After over four years of service, I had to retire my silver slim PlayStation 2 unit this week. It wasn't broken, really, but a few discs were having trouble being read by the console and DVD movies no longer played on it. I'm now the owner of a brand new black PlayStation 2, in its final hardware iteration.
Back in 1999, when I first got my hands on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater demo for my PlayStation, I knew that I was in trouble. I played it for hours, trying to improve my scores and seeing what crazy combinations of tricks that I could muster. I'd never ridden a skateboard—and I still haven't—but games like Skate or Die on the Commodore 64, Top Skater in the arcade, and even Street Sk8er for the PlayStation put me in a position where I could actually be that cool guy on the board without breaking every bone in my body.
Kingdom Hearts II is a really messed up game. It's got awful pacing, the grievous re-usage of almost all the content from the first game, and a narrative so incomprehensible it makes the Star Wars prequels look logical. Still, I'll be damned if I've ever seen a better JRPG combat system. It's like my good friend Tim Spaeth's irrational love of Too Human's combat, except mine is totally rational and sensible. The one area where Kingdom Hearts II really succeeded for me was with it's bosses, which I've mentioned before. It's got all shapes and sizes of boss, and it does them all extremely well.
In honor of Brad's gaming brick wall blog post and the comments that followed, here is College Humor parody video. Would some of those classic games have been as revered without the legendarily tough stages? You be the judge.
HIGH The cutscenes will make you wistful for the superior films.
LOW My wrist. Ow… Ow; my wrist.
WTF Who is this game for!?
It was 10 years ago this past week that the PlayStation 2 launched at retail to long lines, tight supply, and excited consumers.
HIGH: The dating simulation "Adventure Mode."
LOW: Long battles, followed by even longer boss fights, without a break. (Or a save point).
WTF: The dating simulation is the high point. In a game about giant mech fighting.
Some years back I played Dead to Rights and found its plot so captivatingly, amazingly ludicrous that I wound up writing a fifty-odd page review of it. It was relatively well-received by people who worked on the game, and even wound up being mentioned in 2005's prequel, Dead to Rights II. Now, to celebrate the release of Dead to Rights: Retribution, I've decided to repost the review here, now with illustrations! Hopefully the occasional image and video will help make it a little more palatable—yes, I'm well aware that it's TL, and I won't be offended if you DR.
That guy with the earthquake move. The ice thing. The stupid jerkface that won't hold still. Whatever their form, bosses have been a part of gaming since the early days of Atari. Personally I've always been a sucker for boss battles-they can very heavily influence my opinion of a given game. However, based on many games I've spent time with recently, Tim's question from the most recent podcast (mentioned around the 39:00 mark) is a valid one-do they even make good boss battles anymore?
HIGH A great game-ending twist.
LOW Almost every nightmare sequence is perfectly awful.
WTF It seems this therapist is a session drinker.
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