Merauder's June Media Review

Anyhow, on with the randomness!

Music.

Chimaira - "The Impossiblity of Reason" (2003)

I enjoyed their previous album "Pass Out Of Existence" (2001), but thought some of it was a little samey. His vocal style can get a little annoying, but overall the album was pretty good to listen to. Their latest offering is even better in many ways. Firstly, the vocals are varied in places - even though most of the album features his signature rasp, there are a couple of other singing styles used in the album, and they show the guy can actually sing when he wants to. Musically theres a bit of variation as well, whereas the previous album was quite straight up, "The Impossibility of Reason" features some nice variations such as the 1 minute long acoustic intro on Track 5 "Down Again" (which is one of the more radio friendly songs off the album, and has a video available for it), and the marathon 13:30 instrumental "Implements of Destruction" as the final track.

Metal genres are getting so complicated these days. I have no idea what sub genre to place Chimaira in. They're definately not "nu metal", although there are a couple of songs on this album that would put them in the "Big Gay Chorus Metal" category, with the likes of Killswitch Engage and co, however they're too accessible and radio friendly in places to be put in any of the darker harder categories (death metal / grindcore metal etc). If anything, I'd almost be tempted to say it leans towards metallic hardcore in places, but hell I dunno.. email me if you think you do.

Promise of Bloodshed - "Hatred Inherit" (2003)

This is the full length cd from this Auckland hardcore band, released through Jailbait Records. If you missed the Friday the 13th record release party recently held in Auckland (with Evil Priest, Forced to Submit, and others), then you missed one of the best shows in a while. Plenty of great local hardcore, supported by a flurry of fists and kickboxing to back it up. If you've heard Promise of Bloodshed live, then you're going to like the CD. It's pretty well recorded, and a lot of their live energy comes through quite well, with the added bonus of a few nicely picked samples thrown in the mix. A few tracks really remind me of the band "Bird of Ill Omen" but with much better production. As far as the songwriting goes, there's definately a bit of room for some variation in there, as a few of the songs sound a little bit similar, however for a first release from a local band it's a great start.

Available at shows, or from Real Groovy records.

Terror - "The Lowest Of The Low" (2002)

Dunno how to describe this. Fairly straight up metallic hardcore, but very listenable.

Music - Quick Mentions.

The stuff which is either on the playlist, or in the car, but isn't quite getting high rotation.

Rae & Christian - "Blazing the Crop"

A nice mellow mix of R&B / Hip Hop styles. Nice mellow and relaxing music to prevent me from ramming people off the road when faced with the common stupidities of urban driving.

Lamb of God - "As the Palaces Burn"

This is another band I don't know quite how to class. As far as metal goes, it's fairly dark, yet it still manages to remain quite accessible. If you've heard the previous Lamb of God CD, then expect this one to be more of the same. Worth a listen if you're a fan, but don't expect anything too groundbreaking.

Deftones - "Deftones"

The latest release from the Deftones is apparently a release where a lot of emphasis has been put on production quality. If you play this on a nice stereo system then you can hear that there's been a lot of time and effort put into that side of things.

However as far as the songwriting goes, I found it kind of average - theres a few nice guitar hooks in there, but imho nothing that's reached out and grabbed me like tracks from previous albums have. To top things off, Chino's vocal style seems to have changed a little for this album, and I'm not too keen on it. Again, one for the fans, especially those with nice setup's in their living room, bedroom, or cars.

The Matrix Reloaded Soundtrack

Soundtracks these days are usually just slapped together to make a quick buck by the marketing department, but the first Matrix movie managed to actually feature a lot of music that featured in the movie, as well as some that didn't, and the soundtrack for the sequel is no different. This one comes on 2 CD's, and features some quicktime movie promos as well. Musically its filled with the same sort of stuff as the first one, a bit of dancey stuff, a bit of metalish stuff (as metal as Rob Zombie, P.O.D, RATM and the likes could ever be considered anyway) as well as some of the atmospheric tracks from the movie. Good for fans of the movie, or for anyone who wants a bit of variety.

Games.

Just 2 entries in the games department (not including the arcade games) as it's been a busy month in other areas, leaving not a lot of gaming time - however I decided that's not a bad thing seeing as Star Wars Galaxies is due for release very soon (even though many beta testers really don't think it's ready..), followed afterwards in Q4 by EverQuest 2.

