I know. I know. Shut the fuck up. I know. I know it was supposed to be Record of Agarest War, I know this is supposed to be posted on Wednesday, only I made that promise after reading the instruction manual prior to starting the game. Record of Agarest War is divided into not two generations with their own campaigns and side quests but FIVE. That review is sadly going to have to wait, which sucks because I was hoping to do Record of Agarest War Zero for my last 2011 title. But while I can?t do that, I can do this.
Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls is an amusing little TV show in which a former British spec op turned survival expert goes into harsh wildernesses and demonstrates survival techniques. Though it is educational to some level, I like Man vs. Wild because it?s honestly amusing to see just how far humans go to survive, including eating insects and drinking piss.
No seriously. In an episode in the Kimberly region of Australia Bear runs out of water and fails to find a new source of water. Since the humidity is 100% and he can?t count on his sweat to cool him, he needs to drink more. So to that end, he pisses into his canteen and starts drinking that. What a trooper!
Not to mention a masochist. But hey, without masochists, the world would be a far bleaker place indeed. But still, the idea of a Man vs. Wild game is an interesting one, right?
WRONG! If my NCIS review didn?t tip you off, TV tie in games are even lower quality than movie tie in games. I only risked trying this one out because I found it in a bargain bin. And yeah, I?ll say now. It?s low budget, it painfully shows, but unlike NCIS which seemed to be optimized for the PC or Wii, this one was a console game from the start and flows much better.
But let?s get into things. Man vs. Wild the game is kind of like Metal Gear Solid 3 where the survival elements simply add another layer of strategy to the standard gameplay. Only Man vs. Wild is a platformer as opposed to stealth action, and the only real strategy involved is to have your TV?s brightness turned up so you don?t get royally buttfucked during night time segments.
The game starts out with a tutorial at Bear?s base camp (And yes, he is legally called Bear) before moving onto a small variety of environments explored in the show, including an abandoned volcanic island, the dreadlands of the United States deep south, and lovely rocky mountains. The biggest problem with this being a low budget game that you?ll notice early on is that the physics and environment engine are a total joke. If this game had been built on Crytek?s Cry Engine it would have been so visually stunning almost any gripe could be dismissed simply so you could watch a sight seeing tour occasionally spiced up by forcing your character to drink piss from a snake carcass.
Now the big problem with the game besides a graphics engine that would have embarrassed PS2 era games and dodgy character sprites, low variety in wildlife you can interact with and imprecise movement controls is that it?s pretty repetitive all around. You navigate terrain, collect glowing orbs that mark your way, and you press X to not die. Then you press it again. And again. And then you have a timed QTE sequence where you have to press X at a specific point. And then you have a rapid mash QTE because you failed the timed QTE and a crocodile is trying to bite Bear?s foot off.
Almost every single aspect of the game that couldn?t be handled by context sensitive actions are handled by quick time events. Since they?re a core part of gameplay and you know to expect them, they?re not that demanding, though sometimes you really long for an opportunity to test your own skills by entering a precision combat mode kind of like how the game has you do fishing and try to bring down venomous insects, or at the very least make it so that predatory animals pose a threat. Even when I was encountering large animals like pumas or crocodiles I didn?t bother running away, I just let them charge at me, did the QTE sequence, and murdered the cuddly critters and ate them raw, though for what it?s worth the animations in the QTEs are entertaining. Or at least I think they were, when your eyes are focused on the commands it?s hard to be impressed by Bear leaping over a bear and running away.
?you?d think he?d be able to swing a can of mace or an air horn in areas where bears are likely to show up? and also, I probably liked the sequence where he snaps the neck of a nutria more than I should have. I don?t know why, but it always does my heart good seeing creatures that some people call cute being killed like the pests they are. DEATH TO BUNNIES! SNAP THEIR NECKS AND ROAST THOSE FUCKERS!!
