Publisher: SEGA Developer: Headstrong Games Players: 1-2 (1-4 for minigames) ESRB Rating: M
The House of the Dead franchise has always been known for two things: Fast-paced rail-shooting zombie action and some of the most unintentionally funny dialogue in gaming history. The series is chock full of horrible voice-acting and scripting that would make even the worst horror writers cringe. SEGA, having become aware of the series' long time cheesyness, has decided to wholeheartedly embrace the bad acting and storytelling rather than try to get rid of it. The end result is House of the Dead: Overkill, a rail-shooter for the Wii that looks and plays like a 1970's exploitation film.
The Grindhouse presentation is rampant in every part of Overkill. The opening cutscene shows strippers dancing and playing with Wii Remotes. The menu screens are stylized with posters and large cutouts of the characters. The entire game is seen through a grainy, low-quality film filter. Every level is introduced as a trailer to an exploitation film, complete with a macho narrator in most of the cutscenes. With this kind of presentation, it doesn't take long to see why this game is rated M. Every level is packed with large, satisfying amounts of blood, gore, flying limbs, bodily fluids, and cussing. Seriously, Overkill is in the Guinness World Records Gaming Edition for most swearing in a video game, and it shows. The f-bomb (and plenty of other dirty words) gets dropped in almost every line of dialogue, so much so that it can be really off-putting or offensive to certain individuals. This satirical style is the highlight of the game's graphics, which are fairly dated and don't exactly push the Wii's capabilities.
The Grindhouse presentation works well with the otherwise bland graphics.
Accompanying the cheesy presentation is an equally cheesy soundtrack. The music in Overkill fits perfectly during gameplay and in the menu screens. Some of the lyrics to the songs are so perverse and wrong that they're actually funny. One song in particular had me laughing despite how morally screwed up it was. The acting and script remains as cheesy as ever, once again leading to funny moments within the game's storytelling.
Despite normally horrendous storytelling, the House of the Dead franchise has always been able to deliver fun arcade rail-shooting, and Overkill is no exception. The storyline pits the unlikely duo of mysterious Agent G and hard-boiled Detective Washington against an army of mutants and the crime lord Papa Caesar. Their adventure takes them through several cliche environments, including a crime lord's mansion, a carnival, and the local county prison. Each level has loads of mutants to kill, and a large, ugly boss at the end to take on. There's also golden brains to shoot and civilians to save for bonus points. At the end of every level, cash is rewarded for high scores and other accomplishments, such as completing with a high accuracy or no lives lost. This cash can be used to upgrade and purchase new weapons, like a shotgun or an SMG.
There's plenty of mutants to kill in every level, alone or with a friend.
The gameplay is not particularly deep, but it's hard to complain when it's such a blast to play through. Blowing the head off a staggering mutant and watching blood and limbs go everywhere as Agent G or Washington spout a lame f-word-riddled catch phrase, while not particularly difficult, is a lot more satisfying than you would initially think. Taking on the mutant army with a buddy in co-op also leads to some good zombie-killing times. The controls work well, and the only times the game requires you to use the motion controls is to shake certain baddies off before they take a nice chunk of your health away.
Like most 70's exploitation films, Overkill is not without its faults. In certain parts of the levels, the game gets so dark that it's hard to see the enemies and powerups until they're up close. Some of the levels are nearly impossible to play in the daytime because of this. Certain mutants also like to hide just out of view until they're within attack range. This can be frustrating if you're trying to go for a high score, as missed shots and taking damage will cause your creatively-named combos to drop to zero. Some weapons, like the SMG, are nearly impossible to get a high score with. The minigames that are included in the game are unnecessary, and feel like they were thrown in during the last week of production. The game supports the Wii Zapper, but as usual, it doesn't enhance the experience so much as it hinders it, although that's not particularly a fault of the game.
Some enemies, like this clown, can be hard to see until it's nearly too late.
Admittedly, Overkill is not a very long game; there's only 7 levels to complete before the story reaches its partially-disgusting conclusion. However, this is easily compensated with decent replay value and cool unlockables. Beating the story mode for the first time unlocks the Director's Cut mode, which features longer levels, cooler weapons to purchase, and even more mutants to kill. Completing the Director's Cut mode unlocks the Dual Wield toggle switch, which allows one player with two Wii Remotes to use two weapons at the same time. There's nothing quite like dual-wielding two shotguns and blowing body parts off everywhere while the monsters can't so much as touch you. There's lots of other things to unlock, like music, pictures, and 3D images of characters and mutants.
Overall, The House of the Dead: Overkill is a good rail-shooter with a great sense of humor and a presentation that hasn't really been done in gaming before. While the gameplay is shallow and the graphics leave something to be desired, it still delivers as a fun zombie shoot-em-up for both short bursts and long sessions. If you're looking for a game that lets you blow mutants to hell and back, and don't mind having a few laughs along the way, you can't go wrong with Overkill.
So I decided to write a review of a game that definately caught my eye. It's Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4... Otherwise known as just Persona 4 or P4. It's a good game I'll explain why. First off, I'll describe it.
Story/Description: Basically, You are the Protangonist. The name of whom you decide when you first start out(I used Brian, But thats my real name). You don't really speak and you have zero personality. Actually thats not true, You determine his personality by making choices that are laid out throughout the game. So unlike the Final Fantasy series, where you have a protangist who already has a name, personality and large indepth history about themselves intergrated with the story regardless of your own self. The Protagonist here is nothing more than a shell who's personality is determined by the player. It all comes down to the choices you make when you get the chance to say something(Which you won't hear but read.) And as you play along the game, you will realize how your choices affect your relationship with people around you. It all ties in well, And I'll explain more indepth.
The story is that you, Brian(Who from now on will be the name of the Protangist), the city boy, has been sent to live with your uncle because your parents are extreme workaholics and left for overseas without you. You now will be living in a small town for one year until your parents come back. Strange murders start occuring and they seem to be connected to a rumor about the Midnight Channel, which states that your soulmate is shown on a turned off TV at midnight on a rainy day.. You and your new friends get wrapped up in it and decide to save those that are targeted and to find the killer.
Music/Sound: Yea, the music will be the first thing you notice when you play this game. It's extremely catchy. You'll love to go into certain dungeons because of it or you'll hate to get into a fight because of it(Or love to get into a fight depending on which piece you like better, battle music or dungeon music.) And the creators thought that you might love this music as well, because they included an extra disc specifically filled with the game's musical pieces and I love it.
GamePlay: This game is a turnbased RPG. Similar to Final Fantasy 8(I'll explain why I picked 8 soon). You fight using your Persona. They are your other selves. While your friends only have one persona(which can evolve based on your relationship with them) You have a special ability that allows you to use multiple Persona. This is where FF8 comes in. Each Persona has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Once you junction that persona to yourself you gain it's strengths, weaknesses, and stats. The good thing is that you can carry a certain amount of persona with you and change them up even during battle. This is good for times when you are facing an opponent that uses wind attacks and you have a Persona junctioned thats weak against them. Just switch to another persona thats strong against them and you are good to go. Persona's junctioned to you also level up as you do. Increasing in stats. Also, along with the Personas itself comes the ability to fuse them to create a more powerful Persona. There are numerous ways to do so that yield powerful Personas. When it comes to a battle. it's standard turnbased system A goes, B goes, C goes. Depending on how you fight, your enemies won't even have a turn. If you capitalize on using their weaknesses, you can paralyze them enough for an all out attack, Which means all you characters jump in and throw everything they have at the enemies. But this only happens if all the enemies are in a status called DOWN. Which happens when they miss a physical attack, get hit with their weakness, or get hit with a critical attack. The All Out attack is a powerful move that you'd want to use to conserve energy. It's mostly useful against the weaker enemies you face in dungeons. But this only works if you knock down all the enemies. If you just knock down one, you(the character that hit the enemy with it's weakness) just get an extra turn. When playing this game, capitalize on this. Because it makes fights alot shorter and easier. And these guys don't make it easy. Another point I want to add about the battle system before I move on is that if you so wish, you can have the computer control certain or all characters aside from your own. Each character can either be AI controlled or you can give it general orders to follow. Like having a character mainly use support skills while another just attacks, or if you are just a control freak you can give them direct commands. I haven't noticed stupid AI during fights but I've only used AI during regular battles. Not bosses. Lastly, your allies can do certain moves like saving your ass from a fatal attack, taking a fatal blow with 1hp remaining, snapping you out whatever ails you, using a special move on an enemy, etc, depending on how good of a relationship you have with them. Another reason to be better friends with them. Especially so they can save your ass, since if the main character dies it's game over, even if the others are alive, this is your story after all.
Moving off that is the other side of the coin. Unlike most other RPGs. You aren't traveling to different contries all over the world. You are just a student thats moved to a small town out in the country. The only time you fight is in the TV world where all the dungeons are located. In the real world, you have to go to school and live out your days. The system is simple. Each day, you are allotted time to do certain things. School is mandatory but Afterschool(DAY, or AFTERNOON), you can hang out with friends, do part time jobs, or head to the other world and work through a dungeon. Certain actions make time pass while others don't. Once time passes it enters EVENING. In which case, your options are limited(Fishing, part-time working, reading, studying.) This game is largely 'time based'. You have a 'time limit' for each dungeon before you fail the game. Time limit is in quotes because it's not real world time but game world time. After a certain number of days passed, if you didn't complete the dungeon in time it's game over for you. The dungeons are daunting enough to make you hate doing it all in one sitting but the good thing is you don't have to. You can probably do a level a day(Game day that is) but that would be a waste of good days you can use getting up your social stats or upping your relationship with friends. The latter of which is tied to the Persona system and your ability to create them. Throughout the game you'll make certain choices. These choices can mean a little as absolutely nothing to as much as the ending of the game you get. Usually the choices up your social stats or relationship points with friends, although I'm sure they also change the events that happen around you. One of my choices may have caused me to be forced to enter a contest I wanted no part in. But I haven't tested out any other choice since I didn't save beforehand. I like how choices affect the game's events. But I wished they'd affect the game story more. Kinda like how most Japanese Visual Novels are. But It's not bad anyway.
Graphics: They are good enough. I tend not to focus too much on graphics unless there are bugs like invisible walls and so forth. But nothing bad as of yet. You'll be seeing 2D pictures(when talking to people) alot but 3D is the backbone of it all. I have little much to say in this area. Graphics are what you expect from a PS2... MOVING ON!
OVERALL: This is a solid RPG and a fun one at that. Good music, good story, gets you immersed in it all. I almost cried at certain points and laughed at others. Good battle system and so forth. And thanks to the New Game system, you'll want to play this over atleast once to get new unavaliable Persona and to complete relationships you didn't complete the first time around(And actually try having more than one girlfriend. Which I found you can do, I do want to choose!) In the end, get this game. Now excuse me as I try to get Persona 3.
