GarGoyle-Design

Vex[x]ed!!!

Not long ago I got a bug in my butt to purchase a game system. Of course we already had ye old faithful Sony Playstation and the beloved Sega Dreamcast. Both are played faithfully for two days at a stretch no more than two times a year. In between they are shuffled from room to room and have cords and controllers in different time zones. Despite the fact that I have good games that I haven't finished on either of those two systems, nor the time to play the commercials were succeeding to brain wash me that a NEW platform was what I needed.

So despite all my logic and common sense I began researching what exactly WE would like to have in a gaming machine. Kat wanted 'Tak' and 'Jakk and Daxter' (two different platforms). The kids wanted ZELDA and Mario (gamecube). I wanted Halo/Halo2 (xbox). So I kept looking at titles and reviews and talked to friends and impulsed the whole thing anyway when I saw that XBox was on sale for 169.99 with Tetris Worlds, Star Wars Clone Wars, and MechAssault all free.

Now, a month or so later, I'm vex[x]ed. An interesting word "to bring trouble, distress, or agitation" which describes very well how I feel about the XBox game named "VEXX". A troublesome, painful, agitating, gutwrenching game designed by evil, EVIL little men.

I saw reviews that compared the game to Mario with an evil twist. Do not be fooled by those reviewers they are in league with the devils that made this game. It starts out simply enough - walk through a nice little valley beating up some mushroom looking lizard guys that attack you, maybe kick a soccer ball into a goal to get a heart. That's the first sign of trouble because these aren't the cute little red hearts you might collect in any other game.

No these are dissembodied red and purple and blue veined throbbing hearts. You can feel the beat of them in your hands whenever you come close to one to wring out the energy that they hold. Your primary goal for the whole game is to collect as many hearts as possible. Each new heart brings you a step closer to oppening a door. That door may be the door that leads to insanity.

Hearts are scattered throughout each 'world'. Maybe 10 hearts per world. Each world is connected to another world via a gateway or hub. The hub contains a core that uses the power you wring from the hearts to open a new door to a new world. The first world is free of course, the second world only needs 2 hearts, then 5, 11, 15, 18, 24, 32 and so on up to 60 (as far as I know).

Each world has a theme. First you're in the valley, then a desert, a mayan jungle, a sci-fi kind of biodome world, someone's house, etc. Within each habitat there are different areas to seek out the hearts. One challenge might have you fighting and jumping your way to the top of a series of cliffs. Another challenge might have you beating up as many monsters as you can on a stationary platform. Another might have you using every skill you have to reach a nausiatingly high platform that you must then leap from, possibly to your doom, to reach a heart.

This has been the first game to ever cause me physical discomfort while playing. The way that heights are portrayed in the game with the sense of space and scale tricks one's mind into believing that there's real danger. That sensation quickly causes you to want to stop what you are doing and vomit. Tack on the ever increasing difficulty of the tasks and you have a game that threatens to cause significant mental and physical anguish.

One example - the task is to get three stone heads back onto their respective stone bodies. Each head is in a different location across the 'mayan' world. The first head is pretty easy - come into the world walk down the ramp and after killing a giant slug it's resting on top of another statue/platform. Pick it up run it back up the ramp and voila one down. Head number two, hey head number one was simple head number two shouldn't be too hard. HA! Head left from the top of the ramp and jump high onto a step. At the far edge of that step is a stream running quickly down hill. Across the stream is a ancient crumbling pillar with a platform on top. Beyond that platform - NOTHING - SPACE - An asteroid field - no net, not forcefield, no programatically enforced border - DEATH waits beyond. So you jump across to that platform and turn left. You then have to jump across several gaps to other platforms until you reach the next head. Problem #1 comes up - how to get the head across the gaps. You can't just jump the gaps with head in hand. No these are big stone heads that weigh you down. That said, both jumping and swimming are out. Problem #2 - heads are on a timer. If you put a head down, drop it, or fall down you have to the count of 5 to pick it back up before it replaces itself to some far off location again.

So you pick up head number two and procede to toss it across each gap. Followed by quickly jumping across yourself to pick up the head before it dissapears and you have to start all over. Assuming that you make it all the way back, with the head, without having fallen into nothingness on one side or the water on the other side you're now faced with the next challenge - the long jump across the stream/river. Here you can't just throw the head. You have to jump AND throw the head. So you jump, throw the head, pray that it lands on dry land, try to spin kick or something in mid jump to get you an extra few feet across and on that same dry land. It should take you only 5 or 6 times to get it.

Then you go on to head three. It's located off in some isolated corner that you have to climb up into after killing three or four different monsters. Then you have to grab it, climb down, follow a little path around the corner, then climb up and onto a walkway. The walkway ends near a spinning platform that you have to jump onto with the head and then jump off of onto another walkway. At the end of that walk way you again have the tough jump/throw/jump scenario.

And for your work you receive a beating living but disembodied heart. WEEEEEEE!

That's one of the EASY levels. It's not like Sumo wrestling, or walking on invisible platforms, or walking and jumping upside down, or trying to get electric fish to chase you all at the same time so you can raise a platform with their electricity. No those are the MEDIUM level tasks, this one was EASY!

I've unlocked 5 or 6 worlds so far with my paltry 34 hearts. Even now the game calls to me - "Come just one more heart, this is an easy one, just one more... one more...". It threatens to consume all of my time with it's ever changing and more challenging playing fields. It threatens to make me like it and like it so much that I say nice things about it. Now I can't say anything more than the fact that it's the most evil and addicting game I've ever played (taking first place from Munch's Odyssey which stole the spot from Halo).

Posted by nhavar at March 19, 2004 01:16 AM