Post by Smilodon on Oct 7, 2004 8:58:49 GMT -5
Just received my copy today and thought I'd post impressions of the game so far. I'll avoid specifics of enemies / plot and stuff and just focus on changes to the game however. This isn't really intended as a review as such and I know most of the info here probably isn't going to be anything new to most of you.
The intro movie upon starting the game is pretty standard fare. Anyone who's got Rayse Tiger / Brastle Tiger will have already seen the bulk of this although there are a couple of tiny additions.
Mission Mode follows through a set story as with previous editions. There's a lot of talking and then you kill stuff
So far there appear to be only two mission modes, easy and normal, all set in the Fuzors period. Completing Mission Mode on normal doesn't change this so I assume there's just the one set of missions to be had here.
The first three missions are actually tutorials that go through how to manuever a Zoid, then how to use weapons and finally how to perform melee attacks. After that it's on to the story missions.
These are actually a fairly widely varied and interesting bunch rather than "shoot the bad guy before they shoot you" all the time, somewhat moreso than VS2 I'd say and there are definitely situations where picking the right Zoid makes all the difference ( or that you just have only one realistic option to use if you want to be able to complete the mission ).
Battle Mode so far seems much the same as the previous version. You battle in three different eras, Chaotic Century, /Zero and Fuzors based on the pilots you pick when you start a new game. I haven't spotted any huge changes here, ditto Zoids Fist.
4 Player Mode is new of course, and this one looks like a lot of fun. Four way split screen with up to four players and CPU players possible as well. You can assign players to teams so cooperative play is quite possible, another nice touch.
One irritation with this though, not having four controllers myself, is that I can't find a way to assign both CPU players ( player 3 and 4 ) to the same team, as the controllers in ports 1 and 2 are locked out from making any changes to this ( unless I've missed something ). Hot swapping a controller into the necessary port will let you do it though if you want to go coop against the AI. If anyone works out how to do this another way I'd love to know!
How's it play?
Well... very Zoids versusy really! The models for the Zoids are all pretty clean and recogniseable, like the previous, as with the environments I've seen. I've always been impressed with the way they move and run, and I've really liked what I've seen with this version so far.
The controls are similar but the Zoid will now slide upon a rapid 180 or so change of direction at speed. You get a sparkly effect around the feet and the Zoid will skid and come to a halt. As long as you turn round rapidly rather than just reversing direction it seems possible to avoid this if you want to. At the end of the slide, if you had an opponent "locked" in your view with the right shoulder button you always seem to end up facing them, even if you weren't pointing the stick in that direction.
Sometimes this can be really handy, when you run past an enemy, reverse the stick and spin to shoot it while skidding backwards to a halt, I like that part now I've got used to it. Mind you there seems to be a bit of a glitch with it too. If you switch your target view to another enemy with the right shoulder button and it changes the orientation of the screen abruptly you can end up in a skid it seems because your control stick is now suddenly not pointing the way it used to be relative to the Zoid. This didn't happen too often though.
Blade attacks now seem to have exhaustable ammo which is used up over time as you keep the blades activated. I've not yet seen any indication that this regenerates after it is depleted. While that sort of puts paid to slashing everything to bits while running about in a liger with my blades extended and glowing and going "wheee!", I think it feels pretty balanced overall.
Flying Zoids! These are neat. You use the C stick to ascend and descend with the directional stick to er.. change direction and go back and forth etc as per usual. They do hover as well. Flicking the C stick to the left or the right lets you do a barrel roll, just because you're an ace pilot.. or something Naturally there's a maximum height you can ascend to beyond which the only way to go is down. Whenever you get thumped heavily enough by enemy fire you come crashing to the ground and need to soar up again. Feels pretty natural though, I like it!
There's also a Zoids Museum in the main menu where you can look at the range of Zoids ( that you have unlocked so far I presume ), zoom in and out, rotate. It would've been really neat if you could make them run and jump and roar etc but I can't complain too much.