One more thing... and this has disturbed me to no end. But there is a Persona that looks like a penis monster... It reminds me of Fate/Stay Night's Heaven's Feel route... Poor Sakura..
My sister apparently told me about yet ANOTHER game made by the infamous animal rights psychos called PeTA. How does my sister know about this? Well, apparently it all started when she gave her email address to them for some reason, probably by playing Super Chick Sisters or that Cooking Mama ripoff… and now my sister gets PeTA spam mail on a regular basis just because she gave out her email address to a bunch of evil people like some dumb broad.
...Dumb broad.
…
Enough of my sister’s carelessness, on to my next subject. Apparently PETA made a game called “Sea Kittens”. If you haven’t known from previous rants… I hate PeTA’s games largely not only because they blatantly rip off popular Nintendo licenses, they also promote lies and propaganda where the messages conveyed do more harm then good. Case in point:
I’ve pretty much raped these games for the ripoffs they are and for how bullshit they are, and uploaded Let’s pl…. I mean game playthroughs of the games on CorporateBitchTube, so already my expectations for Sea Kittens is not very high.
Now, I somewhat believe in the stubborn ideology called “I call ‘em like I see ‘em”, because chances are that people are not going to change overnight and will likely repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
…I’m watching you, you sadistic Hitler bitch.
Youtube’s still going to suck the Irate Gamer’s cocktail weenie, 3D Sonic games will always suck, I’m still going to be a power hungry sex machine, and PeTA’s still going to piss us off with shitty games and propaganda. Now, let’s see which game “Sea Kittens” is going to rip off THIS time. mmmmmMMMM?
…oh god, this is going to rip off Fishy, isn’t it? I love that freeware game, an arcade style romp, complete with a subtle environmental message.
This is going to hurt, isn’t it? It even has the same sense of aura and pleasant generic underwater music to go along with it. Ok, rather then assume what is going to happen… I’d rather reserve my judgment for when I actually play the game. Besides, I doubt PeTA can properly emulate Fishy’s arcade-style gameplay without ripping SOMEBODY off.
...at least Fishy had a title screen.
Ok, you can choose between Trout, Salmon, tuna, Flounder, Anchovy, mahi mahi, and swordfish. Well, graphically, the game’s not bad so far, at least the graphics are lush and colourful… even if it is in the same art style as Super Mario Ripoff…. Hold on a second…
Wow, I thought I was the crazy one. “Sea kittens”? Oh yea, I forgot. For those of you who don’t know, apparently PeTA has this fetish for calling fish ‘sea kittens’ for some stupid reason, no doubt thinking “Hey, you know what? Everybody nicknames Seals ‘sea lions’, so let’s be original by calling the rest of fishkind ‘sea kittens’, because you know, we are so original guyse!”… says the people who thought making a game that rips off Super Mario Brothers would get people to stop eating KFC.
…
Erm… Despite the variety of fish to choose from, I doubt they are going to play with different styles of gameplay. Remember, this is PeTA we’re dealing with, they aren’t very deep when it comes to programming individual characters. In fact, there is no gameplay, because the game so far is just a glorified version of dress-up.
…
…pfff… and here I was expecting a half-assed platformer. All the fish are pretty much the same, since the items to dress up your ‘fish’ are going to be the same no matter what you choose, so the only difference between the ‘fish’ is the look…. Yes, I call them ‘fish’ because ‘sea kittens’ sound fucking retarded.
Ok, so we go through the standard dress-up-your-Mii process. We got ‘Hair’, ‘clothing’, and ‘accessories’. See, I told you these guys don’t have much variety in their stuff.
For hair, we got stuff like cat ears, unicorn horn, goth hair, DONALD TRUMP’S TOUPEE… Ok, the Donald Trump thing got me a chuckle. Not to mention things like Dog ears and an Elephant trunk. Hey, back off, I thought this was supposed to be a sea KITTEN, not a Sea Dogelephant! Where did this come from? Stop deviating away from the source material, PeTA!
For clothes, we got stuff like: napkins that I think are supposed to resemble clothes, a tutu, and a fucking bikini… wait… a bikini? Isnt this rendered pointless by the fact that Fish are aquatic creatures with no legs? THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!! Do non-Anthropomorphic fish even HAVE breasts? What if that's a male fish that you're dressing up in a tutu?
Ah yes, the accessories, or ‘extra crap’ per say. First thing you’ll notice is:
…A fucking Wiimote? No doubt shoehorned in by PETA in an attempt to cover their asses from the mass amount of plagiarism called Super Chick Sisters. Sorry, the damage has already been done, although with this attempt at kissassery I doubt Nintendo would notice or care. Seriously, Nintendo didn’t give a flying fuck about PeTA’s last two games, so it’s very unlikely that they’d notice the Wiimote that’s likely placed there as an afterthought.
Also, an Ipod, since… you know, trendy pretentious “hipster” crap like the Ipod and American Idol are everywhere these days… even in this article. It’s like they are the devil or something. In fact, you can just picture the Guitar Hero markings on that guitar over there.
Just squint your eyes a little bit more.
Fucking disgusting. Well… this is what you get for selling out.
… and there’s even a toy mouse and a litter box for your ‘fish’ to play with… even though those sort of things is completely impractical for an AQUATIC CREATURE to use!!! PeTA, you do realize that cats and fish are two entirely different species, not to mention the two live in completely different environments? I really doubt that litter box would work underwater.
Oh yea, you can also put on a Tiara and lipstick on your ‘fish’… which kind of derails any argument that PETA’s made over the years against using cosmetics on Animal testing…
So let me get this straight… PeTA’s willing to sink to the low of commiting acts of violence to animal testing labs, even going as far as to support the acts of Rodney Coronado, a man who sent a message about animal testing labs by FIREBOMBING a Michigan State University research facility causing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in damage. Yes, PeTA, support the Animal Liberation Front and destroy potential medical research that might benefit humanity as a whole and get in the way of finding cures for stuff like AIDS, Cancer, or Autism… you fucking idiots… PeTA has made such a big deal about animal testing labs…
… and yet they make games that make you can put lipstick and dog ears on fish.
You FUCKING HYPOCRATES!!!
Yes, let’s defy the “Ethical” part of the organizations's name by forcing aquatic animals to wear clothes. Wow, this is kinda sad actually, seeing as how the fish is always smiling even if you put elephant ears and a tutu on it. Hell, the fish’s eyes always look in the direction your cursor is at, which is not creepy in the slightest. How much you want to bet that fish is contemplating a mass killing spree? When you are done humiliating dressing up your “fish” and select the ‘done’ option, you get to name your ‘fish’. Hmm… lets see now. How about…
Subtle *eats a bucket of KFC*
Alright… now that I’ve customized my “fish”, let’s start playing the actual game, shall we?
What? That’s it? That’s all there is to the game? That’s all you got? Uhrrr… I guess the entire game WAS that dress-up bit. Anticlimactic, but at least this time around PeTA abruptly ended the game before doing something really fucking stupid. They are actually learning something this time.
Download? I don’t fucking think so, seeing as how the last 2 PETA games I downloaded onto my hard drive took up 90% of my RAM while playing them… I’d rather not take my chances with this one, even if this game isn’t very long.
Embed? Ah, no thanks. I’m comfortable with my print screen and a copy of MSPaint, thanks… I heard embedding stuff like this on forum posts is a form of DDoS attack.
Foreward to Friends? Why the fuck would I want to do that? What, so that they can look at this atrocity for one second before wanting to slap me invite me to a sexy party? Besides, I don’t want to risk giving other people’s emails away to an organization that gives e-spam on a regular basis. There is really no guarantee that PeTA would start fagspamming an email address that I just happened to give out at the moment.
..
…
Sooooo…. Does anybody know the Irate Gamer’s email address?
Also note the banner at the top of the screen.
I dont recall seeing any of these outfits in the actual game... which is quite misleading. What, is the browser version like the 'demo' version? Should I even bother to get the full version of the game just for a few more outfits to dress my fish?
"Save the Sea Kittens"? I dont seem to recall saving any fish in this game. All I did was dress them up in stupid outfits... in fact this feels more like 'entrapment' to me.
Hell, they're even advertising Sea kitten plushies! Selling out now, are we?
Well, two can play at this game... because I intend on spreading the love of this article onto other forums.
In conclusion, PeTA’s Sea Kittens might be nowhere near as offensive as Super chick Sisters or that Cooking Mama ripoff, it’s still ridiculously short. It’s nothing more then a glorified version of dress-up that’s less a game then it is an excuse to convey PeTA’s stupid message that the name ‘fish’ should be renamed to ‘sea kitten’. Sure, this concept is ludicrous, but hey… it’s nowhere near as retarded as PETA’s initiative to BOYCOTT MAPLE SYRUP BY LINKING IT TO SEAL SLAUGHTER!!!
...and this is why I don’t take these people seriously.
You know, the moment I heard about this franchise called "Twilight" and how much people thought how much it sucked, I gave in to peer pressure and shallowly dismissed the franchise as a piece of crap that was more Dawson's Chemical Romance then it had to do with actual vampires…. Logically assuming the author of the series just glanced at the word “vampire” Vikipedia and thought “hmm… I can center a whole love story on this while at the same time doing little research on Vampires and their behaviours”. Seeing as how the franchise has become as overrated as Fred or Paris Hilton, naturally I treated Twilight like crap without giving a second glance.
...then I actually got off my lazy ass and got around to actually READING the actual books, and then realised how much I cannot stand Twilight. God, after reading the first chapter, I can understand why people bitch and moan about how shit the series was.
...seriously... vampires that GLITTER in the sun instead of bursting into flames?
...
So I decided to make MY half-assed response to that shit by coming up with a simple Top 10 vampire list complete with pictures I found on Deviantart and Google search. I know I borrowed this idea from a member named PichuJC from a different forum. I apologize for stealing your idea. I knew you came up with this idea back about 3-4 months ago… but don’t get the impression that I like stealing other people’s ideas and passing them as my own. What a shitload of fuck… I give you credit for this idea…
Anyways, let’s begin…
10. Bloodrayne
I dont really like Bloodrayne that much, but you gotta admit... she's hot, she's got arm blades, and she kills a bunch of Nazis. Nazis commit mass genocide and kill Jewish people. Killing Nazis and other bad guys makes Bloodrayne a part of this list.
(I have no shame)
However, Bloodrayne is last on this list for a couple reasons.... one, her games were mediocre... two, appearing in Playboy makes her more of a sex symbol then as an assassin... and three, the fact that Uwe Boll has done not one, but TWO movies about Bloodrayne... both of which suck and miss the mark of the games entirely. One of the movies also gave us one of the least erotic sex scenes in the history of everything.
