Firstly, I must apologise in advance. It's currently 9:46 AM, and I haven't been to sleep yet, so excuse me if the review makes no sense. In fact, I almost typed "nose sense" just then instead of "no sense". Maybe not a good idea to be writing a blog then, but I'll persevere. For my first random review, I picked a PS2 game I recently bought for a mere £2 from a store called CEX which sells pre-owned electrical items, games and DVD's among them. I've wanted this game for many years now and decided to finally grab it.
The game sees you play as a mysterious man called Grave, who is technically dead. He is basically a walking tank that can destroy entire waves of enemies by himself, with the downside that his blood needs to be exchanged regularly, otherwise his body would shut down. The story begins in an unnamed city which is being taken over by a gang known as The Syndicate. Their leader, Harry McDowell, is attempting to take over the city. Grave however, doesn't want this to happen: He used to be a former member of The Syndicate you see, that is until good ol' Harry decided to kill Grave 15 years ago. Cue Grave taking his two guns (that he calls Cerberus) and killing roughly 2'000'000'000'000 people in the game.
The game is a hark back to the days of old, when shooters were about hammering fire as much as possible and laughing at how many points you got awarded. It isn't subtle, it certainly isn't very clever, but my god is it fun! Grave is an absolute beast, laughing in the face of trivial weapons such as rocket launchers and machine guns and handing out bullets like they were candy. By "handing out", I of course mean "firing lots of". The controls are simple and well laid out: Square is fire, X is Jump, O is Run, Triangle activates a special ability called "Demolition Shots", which are basically power-ups you earn by shooting people and objects in the environment, L1 is lock-on, L2 is to turn 180°, and R1 is to hit any enemies in the vicinity with the coffin strapped to Grave's back. Simple, but effective. The camera can't actually be controlled manually, meaning some occasional tricky moments, but it's manageable, and certainly does not detract from the action.
The graphics are very surprising. I would even describe them as fantastic. The game is very clearly illustrated by some talented people. In fact, the creator of the "Trigun" Japanese animé series, Yasuhiro Nightow, is responsible for the excellent character designs seen in the game. Grave in particular has a great design, his face conveying a stony look only an undead mute with no feelings could wear. The enemies, considering they get about 0.2 seconds of screen time each before Grave shoots them 50 times, look decent, and the environments are very well varied and nicely designed, with some very nice contrasts between the outdoor scenes and indoor scenes.
The games downsides are pretty much as follows: Firstly, the game is hilariously short, clocking in at about 3 hours at the most. 45 minutes is probably easily achievable on a 2nd or 3rd completion as well. As mentioned earlier, the camera is a little erratic, and considering there's a right analog stick not controlling anything they could have used for camera movement, it's odd the camera is locked like it is. The game is also pretty easy, so it's unlikely you'll get stuck at any one point. These flaws don't detract too much from the experience however, thanks to the generous extras you can unlock, such as a 3D character gallery and early sketches of the characters. And let's face it: Contra is considered a classic, and that game is also extremely short as well.
Gungrave then, is well worth your time. Yes the game is easy. Yes it's very repetitive. Yes, it's as subtle as The Big Show farting. Yes, it's extremely short with no real challenge. And yes, the camera is erratic. And you know what? I enjoyed every bloody second of it.
Pooman's verdict: 8/10
Recommended
I should also point out a animé series based on the game was created. In fact they made 24 episodes, so the games surprisingly deep story is elaborated on much further. Could be worth a look if you enjoyed the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment