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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Destruction Derby 64 - GGGGGBB - 71% (7)
Monopoly - ABB - 17% (3)
Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero - BBABGBABB - 33% (9)
NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC - GBGA - 63% {4}
Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA - AGAGAB - 58% (6)
WCW Mayhem - BGAA - 50% {4}
Things were pretty much all over the board with this one. Two squiggle bracket games, and two more games that came close to getting the squiggle bracket. I guess Monopoly really does result in heated arguments every time it appears (seems like it got the PS1 topic too).
Games for this topic:
Goemon's Great Adventure
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 6
Rampage 2: Universal Tour
South Park Rally
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six
Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals
I'm honestly a bit scared to play the Beast Wars game. I was a huge fan of the show, and I've heard it's bad, so I've always avoided it. However, we must do every game eventually. Also, Goemon's Great Adventure has been dropped from topics before purely because I can't fit its name in the topic title, finally we have one where it fits.
Goemon's Great Adventure - A
ReplyDeleteJikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 6 - G
Rampage 2: Universal Tour - G
South Park Rally - A
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six - B
Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals - A
When Goemon's Great Adventure first came out, I remember being really disappointed that it wasn't another 3D Adventure game like Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. Going back to it now... that's honestly still pretty much how I feel about it. It just feels like a big step back from the previous game in most ways. The 2D platformer mechanics are fine, but they're really nothing we haven't seen a ton of times before, and I don't even feel they're quite as well executed as the SNES games. The game does have some moments where it feels really cool, which are generally those where it most resembles Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, like the boss battles and Impact fights, but much of the rest of the game feels fairly mediocre. Even the soundtrack, while great, is only great half the time, because the rest of the time you just get some boring night music that is the same on every stage (the day night cycle really adds nothing to the game). Overall, it just kind of feels like a missed opportunity, especially now that the series is dead and we know we'll never get another proper 3D entry in the franchise. It's not awful or anything but it's not a game I'd ever go back to again after beating it the first time.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 6 is a pretty cool game. For starters, I like how clean everything is. The menus are very nicely stylized and streamlined, and the entire game features a clean, crisp look. It's also very cute, the series trademark chibi-style players look great and have a bunch of funny animations. Beyond this, it's also a very solid baseball game that gets pretty much everything right. Like some other games from this gen, this game features a batting box where you have to manually position your swing, which adds a bit more nuance compared to older baseball games. The timing here is quite tight, it took me a little while before I could start to hit balls semi-consistently, but in general it works pretty well. Fielding control is also spot on, thankfully, with great camera work and controls. There's also some pretty energetic commentary and music as well, and I also enjoy the mood ratings for the players, which gives you some incentive to swap your team around from game to game. The game also features a wealth of modes, including a mode where you can create your own player and train him up for his career in the big leagues, which is clearly pretty extensive but it's also a bit difficult to figure out if you can't read Japanese. Overall, it's pretty clear this is one of the top baseball games of the era and I wish they had localized it.
I've stated before that I kind of enjoy Rampage, and Rampage 2: Universal Tour is probably the best game in the series. The gameplay is indeed not drastically changed from the previous game, but I think that's fine as I actually think the gameplay of the previous game is pretty fun in a mindless kind of way, the real problem with Rampage World Tour is its progression system. The first game goes on forever and sometimes you get warps that take you god knows where but it barely matters because the game is pretty much always the same. The second game tosses this out for a much more sensible progression structure. The game is now divided into "worlds" of roughly 25 stages each, and completing them unlocks new characters, which gives the destruction much more of a sense of purpose compared to the first game. Speaking of, the core gameplay feels a little bit better balanced too, I don't know whether it's that you get slightly more powerups now or the addition of the new character-specific special moves, but the game just generally feels a little bit more fair, now when you die it feels more like you screwed up rather than that you just got worn down over time. The changes are generally minor, but they add up to a generally better experience. In terms of the PS1 vs N64 versions, the PS1 version seems to look slightly better and has some cutscenes, but N64 has better controls and no load times (for some reason, on PS1, you cannot have X jump and Square punch). Of course, N64 can also do 3 players without a multitap, so I'd probably lean towards the N64 version here.
