Saturday, December 12, 2015
Blasting Through My PS2 Backlog, Part 1
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Welcome back to Coffeecola!
First off, in case you missed it, I posted my top ten games of 2015 over at @Gamecritics. If you haven't seen it, click on over and let me know what you think of my selections!
Now, let's get down to business...
So, it sounds a little ridiculous to still have a PS2 backlog now that we're well into the PS4 era, but... Yep... I definitely do have a stack of games from back then that I always meant to play.
I didn't want to commit to anything big this weekend since I'm working on other reviews, but it felt like the time was right to blow through some of these in rapid-fire style and pack up the ones I'm genuinely never going to play.
Here are the first four...
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Jak & Daxter: The
Lost Frontier -
2009
I was a big
fan of Naughty Dog’s original Jak &
Daxter trilogy, so I picked this one up who knows when because I was hoping
for more of the same. For those who’ve never played it, it’s basically a
hop-and-bop franchise with some light vehicle and collection elements tossed
in.
While it’s
got the same stars and it’s set in the same world as the first three titles, it
was done by a different studio (High Impact Games) and it was originally built
for the PSP, so there are some differences.
For example,
the camera doesn't tilt up and down since the PSP didn't have a second stick, there’s
aerial combat, and the graphic quality is pretty weird -- it definitely doesn't
look like a native PS2 game. It seems
fine enough for what it is, but after having played the original three and
after letting so much time go by, I think I'm all right with leaving this
franchise in the past.
Verdict: Tossed in storage
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Pirates: Legend Of The
Black Buccaneer
- 2006
I had been
looking at this one for a long time, waiting for it to drop to the right price
in the bargain bins, but I think it was @AshtonRaze tweeting about it that finally
pushed me over the edge into purchase territory.
The gist is
that an escaped slave becomes some sort of evil voodoo queen, and your
character is a sailor who’s one of many coming after her treasure. It's got a strong
Eurojank vibe to it, and the world seems more complex than I was expecting… I
didn’t play long, but I was picking up a bit of old-school Tomb Raider mixed with a
dash of Risen. There was platforming,
a quest log, some puzzles… The word felt fairly open-ended, too. Promising!
On the other
hand, I'm not too sure about the themes… casting the antagonist as a black
female slave who does voodoo is a little questionable, and the first power the
hero (a white guy) earns is the ability to turn into a hulking black voodoo
brute. The whole thing feels vaguely racist in some way, but it was good enough
to pique my interest.
Verdict: Kept it around to play later.
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Summoner 2 - 2002
This one is
a bit of a cheat because I did play this when it first released. I seem to remember
getting fairly far in it until I hit a big difficulty spike and I put it down.
I recall being impressed with the size and scope of it back then so I wanted to
give it one last shot, but it hasn’t aged well enough.
Within the
first few minutes of play, I was really turned off by how stiff and unnatural the
movement and combat felt, and the graphics weren't nearly as good as some of
the other games in my PS2 backlog.
I’m sure
there's a lot to the game that I haven't even scratched, but this one’s a
little too rough and I don’t think I’m going to be able to commit to this one.
Verdict: Tossed in storage
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Scarface: The World Is
Yours - 2006
This one
surprised me a bit -- it seems like a pretty legit attempt at horning in on GTA
territory and there's definitely some money behind it. It's an open world game
with a lot of licensed music and tons of voice acting.
Speaking of
which, the main voice actor isn’t a ringer for Al Pacino, but he definitely gets
the tone of the film correct. Within the first few minutes of play, he was swearing
a blue streak and had me diving for the remote control so that I wouldn't have
to explain to my son what all those words meant.
Things
started off on the right foot with a good tutorial and the beginning of the
game was strong, showing the fall of Tony Montana and how his wealth and power was
stolen away. The enemy count was a wee bit concerning (I think I killed 150
dudes in the first three minutes) and I don't know that I’m necessarily in the
market for another open world game after all the other ones I've played this
year, but this one had me intrigued.
Verdict: Kept it around to play later.
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Posts
That Scarface game is worthy of your time. Just sayin'...
Fun read. Guys give you credit for taking the time to play these old ones still.
Fun read. Guys give you credit for taking the time to play these old ones still.
I really love these kinds of posts. Reminds me of the old Bargain Basement feature.
Aw Nicholas... I'm touched that you remember it! ^_^
That's how I checked games like Vandal Hearts, The Unholy War, Disaster Report, and Clock Tower. I started with Vandal Hearts and liked it so much that I was on board with most of your suggestions. The early columns were when I was in college, so it also helped to unearth games that were actually in my budget.
Awesome, I'm so glad that someone not only read it, but checked out new games because of it. I really loved doing those pieces so it was kinda sad to see that the concept of a bargain bin isn't really what it used to be... after a certain point, it just didn't seem to work. Plus, I caught up on things after a while, and didn't have a lot of old stuff left to report on. I think about reviving it sometimes, but I dunno. Probably wishful thinking. Anyway, thanks so much for sharing... Super happy to hear about it. = )