10. The Rise of the Golden Idol (PC)
9. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II (PC)
8. Still Wakes the Deep (XSX)
7. Balatro (PC)
6. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (PS5)
5. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (PC)
4. Animal Well (PC)
3. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (PC)
2. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (PC)
1. Astro Bot (PS5)
The fourth game just came out in the States a week or two ago, but I'm just now finished with the third, which was released here last year. A year late seems like the right way to play this series - it's too quirky and occasionally clunky for me to justify paying $60 for the experience when it's brand new, but as a budget purchase a bit later, it's definitely worth it to experience the series' oddness and charms again. The jump to current generation hardware doesn't do much to change the general gameplay, though the upgrade in visuals and putting the camera behind Kazuma instead of in static places when exploring is certainly welcome. Like in Yakuza 2, you spend the game bouncing between the franchise's trademark location of Kamurocho and another, in this case a city and nearby beach on an island in Okinawa. The differences between these locations are much greater than the differences between fake Tokyo and fake Osaka in Yakuza 2, not just in the look of the place but what you tend to actually do there, which makes it a more distinct entry in the series with more diversity of tone.
The third game finds Kazuma finally retired from gang life, and running an orphanage by the beach with Haruka. Of course eventually stuff happens that pulls him back into the criminal underworld he's been trying to leave for years, though the story spends a significant amount of time just having you help out and watch over the kids in your care, to a surprising degree for a series best known for having you punch the hell out of a lot of dudes. All of the kids get developed and fleshed out a bit, and the laid back tone the game takes on in these sections was pretty refreshing after something like the desperate suicide mission in Mass Effect 2. The game never totally abandons this either, always giving you little bits of flavor in between all of the violence that gets going as the story kicks into high gear. I didn't think the overall plot was quite as good as earlier games, not having the first's emotional connection between Kazuma and the villain or the second's outright insanity, but it's still a capable, generally entertaining tale of betrayal and corruption with a few moments that stick out. The ending kind of pulls a switcheroo for no reason, and it can get embarrassingly over-the-top here and there, but it's all forgivable.
The gameplay is pretty much exactly what series veterans probably expected, though I was a bit disappointed by how similar it felt to the PS2 games. The combat system in the series has always been fairly fun, but a bit shallow in its execution and frustrating when it tries to actually challenge the player. Kazuma has the same attacks and movements he always did, and they added a number of new features like customizable weapons and some new context-specific moves, but it's still pretty much the same system they've always had, and it's wearing a little thin after a new generation of hardware and three games. It's not annoying enough to truly damage the experience, but it's always a pain when an enemy just seems to block everything you do and you have to find whatever single technique will be effective at all against him. I like how the random fights now transition directly into the combat mode without a loading screen, but I wish they had pushed the whole thing farther than that.
When you're not fighting dudes you're generally running around in whatever city the game wants you to be, looking for the next plot trigger, though this is where a lot of the fun is, because there's always tons of things to do besides find the next cut scene. There are people to help, side quests to do, shops to buy items from, and mini games to play. I think it's stupid that Sega removed some of this extra content from the American release because they thought we wouldn't understand it if it was "too Japanese" or something, because if we're already playing a game with subtitled Japanese dialogue we're probably okay with it. But the truth is, I never really felt that absence because there was always more new stuff to do if I wanted and I hardly scratched the surface.
So the game gives you all this stuff to do, and occasionally something in the story will force you to a new location or change things a bit so you have to fight or sneak through the city before dropping you back into the regular game. It's a simple formula that generally works, though there are occasions when it all feels a bit dated. Plot bits awkwardly transition between text boxes and full voiced dialogue, and the implementation of a bit of action will be sometimes seem poorly though out, things like that. But while it's not the most advanced game there is, its flaws didn't annoy me very much, even if they might have placed a cap on how much I really could have been into the experience. The Yakuza series is in this weird place where it's half big action game and half quirky Japanese oddity, and definitely has a weird charm to it. I wouldn't be surprised to find myself talking about the fourth game a year from now.
Let's keep this crazy train a-rolling. A couple video game characters break through this time.
