Endgame

When the Oakland Raiders got robbed of a playoff victory by the New England Patriots and NFL refs last year, I wish I had a Magnum to let off a few rounds at my television.  Everytime a story about Britney and Justin’s breakup invades the screen, cold steel in my hands to bust a few caps in the boob tube would do nicely. There have been many times I’ve wanted to point a gun at my television and pull the trigger, but playing the recent slew of uncreative light-gun games for home consoles isn’t really one of them. 

For those of you who have never played the light-gun genre before, the concept is simple.  Plug in your console-compatible light gun and shoot the bad guys as quickly as you can.  That’s basically it.  You don’t control where you move, you don’t jump, you don’t punch and kick.  All you do is shoot.  It’s a simple concept that is actually quite entertaining.  Letting a few rounds off is, unfortunately, a case of “you’ve played one light-gun game, you’ve played ‘em all.”  The latest rehash of the bang-bang-shoot-‘em-up light-gun games is Empire Interactive’s Endgame for the Playstation 2.

Endgame’s heroine is Jade Cornell and it’s up to her to (surprise!) save the world.  Jade Cornell also happens to be a (surprise!) hottie.  The enemy Jade must stop is Eurodream, (surprise!) an evil corporation bent on taking over the world.  Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.  Eurodream’s president, Abelard Huxley (a not too subtle shout-out to Brave New World author Aldous Huxley) has developed VirtualWorldTomorrow, a Virtual Reality technology designed to keep people glued to their VR sets and deliver subliminal messages and work as virtual mind control, kind of like advertising today.  Spreading the message of thinking freely, Jade must stop Eurodream by shooting everyone she sees across several countries in The United States of Europe.  Yep, The United States of Europe.  Along the way she must pick up a few keycards, activate Octavian, an illegal artificially intelligent entity who knows how to stop Eurodream, and rescue her friend Tyler.  Piece of cake!

After playing Endgame for only a few minutes, comparisons to Time Crisis 2 are impossible to refute.  If Time Crisis 2, the entertaining light-gun game from Namco, is Raiders of the Lost Ark, then Endgame is Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold.  The basis is the same, players move through a three dimensional environment shooting enemies as they appear in the thousands.  After clearing all the enemies in a particular section (ranging anywhere from five to twenty), perspective shifts through to another point where more enemies appear.  Repeat. 

Gameplay is nearly identical to Time Crisis 2, and playing without the Guncon or Guncon 2 is not advised.  Jade’s gun has six rounds per magazine, and reloading must be done by ducking behind cover, courtesy of a button on the side of the Guncon.  While ducking behind cover, Jade can’t attack or be attacked.  You can’t duck forever though, as the whole game is on a ticking clock, providing the hardest challenge in the game.  In fact, after ten games I only saw Game Overs from running out of time, not from actually being shot, as the enemies have aim as good as a cross-eyed near-sighted geriatric sans spectacles.  Enemies range from the generic goons to gatling-gun wielding level bosses, but the object is the same.  Shoot them before they shoot you.  Like Time Crisis, direct hits from enemies can be foreseen with a colored burst from their guns.  Duck in time, and you won’t be full of lead. 

Endgame does have a few features which makes it worthwhile for light-gun fanatics.  The environment is destructible, most noticeably in Jade’s apartment where pots and pans fly off counters, glasses shatter, and paintings tumble.  Players can even occasionally be creative and shoot combustible materials such as explosive barrels to kill bad guys.  But with such a short amount of time to complete each stage, casually popping bullets around the environment is hardly an option.  No game should be without body-specific shots, and Endgame does a decent job with this.  Shooting an enemy in the leg will send him hopping around before falling, and a head shot will drop baddies like sacks of potatoes.  Nothing like a groin shot to send a message to your enemies.  The game’s AI has some surprises in store for players.  The individual enemies are dumb as posts, appearing from their cover in predictable patterns, but the game AI will send more enemies at you if you start shooting like Rambo, and lighten the load if you shoot more like Dumbo.  The increase in enemies is called Hypermode, and the longer you can stay in Hypermode, the more life you will regenerate.  Endgame’s mini-game option is creatively introduced, but not as fun as Time Crisis 2’s add-ons.  The game begins with Jade ready to settle down for a night of playing her favorite video game, Mighty Joe Jupiter.  Players can opt to play Mighty Joe Jupiter from the start menu and go through a course of five short levels or ten training sessions, all taking place within the depths of space.  This time, little green Martians are the enemy, but the gameplay is virtually identical to the main game. 

The graphics of Endgame are great, but they won’t blow you away.  The environments are sharp, but not too detailed.  Gamers nowadays deserve a little more personality from environments, not just crisp lines.  Most of the game the perspective is at a stand still, so moving around the game’s world is kept at a minimum.  There are a lot of cinematic cutscenes in the game that really break up the pacing of the action.  Normally, these cutscenes would be welcomed with open arms, but they’re too frequent, too short, and too boring.  They can be as banal as watching Jade cross the street.  As many cutscenes as she is involved in, I don’t think her blank-faced expression changes once. 

Endgame is fairly long for a light-gun shooter, but it is rather repetitive.  Light-gun game enthusiasts will enjoy the non-stop onslaught of enemies, but first timers to the light-gun genre may feel as though Endgame is off target.

Gameplay: 5

Nothing new here.  Lots and lots of shooting and ducking.  The enemies come at you harder than the IRS, but the entire game is basically the same thing over and over. 

Graphics: 7

The environments look good, but the cutscenes leave a lot to be desired. 

Sound: 5

Basically just a lot of “Bang!”s, but the Dolby 5.1 option scores some major direct hits. 

Difficulty: Hard

The game isn’t too hard, but losing all your lives sends you all the way back to the beginning.  No saving.  Ouch!   

Concept: 4

Saving the world is nothing new, and neither is the light-gun genre.  But incorporating Jade’s favorite video game as the mini-gun is a brilliant idea. 

Multiplayer: 6

Playing with two guns is an option that doesn’t exactly fit the story, but it is fun.  Navigating the menus to find two-player is almost harder than the game itself.

Overall: 5

Fans of light-gunners won’t find all the bells and whistles in Time Crisis 2, but they will find a game that is thankfully much longer than TC2 with just as much action.