Weirdly enough, the game also imports some Prince of Persia-esque parkour handled during a directional QTE, and I honestly have never watched the Sahara episode of Man vs. Wild, but does Bear really wall leap and wall run like the Prince of Persia? And why can I eat hermit crabs, worms, and millipedes raw but not scorpions and spiders?
To try and make the game a little more complex than simply platforming, Bear has a hydration meter, an energy meter, and a health meter. When Bear gets dehydrated, he loses energy. Also, when Bear fails a QTE that doesn?t result in instant death or fails a platforming section and plummets to his death, he sometimes teleports back to the starting position Zelda style with a chunk of energy missing. If his energy runs out, he begins losing health. If he loses health, the game says he?s ?Incapacitated,? a cute way of saying Bear is maggot chow. Restoring hydration demands drinking water, though weirdly eating coconuts and drinking the sterile coconut water doesn?t restore hydration. Bear only has one canteen and can only fill it up at running water sources or in water wells where the plants or rocks have been filtering the water. Otherwise, you get a snake skin when you kill snakes which you can pee into for a quick burst of hydration later. Weirdly, you can?t simply take the skin over to a water source and fill it with water, for some reason Bear insists on peeing into it. Maybe he lied when he said he didn?t like drinking piss. Energy is refilled by eating, and this can include sampling local fruits like dates, coconuts, or eating insects, or eating meat. Meat, when eaten raw, only restores a little energy and you run the risk of getting sick if the meat is old, but cooking meat over a campfire almost always gives you full energy. Weirdly, energy and health and hydration are al completely refilled if you set up camp and go to sleep, but Bear will only set up camp and light fires in certain areas.
But enough of the technical aspects. Where you might get your moneys worth is that the game does come with clips from the show showing survival techniques the game employs, and it?s also fun to go to the everglades and murder nutria. The game is very obviously a low budget title, and from a purely unbiased standpoint it is so riddled with errors I wouldn?t recommend you pay over $20 for it. But that said, what little strategy it does employ relating to scavenging and proper hydration does leave it a little more fulfilling than a lot of other games, so go ahead and play this until someone patches a hardcore mode into Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and makes that game worth it?s $60 asking price.
Wouldn?t survive five minutes in the wild
--Pyramid Head
Next Review: MindJack
Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls is an amusing little TV show in which a former British spec op turned survival expert goes into harsh wildernesses and demonstrates survival techniques. Though it is educational to some level, I like Man vs. Wild because it?s honestly amusing to see just how far humans go to survive, including eating insects and drinking piss.
No seriously. In an episode in the Kimberly region of Australia Bear runs out of water and fails to find a new source of water. Since the humidity is 100% and he can?t count on his sweat to cool him, he needs to drink more. So to that end, he pisses into his canteen and starts drinking that. What a trooper!
Not to mention a masochist. But hey, without masochists, the world would be a far bleaker place indeed. But still, the idea of a Man vs. Wild game is an interesting one, right?
WRONG! If my NCIS review didn?t tip you off, TV tie in games are even lower quality than movie tie in games. I only risked trying this one out because I found it in a bargain bin. And yeah, I?ll say now. It?s low budget, it painfully shows, but unlike NCIS which seemed to be optimized for the PC or Wii, this one was a console game from the start and flows much better.
But let?s get into things. Man vs. Wild the game is kind of like Metal Gear Solid 3 where the survival elements simply add another layer of strategy to the standard gameplay. Only Man vs. Wild is a platformer as opposed to stealth action, and the only real strategy involved is to have your TV?s brightness turned up so you don?t get royally buttfucked during night time segments.
The game starts out with a tutorial at Bear?s base camp (And yes, he is legally called Bear) before moving onto a small variety of environments explored in the show, including an abandoned volcanic island, the dreadlands of the United States deep south, and lovely rocky mountains. The biggest problem with this being a low budget game that you?ll notice early on is that the physics and environment engine are a total joke. If this game had been built on Crytek?s Cry Engine it would have been so visually stunning almost any gripe could be dismissed simply so you could watch a sight seeing tour occasionally spiced up by forcing your character to drink piss from a snake carcass.