9. Dio Brando
Dio Brando can manipulate time, drop steamrollers on people and go WRRRYYYYYYYYY!!! 'nuff said.
Sure, he's one of the most overused characters in MUGEN not named Haruhi Suzumiya… but let’s see those idiots from Twilight pull off a ZAWARUDO.
8. The Count
The count gets a special mention... for appearing in a children's cartoon without scaring the crap out of the target audience. For a race of beings that exist solely to suck other people's blood... that takes guts to star in a Kids Show, let alone the most popular kids show in North America. I'm sure the Count does his dirty deeds offscreen (like going after the idiots who thought the cookie monster was promoting gluttony), but when he's on television... he's just your average harmless cheesy cliche with a repetitive one note gimmick. All he does is count the corny props on the screen and nobody's the wiser.
…
KUDOS, shallow American television!
7. NOS-4-A2
Sometime in the late 90s/early '00s, a cartoon came out about Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. For a cartoon obviously cashing in to the Toy Story movies, it's not bad. However there is one bad guy in the cartoon which catches my attention... besides Zerg and Mozenwrath Darkmatter... the (perhaps only) intimidating bad guy moniker goes to NOS-4-A2... an obvious Pun of Nosferatu. This guy is badass, not only because of his ability to suck the electrical power out of machines... but because of his ability to control the machines that he sucked the life out of. In fact, this character is more badass then Evil Emperor Zerg... and Zerg is supposed to be the main bad guy in the series.
I dont remember the series much because I havent seen the show in half a fucking decade... but I think one episode involves NOS-4-A2 posessing one of the robot members of Star Command and turning him evil.
6. Slayer
Reason why slayer kicks ass #1: His ultimate move involves calmly reciting a haiku while knocking the opponent with enough power to send them flying off the planet.
Reason why slayer kicks ass #2: He's in Guilty Gear. Guilty Gear is known for it's kickass rock soundtrack and hand-drawn character designs.
Reason why slayer kicks ass #3: Whenever you kick Slayer's ass in a fight, he doesnt lay down dead like everybody else... instead he just lies there with his pipe with a pose that says "What.... that's it?.... that's all you got?"
All the other characters in Guilty Gear stay down when they lose a fight... but Slayer always does this pose everytime you defeat him... unless you pull off a fatality or drop a fucking A-bomb on his head. Even then I dont think even a nuclear bomb would nudge him.
5. Remilia Scarlet
Don’t let the look of a little girl with no fashion sense fool you, she can kick your ass.
Aside from being the final boss of one of the Touhou Project games, Remilia prefers to solve that pesky sun problem by simply fucking around with the environment. While most vampires would prefer to not go out into sunlight, Remilia simply says “FUCK THAT SHIT” and creates a massive dark mist which blocks out the sun so that she can go out at her leisure without burning alive or “glowing” due to UV rays.
This, of course, annoys other danmaku spammers like Reimu Hakurei, who feels it's her duty as a shrine miko to restore order to Gensokyo.... fucking killjoy.
Remilia also has a younger sister named Flandre, who can also kick your ass because Flandre Scarlet is the Touhou equivalent to Omega Weapon… you know, that overpowered optional boss found in most RPGs that’s about a gazillion times tougher then the actual final boss of the game?
You know what, fuck it… let’s defy the rules and conventions set in most of my lists and put her at #4.
4. Flandre Scarlet
…Edward Cullen has no chance to survive and make his time.
3. Abel Nightroad
You know, it's kind of hard to narrow down a perticular character from an anime which is literally about humans and vampires killing each other.
...but I narrowed it down anyways to our protagonist Abel Nightroad... who's less a vampire then a vampire who feeds on other vampires.
Sure, this guy has the appearance of a clueless oaf, but when vampires piss Abel off... he turns into a badass powerhouse whom weilds a blood red scythe and can kick your ass before you can scream. All of more make the lesson that... you should probably never piss off or pick fights with nerdy people, because beneath the nerdy facade lies a demonic being that can kill a man before he can scream.
...
…meanwhile while a fight goes on, a choric chant out of nowhere spews nonsense like “BELLS FROGS BING CHERRIES JINGLE BELLS MAGIC CHEESE… SEPHIROTH!!!”... ok, ok, that doesnt happen.
...yea, I think it's safe to say that you should never piss off or pick a fight with Crusniks.
I think I might have mentioned this in a previous article... but I like repetition:
First of all, Arcueid Brunstud is one of the few chicks that dont have to sink to the level of being in a skimpy outfit to look fucking gorgeous. Fuck Bikinis... they only exist in fanfiction and crudely drawn hentai. Arcueid makes long sweaters and dresses WORK.
Second, She doesnt burst into flames when exposed to sunlight... because she's a special breed of vampire called a "True Ancestor". Hey, at least it's better then fucking glittering.
Third, Arcueid just might be the only princess in the history of everything who isnt relegeted to the "Help me, I'm some stupid bitch stuck in a castle" role. For the most part, she’s the one kicking ass and playing the hero.
…why cant more women be like that?
...actually when I think about it… I think Tsukihime is the direct antonym of Twilight. With Twilight, we have the most overrated tripe that I've ever read with characters who spent too much time listenting to My Chemical Romance instead of actually doing research on vampires... With Tsukihime, we have a well-written story with likeable characters and many story arcs to go through. So naturally, I praise the Tsukihime franchise like Christians praise something called GOD and JESUS.
Shame that Type Moon can be cruel to us westerners because the only North American release of anything Tsukihime was a halfway decent English Dub of a halfway decent Anime... meaning that to get the visual novel (Tsukihime) or the fighting game based off said franchise (Melty Blood), you'd either have to torrent it or go to Ebay like a sucker... or you can watch videos of them on Corporateglitchtube shortly before those videos are removed for "copyright infringement".
...
All the more the tease when I’ve got about a dozen Fate/Stay night posters on my wall.
Jeez... the Japanese get Tsukihime and Melty Blood while here in North America we're stuck with Twilight, American Idol, and Fred. WHAT A FUCKING RIPOFF!!! No wonder why I’m pissed off all the time! It’s not that I work with retards in a recycling plant… it’s the fact that American pop culture is catered towards motherfucking idiots!
1. Count Dracula
Well, isnt this a surprise... Dracula on a top vampires list?
Of course, Dracula is on this list for many reasons. Not only is he the most popular vampire to date... in fact Dracula (or Nosferatu) was what created this whole vampire trend in the first place. Dracula starred in many movies (Dracula), remakes of movies (Brahm Stoker's Dracula), videogames (Castlevania Everything), TV show spoofs (Simpsons), lame videogame spoofs (Leisure Suit larry Box Office Bust)... and even in assrammingly difficult games that make you tear your goddamn hair out (I wanna be the guy)
…
In fact, Dracula's influence is what helped spawn everything related to vampires that came afterwards... if it werent for the folklore bearing the guy's name, where would franchises like Castlevania, Twilight, Trinity Blood, etc... be? would they have existed? Would they have been popular without Dracula’s influence?
I don’t know, but chances are history with Vampires would be a lot different if Dracula didn’t set the mold. That’s why he’s unanimous with #1. Overrated, maybe… but at least it’s for a damn good reason.
…
Sure there are other vampires/Dhamphir/weird Vampire crossbreeds I'd mention in this list, but honestly... I honestly dont know what to write about them outside of "This vampire kicks ass, this is what a vampire is supposed to be... Edward Cullen looks like a member of Good Charlotte".
Also note that I might have cheated by not putting Alucard on this list, but at this point I've only watched like 1-2 episodes of Hellsing. HEY, it's not my fault that I'm distracted by a life of article writing, sleep, and countless hours of playing RPGs.
I know that there are other vampire animes/shows and characters out there that I might have missed and are better written and more developed then that of Twilight. If so, just mention them here… just don’t be a jackass about it.
Continued from before… we are finally nearing the end of my rantview/article/plot summary on Eternal Sonata, an RPG for the Xbox 360/PS3. This article will cover the ending, but first… the secret uber dungeon better known as the Mysterious Unison.
***SPOILERS***
65. …um
…MYSTERIOUS UNISON EVERYBODY!!!
Sure, you could go through the mystic portal after you defeat the Ruined Body in the Double Reed Tower, and advance to beat the final boss of the game, but only REAL men are willing to trudge their way through the super secret uber dungeon…. Well, real men and gamerscore whores anyways.
Seriously, given the “fair and even” achievement distribution throughout the game, I think it’s ENCOURAGED that you pass the Mysterious Unison… think about it, aside from getting the 10 gamerscore from completing the game, this is what I got from completing the Mysterious Unison, Unlocking Claves, and defeating the uber hidden boss that’s 10 times stronger then the final boss:
30 gamerscore for simply using the Heroes Quest to open the fucking door Party Level 6, which allows you to whore out 6 Harmony chains instead of 3. 20 gamerscore for unlocking Party Level 6 50 gamerscore for defeating Rondo at the end of Floor 11. 50 gamerscore for defeating Uber hidden boss and bringing Bimbo back to life. Some of the best weapons in the game About 4-5 score pieces Having my party characters level up about 20-30 levels 70 gamerscore for defeating the final boss with Claves unlocked
Party levels and score pieces carry over to the eventual “Encore” mode… and the score pieces found in the Mysterious Unison are needed to get the "score piece" and "EZI collector" achievements in the second playthrough.
Now, do you want this, or do you just want 10 gamerscore? Make your move…
66. Once you enter the Mysterious Unison, Claves comes out of nowhere and says that you must collect several shards of her soul in order to get 50 gamerscorefor Claves to be resurrected. Of course, even if you succeed in resurrecting Claves, she’ll still be at level 20 (or whatever level she was in chapter 3)… that and you get another ending… which I’ll get to later.
67. <--- You know what, these numbers have lost their meaning, and I’m pretty sure that nobody gives a shit about these numbers anymore. I’ll abandon them in favour of a good old fashioned plot summary. Why? Because you touch yourself at night.
…
Take note of that save point near the beginning of Mysterious Unison… because that’s the only save point in the entire fucking dungeon. At this point, you had better not have anything planned for the next 3-4 hours… because this is going to take a while.
It’s like the Pit of 100 trials in the Paper Mario series… except with lace.
Now for a brief summary of the floors…
Floor 1: Battle against a dragon, you know… one of the fuckers who abandoned Count Waltz when we were kicking his ass?… and if you have trouble with this enemy, you should probably go back and train some more, because this dragon is one of the many regular enemies in the dungeon. Also, defeating this dragon unlocks party level 6…
Floor 2: Ok, not so bad… and at the end of this stage we come across a familiar foe… that Oogie Boogie looking thing from Chapter 5.
…ok, I know this thing looks intimidating, but I don’t really feel the need t…
…
Mute MY videos and shut them down due to some false copyright reasons? Favour idiots like Fred over all those who have actual talent? BEND OVER TO THE CORPORATE MACHINE? BEND OVER TO MY SWORD IN YOUR FACE!!!
WWWRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!
…
… wow, I have issues.
Floor 3+4: Both these floors are interconnected with each other, so it’s more like one giant floor rather then two floors. Contains a Soul Shard and a Score Piece
Floor 5: I think it’s around here that there are undead pirates in the mix, and yes… they sound just as corny and cliché as they were on the pirate ship. Thankfully, you don’t have to battle Dolce again.
Floor 6: This floor is very short, for it contains about 4 floors. One of the red… spirit… things is offering a soul shard for 99,999,999 Golds…. Just ignore her for now. I’m sure that when you get the Bike Voucher from that guy from Vermillion City, you can come back to this spot.
Floor 7: Ok, this is where the dungeon turns into a fucking maze… since most of the rooms look identical. This is where you should consult a strategy guide and/or go to Gamefaqs for the maps to this place.
Floor 8+9: This floor is basically the same concept as level 3+4… except it’s even more of a pain in the ass to navigate. Don’t believe me, look at this map from gamefaqs.
Would you believe there’s also a Soul Shard AND a Score Piece in this mess somewhere?
Floor 10: More of the same… There are items in this level that are some of the best weapons in the game. Also of note are the Ryuugu (sp?) enemies on this floor. I’ve always had trouble with these bastards, as they have a lot of HP and always run away whenever you try to play defensive… and getting back attacked by these things is absolutely miserable.
Floor 11: *sees map shown on Gamefaqs*
JESUS CHRIST MAN…. It is a fucking maze! Also of note that at the end of this floor, Rondo shows up for some reason, and you go and kick her ass again. Oh good, I was just starting to enjoy not having another boss battle. Why is Rondo here again?… and if the Mysterious Unison like that of the world of the Undead, then why is Fugue, Tuba, Waltz, or anybody else I’ve killed nowhere to be seen? What makes Rondo and Claves so special?
All that matters is that she has one of the Soul Shards… GET HER!!!…
Floor 12: It’s probably about here that you realize that defeating one of the enemies here drops a lot of golds. Namely the Huge-robot-magician… things, which drop 3 million Gold every time you defeat them…. Alright, now the ridiculously huge price of 99,999,999 isnt going to be hard to achieve after all.
Note there’s score piece on this floor? Where? Just go to Gamefaqs… all the maps are there. In fact, save these maps onto your hard drive and print them. You'll likely need them.
Floor 13: We’re at the top… luckily it only has 2 rooms, and luckily when you teleport down to floor 1… you have the ability to return to floors you were previously on, which is VERY convenient since you probably spent at least 3-4 hours of your life climbing the damn tower in the first place….
After getting 6 soul shards and defeating all those enemies, and paying that red-spirit-thing 99,999,999 for a single shard (which I think is a fucking ripoff)… SAVE THE GAME and head to floor 13… where we meet up with my favourite RPG cliché… the obligatory secret boss that’s 100 times stronger then the actual final boss of the game.
The boss is called the “Annihilator” for obvious reasons… basically he’s the Ruined Body from Double Reed Tower times 100… and if you are playing this on Encore mode HE CAN BE A CHEAP FUCKING BITCH TO FIGHT!!!
Just be glad you can block his overpowered attacks and whore out your harmony chains.
…after you kick his ass, you get the final Soul Shard and unlock Claves.… ARENT YOU SPECIAL!?!?
After gaining about 50 levels in the secret dungeon of rape, our heroes head back to the portal left behind when you defeated the Ruined Body. After which, we find out the final boss of the game… is… is…
Frederic Chopin?
..
WHAT A TWIST!!!
Apparently Chopin is tired of living his life and wishes to destroy all the other protagonists for some reason. Maybe this battle is a metaphor for Chopin’s final minutes before dying of Tuberclosis… or maybe Chopin’s just butthurt because I haven’t used him in the past 3 chapters… I don’t know, but if you defeated the Annihilator enemy in the Mysterious Unison, Frederic will be disappointingly easy.
So… um… is this the part where Frederic Chopin turns into a giant mutated angel thing?
Really, that’s it?
Well… umm…. CLICHÉ AVERTED!
…after which, we get the ending… and surprise… it’s the cliché known as the “complicated and confusing JRPG ending that’s probably has some sort of symbolic meaning or lesson about life, but god knows exactly what it means…”
Now to spoil your lives by giving you the ending… which I got with Claves unlocked.
After Frederic falls, Polka sees the apparition of her Mother show up out of nowhere. The spirit (which might seem implausible because her mother isn’t actually dead) tells Polka to jump off a cliff… which she does. Wait, what?
Allegretto takes this lightly… and blames this whole ordeal on Frederic Chopin… Hey hey HEY, who said you can come back from the dead?
...ok? show us the credits then… Note that this ending is from the 360 version. I know the PS3 port of the game has slight changes to the ending, but I don’t own a PS3.
Well, the credits start off qui... GAH! What the hell?
Yea, basically what you get are credits… while at the same time various characters from the game stare at you and start talking random quotes from the game…. About how YOU can change the future of this videogame realm next time or something. At least I THINK they are talking to me. Is there something these guys know that I don’t?
…seriously, these credits are fucking creepy…
Now I’m assuming this is the TRUE ending that I get when I unlock Claves at Mysterious Unison.
...we cut to a flashback of young Polka walking with her mother and talking about tides and waves… just like in Chapter 1, except this time we hear Frederic’s voice coming from a puddle talking about the flowers from Chapter 1… and decides to call those flowers that blossom in the middle of the night… Odin Sphere Heaven’s Mirror.
Frederic’s presence in this flashback must have altered the future of this dream world, because in the present time, Polka uses the power of the glowing Agogos to float back to the top.
Polka's BACK, and she’s got the Agogos of Athena! Now she’s ready to kill Ares and become the Goddess of War!
So after that bit, Polka uses her magic glowing Agogo power to restore the barren wastelands and turn them into the fields of green grass… er… warp back to the fields near Tenuto.… as Allegretto and Polka share a… hug… and the world of Eternal Sonata is saved, or something.
It’s a JRPG thing...
Cut back to the real world, where Chopin has died. His spiritual self departs from his body and starts playing the piano… the odd part is that the lady who’s also in the room starts singing to the song in perfect synchronization even though it’s technically Chopin’s ghost playing the piano.
Fade to Chopin playing the piano in the middle of Heaven’s mirror field.
Fade to the credits, which, thankfully DOESN’T have all the characters in my face talking about saving the future this time.
The end.
…
Well...
...
That about sums up the game. The game itself is actually pretty good, sure it might stray into the cliches set by other games, but Eternal Sonata is worth getting... even if the achievements encourage a second playthrough.
I bid you all farewell, from the mystical realm of 1337planet’s Article corner, this is Faze of 1337planet, saying… I have no regrets in quitting Youtube in favour of other projects.
…now if you’ll excuse me, there are weapons in Dark Cloud that need to be synthesized.
Credit goes to MasterLL for supplying the corporatebitchTube with Eternal Sonata cutscenes.
No, I still have no intention on uploading any more videos onto CorporateBitchTube, Twilight sucks, Halo 3 is still overrated, and Sonic Team still fails for promoting beastiality and shitty camera angles... and this rant contains spoilers!
...
Welcome back to part 4 of 5 on my rant on Eternal Sonata. We're almost through to the end of the game, and when we finally get through with this plot summary, I shall have a coffee and follow through with ANOTHER rant/article.... because I have no life apparently.
Note, this is the 360 version I'm going through. I know the PS3 port of this game has a couple added features, but then again... not all of us HAVE a PS3, smartass. Also note that I actually enjoyed this game and that I wish more people would go out and buy this game.
...but enough talk, I'm a picky bastard. Let the list continue...
60. A little while after going through some dark ruins, we get to a place called the “Cello Tree”… now I’m assuming this is the point where Frederic Chopin’s mind starts to succumb to the tuberculosis, because at this point in the game, things start to lose their coherency while the ludicrous shifts into overdrive. Ladies and gentlemen, the most confusing cutscene in the game!
The scene starts off innocently enough with some random old lady, who seems to recognize Polka… from where? WHERE? …but yet nobody in the party knows who this old lady is. Yea, who is this old lady anyways? Is she a relative of Polka? Is this Polka from the future? What? It’s not really explained. She never appears anywhere else in the game. Does she play an important role in the story? And what the hell does the Cello Tree have anything to do with the central storyline? Where did it come from? Does this mean that Chopin's dream DOES end up repeating itself?... like Higurashi except this time nobody goes crazy and is driven to the point of murder?
The old lady then goes on about the… deformed banana peel looking thing called the “Cello Tree”, how mystical it is… and fortunes, and how Polka just happens to be “The only person who can draw a good fortune from the tree” or something. This sounds like a scam… like one of those banner ads you see on internet websites.
This banner ad is brought to you by MsPaint.
Of course, not questioning whether or not this is actually a trap, Polka believes everything she says and goes to the tree anyways… Gee, I hope Polka doesn’t end up giving the old lady her banking information. Normally this carelessness would result in Polka accidentally releasing demons into the stratosphere… but she goes to the tree anyways.
After realizing the Sacred Tree is… um… cursed, Polka doesn’t use her magic, thus preventing god knows what, and goes back to the party… where the old lady… um… disappears without a trace… and in the world of MUGEN, a hot maid uses a chair to beat up a popular videogame character.
WARNER’S CREATIONS ARE HIGHLY OVERRATED!!! Erm…
…and after that bit… everybody seems to… forget everything that just happened. Yea, that’s all I need, a completely unnecessary and confusing cutscene. Well, that’s over… time to stop Count Waltz’s drug operation at Mt. Rock.
BIIIHHHIIIIGGG LIHHPPED ALLEEGATOR MOMENT!!!
…hey, I made my Youtube career by ripping off Luizprower, I have no shame.
61. After barging your way through Mt. Rock… in which apparently all the miners have turned into L’Opera Knights and Giant Jellyfish for some reason. (Probably a side effect of mineral powder, I guess), we get to a wide-open area fit for a boss battle.
I have no idea how Crescendo and Serenade got past the guards on Mt. Rock, since their distinct white robes are as inconspicuous as a car crash… but who cares?
…then Count Purplecrown comes in… and… OH MY GOD IT’S LAIR!!!
Crescendo – “We surrender Baroque to Forte! Just please don’t subject us to shitty Sixaxis controls!”
Of course Shao Khan here is only interested in Polka, because apparently Polka has the magical power to draw Agogos around her... Waltz’s assistant, Legato, captures a glowing Agogo, and puts him into a jar…. Which somehow created a very potent (and maybe toxic) looking jar of mineral powder. Why does Legato sound like a mature and intelligent version of Big the Cat?
