Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
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Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
Because I like to b*tch and moan about things, and because I also like to play video games, I've decided to create a thread that compresses those two objects into a single entity.
Right here is basically where I will make my thoughts known about various games I play--usually last-gen games, because I haven't played much from the current generation. Among the games I'm going to review are No More Heroes (Wii), Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkai'ichi 3 (Wii), Freedom Fighters (PS2) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2). More will probably come up, but those are the ones I want to take care of right away.
Four facets of the game shall be explored; the game's final score will be on a scale of one Cone to ten Cones. Those four factors are:
1: Story, which is integral to any video game.
2: Characters, because a weak cast can cripple a well-plotted game or vice-versa.
3: Gameplay, the meat of any video game.
4: Music--yes, most people grade the graphics, but graphics don't really mean much to me in a game unless they either totally enhance or completely tarnish the experience. Music, on the other hand, influences the player's emotional response and is often a key element in certain scenes. Fighting JENOVA with Aeris' theme playing in the background so soon after her death is an overpowering experience; fighting Liquid Ocelot atop Outer Haven with Snake Eater blaring triumphantly makes you feel nigh unstoppable. Yes, I WILL knock a game's score down a peg or two if the music sucks, or give it a pass if its soundtrack is totally ballin'.
Now, on to the review itself. I know I listed a smorgasboard of games that I want to review, and I will get to those in due time. For now, however, I'm going to focus on a game that's been bothering me for some time now. A game that recently gained a spot in the blackest hell of my heart for being a complete mess of bad controls and pedantic gameplay.
We're going to be reviewing "Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey."
Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey
Disney Interactive Studios (2007)
Last Saturday, I found myself babysitting my cousins and sitting there in mock rapture as they flaunted their video game collection. Ooh, Lego Indiana Jones AND Lego Star Wars? Color me tickled pink! Being the supercilious bastard that I am, I've often reminded my oldest that he lacks Metal Gear Solid, Metroid and Zelda. He's never quite been able to speak to that point.
But my youngest cousin--sweet little darling that she is--decided to show off her Disney Princess game, which she has creatively dubbed "Princess Wii." So being the sport that I am, I plopped down on the couch, loaded up some YouTube fodder for my oldest, and watched the youngest fiddle with her damn game for a while.
Story
From what I've gleaned, the player character--a customizable princess of your own design--inherits a castle and magic wand, and must travel to all the different Disney Princess worlds to save them from having their colors stolen by a wicked race of paintbrushes, interacting with the denizens of the world, setting right what once went wrong, and hoping that the next leap...will be the leap home.
...
So it's basically Kingdom Hearts, but without everything that made Kingdom Hearts good.
Characters
Disney stars, in all their shallow glory, abound throughout this game. You got'cher Ariel, yer Sleeping Beauty, yer Snow White, yer Belle. And, of course, their buddies hang around--the dwarves, the enchanted appliances, Sleeping Beauty's three lesbian life-partner guardian fairies, et cetera. The player character, on the other hand, is a complete blank slate--no lines, no personality, no nothing, to better aid the player in identifying with her and to better imagine themselves in her shoes.
Sort of like Bella Swan.
Gameplay
The first thing I noticed about this game was that anybody with even basic-to-moderate levels of brain activity and hand/eye coordination should have this down no problem. There's no truly advanced control schemes or circuitous stories to wrap their minds around, and you're helpfully reminded of your goals every six seconds by a disembodied Jodi Benson reminding you that you need to go help the dwarves in the mine.
This, however, is where you run into your first real problem: The game sucks. It just flat-out utterly and completely sucks. Let's get into why.
In order to save the world from being sucked dry of color, like in that one episode of Powerpuff Girls, you must dance around in circles of colored light--blue, red or green--and send those three colors to all the things that need coloring. Because, apparently, all objects in the world are one of those three colors and there is nothing more advanced than that (and yes, I realize that the light spectrum is basically just different amounts of red, green and blue smushed together, but there's no way to combine any of the colors; it's all very black and white, or rather, red blue and green).
You'll also occasionally have to do battle with hordes of evil paintbrushes, who, in the words of my cousin, "steal all the colors when they fart." Fantastic; anthropomorphic, flatulent paintbrushes are the villains. At least the Heartless didn't have gastrointestinal problems. You fight these monsters by firing photon torpedoes at them with your wand by waggling the Wiimote at the screen. Here's the rub though: The motion detection is so bad that half the time, your character will simply twirl ineffectually instead of firing a barrage of deadly matter/antimatter warheads at warp speed, leaving you wide open to attacks by farting paintbrushes.
