In Sane We Trust

Tuesday, 1 October 2013

ISWT Review: Saints row 4

When it comes down to it I never really saw the appeal of the early saints row games. They just looked like GTA but not actually being GTA. I heard the second game took itself a bit less seriously and the third much less seriously but I still never really saw the point even when they did change it up. The humor and style never really grabbed me but when I started seeing trailers and news about the fourth game my eyebrow was raised with the declaration of making it a Science fiction GTA game with the story being based on an alien invasion and the main character being the president of the united states because he was just so awesome as the leader of a gang and later high style crime syndicate.

As you can tell this game takes nothing seriously sans a few bits here and there in the story but at that point it's more just giving enough to chew on then having a deep and meaningful story. Though that's not really what they're going for in this game regardless. But let's start off with the story.

As I said you become the president after the single most random opening with one of the funnier moments in the game which I dare not spoil. Quickly you end up in a fight for your life after the planet is invaded by a race known as the Zin. You end up unconscious and wake up in a very strange world in once again one of the funnier moments and find out you're in a simulation and basically you spend the game getting back your friends and messing up the Zin leader Zinyak's simulation by causing chaos....and that's about it. There are some twists and turns but it's again just the game giving you something to chew on less then trying to make an incredible story. Granted the story isn't terrible but it's more because it knows what it is.

The graphics....Are at best presentable. It takes a more exaggerated and almost cartoon like appearance and it fits but it's not exactly aiming for good graphics. Don't get me wrong it looks okay just...

Okay and not much beyond that.

The soundtrack is part of the humor and effect to this game. Anywhere from "Insane in the brain" by Cypress hill to "Lump" by The presidents of the united states. "Night on bald mountain" to "The Touch" by.....it's from the 80's Transformers movie. Most people know it better by that anyway. It's random goodness and it does it's job and then some I'd say. Plus some tracks are used rather well during scenes. "The Touch" for instance is used during the rush towards the final boss. I don't consider that a spoiler since well I think we all thought they would do it by that point in the game.

What about the original tracks? Well they do their job but sans the Zinyak theme ( which is pretty good surprisingly ) Most are rather forgettable.

Alright let's get to the real purpose of this game. The gameplay. Oh mercy me is this game fun. This game gives you whatever you want and says have fun with this. Super speed, Super jump, A number of offensive powers including Telekinesis, and Cryo Blasts. Now you may be wondering what about the gang stuff like calling in back up? Well at first you may think it's useless and there really is no point since again super powers but after a while they start getting a bit tougher and it doesn't hurt to at least have another target for them to shoot at. "But they don't have super powers so if you move they won't catch up forever" You say? Well yes and no. I have seen them teleport if worse comes to worse and not to mention they evantually get loyalty missions and gain super powers of their own so at first they aren't that useful but as things go on they become more useful.

To be fair though cars are still useless when you can go mach 6 on the ground.

The missions range from the story missions being simple introductory to Activity types to rather varied and often awesome genre shifts. There is a streets of rage style side scrolling beat 'em up level. there is a top down tank style mission. It's well done stuff too for what they're making a parody of. Saints of rage was pretty good for a minor segment.

Admittedly a touch ironic in hindsight.

The side missions are a mix of different activities done one after another. A touch repetitive maybe but not bad all in all. The activities themselves range from simple combat missions to race missions. The basic stuff. And then we have the ragdoll missions. Where you fling yourself at stuff using speed and jumping powers and press a button to go limp and see how much you can hurt yourself. This may be one of the most entertaining side mission in any sand box game I think I've ever played. It's ragdoll physics the mini game.

So the powers and missions are good. What about the weaponry? Basic guns are simple enough and have a pretty nice array of customization options. From paint to different versions of the gun which function slightly different. Upgrades are about the same each having a unique upgrade which can come very much in handy. And then they silly weapons. You know what my favorite weapon in this game is? The dub step gun. Yes you read that right. It fires dub step. Between that the Inflato ray, the abduction gun and the like this game has both very simple weapons and very ridiculous weapons. And I think the shooting controls are pretty damn good.

Let's get to the main two things people talk about with this game; The main positive and the main negative. The one thing people always say as a negative to this game is it's identity. Coming off of the first two games (again to my knowledge) Which were much more serious comparatively speaking the third game took a lot of guff from people and this one took a lot too but less because of the sense of humor and more because of the powers and how much it changes things. A lot of people have said it has no identity and certain aspects carried over from previous games are made pointless by the powers. I will say only really cars have become useless. I still think that backup has some uses. But if you were a fan of the first style of saints row then I can't blame you for being upset about the new changes. It's not what you got into. I can speak for someone who wasn't a fan of those and I really enjoy the new style being more of a comical and parody style of games like grand theft auto because If I wanted straight up GTA I'll play GTA. But as I've said if you preferred the old style I can understand your dislike and I can't recommend this.

