Corpse Killer (Saturn) - Dead Inside Edition

Happy Halloween, Gamer heads!! This is our final review in the MONTH OF VIRTUA SPOOooOooOOooOOOOKIES! Get ready for some real horror! And I do mean horror because this game is horrible! So, just sit back, relax, and at least act scared.

It is no secret that Full Motion Video is the smooch of death for 99% of games "graced" with its presence. Myst still has a fanbase, but anyone will tell you that the acting in the game's FMV segments are so terrible they're great. The bad acting is infamous in these terrible parts of games. Developers normally just stepped in and did the acting themselves to nightmarish effect. Then you've got games that actually got Z-List movie actors in their games. Yeah, that's what Corpse Killer did. You would think this would improve the acting to some degree, but you would be very, very wrong. In fact, to some degree, it's somehow even worse. 

Among this cast of actors, they got the late Vincent Shiavelli, who actually has quite the long filmography, although most of it is about as low grade as you would expect. He is seen through a lot of this game and his scenes are a master class of bad. He fits right in with the rest of these performers and WOW there is a lot to unpack here. These cut scenes are very hard to watch. You will cringe your face into another dimension and you won't need Vegeta to do it (if you get that reference, you're officially in the cool club). It's obvious that these are all first takes unless something catastrophic occurred. The game developers should have worked a few more takes into the budget, because even the ZOMBIES are over acting here. 

That's just the FMV cut scenes! Believe it or not, all of it is technically full motion video! The characters in the gameplay scenes are still real people, they are simply cut outs that are slapped onto the background. They run toward you in a VERY unconvincing way while you shoot the screen with an ever shooting machine gun. You shoot the cheap looking zombies and they make stock screaming noises in an ever revolving loop. 

The zombies are just people in cheap makeup. Some of them just have regular clothes on and some of them look so cheap, the devs may as well have just reached through the screen and slapped you to kill your immersion. This is beyond awful! 

The game is also ridiculously easy almost 90% through it. Then the difficulty spikes to levels beyond reckoning. Lulling you into a coma only to inject this level of suck is a bit of a jerk move. Seriously, you would be hard pressed to stay conscious amid the constant gunfire, weird screams and terrible cutscenes. There are different types of ammo, explosives and a couple of other things to try and spice things up. Guess how well it works. Go on, guess...

Anyway, this is one of the worst games on the Sega Saturn or any of the other systems it was on upon its original release. There's a label on the Graveyard Edition that says it's one of the top 20 games of the year. This is a blatant lie and I'd be surprised if they didn't get sued for false advertising. You may notice this game was on both of my top worst Saturn games lists. It's pretty obvious why FMV's didn't really stand the test of time and after the fifth generation of games, they became more and more scarce. Thank GOD! If you really want to play this game out of morbid curiosity, it is available on Steam at the time of this article's writing. By all means, it's Halloween and the terrible nature of this game is quite scary. Have a ball and make it spooooooooky!

7 Spooooooooooky Saturn Games!

 

Happy Halloween, from Planet Virtua! You want to know about horror? When you think of scary video games, you probably wouldn't look back to the 32-bit era. Whether it be the lesser quality of graphics or the overarching tone, a lot of people pass this off as nothing special. Do not listen to them.

There is a lot to love in terms of dark tones when it comes to the Saturn. Here in the Month of SpoooooooOOOOoooooooooOOOOOOoOoOkiness, we'll be looking at such games. Not all of these will be games that are meant to outright frighten you. Some of these are simply games that have interesting monster designs or a tone that fits the horror genre. I do solidly believe that some of these are genuinely devoted to a creep factor. These games are not in any real order, hence why none of them are numbered. Now that we've got that out of the way, on with the virtua blood!

                                                                         House of the Dead

We start things off with an action railshooter! It is not especially scary in its setup, but it genuinely has some terrible monsters in it. We're not just talking about zombies, either. These range from swamp beasts made of algae, undead piranhas and armored monsters made of sludge cream filling. The flavors of monsters range far and wide and you will be hard pressed to count how many different types there are. How scary is it? Well, not especially scary, all things considered. It does have that wonderful atmosphere, though and it makes up for a lot of that with gore! Shoot these monsters apart with a hand gun and watch their chunks fly! Just try not to shoot innocent people, that's not the kind of gore we're supposed to have.

                                                                         Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Another entry in the action genre, this time for a platformer. Anything from skeletons to strange flower monsters spitting acid are on display here. The bosses are especially horrific! The very first one you fight is Dracula in a formless, horrific transformation! This is another title with such a wide range of monsters and ghosts, that your horror quota will be met in just a few hours of playing, whatever that quota may be. There are even monsters here that either have no classification or just flat out doesn't matter because they'll eat your face anyway! The castle is full of heinous beasts and you must kill the lot of them. Oh, crap, they respawned. Now, do it again!

