Tag Archives: GoI

TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge — Issue 46

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Shred­der’s Revenge served hot in sequel

As a con­nois­seur of most things relat­ed to the Teenage Mutant Nin­ja Tur­tles, I find that the first two movies, the comics and the first ani­mat­ed show are worth my time. In addi­tion to those men­tioned, cer­tain games are accept­able uses of my hard-earned scril­la. I am a dis­cern­ing fan, and my dol­lars and time are pre­cious. So, it is with great joy and ela­tion that I spread the word that TMNT games have recov­ered slight­ly from the Dimen­sion X por­tal that the fran­chise fell into and the lat­est game, Shred­der’s Revenge, is proof of this return to glory.

Con­ceived as a trib­ute game of sorts, Shred­der’s Revenge takes every­thing we found awe­some about TMNT II: The Arcade Game and TMNT IV: Tur­tles in Time and ramps up the awe­some lev­el. The sto­ry con­tin­ues Tur­tles in Time, which was a wise choice. The Tur­tles find Rock­steady and Bebop and their adja­cent vil­lain asso­ciates guard­ing Krang’s exoskele­ton head in var­i­ous loca­tions includ­ing Man­hat­tan and Dimen­sion X. Appar­ent­ly, Shred­der is alive and kick­ing again after being top­pled on top of the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty in 1992. In 2022, he wants revenge for the Tur­tles stop­ping this par­tic­u­lar plot of may­hem of using Lady Lib­er­ty to take over the world. Because they’re used to Shred­der’s fool­ish­ness — bear in mind this is 1986 car­toon Shred­der, not com­ic book Shred­der who was­n’t a major vil­lain — the Tur­tles and their friends and fam­i­ly band togeth­er to stop the revenge plot once and for all.

Adding April O’Neil, Casey Jones and Splin­ter along­side the Tur­tles was a smart move. It’s almost incon­ceiv­able now that we were nev­er able to play as those three sup­port­ing char­ac­ters in a Tur­tles beat-’em-up before, and it has to be allowed in future games. Once you get going with a char­ac­ter cho­sen, the lev­el-up sys­tem is quick and easy to learn. And learn you will because there are so many ways to dis­patch Foot Clan sol­diers and oth­er ene­mies for points that work with­in the sys­tem. It’s almost too much to keep up with, espe­cial­ly in the heat of bat­tle where know­ing the cor­rect way to dis­patch a boss is impor­tant. Hav­ing some pre­vi­ous knowl­edge of Tur­tles in Time helps tremen­dous­ly, and there are in-game instruc­tions and a tuto­r­i­al, but it’s nigh over­whelm­ing. Though, to be fair, I’d rather have too much than too lit­tle. The game is giv­ing me a feast and thank­ful­ly, the con­trols are easy to grasp and clean as you romp through 16 gor­geous levels.

The game looks just as fan­tas­tic as well as it con­trols. The art imme­di­ate­ly dips into the nos­tal­gia of the orig­i­nal after­school show and had me hum­ming the super ’80s theme song. This is the area where that trib­ute comes into play. If you’re a fan of the show, you will love every­thing about how the game looks, feels, and sounds. Well, almost. 
While the sound­track is also fan­tas­tic, we can’t not men­tion the atro­cious remake of the theme song. Of all of the music cho­sen to remake, the theme show is the one track that you don’t mess with. It is a rev­er­ent piece of pop cul­ture his­to­ry and is sacred to most Tur­tle fans, includ­ing myself. My 42-year-old adult self knows the words by heart and has it in dig­i­tal form; it’s on that lev­el for me. So, hear­ing the theme butchered as it were in Shred­der’s Revenge had me tak­en aback. I was griev­ous­ly wound­ed but the soul still burns in this old Tur­tle girl. Because the rest of the sound­track is great ’80s cen­tric pop, tunes snatched direct­ly from the ear­ly sea­sons of the TV show, and beau­ti­ful voice­work from the orig­i­nal ani­mat­ed cast, I can let the remake theme slide, but it bet­ter not be in the sequel.

