Rico the Sailfish
11-28-2003, 02:05 AM
Who is this guy, and what’s he smoke’n? Well, for your information, my name is Zorieon and I’ve been smoking monkeys. But seriously, I’m here to shed some light on the best sleeper hit this month next to Prince of Persia; Metal Arms: Glitch in the System.
http://www.ebgames.com/ebx_assets/product_images/230755.jpg http://www.ebgames.com/ebx_assets/product_images/236053.jpg http://www.ebgames.com/ebx_assets/product_images/235912.jpg
Here we have a game that very likely far exceeds the expectations of anyone who didn’t bother to read up on it (and frankly, why would you...?). I picked it up for the GameCube, so this is the version that I’ll be talking about.
So, is it really that good?
I’ll brief it for you.
Swinging Ape Studios is actually the ex-Hydro Thunder team’s first game since leaving Midway. It was in development for over 2 years, as the team grew and eventually partnered with Vivendi for the release. You play as a small mining-droid known as Glitch, and embark on a mission to save IronStar from a clutches of some nasty robots. Blah blah blah... Well, honestly, the story is pretty cool...
Everything that moves in this game is a machine; but it’s mind-boggling how much character they have. Each enemy minion has spectacular and hilarious AI, and the voicing done in the game is both spot-on and witty. An unexpected bonus that comes with the cut-scenes and in-game conversations is the language. A lot of you probably aren’t aware that the language is about as strong as a T-rated game will allow. Even the “F” word is frequently (and obviously) used with the help of everyone’s favorite “beep.” This comical addition coupled with the ridiculous amount of destruction and carnage packed into the game makes for Bad Fur Day rivaling fun. About that destruction... In a nutshell, terrain and other parts of the environment that wouldn’t never be destructible in other shooters can be blown to shreds; often resulting in the deaths of enemies. Starting land-slides, shooting cables, and blasting bridges is all part of the strangely deep strategy involved in the game. Ahh yea, this game is all about explosions. Buildings, Tanks, Robots... whatever it is: you’re blowing it up. There are puzzle elements involved... but they all revolve around blowing something up.
There is a lot of freedom here. You can tear your way through each massive area; destroying everything that moves in a wild firefight that shames the Clone Wars, or you can sneak around like a Splinter Cell; capping unsuspecting victims. Of course, you’re going to want to use every strategy if you want to win. Metal Arms is hard. Not so much that those of you who couldn’t handle F-Zero are going to have to give up again. But certainly a challenge; ESPECIALLY if you choose to take on the hard mode. The game doesn’t just let you blow your enemies up piece-by-piece for the fun of it (though that’s quite a factor). You’ll want to do so in order to survive, and trust me, aiming for the gun-arm is very rewarding. You can also rescue and recruit any allied droids you might encounter; allowing them to follow and aid you in battle. For it’s difficulty, the game features an infinite retry system, and due to it’s arcade-feel, you honestly expect and “insert quarter” message to appear when you fail. As a side not, the sheer randomness of the enemy AI and explosive scenery can make the same area seem new even if you’ve just played through it 10 times; trying to survive the frantic combat.
As you play through each lengthy mission, you’ll want to look out for a wide variety of collectibles. These include washers (the currency; you can buy and upgrade tons of different weaponry), those same weapons can also be found lying around, and special chips that unlock more multiplayer levels (more on that in a bit... joygasm!<img src="http://www.mlanime.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/icon_wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'>.
The best of those many weapons, BTW, is a cord that downloads a copy of Glitch’s memory-base into an enemy robot; allowing you to take control of them and gain their many abilities (hovering, for example). When controlling an enemy robot, you can walk right on into an group of enemies and snoop around until they start to raise suspicion... Then, you can always gun them down; which is really cool.
The game’s crisp graphic engine really helps set a mood for this game. The very dark atmospheres of some of the areas is very sweet and creepy; you’ll have to use a beam-light just to see where you’re going. Since the game is so focused in metal and explosions, this is where Swinging Ape wanted to focus. And they did an amazing job. As Glitch takes damage, he’ll spark, smoke, dent and smudge; all great effects. Add in the AMAZING audio effects, and you have a very cinematic gaming experience. A lot of time was taken to make things as perfect as possible.
State-of-the-Art.
