Dino Crisis

As the creator of the Resident Evil series, Shinji Mikami knows a thing or two about Survival Horror. With Dino Crisis, he delivers a game that leaves out the horror but retains the creeping anxiety of his previous works. Resident Evil players will be familiar with the game’s interface and controls and will be able to jump right in. However, Mikami stretches and twists expectations just enough to keep things fresh and to advance the genre a few steps forward.

The story of Dino Crisis involves a small team of Special Forces types who are sent to a remote island to retrieve a renegade scientist who is performing some sort of mysterious Top Secret experiments. When they arrive, they find the laboratory overrun with dinosaurs and the target scientist missing. The narrative follows their attempts to find the scientist and escape from the island alive.

At first this appears to be a warmed over Jurassic Park rip-off but as the game progresses Mikami presents an interesting quantum physics explanation for the dinosaur’s presence. He skillfully designs the game so that the solution to the dinosaur mystery interweaves with the missing scientist and the escape from the island.

Dino Crisis’ game play focuses on navigating through the experimental facility that is infested with many hungry dinosaurs, including a troublesome T-Rex. Ammunition and First-Aid are in short supply and death can come mercilessly quick. In fact, Mikami does not even provide a health indicator. Damage is realistic and one or two slashes from a Raptor will pretty much end a person’s life. Because direct confrontation with the giant lizards is almost always fatal, clever thinking is required get out of dangerous situations. In addition to the deadly creatures, the facility has an elaborate security system that must be hacked into and disabled. This provides for some very well designed puzzles that are logical, internally consistent, and genuinely fun to solve.

Graphically, the game dispenses with Resident Evil’s pre-rendered two dimensional backgrounds and instead makes the leap to a completely real-time three dimensional polygon environment. This allows for some expressive camera movement and gives a good sense of moving through a real space, rather than the old feeling of navigating across a slide show. Because the game was originally created for the Sony Playstation, the polygons are necessarily low in detail. However, this is not a noticeable defect as they are representing the relatively sterile architecture of a research lab. Overall, Dino Crisis’ visuals are nicely polished for its Dreamcast release.

The music and sound for Dino Crisis are also well done. The music is unobtrusively moody with bursts of intensity during moments of action. Sound effects for the game are crisp and realistic. From the scrape of a raptor’s claw on a steel girder to the 20 ton stomp of a Tyrannosaurus, Dino Crisis has the same lush sound design you would expect from a Hollywood production.

Dino Crisis shows the possibilities for game play found in creating a realistic space with real-world rules and allowing players to think their way out of difficult situations. With smart puzzles, a believable environment, and a tightly focused goal, Dino Crisis brings the survival in Survival Horror to the forefront.

Sega Dreamcast
Capcom
2000

game review by J.B. Fleming, 2001

Silent Hill 4: The Room

When reviewing games it is generally understood that you have to play them to the end before you can objectively evaluate them. This is considered professional. Of course this means you will be investing many, many hours of research into writing something that will probably net you 10 dollars in the end. Because of this I suspect that many reviewers fudge on this unwritten rule and I don’t blame them. Most games are just too long. Even the best can wear out their welcome before the credits roll. So much the worse if it is a bad game.

Silent Hill 4 begins on a high note with a powerful demo movie that promises a game full of intense freak outs. Cut together from game play footage, the clip is a three minute case study in Japanese Neo Horror. Then the game starts.

Henry Townshend wakes up one day to find himself trapped inside his standard issue, one bedroom/one bath apartment. The windows are sealed and the door is barred by chains. His stereo spits out a stream of static noise. Henry is confused and suffering from a splitting headache. I’m thinking; ‘yeah, I’ve been here before’. After wandering aimlessly around his tiny, sparsely furnished bachelor pad for a while, I realize that I really have been here before. It was back in 1992, in a mostly forgotten point-and-click adventure by Cyberdreams called “Dark Seed”.

Eventually I find an inter dimensional worm hole that leads me to a variety of impressively rendered hellscapes. Much whacking, stabbing, and stomping ensues. Frankly, the Silent Hill series’ dogged emphasis on combat as some kind of selling point for the game is tiresome. Engaging in physical combat with supernatural/hallucinatory entities never made much sense and feels increasingly out of place. Silent Hill 4 only underscores the problem by incorporating enemies that can not be killed. No matter how many times you beat them down and step on their heads they will always get up and continue chasing you. How about a Silent Hill game with no combat at all?

I gave up on the game at the halfway point when the designers made the incredible decision to loop around and make you play through every location that you’ve already been to over again. Now, I understand that back tracking and revisiting areas that you’ve previously explored is a time honored tradition in videogames, particularly in the Survival Horror genre, but Silent Hill 4 takes it to the ridiculous extreme. It’s as if you were witnessing the exact moment at which Konami collectively threw up its hands and said; “That’s it folks. We’ve got nothing.”

