A game with a premise like Project X-Zone is quite the rarity outside of Japan, where licensing issues aren't nearly as complicated. Various characters from Namco Bandai, Sega and Capcom along with a few originals team-up in a srpg that;s a tad reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts with all these random franchises coming together. The plot is also about as nonsensical as the KH series, and much like that series is not where you'll get most of your enjoyment from. The battle system is simplistic but entertaining, combining turn-based srpg tactics with simplistic but fun fighting inputs. How much enjoyment you'll get out of the game is heavily dependent on how much you get a kick out of seeing these characters interact with each other and while some are pretty well known others are incredibly obscure. For the record, I'm already having a blast seeing characters from Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter and Tekken all in the same scene, and that's just the second battle in. If that sounds just as awesome to you, I highly recommend a purchase.
Now Deadpool is a little harder to easily recommend. It's combat is simple fun but also shallow and doesn't have much oomph (enemies barely react to being hit as do you) and there are numerous glitches.It's also pretty damn short, clocking in at well under 10 hours. But there's a certain undeniable charm to the title. Deadpool is captured perfectly with a great balance between crass humor and brilliant 4th wall breaking jokes, and you can really see that with just a little bit of fine-tuning and tweaking it might actually be a tremendous game. As it is if it was a $20 or even $30 game, especially a digital one, I could still probably recommend it. But it's $50. This is sort of a prime example of how broken gaming is. I mean there are certainly better-looking games that give you more bang for your buck on PSN. But I'm sure Activision felt they had to do a retail release and probably price it at least $50 because admittedly budget titles have a well-deserved bad rep. Hopefully it'll balance out because I think a lot more studios could survive with more realistic prices if the public really starts seeing some quality releases in that range. Companies keep saying games should be cheaper but of course very few if any seem to be willing to drop theirs, claiming that of course they provide great value for that price. Anyways, if you see Deadpool on sale for $30 or less and enjoy action titles, it's probably a worthwhile pickup.
Finally The Ouya hit retail this week. Apparently it's selling pretty well initially. And why not? At a $100 it's hard not to see at least some value in it, as it already comes loaded with titles and has quite the emulation system (though given that's in a legally grey area, it's not an official benefit). If it really does take off, it could be a great haven for indy titles if it's successful, but we;ll have to wait and see, most initial reviews are mixed. I don't have much interest in picking one up now, but I'm open to getting one somewhere down the line (maybe when my current backlog isn't looking so busy) and I'll be sure t give impressions if and when I do. What might help is a standout title or two that really shows off why I should get one, and I'm just not seeing that right now.
That's all for today, but I should be able to get another post up this weekend. Until then back to X-Zone and finishing off Deadpool.
No comments:
Post a Comment