So... Parasite Eve, a game with a checkered past if ever there was one, is about to have a sequel after almost ten years of sitting on the back burner where drunken buffoon publisher, Square Enix, placed it expecting no one to care that they had intended to make it a sub-par cellphone title exclusive to their nation.
Naturally, I'm here to piss and moan about the upcoming PSP exclusive: Parasite Eve: 3rd Birthday.
(Opening for the original Parasite Eve, a woman possessed goes on a horrible rampage across Manhattan that only a lone cop can end, a cop whose only advantage is that she is immune to the powers of this monstrous woman.)
The original game was amazing! It ran on the Final Fantasy 7 engine so it looked awesome and had a unique action gimmick where it operated similarly to a turnbased RPG in combat, but you could run around and change position at your leisure in real time so you could actually DODGE things. It was inspiring, but harsh and uninformed critics claimed it was trying to horn in on Resident Evil's market, which anyone who played it would agree was an erroneous assessment. PE is actually an RPG with an action flair, while RE is the exact opposite an action game with an RPG flair.
A strong, story driven game with a powerful female protagonist set this title apart for a long time and even outdid the book of its origin and the (terrible) movie based on said book. To this day it stands as a testament to Square Enix's ability to craft an amazingly unique experience and keep many a playstation memory card on hand as players strive for the elusive secret ending.
Or at least it USED to stand for something on how Square made games...
Abandoning the pretense of originality, PE2 is at its core a spiritual ripoff of Resident Evil right down to the use of an evil corporation playing with science in underground labs that went awry.
There's also the strange distinction between two Ayas: The one you see and the one you play, the one you SEE in the CG movies is a childlike asian fantasy given form and the one you PLAY is a voluptuous, curvy amazon whom you actually control on screen as she kicks ass and takes names. Two completely different women... it's weird. If there's ANY question, I'm more of a fan of the playable Aya. Just sayin.
Anyway, the controls for PE2 were (without question) ripped from the Resident Evil series at the time where Aya became something of a human go-kart that could wield massive artillery, psychic powers and a gunblade. That's right, you can wield a freakin' Gunblade from Final Fantasy 8 in this thing. It's awesome!!! The story is a half-baked monster hunt that becomes an attack on an Umbrella-esque laboratory hidden beneath death valley or something at the base of an abandoned mine where horrific human experiments have taken place.
Given all the goofy crap this game offered, I can't help but adore it. It was definitely half-assed when compared to the majestic creature that was PE1, but hot damn I've gone through PE2 about 30 times or so and I plan to go another 30 if I can help it because it's THAT fun and it has enormous replay value in addition to gorgeous visuals that actually look alright today.
But while the introduction of an Umbrella-esque entity and man-made monsters set the stage for an exciting potential follow-up, the only thing it has yielded so far is sadness...
(PE: 3rd birthday trailer)
So in the midst of online gaming, next generation visuals, powerful consoles, diverse potential additions to Squenix's development arsenal like... decent writers out of Eidos, maybe... Squenix instead chose to whittle PE's decent narrative, its exquisite sense of exploration in a mundane setting gone mad and its immersive role-playing traits down to just another sub-par looking shooter on the PSP with cold, inhuman looking CG characters breaking up the action with their innate creepiness and (likely) crappy gameplay cobbled together by guys with no real shooter experience save for the awful FF7 "Vincent May Cry" tie-in game to Advent Children.
That Squenix can continue to make such amazingly poor decisions saddens me greatly. I'll rent this sucker on gamefly, but I won't be jumping into another purchase on a portable system I don't play except on special occasions.
Meanwhile, until it comes out I'll be playing the first and second games trying to remember what made me love the series so much and why I'm still boycotting Square-Enix for ruining what I used to enjoy so much and then letting assholes like the guy who ruined FF13 rub it in our faces that we're just too "western" to understand a series of bad choices in making a shitty game.
Sorry Squenix, we saw what you did there...
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Keiji Inafune needs sex, GIVE HIM SOME!
Not sex from ME necessarily, but for the things this man is saying I feel he deserves it. Nevermind the fact that I worship the man for creating my Anti-Drug: Megaman!
In the growing division between east and west gaming recently (pitting games against one another like Mass Effect 2 versus Final Fantasy 13), Keiji Inafune has stood alone in his deafeningly harsh criticism of his country's products.
Stating that Japan is content with the cookie cutter industry of making generic, cookie-cutter games for the rising populace of female gamers and otherwise catering to nerdy shut-ins of Japan, Inafune made himself a terrifying wake-up call to gamers on either side of the pond. As many of the man's products were the only solace in my lonely childhood, I find myself compelled to consider his point of view.
His first bomb dropping assessment came at a press show unveiling Lost Planet 2, where he reportedly dressed as a pimp and unloaded on the state of affairs. His most recent bomb hurling episode went to far as to cut the legs out beneath Capcom making him easily the most disastrous personality since the guy who made Dead or Alive!
