Act Like a Drunk Johnny Depp

It’s inelegant and definitely not p.c. to say it. But across popular culture, in the movies, in pop music, and in literature, everyone loves and even admires a cool drunk (except occasionally the drunk himself). Critics marvel at the ludicrous ways of Keith Richard and his death-defying habits that make it seem he’s made a deal with the devil. Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men portrays the cool drunk who gets the girls and spews witty one-liners. Way back when the 20s roared, drink was the stuff of depression and a kind of muse for F. Scott Fitzgerald. Later this week, Johnny Depp reprises his role as the cool, drunk pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, replete with the signature Keith Richard hipness and the Joe Cocker stagger. (Dead man’s chest, by the way, is a phrase from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, which appears as part of the ‘bottle of rum’ song in the second paragraph of the first chapter.)
 

In tandem with the movies come the games, and this time, Bethesda with its PS2 title swashbuckles against Disney’s Buena Vista game with its PSP title. Who has the cooler, plastered pirate who can gather up all pieces to a treasure map (your goal in the games)? Ultimately, neither.  Sure, in both games, the developers get the surprised, alcohol-ridden moves down in their animations, so much so that you occasionally feel that you are Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow. In Dead Man’s Chest for the PSP, you’re not out to rescue the governor’s daughter as in Black Pearl. Instead, Jack Sparrow has his own demons to deal with as he tries to save himself from becoming an undead pirate/slave to the ghoul with the octopus-tentacled beard, Davy Jones.
 

In the PSP offering, the action comes fast and furious as soon as you start the game. Taking a page from the book of Devil May Cry, you’ll fight against numerous pirates by pressing buttons madly. There are blood-curdling screams and spooky echoes and unsettling rattling which induce anticipation—even fear—as you enter each room to fight your enemies.  You’ll climb up ropes and slide down ropes, all of which makes you feel like you’re on a roller coaster ride. Or a Disney ride.
 

Yet there’s so much hacking and slashing in Dead Man’s Chest, the game becomes repetitive. The developers try to staunch this by having you do some puzzle-like tasks such as carrying a barrel full of explosives to a locked jail door, then lighting it so you can get inside for some loot. And the graphics are particularly nicely rendered with shading and crisp outlines, all done in widescreen format. But the swordplay becomes banal about halfway through the game, and you wish there were more story here. Heck, even in the movie, which is good, the swordplay can become tedious. 
 

There are also camera angle issues here. If you get into a corner, you seem to become one with the wall and you can’t see enemies that are coming at you. By using the buttons on the top of your PSP, you can move out of this predicament. But, really, the software should do it for you—seamlessly.
 

In the PS2 version called The Legend of Jack Sparrow, you have a similar game of hack and slash. But there are more cut scenes to give you a better sense of story and action. Still, Johnny Depp (yes, they got Depp to voice act) seems somewhat lackluster when reading the lines of a script that’s admittedly not up to the same sharpness as the movie’s screenplay. In addition, the graphics suffer somewhat. Developers know that they can pack a huge amount of detail into the art in a PS2 game in this, the last year of the old console’s popularity. Yet the visuals here aren’t that much better than the PSP game.  
 

If you’re a big fan of Johnny Depp and of the humorously punky pirates based on the famous Disney ride, these may be the games for you. But I began to reread Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island in preparation to see Dead Man’s Chest and to play the games. Just one sentence shivered my timbers more than anything in the software: “On stormy nights, when the wind shook the four corners of the house and the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions.”  That’s what the pirates in these games need: more “diabolical expressions.” If only Stevenson were still alive to help out. Heck, if only the game makers—or at least the games’ writers—had read Stevenson.

Jaws Unleashed

Publisher: Majesco

Developer:  Appaloosa Interactive

Long before Peter Benchley, the popular novelist who wrote Jaws, died earlier this year, he had changed him mind about Great White Sharks. In fact, with a great deal of passion, he told a group at the Smithsonian, “Today I could not, for instance, portray the shark as a villain, especially not as a mindless omnivore that attacks boats and humans with reckless abandon. No, the shark in an updated Jaws could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim, for, world-wide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors.

