TGS07: Seaman 2 hands-on impressions
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, Japan, News, Nintendo DS, Sony PlayStation 2. Tagged with Dreamcast, Exhibition/ Show, Seaman, TGS.
One game that would be bound to get any Sega fan tingling, has got to be Seaman 2. So, cunningly, Sega decided to hide the game away, with the DS and Wii titles, right next to Sonic Rush Adventure. So, as you may imagine, the display for Seaman 2, was none too impressive - just a PS2 in a display unit, not much else.
One thing that would catch your eye, though, would be the new Seamancontroller. For the Dreamcast version, Sega released the microphone attachment, but for the PS2, they have designed a brand new control pad for the game.
The pad looks nothing like a normal PS2 pad, in fact it kind of reminds me of the really old Megadrive controllers (the big ones), but flatter, with a single analogue stick, and a nice chunky microphone bit sticking up.
Sorry for the blurred image, this is the only close-up I got of the controller.
While it looks a bit big and ugly, I found the controller very comfortable to hold, and it was remarkably light. Though that’s because it doesn’t have a rumble in it - at least I don’t think it does, as the game didn’t rumble for me.
So off to a good start eh?
Well, for me, that’s where the rollercoaster’s high pretty much ended, and the ride down wasn’t much fun, (way too much vomit on my part), I’m sorry to say. I can almost hear the sound of thousands of Seaman fans crying. But, please wait, some of my reasons could potentially change.
One of the big problems I had was with the language. As we all know, in Seaman you have to talk to the character on screen, to play the game. also as you should all know, by now, that I don’t know any Japanese, and speaking is harder than reading, in my opinion. So for a section of the game I played, I couldn’t do anything. But, possibly my main problem was visual.
I’m sorry, but words cannot describe my distaste for the graphics in this game. I am being completely serious here when I say that the game looks like a DS game. I can actually feel my blood boil, when I think back to the game.
Seamanhad some fairly decent visuals, maybe not the best in the world (not even by Dreamcast standards), but it was good to look at. One could argue that all they were looking at was a ‘fishman’ creature, and so good graphics would be fairly easy to pull off. Well even though Seaman 2has you looking after a caveman type creature, and a random birdman, you still only seem to have a small area which the Seaman uses, so not much bigger than the fish tank of Seaman 1.
When you start the game, you see a small island, covered in forest, and the camera slowly zooms in from up high, until you reach the beach, where the caveman pops his head out from the trees.
As far as I can tell the beach area is all on one screen, so you can’t go off exploring the island freely with your monkeyman. On the beach you have a few trees… 2D trees, that look pretty crappy. You have a very flat background and your caveman. To be honest the caveman doesn’t look terribly good either.
After a little playing, getting my caveman to shake a tree to drop bananas, (which I found surprisingly tricky), so he could eat, I was then taken to another screen. The new setting was on a rock, possibly a cliff face, with a single tree to one side, and a birdman flies down to talk to you.
The cliff was a really crappy mix of greys, and the birdman was very square looking. Overall the textures were poor, and the objects were generally square/blocky, or quite obvious flat.
Like I say, I really think the game looked like it should have been on the DS. I don’t have a very high opinion of the PS2, but when I see great looking games, like God of War and Shadow of the Colossus, then have to look at this, it makes me angry.
Really Sega have no excuse for the visuals in this game, unless they are planning on a DS port. If that were the case, then they would have an excuse, but not a very good one. Even if a DS version was in the works, Sega should be able to pull off something better on a 128bit system.
Also my game playing didn’t get much past the birdman moment (I mentioned earlier), as that was when you really need to talk to the thing, which a Sega rep showed me. But as I couldn’t speak it myself, I told him I couldn’t be bothered, I was too frustrated by the whole affair.
Summary:
I’ll say it again, the visuals are crappy. They look ok in still pictures, but up close, they just look plain shite.
Control wise, the game was just annoying, but that is mainly due to my language limitations. So the gameplay could turn out to be pretty good. I will have to play a western version of the game to give a full and proper review/preview on it, God willing Sega will let the game outside of Japan.
From playing the game, I really do hope they have a DS version in the works, because the game would clearly work well on the system, with the sub-par graphics, built in mic, and a touch screen control would make the game easier to play. As a PS2 game, I am feeling very dubious.
I’ll leave it with this: The game still has potential to be great, but what I played did not excite me much.
~G~
Comments on this article
There have been 9 responses to this article.
Thanks for checking it out, but honestly, you put way, WAY too much emphasis on visuals. Who cares if the graphics are sub-par if the game turns out great?
Inertia
Posted October 6th, 2007 at 9:46 am.
He put emphasis on the visuals because that was all he had. He couldn’t play it because of the language barrier, and he couldn’t hear it because of all the noise in general.
Kijuna
Posted October 6th, 2007 at 10:20 am.
Then he isn’t fit to judge it at all.
Inertia
Posted October 6th, 2007 at 10:29 am.
Yeah as I do say - the game still has potential to be great. But I would need to play an English version to tell.
This is not one of those japanese games you can import unless you are pretty much fluent in Japanese.
You can’t wing it through trial and error - as you have to be able to speak to the characters.
But I rant about the visuals - because they are so funking dreadful. If Sega want to sell a game like this, they can at last try to make it look good.
Graham
Posted October 6th, 2007 at 10:32 am.
What’s with all those cheaply made controllers they have? I understand this game needs a mic, but from the other screenshots I’ve noticed they have similar ones. Did all the booths use third-party(SEGA?) controllers?
And yes this game is ugly, the ground even reminds me of a 32 bit game.
Kogen
Posted October 6th, 2007 at 11:27 am.
No Kogen, Seaman 2 was the only game that had a special controller. Unless you count Ghost Squad - which used the Zapper thing - which is just a shell you put the wiimote and nunchuck into.
Graham
Posted October 6th, 2007 at 12:39 pm.
I saw some other game with the same style PS2 controller in a video, can’t remember which one though. Had the same colours. Or maybe it was one of those with the mic taken off.
Kogen
Posted October 6th, 2007 at 1:45 pm.
Was it on this site?
Becase as far as I recall Seaman 2 was the only Sega game with a special controller (can’t say for other companies). And the mic part was fixed - you can’t remove it. It was all one big plastic lump.
Or you could be mistaken for a DS or PSP perhaps? The DS’ and PSPs were hooked up to tv sets - so seeing someone play on one, they could have been looking at the big screen (rather than the handhelds own screen) That way it may have looked like a special controller.
Graham
Posted October 6th, 2007 at 2:16 pm.
This game would be fitting on the DS with its own microphone.
Though I think Id rather see a full Seaman saga than just the fish part or caveman part.
That controller looks sweet though.
Add another stick on that and make the microphone removable and I’ll have a reason to buy a PS2.
Always loved Sega’s controllers.
Analog support for the win.
You know, its gotta be an early beta.
What with that funky controller too, Id suspect the PS2 one might be ditched.
Though theres always hoping that game and controller gets a Wii and or Xbox360 port xD
Eh, ya, better on DS.
Would love that controller though o-o
shadow1w2
Posted October 6th, 2007 at 6:45 pm.