Scott Pilgrim
Scott Pilgrim series
"The future? Like... with jetpacks?"
What's great about Scott is how awesome and totally not awesome he is at the same time. I mean, he's mostly an idiot. He's a bit inconsiderate sometimes about others' feelings and doesn't actually talk to girls that well. They like that though, so it works out for him. Just like most things seem to in the wacky version of Canada they all live in. Despite his faults, there's nothing malicious about him. He just wants to have a good time with his girl, and if that means battling seven evil exes to do it, he's up to the challenge. His combination of genuine skill and dimwitted resourcefulness is endearing, and he's well on his way to being the best 24-year-old ever.
John Locke
Terry O'Quinn - Lost
"Don't tell me what I can't do."
Locke is something of an enigma, but part of what makes the show consistently compelling. If there's anyone who likes the show and wasn't totally convinced by the pilot, then the reveal at the end of his first flashback episode is what hooked them for good. He's one of the more frustrating characters on this list, with his motivations and actions frequently in question. But that's par for the course with Lost characters, and Locke is still always among the most interesting. The last season finale really turned what we should be expecting from O'Quinn on its head, and seeing how the rest of his role plays out will be intriguing for sure.
Carl "CJ" Johnson
Young Maylay - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
"What can I say? I'm a bad man."
Ever since Grand Theft Auto: Vice City the GTA series has had good protagonists, but so far I've liked CJ the most. One of the good things about him is that your version of him might look nothing at all like the one pictured above. They took out a lot of the customization stuff when they jumped to current gen consoles, but making CJ whatever you wanted him to be was a lot of fun. And he's an interesting, sympathetic person as well, with a really good performance from Young Maylay. There's always a bit of a disconnect when you're doing these action games, with the player guilty of usually hundreds of homicides by the end of the story despite its attempts to make you like them. But if you can just accept it for what it is, they did a really nice job with it.
Alyx Vance
Merle Dandridge - Half-Life series
"Dr. Freeman, I presume?"
There's a difficult balance with Half-Life 2. In the first game, the only characters besides the voiceless protagonist were interchangeable, disposable scientists and security guards. It was very much a game. But with the sequel, they tried to sell you real people that you should be interested in and care about, despite Gordon Freeman's continuing non-functional vocal chords. Alyx was introduced as a frequent companion and possible love interest for Gordon, and despite the odds, it works. Part because of Dandridge's great voice work, and part because of the impressive skill with which the character is written and integrated into the world. There are moments where you wish Gordon wasn't so constricted, but for the most part you forget the limitations and just exist in the game's world with Alyx by your side. Maybe my favorite character in all of gaming.
Dwight Schrute
Rainn Wilson - The Office (US)
"If I were buying my coffin, I would get one with thicker walls so you couldn’t hear the other dead people."
Dwight works in two different ways. The first is bringing a character to the US version that's as suitably nuts as Gareth from the UK show without just copying him, and making him uniquely American. The other, as developing into an actual person over the course of the series' much longer run time. For the most part, Dwight is totally ridiculous. But he has enough scenes that could feature a real human that ingratiate you to him and prevent him from being too over the top. Yeah, right now he has a "diabolical plan" to get Jim fired, but it's all based in genuine desires someone might have. It's a fine line to walk, but I think Wilson and the writers do a good job.
The Doctor
Christopher Eccleston/David Tennant - Doctor Who
"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect... but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff."
I generally preferred Tennant's portrayal of the venerable time lord, but Eccleston did a good job too. The Doctor is one of Great Britain's most beloved characters, and his revival a few years ago seemed to go off without a hitch. It's the mix of good humor and pathos that make him work, as he puts on a happy face when dealing with new situations and foes, but it's really just hiding more demons than any soul should bear. He's a bit of an enigma, because you wonder if the moments where the world is weighing on his shoulders are just moments here and there, or a constant hindrance that he only occasionally lets show. Either way, he's usually a lot of fun to watch, and I look forward to seeing what a new actor can do with the character.
Marv
Mickey Rourke - Sin City
"Would you hurry it up? I ain't got all night."
