What could these two games possibly have in common with each other? Nothing much. They're both available for PlayStation 2, and they're both 1-2 player-playable. Other than that, you'd have to read the article to find out more.
Burnout 3: Takedown is the latest in a series of games about performing daring manuevers in races throughout the US, Europe, and the Far East in order to gain much-needed boost to beat out the competition. In this edition, you can takedown other racers to get ahead! YESSS!
Dragonball Z Budokai 3 is that latest in a series of fighting games set in the Dragonball Z universe. Once again, you can choose from the likes of Piccolo and Son Goku to deal out some major martial-arts punishment! YESSSS!!!!!
On the State of Multiplayer Gaming:
A Dual Review of Burnout 3 and Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3
a videogame published by Atari
developed by Funimation for PlayStation 2
a daring double-review by Wayne Kang
and , respectively
John Kim, who works as head engineer of Korean game company GamePark, likens the multiplayer experience of his upcoming wireless handheld consoles to playing poker around a table with your friends. ??t?? very. . . human,??he explains with a smile. A smile engulfed in several days of facial hair; he probably hadn?? been home in several days. Still, he had a good point.
If you had videogame consoles as a child, you probably remember experiences of having friends over, or going to a friends house, and sitting in front of a television, playing videogames together. When my parents??friends??children ??all of whom were older than I was ??played Super Mario Bros. 3 while our parents were having a Bible Study, I didn?? even ask to pick up a controller. Watching them and talking to them was enough of a multiplayer experience for me. I always died, anyways.
Still, there's that crucial element of sitting next to someone who is as absorbed in the action on the screen as you are that really gives a multiplayer experience any staying power.
I have decided, at long last, that Burnout 3 is not a multiplayer game.
Go ahead, send me all the email you like, trying to tell me otherwise, but I'm not going to change my mind about it. Sure, it's got two-player split screen modes, and even online multiplayer modes, but the game itself was never meant to be played multiplayer.
Wait, let me revise that. That game is perfect for being played as a multiplayer game. It's just that. . . they kind of fucked it up. It's probably just hardware limitations, but first of all, I'd like to able to have a two-player race with more than 4 CPU-controlled rivals. C'mon, let us race against 20 of the motherfuckers, or something.
More importantly, why isn't there an infinite Road Rage mode? Similar to a Free Skate mode in the Tony Hawk games. There are no options to keep circling the same race track over and over, racking up takedown after takedown. Or at least, maybe something with a time limit; who can get the most takedowns in 2 minutes? The options simply aren't there.
But the biggest problem with the game's multiplayer options doesn't deal with game mechanics at all. Sure, the fact that you can crash repeatedly into rival cars without dying, but the slightest nudge against a non-rival sends you flying is certainly annoying and unfair, but it's something you learn to live with. That, and it's been said that in Burnout Legends, you will be able to takedown any car.
So you will be able to crash into the semi-truck for a gold medal.
Anyways, the biggest problem with the game's multiplayer mode is that it feels wrong. More specifically, it feels like you and whoever you're playing with are playing two instances of the same game on the same screen, on the same track. Occasionally, you'll encounter the other player, but you treat them no differently than you would any other computer-controlled racer. You crash, and one of you speeds on your way while the other is left spinning in a battered, broken vehicle.
This is never more evident than it is in the two-player Road Rage event. It doesn't matter how quickly you finish the laps; all you're out to do is score ten takedowns, or wait until your opponent totals his car. Occasionally the person next to you will exclaim something like "That's just bullshit!" or "That was a fucking cool takedown," but you'll be too absorbed in your own bullshit and your own fucking cool takedowns to really notice.
So there it is. Burnout 3 is a good game marred by its shoddily-done multiplayer mode. Oh, that and its annoying use of unlockable features. Really, at least give us more than one track and three cars to begin with. No one wants to race through the single-player mode while the other player waits.
Dragonball Z Budokai 3, on the other hand, is probably a mediocre-to-terrible game that is. . . not redeemed by its multiplayer action. Rather, it's a good example of what multiplayer should be.
The fighting system is, erratic, to say the least. You mash buttons and hope for the best. There's a punch button (my personal favorite), a kick button, a dodge button (wait, no this is my favorite) and a fireball button. That?? pretty much it. The shoulder buttons have some other features, like Grab, and there?? one that lets you go into Super-Saiyan mode, but these are largely of no interest to me.
