used it for combat in the game. I had to press the a button hitting the enemy until I could finish him with a final slash. Then with the remote I had to slash it in the direction that was displayed on the screen. This made the player finish the enemy with a blood gushing swipe. I enjoyed this because it made me feel like I was really using the Beam Katana to defeat the enemies. I could also grab the enemies with the grab button and then I had to move the remote in the direction displayed on the screen so that I moved the controls like I was actually grabbing something. This was very fun because it was different than the constant mashing of buttons. This also made the game feel like it was more realistic and that I was really a part of the action instead of just a button mashing observer.
The artistic style in this game is very surreal and it never seems over done. I love games that think of everything bizarre and put it into the game. There is no shortage of unique art styles in this game. This game is highly cell-shaded so it sort of looks like a 3-D comic book world. When the player runs, clouds of dust get kicked up and follow behind him. Some of the vehicles look outrageous in proportions and there is some weird reason why there are Easter Island states scattered throughout the city.
Other artistic parts of this game are styled like 8-bit arcade games. The health is a heart with large square pixels. The pickups are pizza and batteries with square pixels. Even the mission entrances are symbols with huge square pixels. The most exciting artistic object in this game is the assassins list. After you defeat a ranked assassin, an arcade style high score ranking list pops up to show that you have gained a rank on the assassin's list. There is even dorky midi music playing in the background to congratulate you. No art element or any other element was not enjoyable in this game.
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