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12/01 - The Legend of Zelda: The Missing Link
28/01 - Tony Hawk's Underground
02/02 -
Max Payne
This was a pretty good time. It has a strong atmosphere and identity to it, where a lot of what would go on to be Remedy’s signature style is already here despite the limitations of its age. It’s got some really good story presentation and the gameplay is entertaining, although a bit rough in this PS2 incarnation.
Visually it does come off as being incredibly basic. Everything is very boxy and flat, with very low poly models for everything and awkward character proportions. But the game is able to use that in its favour to create something that works really well. It has a very dingy, run-down feel to its world. It’s very bleak and stark, in a gritty and grimy way. It fits well with this dark tone of the criminal underworld perpetually set in the pitch black of night. It nails the vibe despite not having a lot to work with. Later on it does unfortunately move away from that as it ditches the urban setting for secret labs and offices. In a way those also fit the limited graphical style as they too are very monolithic and utilitarian, but it’s definitely a downgrade from the earlier parts of the game.
It’s very emblematic of a certain kind of game from this very specific period. The short time in the early PS2 era where console games actually arguably looked better than PC games, as the latter seemed to be still in the mindset of using graphical budget in the ways they had already been doing before that point. Opposed to console games that had a smoother look with higher poly character models and such.
But despite the dark tone and gloomy visuals, the game is also rather silly when it comes to certain parts of its story. Max’s narration it very well delivered and sells the hard-boiled renegade cop thing in an entertaining way, but it’s also very tropey to the point of being somewhat comedic. They lay it on thick. Ironically it feels like something Alan Wake would write.
There’s quite a lot of great little touches that give this game its own distinct personality, and shows that Remedy’s characteristic use of cross-media integration was something they were already experimenting with all the way back here. One little touch you’ll see early on are the TVs littered around levels, some showing news coverage of the events of the game, but others showing pulpy in-universe shows, including one that is clearly a Twin Peaks parody. The comic panels that tell the story between levels are also a part of this, with how they mix in-game graphics with photos of real people playing the characters. Although I have to admit, while they are interesting stylistic touch, I find them somewhat ugly. The filter they use over them to make the different assets blend together is rather rough. It’s clear the actors are having a lot of fun playing these characters though, so they definitely have a charm to them.
The more surreal hallucination sequences are a cool part of this whole thing too. The way they play around with the presentation in fun ways, and how the one that comes about 2/3 through the game does a lot of fourth wall breaking. That phone call moment where it makes fun of this style of noir crime writing with the overwrought metaphors to the point of nonsensical gibberish. A fun moment of self-aware humour. Not to mention the bit where Max lampshades being in a video game. I could have done without the platforming section though.
As for the actual main combat mechanics though, I have rather mixed feelings on. It doesn’t play great on PS2, but at the same time I didn’t exactly hate it. It had its moments, and even its flaws were interesting to dissect. By default the controls are pretty bad. Aiming is very jerky and rigid. It’s basically impossible to be quick or precise, no matter how you fiddle with the sensitivity. But that is expected of a console shooter from this era, before there was a fully agreed upon standard for how these worked. And it’s especially true for shooters that were ported from PC as this was. But an upside of being from this era means there are also a lot of different options for you to mess around with so you can try to find something that works for yourself. There is an option to accelerate your turning speed, but you do it by pressing in the right stick while turning, so it’s not very comfortable or useful. There is also a lock-on function, which is very basic and unpredictable, but it does at least work, so that’s what I ended up using.
The way the lock-on works is pretty strange, and it took me a bit of experimentation to figure out its quirks, which I found kind of interesting in itself. It’s not like the usual kind of lock-on you would expect to find in pretty much any other game. When you hold the button, it drags you aim over towards an enemy at the normal turn speed, rather than just snapping to them. If you let go before it reaches them, it’ll just return to normal behaviour. But if you actually point at an enemy, your aim will stay on them without having to use the lock-on button. You can un-lock from them, but you have to yank pretty hard on the stick to do it. If you manage to get your aim on to an enemy without using the lock-on button, it will also stick to them as if you had. It’s not quite clear how it decides what enemy to target though, seemingly going for whoever is closest regardless of whether you actually have a clear line of sight to them. It can be kind of a pain when you want to shoot someone in front of you but Max would rather point up at the ceiling or something. But this also has the side effect of letting you know when enemies are lying in wait behind a wall to ambush you, which can be pretty helpful. You die so quickly in this game with enemies that are hyper-aware and have hit-scan weapons that giving you a heads-up is actually welcome.
It’s interesting to think about how these aiming mechanics work though, as you can see developers trying different methods to solve the same problems before a time when they had become widely standardised. It also shows how there is an art to creating aiming systems like this, and there are ways to pick apart what makes for a good or bad implementation.
All the diving and slo-mo are a cool part of the gameplay as well, and add a lot to the experience that would be pretty bland and basic otherwise. Although it can be a bit annoying with the game only having eight way movement, it’s easy to end up leaping in a direction you didn’t intend because you were angling the stick just a few degrees the wrong way. But these moves lend a sense of excitement and dramatic style to fights that gives them an evasive feel which keeps the gameplay engaging despite the lock-on doing most of the aiming for you.
