Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Capcom, and other annoyances
I bought the Xbox Live arcade game Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo the other night. I have wanted a Tetris like Live game for awhile now, but everything I have tried to date did not satisfy me. As soon as I started playing the demo, I knew I wanted it. It’s charged with a whole lot of fun and I would recommend it to anyone who likes Tetris and wants a good multi-player puzzle game. As far as puzzle games go, this one is really geared toward competitive play, and I like that.
That said, Capcom has done what they do so often, and that is make a great game and then introduce some of the most annoying little peeves that serve one purpose only and that is to hinder the player from actually playing the game. Dead Rising was famous for this, a fantastic 360 game, probably one of my favourite games and yet most annoying to date. The save system was horrid, the font size was too small, and the game just ends when the time runs out after hours and hours of game play. I’m playing the game, I’m enjoying it, I’m smashing Zombies, I’m having so much fun, … I’m booted out of the game and told it’s over. WHY?
Super Puzzle fighter has nothing quite that bad, but it does have its fair share of annoyances. I should also mention that Backbone Entertainment actually developed the game.
The first problem is one that seems to be a growing trend lately that I have seen in other games. Why am I forced to watch screen after screen of every company that was involved in developing the game, okay, I understand receiving credit, but at least allow me to skip it. After seeing an intro screen saying company XYZ made this for the one hundredth time I think I get the point. Capcom actually goes one step further in Super Puzzle Fighter. When you finish a game, which does not take too long, you are forced to watch the credits. I say forced, because you literally cannot skip them and start playing again. When I finish a game I now do a force quite and restart the game only to see the long intro text.
My third rant about this game is the voice system. Every game I have ever played on Live allows you to talk to your friends by simply picking up a head set, putting it on, and talking. How could you screw this up? Simple, just add another step, in Super Puzzle Fighter you have to hold the right trigger to talk. You will constantly hear the other gamer’s voice cutting off as they release the trigger before they are done talking. Maybe I’m missing something here; maybe there is some reason for this, but I cannot for the life of me see what that could be.
But I digress, even knowing everything I have outlined above I would still buy this game, and that probably says a lot. It’s a whole lot of fun, and hopefully patches come out to address some of the above issues.