Seriously though I hear GTA 5 is awesome. Haven't played it myself but that's what I hear anyway.

What works though is the utter devotion to fun. Saints row 4 does everything it can to make this game fun. Every power up or mode of transportation starts off simple and any add ons to them you want pretty well come at some point. I wished you could run instead of jumping up buildings. Done. I wanted to be able to glide. Done. I wanted to be able to do a stomp move mid air to precisely land. Done and almost done twice with the stomp and death from above powers. Hell with enough money for upgrades you can get infinite ammo for any weapon types. And while the difficulty suffers a bit. On normal it can still get a bit crowded with enemies which can be tricky. Unless you have the black hole gun with infinite ammo Then the games enemies become a massive joke.

Long story short (way too late) This game is stupid fun. Some people would say it's just not the same with the massive changes to the franchise but my god it's so damn fun. If you want to give this a chance please do. I fully recommend this game.

And yes....black hole gun.

Saturday, 31 August 2013

First reaction: The world's end

Sorry it took me this long to put this up on my blog I've had a busy week. But What do I think of this the final of the three cornetto movies?

Sunday, 18 August 2013

ISWT Review: Soul eater

Oh yeah I review anime too don't I?

Not sure if I mentioned it But I'm a pretty big Otaku. Perhaps not as big as I used to though with things like Doctor who and Gaming taking over a very large chunk of my time. But I do still find time for anime every now and then and it's getting hard to find good anime these days. With so much being either insanely cute shojo or the often brainless Shonen like Naruto or the once pretty good bleach. But on the subject of shonen every now and then something pretty good pops up having a lot of action while still retaining dignity....well for the most part anyway. This I would say is one of them.

Soul eater is An action series for the most part but it does delve into some very odd areas for what it is. Namely involving two characters but I'll get into that when I do. The series takes place in a city called "Death City" Ruled by well death.

And yes that is what death looks like.

He now looks like the cross between an anime mascot, A skeleton, and a pair of foam fingers you'd fine at a baseball game because he wanted to open a school to train kids to fight off things like witches and Kishin or Demon gods and well his old form scared the hell out of kids so he changed into this one. The school named Shibusen or the DWMA depending on whichever version your watching ( I'll get into the translation issues later ) is home to our main characters Maka Albarn, and Soul Eater Evans ( Obviously not his real name but a rather silly decision nonetheless ) Training to be a death scythe be collecting 99 evil souls and a witch's soul.

The two face off against kishin, witches and the like by having soul turn into a scythe which maka then proceeds to beat the ever loving snot out of with. Yes the thing about soul eater is that it's based heavily on teamwork with one character being a weapon user or meister with the other having the power to turn into a weapon of any real variety. There is however another shtick to this show and after the first episode it presents itself. There are sort of three main characters or is it seven? Basically the first three episodes introduce three meisters and their weapons. The aforementioned maka and soul, Black star and tsubaki, and Death the kid and his weapons Liz and patty.

I'll get into characters first to get it out of the way. Maka albarn is a very nerdy girl but also very friendly while being able to throw the book quite literally at soul or black star if they're being an idiot. She's brave, intelligent, and basically the default main character with everything considered. If it sounds like she's nothing out of the ordinary then it sounds about right but....for some reason she's my favorite character. Maybe it's because she's a pretty decent female main, or because she's a relatively nerdy character but for some reason I just find her very likable. Maybe that's just me though. as for Soul eater Evans he's a punk kid. as you'll notice the meisters and their weapons are kind of polar opposites as is the case with soul. He's a punk with a good heart and probably my second least favorite of the main characters. Not bad just kind there.

Then we come to Black Star and Tsubaki. Black star SHOULD by all right be my least favorite character being a very obvious comparison to Naruto with his loudness and well let's be honest immense stupidity but for some reason he comes off as both a parody and the character done right. I know that sounds contradictory but he just seems more likable because it's a lot more blunt while still giving some decent development to him. He's not as likable as maka but better then the third meister. His weapon tsubaki is a polite and just all around nice person. Once or twice she got mad at black star but past that she's very easy going. I like her she's likable but when she's in combat she gets serious and it all works. Nothing special but very good nonetheless. Then we have Death the kid and the Thompson twins. Liz is a very cowardly but common sense and voice of reason character while her sister patty....is out of her goddamn mind.