…so Polka, not learning her lesson after the Cello Tree incident agrees to come to Waltz, where Waltz… um, backhands her across the face for some reson. Abuse to Women does not make you look like a badass… especially since your size 50 black cast iron boots clash with the rest of your outfit…
Of course, rather then have the DOZEN DRAGONS flying beside him go all dragon rage and feeding frenzy on our heroes… Waltz decides to… make the same mistake Tuba made in an earlier chapter… that’s right… He’s going into battle by himself… well, not exactly… he did take one of the dragons to fight alongside him. Why just one? Legato also flew in on one of those dragons… why the fuck isn’t that dragon in this battle?
….”You will die, mortal”
…and we beat the crap out of the overconfident little shit for wearing those gawdy looking black boots, an… WHY THE HELL IS LEGATO STILL HERE?
Apparently Legato was too distracted by his purple toxic concoction that he FORGOT TO TAKE POLKA WITH HIM!!! Good god, Waltz told you to take Polka back to Forte right before the boss battle! You had ample time to kidnap the girl while Waltz was busy getting his ass kicked. What, were you just standing there looking at the super-duper mineral powder while the battle was taking place? I guess so, because somehow Polka broke from his grasp and is now on the party side…. and where the fuck did all the dragons go? Did they all just fuck off during the fight? Why didn’t Legato and the other dragons come to Waltz’s aid while my team was mercilessly kicking his ass? Were the dragons fighting the other party members offscreen?
Rather then retreating… Legato decides to drink the super-mineral powder potion for whatever reason… which mutates him into a kick ass looking beast thing that’s a cross between Metal Gear RAY and Dialga from Pokemon… and rather then just fighting them here and now, he decides to create a portal leading to the spirit world and extending this game starting Chapter 7 in the process. Wow, that was careless of him.
“RAAAAAAGGGGGEEEEE”
…so, um… Crescendo, Serenade... You can head back to Baroque now. Your role in this videogame is no longer needed. Thank you.
62. When our heroes go through the magic portal for the first time, why am I suddenly reminded of that one final boss fight in Kingdom Hearts? You know… the part where Sora comes back to Destiny Island and says “Is this…. Is this my island?” It just has that kind of vibe.
63. Ok, so apparently we cannot advance through the noise dunes because a giant unpassable barrier is in the way and that the only way to deactivate it is to go inside Xylophone Tower… and this is where the game stops paying homage to Kingdom Hearts and swaggers on the line of ripoffland.
Big circular platforms surrounded by darkness, check… suspended stairwell, check. The main differences are that this level is near the end of the game rather then the beginning…. and that Kingdom Hearts did not have any of those Simon-esque memory puzzles. You know, I bet that when you reach the top of the stairs, I’ll end up fighting Darkside or Twilight Thorn...
…goddammit Eternal Sonata, you are just are recycling bosses now!!!
64. When that is over, we get to Hallow Bastion the Double Reed Tower… we are almost at the end of the game, why? Because the game has apparently run out of ideas and has decided to cop out by recycling previous bosses instead… which you must defeat in order to reach Legato. HUZZAH FOR BOSS RUSHES.
When we get to where Legato a.k.a. “Ruined Body” a.k.a. Metal gear DIALGA and kick his ass… Yea yea, he’s a pain in the ass, bla bla bla… once you defeat Ruined Body, he drops an item called the “Heroes Crest”, which allows you to enter the secret dungeon… and is somehow the only item that passes on to the second playthrough for whatever reason. Now, at this point, you do have the option of going through yet ANOTHER portal where we get to fight the actual FINAL boss of the game. But I’d rather use the Hero’s crest and head to the super de duper UBER dungeon called “Mysterious Unison”.
Sure, you can be a pussy, go through the portal, fight the final boss, get 10 gamerscore, see the credits, and be done… but only REAL men can handle the perils and challenges that await in the Mysterious Unison.
I’m so not leaving this on a cliffhanger for the 5th and final part of this plot summary.
Credit goes to MasterLL for supplying the world with Eternal Cutscenes, which I used without his permission... but I'm sure he wont mind as long as I give credit.
…and this multi-part article is one reason why I stopped making Youtube videos in favour of better things. No, I did not DIE… I just have no intention on making more videos anytime soon. Thank you. I dont know, but nowadays everytime I think of CorporatebitchTube, I get all annoyed and pissed off all of a sudden. I'm better off writing articles and leaving Let's Plays and MUGEN videos to better people.
…
Welcome to part 3 of my list of clichés on Eternal Sonata, a game that apparently not many people have played…. Shame because this game is awesome and that you should go buy it. Note that even though I actually liked Eternal Sonata, I’m also a picky bastard who likes to point out things for the sake of being a sadistic bastard.
Spoilers abound… if you don’t like being spoiled, then why the hell are you reading this article then? Also note that I’ll be going through the Xbox 360 version… I know the PS3 version has a few more features added to the game, but guess what? Not everybody HAS a Playstation 3, smartass.
CONTINUE LIST GO NOW
48. Somewhere in the streets of Baroque we come across a train that used to be in operation, but has since stopped functioning… no doubt because of the harsh winter weather conditions of Baroque. The question is… how long has that train been idle there? Was there a time where Baroque WASN’T bombarded with constant snowfall? …or maybe Baroque had stupid pioneers who thought it’d be a good idea to incorporate a railway system in a place with a climate similar to the North Pole. Crazy fantasy worlds I tell ya.
49. There’s this recurring trend with Dolce that whenever she gets pissed off, an explosion happens somewhere offscreen. There’s really no logical explanation as to where the explosions come from and why, so let’s just assume Dolce has the mystical power to make explosions happen… She should definitely not be operating heavy machinery.
50. There’s also this mini-story side quest thing on pirate treasure, which is optional so it isn’t required to beat the game. This side quest involves beating Dolce AGAIN about 2-3 times, however… this time for whatever reason every time you beat her, your party gains enough EXP to go up 1-2 levels. Huh, fancy that.
However, this game also likes to be a fucking tease by requiring a SECOND playthrough of the game in order to get the opportunity to get the treasure in the first place, because a vital piece of the “treasure map”, cleverly named “Pirate Paper 3” can only be obtained in the second playthrough. In the first playthrough, you just get a peace earring when you beat Dolce in Baroque Tavern. I don’t want no fucking peace earring, gimme the fucking achievement, er… I mean… pirate treasure!
51. Meanwhile in Ritardando, a group of people is at the front of the church; concerned that there is a ghostly spirit or something like that that’s causing havoc or something. Just call the Ghostbusters… that’ll work. But wait, instead the baker lady recognizes Allegretto and Beat as the bread thieves from before and that somehow that gives them an excuse to force our heroes into the church to kill whatever ghost that’s inside. Strange how I can still be able to move around the rest of Ritardando around this time and nobody would give a shit. Yea, just take your time boys… you cant progress through the storyline anyways until you exorcize the demon inside the church, so nyanyanyaaaa.
I also find it strange that one of Ritardando’s citizens were able to recognize a couple of bread thieves, but have apparently FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE MAGIC CHICK WHO USED CURAGA MAGIC ON A BAR PATRON.
52. Also, how the fuck was Allegretto able to leave the party and escape through the angry mob towards Tenuto? I assume making alibis is an important skill of the “thief” role in RPGs…. Either that or allegretto wants to get laid. I bet the conversation between Allegretto and the mob went something like this…
Mob: “Get your ass back in there and kill that ghost thing! It’s telling us persecute people who use magic and to accuse people of being witches!” Allegretto: “I have to go meet my eventual love interest in Tenuto village” Mob: “Our attention spans have dwindled because of a mix of Mineral Powder and crappy reality shows like Survivor. We believe you” Allegretto: “SUCKERS!!!” *leaves Ritardando*
53. Why do all churches have secret catacombs in the back? And why is the catacombs linked to an old abandoned mine? I know religion is a complex thing, but this just raises even more questions.
54. At some location in the Catacombs, Beat just notices that the catacombs are conveniently located beside their little hidey-hole, but has never noticed this fact until now…. so Beat and Allegretto have living in Ritardando all their lives, yet they couldn’t see over a pile of crates to the old abandoned mine shaft that’s on the other side? You’d think that with all the glowing crystalline structures strewn throughout the place, you’d think Beat and Allegretto would’ve noticed by now.
55. Right before leaving Ritardando, Allegretto notices a rock that got washed up on shore… which looks suspiciously like the “piece of shrimp” rock that Polka carries around. After meeting with Polka and trying to get to second base with her sharing another 5 minutes of philosophical monologue, Polka suddenly gets this urge to jump off a cliff.
“Sit back down chick, I haven’t finished my speech on light pollution”
Allegretto gets this flashback which looks suspiciously like the initial cutscene at the beginning of the game, and prevents Polka from jumping to her death… how the hell does Allegretto know of this memory? Then suddenly Polka is shocked at how the rock that she just threw happened to be the same rock that Allegretto picked up on shore. I’m just as confused as Polka here. Did Allegretto somehow change the future by saving Polka? Is this Story going to end up repeating itself over and over?… like Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, except noboby goes crazy and goes on a killing spree?
I don’t know, let’s just assume Frederic chopin’s going through shock right now. Here, you watch this clip and try to figure out what it means. I think I’m missing something here. I'm sure this has some sort of deep symbolic and philosophical meaning, but hell if I know what this means.
56. Cut forward to the Aria Temple… which the inside of it looks a lot bigger then the stick figure that it actually looks like from the outside. The protagonists get to the top… where they meet Rondo for whatever reason. There’s no reason as to how Rondo got up there or how she managed to locate our heroes in one place, or how she got through the locked door at the front of the temple… I just know this’ll eventually lead up to my party gangbanging her in honorable combat.
…now hold on a minute… where the hell did Falsetto come from? That was convenient for her to suddenly show up at this point at this exact moment of time. Falsetto starts whining about getting revenge on Rondo for killing Claves. Why? Claves didn’t do anything except look pretty! Wow, I take back my comment on how Andantino members don’t give a shit about Claves’ death. Falsetto’s actually taking this seriously. I guess Gamesradar was right; Falsetto does tend to have an insecure personality. I don’t really see why though, Rondo basically did us all a big favour by killing off the otherwise weak and useless character.
Now we get to the batt… what the? How the hell did Falsetto kick out the 3rd member of my party? I needed that spot for Polka to cast her cure spells when my characters get low on health. I know you want to get your revenge, sweetheart… but that’s no reason for you to kick out the 3rd member of the party. Now I might need to use my heath items like a sucker.
