Episode 2: Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 and Catherine
Spencer's Pick: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Spencer's Pick: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Time to break away from the normal RPG’s and first person shooters we normally highlight on this podcast, and talk about something different. I like sports games, but I really find extreme sports games to be very entertaining. My favorite of the genre and probably the most important to it is in my opinion Tony Hawk 2. Lets take a look at why it makes our list of games to play before you die.
1.The Realism
Something that Neversoft nailed in this game is the physics of skateboarding. It’s a great balance of real life skateboarding, and video game feel. Falling feels like it hurts, balancing is difficult, and hitting tricks takes timing to make everything work.
The pro skaters all resemble their real life counterparts, and even the levels all are designed to feel like real life places, especially Carlsbad High School, which is designed to look just like the real thing, right down the Leap of Faith.
2. The Extras
This game is full of extras. Each level has a lot of accomplishments to achieve, including the classic secret tape. But beyond that, almost all the levels have special areas that are unlocked by doing certain tricks on certain things, and often at certain times. There is extra cash littered throughout the game and Spider-Man even becomes an extra character, and his special moves are awesome.
3. The Manual
To me, this is what makes Tony Hawk 2 the best in the franchise. Tony Hawk 1 is an awesome, groundbreaking game, but without the manual, it almost makes it unplayable. THPS2 though, not only introduced the manual to the game play, but also did it flawlessly. Being able to link your tricks together gives the game play so much more depth.
When I told Cody I was going to talk about this game, he teased me saying that the Tony Hawk franchise hasn’t been good in years, and I agree with him. This was the first truly great game in the franchise, and the last. Why it is a game so important though is the effect it had on the genre as a whole. It spawned several sequels in the Tony Hawk franchise, as well as influenced in some way every other extreme sport game released after it.
Cody's Pick: Catherine
Remember Block Dude, that game on the TI-83 graphing calculator that made your high school algebra classes a lot less boring?
What if you added hot anime girls, diabolical 3D puzzles and then paired it with one of the most ridiculous stories of love in any video game?
You would have Catherine, the best puzzle/dating game since Pac man vs Mrs Pacman.
Here's why you should play it:
1. The Choices:
Catherine is a game that achieves something truly incredible. The choices that you make while playing truly affect the outcome of the game. Unlike most games that force you to chose between two roads that lead to the same point and the only real effect is that your good or bad meter is slightly affected, Catherine makes you feel like your choices are really changing the way that people act around you. The game has somewhere between 8 and 16 endings, ranging from dying alone and sad, to living with your "dream" girl as the king of Hell.
Catherine doesn't just give you the option to chose between doing something in a "Renegade" way or in that of a "Paragon".
No, no, the choices go much deeper.
The Main choice of the game is between two girls:
Catherine, a 21 year-old bimbo that is just a little bit crazy but absolutely gorgeous. She loves Pizza and sending inappropriate photos to the game's main character, Vincent. She owns a nurse costume and wears sleepwear in public.
'Nuff Said
Katherine (with a "K") is your long time girlfriend, She is calculated and sweet, but can sometimes be a little demanding. Katherine reminded me a little bit of my mom in how nagging she was, but she is also very understanding and you can tell she really likes Vincent. The game implies that you have been with her for a long time and she is pressuring you to get married.
The game also throws other choices at you, like what kind of advice to give to your friends, which could effect the difficulty of the puzzle portions of the game. Even small choices like, accepting a risque picture from Catherine effect the outcome of the game.
The most influential choices are those in the text messages you choose to send to Catherine and Katherine. You can choose to do damage control with Katherine or ignore their texts. You can even request more photos from Catherine but beware, Your text messages are very determinate in how the girls act in the story.
In addition to the choices in game, the game gives the player a survey about relationships like "Does age matter if you are in love with someone?" Then gives you the answers of other players in a pie graph. These answers also affect the game's story.
The choices in the game made me evaluate my own personal preferences in girls and I even learned a few things about myself from the choices I made in the game.
2. The Puzzles:
Catherine's Game play is like this: You spend time in a bar chatting it up with your friends and texting the 2 Catherines and when you have exhausted your options you leave to go home. Upon falling asleep, you are transported to a reoccurring dream in which the main character is forced to climb a tower to avoid dying in real life.
