Super Mario Galaxy 2

Previously, I had suggested that the secret to Super Mario Galaxy’s success was attributed to Nintendo programmers undergoing some extra-curricular activities. After all, who but the users of the most hallucinogenic medicine could conjure up such wonderfully bizarre level concepts as the haunted house in space, or the race track in the sky comprised of floating water? It appears that Mario Galaxy’s commercial success was enough for EAD to score another stash of LCD and commit to a second drug orgy in Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Players of Super Mario Galaxy 2 will learn, very quickly, that this sequel was justified. That there are enough (if barely) new ideas to occupy a full DVD disc follow-up. Water blobs that float in space, free of containment, that players must swim through. Platforms that appear and disappear based on the beat of the world music. A factory producing Chomp Chomp spheres, presumably part of some consignment deal with King Koopa Incor. Navigating a sphere through a world of pencils and crafting supplies. Sure, mainstays like the Haunted House and Desert land are back, but even they have bizarre twists. Try riding a floating platform on a haunted river that sequentially folds itself into a square.

The same trippy-arsed power-ups from the last game also make a return. The goofy Bee suit, the goofy spring suit and the goofy ghost outfit all make a return to inspire and challenge cosplayers everywhere. Debuting here (and bound to appear in a Smash Bros game) are the rock suit (transforms Mario into a rolling stone, humming Dylan to himself) and the Cloud suit (creates up to 3 cloud platforms to trip balls on.) Yoshi also returns, in his most worthwhile appearance in a video game since Super Mario World. He/she/it can eat enemies and shit out star rocks…seriously. But this time, his bowel movements are controlled at the whim of the Wiimote pointer thingy. And fruit-triggered powers like the red pepper curry dash and the blue berry bloated gas blow give the game’s Yoshi segments some distinct hooks.

Right now, one can see that the developing a video game while baked enables for wonderfully abstract creativity in concept development. What it seems to stunt, however, is story writing. I can just imagine the writing meetings now.

“Dude, we should just, like, get the Princess and the fat guy should like, totally save her from the ugly green dude.”

“Dude, you just blew my mind!”

It’s the lazy standby that all Mario platformers follow. And yes, I know of the age-old excuse of story not mattering in this kind of game. But what offended me was how bold-faced the game is in not acknowledging the existence of Super Mario Galaxy 1. Mario runs into the white-star-fat-thing that lives in his hair in the introductory cutscene, which is treated like a first-ever encounter. Stars fall from the sky for what is proclaimed to be the first time in centuries. A cast of toad space explorers are assembled for seemingly the first time to once again be useless. Seeing so many reoccurring characters appear for allegedly the first time feels like too much of a stretch. Simply having one of those toads or star people say “hey, Mario! Welcome BACK! Bowser is causing trouble AGAIN and you should stop him AGAIN!” would have made me feel all the less insulted for investing so much time, enthusiasm and admiration for the first Mario Galaxy.

Perhaps pleading ignorance is the development team’s way of eliminating any needed backstory; allow players new to the series to hop in without needing to know what happened prior. The problem with this approach is that Super Mario Galaxy 2 really is not a game designed for those newcomers. Sure, frequent, optional tutorials explain the various moves and techniques in great, slow, methodical detail. But the difficulty of Mario Galaxy 2 has been considerably jazzed up. Sorry kids, but this is the grown-ups’ Mario Galaxy. Or at least the psycho-grown-ups’ Mario Galaxy.

And I can totally dig that. Many of the levels were designed with a varying degrees of malicious intent. Platform jumping calls for proper timing, accuracy and mastery of Mario’s various wacky Cirque du Soleil maneuvers. The Waggle-spin technique is back for more precise jumps, but there were rare moments where I felt the waggle was too imprecise for the specific challenges that were being presented. Just wait for the level where waggle-spinning manipulates the appearance of key platforms. Keep in mind, I would blame about 17.3536% of my jumping failures on the Wiimote’s inaccuracy and the other 82.6464% on the cruel hand of fate. But the game has a just brand of cruel, that kind of fair style of cruel, where you feel ever relieved for finishing a specific challenge.

That many of the early levels fit into this just brand of rewarding makes one feel obligated to go for a 100% completion rate. Super Mario Galaxy 1 had the same deal too, where so many stars appeared so inviting that one opts to complete every presented challenge before plowing the world’s boss and moving on. “Go for 120 stars again? Bring it on!” One may say.

At first.

The biggest reasons I feel that Super Mario Galaxy 2 does not measure up to Super Mario Galaxy 1 are related to the end-game and post-game. One of the last levels being a brick-by-brick revival to a stage from Super Mario 64? A little easy, but cute. I’ll survive. Then there’s the fact that you fight Bowser three times, all in relatively-easy battles. So the real final battle feel decidedly less climatic than the time he dared you to grab him by the tail. Besides, Bowser never puts up much a fight in any video game. His most difficult encounter may as well be landing on his death spot in Mario Party.

Once you do finish the game, the “Special” levels open themselves up. These are the apparent most difficult challenges in the entire game. Part of this hearty challenge entails…bringing back two specific sequences from Mario Galaxy 1 and a giant waste-of-time gauntlet against that’s games’ ever pathetic boss fights.

Okay, I can understand why these “S-world” levels weren’t deemed worthy of taking part in the main game. If you’re going to offer leftovers, best to leave them in the back of the fridge and give the kids the option to eat them or pass them off to the dog. So once you do get all 120 stars, the player is asked to refinish the final level and give Bowser another meteor up the ass.

Then you are kindly asked to go on a most lame fetch quest. Revisit each land, seek out 120 Green Stars, then pat yourself on the back. Only then will the game’s final final world open itself to players. Hell. Freaking. No.

But I digress. The game has so many great moments, levels and challenges leading up to this optional lame duck fetch quest to make this a worthwhile investment. I just feel like I am in a weird position, with most reviewers and fans proclaiming this game to be fantastic, incredible, mind-blowing, a revelation. Meanwhile, I would merely suggest that this game is merely a great follow-up that will satisfy loyal fans. And I know that merely being “great” could be viewed as an insult to some of the biggest Nintendo fans out there. And all I can say is that if you’re the kind of person that thinks 4 out 5 stars is too cruel for Super Mario Galaxy 2, then you either already bought this game or should hurry up and buy it.

