PS1 Review: Syndicate Wars (1997)

Syndicate Wars! Man, PS1 games can seem really old these days. That's because they are. They can also still rule.

I came into Syndicate Wars by way of the remake, Syndicate (2012), and all its dubstep-laden shooter madness. I skipped the PC originals because most of PC gaming still scares me, so I moved on to this PS1 edition of the RTS-RPG-shooter hybrid. You control up to four cybernetically-enhanced soldier man working for future Asian fusion corpo-nation-states and/or religious cults. Between corporate espionage missions (with optional side-missions, like blowing up banks), you upgrade your soldiers with cyber-enhancements and gunz. From what I can tell, this PS1 version involves a lot less resource and research management, so no wonder I was more drawn to it. I loved the ridiculous amount of chaos you can generate, and the bizarre strategic potential of hypnotizing dozen of ordinary businessladies and businessmans with the brilliantly-named "persuadertron" and arming them with mini-guns found on the ground so you can raid your enemies' fortresses. Sometimes you lose all of them in an accidental fire as you blow up police hovercars. The violent potential of the sandbox pretty much rules in Syndicate Wars. And it can get pretty hectic out there, so much so that on a few occasions I acquired too many characters on screen and crashed the game. Unfortunately, the PS1 controller is by no means capable of translating the complexities of control afforded by a keyboard and mouse to a d-pad, four face buttons, and four shoulder buttons. You can get used to the awkward controls, but they're complex enough to be easily forgotten if you stop playing for more than a few days, and some of the more difficult parts of the game become even more difficult when you can't remember how to reassign weapons to your allies on the fly. Syndicate Wars can also be incredibly, frustratingly difficult at times, with often opague mission parameters that practically require you to fail before you can come to grips with them and what you actually need to do to progress. Specifically, the last mission is complete crap; you can only beat it, basically, by getting lucky, and more pointedly, losing a lot first. I beat it because I'm impossibly hard-headed when it comes to bullshit video games. I won't let them win. Syndicate Wars did not win, except in the sense that it's a lot of old (and old-fashioned) fun.

PS1 Review: NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC (1999)

What an ungainly title. NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC is another in the long line of NBA Jam derivatives, which includes Midway "sequels" like Hangtime (1997) and Hoopz (2001, and quite fun to spell, incidentally). Despite the name change, all three of these games play pretty much the same, although each introduces its own wrinkles to the core design. The NBA Jam formula just works, and for a variety of reasons, but of the tweaks or updates (outside of the annual roster update) offered by the various versions, Showtime happens to be the best of the lot. Everything is about the same as before, only smoother, more polished: you get 2 on 2 ball, most of the rules get relaxed if not removed, physics get exaggerated, and so on. Showtime introduces a foul system, however, which initially seems like an odd fit for the kind of no-holds-barred style of this or previous Jams. Basically, a foul is assessed each time you shove an opponent. Play remains uninterrupted until you earn your fifth foul, at which point your opponent is then allowed to shoot a free throw (worth three points) and retain control of the ball. This introduces a fairly subtle bit of strategy into the otherwise manic gameplay of the series. Foul your opponent for the fifth time late in the game, for instance, and you may find yourself on the wrong side of a six point swing. It's a small change, but at the same time it does quite a lot to change the dynamic of offense and defense, particularly down the stretch. As with all Jam iterations, Showtime can likewise get a bit repetitive if you play it for any significant duration, but in short bursts, and particularly with friends, it's terrific.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the more cosmetic changes of Showtime. There is something wonderfully nostalgic about the old NBA on NBC theme, especially (actually, more likely solely) for those of us who grew up with the peacock's Sunday afternoon matinees. In comparison with its arcade version, or even its Dreamcast and N64 cousins, Showtime for the PS1 clearly loses a bit in the looks department. This is particularly noticeable in the player models which, while understandably polygonal for the time, fail to accurately render most of the players' faces. They all look a bit mangled. However, player animations are almost uniformly excellent. I should also mention the generally terrible roster. This was not a particularly lively time for fans of the association. You're looking at a league post-Jordan, consumed by labor disputes, and pre-LeBron. "Slim pickings" is probably the kindest way to describe the squads available. Thankfully, you can create your own player, and although you can develop that player into a superstar by defeating every team in the league, this is no career mode. It's essentially no different from the game's other main mode, in which you run through every team in the league with only the players made available to you on a particular squad. No career mode, no season mode, nothing else. As a single-player experience, then, Showtime is lacking in longevity. As an isolated, multiplayer experience, Showtime is the best of the bunch.