57. Now as dull as Prince Crescendo and Princess Serenade are… I got to admit that they have the gall to simply abandon Baroque and head over to Forte, unescorted, in an attempt to speak with Lord Jackass in person…. All without using a messenger. This sounds crazy and stupid, but Crescendo believes this will end any potential confrontation between Baroque and Forte… even if Count Waltz shows NO intention on changing his plans to whore out Mineral Powder. Jesu… don’t tell me I eventually have have to rescue his sorry ass… You know how dangerous this sounds? Crescendo and his bride are just setting themselves up for a potential assassination here, being rulers of a fucking kingdom and all.
I probably will end up rescuing the crazy royal duo, in the next part. Hey, it’s an RPG… it’s not meant to be short and simple.
58. Ah yes, another of my favourite clichés… warp panels. Gotta have one of those in a game.
59. You know, for an RPG… this game is disturbingly linear. Granted, you can be able to return to areas which you previously visited via a warp panel located inside the ummm…. Warp room located right beside Baroque Castle… but let’s not forget… This game HEAVILY emphasizes on the second playthrough for some reason… so when you enter the warp room, the warp panel on the left will only somehow magically activate in CHAPTER 6 OF ENCORE MODE!!! I don’t know how this is plausible… I’m assuming this is to annoy those gamers who buy games, play them once, and then leave them on the shelf right next to Assassin’s Creed and Lost Planet.
You know what Eternal Sonata?… I’m a persistant bastard, and a gamerscore whore… I’ll be back… and I will partake in the lengthy fetch quests that’ll land me that attractive gamerscore…. And people are still surprised I don’t have a girlfriend.
END PART 3
Credit also goes to MasterLL for supplying the Eternal Sonata cutscenes for us all to view.
Welcome to part 2 of my list of clichés on a game that apparently not many people have played…. Shame because this game is awesome and that you should go buy it. To be honest, (prepares for fanboy comments), I'd rather play an obscure but great game like Eternal Sonata instead of an overrated, popular games like Halo.
Yea, the unimpressiveness of Halo3 is as shallow as a giant mento.
Spoilers abound… if you don’t like being spoiled, then why the hell are you reading this article then? Also note that I’ll be going through the Xbox 360 version… I know the PS3 version has a few more features added to the game, but guess what? Not everybody HAS a Playstation 3, smartass.
CONTINUE LIST GO NOW
32. Somehow Tuba was the only casualty of that attack on Cutscene bridge because everybody else just somehow magically survived the 50 foot fall into the river below. Of course, this is a plot device which ends up just separating the two parties.
33. Great, somehow Claves survived… how nice….
34. Right, onto the gameplay of Jazz, Falsetto, and Claves… Jazz plays just like a prototype of Ike from Super Smash Bros Brawl, except he also takes a cue from Cloud Strife and carries around a 6 foot buster sword. His attacks are slow, unwieldy, but very powerful… just like Ike’s gameplay in Brawl. Hell, his “fire blade” super is just the Great Aether without any of the “airborne”. Falsetto prefers to fight with her fists, can rack a pretty nasty combo, and do corny poses before pulling off a super move… and it’s most likely You’ll use Claves only once before sending her to the back of your party and using Allegretto or Viola instead.
35. Reason why I don’t like Claves 1: She’s a prissy airheaded bimbo who doesn’t like going into the obligatory swamp areas in RPGs. Hey, the female protagonist in Pokemon Diamond is brave enough to walk through a fucking snowstorm in a miniskirt-dress-thing and not complain about it, so shut up and march through that swamp, bitch.
36. Reason why I don’t like Claves 2: She apparently takes a cue from the Sailor Moon Academy of Impractical Battle Uniforms. Say what you want about Viola and Falsetto, at least their uniforms are plausible….
Ok, the head and midriff aren’t too bad. Claves has an armoured gauntlet on one hand, and one long stocking covering the right leg. Why? I don’t know… maybe to look fancy, I guess. I think it’s stupid.
37. Reason why I don’t like Claves 3: I don’t really see where she fits in with the whole storyline except to stand there and look pretty. All the other characters seem to fit some sort of useful RPG personality cliche, like…
Allegretto – Headstrong Rebel, Thief Jazz – Calm, collected, leader, fights for his friends Polka – Sweet and innocent, white mage Beat – Annoying sidekick, comic relief Salsa – obnoxious loudmouth Viola – Tomboy Falsetto – Tough girl with a emo side Frederic – Central to the game’s main storyline
…so that leaves Claves with… useless airhead.
38. Reason why I don’t like Claves 4: …ok, so maybe the above list seems a little harsh and generalized… but let’s see where Claves fits in with actual gameplay:
- Beat and Viola both have ranged attacks. - Polka has useful curaga magic. - Salsa, Frederic, and Falsetto can rack a nasty combo with regular attacks. - Falsetto is brave enough to fight enemies with her fists. Hot. - Salsa and Falsetto have special moves that can deliver a nasty combo… - Both Allegretto and Jazz are superior swordfighters
What’s Claves got? Well, at this point in the game, one of those “elemental” weapons which does damage to one type enemy and virtually no damage to another. Yea, like I said, you probably arent going to be using Claves very much, and would probably use the other members of the party to fight instead.
39. Reason why I don’t like Claves 5: One of the fucking achievements involves gathering shards of some kind and resurrecting Claves from the dead… or something… so I’m pretty sure that she’s going to end up dying at some point in the game. (The sooner the better, I don’t want this part degenerating to a list of why I hate Claves)
40. Sometime in Poison forest, you’ll come across “Hungry Drum”, a guy who apparently ate a poison mushroom and is now paralyzed from the neck down… you know what… if the guy is stupid enough to eat a bunch of POISON mushrooms in the middle of a forest that is literally a poisonous hazard…. LET HIM DIE…
41. Actually now that I think about it, what was the point of the graveyard level?
42. Reason why I hate Claves 5: AERIS DIES
Yea, anybody surprised? *hears crickets*
But it’s not Claves’ uselessness that annoys me. See, during this part, another swordsperson named Rondo appeared out of nowhere stabbed Claves in the chest, mortally wounding her… and what follows is the videogame equivalent of Trinity’s death from Matrix Revolutions…. A long, unnecessary death scene that takes 15 minutes longer then it should. But, to share my pain, I’ll give you a brief rundown of what I had to go through while watching this airheaded bimbo’s monologue of tedium.
Credit to MasterLL for uploading the video onto CorporatebitchTube.
(You can skip this crap, but that’s not the point)
…YAY! Rondo killed off the useless chick!
…what the hell? she’s still alive? …um, thank you for the flashbacks of Falsetto, that was really necessary… I know, we’re supposed to feel sorry for you, but really… you chose to be a double agent for both Andantino and Forte. Can you die now, please? Ok, now you are just recycling flashbacks here…
…You know, I don’t think Rondo stabbed Claves hard enough, because apparently she still has enough energy to limp to the window. In fact, I think this might just be the first completely bloodless fatal stabbing in history. Sure, Claves is holding her chest, but there’s no blood on her dress nor is there a pool of blood on the floor. I’m assuming the bleeding is visible to the naked eye?
…and with all this energy, you’d think Claves would limp her ass to the front door, and call for help, maybe then some passerby would actually come to her aid.… especially since Andante is nearby… or you can just use your carrier pidgeon… why not?
Good fucking god! Due to that painfully drawn out bit, I can certainly feel her pain. Jazz nor the other members of the party don’t really notice or care much about Claves anyways, so it’s probably a good thing.
43. But enough of that bit, we cut to the other half of the party, who also magically survived falling into the river, and are now on the ship of Plot Convenience, where apparently the people of Baroque are celebrating Christmas because of all the Christmas decorations in the guest rooms… Wasn’t it like summer in the last chapter? Is Baroque located in the North Pole? None the weather in…. um… Eternal Sonata land is really explained much.
45. Soon after more dialogue and being introduced into Captain Crescendo, the ship gets attacked by, you guessed it… PIRATES!!! Just when you thought there weren’t going to be any more clichés… FUCKING PIRATES… Also, since the Pirate’s boarding parties are taking their sweet time to invade, I guess it’s more time for dialogue. What, so did the pirate ship just “accidentally” ram into Baroque ship? Did the pirates somehow magically forget about sending a boarding party to invade Baroque ship?
46. Pirates in this game apparently look like Wakka from FFX and talk like a broad negative pirate stereotype. They are also lead by Dolce, who’s obviously too attractive to be leading a group of blitzball players….. at least she’s a more convincing pirate then Gwen Stefani…
47. Why is the Fire Cave right next to the ice level?
…
We’re probably at the halfway point now with our list of plot summaries and clichés.
I suddenly feel the urge to talk about a game that I recently found to my liking…. an Xbox 360/PS3 RPG called Eternal Sonata. Originally I was intending on making a video about this game using various footage from the game and uploading them onto CorporateBitchTube, but I think I’m more comfortable in the realm of articlewriting.
Besides, I think I’m better off NOT becoming one of the many AVGN-style videogame reviewers on Youtube living in fear that some Irate Gamer will have IHaveNoBackboneTube take down videos for some false copyright bullshit reason in the name of some fictional company…. Or to have some greedy motherfuckers in the music industry like Warner Music Group have YouTube take down and mute my videos all because I used a 5 second ditty of a popular AC/DC song.
…
Now, although Tri-Crescendo did an excellent job in turning the concept of a dying piano composer’s hallucination into a great RPG with more lace then a Victoria Secret catalogue… I’m still going to point out various cliché moments and references in the game for the hell of it. Why? Because I'm a picky bastard. Now I’ll try not to list too many of the common RPG clichés (level 1 enemies, respawning enemies, elemental enemies, Yo mama enemies)… but I have noticed similarities between this game and other moments in entertainment.
Since this is an RPG, I’ll likely cut this list into parts. Spoilers abound… if you don’t like being spoiled, then why the hell are you reading this article then? Also note that I’ll be going through the Xbox 360 version… I know the PS3 version has a few more features added to the game, but guess what? Not everybody HAS a Playstation 3, smartass.
LET THE LIST BEGIN
1. The opening cutscene depicts our female protagonist named “Polka” as she commits suicide by falling off a cliff. I guess there’s a moment where I should feel sorry for her because she lost somebody she cared for, but on the other hand… I keep thinking about how God of War used a similar cutscene in it’s introduction… right down to the fact the bit is foreshadowing for what might happen later on in the game.
“…and Polka cast herself from the highest Mountain in all of… um… Eternal Sonata Land”
2. After that bit, we suddenly cut to a long drawn out bit of exposition telling us about the beauty of this mystical land of make believe. Like many RPGS, this takes a leeeeetle too long. Thankfully you can skip most cutscenes and save yourself about 15 hours of time…. I digress, I can tolerate these long scenes of dialogue, seeing as how I’ve watched plenty episodes of Yugioh and read plenty of visual novels. As long as the long drawn-out bits of dialogue serve to tell a story and reduce the amount of load times via prefetching, I can tolerate it…. And don’t worry, there’s only about 50 million of these cutscenes throughout the game.