I gotta agree with the guy. I feel Japan has lost its roots of the quality output of the 16-bit days, where America got only a trickle of the goodness pouring down on the japanese masses and Japan squatted upon gaming consciousness like some great squid leering at our wallets with eager tentacles.
Oh god... I'm already talking tentacles.
Anyway, with the Wii going from Nintendo's last hope, to the best idea ever and the false security that came with the multiple mergers over the last several years, companies in the east have essentially become what America was back in the cold and dank Quake era of gaming where one or two drab, brown-colored shooters ruled the day until a few drops of creative gold leaked upon the console linked masses.
With Microsoft in play with the appearance of the first Xbox, a sleeping giant had awoken and we were only half aware of it. Take it from a guy who used to stand in the bushes outside Square-Enix's house with a machete and jar of Vap-o-rub, I don't even return their calls anymore when they ask why I don't show up now that I'm invited to things. Almost all of the stuff that I look forward to is happening on my own continent or in Europe.
Why bring this up now? Recently an amazing annual event that used to drive the beat of my heart and the flow of my soul occurred: Tokyo Game Show! With its booth babes and cosplay coupled with its exclusively awesome vision of things to come, TGS used to mean something. Part of its ineffective, impotent mark on the market lately is because of the internet spoiling news as it happens and the other half is that the stuff shown at TGS just doesn't register the almighty event that once commanded an industry. The cosplayers seem to catch more attention lately than the actual GAMES!!!
Conversely, the games that appear at European Game Shows, San Diego Comic-con or E3 actually appear as bombshell level news. Hell, even MGS: Rising video debuted on American soil as opposed to in Japan. That's nuts!
Before I get too tangental when I'm trying to break down another guy's tangents, I'll just concur with Inafune in saying that Japan needs to get its act together before they let idiots like the the fuckwit that ruined Final Fantasy 13 kill off all the venerable franchises still holding up the wobbly three and a half legged table that is Japan's game market.
In the growing division between east and west gaming recently (pitting games against one another like Mass Effect 2 versus Final Fantasy 13), Keiji Inafune has stood alone in his deafeningly harsh criticism of his country's products.
Stating that Japan is content with the cookie cutter industry of making generic, cookie-cutter games for the rising populace of female gamers and otherwise catering to nerdy shut-ins of Japan, Inafune made himself a terrifying wake-up call to gamers on either side of the pond. As many of the man's products were the only solace in my lonely childhood, I find myself compelled to consider his point of view.
His first bomb dropping assessment came at a press show unveiling Lost Planet 2, where he reportedly dressed as a pimp and unloaded on the state of affairs. His most recent bomb hurling episode went to far as to cut the legs out beneath Capcom making him easily the most disastrous personality since the guy who made Dead or Alive!
I gotta agree with the guy. I feel Japan has lost its roots of the quality output of the 16-bit days, where America got only a trickle of the goodness pouring down on the japanese masses and Japan squatted upon gaming consciousness like some great squid leering at our wallets with eager tentacles.
Oh god... I'm already talking tentacles.
Anyway, with the Wii going from Nintendo's last hope, to the best idea ever and the false security that came with the multiple mergers over the last several years, companies in the east have essentially become what America was back in the cold and dank Quake era of gaming where one or two drab, brown-colored shooters ruled the day until a few drops of creative gold leaked upon the console linked masses.
With Microsoft in play with the appearance of the first Xbox, a sleeping giant had awoken and we were only half aware of it. Take it from a guy who used to stand in the bushes outside Square-Enix's house with a machete and jar of Vap-o-rub, I don't even return their calls anymore when they ask why I don't show up now that I'm invited to things. Almost all of the stuff that I look forward to is happening on my own continent or in Europe.
Why bring this up now? Recently an amazing annual event that used to drive the beat of my heart and the flow of my soul occurred: Tokyo Game Show! With its booth babes and cosplay coupled with its exclusively awesome vision of things to come, TGS used to mean something. Part of its ineffective, impotent mark on the market lately is because of the internet spoiling news as it happens and the other half is that the stuff shown at TGS just doesn't register the almighty event that once commanded an industry. The cosplayers seem to catch more attention lately than the actual GAMES!!!
Conversely, the games that appear at European Game Shows, San Diego Comic-con or E3 actually appear as bombshell level news. Hell, even MGS: Rising video debuted on American soil as opposed to in Japan. That's nuts!
Before I get too tangental when I'm trying to break down another guy's tangents, I'll just concur with Inafune in saying that Japan needs to get its act together before they let idiots like the the fuckwit that ruined Final Fantasy 13 kill off all the venerable franchises still holding up the wobbly three and a half legged table that is Japan's game market.
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