                                                                                         D

Cutting right to the heart of the matter, D encapsulates the genre of horror to its max level. Get yourself in a dark room with this game in the forefront and there is a very good chance that you will at least feel some unsettling vibes. While it may be light on the monsters, it certainly fits every bill when it comes to atmosphere. There is still a lot to look at and the place you're in still feels haunted as all hell. D is an all around fun time and it is short enough for you to play on Halloween if you're looking for something to do.

                                                                                        Doom

That's right, I said it and I'm not taking it back. Doom is a game for any day and Halloween welcomes it with open arms. With such a large array of demons to squash, how could you not add it among the ranks of horrific titles? It doesn't have the creep factor unless you find yourself in a dark area with imps and cacodemons creeping within. There's enough blood here to fill a lake and the river that runs through it. It's horror, alright. It's just the type of horror you can pump a shotgun at.

                                                                                   Quake

If we have Doom, we may as well have this gib-soaked title. It may have guns and explosions, but there's also a vast number of monsters throughout. Not only the monsters, but also the atmosphere and the sinister tones that the setting enhances just spells out that Lovecraftian, gothic vibe that let's you settle into it and rocket jump straight into its face! Just look 

                                                                                  Resident Evil

The first game to coin the phrase "Survival Horror" and for good reason. BioHazard has got to be one of the most influential titles to come out of the horror gaming genre. It has enough clones and copycats as such. It is known to the rest of the world for its zombies but it sports a number of different creatures both of its own making and ones you would see around the genre. You could be fighting a Licker, sure, but you could also be fighting a giant spider! Its list of terrifying crratures knows no bounds!

                                                                                     Hexen

With dark castles, monsters at every turn and a gothic fantasy atmosphere, you better believe this title belongs here. Hexen is a very challenging game, don't you doubt, but the level design and aesthetics make it look so sinister, especially with two headed brutes and winged flame creatures flying overhead. There is a darkness to this game that is fun to explore. Just try not to get gored by giant lizards.

Now, you may be wondering why you don't see titles such as Deep Fear or Battle Monsters. Well, those games are going on a different list. I simply need to work out the details of said list. Until then, these are the games I would suggest for a night in with either yourself or some friends to enjoy. "Enjoy" being the key word here. Don't worry about such menial details as to why Horror Tour isn't included here. Oh who am I kidding, you're not wondering that. Virtua Boo!

Alone in the Dark 2 (Saturn) - Jack's Heart Attack

We continue our Virtua month of SpoooooOOOOOOOOOOKY CRISPS with this very obscure, strange title for the Saturn. Even for Survival Horror standards, this game is very strange. In fact, before this review, I had no idea this game even existed. Obviously, Alone in the Dark had sequels, but I had never even looked into them and this one hasn't come up in any of the conversations when talking about survival horror games. 

Total transparency here, I used a game walkthrough and I did not finish it. Every single element on display here was beyond terribly implemented. The controls are the worst of all. Not only are they tank controls, but they require you to fight zombies with tommy guns. Sounds awesome, right? No, it's really not. The only thing good about it is that it's funny and random. Actually fighting the three you encounter at the start of the game is jarring. You need to figure out these controls and that takes time you do not have when a zombie is using a bullet typewriter in close proximity to your face. 

Figuring out the button combinations and taking aim in multiple points of view is just a terrible way to learn. The controls are absolutely atrocious to begin with as they are the most awkward buttons to find and impliment in the game. Not only that, but finding out what to do in the game, objects to use and secret passages is another gigantic pain in the zombie rear! Figuring out these puzzles and getting ambushed at random points gets really old really fast. 

No matter where you go or what you do, you will die. Fighting in this game is so difficult with everything on display. Not only do the controls make it impossible to master, but you move so slowly. Every single time you run into a challenge, get ready to spend ten minutes trying to figure out how to get by it.

On top of everything, the graphics are about what you expect from Alone in the Dark, in fact, they are just about the same. They are just about as bad as they were in the original. The Saturn graphics on top of it are about the most charming thing you're going to get with this. 

Elements such as story, characters, setting and any connection to the first game, all of that went to the wayside. There's so little to focus on other than trying not to die, that you may as well consider each encounter a minigame. Trying to look at this game as a full entity is so daunting, you'll probably want to give up.

If this game had better controls and better mechanics with a little less of a cryptic nature, it could have been a nice little gem of a game. As it stands, though, this game even makes zombies toting guns boring. It is a dullfest that doesn't even attempt to scare you. That's really saying something when there are some genuinely creepy 32-bit games, despite what you might hear from these youngins today. Yes, I know I sound old, but who cares! That just means I'm getting ready to haunt your virtua dreams!  

