Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/14/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time

Developer: Insomniac

Publisher: SCEI

Genre(s): 3D Platformer, Third-Person Shooter

Platforms: PS3

Release Date: October 27, 2009

When I discussed how the existence of Tools of Destruction made me lament passing on the third incarnation of the PlayStation console brand, its follow-up, A Crack in Time, made me cast several longing glances at the PS3 sitting in Sony’s yard, like someone coveting their neighbor’s Lamborghini. The original trio of Ratchet & Clank games released on the PS2 still seem to persist as the gold standard titles of Insomniac’s futuristically-themed 3D platformer franchise, which means that it was ultimately more fortuitous to have experienced the cream of the crop as a child as opposed to potentially missing out on them to then be brought into the series with the “Future” titles that had actually eluded me as an adolescent. The first three games probably still receive the most praise to this day because of the quality consistency between them, plus the fact that they exhibit the most dynamic and pronounced evolution in gameplay across each subsequent entry. Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal vociferously debate on which of their most glowing individual merits, level design and combat/narrative, respectively, places them on the pedestal as the Ratchet & Clank king. All the while, the first game with no raunchy subtitle to speak of sits contentedly coasting on its legacy as the architect despite its rudimentary issues. This isn’t to say that the “Future” games are nothing but a string of burnished mediocrity, but they’re hardly spoken of under the same celebrated breath as their standard-definition predecessors. If I had to hazard a guess using Tools of Destruction as a reference point, fans, myself included, were rather turned off by the heightened grandeur of the narrative and how it subdued the comedic tone of the series. Capitalizing on the generation-defining trend of motion controls and implementing them into the game’s puzzles and weapons also adds an element of awkward aging that the original trilogy won’t have to worry about. This is why, when the “A Crack in Time” outlier erected its own podium to tell the two PS2 heavyweights to cease their bickering and assert its position as the series’ reigning champion, it piqued the interests of fans such as I. While my childhood bias prevents me from touting A Crack in Time (an ASS crack in time? Are they still doing the saucy subtitles here?) as the supreme Ratchet & Clank title over the PS2 classics on a subjective standpoint, I’ll be damned if it didn’t try its hardest to sway me towards adopting this opinion.

Calling A Crack in Time a “Ratchet & Clank” game is a bit of a misnomer at this point. An honest reworking of the title should have “& Clank” in parentheses because the two titular characters are still estranged due to the circumstances that concluded Tools of Destruction. Ratchet is still searching far and wide across the solar system for his cerebral chum, but unlike Quest for Booty, which puts the player alongside Ratchet’s aimless goose chase, the opening sequence of A Crack in Time takes us directly to Clank’s whereabouts. The inner sanctum of the enigmatic Great Clock not only finds Clank suspended in one of its chambers, but two more familiar faces that PS2 series veterans should squeal with delight upon seeing once again. The asteroid that was carrying the hilariously maniacal Dr. Nefarious and his deadpan, posh butler Lawrence has finally managed to magnetize to a planet’s gravitational pull and save these two tin cans from their eternity of surfing throughout the oblivion of space and from being every game’s throwaway post-credit gag scene. This lucky occurrence (for us, not the characters) allows the series' fan favorite villains to reclaim their positions of steering a Ratchet & Clank game’s conflict in the narrative. In this case, Dr. Nefarious has been collaborating with the Zoni to gain access to The Great Clock’s volatile core, known as the Orvus Chamber. Dr. Nefarious wishes to visit the sacred section of the universe’s time equalizer as its foretold to harness the potential to change the course of the space-time continuum and alter the past, which is exactly why the Zoni intervene in his schemes and bar his entryway into the chamber. Once Nefarious ends his partnership with the Zoni, the confrontation that ensues awakens Clank from his slumber, which leaves him free to navigate through the grounds of his supposed birthright. Meanwhile, Ratchet is on cue continuing his quest to reunite with his robotic buddy, with Captain Qwark serving as emotional support. However, Qwark retrogresses to his consistent series role as a recurring character when Ratchet learns of the existence of another Lombax named Azimuth (or “General Alister Azimuth” if you’re inclined to feel formal), who is also en route to The Great Clock in hopes of using its time-bending capabilities to reverse the tragedy that befell the Lombax race. Because Angela was actually a termite or dalmatian or something, the excitement we’re intended to derive from such a pairing is Ratchet interacting with someone of his own species for the first time in his life. Beyond their shared furry surfaces, Azimuth’s age and relationship with Ratchet’s father situates this curious stranger as a beacon of wisdom and enlightenment to potentially quell Ratchet’s questions pertaining to his origin and background, something vital in expanding our understanding of Ratchet that even the calculating Clank can’t possibly provide. Honestly, I was kind of enjoying the shared screen time between Ratchet and Qwark, for the deluge of drivel that is constantly downpouring out of this dunderhead makes me appreciate Ratchet more as a protagonist.

It should go without saying at this point that Ratchet & Clank in high definition still looks like a million bucks. Still, A Crack in Time continues to add some flair to the “Future” presentation that warrants discussing it past Tools of Destruction, laying the glossy groundwork. I suppose that I’ll summarize the subtle presentational quirks in A Crack in Time with a question: Does Ratchet & Clank fit the distinction of a “shooter” game? One certainly spends an inordinate amount of time shooting an eclectic selection of guns across the Ratchet & Clank series, but it hardly shares much commonality with the undeniable examples of the genre like Half-Life and BioShock. It’s like debating whether or not golf and billiards are sports or if Alice in Chains and Soundgarden are heavy metal bands: the mix of non-traditional elements at play makes the consensus rather complicated. Regardless of whether Ratchet & Clank firmly fits the bill with the generation-defining giants of the PS3 era, it sure does borrow enough of their framework in order to proclaim some kind of overt association. When Ratchet and Qwark were being escorted through the ancient Temple of Zahn by the native fongoid chief, an audible “hmm” reverberated in my larynx when their conversation hadn’t been transferred over to an automated cutscene as per usual. While Qwark was characteristically fretting over the potential danger that might confront them in this dank pit, Ratchet was free to jump around like an idiot, similarly to Gordon Freeman eradicating a man’s lunch in the microwave when he’s supposed to be preparing for the test chamber, if you can catch the correlation I’m alluding to. The aforementioned steampunk undersea odyssey also implements seamless cutscenes into its gameplay, but the connective comparisons between it and A Crack in Time are far clearer when Ratchet purchases a new weapon. The GrummelNet vendor now provides animated orientations that instruct the player on what to expect when they invest their bolts into their deadly wares. With the quaint animation style of a 1950s TV commercial or PSA on display, humorously depicting acts of violence with these weapons, I could’ve sworn that I had sunken back down to the depths of Rapture and was dispensing my ADAM at a Gatherer’s Garden machine. These little presentational kinks are admittedly minor and don’t impact the series in any significant fashion, but they do suggest that Ratchet & Clank want to be contenders like Marlon Brando in the then-trendy shooter landscape of gaming instead of festering further in the 3D platformer genre that was already bleeding when it was born.

As much as I am amused by their entertaining advertisements, I don’t really need any commercial incentive to maximize the space of Ratchet’s arsenal. The arsenal in question seems to follow the same pattern as that of Tools of Destruction, in that a plethora of genuinely interesting and innovative picks are slotted in with the standard, safe regurgitations. There’s a laser pistol, a bomb chucker, a missile launcher, and I’m pretty certain that “Buzz Blades” is the exact same variation of the swarming saw blade dispenser ripped straight from Tools of Destruction. Did they not catch this mistake, or are they now beyond their former capacity to care in the slightest? This unfortunate boner notwithstanding, I can’t declare total creative bankruptcy on Insomniac’s part because A Crack in Time does incorporate some truly ingenious ways to blast bolts out of enemies. Another tactic that this selection evidently seems to utilize is disguising established weapons with a new design. I’ve shredded the paint off of machines with a concentrated boom of offensive energy before, but it’s never been channeled out of the gastric eruptions of a creature’s belches with a frequency meter attached to increase its range of effectiveness. The “Sonic Eruptor” is quite disgusting if one pauses for a second to think about the schematics of its usage. Ratchet has also summoned a floating robotic helper to shoot enemies for a short period, but the “Agents of Doom” can’t quite match up to the personality and bloodlust of “Mr. Zurkon.” The “Negotiator” may seem like the series standard sniper rifle, but we can’t forget that all previous examples of this long-range firearm were inappropriately utilized as a sort of narrower shotgun. Conversely, this variant of sniper rifle will only prove effective if the player uses the scope to dispatch enemies from a distance, and I can’t tell if using it in this traditional manner is a downgrade or not. The “Constructo Shotgun” should accommodate close-quarters combat, even if calling a weapon a “shotgun” seems rather crude for a Ratchet & Clank game. Some of the more unique weaponry at Ratchet’s disposal here includes constructing an electric fence with the “Tesla Spikes” and calling forth a Lovecraftian superbeast to snatch enemies with its tentacles to presumably devour them from an interdimensional portal with the “Rift Inducer 5000.” Even with intergalactic travel as a feasible convenience, there still exists the disquieting element of the unknown in this universe. The Raritanium upgrade system that Tools of Destruction introduced has been totally omitted in favor of simple, streamlined leveling, minus a few modifications one can make to some choice weapons. The concept of “items” has also been wisely removed, which means that this game’s Morph-O-Ray (which transforms enemies into apes this time around) and the distracting disco ball summoner have been promoted to indispensable inclusions in Ratchet’s arsenal. Oh, we’re getting down tonight, alright.

