Killer7 should not be played. It should be hung on the wall and pondered and studied and debated. The game is as artsy and pretentious as any indie film can get, and it's a slap in the face to anyone who still maintains that videogames are strictly kids' stuff. But then, it isn't a game. It's heavily stylized digital art, and as such, unfortunately, it's virtually unplayable.
The storyline—involving the seven personalities of one seriously disturbed contract killer on quests to kill strange, volatile, imp-like creatures known as Heaven's Smile—plays out like it was scripted by David Lynch on his least intellectually accessible day. There are more bizarre characters and insane plot twists than you'll find in the whole Twin Peaks series. But the gameplay is nothing short of disastrous. You walk as if literally bound to a rail on a linear path, stopping occasionally for rudimentary target practice. It ultimately feels like you're watching a remarkably compelling film, but you have to keep winding a crank for it to play.
CODED ARMS (T) (3 stars)
Konami
PlayStation Portable
Coded Arms assures us that first-person shooters on PSP will be absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, the console's first such shooter offers little else. The storyline is shamelessly yanked from Matrix lore, and once you've played the first level, you've played them all. So why the decent rating? It's that gorgeous, and gamers can be that superficial.
FLIPNIC: ULTIMATE PINBALL (E) (3 stars)
Capcom
PlayStation 2
If Dr. Seuss designed pinball tables, they'd probably look like the levels in Flipnic. Multi-tiered backdrops with several objectives are what make this latest pinball game so "ultimate." But all the attractive and unusual levels suffer from being too easy. The ramps are huge and a cinch to target with flippers, leaving you longing for the challenge of real pinball ... like the one on your PC.
GOLDENEYE: ROGUE AGENT (T) (3 stars)
Electronic Arts
Nintendo DS
In case the Metroid Prime Hunters demo that came with your DS didn't give you a big enough taste of first-person shooter action to sell you on the stylus control, then check out GoldenEye. Here's a shooter that brought shame to multiple consoles just a few months ago, but on the DS, the control is as smooth and precise as you'd get with a mouse. It's almost enough to make you completely forgive this black sheep of the James Bond franchise. Almost.
Matthew Scott Hunter has been known to mumble, "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start" in his sleep. E-mail him at
[email protected].