Lastly is the control-mechanics of the game. This is where rating gets a bit tricky. See, the game doesn’t just copy the control of “every other platform shooter” just like... well.. “every other platform shooter.” It’s so much of a shooter-base that there is really no need to put the camera anywhere but right behind Glitch. However, this is done very well, no complaints with the camera system. Play-control, however, really depends on the person. For me, they are smart and accurate, but I can see how others might have problems. It’s all in the sticks, the analog moves Glitch forward, backward , left and right, while the C-stick changes the direction he’s facing. Not unlike an FPS at all, but it still seems to take some getting used to. There is no lock-on feature, so it’s all aim and dodge; very clever if you ask me. I’m not very fond of the weapon changing system, though. It requires you to press “X” to bring up a menu, and then hit R or L to scroll until you reach the weapon you want. Not inexcusable, but could have been better. The rest of the scheme is pretty good. R fires the primary weapon, L launches grenades, A jumps, B brings up a secondary menu, Y serves as the “action” button, and Z is used for a special move or a standard swat with Glitch’s hand. The basic setup seems designed to allow you to perform any stunt you may want while gunning down the ever-present competition. And fortunately, you’ll earn ways to speed up the weapon-changing process with Zelda-style accuracy.
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System inevitably grants you a rewarding, if a bit repetitive, single player gaming experience. However, when you combine the multiplayer mode that is so unexpectedly good I can’t help but compare it to Bad Fur Day again... You’ve got yourself one heck of a package to fill in the gap in your frantic shoot-em-up game library. I’ll let you an three friends find out that experience for yourselves... Honestly, it reminds me of Halo. And I’ve hit up a lot of shooters since that good old lan-party. Glitch owns them all; earning an overall score of 8.7 from myslef.
Swinging Ape Studios went well beyond the extra mile to make this game worth your hard-earned cash. And it is. These guys have what it takes to feed us gamers some great things in the future, but I think they’re going to need a little support to do it. Sadly, there is no co-op mode included for the campaign missions in Metal Arms, so that’s one thing that an be improved on.
So, if you’re looking for something refreshingly different and old-school at the same time, check this one out. It’s actually worth owning. Let’s get these guys off the ground, and in the meantime, play this kickass shooter!
And yes, that was briefing it.
I recommend it.
http://www.ebgames.com/ebx_assets/product_images/230755.jpg http://www.ebgames.com/ebx_assets/product_images/236053.jpg http://www.ebgames.com/ebx_assets/product_images/235912.jpg
Here we have a game that very likely far exceeds the expectations of anyone who didn’t bother to read up on it (and frankly, why would you...?). I picked it up for the GameCube, so this is the version that I’ll be talking about.
So, is it really that good?
I’ll brief it for you.
Swinging Ape Studios is actually the ex-Hydro Thunder team’s first game since leaving Midway. It was in development for over 2 years, as the team grew and eventually partnered with Vivendi for the release. You play as a small mining-droid known as Glitch, and embark on a mission to save IronStar from a clutches of some nasty robots. Blah blah blah... Well, honestly, the story is pretty cool...
Everything that moves in this game is a machine; but it’s mind-boggling how much character they have. Each enemy minion has spectacular and hilarious AI, and the voicing done in the game is both spot-on and witty. An unexpected bonus that comes with the cut-scenes and in-game conversations is the language. A lot of you probably aren’t aware that the language is about as strong as a T-rated game will allow. Even the “F” word is frequently (and obviously) used with the help of everyone’s favorite “beep.” This comical addition coupled with the ridiculous amount of destruction and carnage packed into the game makes for Bad Fur Day rivaling fun. About that destruction... In a nutshell, terrain and other parts of the environment that wouldn’t never be destructible in other shooters can be blown to shreds; often resulting in the deaths of enemies. Starting land-slides, shooting cables, and blasting bridges is all part of the strangely deep strategy involved in the game. Ahh yea, this game is all about explosions. Buildings, Tanks, Robots... whatever it is: you’re blowing it up. There are puzzle elements involved... but they all revolve around blowing something up.
