Get to da choppa

Something is seriously wrong with a game's design if the downloadable extra chapter starring two minor characters, and taking place outside of the main narrative can be more entertaining than the game it's attached to. Desperate Escape is stupid fun! I couldn't play Resident Evil 5 up to the point in the story where this episode picks up, but that didn't detract from the enjoyment one bit. The episode takes place in some sort of randomly industrial/military complex full of angry townsfolk. Why are there artillery stations in a factory? Why so you can blow open the huge metal gates that block your path. Don't ask stupid questions. Unlike the first, Lost In Nightmares, episode, here the player is given control of Jill right from the start, and can unlock the ability to play as Josh after completing the chapter, if one is into that sort of thing. You can tell this will be a very different experience from LIN almost immediately, since Jill starts out with a sub-machine gun instead of a pistol (Josh is still rolling old-school, and doesn't seem to realize that I also just handed him a god damned machine gun so he can keep these jerks off of me while I heal us), and enemies appear almost immediately. The only down side is that they are all the old types found throughout RE5. I was hoping the anchor dude would make a cameo, but I guess his slow movement wouldn't fit in with the fast action of DE. This is a very straightforward episode: Run, shoot, repeat. There biggest "puzzle" one will encounter is "which one of these chainsaw guys has that damn key so I can kill him first and run through the door?" The episode ends on the roof of the facility as Josh and Jill have to hold off the horde's onslaught while waiting for some random guy in the chopper to fly his ass on over. We've seen all this before, but it doesn't make it any less cool. Desperate Escape is like watching Die Hard again fro the nth time. You know that guy is going to end up falling off of the building, but it' still fun to watch.

On a much sadder note, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is the worst game I have ever played. It manages to achieve what I assumed was impossible, and that is to fail to deliver the fun of Street Fighter II while being Street Fighter II. Not even the Revival game on GameBoy Advance managed that. (That one was in fact quite fun.) First, and most egregiously, the game offers no way to turn off the "HD Remix" graphics, despite claiming so on the official website. The only graphical option present is the ability to toggle the character sprite art between the HD art, and hideously filtered original sprites. The backdrops will always remain the vapid and soulless "Flash" art. This actually manages to look worse then the default "reinterpretations" of the classic character designs. Another hugely important aspect of Street Fighter is its music. This one gets similarly mangled by defaulting to nonsensical remixes of the original themes. With similar disregard, the original music tracks are available, but have been distorted for some reason, and in fact are completely useless at rekindling any sort of nostalgia. Perhaps this is the game's biggest failing. It was put together by people who had no personal attachment to the original CPS1/2 arcade versions. After all the wrongs that have been committed, one would expect the gameplay of a timeless classic to shine through and attribute some level of dignity to this wreck of a game. Sadly, this too is not the case. The redrawn sprites are posed in a similar manner as the original frames of animation, but differ just enough that the attacks don't hit in the same way as they do in the original. On top of which, certain "adjustments" were made to the characters movesets. As soon as Chun-Li did her Spinning Bird Kick in mid air, it was time to turn this shit off. In the end, Backbone entertainment have fallen into the same trap as Incredible Technologies, who, while making the game based off of the live action movie, let themselves to be misled* into thinking that they were in fact creating the next true Street Fighter experience. This version is an insult, not a celebration, to everything that made Street Fighter II great. I paid half the asking price, which itself was under the $20 cut-off for feeling ripped off, and I want my money back.

Just to confirm my findings, I dusted off the old Dreamcast and loaded up some Super Street Fighter II X For Matching Service. Yup, I wasn't imagining things. That game is still magic. My next goal in life is to get the 3DO version running.

*Page 4 of the linked PDF article.