Now the big problem with the game besides a graphics engine that would have embarrassed PS2 era games and dodgy character sprites, low variety in wildlife you can interact with and imprecise movement controls is that it?s pretty repetitive all around. You navigate terrain, collect glowing orbs that mark your way, and you press X to not die. Then you press it again. And again. And then you have a timed QTE sequence where you have to press X at a specific point. And then you have a rapid mash QTE because you failed the timed QTE and a crocodile is trying to bite Bear?s foot off.
Almost every single aspect of the game that couldn?t be handled by context sensitive actions are handled by quick time events. Since they?re a core part of gameplay and you know to expect them, they?re not that demanding, though sometimes you really long for an opportunity to test your own skills by entering a precision combat mode kind of like how the game has you do fishing and try to bring down venomous insects, or at the very least make it so that predatory animals pose a threat. Even when I was encountering large animals like pumas or crocodiles I didn?t bother running away, I just let them charge at me, did the QTE sequence, and murdered the cuddly critters and ate them raw, though for what it?s worth the animations in the QTEs are entertaining. Or at least I think they were, when your eyes are focused on the commands it?s hard to be impressed by Bear leaping over a bear and running away.
?you?d think he?d be able to swing a can of mace or an air horn in areas where bears are likely to show up? and also, I probably liked the sequence where he snaps the neck of a nutria more than I should have. I don?t know why, but it always does my heart good seeing creatures that some people call cute being killed like the pests they are. DEATH TO BUNNIES! SNAP THEIR NECKS AND ROAST THOSE FUCKERS!!
Weirdly enough, the game also imports some Prince of Persia-esque parkour handled during a directional QTE, and I honestly have never watched the Sahara episode of Man vs. Wild, but does Bear really wall leap and wall run like the Prince of Persia? And why can I eat hermit crabs, worms, and millipedes raw but not scorpions and spiders?
To try and make the game a little more complex than simply platforming, Bear has a hydration meter, an energy meter, and a health meter. When Bear gets dehydrated, he loses energy. Also, when Bear fails a QTE that doesn?t result in instant death or fails a platforming section and plummets to his death, he sometimes teleports back to the starting position Zelda style with a chunk of energy missing. If his energy runs out, he begins losing health. If he loses health, the game says he?s ?Incapacitated,? a cute way of saying Bear is maggot chow. Restoring hydration demands drinking water, though weirdly eating coconuts and drinking the sterile coconut water doesn?t restore hydration. Bear only has one canteen and can only fill it up at running water sources or in water wells where the plants or rocks have been filtering the water. Otherwise, you get a snake skin when you kill snakes which you can pee into for a quick burst of hydration later. Weirdly, you can?t simply take the skin over to a water source and fill it with water, for some reason Bear insists on peeing into it. Maybe he lied when he said he didn?t like drinking piss. Energy is refilled by eating, and this can include sampling local fruits like dates, coconuts, or eating insects, or eating meat. Meat, when eaten raw, only restores a little energy and you run the risk of getting sick if the meat is old, but cooking meat over a campfire almost always gives you full energy. Weirdly, energy and health and hydration are al completely refilled if you set up camp and go to sleep, but Bear will only set up camp and light fires in certain areas.
But enough of the technical aspects. Where you might get your moneys worth is that the game does come with clips from the show showing survival techniques the game employs, and it?s also fun to go to the everglades and murder nutria. The game is very obviously a low budget title, and from a purely unbiased standpoint it is so riddled with errors I wouldn?t recommend you pay over $20 for it. But that said, what little strategy it does employ relating to scavenging and proper hydration does leave it a little more fulfilling than a lot of other games, so go ahead and play this until someone patches a hardcore mode into Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and makes that game worth it?s $60 asking price.
Wouldn?t survive five minutes in the wild
--Pyramid Head
Next Review: MindJack