Sean Games: The Best of the Worst

Let's be honest, we all make some pretty poor purchasing decisions from time to time. I remember saving for months - mowing lawns, pulling weeds, and babysitting spoiled brats that watched Tom and Jerry and ruined Lego creations - just to buy Scooby-Doo Mystery for the SNES. It was a poorly designed licensed game that controlled like garbage, had around three songs and four levels. I liked Scooby-Doo and was also eight, not exactly in the prime of my consumer decision making abilities.

Now imagine if all the purchases you made were bad decisions. Imagine seeing a deal on marked down video games, twenty dollars each say, and going ahead and buying five at a time. You will probably never play them, and you probably won't enjoy the ones you do. Sooner or later you can't even remember what a good game feels like. Everything you buy, all the games you play begin to oversaturate the thought-space you've set aside for video games until all your experiences become simple manipulation of the neurons in your brain. Can you imagine never getting that taste - that taste of bland, of average, of the poorly programmed and the poorly designed, of the lazy - out of your mouth? Can you imagine living in the boring haze of the cheap, picking the bones of the dying for every tiny achievement and every scant five minutes of enjoyment? Can you imagine being my friend, Sean?

You see, Sean's life is full of the poor purchasing decisions the rest of us have come to regret. I figure he just has no sense of regret, but the point is that Sean no longer has any concept of what a good video game is, which is strange because he owns more video games that almost everyone I know. He just happens to be a frightening statistical anomaly in that nearly all of them are bad. So I was not expecting much when I stole a few games from him while staying at his apartment in Houston during Spring Break.

I was still disappointed.

Darksiders

"How's this... Darksiders?" I say, holding up the case so my friend Shawn can see. We're sitting in Sean's apartment (yes that gets confusing), on the floor, rifling through a pile of his games that we've shoved off a swiveling case next to his TV.

"Meh." Shawn replies. The sun is setting and we're all ready to leave, facing an hour and a half drive back to College Station to drop me off then a 12 hour drive to El Paso for everyone else. It's a weird twilight that's sort of dark but the pools of light burned into the rug eliminates the necessity for ceiling lights, so everything is darker than it should be. All my other friends - including Sean - stand around us and impatiently wait for us to finish our thievery.  

"I like the sound of that. What's it about?"

"It's metal Zelda."

And so it was.

I had been interested in Darksiders for a long time simply because it was a new franchise and it looked relatively unique. Sure it took place in the post-apocalypse which had been done to death since Fallout 3 in 2008, but the combat felt fresh and the grandiose biblical backdrop seemed neat. Well let me tell you, those two aspects are really played up in the first hour or so and the game is an absolute blast. You take on the role of the apocalyptic horseman War and do your part to bring about the end of the Kingdom of Man (Earf, to the layman). You are resurrected by your superiors, The Charred Council, who moderate the struggle between Heaven and Hell. War's story doesn't mesh with what the Council has gathered and so the horseman is given a new lease on life and find the real reason Armageddon was triggered early. 

The adventure takes War on a winding journey though the wasteland of post-Armageddon Earth. Everything looks really neat, and the story is legitimately intriguing, it's a sort of supernatural detective story, told with an overwrought sense of grandeur and voiced appropriately. Some will find it annoying, and even I have to admit I chuckled a little when the high demon Azrael growls that War must now "SEEK THE SHADOW LURKERS" and "RIDE THE SHADOW WINDS." It borders on the silly, but it's a welcome respite from military shooters and God of War's senseless rambling.

THE SHADOW WINDS. RIDE THEM.

The combat, in opposition with the narrative, is fast and fluid. War goes from exploration to combat to puzzle solving and back at the drop of a hat, and is pretty spry for an armor covered deity. His sword (Chaoseater, pfffffhahaha) swings fast and gracefully. If there's one thing I can appreciate in an action game, it's grace. Every fight gives you options, an environment to tear apart and use intelligently. Though the combat scales well, it gets boring and even frustrating pretty soon. A rudimentary upgrade system doesn't help much and many aspects (like the "magic" abilities) go underutilized.