3. Cut to a small peaceful village that isn’t really special, and you’ll probably end up never seeing it again… note how peaceful and pleasant the first part of the game is. How much you want to bet the game won’t be AS peaceful when you get near the end.
4. Frederic Chopin, as depicted in the game, looks surprisingly young for a middle-aged person… but that is the power of anime-style characters. Anime has the power to make you look about 10-15 years younger. For a person like Frederic Chopin who looks like he’s in his early 20s, that’s alright… but there are other examples in other Japanese anime where this type of age-reducing formula might appear to be a little... borderline lolicon…
5. The tutorial tells us in detail about how the gameplay mechanics work. Why is Polka telling me how the gameplay works? What, does this game think I haven’t read the instruction manual?
6. Hey will you look at that, a cutscene with a chick selling floral products in a city full of people who don’t give a damn. I hope some long white haired prettyboy doesn’t end up stabbing her in the back in one of the most overrated cutscenes in videogame history.
7. After some random chick tells Polka that everybody prefers mineral powder to floral powder nowadays, we see some random bar patron get tossed out the window. Polka uses her cure magic and is then immediately ostracized by the entirety of Ritardando. I mean, what the hell? This is the thanks I get for healing this one guy?... Well, I’m surprised the villagers didn’t up and started chasing Polka with pitchforks. God forbid, if somebody tries to introduce them to the Touhou Project or argue that the world is round, that person would be burnt at the stake. Ritardando is full of hypocrites, apparently. I’m pretty sure that “mineral powder” that you guys are chugging is made with some sort of magic properties in mind.
8. Also, judging by the cutscenes and special abilities, it’s safe to assume Polka is the “white mage” of the group, largely specializing in cure all spells. Sure, she has some offensive dark-type moves as well, but it’s most likely you’ll use Polka for her curaga spells more then for actual combat.
9. Sometime during the first chapter we get introduced to our next pair of characters, Beat and Allegretto, who apparently take occupations as the obligatory “Thief” roles played in most RPGs, because they stole a bunch of bread from some old lady who doesn’t even bother to chase them or call the local guard. HOW LAZY ARE THESE PEOPLE? Also note that the citizens in Ritardando have completely forgotten about the magic chick with a distinct dress?
10. Allegretto is the headstrong rebel with a Robin Hood complex, Beat is the annoying sidekick who treasures his camera with his life. ‘nuff said.
11. Oh yea, because we all feel the need to add in the sewer level full of rats… more clichés for the masses. Why are all sewers in RPGs beautifully rendered and have clear water running throughout it?
12. Apparently the reason behind the EPIC Bakery robbery is that Alladin Allegretto and Beat is stealing food to give to people who are too poor to live in proper housing and thus forced to live in the sewer…. huh… I always thought the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles always ate pizza…. But hey, whatever floats your boat.
13. Why does the sewer have a massive domey structure attached to it?
14. After the first boss fight, we get treated to yet another barrage of cutscenes as credits and the title scene somehow show up, just like Kingdom Hearts.
15. Frederic Chopin somehow inexplicably shows up out of nowhere and talks to Polka. Normally this scenario would end up with a body in a dumpster, but Polka seems to trust the strange middle-aged man that she just met alone in the middle of the night and they both go off somewhere. Not creepy.
16. Sometime during Agogo Forest, Frederic and Polka encounter a monocled swordfighter named Fugue. Fugue is very pissed off for some reason and decided to unleash his frustration on two passerbys that happened to be there at the wrong time. It’s also during this boss battle that we encounter yet another RPG cliché…. You know in some RPGS, there’s this boss that appears at near the beginning of the game that is apparently 20 levels higher then you… and that no matter how high your level is at this point in the game, the guy WILL hand you your ass no matter what you do so you have no choice but to watch while Fugue turns your party into Maple Leaf Top Dogs?…. How much you want to bet this asshole WONT be as ridiculously overpowered the next time you see him?
17. At some point after you reach Agogo Village, Polka runs off and you have to go save her. Yay, rescue the dumb broad… another cliché. Also, why does the party just run inside the group of enemies when simply ambushing them would be more plausible? Note that this cliché isn’t going to happen too often in the game, so we’re not going to have to rescue Polka too often.
18. Well look at that, everybody has a reason for banding together… Head to Forte, and talk with Count Waltz, all for the sake of ceasing production of a controlled substance…. By the look of Count Waltz in the following cutscene, however… How much you want to bet Count Waltz isn’t going to take this ‘request’ lightly and will be a total dickhead about it? Yes, this is our antagonist for game…
19. ....Oh yea, the “November Uprising” of 1830…. I’m sure that’s the only time that Poland’s going to be mercilessly annexed into a powerful European empire. Much condolences...
20. Viola is a tomboy, and the obligatory “archer” of the group…. Because apparently all tomboyish goat farmers are skilled in archery.
21. It is after we meet Viola that we learn of Count Blondie’s EVIL plan…. The plan? Not spoiling the storyline in any way, to turn the idiot populations into mindless magic zombie soldiers by having them addicted to crack… er, mineral powder. All for the purpose of, you guessed it, taking over the world… OF COURSE!
…and if the Nostalgia Critic is reading this, I apologize for stealing his bit.
22. At Glissando Cliffs, you’ll notice the interesting gameplay device where creatures morph depending on whether they are in the light or shadow. How a bat-like creature can morph into a giant enemy scorpion is anybody’s guess, but it’s best not to question logic in RPGs and just go with the flow here.
23. Also something of mystery… how the fuck can a kid survive a 5 storey fall off a cliff and land in a tree unscathed? …and how the hell did he get past the Oh-so-vigilant guys who were supposed to be building a fence so that stupid kids don’t fall off cliffs in the first place?
24. After you rescue the kid who survived falling off a cliff, we get to battle one of Count Jackass’s henchmen at the gate of Forte Castle, a fat guy with a gawdy looking mowhawk aptly named Tuba… He has a bunch of foot soldiers around him, however, Lord Lardass would prefer to fight by himself, while his men go fuck off somewhere… You know, for a fat guy with no fashion sense, Tuba’s got the balls to fight you by himself, even though he’s got a bunch of armed guards right beside him. After fighting Tuba, his men show up and throw our heroes in the dungeon. First of all, where the fuck were these guards during the actual boss battle, and why did they show up NOW and throw the guys in the dungeon when they should have done that in the first place?
25. After getting tossed in the dungeon, we meet March’s identical twin sister Salsa, who somehow has a southern accent and orange hair for some reason.
26. It’s also here that Allegretto, being the “thief” role that he is, instantly knows how to break loose from Forte’s dungeon, since all thieves know how to pick the most complex of locks in a matter of seconds. Where did Count Waltz get the locks for these prison doors? Dollarworld?
27. Our protagonists escape the dungeon via a conveniently placed CRACK IN THE WALL. The crack in the wall also houses a complex set of paths that conveniently leads out of Forte. How the fuck did the guards not notice a fucking crack in the wall? It’s not like it’s one of those tiny cracks that you can bomb through like in Legend of Zelda… no no… you can probably fit Tuba through this GAPING HOLE THE SIZE OF A HALLWAY.
You know, with this kind of insignificant weakness in Forte Castle’s Masonry, I think Andantino would have no problem infiltrating the place… all they got to do is get through the jellyfish and giant enemy scorpions in the secret path.
28. Somewhere around this point, you’ll get introduced to 2 elemental-type weapons… light and dark. Light weapons are effective against dark, dark against light…. Fresh when compared to other RPGS, maybe… but Ikaruga came up with this concept about 5 years earlier, so Eternal Sonata isn’t much innovative in this department … and Eternal Sonata is nowhere near as difficult... even in "encore" mode.
29. After the “escape” from Forte’s bad masonry, we get introduced to three key members of the rebel group “Andantino”, Jazz, Falsetto, and Claves. Jazz is the headstrong leader of the group who does a perfect Ike impersonation… right down to the comically cheesy English voice acting. Spot on! Fight for your friends! Falsetto reminds me of Saber from Fate/Stay Night, with hotpants… and Claves represents everything that I hate about preachy airheaded bimbos in RPGs. I’ll get to why I don’t like Claves later on...
“Stop biting my hand you little shit…”
30. Also note that Even though Jazz, Falsetto, and Bimbo have joined the group at this point, somehow they aren’t playable until the next chapter. I don’t know…
31. Sometime after Ferderic has a soliloquy for some reason about what his purpose in this mystical realm is… this, the day of your daughter’s wedding… We get to Cabasa bridge where the group stops to talk… AGAIN. Right on the middle of the bridge, no less.. where they are vulnerable to enemy attac... oh that’s just great, now lord Mohawk finally caught up with us.
…and I hand Tuba his ass again, not before Tuba pulls off an Indiana Jones by suicide bombing the bridge ties and sending our heroes plummeting into the river below.
…
Will our heroes survive the perilous fall into the river below? Or will the nonexistent man-eating crocodiles eat them alive? …and why the fuck is Faze of 1337planet so lazy that he has to separate this list into parts?
MadWorld Publisher: SEGA Developer: Platinum Games Players: 1-2 ESRB: M
A common stereotype about all Nintendo systems is they're childish and only for kids. While most of this statement is run-of-the-mill ignorance, there is some slight truth to it. Look at the Nintendo Wii, and you won't find many games on it that are made specifically for the mature crowd who bought it, let alone good ones. SEGA is hoping to change this with the recent launch of some exclusive games for the Wii that are for the adults only. One of these games is MadWorld, a game that shows that not only adult Wii owners exist, but they deserve games that are as fun as any other mature game available on other platforms.
If a quick glance at the box art isn't convincing enough, the first 10 minutes of MadWorld makes it clear that it is not for kids. The game is full of over-the-top violence, swearing, drug and alcohol references, graphic dismemberment, sexual remarks, and other themes guaranteed to scar someone's childhood. Normally, this much adult content in a game is unnecessary, serving only to attract controversy, and, inevitably, more sales. In a game like MadWorld, however, it fits perfectly with the tone and plot of the game.
MadWorld opens with a terrorist attack on the fictional Varrigan City, located on Jefferson Island. With all the bridges leading off the island destroyed, and all satellites and cellular devices jammed, the rest of the world is completely unaware of the horrible truth: The entire population of Jefferson Island is forced to compete on a bloody television program known as DeathWatch, for the amusement and financial gain of a group of rich and powerful entrepreneurs. The rest of the story is told through cutscenes before and after levels, including several characters who don't appear outside of them. Players take control of Jack, a mysterious cigarette-smoking macho-man with a biker jacket and a chainsaw attachment on his prosthetic right arm, who is also competing on DeathWatch. As the game progresses, it becomes clear that Jack is not just fighting to survive in a world gone mad.