The game occasionally spices this up by having you color-code your torpedoes, changing between the three colors that make up the known universe in order to take out monsters of the same color. Meaning anybody who's color-blind will struggle mightily with this game (and even fail to notice when the world's been sucked dry of color). Nice going, Disney.
When you're not waging an epic battle against flatulent paintbrushes, you are performing menial, repetitive tasks over and over. Again, the Kingdom Hearts analogy: Take every rhythm game from the Winnie the Pooh and Atlantica levels, rob them of whatever playability and fun factor they may have had, and reduce their speed by about 90%. That's what you get.
And what tasks must you perform, you're wondering? Help the dwarves mine. Catch bubbles in clams for Sebastian. Push a mine cart up a hill. Over. And over. And over. Again.
Hey, kids! Ever want to mine coal? Well, THIS is the game for you!
The only function this game would possibly serve is to prepare your children for the monotony and drear of the real world. Otherwise, it's just a big sack of sh*t.
Music
Banal, insipid tinkly crap, like they just gave a panda a harp and recorded the sounds it made with it for twenty minutes. The closest analogue I can think of is the Rabanastre music in Final Fantasy XII, which very quickly wore out its welcome with me. Just imagine Tinkerbell's dialogue in Peter Pan--that's what you're getting here by way of music. The same track, played endlessly.
Do you know what's most hilarious about this game? The fact that my seven-year-old male cousin, who's all into Star Wars and boy things by now, is totally into this crappy princess game. He justifies it by saying that it's "just like Lego Star Wars, because you fight bad guys!" Yeah, and by that logic it's just like Twilight Princess because it has motion controls.
Actually, the second most hilarious part--and I feel bad about saying this, but it must be said--is that my four-year-old cousin hasn't fully grasped the concept that the character's movements on-screen correspond to what direction she pushes the control stick in, and would run into the same object for twenty seconds before crying and declaring that the game didn't work.
Anyway, what was I getting at? Oh yes. This game sucks. Completely. There is no redeeming value; you want to get a Disney fix, just play Kingdom Hearts. This? I sure as hell won't let my kids play this crap when they're inevitably born.
Okay, okay, I get that this is supposed to be a game for little little kids, but the target audience can't even play the game without extensive involvement from an outside party--believe me, I know! I WATCHED the target audience fail at this game for an hour! So by the time you're old enough to actually be able to play this game properly, you could be off playing some other E-rated game that doesn't suck shitballs. Instead of Disney Princess Vaginafest, why not buy your kid Super Mario Galaxy? Or Super Mario Sunshine? Or...ANY Mario game?! I'm not saying "All children should play Halo and Metal Gear Solid from birth," I'm saying "give your damn kids some credit and buy them something that actually functions properly."
When I scrape up the necessary scratch, I am buying those kids Super Mario Galaxy.
The Good: Complete lack of Jonas Brothers. Also, the box art's kinda nice.
The Bad: Complete lack of fun factor.
Unfathomable Paradox: My cousin hates Princess Leia for being a princess, yet loves this game.
Final score: 0 Cones out of a possible 10.
There, I'm done harping on a game meant for toddlers. :D
Right here is basically where I will make my thoughts known about various games I play--usually last-gen games, because I haven't played much from the current generation. Among the games I'm going to review are No More Heroes (Wii), Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkai'ichi 3 (Wii), Freedom Fighters (PS2) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2). More will probably come up, but those are the ones I want to take care of right away.
Four facets of the game shall be explored; the game's final score will be on a scale of one Cone to ten Cones. Those four factors are:
1: Story, which is integral to any video game.
2: Characters, because a weak cast can cripple a well-plotted game or vice-versa.
3: Gameplay, the meat of any video game.
4: Music--yes, most people grade the graphics, but graphics don't really mean much to me in a game unless they either totally enhance or completely tarnish the experience. Music, on the other hand, influences the player's emotional response and is often a key element in certain scenes. Fighting JENOVA with Aeris' theme playing in the background so soon after her death is an overpowering experience; fighting Liquid Ocelot atop Outer Haven with Snake Eater blaring triumphantly makes you feel nigh unstoppable. Yes, I WILL knock a game's score down a peg or two if the music sucks, or give it a pass if its soundtrack is totally ballin'.
Now, on to the review itself. I know I listed a smorgasboard of games that I want to review, and I will get to those in due time. For now, however, I'm going to focus on a game that's been bothering me for some time now. A game that recently gained a spot in the blackest hell of my heart for being a complete mess of bad controls and pedantic gameplay.