A Crack in Time’s weapon selection seems like the sparsest the series has seen thus far, but maybe that’s an illusion caused by the gadgets being assigned to the respective cardinal directions of the controller’s D-pad instead of clogging up the weapon wheel. The “Slingshot” persists as Ratchet’s mode of crossing chasms, and his boots are still multifaceted enough to climb on magnetic surfaces and skate on lengthy, looping rails. Ratchet’s boots also foster the game’s greatest innovation on the gadgets, which many returning players may not even recognize as a spin on an old classic. Remember the Hover Boots? The auxiliary attachments to Ratchet’s footwear that allowed him to turbo boost for a second and then hover about a meter above the ground at the languid pace of an airport travelator? Do you also recall that they had next to no utility? Well, A Crack in Time has officially decided that the hoverboots should be propelled out of their pointlessness to the forefront of the game’s alternate instances of traversal. One aspect of innovation implemented into the hover boots is serving as Ratchet’s gliding mechanism in lieu of Clank’s absence, so not every double jump has to be coordinated with perilous precision. Instead of instantly petering out, this brand of hover boots does the inverse. The player can manually rev the boost feature of the hover boots to exponentially increase the leisurely speed of their base movement. Rushing at a precarious velocity is also incorporated into the pervasive platforming ramps, where Ratchet will thrust himself upward like he’s ski jumping and bounce off a series of airborne platforms to eventually reach solid footing. Knowing the year of this game’s release, it’s a miracle that quick-time events weren’t factored into the zigzagged leaping. Because of their augmentations and ubiquitous usage, I now take Ratchet’s rocket shoes seriously and often find myself zooming around with them even when there are no ramps around. I’m also easing up on them because I can now shift my mockery towards the “Omnisoaker,” a new gadget that acts as an all-purpose liquid dispenser. Sure, the fact that it can absorb water to grow plants, oil to crease rusty gear hinges, and spurt the nectar that the throngs of those ground piranhas crave is nifty. Still, the best that a series synonymous with mechanical ingenuity can come up with is a glorified Super Soaker? Lame.

Outside of the few ways that A Crack in Time’s settings shuffle the standard rate of traversal with a few platforming mechanics, they barely shake the mold of a Ratchet & Clank level. The environments that encompass this quadrant of the Polaris galaxy include your muggy jungles, crowded metropolises, a space station or two, a gladiatorial arena where Ratchet kills hordes of hired goons for a surplus of bolts, etc. I enjoy the open range at the center of Krell Canyon and the all-out battle that commences with Dr. Nefarious’ army, but the atmosphere is not chaotic enough to distract me from the deja vu of riding around the arid areas of series past. Speaking of past peculiarities, the Valkyrie Citadel on Vapedia, where Nefarious’s Rubenesque robot women call home, is practically stripped from a scrapped Spyro level, given its uncanny design and aesthetic to Insomniac’s former IP. Amongst the prevalent repurposing of level themes, A Crack in Time does actually showcase something unprecedented that is perfectly aligned with the game’s greater narrative foundation. The fongoids are a tribal race of creatures that have a significant screen presence in A Crack in Time due to Dr. Nefarious's crash landing near their civilization in the Tombli Outpost of Zanifar. Since taking an interest in him, Dr. Nefarious has naturally been exploiting their unadorned naivety for free labor, and it’s had a seriously deleterious effect on their society and environment. Because Nefarious’ influence has rendered Zanifar a blustering tundra, the seeds that sprout the gigantic vines cannot grow, and therefore, Ratchet cannot use them as organic grind rails. That is, until Ratchet uses a time portal that transports him back to a prosperous moment for this planet and plants seeds that then transform into massive green stalks that rival those from famous fairy tales. Similarly, the fongoid population of the planet Morklon is retroactively saved when Ratchet jumps backwards in time and intervenes in a bloody battle between them and the brutish agorians. With Ratchet’s assistance, the setting transforms from a desolate realm of failure to a thriving fongoid community who erect a commendatory statue in his honor. These are the only two instances where time travel is a key component, and it’s rather disappointing considering how pertinent the science fiction concept is to the overarching narrative and how it reinvigorates level progression. The Zoni and Orvus harp on the fact that time is a constant that shouldn’t be altered or taken for granted, but could we bend those rules a bit to give A Crack in Time some much-needed distinction?

If the levels insist on treating their new time travel mechanic with unnecessary restraint, the player can still find broader strokes of innovation elsewhere in A Crack in Time. Interplanetary travel in Ratchet & Clank was formally conducted in a scrolling menu once Ratchet returned to his ship, and the process of arriving at the selected destination was but a series of automated scenes with Ratchet darting around the blank regions of deep space. While the straightforwardness of this method has never totally disillusioned me, it is admittedly the epitome of a dry and direct method of orchestrating travel in a video game–so much so that I’ve used it as an example of such for other titles that implement something similar. Occasional bouts of flying around in Ratchet’s snazzy space vessel were prominently featured in the first two PS2 games before Up Your Arsenal deemed them unfit for a combat-intensive title and Tools of Destruction watered them down by automating the acceleration like a rail shooter. When Ratchet left the first planet to rescue Qwark, and I was commanding his ship, I was relatively pleased to see that the space missions had returned. When there was no immediate directive steering the scene, my moment of clarity upon realizing the bigger picture caused my eyes to widen with sheer surprise and elation. The outer space medium between every planet in the Polaris Galaxy is now a fully interactive sandbox where the player can pick and choose objectives on their own volition. Such objectives run the gamut of alternative activities typically offered in this non-linear dominion, including side quests involving errands done in the interest of the mechanical vullard merchants and escorting various NPCs to their desired destinations by tethering them to Ratchet’s ship. Satellite drones are in abundance and will sic a battalion of battleships on Ratchet, so his ship’s artillery isn’t neglected, and each portion of the galaxy features a half dozen moons to explore and potentially grab a stray zoni or any of the game’s other collectibles. Walking around one of these gravitationally thin orbital bodies evokes the same feeling as wandering around on the Obani Moons of the Solana Galaxy. The sublime, impeccably dazzling atmosphere exhibits the indescribable beauty and wonder of the final frontier. The shooter genre may have been the special item on gaming’s menu during this era, but the liberal space that the open-world format newly enabled thrust the medium into truly radical parameters. Once the breadth of the open-world design became comfortably tamed with time, Ratchet & Clank used it to correct its most underwhelming gameplay aspect marvelously.

Similar to when Mario obtains a star spirit in Paper Mario, Ratchet hyperdriving to another sector of the galaxy upon finishing his business in the previous one briefly shifts the scene to Clank and his current on-goings. While speculated to be oppressively held captive like Princess Peach, the Zoni are rolling out the welcome wagon for Clank as an esteemed guest in the nucleus of the universe. In fact, since Clank is apparently the offspring of deceased Great Clock caretaker Orvus, all of his screen time is spent training to take his mantle with the aid of a goofy trashcan droid named Sigmund. The tasks assigned to assess Clank’s professionalism are what fundamentally distinguish his gameplay this time around from how it was performed before, unless one wants to argue that his new time staff makes him more adept in combat. Between whacking enemies with the staff in the interest of pest control, Clank’s priorities will be focused on two distinct minigames. One sees Clank dragging a laser over a model of a planet being afflicted with “time anomalies.” The scope of the objective here seems like suitable work being conducted to keep the universe in a state of homeostasis, but Clank will become profoundly bored because he could perform this task in his sleep (if he slept). On the other side of the coin, I’m not entirely certain what sort of omniscient healing is done with the temporal recording puzzles, but they do genuinely give the ol’ noggin some exercise. Essentially, Clank must satisfy pressing a sequence of locks simultaneously, which is achieved via recording himself performing one or two of the required steps and materializing the actions as a “ghost” of sorts. Unlocking the exit after the circuitous and entangled process always fills me with a rush of gratification, as any worthy puzzle should. Clank’s periodic limelight time has never had this extent of prominence, and the puzzle-intensive sections here solidify the gameplay yin and yang between him and his action-oriented furry friend. It’s a shame then that only one minigame satisfies that stark dichotomy between them.

The eventual teary-eyed reunion of Ratchet and Clank also isn’t the game’s climactic resolution as one would probably expect. Fortunately, neither is the defeat of Dr. Nefarious. While I appreciate the entertainment factor that the cone-headed mad machine still displays, his returnee status, matched with his lackluster motive for warping space and time, makes his presence poisonous for the crux of the story. Somehow, the developers recognized this and have simply propped Dr. Nefarious up as a red herring for the true antagonist of the story. Once Ratchet clobbers Nefarious enough to where his head is playing space-age Young and the Restless on a loop, Azimuth murders Ratchet in cold blood after his plan of reverting time to save the Lombaxes is vetoed by our heroes. Clank slightly defies his father’s wishes by turning the clock back marginally enough to prevent Ratchet’s untimely death, and then they both face off against an enraged Azimuth in the final stretch of the story. People often express shock and sadness at Azimuth’s heel turn, but the writing was all over the walls. During a cutscene, one character calls the Lombax elder something of a “disgrace” to his people, and this negative reputation likely stems from the fallout of the Cragmite War, considering that Azimuth speaks of it like a broken record. Given the context behind his initiative, we can infer that the supposed nobility of his aspirations is marked by hints of selfishness. This is why even upon hearing of the unfathomable devastation of toying with the Clock and what it will do to the universe, he doesn’t bat an eye. He’d rather erase everyone who thinks of him as a failure if he never gets the chance to rectify what created this public consensus in the first place. Azimuth’s character depth and the pacing throughout his time in the spotlight make the game’s falling actions effective, but he infects the narrative with more melodrama than a Ratchet & Clank game can handle. Good thing that Dr. Nefarious can still crack smiles!

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is a game that demands your respect. No, I’m not exclusively referring to the weight of its semi-emotional story, although it would indicate some sense of intended sincerity. Ratchet & Clank was blessed when it outlived its PS2 platformer peers and has decided not to take its second wave of relevance for granted. Ratchet & Clank had to adapt to the conditions of the ever-changing gaming landscape, and all of the nip and tuck operations performed certainly maintained its youthful glow amongst the new wave of intellectual properties. The free-ranged space sections should persist as a series requisite, and the game achieves an organization standard with Ratchet’s arsenal that every first-person shooter should take note of. There are still some signs of series stagnation, but at least A Crack in Time makes a significant effort to spruce up its elements instead of relying on the 720p output of the PS3 as its mark of evolution. Tools of Destruction made me weary of how the franchise would carry on past its PS2 prime, but A Crack in Time’s “future” is bright enough that I’ll at least apply some sunblock to be safe.