Flaws just keep popping up, even within the first hour. Actual progress is plodding. As beautiful and varied the environments are (The Ashlands, in particular, are a treat) they still take far too long to traverse, and once you reach the first dungeon Darksiders reveals itself as the Zelda clone it really is. But hey, this choice of theft is unique in its own right, breaking the Zelda formula from its remedial fantasy setting and giving it a welcome injection of plot. However, Darksiders gets a bit clingy with its liberal borrowing of Nintendo's mold and suffers when it sticks to formula instead of considering game design. Dungeons require copious backtracking, mid-bosses are horribly retreaded, and the strange three-heart-restart holdover makes continuation a pain. These are all holdovers that may work well in Zelda, but only lead to grief when transplanted into this setting.

Stalfos?

Darksiders gets a zero out of one because it can't seem to find its own footing and craft its own experience. A reliance on the Zelda formula drags down what would otherwise be a pretty interesting experience. Apparently there is a Darksiders 2 on the way, which hopefully remedies these faults and fosters a more unique experience. However, if you really like Zelda games and can put up with a few rough edges, then by all means check out the initial entry.

Eternal Sonata

"What about this one?" Anime girls standing in a colorful field catches my eye among the generic shooters and fantasy wankery.

"Oh, you play as Chopin in that game. It's weird." This time Sean speaks up, hands in his pockets and disinterest on his face. 

Shawn chimes in: "The battle system is kinda neat."

"How long is it?"

Shrug.

"Does everyone in this game look stupid?"

Yes, they do.

Eternal Sonata is a game about people with dumb clothes that inhabit a fever dream from the mind of a dying Frédéric Chopin. It is slowly revealed through the course of the game that Chopin was horribly insane to have dreamed up all the colorful landscapes, poor clothing decisions, mundane plot events, and pseudo-philosophical bullshit that inhabit his head.

For the most part this is a by-the-numbers JRPG. You can practically hear the creators' pencils scratch across The Big List of JRPG Tropes. Seriously, it's all here. We got amnesia, main characters under 20, feathers fucking everywhere, incurable diseases, speeches about fate and destiny, moe, taxes... Taxes? Yes, for the first quarter of the game or so a major driving force in the plot is the high tax rate on floral powder in the town of- oh god I have already fallen asleep.

The entire game moves retardedly slow and it's hard to give any fucks about any character at all. At best you can enjoy some of the less stupid character designs. Oh man, the character designs. You kind of have to see this to believe it. Take our pal Allegretto, who sort of becomes the de facto male protagonist after the whole Chopin subplot takes a backseat to tax discussion:

His outfit doesn't seem too bad at a glance apart from the absurd gray hair (he's like 15, the mean age of the party). But as the game progresses, the cutscenes slowly reveal more and more stupid details. Why the fuck are his boots so bulky? Are those heels? Feathers? You can't see it here, but that strap on his chest is fastened by a stupid fucking leather heart on his back. Don't even get me started on Chopin's getup, or god forbid... Count Waltz.

So.

STUPID.

Granted, some of the backdrops in the game are legitimately beautiful (though with perhaps a bit too much bloom in places), but otherwise the game is like the antithesis to Darkstalkers: it is incredibly stupid in the plot, visual design, and character departments, but is actually pretty fun to play. The battle system uses a sort of pseudo-tactical turn based rule set. Each character gets a turn limited by a time limit where they are given free reign to move, use items, and attack. Basic attacks give slightly more time for the turn while special attacks take a set amount of time. Each character has their own unique special attacks but only two can be set for use in a particular battle. There's also the matter of light and dark on the field to take into account, which adds yet another degree of strategy to the mix.

See? Pretty.

It's actually very fun to strategically place characters and set up insanely damaging combos or even just wail away and hope for the best. However, the game is incredibly easy. I was avoiding nearly every random encounter (you can see monsters on the field and avoid them, another plus!) and still felt like the battles I did run into were far too easy. You will never be at a loss for health, money, or items. In a sense, this makes for quite a relaxing experience. You can just kick back and plow through the game to see all the wonderful scenery and awful plot shenanigans without ever having to grind or think; however it also removes any sense of drama or danger, becoming more of a shiny contrivance then a good game.

For drawing a dull picture with a colorful palette, Eternal Sonata receives a zero out of one. Also, the end credits are just too fucking long. Seriously, I walked to a convenience store to get a soda and when I got back, they were still going.

