Holy crap, two months into the New Year and no new Game On? Where have I been? Well, due to some personal issues, job promotions, and moving, I’ve been everywhere but here…but not anymore. New Year, new columns, new style…plus a few familiar features. Beginning (hopefully) next week, we’re going digital…that is, Game On! will be a monthly video podcast. Normal written columns every week, full video hilarity every month. Who can deny all that gaming goodness? Well, hopefully no one…I’d like to get the viewership. On with this week’s (super late) reviews.

PLANET OLD SCHOOL

One of the first new titles released for the Xbox 360 this year has been Capcom’s LOST PLANET, a fantastic shooter/platformer…if you’re a fan of the old school style of gaming. Which, no, isn’t a bad thing. Using a tried and true style of level design, enemy structure and goal acquisition, LOST PLANET brings to mind many of the greatest Capcom titles of old, not the least of which is BIONIC COMMANDO.

As Wayne, the hero with the horrible name, you don’t remember anything of your past except that your father died while fighting the alien bug known as Green Eye. Your home world is covered in ice and snow and you must now fight your way through the hordes of slimy bug things known s Akrid in order to uncover the mystery of your past, making the game seem like some twisted cross between STARSHIP TROOPERS and THE THING. Because of the cold, your health is constantly depleting, and you are always in search of T-Eng, or Thermal Energy, which refills your health, dropped by any defeated creatures. Along your journey you’ll fight giant worms, moths, and other ugly gross things, as well as engaging other humans. Snow Pirates have captured much of the land and claim it for their own evil purposes.

The game is set up level by level, each ending with a giant boss battle, and this design, while graphically in the “next generation” is very old school indeed. All of the bosses (and indeed, most of the enemies) each have a visual weak point, a glowing area that you must hit and exploit to bring them down. This creates some very exciting moments, and some of the best ‘holy shit” elements of the game are when some new scary giant…THING comes roaring out of the ground. Wayne’s got a sweet little grappling hook, which can usually swing him out of harm’s way (which is where the BIONIC COMMANDO comparison comes in), but honestly it’s underused in the game.

You’re not really alone in your battles either. Along your paths you can pick up the weapons of fallen frozen explorers, or even climb into a Vital Suit or VS, a mech like armor that adds a good bit of firepower to Wayne’s battles against the Akrid.

The unfortunate thing about the game, however, is that it’s a bit short. Most of the levels are structure SO distinctly that one could generally just run past all the Akrid and Snow pirates in each level and just get to the boss battle at the end. Also, while the cut scenes are incredibly detailed they’re also incredibly BORING. The first four or five are just a bunch of people sitting at a table TALKING…no background music, no heightened tension…no point in watching them.

Thankfully, the online game saves the quickness of the main story and gives players a good amount of options as far as multiplayer games go. You have your typical Deathmatch (“Elimination”), Last Man Standing (“Team Elimination”) and Capture the Flag (“Post Grab”) modes, as well as a mode called “Fugitive”. Here, the host player is the fugitive and the other opponents must track him down and capture or defeat him in the allotted time. The host wins by getting his “Battle Gauge” up by defeating his opponents. Capcom also just announced that a few weeks in to March they’ll be releasing the first of a series of new map packs for the game. The first set of maps, due out around March 9th, will feature two new multiplayer arenas: Island 902 and Radar Field.

For what it’s worth, LOST PLANET offers fans of old school style of gameplay a good deal of new areas to explore with familiar outcome. While this may put off a few gamers looking for a wholly “next gen” title, the graphics and physics of the game should still keep the satiated as well, and the online play is nothing to sneer at. It may not be exactly what we were hoping for (or even what the TV commercials would have you believe it is) but it’s still fun none the less, and is structured is such a way that folks can either take their time or zip through the story as needed.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

PIMPIN’ *IS* EASY

PIMP MY RIDE is one of my guilty TV pleasures. There’s something about the show that I really enjoy, be it Xzibit’s colorful commentary, the crew at West Coast Customs (and to a lesser extent, GAS) and their unique personalities, or the joy on the customer’s faces as their rides are transformed from hoopties to hardcore gangsta shit. Sadly, other then the first thing, none of these appear in the game for PS2 or Xbox 360.

As a new up and coming customizer in “Pimp City” (say what now?), you take on a challenge from X to the Z himself and compete against a rival crew of (unseen) pimpers to see who’s the best at tricking out phat rides. To do so, you take the customer’s car and drive it around the city to raise money to pay for all the customization you’ll do to it.

I’ll let you read that sentence again, then I’ll continue.

“You take the customer’s car and drive it around the city to raise money to pay for the customization you’ll do to it.” There, has it sunk in yet? Nothing like the show so far, yes? Well, wait for it, it gets worse. To raise money, you either a) smash obstacles on the road with the car, b) smash OTHER cars with the car, c) compete in one of three different (yet, strangely the same) events to raise coin, or d) just drive into one of five $ icons on the road. Now, I’ll get to the first two in a second, let’s first go to what the developers refer to as “gameplay”.

There are three types of “events” in Pimp City. There’s Hot Steppin’, which has your character (a nameless dude with a white T-shirt on that says PIMP on it) dancing outside of the car as it rolls down the street with the door open. He dances as you repeatedly press the A button as it passes through the bar at the bottom of the screen…kind of like DDR but with no skill needed. Then there’s Ghost ride The Whip, which has your character dancing outside of the car as it rolls down the street with the door open. Yes, that sentence is the same. This time, you press a SERIES of buttons and controller movements given on the side of the screen to make him dance, hence the need for a different event name. Finally, there’s Crusin’, where, while actually IN the car, you ride past a crowd of people at Ten miles and hour and press a few buttons in the quickly allotted time in order to somehow impress them.