My only oth­er gripe here is the dif­fi­cul­ty lev­el. Even on the eas­i­est dif­fi­cul­ty, there were a lot of arcade rip-off ten­den­cies going on. Tac­tics like ene­my AI gang­ing up on char­ac­ters with already low health, not-so-clean hits from off-screen ene­mies that you can’t see and los­ing health rather quick­ly ran as ram­pant as those Stone Sol­diers that Krang employed. Any lev­els involv­ing vehi­cles and fly­ing are impos­si­bly hard and feel designed to be annoy­ing­ly frus­trat­ing. Boss fights, I’m fine with; they’re sup­posed to be hard. But reg­u­lar lev­els beyond the first stage were like this on easy dif­fi­cul­ty, which is obnox­ious. It was like try­ing to play TMNT II: The Arcade Game all over again and watch­ing the cab­i­net steal my mon­ey out of my pock­et. It feels unfair and set up to be against the play­er, which is unfor­tu­nate. Know­ing that going into the expe­ri­ence now makes it a lit­tle eas­i­er to nav­i­gate but is a detraction. 

Despite a try-hard col­li­sion sys­tem that keeps it from obtain­ing leg­endary sta­tus, Shred­der’s Revenge is a nice love let­ter to old­er TMNT fans who were around for the orig­i­nal craze. The quirks are notice­able, but Shred­der’s Revenge tries real­ly hard in every oth­er area, and it suc­ceeds well. Let’s call it a Cow­abun­ga for now.

Jet Grind Radio — Issue 45

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Jet Grind Radio sets cool standard

Bom­bas­tic yet cool. This is the dichoto­my you encounter in the atmos­phere of Jet Grind Radio. There’s noth­ing quite like it — except its sequel — and that’s a bless­ing because I don’t think the world could han­dle any­thing else. It’s quirky, futur­is­tic, stun­ning, and unde­ni­ably cool when you get down to it: Jet Grind Radio is the future.
Set in a futur­is­tic Tokyo, Jet Grind Radio fea­tures a wide cast of rollerblad­ing graf­fi­ti gangs vying for suprema­cy and strug­gling against an ego­ma­ni­a­cal mad­man and his con­glom­er­ate, which are attempt­ing to take over the world. The sto­ry­line serves its pur­pose but it’s the char­ac­ters that are the draw here. Each char­ac­ter — includ­ing the unlock­able — has an inter­est­ing look and sto­ry going on. They are the lifeblood, and it’s fun to learn about them and their motivations. 
While we’re lov­ing the char­ac­ters, let’s also give love to the art style that brings them to life. The art style is gor­geous and still holds up after 23 years. The graf­fi­ti cel-shad­ed look has aged well; graf­fi­ti nev­er fails to be awe­some and impact­ful, and Jet Grind Radio looks phe­nom­e­nal. It’s the first game to use this tech­nique, and it set the stan­dard in 2000 in terms of pre­sen­ta­tion. The back­grounds are also well done and inspire runs through the game. It’s clear­ly an ear­ly 2000s game, but that only por­tends good things about the Dream­cast and what it was capa­ble of.
And as good as the game looks, the graph­ics almost don’t hold a can­dle to the sound­track. This is one of the best sound­tracks ever done, and it will have you bop­ping while you’re run­ning around on inline skates. This is one of those sound­tracks that you put on while work­ing and you get some of your best work done. Funky and pop-cen­tric, the sound­track has so much going on the­mat­i­cal­ly that there’s bound to be some­thing for everyone. 
And in terms of appeal­ing to mass con­sump­tion, the con­trols are a com­mon denom­i­na­tor kind of sen­si­bil­i­ty. The imme­di­ate com­par­i­son here is Tony Hawk, which isn’t sur­pris­ing since the Hawk­man had just released his first game — Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater — a year ear­li­er to crit­i­cal acclaim. Jet Grind Radio does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly grind on Hawk’s coat­tails, but you’re bound to say to your­self at least once, “These con­trols sure feel famil­iar.” And you would­n’t be wrong. That’s a good thing, because it plays like ear­ly Tony Hawk, you know when it was good.
While every­thing is great in terms of pre­sen­ta­tion and con­trol, I’d be remiss in men­tion­ing that there is one both­er­some flaw with Jet Grind Radio. While the con­trols are eas­i­ly anal­o­gous to ear­ly Tony Hawk games, it was­n’t easy to pick up the game and know what’s going on imme­di­ate­ly. It’s a lit­tle too inac­ces­si­ble at first, like it’s ask­ing you to have some in-depth knowl­edge ahead of play­ing for the first time. You may not be famil­iar with the con­cepts the game is throw­ing at you, and it’s the game’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to ease you into the fray. Thank­ful­ly, the sur­round­ing game is so good that you’ll come back to get more in-depth with the trap­pings of Tokyo-to.
The Jet Grind series has last­ed into the mod­ern era with re-releas­es and a rumored reboot, and the orig­i­nal game details exact­ly why. Easy con­trols, var­ied modes, an engag­ing cast (love Pots, Piran­ha and Beat!) and pop­ping sound­track make for an imme­di­ate­ly unfor­get­table expe­ri­ence. Get in-line to get down with the fan­tas­tic Jet Grind Radio.

