Game Reviews for the Cheap Ass

A Dog's Life ($20)

2005-04-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

I can describe A Dog's Life for the PS2 in one word: Simple.

The premise is simple, you play as a dog, Jake, and you are on a quest to save your love interest, Daisy, who has been kidnapped by a couple of goons working for the evil Ms. Peaches.

The controls are simple, utilizing primarily the face buttons, with a Zelda-like "this button does that" control schematic in the upper righthand corner of the screen.

The audio visual aspect of the game is simple with bright colors, loud goofy voices, and lots of open spaces for you to explore.

Like I said, simple.

Yet, I continue to find myself turning this game on, day after day. There is something compelling about this uncomplicated romp through America's contryside. I find myself smiling when I enter a new area, switch on Jake's smellvision and try to find all the scents near the chicken coop.

Unfortunately, in between all the exploration, there are a lot of poop jokes. I mean alot. And they arn't even good ones; these are the kind of jokes that are completely inapporpriate for an 11 year old, yet that same 11 year old will be the only one who laughs at them. I think the developers made a big mistake in including the potty humor. This game would have been perfect for kids, would have earned an E rating had they not included it. My step-sister would love this game, but cannot play it, just because you can make Jake take a big steaming dump on command. All that aside, the potty humor doesn't add anything at all, its completely superfluous.

So, all that aside, I recomend this game if you're craving a slow and simple exploration game.

The Tasty Alien Interviews

2005-04-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

On the Gaming Uncensored podcast, today they played my interviews with various people about how aliens would taste. Good stuff. Anyway, up this week will be my review of I Was An Atomic Mutant. Look for it in the Saturdayish range.

Interview with Dan the Drone

2005-04-12T18:07:00.000-07:00

A new Gaming Uncensored is up, and in it I talk with Dan again. We speak about Conker: Live and Reloaded and Destroy All Humans.

Also, I have a skype account, username: cheapassgamer

Narc: The Review (Sort of)

2005-04-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

This week's review of Narc will be audio only, as I was quite inebriated at the time of recording and didn't type it up first. So, get yourself an RSS agregator and subscribe to the Gaming Uncensored feed.

Derek on the (internet) radio

2005-04-02T01:02:00.000-08:00

In association with Tommy and Jaime of gaminguncensored.com, you can now hear the yours truly's dulcet tones. For the direct link, go to gaminguncensored.com and click Podcast - direct link to download the entire show where I have a two minute segment. If you are feeling very ambitious, go to ipodder.org, download their software, and then subscribe to gaminguncensored.com's podcast feed at http://www.jamiejordan.net/gaming_uncensored/Podcasts/rss.xml . By doing that, you can be assured you will never miss a show, because it will automatically download to your harddrive and worm it's way into your mp3 manager's software whenever a new show is available. The next show is on monday, and in it I interview one of the Two Dans about Narc.

Expect a review of Narc shortly.

Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick ($15)

2005-03-27T15:47:00.000-08:00

There are primarily three reasons you will see a videogame in stores for less than $20.

1) The game has recieved a sequel and/or has sold enough copies that it enters the console company's "Greatest Hits" lines. (i.e Jak and Daxter, Mario Sunshine, Project Gotham.)

2) The game does crap comercially and the publisher has to drop the price so that they arn't stuck with warehouses of unsold inventory. (i.e Bad Boys Miami Takedown, Beyond Good and Evil, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.)

3) The game starts out as a small production, and the developers hope that you can overlook the lessened production values for the fun new and innovative gameplay mechanics that they bring to the table with a budget title. (i.e. Triggerman, Katamari Damacy, Serious Sam, Darkstone.)

Each category has its hits and misses, but most often games that fall in category one are pretty good, and the ones in category 2 are almost always crap, and the ones from category 3 are all over.

Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick is a game from category 3. When it came out back in June 2003, I snatched it up for $20 and immediately stuck it in my PS2. It was good stuff. I bought a second copy, something I never do, and gave it away as a gift.

A budget game based on a license from a budget horror movie. Two of my favorite things, all rolled up into one.

So what is this game about? Killing zombies and pretending you are Ash, king of one liners and pretty handy with a chainsaw.

And that is pretty much the highlights of the title. And for me, that is enough. I fucking hate zombies, and finally, after years and years of waiting, I have a videogame where I become a one-man zombie holocaust.

