Typing of the Dead - Dreamcast/PC

That's right, TYPING of the Dead.

UltraKey, Mavis Beacon, Typing Instructor, all popular and famous typing tutor programs that people have used through the years. Programs that deal with accuracy, learning the home keys (asdf and jkl; for those interested) while also there's the lovely aspect of online competition for some programs that allow for people to duel off at writing up pangrams, anagrams of pangrams and words that consist of either the left hand, right hand, or specific rows of the keys like Typewriter (Top row only on QWERTY). But did anybody really consider we could use such a program to kill zombies?

Viciously villifying vocabulary there.

Typing of the Dead, a game that takes Hose of The Dead 2 from the Dreamcast and gives you a keyboard instead of a light gun and sets you up to type zombies to death. It is as impressive as it sounds. Though it's on the PC, it's clear that this is a conversion from the Dreamcast as you can see that the characters are carrying keyboards, with Dreamcasts on their back with a GIANT BATTERY atop that. Which also explains why you cannot quit out of the program and have to switch to the Task Manager to get out (or alt-tab) as the Dreamcast would have just switched off.

Dreamcasts and keyboards!

The game is essentially the same, same levels, same bosses, same secrets and bonus routes but there's more. Oh so much more in this game. Firstly, there's a whole tutorial session that lets you practise to improve your skills, there's Arcade mode which is just straight forward typing at enemies and bosses, Original mode that gives you bonus items and power ups from Molotov's that kills all on screen to golden hands that auto type the right keys regardless of what you type. You can also go the route of the tests and boss runs or even play against the CPU (how's that even fair?) and Network modes.

No, it's not Cell phone.

But the gameplay is what really sells this game. The first level will run you with words like AD, R2 and D2 (and not unintentionally I should add) while some of the bonus areas will have things like defeating 10 or so zombies without getting hit, while the words will be specifically focused ranging from all of them having double letters, or all themed on animals, or themed on greetings for a date. The topics and selection of words is very ranged and varied to the point of being outlandishly obscure such as "Everyone's a Schoolgirl". You just have to type the word in the box (spaces are optional) before the monster hits you. Some will be huge sentences, some just words, and the quick fire ones will be a single character from A to Z, symbols and numbers.

"Wasting my life writing shitty articles" isn't an option?

The real gem in this is the outright ridiculous humour and wordplay that comes in the last few levels. Bosses that require you to type out answers to questions. Questions like "What can you not buy in a shop?" and of the three responses, "Body parts" should be your answer. Other questions have all three answers as viable and yet crazy to the point where I've lost hit points as a result of laugh my arse off at the options. Though you can take hits from enemies, it should be noted that with every perfect response (no typos), you build up a refill bar, once that's topped off, you get another free life point. You can also pick up lives from saving people and being quick enough to hit the keys when you're passing boxes and crates with items within them.

You won the game, now type out the credits.

Having to answer the question "What do you do in bed?" and being treated with answers like "Make a bed fort", "Pretend to be sick" and "Have a wan-" ok maybe not that last one, but it's almost as close to the mark as some of the options available to us. The game itself modifies from the original in that zombies will hold back as long as you're typing their words consistently, inaccuracies will cause you to drop score ratings on those enemies while bosses are a lot less forgiving. It's a fascinating idea and the humour is rife through the game with how it's delivered. Play it, if only to laugh at the humour, laugh at the risible notion of a typing tutor that fuses apocalyptic zombies scenarios and keyboard accuracy and laugh at a game that pokes as much fun at you as it does at itself and western society.

House Of The Dead 2 - PC

There's the dead, it's the second game, but... Not so much the House from the first game.

I have to admit, I'm a big fan of light-gun games. Whether it's the joystick-cum-machinegun in the form of Operation Thunderbolt/Wolf, Mechanised Attack or Beast Busters, or an actual light gun that you specifically aim and shoot such as Point Blank, Time Crisis and this lovely little game, House of The Dead 2. On the PC, without a light gun... Well technically you could buy it with a sort of light gun and it came with House of the Dead 2 and it came with Virtua Cop... It didn't work so well.

This is a boss. This is also how to kill the boss. Shoot the annoying gobby one.