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/5/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Pokémon Diamond/Pearl

Developer: Game Freak

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): JRPG

Platforms: DS

Release Date: September 28, 2006

When Pokémon released its fourth generation of games in 2007 (American release), I had all but clocked out of the franchise completely. It’s not as if I became an adult since the release of Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire and had to relinquish my childhood interests in order to acclimate myself to the unrelenting adult world. Hell, I was still in elementary school when Pokémon’s fourth generation of titles shipped overseas, undoubtedly still in the prime Pokémon demographic. However, I was undergoing an evolution in the media I consumed in my, let’s call it, “PG-13 era.” I had also newly defected from tuning into Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network whenever I turned on the television in favor of more adult animated series such as The Simpsons and such, plus a few prime time sitcoms that had been currently airing (The Office, 30 Rock) that were generally more risque than the material the two children-oriented networks were producing. Relative access to the internet at this time, in an era where it was still an unregulated frontier of cutting-edge creativity, also had a hand in pulling me away from kid-friendly content. Anyways, the reason for this anecdotal line of context behind Pokémon Diamond/Pearl is to ultimately reveal that it was the first Pokémon generation that I have no nostalgic attachment towards. This playthrough isn’t my first rodeo with the franchise's fourth iteration, as I played Pearl in college during my “Pokémon renaissance phase.” Still, experiencing anything intended for younger people as the target demographic versus experiencing it as an adult will resonate differently, which is probably why I don’t share the same sentimental attachment to this generation as some of the people around my age. In saying this, I’m glad my seasoned adult perspective detects some flagrant issues with Pokémon’s DS titles that a biased childhood experience likely would still be overlooking.

During the time of my ambivalent absence, I evidently did not miss out on Pokémon shaking up the formula in any substantial way. A Pokémon adventure still begins with a boy (or girl, since Pokémon Crystal) waking up in their comfortable little burg that coincidentally also shares the same zip code as a pokemon professor’s research facility. The scientist will continue to grant the player one of three rare pokemon to lead them on the path of Poke-glory, which includes defeating eight elite Pokemon trainers scattered across the region and then the Elite Four that are housed in a prodigious building located at the apex of a lofty mountain range. Pokemon Diamond/Pearl introduces the player to the trio of exclusives the same way that Ruby/Sapphire did, choosing one in a hectic flash when forced to defend oneself from wild pokemon that lurk in the nearby tall grasses. Truthfully, it doesn’t distract from the fact that the game is still setting up the same call for adventure that will lead on the same eight gym trajectory with a meaty gauntlet as the final step of the player’s ascension to the top.

However, one consistent alteration to this staunch narrative formula that persists here is the selection of starter pokemon, even if they still maintain the same contrasting elemental dynamic. Is it obvious to anyone else that Piplup was engineered to be the definitive fan favorite of the three? I don’t need a census taker to tell me that people absolutely love penguins more than God loves irony, so the turquoise ice bird is bound to be bought up by aspiring trainers in record time. Admittedly, I can’t deny that Piplup would be a solid decision outside of its superficial appeal. He’s a speedy little guy whose adult emperor penguin evolution form, Empoleon, persists as THE only water and steel hybrid known in the Pokedex to this day, which also comes with several resistances and an immunity to poison matching that of the Dread Pirate Roberts. I think that I share a commonality with the face-painted kid who was virally interviewed for the local news all those years ago because I have a fondness for Turtwig that almost matches my adoration for Blastoise. Even if the leafy little turtle is obviously slower than his peers, he’s a defensive powerhouse whose durability only strengthens when he fully evolves into the Ankylosauria-esque Torterra and grows a ground typing on top of the preexisting grass one (and an entire tree on its back as well). So far, the beguiling designs and commitment to dual-typing their evolutions make this selection of starter pokemon as exemplary as the previous batch. The fire-type representative that rounds out this trio doesn’t buck this trend, but the evolutionary line of Chimchar, Monferno, and Infernape marks the first time where a starter pokemon has bothered me. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this flaming simian or his advanced forms, but I can’t help but see him as the reheated nachos of my beloved Blaziken, with its fire and fighting physical mix only one generation after his marvelous time in the spotlight. After being treated to the delicious, nuanced taste of Coca-Cola, Pepsi is not a suitable substitute in its absence. To compound on that, Chimchar is irritatingly the sole obtainable fire pokemon in the game, so Game Freak is seemingly working with the obstinate stance that the player can drink Pepsi or go to Hell. I, for one, refuse to submit to their watered-down version of a superior product they’re trying to shell out onto us.

Okay, I’ll admit that my last statement on Chimchar was incorrect. Chimchar is the only NEW fire pokemon to appear in the grand land of Sinnoh, but the only alternative is Kanto’s incandescent horse Ponyta and its majestic, evolved stallion form of Rapidash. The scant selection aside, another pattern I can detect from Diamond/Pearl’s example here is that every even-numbered Pokemon generation will add around one-hundred of the beasts instead of 150 just as Gold/Silver did in the franchise’s sophomore era. When the total of new breeds is comparatively subtracted, the game allows enough room for familiar faces to flourish once again. Besides Ponyta, long-tongued ghost Gastly, and the doofy yellow mallard Psyduck are some of the representatives from Pokemon’s original roster that return after their gap year. The beta version of Swampert in Wooper/Quagsire, plus the kick-ass stag beetle, Heracross, have also migrated here from Johto. As for Pokémon #252-#386 that were front and center in their native Hoenn, only a handful of the archipelago’s pokémon have persisted in the limelight (Wingull, Medicham, and Barboach, to name a few). While padding the region’s Pokedex with returnees would’ve appeased my younger self, the focal point of any Pokemon game’s roster should ideally be the ones currently crafted in the developer’s creative kiln.

Firstly, I appreciate that the player can find the notoriously sparse electric type pokemon in Shinx before fighting the first gym leader, and the fact that it evolves twice into Luxray makes it a viable competitor for the long run. Queen bee Vespiquen provides more proof that bug-type pokemon aren’t just low-level obstacles to contend with out of the gate, but the player can only confirm this statement for themselves if they manage to encounter the highly elusive female form of Combee in the wild–hence the gendered connotations of Vespiquen’s status. The ghost balloons of Drifloon and Drifblim amuse me on the implication that a balloon can become deceased, and the grins of the bipedal poison frogs Croagunk and Toxicroak exude a great deal of personality, even if they are of the irksome, shit-eating variety. Above all else, no other fourth-generation pokemon debutant exudes more charisma and star power than Lucario, who is so physically personable that it seems like you could have an intelligent conversation with him. Considering that he was deemed worthy of Super Smash Bros stardom, I’d confidently call him the breakout pokemon of this era. Maybe he would even temporarily eclipse Pikachu’s mascot status in a timeline where the yellow rat wasn’t guarding his throne like an electric fence around a storage facility. The line-up also isn’t rife with unevolvable defectives like the ones that ran amok throughout Johto, although the electric rodent Pachirisu sees an unfortunate trend continuing that Plusle and Minun started. I’d comment that Diamond/Pearl’s overall selection was lacking in options despite the variety on display, but then I realized that the veteran pokemon here can sufficiently cover any elemental blind spots in one’s pokemon team. Really, the biggest bone I have to pick regarding Sinnoh’s selection of beasts is that the developers used the design template of my favorite animal, the beaver, and turned it into an absolute joke with Bidoof and Bibarel–the supreme HM bitch so submissive that I’m surprised they can’t lick the player’s running shoes. A pox on both your houses! (Nintendo and Game Freak)

If anything, the biggest commonality that Diamond/Pearl share with Gold/Silver regarding their original lineups is how they augment and innovate on the already-existing pokemon of previous generations. For instance, the developers thought it keen to continue literally infantilizing popular pokemon like Warner Bros. with Looney Tunes characters. Mr. Mime continues his detestable family surname with his son, “Mime Jr.,” Happiny is Chansey’s poke-nurse in training, and Budew is a Roselia sproutling. The player can still facilitate the birth of these babies via the awkward and outwardly inappropriate act of pokemon fornication in the daycare center, but I’m sure they’ll find it more convenient and comfortable to find these prepubescents in the wild with the rest of the bunch. This way, the player can also catch multiple Bonslys and Munchlaxes and train an assortment of their once-exclusive adult forms of Sudowoodo and Snorlax. Lord knows what kind of king’s feast it’ll take to feed that army, though. Personally, I find the idea of evolving these helpless, juvenile creatures through battle experience to be unethically cruel, so I’d rather focus on the evolved forms of pokemon that are already formidable enough. Gold/Silver’s impetus for adding an evolved form to an established pokemon was to make them contenders in one’s pokemon posse rather than a slot on a catching checklist, for even the least experienced Pokemon trainer should recognize that evolution involves making a creature stronger. For instance, Murkrow was the epitome of forgettable in Gold/Silver, even among a profusion of losers, but his new evolved form in Honchkrow tacks on mass to make this skinny, pathetic crow mediocre no more. Yanmega adds some buzzing bug ferocity to Yanma, Tangela turns from an unkempt grass nymph into fucking Swamp Thing with Tangrowth, and Sneasel’s crowned superior, Weaville, is quicker than Japanese public transportation. Piloswine probably didn’t need to evolve again to survive the steep conditions of Pokémon battles, but who am I to argue against its capacity to adapt when it can now transform into the whompus woolly mammoth Mamoswine? Designating new evolutionary branches based on gender with Gallade and Froslass also provides a nifty new method of players to weigh their options when catching either a Ralts or a Snorunt. All of the ones mentioned are what I’d consider to be the standouts among this new wave of enhanced Pokemon but unfortunately, there exist plenty of unappealing examples in this category of pokemon either due to their designs or excessiveness. Unless you find jokes involving oral sex to be especially funny, Lickitung might be the one original pokemon even a staunch gen-wunner might have trouble recalling. Still, its evolved form, Lickilicky, will be memorable for all the wrong reasons, as it resembles something upsetting one would see during a drug-induced hallucination. Why does Probopass look like Nosepass had a Bar Mitzvah in between generations? We needed another “Jynx” predicament on our hands, Nintendo? Why did Magmar need a shlubby beer gut and a Mega Man arm cannon, and was it really necessary to bulk up Rhyhorn with an entire shield of stone? I would think that being a hulking rock rhinoceros was formidable enough. Every evolution here technically improves the stats of these established pokemon, but their gaudiness ultimately still makes them unwelcome.