DeleteCompared to the other South Park games, South Park Rally is less ambitious, but also gets fewer things wrong. The game's most unique feature is its checkpoint system, races are not quite as straightforward as they are in other games, instead taking place on somewhat nonlinear courses with checkpoints that must be hit in a specific order to complete a lap. In some cases, the order of the checkpoints can change inbetween races, which is probably intended to mask the fact that the game doesn't have that many courses, but it does its job. Sometimes there are other race types too, like a trophy race where you have to hold a trophy when crossing the checkpoints, but for the most part it's fairly standard fare that is executed just well enough to be tolerable. Where the game shines by far the most is its character selection, it features 27 characters, so pretty much every major and minor character is represented here, and there's also a good amount of voice acting. It's not exactly clear if the characters have different stats, but it barely matters since you'll either break away from the pack and win by a mile or miss a checkpoint and lose by a mile anyway. The controls are not great and there's some occasional slowdown that can make things even worse when things get hectic, but for the most part the game is tolerable as a South Park game. This isn't something I think anyone would be running out to play today, but at the time you could have done worse (say, with the FPS game).
Compared to the PS1 version, the N64 version of Rainbow 6 is at least playable, but it's not really much better. Rainbow 6's claim to fame is that it's a shooter where you have only 1 hitpoint. As such, you would imagine that a lot of the game would focus on confirming enemy locations, stealth, sabotage, maybe giving good commands to your squad, etc. However, it really doesn't involve anything like this, it's functionally just a typical FPS except for the fact that you're not allowed to get hit. For starters, the enemy has very little AI, other than "instantly shoot you if they see you", and their vision range is at least as long as the game's draw distance, which makes the game very annoying to play. Don't expect that you could, say, take out one enemy and then get another one when he comes to check on his fallen buddy or anything clever like that, enemies will just stick to their assigned spots or limited patrol areas like nothing happened. There's no making noise to lure enemies out or anything, either, your only real hope is to use the map to figure out where they are and aim at their exact position as you go around a corner, because you've got about half a second before they open fire and kill you. Due to the aforementioned issue of long enemy vision ranges, you'll have to use your zoom button constantly to look for enemies, as if you get close enough to actually see them you'll already be dead, which causes the gameplay to feel overly slow. Oh, and of course, the controls are backwards, too, the stick aims and you can't change it, and the game also has forced look spring as well, so sniping enemies is also a complete pain in the neck. You can bring multiple mercs to the mission, but they're all fairly interchangeable, and basically just serve as extra lives waiting in a safe area in case you get shot. Overall, I think this is an interesting idea but it's just not there yet. You can take a look at, say, the Hitman games for examples of how this type of nuanced shooter gameplay can be done well, but we're nowhere close to that point with this game.
DeleteWell, Beast Wars isn't a total atrocity, but it's certainly not great either. The game is an Arena Fighter, most similar to the Zoids games. The game's main gimmick is that each fighter has access to 3 modes, Robot Mode, Vehicle Mode, and Beast Mode, which you can switch between at any time. Robot mode is ostensibly the most powerful, certainly featuring the highest damage output, but is also the most limited. Whenever you're in robot mode, a gauge ticks down, until your power overloads and you must switch to a different mode. Vehicle Mode is a well balanced mode that typically offers fast movement and reliable attacks but little damage. Beast Mode is a more limited mode that often offers only simple melee attacks, but while you're in Beast mode, your Robot mode recharges, in a nice little nod to the show (they would have to use beast mode to deal with the influence of Energon Crystals on the planet). Each mode has 3 attacks, mapped to the C buttons, which generally serve different purposes. For example, Rattrap's C Up move in Robot mode throws a homing bomb that is good against enemy vehicles, but not great against Robots or Beasts, against which he should usually use his C Right attack instead. There's a lot of matchup dynamics between forms, so knowing when to switch forms is pretty crucial, particularly because switching also has some invincibility and thus can also be used to avoid some attacks. There are some issues though. Circle strafing is generally really strong, as very few moves have significant horizontal range, and I feel like Vehicle mode is generally a little too good, which takes away from the Robot / Beast mode tradeoff to some degree. Still, I did have fun playing it, if in part due to how absurd it is, and the presentation is actually not too bad, it has the original voice actors and the character models and animations are good (save for the fact that there are no KO animations, so your defeated opponent often just kind of stands there). It's not a high A by any means and maybe it helps that my expectations are so low but I've played many worse fighters this gen.
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