Bulletproof Game Reviews: Open Fire...

[Reflecto]

Alias (PS2 version reviewed)

The tradition of popular TV shows, movies, and the like getting their own spinoff video games is one of the more longstanding ones. Sometimes the movies worked as video games (Spider-Man being the most recent result of a success story there), and sometimes the movies did not (any true video game fan still remembers E.T.'s monumental failure- so big it killed the industry, although other movies [Fifth Element and Wayne's World being the most notable] did their own personal damage as well). TV shows tended to fare poorly for the most part: Outside of The Simpsons, TV show-based video games tend to be poor (the Home Improvement video game is one of the few games to have the coder give it the Alan Smithee treatment after the fact.) With that in mind, it was surprising that the game based on the hit TV show Alias actually recieved some good press for it- the more press a game gets, the more spectacular its failure will be.

The game itself is pretty straightforward with what you'd expect from the TV show's game. By that, I mean that it's basically Metal Gear Solid with boobies. This can be a good and a bad thing. It's a good thing if, like me, you're not a big fan of the "stealth game" genre: Games that are just carbon copies of a game usually tend to be dumbed down. In the cases of stealth games, that equals out to a slightly easier play than the major games in the genre. However, these "pros" for less major fans of the genre is also a "con" for fans of it: The fact that it's dumbed down leaves you with a weaker play than most of them for more advanced fans of the genre, leading to a poorer experience.

Final tally: Alias is one of those games which has just enough of a potential audience to work. If you're a fan of the TV series...well, I don't watch that, you're on your own on whether it feels like an episode of the series. If you're not a fan of stealth games, it's worth a play to try and get a feel for the genre before going to Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, or Metal Gear Solid. If you're a fan of the genre, you'd be well advised to skip it and head to the newest Rainbow Six game.

Rating: **.5- decidedly not l33t, but the developers should not be forced to 53xx0rz t3h butt just yet.

[Reflecto]

NBA Ballers

For the last few years, video games have provided a more idealized version of real sports. More level playing fields and less of the problems inherent in actual sports stars led to video games having decent skill towards it. However, this has finally ended with the game NBA Ballers, when it became official: The "Thug Mentality" has finally leeched into video games. I speak of the type of thing that allows Rafer Alston to be a big name in basketball solely due to his "street cred" (despite the fact that Alston's a marginal journeyman- basically making him the William Hung of the NBA), and in its worse moments, the type of thing that gets rapper 50 Cent a basketball sneaker deal (despite the fact, that, you know, HE'S NOT A BASKETBALL PLAYER...) has found its way in the form of the game NBA Ballers.

The game itself isn't bad: The fact that this was made by Midway means that they're using the same engine as the classic NBA Jam series (not a bad thing). It's the extras that turn this into what it is: It begins as an NBA Street-esque streetball game, then allows your player to fight for "bling bling". Yes, that is what the game calls it, and that is what we must use for it. The way to win apparently comes from getting enough stuff to make your own "crib" totally "thugged out", get a properly "pimped out ride", get a "ballin'" wardrobe, and other words that people with a college education should not have in their vocabulary.

Does this make the game unworthy? Actually, no. The engine itself makes the game at least as fun as NBA Jam was (traditionally a fairly fun game to play). As a result, the game is an entertaining diversion, at the very least. However, if you're looking for a full-time streetball game, I would suggest the NBA Street series; the gameplay is similar enough to make it work, only the game insults people's intelligence much less than NBA Ballers does.

Rating:

Thug Count: *****
l33t Count (the important one): ***- it's l33t enough to be worth a rental, but not to be your premiere basketball game.

[Reflecto]

Review: Fugitive Hunters: The War on Terror.

Some people don't know whether I deserve a right to review video games on the Internet and/or my regular newspaper article. However, a major reason of this is my own video game masochism: I have willingly bought games that have been anathema. Of my most recent video game purchases, they include such games as: WCW Thunder (considered one of the worst wrestling games in recent memory), Daikatana (a living reminder of the fact that John Romero is not l33t), and Unlimited SaGa (the saddest thing in the world is a bad RPG made by SquareEnix- inarguably the world's premiere RPG makers.) These games could only barely temper me for the horror that I faced playing Fugitive Hunters: War on Terror.

This game's premise is simple: Hunt down real-life FBI Most wanted people, "including Osama bin Laden!" I use the same way the game talks about it, because it's this selling point that proves that this game may in fact be the worst thing to come from the "War on Terrorism" (taking that spot from the war in Iraq, the potential draft starting in 2005, and the real possibility of a Dick Cheney presidency in 2008.) The real game, however, takes away all of these things, instead going towards a B-grade first-person shooter, another problem with the game.

There is almost no redeeming quality to this game: It's not even so bad that you can play it just to laugh at it (as the truly horrific games are.) All the game does is take space away from deserving games on the New Release shelf, and use up too much space on the Blockbuster shelf. The only way to describe this was as follows: When I played this, even knowing it was going to be a one-day thing before returning it for something else tomorrow, I felt like I didn't do well compared to my other choice. This wouldn't be a bad thing, save for the other choice being Superman for the N64 [widely regarded as the worst new-generation game ever made, and considered by some the worst game, period.]

Rating: *. This is not l33t. This is not l33t at all. This game was 0WN3D. Everyone involved in this game must line up for BU77 53CK5 that only something so totally 0WN3D may deserve.

[TheJedi2]

Reflecto said:

NBA Ballers

For the last few years, video games have provided a more idealized version of real sports. More level playing fields and less of the problems inherent in actual sports stars led to video games having decent skill towards it. However, this has finally ended with the game NBA Ballers, when it became official: The "Thug Mentality" has finally leeched into video games. I speak of the type of thing that allows Rafer Alston to be a big name in basketball solely due to his "street cred" (despite the fact that Alston's a marginal journeyman- basically making him the William Hung of the NBA), and in its worse moments, the type of thing that gets rapper 50 Cent a basketball sneaker deal (despite the fact, that, you know, HE'S NOT A BASKETBALL PLAYER...) has found its way in the form of the game NBA Ballers.

The game itself isn't bad: The fact that this was made by Midway means that they're using the same engine as the classic NBA Jam series (not a bad thing). It's the extras that turn this into what it is: It begins as an NBA Street-esque streetball game, then allows your player to fight for "bling bling". Yes, that is what the game calls it, and that is what we must use for it. The way to win apparently comes from getting enough stuff to make your own "crib" totally "thugged out", get a properly "pimped out ride", get a "ballin'" wardrobe, and other words that people with a college education should not have in their vocabulary.

Does this make the game unworthy? Actually, no. The engine itself makes the game at least as fun as NBA Jam was (traditionally a fairly fun game to play). As a result, the game is an entertaining diversion, at the very least. However, if you're looking for a full-time streetball game, I would suggest the NBA Street series; the gameplay is similar enough to make it work, only the game insults people's intelligence much less than NBA Ballers does.

Rating:

Thug Count: *****
l33t Count (the important one): ***- it's l33t enough to be worth a rental, but not to be your premiere basketball game.

You don't mention the 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 mode anywhere, and I'm pretty sure that the engine is quite different from Jam, with what I've read and the one gameplay video that I saw.