There is a magic system and some brainless find-the-key puzzles, but for the most part, I found myself playing just to get to the next cutscene which always cracked me up. The camera is an atrocious loosey-goosey 3rd person affair, and the combat is button smashing, but the first time you fire your shotgun over your shoulder, decapitating those filthy disgusting zomebies in a torrent of blood, you forget all about those things. All in all, good clean fun for the whole family.

Trigger Man ($10)

2005-03-11T22:45:00.000-08:00

Imagine if you will, a smokey conference room. Sitting at the head of a long wooden slab of a table is a fat balding man, his eyes are sunken into his skull, deep frown lines cut into his face, and his yellow teeth are clenching a cigar.

"Crave Entertainment needs a hit boys, and we need it badly. After that fiasco with Bad Boys, we need something to pull our nuts out of the fire and thrust us firmly back into the black. Johnson! What are the kids playing these days?"

"Well sir," Johnson cringes, knowing that the wrong answer will land him in the unemployment line, "People seem to like Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid and Halo"

"Excellent! Get to work then!"

"On what? What kind of game are we making? Which should we rip off?"

"All of them, idiot! Just mash up all three and give me something great!"

"Guh?"

"Oh, and by the way, you only have 2 months to pull it off. Oh, and I am going to pay you in empty soda cans."

At least, thats is how I think that is how the project got started. From the opening "cinema," Triggerman reeks of suck. Think of the worst 3rd person shooter you have ever played and add im-fucking-possible stealth portions (if you are seen by the cops, your game is over, end of story. Why can't I shoot them? I've already killed dozens of generic GTA mafia rip-offs, why the hell does four cops matter?) The story is told through dialogue boxes, forcing you to read what I thought might have been an 8 year old's Grand Theft Auto fan fiction.

It takes 8 shots to the chest(or one to the head) to kill one guy. The ammo you can carry is damn limited. When an enemy dies, he doesn't drop any ammo or the gun he was carrying or anything. The only way you can stock up again is at the ammo crate located SOMEWHERE in the level. There is no jumping, no dodging, no controls other than move (slowly) duck, and shoot.

I could go on and on and on, but I won't. Look, let me be honest with you. I only played this game for an hour before I took the disc out of my machine and snapped it in half. I had to. I did it for the good of us all. I was angry. Very very goddamn angry and I wanted to take it out on someone, or something.

I now know why all those lawsuits against videogames are out there, but they have the wrong culprit. I have experienced the rage first hand, and Grand Theft Auto never made me feel anything like I felt while playing Triggerman. I wanted to kill something. I wanted someone to feel what I felt, the pain. Triggerman took something away from me in the brief time we spent together, and I will never ever get it back.

So now there is one less copy of this "game" left in the world, and this is a good thing.

Do not play this game. Do not buy it. If you happen to catch a glimpse of it in a store, pretend you didn't see it and walk away slowly. If you know someone who has played Triggerman, give them a hug, and quickly. They need all the love and comfort they can get. If they played it and loved it, however, there is something seriously wrong with them. They need help of the psychiatric kind.

There is no "so bad it's good" with this game. It is just fucking horrible.

Pray for me.

I Take it Back

2005-03-10T04:47:00.000-08:00

Posts will be a bit sporadic, as I now have to use the family computer to post, and post-laptop-death-related depression is kicking my ass. So, a review will be up this weekend, I think, but don't hold me to it, please.

There goes all my plans

2005-03-09T04:03:00.000-08:00

My laptop died. Expect no reviews for a couple months.

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown ($15)

2005-03-01T02:39:00.000-08:00

I admit it, I liked the movie Bad Boys II. I found it delightfully humorous while fulfilling my daily recommended allowance of explosions. When I had heard of this game a year back or so, however, I knew that this wasn't going to be one of those that I go out and buy on the first day of it's release. You see, when you are buying a moviegame, you are almost always in for a crapshoot. For every Spiderman 2, there is a Shrek Swamp Cart Speedway, for every Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, there is a Fight Club fighting game. I have been burned by moviegames in the past (Enter the Matrix was the last one; it was fun, but not $55 fun), and having learned my lesson, I waited. I waited so long to play this one, it completely fell off my radar until a conversation with the Two Dans brought it back to mind.

"Worst game of 2004," they said.
"Ring me up!" I cried.

And that was the most enjoyable part of my experience with this game so far. Granted, I only played for three hours, so maybe it gets better later on. Most likely not.

This game fucking sucked.

The cover, at least is pretty cool. You have Martin Lawrence and Will Smith looking pretty badass, walking away from an explosion. So imagine my surprise when I pop in the disc and the character models for those two look only slightly similar to the source material. And it is very damn obvious that neither Will nor Martin did any voice work for the game, let alone anyone who could actually act. My little brother would have been more convincing than who ever played the sociopathic lady helecopter pilot/murderess.