4 stars

Super Mario Galaxy 1

For the longest time, it seemed like something was amiss from Mario games. I would argue that it has been at least a decade since this “it factor” vanished. The product of this missing “it factor” was soulless gimmick titles like Luigi’s Mansion and Mario Sunshine. For awhile it seemed like Nintendo acknowledged this too, with shameless reaches at nostalgia like New Super Mario Bros and Yoshi’s Island 2. These were titles struggling to recreate the magic of better games by imitating them, step by step. I’ve spent a long time attempting to figure out what this “it factor” was, but now I have an answer. The “it factor” isn’t innovation, or a gimmick hook, or good game design. It’s not a catchy theme song, or blind nostalgia for younger days. It’s not even the connection of being the major console launch title.

No, the secret to the success of the early Mario games is drugs.

Lots and lots of drugs.

Look at those early Mario games. Walking turtles with giant eyeballs. Polka-dot venus fly traps with carnivorous teeth, spitting fire spheres. A giant freaking shoe with a wind-up-dial that you can climb into. A dinosaur-steed that eats fruit with its tongue and spews fireballs or dust clouds based on devoured shell colour. Bullets with faces and arms. Bigger versions of the bullets with faces and arms. Sober minds did not come up with these ideas, folks.

Perhaps the Nintendo 64 era was one collective stage of rehab for the programmers at Nintendo. Perhaps Super Mario 64 was such a near-death experience that the family members all demanded they stop with their hallucinogens. Maybe the cameras were rolling on the E! True Hollywood Stories of Shigeru Miyamoto. I don’t know. I do know that the period of sobriety between Super Mario 64 to now led to some lame attempts at recapturing the magic of the early Mario games. I can believe that a talking water-spraying backpack was their lame, sober idea of recreating the glory of their drug-addled youth.

With Super Mario Galaxy, however, it looks like the Nintendo staff has caved into their addictions and returned to their vices! All of that wacky, drug-induced creativity that made those early Mario games so inventive have not only returned, but taken to new highs. Programmers, thank you for ruining your lives and families for my personal entertainment!

So the game begins in usual, kind of drab Mario affair. Mario gets invited to the Princess’s castle, presumably to play with Barbies or something. Then Bowser comes to kidnap the Princess, presumably to play Barbies with her or something. And Mario is off. With the big difference being that Bowser has somehow obtained godhood, and is attempting to reshape the galaxy as he sees fit. Presumably to play intergalactic Barbies. So Mario has to, err, go to space and deal with the intergalactic turtle alien menace.

Critiquing a Mario game’s story does often feel like critiquing the story of a Three Stooges episode. I know it shouldn’t matter, that gameplay comes before plot, but the guise of “it’s tradition” really shouldn’t be an excuse for lazy storytelling like “Bowser naps the Princess.” And the game has some text dialogue about some Space Princess that I could not be made to care about, yet am unable to scroll through. And be warned – do not ever enter the library! Ever ever ever! You cannot skip the background story dialogue that follows entering the library! It is quite literally Storybook Exposition Hell!

So you’ve got the overworld spaceship-castle that acts as your hub for your various intergalactic destinations. From there, you have access to the various worlds, or rather…galaxies. And the developers are very much playing loose with the idea of what a “galaxy” can consist of. These include such locales as the “Loopdeloop Galaxy”, the “Toy Time Galaxy” and the “Hurry-Scurry Galaxy.” And these galaxies exist for no other fathomable reason than to be veritable playgrounds for Mario. They can consist of a series of floating platforms, a series of floating platforms containing a single big tree that houses talking bees, a watery race track in the middle of space, a haunted house…also in the middle of space. How such geological formations can be created defies all sense of science and common sense. The 65 million years of erosion and formation taken to create, for example, the galaxy of floating switches, is beyond me. Or what kind of alien/slave effort was required to create the various floating pyramids in the desert. Shiguru Miyamoto has successfully dismembered the Big Bang Theory.

But when you don’t question the nature of things like you’re David Suzuki, you do realize what fun platforming levels you are about to undertake. Gone are the expansive, open (and boring) spaces of Nintendo 64 platformers, in favor of more interesting…structures? The paths to each star (I forgot to mention that you are once again collecting stars) are laid out, but each path can have some strange obstacles. Any given sequence can include; spherical mini-planets with self-sustained gravity and the diameter of your bedroom, a series of switches that appear and disappear, a serpentine path consisting mostly of fast-moving quicksand, a group of apple-planets connected by giant worms, a wall of honeycombs…you can see why developing game concepts on LSD would be so advantageous. There are occasional nods to past Mario games; a familiar tune here, wrench-throwing mole there, but nothing resembling the overbearingly desperate reach at nostalgia that was New Super Mario Bros Wii. Mario Galaxy’s nostalgia is more charm than cheap.

The bigger surprise of Super Mario Galaxy is just how amusing these levels are. Rare is the annoying fetch quest or dud mini-game. (Okay, there is one lame mini-game, involving exploding crates under the façade of “garbage disposal.” Why must there be a time-limit for this game, wherein a failure results in the garbage-robot replacing the crates he’s trying to eliminate?) Many of these star-missions are self-contained stages of platform-action glory, with more than enough diversity to keep the space quest interesting. Even the comet missions, which comprise of replaying a sequence under a handicap (a time limit, a health limit, a patience limit, etc) wind up being more worthwhile than they have every right to be. This is the rare game where striving for 100% completion feels less like a game-lengthening chore than an inviting excuse to keep experiencing more.

I should perhaps discuss the gameplay at some point. Mario handles mostly like he did in Mario 64, complete with all of the various jumps, long jumps, wall jumps and other wacky jumps. I’d favour a Mario 64 veteran will have an easier time completing this game on virtue of knowing these sacred zen techniques off heart. Contributing to the sense of variety are the return of various, temporary suits, such as the ghost outfit (for floating and transparency), the bee outfit (for floating and looking like a rank fool) and the good ol’ fire flower. While they’re all level-specific as opposed to Super Mario 3, which let you beat the game with the frog suit on if you were feeling capable and insane, they do contribute to the sense of diversity and strangeness.

However, the redundant three-punch-combo of Mario 64 is replaced by a universal spin attack executes by waggling the remote. Waggle truly is the most evil of gameplay innovations in the new millennium. While the Mario Galaxy waggle isn’t quite as annoying as waggle in just about every single Wii game in existence period end of story, I still yearned for the accuracy and reliability of a good old-fashioned button press. I theorize Nintendo’s next console will feature true 1:1 input control by introducing the evolutionary “controller” and “control pad” to render the Wii Motion Controls obsolete. How I can’t wait.

