Reviewed: August 28, 2002
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Got Game Entertainment

Developer
Prograph Research

Released: August 12, 2002
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

5
6
6
6
5.8

System Requirements

I had heard several positive comments from gamers on the newsgroups and even read a nice review on another website, so I was pretty excited when my review copy arrived and I prepared for some heavy metal combat.

I was immediately welcomed by a two-minute opening movie with a pretty cool soundtrack. The entire presentation reminded me of those classic Japanese games and anime from the early 90’s that I used to play on my old Turbo Grafx-16 system.

Tsunami 2265 offers a substantial list of features including:

• 2 main characters you get to play as throughout the game
• 2 game modes: third-person shooter and arcade phases
• 20 different Mechs
• 13 levels of gameplay including 8 different sets
• Interactive backgrounds and environments
• Unique storyline set in a technological future rich with Japanese culture and philosophy

Each robot has two firing modes; laser and rockets, and you will be mashing the fire buttons incessantly as wave after wave of enemies are lurking around every corner. You have infinite ammo so you don’t have to worry about strategizing. Simple “run and gun” techniques are all you need to win this game.

You are eased into the action with a tutorial that takes place in a training sim. You get to destroy a variety of robots and power cores learning the basics of robot combat, which takes about 90 seconds.

Once the game kicks in you are treated to some excellent cutscenes using some gorgeous cel-shaded animation worthy of network TV. Lip-synching is totally off in what is either a tribute to traditional Japanese anime or simply poor programming.

Gameplay consists of indoor and outdoor levels where you can play in robots and as their human pilots. The first level has you navigating a huge maze of twisting narrow canyons as you try to break into a city and rescue a prisoner who has valuable information you need.

I was disappointed about several things in regards to general gameplay. First, the compass is utterly worthless, especially in a maze-like environment such as the canyons where the red arrow is always pointing directly at the waypoint even though you may have to go six other directions to get there. And even when you do reach the waypoint it is often imprecise or downright wrong. I followed the arrow until I was 5m (close as I could get) to the target. Nothing was there. It turned out the objective was a half-mile away and the waypoint indicator was pointing to a ramp leading down into the canyon to get to that point. Grrrrr…

With no map-view it is very easy to get lost in such huge levels. In fact, getting lost and trying to figure out the waypoint indicator was ultimately why it took me nearly 2 hours to complete the first level – a level that should have lasted about 30 minutes. Objectives are not always clearly defined and you are forced to wander around until you happen to stumble on the solution. Sometime you even have to stumble onto the puzzle.

You cannot save your game during these missions, which probably wouldn’t be an issue if you could finish them in the 30 minutes they should normally take. If you die you can restart from the most recent checkpoint, although you aren’t notified when you trigger one. From my experience they seem to be very frequent so you shouldn’t have to repeat too much of any one level unless you exhaust your credits. That’s right – credits. Leave your quarters and tokens in your pocket – you get four credits per level, so unless you absolutely suck you should be able to get through this game.

On a few occasions you will exit your robot and explore on foot in what the manual calls “adventure mode”. This basically consists of you moving around a human figure rather than a robot using the same commands and interface. These levels are basically a bunch of locked doors and key hunts – pretty boring stuff, but it serves to break up the monotony of robot combat which surprisingly begins to wear thin after a few levels.

There are some issues with physics and scale. In SHOGO you had this great sensation of stomping through town in giant robots because of the people and tiny cars driving around your feet. There is nothing in Tsunami to give you any sense of scale. Everything you fight is also extra-large so you may as well be wearing a human-size exoskeleton battle suit.

Physics are equally as bad. While I don’t expect total realism – we’re talking giant robots after all – I do require some consistency in the laws of physics. Jurisprudence takes a holiday when my robot can leap off a huge cliff into the canyon below and keep on running, yet when he falls off a four-foot ledge he instantly and inexplicably suffers total damage and death.

In the first indoor level I found several gameplay bugs that can only be attributed to either poor scripting or poor programming. Certain programming flags such as those used for completed puzzles or unlocked doors would mysteriously revert to their default state, even after I had solved the puzzle or opened the door. The door bug was actually humorous since I could still pass through even though it said I needed a key.

The only thing that surprised me more than the number of quirky bugs was the fact that an update patch was included on the installation CD. After I had installed the main game it automatically launched the patch/update installer. I get just a tad nervous when games have patches available the same week as their release, let alone shipping them on the same CD as the game.

Some of the robot designs are horrible including the first robot you fight with that looks like some crazy robotic Cardinal. I thought Italians were awesome designers. Maybe the auto industry has snatched up all the creative geniuses leaving a gap in the giant robot design market.

Animation is a bit jerky, not because of system requirements but simply because the robots are not articulated with enough frames of animation. Humanoid robots will lurch around in jerky motions – yes, jerky even by robot standards, while spider droids shuffle around using a minimal range of motion.

Special effects are pretty nice with brightly colored lasers, rockets with smoke trails, and fiery explosions. The darker levels really show off some great lighting and particle effects adding to the overall carnage.

Sound effects are simply okay, but they become painfully annoying before the first level is over. Since you only have minimal weapons you get to hear the same sounds over and over and over… The heavy thumping of giant robot footsteps becomes almost hypnotic.

The designers did add the feature of allowing multiple gaming slots so several people can play Tsunami 2265 without intruding on other players’ saved games. This seems to be a popular trend that is quickly becoming a standard feature in most of the newer games.

It’s fun in a quirky kind of arcade way, but there are just too many gameplay issues to ignore, which is a shame because I really wanted to like this game more than I did.