There is a lot of freedom here. You can tear your way through each massive area; destroying everything that moves in a wild firefight that shames the Clone Wars, or you can sneak around like a Splinter Cell; capping unsuspecting victims. Of course, you’re going to want to use every strategy if you want to win. Metal Arms is hard. Not so much that those of you who couldn’t handle F-Zero are going to have to give up again. But certainly a challenge; ESPECIALLY if you choose to take on the hard mode. The game doesn’t just let you blow your enemies up piece-by-piece for the fun of it (though that’s quite a factor). You’ll want to do so in order to survive, and trust me, aiming for the gun-arm is very rewarding. You can also rescue and recruit any allied droids you might encounter; allowing them to follow and aid you in battle. For it’s difficulty, the game features an infinite retry system, and due to it’s arcade-feel, you honestly expect and “insert quarter” message to appear when you fail. As a side not, the sheer randomness of the enemy AI and explosive scenery can make the same area seem new even if you’ve just played through it 10 times; trying to survive the frantic combat.
As you play through each lengthy mission, you’ll want to look out for a wide variety of collectibles. These include washers (the currency; you can buy and upgrade tons of different weaponry), those same weapons can also be found lying around, and special chips that unlock more multiplayer levels (more on that in a bit... joygasm!<img src="http://www.mlanime.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/icon_wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'>.
The best of those many weapons, BTW, is a cord that downloads a copy of Glitch’s memory-base into an enemy robot; allowing you to take control of them and gain their many abilities (hovering, for example). When controlling an enemy robot, you can walk right on into an group of enemies and snoop around until they start to raise suspicion... Then, you can always gun them down; which is really cool.
The game’s crisp graphic engine really helps set a mood for this game. The very dark atmospheres of some of the areas is very sweet and creepy; you’ll have to use a beam-light just to see where you’re going. Since the game is so focused in metal and explosions, this is where Swinging Ape wanted to focus. And they did an amazing job. As Glitch takes damage, he’ll spark, smoke, dent and smudge; all great effects. Add in the AMAZING audio effects, and you have a very cinematic gaming experience. A lot of time was taken to make things as perfect as possible.
State-of-the-Art.
Lastly is the control-mechanics of the game. This is where rating gets a bit tricky. See, the game doesn’t just copy the control of “every other platform shooter” just like... well.. “every other platform shooter.” It’s so much of a shooter-base that there is really no need to put the camera anywhere but right behind Glitch. However, this is done very well, no complaints with the camera system. Play-control, however, really depends on the person. For me, they are smart and accurate, but I can see how others might have problems. It’s all in the sticks, the analog moves Glitch forward, backward , left and right, while the C-stick changes the direction he’s facing. Not unlike an FPS at all, but it still seems to take some getting used to. There is no lock-on feature, so it’s all aim and dodge; very clever if you ask me. I’m not very fond of the weapon changing system, though. It requires you to press “X” to bring up a menu, and then hit R or L to scroll until you reach the weapon you want. Not inexcusable, but could have been better. The rest of the scheme is pretty good. R fires the primary weapon, L launches grenades, A jumps, B brings up a secondary menu, Y serves as the “action” button, and Z is used for a special move or a standard swat with Glitch’s hand. The basic setup seems designed to allow you to perform any stunt you may want while gunning down the ever-present competition. And fortunately, you’ll earn ways to speed up the weapon-changing process with Zelda-style accuracy.
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System inevitably grants you a rewarding, if a bit repetitive, single player gaming experience. However, when you combine the multiplayer mode that is so unexpectedly good I can’t help but compare it to Bad Fur Day again... You’ve got yourself one heck of a package to fill in the gap in your frantic shoot-em-up game library. I’ll let you an three friends find out that experience for yourselves... Honestly, it reminds me of Halo. And I’ve hit up a lot of shooters since that good old lan-party. Glitch owns them all; earning an overall score of 8.7 from myslef.
Swinging Ape Studios went well beyond the extra mile to make this game worth your hard-earned cash. And it is. These guys have what it takes to feed us gamers some great things in the future, but I think they’re going to need a little support to do it. Sadly, there is no co-op mode included for the campaign missions in Metal Arms, so that’s one thing that an be improved on.
So, if you’re looking for something refreshingly different and old-school at the same time, check this one out. It’s actually worth owning. Let’s get these guys off the ground, and in the meantime, play this kickass shooter!
And yes, that was briefing it.
I recommend it.