7 Sorta Spooooooky Saturn Games!

 Happy Halloween, Gamer heads! On this installment of the Month of Spooky Spooks, we're going to take a look at games that are not getting any real recommendations. Either the game's quality is rather subpar or their attempts at being scary fall flat. Either way, they're Saturn titles, so they at least get the minimum recommendation.

                                                                Deep Fear

Of course, we would see at least one Resident Evil clone on this list. There are those who enjoy this title and you can roll with that as far as it will go. I never found its creatures all that scary, nor did I ever feel any real atmospehere radiating from this title. The voice acting and glitchy graphics pretty much killed my immersion on that front.

                                                            Battle Monsters

If you told me that I could dress up in a Halloween costume and becone immortalized in video game form, I would be 100% on board! So, there's no judgment to the people posing as characters in this title. The game itself, oh yeah, plenty of judgment. The monsters aren't scary, the controls are horrific and you can win once you find that perfect spam attack. Go nuts.

                                                            Death Crimson

Probably the worst railshooter on the system, and probably worse than a lot of other genres on top of that. This game is notorious among old school gamers for some of the most terrifying graphics, atrocious hit detection and all around nauseating gameplay. So, if you looking for a bad game for Halloween, it's worth a look.

                                                            Alien Trilogy

Probably one of the least bad games on the list but still not really striking that horror chord. Alien simply made some levels, put aliens in it with some guns and called it a day. Okay, that's pretty harsh, but this title invokes more boredom than it does terror. It's an alright title, it just needed a bit more spice.

                                                                Horror Tour

You've probably never heard of this title and there are many reasons for that. For one thing, it was released only in Japan. For another, it can hardly be considered a game because there's really no gameplay to speak of. Like the name suggests, it's more of a point and click site seeing tour around a gothic castle. There's some talking paintings, some big spiders here and there and there's a witch that speaks Japanese. Beyond that, there's not much. But it's SPOOOOOOOKYYYYY!

                                                Alone in the Dark 2: Jack is Back

A recent addition to my entourage of games. This one is just bad. I dare say you pretty much need to learn fire is hot by getting constantly burned here. You die in pretty much every scene because without knowing what's happening, things can kill you from off screen because of the sluggish tank controls and slow movements in general. The game is boring, but as stated earlier, giving zombies tommy guns is quite the novelty.

                                                                    Casper

Movie tie-in games are thankfully a thing of the past but they did have their gems. This was not one of them. It is immensely boring. Floating around the house as a ghost who can't fly through walls, you will be hard pressed to figure out the control scheme and apply it in an effective manner. The ghostly trio lack any of their jerk charms from the movie and Casper is just as dull as ever. Good luck getting a remake.

So, there you have it. Halloween is here at the time of writing but it is time now to wait for next year's Month of Saturn Spookiness. No matter what day it is, it is time to plan for the next year. Halloween is the best time of the year for a lot of reasons and this is no exception. Remember to stay safe, enjoy the season, stay with family and friends and drink zombies.

Back 4 Blood after being Left 4 Dead too!

 

Welcome back to the Month of VIRTUA SPEWWWWWKIESandKNEES! The month continues with some titles that are either loved or hated, depending on which side of the spectrum you sit! 

Sometimes, there comes the best intentions when it comes to the more thoughtful developers. Sometimes, it seems like they know what people want and know that people will be willing to pay money for it. Left 4 Dead had two amazingly therapeutic games when it came to killing miles and miles of zombies. Using the Half-life engine along with a random numbers generator, you're basically going through a post apocalyptic world where zombies roam the streets unchecked. You need to get to the safe points and escape routes to survive. 

The best part about L4D and its sequel, is that you get some very nice weapons with which to do so. You can go guns akimbo with the pistols, use an awesome magnum and some assault rifles that truly shred! The zombies give off plenty of blood and there are hordes of them to get through. Then there are the special zombies, and they can be something of a problem in more ways than one.

Special zombies tend to do a bunch of damage, which normally isn't a problem. When it comes to Jockeys, tiny zombies that jump on you, Hunters, big zombies that jump on you, or Smokers, smoking zombies that use TENTACLES, the problem is that they do a lot of damage because they don't get off. The charger in the second game bashes you against the ground and can't get off of you either! All of these special zombies require a second player or CPU to get them off of you by killing them or breaking their hold. 

