superdonkeypower
Joined Aug 2005
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superdonkeypower's rating
If I ever hear one more person call Rez a "shooting" or "space shooter" game, I'm going to scream. That simple label isn't worthy of licking at Rez's vector-graphic boots, let alone even look at them.
Rez is not like any game you'll ever play. It's so much more involved, and yet maintains a simplicity very rarely found in videogames since the age of Mario. For instance, you use all of two buttons to play Rez: a shot button and a bomb button. That and one control, be it the D-Pad or Analog Stick, the same on the PS2 and Sega Dreamcast. That's it.
I've heard other people say this, and I don't mean to steal the expression that's most commonly used, but there's really no other way to say it: Rez is an experience. It's an everyday "shoot whatever appears in front of you" game on the surface, but when you play it, you start to see what a beautiful gem this game is. Every shot, every bomb, every hit, every action produces a sound that flows along with the music in the stage. It's like playing a 3-D Space Invaders where you create the music.
You start off in a sparse area, shooting down the occasional baddie, until an enemy (?) carrying a cube flies by. Shoot the enemy and the cube drops, allowing you to fire at it until it opens up. When it does, it adds another layer onto the stage, both visually and sonically, and you flow further into the groove with each successive layer (10 per stage). Even the boss fights are a audiovisual treat.
Rez, in more ways than one, is kind of like The Matrix. No one can tell you what it is, you just have to see it for yourself. No amount of words can describe the use of three senses to play a video game, and the only ones not accounted for is smell and taste. Sight, sound and touch collide in an explosive symphony that you'll miss out on, unless you can still find a copy of this groundbreaking, inventive and throughly fun game. If there were Oscars for video games, Rez on its depth of merit alone would have won the award for Best Game of 2001, or at the very least the award for Outstanding Technical Achievement.
It's a shame that it didn't sell when it was initially around. Nothing would make me happier than to see a sequel. And that's something I never say, with the industry being as sequel-happy as it is.
Rez is not like any game you'll ever play. It's so much more involved, and yet maintains a simplicity very rarely found in videogames since the age of Mario. For instance, you use all of two buttons to play Rez: a shot button and a bomb button. That and one control, be it the D-Pad or Analog Stick, the same on the PS2 and Sega Dreamcast. That's it.
I've heard other people say this, and I don't mean to steal the expression that's most commonly used, but there's really no other way to say it: Rez is an experience. It's an everyday "shoot whatever appears in front of you" game on the surface, but when you play it, you start to see what a beautiful gem this game is. Every shot, every bomb, every hit, every action produces a sound that flows along with the music in the stage. It's like playing a 3-D Space Invaders where you create the music.
You start off in a sparse area, shooting down the occasional baddie, until an enemy (?) carrying a cube flies by. Shoot the enemy and the cube drops, allowing you to fire at it until it opens up. When it does, it adds another layer onto the stage, both visually and sonically, and you flow further into the groove with each successive layer (10 per stage). Even the boss fights are a audiovisual treat.
Rez, in more ways than one, is kind of like The Matrix. No one can tell you what it is, you just have to see it for yourself. No amount of words can describe the use of three senses to play a video game, and the only ones not accounted for is smell and taste. Sight, sound and touch collide in an explosive symphony that you'll miss out on, unless you can still find a copy of this groundbreaking, inventive and throughly fun game. If there were Oscars for video games, Rez on its depth of merit alone would have won the award for Best Game of 2001, or at the very least the award for Outstanding Technical Achievement.
It's a shame that it didn't sell when it was initially around. Nothing would make me happier than to see a sequel. And that's something I never say, with the industry being as sequel-happy as it is.
If you find yourself hating the SoulCalibur series from the get-go, you just simply need to be more patient. Underneath the simple exterior lies a game that is so strategically deep and rewarding that I cannot stop playing it for more than a few days at the most.
At its core, it's a 3-Dimensional fighting game. Easy as that.
Scratch the surface and you find cool moves. Dig deeper and you find ways to get around those moves (Hands down, 8-Way Run is the best innovation in fighting games since the addition of a 3rd dimension, period). Then you learn how to properly evade and defend against these moves, and launch appropriate counterattacks. This may seem very daunting at first, but trust me on this, this game is far more satisfying than the Tekken or Dead Or Alive series.
Once you familiarize yourself, you'll begin to see the small nuances of each character. Their speed, their attacks, their range...it all adds up eventually, and I found myself playing less of a fighting game and more like playing virtual chess moving at dozens of maneuvers at once. Feints, fakes, deception: these all play a part in the vast mechanics of SoulCalibur 2. It helps to have a friend (or friends, preferably) to learn with however, seeing as the computer opponents have no real gray-area - it's either easy as pie or tough as nails.
Once you discover the exquisite, artful fighting game that lies underneath, you'll be thanking yourself for the best $20 you ever spent. I guarantee it.
At its core, it's a 3-Dimensional fighting game. Easy as that.
Scratch the surface and you find cool moves. Dig deeper and you find ways to get around those moves (Hands down, 8-Way Run is the best innovation in fighting games since the addition of a 3rd dimension, period). Then you learn how to properly evade and defend against these moves, and launch appropriate counterattacks. This may seem very daunting at first, but trust me on this, this game is far more satisfying than the Tekken or Dead Or Alive series.