Though that Wiimote does get used to unusual effect regardless. You can use the laser pointer to control a star onscreen to catch coloured star bits, and subsequently fire star bits to stun enemies. Being that all of the in-game enemies are about as intelligent as bits of rocks themselves, you will never need to use this as an offensive maneuver. Rather, you can feed these to wand-waving star people that experience such orgasmic joy from eating star bits that they transform into planets! Yes, really. There are creatures in this game that aspire to become planets (giant land formations) or stars (gaseous spheres.) If you have a naïve girlfriend that wants to feel like she is participating, you can grab a second Wiimote and have a second star fly across the screen, collecting star bits and making little to no contribution to the action.

I really do like Mario Galaxy. A lot. There’s something inspiring about the sheer force of imagination that went into the game’s level design, and the game almost never feels drawn out or repetitive…even when it should. I’ve beaten it 100% on several occasions, and it’s the only other game of this generation that I would consider worthy of a perfect rating. And it’s the only one to do it without Batman.

5 stars

3D Dot Game Heroes

I felt so hardcore buying 3D Dot Game Heroes. I walked into two different Gamestops, on three different occasions, asking for this title, and none of the store clerks ever heard of the name. My e-penis became quite erect at the prospect of buying a title so niche, so leet, so underground that even the full-time staff of a games store never heard of it. It was like I was sticking it to the man in supporting 3D Dot Game Heroes, despite being published by a big company (Atlus) on a console controlled by a bigger company (Sony). And sure, striving for the status of “hardcore gamer” is a fool’s goal, not too far removed from striving to shut yourself out from the outside world. But for a few fleeting moments and $45 out of my wallet, I got to tell the mainstream game industry to take their God of Wars and Halos and Legend of Zeldas and stick it up their asses.

Maybe a poor choice of words. 3D Dot Game Heroes is very much a direct clone of the original Zelda. To be precise, the gameplay is 90% the NES Zelda, borrowing 9% of ideas from Zelda 2 and A Link to the Past, and 1% random jokes from many, many games. The plot, for example, mocks Zelda in its simplicity; an evil wizard wants to take over the kingdom and you the hero must deny him by way of fetching 6 magical orbs. The “hero” of course is a voiceless, characterless, personality-less drone who just does the right thing because people tell him to. A generic “hero of destiny”.

The fact that you can, at any given point, change who the “hero” is practically disses the notion of Link to me. The concept of “Link” is little more than a consistently-reoccurring appearance (guy in green garb with a shield and sword) and no notable traits and motivations besides “he is the chosen one.” In 3D Dot Game Heroes, you can choose from such “heroes” as knights, wizards, businessmen, mechs, animals, athletes and the cast of Tenchu. All of which can serve as templates in the hero editor that lets you create your own main character, complete with all six of his or her frames of animation. A few extra options in the editor, like the option to copy and paste specific segments, would’ve been nice. But the editor is versatile enough that you could recreate classic 8-bit characters, unusual pixel-monsters or otherwise. I was quite content saving the kingdom with a mighty 8-bit Hulk Hogan.

If the box art and the many, many, many trailers weren’t enough of an indicator, this game is all about presenting fugly pixilated sprites from the NES in the third dimension. The running joke of the game is that one day, the king decided to make the entire kingdom of Dotnia three-dimensional, and his will be done! It’s one of those strange gags that you can’t help but smile at; the king with mastery over time and space itself but helpless against the forces of evil. There are sly references, as the game makes constant nudges towards other titles: ranging from Metal Gear and Final Fantasy to the odd recent rib on Super Mario Sunshine and From Software’s own Demon’s Souls. But I feel like just making references doesn’t quite cut it. There’s the feeling that I was missing half the jokes due to half of my NES collection consisting of Ninja Turtles games. And besides, merely referring to an event in Zelda doesn’t quite cut it. Running into the “mumble mumble” monster or a guy who charged me money for blowing up his cave wall entrance is on the same level of witless humour as the Ghostbusters Video Game’s “hey, Slimer is in the hotel sliming Venkman again!” And that level of referential humour grows wearisome after awhile. There are even several rooms where you run into programmers making programming jokes; and that was the point where I realized From Software was not making a game for the masses, but rather to amuse themselves. I guess they deserve something to regain sanity after concocting Demon’s Souls from the darkest reaches of their hearts, but still.

For better or for worse, this game is the Legend of Zelda on the NES revived. It’s got about as much differentiation from that game as the New Super Mario Bros games do from the Old Super Mario Bros games. You walk across a wide open landscape, sword swiping enemies that include such archetypes as the goblin, the centaur, the mummy and the…coral reef. Even the bosses include such mainstays as the giant octopus and the giant stone statue. 3D Dot Game Heroes is certainly a unique reminder of how strange so many aspects of 8-bit games can be when taken out of context. You’ll later pick up such trademark Zelda toys as the boomerang, the bow and arrow and the hook-shot, and you may begin to wonder when this game stops pretending to be a rom-hack of Zelda and becomes an original Playstation 3 title (that moment never happens, by the way.) Actually, scratch that. 3D Dot Game Heroes has an accessible world map, old Zelda doesn’t. On that merit alone, this game’s better.

The other discerning trait about 3D Dot Game Heroes is that there are two real difficulty settings, which flop-flop during the game, based on your health meter. In the ultimate diss of Final Fantasy games, RPGs and Japanese fantasy in general (well, fantasy in more ways than one) your character can have an abnormally-large, screen-filling sword. This massive phallic attack decimates everything on the screen, rendering all of your other items impotent in their usefulness. You can go on side quests to get better swords, and receive varying enhancements from the blacksmith. Even mighty bosses easily fail to measure up if you wield a mighty enough tool. But your penis extension attack only exists if you have full health, and to not have such restores you to a standard, limp sword attack, and with it the mercy of the perilous dungeons and enemies. The later levels in particular can be quite challenging to the unprepared.