But here it is on the PC, House of the Dead 2 and you get to use the mouse with the game instead of the light gun... Pretty much defeating the point but hey-ho, let's go onwards with the game as it is.

Hold my fire? Seriously???

House of the Dead 2, a game by SEGA where you take it upon yourself as an agent of some sort armed with unlimited clips of ammo and a pistol, to uncover the undead conspiracy (it's a kind of obvious to be honest), and battle your way through armies of the undead, monsters, mutations and all other sorts of nastiness in an effort to... Get to the end of the game and see if you earned some sort of award. At least, that's the arcade part.

Yeah um.... Ooops...

Journeying your way through the desolate and ruined city, you'll encounter other agents and hear more of the plot, not that it matters as you'll be fighting your way through things regardless. What you can do however, is find that fights are easier if you score headshots and hidden in places around the game are a whole host of little bonuses such as extra points, extra hit points and even alternative routes depending upon if you hit the right item at the right time or if you rescue specific innocents before their untimely demise. (Or you shoot them yourself).

Dead in 3... 2... 1...

The levels start out easy enough with relatively few enemies appearing and those that do give you plenty of chance to line up, squeeze off the right shot and move onto the next little confrontation. While later levels and later within levels, you'll be set upon by more and more immediate threats that pop up and require not only quick reflexes but multiple shots to dispatch of your foes. Get far enough through the level and you'll be greeted by one of the game's many bosses. Ranging from "Flying nutcase with a headless knight" to "Giant chainsaw man" to "My cousin as a fish monster" and my personal favourite "The Magician" from the first game. Yes, I actually grinned at the opportunity to fight this little mascot of House Of The Dead again.

Welcome back, Magician. Let's go for Round 2!

What the PC (and home console) version have however, is an abundance of extra options beyond just the game itself. There's the Original mode where players can play through multiple times in order to gain extra powerups and adjustments that give them an extra edge, such as larger clips, different guns, more powerful rounds, unlimited ammo machine guns etc. But at a single use cost for that play through and performing better in levels will net more purposeful and powerful rewards. It does make quite the difference when you upgrade your pistol for a grenade launcher.

The further you get into the game, the more futuristic things become.

Boss mode, Training and Network modes are available for those that want to practise on the bosses, practise at practising the game with various tasks and options and lastly, for people that like to play co-operative not on one machine. There's a little extra here for others that gives a slightly better replay value and the die-hard fans can also get themselves bonus items for 5* ratings on EVERYTHING but you're rewarded some VERY powerful items and infinite use items such as credits too. Though by this point, there's going to be little challenge in the game for those players.

Bonus lessons in Gray's Anatomy did not feature this.

The music and audio are fairly good though don't pause the game as the whole music restarts if you do. It keeps to light little upbeat tempo with an undertone of orchestral accompaniment and doesn't become overbearing on the actual gameplay. Though the final boss fight and magician boss fight feature the more pronounced compositional work, with the Magician in particular being a reprise of the original game's final boss music and a welcome return it is too.

There's a lot of different, varied, and sometimes stupid ways, to lose health. This is the stupid way.

Everything looks a little dated by today's standards. The 3D engine fitting well with the game back in arcades on the AM2 systems and the Dreamcast but the transition to the PC has left things feeling a little hollow, animations and movements come across straight from the uncanny valley and the lack of facial expressions leads us to believe that this city is inhabited by the army of the uncaring bastard when people watch their friends and family eaten alive and still show the same nonchalant expression.

Dead, of the House...2?

It's a fun game but without the light gun and that extra level of immersion, it falls flat on itself, you'd be better off finding it in the arcades (or the later games for that matter) or getting the home console version.

Limbo

If you're the kind of person considering throwing yourself under a bus, or under a car; if you're the kind of person that thinks the long walk off the short cliff/pier is a good choice; if you're the kind of person that feels that parachuting without a parachute into a landfill site topped with explosives is a more preferable thing to do; if you're the kind of person that feels that running chainsaws need to be deep-throated and if you're the kind of person that has read this far and feels like topping themselves... this game really isn't for you.

Limbo, depending upon your interpretation and religion or insight into the afterlife, is usually defined as a half-way house between dying and getting to an after-life. Sometimes it's an eternal state of just "being" determined as neither good nor bad, sometimes it's a form of temporal punishment to balance out minor sins before being given the keys to the afterlife. In this case it's a very stylish platformer, rich in variety and physics based puzzles that wouldn't be too far from home as a Flash game, but instead we get it on various formats.