These annoyances can be a very large problem because sometimes they could actually kill you in a big hurry if you somehow accidentally got away from your partners or something like that. If this is all happening during a zombie raid, the same problem emerges. It would have been nicer if we had an actual chance to fend them off ourselves with a threat of more damage rather than it being a death sentence if we're left alone. There are too many opportunities to be blindsided and the unfair advantage can be very frustrating. 

When you put all of that along with random zombies and horde triggers, you get a nice satisfying conclusion with a tiny bit of giant zombies and one-hit kill witches scattered through-out. Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 have been celebrated for many who love the video games based around zombies. The second game came out with new levels, new characters and weapons! People loved it! You could customize it with wonderful mods downloaded from Steam! Yes! Now for Left 4 Dead 3!

Silence followed. Steam came open and the company basically stopped making video games. Valve stopped making Half-life 3 as well and we have a lot to be thankful for as a result, but so many have lamented what could have been. The Left 4 Dead series has been dead for a very long time, but then there came a beacon of hope!

Back 4 Blood was obviously meant to be a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, but it just wasn't very good at it. On the surface, this new title came out and it was everything we ever wanted. There were team zombie matches, co-op sessions connected together, PvP with zombies and shooters, upgrades! While the upgrades were all free with gameplay, this new game was not without its paid content in the ways of cosmetics. 

The game, overall, felt completely off. Left 4 Dead wasn't without its staged sections of combat in the ways of burning fences and opening garage doors, but this felt much more tedious. Back 4 Blood's weapon system and supply purchase felt like it was trying to be different without adding anything new. The problem is that the weapons have turned a lot more into looter shooter rewards. 

Left 4 Dead better weapons because they were constantly good quality, rather than straight up having a damage system like Borderlands. Some people liked this mechanic, but it seemed to distract a little from killing the actual zombies with the bullets. There didn't need to be a lot more thought put into each hit. Complicating everything about this game was somewhat offputting, especially with how fast paced it was supposed to be. 

Grinding in such a fast paced game is not so good a look. Roleplaying games need to be a little more languid in their pace so that you can concentrate on your armor and weapons. Games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy have a much more constant pace because this is what is presented and it gives you time to put more thought into it. Back 4 Blood gives you time to concentrate on this between killing zombies, but sometimes you need to deal with the items and stats with a horde nipping at your heels. 

The card sections were a mistake. Let's call it what it was. All of these things about powering up your character and hyping up all of your numbers for the biggest numbers distracts terribly from what matters. The modern touches on this game were already bad, but I'm going to be absolutely honest, I didn't even touch the cards for the most part. I just put on some of them that sounded good and that could have affected my gameplay somehow. It could have made the game harder or nerfed the zombies, it probably didn't matter.  

Losing your weapons and items is a far bigger problem here with such a strict system where keeping it loose and simple with L4D proved far superior. B4B wasn't outwardly bad, it just wasn't worth putting more time into. It skated in with better graphics and bigger zombies but brought nothing actually interesting to the table. Sticking more to the old system of the Valve RNG zombies and adding something new on top of that would have proven more beneficial. As it stands, they added more layers to the cake and now it leans awkwardly and cutting off a piece is more worrying. Left 4 Dead 2 is far simpler, you don't need to worry about stats and items every time you want to play a level and you don't need to worry so much about competing with other players. 

They had some good intentions, it was just a poor execution. Killing zombies is a lot of fun, but it also doesn't need to involve a great deal of brain power. When you're trying to replicate an old game, try and pay more attention to the elements that people actually liked. A longer gestation period could have helped a lot with the overall mechanic structure. There were some cool giant zombies and some change could have been very beneficial to a 3rd Left 4 Dead game. Not to mention, an awesome magnum pistol selection wouldn't go amiss, while we're talking style. Break the zombies to pieces, zombie horde pieces! 

Castlevania Resurrection - Dead Before Dreamcast

 

As we continue the Virtua Month of SPEEEEWWWKIES!!!!! 2024, we come to talk about a game that never made it to an official release. Castlevania Resurrection was meant for a Dreamcast release and for one reason or another, it never happened. Then, for some strange reason, out of nowhere, the developer comes out and gives everyone the game files that were actually complete. We were given a few levels to play through and I'm here to tell you, if you don't mind some jank gameplay with some terrible glitches, this is actually a pretty fun ride. 

Pretty much, imagine playing Legacy of Kain, a nice fantasy third person. Sonia Belmont has had a game of her own once in Castlevania Legends for the Gameboy, and this was supposed to be her advent to the 3D world. Well, it's nice to know we got to see her journey there in some form, even if it's not the way it was planned. Pretty much, these are unfinished levels and they can easily be burned onto a Dreamcast CD. Is there any real point to them? No, but is it entertaining? Very much!

