July 6th…it’ll be The End of an Era when I square off with Mega Man one on one…I really don’t need to say anything more that hasn’t already been said, so we’ll get to business.
DRINKO’S DRUNKEN REVIEWS III: Things I HATE, in Games I LOVE
Ok, my first two reviews were movies based on video games. Let me simply say, this monthly or…however often I can think of something to write about column will not just be a monthly movie review, it’ll be a variety of things from media and entertainment. The first two just happened to be movies. This one will almost be a series of mini reviews, which may bring bad and/or good memories up for people, and maybe even lead some people to some video games they’ve never played and may want to check out. I think the title speaks for itself, so let’s get going.
The Secret of Mana: Your mom is a fuckin’ tree
If someone says SPOILER ALERT I say “Fuck you, this game is 20 years old.” Yeah, yeah and Darth Vader is Luke’s father…by the way, considering that the prequels have been released and logically kids now a days would likely watch the entire Star Wars saga starting with Episode I, do you realize that Darth Vader being Luke’s father would no longer being a shocking film moment for first time viewers now? Only Luke would be surprised…whoa, tangent…not good, because I just started this shit.
Secret of Mana kicks ass. It’s like a hybrid of Zelda and traditional Squaresoft (Square Enix) RPGs. It’s got great music, great colorful graphics, a pretty solid story and a great pace, where throughout the entire game there really are no slow points. But it get’s weird toward the end. After meeting the sacred Mana Tree it is revealed to you that a legendary knight that you’ve been hearing about throughout your quest is actually your father..Ok, that’s pretty cool. Then the next thing the Mana Tree tells you is that…it’s your mother. What…the fuck….? Great dad fucked a tree…fantastic. Ok, it’s explained that she is from a tribe in which the women become trees later in life but still…pretty dumb.Why not just meet your mother for the first time as a human who’s standing in front of the Mana Tree? Or how bout, you really don’t need to know who your mother is since she dies 18 seconds later anyways?! We never found out who Crono’s father was…because it didn’t matter…Ugh…anyways the Mana Fortress destroys the Tree shortly after so now your mom is a tree stump. Congratulations and FTF
Red Dead Redemption: Farming missions and Jack Marston
Ok, I won’t spoil this one since the game isn’t that old. The game Red Dead Redemption follows former outlaw John Marston on his quest to live his dream, which was likely some advice he got from Golden Gig Champion Guile. He wants to go home and be a family man. He’s forced to work for the government who are holding his family hostage to insure that Marston will cooperate. This game is a fuckin’ masterpiece, but here’s the problem, once you’ve taken down all the bad guys and get your family back, the game doesn’t end. You get to do some family man missions, which are REALLY exciting things like “drive the carriage to the other ranch” and “let’s herd cattle.” Ugh. It does all climax with an incredible final family mission, but afterwards you take over playing the game as John’s son Jack, and he’s nowhere near as cool as John.
Goldeneye 007: THIS fuckin’ level.
Goldeneye 007 is a timeless classic, one that completely redefined FPS games. In fact, without Goldeneye there may have never been a Halo, CoD, Bioshock, Metroid Prime or…a bunch of others, fuck it. No more listing. Anyways…this level. It’s a really fun level, but there is a HUGE logic gap in the objectives. One of your objectives is to “Minimalize Scientist Casualities.” That’s fine, there are other levels like this in the game, except that your final objective is to BLOW UP THE FUCKING BASE. You see, you’ve gotta make sure those scientists get that final 4 minutes of their lives in, it’s important. The worst thing is, sometimes a scientist will RUN INTO THE LINE OF FIRE, and you will lose the mission because this highly educated scientific genius used all his brainpower to deduce that the best way to save himself from the evil secret agent shooting everyone, would be to run straight into where he is shooting…genius.
Oh you’ve built up a character to a high level, and now they can carry the whole team? Yeah, you just wasted your time…- Final Fantasy VII and multiple other games.
