Caltrops - Gamerasutra

Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra

by FABIO 06/13/2003, 2:00am PDT

I think I'm actually starting to not hate this game to the point of saying it just might approach being okay. I can recognize HOW this could be a great game, if they had more time to seriously clean up the character models and animation. During the in-game cutscenes the models are great, fully detailed and lip-synched speech almost to the point of Half Life 2's screenshots (of course this is the PC version and I have all the graphics jacked up to max, what I just said probably isnt the case for the console versions). It's just once the game hands over control the animation and clipping gets all crazy and jerky.

If those issues were addressed this game would be on about the same level as Dead to Rights: enjoyable gunplay action with kung fu thrown in. It also suffers from Dead to Rights' frequent gay GAY level design that goes on for FAR too long. The god damn package fetching mission was an HOUR long, way too fucking long to spend on shit like that. Then after the meeting of all the captains (where Smith delivers his ear piece to the doorman in Reloaded) gets busted up by SWAT, you spend and hour and a half to two hours running through the damn sewers, with one of your objectives being "it's too dark to go on! You'll have to climb down a level and find that flashlight the cop dropped!".

Consolitis- Can only save at certain points. Had the annoying tendancy to put the hard parts after a bunch of tedious shit. Did you fail to kill that boss helicopter (that's nearly impossible unless you brought a certain gun over from the previous level)? Reload and go through the unskippable cutscene and gay but easy sniper sequence all over again. Other hard parts will make you jam the escape key to skip 4 different cutscenes before you get to play the level again. Also, there's auto targetting for guns, and unless you have some guy targetted, odds are you aint going to hit him since bullets spray out like a kinked hose's water stream. Hello? This is the PC version you fuckwits. I know without auto-targetting that analogue controllers cant aim for shit, but we have access to a MOUSE thank you very much.

It also cant be understated how fucking EASY this game is. I have it on normal and I'm blazing through it (WHY the fuck wont most games let you change difficulty without having to start over from the beginning?). Even if your health gets low, it nearly instananeously regenerates in a few seconds. Wolverine has nothing on these guys. Hand to hand combat with most enemies amounts to getting next to them and hitting the "disarm" key which takes their weapon and knocks them down. Without a weapon police are helpless. Beating them with kung fu requires you to stand in front of them and pound the kick and punch keys in no required order or rythym. There are a few parts (bosses and gay vampires) where you have to go hand to hand, and those parts are sort of cool. When it's not being ruined by jerky animation and models, the kung fu is actually pretty cool to look at, it's just too bad there's hardly any strategy behind it. Holding down the block button renders you nearly invincible; wait for an attack to be blocked, then hit them. Sometimes you'll (almost always unintentionally) do something cool like hit a guy back then take a running jump foward off a wall to jumpkick him. That's pretty cool, but again no real strategy to it (you cant pull it off reliably enough to make it a tactic, and it doesnt really do that much more damage than a regular attack). The one level you spar with Trinity is actually pretty fun, and the one part in the game so far where the in-game graphics look good. Too bad they couldn't throw in more stuff like that instead of making you slog through sewers and post offices for hours fighting throwaway SWAT members. Hand to hand looks especially pretty if you activiate bullet time during it, probably because the computer can actually handle the slow speed. Too bad that's about ALL you'll use bullet time for, you dont really need it. According to guides holding back and foward during attacks alters their speed and strength, sort of like Street Fighter 2's jab, punch, and fierce. But fuck if you're going to apply any of that. For one you don't need it since the game's so easy, and two, if there's anything Oni taught us, it's that applying Mortal Kombatesque moves in the middle of a 3D fighting game while surrounded by 5 guys just isn't that practical; just keep pounding that punch button baby.

Driving = GAY. AI constantly crashes and tries in vain to pull 3 point turns in order to make the transition from driver's ed simulation back to the FAST PACED CAR CHASE SCENE! Niobe certainly isn't helping to dispel the stereotype of women drivers. One retarded point, one driving mission has you drive up to the Mack truck Morpheus from that scene in the movie. Now, Ghost and Niobe are just driving on the freeway trying to find him, and the cops dont pay any attention to you. That is, until Ghost decides to stand out the sunroof and BRANDISH HIS SUBMACHINEGUN. You're miles away from Morpheus at the start of the level, yet Ghost decides he needs to whip out his phallus compensator to feel more secure. A cop car ignored me until we passed it and saw me pointing the gun around at motorists, at which point he turned on his siren and the chase was on! Then a minute later two agents are on my tail. GOOD JOB, GHOST!