Motor_Head's Full Review: Maximo: Ghosts to Glory for PlayStation 2
I am an extremly picky game buyer. I thought that
maybe I was just way outside the demographics of most
gamers, but evidently, I'm not.
So, I'm mid 40's, middle management, married with kids
and I don't have a lot of time to devote to video
games. I love 'em, jsut don't have a lot of time. So
when I do have time, I want it to be enjoyed to the
fullest. I thought Maximo would fill the bill, but as
it turned out, no such luck.
I cut my gaming teeth on the original Dungeons and
Dragons. Back when no one had heard of Gygax and
Arnicson (sp). Your gaming investment came back to
you in the form of three booklets and you supplied the
imagination. Yes, by the way I still have them and am
currently resisting the urge to cash them in on E-bay.
I cut my video gaming teeth on Pong. I still remember
the whopping 60 bucks that was paid for the Coleco
console that had three versions of pong and three
versions of hockey and that was it. No, I don't still
have that, but I sure wish I did.
So on to Maximo, hang on,we're almost there. I loved
all but 2 of the Zelda series. Zelda II on the
original Nintendo stunk. I still played it through
countless times, but it still stunk. Majora's mask
for N64 was a complete waste. Fortunately I borrowed
it from my nephew before making the mistake of buying
it.
MediEvil and MediEvil II for the PS one are still all
time favorites. Metal Gear Solid is a fave, but Son's
of Liberty stunk up the joint. What was all the
hoo-ha about it for? Onimusha for the PS2 is just
awesome.
OK, now for Maximo. In my hunt for the next thing to
take up a huge chunk of my life, I sought a lot of
different opinions. Maximo kept coming up as a
potential winner. I found a used version and the game
guide so I bit the bullet and bought the game. What a
waste.
The video is really pretty good. I like the
cartoonish anime' style featuring the usuall Japanese
version of round eyed women. Beautiful, scantily
clad, and round in all the right places. The audio
effects are good and while the background music gets a
bit inane after a few hours, I haven't found anything
in any game that hasn't. All in all not a bad
experience at first.
Not long into the game play though and you realize
that you're still getting killed way to easily. Yeah,
there's a learning curve etc., but c'mon, nothing is
supposed to be this hard. It wasn't a matter of
talent or ability, it was just a pain in the behind.
I was delivering killer blows one second and couldn't
win against the wimpiest skeleton the next. The power
up's helped a little, but they wear off way to
quickly. There aren't nearly enough life
replenishment objects around and forget about finding
enough armour to get by. Maximo spends WAAAAAYY too
much time fighting off bad guys in his various
versions of boxer shorts. Yes, you run around in your
underwear to fight the bad guys when your armor is
gone.
Yeah! What's up with the boxer shorts anyway? There
are 4 or 5 different styles, non of which contribute a
single thing to improve game play or character
attributes. I want my game play to be fun, not cute
or fashionable. Skip the Barbie, I want the butcher.
The various levels have no real bearing on the boss
battles. In my opinion, they are just time killers
until the next boss fight. Although they run along a
theme, they really don't contribute to any story line
or advance the game.
Let me devote a paragraph or two to saving before I
wrap up. The average gamer must spend entirely too
much time in front of a game console. It is far to
easy to invest two or three hours on game play only to
loose it all because you can't save progress. I will
tolerate, maybe even enjoy less than stellar games if
I can save my progress at will and pick up again
without a lot of repetition. Onimusha's single best
feature was the game saving. I don't care where you
were or what you were doing, you could save and not
have to replay more than a very few minutes to be back
on course.
Even with the best of save circumstances, maximo
requires substantial repetition (with no purpose)of
game play to get back where you were. At worst, which
is most of the time, you have at least thirty minutes
or more to make up. You loose pretty much everything
you have in the way of power up's and armor as well.
I am still trying to figure out why some stuff stays
and other stuff goes away. It seems almost random.
There are times, when after completing a stage and
saving, that it serves you well to go and let yourself
get killed. You burn a life, but you gain an armor
level. Well, armor IS life in this game, so use the
terms interchangably.
So the final few words. If you're really desperate,
or you just have no life but gaming, than you might
want to consider Maximo. For me, I'll just replay a
favorite and wait for MediEvil III
Video Games. Bringing new life to a classic theme, Maximo: Ghosts to Glory is a 3D action-adventure inspired by Capcom's memorable Ghosts 'n Goblins, ...More at DeepDiscount.com
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