The way to beat anyone, and I mean ANYONE, in this game is to repeatedly mash the dodge button while they mash the punch, kick, or fireball button. You'll dodge all of them. Mashing the punch or kick button will send your fighter into a very predictable automatic combo. So keep mashing the dodge button until you recognize the end of your opponent's combo. Then return fire with your own combo. Hell, you can even reflect fireballs back at your opponent with the dodge button. That's how powerful this shit is.
Of course, if the basis of the game is really such simple, automatic, button-mashing combos, you'd think they would allow you to block or dodge in the middle of a combo. They don't. Once someone gets you in a square-tapping punch combo, you're stuck in it until the very end. Let's not forget that there's a brief period during which they are able to hit you with a super-fireball (or laser beam) immediately after a combo is landed, and during which you are not able to do anything.
As a game, Dragonball Z Budokai 3 is pretty bad. In fact, it's terrible. But as a multiplayer experience, it's pretty damn entertaining. You and your opponent are locked in a mortal struggle, usually accompanied by screams of both glee and frustration. You'll wonder about strange world-events such as a player getting knocked through a cliff??
"What the fuck just happened?"
"I don't know, but it was pretty cool, huh?"
"Hey I'm the one who had half my lifebar taken off by a dinosaur, ok?"
Face-to-face communication. The head engineer of the Korean videogame company GP says the best multiplayer experiences result from face-to-face communication. Sure, Xbox Live has a wireless headset so that you can talk directly to people you're playing with in Halo 2, but there?? still an awareness of distance on both sides of the conversation. Real, live communication between people is what is important. Like laughing as someone's on-screen avatar is chewed up by a dinosaur.
The Korean console videogame market exists primarily in PlayStation 2 establishments. There are lots of stations, each equipped with a TV, a PlayStation 2, and a videogame of your choice. The most popular by far is Winning Eleven. The 9th game in the series was just released, and it?? been said that the PSP version will let you play on the internet.
That means that you will essentially be able to play Winning Eleven 9 against anyone, anywhere else in the world. That in contrast to being huddled in front of a TV next to someone you've been playing against for years in a back-and-forth rivalry. He might play Arsenal; you might play Juventus. I don't doubt that Winning Eleven 9 will sell a million copies on the PSP, and that people will probably buy PSPs just to play Winning Eleven 9 on the internet.
But I won't know what their faces will look like.
A Dual Review of Burnout 3 and Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3
a videogame published by Atari
developed by Funimation for PlayStation 2
a daring double-review by Wayne Kang
and , respectivelyJohn Kim, who works as head engineer of Korean game company GamePark, likens the multiplayer experience of his upcoming wireless handheld consoles to playing poker around a table with your friends. ??t?? very. . . human,??he explains with a smile. A smile engulfed in several days of facial hair; he probably hadn?? been home in several days. Still, he had a good point.
If you had videogame consoles as a child, you probably remember experiences of having friends over, or going to a friends house, and sitting in front of a television, playing videogames together. When my parents??friends??children ??all of whom were older than I was ??played Super Mario Bros. 3 while our parents were having a Bible Study, I didn?? even ask to pick up a controller. Watching them and talking to them was enough of a multiplayer experience for me. I always died, anyways.
Still, there's that crucial element of sitting next to someone who is as absorbed in the action on the screen as you are that really gives a multiplayer experience any staying power.
I have decided, at long last, that Burnout 3 is not a multiplayer game.
Go ahead, send me all the email you like, trying to tell me otherwise, but I'm not going to change my mind about it. Sure, it's got two-player split screen modes, and even online multiplayer modes, but the game itself was never meant to be played multiplayer.
Wait, let me revise that. That game is perfect for being played as a multiplayer game. It's just that. . . they kind of fucked it up. It's probably just hardware limitations, but first of all, I'd like to able to have a two-player race with more than 4 CPU-controlled rivals. C'mon, let us race against 20 of the motherfuckers, or something.
More importantly, why isn't there an infinite Road Rage mode? Similar to a Free Skate mode in the Tony Hawk games. There are no options to keep circling the same race track over and over, racking up takedown after takedown. Or at least, maybe something with a time limit; who can get the most takedowns in 2 minutes? The options simply aren't there.
