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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - General Gaming - Scurge: Hive |
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MathOnNapkins  1100  In SPC700 HELL                   Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6296 days Last view: 6296 days |
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| Has anybody played this game yet? It came out recently and I thought I'd give it a try on my DS. I only found out after buying it that it was originally released for the GBA. No wonder it looks and sounds like a GBA game. Anyways, breaking it down:
Graphics: Since this appears to be a direct port they didn't really snazz it up with DS enhanced graphics. Not that I blame them, it would take longer to figure that stuff out. The price of the game is $29.99, which is what I'd pay for a new GBA game anyways. However, with the added processing power they could have added transparency effects to certain parts of the game. For example, there is a weapon that creates a semispherical bubble that explodes on screen (If you've played Chrono Trigger, think Luminaire's effect.) While this is happening there is some funky clipping going on and you can't see most of the screen at first. Also, if there is mist in the area you trigger this weapon, the mist (which is another BG layer obviously) will stay white long enough to be annoying. Another aspect of the graphics is that some enemies hurl slime "at the player", as in when you kill it green slime splatters on the screen. This looks awkard in the context of the game, since it isn't first person - it's third person with a 3D isometric view (It's still 2D though). Think 2D Zelda games but rotated 45 degrees. Sound: The music for the different areas is usually pretty good. The biological area, which is the main hub, has music that seems annoying at first but it grows on you as you listen to it more often. Deadscape's music is something I particularly like. The sound effects are not that great in terms of sound quality but they are pretty good for what they are trying to sound like. The sound is very good at telling you what is happening and what is coming up ahead, I found it very useful b/c it could tell me what kind of enemies to expect ahead. That said, again the sound quality is GBA quality sound, and I wish they would have done more to fix that. General Gameplay: It's been a long while since I've found a game that I had trouble putting down. Even Castlevania DoS tired me sometimes. The only time I've really put this game down is when a puzzle stumped me or I had to go to work/sleep, etc. I'm getting pretty close to beating it and I heard the final boss is quite a piece of work - i.e. very difficult. Looking forward to it as the bosses have gotten more challenging and more interesting every fight. This game emphasizes scramble style gameplay. You will die in this game if you sit still. On the surface this game seems heavily Metroid inspired and it even seems to plagiarize at one point - there is an enemy that looks like a Metroid, though without a nucleus, that drains your energy if it latches on to you. It's also an energy based creature. Jenosa Arma is a female bounty hunter sent to stop or at least contain a deadly alien species that assimilates other lifeforms to gain their knowledge and also alters their form. Smells like Metroid Fusion, and the X species right? Well that doesn't bother me that much since in this game there are no Metroid antidotes to save you from the Scurge, the nasty parasitic lifeform that is ravaging the planet Inos. Almost immediately at the beginning of the game you are infected with the scurge and this presents a huge problem with trying to get your job done. You see - as time passes, your infection level rises and when it reaches 100% your HP begins depleting rapidly. To counter this infection you need to locate sick bays which will destroy the Scurge in your body - almost. It brings it down to 1%, and before you know it, you've stepped out of the sick bay and the infection level is at 3% already. There are lots of sick bays, luckily, though some tasks will leave you far away enough from one to begin taking some serious damage. If you play prudently, rarely is this necessary. Using a sick bay also automatically saves your game, so it's nice and multifunctional. Actual gameplay can be pretty hectic. You start off with a basic blaster weapon that you can shoot in eight directions. Shooting on diagonals can be tricky at first but you get used to it. There are 3 enemy types - biological, electrical, and energy based. You will get upgrades that are effective against each of these, but on the downside each of those upgrades will cause enemies of one other type to become stronger. e.g. Energy Dissipator whomps on Energy based creatures, but makes Biological creatures get pumped up. You'll find yourself switching between these different weapons almost constantly once you get all three. Your normal blaster just doesn't have the stopping power needed to kill later enemies quickly. As you play you will earn experience and level up, though this doesn't seem to be a huge factor in how the game plays. I didn't find myself ever leveling up intentionally, it just is a side effect of running around trying to figure out where to go next. I can see getting some extra challenge on a low level game the next playthrough by avoiding