In the case of Magnezone and the two new Eeveelutions, the rationale behind these previously undiscovered iterations is that the other regions didn’t have the particular environmental factors that would enable these physical changes. The environment in question, of course, is Diamond/Pearl’s central region of Sinnoh. Geographically, the fourth Pokenation is the antithesis of Hoenn in a more literal sense than just its design, climate, and general atmosphere. Whereas Hoenn was inspired by Japan's southern chain of islands, Sinnoh is the entirety of the country’s northernmost prominent island, Hokkaido. Geography experts/weeaboos can even see that the developers practically slapped Hokkaido onto the game’s world map and infested it with pokemon. Given that this island is situated slightly further away from the equator, one can expect Sinnoh to exhibit the characteristics of a temperate climate rather than a subtropical one. Rain and fog are common weather conditions that may factor into battle as opposed to the rampant blustering of desert sand. Oreburgh is a humble mining town with much of its territory sunken below the ground due to the constant excavation of coal and other nearby natural resources. Floroma Town is a city that shares Hoenn’s forte for flowers, but the atmosphere here conveys a reserved, remote environment where the player can listen to the wind blowing on the wide span of pretty plants without some well-meaning florist rambling on about the environmental and personal benefits of growing them. The most notable attraction in Canalave City is its multistoried library, and Celestic Town preserves the traditional, unsophisticated lifestyles and attitudes of centuries ago, like several of Johto’s settlements. The vibrancy of modern times seen in Sinnoh seems to be condensed to Hearthome and Jubilife City. Either of these districts has to be based on Hokkaido’s central city of Sapporo, but I can’t tell which one on account of neither having a brewery or beer garden. In terms of comparing the nation’s weather conditions to that of the last region, nothing is more evident of how different Sinnoh is than the frigid Snowpoint City, where it perennially precipitates the city’s namesake. The sentient evergreen tree Snover and his yeti-sized evolved form Abomasnow could never have sensibly existed in a region like Hoenn, where the apex of elevation resembles the area of northern California where the redwoods reside. In addition to the potential for perpetual snow, Sinnoh’s notable natural bodies are three massive lakes located all across the land, which might remind every North American resident of the Great Lakes that surround the boreal upper midwest of the USA and parts of Canada. Certainly, Hoenn shares little to no commonality with our white neighbor to the north. Like Johto’s relationship to Kanto, Sinnoh sort of presents a direct contrast to Hoenn that illustrates its polar differences in all of the aforementioned essences. While I prefer the laid-back, oceanic atmosphere permeating throughout Hoenn as I do with places of a real-life parallel, I appreciate the modest, chillier expanse that Sinnoh establishes to accentuate its distinctiveness.

I suppose that the advancements of the DS hardware also play a hand in Sinnoh’s perceptible differences compared to the previous generations. An understated aspect of the double-screened handheld is that it could competently render three-dimensional shapes in the graphics, albeit rudimentary ones that recall when Mario and Link looked like satirical action figures made by Seth Green for Adult Swim. With the approximate 64-bit visuals at hand, the foregrounds of each metropolitan area are rather cubical, further immersing us into the illusion of interacting in a bustling cityscape. Evidently, the extra-dimensional range at their disposal is also being utilized in the interior puzzle of gyms that prevent the player from darting to the leader’s domain. We can determine the change in water level while trying to navigate around Crasher Wake’s Olympic-sized pool, and it might have been difficult to obscure the junior trainers playing hide and seek in Gardenia’s grass gym from a pixelated, top-down perspective. Solving the math problems that lock the doors behind the fabulous Fantina’s domain could’ve been achievable without the perks of an advanced spatial plane, but probably not the series of elevators between them. One would think that injecting this graphical flair into the Pokemon world would be a cinch, considering the capabilities of the system, but something about the game’s sluggishness suggests that rounding out the visuals may have still been too ambitious. For some reason or other, Diamond/Pearl runs as slowly as a sloth sinking in a tar pit during any battle sequence. Every action is plagued with a hesitation reminiscent of children stuttering their lines during a school play. In a game where the turn-based gameplay can become rather repetitive, chugging through the grind with jagged pauses at every waking moment can make the process grating. This kink in Diamond/Pearl’s foundation is the first instance of blatant regression in the Pokemon series, and there’s no excuse for it.

Judging by how Sinnoh shares a similar atmosphere and disposition to Johto, this would lead the player to believe that its general progression is equally as lethargic and somewhat adrift. Fortunately, there is a prominent overarching subplot in tandem with the player’s path to fame and fortune, but it’s quite absurd. Filling in the requisite organization of rabblerousers is Team Galactic, whose group uniformity is defined by their eccentric hairstyles. Another point of eccentricity regarding this antagonistic team is their highfalutin mission. Instead of using pokemon as tools in conducting schemes for financial gain and influencing one’s opinion on the land and sea divide, Team Galactic wishes to change the world…by channeling the cosmic power of the region’s legendary pokemon to erase the current one and craft a new existence as the primary architects. Something about team leader Cyrus’s intense and misanthropic disposition tells me that his goals are not based in philanthropy. Between the seventh and eighth Sinnoh gyms, the player will climb the perilous Mt. Coronet and arrive at the mythical ruins of Spear Pillar. At its peak, Team Galactic’s rude awakening will summon the sacred Pokemon arbiters of space and time in either Dialga or Palkia–depending on the version. This encounter is certainly a memorable moment in the player’s journey through Sinnoh for its epic scale and biting tension, as it seems like Team Galactic will have their nefarious wish fulfilled. Still, the underlying issue that sullies Team Galactic’s impact is that their villainous operations are barely relevant to the greater Pokemon world in the grand scheme of the franchise’s thematic foundation. Team Rocket tainted our perception of treating these creatures as reciprocal friends or pets when they utilize their offensive properties like gangsters use sawed-offs and Tommy guns. At least the player can assume that the radical desires of either Team Aqua or Magma stem from their affinities for the category of pokemon that their elemental association coincides with. Team Galactic, on the other hand, seem like they’ve stumbled upon the Pokemon world and have researched an avenue to achieve their disquieting goals in the environment they circumstantially find themselves in. I’ve seen the villain trope of a radical cult several times across many video games, and injecting Pokémon into the equation doesn’t seem to broaden the scope in any significant way. As far as the series’s less diabolical adversaries are concerned, the opposite gender equivalent of the player is a non-entity who follows around Professor Rowan like a border collie, and spastic neighbor Barry is in the feckless category of “rival” that Wally unremarkably introduced. Barry’s aspiration to conquer the player and place himself as the hottest contender in the Sinnoh league is still as fruitless and one-sided, even with a longer screen presence. Maybe he’d be a formidable Pokémon trainer if he invested in decaf and could focus?

Because all of the auxiliary narrative components that comprise a Pokémon adventure are rather ineffective this time around, the developers thought ahead of this predicament by raising the difficulty ceiling for the Elite Four and the league champion. If that douche Lance has taught me anything (besides that Dragonite is like the Ford F-450 of Pokémon), a particularly flashy and haughty champion will feel inclined to assist the player in trouncing the game’s criminal organization threat. When the blonde, elegant trainer Cynthia suddenly lent a hand in forcing Team Galactic out of Sinnoh’s great lakes, I knew she’d be my final opponent and wouldn’t relinquish her crown so easily. The range of pokemon levels amongst Sinnoh’s Elite Four is a steep 53 at the lowest and a staggering 63 at their highest, with some of Cynthia’s pokemon reaching social security eligibility numbers. Cynthia’s eclectic mix, consisting of her bulky, self-healing Milotic and exclusively invulnerable Spiritomb, still gave me the business. A sense of fear should especially strike the players when faced against Cynthia’s Garchomp trump card. The mighty upright sand hammerhead shark with dragon blood in its veins is so goddamn powerful that I hear Lance is thinking about trading one of his Dragonites for one, like an insecure "alpha male" influencer swapping his Bugatti for a Ferrari. We get it, Cynthia, women are just as capable of topping the league towers as their Y-chromosomed equivalents, but did you have to make your strides for womankind our problem? The grinding regime I had to undergo to defeat you spanned the length of a flight to Europe, and the slowing hiccups in the game’s system made the process all the more tedious and excruciating.

Pokemania has officially bitten the dust, and now the franchise is in a state where the developers have to keep huffing and puffing to keep the flame from being totally extinguished. With Pokémon’s fourth-generation outing in Diamond/Pearl, their attempt to maintain relevance is rather limp. Sinnoh is an inspired region only because it acts as Hoenn’s clear-cut opposite, and there are still plenty of commendable extensions to the international Pokedex that should still rouse a sense of curiosity in returning players amongst those whose brassy designs smack of overcompensation. Other than that, the narrative does not bode well when the fatigued Pokémon champion arc takes a backseat to deal with an enemy syndicate whose principles put them one degree from Dahlia Gillespie from Silent fucking Hill. Above all else, the delayed clunkiness of the gameplay is the straw that broke the camel’s back, or at least the straw that caused some serious burning inflammation. I feel as if I just played a middle-aged Pokémon game, one that attempts to capture its prime by repeating the same feats but is ultimately now bogged down by the hitches that come with the passing of time. Adding on to this analogy, I also feel like the game’s teenage son, who is a bit embarrassed by its lameness. I might be too old for this shit afterall.

Mega Man 8 Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/1/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Mega Man 8

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: PS1

Release Date: December 17, 1996

Goddammit, Capcom. Is there no end to your shamelessness? Isn’t there some sort of industry regulation preventing Capcom from milking Mega Man until its nipples are as crusty and depleted as an old sow’s? What am I saying, of course there isn’t! As history tells it, after the blue bomber had tardily leaped into the 16-bit generation with Mega Man X, and with its sequels that bore the same “X” signifier, it gave gamers the impression that the original iteration of Capcom’s de facto mascot was confined to the franchise’s early titles on the NES. However, with the release of the seventh mainline Mega Man game on the SNES, it seemed like Capcom’s goal was to maximize the series’ profit margin by releasing either two games per year. Or, at least churn out one representative to fill the gaps that might occur with elongated development periods. Twice the serving of Mega Man’s yearly output may sound either exciting or excessive, depending on the perspective of the fanbase. Personally, I’ve adopted the negative attitude of the latter because I barely see any merit in continuing the mainline Mega Man series besides Capcom putting more money in their pockets. Mega Man 7 proved to be a worthy entry compared to the last two released on the NES, with its smoother difficulty curve and addition of an item shop in the main menu, but it hardly compares to the level of narrative and gameplay depth that the X series achieves with essentially the same formula. Well, now that we’ve established that Capcom feels no artistic reservations about plodding along with Mega Man’s stagnant, beta form, certainly Mega Man 8 was an inevitability. Unlike Mega Man 4, 5, and 6 that extended the NES’ lifespan far past its prime, the SNES wouldn’t let the series take advantage of the same squatter's rights policy and kicked its ass forward to the next generation. Because Nintendo was awfully stuffy on preserving the relevance of pixels at the time, Mega Man’s new home was the original PlayStation. Despite its initiative to showcase 3D graphics, Sony’s debut console would prove to let sequels of the pixelated variety flourish, if Symphony of the Night is any indication. Is Mega Man 8 just as exemplary in the category of old guard sequels that maintained their glory despite the industry backlash? No, not especially.

