05 April 2015

Howdy howdy howdy!  It’s that time of the week, so its yet another blogisode of GR2 Weekly!  In spite of yet another brutal work stretch (as most holiday weekends are), the show does indeed go on.  Holiday or no, the Geek World is as buzzing as it ever is.  Japan used blackface in a promotion for a Will Smith movie, owners of the original Nintendo 3DS will have to settle for getting a New 3DS if they want a copy of The Binding of Issac: Rebirth, we’re getting a Star Trek/Green Lantern crossover for some inexplicable reason, Naruto gets even more ridiculous and a bug in the smash hit game Bloodborne makes its boss fights so depressingly easy, even a little kid could probably beat them.  But on the upside, a group of paleontologists found a Human-like skull that dates over 3.67 million years old, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum pulled perhaps one of the greatest April Fools jokes, a casting decision for the upcoming TMNT movie is actually getting me of all people to consider seeing the movie, the Deadpool movie IS getting an “R” rating and we do get a hilarious crossover (of sorts) with Evangelion and New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Geek Rant of the Week

Since this will mark the 200^th post on my Tumblr page, I thought I’d try something a little different: a Game Review (of sorts).  And since this is the Rant portion of the blog entry, I’m going with a fairly recent title. This particular game, much like the television show Power Rangers Super Megaforce, was something designed to honor a franchise, only to end up a colossally disappointing mass of wasted potential.  The stinker in question?

Before I go more into the game, let me explain how I will attempt to rate the game.  I will do so on a scale of 1-10 (10 being good and 1 being bad) in the following areas: Gameplay, Visuals, Fun Factor and an Overall Score.  I also lack the tech to take screen caps of gameplay footage, so any pics will likely be taken off of my camera, but I’ll try to cut down on the glare.  Now on to the Review!

GAMEPLAY

The game itself takes place during a rare time of peace in the Digital World.  So peaceful, in fact, that the Digimon are getting quite bored and decide to hold a tournament in order to sharpen their battle and Digivolving skills.  But as you progress through the game’s Story Mode, you learn of the real reason for the tournament. While you only start with just a few of them when you first fire up the game, here’s the list of Digimon you can choose from, though not listed in the order shown on the image (the rest you unlock by playing through Story Mode a few times):

On second thought, I think I’ll just see what I can find on the internet image-wise from this point on.

1.) Agumon (Digimon Adventure)

2.) Dorulumon (Digimon Fusion)

3.) Shoutmon (Digimon Fusion)

4.) Gabumon (Digimon Adventure)

5.) Biyomon (Digimon Adventure)

6.) Tentomon (Digimon Adventure)

7.) Gomamon (Digimon Adventure)

8.) Gatomon (Digimon Adventure/02)

9.) Veemon (Digimon Adventure 02)

10.) Wormmon (Digimon Adventure 02)

11.) Guilmon (Digimon Tamers)

12.) Impmon (Digimon Tamers)

This brings me to my first major problem with the game.  HALF of the fighters are from the first series (Digimon Adventure, but yet ZERO representation for Tamers and Data Squad.  My second problem lies within the game’s controls.  They feel clunky at best and tend to be unresponsive at the worst possible times, which tends to make the final Story Mode stage (Lava Pit) one of the most insanely difficult stages in all of video gaming.  Just doing the first routhrough of the game (with Agumon) caused me to take a few weeks away from the game, it was that bad.  As I earlier mentioned, you can only unlock the majority of the Digimon by playing through the Story Mode a few times (I did it with Agumon, Shoutmon and Dorulumon).  You can also acquire DigiCards along the way (or buy some with the DigiBits you collect) that you can equip your Digimon with to alter the game in your favor.  But the effects are negligible, to say the least and tend to trigger in a random and often unreliable fashion.  Lastly in this area, when you do engage in the one-on-one fights (except for the final battle in Story Mode) the powerups you can use in the battle arenas take forever and a day to recharge and the Time Bomb battles just make no sense whatsoever.  3 out of 10.

VISUALS

Perhaps the one bright spot in this abysmal game, but even that has its flaws.

