My Mini-game reviews

So this weekend I got in some 360 time with Cranefolder.  Sunburned Goose was nice enough to let Crane borrow his 360 for the weekend while Goose was out of town.  So I headed over to Crane’s house to see what all the hubbub was about.  We got to play a few titles including some live arcade stuff and here’s my reviews of what we played: 

Kameo:  Good god, how long have 3-D platformers been around and they still haven’t done any better than Banjo-Kazooie on the N64?  5 minutes into Kameo and I was bored to tears.  The story was dull and the play mechanics were uninspired.  Best way to improve the game?  Bury it in the landfill with all those copies of ET and execute anyone who suggests making Kameo 2.

Gears of War:  Another yawn inducing alien shooter set in a decrepit post-apocalyptic world.  I’ve NEVER seen that story line before!  Looks great, don’t get me wrong, but the play control was terrible.  They should have adapted the control scheme from Splinter Cell if not steal it outright.  The A button doesn’t need to control the majority of movement!  I had a hard time telling what my guy was going to do in an intense fire fight.  I can use other combinations if nothing else for the sake of accuracy. 

Dead Rising:  Biggest disappointment ever.  I was so hyped up about this game and it was a total let down.  I mean how do you fuck up a game that’s about gratuitous zombie killing?  The replay value should be endless!  Here’s how you mess it up:

1)  Endless goddam cutscenes and loading screens.

2)  Make the story about a useless taint-stain of a character which leads me to…

3)  Have a boring photography mechanic in a game about killing zombies which leads me to…

4)  Retread the same fucking story line of a town getting destroyed and covered up by the military/government.  The same story that’s been done in EVERY fucking survival horror game since the inception of the genre.

5)  RPG mechanics in an action game…I’ll return to this later but I don’t want to have to level up the aforementioned taint-stain.  I want to kill zombies.

6)  Horrible play control.  Listen up developers.  Games aren’t something new here.  The last system that should have had games with bad play control was the 8-bit Nintendo.  Everything else should be thoroughly play tested before release and a fucking dream to play.

Dead rising had a lot of promise to it which is why I’m so disappointed; however, I do have some suggestions to make it better.  First, the main character should have all combat moves already unlocked and ready to go.  Fuck this leveling up shit.  Even if it means changing the character to fit the story; for example, make the game about a Special Forces Soldier that’s been trapped in the mall.  Give him a back story about him being a ninja trained assassin before getting recruited to the military.   Then give him license to flip out and kill people ALL THE TIME.   There are some other things to make the game better.  For starters, I want to be able save anywhere at any time for any reason.  If I’m having a hard time deciding on if I want to use a chain saw or a wood chipper to slaughter a bunch of zombies, I should be able to save right before I do anything and replay my different scenarios immediately.  That will keep things fresh and interesting.  Next, remove any distractions that keep me from killing zombies including: saving people, taking photographs, talking to worthless NPCs, answering calls on a 2-way radio (seriously now, a 2-way?  What.  The.  Fuck).

I hope that the 360 and game developers in general can get their shit together.  I’ve really lost interest in playing the current generation of games due mainly to the lack anything novel on the market.  For now my DS gives me plenty of fascinating game play until developers can really tap into the power of the 360 and the PS3 and deliver something worth getting.