I'm going to just let this picture speak leagues about Patricia Thompson.

And then there's death the kid or kid as I'll call him. He's the poster boy for Obsessive compulsive disorder (or OCD) and that's really about it. He's way too one note for me since he really doesn't have a personality past that that's worth mentioning. With the twins he's entertaining though not as much as patty.. for a meister He's fun enough to watch fight especially with his bizarre way of holding guns upside down but his personality just does nothing for me and the symmetry thing gets old. I will say the fact it kicks in during serious moments as well is nice for actually having continuity but it makes it get old even faster. He's meant to be the generic cool guy and that's the best way to put it. He's a bit better in the manga later in having more to do which I'll give credit for. Oh also he's death's son....Go figure.

I'd go more into the plot but really it's fairly simple but satisfying all things considered so I won't spoil anything. But really it comes down to the villains VS the heroes. I've gone over the main heroes and while there are some side good guys they're all generally good all in all so I'll skip them. The villains on the other hand are also kind of hard to pin down.

I'll start off with who I think is the main villain; Medusa gorgon. A witch and a very crafty and sneaky one at that. Medusa is very good at what she does. She's intimidating and pulls of some faces that are rather impressively creepy and I gotta say she comes off very demented rare times but most of the time is very calm and cunning. And then there is crona their....uh offspring. Crona is arguable in which side their on....in more then one sense. Crona starts off evil but becomes good and is a very tragic character once you get into their character....notice I'm not using gender specifics well that's because well....

That says is all right there. A great character nonetheless.

Then we have Arachne. She has an awesome intro and then proceeds to do nothing except be killed by the last main villain. She does way more in the manga and I'll keep it at that.

Then there is the main villain asura. He does even less then arachne and reminds me of itachi uchiha so this character can bite my ass! Seriously I do not like this guy but if I have to give him something like arachne he has one of the best intros in anime in history and like arachne does alot more in the manga. Still reminds me of itachi though.

Actually come to think of it the term "better in the manga" is a good way to describe this series as a whole. While the anime is excellent and the fight scenes are kick ass due to very good and fluid animation the manga has such better character development for both the villains but the side heroes like Kilik,ox and Kim. Which in the anime barely exist and have massive development and even with Kim have part of an arc dedicated to them basically. Compared to let's say Naruto which.....well has Tenten done anything yet?

The only thing with the manga is it can be rather crude. meaning there is some forms of nudity.....though not a terrible amount nor do I think what is in is usually used for fanservice. Though this will take me to my next point. The fan service. It's there though I will say past the first three episodes is few and far between. that being said if you see this character....

And you don't like Fan service. Run...run fast.

But that being said it's nothing that ruins the anime by any means but it's something to be noted.

So I've gone over the characters,I've said the story is something I won't go over though for the record is pretty good all in all but again better in the manga, the animation is excellent so what's left? The music.

My god the music fits the style and tone of soul eater so very well and I gotta tell ya it's pretty damn good all in all. In terms of character themes a lot of rap and hip hop or alternative with hip hop added in. I'm not a terribly huge fan of the genre but it works quite well for what it's meant to do. also I am a sucker for how it's done. look up either of death the kid's themes on Youtube and you'll see what I mean It's very catchy and thematic and it works. Also I have to mention this; The artist who does the hip hop style tracks in the soundtrack is the same artist who did the rap from Persona 3 and anything else persona related. Lotus juice who may I add is pretty kick ass musically speaking.

In the same way that full metal alchemist split it's anime and manga soul eater has some massive changes between the two as well. For the most part the manga is much better if a bit more crude in the fan service nudity department but has much more for the side characters with Kilik, Kim, Ox, Arachne, and Justin to name a few of the people who actually have a purpose compared to their anime counterpart to the point of counting them in the anime more as just a special guest from the manga. Also it goes much further into the story then the anime with certain things and in total the story is a lot longer.

So let's gather the score here. Great animation, Between very enjoyable and well made characters and a few annoying and just kind of meh characters. A story that does it's job well in the anime and better in the manga. And finally a pretty fitting and kick ass soundtrack at times. Soul eater is a pretty good anime series, a better manga and all in all a pretty good ride. Though to be fair when other shonen series include shitheads like Sasuke Uchiha it's not a hard war to win.