Over the weekend (in two separate sessions) I played through Resident Evil 5 in local co-op, from beginning to end. Building on my great satisfaction with RE4 Wii, I still plan on picking up a copy of this for myself at some point, but I am now substantially less anxious to do so.

Most of the basic mechanics of RE5 are similar to RE4's - similar enough that it's difficult to find anything new to appreciate. The biggest changes of note are the inventory system (now everything takes up a single slot, although you are eternally limited to 9 slots), and, obviously, your partner. I've heard tell that the AI partner can perform rather poorly, but I've never played with it so I can't really say one way or the other on this.

So the mechanics are the same; but the content is pretty different. RE4 starts out slow, but methodical, and develops gradually from a suspenseful thriller into an engaging action game. RE5 rushes out of the gate pulling no punches, and is overall about half the length of its predecessor. Filled with schlocky dialog and Michael Bay-caliber explosions, this game feels much more Hollywood than RE4. And yes, much of it does come off as cheap and tacky.

In general though, it is a good game. This is despite a number of gameplay sequences that are of seriously questionable design - I speak in particular of two enemy encounters that present you with a powerful foe, but in fact expect you to survive for some measure of time, rather than actually attempt to fight. One is near the beginning of the game, when you have yet to really understand what it wants from you. One is near the end of the game, when you are quite certain that your fighting ability should meirt more than running and hiding. (Incidentally, the ending sequence is entirely too long, and words fail to describe how relieved my partner and I were when it was finally over.)

But as I said: in general, it is good. Not as good as RE4. Definitely not. While the addition of co-op makes for a fun multiplayer experience, it brings with it a certain shallowness - in item management, in cinematic quality, in the overall game length - that really detract from the single-player game. Though Resident Evil 4 brought the franchise tantamount to single-player adventure perfection, Resident Evil 5 has managed to stray somewhat farther from this position.

Progress: Finished normal in co-op

Overkill has more than a bit of charm in its grindhouse aesthetic and notorious profanity. Where other light-gun shooters are simply too stupid to take seriously, this one actually makes its ludicrous premise fun and entertaining. On the other hand, it is still just a light-gun shooter; don't let the home console setting fool you: it's just as long (which is to say, short) as an arcade House of the Dead. Other than the - fairly limited - weapon upgrading options, there really isn't much here at all. Fun in a party setting, but still doesn't seem worth the investment.

Progress: Finished normal in co-op

Eh - I've lost interest.

Progress: Gave Up

Progress: Gave Up -- Level 80

Holy fuck! They actually did it!

I made a motorcycle. And it only cost like 15,000 gold! Man, I am getting tired of this game again.

The new patch introduced another high-end raid, Ulduar, which has robots (!!) so I hope to visit it at some point. Other than that, the well has definitely run dry. Another new addition is an Argent arena where you can earn items and shit based on tokens, that you get from daily quests, so it literally will take X days to get Y reward. This is clearly Lich King's ultimate timesink, like the Nether drakes in Burning Crusade, and I really don't want anything to do with it.

Progress: Level 80

As the story proceeds out of the Los Santos area, the gang war system goes into hiding, giving way to more traditional run-around GTA missions. Problem is that this game world is huge, and missions have a depressing tendency to order you across the map and back again on a whim. If San Andreas were any other GTA, this would simply be annoying - but in SA, a lot of the ground you have to cover isn't cityscape, but fields and farmland. It's boring.

So this is why I've been making extremely slow progress in San Andreas. To a degree, I think this game may be too big for its own good. But given that I still haven't visited the game's Vegas-spoof city, I do intend to soldier on.

Progress: San Fierro

And I'm done, in just under six hours. The story "picks up" in the latter half of the game, in the sense that there are more cutscenes and exposition - but I really wish it hadn't, as it becomes trite, fanservicey "Oh look it's stuff you know from Star Wars!" garbage. The game's big revelation could have been at least good, if only the writing and direction weren't terrible, but it still suffers from one of the same flaws as the prequel trilogy: instead of writing new, legitimately interesting stuff, all it really does is lazily tie together existing endpoints in the established franchise. Which is a shame, because several ideas brought up in the game (Starkiller's conflict, General Kota's character, a droid scrap planet, Cloud City pre-Lando) could actually be pretty cool if properly utilized.