Side note: The Silent Hill series’ sound designer and composer; Akira Yamaoka is one of the game industry’s most interesting and radical musicians. In Silent Hill 4 his unique sound is largely absent, further weakening a deeply half-assed effort.

directed by Suguru Murakoshi

Sony Playstation 2
Konami
2004

game review by J.B. Fleming, 11-18-05

Parasite Eve II

When the first Parasite Eve was released in 1998, its combination of Hollywood production values and Japanese RPG conventions seemed ripe with promise. Final Fantasy VII pointed the way and Parasite Eve embraced the future with its slick graphics and fast paced horror story. A new type of entertainment seemed to be right around the corner. Two years later we get Parasite Eve II.

Visually, the game is ravishing. Character designs for Parasite Eve II are more realistic and less anime inspired this time around. Aya has the cool beauty of a runway model and the creatures she faces are unique and disturbing. They have a sick and tormented air about them that will compel you to dispatch them as quickly as possible.

The environments that Aya moves through are rendered with such attention to detail that they are a high-water mark for the genre, surpassing even Square’s work on the Final Fantasy series. Their depiction of a broken down Rest Stop in the American Southwest is so realistic you can almost smell the desert wind.

The sound design is also outstanding. The crunch of broken glass, humming machines, and the twittering of nameless horrors bring texture and detail to the world of Parasite Eve II. The music by Naoshi Mizuta is quietly ominous, blending with the ambient sounds of the environment.

Game play centers around moving from area to area and engaging in combat with various critters. Combat is interspersed with short character dialogues, gorgeous CG cinemas, relatively simple spatial, and switch-flipping puzzles, and several extremely obscure number and password guessing puzzles. Once an area has been cleared and its story events triggered, it will re-infest with monsters that you have the option of killing or avoiding.

So away we go, blasting away at everything in sight. Ammunition and upgrades for weapons are plentiful while large numbers of enemies attack from every direction. Square has dispensed with the first game’s turn-based combat and instead opts for run and gun action. The Square button selects the target and the Right Shoulder button lets them eat lead. Aya still has her magical “Parasite Energy” that can be upgraded with experience. The game can be paused during combat to select Parasite Energy attacks and use items. Sounds fun, so far.

Then the frustration starts. Action games must have spot-on control. There should never be any disconnect between you and the character on the screen. Unfortunately, Parasite Eve II seems to go out of its way to distance you from the action. The game’s use of large 3D characters set against detailed 2D backgrounds results in confusing perspective changes when moving from one scene to another. Combat often involves shooting at enemies that are off-screen. The game attempts to alleviate this problem by providing you with a small radar screen which shows the positions of enemies that are not visible. However, aiming at small, yellow dots is hardly satisfying. Even the simple act of shooting is a clumsy, stuttering experience. Most of the weapons in the game fire in bursts and then require reloading. This results in action that is interrupted by several short pauses, followed by an even lengthier pause during which you can do nothing. In the middle of a heated battle with a swarm of enemies who are constantly in motion you may find yourself screaming and cursing, jamming frantically on the controller buttons, praying that Aya will do something; shoot, run, dance a jig, anything. Relief usually comes in the form of a Game Over screen. At this point, it seems that the game’s “Mature” rating is for the tide of expletives pouring from the unhappy player’s mouth.

Sony Playstation
Squaresoft
2000

game review by J.B. Fleming, 2001

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

Ages ago the Survival Horror genre was invented by a little PC game called Alone in the Dark. Many of the genre’s conventions such as polygon characters moving over pre-rendered backgrounds, fixed camera views, door unlocking puzzles, and limited resources were established in that original game. Later, Resident Evil came along to really popularize Survival Horror but Alone in the Dark was there first. Unfortunately, despite advances in technology, game design has not kept pace. Darkworks’ new Alone in the Dark game sticks very close to formulas worked out long ago. Everything you have seen before in dozens of games is present in Alone in the Dark.

One convention of Survival Horror that you have seen before is the old chestnut of requiring the player to run back and forth across the map, endlessly revisiting previously seen locations in order to solve some locked door puzzle, which opens a new area of the map that will also have to be crisscrossed a million times over. Note to game designers: this is tedious.

You have also seen the shambling zombies, the mutated dogs, and the aggravating ankle biting creatures. You have seen the completely illogical “Hanging Portrait” puzzle, and the “Rotating Statue” puzzle. Oh, and the “Guess The Number” puzzle. Can’t forget to include that one. This game even has a big mansion foyer and staircase that you will recognize if you’ve played any of the Resident Evil games.

The sound effects and music for Alone in the Dark are noteworthy for their singular awfulness. The designers made an attempt to heighten the mood with spooky ambient sound effects but they are implemented very shoddily, with grainy, low bit-rate sound loops that cut in and out haphazardly, destroying any illusion of a real environment. Stewart Copeland’s disappointing soundtrack consists of some aimless synthesizer noodling interrupted by occasional blurts of distorted noise.

The one nice thing I have to say about Alone in the Dark is that the visuals are very slick. The two dimensional backgrounds are rendered with great attention to texture and detail. To add to the sinister atmosphere Darkworks came up with an innovative lighting effect so that as your character waves his or her flashlight around, areas of the background are illuminated in real time, giving the illusion of a three dimensional space. The decayed, gothic mansion that you explore is steeped in the romance of ruins and the shiver that you feel as you poke through its crumbling halls goes long way toward selling the game in spite of its many annoyances.