And preparation does become a necessity. You know how most boss fights in any game from the last 15 years will coincidentally leave endlessly-regenerating crates or pots filled with whatever ammunition you need to defeat your present adversary? 3D Dot Game Heroes is not that kind of game. Today’s age of self-regenerating health and forcing the character to carry whatever item is needed in a specific situation will leave modern day players frustrated and begging for someone to hold their hand. One must purchase candles and lamps, for example, from stores in order to navigate dark rooms in the dungeon without tripping into the conveniently-placed bottomless pit. One specific dungeon requires frequent use of magic abilities…and throws in an enemy capable of draining all but a single half-bar of health in magic in a single blow. Yes, really. A magical, evil, nefarious, evil, dangerous, very evil coral reef enemy.

Come to think of it, 3D Dot Game Heroes has successfully confused me in that I can’t tell if its flaws were bad game design or intentional jokes on other bad games. There’s a mandatory fetch quest that, while petty and short, still exists for no viable reason. But I can’t help but feel guilted into thinking it exists as a rib on fetch quests and not to lengthen the game an extra 5 minutes. The game crashed on me once, and I may or may not remember one of the in-game “programmers” referring to such a specific bug. That same specific dungeon I mentioned earlier (with the Coral Reef of Mortality) must be progressed and backtracked in a specific order to press the right switches and advance further… with no checkpoint until right before the boss battle. I can’t tell if most of these faults were meant to be jokes about bad game design in other 8-bit games or not, but they’re not quite excusable regardless. And like old Zelda, you may find yourself calling the Nintendo Hot Line (well, in 2010, they call it Gamefaqs) to figure out how to solve some of the more obscure puzzles.

On that same token, the game is just challenging enough that finishing it made my e-penis rise once again. For the first time since…well Demon’s Souls but the first time in years (in a world where Demon’s Souls never existed. A world with a slightly lowered suicide rate) I felt a great sense of accomplishment in finishing a game. Part of me feels inclined to celebrate, perhaps through buying a new game. Which involves trading in 3D Dot Game Heroes.

If you really, really want an experience that closely resembles the original Zelda, you will find exactly what you are looking for with 3D Dot Game Heroes…and nothing else. Being that you get all of the strengths and flaws of 8-bit gaming, this indeed becomes a case of be careful what you wish for.

Finally, who really was jonsing for nostalgia over the original Zelda? Between how readily available the NES Zelda is (Virtual Console or otherwise), how every Zelda game released features nostalgic throwbacks to the Zelda game before it, and how countless internet websites have make one meme and remark after another about Zelda games, this is not an appetite that needs satisfying. Being that 3D Dot Game Heroes isn’t attempting to be anything more than the Legend of Zelda Redux, and it achieves appropriately, here is a score that reflects the fact.

3 ½ stars

UFC 2010: Undisputed

Once upon a time there was a little boy in Las Vegas named Dana, and this boy had great dreams. “One day, I’m going to be the bravest bald man alive. And god do I hate that Tito kid!” So he worked, and struggled, and toiled, and knew some people who owned some casinos, and they bought a strange organization called Ultimate Fighting Championship. And through a combination of blood, sweat and tweets, he transformed this small haven of underground boring Royce Gracie fights to a mainstream epicenter of boring Anderson Silva fights. And now they make a stupid amount of money on UFC merchandise, run twenty-hundred UFC shows a year and now have an annual video game.

THQ and Yukes, whom somehow made a vastly superior Mixed Martial Arts game on their first try than their tenth annual wrestling game, return for UFC Undisputed 2: More Undisputed Than Ever. The good news is that most flaws that may have, errr, disputed UFC Undisputed’s gameplay have been addressed. The bad news is that Fedor Emelianenko’s people still make ridiculous demands that keep him from fighting in the UFC. And I guess the game has flaws too.

Career mode, for example, has seemingly been improved and scaled back, in a manner that reminds me of past career mode failures in the Smackdown vs Raw series. Menus have been streamlined and load times scaled back, meaning the downtime between fights is reduced and you are less pre-occupied with reading e-mails and having boring sparring sessions. The bad news is that your stats manipulate themselves in a strange fashion; whatever stats you don’t invest points in will actually regress over time, forcing you to carefully spread points earned in training sessions over 16(!) different attribute bars. This kind of bizarre micromanagement wore me out on career mode, and slowed down what was already a rather lengthy process of turning a shlump kid who gets picked last in school dodgeball into the next generic tattooed fighting sensation.

Just like in last year’s game, though, the upside to Undisputed is that the game so accurately recreates each fighter that you don’t need Career mode. You can just as easily amuse yourself through piecing together one dream match together. For example, you can virtually tell Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva to stop being BFFs and fight each other in a conflict that could shatter televisions across the nation from the sheer weight of boredom should such a fight occur. You don’t even need to look at those 16 bars, either; a regular UFC fan can have the faith that each fighter is true to form and can base your in-game strategies on real life tactics. You can assume, for example, that you don’t want to let Jon Fitch take you down and hump you to tears.

And just like in last year’s game, the gameplay is an accurate recreation of Mixed Martial Arts…is what the marketing taglines might say. This game doesn’t quite reflect the sport so much as depicts what Dana White wishes MMA would be. Any given virtual fight will have both fighters throwing a trillion punches back and forth, the kind of brawls that make the Sports Legacy Institute wince with terror. Even the ground game features both fighters constantly squiggling for positions like two angry wrestling earthworms. Mind you, I shall not complain, for I’d rather be entertained than have virtual Tito Ortiz lay and sleep on my arse. I’ve had one fight go to the judge’s decision in my entire play time, and it was an Ultimate Fights Challenge with said Huntington Beach Bad Boy. However, he did not cite his cracked skull or other injuries as reason for defeat.

Speaking of, Ultimate Fights did become my single-player experience of choice. The player is given the chance to recreate a famous past encounter as the winner or loser, and a list of optional goals like “score three takedowns” or “endure Joe Rogan’s stand-up comedy.” (Fortunately not a real goal.) Each fight is given an introduction by one of the UFC ring girls; beautiful ladies with the charisma of bricks. Afterwards, the actual pre-fight promo video plays, and it’s hard to not get amped up for your digital encounter after hearing the real life dude lay the virtual trash talk. It’s a seemingly small detail that just does wonders to get me excited about an upcoming battle.

Other new features include a more easy-to-comprehend clinch system that mirrors the ground game’s right analog stick squirming system, and no more mashing buttons for submissions. New to the list of fighters in 2010 are Dan Hardy’s mohawk, Shane Carwin’s receding hairline and Kimbo Slice’s beard. Savor this one folks, because Kimbo may not appear in another UFC game again. For whatever reason (perhaps discrimination against obesity) TUF 10 alumni Roy Nelson is only available as pre-order bonus. The Playstation 3 version of the game gets exclusive dibs on fighting legends like Royce Gracie and Dan Severn, as well as such minor events as Lesnar/Mir 2 and St Pierre/Penn 2 in their entirety. (Brock’s post-fight line about Coors Light was tragically edited out.) Why they’re PS3 exclusive, I don’t know. To make up for the lousy online servers?