No one can fault me for constantly drawing comparisons between the mainline Mega Man series and its upgraded X counterpart. Ever since the first X game introduced its conflict premise with an impressive interactive prologue, every Mega Man game had to imitate it, even the less involved initial series. After a domestic scuffle above some city streets with Mega Man’s returning rival, Bass, Mega Man is tasked by Dr. Light to retrieve a fallen meteor that radiates an unexplainably powerful energy. While stomping through the beachy shore en route to Mega Man’s mission objective, the worst-case scenario of Dr. Wily obtaining the glowing space rock occurs, and we all know that he’s bound to conduct evil experiments with it. However, what Mega Man does successfully uncover at this moment is the wounded body of another robot from the same outer reaches of the cosmos as the meteor. Mega Man carries this aching automaton back to the lab so Dr. Light can nurse it back on its feet, while the titular tin can journeys forward to halt the grey, mustachioed menace once again. While I tend to harp on the transparency behind the slight derivativeness of this prologue, I realize that perhaps the series couldn’t regress back to an automated, expositional sequence once Mega Man X paved this more involved possibility. Offering an interactive introductory level is a wonderful way of getting the player acclimated to the controls and the beginning narrative beats.

While ironing out the introduction with an interactive sequence proves to be engaging, it’s the presentation of Mega Man 8 that might inspire some emphatic groaning from fans. In fact, Mega Man 8’s presentation is bar none the most excruciating aspect of the game, and I don’t even know where to begin with listing its fatal flaws. Let’s start with the game’s overall graphical aesthetic, I suppose. Like a broken record, I have to compare Mega Man 8 to the X games because I detect a clear correlation between how the look of those titles influences the aesthetic of future mainline ones. Actually, I noticed this dynamic being introduced in Mega Man 7, but the eighth game continuing this specific contrast affirms my suspicions. Given the lighter, warmer, and more cartoonish graphical style that permeates through the mainline games after X sharpened the sheen to a point of stark seriousness, I think the developers are attempting to convey that the mainline games are now the more kid-friendly counterpart to Mega Man’s advanced subseries. Admittedly, Mega Man has always been designed for a demographic that might still believe in Santa Claus, but it’s not as if the X games are adult enough to be pitched to the executives at HBO for a potential TV pilot. The “younger” equivalent of a subseries that is already youth-appropriate renders the mainline games to look sickeningly sophomoric. Mega Man 8 looks like a kindergartner’s first foray into the gaming medium, and it’s far too saccharine to swallow. While I’m on the subject of the mainline games now acting as the junior versions of the “mature” X titles, did they have to turn Mega Man into a screeching castrato to signify his boyish physicality? Actually, this probably wasn’t the intention and was just a casualty of whatever farting around occurred in the recording booth. Ladies and gentlemen, out of all of the horrendous voicework of the PS1 era that I’ve dug through, I think I’ve finally struck the septic tank. I can confidently make a guarantee to all of you that all of the Jill sandwiches can’t hold a candle to the awkward, quarter-assed, mumbling, speech-impediment-ridden dialogue “performed” by the voice cast of Mega Man 8. When the robotics genius Dr. Light sounds like a bad impression of Buckwheat, who stutters and misreads his lines at that, you make the argument that video games should be mute like Helen Keller. The animation where these awful line reads occur is pretty neat, however, or at least the novelty of seeing them rendered competently on a primitive 3D console is amusing.

But Mega Man was never intended to be an extravagant display of gaming’s technical evolution. Beneath all of the game’s newfangled atrocities lies the same Mega Man we’re all accustomed to, for better or for worse. While I no longer expect much from the mainline Mega Man series, I can detect that some creative juices were still stewing in the Capcom studios. As per usual, the stage selection is an eclectic mix of environments due to the varied elemental gimmicks of the robot masters at their dead ends. At first, hopping and skipping across a series of mid-air platforms in Tengu Man’s stage will remind all Mega Man veterans of Air Man’s cloudy domain from the second game. However, the blue fan android’s level didn’t feature a vertical segment where Mega Man has to direct himself away from spike balls scattered about while floating upward in a plastic bubble. Clown Man’s castle is definitely the most childish-looking stage in the game, but I enjoy the teleportation doors the stage uses as one of its circus-oriented hijinks. Sword Man and Astro Man’s stages are probably the most ambitious levels in terms of how they fracture the linearity of the typical Mega Man level. I prefer the four obstacles that lock further passage into Sword Man’s temple rather than Astro Man’s door maze that reminds me too much of the headache-inducing Great Cave Offensive for comfort. Some stages feature automated scrolling sections where Mega Man flies on Rush’s backside, and Beat, Eddie, and Auto can join the aerial firefight to clog the screen with bullets like DoDonPachi. I also prefer the team effort here to the other scrolling section I’ve yet to mention, for that one has given me a new outlet to disturb my neighbors and raise my blood pressure. The first section of Frost Man’s level sees Mega Man riding a jetboard on the snow stage’s icy terrain, and the track tends to be quite turbulent and precarious. One miscalculation of a jump or slide, and it’s curtains for the blue bomber. The margin of error involved with this scrolling section is smaller than the wingspan of a T. Rex, and the penalty for a single mistake that can happen in a flash is strict and absolute. Sure, the game gives the player visual cues so they can anticipate when to either jump or slide, but each of these signs has no rhythmic sensibility to speak of and can hardly be processed when Mega Man is zooming around like an F1 racer with its brakes cut. What is this, the fucking Turbo Tunnel? Except for this unhinged horse shit, most of Mega Man 8’s level gimmicks serve as serviceable variations on recycled level themes.

Of course, I can’t discuss the levels of a Mega Man game thoroughly without mentioning the robot masters at each of their cores. Besides their half-hearted attempts to sound menacing in their compressed vocal utterances, the octet of hostile machines is really just as adequate as always. Grenade Man blasts the floor of the arena after his health bar collapses to a certain level, revealing another stage with elevated ridges like Quick Man’s encounter. Frost Man must suffer from a pituitary problem, because the ice boss is so ginormous that his character model doesn’t fit his introduction screen in the menu. Hearing his mentally-deficient line delivery also might almost make the player feel remorseful for destroying the big lug (almost). Clown Man seems to have the widest array of attacks at his disposal, Tengu Man is incredibly difficult to reach on account of being airborne, Sword Man has a habit of separating himself as if he can slice his torso at will, and Search Man marks the debut of a double robot master in the vein of conjoined twins. Really, my favorite robot master here is Aqua Man for all of the wrong reasons. His shared moniker with that of a famous DC superhero amusingly begs the question if “Bat Man” and “Spider Man” could be upcoming robot masters in the future, and I guffawed at his greeting, where he presents a rainbow banner that brandishes his name. At least he’s loud and proud about it? As for their respective weapons that all serve as their specific weaknesses, alas, I have to stop hoping for another Metal Blade to grace my presence. In the meantime, the “Flame Sword” dished out impressive damage at a short range, the “Homing Sniper” erased every tiny enemy from the equation with little effort, and I found myself using Aqua Man’s “Water Balloon” as a substitute for the regular blaster almost as much as the Metal Blade (with diminished results, naturally). I also tended to use the other boss weapons like the “Thunder Claw” and “Tornado Hold,” but only because the game kept obliging me to do so with platforming sections that required their usage; an admirable innovation that persuades the player to use their deck to its fullest. Still, while using these weapons for their traditional purposes, exploiting a robot master’s weakness with them this time around has shifted from helpful to straight-up, sadistically annihilating them. Any exposure to their respective kryptonites will have them convulse as you’ve just fried a fish with a taser, and their extended window of vulnerability turns every duel into an absolute cakewalk.

Fighting against the robot masters will expose the fact that Mega Man 8 has a very inconsistent difficulty curve. Like with the previous game, escaping the backwards practices of the NES titles made for a much easier Mega Man experience. Mega Man 8’s contribution to the accessibility initiative is providing solid checkpoints between the two halves of these elongated levels, even when the player exhausts each of their lives. Mega Man 8 also forgoes series staples like E-tanks for upgrades purchased in Roll’s shop that enhance Mega Man’s platforming and offensive capabilities. While these alterations are bound to disgust seasoned players, the strange thing is that they’re hardly relevant factors to the real meat of Mega Man 8’s harder moments. As we’ve discussed, the harsh and chaotic jet board section in Frost Man’s stage stands head and shoulders above all others in terms of a steep challenge. I fail to see how augmenting Mega Man’s blaster or any other perk they’ve implemented really serves the player in any impactful manner with this scenario. During the Dr. Wily climax, which is intended to be consistently more demanding than all eight previous levels combined, all the difficulty of the upward trek is allotted to the starting line. Another treacherous jetboard segment rockets this journey off that makes the previous one seem like a Sunday afternoon stroll by comparison, followed by a series of swinging on hooks with the “Thunder Claw” that requires practically perfect precision, and then caps off with a boss where the only means of harming it involves angling the game’s clumsy default soccer ball weapon with the proficiency of Pele. Hope you weren’t just bouncing off this thing for a bigger platforming boost! Did I mention that the player must accomplish all of this without getting a game over? And to think that this would be the ultimate instance where the checkpoint system would come in handy! After the player manages to persevere through this gauntlet of torment, nothing that follows will compare to its austerity. The next boss can be defeated just by holding down the shoot button. Bass is a predictable little bitch, and I would gladly face off against Flubber Demon over his lemon-colored cousin any day of the week. How does the mad doctor dish out punishment as the series’ penultimate foe, especially since he was an absolute nightmare in his last appearance? Half-heartedly at best. Every one of his attacks is perfectly avoidable, and Rush’s new ability to airdrop goodies refuelled Mega Man for his equally unstimulating second phase. Don’t think I’ll be recounting this one in therapy.