The worst thing that happens in this game is you get to the end of one the levels and you accidentally fall through the wall or the floor. It happens on occasion. Obviously, there was no QA testing and they made these levels as solid as they could before someone pulled the plug. It's kind of amazing the stuff that did get done, though. Some of these levels are fairly well detailed. 

These mages are probably the worst enemy they have, aside from the random bat that pelts you at the beginning of a level. These guys will fly around you and continuously bombard you with energy orbs. You can only fight one of them at a time and they take forever to kill! Seriously, then one of them will randomly inflate into a giant size. 

Why does he do this? I don't know, but then he stops moving. I think these guys were given some sort of growth transformation and it just never took full form? If that's the case, that's probably the strangest use of an enemy I've ever seen. It's bad enough that they attack you in such a coordinated fashion, but then transforming like that just seems a bit excessive. 

You remember the skull stacks, right? Well, they're here too, and they are used quite a bit. They're a great callback, but there's also a portion of a level (the START of a level) where there's three of these stacks guarding an entrance like prison bars. BIT excessive!

Next, we move onto this one temple level with some of the worst level design I've seen in a very long time. I say that because the entire thing seemed to be custom built to make the player very angry. You start off by unleashing this big huge three headed snake. Well, obviously, it's unfinished, so you can go back and push it back into its passage. So long as you don't mind getting pelted a few times by the snake heads, you can manage to push it all the way back.

Well, that's all well and good, but then, when you run away from the snake thing, it's toward the camera. So you're running blind, much like the Crash Bandicoot rolling boulders of old. This is bad enough, but then they had to put HANDS in the floor to grab you and slow you down while also hurting you. Seriously? What? Obstacles are one thing, but grabbing the ankle? It's bad enough when you have to duck and jump. Well, the good thing is that the snake isn't very fast. But either way, the level seems deeply flawed on a design perspective. It really seemed like the weakest of the bunch.

Now, do I think this game had promise? Absolutely! There are some very good 3rd person platformer/hack and slash games out there. Castlevania could have made a very good 3D platformer before the whole Lord of Shadow business. Do I think this would have been an award winning Game of the Year? It was possible, but that's a bit of a stretch. There would definitely need to be some QA on some of the concepts they attempt in this game. They could have introduced a story in there, but it really doesn't look like there's a place for that.  It all starts in front of a castle's plaza and enemies are all around you from the very beginning.

The game has its promise, but it also looks like it could have gone very wrong very quickly. There are questionable elements aside from the three-headed snake that warrant a little attention. One of them being the enemies, namely the final boss battle. The gorgan (it could be Medusa, I don't know) is a decent boss battle, but not for a FINAL boss. The only reason I give this credit is because this level could very easily be just another level. Just because there is a boss, does not mean she is the final one. If she is only one of a few bosses, this could definitely have worked. 

It's just that she has one form, then a head form and then you kill it and she dies, turning into an orb. There's really not much else to it. You need to open her chamber by whipping the candles around the cathedral and that's the level. It was funny this time around because I fell into the lava and it didn't kill me. It was still a little annoying because there was no way out and wraiths kept coming down and attacking me relentlessly. Still, I could live down in lava and that's pretty cool.

Do I wish this game was made? Yes, but I also would not get my hopes up. Castlevania had its flaws from the beginning, as anyone who has played the lineup will tell you. I simply love the fact that someone who made this game came out and gave it to the public as a show of good faith. Castlevania Ressurection honestly could have done with a bit more creative enemies though. There's only so many ways you can work in "Acolyte of Darkness" and make it work so many times. 

With a bigger lineup of enemies and a few more levels, this could have been a good, even great game if they worked out the bugs and polished it up. It didn't NEED Dracula, but it could have done with a few lesser vampire enemies. There were ghosts and skeletons, and they're always nice. There isn't much of a chance that this was going to be better than Symphony of the Night, but it definitely could have been a contender for the best of the 3D Castlevanias. There's really not a whole lot of strong contenders there, unless you count Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Even then, that's more 2.5D. Still, what we have is a nice little snack at no extra charge. If you want this, you're welcome to find it and download it at your own leisure. It's free. Thrown a Virtua Bone.

Casper (Saturn) - The Friendly Lump

Welcome back, Virtua fans, to The Neptune err Virtua Month of Saturn SPEEEEEWWWWWBOOBOOBOO!!!! Get ready for the worst scare of all! The horrors of the movie tie-in games! Nuu! 