Monster Hunter: World — Issue 44

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A whole new world awaits

Lush, breath­tak­ing, com­pli­cat­ed, try­ing. If you weren’t a fan of Mon­ster Hunter as a fran­chise until you played Mon­ster Hunter: World, con­sid­er your­self miss­ing out on some­thing won­drous. Mon­ster Hunter: World is as close to per­fec­tion as an action RPG can be.

Every­thing begins with you. You begin your adven­ture as a hunter join­ing the Fifth Fleet on an expe­di­tion to the New World. You are tasked with explor­ing the vast wild in search of infor­ma­tion and sci­ence. You’re sup­port­ed with an assis­tant — Pal­i­coes — and oth­er offi­cers of the Fifth Fleet, who help with hunt­ing the flo­ra and fau­na in the wide unknown so that you may inform the Research Com­mis­sion of your find­ings and pos­si­bly stop the extinc­tion of vital drag­ons. The sto­ry is engross­ing, well-writ­ten and eas­i­ly digestible with hints of more to come as you explore every nook of the new land. 

And explore you will because that’s the name of the game here: Hunt­ing. You, the hunter, go into the world to hunt mon­sters of all sizes. Dur­ing your hunts, you’re using your wits and the envi­ron­ment to your advan­tage, care­ful not to faint too many times while work­ing to take down a crea­ture so that you may get new parts to craft gear and weapons. The craft­ing aspect is fan­tas­tic. The vari­ety of gear and equip­ment that can be gen­er­at­ed is off the charts, and there is noth­ing more sat­is­fy­ing than tak­ing down a new ene­my and obtain­ing new, more pow­er­ful gear. Cap­com knew the essence of the high that comes from win­ning a hard-fought bat­tle, loot, craft bet­ter gear and repeat. And they’ve cap­tured that essence mas­ter­ful­ly here with increas­ing incen­tives and nuanced pac­ing. Fight­ing nev­er feels weird, and it quick­ly becomes sec­ond nature to swing your sword and make waves in bat­tle. My only gripe here is that there is so much to learn with the bat­tle mechan­ics and item craft­ing and usage that some­times it gets over­whelm­ing. Tak­ing your time to read the tuto­ri­als and work through sce­nar­ios in train­ing is the way to com­bat that. I’m pleased with this set­up because I’d rather get too much infor­ma­tion than not enough.

While on your expe­di­tions or even at the hub, stop a moment when you can and admire the beau­ty that Cap­com has cre­at­ed. The game is one of the most beau­ti­ful I have ever seen. I fre­quent­ly stop to watch the scenery and take in the detail of the sur­round­ings. And, I want to espe­cial­ly high­light the impres­sive char­ac­ter cre­ation suite. If I can cre­ate my own char­ac­ter in a game, I want bold and accu­rate tools to do so. Mon­ster Hunter: World gave me that and more. I spent two hours with it alone and I still want­ed to spend more time there. The wealth of options is out­stand­ing, and I’m extreme­ly impressed with the diver­si­ty found with­in. I can make a char­ac­ter that accu­rate­ly looks like me with gor­geous options for hair­styles … or not. But I love the options giv­en, and I can’t praise that fea­ture enough.

The sound­track is anoth­er stand­out in the pre­sen­ta­tion. It’s fun, fast-paced and engag­ing. No track is out of place and it’s well-scored with so many dif­fer­ent instru­ments that it puts almost every oth­er adven­ture title to shame. This is big-bud­get music and it shows in every sit­u­a­tion you’ll find your­self in every envi­ron­ment. Also, the Pal­i­coes’ sound effects are some of the most adorable cat rep­re­sen­ta­tions I’ve ever heard. If you love cats like I do, you’re going to be say­ing “Aww, how adorable!” every five sec­onds and it’s not going to ever get old. That’s the mark of good audio, honestly.

Mon­ster Hunter: World is a mas­ter­piece in adven­ture. No short­age of things to do, a wealth of options and sto­ry and great mechan­ics come togeth­er in a majes­tic mag­num opus of craft­ing and sur­vival. The hunt for per­fec­tion is over with Mon­ster Hunter: World.