Goldeneye 007

The Short


Pros
- Proved for the first time that FPS games can work on a console controller
- Loads of characters and maps
- Relatively robust and surprisingly open-ended single player
- Four-player multiplayer had a variety of weapons and game types
- Has duel wielding before any of the Halo games thought that was unique

Cons
- Looks really, really bad today
- Controls also have aged very poorly
- Game is completely outclassed by modern shooters
- UI for life/ammo is bulky
- Lots of glitchy bugs in single player
- Some characters, such as Jaws and Oddjob, are imbalanced in the multiplayer mode

Master Chief, eat your heart out. Also, most screenshots will be emulator uprezed

The Long

Goldeneye 007 was a revelation. After years of Quake and Doom dominating the FPS scene on computers, consoles were still trying to catch up. When the N64 and Playstation finally made the "official" jump to 3D, it isn't surprising they wanted to cash in on that profitable FPS market. They'd ported games like Wolfenstein to the SNES with rather poor results, but the N64 had something different. Rather than just having a d-pad, it introduced an analog stick with full 360 movement. Rare, already famous for their Donkey Kong Country games, decided to try and do the impossible: make an FPS that worked on a bulky controller.

Thus, we got Goldeneye 007. And the rest is history.

And they said it couldn't be done, mwhahaha!

I have plenty of great memories sneaking over to my friend's house to play some 2-4 player Goldeneye. It was a revelation, offering four players on a single box (unlike computers, where you'd have to LAN it, everybody with separate towers). It was the ultimate party game, and the friend in my neighborhood who had it was pretty much king of the street. Using a combination of the trigger, analog stick, and the side d-pad, you could now both move and shoot with relative fluidity (made possible through a very generous auto-aim). It was a novel concept, and one that eventually lead to Perfect Dark and the advent of duel analog stick FPS control.

So, it's been 15 years since Goldeneye came out. Is it still as good as my memories remind me? Well...no. In fact, after playing modern FPS games, Goldeneye is borderline unplayable. 

Ah, here's how the game actually looks on an N64!

The controls have aged horribly. Yes, they were revolutionary at the time and yes, they paved the way for what is now a massive FPS scene on consoles (arguably bigger than on computers now, except maybe Team Fortress 2), but Goldeneye straight up sucks now. It isn't fun to play, it's clunky and ugly, and I actually get hand cramps trying to play it. And the multiplayer? It's still pretty good in concept, but trying to get three friends willing to tolerate the awful controller and control scheme for the same fun they could be having on Halo or Call of Duty and you have a hard sell.

The auto-aim is also frustrating, as it is extremely generous to the point of insane. Perfect Dark ended up doing it a little better, but in Goldeneye it's just...either too smart or not smart enough. It's hard to say, to be honest, but seeing your gun flap around by itself is weird to those accustomed to the precise aiming of the previously mentioned modern FPS games. 

It doesn't help that everybody looks like deformed monstrosities. 

The single player is still decent, with a surprising amount of non-linear ways to tackle missions. It essentially gives you an area (base, etc.) and an objective, and it's up to you to figure out the best way to go about that.  While there are really only a few set "best" ways, the freedom is appreciated, even if it still boils down to "walk into this building and shoot some guys."

Multiplayer is unbalanced if you play with Oddjob (who is short and thus harder to hit. BANNED) and Jaws (who is taller and you only pick if you hate yourself), but aside from that works well. The various modes are now famous ("You Only Die Twice" and "The Man with the Golden Gun" being our two favorites from days gone by). Some of these modes have later been integrated into other FPS games ("Swat" in Halo is sort of like "The Man with the Golden Gun") though I'd love to see them make a more serious comeback in the original form. 

Blur. James Blur. 

The game didn't look that fantastic when it came out (I still think most N64 games looked worse artistically than most SNES games, if only because blocky polygons << good pixel art), and now it's straight up hideous. Enemies are especially malformed, with weird heads and arms and janky animations throughout. Textures are uniform and really muddy and disgusting, which I guess makes sense since this is the N64 but seriously...it looks awful. The sound design is classic but also just decent, with guns being tinny and unrealistic and the music fitting the Bond theme but generally proving blasse throughout. 

The game is a decent length, if you can tolerate it for that long. 

Die-hard fans will probably still glean a bit of enjoyment from Goldeneye 007, but they are the only ones that need apply. The newer gamers who want to see what the fuss was all about will be turned off the second they are handed the N64 controller, and even people with fond memories might only give it a few minutes before going back to duel analog sticks. Goldeneye 007 is a game that certainly was important, but the key word is "was." It was a gateway to a better control system, and as such is outdated and a horrendous mess now. If you loved this game do yourself a favor: keep the memories, don't play it again now. It'll only shatter those rose-tinted goggles, which I'm guessing you want to keep intact. 

As it stands in 2012, Goldeneye 007 just can't cut it. Fans clamoring for an XBLA re-release must have not played it recently, as the Perfect Dark one was hardly playable, and that's a far better game. Just...leave it where it is. We won't ever have the same Goldeneye 007 experience in its entirety again, but you are in luck: there's a boatload of good console FPS games out now to fill that gap. Invite some friends over and blast them in four player Call of Duty or Halo. Trust me, it'll be better that way.

Two out of five stars. 

Licensed to kill anybody who gives his game a bad review. 

Secret of Mana

The Short


Pros
- Excellent colorful 16-bit graphics
- Fantastic music
- "Ring" menu system works well (once you figure it out)
- Lots of weapons to choose from
- Play with up to two other friends in full co-op
- Action RPG that's fast paced and intense
- Long

Cons
- Story, or particularly the translation, is horrendous
- Hit detection on enemies seems to follow it's own secret set of rules you don't get to know
- AI companions are unbelievably stupid and die frequently, even when overleveled
- When the Ring menu system doesn't work, it makes you wish for normal menues
- Magics can only be used from the menu. The SNES has like six buttons, guys.