Another main draw of the game is the unique presentation and art style of the game. MadWorld adopts the Sin City style of presentation; nearly the entire game is in black-and-white, save for the large amounts of red blood that the environments can be painted in, and the yellow found on menu screens and other minute places in the game. Despite only having two major colors, it never becomes visually tiresome. One reason for this is the varied levels and environments in the game, ranging from an Asian-inspired part of town to a secret military base. Nearly level has its own distinct feel. There are also no problems with distance-perception and little issues with telling the enemies apart from the rest of the world. While the graphics do have the occasional glitch (I once saw a single-frame of an enemy appear, and then disappear), and not every cutscene is well-animated, they are solid and make for decent eye-candy while you are playing.
MadWorld's Sin-City-influenced art style gives it a look and feel all of its own.
The presentation of MadWorld also holds up. Since the levels of MadWorld are set up like a TV show, commentary from two announcers (voiced by Greg Proops and John Dimaggio) can be heard constantly throughout the game. The announcers do not hold back on the adult content, frequently swearing and referring to stories about graphic deaths, cheating ex-wives, and other exploits at the drop of a hat. For the most part, the writing for the commentators is funny, and although some of their lines repeat a few more times than needed, there are enough of them throughout the game to keep you entertained, and just in case you aren't, the game has the option to turn them off completely, which is a always a nice feature.
The rest of the audio is as decent as the commentary, with a few exceptions. The acting is okay, if a little halfhearted at times. In-game, the sounds that accompany each violent death are pleasing to the ears; every punch has weight, every amputation and decapitation sounds brutal, and every impalement feels right. The cutscenes lack some background noises, becoming dead silent in certain parts, but this is more of a personal nit-pick than a major issue.
All of this pales in comparison to MadWorld's satisfying reward-based gameplay. Each level in MadWorld is like a small arena filled with traps, weapons, and objects that can be used against the constantly-regenerating enemies. The amount of ways in which you can kill a competitor is staggering, even in the first level. Impale them on a rose bush (wall of spikes), throw them in front of a train, send them flying with a bat covered in spikes, shove them in a toilet, or throw them into a sawblade and watch them get sliced and diced; the possibilities are near-endless. Jack also has his own set of finishing moves, where he can slice a single opponent in half with his chainsaw, slam him on the ground multiple times, twist his neck completely around, or simply give him an uppercut to send him flying.
You are not only given all of these options to kill your opponents, but are encouraged to. The more creative your kill is, the more points you will earn, allowing access to new weapons, traps, powerups, the BloodBath Challenge (in which you have to kill as many opponents in a specific way as you can, such as hitting them onto a large dartboard), and eventually, the boss fight. The bosses only stick to a few moves, but they do provide some challenge to what is mostly an easy game, and at least end with a violent death of some sort.
Ripping out someone's heart Mortal-Kombat-style is just one of Jack's impressive finishing moves.
As fun as MadWorld's gameplay is, it is not perfect. The camera is a problem at certain parts of the game. During a particular miniboss fight, the camera was behind the wall at one point, preventing me from seeing anything and eventually leading to Jack's death. This wouldn't be as big of a problem if you were given more camera control than just centering the camera behind Jack's back and locking onto one particular opponent. The motion controls are not 100% accurate, either. There's been more than one instance where I did the motion for Jack's backfist attack/horizontal chainsaw strike, but he did the uppercut/vertical chainsaw attack instead. It's a bigger issue during the quick-time events against the bosses, or "power struggles" as the game calls it, all of which use the motion controls. A not-quite-right flick of the Wii Remote can spell disaster for Jack. This isn't to say that the motion controls are bad; without them, MadWorld would not feel the same at all.
The biggest problem with MadWorld is its length, or lack thereof. MadWorld is a short game; you can become the Number 1 fighter of the DeathWatch games in about 5 hours, even less if you don't replay some of the levels along the way. The short length is slightly compensated with the extras included in the game; beating MadWorld for the first time unlocks two very-fun-to-use weapons, and a hard mode, where you are only given one life at the start of each level, and the enemies are more aggressive and dodge more often. Certain challenges also appear in some levels after you beat them once, such as getting a certain point total or amount of kills before fighting the boss. Despite the increase in challenge, you can still finish the hard mode in one afternoon.
Camera shots like these, while impressive-looking, are not helpful when surrounded by enemies.
These shortcomings do impact the amount of fun MadWorld strives to offer, but not enough to keep it from being a blast to play. It can be finished in roughly one sitting, and the camera and motion control responsiveness leave room for improvement, but MadWorld is a great game with a style all of its own. Those who have been waiting for a great mature-themed title for the Wii since No More Heroes owe it to themselves to pick up MadWorld.
UPDATE: Pictures added and squares removed (I blame Word 2007.)
At times, the purchase of a long-anticipated album makes me overly euphoric, resulting in a short-lived overestimation of the work before I change my mind and view it as just 'good'. However, there's not a single doubt in my mind that the album I found in my mailbox yesterday will suffer from a similar relegation into the 'fairly good' purgatory, for Amesoeurs' self-titled debut album is even better than I had hoped for it to be. The first and last full-length album of the French cult band turns out to be the haunting musical observation of modern civilization it was destined to be according to the musicians involved in the project.
Hailing from Avignon, a city in France famous for its anti-popes during the middle ages, Amesoeurs could be seen as the anti-pope of post-rock and black metal. While having many things in common with both genres, Amesoeurs offers an entirely unique sound that is bound to surprise fans of either genre. Even though the band's only other release was a 3-song EP called Ruines Humaines back in 2006, the anticipation of Amesoeurs' first full-length was significant among metal- and post-rock fans alike. Combining two genres that at first seem to share but a few similarities, Amesoeurs offered a depressing and dim view upon the dark side of the modern age: suffocating, polluted air; dirty junkies and hobos; intimidating buildings and a general lack of individuality in every aspect of society - the usual horrors of 'the big city'. That is not to say Amesoeurs is political band, however. Even though it obviously expressed its revolt for the modern age rather than admiring it, the band portrayed its disgusts through dark poetry, rather than offering possible solutions through some preachy pseudo-political lyrics.
The album continues where the EP left off, conceptually. Although the compositions carry significantly less black metal elements with them on this album, the lyrical core is very much the same, and even executed better, one might say.
Starting out with a haunting instrumental track, the band immediately reveals what it's about: mixing post-rock with black metal elements. The presence of the latter-named element is not very strange, seeing as three of the four members of Amesoeurs are, or have been active in the black metal scene in one way or another. Even though the opening track is an instrumental piece which maintains pretty much the same melody throughout the whole song, the diversity in style is immediately evident, while sounding completely natural nonetheless.
After the impressive introduction, Amesoeurs continues to manifest its diversity through the next couple of tracks. Song such as Heurt and Recueillement have obvious black metal influences, while not drifting away from the post-rock significantly enough to label the mix as inappropiate. Recueillement in particular is a very interesting track, seeing as a poem by the 19th century poet Charles Baudelaire serves as lyric for this song, and while the band leader, Neige, has often used Charles Baudelaire poems for other musical projects (which are often built around an entirely different lyrical and musical concept), Baudelaire's poetry seems just as fitting and natural as it does in Neige's previous efforts to musically portray his work.
Perhaps the most interesting example of the diversity of this album is not the variation in rhythm or melody, but the vocals. While about 70% of the vocals for this album are being done by Audrey Sylvain, Neige occasionally lays down his haunting vocals, which find their roots in the time when he was more pre-occupied with making black metal music, but nonetheless have their own distinct sound, and are way more melodic than say, the vocals of more conventional black metal acts such as Dimmu Borgir and Emperor. Even if Audrey's soothing (but sometimes enraged) voice is nothing like Neige's enchanting screams, the variation, like with the rest of album, appears as natural and isn't disturbing to those who are somewhat used to the unconventional vocal arts of black metal.
From left to right: Audrey Sylvain, Winterhalter, Neige and Fursy Teyssier.
Separated by a piano interlude (called 'Amesoeurs Is Dead' in cypher code, referring to the band's then pending departure), the second half of the album is perhaps even darker than the first. Where the first couple of songs are sad and melancholic, the last few songs are more depressing, furious, and even aggressive. This is not necessarily demonstrated through the song Trouble (Éveils-Infâmes) (which is definitely the most black metallish track of the album) as much as on La Reine Trayeuse in which Audrey Sylvain screams so outragedly that she seems to break her vocal cords. It kind of reminds me of Kurt Cobain, who wasn't a particularly cheery figure himself.
The title track is in a way the most post-rocky song of the album, and the influences from Ian Curtis and Joy Division can clearly be heard, without damaging the originality aspect, by the way. This song, which is certainly one of the album's highlights, is followed by the haunting Au Crépuscule de Nos Rêves. The album's closer, sung by Neige, reminds an awful lot of the first two tracks of the Ruines Humaines EP. Even though the track officially lasts 11 minutes and 16 seconds, the final, dramatic tones fade out after about 5 and a half minutes.
Bar the Laibach-/Rammstein-like industrial noise at the very end of the track, these were probably the last tones we'll ever hear from Amesoeurs, as they had announced to disband after the release of this album due to tensions among some of the members, and conflicting ideas regarding the future of the band. While this is certainly bad news to anyone who enjoys this album, the knowledge of their departure hangs like a black cloud over the entire album, and perhaps unintentionally increases the effect the musicians went for when composing and recording this album.
All in all, Amesoeurs is an album that will not be forgotten by those who know how to appreciate it. While the mix of black metal- and post-rock elements might seem a bit intimidating and strange to those who are not familiar with either one of the genres, the album is certainly an absolute success, as it fulfills every ambition expressed by its creators. It might take numerous listens, the right mood, and perhaps even training to uncover all of Amesoeurs' secrets, but those who are able to lose themselves in its lonely soundscapes will realize that the Avignon quartet has made one of the darkest, yet most beautiful albums of all time. It is on one hand a shame that Amesoeurs has, probably forever, ceased to exist as a band, as I personally feel they could've become a really big band, Yet Amesoeurs does what few other bands have ever succeeded in: leaving us a musical legacy with, in my opinion, not even a single song among it that's not absolutely beautiful. Amesoeurs is dead. Long live Amesoeurs!
Tracklist: 1. Gas In Veins 2. Les Ruches Malades 3. Heurt 4. Recueillement 5. Faux Semblants 6. I XIII V XIX XV V XXI XVIII XIX - IX XIX - IV V I IV 7. Trouble (Éveils-Infâmes) 8. Video Girl 9. La Reine Trayeuse 10. Amesoeurs 11. Au Crépuscule de Nos Rêves
All music written by Neige, except for track 1 & 9 by Fursy Teyssier, and track 6 by Audrey Sylvain. All lyrics written by Audrey Sylvain and Neige, except for track 4 written by Charles Baudelaire in Les Fleurs du Mal.
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