The Sega Saturn was in its hayday during a strange period in gaming history. It was a very experimental period where large corporations and movie studios were a lot less tentative. While movie tie-ins were not new by any means, Casper came out when these games were released on every single port they could get their hands on. Anytime you looked at a game ad in a magazine or a comic book, you would see several different cartridges and/or CD's with the various coverarts for every system. Casper was released on the SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Playstation, Sega Saturn, 3DO (strangely, the final game for the system) and PC! This was the norm for back in those days, but this was around the time when they stopped doing that and started releasing them on just two or three instead. With the 3D era coming in full force, games were becoming much harder and more costly to make. 

Casper didn't seem to have the problem of having an expensive development, though. While it does boast a semi-unique isometric puzzler gameplay, it is still very much considered a 2D game. The graphics do what they set out to do, the graphical art is quite nice and the ambience of the level works, that's about the most credit you can give the whole game. 

Beyond that, this game is a lot of fluff with a whole lot of no content. You fly around the levels looking for puzzle pieces, keys to get to said puzzle pieces and find secrets. While resistance to get these puzzle pieces is rather scant, there are places in the game where you need to contend with the uncles. 

The level with Uncle Fatso, if I may be frank, startled the life out of me, pun intended. After going through rooms of nothing but stillness and finding pieces of a painting, Fatso came out of nowhere and began chasing me. This level became some of the most fun in the game and was something of an iconic moment, because after that, it was more bland, lifeless level. The puzzle pieces take a while to find if you don't know where to go or what key opens which door. This is one of those games where they had to make it cryptic and slow-going to elongate it and make it "worth your while".

If you've read my Top 20 Worst Games of the Saturn list, you'll know that I have placed this game in a rather dishonorable spot. There's really no other way to put it. This game is a slog to get through and playing it over a long period of time can very quickly become the cure for sleep deprivation. Aside from a few places where you need to deal with the uncles, there's very little to get excited about. Even the uncles aren't anything. Aside from Fatso, the others are just slow death traps that follow you around. 

You've got the mansion and you've got the hedge maze in the backyard. Those are the two primary locations in this game and the levels are dizzying. Keeping up with where you've been and what samey room you've been in to get what puzzle piece is enough to make you go crosseyed if this is not your prefered genre. If you're looking for a scary puzzler with lot's of intrigue take this out of your Saturn immediately and put in D. This game is bland, tasteless and reaks of bad punny one-liners and vague ties to a movie that may be nice to watch on Halloween once in a while. This game should be tested before selecting as a common haunt. Virtua Ghost Flies!

AAA Gaming Publishers - An Industry with No Accountability

 

The face of the gaming industry has become bruised and battered over the course of the past few years, and they have no one but themselves to blame. Individuals have come out of their shells, taking to social media in order to berate and shame their own customers in some feeble attempt to guilt them into buying games that are clearly undercooked and under developed. These individuals think that, just because their games feature "represented characters" and "forward thinking ideas for a modern audience", they can hide behind a shield of identity politics in order to shame anyone who would point out their flaws. 

It has been proven time and time again that these people have bought into an idea that has nothing to do with gaming. They accepted money from a certain company or companies that push agendas that have nothing to do with the game and they are willing to steer their titles in some new direction that undermined their previous efforts. The games have become shallow shells of themselves and characters we once loved have become nothing but symbols of a narrative that has no place in escapism. These beloved characters will now gladly step aside for brand new characters to take up their mantles and replace them as the new poster child for their properties while the originals fade into the background. 

Such an idea that games would accept these ill-gotten millions of dollars just to preach a message to the audience is akin to Popeye eating spinach when a fight is going bad, only to start punching himself in the face. Rather than trusting the game designers to push out a decent product, publishers trust that all of this money would bolster their chances of gaining new fans of a new audience that does not really exist. Once the game becomes ill received, it now becomes publishers' and developers' jobs to run damage control. They proceed to call their fanbases and audience names such as "racist", "sexist" or any other word with "ist" or "phobic", in order to play the victim and make people think they are under attack. What is actually happening is fans of the intellectual property are not liking what they are seeing in game trailers and abstaining from buying the games because they have tastes that are not being met. 

It is not a hard concept to hire writers to write a story that goes along with the lore and the plot of the original and continues it in a natural way. It is not difficult to imagine developers working toward a goal of making a game with controls and graphics that suit a certain standard for the game they are creating. In many cases, it sounds more like games either run out of money or do not have the budget they were aiming for, so they turn to people that offer them the money at the expense of the game itself. 

Suddenly, character designs will change to a more watered down version or unappealing rendition of what they once were. Characters that fans loved suddenly needed to cover themselves from head to toe, get breast reductions and gain a holier than thou attitude toward any want of sex appeal. Characters are race swapped in order to go along with trends and many of them are gender swapped, resulting in becoming unrecognizable. This is not because this company actually cares about this demographic, but because they think that they will be praised with sales from pandering to a more widespread audience. Instead of creating something new for their narrative or creating a whole new property, they feel the need to change what is already there to suit the points they didn't need to make in the first place.