Image from Gamespot.com

The levels themselves look smooth and polished.  No glitchiness or rough patches, a true feast for one’s eyeballs.  But any references to past areas and towns in the Digimon franchise are ambiguously vague at best and perhaps the one most notable areas from the 1^st season, Toy Town, is only playable in the Versus and Training modes.  But as stunning as the Visuals are, there’s very little exploring to be done as most Story Mode levels are pretty much linear (with the King’s Castle stage the only stage close to being an exception).  Hard to immense yourself in the Digital World that way, bro.  7 out of 10.

FUN FACTOR

Any fun that does come from this came is purely from a Nostalgia standpoint.  While the uneven distribution of Digimon representation is a major letdown, it is nice seeing crowd favorites like Agumon and Shoutmon in the game.  But in spite of the nostalgia pop one can get from it, the pop fizzles out very quickly and becomes borderline depressing.  While you only have to go through Story Mode a few times to get unlock the characters, you have to clear it with every character to unlock their Ultimate forms.  Also, be prepared to grind through even more if you wanna earn enough DigiBits to buy the cards you don’t unlock in-game.  But with the ungodly high levels of difficulty the game presents at times, is it really worth it?  When I bought this game, I got it digitally through Playstation Store on a Flash Sale for $8, but even then, I still feel like I kinda got ripped off.  2 out of 10

OVERALL

Between the clunky controls, the obscene difficulty, the poor representation of Digimon characters, the lanky grind to unlock everything, this shell of a game is a huge disservice to Digimon fans everywhere and the people who made this game should feel ashamed of themselves.

3 out of 10.

Geek Rave of the Week

But for as much of a downer that the Digimon game is, here’s something from Geeks Are Sexy that will brighten up our spirits once more.  Not only did they just give us a 6^th Expansions couple weeks or so ago, they also recently released a 30-card “Science pack”!  The aforementioned booster packs cost $10 apiece and all profits from the sales of the Science Pack will benefit the Cards Against Humanity &SMBC Science Ambassador Scholarship, a scholarship designed to get more women involved in the Sciences.

This is what Cards Against Humanity stated in a press release:

“Everyone at Cards Against Humanity was fortunate enough to receive a great college education that helped us find a job that we’re passionate about, and our goal with this scholarship is to make that opportunity available to others,” said Cards Against Humanity community manager Jenn Bane. “Several of the co-creators of Cards Against Humanity earned degrees in science, whereas I got a degree in journalism. Now look at where I am. Writing this press release for them.”

 

Cards Against Humanity co-creator Josh Dillon, who will defend his thesis on astrophysics at MIT next month, said, “Women are underrepresented in science, tech, engineering, and math, and we felt like the funding from this pack could have the greatest impact by making it possible for more women to get an education in those fields, and by giving them a platform to share their work and their passion for science.”

 

Science Ambassador Scholarship board member Veronica Berns, PhD. said, “We desperately need diversity in science because the alternative makes no sense. So often girls are told in both overt and subtle ways that they aren’t able to be good at math and science. With this scholarship, I’m excited to get to tell a passionate girl out there, ‘Yes! What you are doing and dreaming is really great, and here’s some help to get you where you want to go.’”

 

Scholarship applications will be reviewed by a board of over forty women who hold higher degrees and work professionally in science, including representatives from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, the Smithsonian Institution, the Adler Planetarium, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as NSF, Huxley, and Hubble fellows.”

I, for one, would love nothing more than to see more and more women get involved in Science.  Because gawd knows, we need them badly.  I should be getting my pack soon (along with the 5^th and 6^th Expansions) here very soon. Yay.

Well, my fellow geeks and geekettes across the interwebs, that brings this blogiside of GR2 Weekly to a most satisfying end.  And as I tend to enjoy mentioning every chance I get, should you have any suggestions for what I should Rant and/or Rave about (please suggest away, I promise I won’t bite), feel free to follow me both on Tumblr and WordPress.  You are equally as encouraged to post much linkage on the official GR2 Weekly Facebook page and I just as strongly encourage you to like and comment on some of the links I post.  I enjoy interacting with you all.  See you next week!  While you’re still here, though, be sure to check out and Vote Up Lemme Addams everybody.  Sonny Strait will be a happy person.  😛