ShenmueReleased in 2000Object of the Game: To find the man who killed your father.
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Vacation Pictures
Shenmue equals a lot of things. It also works in a way like Newton's third law (it better be the third or I am making an idiot of myself). For every action, there is an equal and oposite reaction. For the world of Shenmue this means for every good thing, there is a bad thing. Incredeble graphics, bad voice acting. The freedom to do almost anything, the power to walk into walls many times. Ryo Hazuki, Mark Kimberly. The story is also kind of weak. Dude kills father and takes this mirror, then leaves. As Ryo Hazuki, a young student living in Japan, you must wander around town asking about the man who killed your father while people tell you to go away. Thats right, half the people in the game tell you to go away while Ryo utters his trademark phrase, "I see..." The game is 3 disks long, although it doesen't feel like it. I finished the first disk in a day. The second in another day and then things got boring. People love this game. It must be the graphics because I got bored with the 3rd disk and the boring job that you get. Disk One: This is your first experience with the world of Shenmue: Chapter 1. I had lots of fun playing this. It was hard for me to stop. Asking people about things such as, have you seen a black car, do you know where sailors hang out, and do you know a guy named Charlie? This was the high point in the game even though all you do is wander around the city asking people questions. If they know it they will tell you to go somewhere else. If they don't know it then they will tell you to go ask someone else or some other nonsence. Lot of fun here until you start to wonder "Gee, this is really fun and all, but asking people can't be all there is to the game..." Disk Two: This disk is also a lot of fun like disk one was, but you start to realize that it is just more of the same. The only difference is that you can now explore the harbor area, and there is a little more to do than just ask people where to go. Light puzzle solving and a part where you sneak past guards at night with nothing but a flashlight is fun. But this disk feels even shorter than disk one. Whats going on... Disk Three: The disk that ruins everything. Getting a job sounds like fun at first, but you are soon to realize that it will feel like real work eventualy and that is not a good sign in a videogame, which are supposed to be fun remember? The only good thing about the job is that you get paid an awful lot for your work. That is, if you meet your quota every day. You also get to have a forklift race every day before work. This would be fun if forklifts were fast. Instead, it takes 3 slow aganozing laps around the harbor when it seems that every other forklift actualy goes fast. Also for a game that you can do "anything" in, you can never call in sick or skip work because you are atomaticaly taken there every day first thing in the morning. Not to say that the game is all bad. Remember that the first 2 disks were fun. But there is more to Shenmue than the adventure. Like any good RPG, small side quests and little distractions does a body good. You can raise a kitten back to health, or go to the arcade and play a round of darts or even the classic Hang On and Space Harrier. The battle system works like the Virtua Fighter games. You fight people, many times 2 or 3 at the same time, and you use your fighting skills to beat the crap outta them. Good if you know how to play Virtua Fighter. If you do then you will be kicking ass with ease. If you don't know Virtua Fighter then prepare to learn it. Although button mashers can get by the battles, that does not mean you should. A problem with this is there are hardly any battles at all. Next, there is the QTE. QTE stands for Quick Timer Events. Here is how it goes, you're watching a real time cutscene and all of a sudden you see the red A button flash on the screen. What do you do? You press A of course. But do it quickly or something bad will happen. For instance, take the very first QTE scene. You are walking down the road and pass by a few kids playing soccer. A boy kicks the ball a little too hard and is about to hit a little girl in the face. The A button starts flashing. If you are quick enough to press it in time, you see Ryo catch the ball just in time. If you press it too late, Ryo just stands there are the girl gets smashed in the face with a ball. This adds a little interactivity in the cutscenes, getting harder as more buttons that have to be pushed quicker come into play. The A, B, X, Y, as well as the 4 directional buttons have to be pressed. Last, we come to the use of money. You can go out to the vending machine and buy a soda or 2. Watch as he drinks in in 2 gulps. Marvel at the fact that he buys a bag of potato chips and never eats them. Stare in awe as you can never buy a hotdog or a jacket from the jacket shop. Yes, you can truly do anything in this game. The most fun thing to buy are little toys from those capsule machines everyone used to buy when they were 5. Well this guys 18 and he still buys them. But you can buy Sonic figures so its understandable. |
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