The simple fact is that the ones who were once willing to pay for these games are left scratching their heads at these decisions. The more they look into these changes, the more it becomes obvious that companies have gone out of their way to please a minority that never wanted the game to begin with. Then, when sales go bad, it is suddenly up to everyone involved with the project to either to run interference on this trending failure or go completely silent as they struggle to meet expectations with their patches and/or downloadable content in order to try and bolster interest. 

When you stand back and look at the forest for the trees, you can see the blatant detriment that this has had on the industry. Audiences are now left wondering why these companies are not seeing it for themselves. The heads of the company are not listening to their own player base and the ones at the management level take all of the flak because they need to be vocal in their disdain to any opposition and even their own clientele. They are unwilling to have any self-reflection and only look at the numbers as they dwindle into the red, hoping that throwing more money at it will fix the problem. They are only feeding the fire that is burning the industry down while continuously accepting large amounts of money in the name of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Beloved characters have become shells of their former selves. Now they wholly embrace the idea that they talk in ways they never did. They make decisions that go against the very foundation with which they were created. Characters can suddenly be changed however the "creatives" want them to be changed and anyone who questions any of these changes are no longer allowed to speak on the fans' behalf. Fans who question it with logic are instantly labled as "toxic fans".

People once devoted to a gaming franchise are being silenced for their devotion. Their loyalty to a wide spread franchise is being over-looked. AAA Gaming Publishers needed a pay raise and didn't care what kind of commity they were inviting into their writing room. This has caused their games to become unrecognizable in a lineup to previous titles in their respective franchises. The tone deaf beaurocratic big wigs of these companies keep telling their teams to go full steam whilst never listening to a word of criticism from fans who once paid their bills. 

If any of this sounds familiar, then you know what I'm talking about. Audiences are no longer allowed to negatively comment on the look of characters, nor they allowed to comment on any of the changes. Fans of long-running intellectual properties are only supposed to praise them for their physical identities and anything they don't like about their personalities are nothing but white noise in the eyes of whoever is pushing this way of thinking. Whether they're pushing it for money or some shallow need for opposition is irrelevent. This is a trend that is killing brands that fans once loved.

This is an expansion of the previous article that stated you should never bow down to this idea and surrender your sense of standards. If it is obvious that the greed and hubris of a company has stepped in a direction not to your liking, you have no obligation to humor them. Point out what is wrong with these changes. Give your opinions of how a story could have been better and what plotholes they so obviously ignored. If you don't like a character, it does not matter why you don't like that character, reject them. That is your perogotive. You do not need to scream and shout at people who disagree with you. If they are unwilling to coexist with you because of your opinions or your stance on a subject, then they are not worth your time and most certainly do not deserve your hard-earned money. 

Companies will churn out whatever they want in terms of how a game is made and very few of them will compromise with logic and/or reason. If someone is sitting there defending these large corporations in opposition to their middle class customers, that sounds like a big bag full of not your problem. They can cry about people taking to youtube and podcasts, picking apart their obvious agendas all they want. In the end, it is up to you to make the call of what side you're on in this fight, even if that means you are not part of the fight. You don't need to be there to defend either side, you can make your own decisions and pick who you trust. If AAA companies really think online reviews are brainwashing you or controlling your opinions, it honestly sounds like they are bitter because they were unable to do so. Do not accept undercooked games that are below your standards and do not change your mind just because a game publisher says you should do so because, "just trust me". You have a brain and you are fully capable of using it, unlike certain individuals that think they can sweeten your "babyish mind" while hiding behind a coporation. Save your money for the game you truly want and remember to drink water.  

House of the Dead Remake (PC) - Zombie Nightmare Fluff

Next in the Virtua month of Virtua SPEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWKIESOUR! This time we have something new and horribly gory! Please enjoy!

Over the years of posting reviews on this site, there has been one title that has gotten a constant mention throughout. This was not on purpose, but on a small glance at my past articles. It has shown up on multiple top 10 lists and gotten held up as one of the examples of railshooters done correctly. It has been compared to many of its genre and come out looking very favorable, at least in this subjective reviewer's opinion. This subjective reviewer's opinion also seems to gravitate toward keeping the graphics blocky, sketchy and blurry as they were upon their implimentation to the Saturn or Arcade cabinets. 

Guess what, sports fans, this is a very good example of just that. The House of the Dead was remade for modern consoles in April of 2022 and you can count it among the remakes that did its best. It is by no means a terrible remake, nor does it look "bad". The graphics actually look quite detailed, but there is something wrong with them. The movements of the zombies and something about the movements of the screen seem so unattached. It's like they tried to keep the blocky, slow movements of the original port while implimenting them with new, polished graphics and the mixture is like a 1970's movie played on Bluray. It looks off. 