Constipation: It can happen to you

The Long

Secret of Mana, or Seiken Densetsu 2 for those in Japan, is an action RPG made by Square back in its SNES glory days. In it, you play the role of a boy who looks a lot like Chrono from Chrono Trigger (though based on release dates, Chrono looks like him) who take the legendary Mana Sword from the stone and is therefore destined to be king of Engla...wait a minute. Let me start over.

Secret of Mana is an action RPG by Square on the SNES, and has since been rereleased on both the Wiishop and iPhone/iPad (of all platforms). There is a lot of fan fondness for this game, probably because it looks pretty and was one of Square's first games to have a heavy amount of real-time action in conjunction with its normal leveling. There was even a "companion" game made in the states for us dumb Americans called Secret of Evermore, starring a blonde haired dude and his dog. Wait, I'm getting off track again.

The point is that Secret of Mana has a LOT of nostalgia associated with it, which is why it's going to be hard for me to say this: Secret of Mana is pretty much broken. Like, in a bad way. Lots of problems here, people. Now I'll elaborate since everybody reading this review has left in a rage.

Level your Sprite! 47/47 HPs? What?

The first problems are evidenced the minute you read the first several lines of text. Secret of Mana is horribly translated. While I get it's supposed to have a goofy, whimsical tone about it, you have to penetrate the really awkward dialogue in order to even get the jokes. There's also tons of weird modern dialogue and expressions (or 90s dialogue) mixed in for good confusing measure, and everything just comes off as really disjointed. I'm pretty sure the story is the Mana Tree is in trouble or something, so they give you the Mana Sword and send you to find Mana Weapons, which are apparently a secret or something based on the title? This usually involves you doing random things unrelated to the main problem, or getting kicked out of your village despite clearly being the chosen one, and...you know what? It's a stupid story, it isn't told well, but it really doesn't matter that much. The story isn't the main focus (or at least I keep telling myself that), so just turn your brain off when people start talking and you'll probably be ok. 

Hunting that obnoxious, replicating slime.

Combat in Secret of Mana happens in real time, in a style similar to The Legend of Zelda with a twist. Every time you strike out with whatever weapon you have equipped (and there are a lot of options), your "power percent" drops to zero and quickly recharges. You are free to attack again at any time, but if you do before it hits 100% you'll take a rather large damage penalty. This is done to prevent button mashing to the end of the game, which sounds fantastic in concept.

The problem is the hit detection with enemies is awful, to the point where I'm actually thinking it's just straight broken. If an ally hits an enemy (and the numbers pop up) and a second later you hit the enemy with your saved attack, it seems completely random if the damage will register (popping up after the first numbers go away, because for some reason this game didn't have power to process two attacks or display two numbers over the same enemy at once). If this sounds like a little thing, think again. Imagine fighting a group of enemies, waiting patiently for your meter to fill, only to strike at that moment right after your ally hits him for an uncharged 5 damage. Your entire attack gets wasted, the meter drops, and you have to wait again. It is extremely frustrating.

Enemies don't seem to have this problem, catching you in infinite loops (especially bosses) and just bashing you to death (or standing on top of you so when you try to get up automatically you take damage forever and ever) without having any chance of retaliation. They sort of try to fix this by giving you an "evade" option that makes it so you roll out of the way automatically based on a stat, but this also will interrupt your attacks if you are trying to land a hit. 

When something this fundamental is broken, it's hard to look back on this game positively. 

Nostalgia-fans will argue that this is part of the game, or makes it more fun, or it's just something you have to get used to. Ok, sure, but riddle me this: why does it work just fine in all the sequels, prequels, and even spinoff Secret of Evermore? If this totally broken hit detection was part of the game, why didn't it teach me this? Say something like "when an enemy is flinching, down, pausing, casting a spell, being hit by somebody else, blocking somebody else, dodging somebody else, eating a burrito, or watching the evening news, than your charged up power attack will do literally nothing at all?" It's because it isn't, and because this game is broken.

It is possible to get around it, it's just really frustrating. Since you don't know if you are hitting stuff, often on tricky bosses you aren't certain if you are doing damage. There's a wall boss that will instant-kill you if he pushes you to the bottom of the room. Ok, sure. But with on instruction you have no idea what to hit, with its eyes (weak points, obviously) squinting closed and open and you aren't entirely certain when you are supposed to hit them and when they die. Then you try and mash the heck out of him and you die instantly, back to the save point at the start of the dungeon. Keep in mind we were probably 4-5 levels higher than the game expected at this point and still lost. And I consider myself pretty good at action RPGs. It's very obnoxious, to say the least. 

At least the game is easy on the eyes. 

So what else is in this game? It has a unique "ring" menu system that lets you equip yourself and other characters, and you can switch to playing as your two sidekicks with a single button push, which is good. The Ring system works decently throughout, until you hit a situation where comparing armors or knowing who wears what can be a bit of a drag, and you wish you just had a normal menu system back. Also, the only way to get to magic is through the menu, which is tedious, but since attacking with your weapon is the primary concern here I guess it's somewhat forgivable.

The game supports up to three players in co-op (you'll need one of those SNES splitters if you want two of your friends in on the action), which is both cool and highly recommended, because your ally AI is dumb as a box of bricks. You can customize their settings between being aggressive and passive, and whether they'll close the distance or not, but this has problems. First, they have a tendency to follow me close to enemies and then the AI will kick in for a "far" ally, and by that point it's too late; they've been hit. It's like they don't know we are in a fight yet. And second, they love to just straight up ignore whatever setting I put them on and do whatever they like. I set somebody to the most passive, far away stance and even gave them a ranged weapon, and they still ran up to the boss and proceeded to get stuck in an infinite loop straight to death in the first couple of seconds. 

This is exacerbated by the fact that your can only hold a limited number of healing items, meaning keeping them alive is expensive and also annoying. So yeah, don't play with the AI if at all possible. Find some friends and burn through it with them. Then you all can hate the bad hit detection, but at least you are doing it together, which is sort of entertaining. I guess. 