Benchley backed up his opinions, saying, “Every year, more than a hundred million sharks are slaughtered by man. It has been estimated that for every human life taken by a shark, 4.5 million sharks are killed by humans. And rarely for a useful purpose.” I know what he means. A few years ago, I flew into South Africa’s Cape Town. After driving for about three hours in a cheap, three-cylinder Kia, I boarded a weak-looking 20-foot boat with two Great White Shark researchers. After about a half hour, we got to Dyer Island, populated by thousands of smelly seals, the white shark’s favorite food. One of the researchers threw whale blood into the clear blue ocean near the island. Soon, four or five sharks circled about. Donning a thick wet suit and a 30-minute air tank, I went down in a cage. Into the cold waters. As they nudged the cage, I could see they were powerful creatures. They could be scary, sure. But they also had a grace, a beauty that only someone who’s been down in the cage can understand. It is a magnificence that should be preserved.

I mention all this because I know just a little more about Great Whites than most folks who watch the Discovery Channel documentaries. So, when I cracked open JAWS UNLEASHED, a new game based on the classic Steven Spielberg movie, I had my doubts about authenticity. After all, the last Jaws offering, released in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, was pretty darn crappy. Almost two decades later, would the new game do the shark right?  Would the sea look real or simply like a big aquarium?

Although the game’s been trashed elsewhere, I really enjoyed Jaws Unleashed—with a few major exceptions. First off, you play from the perspective of the shark. That’s right, you are the giant, prehistoric-looking beast, feeding on seals and fish, even a killer whale. And you wreak havoc upon any human in a boat or in a cage. Yes, you chomp up people like they were Starburst fruit chews (that’s why the game is rated M for Mature).

The environments in which the white shark moves are complex and beautiful.  They’re a little too crystal clear and light-filled than the real deals, but they’re fairly close to what you’d see down in the deep. The idea behind Jaws Unleashed is that, as a shark, you want your environment free of the uncaring humans and creatures who want to pollute and invade your home. In the eleven missions presented here, you’ll even eliminate a giant squid.

Most of the missions let you go where you want to go in the undersea world.  As long as you eat enough undersea creatures and diving humans (accomplished by repeatedly squeezing the right trigger in the Xbox version), you’ll be able to roam freely to explore the deep. Plus, there are ‘prizes.’ If you consume four tin cans in a level, you’ll open a clip from the original movie. If you chomp all the treasure chests you come across, you’ll enable a mode in which you’re indestructible (which is good because, in this game, smaller fishes like to take bites out of your body, causing a loss of health). Once you gain experience in the game, you’ll be armed with extra moves that will permit attacks like dive bombing and kills with just one bite.

Jaws Unleashed isn’t perfect, not at all. A real Carcharodon carcharias moves more quickly and lithely and is more accurate in targeting prey than the giant in this game. There’s no way that a White would get stuck in the ruins of a boat, for instance, as he can do in this game. Also, while the camera angles aren’t abysmal in the game, they could be a lot better. If you’re in an area that’s like a thin tunnel, you’ll probably get stuck. You’ll waste precious time and energy just trying to get out of these kinds of pickles. Remember, if you don’t eat every few minutes, you’ll die. Developers should never have allowed this kind of trap to occur repeatedly.

But what’s great about this Great White Shark game is that it feels new and different. Innovation is really lacking in the game industry these days. So a game like Jaws Unleashed, in which you play one of the world’s most feared and most misunderstood creatures, is a welcome break from the plethora of first person shooters that are constantly foisted upon the market. If only they had fixed the bugs and camera angles, Jaws Unleashed would have been one of the year’s best games.

It’s the game industry’s dirty, little secret: Casual games are exploding. More people play these short online games like PAC-MAN and even BINGO than play the highly touted console games. Yet console games get all the glory because of their high production values and inspired graphics.

Even though the graphics on casual games are decidedly old school, arguably, casual games are more addicting than, say, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Once you find a casual game you like, my bet is you won’t stop playing it: Especially after you make friends who play the same game with you online. There’s a great variety of these offerings, too, since they cost so much less to produce (thousands, rather than millions, and in some cases, hundreds). In fact, if you make the trip to Garage Games, you can create your own game—if you’re focused and have the time (along with a decent idea). I’d make one in which a Mario-like character has to run and jump over all the characters in the Bush administration, and senators like Hillary and Chuck who supported the war in the first place, too. After clearing each level, you get closer to getting the troops out of Iraq. But that’s just me.

