BootBlock.co.uk

Right, I’m going to fucking well write this. It’s not going to make any difference to anything in the world, but I don’t care. There’s swearing. Be warned, or get the hell out.

I love countering in games. Beat ‘em ups or whatever, I like to wait out the CPU player (not so much humans, as playing in this style makes it a lot less fun for them, and therefore makes you a fun-spoiling cock) and counter-move their arses into the ground. It enlarges my e-peen with manliness.

Golden Axe: Beast Rider (Xbox 360) is a game seemingly based on countering, and it also seems to be based on being a huge piece of frustrating shit.

Going on odds alone, you have a 1-in-4 chance of countering a move. If the enemy’s weapon briefly glows yellow, then you have to Dodge. If it goes blue, you have to Parry. If there are multiple enemies surrounding you – which there always seems to fucking be – then you’re screwed. I managed to lose half of my HP bar in a few seconds because I got caught in a corner as the whole countering system simply broke down.

It seems the idiots that designed this game (Secret Level, I think they are) incorporated the Survival mode of other games as the main mode of Golden Axe. If you lose a lot of HP early on then you’re sometimes stuck with that health until you complete the level, so you better pray you don’t get cheesed by the baddies further on.

Cheesing? Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna call it. It’s akin to beating someone in Street Fighter by reducing their health solely by them blocking your attacks (a blocked attack still does a small amount of damage to the blocker). But in the case of GA, you’ll get chain-fucked and none of it will be counter-able because as mentioned above, the countering system can break down at certain points, and about twelve enemies will bum you about your person.

The annoyance factor would have been lower if you only needed to block one type of attack as opposed to the two and the system on the whole being generally more responsive. I also seem to forget the controls while I’m actively playing. I don’t think I’ve experienced that in a very long time with a game.

Sega have really gone down the shitter since they dropped out of the hardware market and become a 3rd party game developer. A lot of people would have killed for a traditional Golden Axe game. Make it 3D if you have to, but keep it in the same side-on view as the originals (except for GA III for the Megadrive – truly awful game; the “proper” GA II arcade game was awesome) and it would be a sure-fire hit. Stop fucking about with this 3D roaming crap.

Equally, Streets of Rage should be remade in the exact same style as the originals and people like me would jizz their wads all over it. Comix Zone is another good one. No 3D roaming, you stupid Sega wankers – stop jumping on the “It must be 3D!” thing. It’s the same reason why all of the latest Sonic games have been big steaming piles of despair.

A side-on Golden Axe/Streets of Rage/Sonic? Yes fucking PLEASE. Do these and stop wasting your time with game-styles players don’t want.

In the meantime, fuck you Golden Axe: B(r)east Rider. I died near the end of Titan Wasteland, and there’s no chance in hell I’m going to go through all that again – it’s going back to the rental place tomorrow.

For those that are wondering why it’s taking me so long to update: I’ve found out that a lot more visitors are viewing the Software section as opposed to the main page, so I’ve decided “Why the hell bother?”.