What? His allies are dead? On a boss? What a massive surprise!

There are some positives here. The game looks really good, with a soft pallet and a lot of colors that sort of bleed together. It's a bit too soft in places (need some black outlines in the environment and enemies, people, not this weird muted gray), but it fits a theme and overall looks very nice. Characters animate decently, as do enemies, and everything just looks really good.

The music is also catchy and provides a soft, subtle background noise, hitting the right highs and lows. It is a bit too mellow at times, but that might just be personal preference. It's still very excellent, and anybody who digged Squaresoft midi tunes back in the SNES days will feel right at home with this soundtrack. 

I hate you, wall boss. 

As it stands, however, this game has not aged gracefully. It's still a decent run with friends, though in this world of co-op RPG games you have lots of other options if you decide to give this one a pass. It sets up a good framework, but the frustrating combat coupled with the moron AI really makes this game a test of patience. If you haven't played it and are a Squaresoft fan I highly suggest giving it a run anyway, since every other Squaresoft fan will outcast you if you haven't played it. But if you are looking for a strong co-op RPG, I suggest looking elsewhere. And if you are looking for a single player action RPG that isn't bad, Secret of Evermore is basically the same game as this one only more interesting and with better combat. So pick that up instead.

Sorry, Secret of Mana, but hindsight really is 20/20. Two out of five stars.

At least Gnome took it well. Cue the hatemail!

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

The Short


Pros
- Finally a sequel to Starcraft after over a decade
- Adds enough new with the old to create something that is both familiar and fresh
- Graphics are beautiful and have enough settings options to run even on crap machines
- Voice acting and sound effects are, as always, superb
- Single player has lots of RPG like options and even some adventure game style elements
- Fleshed out Battle.net is so feature-rich it's insane, and the online is all free
- Multiplayer remains strong, balanced, and is constantly being updated
- Provides options for every skillset of players, and matches you accordingly
- Easily one of the best competitive RTS games ever made

Cons
- Single player only encompasses the Terrans and is essentially a 1/3 of the story, and you only play as them except for a few missions where you play as Protoss
- Story of the single player is weak, cliche, and pretty much ruins Jim Raynor's character from the first Starcraft
- You have to be connected to the internet on your Battle.net account to play any facet of this game, including the single player
- Mac version is total crap and is poorly optimized
- Lots of the units and tactics have been carried over from the first game
- Has a heavier emphasis on microing units than the first Starcraft, making it a more difficult game for RTS noobs to get into at first
- While the single-player ranking matchup system works in theory, it does seem to sometimes screw up and put you in unfair matches
- Won't run at max settings on my computer. That's just not fair.

Welcome back to Starcraft. It will never look this good on my computer. 

The Long

Starcraft is a game that really needs no introduction. Essentially responsible for the birth of e-Sports (or competitive gaming, if you hate the term "e-Sports"), Starcraft brought games into the mainstream for a lot of people and particularly the media (though not necessarily in the United States). It was also just a straight up fantastic RTS, probably the best balanced game ever made, and has been revered with deity-like fascination by PC gamers since...well, since it came out.

So when Blizzard finally announced a sequel, people pretty much freaked the crap out. After Warcraft III changed the rules a bit, having them go back to a traditional, army based RTS was certainly welcome, and a sequel to Starcraft? Yes, please.

It got some flack because, like Brandon Sanderson and the end of The Wheel of Time, the game was split from one game into three. Starcraft II was broken up into faction-specific games, the first focusing on the Terrans (aka humans) and called Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. The idea of buying a game three times pissed a lot of people off, but we've been assured that the other two will be essentially expansion packs and priced accordingly (again, we'll see if this is actually the case), and that there was "too much story for one game."

So Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is here. Was it worth the wait? Does it do enough to merit a purchase? What the crap is going on with the story after that total downer ending of Starcraft: Brood Wars? All this and more will be sort of answered in this review!

The single player experience has been fleshed out immensely

Let's tackle the single-player experience first. Yes, it is very annoying that you only get to play as the Terrans (and the Protoss in a sort of flashback), which also means everybody on multiplayer starts as Terrans because the game doesn't properly train you on how to play the other races through its single-player (which was what Starcraft did very well). It's too bad, but they fleshed out the single-player so much it makes it easy to overlook this glaring flaw.

The game has integrated an interesting upgrade system now, in the form of unit upgrades, base upgrades, and the ability to hire mercenaries. The game is no longer just a string of missions chained together; now you are put in a sort of "hub world" in between scenarios, allowing you to have (limited) control on what missions you do next and how you (sort of) alter the plot. 

Every mission earns you both new units, buildings, and cash to spend on upgrading them. You can customize your army so the units you use most have the best upgrades, and the crap you don't like can be ignored. You can also wander around your crappy space-bar (or spaceship) and chat with people, learn about the world, or even play on the arcade. It's not the best thing ever, but it's a cool diversion to be certain. I wish they did more with it, but whatever...it's better than just cycling from mission to mission.

They just sort of...stand there, static. Not a whole lot of interaction, but it works. 

The missions themselves are all excellent. One minute you'll be protecting a colony from a zombie outbreak, the next you'll be having to float your bases from minerals to minerals as lava rises and falls. You'll race against the Zerg to be the first to blow up a Protoss base, infiltrate a science facility, and much more. Very rarely do they fall back to the standard "build a base, kill everything" scenarios that were common in the first game, which they are assuming you get plenty of in the multiplayer. 

There's also branching storylines, but the game lets you go back and replay them for the other story elements if you want to see what happens if you go the other way. This sort of renders the decisions meaningless, as you can see how both end up and this duel-choice option means none of your decisions will carry over into the main story. Each of these "sidestories" really feels separated and distant from the main game, which makes all the story parts feel completely disjointed and tacked on. It's hard to have emotional resonance when I (spoilers) both SAVED the doctor, earning her undying gratitude, and also made it so she turned into a freaky Zerg-person hybrid which I then killed. 

