Blinx Review

[Mr. Angry Pants]

Failed to read that whole paragraph where I atleast tried to back my opinion up, did we?

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Well, I thought that J&D was actually a pretty good game. Most people around here know that I'm not a big PS2 fan, but I thought that J&D was something I might have purchased if I owned a PS2. Sony did a decent job of that one, but I'll agree it was mostly from a technical perspective.

My favorite first party published games:

Sony PS2 games - ICO, J&D, and GT3 followed distantly by TMB.

MS Xbox games - Halo, PGR, Amped, Oddworld, and RSC.

Nintendo GCN games - Eternal Darkness, Starfox Adventures, Super Mario Sunshine.

 

[marconelly!]

I thought J&D was a good and enjoyable game. It also got very good reviews everywhere (90% at gamerankings), and it sold ~1 million copies worldwide. I'm just saying, if you didn't liked the game, that's not a reason to consider it a failure.

 

[Mr. Angry Pants]

Oh, I enjoyed playing it. I admit that 'crap' is a bit harsh. But it's also a perfect example of the media hype machine at work.

-It pushes some nice geomotry, but the textures are muddy even by PS2 standards.

-Gameplay is Crash Bandicoot on a larger scale.

-Story and design are one big cliche.

In my opinion it's a second tier platformer with first tier production values and hype. A perfect example of a game that *gasp* doesn't deserve the praise and sales it recieved.

Edit: In my opinion.

 

[iscariot]

not to beat the horse but

http://www.gaming-age.com/cgi-bin/reviews/review.pl?sys=xbox&game=blinx

 

[wazoo]

In my opinion it's a second tier platformer with first tier production values and hype. A perfect example of a game that *gasp* doesn't deserve the praise and sales it recieved.

Edit: In my opinion.

I mostly agree with this.

My biggest regret was not with the gameplay, I knew what to expect, but this "no loading/one world" idea is very badly executed. All levels have one entry and one exit, and there was no necessity to make it appear that you can go from one to another because it is not true.

maybe RC will do it better.

 

[marconelly!]

All levels have one entry and one exit

Actually, some levels, (I remember the first one), had much more connecting branches to the 'central hub'.

and there was no necessity to make it appear that you can go from one to another because it is not true.

Not sure what do you mean by this?

Anyways, I thought that the no loading thing was a breath of fresh air, even thought it was obvious that the levels are clearly separated.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

This review is dead-on:

http://www.avault.com/consoles/reviews/xbox/review_temp.asp?game=blinx

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Also, PLAY magazine gave Blinx 5 out of 5 stars.

 

[marconelly!]

David Halverson is a big fan of platforming games. I'm not surprised he liked Blinx. So far however, it seems like Blinx is getting the worst reviews overal of the 'big three' new platformers. SMS and Sly Cooper both fare much better.

 

[iscariot]

Gamespot reviewed Toe jam and earlIII. Sega stil has that magic touch!

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters/products/0,11114,516673,00.html


8)

 

[zurich]

I didn't really care about this one, since the genesis games were just too out-there for me, but still,



zurich

 

[marconelly!]

IGN also reviewed TJ&E3. it got something like 6.3

 

[Fafalada]

but the textures are muddy even by PS2 standards.

If you were talking about Ratchet&Clank, I'd be compelled to agree, but J&D... their texture work is handdrawn so the style isn't going to be about pointilistically detailed metallic rust, but it's still pretty damn well done IMO, and could easily stand high on any platform when the game came out, not just PS2.

 

[marconelly!]

It's true about J&D. If you zoom into first person view and look close up to any texture, they all look pretty high res, atually.

 

[Guest]

Bah, J&D has over rated gfx.

The textures do look muddy and limited in variety. When you move around, you acn see the screen tearing and the worst part is, it has that darkened filtered, lowres PS2 look to the whole game.

Just play Gungrave or Onimusha 2 first and then J&D, you will noticed that difference in picture quality.

Heck, Bouncer/FFX/KH/GTA3/Mark-of-Kri/ICO too, have that lowres, lowvibrancy, darkened look.

Must be the 4/8bit textures work.

 

[marconelly!]

When you move around, you acn see the screen tearing and the worst part is, it has that darkened filtered, lowres PS2 look to the whole game.

I think you have mixed some games here. There is no screen tearing in J&D, and it's one of the most color-vibrant games I've ever seen on any platform. At first I actually thought it's too colorful for it's own good.

Some of the games you've mentioned I don't have, but at least for Ico, I think it was pretty obvious that a dreemy, darkened look was a design decision.

Must be the 4/8bit textures work.

Just tell me what stops you from making 4 or 8 bit texture with vibrant colors? Have you ever seen what kind of pictures/textures can be made using 256 colors?

 

[Fafalada]

Just play Gungrave or Onimusha 2

Logic need not apply here Marc... Just consider the above statement...

 

[marconelly!]

Yeah, the Gungrave comment was pretty weird, considering all that I've heard about the game's graphics, but I haven't seen it myself so I don't know :\

 

[Guest]

faf, marc,

have you guys actually played Gungrave?
If you did, you should realise how sharp and vibrant the game looks.
Sure there are a few blurry textures here and there, but the overall game is one of the sharpest i have seen on a PS2.