Aeris in Final Fantasy VII, the girl we all knew Cloud was gonna end up banging at the end, likely in between tit banging Tifa. She’s a pretty good character, who can heal the whole party and basically make your team unbeatable. Probably the most useful character in the game, aside from maybe Cloud. Well guess what…she dies. Yep…and not like Mario dies, where he get’s extra lives and comes back, or you use a Phoenix Down and she’s back or a Life Spell, no…SHE’S FUCKIN’ DEAD. So, if you’ve poured hours into making her an incredibly strong character, you just wasted your time because she’s done for the rest of the game. But atleast you’ve got Cloud right? No, fuck you says this game. A few hours later, you lose him for a while and now you are left with a group of characters you rarely use to fight off, like…the Omega fuckin’ Weapon of Doom or some shit while Cloud sits in the hospital looking like Terri Schiavo. Good luck fucker, may as well reset your game and count the 15 hours you just lost as experience. That’s pretty bad, but it can be WORSE…
OH…you spent 50 hours on this game? FUCK YOU – Final Fantasy VIII
I just discovered this one, and this is utter BULL SHIT. I like Final Fantasy VIII. It’s different than most of the others, but it’s still good. But here’s something that is just a giant FUCK YOU to everyone. You fight Sorceress Adel on a flying fortress called the Lunatic Pandora. She would be one of the hardest bosses in the game just on her power alone. Oh, but she’s also got Rinoa, one of your party members strapped to her chest. She’s draining her life away and using it to heal herself. If Rinoa dies, it’s Game Over. If you use moves that effect more than one person on the screen, like magic spells that strike everyone…you can kill Rinoa yourself and it’s Game Over. Adel is extremely powerful, and also uses Ultima which is one of the strongest spells in the entire game, and can kill your entire party all at once, and also, Magic spells do next to 0 damage to her. So what do you do? You obviously aren’t ready for this fight. Maybe you could save the game and instead of fighting the boss, fight more enemies to raise your levels. NOPE can’t do that because all the enemies in this part of the game only give out 1 or 2 EXPs, so that’s pointless. It would make sense to take your airship out, and find enemies to kill that offer more EXPs, but NOPE you can’t do that because your airship must be wrecked to even get to this point in the game. It’s not like you could really get better weapons either. In this game you don’t just buy or find weapons like EVERY OTHER FINAL FANTASY, instead you need to find rare items and have them forged onto your weapon. You could perhaps find some of these items at this part in the game, but even if you did, you can’t get to a store to have them forged into a stronger weapon because your ship is wrecked. You basically are screwed as soon as you saved the game here because once you save, you’re stuck here, you can’t leave. And when you aren’t strong enough to advance in the game, you’re fucked. You may think, “Ok, I just won’t save.” How would you know that the first time through? Plus, there are three boss fights before the Adel fight, so you’d want to save just in case. Wouldn’t want to lose like an hour of work…well guess what. You just wasted about 50 hours of work, because if you save here…you are fucked. You lose, start over…maybe you’ll get back to this point in a month or so. This would be acceptable in a game like Contra maybe, where at most a playthrough takes like 15 minutes. But in a FOUR DISC EPIC RPG, this type of stuff is fuckin’ inexcusable.
Oh, and speaking of cheap bosses…fuck all these assholes down here
And now for the main event…
Metal Gear Solid 2: What….the….fuck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul8j9I90ueM
Ok. This one, I actually like a lot, EXCEPT for the first time I experienced it. You are playing Metal Gear Solid 2 and are reaching the end of the game. You’ve uploaded a virus into the computer system, but are shortly after captured. You get free but are running around naked, obviously unarmed and with guards everywhere. The Colonel calls you…and shit gets way weird. Watch the video, everytime he radios you, and it’s ALL THE TIME just to make it even creppier, he says one of the things he says in one of the multiple radio convo clips in the video. It’s fucking weird. No, here’s why I really REALLY hated this the first time I played it. I had only been living on my own for maybe a year at this time. I had just bought this game and had hooked up my PS2 in my bedroom in my apartment. I always used to sleep on my couch, so just being in my bedroom was a weird experience. I got totally hooked on this game and was playing for hours, literally maybe 10 straight at this time, so when he mentioned how long I was playing the game at this point…it was creepy, and of course it was like 2 am and I was alone and in the dark, with the volume WAY up…and….gimmicked up, shall we say also. Metal Gear Solid always has a scene on two in each of the games where the game almost tries to break you mentally, but for me…this one worked. The idea was that the Colonel was actually part of an AI, and by loading the virus into the computer system, you loaded a virus into the Colonel’s AI, making him say crazy stuff. Anyways, I saved the game, turned it off and continued it the next morning…and oh yeah, didn’t sleep for shit. It’s not super scary, I know. But at the time, it was a total perfect storm of all kinds of uncomfortable elements all hitting me at the same time, and I did not like it. Now though, I’ll check out the clip on YouTube every now and again to get a chuckle. If you’ve played this game, I guarantee you remember this part. Your eyes got big and your butthole got tight didn’t it?
In conclusion though, I would recommend all of these games. I actually thought of a bunch more but maybe I’ll save them for a later date. I know this one is way different than my previous reviews, so if people don’t like this one, maybe I’ll forget them. In any event, I’m getting another drink, and see all you fucking fucks on July the 6th…