|
TECH
Conflict:
Desert Storm II Back to Baghdad
PS2, Xbox, GameCube (Gotham Games)
CNN headlines and interactive entertainment rarely collide, and when they do it’s mostly by accident. With Doom and Columbine, Microsoft Flight Simulator and 9-11, Silent Scope and the DC sniper, the collisions were embarrassing to the makers. Conflict: Desert Storm II-Back to Baghdad chases the reality of 24-hour news, and the result is grim and oddly compelling.
This is not a game for everybody. Casual gamers may be put off by the slow, methodical, defensive thinking that’s required to lead your four-man squad to victory (bezerker attacks invariably end in hails of bullets). Controlling your soldiers, you crouch and crawl into position, choose your weapon, find your target, take careful aim and then finally fire.
The game includes a cooperative multiplayer mode, allowing for hours of slow, wide-eyed marijuana- and Red Bull-abetted gameplay. After long-coordinated planning, your team surrounds the enemy and blasts them to jelly as they shout something that sounds like "Allah."
This is video gaming as a serious enterprise–there is no music, the colors are dull and there’s no splashy gore. This is a rarified form of fun, one that is disciplined and rigorous. Don’t expect to get past the first board without sitting through the "training" levels where an R. Lee Ermey-style drill sergeant instructs on how to use the correct button combos to control your team. Not that the game is without thrills. Crawling over sand and under bullets, you can almost smell the sarin gas. Obviously, CDS II is trying to capitalize on the segment of America that can’t get enough of war footage.
The game takes place during the 1991 Iraq war and doesn’t stick close to the source material; the game probably contains more combat episodes than the war itself. Of course, the real way that war went wouldn’t make a good game: remote bombing is only interesting for so long.
It’s strange that the game was released shortly after the White House’s "everything in Iraq is just fine" PR blitz. Playing the game, it’s impossible to think of Iraq as anything but a violent slog. Time constraints prevented me from finishing it, but I’m sure those elusive WMD’s will be a last level Easter Egg.
–Adam Bulger
XIII
GameCube, PS2, Xbox (Ubisoft)
Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill was amazing. Not only was there cartoon violence, there was cartoon violence. Looking back over the last year or so in video games, it shouldn’t come as such a surprise that XIII brilliantly uses the same technique. But it does. More than half a year ago, Nintendo released their newest installment of award-winning The Legend Of Zelda series, this time, titled The Wind Waker.
Most hardcore gamers loved it, but some really hated it. Why? Because it used anime, that cartoon style every hipster and their five-year-old brother thinks is the second coming– of Speed Racer, anyway. The Japanese are so into it they make porno movies and video games around it.
Anyway, Ubisoft’s latest FPS uses this art form so wonderfully you actually forget you are playing a video game and find yourself buried in a comic book world where explosions actually have words above them like boom! and bad guys go arrgh when you shoot them. But the game goes much further than that. Like the Matt Damon movie where he wakes up and doesn’t know who he or his life partner Ben Affleck are, you play a guy with amnesia. The number XIII has been sliced onto your body and your mission is to find out who you are and what the fuck happened. To reveal any more of the plot will spoil the game, so I won’t. (I will tell you that original Batman Adam West contributes some voice acting here as General Carrington, and it’s awesome.)
David Duchovny plays the Matt Damon role, and he’s much less whiney than on The X-Files. I’ll also tell you the guns are big, but mine’s bigger. Most importantly, this game is fun. And memorable. Not like what’s-his-face’s last movie.
–George Tabb
Jak
II
PS2 (Sony)
Last time we saw Jak whacking his weasel was back in Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, where we were introduced to this odd couple as they searched for magical eggs and this gooey stuff called "eco." Made by the same software team that did Crash Bandicoot, that game features graphics that were nothing short of amazing. That hasn’t changed with Jak II.
What has changed is Jak’s attitude. During his first outing, he was happy enough just speeding around on hover boards and checking out some old guy’s daughter’s boobies and pounding his weasel any which way he could. But now, older and more frustrated, Jak’s jacking days turn a little more toward Columbine. Pissed off at a future he and Daxter have been transported to, Jak uses his furry friend less and his big guns more. A hell of a lot more. Running around massive worlds, Jak is able to shoot, skateboard and car-Jak–a la Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
While this platformer is aimed at kids–well, teenagers–degenerates of all ages will enjoy this new ability to fuck anyone at anytime, anywhere. As in the first game, the controls are tight; they make me remember just how much more I enjoyed the PS2 controller than that loose Xbox one. Also, in this game, when Jak gets angry, he can turn from Happy Jak into Dark Jak and pull off some really nasty moves that will have Joe Lieberman’s flabby face all twisted up in no time.
Bottom line is, if you like Super Mario-type video games, you’ll love this. If you hate Super Mario type games, go read the Village Voice. They don’t know how to have fun over there, either.
–George Tabb
Star
Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
GameCube (LucasArts)
It seemed perfect: a Star Wars game with third-person action, flight simulation and racing elements. Rebel Strike promised to be a worthy sequel to one of the GameCube’s best releases. But once eager Star Wars fans rip open the package and slip it into their Cubes, they will see evil. I’m talking about the disco sequence that begins the game.
There are so many things about this sequence that are vile and disgusting, such as the bland character models, the mediocre dance music and the shock of watching Darth Vader, an evil Imperial leader, dance to an ABBA song. That’s just the opening.
The problems don’t end there. The game play suffers from one of the worst cameras of the year. Factor 5, the game’s designers, should have left the C-stick for manual camera maneuver instead of having the camera fixed like Capcom’s Resident Evil series. (I will tell you now, Luke Skywalker fights Imperial Soldiers, not zombies.) Also, the controls are loose and gawky, making it extremely hard to move around on foot. At one point I got stuck in a door and had to reset because of the bad controls (resulting in ten minutes of lost progress).
Rebel Strike does have its moments. The difficulty has been downsized somewhat, which is a good thing for a guy like me who wants mild entertainment for a week or two but bad news for major Star Wars fans who will be disappointed by the easy missions. The flying levels left me in pure awe, with visual detail of space debris and ships that are really something to marvel at.
Overall, however, I’m afraid that’s the only thing to marvel at in this major disappointment.
–N.O. Smith
