Men in Black II: Alien Escape
Score: 60% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Infogrames Developer: Melbourne House Media: CD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Shooter
Graphics & Sound: Men in Black II: Alien Escape is great in both the visual and audio departments, with a lot of flash and style associated with the series. Character models look great (although the K model looks more like Elvis than Tommy Lee Jones), and the aliens look as outlandish as you can get. I especially liked the arms dealer with the pimp outfit. Cool eye candy such as the laser fire, lighting effects galore and breakable windows top off everything. Better-than-usual voice acting and jazzy, techno music makes things that much better.
Gameplay: Judging from the movie's box-office returns, a good number of you have seen the movie by now. Well forget about it because the game has little to do with the movie's plot. A few years ago, an intergalactic prison ship was to be sent crashing into the sun, executing all on board (top that, Texas). Unfortunately, it went off course and crashed on Earth. All onboard were thought dead, but it was discovered that the inmates lived and are now loose on Earth. Taking the role of either Agent K or J, it's up to you to put an end to this mess. Gamers looking for an incredibly deep game experience won't find it here. MIB II is a traditional shooter in the vein of the original Contra rather than the more action oriented ones that are around today. Each mission is a linear shoot-out between your agent and nearly endless groups of aliens. Along the way, you can pick up different weapons such as a spread cannon and blaster. Each gun is also upgradable up to five degrees. It's a shame that the game doesn't include a two-player option.
Difficulty: When I saw that the game only had Normal and Hard modes, I knew I was in trouble. To put it bluntly, this game is hard - really, really, really hard. In fact, thanks to MIB II I now know just how high my controller bounces when I throw (okay, slam) it on the ground in frustration. First of all, the control is terrible - which makes the lack of an auto-aim option noticeable. Numerous times I found myself shooting just a little to the right or left of a target when I thought I was hitting it. This is also a side-effect of the flashy guns since heavy-fire fights tend to muck up the screen. Also, when you are hit, your gun loses all its power - not just one bar, but all of it, making shoot-outs harder than they should be. This is made even harder when you have a group of aliens teleport in from behind and sucker punch (err..shoot) you. Perhaps the most annoying issue is the also the simplest - the 'police tape'. As you complete sections of a level, a blue line pops up which you can't pass through. This makes leaving health power-ups for later impossible and many times it cuts off a much needed escape route.
Game Mechanics: As mentioned before, Men in Black II sports one of the most awkward control schemes I've played with. There are millions of shooters that the developers could have used, instead of the one in the game. The Left analog stick moves your character while the shoulder buttons strafe. Even after a week of playing the game, I still found the set-up unnatural. Using both analog sticks would have made things much more manageable and comfortable. In the end, MIB II has the potential to be a good game, but doesn't seem to be able to pull all of the details together. There is an inherent fun-factor that all shooters have - however, MIB II seems to lack it. The need for a two-player option, combined with sloppy controls, excessive difficulty, and little replay value ultimately make the game an experience even a Neuralizer can't erase.
-Starscream, GameVortex Communications AKA Ricky Tucker
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