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Review: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
by Jolex Del Pilar
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Does the game adaptation of the oscar winning movie succeed or sink? Find out in our full review.
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Title:
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
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Platform:
PS2 |
Publisher:
Ubi Soft
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Developer:
Genki
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#
of Players: 1 (2 if special mode unlocked)
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Genre:
Action Adventure
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Origin:
Japan
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Expected
Release: October 9th, 2003
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Grapevine:
"It's hard to believe that the same company responsible for Super Magnetic Neo, and Virtua Fighter 3tb is responsible for this clunker." |
When Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was released in late 2000, it was universally lauded as a seamless blend of action, romance, and social commentary. Its star cast consisting of Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh, and new comer, Zhang Ziyi put on a tremendous acting effort that ultimately captured American audiences despite the actors speaking not one single word of English during the entire film.
With an impact like that, it was almost a given that a game adaptation would follow.
In the game industry, there's a quasi-standard expectation that game adaptations of movies will usually under perform. THQ's Home Alone holds the industry distinction of being the worst movie-to-game title ever released, although most aren't usually as bad. In fact, this year has seen the releases of a few decent games based on movies. EA's Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Shiny's Enter The Matrix were both solid titles with enticing gameplay, and did a lot to higher the expectations of movie-to-game titles. That's why it's unfortunate that Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon's recent release does nothing of the sort.
We first saw this game at E3 2002. I previewed this game with Ubi Soft staff on the floor, and although I didn't say it at the time, I was disappointed by the controls, and screwy camera. Fortunately I was saved when I got to preview XIII, Ubi Soft's upcoming cel-shaded shooter, a few minutes later. Of course, I was under the impression that most of these little quirks would be corrected when the game was eventually released. In the one and a half years since E3 2002, it seems nothing has been improved in terms of the game's overall playability or mechanics.
Before I go into what makes this game so difficult to play, there are a few redeeming parts to this title. The visuals in the game are fairly good, though not outstanding, and the game's soundtrack is taken directly from the films. In some stages, if you can wrestle with the camera, it almost suspends disbelief, and you get a respectable cinematic/gaming experience. The featuring of film clips in between stages is also a plus, although one would suspect purchasers of this game would have seen the movie more than one time.
However, it's nothing aesthetic that makes this game all that bad, it's the underlying gameplay experience and mechanics that make this game difficult to play and enjoy. Perhaps most annoying is the complete lack of a decent camera system. For almost a decade, the industry has been making 3D games, and for that time, developers have been gaining experience in creating decent camera systems for their titles. With that in mind, it's confusing as to why Genki was unable to come up with an appropriate camera system, or at least one that isn't literally headache inducing. At times during the game, you'll be asked to fight up to four different enemies at a time. The camera will either show you the view from directly behind you, of course obscuring any enemies sneaking up from behind, or you can zoom out a bit, and enjoy the combat view from 30 meters in the air. I found the latter provided the best view personally, although I use "best" leisurely here, as the camera is no where near as immaculate as the system used in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the Gamecube, or Mario 64 for the N64. To add insult to injury, in some places the game will simply not allow you to change the camera view, instead opting to let the camera sit at eye level, pointing directly at your character's face, against a wall. Suffice to say, I took some hellacious beatings by common spear men due to the camera not giving me a view where I could effectively combat enemy NPCs.
One might surmise that Jen is trying to run away, and disassociate herself from this title in anyway possible.
If the game's camera problems weren't enough, the horrid level design, and gameplay mechanics ate up what was left of my patience for this game. The fighting itself is okay once you get a feel for the system. You can block special combos with special "combo" blocking which actually looks decent, as your character dodges, and jumps over seemingly hard to miss spear or sword strikes. However, the game could have benefited from a targeting system of some sort. With up to 4 enemies on screen at a time, it gets difficult to adjust the path of your character so that you're able to connect with strikes on your enemy. I often found myself blindly throwing strikes, and combos into a crowd of enemies hoping for a hit. Many games feature targeting systems with the use of trigger buttons, why not this game? Additionally, the level design in this game is lacking in many respects. I thought the industry had learned the important lesson that complex jumping puzzles are best left for platforming games, not action/adventure games. Apparently though, Genki has not learned this lesson and decided to implement ridiculous, game ending, jumping puzzles into numerous levels in the game. Two stages where this was especially infuriating was the stage where Jen chases Lo through the desert, and when Jen chases Li Mu Bai through the bamboo forest. The latter is especially infuriating as you must "jump" onto the bamboo trees with almost robotic perfection or you will not run up the trees (like in the movie) and instead jump through the trees. Most of the trees are placed against the edge of a cliff, and one bad jump, and your game ends right there. I don't even remember there being cliffs in the bamboo forest in the movie. The stage is just an obvious attempt to artificially increase the difficulty level of a game that lacks much in the depth department.
Suffice to say, the frustrations I had with this game were numerous. Part of this stems from the fact that I expected so much more from a game that seeks to represent such a fantastic movie, in the gaming world. I'm willing to give most games the benefit of the doubt, and our scoring system even features an under the table "tilt" system which we use to modify final scores incase our scoring equation provides a score that is either too low or high. This is one of the few times I can remember that I used the tilt option to actually lower a games score. The infuriating gameplay coupled with one of the worst camera systems seen in a video game in a long time, make Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon a visually appealing title, without much in the way of basic fundamentals that make a game enjoyable or even respectably playable. In this case, the emperor truly has no clothes.
--- Jolex Del Pilar
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