With box art this sexy the game has to be good right? Well, after the last 4 hours of playing I'm going to have to say no.I got my hands on a copy of Yakuza today from Gamefly and I have to say that I'm kinda disappointed. Originally I was really looking forward to playing this game because the voice talent behind it was impressive. Michael Madsen, Mark Hamill, Rachel Leigh Cook, Michael Rosenbaum, and Eliza Dushku make up an ensemble cast that many producers would give their right [and/or left] testicle for, so when the dialog falls flat, and you find yourself wishing the post office was still open so you could send this title back to the Gamefly from which it came, it makes you wonder what the hell has gone wrong.
Yakuza shouldn't suck. It's made by Sega, it's a brawler [usually right up this ninja's alley] and is based on the Japanese mob so there is plenty of reason for violence, conflict, treachery, debauchery to take place. But in actually playing the game, you find things are very formulaic in that point "A" leads to point "B" and that there is no way to get to point "C" without first going through points "A" and "B." Within launching the title you immediately notice that this game is not for the kid-lings. Yakuza has more drops of the F-bomb [I'm talking fuck not fack] then a hooker with tourettes syndrome. Foul language doesn't offend me, it really doesn't... but when you use a curse word too often you take the edge off it. Fuck is one of those words whose edge should never be softened. In Yakuza at least one third of the dialogue exchanges that pops up contain some use of the word fuck, and for no apparent fucking reason either. Lame.
As I reached hour one of gameplay I found myself comparing Yakuza to Shenmue, another game made by Sega. Both games feature a young man, in love with a girl, battling gangs/mobs throughout town to try and piece together how his lady has ended up missing. In Shenmue you play the character of Ryu, and end up traveling all around town finding clues, working jobs, and occasionally fighting the odd bad dude on the quest to save your fair lady. In Yakuza you play Kazuma, and after some shizzole goes down you get stuck in the joint for a 10 year bid. While you are in jail you find out that your honey dip Yumi done lost her marbles and has disappeared. Once you get out, you set out to find her and figure out what the hell happened all those years ago. Initial comparison aside, I expected the same level of detail in Yakuza that Shenmue had. Imagine my surprise when I started up the game and there were more artifacts on screen than in an ancient Egyptian tomb! Even pre-rendered video's seem to suffer from and infestation of jaggies. At times it is difficult to get the main character to stay focused on target and you wind up punching at air while a group of baddies stand behind you and try to hit you. Lame again. But I soldier on because I think that the story is going to get deep. It's obvious to me that there are going to be some twists and turns coming down the line and I want to see them. But the formula kicks in again... cut scene, cut scene, 5 person lame fight, cut scene, wander around to find the pink spot on the map, count the times the word "fuck" gets dropped. Yippie!
Maybe if I get deeper into the game, the redeeming qualities that others have found in it will reveal themselves to me. But for now, I'm just going to go and play the Crackdown demo again and return Yakuza to GameFly
Labels: Ninjasistah, PlayStation, PS2, Shenmue, Videogames, Yakuza