About the online play then. In theory, fighting other Sherdog message board hounds that think they know anything about MMA is still the main attraction here. You can now join camps, which sound like ranked clans of sort, and I guess it’s a neat idea. A neat idea I’ll never try in practice on account of broke friends and my renting this game, but alas. The netcode is a pain, or at least it’s a pain in Canada on the PS3 version (just like it is with the Smackdown games), where matchmaking always scrambles under pressure and it takes many, many minutes staring at the background video of random fight clips before I found a challenger. Mind you, the game rarely lags when you do start a session, but these were problems I never endured when I played last year’s game on the Xbox 360.

Also, a note on this Octagon pass code business. I’m not entirely adverse to the concept of one-time use codes, but I was the first person to rent this specific copy of this game, and it will forever deck my conscience knowing I robbed a future fight fan of the online experience. And that there is a one-time-use code is poorly advertised; the player whom attempts starts an online game will be transported to the PSN Store and asked to spend additional money, rather than use the code on the back on the manual. Much like Paul Daley’s tactics in his fight with Josh Koscheck, that can’t be legal.

Oh, that introductory cutscene is a laugh. It’s the game’s original trailer, with the fighters talking tough and morphing into each other. I couldn’t help but chuckle as Tito Ortiz’s massive chin morphed into formation.

If you didn’t already own a UFC game before, than Undisputed is the one to buy, if through default. With all due respect to the people working on EA Sports MMA, I have no desire to ever look at a digital Jake Shields, so this is the game to stick with. But the decision to upgrade from last year’s model may be difficult, and depends entirely on how enthusiastic you were about the previous game. Anything less than a strong passion for digitally plucking at Kimbo’s beard may not be motivation enough to make the purchase.

3 ½ stars

Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Revolver was a modest action-shooter-game-thingy released on last generation’s consoles in 2004. I’d best describe it as an unorthodox spaghetti-western game with strange controls and a cast of cowboy archetypes that had the benefit of stylish load screens and trumpet-fueled music music. Red Dead Revolver is the non-sequel to 2010’s Red Dead Redemption, and quite frankly you will not hear the name of the former game in this text review again on account to how little in common the two western games have.

No, Red Dead Redemption is less the sequel to that western game than it is the prequel to Grand Theft Auto 4. It would not surprise me to find that I accidentally shot up Brucie’s ancestor in after an arm-wrestling match in Mexico gone wrong.

In Grand Theft Auto 4, you play as a former soldier, transplanted from his home to hunt down a former colleague or colleagues that betrayed you. Your attempts to approach things in an honest, law-abiding manner fail, both because the characters around you are decidedly immoral and because gamers hate abiding by laws. So, you will have to indulge in legally-questionable activities (often involving loss of life) to find your former allies, and do a lot of civilian killing and television-watching if you so desired.

In Red Dead Redemption, you play as a former outlaw, transplanted from his home to hunt down a former colleague or colleagues that betrayed you. Your attempts to approach things in an honest, law-abiding manner fail, both because the characters around you are decidedly immoral and because gamers hate abiding by laws. So, you will have to indulge in legally-questionable activities (often involving loss of life) to find your former allies, and do a lot of civilian killing and cinema-watching if you so desired.

Honestly the biggest difference between Redemption and Grand Theft Auto 4 may be the lack of a sidewalk to veer off on, making it harder to accidentally rack up a Wanted level through reckless abandon. But all things considered, Grand Theft Auto 4 is not a bad mold to be borrowing for your sandbox concept, and Red Dead Redemption successfully plays to most of GTA’s strengths, sometimes even to greater ability.

For example, protagonist John Marston is effective in his role of Hillbilly Bellic. He’s got the same strengths and weaknesses as unrelated cousin Niko: he oozes sarcasm like a leaky barrel oozes rum, he sees through the insanity of the game’s sleazeball characters and he presents himself a respectable, moral-driven man. He does have that same problem Niko had in that all the cutscenes of him defending women and resenting his criminal past do nothing to stop would-be players from tossing a prostitute down a flight of stairs. And he also has that same gullible streak of bending over backwards for every single individual that claims to have “information.” It becomes a bit pathetic to watch the man so willingly slay armies of goons and make large sums of money for certain people because they claim to know something about his targets. Your employers include a variety of western-oriented GTA-castoffs, from the shady snake oil salesman to one or two drunkards, lending the first third of the game a friendly tinge of dark humour.

Then John takes a trip to Mexico, aka the no-fun-zone. The light-hearted parody of criminals fades in favor of a story about corrupt Mexican government battling corrupt Mexican revolutionaries. But now I’m getting ahead of myself. Perhaps the biggest issue with Red Dead Redemption is that the pacing is rather uneven; you have the obligatory hour-plus of tutorial missions that Grand Theft Auto 4 subjected players to. Heaven forbid, you can’t go catching criminals without first learning how to herd cattle. Then there’s a rising build of drama leading towards your hunt of certain outlaws, and as you finally reach the end of that story arc…you conveniently remember about the leader of your former gang and begin a new quest to hunt him down. After that storyline hits a second peak, there’s another hour of drab, dénouement-oriented missions before the game hits its third climax and the campaign ends. (Actually, once the campaign ends, there’s a side mission you can complete that truly wraps up the plot and brings forth end credits and closure.) I shan’t spoil anymore, but I will justify the game in saying that the peaks of the game’s story are indeed interesting and the endgame is an inspiring twist for the sandbox genre.

Like Grand Theft Auto, it also helps that there is a decent variety of missions to complete. Mind you, there is nothing that compares to the creative odysseys of challenges in GTA4 or San Andreas; you won’t sign up to a gay online dating site to assassinate someone or break in Area 51 to steal a jetpack. But the game at least comes up with a reasonable number of variations on “attack the enemy base” and “fight off the enemies chasing you”, gradually introducing new gameplay mechanics at a humane pace. Most of the action comprises of duck-and-cover based shooting that has since become more the norm in video games than jumping on enemy heads. But the combination of the lack of automatic weapons in the 1900s and the typical outlaw’s poor nutrition makes gun combat a quick, blunt, satisfying affair; it typically takes two shots from your coarse rifles to take down any number of enemies. Unoriginal as it may be, gunning down large swarms of outlaws is more entertaining here than in the likes of Uncharted or Grand Theft Auto or even Gears of War.

