By Matthew Scott Hunter
EUREKA SEVEN VOL. 2: THE NEW VISION (T)
*1/2
Namco Bandai Games
PlayStation 2
Back in the proverbial day, I used to love cut-scenes—especially in games like Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil. The animations were gorgeous, and the scenes were few and far between, which made them feel like rewards for successfully making it through challenging, but fun, stretches of the game. But in recent years, these scenes have become unnecessary. Nowadays, in-game graphics are often as pretty as the cut-scenes, and with the advent of games like Resident Evil 4, cut-scenes have become somewhat interactive, so the action never stops. Eureka Seven ignores these new trends in favor of giving us one interminably long cut-scene broken up by a few bits of shoddy gameplay.
I’ve never seen the Eureka Seven anime, but judging from New Vision, it appears to be a sort of slow-paced high school melodrama interspersed with occasional mech battles. For long stretches, the game plays like a non-interactive movie. But every once in a while, for the story to progress, you have to play through an annoying battle, involving mechs on flying surf boards. Essentially, it’s like watching a mediocre TV show on a crank-powered television. Every 10 minutes, the TV dies, forcing you to wind the crank for a few minutes before you can continue watching. I wouldn’t even do that for a show I liked.
CUBE (E)
**1/2
D3 Publisher
PlayStation Portable
The best puzzle games are 2D, and Cube makes it clear why: no camera. Navigating through a 3D puzzle requires constant camera manipulation, and when you can roll your titular block in every possible direction, it’s too easy to get disoriented. What’s worse is that without the camera hassle, there’d be no challenge at all in guiding the cube to its goal.
BUST-A-MOVE BASH! (E)
**
Majesco
Wii
I hate to burst your bubble, Bust-a-Move fans, but this bubble-popping puzzle game has outlived its usefulness. The umpteenth version adds nothing new to the formula aside from the infuriating Wii motion controls. The slightest hand tremble will get your bubble thrown way off course, and a few rounds of that will get your Wii remote thrown at the TV screen.
POCKET POOL (M)
½*
Eidos Interactive/Conspiracy Entertainment
PlayStation Portable
If ever a game was in need of a realistic physics engine, it’s pool, but Pocket Pool makes it feel like you’re playing 8-ball, 9-ball and several other pool variations on a planet where gravity is in flux. If you do manage to sink enough balls to win a game, you’re rewarded with videos of trashy models attempting in vain to discover eroticism, which has to be the sleaziest incentive to play a video game ever.
When Las Vegas Weekly contributor Matthew Scott Hunter realized his career as a lab technician was seriously interfering with his gaming, he pink-slipped himself into a successful career as a freelance writer. Bug the hell out of him at [email protected]