‘OVER THE EDGE
Ja vary 30, 2008

JOSEPH JEFFERY

STarr WRITER

Now, I’m a virgin to the Rambo series with this latest installment in the
franchise so I didn’t know what to expect, but based on anything I might
have imagined from watching the trailer, “politically charged” was not
a sentence I expected to use in conjunction with the film. However, you
can’t help but feel that after just the first thirty seconds of the film.

Before we even get to see John Rambo himself, we get treated to a
montage of real news footage about what’s going on in Burma. The
whole monk thing from last year which is probably still fresh in most
people’s minds right now.

The premise of the film, for those who don’t know, is that some Chris-
tian missionaries want to go into Burma to bring supplies and prayer
books to the Kachin people and they need to hire someone who can take
them up river to do so. So who do they call? John Rambo. He says no.
Several times. Eventually the only woman of the group (and possibly the
wife of the missionaries’ leader) convinces him. He takes them, drops
them off (with the odd hitch along the way) and heads back. Burmese
army attacks the village that the missionaries go to and capture the sur-
viving members. When they don’t come back mercenaries are hired to
go in after them and require good ‘ol John to show them where to go.
This is where the classic jungle Rambo (that even I as someone who’s

never seen a Rambo film before knows) begins.

As an action movie it’s gorier and bloodier than anything I’ve seen.
Sylvester Stallone, the principal actor, director and one of the two writ-
ers for the movie, seems to have gone out of his way to make this grit-
tier than before. The worst acts are committed by Stallone himself, as
Rambo, however the Burmese armies are much more numerous (and
Rambo’s doing it for the greater good) and committed on innocent civil-
ians whereas Rambo maims many a Burmese Pirate or Soldier.

If you enjoy close-ups of Stallone’s face then you’re in for a treat as
the films filled with them, as well as plenty of shots of bodies being
blown apart in dramatic ways. Perhaps they added more blood than
would be normal, perhaps they didn’t. I’m no expert but it all_looked
fairly realistic to me.

Overall the film is fairly short (surprisingly so in a time when three
hour movies are commonplace) and harkens back to another time. Even
the opening credits are done in an old and vaguely familiar faux indus-
trial style. Despite the short length, the film doesn’t muck about, no sec-
ond is wasted and you come away feeling you’ve watched a damn good
(and fairly intelligent) action flick.

Be advised though, this isn’t a film for children or those who can’t
stomach violence. Bloody is very much an understatement of what this
film is!

maxing legends should be fun, right?

Game - Rise of Legend:
Platform - PC
Producer - Big Huge
Games
Rating - Teen

HAAKON SULLIVAN

STAFF V/RITER

After Big Huge Games created Rise of Nations
(2003 strategy game of the year), they decided to

@ create another game using the same game mech-

anics and replacing it’s real world setting with a
jumbled up fantasy one. If you have played Rise
of Nations and not this, you may have been look-
ing forward to this but believe me, this game only
puts the Rise of Nations franchise to shame.
This game is like any typical real time strat-
egy game, but with a few tweaks. The battle
map is filled with a collection of cities and in a
standard game your goal is to capture as many
as you can while also capturing the cities that

® your enemy has obtained. These cities can be

built up by attaching districts which will increase
your army’s capabilities depending on the fac-
tion your playing. The primary resource in the
game is timonium, which is collected by constru-
cing mines. Destroying these will bankrupt your
enemy.

Another interesting aspect of this game is that
they have adopted a “Warcraft-like” hero system
where you can recruit strong individuals that level
up over time to become more powerful and gain
new abilities.

It may sound good so far but the game goes
down a quick downhill slope.

The story of the main campaign is about a young
inventor who belongs to a steampunk faction who
chases an evil, unethical leader who goes by the
name of “The Doge”. This goes on for two of the
three chapters and it by itself is not a bad story.
However, after this story is finished at the second
chapter, the third chapter involves being thrust
into a particular situation with no explanation at
all (similar to starting to read a book from the mid-
die). The missions in the third chapter are also all
the exact same, grinding the entertainment value
of this game to a halt.

The graphics in this game até not very good for
graphics we can expect today as it looks almost
the exact same as the graphics in Rise of Nations.

The music and sound effects in the game are ter-

rible. Some sound effects don’t even exist for ac-
tions that really should have some (such as some
explosion actions) and the music is bland, not add-
ing to the game experience at all.

This game also has some serious pathfinding
issues, meaning that you will constantly be find-
ing your units being stuck in corners instead of
them moving to the location you want them to
move to. This is a contant source of frustration in
this game.

In conclusion, this game has an interesting story
at the start and it has an ingenuitive spin on the
RTS genre, but its main campaign drops off sud-
denly and the it has some bugs that were over-
looked. If you like RTS and fantasy games try to
give it a shot, but just don’t expect too much.

Fun: 1.0/2
Difficulty: 1.5/2
Presentation: 1.0/2
Story: 0.9/2
Replay Value: 0.6/2
Total: 5,0/10

Wild Arms Adds Another to Series

Haakon SuLiivan

Starr Writer

Now if you want a game with a story that
involves saving the planet against a oppres-
sive class system all the while witnessing a
corny teen drama, this game is for you! Like
the other Wild Arms games, you follow some
teenage heroes who travel around the world
doing jobs for people and doing a big thing
to save the world, all the while maturing into
adults. This combination can result in a story
that can get pretty corny and weird at times
(especially with some annoying voice-overs)
but, as usual, can result in a satisfying story.

Exploring the world of Filgaia is different
than exploring worlds in other turn based
RPGs. Outside of the battle, your character
can jump, shoot, and climb pipes to get to the
end of the dungeon your in. The gun you have
will have many different types of ammo and
this is essential for solving puzzles that hinder
your progress. The puzzles can be difficult,
but they are also entertaining so you probably
won’t end up throwing your controller in frus-
tration.

Combat in the game involves a “Hex Sys-
tem” which involves six hexagon squares ar-
ranged in a circle. This is a unique form of
tum based fighting that had a lot of popten-
tial for making this system the best system in
RPGs of this type as it creates a system that
might require lots of strategy. Unfortunately,
the AI is dumber than a sack of doorknobs
turning the heavy strategy into a “rinse and

repeat” for each battle. Also, later on in the
game, the bosses have a high amount of hit
points making the battles long while you do
the same thing over and over.

The music in this game is good, as can be
expected of a Wild Arms game, but the graph-
ics are disappointing. For a game coming this
late into the PS2’s lifetime, the graphics look
really drab. Also, they recycle the environ-
ments for the dungons a lot so many of the
dungeons look familar instead of unique.

This game may have many flaws but there
are still reasons why this game is worth play-
ing. Bonus dungeons and optional bosses
exist if you find the game too easy, puzzle
boxes are hidden around the map if you want
to challenge your problem solving skills and
features that you can unlock by acheiving dif-
ficult tasks are some reasons. Mainly the rea-
son why I kept playing is that the story sucked

me in somehow. Between the villain’s plot to
kill off the human race and the weird love tri-
angle that forms in the hero’s party, the story
is one that is hard to find in other games.

Simply put, this game has a half-assed turn-
based system with a cool puzzle solving, pipe
climbing dungeon crawl. The story is inter-
esting but the voice overs are annoying and
the characters are unique but are portrayed in
an inferior graphical environment. This game
has so many ups and downs that it makes you
want to put down the controller and pick it up
at the same time.

Fun: 1.2/2
Difficulty: 0.5/2
Presentation: 1.3/2
Story: 1.5/2
Replay Value:1.8/2
Total: 6.3/10