If Alone in the Dark had been released a few years earlier it might have been regarded as a solid entry that meets genre expectations. However, in this day it can only be seen as a derivative also-ran that is sinking in its own mediocrity. Sad that the progenitor of Survival Horror should come to represent all of the genre’s shortcomings.

Sega Dreamcast
Infogrames/Darkworks
2001

game review by J.B. Fleming, 2002

Zombie Revenge

A standard issue Beat’em Up that functions as a side story to Sega’s House of the Dead franchise. Zombie Revenge has one or two players shooting, kicking, and punching their way through a hoard of zombies and mutant monsters.

Unfortunately, there is nothing particularly macabre or gross about killing these creatures as they bleed a parent-friendly green goo and disappear upon expiring. The graphics are sharp but plain. The soundtrack and sound effects are almost nonexistent. The difficulty and number of continues can be adjusted so that as long as your fingers don’t cramp the game can be completed in about an hour.

This is a quick arcade port done with little effort to expand on its insert quarter-lather-rinse-repeat game play. It appears that Sega spent most of their Dreamcast development time coming up with a variety of VMU mini-games that add nothing to the game and that no one will bother to play anyway.

Sega Dreamcast
Sega
1999

game review by J.B. Fleming, 2000

Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise From the Ashes

Take command of a small squad of Gundam mobile suits as they fight their way across Australia in the aftermath of the Colony Drop. Gundam fans will be pleased with the game’s high production values and sharp graphics. The voice acting is professional and the CG work is outstanding. In-game cut scenes are handled by the game’s 3D engine and look great as well. The designs for the Federation and Zeon hardware strike a nice balance between the retro look of classic Gundam and the hard edged designs of recent Gundam films.

Game play is less appealing although there is some fun to be had. Played from a constricted first-person cockpit view, Gundam Side Story 0079 can be confusing and unresponsive. The controller layout is awkward and the Gundam suits handle like overloaded school buses. Each mission is played out in a large 3D environment with multiple objectives and lots of enemies. Set up is extremely basic, with little weapon variety and minimal customizing options.

Assisting in combat are two wing-men and a recon vehicle. Although they are controlled by the computer, you can issue simple orders to the wing-men such as; “move to this location” or “attack that target”. Success in the game often involves using the wing-men as canon fodder to bleed off the enemy so that you can be left free to complete the mission objectives. This kind of cowardly play style can be less than satisfying. If you take a more direct role in fighting the enemy you can be quickly overwhelmed and find yourself staring at a “Game Over” screen.

However, once the trick is learned, progress through the game is fast and the story remains interesting to the end. Bandai has created many Gundam games over the years but Gundam Side Story 0079 is the first to be released stateside. Unfortunately, the franchise stumbles in its American debut. If you are a Gundam fan you will appreciate it but everyone else will probably be indifferent to its charms.

Sega Dreamcast
Bandai
1999

game review by J.B. Fleming, 2000

Demon City Shinjuku

Wicked City may be more shocking and Ninja Scroll may be more sophisticated but Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s Demon City Shinjuku has its own charms. Working from a novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi, Kawajiri whips up a phantasmagorical city gothic. He manages to stay ahead of the spotty story by keeping the action fast and the characters cool. Kawajiri is one of anime’s most distinctive character designers and for Demon City Shinjuku his art is clean, sharply animated, and loaded with atmosphere. His style often reminds me of Suehiro Maruo’s clean lines and I can imagine a Kawajiri adaptation of Maruo’s Planet of the Jap (Nihonjin no Wakusei). What a fantastic provocation that would be!

directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri
1988

anime review by J.B. Fleming, 1-7-04

Macross Plus

I am constantly surprised by the amount of indifference that people have towards this film. Whenever I meet someone who loves Cowboy Bebop, I mention Macross Plus and get a blank look. Co-Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and energized by Yoko Kano’s soaring soundtrack, this may be Shoji Kawamori’s masterwork. Much more than a Top Gun in space, Macross Plus combines a deeply felt love triangle with a thoughtful speculation on the dangers of artificial intelligence. Macross Plus has angst, romance, sinister conspiracies, grit teeth, giant fighting robots, and a story that ultimately celebrates human friendship and love above all else. Available as an OAV or as a movie, I prefer the shorter movie version because it compresses the series’ emotions into one sharp katana stab to the heart.

directed by Shoji Kawamori and Shinichiro Watanabe
1994

anime review by J.B. Fleming, 1-7-04

Tsumi Ge-mu “Stacked Game”

Japanese term for a game that is initially purchased with enthusiasm but once home is left unplayed, added to an ever-increasing stack of games that the obsessive collector will never have time to actually play. Associated with vague feelings of dissatisfaction and guilt.

32X

Released late in 1993, the 32X was a hardware add-on for the Genesis that would upgrade the aging console into a 32 bit machine. Considering that the Saturn would be released only a year and a half later, the 32X was dead at birth. By the end of 1995, Sega dropped the accessory and stopped making games for it. Not that anyone cared. In the history of consoles, even the most hangdog machine will have one or two games worth playing. The 32X is unique in that there is not even one game to recommend for it.