All of these games are like the classics of yore right in your Web browser, and they play seamlessly. You’ll get a quick fix full of visceral thrills, and you’ll play easily by using a few simple keyboard controls. For instance, in PRESIDENTIAL KNOCKOUT, you can choose to be either Bush or Kerry, battling it out with boxing gloves on the White House lawn. If you pick Kerry, however, be careful. The embattled president is a pretty feisty boxer.

The BBC, of all media entities, created a lowbrow game in tandem with its TV comedy show, Look Around You called DIARRHEA DAN. Dan has trouble finding a clean toilet, so you have to help him find one. Part trivia, the game lets you know that the average human spends three years on the throne during his or her lifetime.

Beyond the quirky, there’s the addictive. In BEJEWELED, for instance, you align gemstones horizontally and vertically, level after level. It’s easy to pick up, but hard to master, the perfect litmus test for an online game. I found myself addicted to LIGHTNING POOL, in which the designers created so many variations on the classic game that you can’t stop playing. Hard core pool players will eschew this game, but I love the playing pool with, say, a golf putter. It’s simply one of the most creative casual games on the Web today.

While there are no print publications devoted to casual gaming, Millions of Games on the Web collects and links to so many new ones each day, you’ll likely find it hard to keep up. Start with the site’s listing of Top Ten games (currently Lightning Pool leads the pack of the most played games).

Most of the U.S. TV networks have computer games based on their hit shows. The supernatural mystery show, Lost, in fact, has three of them on the show’s official site, the best of which is a short adventure game in which you traverse the island. It’s not only compelling, it’s as creepy as the show itself. You can also find games based on the TV game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel Of Fortune online.

Casual games are geared toward busy adults, primarily women. But whatever age you are, once you begin looking, you’re sure find casual game that will suit you, one that you can’t stop playing. You’ll probably meet some pals online when you play, too. Is a MySpace for casual gamers far behind? Probably not.

Cars

Publisher: THQ

Developer: Rainbow Studios

Some people say adamantly that Disney’s acquisition of Pixar was a mistake, that Pixar has seen better days, and that the studio is beginning to pump out the same kind of computer animation time after time. While I don’t agree, CARS isn’t the greatest Pixar movie of all time. In fact, for all its warmth and cuddly-ness, it’s probably the weakest. And that may be because racing cars aren’t that cute (Disney’s Herbie, The Love Bug being the exception). They can be sexy; they can be strong. But they’re not adorable like toys or superheroes or little fishes. Creating an irresistible family story around cars just isn’t that easy. Having said that: Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. There’s a lot to like in the video game version of the animated Pixar movie, Cars. There’s a fair amount to dislike as well. The question is, does the great stuff that’s in the game win the race over the stuff that’s not great at all? The answer’s yes…with reservations.

When you put Cars into your drive, you really don’t get an alluring opening movie to put you in the spirit of the game. Instead, you’re optimistic rookie Lightning McQueen, dropped into a very easy race against the other cars in the vista-filled desert environment of Radiator Springs. Here, you’ll get an idea of the unique personalities of the other vehicles when you accidentally nudge them or crash into them. You’ll also be able to drift your car, or, as the game calls it, Power Slide.

But after that initial race in Full Story mode, I began to see some problems. First, there are long load times between the movie-like scenes and this wait dampened the anticipation I had. I wanted to put my virtual pedal to the metal, and not be daunted. While the second race was a lot of fun, I couldn’t progress to the next level until I finished a hunt for postcards (which was not that interesting). You may be able to avoid the postcard hunt by playing the Compact Story mode, which is more geared toward kids. 

This, of course, isn’t true racing. If you hit another car, for example, it doesn’t sustain physical damage. But the car does scream and yell, saying mildly humorous things like, “Hey, you almost took off my bumper,” if you crash into them. Also, if you’re near another car, Lightning will utter things like, “Can I get an autograph?” or “You’re that guy!” repeatedly. After a while, it gets annoying. One of the things you can do is to take various Sunday drives across the open environments. During that time, you’ll get used to maneuvering your car and also find little lightning bolt icons which add points to your score when you drive through them.