We're going to be reviewing "Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey."
Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey
Disney Interactive Studios (2007)
Last Saturday, I found myself babysitting my cousins and sitting there in mock rapture as they flaunted their video game collection. Ooh, Lego Indiana Jones AND Lego Star Wars? Color me tickled pink! Being the supercilious bastard that I am, I've often reminded my oldest that he lacks Metal Gear Solid, Metroid and Zelda. He's never quite been able to speak to that point.
But my youngest cousin--sweet little darling that she is--decided to show off her Disney Princess game, which she has creatively dubbed "Princess Wii." So being the sport that I am, I plopped down on the couch, loaded up some YouTube fodder for my oldest, and watched the youngest fiddle with her damn game for a while.
Story
From what I've gleaned, the player character--a customizable princess of your own design--inherits a castle and magic wand, and must travel to all the different Disney Princess worlds to save them from having their colors stolen by a wicked race of paintbrushes, interacting with the denizens of the world, setting right what once went wrong, and hoping that the next leap...will be the leap home.
...
So it's basically Kingdom Hearts, but without everything that made Kingdom Hearts good.
Characters
Disney stars, in all their shallow glory, abound throughout this game. You got'cher Ariel, yer Sleeping Beauty, yer Snow White, yer Belle. And, of course, their buddies hang around--the dwarves, the enchanted appliances, Sleeping Beauty's three lesbian life-partner guardian fairies, et cetera. The player character, on the other hand, is a complete blank slate--no lines, no personality, no nothing, to better aid the player in identifying with her and to better imagine themselves in her shoes.
Sort of like Bella Swan.
Gameplay
The first thing I noticed about this game was that anybody with even basic-to-moderate levels of brain activity and hand/eye coordination should have this down no problem. There's no truly advanced control schemes or circuitous stories to wrap their minds around, and you're helpfully reminded of your goals every six seconds by a disembodied Jodi Benson reminding you that you need to go help the dwarves in the mine.
This, however, is where you run into your first real problem: The game sucks. It just flat-out utterly and completely sucks. Let's get into why.
In order to save the world from being sucked dry of color, like in that one episode of Powerpuff Girls, you must dance around in circles of colored light--blue, red or green--and send those three colors to all the things that need coloring. Because, apparently, all objects in the world are one of those three colors and there is nothing more advanced than that (and yes, I realize that the light spectrum is basically just different amounts of red, green and blue smushed together, but there's no way to combine any of the colors; it's all very black and white, or rather, red blue and green).
You'll also occasionally have to do battle with hordes of evil paintbrushes, who, in the words of my cousin, "steal all the colors when they fart." Fantastic; anthropomorphic, flatulent paintbrushes are the villains. At least the Heartless didn't have gastrointestinal problems. You fight these monsters by firing photon torpedoes at them with your wand by waggling the Wiimote at the screen. Here's the rub though: The motion detection is so bad that half the time, your character will simply twirl ineffectually instead of firing a barrage of deadly matter/antimatter warheads at warp speed, leaving you wide open to attacks by farting paintbrushes.
The game occasionally spices this up by having you color-code your torpedoes, changing between the three colors that make up the known universe in order to take out monsters of the same color. Meaning anybody who's color-blind will struggle mightily with this game (and even fail to notice when the world's been sucked dry of color). Nice going, Disney.
When you're not waging an epic battle against flatulent paintbrushes, you are performing menial, repetitive tasks over and over. Again, the Kingdom Hearts analogy: Take every rhythm game from the Winnie the Pooh and Atlantica levels, rob them of whatever playability and fun factor they may have had, and reduce their speed by about 90%. That's what you get.
And what tasks must you perform, you're wondering? Help the dwarves mine. Catch bubbles in clams for Sebastian. Push a mine cart up a hill. Over. And over. And over. Again.
Hey, kids! Ever want to mine coal? Well, THIS is the game for you!
The only function this game would possibly serve is to prepare your children for the monotony and drear of the real world. Otherwise, it's just a big sack of sh*t.
Music
Banal, insipid tinkly crap, like they just gave a panda a harp and recorded the sounds it made with it for twenty minutes. The closest analogue I can think of is the Rabanastre music in Final Fantasy XII, which very quickly wore out its welcome with me. Just imagine Tinkerbell's dialogue in Peter Pan--that's what you're getting here by way of music. The same track, played endlessly.