PS1 Review: Spider-Man (2000)

Here's another entry in our unofficial"Classic Games We Never Got Around to Reviewing" series. You may recall earlier parts of the series, including reviews of TimeSplitters 2 and NBA Street Vol. 2, two classics we never reviewed because we were lazy teenagers. But Thrasher is back at it again, taking a look at Spider-Man for PS1.

The 2D era was not kind to the wall-crawler, and at the time it probably couldn't be otherwise. To me, Spider-Man for the PS1 proved that the franchise belonged in all three polygonal, blocky dimensions. There's many commendable elements at work in this one, but first and foremost is the presentation. Though the story is a kind of comic book "greatest hits", structured as more or less a slew of cameos from villains and heroes of the Marvel Universe, it's culled together nicely as a narrative, in fact quite similar to the ways in which the recent Arkham Asylum and Arkham City have managed their respective rogues galleries. In Spider-Man, Peter Parker witnesses an impostor Spider-Man stealing one of Doc Ock's experiments: not only is Spidey framed for the theft and hunted by the police, but he must also fend off the challenges of villains such as Venom, Rhino, Scorpion, Mysterio and Carnage. It's a somewhat episodic approach that keeps the game from becoming repetitive. However, what's really worth recommending here is the superb voice-over work, particularly the voices for Spider-Man, Venom and J. Jonah Jameson. The writing is strong as well, effectively capturing the comic book's balance between humor and seriousness.

Faithful also is the translation of Spidey's powers from comic panel to Dual Shock. Playstation web-swinging was in its very infancy here, only to find a kind of perfection a few years later in Spider-Man 2 for the PS2, but the foundation built with this this game is a solid one. Unfortunately, it's not as tight as it could be: though you can manually aim when swinging from building to building, too often your web-shooters will be unresponsive when leaping out impulsively. Same goes for wall-crawling, as the controls occasionally go a bit haywire when changing direction, particularly on ceilings. Part of the problem is unquestionably the camera angles chosen by the game. You have limited control over what you see around Spider-Man, which can compromise your ability to engage in combat by obscuring your enemies with obtrusive angles. In terms of controls, Spider-Man is clearly a first try as there's quite a few kinks and glitches to work around, but there's also more than enough novelty here to keep things amusing. Also, the game is a bit short, but I suspect that's almost always the case when a game is this much fun to play. There's a shocking amount of replay value on this disc too, provided you don't just enter in the cheat codes:  vintage comic book covers collected throughout the game, unlockable costumes (each with unique abilities and enhancements), training simulators and a "What If?" mode that makes playing through the game a second time highly entertaining. Nowadays it may seem a bit crude and basic in comparison with current generation superheroes like Arkham City, or even in comparison with later games in the Spider-Man franchise, but Spider-Man for the PS1 is still a fantastic game in its own right, well worth taking out for another spin on your backwards-compatible PS3.

Give These PS1 Games Some PS3 Love

At Code Redd Net, we don't like to forget about the classics. That's why we're particularly fond of hardware that supports backwards compatibility, because we tend to favor games that last. Though current models of the PS3 do not play PS2 games, unfortunately, they nevertheless play PS1 discs. Something is better than nothing, I suppose. While there's certainly a score of outstanding PS3 games worth your time out there, you should always keep in mind the cavernous catalogue of excellent PS1 games waiting for you just in case there's a little downtime on the system's core software market (and they're almost always cheap, unless you really groove on RPGs). You don't even need a memory card to save your progress because the system creates a virtual one for you, not to mention an option to smooth out the pixel-heavy graphics. Bearing all this in mind, here's a short list of five phenomenal PS1 games not only worth your time, but worthy of your piggy bank as well.

Spider-Man (2000)

This is the first Spider-Man game to get it right, not only in all three wonderful dimensions, but in tone as well. In terms of capturing the feel of the comic book and cartoon character I remember, nothing else comes close to this 13-year-old. Despite lacking name value in the voice cast, or perhaps because of it, Spider-Man has aged very well: every character and every note sounds right. It's a bit short, say, about four hours, but what it lacks in breadth it more than makes up for in density. There's also a tremendous amount of extras to make bonus plays worthwhile if the nostalgia factor isn't enough for you. Controlling the webhead can be cumbersome at times, and the camera occasionally goes haywire, but it's no big deal. Future games in the series may have perfected the webswinging and combat, but that was only possible because the foundation that this game built was so solid. Featuring one of my favorite last levels, which I may or may not have actually spoiled in the screen grab above.

