DaMenace
05-06-2004, 06:38 PM
Hey guys these two games are the newest ones I just bought for PS2 and I thought it'd be worth a review for Shane and others to read :-)
Anyways here goes:
Resident Evil Outbreak
This game has you seleceting a specific character who's got some unique abilities and also you get a few other characters that help you out and have their own unique abilities. Max of people in a game is 4. Anyone who's never heard of Resident Evil, well this game has you fighting for survival against a whole bunch of undead like the Dawn of the Dead movie.
First off this lemme give ya the bad stuff as it can really bug anyone who will just buy/rent Outbreak at first.. Ok, this game is really meant for online play.. I really really mean that and it's probably obvious to everyone anyway thou there is a single player mode the AI for your team mates is rather uh.. not really much fun to play with.. Also, load times are terrible!
Penny arcade has a nice little thing to say about it here:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004-04-12
You can't avoid them at all either, there's no way to turn off the cutscenes and that is actually more annoying than the room to room loads.. Room to room loads I was able to tolerate but man they should have figured this cutscene stuff out first... ok, now here's the good!
The online play makes this game a bit unique, as you've really got to play together to fight to survive against the monsters! Much of it has been made so that your survival can depend largely on your fellow gamers. Time is important since everyone starts out infected with the virus, can become more infected when attacked, and eventually to turn into a zombie - which you can help prevent by going back to help grab a dying player off the floor and carry them away from the undead. That was just so cool I thought.. :-) Such survival tactics become even more important during the final scenario as it is much longer than all the others. But Outbreak is unfortunately to be considered 'broken' due to the loading times. It can be helped but that involves buying the hard drive. Even that doesn't completely solve it but it does help a lot... Anyways that's all I can think of to say about it
ok Siren now:
Siren is so called because it has to do with a Japanese village, Hanuda, that has a rather odd history and it so turns out that 10 characters who are in the town during a said Siren goes off become trapped in a village that suddenly surrounded with blood red water and everyone else has been turned into Shibito (Japanese undead). However one wonders if you're truely in Japan when everyone has a British accent :-D Also, be sure to not be too connected to some of the characters as some will meet a cruel fate.
This is really hard! Not just because well you control people who are weak to begin with but also because you can't ever kill off any of the Shibito, only knock them unconscious. Sure you can get some weapons but guess what? These Shibitos tend have weapons, almost always one has a pistol or maybe a long range rifle and they sure know how to use it. But you got an advantage over them! See, this I thought initally to be a gimmick, like bullet time was for Max Payne.. but gosh.. You're able to tune into everyone's line of sight (Sightjacking its called) so you can see what anyone else sees. And you really need to use this as its your only true advantage against the Shibito - you can also see what weapon they're using, their behavior patterns, and well how they also breathe hehe. The instant they see you you'll get a brief glimpse of them looking at you. Helpful yes? You can also keep tell which one it is when their view is tinted red and they're breathing like crazy and laughing maniacally..
Now I loved Silent Hill and Siren was made by one of the key developers that made Silent Hill.. I dont really like how you're not able to freely roam around the village like you could in Silent Hill thou.. This game has 78 (whoa) stages to it.. so you will be going through areas you've already seen.. but a major pet peeve I got here is that no matter how you finish a stage somewhere later on you end up having to play that same stage over again! Sometimes you have to replay it 3 times so you can do some rather arbitrary task like throw a wet towel into a freezer for someone else later on to use.. and it's use in a puzzle really makes me go huh? I didn't care one bit for this! But I'm still playing it because I like the Japanese/British atmosphere the great mystery behind it.
So.. um.. in conclusion both of these games, thou flawed, do merit a rental at least :-)
Anyways here goes:
Resident Evil Outbreak
This game has you seleceting a specific character who's got some unique abilities and also you get a few other characters that help you out and have their own unique abilities. Max of people in a game is 4. Anyone who's never heard of Resident Evil, well this game has you fighting for survival against a whole bunch of undead like the Dawn of the Dead movie.
First off this lemme give ya the bad stuff as it can really bug anyone who will just buy/rent Outbreak at first.. Ok, this game is really meant for online play.. I really really mean that and it's probably obvious to everyone anyway thou there is a single player mode the AI for your team mates is rather uh.. not really much fun to play with.. Also, load times are terrible!
Penny arcade has a nice little thing to say about it here:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004-04-12
You can't avoid them at all either, there's no way to turn off the cutscenes and that is actually more annoying than the room to room loads.. Room to room loads I was able to tolerate but man they should have figured this cutscene stuff out first... ok, now here's the good!
The online play makes this game a bit unique, as you've really got to play together to fight to survive against the monsters! Much of it has been made so that your survival can depend largely on your fellow gamers. Time is important since everyone starts out infected with the virus, can become more infected when attacked, and eventually to turn into a zombie - which you can help prevent by going back to help grab a dying player off the floor and carry them away from the undead. That was just so cool I thought.. :-) Such survival tactics become even more important during the final scenario as it is much longer than all the others. But Outbreak is unfortunately to be considered 'broken' due to the loading times. It can be helped but that involves buying the hard drive. Even that doesn't completely solve it but it does help a lot... Anyways that's all I can think of to say about it
ok Siren now:
Siren is so called because it has to do with a Japanese village, Hanuda, that has a rather odd history and it so turns out that 10 characters who are in the town during a said Siren goes off become trapped in a village that suddenly surrounded with blood red water and everyone else has been turned into Shibito (Japanese undead). However one wonders if you're truely in Japan when everyone has a British accent :-D Also, be sure to not be too connected to some of the characters as some will meet a cruel fate.
This is really hard! Not just because well you control people who are weak to begin with but also because you can't ever kill off any of the Shibito, only knock them unconscious. Sure you can get some weapons but guess what? These Shibitos tend have weapons, almost always one has a pistol or maybe a long range rifle and they sure know how to use it. But you got an advantage over them! See, this I thought initally to be a gimmick, like bullet time was for Max Payne.. but gosh.. You're able to tune into everyone's line of sight (Sightjacking its called) so you can see what anyone else sees. And you really need to use this as its your only true advantage against the Shibito - you can also see what weapon they're using, their behavior patterns, and well how they also breathe hehe. The instant they see you you'll get a brief glimpse of them looking at you. Helpful yes? You can also keep tell which one it is when their view is tinted red and they're breathing like crazy and laughing maniacally..
Now I loved Silent Hill and Siren was made by one of the key developers that made Silent Hill.. I dont really like how you're not able to freely roam around the village like you could in Silent Hill thou.. This game has 78 (whoa) stages to it.. so you will be going through areas you've already seen.. but a major pet peeve I got here is that no matter how you finish a stage somewhere later on you end up having to play that same stage over again! Sometimes you have to replay it 3 times so you can do some rather arbitrary task like throw a wet towel into a freezer for someone else later on to use.. and it's use in a puzzle really makes me go huh? I didn't care one bit for this! But I'm still playing it because I like the Japanese/British atmosphere the great mystery behind it.
So.. um.. in conclusion both of these games, thou flawed, do merit a rental at least :-)