Anyway. The final mission is a little harder than it probably should be, but the combat stays fun all throughout, even for particularly irritating enemies (who fly, or throw thermal detonators, or are AT-STs, etc). I will say that no previous Wii game has made me this frustrated with occasional motion-control insensitivity. But by and large, it works well enough. The level design is pretty tired - environments are heavily recycled, and in fact one particular level is re-used for three different missions. As much as this bothered me during cutscenes though, while I was actually playing the game, I was paying too much attention to the enemies to bother caring about the levels very much.

Unlike many modern beat-em-up style games (and, as far as I've heard, unlike the Xbox 360/PS3 versions of Force Unleashed) this game actually challenges you to use more than just a basic one-two punch to defeat your enemies. Granted, there were some complicated combos that I still hadn't used by the end of the game, but I feel like I got great mileage from creative sequences of Force pushes, Force lightning, lightsaber throws, and so on. Executing Stormtroopers through liberal usage of these powers really made me feel like I was, if you'll forgive me, unleashing the Force.

Replay value: your customization options are as shallow - very - as the characters, and though the game has two endings, which one you get is decided entirely by a completely obvious choice in the final boss battle (incidentally, while the "bad" ending is terrible, the "good" ending is actually pretty bad too). After beating the game you can play through it again with your current stats and Force points, although why you would care to do this is an open question. You can also collect more Jedi Holocrons, which unlock concept art you can view in the pre-mission menu... but again, I have trouble caring about this.

Ultimately, Force Unleashed (the Wii version at least) falls short in virtually every area except controls/gameplay. Which is good, since it is a video game after all, but even this victory is sullied somewhat by the game's incredible shortness. Anyway, pretty good for a Star Wars game.

Progress: Complete

After just over two hours of gameplay, I'm apparently a third of the way through the game. Huh.

I've (mostly) gotten over the terrible graphics, and I can get used to the fact that Darth Vader is being voiced by anyone other than James Earl Jones (even though it is complete blasphemy). Now what bothers me most about Force Unleashed is the exposition, or rather, lack thereof.

The story starts out interesting enough, and promises a look at a new and surprising piece of the puzzle in the Galactic Empire's rise to power. But, at least so far, just about everything I know about the story is by inference. Cutscenes are infrequent and short. There's barely any dialog. The lines that are here are short enough that the "subtler" points they try to make come across as hamfisted and lame. I'm no fan of games that drone on and on, but I feel like there's a great story in Force Unleashed that just isn't being told.

At least the gameplay is still fun. Enemies are actually a challenge, a bit confusing given I have a laser sword but making for some genuinely exciting combat. The Force Power upgrade system isn't very deep, and in fact I have no idea what the investment of my upgrade points is really doing, but I'm assuming that my more powerful ... powers, will flesh out more over time.

Progress: Vader's Flagship

I tried the Xbox 360 demo of Force Unleashed not long ago, and while it looked like Star Wars, and sounded like Star Wars, it didn't really feel like Star Wars. It felt like a generic beat-em-up, plus telekinesis. So now that I've started playing the Wii version of the game, I'm grateful that it feels ... well, more like Star Wars. It's a shame that the game looks terrible, but, what can you do.

Confession: I actually bought this game months ago, off Amazon for a song (still lower than the current MSRP). But I didn't even boot up the disc until tonight. The first thing I did was go through all the built-in tutorial sessions, and it's a good thing I did, because some of the gesture-based controls definitely need to be tried rather than explained. And some of them just don't work well at all (luckily the particular motion of lightsaber swinging isn't terribly important). This was really the first moment I've started to appreciate the idea of Wii MotionPlus.

As I said, the game looks atrocious. I might be a bit biased because most of the recent games I've played were on the 360 - but I'm pretty sure even Wii games can look better than this. Nevertheless, I have to give my hats off to Krome for getting the important stuff right: within the limitations of the Wii's accelerometer setup, the controls don't just work, they're also fun. Hold the triggers and lunge both controllers down to send out a force shockwave. Thrust the Nunchuk to do a forward Force push. Or flick it; the nice thing about most of the motion controls is how forgiving they are.

I am still upset that I can't slice dudes' arms off with my lightsaber. And some parts of the game, like the graphics and the quick-time events (which simply require moving the controllers - in any direction), do feel fairly unpolished. But beside all that, it's pretty fun. Swinging my remote around like an idiot, I actually feel like I'm playing a Star Wars game. Cool.

Progress: Trial of Skill