And here is where I rip apart the story. 

So it's already been documented that I think Starcraft II's single player story ruined Jim Raynor's character, but I'll put the brief version here. The game took Jim from the original game, who was sort of a side character next to your "commander" who was the star of the show, and made him a walking cliche. He does everything you'd expect a generic character in his position to do: laments over Kerrigan's demise, throws drunken fits when people tell him to get his life in order, gives corny inspirational speeches and always does the right thing, even if it's stupid. Jim in the first game was a reckless lawman who also did the right thing even if it was stupid, but you weren't playing as him. You sort of raised him up as this badass space vigilante, a man with a troubled past who survived through it all without blinking an eye (kind of like Batman). In Starcraft II he's broken and beaten, which yeah...it would have made sense if this game took place right after Brood War, but it didn't. This is years later; he has plenty of time to get over it. The Zerg buggered off for years and aren't a problem, he's back to being a marshall, and pretty much his life is in order. If he had demons to overcome (which, based on the original character, he would have just shrugged off anyway) it should have already happened. He shouldn't be lamenting now, he should be eager to kick ass and be himself again. 

Also the "twist" in this story (minus the awesome final one; I'm talking about a non-Kerrigan related twist) is completely predictable and honestly lame that the game clearly thinks you were going to be surprised about it. Here's a hint: don't have a voice-over in your opening sequence explaining your twist if the voice actor is immediately recognizable as the main villain. I'm just saying. 

So as it stands, I didn't like the story in Starcraft II, though the twist at the end did make me want to see what happened next. So I guess it wins because I'll buy the next game just to see what happens, but all the talk of "prophecies" and the bloated dialogue and long stares and melodrama reeks more like Star Wars prequels rather than the original trilogy. I'm going to assume Blizzard has better writers than this and they were all writing WoW: Cataclysm or something instead and now they'll be back on board, but we'll see when the next Starcraft II game comes out. 

Back to the real reason you bought the game. 

But that isn't the main reason most people bought the game. Like the Call of Duty games, most people were excited for the Starcraft II multiplayer, which the original game's is still going strong to this day. What core differences have been changed here?

I'm not going to go into specifics, since that will take too long, but I'll cover it with a blanket statement: it has enough new things to feel fresh, but keeps the core elements that make it familiar. Anyone playing Starcraft will be able to jump in and start Zerg rushing, walling with supply depots, or whatever without much problem. It's the little differences, however, that go a long way.

Major changes include the increased amount of technologies available. Almost every unit has both its standard abilities and a power, even the lowliest zergling or zealot. This means that if you are a big micromanager, your time has come. Since they took off the unit selection cap from Starcraft (which was my biggest micromanagement timesink in that game), they changed it so that your microing actually involves unit abilities rather than just being able to play the game like you want. This is a double edged sword. It's good because it adds massive amounts of depth for the players who want it, while noob players can (mostly) still survive without having to dig to deep into the ability microing. It's bad because the jump from not using abilities to using abilities skillfully is a massive one. And since most people online are really good at Starcraft II, it kind of requires you to pick up on this quickly and efficiently. 

Ultralisks are friggen huge. 

Despite that, the game is very noob friendly by design. First it has tiered "challenges" that teach you many common strategies that new Starcraft players will need to know in order to play effectively. Second, it has a fantastic ranking system that makes sure you are paired up with people of a similar skillset. This matchmaking system certainly works better than say, Halo or Call of Duty, but it still isn't perfect. I've been paired up against people way above my rank for 1v1 for no apparent reason, only to be crushed completely and efficiently. It's method of determining is also sort of borked, based on lots of factors (including clicks per minute, game length, build order, etc. at least that's what they say), but I just zerg rushed through my qualifying matches on 1v1 (which I click a lot because I'm ADD) and it put me in a Diamond league. Let me get one thing straight: I'm not a Diamond league player. But now that I'm stuck in it, I either have to wait for the season refresh or enjoy being crushed for all my 1v1 games. It's a bit annoying when the system doesn't work in your favor, and here's hoping it gets refined further either in patches or the next game. 

Carriers are still pretty awesome. 

Everything in the new Battle.net is pretty much great. It has achievements (like World of Warcraft) which give added incentive to try out crazy tactics. The matchmaking is quick and party management is very easy when playing with friends. There are tons of unlocks available, tied both to single-player and multiplayer, so you wont' feel really left if you can't win the required mutliplayer matches for new character portrats. It is kind of a huge pain that you have to have an active internet connection even to play the single-player, which shows how awesome DRM is (answer: it isn't), but I suppose it's a small price to pay for a more secure gaming experience. Blizzard also does good in providing new maps and stuff via patches and not charging for it, which shows their dedication to their fans. 

Protoss Void Rays are the bane of noobs. 

So a big question after release was this: is it really worth it? The game is so similar to Starcraft (at least on the surface), is it really that big of a jump? Well, if you are arguing that it wasn't worth it, then I welcome you to go back to playing Starcraft, as there's still an active community there, but I think Starcraft II's multiplayer blows Starcraft away. Yes, it's familiar. Yes, they took the framework from the first game and essentially copied a lot of it over. But they added so much both in streamlining control, new unit abilities, new unites in general, and the ability for more and more advanced tactics that the game really feels like a Starcraft player's dream. It's very, very clear from the design choices that the Blizzard employees played a load of multiplayer Starcraft themselves and took everything (even weird strats that weren't intended, like using Supply Depots as walls) and implemented it (like the fact that Supply Depots can be lowered now, a clear response to that tactic). This really is a project made for the fans, and it really works well. Now if only the single-player's story had been the same way. 

Though I am sad that the Zerg were switched from a sort of "build and forget" race to a "requires heavy microing to even be useful" race. I suck at them now, and I was pretty good in Starcraft. 

