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Reader review by joseph_valencia
July 14, 2009 “El Viento” is the worst video game I have ever played. What do I mean? Well for starters, it’s not a good game at all; but also, it’s bad in a way I find particularly insulting. “Viento” was developed by Wolf Team, the development crew who would jump start Namco’s quaint and charming “Tales” franchise. None of the charm that made me enjoy their “Tales of Phantasia” is present in this dreck of an action game. It should be approached as a study in how constant motion and action doesn’t necessarily equate to constant stimulation.Your control a girl who’s dressed as a hooker, in a period and setting that would probably not be very receptive to such a public display of skin. That setting is our own world circa the Great Depression, but let’s talk about Karate Hooker Girl first. She isn’t a very hot number. The doubtless male-dominated Wolf Team probably had their character designer sketch some leggy vixen so they would have some sort of incentive to work on their dreck. Beyond that, they didn’t care to give the game representation of this character any grace or sensuality. She’s built like a stick, she’s postured like a stick; and she moves like a toy car, zipping back and forth while scant frames of animation struggle to create the illusion of flailing arms and steps. This choppy display is not very impressive or erotic.
Before I move on, let the record show that Karate “Viento” Girl attacks with boomerangs and magic spells. If this sounds like a lazy aside that was inserted after the fact, it is. For some fun, try to guess when I decided to insert his. :)
Back to the setting. The first level is New York City, which is caught up in America’s age of crime. There are mobsters and ne’er-do-wells and men popping wheelies on motor bikes (?). The citizens of New York also seem have a low opinion of Ms. Viento, because they drop a whole lot of junk onto her from their windows. By the time she’s done running around streets, leaping on balconies, exploring interiors, blowing up drive-by shooters, and leveling a tank (!), our character has probably massacred an entire urban district. The United States Census of 1940 must have reflected some interesting data on New York.
Before I move on, let the record show that there are optional nooks in this stage that lead to nothing in particular.
I was puzzled by level two. Its grassy terrain, spike-beds and whacky platforms are like something you’d expect to find in “Sonic 2” rather than a white-knuckle action game. There are entrances that send the game camera flying to another area of the stage, where you instantly appear. There’s a rail platform that’s really awful. I’m not sure why, but the platform’s sprite changes subtly depending on what direction it’s moving in. This can cause your character to fall off, even if she’s standing perfectly still. Bummer.
I also can’t make sense of these circular lumber steps. When the scrawny “El Viento” stands on these things, they *pop*, not collapse, under her weight. Entire gaps are plugged with these things. As a matter of fact, they fill up a pit where you fight the sorceress that acts as this level’s guardian. Since there weren’t any dangers at the bottom of this pit, I failed to see what purpose these logs served. I guess it’s kind of annoying that you have take all of a few seconds to clear the area of them just so you can move around feely.
Things go from bad to downright awful in stage three. You start off in a labyrinthine I-don’t-know-what. Is it a brewery? A bar? Both? Anyways, there are fat guys that throw bottles of alcohol at you. These bottles roll on the floor and rub up against our character’s feet with such a force that they can push her entire body. Of all the silly things, that one beats all. There are also midgets that jump out of nowhere and leap back and forth over your head while tossing knives most players won’t be able to credibly avoid.
We go from this place to a sewer-y area, with creatures that move so fast you have to pause the game to see just what the hell they are. Giant rats? These things zero in on your character with a speed and intensity that suggests suicide bombers on rollerblades. Real rats scurry to and fro, and they don’t tend to pile on random strangers creeping through the sewers. But I get the feeling that Wolf Team didn’t care, and neither will the people this game was intended for.
There is a point in the final (I think) cavernous sub-section of stage three where a mid-boss is sprung on the player without warning. There is no change in music, no rumbling noises--there’s not even any screen shaking! You fall into a pool, some water/dragon things thing start coasting around like Magic Kingdom monorails, and then you press on to find a barricade standing in your path. Gee, do I have to kill these things? That I even have to ask such a question is a failure on “El Viento’s” behalf. By this point my health was too withered down by relentless rats and pick-axe tossing goblins for me to mount a credible offense against these guardians of the deep. You know what? I’ll leave the rest of this game to lesser men.
Before I move on, let the record show that I played up to the third level of “El Viento.” That’s more than what I suffered through of “Shadow Dancer I.”
The impetus that drives “El Viento”--it’s action--is not at all compelling. It lacks any sort of rhythm or sense of confronting monsters or game designers that have a brain. Mindless drones rush at you in one speed--fast. To illustrate why this is a lesser approach to designing action games, let’s consider superior genre efforts like “Contra” and “Shinobi.” These games have a rhythm. They throw enemies that are both fast and slow at us. Have you ever noticed that there’s one guy in each of these titles that always manages to get you at the worst possible time? In “El Viento,” one drone is indistinguishable from the rest--gangster, motor-biker, giant rat…they’re all the same, really. All of these grunts eat away at our character’s health at pretty much the same rate. There are no memorable adversaries, only a blur of bullets and moving objects.
Since “El Viento” has a lot of big and frequent explosions, how about a study in smart pyrotechnics? One good subject to consider is the second stage of “Sunset Riders.” There is one, massive fiery explosion in this stage that serves to punctuate two different waves of action. It sticks out in our minds, because it is one of the few parts of the game where Konami allows something to blow up real good. Discipline in this example serves the spectacle better than the “Michael Bay” approach taken by “El Viento,” where fireworks are rendered limp by their frequency. From another perspective, the big explosions in “Viento” often block the player’s view of the action and leaves them unfairly vulnerable to its mindless drones.
There’s more sloppiness, like an awful sequence where a boomerang flying on a straight path in the foreground can collide with a car sitting in the background. But I think this essay has gone on long enough. If you’re wondering what I found particularly insulting about “El Viento” in my first paragraph, it’s combination of many things--the shoddiness, the indifference, the lack of grace or style, and the notion that this is supposed to pass for “entertainment.” This is aimless sound and fury at service of no one except some Japanese guys who sat in their garage and wrote up a game that made them a quick buck.
With this behind me, I will now go back to pumping out 800-word essays that gratify myself and apparently infuriate others. Good day, reader.
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