Do you know what's most hilarious about this game? The fact that my seven-year-old male cousin, who's all into Star Wars and boy things by now, is totally into this crappy princess game. He justifies it by saying that it's "just like Lego Star Wars, because you fight bad guys!" Yeah, and by that logic it's just like Twilight Princess because it has motion controls.
Actually, the second most hilarious part--and I feel bad about saying this, but it must be said--is that my four-year-old cousin hasn't fully grasped the concept that the character's movements on-screen correspond to what direction she pushes the control stick in, and would run into the same object for twenty seconds before crying and declaring that the game didn't work.
Anyway, what was I getting at? Oh yes. This game sucks. Completely. There is no redeeming value; you want to get a Disney fix, just play Kingdom Hearts. This? I sure as hell won't let my kids play this crap when they're inevitably born.
Okay, okay, I get that this is supposed to be a game for little little kids, but the target audience can't even play the game without extensive involvement from an outside party--believe me, I know! I WATCHED the target audience fail at this game for an hour! So by the time you're old enough to actually be able to play this game properly, you could be off playing some other E-rated game that doesn't suck shitballs. Instead of Disney Princess Vaginafest, why not buy your kid Super Mario Galaxy? Or Super Mario Sunshine? Or...ANY Mario game?! I'm not saying "All children should play Halo and Metal Gear Solid from birth," I'm saying "give your damn kids some credit and buy them something that actually functions properly."
When I scrape up the necessary scratch, I am buying those kids Super Mario Galaxy.
The Good: Complete lack of Jonas Brothers. Also, the box art's kinda nice.
The Bad: Complete lack of fun factor.
Unfathomable Paradox: My cousin hates Princess Leia for being a princess, yet loves this game.
Final score: 0 Cones out of a possible 10.
There, I'm done harping on a game meant for toddlers. :D
Naked Snake- Posts : 1574
Join date : 2009-03-17
Location : Outer Heaven
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
Naked Snake wrote:Because I like to b*tch and moan about things, and because I also like to play video games, I've decided to create a thread that compresses those two objects into a single entity.
Right here is basically where I will make my thoughts known about various games I play--usually last-gen games, because I haven't played much from the current generation. Among the games I'm going to review are No More Heroes (Wii), Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkai'ichi 3 (Wii), Freedom Fighters (PS2) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2). More will probably come up, but those are the ones I want to take care of right away.
Four facets of the game shall be explored; the game's final score will be on a scale of one Cone to ten Cones. Those four factors are:
1: Story, which is integral to any video game.
2: Characters, because a weak cast can cripple a well-plotted game or vice-versa.
3: Gameplay, the meat of any video game.
4: Music--yes, most people grade the graphics, but graphics don't really mean much to me in a game unless they either totally enhance or completely tarnish the experience. Music, on the other hand, influences the player's emotional response and is often a key element in certain scenes. Fighting JENOVA with Aeris' theme playing in the background so soon after her death is an overpowering experience; fighting Liquid Ocelot atop Outer Haven with Snake Eater blaring triumphantly makes you feel nigh unstoppable. Yes, I WILL knock a game's score down a peg or two if the music sucks, or give it a pass if its soundtrack is totally ballin'.
Now, on to the review itself. I know I listed a smorgasboard of games that I want to review, and I will get to those in due time. For now, however, I'm going to focus on a game that's been bothering me for some time now. A game that recently gained a spot in the blackest hell of my heart for being a complete mess of bad controls and pedantic gameplay.
We're going to be reviewing "Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey."
Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey
Disney Interactive Studios (2007)
Last Saturday, I found myself babysitting my cousins and sitting there in mock rapture as they flaunted their video game collection. Ooh, Lego Indiana Jones AND Lego Star Wars? Color me tickled pink! Being the supercilious bastard that I am, I've often reminded my oldest that he lacks Metal Gear Solid, Metroid and Zelda. He's never quite been able to speak to that point.
But my youngest cousin--sweet little darling that she is--decided to show off her Disney Princess game, which she has creatively dubbed "Princess Wii." So being the sport that I am, I plopped down on the couch, loaded up some YouTube fodder for my oldest, and watched the youngest fiddle with her damn game for a while.
Story
From what I've gleaned, the player character--a customizable princess of your own design--inherits a castle and magic wand, and must travel to all the different Disney Princess worlds to save them from having their colors stolen by a wicked race of paintbrushes, interacting with the denizens of the world, setting right what once went wrong, and hoping that the next leap...will be the leap home.
...
So it's basically Kingdom Hearts, but without everything that made Kingdom Hearts good.
