Yakoob on 3/4/2008 at 03:36
... and dear god, it's one of the shittiest games I have ever played. The writing is horrid, the gameplay repetitive and frustrating, and the end game boss sequence is one of the most annoyingly unfair experiences I've ever had.
The story actually had some potential to be really interesting, with it's pseudo scientific approach and development, but is utterly ruined by the horrible writing and revealing of information. Firstly, the whole game plot and "the big twist" is obvious from the first 10 minutes of the game (
oh noes Aya and Eve are connected and Aya is the only one who can save the planet, surprise surprise). Secondly, the game is overly explicit, throwing everything right out in the player's face, at least five times... in a row. I mean, come on, you don't need to repeat that Mellissa took fucking medicine in EVERY SECOND SENTENCE, we kind of get the point. It really assumes the gamer is a retarded high school drop out.
Aside from that, the dialogues between the characters are just terrible - apparently the in-game characters are retarded high school drop outs too, using simplistic sentences, repetition and flawed logic. It's like "I will go in and save my son!", "don't, you will burn!", "oh, ok, lol!" Jesus... I mean honestly, just look at this:
(
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Koobazaur/sperm_bank.jpg)
There's at least ten different things wrong with the above screenshot...
But the writing is just the beginning of the frustration. The game revolves around walking about finding keys and items to progress forward. Finding keys an items in obscurely located containers. Containers that are not distinguishable from the background (they are part of the background). Containers that are often obscured by other objects and make up a whopping 10 pixels on the screen. And, to top it off, unless you stand PRECISELY in front of an object, you cannot use it. One inch to the left, nope. Five degrees facing away, nada. So the game basically boils down to entering rooms and then running around in circles hugging each wall and obstacle madly tapping the "use" button until something hopefully happens. Yes I ended up running around a whole locations three times before I found the fucking 10 pixel big cupboard containing a key obscured by other stuff in front of it...
What makes this even more annyoing is the extremely shitty, fixed camera angles (ala Resident Evil). Sure, they look neat, but they're utterly counter-productive towards the gameplay. Not only they make figuring out where objects and doors are (sometimes they're angled at a way where you CANNOT SEE THE DOOR, so, again, you must run head first into every fucking wall tapping x in hopes of a screen load). But they get even worse during battles, oh dear lord.
The combat relies on you running around the enemy dodging his shots and when your AT meter loads up, you can shoot or use an item. And once again, fixed camera angles and "invisible boundaries" ruin the experience. Half the time the camera is way too close to you and you take like half the screen space, blocking your view and giving you almost no maneuvering room. Or better yet, the camera is at the eye level which means you can't fucking perceive depth and god fucking knows how close or far you are from the enemies. Oh yeah, and think you can go hide behind that pillar? sucks to be you, invisible wall, you are now cornered and 5 enemies surrounding you take stabs at you mercilessly until you die. GG.
But the ending of the game is definitely the most amazing "fuck you" from game developers I have ever seen. Firstly, towards the end you have to go through 3 different bosses (each one is a completely separate occasion but there is no fighting in-between, just story and walking around). The first is a random enemy (
the dinosaur) is challengingly fun and a good experience. The second is the "true" boss, the one you were chasing after through the whole game (
Eve). It has two forms, which are both pretty challenging, but doable. But then, once you beat it using up all your precious resources expecting it to logically be the last, you now have to fight another boss,
Eve's retarded flying devil baby. Ladies and Gentlemen, the frustration begins now.
This boss has an amazing SIX DIFFERENT FORMS, each one going from "This isn't so bad" to "HOW THE FUCK DO I BEAT THIS." Of course, there is no saves any point so you need to keep re-doing it over and over until you figure out all the six different strategies. Oh and you need to watch annoying and long cutscenes between each form too, every time, since a skip button would be too fucking convenient. And you cannot explore the world anymore, so if you're short on supplies from last two bosses, then sucks to be you, gotta track back before them and redo the last 2 hours of gameplay and unskippable cutscenes.
After hours, you finally managed to beat the son of a bitch. Happily you wait for you rewarding credits screen, but do you get it? fuck no. The boss isn't dead and now you need to run through the whole area (
ship) to blow it up to kill him. And of course, he chases after you. Don't bother trying to outrun him, every time you change screens (which is often thanks to fixed camera angles), he will re-appear right behind you. This wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't for the fact you will occasionally run into a T intersection. Of course you can't tell which way goes where since the camera is right from top, and if you make the wrong turn.... you see it's a dead end, the monster appears right behind you blocking you from escaping. He eventually gets to you and kills you. Congrats, you have to re-fight the six-forms of the boss and re-watch all the shitty cutscenes all over again, BECAUSE - YOU TOOK - A WRONG - FUCKING - TURN.
And, naturally, there still is NO save point. Oh wait, I lied there is - but if you use it, it tells you that you cannot save at this time. And of course, the developers timed this slow-ass message so perfectly that if you do use it, you will now not have enough time to get through the next bulk door and you are guaranteed to get killed by the monster. The crucial gameplay mechanic this game taught you through the past 15 hours is now used to effectively kill you and make you re-do all the bosses and cutscenes over again. Congrats!
I honestly can't remember the last time a video game made me this angry. With it's ridiculous and childish writing, broken gameplay and the most annoying and unfair end-boss sequence that tries to screw you over and makes you re-do a good half hour of gameplay each time, all I have left to say is - fuck you Parasite Eve.
