![]() So it's more than a little strange that he would add one of that series' biggest issues to another that entered the world free of - say it with me, now - TANK CONTROLS. Obviously, the director recognized some of the common complaints about Resident Evil, and tried to address them as best as he could. And though Parasite Eve 2 plays some lip service to item conservation, Aya's never far from a bottomless ammo bucket. The in-game map shows which areas contain monsters - which you can easily run from, mind you - and a GPS item makes shooting at off-screen foes (one of the worst parts of survival horror) somewhat effortless. To it's credit, Parasite Eve 2 features a few novel ideas to cut down on the pain typically brought on by Resident Evil titles Aya gains both EXP and BP from fighting enemies, which can be traded in for new skills, weapons, and items. Take note that by 2000, our brief love affair with survival horror had faded significantly, and even the previous year's Resident Evil 3: Nemesis - a perfectly fine game - felt dated and even constrained by the technology. A strange move, even discounting Parasite Eve's status as a game that tried to meet RPG and survival horror fans halfway. But where the first game felt like a light RPG with some survival horror trappings, Parasite Eve 2 does just the opposite it's essentially a bad Resident Evil game - one that happens to be directed by a staff member who worked on that very series (the scenario writer from the first game, to be exact). In retrospect, it's kind of surprising that Parasite Eve 2 took the form that it did I'm not entirely sure of the original game's popularity, but Square's first "cinematic RPG" (their words) felt like an attempt to lure in gamers who wanted the graphics of Final Fantasy VII, but not the stodgy, menu-based RPG game play. The result? A mess of a game that's better to read about than to play for yourself. Coming at the very end of the PlayStation's lifespan, Parasite Eve 2 represents the last gasps of some especially painful design ideas smashed up against the contemporary notion of accessibility (though in a nascent form). With the gift of hindsight, it can be interesting to look at a mess of mechanics and pick apart the ones that felt dated then, the ones in vogue at the time, and the ones that would eventually be refined into something much more modern. For one, bad games tend to rip off elements of successful games from their respective eras, so something like Parasite Eve 2 acts as a strange 32-bit sampler. Ten hours of Parasite Eve 2 later, and I have more specifics than I'll ever need.īoy howdy, Square sure loved that phony opera synth.Īdmittedly, making fun of bad video games is kind of old hat on the Internet, (and I'll keep doing it as long as it brings in the mini-bucks) but playing flops of the past can often be educational to classic gaming dorks like me. Based on me simply being aware of the game back in 2000, I knew it had a mediocre reputation, but not really the specifics. (I'm guessing some nearsighted grandmas must have picked this up for little Billy in lieu of the similar-sounding Resident Evil 2.) To be fair, this purchase had a little inspiration behind it I recently burned through the first Parasite Eve for the sake of a forthcoming Joystiq article, so asking "What's up with that sequel?" seemed perfectly reasonable and not at all a sign of significant brain damage. ![]() I can't seem to figure it out, but nothing gives me a craving for bad games more than being sick and couchbound - which may explain why this past weekend I consciously paid six whole dollars for the PSN version of Parasite Eve 2, a game most people don't even remember, and an unlucky few try to forget.
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