fighting enemies. Even with upgraded weaponry, enemies swarm at you from every direction. This is a far cry from Metroid games where once you have a certain type of weapon you feel superior to your animal foes. If you aren't careful you can get seriously messed up. I was playing on Normal difficulty and I've already feel the intensity. The higher difficulty levels are probably going to be insane, especially on bosses. The main downfall I can see with this game is repetitive gameplay on the whole. Your goal in nearly every area is to find security nodes to active a transporter "nexus" module that takes you somewhere else. Basically it takes you to a boss, where you kick its ass then you find a transporter that leads you back to the Biocore area. What totally sucks is when you beat an area you cannot revisit it. Gameplays also revolves around obtaining green passkeys. If you miss one.... okay just don't miss one. You will spend quite a bit of extra time going back to find one if you miss one. Even though this game has a map, they were pretty idiotic in not marking down rooms you've visited that have passkeys left to grab. If you are in a room with a passkey, an indicator beeps at you every few seconds. They mark down nearly everything else that is useful on the map for you automatically - what lapse in reason they had in not marking passkeys is inexcusable. After a while of playing this game, you will get in the habit of listening for a beep in every room you enter to see if it has one, but it's a harsh lesson learned once you get to a door that requires six passkeys and you have like... two. You get some interesting upgrades and some not so interesting ones. Plasma bombs are only good for blowing up mounds of rocks to open up new passage ways. Each of the beams interfaces with some type of machinery though, which is kind of peppered in before you get those beams to make you wonder what they do. Finding those special types of machinery is key to progressing in any given area. As I mentioned before, you have an ice beam that freezes nearby enemies. The point of this is not as in Metroid to use as stepping stones, but rather to hold down switches to activate moving platforms. You'll catch on to that almost immediately. My favorite item has to be the adrenaline boost. When you hold down the B button this slows down everything around you. I suppose it was more sensible than making Jenosa move really fast and hard to control. This is a really cool effect that is great against bosses and can get you out of a lot of tight spots with normal enemies when you're in over your head. Only gripe is that it depletes really rapidly. You also have a robotic tether that extends out to grab frozen enemies or objects so you can drag them. You can also grab nonfrozen enemies but who knows why you'd do that. Lastly, you have a jump boost which allows you to double jump. Very useful for going back over old areas of the biocore. Some of the jumps in this game area pretty challenging to do without this upgrade. |
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Cynthia Uh-huh.  Since: 11-17-05 From: LaSalle, Quebec, Canada Last post: 6296 days Last view: 6296 days |
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Wasn't it released for both simultaneously?  Seems like a waste.
I looked at the game briefly... it's not that bad. It's a little tough to get used to (especially aiming at enemies with the 3D view, but I'll probably keep plugging away at it. You can tell Metroid was their inspiration. |
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Anya  Since: 11-18-05 From: South Florida Last post: 6299 days Last view: 6298 days |
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| I got the game free from Nintendo...didn't waste my time with it and traded it in towards my Zune. |
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MathOnNapkins 1100 In SPC700 HELL Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6296 days Last view: 6296 days |
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| Eh, your loss... it may not be the best game ever but it's certainly climbing my list. My main complaint with the game is that the puzzles towards the end of the game aren't really any tougher than the ones midway through the game. It's mostly just a test of how fast you can complete the same types of puzzles whilst dodging hordes of more enemies (on a time limit of course)
I'm currently trying to polish off the final boss.... but I have to say the final form of it is just.... cheap. I haven't seen any good gameplay videos or FAQs that suggest a good way of killing it (I keep dying seconds before I can strike the final blow.) I chose not to power level and apparently that cost me. I guess it's my fault for wanting to progress through the game quickly and avoid a lot of fights. Had the same problem with Mario and Luigi: PiT. Killed the final boss at like... level 23.5 (average party level). |
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Anya Since: 11-18-05 From: South Florida Last post: 6299 days Last view: 6298 days |
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| Not really my loss, if I ever want to play, I can just check it out at work or just play it there. But at least now I know what its about so I can pass the word along if need be.
Honestly, I've only sold one copy of the game (GBA ver). |
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