Mace Griffin...the early opinions are in...damn... (1 Viewer)

[Derrik Draven]

Well, here's what IGN is saying. I'm probably gonna pick it up just because I want to try this one for myself. But, if this guy's right...damn. :frowning:

Mace Griffin

 

[Jeff Peake]

It sounds pretty crappy.

The best line from the IGN review:

Your 50 bones would be better served buying a few porn DVDs, finally making that student loan payment, or buying an extra copy of Halo so you can have one still in the wrapper.

I probably wont even be renting this one.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

IGN's Reviews Stink , they are Biased against Xbox Pure and Simple. Their Soldier of Fortune Review is Laughable.

 

[Jason Hennigan]

I don't think that this is much of a surprise.

Mace Griffin looked like just another crappy game, and apparantly it is.

It kinda sucks that the game isn't good, but that's just one less game to buy.

 

[Ray Warner]

It's getting to the point where you can smell a bad game a mile away. Stuff to look for:

The words "Extreme" in the title. Worse, "Xtreme!"
Characters named after weapons.
Characters who's names are purposely misspelled ("Rayne")
Games made by Acclaim.
Games made by EA that aren't sports titles.
Games who's title implies violence of some kind.
Console games that have PC game titles ("Azurik: Rise of Perathia")
Console game titles that elaborate for no reason. (see above)

There are a good number of exceptions, but those are all warning flags. Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter already had 3 strikes against it.

 

[Larry Talbot]

Although I will still check this title out, just the fact that they hired Henry Rollins to do voice work for it is a big minus in my opinion, as I can't stand Rollins.

 

[Chris Rock]

IGN's Reviews Stink , they are Biased against Xbox Pure and Simple. Their Soldier of Fortune Review is Laughable.

Well, I agree that they don't always give an XBox game a fair shake, they sure seemed to like Midtown Madness 3.

Anyway, on the topic of Mace Griffin - it's too bad that this isn't as good as the previews made it look, but I'll probably pick it up this fall once it's cheaper.

 

[Derrik Draven]

Well, I have the game in my truck, waiting to be played when I get off work.

I'll post some early impressions later tonight...fingers crossed.

 

[Dave F]

Hiring a big name for voiceovers is also usually a good tipoff that a game will suck.

-Dave

 

[Scott "E"]

Hiring a big name for voiceovers is also usually a good tipoff that a game will suck.

Yup, look no further than Splinter Cell and GTA: VC

 

[Dave F]

Lol - The exception proves the rule!

-Dave

 

[Ray Warner]

Nah, I disagree! Big names usually mean GOOD things. Even shitty games can be spiced up by decent voice acting (See anything with Bruce Cambell in it.)

With big names behind the mike, at least you know you're not getting Sega's janitorial staff instead.

 

[Derrik Draven]

Well, the voice acting in the game isn't anything to write home about. It's not Resident Evil horrible but, it's not Halo either. It's entirely tolerable but not memorable.

Besides, I really don't consider Mr. Rollins as a serious voice/acting talent anyhoo.

That said, I've played through the 1st 2 levels and I'm currently in the 3rd. Can't give a real in-depth review since I've seen so little but, I'll say what I can.

Graphically, it's a pretty nice game. Personally I'd have to say it's prettier than Time Splitters 2, in the ballpark of RTCW, but below; ( here it comes) Halo.

The bump mapping is pretty sweet in the sense that it doesn't appear to be smacked on everywhere simply because the Xbox can do it. There seems to be a reserved artistic application of it where it deems suitable, and it's done well. Every texture, so far, has a nice realistic bump map to it.

The character models are well animated and they aren't low on the poly count either. They move and turn smoothly and they don't have that nasty "4 sided" effect that you find in Morrowind. Play it, you'll know what I mean. The death animations don't seem to be very varied. Still, I've only seen a few enemies so, take that with a grain of salt. But, they do go down in pain with some decent audio, ie moans and groans. Nice, in a sadistic way.

The AI ranges from good to stooopid. Some characters; say around a corner, will actually hear you if you move too loudly, and will come to check it out. Nice. Others, you can walk right up to and blast 'em in the face. I don't know if this is some sort of design of the game. You know, smart enemies and dumb ones? Still, I've noticed that if I'm slow on the trigger pull, the ones that stand there will eventually pull out "da heater" and start blasting at you.

The weapons that I've used to this point are very nicely animated, detailed, and show off some good ambient lighting effects. The reloads are all done VERY well. Well...for what weapons I've seen so far. I really can't talk about how well they are balanced out with the other weapons since I'm too new to the game. I hate when you get a weapon that is so awesome you have no need of any other. Kind of like the assault rifle, with dual calibers, in Red Faction II. Haven't run into that YET in Mace.