If you’re still reading this review, I admire your tenacity.

Now, while that gains you a great deal of scratch, you can also get some, seemingly through God’s Insurance Company, by simply driving into shit. Knock down Parking Meters and you get coins. Knock over Billboards, and you get coins (and also, magically, signs for your own “Pimp City Customs” go up in their place). Hell you can even hit OTHER CARS and coins magically pop out of them, like some sort of cross between Midnight Club and Mario Kart.

After building up your funds, then the “Pimpin” begins. While most viewers of the show would expect you to drive to West Coast Customs, or even GAS, they’ll be sadly disappointed (if they’re not already). No, instead (after viewing a very scary cut scene featuring a digital Xzibit and some over caffinated actors posing as the chosen “pimpee”) you do more driving…this time to different outfitters around the town. Needs rims, go to the rim guy, paint guy is down the street, etc. As you get there (during timed runs, mind you…remember, this is a competition between TWO customizers) the clock stops as you choose which bling to outfit the car with. Honestly, the price of these items doesn’t matter, because there’s more of that developer’s “gameplay” coming up. After choosing which unnecessary item to stick on the car (like a basketball hoop that slides out of the trunk) you now must press buttons or use analog stick movements again in a timed manner in order to install the item quickly. Beat the clock, get a discount. Man, this is one wacky gameshow.

Be the fastest with the installs and cover all the ground with what the customer wants, and they’ll choose your ride over your unseen competitors. Honestly, though, if you play it right, you can hit EVERY outfitter on the map, and still have time to race around completing in the randomized “Xzibit Challenges”. Here, you just simply have to go where the icon pops up on the map within the 20 seconds in order to get a free item for the car. Whoopie do.

Alright, now, here’s the saddest part of the game. Despite the horrendous gameplay, the awful cutscenes, the dialogue that doesn’t sync up, the fact that you’re never penalized for driving head first into another car using YOUR CUSTOMER’S ride, and the fact that it’s not even really a game…I can’t seem to stop playing it. Maybe I like watching a train wreck. Maybe I enjoy taking out all the parking meters in a level just for the extra coin. Maybe I really just like Xzibit’s soundtrack (which, admittedly, is probably the only really good thing about the game). Or maybe, just maybe, I realize it’s an easy way to get achievement points on Xbox. And that’s the saddest reality of all. I can’t see anyone who even remotely likes the show playing it for any other reason.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

QUICKSHOT OF THE WEEK

A few years ago, I reviewed a little volleyball game that had some impressive graphics and a little titillation that was oddly based on a fighting game. Now, just before X-mas, they released a sequel for this game for Xbox 360, and added a whole mess of unnecessary stuff. Of course I’m speaking of DEAD OR ALIVE XTREME 2. No longer just about volleyball, this game has just pilled on the mature rating situations, be they by bikini clad tug of war, mad dashes through sand for a stick or bouncing across pads on a pool…there’s just some point when it all gets TOO ridiculous. And bouncy. Too Bouncy. Now, I like buoyant mammaries as much as the next straight male, but this game…wow. I never thought I’d be truly disturbed by next generation graphics in this way. Adding games like “Butt Bounce” to the mix, or even as the characters run during “photo shoots” you’ll notice tat each breast is animated…independently of the other. Watching the two move in opposite directions is almost TWO real…I’ve never seen tits do that and neither have you. It’s like those crazy googliy eyes they stick on badly made stuffed creatures you get from a quarter machine, each one spinning around completely separate and wholly unrealistically from the other. What’s worse is the rest of the title can’t even qualify as a game…at least not a very good one. The volleyball element has been dumbed down to the point of questioning why you even have a partner, and inclusion of jet skis is just…well, the whole thing is just not needed. The first title was a fun little goof, this one just takes itself too seriously while trying to be cute and naughty for all the wrong, weird and crazy reasons.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

GAMING NEWS

For those that managed to get the Wii (as well as managing to get it hooked up the WiFi signal), Nintendo has been pretty good about updating the shopping channel with new titles every Monday. Some titles have been passable, but there’s been at least one every week that’s a must buy. Last week it was KID ICARUS, previous to that it was SUPER MARIO WORLD or THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: A LINK TO THE PAST. However, it would be nice if, like Xbox Live Arcade, they offered a trail version first, so you can demo the game to see if you want to purchase it. I wasted six bucks on VIGILANTE, thinking it was a STREETS OF RAGE type game, when really it’s a few generations back from that…and awful.

Speaking of Xbox Live Arcade, they’ve announced some fantastic titles coming out on the service soon. ALIEN HOMINID HD and CASTLEVANIA: SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT are the big ones that everybody wants, so what do we get in these past two weeks? ROOT BEER TAPPER and PAPERBOY. At least Konami is releasing SON on PS this year…as well as DRACULA X: RONDO OF BLOOD for the first time on US shores, both in a collection called THE DRACULA X CHRONICLES. As a CASTLEVANIA fan, I just got a great big geek boner.

Gametap, that online streaming gaming service, just announced that MYST ONLINE: URU LIVE is now up and running. Taking the series familiar locales and puzzles and fusing it with a MMO structure, this title is part of Gametap’s own Originals series, a looks to offer a lot for gamers of all ages, both new and familiar to the MYST worlds.

And finally…as mentioned before, next week we’ll be having the first Game On! video podcast. So now you’ll get to see me review the games, instead of just reading the crap I write. I can be crappy in video form too!

See you next week, kids.

THE GAME ON! RATING SYSTEM

 

Ratings From Greatest to Least:

Kick Ass, Right On, Okay, Eh, and Stinker (aka CRAPTACULAR)

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