Thrasher Presents: Skate and Destroy (1999)

That oncoming train you see there is no doubt the best way to win a multiplayer game of Sick Fix: Chicken Man and I used to have a ball trying to produce the most spectacular wreck in that subway level. Multiplayer included, for the longest time Skate and Destroy was the premiere skateboarding simulation for those looking for an alternative to the zaniness of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. That position was taken over by the skate. franchise, and deservedly so, and as a result the "realism" of Skate and Destroy now seems dubious at best. Still, though, I love the rhythm of this game: there's much more emphasis on precision and angle than in its button-mashing brothers in the genre. Conceptually, too, there's a lot of interesting ideas no other skate game has tried to emulate, either before or since. For instance, after a two-minute session expires, security guards try to catch in the act, and you can use this extra time to earn bonus points before you escape, or you can be given the taser. Finally, Skate and Destroy has unquestionably the freshest soundtrack of old school beats on the system, a soundtrack we even honored with a Code Redd Net Award.

The World is Not Enough (2000)

N64 TWINE is a better game, but its PS1 brother has enough unique features to recommend it for fans of the franchise. As I mentioned in my review, the best part of PS1 TWINE is the "Russian Roulette" level, where you can gamble like a true addict, much to the consternation and cell phone distress of MI6. Plus, there's a significant number of film clips that set up the levels nicely. For whatever reason PS1 always lagged behind its Nintendo competitor in the first-person shooter department, so TWINE is the probably the best of an admittedly limited bunch.

Smasher regains his strength by having a soda and a sandwich
he found on the ground. This makes sense in a beat-'em-up.

Fighting Force (1997)

Here's another PS1 game with a superior N64 relative, though in this case the disparity in quality is much more minute. Fighting Force in its original PS1 incarnation may have a plethora of loading screens in addition to being more difficult than the N64 version, but for the sake of convenience this one is a completely satisfactory substitute. Furthermore, Fighting Force is one of the last true beat-'em-ups ever released, without a doubt the best one in the post-Streets of Rage, 3D era. It's not perfect, but I have a hard time imaging a more enjoyable co-op experience outside of PS2's Everything or Nothing. And clocking in at just under two hours to complete, Fighting Force never becomes tedious or over-long. If you want a mindless brawler for your PS3, this is your only choice.

Jet Moto (1996)

For a long time the only PS1 games I owned were a Playstation Magazine demo disc and Jet Moto. That I was content with this situation should attest to how enjoyable Jet Moto was and still is (that demo disc was beautiful too, and I miss those things). Jet Moto, it should be said, was an amazing game for 1996. I still think the graphics are decent, and I'm amazed that the tracks, intricate as they are, can support up to 20 racers at the same time. But what I remember most about Jet Moto was how fast and how difficult it was: not only were the races crowded with opponents, not only were the bikes almost uncontrollably fast, but the courses were laden with obstacles and cliffs. I still have not made it past the second round of the season without using cheats, thanks in no small part to a series of particularly brutal levels in the bayou. It's difficult, certainly, but it's not frustrating. No other game, even on PS3, can really keep up with this one.

PS1 Review: 007 Racing (2000)

 

It's not a bad idea, right? Perhaps 007 Racing is somewhat misleading as a title (it's not as if Bond has joined a Formula 1 circuit), but it's a bankable project theoretically. In execution, however, things fall apart rather quickly. Remember, 007 Racing was released on PS1 roughly a year before Agent Under Fire arrived on PS2. AUF had a much more refined "racing" component, thanks in no small part to the first draft sensibilities of Racing. There's not much of a story going on here, just a collection of mission briefings and vague allusions to the films. Similarly vague mission objectives present frustrating and artificial levels of difficulty. Replaying the missions so often (while Q repeatedly yaps in your ear with the same three or four disapproving soundbites) wouldn't be problematic if the graphics didn't insist on muddying the waters even further. Everything is so pixilated and poorly animated that it all becomes a nauseating, low-speed blur. Furthermore, there's little sense of urgency or speed; proceeding through the missions at little more than the pace of brisk walk is not only enforced by the cramped level designs themselves, but it's strategically necessary as well. More often than not, missions devolve into a demolition derby with stinger missiles that routinely do more damage to your Astin Martin than your adversaries. And it's not as if your car handles like a dream, either; it's slippery at "high" speeds and prone to ignoring your button commands whenever. It's hard to say which of these aspects make 007 Racing so difficult, but their gestalt certainly makes you want to turn it off with the quickness. This is not Spy Hunter; stick with that one instead.