Enter the Matrix (XBox)

I had this sitting around for a few weeks before I gave it a proper play, due to the fact my CD has a small scratch on the audio track of one of the earlier levels. It kept reaching a point in the music, skipping, and crashing the game. After cleaning the disc a bit, I was about ready to take it in to get resurfaced (sending it back wasn't much of an option, as I ordered it in from another country) but thought I'd give it another bash beforehand. So I realised that if I rushed the level, I could complete it before reaching that point in the music. This worked well, and so I finally got to play the rest of the game.

It seems some people loved this game, others weren't really taken by it, but it surprised me and I'm not really too sure why. It could possibly be simply because I highly enjoy the movies, but I think it was a bit more than that. Once you get used to the control system (which is quite simple), you can start taking advantage of the focus mode, which makes combat a lot more fun - especially when combined with weapons. Running into a headlong headlong jump straight towards a squad of 5 cops who are all shooting at you, all the while being in focus mode watching the bullets whizz past is kind of cool. The addition of exclusive movie content that they've integrated into the game works quite well, it serves to give you a feeling of taking part in a parallel storyline to the 2nd Matrix movie, and also has the novelty of showing you some "exclusive" (ooh ooh special features!) footage which provides a bit of a break from running about and beating up cops. The driving modes (riding shotgun when playing Ghost, or driving while playing Niobe) has a bit of a rushed feel to it, the driving controls are a bit awkward (especially during the plane chase when Ghost drives - I came so close to destroying a controller in frustration during that segment) and you wonder how much they really add to the game.

The hacking system is a nice idea, although seems slightly too realistic to actual hacking in places - ie, just trying every damn thing until you find something that works. Nice for people who have the time, but for those who don't you might like to grab this link, which provides a bit of a walkthrough of the hacking sections of the game. It can get very frustrating using the controller to "type", but some of the hacking features (like weapon drops in handy places) are quite fun to play about with.

Overall though, it seems that this appeals to some people and not to others - give it a bash in your local store before you decide whether its your cup of tea, but take my advice and take a bit of time to get used to the control system before you write it off.. once you're used to being in focus mode things can become a lot of fun, even doing simple tasks like taking out a lone security guard - you start to want to do it in a way that would give you maximum points for creativity during the kill..

Planetside (PC)

First of all I'd like to know what the fuck happened to the New Zealand release of this game. It was initially listed as being available for preorder from places such as Gameplanet, but after 2 weeks of delays and them promising me it was with their distributor, they finally updated their website to state that the game was unavailable, and could only be ordered in from Australia. Nice. Thanks. Thanks to Aveh for sending me over my copy.

For those who don't know, Planetside is a MMO FPS game, played in a persistent world. From overhearing friends of mine playing this in beta, I got quite excited about this game, and I must say that my first few hours in-game didn't live up to my expectations at all. However, I persevered, and I'm glad I did.

I guess I was expecting more elements of a MMORPG to be present, such as a weapons/items economy, however this is not the case at all. All Weapons / Armour / Ammo / Vehicles are available at terminals, as they are constructed on demand via nano technology in a way very similar to a Star Trek food replicator. However in order to use certain weapons/vehicles/armour, you need the relevant certifications, which come via way of certification points. You are awarded more certification points each time you obtain a new battle rank (akin to levelling in a typical RPG game), and can spend them any way you choose - you also have the ability to "unlearn" skills in order to get your points back, which you can then re-spend on other things. This is the complete opposite of a game like Diablo - in Diablo, if you weren't careful, you could utterly screw up your characters template by spending a few points unwisely, however with Planetside you can simply unlearn that skill if you realise you've made a mistake.

Skills in Planetside range from different armour types and sizes, vehicle skills, as well as skills such as engineering, hacking, and medical. Mixing these lets you play the game however you like - you could have some pilotting skills, and some engineering skills to let you fix your plane or the planes of others when required, or mix it with some hacking to allow you to fly into enemy bases, hack, and fly out - or, simply go for the grunty weapons / armour certifications, and play the game like a traditional FPS.

After running through the tutorial, I was keen on some action - however the world is quite large, and it takes a bit of getting used to in order to know where the action is, and how to get there quickest. It makes sense quickly, but can be a bit annoying until that happens. When you die, you can have similar issues regarding respawning, but that somewhat depends on how intelligent the others in your empire are when it comes to setting up spawn points (AMS stations) etc.