Yep, I’m still subscribed to the thought that “mainline Mega Man” is a redundancy when the X series exists. In an alternate timeline where the NES showed some discipline and released only three or four Mega Man games, and the X series never saw the light of day, perhaps Mega Man 8 would have made a more substantial impact on the series. As it is, the presentational pacing, the upgrades, and finding ways to fracture a level’s linearity would only be impressive if we didn’t know that Mega Man 8 was copying these innovations from the X series. Still, Mega Man 7 was just as guilty of monkey see, monkey do, but its smoothness made all of its attempts to catch up at least agreeable. Mega Man 8, on the other hand, is a mess of decisions that are admirable at best and excruciating at worst. And no, they certainly aren’t limited to the abysmal voice “acting,” if you can call it that. When Mega Man 8 was wearing on my patience, I wished that I was being bored by Mega Man 5 and 6 again. Lord, lay this series to rest and just let the X subseries officially take its mantle.

Red Dead Redemption Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 8/31/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Red Dead Redemption

Developer: Rockstar

Publisher: Rockstar

Genre(s): Open-World, Third-Person Shooter

Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3

Release Date: May 18, 2010

I have a feeling that much of the initial anticipation for Red Dead Redemption after it was announced was somewhat lukewarm. It’s not that everyone had reason to believe that Rockstar couldn’t sufficiently craft another exceptional open-world IP that further cemented their prestige as pioneering pillars of the subgenre. Rather, it’s the thematic realm that Red Dead Redemption delves into that I can’t imagine gamers in the 21st century would express all that much enthusiasm towards. You see, in the less sophisticated era of the previous century’s middle stretch of decades, westerns ruled the roost in the greater media landscape. People adored vicarious trips into the times of America enacting its “Manifest Destiny” initiative and sowing their imperialist seeds on the more arid, mountainous soil that exists on the other side of the Mississippi River. The conservative attitudes of the period caused people to adopt an almost wistful fondness for the unvarnished nature of this geographical range of settlements and the supposed “heroes” who adapted to its harshness the most proficiently. John Wayne couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag, but his red-blooded, broad-shouldered screen presence in several classic western films made him the poster boy of the genre and a symbol of the stark masculinity that had ostensibly vanished as society progressed onward. In this evolution of American ideals, the western genre’s popularity was ousted by the radical potential of stories and ideas facilitated by the science-fiction genre, whose remaining dominance in our modern media proves its ability to innovate, whereas the western genre faltered due to its conceptual confines. The shift of relevance from one genre to the other was so pervasive that it was an underlying theme of Toy Story of all things. Similar to Woody being overshadowed by Buzz Lightyear, we are all Andys who crave the stimulation found in the unknown, hypothetical reaches of space and futurism that the western genre cannot provide. One could even use the middling reception to Rockstar’s Red Dead Revolver as proof that the western genre cannot thrive in our overstimulated society. However, Red Dead Redemption became a smash hit and a close critical companion to Grand Theft Auto because its open-world foundation taps into a facet of the western genre that its spiritual predecessor failed to foster. Among all that’s associated with its unmistakable iconography, straying further from the already-established American societies along the Atlantic coast carries the connotations of this budding range of land also separating from its laws and moral practices by proxy, hence the “wild” signifier often attached to the region. Because this territory is a little loose with its rules and regulations, one can assume that gamers can make as much mayhem here as they’re accustomed to with GTA’s modern, urban environments.

Given that a fraction of Red Dead Redemption’s appeal is the potential for unhinged carnage, certainly the game doesn’t subscribe to the traditional Western values of a black and white, good versus evil moral compass. The narrative of every single Rockstar game has been filtered under a lens of scathing satire that critiques societal standards, and this attitude being applied here implies that human civilization was rife with vice, greed, and other inadequacies far before the advent of various information age technologies. Take the scene surrounding the train ride in the game’s opening cutscene as evidence of the general ethos that Rockstar showcases regarding the practices and public sentiments of this supposedly idealistic period of American history. Two elegantly-dressed elderly women express their shared ignorant and bigoted opinions regarding the country’s mission to “civilize” the land’s natives, while an evangelist pontificates the gospel to a wide-eyed religious girl, who naively hangs on his every word he speaks, two seats in front of them. However, the talking heads exist here only to establish the narrative tone that the game is going to veer towards for the remaining duration. The focal point here we’re intended to direct our attention towards is the man in the cowboy hat silently seated in the middle, if the fact that this introductory cinematic has been following this man since he left the ferry in the opening moments didn’t explicitly give that impression. After he arrives at his next destination, an older gentleman escorts him to a fortress where the man loudly exclaims that he’s coming to kill the caretaker. However, the head honcho’s assistants subdue this potential grim reaper with a rifle bullet. While it seems like the man’s fate is sealed, a blonde woman and her male associate take this man and nurse him back to health before he bleeds out. By now, I think I can acutely detect a patented Rockstar introduction. Red Dead Redemption seizes our attention into the heat of action with enough ambiguity and tension to retain our sensory stimulation as grippingly as any of the Grand Theft Auto games, allowing our brains to insert pieces of context or at least laser its focus on finding out what’s missing as the game progresses. With the open credits scrolling as the prologue proceeds, Hideo Kojima would’ve corked open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the continued cinematic flair that he contributed to the medium a few generations prior.

After the opening series of cutscenes concludes, it’s difficult to say whether or not the excitement aroused by the masterful cinematics will be retained once the game sets the player loose in the wild west. This may sound either cynical or condescending (or both), but something about the biotic barrenness of unsettled land and its sheer immensity might not captivate most gamers. Using GTA as a contrasting example, the city setting consistently exudes a bustling, ever-flowing momentum of activity with people galore, even in the quieter, inconspicuous back alleys and in the rudimentary dullness that was Liberty City’s first open-world outing in GTA III. On the other hand, a world where tumbleweeds exceed the population of human beings might not deliver on the same promises of causing unbridled chaos on every corner. Sure, the player is technically free as a bird to proverbially excrete feces on anything that catches their eye from the air, but where’s the fun in this naughty activity if there are barely any targets around to agitate? Pockets of civilization are sparsely divided between the stretches of valleys, gulches, canyons, deserts, mountain ranges, etc, and the settlements are so small and intimate that the player will come to recognize almost every NPC that walks through the saloons and other modest establishments upon frequent visitations to save their progress. While the small scale of municipal activity may underwhelm many players who are accustomed to GTA’s frenetic urban flow, I’ll bet that listing the various organic, geographical features caused another faction of gamers to salivate. For those wishing to bask in the sublime solitude of unfettered wilderness in the gaming medium, accept no substitutes. Red Dead Redemption’s western setting is gorgeous with a capital G: a beauteous pastoral landscape rivaling the best of Albert Bierstadt’s paintings. It’s breathtaking enough to inspire someone to become a transcendentalist, commenting on how the canyons and cacti share a spiritual connection to God like a Ralph Waldo Emerson of a drier climate. Still, more so than just serving as earthy eye candy, the extent of which Red Dead Redemption lulls the player into its quiet, countryside ambiance immersed me like none of Rockstar’s games have ever done before. During a mission later in the game, two characters escort the protagonist to their destination by driving an automobile. Seeing this mechanical marvel, despite its primitiveness in its own right, juxtaposed with the unadorned environment that I had been experiencing, resulted in a jarring jolt of clarity washing over me. I felt the impending death of the wild west that would soon become industrialized and commercialized like the GTA environments that mark our modern day, and it was quite profound.

Unexpectedly, I also found that while Red Dead Redemption’s world was far less energetic than Liberty City or Los Santos, the topographical hodgepodge of habitats that comprise the game’s western world is more diverse than the wall-to-wall manmade constructions that compose a GTA cityscape. It’s unclear exactly where in the USA Red Dead Redemption takes place, besides its cardinal direction in relation to the union’s longest vertical river. Still, the player can make some educated assumptions based on some clear context clues. For one, it seems like the overarching territory is referred to as “New Austin,” relating to the capital city of Texas. As of writing this, I’ve never set foot in the “Lonestar State,” but based on the information I’ve gathered, a massive state that is somewhat synonymous with the aesthetic and lingering cultural values of the wild west that it was once a part of makes perfect sense to model it as the primary setting for a western, much less an interactive one. I’m sure the geological makeup of America’s belt buckle consists of plenty of prairies, swamps, and the other aforementioned environments usually associated with a hotter, drier climate. Armadillo is the spitting image of a frontier town, with its businesses running parallel to each other on a sandy, narrow road intended for horses and the carriages that they drag from behind.

The existence of a town like Armadillo supports my theory that this fictionalized stretch of the wild west is based on ol’ timey Texas because the majority of these settlements in this state resided along the USA-Mexico border, a relevant point of information considering that our spicy neighbor to the south occupies a significant portion of this game’s world map. Even though the narrative directly sends the player across the border during a mission about one-third into the story, one may not clearly detect that they’ve stepped beyond American jurisdiction because the aesthetic distinctions between the two available nations are barely discernible. While it existed outside of the USA’s coveted countryside, Mexico persisted as a prevailing secondary backdrop in most western-oriented media due to much of the nation sharing the same topographical characteristics. Given that it’s located in the same general geographical radius as this formally unsettled American expanse, it’s sensible that there would be canyons, dunes, and rocky plateaus aplenty–and in equal measure to the American area a hundred yards over the rim. The actual division between the two vertical sides of the map stems from clear cultural differences. Besides the fact that every NPC down here has browner skin and primarily speaks Spanish, the various villas, haciendas, and other architectural foundations that encompass each Mexican civilization truly instill the anxious, yet gratifying feeling of traveling abroad. That, and I suppose the volume of cacti runs more rampant in sand that seems to be brighter to illustrate the country’s slightly closer position to the equator. Rockstar offering a wholly different province to explore was a fantastic way to further engage the player’s curiosity, and the lively, distinguishing traits of Mexico are executed with great tact and respect. I’m not stating this solely because they didn’t drown the country in sepia tone for the sake of discernibility.