Artistic rendering of 007 Racing.

The World is Not Enough 100%, and more

PS1 TWINE, that is. Sure, it's nowhere near as good as its classic, award-winning N64 cousin, but it still works quite well on its own. As I noted in my review, if nothing else, I love the Russian Roulette stage. Besides, the PS1 version has to be one of the only decent first-person shooters on that system, which wasn't known for producing them beyond the Medal of Honor series. Alas, there's no multiplayer mode, so all that you get for achieving high scores on any particular level are cheats, such as All Weapons, Invisible Bond, and my favorite, Power Goons. Still, though, I have what Chicken Man once called the Curse of Completionism, and so I just had to see this one through. It was far easier than I anticipated. Missions scores are calculated in four ways: Efficiency, Accuracy, Health, and Time. Most levels are short if you know what you're doing, armor is plentiful (even on the hardest difficulty setting, 007), auto-aim makes marksmanship a breeze, and I'm still not totally sure what efficiency is supposed to imply, and I routinely had low scores in that category. If you don't dally around, always use your Wolfram P2K, and keep yourself clothed in armor, piece of cake, you'll have this one 100% in a day or so.

We certainly hope you're enjoying the current deluge of Bond coverage on Code Redd Net. In addition to the ongoing Nobody Reviews It Better series, we have an upcoming podcast on the subject, as well as our continuing interest in the forthcoming Skyfall film and the accompanying 007 Legends game. Stay tuned for more.

Our First Podcast

The Next Generation continues to expand our horizons, so to speak: Code Redd Net finally has a podcast, available through Podbean at http://crnpodcast.podbean.com. Embedded below is our first episode, subtitled Rise and Fall of the AI Bot. Fans of multiplayer shooters should be especially interested. We would love to hear your feedback on this first attempt, as well as suggested topics for future episodes. Soon the CRN Podcast should be available through the iTunes store. Until then, you can subscribe to automatically receive the latest episodes, or you can listen through the dedicated Podbean player at the bottom of this page.

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Driving Back to the Future

Driver for the PS1 has always been one of my favorites, so much so that I made sure it was nominated for the Code Redd Net Award for Best PS1 Game. Despite the ups and downs in subsequent entries in the series (including the endearingly broken Driv3r), I've always enjoyed its particularly cinematic take on racing. While playing through the latest offering, Driver: San Francisco, I discovered a neat little Easter egg that payed tribute to the original (and Back to the Future):



And just for comparison's sake, let's see that first level from the first game:


That level used to drive me nuts when I first bought the game, but I could probably do it with my eyes closed now.

Thrasher Presents: Thrasher's Top Ten Video Games, Part Five

This pick is a very special one for me, as you'll soon find out. But let's recap first:

Everything or Nothing (PS2)
Freedom Fighters (PS2)
Crazy Taxi (PS2)
NHLPA '93 (SNES)

(Needless to say, this is not from the PS1 version of Thrasher. Did you know there was a Game Boy Color version that got dusted before it could be released? Me neither, and it's too bad.)

Thrasher Presents: Skate and Destroy (PS1)

I believe I covered this one in depth for GameFAQs when I was 13. Honestly, with an opening salvo like "I am a true diehard skater," how could you not want to read on? Furthermore, what I liar I was at that age. I couldn't even ollie. Still can't. But I did know every inch of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and Thrasher was an awesome alternative to its outlandishness. This was the Skate 2 of its day. Where THPS went over-the-top, Thrasher pushed for realism. Tricks needed to be planned carefully in Thrasher, as opposed to the more accessible THPS, where slaming the buttons would more often be rewarded than penalized. Both have their own place in my heart, truly, but this game had a few things going for it, principally the old-school hip hop soundtrack, which was presented with an honorary Code Redd Net Award. Bails were humorous things to see as well, especially when Chicken Man and I hooked up for a multiplayer mode called Sick Fix, where we competed to land the most impressive slams (most involving an oncoming subway train). And those were good times, breaking bones in deserted stations. THPS made me a fan of skateboarding, but it was Thrasher that got me on a skateboard for the first time, and it was Thrasher that got me into Run DMC. Plus, I got my alias from this game. Big surprise, I'm sure.