Characters
Disney stars, in all their shallow glory, abound throughout this game. You got'cher Ariel, yer Sleeping Beauty, yer Snow White, yer Belle. And, of course, their buddies hang around--the dwarves, the enchanted appliances, Sleeping Beauty's three lesbian life-partner guardian fairies, et cetera. The player character, on the other hand, is a complete blank slate--no lines, no personality, no nothing, to better aid the player in identifying with her and to better imagine themselves in her shoes.
Sort of like Bella Swan.
Gameplay
The first thing I noticed about this game was that anybody with even basic-to-moderate levels of brain activity and hand/eye coordination should have this down no problem. There's no truly advanced control schemes or circuitous stories to wrap their minds around, and you're helpfully reminded of your goals every six seconds by a disembodied Jodi Benson reminding you that you need to go help the dwarves in the mine.
This, however, is where you run into your first real problem: The game sucks. It just flat-out utterly and completely sucks. Let's get into why.
In order to save the world from being sucked dry of color, like in that one episode of Powerpuff Girls, you must dance around in circles of colored light--blue, red or green--and send those three colors to all the things that need coloring. Because, apparently, all objects in the world are one of those three colors and there is nothing more advanced than that (and yes, I realize that the light spectrum is basically just different amounts of red, green and blue smushed together, but there's no way to combine any of the colors; it's all very black and white, or rather, red blue and green).
You'll also occasionally have to do battle with hordes of evil paintbrushes, who, in the words of my cousin, "steal all the colors when they fart." Fantastic; anthropomorphic, flatulent paintbrushes are the villains. At least the Heartless didn't have gastrointestinal problems. You fight these monsters by firing photon torpedoes at them with your wand by waggling the Wiimote at the screen. Here's the rub though: The motion detection is so bad that half the time, your character will simply twirl ineffectually instead of firing a barrage of deadly matter/antimatter warheads at warp speed, leaving you wide open to attacks by farting paintbrushes.
The game occasionally spices this up by having you color-code your torpedoes, changing between the three colors that make up the known universe in order to take out monsters of the same color. Meaning anybody who's color-blind will struggle mightily with this game (and even fail to notice when the world's been sucked dry of color). Nice going, Disney.
When you're not waging an epic battle against flatulent paintbrushes, you are performing menial, repetitive tasks over and over. Again, the Kingdom Hearts analogy: Take every rhythm game from the Winnie the Pooh and Atlantica levels, rob them of whatever playability and fun factor they may have had, and reduce their speed by about 90%. That's what you get.
And what tasks must you perform, you're wondering? Help the dwarves mine. Catch bubbles in clams for Sebastian. Push a mine cart up a hill. Over. And over. And over. Again.
Hey, kids! Ever want to mine coal? Well, THIS is the game for you!
The only function this game would possibly serve is to prepare your children for the monotony and drear of the real world. Otherwise, it's just a big sack of sh*t.
Music
Banal, insipid tinkly crap, like they just gave a panda a harp and recorded the sounds it made with it for twenty minutes. The closest analogue I can think of is the Rabanastre music in Final Fantasy XII, which very quickly wore out its welcome with me. Just imagine Tinkerbell's dialogue in Peter Pan--that's what you're getting here by way of music. The same track, played endlessly.
Do you know what's most hilarious about this game? The fact that my seven-year-old male cousin, who's all into Star Wars and boy things by now, is totally into this crappy princess game. He justifies it by saying that it's "just like Lego Star Wars, because you fight bad guys!" Yeah, and by that logic it's just like Twilight Princess because it has motion controls.
Actually, the second most hilarious part--and I feel bad about saying this, but it must be said--is that my four-year-old cousin hasn't fully grasped the concept that the character's movements on-screen correspond to what direction she pushes the control stick in, and would run into the same object for twenty seconds before crying and declaring that the game didn't work.
Anyway, what was I getting at? Oh yes. This game sucks. Completely. There is no redeeming value; you want to get a Disney fix, just play Kingdom Hearts. This? I sure as hell won't let my kids play this crap when they're inevitably born.
Okay, okay, I get that this is supposed to be a game for little little kids, but the target audience can't even play the game without extensive involvement from an outside party--believe me, I know! I WATCHED the target audience fail at this game for an hour! So by the time you're old enough to actually be able to play this game properly, you could be off playing some other E-rated game that doesn't suck shitballs. Instead of Disney Princess Vaginafest, why not buy your kid Super Mario Galaxy? Or Super Mario Sunshine? Or...ANY Mario game?! I'm not saying "All children should play Halo and Metal Gear Solid from birth," I'm saying "give your damn kids some credit and buy them something that actually functions properly."