As it stands, Starcraft II does almost everything perfectly. Almost. It still certainly has problems, most of which I hope will be ironed out in the expansion, and there is so much here it can be overwhelming, but as it stands it is easily the best RTS on the market today. If you had any affinity for the first game, any at all, you should buy this game. Unless your affinity was for the single-player, in which case I advise to look before you leap. But if you just loved the core gameplay of Starcraft and are content fighting bots rather than people, there is still a good game here. Added that the custom map teams are again doing some wild and crazy stuff, and this game is absolutely a good investment. 

Just make sure your computer can run it. Since mine will be on just "High" graphics and a 1440x900 resolution forever. I will now shed a single tear after looking at these screenshots. 

Four out of five stars. 

Maybe your story won't suck next time, Jim. 

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Short


Pros
- Pioneered 3D action games with a control scheme still used to this day
- Massive sprawling adventure across unique dungeons and locations
- Good music (see below)
- Transition between child and adult Link adds an awesome twist on an old formula
- Lots of secrets, sidequests, and more to explore
- Ocarina makes lots of things (travel, day/night cycle, etc.) streamlined
- The crazy windmill guy is the coolest ever

Cons
- Game looks downright awful, and didn't even look particularly great when it came out
- Music is good, but at least half of it is stolen from Link to the Past
- Story is nonsensical silliness that tries too hard to take itself seriously
- Unskippable cutscenes and slow text crawl
- Any attempt at stealth sections is tedious and poorly implemented
- Focus on jumping platforming where you can't manually jump
- While the idea behind the controls was excellent in 1998, trying to play this on an N64 in the modern day is difficult, obnoxious, and tedious
- When you respawn after dying in a dungeon, you aren't penalized severely but whatever items you used are gone forever, meaning item harvesting yay. 
- Lots of little contrived gameplay experiences
- Set a standard, making it so no console Zelda game after this one even tried to innovate (except maybe Wind Waker)

I can hear the hatemail writing itself already. 

The Long

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a classic and an important game in gaming history. When Mario 64 came along and showed everybody the right way to do 3D platforming, Zelda: OoT showed us all how to do modern 3D combat. While it was a bit clunky even then, the concepts of Z-targeting to focus on an enemy to kill it was a staple that persists to this day. Even modern, more refined (in terms of the combat) games like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry 4 use a targeting system based on single-enemy focus just like Zelda: OoT did back in 1998. It also created a sprawling, massive adventure that few have attempted to emulate (aside from Darksiders, but that was rather recently) since the game's initial release.

So yeah, Zelda: OoT did a lot of good and pioneered a ton of stuff, blah blah blah. But I'm reviewing games in 2012, not 1998. And as is it just so happens, I own an N64, a retro television, and even a rumble pak to get the full Zelda: OoT experience. So after burning through the game for the fifth or sixth time in my gaming career, how do I feel about Zelda: OoT after all these years? 

Well, sit back and take a deep breath, because there's some good and some bad upcoming.

And I thought my Final Fantasy VII review was going to be the hardest.

The story of Zelda: OoT is a simple one that isn't particularly engrossing. Like the Mario games they boil down to one main thing: save the princess, kill the baddie. Unlike Mario, however, Zelda sells itself as a mix between a JRPG and an adventure game, but without the character depth or clever wit of either. Sure, there are plenty of entertaining characters in Zelda: OoT, but there just aren't a lot of them. There's only a few towns (and that's with me stretching what the definition of a "town" is), and each only has a handful of inhabitants, and most of them either won't talk to you or don't have anything to say. Feels sparse. 

Anyway, the point is that little kid Link is chosen by Zelda in what seems more like a fake childhood cardboard fort club than an actual important scheme to save Hyrule, and he has to go collect some gems to open the temple of time because Zelda saw Ganondorf once, through a window, and decided he was evil. I guess because he was the only dark-skinned person to set foot in Hyrule she "knew" he was bad. Whatever. 

So off you go into this sparsely populated kingdom in an attempt to save it. After getting the three gems (which involves a convoluted puzzle to get eaten by a big fish. Brilliant scheme, that) you unlock the Temple of Time and warp to the future where, surprise! Ganondorf won and everything sucks now. 

I WIN

It was actually kind of a cool twist the first time, to show up in town and have it burned to the ground and full of ReDeads. From there it does what it did the first have only as an adult: find more crap at the end of dungeons, bring it back to Zelda for whatever reason (who gets captured. Obviously), team up with Sheik who is very obviously Zelda in disguise (though I don't know why), save Hyrule, yada yada. Though technically you defeat Ganondorf as an adult, which is after he got all powerful. Wouldn't it have been a better idea to have kicked his butt as a kid before he got all crazy? And then all the castle guards would still be alive, so you wouldn't have to fight him alone. There's an idea.

Well, whatever, you win. The story attempts to pad out its history with long, really really boring expository cutscenes about goddesses and the triforce and some bullcrap, but all of it is tedious and generally unimportant to the overall plot. The quirky characters are fun but don't add any particular depth other than a few funny lines, and as a whole the story is just straight up lacking. It isn't bad, and it's enough to make you want to keep playing, but it doesn't aspire to anything beyond that. It's either an annoyance (cutscenes) or just there (rest of the time), which is unfortunate because I can tell they were trying to do something big here.

Oh hey! Now I know why the game is called "Ocarina of Time!" Nintendo, you so clever. 

So who cares about that crap; it's not like Nintendo has every written a particularly compelling narrative in their lives (this is me ignoring the Mother/Earthbound games, but I guess Hal made them so my point still stands). What matters is the gameplay. How has that held up on my oddly three-pronged N64 controller? Does it still work after all these years? Well...yes and no. Mostly no. Yeah, cue fanboy rage right about now, but hear me out.

