General gaming |
- Hotel Transylvania Review: Is This Castlevania-Inspired Adventure as Good as the Real Thing?
- Deconstructing Nemesis
- Nights Into Dreams Review: The Real Inception
- Dead or Alive 5 Review: A Step Closer to Maturation
| Hotel Transylvania Review: Is This Castlevania-Inspired Adventure as Good as the Real Thing? Posted: 02 Oct 2012 03:41 PM PDT Hotel Transylvania, the film, is no masterpiece. It's an Adam Sandler cartoon that sleepwalks its way through a handful of plot points so perfunctory that the characters practically react to them before they happen, suggesting that they're as impatient with the boilerplate story beats as the audience and just want to get on to the next joke already. The film's saving grace comes in producer Genndy Tartakovsky's deep affection for classic cartoons, which results in constant subtle references and nods to the likes of Chuck Jones. When Dracula flies, he doesn't just turn into a bat; rather, the camera drops down to capture him in profile as he thrusts his chest forward and beats his wings in fierce, purposeful strokes... exactly like Wile E. Coyote in his Acme bat-suit. Half the fun of Hotel Transylvania is watching for these nods to the animated greats; they go a long way toward keeping the audience from slicing open its collective wrists as Sandler does his "singing twee little songs with a ukelele" schtick for the umpteenth time. Hotel Transylvania, the 3DS game, exists in parallel to its source material. It could have been just another phoned-in movie tie-in, and on many levels it bears the earmarks of its origins. You can tell it was produced in a very short amount of time with an unreasonably small budget. The game itself isn't especially large, but the play time is padded by the designers' tendency to send players trudging back and forth on trivial fetch quests in search of items and characters that only materialize when the thin excuse for a narrative calls for it. Yet here, too, the saving grace also comes in the form of its creators' love for the classics. In this case, though, "the classics" very specifically means "Castlevania." |
| Posted: 02 Oct 2012 01:13 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF OCTOBER 1 | A DARK DESCENT INTO RESIDENT EVIL Deconstructing NemesisCover Story: How a monstrous stalker tore what you knew about Resident Evil asunder.T he original design concept of Resident Evil -- which borrowed quite a bit from early PC game Alone in the Dark -- married adventure games, zombie B-movies, and limited resources to create a defining experience for the PlayStation era. But, upon further inspection, it's easy to see the game's limits. You're tasked with exploring a big mansion filled with zombies, but you never found any variation in similar-looking enemies. Different enemy types looked completely different from each other, so when you see a creature you're not familiar with, you know it will behave differently and deal different amounts of damage. Conversely, if you see an enemy you've encountered before, it will behave exactly as you expect it to. As a result, zombies will cease to be threatening halfway through the game even though they appear throughout. Another glaring limitation is the fact that enemies can't follow you through doors to different rooms, creating a fight-or-flight dynamic where players either mow down every enemy in a new room or they make a mad dash to the nearest door. Though this tension characterized the type of horror experience that Resident Evil offered, by the time the game ended, players understood the "rules" of the game, and consequently the series at large.  |
| Nights Into Dreams Review: The Real Inception Posted: 02 Oct 2012 11:59 AM PDT Back when analog control sticks were the "revolutionary" feature that would propel games into the next generation, Sega got in on the ground floor with their marquee Saturn title Nights Into Dreams..., a side-scrolling game featuring a free-flying humanoid character, a concept not too widely used in games at a time when platformers still ruled the roost. Now, Sega has seen fit to finally blow the dust off the original Nights and bring it to today's platforms in clear high-def splendor. And frankly, after an abysmal sequel for Wii, it's nice to go back and remember some good dreams. Nights was originally trumped up as the big competition for Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, though that was misguided. It was Sega's big Saturn game for the second half of 1996, but it wasn't a revolutionary 3D action-adventure. Nights is the kind of short-form, arcade-style action game that Sega was known for: It won't take long to beat, but will take a bit longer to dominate. Either way, it's a lovingly crafted product of audiovisual splendor. Not to mention it was also from the original Sonic the Hedgehog team, making it well worth playing anyway. |
| Dead or Alive 5 Review: A Step Closer to Maturation Posted: 02 Oct 2012 10:28 AM PDT Over the years, Dead or Alive has always struggled to be taken seriously as a fighting game both in hardcore competitive circles and with casual players alike. Honestly, it's hard to have any sympathy for the series considering DOA has always been known less for its gameplay and more for options that allow character's bust sizes to be increased by adjusting their age, numerous beach volleyball spin off games, and over-the-top breast physics. With features like that, along with gameplay that has always been far more simple than other 3D fighters on the market, most serious fighting aficionados have gone elsewhere to get their fix. Team Ninja sets out to change that in Dead or Alive 5 by tightening up the gameplay mechanics from previous games along with the usual fan service and eye candy. As such, DOA5 presents options and depth more in line with what 3D fighting game fans have come to expect. |
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