It's an abbreviated issue of Beyond Co-Op this month, as several of the staff have found themselves indisposed for one reason or another. Still, we've found time to bring you three solid reviews of titles you don't want to miss. We'll be sure to make it up in next months issue.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.......................... Page 2
Bayonetta..............................................................Page 3
Mass Effect 2 ......................................................Page 4
Amazon.com Widgets
Explanation of Scores:
- Golden Billy - This is a must buy title. Truly excellent in almost everyway.
- Silver Billy - A solid title with a few flaws.
- Bronze Billy - This one is probably a rental if it interests you.
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
MSRP: $29.99 to $49.99
by: Katrina Pawlowski
Imagine for a moment you're in a situation and you're not sure exactly how you ended up there. The first thing you do is hire a shrink who guides you through your memories to piece them back together. Next, you relive important moments to try to make sense of things. Only when you're dealing with Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, you're not simply forgetful. You're frightened, panicked, and covered in ice during key moments of the unfolding story. The memories have literally shattered in ice.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is called a "remake" of the original Silent Hill. I'm going to go ahead and dispute that, and recommend you visit Shattered Memories with the mindset that it is a complete re-envisioning of the original game. This Silent Hill is suffering from a massive blizzard that has closed down the majority of the small town, hindering Harry's search for his lost daughter Cheryl. You will see people occasionally - most have familiar names like Cybil Bennett, and Lisa Garland. These people have similar roles to the original game (Cybil is a police officer, Lisa is a nurse in red,) but the story is much more tangled and involved.
Between each event in Silent Hill which generally follow the sequence: Investigate, discover something important, ice world nightmare, you will find yourself back in the psychiatrists office answering questions. All of these questions change the sequence of events in your memory based on how you respond. Even coloring a picture of what you perceive to be your home affects the way the house looks in Silent Hill. With Shattered Memories, the game incorporates the Wii's controls and options very well.
The biggest change for the Silent Hill series with this game is not only the ice, but the fact that your main character will not have a weapon during the dangerous moments in the terrifying world. Instead, you will be forced to desperately run through doors, over and under obstacles until you discover a new memory which leads back to the shrinks office. These chase sequences through the world of ice were generally quite terrifying while being unable to defend yourself, while getting lost in a panicked run. You will also be overrun by goons as part of the story, and simply have to stop fighting to continue - leaving you with a sense of being completely out of control. The danger situations come a few different ways; sudden noises, creepy phone calls, the ice chases, and even simulated drowning from inside a vehicle.
The one complaint I have with this game is with the Wii's sketchy sensitivity with the chase sequences. Since Harry never picks up a weapon, you're sole savior in the game is his ability to throw off his attackers by jerking the Wii remote and nunchuck in the direction the enemy has a grip on Harry. If grabbed from the front you'll simulate shoving to push the assailant off of Harry, etc. In theory this is brilliant - until the wii-remote doesn't respond to your movements properly. I've discovered the best way to combat the non-responsiveness is to move the remotes slower and more deliberate than you would if you were actually grabbed by a team of heinous Silent Hill creatures, but it was still very frustrating.
Shattered Memories holds true to the Silent Hill series with their puzzles and tangled storyline. Being on the Wii, Shattered Memories incorporated a lot of interaction between player and game. This creates a very integrated experience that kept me shivering for hours.
Award:
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Platinum Games
MSRP: $59.99
by: Nicholas Puleo
Action games have been refined time and time again since the era of Sony PlayStation titles like Devil May Cry and Legacy of Kain. Blending fast paced beat em up game play with giant weapons, guns, and over the top style not only are a visual treat to watch, but empowers players into feeling superhuman. Most of these Eastern inspired titles feel cheesy to us in North America, either by some incredibly horrible dialog, insane character outfits, and situations that make us squirm in our seats. Bayonetta takes everything from these previous inspirations and refines it with some of the best combat ever seen in an action game, the most over the top dialog you've ever witnessed, and situations that make you squirm as much as giggle.
I can imagine the concept pitch now, "You see... Bayonetta is a witch where her clothes are made of her own hair. The better the player does, the more of her hair is used for attacks, and the less she wears." It's on this concept that the ridiculousness starts in Bayonetta, who is the tall and sexy heroine of our story. She comes from a group that keeps the world in balance between good and evil, and in a unique twist on traditional prose, what most would consider "the good guys" are actually the enemies in the game. You literally battle angels and various creatures of Heaven's army as you unlock the mystery of your past. These creature designs are nothing short of amazing, it's as if Tim Burton and HR Geiger had a love child birthed straight into holy water.
Along the way you'll battle these creatures with various weapons that are both upgradable and unlockable. Your guns, which are also attached to your knee high boots, while weak at first help keep combos rolling in between flip kicks, sword swipes, and break dancing moves. Our dark haired vixen is as deadly as she is sexy, and she's not afraid to strut her stuff. Sexual innuendos fill dialog, suggestive poses that end special moves, and the games healing and magic items come in the form of lollipops. All of these things add to the campy, almost B movie feel of the game.
It's hard to find fault in Bayonetta, perhaps it's a little too forgiving at times, perhaps it tries to do a little too much. The bottom line with Bayonetta is fun and refined action. If you can look past the cheesy dialog and sexual undertones, there's a seriously solid game here that any action fan needs to play.
Award:
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Bioware
MSRP: $59.99
by: Jason Love
Mass Effect 2 places players once more in the shoes of the galaxy’s last, best hope for survival – Commander Shepard. Seeming to take lessons from other third-person shooters, rather than other RPGs, Mass Effect 2 has improved upon its predecessor by streamlining and enhancing the shooter aspects of its gameplay, while sloughing off some of the role-playing trappings in the process. To some degree, this kind of split in the game mechanics can make it rather difficult at times to tell how good a game Mass Effect 2 is, with the two elements that are at heart of the game experience, the game mechanics and story, causing one’s opinion to shift back and forth.
From a game mechanics view, Mass Effect 2 has done away with many of the elements in the first game that helped identify it, in some respects, as an RPG, specifically the inventory, weapons and armor system, and level progression. There is no inventory in Mass Effect 2 and in its place players are now able to discover the occasional new weapon with which he/she can choose to outfit his/her squad, as well as armor pieces that grant different ability boosts for your Commander Shepard. The other element that’s been put on a treadmill for a little weight loss is the level-up system; instead of each squad member having seven or eight abilities to choose from and increase, they now have three, with a fourth that unlocks if you gain that squad member’s loyalty. While all of this reduces some of the tedium one does find in RPGs, there is a certain experience lost in the effort that leads to Mass Effect 2 feeling, at times, like another Gears of War clone.
As a more traditional RPG player, this streamlining was a bit disappointing; however, the characters you encounter and the story that unfolds along the way are perhaps some of the best offerings I’ve encountered in an RPG title. Like many Bioware titles, Mass Effect 2 presents players with some rather important decisions to make, and the impacts these decisions have on the environment, your fellow squad mates, and the universe as a whole for the seemingly distant conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy, lend a weight to whatever you choose. Few titles place so much power in the players’ hands as to give them the feeling that they are actually creating and controlling the world around them, and Mass Effect 2 deftly manages to empower the player in such a way that you occasionally feel as if you are setting the course of events, rather than being inexorably pulled along.
While the game mechanics may leave some players feeling a bit like Marcus and Dom have taken over, Mass Effect 2 still delivers an amazing overall experience with a story that is as much user-driven as it is developer-driven.
Award: