Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: il Portatore di Morte

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

also, check out my other character reviews here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/twisted-metal-2-character-review-my-old-favorite/ and here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/twisted-metal-2-character-review-thumper/

So unless you speak italian you’re probably wondering what il portatore di morte means, it means the bringer of death. I wrote it in italian for a few reasons, 1. I’m mostly italian, 2. I’m learning how to speak italian, and 3. I wanted an excuse to mention that my last name (Mori) is a form of the word death in italian.

The person behind the wheel: Mr. grimm is the grim reaper, he enters twisted metal because he is addicted to souls, he can never get enough of them. If he wins he will wish for the worlds population to plumet so that he can have a sufficient feast. Now if you look at the character picture above, he looks like a badass, and he should! He’s the god damn grim reaper! But in the video sequence after his victory he appears like this:

And he talks in this whiny voice, “Calypso…. I can’t take the pain…. ughhh…. I need more souls….” This disappointed me, I would expect more from the angle of death. The way Mr Grimm gets screwed is that he gets his wish, and the whole world is turned into a battle ground where death rates skyrocket.

But obviously the human race eventually becomes extinct and he has no more souls to eat ever again, so he comes back whining to Calypso.

The Car: Mr grim has been in every twisted metal game ever released, and he always has driven a motorcycle. Except of course in my least favorite twisted metal game of all time, twisted metal 4. In that game he appears as “Captain Grimm” and drives a crazy boat with wheels, just plain stupid. Throughout all of the twisted metal games Mr grimm has always been one of my favorite characters game play wise. I tend to like characters with extreme strengths and weaknesses as apposed to more well rounded characters. Mr Grimm excels in speed and special weapon power. In Twisted Metal 2 he has my favorite handling by far, his max speed is 131, and has powerful special weapon that can be used at any range. For his special Mr Grimm summons a soul in the form of a bloody skull that races across the screen, doing major damage to whomever it may hit.

The freeze attack definitely helps, but given the attack’s sheer speed you dont always need it.

As I said in my last post I would love to hear from you if you’ve ever played any of the twisted metal games, or if you want to talk classic games in general.

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: Thumper

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

also, check out my other character review here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/twisted-metal-2-character-review-my-old-favorite/

The person behind the wheel: When me and my dad picked twisted metal up again I ventured out from my normal mister slam and started trying to play as other characters, Thumper quickly became one of my favorites. The driver of thumper is named bruce, he lives in LA and is part of dangerous gangs. He enters the contest because he’s tired of fighting for his life everyday and wants to be somebody. If he wins he will wish to be the ruler of the world.

Like almost everyone else he too gets screwed by his wish, He becomes the ruler of the world, but the world has been reduced to ruble due to the twisted metal contest. So he hardly has anything to rule over.

The Car: Bruce drives a pink low rider. The car has average handling, decent armor, and the most powerful special weapon in the game. Like I said the car has average handling, but average in this game is pretty spectacular. Thumper does not handle like a low rider at all, it can reach 105 mph and fly across the map if you hit a jump right.For Thumper’s special weapon a flamethrower shoots a flame out the front of the car dealing massive amounts of damage. This weapon can be a little tricky to get a hit with, but combined with a freeze shot, Thumpers decent handling, and the weapons range it isn’t too hard.

Like I said in my last post I would love to hear from you if you’ve ever played any of the twisted metal games, or if you want to talk classic games in general.

Spyro, Spyro, Spyro!

Spyro.wikia.com

My brother’s birthday is on the 19th, and for an early birthday present we took him to BestBuy and let him get any game of his choice for the Wii. After a bit of searching he found it, Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. This instantly brought back a wave of memories. Spyro is definitely on my top list of games. I used to have the old GameBoy Spyro games and they would consume hours of my life. Spyro is one of those games that just never gets old, and I couldn’t wait to see how this new game lived up to its older counterparts.

Although I did not get a good chance to really sit down and play the game yet, I did watch my brother play it for a while and the first thing I noticed was the glowing portal like object that plugged into the Wii. The game came with different plastic toy characters which, when placed on this portal, changed the character you controlled in the game. This immediately grabbed my attention and brought up many questions. This seems like a cool feature from the outside, but it is hard to tell if it is just a selling point and has no real benefit to the game.

I still must sit down and really try out the game for myself and than I will be putting up a review of it along with my review of Zelda, Skyward Sword.

