RE4 Wrap Up & Apollo Justice

02/25/08 7:38 pm

When we last left our hero, he had infiltrated the enemy headquarters on ... some island. There are some rather eerie settings here, particularly the run-down hospital where you meet your first regenerator. And those minigun toting commando enemies? Ouch. It took me several attempts to beat Krauser, since I kept trying to shoot him and the time limit would run out. Use the knife? Bah.

On the other hand, I defeated the final boss on my first attempt ("what? All I have to do is shoot the eyeball, then use a context-command? ... Hmm."), after which I was disheartened to die several times on the jet ski escape from the island. I realize I must be simply awful at it, but it felt so out of place to begin with: I just beat the boss... game is over now - gimme a cut scene and some closure, not an opportunity to instantly die 10 more times before you roll credits.

All in all though, I had an unexpectedly great time with this game. I feel a good part of the credit for that must go to the Wii remote controls - for some reason I am near-incapable of simultaneously using one analog stick for movement and one for aiming. The Wii remote makes aiming far more intuitive and comfortable, especially for a n00b (of the genre) like myself. On that note, I can't wait to try out Metroid Prime 3...

But when another Gyakuten Saiban comes to call, nary an objection can be made.

Apollo Justice is the first game in the Ace Attorney / Gyakuten Saiban series to be made for the Nintendo DS rather than being a port of a Gameboy Advance title. However, several of the "new" features actually premiered in the fifth case of the first game - "Rise From the Ashes" - which was added on to the DS version of the title. Fingerprinting, video analysis, 3D evidence inspection and blood detection all return in Apollo Justice, in addition to "perceiving," foot printing, x-ray scanning and sound analysis with a mixing board, to name a few.

While I like these features, I couldn't help but wish for more freedom with them. Why can I only dust for fingerprints when I'm led to do so? Why can't I put any piece of paper in the x-ray scanner, even if it comes out blank? Giving us free reign on the gadgets might have drawn attention away from the stark linearity in the plot, but instead it's reinforced by "only when I say so" access.

And then there's the 3D rendering of evidence... okay, it looks nice, but feels pointless when an examination yields no additional information; this was implemented better in Ashes, where an object was only visible in 3D if a 3D analysis would reveal something special.

However, as usual, Gyakuten Saiban delivers an immersive, intricate story that had me hooked 'til the end. While I liked Trials & Tribulations for its interweaving of stories through three cases, Justice intertwines all of its cases. Since the series dropped most of its regular faces in favor of a new cast, character development was essential, and the game does a satisfying job of bridging the past and present, always revealing things in bits and pieces as you go, of course. Personally I wasn't so enticed by the new breed of smiley, polite prosecutor (it's more fun when they're being smarmy and mean... and cyborg!), but he plays an air guitar in court... how can I not be amused by that?

Filed under: Games  Apollo Justice  Phoenix Wright  Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition  Opinion  

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Moar RE Foar

02/12/08 7:05 pm

My escapade through Resident Evil 4 Wii Ed continues - I've reached "the island," which follows in the series of simply named locales such as "the village," and "the castle."

Defeating Salazar (or "squeaky voiced midget Napoleon" *link content not suitable for children) took a couple of tries, for a single reason: the one-hit kill. Whatever game it appears in, this really gets on my nerves; I've been fighting this boss for some five minutes, repeatedly dodging flailing tentacles and spider-like creatures, waiting for those few brief moments when I can hit its vulnerable spot, and then it lunges with a many-fanged mouth and a roar that will be your death knell, if you don't run away quickly enough. Worse are the chainsaw-wielding fellows amongst the villagers, or the zealots carrying head-chomping parasites; these guys will show up while you're already occupied fighting off a crowd of enemies, get close to you and then BAM, "You are dead" (I love how the game over screen so flagrantly informs me of this - as if I didn't know that decapitation was fatal).

It's a violation of good faith in gaming. You enter the game with [or progressively acquire] an understanding of the rules that bind you and, supposedly, the enemies as well; you cannot take down your foes in a single hit, but nor can they do it to you, so you have a sense of fairness in the game. A one-hit kill is a violation of this would-be mutual understanding, and thusly feels like cheating. Of course, games try to compensate for this by making killer attacks slow or inaccurate, providing a margin of safety through successful reaction or sheer good fortune. I suppose out of those two, I'd prefer the former, which at least has something to do with my ability in the game, rather than the latter where there's nothing but a coin flip between success and epic fail. Still it doesn't make it any less frustrating when a challenge you would've won is usurped by a tiny mistake that will cost you everything. If I were emo, perhaps I'd muse, "such is life" (...but I'm not... I like bunnies).

I understand though, that the "survival horror" genre is apparently not supposed to be like this in the first place. I'm told that RE4 is an anomaly in that it gives you the means to fight back against the hordes, whereas you'd normally need to turn tail and run for the hills, I suppose. But what fun would that be? As mentioned in my previous post about the game, this isn't my typical gaming fare; it's the first I've played in the genre, really. Because I like it, there's a decent chance I'll give its predecessors a shot at some point, but if a zombie is trying to eat my sweet sweet brains and all I can do is run walk slowly backwards while still facing forward, it doesn't sound like a fun time.

At the very least, Rirath has predestined that I will play Umbrella Chronicles on co-op, however.

Filed under: Games  Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition  Opinion  

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