MediEvil: Resurrection – PSP Review
MediEvil: Resurrection - PSP Review
If you're familiar with the PSOne version of MediEvil from 6 years ago then I'll save you a bit of time straight away by saying its pretty much the same game. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing because the game was a great bit of fun back in the day. But if you're hoping that they've taken things a few steps further from the original format of comedy and hack n slash combat you'll be sadly disappointed.
You take control of the brave Sir Daniel Fortesque, a one-eyed jawless skeleton who sounds like Mr. Bean. He has reluctantly been resurrected to save the land of Gallomere from the clutches of the evil Zarok. You make you're way through the levels wiping out a plethora of un-dead and possessed beasts gradually making your way to the dark ruler himself. Its not just purely 'follow the rails and kill everything in your way' action as you have a bit of lateral thinking every now and then. Bashing through a stone casket to fall down to another level of the mausoleum for instance. In fact, there will be times when you're left wandering around the level banging your head because you think you've tried everything only to find you can smash through a bookcase to find the solution. But a lot of the time it is repetitive smack smack walk, smack smack walk.
As you progress you build up a selection of 20 different weapons such as crossbows, swords, clubs, etc. which adds a bit of variety to the way in which you pummel the baddies. But there is a fundamental lack of depth to the manner in which you engage in combat, something that was fine pre-millennium but thesedays we're used to a little more diversity.
However, there is a break to the usual flow with a series of mini-games as you make your way around a circus level. Its pretty refreshing and some of the challenges are good entertainment that can earn you a tidy stash of cash to buy goodies; personal favourite is the crossbow shooting gallery.
The mini-games can also be played instead of entering the story-mode, something which I believe Sony's Cambridge Studios thought would an attractive feature to multiplayer WiFi gamers. But, the games aren't astounding so any group challenges are likely to be fairly short-lived with much better options available.
The graphics don't push the capabilities of the PSP and the control system could do with some tweaking. It gets a little frustrating at times when you feel you're lined up correctly to flatten the approaching zombie only to find that you swing and miss by a few whiskers and then you're in a small spot of bother. The camera rotation doesn't do a great deal to help you out either. But the saving grace is the finely developed cut-scenes that are full of comedy value and interesting characters.
The sound and voice-overs are probably the element that helps to just about bring it up out of the mediocre game category. Tom Baker, known most recently for the narration on Little Britain, adds a similar comical dialogue between levels. And the cut-scenes have a host of amusing accents and relatively witty dialogue to keep you cheery.
If this is your first experience with MediEvil then the comedy and simple gameplay will keep you intrigued throughout, but if you've seen it all before you may end up getting a bit tired of the repetitive nature of the numerous levels. It certainly doesn't bring anything new to the table, but if you yearn for a bit of nostalgic gaming on a state of the art console then it does the job just fine.
6 / 10
Leeroy
