Quick Takes – Saints Row 2 / CoR: Dark Athena / Street Fighter IV
In case the subject matter isn’t clear, here’s the skinny. I take three games I’m currently playing and I boil down the best and worst into a mini-review that lets you, the reader, know where I stand on the game. These are not full critiques. They are simply a way for me to to get out my initial response to a particular game. Do with this information what you will. As is the case with all games I review, they can be new, old, or anything in between. If you haven’t played it yet, it’s new to you. Enjoy!
Saints Row 2: While I hate having to constantly compare and contrast between this and GTA IV, it’s hard not to look at Saints Row 2 and regard it as the jaded brother with slightly less talent who is constantly doing everything possible to steal attention away from it’s more competent and distinguished sibling. With GTA having gone the dark and gritty route with the last installment, Saints Row 2 has filled the void it left behind with a game that pulls out every single stop in the “oh snap” department and revels in it like a pig in slop (and yeah, I could have been really crass there). You’ll commit insurance fraud, cause mass hysteria as you destroy gated communities in order to collect on property damage, blow up rival gangs from military helicopters, and retake the city of Stillwater from the rival gangs and corporations that left you to die. On the plus side, Volition has taken the best parts of Saints Row 1 and made them even better. Things like cruise control and a GPS that learns short cuts as you find them just put the GTA compass to shame. Strong voice acting from the majority of the cast helps to give the games story a little more weight then it would otherwise have. And the combat is still as fun, silly, and over the top as it was in the first game. Despite all of this, Saints Row 2 is far from perfect. Saints Row just isn’t as polished as I feel it should be. Constant slow down, clipping issues, voice over sync problems, and odd control scheme that never seems to be laid out just right keeps making me think that Volition let all the “GTA knock off” talk go to their heads. And last, but not least, as fun as the mission and gang rivalry can be, my desire to keep trucking through the game has less to do with the attempt at a story line and more to do with seeing what crazy things the developers want me to do next. All in all, if you thought San Andreas was better than “Four”, Saints Row is right up your alley.
The Chronicles of Riddick – Assault on Dark Athena: I think I’m preaching to the choir when I say this: I didn’t think ‘Chronicles of Riddick’ movie was very good. But you want to know what’s even worse than that? I’m not convinced the game that came out is much better. Here’s my main issue: stop changing the game play style every 30 seconds. This game seriously doesn’t know if it wants to be a shooter, a stealth game, or both. And every time I was getting used to playing the game one way, BAM, suddenly we’re in shooter land and I’m stuck there wondering why all the lights suddenly came on and everyone can see me. Pulling that kind of crap makes me wish I had controller insurance. Here’s my second problem. The game really doesn’t look very good. While I understand this is not, technically, a true sequel to Escape from Butcher Bay (Dark Athena comes with an updated version of EfBB), I’m not really seeing Xbox360 caliber stuff here. None of the environments nor the character designs stood out to me as ‘inspired’ or ‘interesting’. It all felt kind of “yeah, I get it…and?” Then there’s Vin Diesel. Oh man, having to listen to Vin Diesel, the master of lethargy, deliver dialogue to interchangeable characters ad nauseam is enough to make me want to turn of my console and apologize to it for feeding it such drivel. This, my friends, is not why I buy video games. Overall, I’d wager this game would have made a much bigger impression on me when it was released on the Xbox one. As of today, 2009, there are games that simply blow Dark Athena out of the water.
Street Fighter IV: In-dee-structable! Fuck, I’ve been trying to get that song out of my head for three hours now. Capcom, minus a thousand points right out of the gate for that friggin horrible (and penetrating) opening ballad. Now the good news. This game is the smoothest fighting game I have ever played in my life. The combat has been refined and streamlined to the point where a win is determined as much by luck as it is by skill and timing. In fact, for people like me who got used to the endless ammounts of crazy that could be found in Stree Fighter III 3rd Strike, it might feel too slimmed down. But don’t be fooled. Between the new focus attack (which is a semi-replacement for the Parry system), the EX combos and the Ultra combos, there are a lot of ways to turn the tide of a battle very quickly. Now if there’s one part that really disappoints it’s the online mode. You can’t queue up matches. There’s no kind of lobby system from which to set up matches. And there are always connection issues. In a game where distance and timing are essential a missed or laggy button press can turn your hadouken into an unintended opening for your opponent to quickly bring you to your knees. It’s a sad fact that, while not a deal breaker, certainly makes the game less appealing for people who don’t have a large pool of local players to draw from. As is usually the case series, if you like fighting games and you love the Street Fighter series, this game should be right up your alley.
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