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XBOX Reviews: GTA San Andreas and Conker Live & Reloaded Posted by Shaun on July 3rd 2005  The Story Carl Johnson (CJ for short) arrives from Liberty City to San Andreas after finding out his mother was killed in a drive by shooting. He hooks up with his old gang on Grove Street and is intent on finding out who killed his mom and make them pay. Unfortunately, upon arrival, a few local cops pin a cop murder on him in order to get him to co-operate with everything they want him to. So between getting to know his gang again, he has to work with the cops and do their dirty work. Over the course of the games three large cities, CJ will run into all sorts of characters from a gangsta wannabe, a hippie with a huge intent to sell, government agents and even a Triad gang, all in the name of vengeance for his family. Graphics While the graphics won't blow you away compared to other games, they do the job very well. Plenty of detail is shown from the trees, buildings, vehicles and people within in game. One problem I had with the PS2 version was that it was too dark. People and objects would literally turn into one big, black figure and you couldn't see any detail whatsoever. The XBOX version fixes that up slightly though a lot of the graphical problems from the PS2 version remain. Though you can see into the horizon and see plenty of scenery, the draw-in line is pretty close which means things will be popping up in front of you. Heaven help you if you're driving around on a foggy night; vehicles will suddenly pop in front of you with no chance to get out of the way. That's the trade off for developing such a huge project, I suppose. The character models look a little bit better than before but are still kinda ugly. They still have yet to grow fingers!  Audio One of the main things I liked about Vice City was the classic 80s soundtrack that came along with it. With this game set in the early 90s, the soundtrack reflects that time with plenty of stations to choose from with a wide variety of genres. Everything from classic rock and country to hip hop and rap to even reggae and dance music is represented here. If you have a surround system, you'll be happy that the game supports Dolby Digital, it sounds great. I also like how the music is louder in cars and a little more subdued when you're on a motorcycle. Little things like that stand out. The XBOX version has added a new station for those who like to use a custom soundtrack. Selecting that radio option will then play whatever music you've burned onto your XBOX and commercials will be played in between the songs just like on the other stations. Great addition! The voice acting really stands out. You pay for professional talent that's what you get. In addition to little-known talent that do pretty well with their roles (like Chris Ballard as "CJ," I don't know him but I like his voice talent with the character), you also get big names like Peter Fonda, James Woods, and Samuel L. Jackson doing their thing. James Woods really stands out, for me, I liked his voice acting in movies like Hercules and Final Fantasy down to TV series, like Simpsons and the animated Clerks series. Everyone does very well across the board.  Gameplay You thought there was plenty to do in Vice City? Are you in for a surprise, as San Andreas has added so many more things to do, it's insane. The mission variety hasn't changed a whole lot from Vice City (the usual killing certain individuals, driving people around, etc) but there are a few variations that add to the fun. One such example would be driving up the ramp of a plane just before it takes off so you can plant a bomb and jump out of the plane and parachute all the way down to the ground. In response to the success of games like Splinter Cell, there are missions where you'll have to sneak around undetected to get by. But these don't always work well with the GTA gameplay, as you'll more often than not try to blast your way through these places rather than sneak around. Yes, parachuting is just one of MANY mini games they've tossed in to this game. You can play basketball, pool, video games, gamble, dance (a simplistic take on Dance Dance Revolution of all things), etc. It's nuts, but a lot of is fun to do when you have nothing to do. Remember that you could find hidden packages in the previous games? Well they've removed that, but have added something similar and it changes from each city. In Los Santos, you'll be looking around for gang graffiti to spray over with your gang name which will help get more respect with your gang. In San Fierro, you'll be looking to take pictures of certain picturesque places. And in Las Venturas, you'll be collecting horseshoes that will increase your luck when you go gambling. Lots of stuff to do in order to get that elusive 100%. This is the first GTA game on XBOX I've played, so I had to get used to the control a little bit. One thing that hasn't changed from the PS2 is the car physics, driving around feels different from Vice City and you have to be even more careful not to run into objects or flip your car over. However, once you get used to the layout, you should be ok. Until it comes to having to do a drive by shooting. Unfortunately, to look to your left or right, you must use the black or white buttons, which is very awkward. If I absolutely had to do a drive by, I had to place my middle finger on the right trigger button to drive, my index finger on the B button to shoot and my thumb to click from left to right using the black and white buttons. Frustrating! The auto-targeting worked pretty well in the PS2 version, but I found that it doesn't work quite as well in this version. Most of the time there aren't any problems, but when you're facing in one direction and try to auto target an enemy to your side, it doesn't do it. It did it automatically in the PS2 (unless you were looking in the complete opposite direction), but here he'll just aim his gun in the direction you're facing. Not a change I was happy about, makes cop killing a little bit harder.  