Sometimes you get a really interesting PS2 demo disc with your OPM, sometimes you don't. Issue #97 had the famed Shadow of the Colossus demo, which I thought sucked. I was disappointed because we really liked Ico and Colossus comes from the same developers. A good demo, first and foremost, ought to convince you to buy the game... the Colossus demo convinced me not to bother. It looked cool... although the main character's running animation was bizarre and unnatural, something that ought to be long beyond fixed in this day and age. There is lots more of that good pure-white lighting that made Ico so drenched in atmosphere. One of the talking points on Ico is that, when every other game was creating atmosphere through darkness (because it's easier to do it that way), Ico did it through light. You can see that attitude in Colossus. However, the gameplay was a mess. You're supposed to be scaling a giant walking monster - like Sweetums of the Muppets - and finding certain stab points to bring it down. I never got higher than his shin, because the controls are lousy and if you screw around too long he shakes you off. Eh.
That was last disc. This one has some better demos on it. The big one is Soul Calibur III. I'm far from a fighting game connoisseur, so even though the magazine article crowed about how different the game is from previous Soul Caliburs, it still felt the same to me. Which is to say, fun, because I loved Soul Calibur II on my GameCube. Unfortunately, III is a PS2 exclusive, which means it looks crappier than it would on the Cube. Although I remember when Splinter Cell was an Xbox exclusive and Resident Evil 4 was a GameCube exclusive, so I'm not going to worry overmuch about it. If it comes to GameCube, I'll get it. If it doesn't, the world will probably still keep on spinning.
One super cool feature - and the main reason I feel the urge to buy it - is the new character creation mode. They actually did include a sample of this in the demo, which is awesome because usually with demos you get one lousy timed level and a marketing fullscreen loaded with bullet points. It would have been really easy for Namco to simply say "Make Your Own Fighter With Amazing Character Creation Controls!111!!!11!!" but they went the extra mile and put it in the demo for you to play with. Have I mentioned how much I love Namco? So I made a female ninja character in a kind of barmaidy outfit and proceeded to get my ass kicked by the CPU player. It was fun.
Star Wars Battlefront II. Big eh. I was never much impressed with the first one, which I felt took the awesomeness of the Star Wars universe and watered it down to yet another Counter Strike clone. If this one services the brand any better, they didn't demonstrate that in this demo. I ran around as a Clone Trooper and pretended I cared about shooting Battle Droids in the face.
Crash Tag Team Racing. These guys really ought to be ashamed of themselves for copying Mario Kart Double Dash so fiercely. I guess if you don't have a GameCube this is better than nothing. The major "enhancement" over Double Dash is that the gunner has automatic weaponry instead of a Koopa shell. EXTREME! Regardless, it looks like a typical waning-days PS2 game: dark, pixelly and mediocre.
Indigo Prophecy. You have to give this game the award for Most Ambitious Game That No One Will Ever Buy. It is clearly one of those video-game-legitimacy bids; it's the kind of game that could get quoted in a counterpoint argument when somebody starts attacking video games as being all violent and worthless. It's interactive fiction and if that phrase doesn't give you the screaming shakes by now, you haven't been into gaming very long. Every couple of years somebody gets it into their head that we can raise the bar for video game standards with interactive fiction. They pop out a game with high production values, pour their soul into it, whip up movie trailer style commercials, and then no one buys into it. Oh sure, they get cult recognition, but what does that get you? Lots of people are all abuzz with rumors of Shenmue 3 in the next generation, but do you really think that it's going to be a system seller?
Back to Indigo Prophecy. It is interesting, that is undeniable. The demo begins with a virtual version of the game's designer telling you how it works, which is amusing... then you're on, playing as a man who just murdered a complete stranger in a diner bathroom. When you walk near stuff in the room that you can act upon, a control menu pops up with your options - and this is the strange part - you make your selection by flicking the right analog stick in the direction shown. So when you stand by the sink, if you flick up you look in the mirror and talk to yourself, and if you flick right you turn on the tap and wash the blood off of your hands. It's novel, but I'm not sure how much better it is than just hitting the X button. It certainly doesn't help with immersion any more than a button press.
The goal of the demo is to clean up the mess and get out of the diner before a cop wends his way into the bathroom and discovers the body. If you're still in sight when the police arrive, the game ends with you arrested for the crime. (And obviously there is more to the story than you being a random murderer: you're being controlled by some faraway psychic baddie. I assume the game's plot revolves around you discovered just what the hell is going on.) On my first run through the demo, I messed around too much in the bathroom taking unnecessary pees, so the cop walked in on me: end of demo. Second time through I cleaned up the body (wash hands, mop up blood, stash victim in a stall) and calmly walked out of the diner... until the waitress reminded me that I hadn't paid for my meal, so I had to walk back to my table and pick up the check. Then I hustled out of the store and ran around a small city block until I found a cab: end of demo.
Here's one of those cutesy interactive fiction touches. When the cop makes his approach to the bathroom, the game goes into a splitscreen so you can still work while watching him walk into the bathroom and discover the body. If you're still in the bathroom at the time, it's nicely harrowing.
But this is why I won't buy it: I hate trial and error gameplay, particularly when the wrong turn ends the game. "Do you want to restart from the last checkpoint?" Thanks for breaking the illusion with all this rewinding time bullshit.
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. SPIDER-MAN versus JOHNNY OHM! Who? Just who thought it was a good idea for EA to fabricate their own hero characters to duke it out with the established Marvel characters? What a tremendous waste of resources. Just give us a big Marvel brawler with a ton of people we know and actually want to play. There are enough no-name losers in the Marvel U available for work without having to manufacture new ones. Or here's an idea, make the game Marvel vs. DC. I liked this game better when it was being referred to as Marvel vs. EA and we all though we'd be able to face Wolverine against Madden.
Even if you assume that Johnny Ohm is just as worthwhile a character design as anybody in the cast of Soul Calibur, the game itself is lame. Run at each other, punch and kick. It's just silly to make games with super heroes when they don't get to do much of anything super. There's also a hilarious opening movie where we're supposed to accept that Team EA has spaceships that are infinitely more awesome than any Marvel character.
Sly 3: Band of Thieves. I love the Sly games, but my single point of pain with them is well publicized: I hate playing as anyone other than Sly. Sly's moves are so fluid and fun, his thief tricks are so clever... that anybody else just seems like forced busy work. So guess what, Sly 3 has even more non-Sly playable characters. Knock it off already. Bentley and Murray were great as limited-use mini-game fronts, but they totally suck as leads. Whenever you play as them you just look at all the environmental obstacles you could easily clear as Sly and get pissed off that you can't.
By the way, Bentley is in a wheelchair now, which makes me roll my eyes so hard up into my skull that it hurts. What is this, the Burger King Kids Club? "His name is Wheels and he is totally rad!" I was really hoping that the crippling of Bentley at the end of Sly 2 would lead to an all-Sly-all-the-time #3. Not the case.
The Sly 3 demo is nicely packed. You get an arena brawl level that shows off how annoying it is to play as Murray and Bentley, a flying level, a level showing another new non-Sly character (a koala with possession powers that I couldn't pull off no matter what I tried) and a 2P Sly vs. Carmelita level.
The brawl level is okay, the flying level (dogfighting biplanes) is cool, and as I said the koala level was miserable. The 2P demo is very nice, although the split screen is awfully small. So, 2 for 2, really.
Urban Reign. I think it's some kind of hip hop Street Fighter, but when I tried to load it it instead reset the PS2. So there you go.