I don't think the movie really held up that well, but Marv is still pretty great. We know Rourke has a lot of range, but I think I like him most as this sort of cocky tough guy with a good heart. He's uncompromising in his ideals and prone to lapses in judgment, leading to his ultimate doom, but hey, that's what prequels are for. His only concerns are loyalty to people who give him a chance and destroying those who go after the ones he likes. And he's pretty damn funny in a morbid sort of way. I've read all of the comics, and his first story is still the best one.
Charlie Kelly
Charlie Day - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
"Because I cut the brakes! Wild card, bitches!"
Dennis was definitely my favorite character from the most recent season, but Charlie has been a consistent fan favorite for the show's entire run, and for good reason. He's probably the only cast member you can like as a person, because while they're all idiots, the rest are still functioning idiots who do bad things, while Charlie really is too intellectually stunted to know better. He's sort of like a live action Phillip Fry, somehow able to cobble together a working consciousness despite lacking fundamental mental faculties. He provides most of the show's most over the top moments, and is almost never not up to something funny.
Titus Pullo
Ray Stevenson - Rome
"I was only following orders. Bloody good orders, too!"
In a show filled to the brim with larger than life personalities, Pullo stands the tallest. He's more or less a psychopath, but that's acceptable when you're part of the Roman legion. It's very enjoyable watching him eviscerate an enemy, but he's a lot of fun in a normal life context too, just passing time between battles. Stevenson seems to be building a career out of being violent, but he can do subtle when he needs to, demonstrated admirably in a number of scenes. In fact, my favorite moment with the character was hardly violent at all besides a single murder. Rome thrived off the decadence of its sex and violence, and Pullo was an eager participant in both.
Harry Lockhart
Robert Downey Jr. - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
"Doesn't that suck? I just hit you for no reason. I don't even know why."
A Scanner Darkly was the first movie I saw Downey in, and I was very impressed with his work there. But this is the film that convinced me I should watch anything he's in. I could almost give the nod to Val Kilmer here because he has so many damn great lines, but Downey's is the better performance and more interesting character. As far as stars of detective stories go, he's among the most flawed, not really knowing what the hell he's doing and ending the case much worse for the wear. His ineptitude is what makes it fun, and his occasional successes make it all worthwhile. He's also probably the worst narrator in film history, and that's another part of why he's great.
Kazuma Kiryu
Takaya Kuroda - Yakuza series
"When you don't pay your debts, I'm what you get."
Other video game characters have more developed personalities or more physical prowess on an objective scale, but none of them are bigger badasses than Kazuma. He's not confrontational by nature, protective of those he knows and willing to discuss things calmly before they get out of hand. But if you insist on violence, he will utterly destroy you with his bare hands. I mean, the guy fights two tigers at once in the second game. His only weakness is an extreme sense of loyalty, which will occasionally get him in situations he can't punch his way out of. But he embodies the sense of respect and honor that makes the Yakuza seem more interesting than the standard mob.
Benjamin Linus
Michael Emerson - Lost
"You guys got any milk?"
I've avoided multiple people from the same thing, but it was too hard here. Ben was only supposed to be around for a couple episodes but he stayed on because the producers liked Emerson so much, and the show hasn't been the same since. One of the most consistently beaten up characters in history (he has to have spent at least half his scenes in bruise makeup, right?), he's still a good villain because of the respect he commands among his allies. Also, because we're never quite sure how much of a villain he really is. He's always creepy and intimidating, but does he maybe have everyone's best interests at heart? We're still not sure yet, but either way he's among the show's most consistently fascinating people.
Continued tomorrow.
Yakuza 2 is as direct a sequel you can make to a video game. There are a few alterations and additions, but you spend over half the game in the same area you spent the first, the combat system is roughly the same, the graphics are mildly improved at best, and the story spends a lot of time dealing with the consequences of the first game. It still shares a lot of the same flaws as before, like a failure to gracefully increase the difficulty as it goes on and several small, odd hiccups in the presentation. If I was a jackass, I might call it Yakuza 1.5.