When I scrape up the necessary scratch, I am buying those kids Super Mario Galaxy.
The Good: Complete lack of Jonas Brothers. Also, the box art's kinda nice.
The Bad: Complete lack of fun factor.
Unfathomable Paradox: My cousin hates Princess Leia for being a princess, yet loves this game.
Final score: 0 Cones out of a possible 10.
There, I'm done harping on a game meant for toddlers. :D
You actually played this? Damn how could you sit through that kind of torture?
Luck- Posts : 295
Join date : 2009-11-03
Age : 34
Location : Los Angeles
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
Yeah, why on earth would you play that? I'd expect you to play Superman 64 before that...
Vandal- Admin
- Posts : 9928
Join date : 2009-09-02
Age : 33
Location : Florida
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
Why would I sit through Superman 64 when I have this crap readily available?
And no, I didn't play through the whole thing. I watched my cousins fail at it.
And no, I didn't play through the whole thing. I watched my cousins fail at it.
Naked Snake- Posts : 1574
Join date : 2009-03-17
Location : Outer Heaven
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
Naked Snake wrote:Why would I sit through Superman 64 when I have this crap readily available?
And no, I didn't play through the whole thing. I watched my cousins fail at it.
Haha Superman 64? Noooooo dudeeeeee
lol I will never get over farting paint brushes...
Luck- Posts : 295
Join date : 2009-11-03
Age : 34
Location : Los Angeles
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
Naked Snake wrote:Because I like to b*tch and moan about things, and because I also like to play video games, I've decided to create a thread that compresses those two objects into a single entity.
Right here is basically where I will make my thoughts known about various games I play--usually last-gen games, because I haven't played much from the current generation. Among the games I'm going to review are No More Heroes (Wii), Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkai'ichi 3 (Wii), Freedom Fighters (PS2) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2). More will probably come up, but those are the ones I want to take care of right away.
Four facets of the game shall be explored; the game's final score will be on a scale of one Cone to ten Cones. Those four factors are:
1: Story, which is integral to any video game.
2: Characters, because a weak cast can cripple a well-plotted game or vice-versa.
3: Gameplay, the meat of any video game.
4: Music--yes, most people grade the graphics, but graphics don't really mean much to me in a game unless they either totally enhance or completely tarnish the experience. Music, on the other hand, influences the player's emotional response and is often a key element in certain scenes. Fighting JENOVA with Aeris' theme playing in the background so soon after her death is an overpowering experience; fighting Liquid Ocelot atop Outer Haven with Snake Eater blaring triumphantly makes you feel nigh unstoppable. Yes, I WILL knock a game's score down a peg or two if the music sucks, or give it a pass if its soundtrack is totally ballin'.
Now, on to the review itself. I know I listed a smorgasboard of games that I want to review, and I will get to those in due time. For now, however, I'm going to focus on a game that's been bothering me for some time now. A game that recently gained a spot in the blackest hell of my heart for being a complete mess of bad controls and pedantic gameplay.
We're going to be reviewing "Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey."
Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey
Disney Interactive Studios (2007)
Last Saturday, I found myself babysitting my cousins and sitting there in mock rapture as they flaunted their video game collection. Ooh, Lego Indiana Jones AND Lego Star Wars? Color me tickled pink! Being the supercilious bastard that I am, I've often reminded my oldest that he lacks Metal Gear Solid, Metroid and Zelda. He's never quite been able to speak to that point.
But my youngest cousin--sweet little darling that she is--decided to show off her Disney Princess game, which she has creatively dubbed "Princess Wii." So being the sport that I am, I plopped down on the couch, loaded up some YouTube fodder for my oldest, and watched the youngest fiddle with her damn game for a while.
Story
From what I've gleaned, the player character--a customizable princess of your own design--inherits a castle and magic wand, and must travel to all the different Disney Princess worlds to save them from having their colors stolen by a wicked race of paintbrushes, interacting with the denizens of the world, setting right what once went wrong, and hoping that the next leap...will be the leap home.
...
So it's basically Kingdom Hearts, but without everything that made Kingdom Hearts good.
Characters
Disney stars, in all their shallow glory, abound throughout this game. You got'cher Ariel, yer Sleeping Beauty, yer Snow White, yer Belle. And, of course, their buddies hang around--the dwarves, the enchanted appliances, Sleeping Beauty's three lesbian life-partner guardian fairies, et cetera. The player character, on the other hand, is a complete blank slate--no lines, no personality, no nothing, to better aid the player in identifying with her and to better imagine themselves in her shoes.
