Gamelist Review List Song List Watched Journals Forum IRC Gamelist Song List Review List Forum Articles IRC Log Out Add Game Edit Games Add Reviews Edit Reviews Add Songs Edit Songs Log Out Edit Games Edit Reviews Edit Songs Sign Up Log In My Journal My Game Journals Watched Journals All Journals Journal Settings All Journals About Us Staff FAQ
Castle Paradox
Title Bar
Log In Box
 
______  
[more]
Grand Theft Auto H: Night City vs. JSH357
Grand Theft Auto H: Night City The inside of a house.  Nice.
Serg
Download: 202B
V.S.
JSH357
Play Time: Varies hours and Varies minutes
Review # 6 for JSH357 The inside of a house. Nice.
Them's Fightin' Words
    This is a game that has a fairly interesting concept, but is executed
very poorly. I'm not a fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, mainly
because of the terrible philosophy expressed by the criminal
'protagonists' and the general theme of blowing things up for no
reason, but I was willing to put my opinion aside for this game and
review it without regard to my beliefs about its model. Unfortunately,
this theme resurfaced, and unlike the original GTA series, GTA: Night
City does not have the impressive array of options that the originals
offered.
Graphics
    This game's graphics are drawn in what I call 'comic book' style,
meaning that there is only one shade of each color inside the outlines.
For the record, the graphics fit this style perfectly, but I have two
major complaints: Firstly, the game is very griddy. I shouldn't be
able to tell that two maptiles in a row are exactly the same so easily.
It's not that the graphics are too undetailed, or even that they're
that bad, the problem is that they look the same over and over. Any
artist will tell you that this is a problem. Secondly, I'm not
completely sure about this, but I think that the faces in the text
boxes might be ripped and edited. They remind me of that Tien
character in Dragon Ball Z, only with two eyes. If they aren't ripped,
that's fine, it just seemed odd to me. Also, every face that I saw
while playing this game looked very similar...

Perhaps I'm being too
negative. For the most part, I liked the graphics in this game,
especially the cars and the black and white scenes. A few things need
editing, but overall, the graphics look pretty good.
 
Storyline
    This game actually surprised me with a fairly good storyline. It's
about a man who was working with some criminals to try and rob a bank,
but they abandoned him and the cops caught him. You go to get your
share of the money earned, and well, that's about as far as I got. It
was interesting while it lasted.

Unfortunately, I had a serious issue with this game: the spelling.
Actually, I didn't notice any spelling errors while playing, but I DID
notice a constant use of 'web speak' throughout the game, as well as
in the readme. A little hint to the author: Do NOT use webspeak
anywhere but in chatrooms. It makes your work look a thousand times
less proffessional.

Another issue I had was the senseless beating of random people. (Or
rather, their senseless beating of me) It didn't seem to fit in to me.
Maybe it fits in with the fact that the main character is a criminal
and all, but I personally don't want to be in control of a criminal.
A hero is supposed to be heroic, not a terrible role model.
 
Gameplay
    To be honest, I was expecting this game to be really neat at first.
I thought I was going to be able to ride cars, pick up weapons, etc.

Well, no, my experience was nothing like that at all. Here's the
rundown:
1. You walk around.
2. You pick some innocent bystander to fight with.
3. Said innocent bystander destroys you with no effort.

Then, you try and beat the last boss of the demo, and it's even more
impossible than the rest of the game.

Maybe my problem was I was expecting a game like Grand Theft Auto on
the OHRRPGCE. For one thing, the battles were RPG battles. This
didn't really seem to fit in with the rest of the game to me. I
urge the author to try and make the game more like what it is
imitating. If you're going to copy a game, it needs to play like
that game, unless the point was to create an antithesis.
 
  Battle
    Look at the screenshot in the lower left-hand corner. That's what
every battle in this game is like. You try to win. You can't even
make use of the Steal ability because you'll get killed in the process
of trying to win the battle faster. The enemies have too much HP.
The hero(?) has too little HP. Did the authour actually play this
game? It doesn't seem like it to me. I mean, I fight a random woman
wearing a white dress and a guy with a gun, and they do the same
amount of damage. It doesn't make sense, and you can't win either.
 
  Map Design
    I'll hand this one over. I liked the city! It's big and there are
lots of buildings. Unfortunately, you can't do much IN the city, but
it looks good enough, that's for sure. The houses are actually nice
too. Look at the upper right-hand screenshot. As you can see: It's
a house.
 
  Balance
    I can't call getting killed by everything with no hope of victory
good for the balance scale here... This game's battle system is really
its major downfall. Maybe if the hero(?) were just a little bit
stronger...
 
Music
    -The author of this review cannot hear BAM music-  
Enjoyment
    I liked the intro. It was really well-done. But once the game
started, I couldn't find much to do, and I couldn't enjoy the game
because of that.
 
Final Blows
    Good idea, in theory. What this game really needs is an update. It
also needs to be made to more closely resemble Grand Theft Auto. As
it stands, this game is just an RPG with a good start to a plot and
bad battles. It NEEDS to be a game where you can interact with the
environment in diverse ways, and unfortunately, the system that the
game is using doesn't fit the premise very well.
You will be seeing this a lot.

You will be seeing this a lot.
Final Scores
Graphics: 6/10.0
Pretty nice overall, but blocky at times. +5 for being well-drawn, +1
for the black and white scenes.
Storyline: 3/10.0
It could be made deeper and could be very interesting, but I think
that for what's there, the story is pretty good. +5 for being
interesting, -1 because I just can't deal with a hero being a
psycopath, -1 for webspeak
Gameplay: 2/10.0
It just isn't what you'd expect it to be like. I don't even like GTA
and was wishing it was more like GTA. +3 for innovation, -1 for
impossible battles.
Music: 10/10.0
Nil
Enjoyment: 2/10.0
I just couldn't enjoy it. Maybe someone with some kind of desire to
beat up random innocent women and police officers, and LOSE, would
enjoy it more. +2 for the intro.
Overall Grade: D-
Final Thoughts
    Check it out. You probably won't want to play it for too long since
there isn't much to do yet. I've played much worse games, but this
game does need a serious overhaul to be considered an OHR great.
 


All games, songs, and images © their respective owners.
Terms of Service
©2008 Castle Paradox