Thursdays being the one day of the week where I don’t have to be anywhere special, I typically sleep in and get caught up on where ever I neglected so far that week. Today was that “neglected” thing was my Xbox and it had a few surprises in store for me. The demo’s for Wanted and Wheelman were ready to download.
I played Wheelman first and I liked it. After playing the first mission, my Pontiac G6 could barely keep it’s wheels on. The game play was fast and fun. The mechanics of the shooting were hard to grasp at first, but not too hard. Using the right analog stick to slam into other cars was way more fun then it should be. Like any game, there is a learning curve. I found myself slamming into damn near everything. Shooting and driving hard to do at the same time. Then came the cut seance.
Look, Vin Diesel is not a bad actor. I have enjoyed a few of movies. But it doesn’t translate over in this game. Who ever rendered his body either had Mr Diesel standing over him the entire time, or has some inappropriate feelings toward him. He was rendered at the Capcom School of Make Video Game Character Design. He looks ridiculous. And the voice over for him and the female character down right awful. The only other thing I have a problem with is the three minute limit on one of the missions. Add the fact you can only play it three times, you only get nine whole minutes to play the game. STOP IT! Stop putting time limits on game demos. I’ll admit, I only played it once. That was all I needed.
On to Wanted. I saw the movie, but never read the comic. I’m a nerd, but not that much. I liked the movie enough. The game showed some promise. The training missions were short and to the point, and completely optional. Now, there are some good idea here. Sure bullet time is like anti lock brakes, every game has to have it. But it works. You can’t just slow mo the entire game. You have to build it up. The aiming is not so good. You’ll miss, a lot and lining up shots from behind cover is damn near impossible. It does make it more realistic. If you’re behind cover you really can’t see what’s happening. But more realism from a game where you can CURVE A BULLET is complete garbage. Also, it falls into the hundred shades of dirt that the Unreal Engine can pull off. It’s dark, dirty and overly unimpressive. Another peeve I have is, at one point your fighting on an airplane but you are limited to moving in the aisle and larger open areas. Your character can’t move down each row of seats to get around obstacles. I found it a tad annoying.
Bottom line, both games good, but not great. Wheelman is fun, but the voice acting is subpar and I’m sure the plot will be a snore. Wanted has some good ideas but the graphics were good for 2 years ago. And I’m not sure but I think the voice actor had a differnt actcent from the intro to the ingame seances. Granted, this could change between now and the actual release, but I’m still not going to buy either one.
-Mike
is that it?