As stated in the intro, Zelda: OoT pioneered the Z-targeting system and the ability to be highly maneuverable in battle. Before this 3D games either had you fighting one-on-one (fighting games) or just sort of swinging in in arc and hoping you hit stuff. Zelda: OoT helped refine the "swing around and hit stuff" bit by allowing you to focus on a single enemy, and easily switch between enemies ("easily switch" is in theory based on that awful N64 controller, but more on that in a second). This was straight up revolutionary back in the day.

The game also had a heavy focus on having a large arsenal of items at your disposal that you then used for puzzles or to defeat enemies (mostly puzzles, though). While it didn't have an item count to rival the massive Link to the Past, Zelda: OoT in theory should have used its smaller number of side items to a greater extent, refining the game to be built around them. Which it did. Sort of. Hey, it did it better than Twilight Princess at least, which just gave you tons of crap you used once or twice and then never touched again. 

Shootin stuff. 

So back in 1998 I was willing to forgive that stupid-ass N64 controller because I didn't know any better. Hey, it was the first console controller to really use an analog stick right, only to have the idea stolen by Sony with the DuelShock (and fixed, because adding a second analog stick was exactly what it needed) but whatever, still pioneered it. But now, after we've evolved our controllers forward, going back to that horrid three pronged monstrosity is a huge annoyance.

A picture, in case you forgot. 

So my hands are bigger now too, meaning that middle trident prong I'm supposed to grab doesn't exactly fit well, and the whole thing somehow feels both encumbering and too small. But hey, this isn't a controller review, it's a Zelda: OoT review. And I'm going to tell you right now that paired with the N64 controller, Zelda: OoT really hasn't aged well in terms of controls.

The first problem is the analog stick is too sensitive. Yes, it can differentiate between walking and running which is great, but whenever you try to aim the damn thing flies everywhere. It can be hard to precisely move exactly the needed direction to hit a jump, and considering some later levels require pinpoint precision, this can be extremely frustrating.

Let's hit the jumping thing right now as an aside: why are the Zelda creators so averse to letting you jump on your own? The whole "auto-jump" thing is a massive pain in the ass. First off, you have to be running towards a ledge (or just walking fast) for Link to do his little bunny hop off it. Second, he'll "hop" off anything higher than his waist, rather than just stepping down, which can lead to some stupid platforming mistakes. Third, when you actually do want him to just climb down, you have to inch ever so carefully, because one slight tap on that oversensitive analog stick and he'll go leaping off to his death rather than carefully hanging down. All of this could be fixed with manual jumping controls. Come on, you have two shoulder buttons you could have used here, or moved the A button (aka the "roll 90% of the time, talk 10% of the time") button to a shoulder since it isn't used that much and had A be jump. Novel concept. Mario jumped just fine, why can't Link do it on his own?

These are all emulator up-rezed shots, FYI, in case you thought your memory deceived you. 

That's just a small gameplay niggle amongst many. Camera work is horrid throughout (just like Mario 64), which makes getting those precision-required imprecise jumps a lesson in tedious repetition. It seems to work ok in a wide open space (like Hyrule Field or during most bosses), but when you are in a cramped room the camera can't seem to figure out how to function, unable to look through walls and forcing a pan as you step away from the door (which also requires you to adjust where you are pointing the stick, as the movement is based on camera's viewing direction). It's really, really obnoxious.

The bad camera, poor jumping, and mediocre analog controls make the whole game feel very loose, which (based on dungeon design) isn't what the creators were shooting for. Yeah, you can still beat the game, but you can't say it wasn't filled with cheap deaths or hits because of the horrible controls. It's an "added bonus" of difficulty stemmed from poor design, and while I was willing to give this game a cut because it was the first of its kind in 1998, need I remind you it is 2012 now, fourteen years later. The fundamental controls are bad, people. That's just the sad truth about the N64.

The Biggoron sword is awesome, though

There are also lots of parts of the game that just feel sloppy, which may or may not have to do with the awful controls but now I'm not entirely certain. Dungeons are decent in their execution (though that water temple is still infamous) and tend to work well overall, but they don't seem to use all the tons of items you have as much as I'd like. While some (hookshot, boomerang, arrows, etc.) are used frequently, the rest of the assortment seems neglected. Stuff like the Eye of Truth are only used in single dungeons and maybe one area in the overworld later, which makes it seem like a wasted slot. Deku nuts are almost pointless save a few very rare instances, and the same goes for breakable Deku sticks. The hammer can be fun to smash guys with but you have to use the stupid C buttons to do it, which isn't convenient at all.

There's also a lot of running from place to place without anything inbetween, especially across Hyrule field. This is sort of fixed with Epona, who is a bit faster and can sometimes jump fences if you point her exactly at them with the analog stick and at just the right speed (good luck), but since you only get her as an adult that's a lot of wandering around as a kid. A lot of wandering around. 

Does it still hold up? Barely. While the fundamental control issues and weird ideas (Unskippable text? Bad jumps?  Dungeons that rely too heavily on being able to see what you are doing? Fetch quests? LOTS of fetch quests?) bring it down, the core design still seems solid. Dungeons are well paced and strike a good balance between easy and hard, increasing with difficulty at a pretty good clip relative to game progression. A lot of the puzzles can be clever (though for most, if you've solved one you've solved them all: shoot the open eye stone), and there are tons of minigames to infuriate you because you can't control the game well enough to do as well as you'd hope. So the basic infrastructure is there, it's just in the fundamental control scheme that we hit an issue. 

Again: I'm not saying you can't overcome these awful controls. You can. It just is way more worth than should be necessary. I shouldn't have to fight a game every step of the way until reaching some middle ground where neither of us are happy. 

Gee, who would have thought. 