The story has been used a few times, someone dies and a grieving loved one takes a trip into the afterlife to go and get them back. Though this entirely belies the fantastic artwork and picturesque scenery of the game. You control LargeHeadBoy with his odd gambling gait and incredible jumping powers of... not that much, as he traverses an epic quest into Limbo through lands unknown heading deeper and further into the world created and facing off all manner of creatures, spiders, brain slugs, other kids, traps, traps and traps.

You've NO weapons, NO power ups, NO way to defend yourself save for the environment around you. Sometimes switches can be hit, boxes moved and things climbed upon but that's your entire arsenal in a very dark and dreary world.

And what a dreary world it is. The entire game is in black and white, by which I mean greyscale but saying that tends to give the wrong impression of the game and its achievements. While travelling through the land of Limbo, there's plenty of scope to see the rich environments and backgrounds the game has to offer, usually before having to avoid being cut up, squished, impaled and god knows what attacking you at inopportune moments, or even drowning. Yes there's plenty of ways to die in this game and you'll likely see most of them.

Travelling from forests and craters, industrial areas, cityscapes, abandoned buildings, to the point of being within infernal machines of an immense size and scale, the game can likely be beaten within a few hours from start to finish on a first play through. Each trap usually has a specific way of getting around it, getting past it or through it in various means and guises. Sometimes the traps will fake you out, like the Squishers where landing on the button triggers the trap and kills you while the next Squisher will kill you if you DON'T land on the button in that funny little (read: fucking annoying) way of twisting the rules that designers like to do.

Sometimes you might get past a trap and not realise it but for the most part, you'll inwardly congratulate yourself every time you make significant progress and overcome a particularly odious little trap. Some require hitting X and getting to Y before it's too late, others are just making sure you're not stood at point X when Y happens and in the final acts of the game, timing and planning become almost essential. Some traps however are fairly obvious though the most awkward ones have to be the brain slugs, a set of unavoidable instances where you'll be forced to walk forwards until meeting sunlight and then turning around, while having to navigate blocks, crates, platforms and traps until you're able to locate something that can eat the brain slug back out of your head. Otherwise you're brown-bread. It's an interesting take on the trap settings but does have that awkward drawback of forcing the player ahead at a pace that isn't their own and in a game like this, feels like you're either being rushed forwards or being arbitrarily instructed to get your arse in gear and move the hell along.

The game is bleak, don't get me wrong, everything might look impressive but at the same time, oppressive. The eternal darkness of the game getting more and more foreboding the deeper you get into Limbo and the less friendly the area looks. Especially once the spinning saw blades start up, electrified floors and so on, make their appearance and then everything looks like it's out to get you, including machinegun nests which do seem a little out of place at times. Though that's nothing to say of the rather determined giant spider back near the start of the game.

Yes, arachnophobics might want to skip the first part of the game. It's a biggy and the size that would take up a whole house if it spread out. Yes you're on the menu. Though don't expect to win throughout on skill, the control system is sometimes a little unresponsive and you don't always quite get the run-up you thought you might in some of the more treacherous leaps and bounds you have to make, which leads to a rather frustrating series of deaths that you KNOW are not your fault.

Graphically, the game is proudly wearing the "Art" style and makes full use of its lack of colour to tease and titillate the player, hints of lighter grey become rays of sunlight and seen less and less in the later levels and areas of the game, while at times the game can be a little difficult to identify what something is and what can be used or not used when almost everything is jet black in the foreground. But that is expected when you're trying to go for the doom/gloom and dank approach to the style. It works for the atmosphere but not always for the functionality of the game itself.

Though no atmospheric game could be complete without the soundtrack, of which there is little of one. It's much more ambient than boasting a soundtrack in the conventional sense. It all adds to the theme of oppression and overbearing undertones that build to a crescendo accompanying most of the more difficult and drawn out instances of traps and gauntlets that need to be run to progress within the game. The final puzzle set in the game featuring gravity switches and perfect timing, brings the music crashing into silence in a rather jarring and fantastically accompanying visual aesthetic.

