Team Fremont.com-Against the Grain Volume 1 Review

Against the Grain Volume 1

We play a lot of games here at Team Fremont. A lot of games. That being the case, few of them really come out of nowhere and surprise us. In an age when sequels and me-too titles flood the market, it's tough to find a diamond in the rough. And that's the focus of our new feature, "Against the Grain". From time to time, a few members of Team Fremont will pick 2-3 games that they feel really stood out of the crowd, for better or for worse. These games weren't always successful, but they at least pushed their genre, or in some cases, the entire industry into a different direction.

If you have any suggestions for games to be included in future editions of Against the Grain, feel free to submit them by writing us: mailbag@gamingworldx.com

Animal Crossing
Nintendo GameCube
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Like Will Wright’s The Sims, Animal Crossing lacks a clear point. Luckily, that’s one of the game’s best attributes. A true role-playing game in every sense of the word, Animal Crossing is a game that allows the player to play however they like. Whether it’s designing patterns, furnishing your house, or collecting gyroids, Animal Crossing proves that you don’t need to have one clear objective for a game to be fun. In fact, if nothing else, the game teaches you that linearity is grossly overrated.

What makes Animal Crossing so unique is that the game reacts to you and how you play. The denizens of your town know your birthday, and they’ll bring you gifts. They celebrate the holidays, holding events in the town square. And when a passerby strolls into town, you’ll hear about it. Design a pattern, and you may just discover that an animal in your town took a liking to it, and now sports it on their shirt. And you can even take this fun to other towns (towns on other memory cards). You can shop at those towns, write messages on their bulletin boards, and change the village tune. And when you leave, the impression you made will stay with that town. Animals will even recall your visit to other players after you’re long gone.

Animal Crossing plays without you being there too. The game runs in real time, so you can’t go shopping at the local store if it’s closed. Furthermore, there are fish that can only be caught at certain times of the day, or insects that can only be collected during certain seasons. You’ll witness the sunrises and sunsets, summers and winters and animals will change clothes and accessories whether you’re there or not. Holidays will come and go, and when you finally come back to the game, the animal citizens know how long you’ve been gone.

Rarely has there been a game that succeeded in making the player a part of its world. There are hundreds of items to collect and furnish your home with, and you can arrange everything however you wish. Animal Crossing is also one of the few games that support innovative and fun uses of GameBoy Advance connectivity and the underused e-Reader. Don’t let the under-ambitious, cartoony graphics fool you. Animal Crossing is Nintendo’s creativity at its very best.
-Brendon

Lifeline
PlayStation 2
Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment
Publisher: Konami

At first glance, Lifeline doesn’t appear to be all that special. A young woman is trapped in a hotel filled with strange monsters. Sounds like a mediocre Resident Evil clone, doesn’t it? Well, it pretty much is. Players will solve RE-style puzzles with RE-style camera angles between bouts of combat. Even the campy storyline, while fairly interesting, certainly has some RE elements to it. So, why is a game so horribly derivative in our Against the Grain feature? One little catch: you’ll hardly touch your controller while you play.

Grab yourself a headset, because you’ll be commanding your on-screen companion with vocal commands. After you accidentally lock yourself up in the security room (never mind how), an attractive blond is your only link to the outside world. There have been other voice-recognition based games, some of which we’ll likely feature in further installments of Against the Grain, but Sony’s Lifeline took the technology in a completely new direction. Everything from combat to puzzle solving is controlled by your voice. “Open the briefcase”, “Look at the CD”, “Look at the jellybeans.” You know, all standard things you’d say to a woman in a crisis situation.

The number of things she understands is pretty incredible, and the developers even had a good sense of humor about some of the more unusual things a young man might say to her. Throughout the course of the adventure, she’ll make a bit of conversation with you, and although she does most of the talking, you’ll undoubtedly start to feel some kind of bond with her. When the technology is working well, it feels eerily like talking to an actual person. Unfortunately, Lifeline’s biggest strength is also the biggest strike against it. Sometimes the voice recognition will be perfect, picking up complex sentences with no trouble. Other times, often in critical combat situations, it will have trouble with basic phrases.

While certainly not a AAA title, Lifeline tried something new and that earns big points here at Team Fremont. The technology driving Lifeline provides some unique and enjoyable gameplay when it’s working well; it’s just a shame it isn’t as reliable as it needs to be. The game didn’t receive critical or retail success, but it proved there are other uses for voice recognition beyond just talking to wise-ass manfish.
-Joe

Rez
PlayStation 2/Dreamcast
Developer: United Game Artists
Publisher: Sega

Shooter? Music game? Experience. Some games can only be best described as an “experience”, for better or worse. Yes, Rez is a shooter. But it’s a shooter that places almost as much importance on the interaction with the soundtrack as it does with blasting bad guys. It’s a game where the visuals, the gameplay, the vibration of the controller, and the sound are all integrated into one purely satisfying experience.

UGA’s Rez was initially released overseas on the Dreamcast, but wasn’t brought to the States until early 2002 on the PS2. Despite enthusiastic reviews, a poor pricing choice of $50 led to lukewarm sales as the game didn’t exactly fly off the shelves. Had the game been released today, in a time when “obscure” titles like Katamari Damacy and Chulip are being released at $20 and under with great results, the game would have fared much better in the retail world.

But what gamers missed out on is a shooter that plays like no other. Similar to Sega’s Panzer Dragoon series, Rez is a “rails” shooter, meaning your character is on a relatively fixed path and only uses the control stick to aim and perform simple movements. You fly through a computer network, shooting down what are apparently viruses and other naughty electro-enemies. However, you are able to interact with the music with your lock-on weapon as it makes one sound when locked and another when released, resulting in different musical interactions.

Further plunging you into its atmosphere are the stunning visuals, which are unlike any game before or after it; unless of course you travel back to the Vectrex, which is the game’s nearest comparison. However, the game bleeds a trance and techno environment that still manages to be lush and organic at the same time. Rez plays like a fantastic lazer light show that you see with your eyes and feel pulsing in your controller, and what made it so unique is that you’re able to participate in the show by locking onto a group of enemies and then watching a fireworks display of light and a musical explosion occur when they are destroyed.

Rumors persist of a Rez sequel with the game’s creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi even adding to the speculation. Now that he’s the head of Q Entertainment, and churning out handheld oddities like Lumines and Meteos, perhaps we’ll get that new Rez game afterall. In the meantime, track this one down by any means necessary.
-John
Article By: Team Fremont