There is a little tutorial level, a plain vanilla police station shooting range, that introduces you to controls that feel both loose and sluggish at the same time. I kind of liked the guy who berates you when you screw up at the range (I'm not exactly sure who he was, or how he fit in the story, because it was about this time that my eyes start to glaze over), but maybe that is just a testament to my masochistic side.

There is only one gameplay gimmick, and it is used over and over and over. If you don't want to die, you have to take cover behind pillers, cars, dumpsters, anything and everything. While realistic, and cool in concept, this is the tragic flaw to the game, the one thing I could not forgive. The system they use for taking cover was so broken, that for the first two hours I played, I thought that it had to be part of the game design. For example, if you fire your pistol while you arn't behind cover, you can squeeze a clip off as fast as you can push the button, but behind cover, it is painfully slower, exposing you to enemy fire, which will kill you. With the shotgun, itis much the same. Pop out, shoot, and then you have to pump in another shell before you can return to cover, all the while getting shot by the three generic enemies you see repeated over and over throughout the game. The cover system also dramatically slows the game down to a crawl, making it less than action filled. It turns into a game where you either hide behind shit (like they want you to) and die, or you run around shooting everything and everyone you can, say balls to the cover, and die.

Unless you are in a boss battle, your punshiment for death is to start the entire stage over again. From the begining. Let me draw an analogy. Lets say that you are riding in a car reading a book, and everytime you lose your place, you have to start from the beginning of the chapter again. That isn't so bad when it is a great book, but Miami Takedown is the 2005 US Tax Code of videogames.

The sound, for the most part, is okay. Things go boom nicely, and the background music was pleasant, unobtrusive and ultimately forgetable. I did notice, and I am not sure if this is just my disc, but all the voices had a stutter, like my disc was skipping. When I took the disc out, there wern't any acratches or dirt or anything, and it was just the voices, not any of the other audio.

Finally, a few assorted gripes. The boss characters are as uninspired as the generic henchmen characters. The two I saw, a shotgun toting Denis Rodman ripoff and a helicopter were pathetic. The banter between Quasi- Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is fun for five minutes, and then you wish you can turn it off. There is no jump button. I wanted to jump over shit, and there was no jump button. Out of the four weapon types (gripe within a gripe: THERE WERE ONLY FOUR WEAPON TYPES), the pistol that you start out with was the most useful.

So, was this game worth the $15 I paid for it? No. Did I have at least a little fun? Not with this game, no. Would I recomend that anyone give this as a gift? Only if you hate them.

Saturday 27 Feb (Random Update)

2005-02-27T02:14:00.000-08:00

I just finished the first draft of my review for Bad Boys: Miami Takedown, and I have to say that it's shaping up pretty good. I will post it on March 1st.

I have to remind myself, however, that I am not supposed to write reviews like everyone else does. The normal review focuses on comparing games to other games in certain categories in order to come up with a "score" that tells you how good or how bad said game is. I on the other hand, already have a "score;" how much I paid for the game, and I have to state whether it was money well spent, or wasted, and why.

For example, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a steal at $50, but I wouldn't pay $5 for the new Dukes of Hazzard game.

The goal is to review the cheapest games I can find onthe current generation of hardware, and review them as fairly as I can. The rub is that usually the good stuff isn't cheap. So most likely, you will see a lot of negative reviews.

No, it isn't an objective system, but then life isn't objective. You don't experience things objectively, and neither do I. So yes, my little biases will seep in (such as the "this is cheap so it must be trash" bias), but bias is what makes reading enjoyable. Bah, you'll see.

Besides, I've always liked reading the negative game reviews better than the good ones.

The Review Queue

2005-02-27T02:04:00.000-08:00

Derek's queue

Beyond Good and Evil
LEGO Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
I Was an Atomic Mutant
Narc (When it releases)

Alyssa's queue

Trailer Park Tycoon

The Review Queue Grows (As Does the Cheap Ass Team)

2005-02-25T23:29:00.000-08:00

First off, I would like to thank my sister Alyssa, who will be contributing a review every now and then. Her first game: Trailer Park Tycoon. Expect it in the following weeks.

It's not everyday that one finds a PC game on prominent display in a store for $3. Such is the way I found LEGO Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I paid for it with pocket change.