The most important thing regarding Planetside is to take some time finding your playstyle. Change your certifications about until you find a combo you like - this becomes less of an issue later on when you've advanced battle ranks and amassed enough points to hold many certifications at the same time, but early on in the game you'll find yourself unlearning things now and then to make way for something new. Personally, I'm currently having fun Piloting a Reaver, which is a small single person aircraft, armed with a machine gun and rockets. I'm not normally a vehicle sort of person in these games, but so far I'm loving the Reaver. And now, a few days in, I've found myself going back to a bit of grunt style FPS'ing and found myself loving that - whereas initially I hated it. Perseverance, patience, and experimentation definately pays off in this game.

The experience system is kinda weird, but it means that you can advance well either playing solo or playing in a squad provided you're at the right place at the right time - kills don't really amount to much experience points, it's more related to being involved in base hacks that gets you points. The side effect of this is that "support" professions can advance through ranks just as easily as the grunts who mow down 2398293 people per play session.

There's lots more to explain about the game: Command Ranks, Squads, Outfits, the 3 empires, continents, terminology, etc etc, but it would simply take too long to go into the amount of detail required. The fact that it has a subscription price on top of the purchase price makes it quite expensive, but if it's your sort of thing it's definately worth it. A final word of advice regarding which server you play on though, more related to Asia Pacific players than anything else - be careful when choosing whether to go US or Europe, and think about what times you're likely to play and how busy the servers will be at that time. It can be pretty boring being the only player running about a deserted continent during what is YOUR peak time.

Arcade Games

Time Crisis 3

I loved Time Crisis 2, and I loved Crisis Zone even more. Both were relatively easy to finish on a single credit once you got your eye settled in, but they were still a lot of fun - I played too much Time Crisis 2 during work lunchtimes in Auckland, and a lot of Crisis Zone while I was job hunting in London. Anyway, for some reason I just don't enjoy Time Crisis 3 as much. The weapon select system works pretty well, and its nice to have a proper multiple weapon system (unlike the 20 seconds of machinegun time you were given in TC2, and the single weapon game of TC1 and Crisis Zone), but it's just not enough to make me enjoy the game.

I found all the whisping cloud that runs throughout the first level annoying, and the missile detection system quite hard to deal with as well - possibly as the arcade I was playing in was loud as hell, so I couldn't hear the Time Crisis machine well at all. Being slightly colour blind (red/green), I find that I need the audio on top of the visual if I want a chance to reliably avoid anything that shoots at me.

Anyway, I was a little disappointed, but I might have ended up playing more that day if my attention hadn't been taken by..

Virtua Cop 3

Woo! Virtua Cop has to be one of the original cop shooter lightgun games that made it really big. It was dwarfed when the Time Crisis series came out, however Sega looks set to make a comeback with VC3. First off, the lightgun has a nice feel to it, and now has recoil akin to other games of this genre. Also, the machine now has a pedal, which activates "ES" mode (similar to focus mode in Enter the Matrix - basically time goes really slow). ES mode is nice, in that they've reversed their take on using the pedal - Time Crisis games press down on the pedal in order to be in action mode, and release to hide - VC3 you never use the pedal unless you want to activate ES, and it works out quite nicely in game.

The main thing I loved about VC3 was that it felt like a game where accuracy would pay off - Time Crisis games can sometimes feel like the opposite, but while playing VC3 I was getting a hell of a lot of satisfaction from taking people out 1 shot to a man (they may have been female actually, but it was hard to tell under that camo gear) and getting a nice accuracy score at the end of it. Civilians rear their ugly heads again in VC3, and it's one thing that the Time Crisis games don't have - my first few games I hadn't been shot at all, I'd lost all my lives simply due to killing civilians - look, people, if you're ever in a gunfight in real life, please take one piece of advice from me. That is: don't stand right smack between the armed guy trying to save you and the armed guy trying to kill you and wave your arms about screaming - IF YOU DO THIS, YOU WILL DIE! Anyhow, it's just a matter of getting your eye in, and again in this game, accuracy counts.

My one gripe is that when using the left hand gun, you feel obliged to use your left foot for the pedal - it just felt awkward as hell to me. I have no idea why. Other than that, VC3 rocks.

  Print | posted on Sunday, June 22, 2003 7:09 PM