Then you have Dead Eye, the one single holdover from Red Dead Re…I mean every western game from the last 6 years. Here, time slows down, allowing you to pick individual shots off several targets at once. The immediate logical use seems for Dead Eye would be to clear out a room of baddies, but I rather enjoy the more oddball purposes; such as sniping birds out of the sky, or blowing the firearm out of an enemy’s hands. As cathartic as virtual murder can be, I found greater enjoyment in disarming an enemy, then tying them up with the lasso, throwing them on the back of the horse and riding to the sheriff as they make assorted vows of violence. An assortment of the game’s side missions offer better rewards for bringing in outlaws alive and as a means of defying the sandbox genre’s typical pro-death message, I was happy to oblige.

Which brings forth the point that Red Dead Redemption is not a game with a want for more to do. At any given point, you can divulge in a bevy of side quests, many with their own story arc. Or you can hunt for bounties, take part in the neighbourhood watch (which is similar to a real-life neighbourhood watch, but with guns), gamble, go hunting, herd cattle, break in horses, raid gang hideouts, search for treasure or get drunk and engage in the most hilarious drunkard physics in gaming to date. Seriously, the bar from Grand Theft Auto 4 has been raised in the field of getting your character plastered and tripping over stairs.

The most interesting missions are the ones you don’t even know about; the game has a funny habit of throwing random events at you. Bandits may raid the town, strangers challenge you to duels, someone throws the idea of robbing a bank in your head, wild animals appear, or the most common of all; the hooker being abused. The town of Armadillo has no respect for women. You can elect to ignore these events, or take action for the name of boosting your fame and honour. “Honour” is the obligatory good vs bad morality system that nigh every other game must feature, but Redemption smartly uses this in a passive manner, rather than forcing it down your throat the way titles like Imfamous or that last Spiderman game did. “Honour” is merely a reflection of how the people around you react; civilians may hate a scoundrel whom also earns the respect of fellow outlaws with poor dental hygiene, for example. In turn, this feels like a smarter use; enforcing the idea that you the player are in a breathing world that knows you exist and responds accordingly.

There are also a few odd quirks and strange features that hold back the experience; you’ll run into a handful of bugs and glitches; one sidequest cutscene is acted out by two talking, invisible figures, one pulling a con on the other, and their lack of errmm…presence made it hard to figure out what was going on or who I’m supposed to lasso. Another instance saw a herded cow fly off the face of the planet, Earthworm Jim-style, never to be seen until I rebooted my last save. I also wish the game’s quick-travel system was a tad less finicky at times. To quick-travel to a location, you must first start a fire and set up camp, which I presume is illegal to do in the middle of a town square or on a near a lake for whatever reason. I get that the game wants you to always take the scenic route and appreciate all the effort the developers put into their wild rabbit animations, or that the stagecoach drivers need income too. I don’t care. When I have the urge to gun down rustlers, I want those rustlers in front of my Winchester rifle now.

Finally, a note on the multiplayer; you can elect to play in ranked matches, which distill the experience into your basic deathmatch/team deathmatch/capture the flag variants. Likewise, a standard online session merely drops challenges, shoot each other, shoot the locals, gang up to shoot the locals and likewise. Playing this mode with strangers is kind of pointless, being that strangers will just mind their own business and take a dump or two in the woods. But as a means to goof off with a group of online buddies eager to exercise the second amendment, this mode is tops.

The cop-out final summary sentence for Red Dead Redemption is “if you like Grand Theft Auto 4, you’ll like this game.” True as it is, this game at least deserves credit for other successes. It’s the first western game that feels like a western game and not the mod of a more popular third of first person shooter. And for all intents and purposes, it may be the most “successful” sandbox game I’ve ever played. What I mean is that it’s the game that best leaves me feel like part of a virtual world in which I have true interaction with. Not in the canned “do this mission to free this percent of town from criminals” structure of Infamous or the virtual playground of cathartic death of Grand Theft Auto, but rather a living, breathing world that you can soak in the scenery and engage in activities befitting a cowboy-person-guy. And finally, this is the first real contender for the best game of 2010.

4 ½ stars

Final Fantasy 13...finally

Final Fantasy 13 has had a highly positive effect on my life. I found myself studying more diligently for finals, effectively boosting my grades to honour-roll levels. I spend more time exercising, socializing with friends and family, and dating a lovely lady (insert winking smiley face) thanks to Final Fantasy 13. The reason being that the disc for Final Fantasy 13 sits there, begging to be played, and the part of me that puts the guilt trip for spending $70 on the game is demanding I finish it before moving on to another game. But the other part of me just refuses to torture myself with a title that punishes me so. So as a deterrent to gaming, Final Fantasy 13 is great!

As you’d guess from this unlikely revelation, Final Fantasy 13 is lousy as a form of entertainment. There are many reasons why. Let us start with the plot. Here is a base summary.

“There is a city encapsulated in a sphere, sheltering itself from the outside world and viewing all foreigners as terroristic monsters. Within both the city and outside world are god-like figures that curse random citizens with a destiny. Feared by the general public, these citizens must either complete their assigned task and become crystallized in peaceful slumber or fail and become hideous monsters. A random group of colourful characters are brought together and cursed by said gods and must attempt to break the curse.”

I challenged myself to summarize the background of the game’s universe and plot in the simplest means possible, as a way of defying the game. Final Fantasy 13 does an outright terrible job explaining its fiction. This franchise has a history of using abstract naming conventions for characters, settings and ideas and FF13 raises the bar in the field of confusing terminology. Why is a destiny called a “Focus”? Why is the outside world labeled under the sweeping term of “Pulse”? The game doesn’t make an attempt to explain these terms for hours, asking the player to read some datapad/codex/thingy so they can be brought up to speed. In turn, the player is spited at the 6 or 7 hour mark when the game finally decides to tell you what it means to be a L’Cie, for example. This is a very badly-paced plot.