Chronicle Movie Review

Beyondhollywood.com

A few weekends back I went and saw the movie Chronicles. I was very exited to see this movie and had been looking forward to its release sense late last year. From the trailer the movie seemed very appealing. It looked like it had a strong plot that was not to predictable, and I really enjoyed how the movie put special powers into the hands of normal teenagers who had no intention of being super heroes.

Although I went to the movies with high expectations, I was greatly disappointed. The main problem I found with the movie was its use of the “handheld camera” effect. This was done to add the feel of the movie being a real documentation of the events that occurred from the perspective of the main character, and eventual villain “Andrew Detmer”. Although this idea adds an interesting twist to the movie and helps bring a strong sense of realism to the film, in many instances it took away from the actual experience of the film. the final fight scene had to be shot from an array of different camera angles, ranging from police car cameras to news station helicopter cameras and even store security cameras. It was hard to follow the fight and to make out which character was which and this prevented me from enjoying the baddassery of the fight scene.

The ending was a bit of a cop out as well. Although I will not spoil it here, I felt like they built up the movie with a strong plot and then tore it down with a very sloppy ending. I would not necasarilly recomend this movie, but I still did enjoy it. The acting was descent and, until the ending, the plot was strong. the movie had its funny moments and it did a good job of exploring the consequences of putting unlimited power in the hands of a teenager.

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: My Old Favorite

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

The person behind the wheel: The only character I used to play as on twisted metal when I was young was Mr. Slam. The driver of Mr. Slam is named Simon Whittlebone, he is a nerdy ginger who’s profession is that of an architect. He enters the contest because his dream of building the tallest building in the world was taken from him. If he wins he will wish to have his chance to finish his masterpiece, but like just about everybody else in the contest he gets screwed over by his wish. Before he is able to finish his building he falls from the very top of his building all the way to the ground.

Needless to say, he kicks the bucket. Just a random side note, I’ve always found that term strange… it refers to when somebody ties a noose around their neck and kicks a (in this case) bucket out from under their feet. But who stands on a bucket while trying to kill themselves? Come on go all out! Kick a stool, or if your really adventurous, a chair.

The Car: He drives a tractor who’s handling is (as the game states) sluggish.

His max speed without turbo is 91 miles per hour, which sounds fast, but I don’t think the programmers realized how fast 91 miles per hour is, so it’s agonizingly slow in-game. The car also turns slow, overall it is difficult at best to handle Mr. Slam, but what else would you expect from a tractor? Each car comes equipped with a special weapon that only that vehicle may use. For his special Mr. Slam makes use of his claws, he picks other vehicles up and slams them about three times, hence the name Mr. Slam. This special weapon does a more than decent amount of damage and it’s recharge rate is fair, but for the attack to connect, your target must be directly in front of you, and can’t move for about 2 seconds. When you Combine this with Mr. Slam’s unresponsive handling, you get a special that takes the accuracy of a surgeon to hit.

The freeze attack aids Mr. Slam’s special greatly, but when I used to play as him all those years ago I could never remember how to use the freeze attack. Nevertheless I still managed to get enemies in the grip of my tractor, I have no idea how. Mr. Slam’s shining feature is his ability to take damage like a boss. He is one of the two most armored characters that do not require a code to play as.

If you have ever played any of the twisted metal games I would love to hear from you, but otherwise I do believe that old games have a certain charm to them that newer games simply don’t have, wether its the old Spyro games, super smash brothers, or old pokemon games. I’ve never really been able to put my finger on it, so I’d also love to hear from you regarding such.

Nintendo’s Wii Review

Although the Nintendo Game Boy was my first real gaming device, I have never been overly attracted to Nintendo products. Despite this, I still convinced myself I needed a Wii and I made the purchase two Christmases ago. Overall, the Wii does a good job of doing exactly what it was made to do. It is a very active and kinesthetic gaming console that revolves around direct body control through the motion sensor and Wii Motion Plus. It has revolutionary technology that has changed the face of the gaming industry and has brought games such as Super Smash Bros. to life in a whole new way.

The motion detection and accuracy of the Wii was astounding from the beginning and this has only been improved with the installment of Wii Motion Plus. The Wii also opens the doors to new types of lifestyle games such as exercise/workout games that walk you through workout routines and provide immediate feedback on how to improve your workout methods. Adventure games such as The Legend of Zelda have also been added to the Wii along with the Call of Duty series and many others. These were both major steps for Nintendo because they showed the wide range of games that the console could support and it also aloud diehard fans of such games to experience them in a whole new way. The Wii is also capable of internet browsing and supports applications such as Netflix for instant movie streaming.

