Bad Habits - A prison of passage - August 10 2005
Some games are too restraining to finish
An uninformed person once wrongly accused me of not playing games long enough before I review them. Let me tell you, I’ve played the best, average and most inane titles for up to 20 hours just to make sure they never got better or worse. I’ve played games twice. But now and then, a game is simply unplayable to the end. Killer 7 is that game.
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Usually, I take a pass on reviewing a title in full if I stop short of a finish line. But after playing Killer 7 for just five hours on Nintendo GameCube, I find that I love this game. I also happen to hate it. And I want to give it kudos before I trash it.
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It’s a lovely and creative thing when it doesn’t stink. I play as an evil-hunting assassin with seven personalities, and I get to change personalities pretty much whenever I want. This means I change bodies. I’m the slick guy who runs while holding his pistol against a shoulder blade. Then, as the barefoot girl in a short dress. And so on.
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I solve puzzles while traveling a series of building hallways, a park and other locales. All of this looks super cool. The minimalistic anime style is crafty and creepy. Eeriness pours out of such characters as my game guide, who is dressed in a red gimp suit and often appears, ghostlike, hanging from a wire.
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When he talks, I can’t make out what he’s saying. I read closed captions while hearing his nasty, voice-box scrape of a throat. The bad guys are ghostly creatures, too. They run at me with bombs attached to them. I’m advised to shoot them, absorb their blood and turn it into more power for me.
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One deal-killer is I don’t get to run where I want. I press a button and go forward along a predetermined track. Most other games have become generous in letting me travel across vast planets that this feels like a prison of passage.
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But what’s worse is I’ll run about five steps before the game stops to make me choose which room to go in next or which door to open. Once I pick a subsequent path, my TV screen turns into aggravating white-snow — and this lasts for up to 10 seconds. That happens constantly.
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It’s the worst pacing since 2004’s Resident Evil: Outbreak. What a shame. To make the pacing worse, that red, hanging dude and other characters talk so s-l-o-w-l-y that I want to shoot them, even though they’re on my side.
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And that hanging guide is boring. He keeps saying, “Master, we’re in a tight spot. A major tight spot.” I hope the game-maker, Capcom, explores this visual style more. It is true art that reminds me that some games have more wow in them than many movies do. But I’m going to blow away that red guy.
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thegamedork@creativeloafing.com
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Doug Elfman is an award-winning columnist who lives and writes in Chicago.
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New to you — used game of the week
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The Incredibles earned good reviews as a movie, but the videogame lacks too many good elements to recommend, even though it’s showing up for $16 and less on the shelves of used-game stores. Be careful — it’s not a bargain.
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The plot is, you play as various superheroes in a family, zipping and jumping around the big city and knocking out bad guys. But it doesn’t look great, it feels repetitive, and the overall feel is, well, cheap. You can try it if you want — on Xbox, PS2 or GameCube — but don’t blame me if it bores you after a while.