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Enough With The Pout, On With The Party
November 11, 2003
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Hey folks. Late night, so short rant. ::yawn:: Mmph, Annie no want to have to get up early for to continue studying for GRE. Dammed GRE.
Played the Wallace and Gromit game (stop laughing, dammit!), and in many ways, it's a tough sell. The controls are tricksy: there are a lot of jumping puzzles, and the camera angles - even though you can readjust them, there are problems with this that often result a sudden close view of Gromit's eyeballs - don't help you much in this regard. You know that if you fall too far, you die, but the point at which a non-lethal fall becomes fatal is unclear... and although you don't even encounter enemies until at least the second stage, your first weapon (the banana gun, which still makes me smile) hardly does more than temporarily stun your monkey adversaries (and, since they attack from above and are hard to see, make the camera angle issues much more of a problem).
However, I can say that as a Wallace and Gromit fan - if you haven't seen their animated short movies, then get off your ass and go rent one... my favorite is The Wrong Trousers, but A Grand Day Out and A Close Shave are also very fun (i.e., they're by the same guy responsible for Chicken Run, yo) - the game faithfully captures the spirit of the eccentric inventor Wallace (whom you thankfully never play), and his faithful ever-silent dog Gromit. Gromit, as mentioned, is the one you guide throughout the game, and often when you make him jump or run about he looks RIGHT at the camera, fully aware, in a kind of interesting break-the-fourth-wall way, that you blokes out there are the ones making him do this crazy shit. He rubs his head in a put-upon fashion, but fluidly leaps and climbs about, particularly good (thank god!) and grabbing ledges so those jumping puzzles don't suck quite so bad. The environments are nonlinear (for the most part) and fairly lush with color, although the smooth claymation-type look for Gromit and Wallace clash a bit here and there with some of the jaggies in their environment. Perhaps cel-shading would've wrecked the look of our beloved main characters, but I definitely think it would've helped out with the environments some. The main problem is that the load times for some things are WAY too long (bring a magazine to flip through while you're waiting to play, is my idea). But so far... well, I think this game is pretty solid. It's frustrating at times, but infinite lives is pretty forgiving, and it's fun enough on the whole to keep you going. And hey, how badly could the game have sucked? Very very badly - instead it's pretty good, and that elevates its status to "quite good" automatically by virtue not only of its faithfulness to the source material, but in making a solid game with a story that meshes well into the rest of the source stuff. So yeah... worth a rent. Maybe if it's out on the GameCube, I'd advise you play it there (I know, this is unlike me, advocating anything other than the PS2!)... maybe the loading time won't be so long.
Anywho... I say short rant, you should all say "yeah right" by now, huh? ::laugh:: Yeah. One last thing before I go? Read UC: The short Road from Highschool to Hell. I e-mailed the creators and said something retarded because I wasn't thinking properly, where what I basically wanted to say was "I love your comic, I wanna know what HAPPENS" and I got too impatient. Things have thankfully gotten cleared-up (which causes me more relief than I can express), and I wanna say publicly how awesome they are, not just because they've got an amazing comic, but because they put up with me being utterly moronic. Many hugs to Betsy and Jena. So go read their comic - not because I tell you to, but because if you don't, you're choosing to miss out on something wonderful and good, and dammit it'll be your loss. Hm... maybe you should also do it because I tell you to, because dude, I'm telling you to. GO READ THEIR COMIC! It is wonderful and ambitious and awesome and good! GO! ::waves hands dramatically:: Shoo! After you read mine first though! I hope! But go right after! Don't stop to get cereal or a breakfast burrito or something! Seriously!
Well, that's it for me tonight. Take care, be well, and all my best goes out to you (and you know who you are). Peaceness.
I'm Waiting For a Sign,
Annie "Blue" C
Tell me a secret
I'll tell you mine
- "Diving"
Four Strings
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