In the audio dept., I haven't really heard anything that makes me stand up and take notice but, on the other hand, nothing is grating on the nerves either. The ambient sounds are decent and, when the time is right ie, you're about to get whacked, the tempo of the music picks up to appropriate levels. Sometimes that's a bad thing. I'm sure you guys have experienced games where YOU KNOW something bad is going to happen, or there are enemies about to nail you, simply because the music picked up. Mace is guilty of this as well.

Speaking of Mace and audio, a nice little touch is the fact that the designers took the time to put the extra little detail in where the sound of his footsteps are changed by the substrate he's walking on. Also nice is the differences in sound you hear when Mace is slowly walking or all out running. When he runs, you can slightly make out a sort of jingling sound, not unlike your buddies in Halo, that sounds like he has equipment on his body. Kinda cool.

Level design. Like I said, I'm only on level 3 so, this is a VERY limited viewpoint on the level design. The 1st level wasn't anything out of the ordinary. The 2nd was the 1st one you actually pilot your ship into and the main "meat" of the level was a large spaceship. It was intelligently laid out as an experienced level designer would make. The 3rd level, so far, has been pretty damn cool. It's a base, set inside an asteroid in an asteroid belt and, the level seems to be massive.

Before I landed, I flew around it just to check it out. There was a small, red dome on the surface of the 'roid that looked sort of out of place. Whatever, I thought. After flying into the hangar bay, making my way into the base, I came to a very large canyon and what looked like a red sky. I thought that was some seriously stupid design. How the hell could there be a red sky on an asteroid with no friggin atmosphere!??! Well, I looked closer and I could make out that it was, in fact, that "small" red dome. It was so large, in fact, that it covered the whole canyon area and, was so high up there that I couldn't really make out what it was at first.

That's how large this level is and, I still haven't dug into it much. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come. There's a section on the "making of" disc where the developers talk about how shitty it is that games are becoming so short, taking only a few hours to finish. They specifically said that Mace is about 10 times longer than a typical 6 hour game.

YES! I'm tired of shorties.

I guess last, but not least, would be to address the "seamless integration of spaceflight and fps exploration" that they hype for this game. Even in the "making of", one of the designers states that it's not just a gimmick but is part of the game.

Ummm....not yet. Still, it doesn't really hit you at first but, thinking about it...they way you seamlessly can let go of the ships controls, turn around, walk out the door and step into the hangar, all while in total control, it really does help to keep you "in the game", instead of breaking it up with some sort of typical cut scene.

I'd say it's not really key to the gameplay as much as it is to the immersiveness to keeping you in the gameplay.

Oh yeah, the space fighting. Oops, almost forgot.

Anyhoo, if you've played any of the Wing Commander games, you'd wish you were playing a Wing Commander game instead. The space fighting isn't bad but, there really isn't anything memorable about it. It's just pure arcade, "get in you cross hairs and shoot", space fighting fare. Slow down, speed up, twist, turn, shoot. For me, the coolest part of the space fighting is when it's over and you can just fly around freely.

Still, it's really too damn early to give an in depth review. This is a "part of the 3rd level completed" review. I think there's 13 levels. So, you get the picture.

Mace is definitely a renter, at the very least. If you really like sci-fi and fps's, you can do a lot worse.

 

[KevinRB]

Thanks for the interesting write up.

 

[Larry Talbot]

Yes, very nice write up, very detailed.

 

[Sam Posten]

Get the Xbox Demo on this months OXM.... Havent gotten to that one yet myself

Sam

 

[Brian Kidd]

I played the demo and must say that I wasn't impressed. The space combat was underdesigned and the fps section's controls were way sluggish with low accuracy. Too bad. I enjoy this type of game normally.

 

[Derrik Draven]

Dean, you're going to find that this is one VERY long game.

Some of the levels are massive...which is a damn nice change from the lame ass ones lately, that you can finish in under 10 hours.

...not even worth buying, imho.

 

[Derrik Draven]

Naw man, the lame short ones are the ones not worth buying!

I enjoyed Mace quite a bit and I hope that Warthog makes enough $$$ to make a sequel. If they do, it needs to allow you to fly around, ala Wing Commander, from waypoint to waypoint, on your way to your final destination instead of just dumping you into the immediate area. Personally, that would make the space fighting feel a little less "tacked on". It would be cool if you could choose to blast your enemies into oblivion, OR...board their ship and take 'em on face to face.

There's alot of unused ideas in Mace and I think areas for them to make some serious improvements for the future.