Having said that, it does feel short as a game. A lot of pride, attention and bleak detail has gone into the game and rather than repeat things over and over to pad the game out, it feels that the game was half finished before a deadline and they decided to bring it crashing to a halt through a plate glass window. (Hidden reference there...). Which leaves you oddly satisfied to have beaten the game but a longer for more, not so much more in regards to the plot and the final revelation, but to see more tricks, traps and crazy environments that the game has fantastically delivered up to this point.

Part of me wants to learn more about the setting, more about how this place came to be, who the kids are at the start and if they're like you; wandering a world in search of something but lost their ways and now descend into a medley of chaos and 'Lord Of The Flies' children, how the huge city came to be and why it's so rundown, why the world is still mechanically running with nobody around to run it (not that we can see anyway...) but then I'm also reminded of a little point I bring up every now and then for back stories that aren't explained. Is it ever explained in Little Red Riding Hood as to how the Wolf can talk? No. As such it need not be explained here either, though in this game, I do want to see more which is a rarity for myself.

It's this level of intrigue that both adds and subtracts from the game's appeal, it encourages one to run through the game again to find more visual clues, if we're going on the idea that anything seen is pertinent and valuable and nothing is pointless, there is reason for everything as part of the bigger picture and whole. But at the same time, it's a little on the short side and you'll find yourself racing through chapters later on without even realising it until suddenly you hit the glass ceiling of the game and realise that this is it, it's all over.

As for wandering through Limbo, there's more dangerous (barely) and less visually satisfying games that try the same thing. Certainly worth a look if you want give Limbo a try.

Things games should not do.

In a recent review, I might have touched upon the idea of games companies doing certain things in certain ways that might make games a little more appealing to the consumer/gamer of today. Or more specifically, where I believe games companies are falling down and, whether rightly or wrongly, doing things that show them up to be lazy or giving the player the feeling that things were rushed before finalising the game and kicking it out the door to die in the cold.


End of game Gauntlets:

Setting: You've played the game, got to the final levels and discovered the dark secret of Person X, you've saved the nearest and dearest, you've fought your way past insurmountable odds towards the inevitable showdown between yourself, the plucky protagonist and the asshat, the evil antagonist, only for them to run off and you're instead facing a horde of enemies. Most of which you've killed already in some fasion.

It feels cheap. So much potential in having a satisfactory big bust up with the final boss and instead you get to fight an army of low level shitheads that you can easily one-shot or insta-kill thanks to either your high level of capability, massively over powered weapons or common-place experience through playing the game to this point and having a fine understanding of the intricacies of the games control system.

Admittedly, sometimes it's hard to shoehorn in a decent boss fight. Most games will take the "giant boss" option instead where something demonic rises up, or a robot suit, or something that gives the final boss a boost to make them worthy of being a final boss. But more on that later.

The biggest grievance is not that there's a gauntlet at the end of the game, but that it IS the end of the game. Nothing wrong with having a mad dash where the last person throws every single remaining grunt and solider at you THEN having themselves stand up and fight you personally. But having the grunts taken down and there being no final payoff other than a cutscene, robs the player of that final great satisfaction and epic beat-down the final boss deserves in a game. Particularly more so in games where there's such conflict built up in the story telling.

Would Star Wars been as impressive if instead of fighting Darth Vader, Darth Maul, The Emperor etc in a one on one epic fight, they just threw a few hundred troopers and robots at you and then either run off or killed themselves? No, of course it wouldn't have.


'Not quite the ending' games:

Setting: You've run the gauntlet (maybe killed the boss - see above), you've placed the magical item in its rightful place, you've hit the power switch and diverted power from the over class to the underdogs, righted the wrongs and emerged triumphant atop the still-charred remnants of your enemies bodies and now you're here to watch and recieve, closure. That last cut scene where you see the fruits of your labors, the pay off after so much hard work and the end to all the strife and struggling those you have fought for, have suffered. Except you're left with an ambiguous little scene that shows that something has happened, but not exactly what and in such little detail that the game COULD be continued or not... For Fuck's Sake.

There's little more annoying than not getting the full story, especially in a video game. If the game designer is FULLY AWARE of the intention of making a game, they can at least put in "Continued in Generic Game #2" or such at the end, but there's a growing number of games being made where the ending is not absolute, there is nothing ultimate about the final scene and there's that idea another game could be made to continue the ending of the story. Usually by this point, nobody will give a ripe shit about it.