Despite these positive features, there are still many major drawbacks to the Wii. I am not a gamer that focuses solely on graphics, but when it comes to the Wii it was an undeniable disappointment. The graphics that the Wii supports is comparable to the original PlayStation Portable. This has made many fans upset and has limited the Wii’s marketability as a mature gaming console. Other major drawbacks include things such as the controller’s short battery life and the lack of a CD/DVD player.

In conclusion, the Wii is a descent console to be used in a relaxed gaming environment such as a family or party setting. It is easy to use and has such a broad range gaming styles that cannot be found on any other console.

P.S. The main reason for this review was a lead up to one of my major game reviews, which I will be posting in the near future. This will be on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which is only available on the Wii. This is the latest major installment in The Legend of Zelda series and is the first to utilize the Wii Motion Plus feature.

How I Think the [Prototype] Series Will Be Similar To the Assassin’s Creed Series

Even the most casual of gamers have at least heard of the Assassin’s Creed series, but not everyone knows of it’s more humble beginnings, and my theory is that [Prototype] is the humble beginning of what could be a fairly popular series.

Although the first Assassin’s Creed was a fairly good game I do believe Ubisoft could have done a much better job with it, after all the game did come out in 2007. On the other hand there’s [Prototype], a game that (in my opinion undeservingly) sold enough copies to be considered a platinum hit. I picked this game up about a year or so ago when I was looking for just about anything that wasn’t first person shooter, what I got didn’t impress me.

Plot: Assassin’s Creed has an amazingly original plot, while [Prototype]….. not so much. what makes a plot original for me is whether or not another game could be made with a similar plot. No game could ever make a plot similar to Assassin’s Creed, but a game with a plot similar to [Prototype] is a different story. The plot is basically a sketchy company is preforming biological experiments on unsuspecting civilians, one such civilian escapes and possesses awesome powers and now seeks to find the men who did this to him and make them pay. Come on, that’s so generic it’s almost cliché.

Graphics: I for one am not too picky about graphics in a game, but both of these games were significantly under the norm of graphic quality for their time. Both games have pretty bland and unoriginal graphics. The cut-scene graphics for [Prototype] are also nothing to be proud of, the lip synching is awful, characters show little to no emotion, and their movement is awkward. Assassin’s Creed’s cut-scenes however were very welly animated; it makes me wonder why they didn’t take the time to improve in-game graphics a bit more.

Animation: I might not be picky when it comes to graphics but animation quality is a whole different story. I cannot stand games with awkward animations, it constantly brings me out of the game and downgrades my experience all around. Assassin’s Creed’s animations were pretty awkward, the character didn’t move fluidly at times and interactions with the environment and other characters were awkward. [Prototype]’s animation is smooth, but things don’t behave how you would expect them to. For example, when you are holding someone in the air by their neck, and proceed run around a little bit, their body flails around like a rag doll. Also when you throw a car it seems to glide through the air, it just doesn’t feel like your throwing a car.

Game-play: [Prototype] runs on a generic super-hero game engine, this disappointed me  greatly. I felt like I was playing a spider-man game for god’s sake! On the other hand Assassin’s creed runs on an original game engine, but it didn’t seem to have all the kinks worked out of it. Each game has original game-play aspects which I appreciate. Since Assassin’s Creed runs on such an original game engine just about every aspect of it is original so I won’t bother going into it. [Prototype] includes just about anything you could expect to be in a super-hero like game such as, flight, disguising, wall running, hand to hand combat (obviously), and stealth missions, but it also includes something you wouldn’t expect in a typical super hero game, the ability to pick up weapons and drive vehicles. Also by (for lack of a better word) consuming people the main character gains their memories, this might be more of a plot aspect, but it also serves a purpose in game-play, because you can gain certain abilities by doing so.

Assassin’s Creed had more advantages to begin with than [Prototype] does, so I don’t see [Prototype] becoming anywhere as big as Assassin’s Creed, but [Prototype] definitely has potential. There are enough original aspects to the game-play to make it distinguishable from other similar games, and the plot seems to thicken a bit in [Prototype] 2 when the main character switches to an army official bent on tracking down the main character from the first. Who knows, maybe the two main characters will start recruiting people and giving them powers as well, then the next game could be called [Prototype]: Brotherhood. Then I would be able to say I told you so.

p.s. just for the record I wont normally be this critical of games, this review type thing just called for it!