Overall If you loved the previous GTA games, then there's no reason you should be reading this since you probably already have San Andreas. If you already have San Andreas on PS2, there's not much to really entice you to buy it again since there were only a few improvements done with the XBOX version. However, if you don't have it and have both systems, the XBOX version is just slightly ahead of the PS2 version with slightly improved graphics and custom soundtrack. Either way you're in for a fun and very long adventure. Rating: 9.5 out of 10.  Story After a long night of hard drinking at the bar, Conker the squirrel leaves to go home. On his way though, he runs into a bunch of weird creatures that ask him to do certain jobs for them, sometimes for money. Despite having a hot to trot girlfriend to get back to, he doesn't seem to mind as long as he gets paid. Meanwhile, the King of this strange country winds up spilling his milk cause his table is broken. He enlists a brilliant mad scientist to fix it for him and the scientist thinks the best way to fix it would be to put a squirrel underneath the table to support it. So the King wants his minions to grab Conker and bring him back as his new table leg. If that doesn't make sense, try to get used to it, that's British humor for you. The multiplayer game also has its own storyline, basically just a war between the SHC (Squirrels) against the Tediz (nazi bears). And uh, they like to shoot at each other. Graphics The original game for the Nintendo 64 looked pretty good for it's time. Probably because it was in development before the system came out and eventually was released before the system died! Many years later, the developers of the original game now belong to Microsoft and have taken their sweet time to bring out a new version of Conker. Don't be fooled though, it's the same single player game, but the graphics have been redone big time. All the models that have fur on them look incredible since each hair has been animated individually. Now that's crazy attention to detail! All the other models have been fixed in their own way too, but you can tell they are still using the original N64 models as reference. Everything looks better in the game, but they could've done so much more too.  The multiplyer game (which was what Rare was working on the most) fares better than the single player mode, but it's only a bit better. Even with a slew of characters on screen and everything blowing up around you, there's not much slowdown, which is great. Each character has a visible name and health bar, but from far away, it's damn near impossible to see the bar so it's hard to tell if your shots are hitting their mark or not. Audio The single player's audio has improved greatly over the N64 version, which was expected due to the original's limitations being on a cartridge. The music stays cutesy for the most part and the dialogue sounds a little bit better, but I'm glad they kept the subtitles in the game, it's damn hard trying to make out what those funky Europeans are trying to say sometimes. Just like the graphics, the audio is better in the multiplayer. The sound of warfare's guns, screaming and explosions sound pretty clear, though I'm glad they throw in readable text for mission updates since it's a bit hard to hear if you're in the middle of a gunfight. Gamplay Conker's Bad Fur Day hasn't changed much. They throw in a few different wrinkles in the opening gameplay, but other than that, it's the same damn game. It definitely plays like another Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie, and other games like that. There are a few problems to point out. The camera sometimes becomes a problem when trying to maneuver in small areas and precise jumping is required. The controls for swimming is messed up and just plain sucks. The puzzles sometimes range from easily figured out to having no idea what to do. The game's humor is sick and twisted and the puzzles revolve around that, but it's not as though everyone knows exactly how to make several cows take a dump in a pit, but I digress. Other than these few problems, Bad Fur Day is a funny and disgusting little platformer.  The multiplayer is something different altogether though. It's a team based, 3rd person shooter that can either be played online or offline against bots. You will either be a member of the SHC or Tediz and there's the usual deathmatch and mission objective levels like capture the flag and towers, etc. If you choose the SHC, you'll usually be on the offensive and if you choose the Tediz, you'll be on defense for the most part. Rare has spent so much time on this portion of the game but given all the hype, you can't help but be incredibly disappointed given all the problems. The control scheme is different from usual shooters and if you need to do something on the fly, like change the burst output of your gun, you better make sure you're nowhere near an enemy or you'll wind up getting fragged. Also, every character is around the same height so it's hard to tell who's the enemy or who's on your side in the middle of a fight other than the differently colored names that get jumbled in the middle of things. More often than not you'll wind up shooting teammates in the way while trying to take out the enemy. The maps I played seem large at first but there are a lot of close combat sections that make up these maps. Some of these particular maps have vehicles but they're worthless in close combat and driving through hallways. There isn't a whole lot of emphasis on strategy, I found, mostly a lot of running and gunning to get where you need to. Each player can choose different types of classes, like trooper, sniper, seeker, and bomber. No matter which side you choose though, it's all the same. Now, if you get a big group of people in a game, this can be a good run and gun sun twitch shooter, but that's all that can be expected. Halo 2 has truly spoiled us all. Overall Well, you get two games for the price of one, at least that's what Rare seems to have intended. You get a pretty good, upgraded platformer with plenty of potty talk and disgusting content to laugh at along the way. And a simple, but flawed, team based shooter that could've been so much more, but far from being useless. The fact that it can be played against bots is a great addition since it'll prepare those who are new to the game for the online onslaught that awaits them. Rating: 7.5 out of 10 Shaun Natural born squirrel killer. AIM - TheShaunV1 Email - theshaunv1@yahoo.ca |
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