A Hip Hop Primer, Thanks to Thrasher Presents: Skate and Destroy (1999)

I've been playing a whole lot of Skate 2 for my 360 lately, and as much as I love that game (and I certainly do), the abundance of Thrasher Magazine references reminds me of that other skateboarding game I cherish, Thrasher Presents: Skate and Destroy for the PS1. There are many, many reasons to love Thrasher, but perhaps most of all, I love the soundtrack. Which reminds me, coincidentally enough, that though Thrasher was quite deservedly nominated for Best PS1 Game at the inaugural Code Redd Net Awards (losing, as fate would have it, to another seminal skateboarder), it clearly should have been rewarded for its fantastic beats alone. So, without further ado, allow me to present Thrasher with an honorary CRN Award for Best Game Soundtrack. Congratulations to all parties involved. Here's your prize:

If you're interested, this gentleman has kindly put together a list of all the funky beats and old school classics in the game. You would do well to search them out.

PS1 Review: Tomorrow Never Dies (1999)

When I first heard, way back in 2004, that Everthing or Nothing was going to give us a third-person 007 for the first time since PS1's Tomorrow Never Dies, I was worried. Thankfully, I was wrong about that one, but those fears were not totally unfounded. TND is a very flawed game. Not only is it extraordinarily ugly (even for a PS1 game) but trying to control Bond only makes matters that much worse. Aiming your weapon is a tedious exercise at best, and even worse, weapons cannot be reloaded manually. Stealth is practically nonexistent, and I'm not sure if this is by design or a result of the bland and foggy levels that make stealthy approaches impossible. Fortunately, though, the tedious third-person shooting is broken up a bit by the requisite driving missions. While Bond's car is slow and slippery, the real highlight of TND is the skiing sections. Truthfully, they are the very best skiing missions in any 007 title (and here, I admit, it only compares the skiing in both versions of The World is Not Enough). Even the clips from the movie that often bracket the missions are disappointing. And, of course, if you stick with TND long enough to finish the final mission, the complete lack of multiplayer features means this game goes on the shelf rather quickly and never gets dusted off. Bond fans might be moderately entertained, but everyone else can just play The World is Not Enough for their James Bond PS1 fix.

PS1 Review: The World is Not Enough (EA, 2000)

Unfortunately, most 007 games operate within fairly predictable first person shooter sensibilities, acting like children dressing up for the first time in James Bond's expensive tuxedo, livery poorly tailored for them. Nothing fits the license besides a liberal sprinkling of 007 logos, the signature theme music, and a few Rolex-sponsored watch gadgets to momentarily relieve players from simply shooting seemingly limitless thugs with an assortment of automatic weaponry. The World is Not Enough fits this bill for the most part, except for an exceptional, and altogether too short, excursion into generic unconventionality. In a mission titled "Russian Roulette," Bond must earn $100,000 at a casino in order to press Valentin Zukovsky for information about the activities of a terrorist known as Renard. After sneaking past the lax security detail and acquiring a $25,000 credit voucher, players step up to an empty blackjack table for a high-stakes game, continuing to gamble until the 100K objective has been completed. Amass an excessive bankroll and MI6 will issue a stern warning through your phone. Touches like these, quite uncommon still in contemporary Bond games, distinguish TWINE as a uniquely authentic 007 experience, however nascent in execution. The remaining 10 missions entertain in a more visceral fashion, alternating between levels of stealth and messy firefights. Short movie clips bracket the similarly short missions, blending sometimes seamlessly, sometimes haphazardly with the missions themselves. No multi-player mode means the PS1 version of TWINE fails to extend its lifespan beyond one or two times through, except for those curious few Bond aficionados interested in alternatives to the Call of Duty mindset of the more recent Quantum of Solace, Blood Stone, and Goldeneye 007.


P.S. Enjoy a video of some dufus playing through "Russian Roulette":