What kept me going when things got a little dull was the driving soundtrack, which includes everything from Edgar Winter’s old school “Free Ride” to the All-American Rejects’ Night Drive. Also, while I enjoyed Owen Wilson’s voice acting, the older fellow in me marveled as I heard the dulcet tones of the great Paul Newman in a video game. To me, this was as much of a charge as listening to Marlon Brando in the recent The Godfather game. 

As you progress and try valiantly to win the Piston Cup, you’ll find all sorts of races including “Monster Truck Mayhem,” “Sally’s Sunshine Circuit,” and “Sarge’s Off Road Challenge.” You’ll be able to track down speeders in a cop car and even assume the role of a car from the wrong side of the tracks that steals things. Since the offering was developed by the same people who gave the world the “MX vs. ATV” games, it’s got pretty amazing automobile physics, especially during the off road race. (Tip: if you’re buying a handheld version of the game, skip the Gameboy Advance and DS versions, which aren’t that hot at all. Get the more console-like PSP version instead.)

Ultimately, Cars, the videogame, is a lot like Cars, the movie. It’s a good game with honorable intentions and a warm, virtual heart that sometimes plays great and sometimes gets boring. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come up to the level of the stellar The Incredibles game or even the Toy Story game for the original PlayStation. 

Hitman: Blood Money

Publisher: Eidos

Developer: lo-Interactive

Over a hundred years ago, Sigmund Freud wrote, “No one, who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.”  So it is with The Hitman, also inelegantly named Agent 47. 47’s no psychoanalyst, but he’s got the demons on him nonetheless.

Of all the dark characters in the world of gangland style video game shoot ’em ups and stealthy spy thrillers, Agent 47 may be the most compelling. That’s because he seems to have the deepest back story and a real personality that’s not one-dimensional. Sure, 47 benefits from having four installments of the HITMAN video game series which reveal his character’s proclivities. 

But, as an assassin, he’s a loner, introspective, and outside of society.  He’s not only a bald rebel without a cause; he’s genetically engineered from the bad seed DNA of five of the worst criminals the world has ever known. He can kill ruthlessly. Yet he’s scared of needles and, as a youth, lovingly cared for his pet rabbit. He also has a bar code tattoo on the back of his head so his creators can find him easily. All of this makes his complexities even more interesting. 

Hitman: Blood Money starts out with a haunting version of “Ave Maria” as a crow flies onto the shoulder of the statue of the Virgin Mary in a cemetery. The opening movie then cuts to a dramatic action visual of 36 people dying in an amusement park as a Ferris wheel crashes to the ground. That’s followed by a montage of newspaper clips showing the park’s owner on trial, and, ultimately, being cleared of all charges. A grieving but vengeful father hires 47 to rid the world of the Swing King, the amusement park owner.

Although the first level is a tutorial, it’s a lot of fun since it takes place in the run down, ocean-side park which is richly detailed, and kind of scary. You’ll distract guards with the throw of coin, and get to your prey with easy-to-follow directions that appear onscreen. As the levels progress, however, the game turns much harder—quickly—and a mystery begins to unravel.  Apparently, a rival wants to remove the bald 47 and will stop at nothing until he’s eliminated. 

The tension you’ll feel during the dozen missions is palpable. During a mission that takes place on a Mississippi river boat, you’ll have to kill six gang members and a boss. And during a level in a casino à la Las Vegas, you’ll find a case full of important DNA. But you’ll have to kill a sheik and a scientist before you’re through. You’ll also find yourself at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, although a post-Katrina scenario would have been more frightening.  And, like this year’s 24 on TV, you’ll have to deal with a devilishly evil White House official in the Oval Office.

This is a thinking player’s game rather than a strict shoot ’em up. You’ll have to strategize and prepare for your assassinations. If you simply go in with guns blazing, you’ll soon die. This stealth requires a lot of exploration of the various environs. But because the levels are so beautifully designed and graphically stunning, you’ll enjoy the sights (along with the creeps you meet) pretty much everywhere you go. 