This game looks bad. Like Final Fantasy VII bad, except that game at least had nice battle graphics and CD power cutscenes. I thought this game looked crappy in 1998, with it's super blocky polygons and barren, boring fields, but now it just looks all the worse. Playing at the original resolution (which most of these screenshots aren't) with the super texture fuzz going on makes it hard to know what stuff is. Characters animate stiffly and this translates into clunky battle controls (exacerbated by that freaking controller) which can lead to frustrations. Everything has jagged edges to it that look unnatural, most of the ground just being one massive texture. Yeah, it's an old game and I should cut it some slack, but whatever: still looks bad. I do like that the characters emote, though, something Square couldn't figure out until the PS2. It's too bad they don't talk...which still hasn't happened. Alrighty then.

Music is decent but not fantastic. Yes, I just dissed Zelda: OoT's music, now I'm really gonna get it. It just all sounds...midi. And not particularly original. Yeah, you have your traditional Zelda tunes, but most are stolen exactly from the SNES's Link to the Past. They all seem to be missing like three or four instruments that should be backing up the rest of the notes, like they were only allowed to have three unique instruments playing at once. Come on, the SNES had more options than this. Maybe it was due to the lack of CD technology, but the songs really weren't that exceptional minus a few standouts. 

This song is awesome, though, even if it seems to be missing some key background instruments

So where do we stand? Zelda: OoT is a long game, though it does get a bit tiresome near the end of repeating the same style of dungeon for 20 odd hours, but hey...at least I'm not sailing around looking for freaking Triforce shards rather than killing stuff for the last 1/4 of the game. There's a bunch of other stuff I didn't touch on (the stupid "wallet" not holding enough coins, getting your shield burned mid-dungeon, some other stuff) but I don't feel like I need to. If you love this game, odd are you are blinded to its faults, which means you've either already sent me hatemail or are in the process of writing it right now (or just clicked off this review after seeing my long list of "Cons"). Let me be absolutely clear: I loved this game as a kid, flat out loved it. But that was a different time; it was fourteen years ago. Not to mention every Zelda game since this one has done nothing to change this formula, so if you really wanted to play this game again in all its refine glory, pick up any version not released on the N64. Seriously. They're the same game. 

Anyway, the point is that I've actually played through this again, on an actual N64, with an actual N64 controller, and while it hurts me to say this the game has not aged well at all. I'm surprised the 3DS re-release has gotten such critical acclaim (probably rose-tinted, to be honest, or they fear fanboy ire) considering they say it was relatively untouched, which means it is still a wonky mess. Zelda: OoT is a gem from the past, like a golden idol to a god nobody worships anymore. Yeah, it's still awesome to look back and remember the good times, but we don't worship that guy anymore; his time has passed. 

It's still solid enough underneath the jank to enjoy, though expect massive amounts of frustration (my wife played this after the modern Zelda games, and while she enjoyed it she was certainly annoyed by a lot of its problems). The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is still a landmark game for what it did for the industry, but as it stands it's time to send it to the old-folks home and let its younger, fresher grandkids take the glory. 

Three out of five stars. 

Ah, memories. How you betray me. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

The Short


Pros
- Strong single-player campaign is totally bananas
- Game runs at 60 FPS and looks incredible for it
- Spec Ops mode is more fleshed out and has a "horde" style gamemode now, too
- Minor changes to multiplayer are welcome ones, especially the ability to earn killstreaks through death
- Voice acting is excellent, as usual, as is the rest of the sound design
- No stupid zombies

Cons
- Single player campaign is insanely short. On easy I'd give it 3-4 hours.
- Graphics look ok but it's clear this is still the Call of Duty 4 engine
- The breakneck pace of the campaign is fine but it does drain you of any emotional resonance during the "heartwrenching" scenes
- The core fundamentals of this game are virtually unchanged from Call of Duty 4, a game with three Call of Duty games from it to this one
- Multiplayer maps are easily the worst in the series
- Bar of entry to multiplayer is insanely high. Expect to die. A lot.
- This series is finally starting to stale for me.

Time to kill more dudes while aiming down the red dot sight

The Long

I've never been big on multiplayer competitive shooters, mostly because I'm not very good at them. I'll be honest: I suck at the Halo games (though I'm ok at Reach), I was never any good at Counterstrike, and my Battlefield skills are pretty much nonexistant. The only multiplayer shooter I was good at was Alien vs Predator 2, and that's just because I could sneak on the walls as Aliens and instakill marines. 

So when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 clicked with me for some reason, I rode that train for all it was worth. These games (I'm sure everybody already knows) are arcadey, fast-based modern shooters where respawn time is nonexistent (in most modes), deaths are frequent, and getting more than three kills in a row without dying is a "bonus." The gameplay is insanely quick and matches fly by fast, making it a good game to play for an hour or so (or more) without getting too frustrated at it. 

Getting a care package. 

How they hook you is the XP system. Every kill, every bomb plant, every flag capture, and just about everything else you do gives you XP. Earn enough and you'll Rank Up (Level Up?) earning you a new collection of guns, perks, or other such abilities. Perks are three unique abilities you can pick for each of your classes (such as an ability to run longer, reload faster, etc.) allowing you to customize your classes with guns, gun attachments, perks, and more. It's a robust system, one that was revolutionary when it was introduced in Call of Duty 4, and it did an excellent job mixing the RPG drive of XP gain with the fact paced, always rewarding you shooting experience. Hence why it sold twenty trillion copies. 

Why am I bringing this up? Two reasons. First, most people buy these games for the multiplayer, so I figured I'd cover it first. Second, the Call of Duty formula has remained essentially completely unchanged since first iterated in Call of Duty 4, and it's finally starting to get old.

Ding! XP.

The shooting in these games is completely unchanged from the original game. There are maybe two new guns, a few new items of equipment you can use, and some more killstreak bonuses, but as it stands everything else is completely identical. Which, while this was robust when Call of Duty 4 came out, the lack of new additions is very noticeable, especially for a vet. On one side this is nice, because if you played a bunch of Modern Warfare 2 you are going to feel right at home. On the other hand, this lack of innovation makes this feel like a glorified expansion pack rather than a full release game.