As levels progress the puzzles get harder and force you to use techniques that you pick up from the other men trapped in Vince's dreams. Things are also added like bosses, including a giant baby with a chainsaw and a butt with a tongue, all of which may seem ridiculous but make perfect sense if you follow the story, for example the baby represents Vincent's apprehension when Katherine tells him that she is pregnant.
Cody's Pick: Catherine
Remember Block Dude, that game on the TI-83 graphing calculator that made your high school algebra classes a lot less boring?
What if you added hot anime girls, diabolical 3D puzzles and then paired it with one of the most ridiculous stories of love in any video game?
You would have Catherine, the best puzzle/dating game since Pac man vs Mrs Pacman.
Here's why you should play it:
1. The Choices:
Catherine is a game that achieves something truly incredible. The choices that you make while playing truly affect the outcome of the game. Unlike most games that force you to chose between two roads that lead to the same point and the only real effect is that your good or bad meter is slightly affected, Catherine makes you feel like your choices are really changing the way that people act around you. The game has somewhere between 8 and 16 endings, ranging from dying alone and sad, to living with your "dream" girl as the king of Hell.
Catherine doesn't just give you the option to chose between doing something in a "Renegade" way or in that of a "Paragon".
No, no, the choices go much deeper.
The Main choice of the game is between two girls:
Catherine, a 21 year-old bimbo that is just a little bit crazy but absolutely gorgeous. She loves Pizza and sending inappropriate photos to the game's main character, Vincent. She owns a nurse costume and wears sleepwear in public.
'Nuff Said
Katherine (with a "K") is your long time girlfriend, She is calculated and sweet, but can sometimes be a little demanding. Katherine reminded me a little bit of my mom in how nagging she was, but she is also very understanding and you can tell she really likes Vincent. The game implies that you have been with her for a long time and she is pressuring you to get married.
The game also throws other choices at you, like what kind of advice to give to your friends, which could effect the difficulty of the puzzle portions of the game. Even small choices like, accepting a risque picture from Catherine effect the outcome of the game.
The most influential choices are those in the text messages you choose to send to Catherine and Katherine. You can choose to do damage control with Katherine or ignore their texts. You can even request more photos from Catherine but beware, Your text messages are very determinate in how the girls act in the story.
In addition to the choices in game, the game gives the player a survey about relationships like "Does age matter if you are in love with someone?" Then gives you the answers of other players in a pie graph. These answers also affect the game's story.
The choices in the game made me evaluate my own personal preferences in girls and I even learned a few things about myself from the choices I made in the game.
2. The Puzzles:
Catherine's Game play is like this: You spend time in a bar chatting it up with your friends and texting the 2 Catherines and when you have exhausted your options you leave to go home. Upon falling asleep, you are transported to a reoccurring dream in which the main character is forced to climb a tower to avoid dying in real life.
The tower is made up of large square blocks of different types that Vincent must maneuver in order to keep advancing up the tower. As time passes the lower levels of the towers drop off, forcing Vince to be quick in his movements and avoid going back down the tower to take a different route. Well placed checkpoints add to the mad climbing frenzy as you frantically try to go one more level before the tower collapses.
As levels progress the puzzles get harder and force you to use techniques that you pick up from the other men trapped in Vince's dreams. Things are also added like bosses, including a giant baby with a chainsaw and a butt with a tongue, all of which may seem ridiculous but make perfect sense if you follow the story, for example the baby represents Vincent's apprehension when Katherine tells him that she is pregnant.
The dream sequences are so captivating that I found myself, in the week it took me to beat the game, having nightmares about climbing towers. I found myself thinking about new climbing strategies through out the day and then trying them out when I got home.
The last couple of levels on Normal Mode were some of the most diabolical puzzles I have seen in any game, but I felt comfortable with the moves I had picked up and some that I invented. The game has a high level of satisfaction when you beat a tower and you truly feel like you accomplished something and that's just on easy mode.
3. Catherine and Katherine
The third reason for playing this game just happens to be the only reason you would ever play a game like Lollipop Chainsaw or Dead or Alive. HOT CHICKS.
But Catherine does a good job of making these girls likable for things besides the fact that they are hot. They are each well-developed characters, and even though I picked Katherine in my play through I found myself wondering what happened to Catherine.
Speaking of that, one might think that if you choose the wrong girl the game somehow is less fulfilling, however Catherine does a good job of making you feel like you won no matter which girl you choose.
However, be prepared, because which girl you choose is a direct reflection of who you are as a person.
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