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Four beautiful women gathered from around the world. Each one has been mentally violated by the horror of war. As their sole means of survival, they are modified into the ultimate bio-mechanical arsenal: The Beauty and the Beast Corps. Can Solid Snake finally uncover their humanity and rescue them from their lucid nightmares? Or will they simply be another notch or four on the casualty list?
Director Hideo Kojima’s vision, a physical beast on the outside and a woman’s beauty on the inside, has finally been realized with the approaching release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Two voice actors were provided for each boss in the English voices department, one providing the beast’s voice, the second portraying the human voice and both voices subsequently over-lapped to further the personality divide. The high-grade production values don’t stop there. Kojima commissioned four real-life beauties and used advanced modeling and digital photography techniques to have them provide the framework, so to speak, for the feral four.
We know some of the powers displayed by each beastly beauty, and the references to famous and infamous Metal Gear Solid bosses and Snake Eater pathos. What of the beauty beneath the beast? Let’s take a closer look at the models who have gamers head-over-heels in love with their rampant murder mixed with a dash of stylish mangling and post-traumatic stress echoing in their desensitized mechanical hearts.
You’ve played them. You’ve heard of them. Hell, you’ve probably written bad fanfics about them (no, it doesn’t matter how realistic your portrayal of TifaxSquall is. It’s just not happening, fangirls). Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPGs) are one of the must-haves of just about any video game console you can name, with at least one of the most popular coming bearing the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest stamp. The quality of JRPGs vary just as much as their irreverent spiraling plot lines do, and finding a derivative troll that feeds like a parasite on your patience is nothing new. However, sometimes you stumble upon a real gem that claims you right from the first Limit Break, and once every ounce of gameplay is experienced, a sequel is the next natural course of action. Here are some of the greatest Japanese RPG franchises that haven’t yet received a new iteration, but which occupy the top of the waiting list.
In between conceited guffaws and outstanding fits of mockery divided between “serial entrepreneur”, “significant online gaming presence” and “expert speak” for so little as a coffee mug associated with FX Labs, I came upon this misshapen fool’s gold nugget. Hm. Quaint. If you bother to actually go through all of brotha Reddi’s drivel, chances are you’ll come up with much less subtle and infinitely more scathing remarks on what is ultimately an opinion on what constitutes a selling game in India (undertones of “And we know how to do it, beetches” included).
The World Ends With You (Subarashiki Kono Sekai or “It’s a Wonderful World”), is the odd-child of DS gaming. The antagonizing, “don’t-give-a-damn” gathering of anti-social dispositions set against innate Shibuya cultural musings has been done many times in Japan — the manga Gantz and Jet Set Radio come to mind. Though it received it’s fair share of media attention, thanks in part to the Kingdom Hearts team (led by Tetsuya Nomura) collaborating with developer Jupiter (Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and the under-rated Picross DS), no one expected the game to be this technically impressive. However, with it’s eclectic mix of Shibuya youth culture, a varied and excellently orchestrated sound track, vivid visuals of anime-esque detailing and graffiti mantels, sharp 2D sprite animation and background design, The World Ends With You presents a compelling, addictive and lengthy package for any RPG and DS gamer alike. And if that weren’t enough, it perfectly follows the guidelines for stellar Japanese game design: easy to get into, full of depth; original yet still staying in it’s carefully constructed mold.
FX Labs - how about those guys, huh? After the “unique” attempt made to remodel Riverdale life and the subsequent announcement on Dhoom 2.5 (many months ago announced, with little to no info on it, and still counting), the wizards of WTFery have supposedly turned their attention to creating a third-person action game featuring sassy mama sita, Malaika Arora Khan, called Agni: Queen of Darkness. The real bamboozledness of the whole issue? Not the fact that several random sources erratically post about how great the gameplay is (even going on to the extent to say Oblivion and Prince of Persia can’t compare to it) by mentioning absolutely nothing about said gameplay. Not the fact that the vaunted Mumbai Mirror decides to criticize the game for using a woman to sell it, even though they know just as much about this game as the developers know about the effects of gravity on the above-average female anatomy (read: zilch). Heck, not even the fact that the game is being marketed with a music video that features the most delusional mesh of 3D modeling, live-action dancing and India tunes this side of…well, this side of nothing in the name of sanity.
Just the fact that this game was The Lost that Irrational Games teamed with FXLabs to create, and went by the name of an early vision of Bioshock before less hallucinogen-induced minds prevailed and Irrational took the game into their own hands, makes you twitch and feel nothing is sacred. Everything about the game provokes the same, as mentioned with the propaganda (it’s too biased to be anything else) likening this title to the second coming of Ram and the impossibly demeaning pivotal motion of the heroine Tara’s hips. Seriously, what can we honestly say about a game where nothing honest exists? One of us from TAP could probably pick up this game (and I mean that in the loosest sense) and review it, but I for one like my eyes. And ears. And God. And I’m an Atheist.
Official word on an Agni review: Never-ever-ever and counting, by the infinitely far looks of it. Maybe we should pitch this one over to Yahtzee.
In every videogame, a hero is needed. It doesn’t matter whether it’s that star quarterback in Madden scoring the touchdown to carry his down-trodden team into over-time to even out the score, or the larger-than-life foundling turned demi-god matching up against the universe to save his planet - heroes are what define our projection in a videogame. They allow us to sympathise, to imagine, to put ourselves in the same situation, and add to our intelligence and morals. In a way, they help the gamer outside the fictional lingua franca to mature by way of an experience befitting any Ratchet, Link or Chief. Funny that - rather than by the scale of their deeds, including rescuing their seemingly immortal ageless princesses, it’s now how popular they should be rather than would be. In the business dominion, Mario, for instance, sells. Quality of the game, money well spent, a fun experience, an SOS from Nintendo begging for something else to work on - they can all be represented by his red-bottomed, unshaven mug. More Mario franchises would lead to more adulation from gamers (and their moolah, as a bonus) according to Corporate Santa, who then spreads his love around the world with Mario Strikers, Mario Party and Paper Mario like every freaking 24 hour-span is Jesus’s birthday. But gamers only have so much to give; some one is bound to get over-shadowed in the exchange, namely the “other” heroes and heroines. Like it or not, these underdogs, in terms of either recognition or success, have gotten much less compared to your usual magnanimous mantles.
However, enjoying their exploits for what they are isn’t difficult, since they’re part of some wickedly fun - and if you’re a collector, rare - titles.
The severed head is so passé. Ditto for the ragdoll model, entertaining as it was to see a supposedly something-kilogram individual dissolve into a fluttery, floppy pair of dead bunny ears. No one pouts at the impaled body or distinctive parts on a pike, spear, or any variant thereof. That close-range shotgun shell into the gut is now commonplace – and it’s a strategy most players should adopt quickly if they want to take survival for a night out on the town without cheating on Lady Luck. And in today’s gaming world, true horror and chills have been substituted for spanking, new-fangled attempts at sadism, joyfully depicted in almost poetic reams of aching screams, cannibalism, most preferably of the female figure (Rape is so old-school), and intense emotional suffering.
Flash back to the time when Alone in the Dark first came out. Or to the first Resident Evil. Or if you’re one of the more gritty horror-mongers, Silent Hill. What started in those games wasn’t a trend but an élan for playing with a gamer’s nerves. Opening a door in Capcom’s franchise was a common sequence publicly admitted to hide load-times; Resident Evil: Code Veronica used the ingenous technique of a slow close-up on the handle of an entrance set to the rapidly increasing beating of a tense heart whenever a serious event was to take place. Most times it was the case, as when you were greeted by the Tyrant on the escape plane. The clawing of zombies out of graveyard soil formed the first CG sequence to gameplay transition. However, most insane, most maddening, and for all honesty, the best example of total full-on mind-fuckery was going through the sequence above and being greeted by…nothing. Horror done right, as they say, is horror not done at all.