Not that any of this makes it a bad game. Just like the first I liked it enough to mostly forgive its idiosyncrasies, and would rate it as pretty good, if not great. Despite the previously mentioned reliance on the first game for a lot of the plot hooks, I actually preferred this story to the first, as it feels more like an epic crime drama and some of the character relationships feel a bit stronger. The first game was mostly a revenge story, and that's here too, but things are more complicated as they involve several warring factions and a specific deadly incident a quarter century earlier in the timeline. By the end the constant twists on who's REALLY behind everything start to feel half baked and the last scene before the credits would have been a terrible way to go out, but the scene afterward wrapped it all up enough for me to come away satisfied. Instead of rerecording the dialogue in English this time they saved on the localization by subtitling it, which I mostly preferred even if it hurt the sales. Unlike in film, I tend not to mind when a video game from overseas is dubbed in my own language, but in this case the entire project is just so inherently Japanese that I appreciate the authenticity.
As with last time, the game is a mix of beat-em-up combat with an RPG's leveling, money and item system, and plethora of side activities. You move through the story chapter by chapter, in this case in sections of both Tokyo and Osaka, beating up random thugs who accost you on the street until you can beat up other thugs to advance the plot. Although I didn't spend a lot of time on this one intentionally seeking out other missions, they're still there, as you can do anything from playing traditional board games for money to helping random passersby to trying to win over the hostesses at various clubs. You can even become a host yourself, although I ended up ignoring that when the game threw it at me because I just wanted to finish. The combat gets annoying quickly when they try to make it difficult, because it always seems like they're breaking the established rules to do so and the controls just aren't good enough to compensate for some of the crap they throw at you. I never got into an unwinnable situation, and thankfully the game gives you the option to temporarily turn down the difficulty if you're getting your ass kicked, though I didn't have to do that until the very end when I just ran out of health items. Despite occasional frustration with certain enemy types, it's generally fun to just beat the crap out of people in this game, and there's enough opportunity to learn new techniques that it doesn't get boring over the 15 hours it takes to beat. There have already been two more games in the series released in Japan, both for the PS3, and there's a strong amount of doubt on whether they'll ever make it over here. I hope they do, because while the first two games weren't exceptional, I did have fun with them.
Yakuza isn't an amazing, huge game. It's a solid, somewhat quirky one. But we need those too. It's a strange mix of beat-em-up and RPGs. What I might like most about it is its charm, not from a content sense, since it's a crime story filled with violence and sometimes gratuitous swearing, but just a gameplay sense. The button-mashing combat, the leveling up, the text boxes, the loading between fighting and normal play, the little shops full of items; they're all almost nostalgic in this modern world of minimalist interfaces and streamlined menus. It's a throwback to the old days.
It's a pretty enjoyable throwback too, most of the time. Besides the storyline, there are dozens of sidequests and other activities everywhere in the little area of Tokyo they lit you run around in, and you can ignore the main game for long stretched if you don't feel like dealing with it. The combat has some interesting wrinkles to it, especially if you seek out training to learn some new moves. It's usually pretty straightforward, but there are lots of items sprinkled about and techniques that are useful in various situations. It starts getting pretty frustrating near the end, when you start getting attacked by a certain type of enemy that tends to dodge everything and hit you with ridiculous spinning kicks and you get ganged up on, all culminating with an annoying boss who actually has bodyguards that revive themselves shortly after being beaten. But as long as you don't do what I did once and accidentally get into an unwinnable (almost no health against 4 guys with knives, one of whom can't be forced to drop his) fight that forced me to quit and lose an hour's progress, it shouldn't be too bad.
The story itself is pretty interesting. I wish they included the original voice track, because as fun as it is to hear Michael Madsen and Mark Hamill try to play Japanese characters, I was annoyed by the common overacting and inconsistent pronunciation. But it's still a good mob story, with plenty of twists, mysteries, and likable characters. The gameplay throughout is a constant repeat of running to the next fight besides a diversion or too, but wanting to know what was up kept me going. It got a little silly at the end, with some clichés, pointless extending of the climax, and a nearly interminable ending, but overall it encapsulated a pretty fun game well.