What is different? A few things that will only change the game for those invested. Guns now level up with XP when you use them, because everybody knows more XP bars mean MORE FUN! Leveling up guns unlocks the attachments. You can still "pro" Perks by fulfilling their list of requirements, and the money system from Black Ops is gone. Lastly, you can now assign different killstreak packages to individual customized classes rather than having a set overall, and adding one that still goes up even if you die is great for the prone-towards-death players such as myself.

Killstreaks are still very impressive. 

That's basically all that's changed. Everything else is the same, which frankly is kind of appalling. Halo realized it had to innovate four games later, with Reach being a vast improvement over the others. Even Call of Duty itself rebooted with Modern Warfare. This game is easily just a stale cash-in on the phenomenon, with the changes so minor it hardly seems worth a full release and not just a patch.

The bigger offense, however, is this game might actually be worse than Modern Warfare 2. The maps certainly are. The maps in previous Call of Duty games were crafted with care, offering a good mix of wide open areas, sniper nests, secret spots that the clever could use to get lots of kills, and enough stuff to hid be hind but not be annoyingly obstructive. Modern Warfare 3 seems to think that "more stuff = more fun!" with crap littered all over every map, the wide open spaces from maps such as Mansion from Modern Warfare 2 gone for a bunch that really just feel like the same crappy map with a different skin. 

The other factor that is making me withhold from saying "At least new players will love this game," is that this game has the worst damn community of any game I've ever played. The problem is they have had seven games to hone their skills (four if you only start counting on Call of Duty 4), meaning 75% of the people playing this game (or more) are already masters. They are also rude, pompous, and other words less dignified (that they frequently use). New players will find a difficulty curve rivaling that of DOTA, and old players who took a brief hiatus (such as myself) will feel that sting as well. Combined with the bad maps, the same gameplay as before, and all the other issues, it makes it impossible for me to recommend the multiplayer unless you are really good already or have a lot of patience for this thing. 

The single player has some crazy setpieces...wait, not yet? Ok...

So before I get to the campaign let's talk the other multiplayer mode, the two-player co-op missions Special Ops.

These are pretty similar to the last batch (from Modern Warfare 2). They are designed around two players working together to accomplish goals in pre-set mission scenarios. Like the previous game, these are solid all around, though they do all come off as very similar. There's only so much "shooting dudes together" or "stealthing dudes together" you can take before it all starts to blur. They do have unique ones (like the mission where your partner is on security cameras with a rail gun and you have to fight through guys on the ground to give him more camera access to assist), but as a whole this entire thing gives a really weird sense of deja vu. Only without snowmobile sequences. Which is too bad; I liked those.

You can also play together in a horde-esque mode, and Spec Ops has its own leveling system across both that gives you more unlocks for that horde mode. It's an ok addition and fun with a friend, but hardly earth shattering.

Soap is back, as are all the other guys you only sort of care about. 

Lastly we have the single player. It's a short roller coaster at about 4-5 hours on easy, but to my surprise I actually really enjoyed it. I thought Modern Warfare 2's single player was ok, Black Ops didn't interest me at all, but Modern Warfare 3 just turns it on and never turns it off. I think they accept the fact they are the Michael Bay of video games and totally rolled with it. One mission has you sabotaging a submarine underwater, forcing it to rise, then fighting your way inside, launching its missiles at the rest of the fleet, and then driving a small boat around (and through) these battleships as the missiles rain down on them before driving the boat into the back of a helicopter. It's all completely absurd but still a lot of fun, even if the set-pieces are obviously scripted.

Where it falls apart are the large-scale battles where you and your team are on foot against a lot of guys. The Call of Duty games have always been really bad at this; killing you with bullets or grenades from nowhere, only allowing you the briefest of time to pop out and shoot, killing you behind cover, etc. It isn't hard, once you figure out the systems, it's just tedious. The group battles have been dramatically thinned from the previous games (making way for a lot more setpiece moments), but when they come they drag the action down.

Stuff can get kind of crazy

Graphically the game looks good, running at 60 FPS always and doing well masking the limitations of the old Call of Duty 4 engine with lots of explosions and clever texture work. It's fine, though it is starting to look old despite their best efforts. Sound design is top notch as usual, though the abundance of military jargon gets annoying very quick. Guns sound good and voice actors do their jobs well, so I can't complain. 

My biggest problem with Modern Warfare 3 is despite all these nice things I have to say about it, I didn't really enjoy the game past the single player (which was atrociously short). Spec Ops was fun, but it was identical to what I did two years ago with Modern Warfare 2, and only really gets good if you are playing with friends and just screw around the whole time trying to mess each other up (adds a whole new layer of difficulty). The multiplayer is by far the largest disappointment for me. Even with one or two new modes and a handful of improvements, the core game hasn't changed at all. I don't see any reason why this game exists when what is very nearly the exact same game has been coming out since Call of Duty 4. Yes, I know there have been differences (I've played them all quite a bit), but as it stands I'm very heavily getting sequel fatigue. And I do know why they keep making these: they print money better than the yearly Madden installments, and I'm assuming require the most minimal of effort to create since they just take the previous game and make it again.

Surprise! This is a Modern Warfare 2 screenshot. Couldn't tell the difference, huh?

Added bonus that the multiplayer is much worse this time around (worse maps, worse balance, and personally I feel it's a step down from Black Ops) and again: no reason to own this game if you own any other Call of Duty game. I'm really hoping the next installment does something drastic and original like Call of Duty 4 did all those years ago, but for now I'm hanging up my hat for the Call of Duty series until that moment of ingenuity comes. It still is a solid shooter series, it just really needs to evolve. Now. 

I was torn between two or three stars, but after thinking over how the reason why I got this game was the multiplayer and I have no incentive to play it whatsoever, I think two out of five is a fair score. Again, if you've never played a Call of Duty game this one is pretty good, but fans of the series (like myself) really need to stop letting Activision pander this crap to them in a $60 package every year.