SHEPPARD'S VIDEO-GAME PIE

This is our new video-game reviews column written by Stephen Lea Sheppard, the actor behind two of our favorite characters of all time. First he was Harris Trinsky, the wise-beyond-his-years, flowing-haired Dungeon Master in Freaks & Geeks, then Dudley Heisenberg, that weird kid Bill Murray studies in The Royal Tenenbaums. In real life Stephen lives in British Columbia and writes tabletop role-playing-game books for lines like White Wolf’s Exalted and World of Darkness. He also serves on the moderation staff for the RPG.net forums. We don’t know anything about RPGs so we’re excited to have someone of Stephen’s expertise to keep us from sounding like a bunch of noobs and lamers. Plus, it’s Harris—Harris! We’re pretty starstruck.



THE GODFATHER: BLACKHAND EDITION
Platform: Wii
Publisher: EA

The Godfather: Blackhand Edition is an engrossing game, despite completely missing the point of the movies and pretending to exist in a genre I like in theory but not practice. Why? Because it’s a turn-based strategy game about seizing territory, except not turn-based and disguised as a Grand Theft Auto clone. The heart of the game is extorting businesses and expanding the Corleone family’s influence into the territories of New York’s other four families. Capturing territory gives you more income, which you can use to buy better weapons and also teleport points (cunningly disguised as “apartments”). Doing stuff in general gives you experience points (cunningly disguised as “respect”), which you can use to upgrade your character. In between capturing territory, there are some missions I don’t care about that give me an excuse to try out the better weapons I’ve been buying. The missions interweave themselves poorly with the plot of the first movie, with decent voice acting by a Marlon Brando sound-alike and well-performed but atrociously written James Caan dialogue. It’s a credit to the latter that he did so well with what he had, but I still want to punch the Sonny polygon model in the face.

None of the associated crap matters. Expanding your territory is fun. Seizing the compounds of the other four families is fun. Driving around in a reasonably flavorful recreation of 1940s New York is fun. Choking a guy using the remote + nunchuk to make an actual choking motion is, uh, actually sort of disturbing, but I keep doing it. A Godfather video game could have been a miserable failure, and the elements I feared would make it such a failure are present, but underneath is a solid play experience to which I keep returning.

PS: I rented and watched all three Godfather movies before I played this game. I figured the game would be full of spoilers. I was right. I would advise anyone else in a similar position to do as I did.



STRANGLEHOLD
Platform: Xbox 360
Publisher: Midway Games

Stranglehold is the video game sequel to the movie Hard Boiled. Like The Godfather, I hadn’t seen Hard Boiled until asked to review this game. Unlike The Godfather, I played the game a bit before watching the movie. I wish I hadn’t, and I won’t make that mistake again. Stranglehold is more fun knowing what it’s based on, and I went and formed my first impression without that knowledge. Oops.

Essentially, Stranglehold is Max Payne, with current-gen graphics, controls optimized for console play, John Woo directing, and Chow Yun-Fat lending his voice and likeness to the protagonist. Stranglehold seems to rip a lot of things directly from Max Payne (like the shoot-dodge, where the game automatically goes into slow motion when you leap), except leaping sideways out from behind a table with two guns blazing is something Max Payne either ripped straight from John Woo or ripped from a source that ripped it from John Woo, so I’m not complaining. Enter the Matrix didn’t steal Max Payne’s bullet time either.

I own Max Payne 2 for Xbox, and hate it. I played Max Payne 1 on PC at a cousin’s house and didn’t hate that, so I blame the console controls. But I don’t hate Stranglehold. Stranglehold is almost an intuitive joy to play—the only problem is the “leap” button and the “get on top of a narrow ledge or railing and run along it” button are the same button, and sometimes when I want to get on top of a narrow ledge or railing and run along it, I leap instead. Instead of being an intuitive joy, it’s just pretty fun.

Considering that Stranglehold is supposed to be Hard Boiled’s sequel, the characterization of the police chief annoys me a bit. He falls into the Dirty Harry, stupid, by-the-book chief stereotype (“I’ve had it, McBane! Give me your badge!”) a bit more than I can stomach. But this game seeks to embody genre clichés rather than surpass them. The plot of Hard Boiled didn’t just have more depth than the plot of Stranglehold, it raised more intelligent questions (actually Stranglehold doesn’t raise any questions, not even dumb ones), so the game is pretty lackluster as a sequel. That’s sort of sad—I’d like to see a game that’s not just a sequel to a good movie, but a worthy sequel. That’d be neat. This isn’t it.

But those complaints are minor. The gameplay is repetitive and imperfect, but good enough. Chow Yun-Fat seems to be having fun with the voice acting—the lines are cheesy, but he sounds like he’s delivering them with an impish grin. It’s short, it’s not the next blockbuster multiplayer or sandbox hit, the story is not especially gripping, the graphics are not mind-blowingly exceptional for an Xbox 360 title, and there’s not a lot of replay value, but I enjoy the interface, I enjoy the mechanics of play, I enjoy the performer, and I enjoy his performance. Stranglehold is as worth playing as any video game is.



NEED FOR SPEED: CARBON
Platform: Wii
Publisher: EA

My previous experience with racers has been limited to the Mario Kart, Extreme G, and F-Zero games, the N64 Cruisin’ USA port, the original Gran Tourismo, and SSX3 (which isn’t cars). So I was surprised at how much I like this thing, especially since I’m terrible at it. I’m still mastering basic concepts of pacing and traction, and I can’t win waypoint races to save my life nor evade police pursuit once about eight cars are pursuing me, but I keep putting the disc back into the machine. It’s because I suck that it’s so much fun—every time I run a race I get a bit better. Right now it’s my third most played Wii game, next to Resident Evil 4 and The Godfather: Blackhand Edition.

STEPHEN LEA SHEPPARD

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