Which is a shame, because there are some good ideas buried somewhere within the game. Even if past Final Fantasy games have beaten religious and nationalist themes to death in the past, there’s at least somewhat of a creative angle here. And there are likable characters such as the perpetually jaded Sazh and the perpetually fist-pumped Snow, but their charm is squandered in a wave of dialogue, riddled with the game’s own lingo. All I ever hear is “Fal’cie-this, Cocoon-that”, and even knowing the terminology, I felt like I’ve been bombarded with one cutscene after another that existed for no reason other than for the sake of existing. Final Fantasy 13 feels more drawn out than the negotiations for a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

And don’t get me started on Vanille. This woman does not think; she merely speaks what random thoughts enter her mind. Had she not wielded a magic whip, she would not survive South Central Los Angeles at night. And even then the leather whip will give people the wrong idea.

There seems to be two reoccurring themes in Final Fantasy 13. Either the game is trying to overcomplicate matters, or thoroughly distill them. The combat system, for example, can be rather convoluted if you so choose it to be. There are tomes worth of spells and attacks to learn and use in combat. The idea here is that characters are meant to use attacks in combinations, with some combinations working more effectively than others. What combinations work best against what enemies…I can’t be made to figure out. How should I know if Fire and Blitz works better as an attack than Blitz and Attack, for example. So instead, I opted for the more user-friendly “auto-battle” option, where you just take the game’s word that it’ll pick the correct offensive madness. It’s like Manual Transmission in racing games; it’s there for purists, but why wouldn’t I want the streamlined approach? Because of the Auto-Battle optionm most of my battles consisted of my mashing of the X button repeatedly. How ironic that, in attempting to stray from JRPG conventions with its combat system, Final Fantasy 13 embraces a common JRPG stereotype.

The other issue with the combat in the game is that the game both gives and takes away a considerable amount of control to the player. On one hand, you can only control the actions of the party leader. On the other, each character has multiple character classes, like “Ravager”, “Sentinel” and “Synergist”, which are of course needlessly complex ways of saying attacker, tank and buffer. The game allows players to control the general ebb and flow of battle by changing to different combinations of character classes to dictate different needs, whether it’s full offense or recovering from an ass-whooping. However, the partner AI leaves a bit to be desired; if an AI is the “Synergist”, the buffer, they’ll cast all their buffs on a single person rather than spread the necessary, life-saving wealth around. Likewise, you’ll want your character to be an attacking class, not just because casting buffing spells is not manly enough for you, as your attacks dictate which adversary the party focuses their efforts on. It’s a very strange system that takes too much control out of the player’s hands for no reason other than to needlessly complicate the game.

The way the game handles upgrades is also worded in a matter that makes it seem more complex than it really is. There are a great amount of strange lingo that go into the “Crystarium” system, which is best described as Final Fantasy 10’s sphere grid in High Definition. There is somewhat more depth in being able to level-up separate jobs per character, but the process of booting up and making tweaks to an individual character is slow and bothersome, further damaging the game’s uneventful pace. You can also upgrade each character’s weapons by breaking down items found in the game world, a system I’ve never been a big fan of. I’ve always been scared to death of investing all my resources into a single sword, only to stumble across a bigger sword, for example.

And when you’re not fighting assorted throngs of colourful enemies that underwent a strange evolution (like the tribal-dancing birds…Darwinism in Pulse is a mystery) or fumbling through menus, you are… not really doing much of anything. Someone at Square-Enix decided that silly little details like shops, NPCs and interactive objects were unnecessary and distilled them from the experience. Within the game world, the player can only truly interact with treasure chests and a computer that handles all your saving and shopping needs. After all, we are the generation that communicates, surfs the web, reads, writes and makes farting sound effects with one IPhone. Otherwise, the world is but an empty, single corridor that the player must walk forward on, dueling with whatever monsters enter their path. The world, as visually appeasing as it looks, feels empty and confining, rather than inspiring and alive. And you feel like you are merely walking from one cutscene to the next. Again, in seeking change from the norm, Final Fantasy 13 embraces more of the genre’s stereotypes.

The constant murmurs I’ve heard in the past were that Final Fantasy 13 does get better at a specific point. At the 25-hour mark, the strictly linear paths go away and the player is allowed to explore a sprawling field in any direction they so desire. I did reach that point, inevitably, long since fatigued by the first 25 hours of punishment. But once I found this field of dreams, I ceased to care. All that awaited me were more loosely-controlled battles and more cutscenes with worse-spoken English than Metal Gear Solid 4 (and that’s a huge insult.) At the 28 hour mark, at a difficult boss that no strategy that my Auto-Battle-weaned mind could figure out, I gave up. I tapped out. Threw in the towel. No more Final Fantasy 13, please.

The game isn’t completely without redeeming qualities that would warrant attention from the most devout of JRPG fans; the art style, unorthodox as ever, is still flashy. The fights have a frenetic feel to them, as characters unleash bombastic magic attacks at a quick pace, littering the screen with shiny explosions. The CG cutscenes are ideal for showing off that sweet new flatscreen TV you’ve just hauled home. The orchestral soundtrack is the kind of sweeping affair you’d expect from Final Fantasy. So this game does hit all the right aesthetic notes, if that’s what you value in a video game.

But as virtual entertainment, it’s the biggest letdown of 2010 thus far. The story is terribly paced, the combat is unstable and the game feels very non-interactive and dead. If you’re looking to enjoy yourself playing a video game, this is not the title for you. This is a game that wants to be looked at; to be appreciated for its appearance over its substance. In that regard, Final Fantasy 13 is the Snooki of video games.

3 stars

Unrelated to Final Fantasy 13 – how the hell do people side with Manny Pacquaio? He is refusing to fight Floyd Mayweather because Floyd wants drug testing…and Floyd is the villain? What is wrong with the media? Hell, why is Larry Freaking Merchant condoning drug use in claiming Mayweather is unfair?

Iron Man 2

It’s not morally ethical to mock death, it seems. Even if it sounds ridiculous to hear of someone passing on for licking a lightning rod, there’s still the tragedy that a human lost life, so I don’t know if I’m allowed to call out that person for the buffoon he was. Such is the predicament that comes when a game developer closes down before their game is released. It’s happened with Pandemic and The Saboteur, and now it’s happening with Sega’s San Francisco Studio and Iron Man 2. A lot of probably great, hard-working citizens lost their jobs in the studio closures. Thus, I feel like I would be vilified for holding the developers accountable for the final product sucking the dog’s bollocks. And unlike Pandemic, Sega Studios San Francisco (originally Secret Level Games) did have a lousy track record with a shoddy Golden Axe remake, so is it a bad thing to say these guys might be at fault for their own demise?