Falsetto and Salsa are cool though. They my peeps.

Splinter Cell: Conviction

Ubisoft made quite a few waves when they unveiled the latest chapter in the Splinter Cell series. Styled more in the vein of the Bourne series and the recent fast paced gritty spy noveau that has been sweeping box offices and shaking cameras, this new title almost completely forgoes the realistic stealth foundation that previous iterations were built upon. Some critics decried this departure from a patient slow-burn stealth game to an all out gun action shoot-fest, while others applauded the game as a bold new shooter with innovative fluidity and grit.

Not really, I just pulled all that out of my ass. It seems pretty plausible though.

Plausibility is the weapon of a true spy.

I, personally, found Conviction to be a nifty stop-gap between Splinter Cell's strict stealth edict and the cover-based action that has been flooding the market for the past few years. Either Ubisoft made a bold move and threw out everything that had grown stale in the franchise or they decided to phone it in and crib from some of the more generic third person shooters of the day. You could look at it either way, but I just can't ignore that this is a game owned by my friend Sean.

First of all the stealth is... actually pretty neat. The more dogmatic Splinter Cell games demanded a sort of perfection. Stealth above all with violence as a last resort. As the series progressed the leash got looser and longer until we arrive at Conviction, where you can theoretically throw caution to the wind and Rambo through all the commandos trained to kill your shit. Here the stealth side can best be described as practical. 

That's a compliment.

Sure you can just run and gun through the game if you're good enough (and on an easy enough setting), but things are so much easier (and cooler) if you duck into the shadows every now and then. Pick off the grunts silently while you can, and when the shit eventually hits the fan, you have less dudes to put lead into. Hell sometimes, you can get away with simply hiding behind a column and letting a crowd of enemies run right past you. 

Bitch, I got options.

Now the actual gunplay, that was totally half-assed... wait, it wasn't? It was actually an incredibly liberating and gratifying experience, with options and an empowering skillset? Whoa, it totally was! Like I said, outright violence is usually an option. But let's face it, no one is perfect and you will get spotted. When that happens, Conviction goes from being Batman: With a Shotgun to FUCK IT, WE DO IT LIVE: The Video Game. The gloves come off, the shotguns come out and you're given free reign to hang off rails, throw grenades, take cover, duck in and out of stealth, or use your mark and executes. The mark and executes, by the way, are easily the most innovative thing about the game. At first they seem a bit ancillary, providing a simple get-out-of-bullets-free card, but by the end of the game they become absolutely necessary.

Then there's the plot, boy is that hackneyed and dull, like every other Tom Clancy game, right? Oh. It's actually fast-paced, personal, and occasionally quite thrilling? Dang, that's true too. Sure, you've got the prerequisite Clancy techno-jargon and topical terrorism, but for the most part Ubisoft seems to have finally realized the personal story of Sam Fisher that they've been trying to tell since Chaos Theory. The twists come often and silly, but they're usually tied to actual human beings and have weight in the story, not to mention an extraordinarily cool on-foot chase through the streets of Washington D.C. which is far and away the highlight of the game.

Okay, it has problems, but the bottom line is that Splinter Cell: Conviction is a neat innovation in the stealth-action genre, keeping things fast paced and limber, but also rewarding patience and planning. It carries the Splinter Cell torch with poise and vigor and gets a one out of zero for its grace under fire.

Also pretty good art direction for a game about shooty guns.

"Holy shit, I just grabbed a dude and killed his friends like some kind of James Bond. I can't believe this is a game Sean bought!"

Weeks later, I'm finally discovering the anomaly of a good Sean Game. Tense music punctuates the gunfire as Sam Fisher ducks and dodges through an urban landscape, stopping only to pull a solider off a balcony or crush someone's larynx.

My friend Henry chimes in from the internet. It is revealed that I never actually said those words, I merely typed them.

"I don't think Sean actually bought that game. I think he just took it from his dad by mistake."

Reality sets in and I am overcome with knowledge.

I pause the game and close my eyes, retreating into meditation to ponder this new turn of events. If there's one thing my friend Sean is good at, it's mistakes. Not to mention Conviction is actually good.