But the biggest problem with the game's multiplayer options doesn't deal with game mechanics at all. Sure, the fact that you can crash repeatedly into rival cars without dying, but the slightest nudge against a non-rival sends you flying is certainly annoying and unfair, but it's something you learn to live with. That, and it's been said that in Burnout Legends, you will be able to takedown any car.
So you will be able to crash into the semi-truck for a gold medal.
Anyways, the biggest problem with the game's multiplayer mode is that it feels wrong. More specifically, it feels like you and whoever you're playing with are playing two instances of the same game on the same screen, on the same track. Occasionally, you'll encounter the other player, but you treat them no differently than you would any other computer-controlled racer. You crash, and one of you speeds on your way while the other is left spinning in a battered, broken vehicle.
This is never more evident than it is in the two-player Road Rage event. It doesn't matter how quickly you finish the laps; all you're out to do is score ten takedowns, or wait until your opponent totals his car. Occasionally the person next to you will exclaim something like "That's just bullshit!" or "That was a fucking cool takedown," but you'll be too absorbed in your own bullshit and your own fucking cool takedowns to really notice.
So there it is. Burnout 3 is a good game marred by its shoddily-done multiplayer mode. Oh, that and its annoying use of unlockable features. Really, at least give us more than one track and three cars to begin with. No one wants to race through the single-player mode while the other player waits.
Dragonball Z Budokai 3, on the other hand, is probably a mediocre-to-terrible game that is. . . not redeemed by its multiplayer action. Rather, it's a good example of what multiplayer should be.
The fighting system is, erratic, to say the least. You mash buttons and hope for the best. There's a punch button (my personal favorite), a kick button, a dodge button (wait, no this is my favorite) and a fireball button. That?? pretty much it. The shoulder buttons have some other features, like Grab, and there?? one that lets you go into Super-Saiyan mode, but these are largely of no interest to me.
The way to beat anyone, and I mean ANYONE, in this game is to repeatedly mash the dodge button while they mash the punch, kick, or fireball button. You'll dodge all of them. Mashing the punch or kick button will send your fighter into a very predictable automatic combo. So keep mashing the dodge button until you recognize the end of your opponent's combo. Then return fire with your own combo. Hell, you can even reflect fireballs back at your opponent with the dodge button. That's how powerful this shit is.
Of course, if the basis of the game is really such simple, automatic, button-mashing combos, you'd think they would allow you to block or dodge in the middle of a combo. They don't. Once someone gets you in a square-tapping punch combo, you're stuck in it until the very end. Let's not forget that there's a brief period during which they are able to hit you with a super-fireball (or laser beam) immediately after a combo is landed, and during which you are not able to do anything.
As a game, Dragonball Z Budokai 3 is pretty bad. In fact, it's terrible. But as a multiplayer experience, it's pretty damn entertaining. You and your opponent are locked in a mortal struggle, usually accompanied by screams of both glee and frustration. You'll wonder about strange world-events such as a player getting knocked through a cliff??
. . . into the jaws of a dinosaur.
"What the fuck just happened?"
"I don't know, but it was pretty cool, huh?"
"Hey I'm the one who had half my lifebar taken off by a dinosaur, ok?"
Face-to-face communication. The head engineer of the Korean videogame company GP says the best multiplayer experiences result from face-to-face communication. Sure, Xbox Live has a wireless headset so that you can talk directly to people you're playing with in Halo 2, but there?? still an awareness of distance on both sides of the conversation. Real, live communication between people is what is important. Like laughing as someone's on-screen avatar is chewed up by a dinosaur.
The Korean console videogame market exists primarily in PlayStation 2 establishments. There are lots of stations, each equipped with a TV, a PlayStation 2, and a videogame of your choice. The most popular by far is Winning Eleven. The 9th game in the series was just released, and it?? been said that the PSP version will let you play on the internet.
That means that you will essentially be able to play Winning Eleven 9 against anyone, anywhere else in the world. That in contrast to being huddled in front of a TV next to someone you've been playing against for years in a back-and-forth rivalry. He might play Arsenal; you might play Juventus. I don't doubt that Winning Eleven 9 will sell a million copies on the PSP, and that people will probably buy PSPs just to play Winning Eleven 9 on the internet.
But I won't know what their faces will look like.
