I would genuinely be interested in hearing more
what’s the argument for kunoichi ? i almost see it in places (the floor-is-lava boat missile stage, for instance) but overall it seems to me pretty ill-considered next to shinobi’s razorsharp start-to-finish level design that holds up to the last, even late game on the highest difficulty. i think shinobi is ultimately better than all of it’s sloggy/clumsy contemporaries, camera frustrations and all.
this thread reminded me i bought a copy of beat down: fists of vengeance a few yers ago for £2 and never played it. i remember me and my friends shunning this game at the time, because we had no interest in the big trend of gta-wannabes about frowning street gangs. playing this game now, though, the setting is hilarious!
it’s clearly a japanese dev team’s idea of what tough american cities are like, without having done any research, and it all feels so inauthentic. the opening cutscene has the line “did you forget why we’re here? what about THE DRUGS?”
the thematic weirdness also informs some of the game mechanics. you’re always wanted by both the cops and the city’s main gang, so instead of a wanted meter, you have meters that show how likely members of those two groups will recognise you walking down the street. you make those meters go down by regularly changing your clothes!
after you beat up a group of enemies, instead of getting items and money automatically, you have to run around and press R1 while standing over each one of them individually to check their pockets.
the most interesting thing is something that isn’t in every fight: the pride meter. it’s beneath the health meter in certain one-on-one fights, and if you get it to zero, you can grab your opponent, and you get a bunch of options to pick from, like recruiting them as a crony, getting information out of them, and so on.
it’s generally a very ps2-feeling game, too. just the way it looks and the menus and the item and equipment system, a total snapshot of that era in mid-budget game design.
one final item of strangeness: the options screen not only has seperate options to turn bleeding and bruising on and off, but they’re also split between turning them on and off specifically for male and female characters!
7 Likes
Someone needs to rank all the seventh gen Japanese cover shooters
Quantum Theory (Tecmo / Internal Studio)
NeverDead (Konami / Rebellion Entertainment with director from Konami)
Mindjack (Square-Enix / feelplus, who later along with Cavia and Artoon were absorbed into AQ Interactive)
Devil’s Third (Nintendo / Valhalla Game Studios)
Binary Domain (SEGA / Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio)
8 Likes
I will forever remember Beatdown as a game I made Rudie in accidentally and then just beat the hell our of cavia dudes as Rudie.
1 Like
Neverdead is not great but is compelling, so yes.
3 Likes
Bujingai is Definitely Trash Action. I feel like honestly Dead to Rights 1 and 2 should be included in this conversation. Straight to DVD Max Payne that shows it in every way it can.
3 Likes
Vampire Rain sure is trash. The best thing about that game is that the opening level takes place in LA and people talk about how it rains all the time there and like…I got questions.
2 Likes
Dead to Rights started out as Escape From New York right? Does it show thematically?
Was it before as well? They were working on a Snake Plissken game after shipping Dead to Rights 2
“146 years earlier …NOW.”
4 Likes
Velvet Assassin and The Saboteur suddenly spring to mind
stylistically the saboteur is incredible
2 Likes
Whoa! I’ve never seen this before!
Fair, it is pretty striking
I mean if we’re shifting things here, is Vanquish : these games :: God Hand : early 00’s trash action??
Binary Domain rules, everyone should play it
2 Likes
co-signed
1 Like
holy shit i never considered all the inevitable gears of war knock-offs. this looks fantastic.
Nothing interesting to say. I will just tolerate absolutely any third person shooter. This one is chunky enough and has stupid goth graphics. The main tower is like some living organism building and there’s weird cool writing about it on the loading screens sometimes
2 Likes
Out of these I would rank them
Devils third
Quantum theory
Binary domain
Mindjack
Neverdead
4 Likes