That first year I owned an Xbox 360, I probably downloaded every game trailer and demo that was posted to the Xbox Live Marketplace. I purchased the Xbox 360 just before Halloween 2006, after saving a couple weeks worth of earnings from my first job, and I found myself buying into the prerelease marketing for just about every high profile release. Among them, was Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas.
Continue reading Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas [Xbox 360] – Review
On a Friday night, just after Christmas 2014, I was surrounded by the usual gang – Jenny, Erika, and Jeff. The pangs to acquire a PS4 were getting to Jenny, and with much coercion from Jeff, I was finally dogged into taking the leap. That week, Best Buy was running a significant deal on the console, one that included a digital game. Jeff, a team member (ugh) at Target coerced me with the temptations of his substantial discounts, on top of their price matching. Needless to say, we walked away with the system and a couple of games. With Jenny and I being massive fans of Far Cry 3, the choice of a digital game was easy as there was no choice – it was Far Cry 4 all the way.
Once again developed by Ubisoft Montreal, this game is strikingly similar to its predecessor. That didn’t make it a bad game; it was just a less surprising one. As usual, the setting was a lush, sprawling, wide-open game world that offered many distractions. All together it took me about twenty hours to get its platinum trophy, so yeah it was expansive as far as single-player first-person shooters are considered and… there were multiplayer modes – enough said. Finally, the story and cast were anchored by an outrageous villain that gave Vaas a run for his money. The developers took the formula from the previous game, changed the superficial portions, got it running on the new generation of consoles and probably thought “that’ll do.” And it does.
When you have a video game collection like mine, it can be hard to play all of the games. This is especially true when additions are made on an almost weekly basis. Still, I appreciate nearly every game I’ve accumulated for this reason or that. In the hopes of improving my writing through continuous effort and promoting ongoing learning of these games, I’m going to compose brief, descriptive articles.
I played a little bit of, and wrote about this game a couple of years ago. I think my introductory paragraph sums up my thoughts on the game perfectly. “The most notable aspect of Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is that it marked a first for the Batman franchise: the first time a major character was debuted in a video game. It has been nine years since the game’s release though, and I’m not aware of the villain Sin Tzu gaining much traction; I mean, I’ve only ever heard of him in the context of this video game, albeit, I’m not especially well versed in the Batman universe. Debuting in a mediocre beat ‘em up probably didn’t help his chances at stardom though.”
Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu was developed by Ubisoft Montreal. The studio is massive (over 2,600 employees!) and has remained incredibly prolific in the wake of the release of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell in 2002. This game was, naturally, published by Ubisoft. It original released on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox on October 16, 2003 in North America. The Game Boy Advance and GameCube versions subsequently launched on October 27, 2003 and November 11, 2003, respectively. The game also had special editions on the home consoles. The PS2 and Xbox versions came with an action figure while the GameCube release had a lithograph (read: small poster), which I have.
The most notable aspect of Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is that it marked a first for the Batman franchise: the first time a major character was debuted in a video game. It has been nine years since the game’s release though, and I’m not aware of the villain Sin Tzu gaining much traction; I mean, I’ve only ever heard of him in the context of this video game, albeit, I’m not especially well versed in the Batman universe. Debuting in a mediocre beat ‘em up probably didn’t help his chances at stardom though.
Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is an Ubisoft Montreal developed, Ubisoft published beat ‘em up from 2003. It was released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and Game Boy Advance, and while I only played the GameCube version, I’m sure the PS2 and Xbox versions are identical. My friend and I played through what I believe constitutes the first quarter of the game, and I speak for both us when I say Rise of Sin Tzu was underwhelming.
The game revolves around on the eponymous hero defending Gotham City from the eponymous villain. Sin Tzu has formed an alliance with Scarecrow, Clayface, and Bane and they’re wreaking havoc. With the assistance of Robin, Batgirl, and Nightwing, Batman sets out to defend Gotham City from these baddies. Although there are four heroes, the game only supports co-operative play for two, a glaring omission. On the bright side, those two extra players won’t be subjected to the tepid gameplay.
Each hero had slightly different stats and had a wealth of combos to execute, yet I was content to just mash the punch or kick button. The combos were differentiated by timed button presses, although they weren’t starkly different. Special moves could be unlocked using earned points which could also be spent on bonus features like toys or comic book covers. My friend and I played through the first quarter of the game, toppling Scarecrow, and besides the lame combat, the bland level design and poor camera left us unfulfilled.
Stages lasted about ten minutes and tasked us with fighting through groups of Scarecrow’s henchmen. Opposition was light early on but they eventually began using Scarecrow’s gas on us. It affected the camera, making it very wavy, but not problematic like the occasional event of the camera getting hung up on a corner. Still the biggest detriment to our enjoyment was the bland level design. We’d plod down unchanging Gotham City streets, encountering groups of henchmen, but no real excitement. This was compounded by the weak combat and the drab graphics.
Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is a mediocre beat ‘em up that will likely only be remembered for debuting a character into the franchise.
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