Game's makers seem to be in a limbo where a large number of games WON'T end the story as they could milk it for more, and leave it in a state of near-finish so that we could get more out of it. Though just as equally we could have a different storyline in the same universe/world, or a prequel or dare I say it... a DLC add-on (Asuma's Wrath might get away with that one as they allegedly ran out of space on the disc to include the final few chapters... not sure which side of the anger I sit there).

Ending a game completely in plot, stops games makers from being able to milk an up-coming franchise for what it could be worth and instead force closure (or not at all, an even bigger crime to be made there) so that people will know it's the end and that's IT. Publishers likely won't want that so there's the chance of milking it further if the game becomes an unexpected success. For players it will mean games will end and everything tied up neatly and that once a game has ended something NEW will have to come out instead of "Captain BuggerBollocks 6: We thought up a few more shitty plotlines" is forced to be spewed out of whatever orifice the devil is jackhammering at that point.

Various sequels did it well, games that were made that were not so much a continuation of the original story but more a side-line to the original. Prototype managed it by having it as both of these things, a continuation and a different main character to the original. While games like Grand Theft Auto have the name as only the thing that links the similar concepts and games like Final Fantasy are only tied together by the fact they're made under the same company heading and very few have any actual sequels or set in the same universe at all. (Except there's chocobos and Cid... usually). Which takes this point so far in the other extreme that the games could be NAMED properly and would still be effective as stand alone games. The Silent Hill games set around the eponymous town but with different stories happening at different times, all of which can reference each other but remain firm as stand alone stories and the end of the game being the end of THAT story, are another good example of how to do sequels without bullshit endings.


Excessive DLC downloads:

Setting: The game is there, you've paid £40, $60 or however much you normally pay for the price of a game and then left to take it home, slap it into the console (or install it) and then play the game. All is fine however until you realise that there's possibly something missing, so you head over to the game's DLC section or whichever market place there is for the game and realise that the character you've been playing as, could look better in 1 of 47 different outfits and get ups. Now you realise your character WOULD look better dressed up as a cowboy (in a space age game) or a disco diva (in Hell fighting minions... sounds good actually).

It's more common place in beat-em-up games to have this odd abundance of clothing outfits for the all the characters. Particularly the women, particularly the young women, and wearing less clothing than a porn star mid-coitus. Seriously, I've seen naked people with more clothing than some of the outfits in these games. In some DLC sets, the entire cast gets an alternative costume but in the extreme cases, you can buy hundreds of outfits for one character at a time.

Looking at the DoA5 set, I'm going with the assumption that you'll have purchased the game for around $40, as a rough middle-ground figure. And for further assumptions, only to include sets of DLC i.e. A 3 in 1 pack rather than buying 3 packs if all 3 are found in the 3 in 1 pack. So pack 1 is free for now, pack 2 is $12.99 as is pack 3, so another $12.99, swimwear pack as an optional $12.99 depending upon whether you have the collectors edition, costume pack 4 at $7.99, pack 5 at $12.99, $7.99 for the pack 6 christmas set, another $7.99 for a 2nd xmas pack making pack 7, $12.99 for the swimwear set and bonus level (level is free anyway), $4.99 for pack 9, a cheerleader set for $8.99, hotties set for another $12.99 which makes up the 10th named pack. Now... bit of maths... $144.86... add on the total for the game in the first place, $185 roughly.

Some people will argue, pointlessly, "You don't HAVE to have it" which begs the questions, Why would it be there in the first place then? Why couldn't it have been included with the game in the first place, particularly if it's ALREADY on the disc and just being unlocked/accessed and more importantly, why not have something worthwhile on the DLC than just a remapping of textures and a few model changes, when nothing fundamental changes as a result of the installation?

I could understand if there was insufficient room on the disc, or the content being provided was of significant change to the game, such as a map-pack (which can get quite large with some of the more detailed ones out there) or a new High Def texture pack for EVERYTHING, but this is a cheap and shitty attempt to milk money by making people flash cash for flashing flesh back at the player.

Yes, I've turned every player that purchases this, into a punter at a strip bar.