Once you familiarize yourself, you'll begin to see the small nuances of each character. Their speed, their attacks, their range...it all adds up eventually, and I found myself playing less of a fighting game and more like playing virtual chess moving at dozens of maneuvers at once. Feints, fakes, deception: these all play a part in the vast mechanics of SoulCalibur 2. It helps to have a friend (or friends, preferably) to learn with however, seeing as the computer opponents have no real gray-area - it's either easy as pie or tough as nails.
Once you discover the exquisite, artful fighting game that lies underneath, you'll be thanking yourself for the best $20 you ever spent. I guarantee it.
First of all, for as many anime parody series as there are in existence, nothing even comes CLOSE to the wackiness factor of Cromartie High School. Absolutely nothing. For those anime fans with no sense of humor whatsoever, avoid this show like the plague, because it's very likely that you just won't appreciate it. You have been warned.
If you do have a healthy sense of humor, though, read on.
Take one serious high-grades high-schooler from out of the respectable school system and throw him into a school full of delinquents, robots, gorillas and aged rock stars. And that doesn't even scratch the surface of what you're about to get yourself into. Cromartie High School is quite possibly the funniest show, never mind the fact that it's anime, that I've seen since Monty Python's Flying Circus. Clocking in at an average of ten minutes per episode, this would be a perfect fit for the Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network, but alas, you'll only find it on the very exclusive Anime Network (how many cities carry the actual network? Two!?) and their On-Demand service. As far as I know, there are three (soon to be four) DVDs on sale from ADV Films, each carrying an average of eight episodes per disc. But I'm straying from the point...
The point I'm trying to make is that this show is flat-out hilarious. Imagine if you will: A punk sporting a mohawk with a mind of its own. A smart-mouthed robot that looks like an over-sized coffee can. A blonde-haired student whose mom you'll swear is a guy. An intelligent giant gorilla. An enigmatic Mexican-style masked wrestler. A scary-looking bear of a man whose only weakness is motion sickness. And to top it all off...Freddie Mercury. That's right, the guy from Queen, all the way down to the mustache, suspenders, bare chest and killer theme music. It's all about the ten-minute adventures they go on, often with disastrous results. Intrigued yet? To be honest, I didn't know what to think when I first started watching this show. I did, however, find myself laughing uncontrollably during around the 3-minute mark, and it kept up the pace for the full 10. Any anime that opens up with a disclaimer has to be good, or maybe that's just my opinion. I get so happy to see it On-Demand when the new episodes come on that I start to hum along with the theme song. Seriously, after watching 3 episodes I started to laugh at key points in the show's opening song/montage/what-have-you. It's just that infectious.
The show itself takes its visual style from old Shonen anime and manga from the 80's, with high school gangs fighting for turf and respect. Everyone looks older and more mature than they really are, and there are more than a few instances that you'll be reminded that all of the characters are supposedly 16 year-olds. It takes repeated potshots at the very pillars of time-honored anime stylings, such as using limited frames of animation for movement or very static backgrounds with an explosion-of-light-like effect to punctuate a character's serious sounding line. After those pillars give, the mighty structure crumbles into rubble, leaving only dust and rocks. Most parody series would build it back up in it's own whacked-out image, but Cromartie just pees all over the remains, laughing all the while. And you'll be laughing right along with them, guaranteed.
If you do have a healthy sense of humor, though, read on.
Take one serious high-grades high-schooler from out of the respectable school system and throw him into a school full of delinquents, robots, gorillas and aged rock stars. And that doesn't even scratch the surface of what you're about to get yourself into. Cromartie High School is quite possibly the funniest show, never mind the fact that it's anime, that I've seen since Monty Python's Flying Circus. Clocking in at an average of ten minutes per episode, this would be a perfect fit for the Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network, but alas, you'll only find it on the very exclusive Anime Network (how many cities carry the actual network? Two!?) and their On-Demand service. As far as I know, there are three (soon to be four) DVDs on sale from ADV Films, each carrying an average of eight episodes per disc. But I'm straying from the point...
The point I'm trying to make is that this show is flat-out hilarious. Imagine if you will: A punk sporting a mohawk with a mind of its own. A smart-mouthed robot that looks like an over-sized coffee can. A blonde-haired student whose mom you'll swear is a guy. An intelligent giant gorilla. An enigmatic Mexican-style masked wrestler. A scary-looking bear of a man whose only weakness is motion sickness. And to top it all off...Freddie Mercury. That's right, the guy from Queen, all the way down to the mustache, suspenders, bare chest and killer theme music. It's all about the ten-minute adventures they go on, often with disastrous results. Intrigued yet? To be honest, I didn't know what to think when I first started watching this show. I did, however, find myself laughing uncontrollably during around the 3-minute mark, and it kept up the pace for the full 10. Any anime that opens up with a disclaimer has to be good, or maybe that's just my opinion. I get so happy to see it On-Demand when the new episodes come on that I start to hum along with the theme song. Seriously, after watching 3 episodes I started to laugh at key points in the show's opening song/montage/what-have-you. It's just that infectious.
The show itself takes its visual style from old Shonen anime and manga from the 80's, with high school gangs fighting for turf and respect. Everyone looks older and more mature than they really are, and there are more than a few instances that you'll be reminded that all of the characters are supposedly 16 year-olds. It takes repeated potshots at the very pillars of time-honored anime stylings, such as using limited frames of animation for movement or very static backgrounds with an explosion-of-light-like effect to punctuate a character's serious sounding line. After those pillars give, the mighty structure crumbles into rubble, leaving only dust and rocks. Most parody series would build it back up in it's own whacked-out image, but Cromartie just pees all over the remains, laughing all the while. And you'll be laughing right along with them, guaranteed.