Sort of like Bella Swan.
Gameplay
The first thing I noticed about this game was that anybody with even basic-to-moderate levels of brain activity and hand/eye coordination should have this down no problem. There's no truly advanced control schemes or circuitous stories to wrap their minds around, and you're helpfully reminded of your goals every six seconds by a disembodied Jodi Benson reminding you that you need to go help the dwarves in the mine.
This, however, is where you run into your first real problem: The game sucks. It just flat-out utterly and completely sucks. Let's get into why.
In order to save the world from being sucked dry of color, like in that one episode of Powerpuff Girls, you must dance around in circles of colored light--blue, red or green--and send those three colors to all the things that need coloring. Because, apparently, all objects in the world are one of those three colors and there is nothing more advanced than that (and yes, I realize that the light spectrum is basically just different amounts of red, green and blue smushed together, but there's no way to combine any of the colors; it's all very black and white, or rather, red blue and green).
You'll also occasionally have to do battle with hordes of evil paintbrushes, who, in the words of my cousin, "steal all the colors when they fart." Fantastic; anthropomorphic, flatulent paintbrushes are the villains. At least the Heartless didn't have gastrointestinal problems. You fight these monsters by firing photon torpedoes at them with your wand by waggling the Wiimote at the screen. Here's the rub though: The motion detection is so bad that half the time, your character will simply twirl ineffectually instead of firing a barrage of deadly matter/antimatter warheads at warp speed, leaving you wide open to attacks by farting paintbrushes.
The game occasionally spices this up by having you color-code your torpedoes, changing between the three colors that make up the known universe in order to take out monsters of the same color. Meaning anybody who's color-blind will struggle mightily with this game (and even fail to notice when the world's been sucked dry of color). Nice going, Disney.
When you're not waging an epic battle against flatulent paintbrushes, you are performing menial, repetitive tasks over and over. Again, the Kingdom Hearts analogy: Take every rhythm game from the Winnie the Pooh and Atlantica levels, rob them of whatever playability and fun factor they may have had, and reduce their speed by about 90%. That's what you get.
And what tasks must you perform, you're wondering? Help the dwarves mine. Catch bubbles in clams for Sebastian. Push a mine cart up a hill. Over. And over. And over. Again.
Hey, kids! Ever want to mine coal? Well, THIS is the game for you!
The only function this game would possibly serve is to prepare your children for the monotony and drear of the real world. Otherwise, it's just a big sack of sh*t.
Music
Banal, insipid tinkly crap, like they just gave a panda a harp and recorded the sounds it made with it for twenty minutes. The closest analogue I can think of is the Rabanastre music in Final Fantasy XII, which very quickly wore out its welcome with me. Just imagine Tinkerbell's dialogue in Peter Pan--that's what you're getting here by way of music. The same track, played endlessly.
Do you know what's most hilarious about this game? The fact that my seven-year-old male cousin, who's all into Star Wars and boy things by now, is totally into this crappy princess game. He justifies it by saying that it's "just like Lego Star Wars, because you fight bad guys!" Yeah, and by that logic it's just like Twilight Princess because it has motion controls.
Actually, the second most hilarious part--and I feel bad about saying this, but it must be said--is that my four-year-old cousin hasn't fully grasped the concept that the character's movements on-screen correspond to what direction she pushes the control stick in, and would run into the same object for twenty seconds before crying and declaring that the game didn't work.
Anyway, what was I getting at? Oh yes. This game sucks. Completely. There is no redeeming value; you want to get a Disney fix, just play Kingdom Hearts. This? I sure as hell won't let my kids play this crap when they're inevitably born.
Okay, okay, I get that this is supposed to be a game for little little kids, but the target audience can't even play the game without extensive involvement from an outside party--believe me, I know! I WATCHED the target audience fail at this game for an hour! So by the time you're old enough to actually be able to play this game properly, you could be off playing some other E-rated game that doesn't suck shitballs. Instead of Disney Princess Vaginafest, why not buy your kid Super Mario Galaxy? Or Super Mario Sunshine? Or...ANY Mario game?! I'm not saying "All children should play Halo and Metal Gear Solid from birth," I'm saying "give your damn kids some credit and buy them something that actually functions properly."
When I scrape up the necessary scratch, I am buying those kids Super Mario Galaxy.
The Good: Complete lack of Jonas Brothers. Also, the box art's kinda nice.
The Bad: Complete lack of fun factor.
Unfathomable Paradox: My cousin hates Princess Leia for being a princess, yet loves this game.