Yes, all the pieces of the puzzle drop into place with a satisfying clang, and the creases between them all melt away as if they were never there to begin with. Splinter Cell: Conviction is good because Sean doesn't own it. But Sean doesn't own it because it is good. The truthful lines of infinity wrap around and devour each other. Nirvana crashes down upon me like a wave, and I unpause the game.

Viking: Battle for Asgard

Sean decides to offer his opinion while I wince in anticipation.

"You should get Viking, I loved that game."

Sean often doesn't know what he's talking about, but I examined the cover and had a thought.

"Hey..."

Yes, the title is somewhat evocative of Spartan: Total Warrior, which was quite sweet. Quite sweet, indeed...

"You know you're saying that out loud-"

"I'll take it!"

And then I wished I hadn't.

There's not a lot I can say about Viking: Battle for Asgard. At the same time, there is so much to be said about this awful pile of trash. I guess that Nirvana thing is lasting a bit longer than I thought.

Let's start with the basics. You're a viking. You get placed in a slightly open world and are given a checklist of things to do. Go there, kill them, etc. Them being the forces of Hel's Legion, which are really just placeholder bad guys and ravaging strawmen for you to plunge your blades into. This is accomplished with an admittedly somewhat interesting combat system that descends into a horrible buggy wonk-factory whenever a load greater than four enemies is placed on it, and past the first world you never fight fewer than four enemies at a time.

Gore != Good

You got your strong attack, your quick attack, your jump, and your block, and from here the house of cards that is the primary gameplay is built. Your moveset is rarely expanded, and you'll be doing the same moves even to the final boss battle.

Oh boy, the final boss battle. If I could, I would retroactively record my last 20 minutes of this game, and call the video, with no additions, my review. It is truly a microcosm of all the awful elements in this garbage heap of madness. Shit is just broken. There is no precision to anything. No weight. No empowerment. You never feel like a battle-lusting viking. All you ever do is hack and slash, block and retaliate. There is no planning beyond, "Well that guy is big, I guess I'll start there." In a beat-em style action game like this, where every major setpiece is fighting dudes, this is unacceptable. It's not even consistent with its incompetence. Sometimes an enemy will take three hits to kill, then the very same enemy type right next to him will take seven. Playing this game makes me feel like I'm crazy.

...or a sheep.

The ending doesn't even include the massive and empty overworlds, the hackneyed stealth segments, and the mind-numbing repetition needed to progress. It's bad. It's bad bad. It is so very very bad. And it suuuuuuucks. Just this year I completed a game project with three friends of mine, and nowhere else have I felt this particular brand of pain. I know what the developers behind this thing went through. I can feel every wasted hour debugging horrible animations or borked scripted events. It bleeds into me, like how I imagine a ghost feels when attending his own funeral. That's what this game is. A funeral. It's every dream of the development team unceremoniously dashed against the cliffs of reality and trotted around in a pine box like a fucking AIDS infested Mardi Gras. You can hear their compromises as the game drags on. Okay, combat doesn't feel quite right, but in this particular scenario it can be rather fun! Okay, the character is constantly clipping through walls and randomly killing himself, but look at this dope ass fire. 

I will say that the concluding battles for each world are suitably grand, but they're just as broken as the rest of the game, and ends up being more of a frustrating spectacle than anything.

A spectacle of bad.

So Viking is more than just bad, it is depressingly bad. So much so that it receives not only the dishonor of being owned by Sean, but also a zero out of one.

Having said our good-byes and exchanged friendly hugs we hit the road back to College Station. I'm in the backseat, looking over my plunder, grimacing at the prospects offered by my XBOX in the weeks ahead. The road whips by and Henry's terrible stoner rock floods the car like some kind of bog from the 70s. When I look over at Shawn for some solace I notice him pulling a box from his utility sized cargo pockets. Lo and behold, he's holding the Resident Evil 1 remake for the Gamecube.

"Dammit, why didn't I steal that?" I ask, incredulously. Sean probably doesn't even realize he still has a Gamecube.

"Because you're a bad thief, dude."

Sean: Battle for Mediocrity

Sean is a good friend. One of my best. He is also, whether he knows it or not, privy to a rare wisdom. You need to experience some bad to fully appreciate the good. He just tends to go a bit overboard. But hey, it's entertaining. Sean gets a one out of one.

1/1