Minions, Energy Blasts and Birdmen are Awse
The other day I downloaded the demos for Overlord and Dragonball Z Burst Limit. I also pulled out the PSP which I haven’t touched since I finished the oh-so-awesome Warhammer 40000: Squad Command to play the Harvey Birdman demo I downloaded ages ago. Overlord has been out for a while on Xbox 360, but it’s only just been thrown up on the PS online store. I was also a huge fan of the Dragonball Budokai series up until, I think it was Tenkachi, when the game turned into 3rd person view instead of the side on view that ALL fighting games should use. Am I being too old fashioned? Probably, but I can’t think of a decent fighter that’s gone against the grain. And I’m talking fighters, so Fight Night fans can back off.
After looking through the demos, I’m kinda looking forward to things. Overlord looks like a really simple game, and it plays that way. Summoning little gremlins, commanding them to kill things and bring you stuff. Hell, thats easy, its also pretty entertaining. Having not bothered to read anything about it on the 360, I don’t know much about it, I’m expecting it to be simplistic to the point I’d lose interest, but only time will tell. First thought after the demo - Awesome.
Dragonball Z games always appeal to me. I’m a huge fan of the cartoon, I have every DVD(bar the movies) from Dragonball, Dragonball Z and Dragonball GT. I also have a crapload of the toys. It’s very geeky but I love them. Re-enacting the scenes from the cartoon is always great. Looking at the demo it looks like they went back the the old Budokai games with the view, the struggles, and added in some really great looking cell shading. Unfortunately there is no real tutorial to speak of so I had to fudge my way through the Kamehameha’s and basic blasts. The game plays pretty fast, but without a tutorial it’s hard to get the hang of. First thought after the demo - Must Buy(fan reasons, the demo is pretty lame).
The last demo was a huge surprise. I haven’t really been a fan of the Harvey Birdman tv show, other than when I have seen it after South Park. Anything that follows South Park is usually neglected in my eyes, but it did get a few laughs. After discussing the basics of the demo with some mates, we decided the game plays very similar to Carmen Sandiego, and I’m a sucker for puzzle games. Searching areas for clues, building cases, and eventually prosecuting them. The demo played very much like an interactive episode, with hilarious dialogue, random characters and very light-hearted. These are the kinds of games I love to play on portable systems. As much as I like action games, if it has a level of complexity I tend to prefer to play it on a tv and big console, PSPs are much more casual so to see games like this come out makes me happy. The game itself had a breakthrough moment with me when I was interviewing Secret Squirrel and Magilla Gorilla in jail about a break in of my(Birdman’s) office, where I also saw Dhalsim in a gratuitous but somewhat relevant cameo. Thoughts after the demo - Depending on price, this could be a go-er. With only a limited amount of cases, I can’t see this being a game I will play forever, but if it’s around the cost of a DVD or Blu-ray, I might just do it.
And of course, it’s Thursday again today, so as the night goes on I will HOPEFULLY find a few more things to try before I buy.