Looking good so far! I can see myself wasting way too much time over this weekend on it so it must be holding my attention reasonably well I'll post any stuff I find if other people haven't already. I'd be really keen to hear what people discover.
The intro movie upon starting the game is pretty standard fare. Anyone who's got Rayse Tiger / Brastle Tiger will have already seen the bulk of this although there are a couple of tiny additions.
Mission Mode follows through a set story as with previous editions. There's a lot of talking and then you kill stuff
So far there appear to be only two mission modes, easy and normal, all set in the Fuzors period. Completing Mission Mode on normal doesn't change this so I assume there's just the one set of missions to be had here. The first three missions are actually tutorials that go through how to manuever a Zoid, then how to use weapons and finally how to perform melee attacks. After that it's on to the story missions.
These are actually a fairly widely varied and interesting bunch rather than "shoot the bad guy before they shoot you" all the time, somewhat moreso than VS2 I'd say and there are definitely situations where picking the right Zoid makes all the difference ( or that you just have only one realistic option to use if you want to be able to complete the mission ).
Battle Mode so far seems much the same as the previous version. You battle in three different eras, Chaotic Century, /Zero and Fuzors based on the pilots you pick when you start a new game. I haven't spotted any huge changes here, ditto Zoids Fist.
4 Player Mode is new of course, and this one looks like a lot of fun. Four way split screen with up to four players and CPU players possible as well. You can assign players to teams so cooperative play is quite possible, another nice touch.
One irritation with this though, not having four controllers myself, is that I can't find a way to assign both CPU players ( player 3 and 4 ) to the same team, as the controllers in ports 1 and 2 are locked out from making any changes to this ( unless I've missed something ). Hot swapping a controller into the necessary port will let you do it though if you want to go coop against the AI. If anyone works out how to do this another way I'd love to know!
How's it play?
Well... very Zoids versusy really! The models for the Zoids are all pretty clean and recogniseable, like the previous, as with the environments I've seen. I've always been impressed with the way they move and run, and I've really liked what I've seen with this version so far.
The controls are similar but the Zoid will now slide upon a rapid 180 or so change of direction at speed. You get a sparkly effect around the feet and the Zoid will skid and come to a halt. As long as you turn round rapidly rather than just reversing direction it seems possible to avoid this if you want to. At the end of the slide, if you had an opponent "locked" in your view with the right shoulder button you always seem to end up facing them, even if you weren't pointing the stick in that direction.
Sometimes this can be really handy, when you run past an enemy, reverse the stick and spin to shoot it while skidding backwards to a halt, I like that part now I've got used to it. Mind you there seems to be a bit of a glitch with it too. If you switch your target view to another enemy with the right shoulder button and it changes the orientation of the screen abruptly you can end up in a skid it seems because your control stick is now suddenly not pointing the way it used to be relative to the Zoid. This didn't happen too often though.
Blade attacks now seem to have exhaustable ammo which is used up over time as you keep the blades activated. I've not yet seen any indication that this regenerates after it is depleted. While that sort of puts paid to slashing everything to bits while running about in a liger with my blades extended and glowing and going "wheee!", I think it feels pretty balanced overall.
Flying Zoids! These are neat. You use the C stick to ascend and descend with the directional stick to er.. change direction and go back and forth etc as per usual. They do hover as well. Flicking the C stick to the left or the right lets you do a barrel roll, just because you're an ace pilot.. or something
Naturally there's a maximum height you can ascend to beyond which the only way to go is down. Whenever you get thumped heavily enough by enemy fire you come crashing to the ground and need to soar up again. Feels pretty natural though, I like it!There's also a Zoids Museum in the main menu where you can look at the range of Zoids ( that you have unlocked so far I presume ), zoom in and out, rotate. It would've been really neat if you could make them run and jump and roar etc but I can't complain too much.
Looking good so far! I can see myself wasting way too much time over this weekend on it so it must be holding my attention reasonably well
I'll post any stuff I find if other people haven't already. I'd be really keen to hear what people discover.