Hitman: Blood Money isn’t for everyone. It’s an M-rated game with guts, gore, and cussing. But for those of you who can deal with the mature themes, Hitman will reward you with great gameplay and a nicely written story. Just as in Die Hard: With a Vengeance, you’ll “Think fast. Look alive. Die hard.” And you’ll do that every minute you play.

Table Tennis

Publisher: Take2/Rockstar Games

Developer: Rockstar San Diego

When you talk about it with the folks that have seen the exhibition, everyone agreed the recent Whitney Biennial kind of sucked. I mean, what was with those dull, deli canopies from the Reena Spaulings gallery? But two things didn’t suck, and the reasons for their unsuckiness had to do with a good idea conceived and executed simply. Tony Conrad’s pickled raw film stock in canning jars says a lot about the idea of preserving film if you look at the things with a Monty Python-esque nudge-nudge wink-wink. And the documentary about the anti-St. Nicholas craziness in Austria called “Kranky Klaus,” with its coal-in-the-stocking meets-bullying-frat-boys-for-a-night-of-mischief is just a lone video camera or two following the herd of mythical, antlered Krampuses as they harass the local villagers. Both are simple. But both are so effective, they’re ingrained within the consciousness of $15-paying museum-goers forever.

When Rockstar, the pseudo-controversial video game company that created the violent Grand Theft Auto franchise, sent over a game called TABLE TENNIS, I almost thought it was a joke. I laughed, Maybe this is some early public relations idea to promote Grand Theft Auto 4. I mean, where’s the complexity for the next generation system? It’s too damn simple.

But, yes, it’s a ping pong game. Now, ping pong games in video gaming are nothing new. Everyone knows that 1972’s Pong, the original video game, was a version of table tennis. Since then, there have been dozens of such offerings for everything from your Palm (Table Tennis 3D) to your mobile phone (3D Slam Ping-Pong). But none has had the panache and the attention to detail of Rockstar’s Table Tennis.

First, the graphics are pretty darn mind-boggling. You might think, who cares—it’s just a table with clunky paddles and a hollow, celluloid ball.  But what’s stunning is the way the life-like characters react to winning and losing. Not only do they look human, they act human. They get angry; they sweat; they talk to themselves, either to calm down or to pep up. They have egos and they live for applause from the crowd.

I seriously expected to play this game for a few minutes and then get on to the next thing. But with my first point, I was excited. By the end of my first match, I was hooked. That’s because the simplicity of the game is deceiving.  You don’t have to move your character from side to side: the game does it for you. All you have to concentrate upon initially is moving the right thumb stick forward and releasing it when you want to hit the plastic ball. It’s so much fun that I looked into the history of ping pong. It’s a game that began in the late 1800s as a form of indoor tennis played by well-to-do Victorians who were addicted to tennis. But they couldn’t play outside in the nasty English winters. Supposedly, they initially used a rounded Champagne cork as a ball and a stack of books as a net.

Fast forward to 2006. With the Table Tennis video game, there is such a subtlety in the way you hit the ball that it’s almost poetic. Not only can you add topspin and backspin, you can add left sidespin and right sidespin. By pressing the right trigger on your controller, you activate something called Full Focus. With three levels of focus, your game play gets better and you’re truly in the zone. When you get a little better, you’ll be able to tell what kind of spin is coming at you, and you’ll be able to counter that spin.

There are no real ping pong champs in the game. But the ones that have been imagined not only have their own playing styles (anything from fleet feet to killer defense). They also have personality. You’ll meet a variety of players as you move from the various tennis circuits, some of which are seedy and some of which are so full of people, you’ll get nervous.

But the real magic and wonder of Table Tennis comes with Xbox Online play. You can volley with up to eight players in a tournament online. When you have a rally against someone from, say, Olympia that goes over 100 hits of the ball, your heart starts pounding and you wear the look of grim determination.  You’ll probably hear a lot of bragging through your headset. But you can turn that off. 

The upshot? Because Table Tennis is so easy to pick up, it will probably introduce a lot of casual gamers to the Xbox Online experience. That means a more mature crowd, and a more civilized game with fewer moments of Madden-like trash talking. But Rockstar’s ping pong game will have some competition soon: Nintendo is creating a table tennis game for its Wii system to be released in the fall. If it works as well as Table Tennis, they should subtitle it “Kranky, Pickled Mario Pong.”