I’d wager a “true daily double” on the primary setting being Texas, with all of the evidence at hand, but the final district of the map unlocked inspires some reluctance. North of the anarchic bayou that is Thieves Landing is the peninsula of West Elizabeth, which is two central districts, not including the ultramodern (for early 20th century standards) governmental hub of Blackwater. Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven affirms that there are indeed miles of hilly, vacant plains where echoes probably resonate for hours in Texas, but the “Tall Trees” area to the west is so reminiscent of the northern California wilderness that I’m surprised the player can’t find marijuana plants growing along the road. Furthermore, I can’t name a state situated in the wild west with mountain ranges whose elevation is so high that snow perpetually covers the ground, or at least one that also borders Mexico. Am I letting the semantics of geographical rationale distract from the varied assortment of environments that Red Dead Redemption bestows? If the game did exhibit some historical fidelity to the time of Texas in the wild west and its respective urban and rural attributes, it’s likely that the experience would grow somewhat stale.

Like all of Rockstar’s previous sandboxes, with the term taking a more literal stance this time around, the immersion that all of this open-world exploring is intended to inculcate coincides with the story arc of the protagonist they are piloting. The wounded man at the helm of the game’s narrative is John Marston, a 38-year-old farmer and former high-profile criminal who was reeled into that disreputable lifestyle on account of his vulnerability and lack of direction as an orphaned child. He certainly looks the part of a stoic, dogged Western man with his cowboy hat, turncoat, and boots with clanging spurs. Still, his outward scuzziness, plus his felonious background, seemingly situates him as a character that John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart would stick the tip of a double-barreled shotgun up against his nostrils and call him a tepid disparaging phrase that would only offend an octogenarian. However, the contrast between Mr. Marston’s appearance and his demeanor is what makes him exceptionally subversive. Despite what his reputation might indicate, John exudes an air of gentlemanliness that all other southern men should follow as an example. He’s frightfully polite, courteous, grateful, an assiduous worker, and graciously declines all sexual favors from the stockpile of whores that secrete out of every settlement to maintain faithfulness to his wife, Abigail. We don’t know if John has always been exemplary in the department of manners, but if improving his decorum is a fraction of his “redemption,” I’d say that he’s sufficiently turned that new leaf. Still, John hasn’t verged too deeply into goody-two-shoes territory to the point where his behavior is uncanny. Surprisingly enough, I kept making comparisons between John and Niko Bellic as I spent more time with Red Dead Redemption’s protagonist. Between all of his chivalrous responses, John can get rather snarky depending on his disposition towards the person with whom he is conversing. There is also an underlying cynical attitude that John expresses whenever conversation verges on the philosophical or sociological side, but that’s to be expected from someone who has lived on the fringe of society amongst a gang of rogues for the majority of his lifetime. Similar to GTA IV’s Serbian soldier, John Marston is grizzled on the outside and charred on the inside, yet the circumstances of his past that have shaped his current day have not completely plunged him into the depths of despair and depravity. His heart of gold and strong ethical code certainly give him much more charm than initially imaginable, and we greatly sympathize with his striving to escape his checkered past.

But the extent of how severely John wishes to redeem himself might be misleading without the necessary context. The overarching redemption mission that will figuratively unshackle John is finding the whereabouts of his former gang associates and acting as their moral executioner. However, the bit of context surrounding this supposed deed of retribution is that John is literally shackled by the binding lace of the law. The Bureau of Investigation is holding John’s wife and teenage son hostage to coerce John into doing their dirty work, which is eradicating the surviving members of the Van der Linde Gang. This tidbit of information behind John’s goals may reveal that they’re driven by fear and not repentance, suggesting that he’s still a vicious, thieving snake at heart.

However, before you throw up your hands to celebrate and proceed to terrorize Armadillo and tie a prostitute to the train tracks while twirling your comically long handlebar mustache, know that the game features a few stipulations that might incentivize the player to keep John’s hands clean. If the player can’t resist the urge to slaughter the innocent, they should be aware that Red Dead Redemption does not feature the same punitive system as GTA. All of John’s potential crimes will accumulate like garbage in the ocean, even after he respawns once he’s subdued for his belligerence. All of his misdeeds will pile up in a monetary bounty, and the amount increases with every crime he commits. Because of the underdeveloped legal system that exists in this germinating society, bounty hunting provides a quicker way to make money than selling crack on the streets of Washington, D.C. in 1985. Word will spread like wildfire surrounding John’s disregard for human life and tranquility within the community, and several gunmen will often attempt to put his head on a platter by bumrushing him at random occurrences. Once the player becomes irritated by the swarm of vigilantes and decides to liquidate their bounty via the contents of their own wallet, John will continue to feel the ramifications of his misconduct due to the depletion of his “honor.” Whenever John performs either an act of altruism or commits a sin most heinous, it will cause a meter to slowly veer towards the coinciding direction on a defined horizontal spectrum. Depending on whether or not the player decides to transform John into a saint or a name that makes people shudder upon its utterance, either greatly affects certain aspects of the game. If John is perceived as a hero, shopkeepers will lower their prices, and interruptions by hostile NPCs are much less frequent. If John verges towards the path of scumbaggery, he’ll have to defend himself from the blowback of the common folk like a white blood cell fending off pathogens. Maximizing John’s potential for evil will reward him with a cool-looking horse that is charcoal black except for its white face that resembles a skull, but I could never bring myself to trade my Kentucky Saddler (that I affectionately and referentially nicknamed “Blondie”) for any other steed. Also, be aware that there is another meter that allots John’s “fame,” which is on a fixed, irreversible scale. When the game is automatically increasing John’s popularity, it would be wise for the player to consider that it’s better to be bombarded with praise and peaceful offerings rather than screams and shootings. With deeper contemplation, I led John down the path of righteousness and virtue because reaching the highest honor capacity felt like a more gratifying achievement as opposed to making mindless mayhem that turns him into New Austin’s biggest scab. That, and acting on homicidal impulses, contradicts John’s amiability that the narrative clearly establishes for the character, and I didn’t want the dreaded LD phrase to rear its ugly head again.

Rockstar was seemingly aware that the temptation to cause chaos as John would be difficult to curb, so they implemented plenty of activities for the player to humor as a means to keep those indecent urges at bay. For one, increasing John’s honor meter doesn’t connote that he’ll totally abstain from violence and become a pacifist. Settlements such as Armadillo and especially Thieves Landing are brimming with bandits and domestic rapists alike, and meeting their transgressions with a steamy bullet is considered justifiable enough of a killing to warrant some good karma. The sheriff also tends to turn a blind eye to jackasses who challenge John to duels, with John pumping every bullet in his gun’s chamber to ensure that he’s victorious. John can also partake in some bounty hunting himself once a wanted poster of the target appears, which will involve John blowing holes in dozens of the criminal’s vagrant cronies with impunity. One aspect of this common optional escapade that I adore is the choice to spare the target’s life and instead lasso him up and deliver him to the local lawman, and have them decide his fate. Not only does the reward amount double upon bringing the man to justice, but the additional dimension of difficulty that comes with treating this terrible man more humanely makes the mission much more engaging than carelessly firing off a full round of bullets in all directions. John can also sign himself up for more stable work to gain currency, including horse wrangling and a nightwatch job where he follows a dog around the perimeter with a keen sense of sniffing out disturbances. As far as the more casual fare that Red Dead Redemption provides that isn’t attached to anything particularly productive, there are plenty of assorted minigames scattered about that might distract the player from molding John into a menace. Card and dice games like poker, blackjack, and Liar’s Dice are available in the saloons to possibly make some considerable cash with impeccable strategy, and drinks here are cheap enough that John can drink himself stupid without blowing the bank. You can’t functionally shoot a gun while you’re sauced, right? Remote locations often hold arm wrestling and five-finger filet tournaments with wagers involved, and the latter activity seems especially precarious considering that medical science at the time deemed it acceptable to use cocaine as an anesthetic. These distractions might seem quaint compared to the mod cons of GTA, but I promise every stubborn skeptic accustomed to modernity that they’ll become as worked up over a game of cards or horseshoes as beating Roman in bowling.

If the prospect of gambling and alcohol fails to quell the player’s murderous tendencies, one last avenue they can resort to is taking out their aggressions on the various wildlife that serve to spruce up the liveliness of this desolate domain, without any tangible consequences to consider. Despite their lack of defenses and the disgusting, screen-staining blood splatter of the skinning process that John can perform if deemed necessary, I support including animals into the fray of an unbounded murder simulator for its innovation alone and condone John’s unsolicited butchering of them–mostly because I know that annoying animal rights activists will become irate at the idea and protest it for misguided reasons. Cougars and grizzly bears should be purged on sight without question, for they’re as hostile and deadly, even not even more than, any human outlaw that brandishes a firearm.

Or, you know, the player can focus on continuing the game’s story via the missions, which are guaranteed to feature a dozen dirty malcontents for John to sear with smoking lead. Similar to GTA IV, Red Dead Redemption capitalizes on the prevalent shooting craze of the current generation by featuring gunplay for almost every mission. Except a few horse races, cow herds, travelling to destinations before sunfall, and one stunt involving a mine cart, the vast majority of the game’s missions involve John taking cover behind a large rock or a solid wooden or stone barrier and seek the opportunity for enemies to peak their heads out of their respective environmental shields like groundhogs so John can redecorate it with a bloody red paint job. The difficulty curve is consistent, but it retains a flat, predictable level of breeziness unless there is a minuscule additional factor included. For instance, protecting the hide of a government train from Mexican rebels had plenty of blind spots due to the running train obscuring one side of the enemy ambush, and some environments, like the more wooded areas and mountains, don’t accommodate the player with much terrain to shield themselves from gunfire. As far as the arsenal at John’s disposal needed to become a contender during these firefights, the essentials are a wide assortment of revolvers and rifles, with shotguns, scoped rifles, and mounted machine guns serving well in specific scenarios. My favorite selection of John’s incendiary tools is the wildcard ones situated in the eleven o’clock position on the weapon wheel. Throwing knives, Molotov cocktails, and sticks of dynamite are simply too passe for the contemporary GTA games, so I’m glad that this true period piece allows the developers to incorporate untested weapons that no longer seem outlandish given the circumstances of the setting.