Besides, what kind of name is “Secret Level Games” anyways? What is their mission statement, “To enter the warp pipe of the player’s heart”? Curious, I dug up their website and found that they are actively seeking a senior gameplay programmer. Apply today.

The Iron Man 2 video game has little to do with the movie. Don Cheadle is in it, looking scary as all hell, perhaps the biggest victim of the uncanny valley in gaming history. Samuel L Jackson is also in there as Nick Fury, making me yearn to play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas again. Someone that looks like Robery Downey Jr but sounds distinctly more nasal is in the game as well. Sadly there is no digital Mickey Rourke for this game is not worthy of such an honour. Rather, the plot is built around some evil businessman and the president of Russia (no joke) building their own Ultimo. And said Ultimo lives up to his long time gimmick of being the evil robot that betrays whatever tried creating him, so it’s Iron Man and War Machine to the rescue. The plot is standard comic fare, though some poorly-edited cutscenes provide the odd moment of unintentional humour. One particularly great moment has what I can only describe as all of the main characters together spouting one random exclamation and phrases after another and at least one person has what I think is a heart attack in the process. And another near the end of the game features a simulation of detonating Legos in an explosion worthy of the Playstation 1. Metal Gear Solid 4 this is not. In fact this game may have occasional moments of worse English than Metal Gear Solid 4.

You can choose (most of the time) to play as Iron Man or War Machine. But being as you can outfit each of them with similar weapons anyways, the core difference seems to be which one you’d want to spook children with. Once you hop into a mission, you face the dire task of wrapping your mind around the game’s unorthodox controls. Nigh every button on the controller is used for something important, from flight control to weapons, and I feel as if this game was designed on an imaginary controller with 10 shoulder buttons. I was particularly annoyed when a mission-specific superpower (like Iron Man’s temporary “I AM IRON MAN” invincibility or War Machine’s temporary “I AM WAR MACHINE” weapon’s power up became available,) because the same Xbox 360 d-pad that activates it also scrolls between weapons. This game needs recognize that I’ll always want to use Tony’s hand lasers, and switching otherwise is killing my Iron Buzz. But once you wrap your mind around the bizarre control scheme, the game at least succeeds at making you feel like you are Iron Man (or his lackey, in Rhodey’s case). You fly, hover, shoot things and execute canned combos like one would expect Iron Man to. This is very much the closest we’ve gotten to virtual Iron Man since that unlikely-yet-so-sleek-looking Game Boy Advance game.

And once you comprehend the finer points of playing like Iron Man, you’ll realize that a superhero’s job really isn’t as amusing as you would hope. The vast majority of the game’s missions feature some kind of escort or protect concept, always a chore in gaming to begin with. It seems like the ships and people of SHIELD are well in over their heads when it comes to fighting the forces of evil and need your aid. Most vehicles or people will have a third of their health chip away if you allow so much as a single missile barrage past your watch. Thus, the best course of defense is to fly directly in front of a barrage of missiles like the suicidal millionaire you are and use a specific deflection counter-attack. Bear in mind that the enemy knows that Tony Stark has a missile deflection technique and responds by sending several smaller enemies to melee attack you. You see, the enemy as attempting to exploit the bit of code in the game that states “when an enemy punches you, the game gives that enemy your undivided attention; time slows down, the camera refocuses and you are forced to counter with a canned combo of its own, abandoning any prior targets you were trying to protect your friends from.” Hence the protection missions becomes very frustrating very fast, and the game has a hearty load of them.

Between missions, the player is given the chance to use points earned in battle on upgrades. And my the upgrade system is considerably unwieldy. The game attempts to go more elaborate than the normal “this upgrade makes your attacks stronger” by offering different ammunition types and modules to purchase. Then it gives the player four different versions of each of the game’s weapons that you can, in theory, load out with different modules and ammo. Trying to wrap your mind around what all this fictional science means is a bit of a long process, and while it may not be much an obstacle for people used to old Mechwarrior games, normal folk who struggle with setting the microwave clock are in for a cold learning process. And why do we need four different versions of each weapon? Most weapons are only compatible with a select few set of mods anyways. The laser weapons in particular seem to be only willing to accept one other ammo type, so why have four of them? This is just another example of a game making things more complex than need be. And children are going to be playing this too, eh?

The comedy of errors continues. People always joke about how absurd ragdoll physics can be, often forgetting how even more absurd things can be without them. Your typical death animation consists of floating in the air for a few seconds, being hung by the invisible rope before crumbling on the floor. The game really has all of three boss fights and I feel no shame spoiling them. You’ll battle against Crimson Dynamo, the Russian villain in an Iron Man suit (and I feel like there’s at least six of those in the Marvel universe.) His attacks include a series of short range explosions and swipes that he’ll randomly attempt, even if you’re a mile away, listening to AC/DC in a Hummer with the troops. His other attack can only be described as the Colossus Grab from Marvel vs Capcom 2; maybe it’s some common Russian Sambo tactic. His version has homing capabilities; as he lunges at you slowly, from a mile away. And yet this goofy reach attack is nyet impossible to dodge. It’s almost funny how slow-paced and yet almost-inescapable this dashing heroic reach technique can be.

There’s also a specific spider tank boss that you’ll fight about 5 or 6 times, with a hearty amount of time spent widdling away at his mighty health bar. Later, in what can either be called a plot swerve or an attempt to reuse as many in-game assets as possible, a spider tank joins your team and you must guide in…yep, an escort mission. Then there’s that final battle with a giant, hulking Ultimo, which could perhaps be considered a memorable battle in regards to scope, even if the friggin commercial spoils it.

If you are wondering why this review is up so soon, well I’m surprised too. This game is very short, about 4-5 hours long. And that is with a considerable amount of filler; two back-to-back levels (both protection missions of course) take place on the same locale, defending Officer Tenpenny’s warship from incoming Grove Street Families. With the numerous protection missions, this game does feels padded out in length.

The best compliment I can give to Iron Man 2 is that it is a good deal more enjoyable than the first Iron Man video game that Secret Level made. But that statement merely refers to the upgrade from “unplayable” to “playable.” Maybe another year in development could’ve turned this into something special. But the current game feels grossly undercooked. It’s not dreadful, but is not particularly fun either. This game isn’t really worth the $10 rental, to be honest.

2 ½ stars