Final score: 0 Cones out of a possible 10.
There, I'm done harping on a game meant for toddlers. :D
...wow... your rep has gone down....
RustleXer- Posts : 856
Join date : 2009-10-10
Age : 32
Location : World
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
random thing:
Assassins Creed 2 and COD 6 nearly out!! whoo!
Assassins Creed 2 and COD 6 nearly out!! whoo!
RustleXer- Posts : 856
Join date : 2009-10-10
Age : 32
Location : World
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
RustleXer wrote:random thing:
Assassins Creed 2 and COD 6 nearly out!! whoo!
Speaking of which...
http://www.modernwarfare247.com/news/modern-warfare-2-launch-trailer
Luck- Posts : 295
Join date : 2009-11-03
Age : 34
Location : Los Angeles
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
Luck wrote:RustleXer wrote:random thing:
Assassins Creed 2 and COD 6 nearly out!! whoo!
Speaking of which...
http://www.modernwarfare247.com/news/modern-warfare-2-launch-trailer
haha awesome man :D
RustleXer- Posts : 856
Join date : 2009-10-10
Age : 32
Location : World
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
lol the flatulent paintbrushes... *___*
.....*coughs* think i'll be cursed with doodling those
kind of things on my notes now >_>
*runs off to play megaman* >___>
....hmmm... also need to play marvel vs. capcom
again sometime.. -_-;
.....*coughs* think i'll be cursed with doodling those
kind of things on my notes now >_>
*runs off to play megaman* >___>
....hmmm... also need to play marvel vs. capcom
again sometime.. -_-;
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
FloatingMagikarp wrote:lol the flatulent paintbrushes... *___*
.....*coughs* think i'll be cursed with doodling those
kind of things on my notes now >_>
*runs off to play megaman* >___>
....hmmm... also need to play marvel vs. capcom
again sometime.. -_-;
LOL it seems so wrong... And retarded
Luck- Posts : 295
Join date : 2009-11-03
Age : 34
Location : Los Angeles
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
RustleXer wrote:...wow... your rep has gone down....
Why, did you think it was worth a higher score when you played it?
Xenophobic Sponge- Posts : 574
Join date : 2009-10-14
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
i say that snake gets an epic win for having the guts to even do it XD :DXenophobic Sponge wrote:RustleXer wrote:...wow... your rep has gone down....
Why, did you think it was worth a higher score when you played it?
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
FloatingMagikarp wrote:i say that snake gets an epic win for having the guts to even do it XD :DXenophobic Sponge wrote:RustleXer wrote:...wow... your rep has gone down....
Why, did you think it was worth a higher score when you played it?
True that.
Luck- Posts : 295
Join date : 2009-11-03
Age : 34
Location : Los Angeles
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
I think I have to agree with KARP, it definitely takes some guts to blog about 'Princess Wii" XDDDDDDDDDDDD. Nice Snake, nice. Last vidoe game I touched was Alone in the Dark for PS1. I was LMFAO at the cheezy graphics. However, sometimes it got scary when things jumped out at me. :0
Rain- Posts : 1496
Join date : 2009-11-05
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
FloatingMagikarp wrote:i say that snake gets an epic win for having the guts to even do it XD :DXenophobic Sponge wrote:RustleXer wrote:...wow... your rep has gone down....
Why, did you think it was worth a higher score when you played it?
lol fine i'll give him that...
RustleXer- Posts : 856
Join date : 2009-10-10
Age : 32
Location : World
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
Anyone try Modern Warfare 2? I know you did, Luck :D
Terra- Posts : 643
Join date : 2009-10-30
Age : 31
Location : California
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
wtc? i was expecting to see another review...lol jk but yes...truly amamzing that you sat through that.
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
germany411 wrote:wtc? i was expecting to see another review...lol jk but yes...truly amamzing that you sat through that.
I've been meaning to do another one for a while now. I probably will once I finish Metal Gear Solid 4, also known as The Awesomest Game Ever Made.
In the mean time, Dead Cell.
Naked Snake- Posts : 1574
Join date : 2009-03-17
Location : Outer Heaven
Re: Snake's Sporadically-Updated (oft-outdated) Game Reviews
Naked Snake wrote:germany411 wrote:wtc? i was expecting to see another review...lol jk but yes...truly amamzing that you sat through that.
I've been meaning to do another one for a while now. I probably will once I finish Metal Gear Solid 4, also known as The Awesomest Game Ever Made.
In the mean time, Dead Cell.
i'll be looking forward to it have you played dragon age or assassins creed 2?
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