That's pretty much all there is to say about what is really wrong with this port. It seems so out of place. Like they told every single original actor of a movie to wear a full body suit of themselves, with new cameras and equipment. It doesn't wholly affect the gameplay, though. You can shoot zombies and have fun, and there are some nice darker tones to the game. 

There are good things here. I found myself really enjoying shooting things in the background and either finding a secret or just destroying something randomly. They did a very good job detailing the game with breakable stuff. That enhances the game and gives you a good sense of satisfaction. They also added a few more little items that improve the difficulty. Like, with the first villain, the Hangedman. He's also known as "That annoying bat dude that flies around and maybe sics a giant headless armor suit on you". A long title, I know. Instead of just shooting him in this version, though, he has a weakspot on his chest. Since he's slightly larger and more detailed, this actually worked. 

There were little tidbits here and there that made this game more fun. I loved how they made the blade jumper guys much darker and blend in more with the shadows. It made me feel observant when I spotted them and attacked them very early. There's good, grotesque violence to be had here and the game is far more accessible than it was. 

Is this game worth buying now? Yes, very much so. It is not a bad port at all, it simply has its off points and, as always, I am of a mind that the original is just a more fulfilling experience. That being said, the ambience, the higher graphics and the gameplay all have their ups and downs, but overall, it comes out ahead. What would have made this game far more edible is if, like in Nights Into Dreams Remake, they included the original game in its entirety. They didn't do that, but they did add a whole bunch of extra game features. 

The problem I had with these extra features was that Horde Mode could not be played without erasing your save game. That was a very strange decision on their part because it meant I had to beat the entire game to actually test it out. If that were the case, they may as well have made it an unlockable feature. Either way, it's your standard basic affair of minigames and none of them are especially noteworthy. They're not great, but good for a distraction. 

It's easier, obviously, because it doesn't have limited continues. That is actually a good thing, because the finite deaths did limit the original game in many ways. This is especially true whenever they were not getting paid for their labors in our hard earned quarters. Either way, this game is worth getting, playing and enjoying but it is not exactly worth celebrating. If this is your only way to play this game, you could do far worse. It is a game they built from the ground up. Though I question the use of Unity, I will not get into that. Just know that it is a new game from the Saturn and we should be grateful that we're still getting some classics to this day from our old friend of yesterday. Kill zombies, but play nice and drink water.

X-Men Sega Saturn Update! 0.3!

Well, it's good to see that HotRodX is still at it and doing the work we so desire! It's nice to see a programmer who listens to fans and strives to do more work to achieve a set goal. Since we last visited this port of the Saturn version for the X-men Arcade game, there have been two updates! The last update was back earlier in the Spring and Storm was added along with level 2! Storm became a playable character and now Nightcrawler has also been added to the roster. With four playable characters, you can also barge in with 3 whole players to take down the sentinel menace! 

Once again, we find ourselves spellbound by this game's amazing progress as our developer is hard at work behind the scenes, churning out gold! Nightcrawler is definitely a fan favorite character, but I'm personally waiting for Colossus, as he has the power and the brawn to take down these malicious machines with brute strength and a battle cry known to many! 

Until then, though, we find ourselves with a new third level, which is the jungle level! After taking down the sentinel factory, you'll find that the difficulty spikes quite a bit, like the arcade days of old. It's still a real challenge, as you only have three lives to get through all three levels and this is a real chore that gamers will find invigorating and a tiny bit frustrating! It's beautiful! 

What I love the most is that he sees the difficulty and softens the blow a little bit with the first level. Rather than having to take down the sentinels with two beat downs, it only requires one. In the second level, he spikes up the difficulty by requiring you to either beat them twice, or beat them once and stomp them on the ground to make them explode! The explosions hit like they're supposed to and the mutant powers are a potent tool that you can only use in limited quantities. 

Consider us a cheering squad! We're here to make sure that this game gets its due diligence and praise from all who would behold it! HotRodX, we hope you continue the hard work and we wait with baited breath for the next update, whenever that is. Just remember to take breaks and don't overwork yourself. Patience is a virtue that we should have learned long ago, and working as a single developer in a game made from scratch, the workload can be very cumbersome. So, please, all of you X-men and Saturn fans, be sure to give this game a try and give the feedback! Make sure to make it constructive and accept that the game is not finished quite yet. The polish and the full game will come when it will and we need to make sure that HotRodX continues in an environment fit for programming. Just remember to enjoy the game while you drink water!