Xbox Review: Breakdown (2004)

Breakdown is a neat idea. It's mostly a first-person beat-'em-up, but also a first-person shooter, and even occasionally a first-person burger-eating and puking simulator. Everything unfolds for you through the eyes of Derrick, who wakes up in a lab just in time for war to break out between humans and some strangely buff aliens. There you meet Alex, your emo girl companion for the bulk of the game. The two of you then set off to unravel the mystery of these aliens, and your identity a la Jackie Chan's Who Am I? (1998), through some incredibly elliptical writing and absolutely maddening combat sequences.

Everything in Breakdown takes place in first-person view. At first blush, this is novel; you shoot, fight hand-to-hand, platform, fall out of windows, backflip, eat, puke, read, and more from Derrick's POV. This novelty quickly subsides, however, and the first-person perspective becomes alternatively disorienting, distracting, or downright difficult to handle. It's often impossible to keep track of your enemies, due partially to the game's inadequate lock-on targeting system, as well as larger problems with the first-person perspective itself. Since everything takes place in first-person, including when you get knocked down (and this happens often), recovering a proper perspective to launch a counterattack is frequently impossible when confronted with multiple enemies. Similarly, later stages in the game require a great deal of platforming, always a fun proposition from a first-person perspective. Other stages consist largely of empty hallways punctuated by frustrating enemy encounters.

The fun of recovering health by consuming stray sodas and hamburgers in a Streets of Rage fashion, or driving jeeps over caverns in first-person view, is largely overwhelmed by later levels in the game. In particular, there are two combat sequences near the conclusion of the game that are among the most aggravating I've ever played. You simply can't see the attacks coming your way, so instead you're treated to a kaleidoscope of images as your character is knocked around by mutants. Sure, perhaps this is a realistic representation of being beaten up by a crew of obscenely swoll alienmans, but it is emphatically not an enjoyable experience. I wanted to like Breakdown, and to its credit, there's very few games like it. And as it turns out, there's a pretty good reason why. Breakdown is a failed experiment; fascinating and educational in its own way, but deeply flawed.

PS2 Review: The Bouncer (2001)

It's difficult to make sense of The Bouncer. It looks like an ordinary 3D beat-'em-up, which is commendable enough given that the genre has been rendered practically obsolete since the SNES and Genesis generation. I like having games like this around, mostly because I like pulverizing proper nouns on the streets, even when the games themselves are at their most mediocre. However, in many ways The Bouncer isn't much of a beat-'em-up at all. In fact, according to the marketing this is more of a "playable action movie" than a straightforward brawler. It may be a cliche, but The Bouncer is truly neither fish nor fowl: far too vapid to be an action movie (think about that for a moment), and far too complex and involved with storytelling to be a satisfyingly mindless beat-'em-up. Simply put, The Bouncer tries to do too much and succeeds at very little.

The Bouncer has one of the most insipid "stories" I have ever played. Most beat-'em-ups, like Streets of Rage or Fighting Force, have the good taste and common decency to save you the trouble of worrying about characters and their relationships. Instead, they essentially tell you, "Some hoodlums have taken over the streets of our fair city, and they're evil, so please, go out there and beat the dog crap out of them and don't come back until you do." It does the job for me. That's all the motivation I need. But The Bouncer tries to impress you with the cinematic. From a technical standpoint, it actually succeeds. Given its age, it still looks and sounds pretty good. In terms of narrative, however, it stinks. Without looking it up, I can only recall a girl being kidnapped by oddly-dressed thugs, and our equally oddly-dressed bar bouncer heroes going out to save her from being turned into a cyborg kind of thing by some bozo running the evil Mikado corporation. There's also something in there about satellites and solar energy, I think. You spend the rest of the game getting acquainted with others who have also made numerous fashion faux pas. An idiotic premise, for sure, but that's not what gets to me.

The Fashion of The Bouncer. Good gracious.

What gets to me is the laborious way in which that story is presented. My first trip through the game took approximately an hour and a half, about an hour of which was seemingly spent on watching the cinematics. They either go on forever or they are pointlessly short, like the numerous three second clips of the characters running through doorways. Every utterance, every development in the narrative is just, like, So What? Who Cares? and also, You Left the House Dressed Like That, Do You Not Have Friends or Mirrors? The Bouncer has multiple pathways through the story depending on which character you choose and when, but none of them are exciting, even though one of them is a thoroughly bizarre "stealth" mission.

This interminable story ruins what is otherwise a decent beat-'em-up engine: deep enough to keep most fights interesting, but easy to learn (though a counter button would have been nice). Basically, you watch and then you briefly fight, level up your characters, watch then briefly fight, level up your characters, and so on. Luckily, you have the option of using characters unlocked in the Story mode to play either Survival or Versus. Survival isn't much better than Story, mostly because it quickly becomes alternatively tedious and cheap. Versus is your typical multiplayer mode, and it supports up to four players, human or CPU. It redeems the game somewhat, but not enough to recommend it for anyone other than the most starved beat-'em-up fans.

PS3 Review: Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (2009)

I recently got on the next-gen gaming bandwagon by purchasing a shiny new PS3. As a result, this is my first review for the system. Ultimately, what's good for me is good for you cats, our readers. Expect plenty more reviews for the console in the coming months, all while Chicken Man continues to keep you up-to-date on the Xbox 360.

Graphically, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection is clearly not pushing the limits of what the PS3 can do; nevertheless, I believe this is an entirely appropriate, even admirable use of the technology for archival purposes. I love the Sega Genesis, and I'm just pleased as punch to have all these Genesis games packaged together on a single Blu-ray disc, rather than having to deal with the mess of dusty cartridges. True, this is a collection of strictly Sega-licensed games only (so no ACME All-Stars, alas), but who could possibly complain about having access to Streets of Rage 1-3, Sonic 1-3, Spinball, Knuckles, 3-D Blast, both Vectormans, Ecco, Altered Beast, Shinobi, Comix Zone, etc? You can even save progress in each of these games however many times you wish, whereas before many of them required you to complete them in a single sitting. I found this helpful in finally beating some of the more challenging games of that era, particularly Sonic Spinball and Comix Zone (technically I still haven't beaten Comix Zone, but I'm getting mighty close). There's a nice presentation to go along with everything else, as each game has a semi-detailed description, bits of trivia, and case/cartridge artwork. I also enjoyed the menu functionality, where you can give star ratings to each of the 40+ games in the collection, basically ranking them in order of preference and then sorting the menu accordingly. Though not all 40 games suited my fancy, there were enough quality choices to easily make this purchase worthwhile; the Streets of Rages and Sonics were worth the price all by themselves, and after that everything else was sheer gravy. Even the stinkers have a purpose, as playing the first few levels of something as lame as Super Thunder Blade can unlock additional Sega Mega Drive/arcade games or interviews with developers. My only complaint is the omission of Sonic & Knuckles' lock-on technology from the cartridge days, which allowed you to play through Sonic 1-3 as Knuckles instead. In terms of value, replayability, and variety this collection is tops for next-gen consoles. It's also an excellent archival project in classic gaming. Just stay away from Sonic 3-D Blast, I'm telling you.

Altered Beefcake, that's what I call it.

Finest Fights: Streets of Rage (1991)

Bringing you the best fight scenes available on YouTube, every Tuesday afternoon.

This week we continue to shake things up a bit with the final boss battle from the classic Genesis beat-'em-up, Streets of Rage. I just love how you actually get a choice (kind of) of joining the nefarious Mr. X or not. What this video doesn't show, though, is the battle that ensues between players in a co-op game when that choice presents itself. That was a pretty cool, unique thing for the time.