As I was looking up this game while playing, I also found there’s a pretty interesting story about how it got published. At first I was surprised to find that this game launched before GTA3, despite being published by Rockstar. One tends to think of Rockstar’s big publishing push in the 2000s being made possible off the success of GTA3. But I discovered that’s not quite accurate. The PC version of this game launched before GTA3, but that was put out by Gathering of Developers not long after they got bought out by Take-Two. Only the console version was published by Rockstar, which arrived after GTA3. Said port was developed by Rockstar Toronto, so presumably they are the ones who are responsible for this control scheme adaptation.
Despite pre-dating that Rockstar publishing push, this game does still fit in very well to that house style that they developed in that period. It’s right at home within the Rockstar canon, despite also of course still feeling distinctly Remedy-esque. Almost like this game could have taken place within some alternate reality version of the GTA world. Strange to think that this game which feels at home in this context wasn’t something that Rockstar themselves sought out to be involved with, but presumably just had it dropped on them by chance.
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03/02 -
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (Hero Mode)
The first thing that struck me on coming back to this game is how nice looking it is. I’ve always liked the visual design of this game, and it didn’t disappoint this time around either. It’s a great example of this era of graphics, with this remaster doing a really good job of highlighting what’s so good about it. It has a very rustic and tactile feel to it, thanks to textures that have an almost hand-drawn look to them, and shadows integrated in to them in a very artful way. It’s got a sort of pencil drawing look to it. It fits the grounded feel and earthy tones of the colours very well. It’s especially good when it comes to clothing materials on characters, where you can see the weave of the fabric. The bloom lighting is used well too when the sun gets low in the sky and bathes everything in a warm glow, or when it has that hazy, spooky look in the Twilight sections.
I was playing this run in Hero Mode. Usually I’m not very fond of when Zelda tries to push the difficulty up, but I decided to give it a go this time to shake things up a bit since the base game is pretty easy, also to provide a bit of novelty due to this version of the mode mirroring the entire game world like the Wii version did. That aspect did end up feeling somewhat uncanny, as some areas felt totally familiar, while others seemed slightly “off” in ways that were hard to pick out. It’s kind of ironic because I first played this game on the Wii, and initially had this strange feeling when I played it on GC later. Then by the time this remaster came out the default mode felt familiar and natural, and now this strange feeling has reversed its association for me. In terms of difficultly though, it’s still not particularly hard. It’s pretty manageable, but it does provide a hint of more challenge, and makes potions more important. It also gives Ooccoo an actual use, since it becomes very helpful to be able to warp out of a dungeon to restock. Almost no enemy actually poses much of a threat though, outside of dungeon sub-bosses and a couple of main bosses.
There was also a somewhat surprising amount of side-content. This game often gets criticised for being too linear, or the overworld being “empty”, so this time I went out of my way to see how true that really was. Turns out there’s already quite a lot of optional stuff to do right from finishing the third dungeon. There’s even a reasonable amount of stuff out there after the second. There’s a lot of points of interest in Hyrule Field that aren’t just the major towns and such as well. If you actually try to explore there is a decent amount of room to go off the critical path and find stuff out there dotted around the world.
Midna is a great character too, easily the best companion in the series. How she starts off as this demanding and impish personality whose motivations you’re unsure of. You can tell she’s mostly just using you. But then she evolves in to being more earnest and caring after Zelda sacrifices herself for her. She starts feeling guilty for what Zelda did for her, and drops the facade of not caring about Link or the situation of Hyrule. She grows more concerned about how her actions affect others, starting off being blasé about the use of dark power, to becoming wary of it and giving warnings about its dangerous potential. She’s fun to watch early on, and her somewhat antagonistic relationship with Link is amusing, but seeing her evolve in to a kinder more empathetic person is a nice piece of character growth.
I really like the way sword combat in this game works too. The secret techniques you get add a lot to how you can deal with encounters in a way that makes them way more interesting. When it comes specifically to sword fighting, it might still be the best in the series. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom don’t have as much going on as this game when it comes to just what sword moves you can do, but they add a lot more on top of that with other systems that as a whole I suppose they are better when it comes to overall combat. These techniques work especially well on the larger enemies and sub-bosses, with a lot of them feeling designed around them without them being necessary for the most part. The extra damage of Hero Mode also helped make using these moves more valuable as well.
This game has some cool dungeon items too, but it’s a shame that some of them don’t go used much outside of the dungeons you obtain them in. The Spinner and Ball and Chain are some really fun items, but you barely use them outside of their introductions. That’s less true for the Spinner however, that one does get a bit of use in a couple of later dungeons and overworld spots. It still feels underused compared to other stuff though, which is a shame since it’s one of my favourite items in the series.
With that though I think I’m all Zelda’d out for the foreseeable future. I’ve had my fill from these last three months or so. I do still have a desire to try out the Link’s Awakening remake though. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack from that game a lot lately, it’s really on another level. And I suppose after finally playing Link to the Past that means I should get around to Link Between Worlds at some point too. But that’s enough for now.