Added to the queue:
LEGO Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Trailer Park Tycoon, and I Was An Atomic Mutant

Today's Developments (Nothing to see here, move along)

2005-02-23T22:23:00.000-08:00

So after work today, I went into my local Gamestop and asked the guys behind the counter about a few noteworthy (cheap) titles.

"Oh, you don't want those two!" they both cried almost in unison.

But I did, I bought them, and now Dan and Dan (The Two Dan's) are my new informants, hunting out the cheap and spectacular as well as the spectacularly crappy.

Games in the review queue:
Bad Boys: Miami Takedown
Trigger Man

Just This Last One for Tonight (I Promise)

2005-02-22T19:31:00.000-08:00

Here is a sample of my writing, circa 2001. I am almost embarrassed about the quality of this review. I say almost, because it was my first, so I cut myself a little slack.

Escape From Monkey Island

Genre: Adventure
Publisher: LucasArts Entertainment
Platform: PC, Playstation 2
Score: 8

Ah, the videogame industry has been needing more adventure games, and this one more than makes up for the drought. Some of my fondest memories involve a glass of lemonade, some soft music on the radio, and "Leisure Suit Larry: Land of the Lounge Lizards" on the PC.

For those who are unfamiliar with the genre, adventure games reached their peak popularity in the late 80's, early 90's with such games as the afore mentioned Leisure Suit Larry and King's Quest, both published by Sierra, infamous for the title "Phantasmagoria." An adventure game is similar to an RPG in that there is a lot of reading to be done (or in EFMI's case, a lot of voice acting), but that s where the similarity ends. In a nut shell, you go around, collecting items, solving puzzles using those items, and watching the story unfold. Kind of like Resident Evil, without the zombies or the "find the key" puzzles.

Anyway, in EFMI you play as the pirate, Guybrush Threepwood, who is about as swashbuckling as his name sounds. You are trying to save the mayor's (your wife's) mansion from demolition. If i say anymore, i will give away the many hilarious plot twists, so i won't

The game is as funny as the name Guybrush Threepwood sounds. The humor is offbeat and nothing is sacred, the game makes fun of lawyers, Lassie, bars, chess, the videogames and the industry (LucasArts in particular), alcohol, prosthetics and all things pink.

The puzzles are challenging to say the least. There are going to be many many times when you will just stop and stare at your monitor and scream at the top of your lungs in frustration. They are bizarre. You will not know what to do, i guarantee you. Thankfully, most of the puzzles can be solved (or at least you can get some idea of what to do next) by using every item on everything you see. The method is very time consuming, but it works. Plus, you get to hear more of the excellent voice acting!

Speaking of the voice acting, it is tremendous. Fantastic. Great! Superb! i can't say enough about it. Just the inflection of the way Guybrush says something sometimes just sends me over the edge with laughter. The is filled with subtle humor and the voice acting brings it out to its fullest.

The game is hard, however. Very difficult to figure out some of the puzzles. This may be the one game that you will have to peek at the strategy guide for. That is my only gripe with this game. Too damn many bizarre puzzles where the answers make no sense at all.

Get the game. Even if you don't play it, every game we buy puts us one step closer to getting a "Monkey Island 5," and that would make Derek very happy. Hey, maybe one day your unopened EFMI box might become a collector's item one day.

(+)FUNNY FUNNY GAME! HILARIOUS!
(+)ENGAGING STORY
(+)TERRIFIC VOICE ACTING
(+)MONKEYS IN 3D (OOOOOH YEAAAH...)
(-)PUZZLES THAT MAKE NO SENSE
(-)ANTI-ALIASING ISSUES

A Small Bulleted List (With Dashes Instead of Bullets)

2005-02-22T19:13:00.000-08:00

-There is an XML feed for this site (http://cheapass.blogspot.com/atom.xml). Just copy and paste that into a newsreader, RSS agregateor, or if you are using Firefox, just click that little orange button on the lower right hand corner of your browser. Why bother? You can check to see if this is updated without actually having to visit the site. Try it, you might like it.

-I fully intend to write a full review once a week, every week, and post said reviews on Tuesday evenings. Posts of other types may be more or less frequent, depending on life. If life sucks, no posts other than the reviews.

-Games I review will cost less than $20 at the time of posting. The free-er, the better. There are several reasons I chose to go the low budget route, but maybe that is a discussion for another time.

Getting Started (Push Start)

2005-02-22T18:41:00.000-08:00

And it's about damn time, I say. The hardest part is always getting set up, getting going. I've done that part, now all I have to do is keep the momentum strong.

Watch this space in the Tuesday to Wednesday timeframe, and I will give you something to read.