Continuing the comparisons between Red Dead’s combat and its generational GTA peer, the inundation of inexperienced gamers trying out the shooter genre due to its popularity compelled the developers to streamline the aiming for the sake of accessibility. Holding down the aiming trigger on the controller will automatically pinpoint John’s line of sight on the target’s cranium, or at least at another vital organ that will ensure a quick dispatch. In addition to the slight hand holding at play, Red Dead Redemption administers another element to the shooting mechanics that practically guarantees that the player is the most piercing gunslinger alive. By pressing the lower analog stick, the entire screen will slow to a crawl and become washed in the color that Hollywood associates with Mexico in what the game refers to as “dead eye mode.” While in this manipulated perspective, John takes advantage of the glacial momentum to execute a bullseye shot on any piece of an enemy’s anatomy they desire. Later on, the player can even stamp multiple targets onto anything with a pulse and chain shots so proficiently that it’s almost comical, similar to Gene Wilder’s character from Blazing Saddles and his perfect shooting record. However, the skill involved with this flashy maneuver requires anything but proficiency. This is why I cannot firmly decide whether or not “dead eye” is cool or controversial. On one hand, this aidful mechanic cleverly allows the player to channel the masterful marksmanship associated with a sharpshooter from this era. On the other hand, the player should ideally aspire to earn this level of expertise organically. All in all, I think I’m leaning towards the former stance because the thrilling novelty of blasting the brains out of gangs of guys never exhausted, even when I realized I was using this mechanic as a crutch, which is bound to happen considering its brisk nature and that the juice required to fuel “dead eye” replenishes automatically with enough time. However, another facet of Red Dead’s shooting that fully rubbed me the wrong way is the regenerative health mechanic. Having John scurry away or block himself from harm momentarily while his wounds heal in seconds like Wolverine almost ejected me out of the time period, for this mechanic is so 2010 that I could faintly hear a Ke$ha song playing as the threshold of John’s mortality started to snap.

Still, despite John’s quickness with a hand cannon and his position in the narrative as a likeable, dynamic protagonist, Rockstar decided that the ultimate fate for their charismatic cowboy should be sealed with tragedy. Just to get it out in the open, yes, John Marston’s death at the narrative’s climax lives in infamy for being one of the most emotional moments in the gaming medium’s history, making teenage boys (me and my friends at the time) shed tears profusely without receiving any scrutiny. Also, I want to give a sincere “fuck you” to Rockstar for making the player feverishly fret even more by making them think that their “lack of skill” played a hand in John’s death, automatically engaging “dead eye mode” when he’s faced with an entire squadron of armed Bureau members in close quarters. Rockstar’s cruel conclusion for John shocked, angered, and saddened me, but I now realize that this is probably because my fifteen-year-old self wasn’t as alert and sagacious as my game critic adult self. Over a decade has passed since I first coped with the loss of John Marston, and I now find that the game’s narrative was clearly foreshadowing the protagonist’s untimely demise. Not only that, but it also seems to suggest that any chance at redemption with all of the circumstances of the setting and situation at hand is a futile, bootless errand.

First and foremost, how is John intended to reform when he’s forced to collaborate with the dregs of society? Isn’t that what got him into this mess in the first place? Because Bill Williamson’s stronghold of Fort Mercer is as guarded as Area 51, John must make like Seven Samurai and assemble a crew of people with unique talents in order to penetrate the seemingly impenetrable. The underlying problem with this specific coalition that John wrangles up is that their distinctiveness also applies to how disgusting and contemptuous John feels each of them to be. Still, this should be the natural reaction to being forced to cooperate with a pungent graverobber, a deceitful Irish drunk, and a pretentious snake oil salesman who plays up his pseudo-medical miracle elixirs so passionately that he seems to genuinely believe his own bullshit. I realize that John’s mission of murder isn’t exactly virtuous, but most of the horrendous things he’s seen and done that have scarred his soul involve the indirect actions of his affiliates. A significant part of straying away from the tumultuous life of crime was no longer associating with criminals, and really, what’s the difference between these reprobates and the ones John formally ran with? Once Bill catches wind of John’s Trojan Horse plan and flees the coop to Mexico to join John’s second target, Javier Escuella, John’s allies down in the Land of the Sun are even more despicable. For some reason or other, many westerns set in Mexico are situated around the historical conflict of the Mexican Revolution, and the second major arc in Red Dead Redemption borrows the worn, tattered page from this notebook. In order to gain information on Javier’s whereabouts, John ends up playing both sides of the Mexican power struggle. The tyrannical Colonel Allende and his second-in-command, Vincente de Santa, are two unscrupulous bastards who are liable to make the player’s skin crawl, and John working with their efforts to quash their resistance is not a redeemable sign of character, even if it is a means to an end. Then again, the resistance leader, Abraham Reyes, doesn’t exude a high moral fiber either. This assessment of his character has less to do with his womanizing and more to do with the fact that his eagerness for the power he wishes to gain after the Colonel is overthrown implies that he’ll just continue the country’s bloody cycle of injustice. Maybe John’s screws are a tad tighter than all of his allies, but as the saying goes, adjacent to refuse is still refuse.

John’s extemporized killing quest seems rather counterintuitive to his wish of keeping a peaceful, felony-free life, considering that he already achieved this while on his farm with his family. Perhaps what the narrative is trying to illustrate here is that this idyllic existence is impossible while the West remains, well, wild. After all, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham, the so-called arbiters of peace ‘round these here parts, sure do enact their brand of justice very violently. They’re also a bunch of sticklers who elongate John’s servitude to them when they hear that his former gang leader, Dutch Van Der Linde, is in the neighborhood. A reconnaissance mission leads John to find his sensei, using his cult leader charisma to position himself as the chief of the local native outcasts that reside in the snowy mountains. Once John has Dutch cornered with his back against a cliff, the man who apparently always found a way to finagle his way out of a tight, tense situation finally concedes and accepts his fate. Dutch’s murmured monologue on how the advancements of the world are taking him and people like him (John) out to pasture is quite harrowing, and watching him fall off the mountain peak to his death with no hesitation is also a rather shocking display. Dutch’s final words are a disquieting omen for the former friend he spoke them to, but the main takeaway from this chapter of the story that I’d like to address is the stranglehold the Bureau has on John. Forcing John to comply with their further demands does not spell a smooth, amicable working relationship that will bode well for John’s future state of affairs. They may as well make John wear a maid’s outfit while on his assassination adventures to signify his bitch status.

In addition to the Bureau having a grip on John’s autonomy like a cobra squeezing the life out of a mouse, the scope and placement of the last few missions contradict all narrative logic. Once the Bureau finally loosens John’s chain and reunites him with his family, plus an old codger acquaintance nicknamed “Uncle,” the furious firefight that marked most of the missions leading up to John’s return to normalcy is shifted to blasting off rounds of ammo to fend off crows from consuming all of the corn in his silo, teaching Jack the ways of the land and how to become self-sufficient in them, and rekindling the days of herding cattle with Bonnie Macfarlane on his own ranch with Uncle. Every staunch gamer should know that turning full circle around to the game’s tutorial right near the finish line is never a story’s coup de grace, even though I’m sure a section of fans would invest more of their precious time playing Red Dead Redemption as this humble, Harvest Moon-type experience. John had to die in order to energize the game’s concluding chapter, but it’s not the event where the screen fades to black and “fin” is the last shot seen. After John’s family sees the horror of John lying stiff in a pool of his own blood, the scene then shifts to an adult-aged Jack, who is now the indefinite playable replacement for his father. This epilogue of sorts allows the player to continue roaming throughout the wild west regardless of the narrative constraint at hand, but there is actually one last mission that puts a period on the adventure. Well, it’s technically a mission in that it has a goal and objectives, but it's also a secondary “stranger mission” that the player could easily miss, not realizing they still had to be attentive to story progression. I’d advise everyone to stick around Blackwater to converse with a Bureau agent on the whereabouts of Edgar Ross, so that Jack can expedite the rotten old asshole’s retirement. A short string of conversations will lead Jack down to a Mexican river where Ross will stop fishing to engage in a duel with the vengeful, young aggressor, and the credits will roll if Jack successfully turns Ross’s body into Swiss cheese. Would I be in disagreement with Rockstar that Jack’s exploit shouldn’t have been relegated to something the player could approach as a lark, given its crucial narrative weight? If the developers felt that stretching this addendum would divert too drastically from the focal point of John’s story, then it should’ve been unlocked as a completionist reward to justify its position as a lark. As it is, the trivial scale of this meaningful falling action event is unfortunately rather anticlimactic.

If anything, I think that Red Dead Redemption serves as proof that I don’t inherently dislike the cinematic sphere of gaming. Admittedly, the game does exhibit plenty of traits that I often find rather unbecoming of titles that try to suppress the interactivity aspect of gaming in favor of implementing some more inert properties of film. Of course, I’m referencing the relatively formulaic mission format of covering and shooting, along with the assisted aspects of this gameplay that the title provides to ensure that the playerbase isn’t inconvenienced by a stacked skill ceiling. Still, I think I’ve realized that Rockstar’s open-world construct is what makes the seventh generation’s innovation habits palatable, for the breadth and liberal parameters of the genre are what uncage the suffocating linearity that binds most cinematically inclined video games. In fact, in a genre that pronounces player freedom, the cinematic elements can sink into their sensory glands much more effectively when they’re given ample room to resonate. Again, I have to reiterate that seeing a staple of human evolution in the Bureau’s automobile snapped me out of the setting like someone slapping me out of a drug-induced hallucination, so the developers must have found a winning formula to hypnotize me into a period that predates my cushy, 21st-century existence by well over a century. Still, it also helps that the story that the gameplay is tethered to is a western epic worthy of being spoken alongside the genre greats of Ford, Leone, Peckinpah, etc. Forget about gaming’s Buzz Lightyears, like those in Mass Effect and Dead Space; I wanna play with Woody a little while longer because he’s still a bad motherfucker (in the informal slang sense, meaning cool, of course).