Evil Zone
Evil Zone is a fighting game where there are only two buttons - attack and block. It sounds like a terrible idea in a genre where giving yourself RSI by twisting your digits into rapid complex multi-button combinations is more or less standard, but somehow it manages to squeeze out a complex and rather novel fighter with just the triangle and square keys.
[Sparkly anime fight scene]
It's also a totally ridiculous, ridiculous game. Everything is so poorly translated that it's difficult to follow what is actually supposed to be 'happening', and the voice acting (of which there is a large amount) is hammy and terrible, but in a way that you feel the actors were in on the silliness. Amongst it all is the familiar voice of Roy Campbell from Metal Gear Solid narrating the whole experience. There is almost more melodramatic anime-drama babbling and FMV bookending each stage than there is actual scuffling itself.
Oh, for God's sake.
I think that is the point, though. Each character with whom you choose to enter the arena is given their own in-universe sort of anime TV show through which the game is framed. After each fight completes (and characters share awfully-translated one liners that make no sense), you are treated to a 'Next time on Evil Zone...' promo for the next battle. Why did they do this? I have no idea. But it's actually not as jarring as it sounds.
'See you next week' meaning 'See you in a few moments when the next stage loads'. A bit like watching old shows on Netflix.
The gameplay itself is quite different from the thrashing around you might get in Street Fighter or Tekken. Different attacks are performed by using different combinations of the directional buttons alongside the single attack button, and change depending on your proximity to your opponent. A large amount of emphasis is placed on prudent use of the block button, to an extent that goes beyond your typical fighting game's usage as a sort of backup plan, and into something integral to lining up your attacks by using counters and repositioning in order to get through your opponent's own block. It makes the fight flow a bit more like a 'cool movie scene' rather than the staccato bashing around the genre is used to.
Incredible. An actual proper practice mode.
Fighters aren't usually my jam, but it's a pretty decent take on things nonetheless.
Kept my attention for: A few hours
Did I finish it?: No
Overall: 6/10
Exhumed
I've gone through a few Doom clones recently, and they've all been pretty samey and tend to chug a bit on the hardware. Hopes weren't high for Exhumed.
Floating ghost Pharaoh guy gives you your orders, like a sort of Bronze Age Zordon.
You know what? It's alright. Maybe I'm still reeling from the heap of mummified camel dung that was Egypt 1156 BC, but this particular jaunt into the Nile Delta does a lot of things right. A FPS in Ancient Egypt? Why the hell not?
Why yes, I am going to bring an M60 General Purpose Machine Gun into this tomb to fire at anything that moves.
While the frame rate can start to choke up slightly in open areas, it's otherwise a fast paced and slick Doom runaround, with enemies exploding into unrealistic yet tasty-looking giblets after being shot with consumer-grade handgun ammunition, and labyrinthine routes and secret passageways all over the place, which is exactly how such a game should be. Is there a plot? Who cares, I couldn't hear what anyone was saying anyway. Suffice it to say you're zipping around Ancient Egypt with heavy weaponry. Somebody has to deliver the smackdown onto the evil forces of That Guy With A Dog For A Head, and it's you.
It's impossible to not miss this sort of stupid over-the-top gore in games.
The approach to progression is slightly different to Doom - once you've collected various artifacts which augment your abilities (e.g. picking up some famous sandals in a tomb somewhere which allow you to moon jump several storeys - which by the way is cool), you may return to previous levels in order to access previously inaccessible areas and alternate level exits, which in turn furnish you with access to whole new levels. Completing a level is a feat performed by, er, finding a 2D camel sprite and walking into it, presumably letting your imagination do the rest as you ostensibly ride off to your next area.
'Universal ammunition' is dropped by most enemies, so it pays to just shoot everything with your biggest gun.
It's not exactly breaking stunning new ground, but it's a fun game. It's the sort of thing that if I was on a plane I could see myself just siting there and seeing it through to completion. I did get bored eventually, though.
Kept my attention for: A few hours
Did I finish it?: No
Overall: 6/10
Expendable
I actually remember this one, but it was called Millennium Soldier in PAL regions. It's a fast paced evolution on the SNES Contra games, which is clearly supposed to be played co-operatively with a mate.
Absolute chaos.
I've played two other Contra games this year, and both of them were pale imitations of the real thing. They attempted in various ways to take the successful Contra formula exactly as it was, but 'just make it 3D'. It was a failure, as both games looked as rough as a dog's arse and played similarly. The switch to 3D requires a bit more thought than binning sprites for polygons and rotating the camera 90 degrees along the Z axis.
Enemies tend to come in handily-sized waves for you to strafe-gun-down in a single swift movement. Satisfying.
Expendable is actually a bit more like the Bruce-Willis-em-up Apocalypse, which itself is exactly that 'Contra But With More Thought' concept. It was OK, but things got a bit samey and they went a bit too hard trying not to let you forget that you were playing as baldie action hero Bruce Willis, as though that in itself was going to make things more enjoyable (it's not like die-hard Willis fans couldn't have already just played...er, Die Hard).
Apparently there are 'hostages' you need to save in each level. Half the time you waste them without even realising you did it.
What it does better than Apocalypse is makes the 'gun down waves of enemies with increasingly ridiculous laser and rocket hardware' gameplay less of a monotonous slog and more of a beautiful chaotic madness. Pretty much everything explodes on contact with whatever it might be that is being rifled out of the metal tubing in your avatar's grasp. Explosions are constant and chaos is everywhere, and yet the frame rate stays stable the whole time. You are in fact encouraged to just keep shooting at everything resembling a four-sided polygonal structure, because after exploding, they tend to drop more power-ups which allow you to carry on the carnage. Even your (presumably organic) evil alien enemies explode. The craziness inhibits any sort of measured, life-preserving gameplay, and instead you find yourself just running in holding down the fire button, strafing around enemies and barely even knowing where you are on screen, let alone how much is left in your health bar. This is a good thing. Even when you do inevitably die, you just respawn and carry on within a few moments.
End-of-level bosses of incomprehensible proportions and function are all included, as expected.
So why, oh why, did they implement tank controls? What in God's name were they thinking? It makes moving around so needlessly difficult. The only benefit that comes from this decision is that it enables you to use the strafe buttons to 'circle strafe' and fight bosses more easily (almost too easily). But it's not worth the tradeoff. Shame. The two-player co-op would have been great fun. I almost wish I could go back in time and have a go with it on one of those blameless Saturday afternoons.
Kept my attention for: An hour or two
Did I finish it?: No
Overall: 6/10
Extreme Pinball
Extreme Pinball has a pre-main-menu 'loading' screen that lasts so long that I thought my game might have crashed. It wasn't a good start.
A great game to play if you're incontinent.
I'm not a pinball freak or anything; I think they can be a bit of fun in an arcade or a pub or whatever. But what is the point of playing virtual pinball on a console? It reminds me of the futility inherent in 'casino' games - there are no flashing lights, you're not paying any real money to play, and the 'high scores' which are proudly displayed on the machine are just...you. What's the hook?
Ah yes, SCPMON LINKS.
Nonetheless, there is clearly a market for these games, given that Extreme Pinball is certainly not the only pinball game released on PlayStation. I really wish to meet one of these pinball obsessives who apparently enjoys playing these games. Do they really enjoy it? Are they just intended to be bought by pinball machine collectors and simply 'collected'? The eternal questions. What I do know, however, is that Extreme Pinball is a game with exceedingly long load times, four different 'tables', the functionality of a pinball machine, and not much else. Nothing 'extreme' at all, then.
Kept my attention for: Half an hour
Did I finish it?: No
Overall: 2/10