Monsters jumping through windows... Scary stuff, indeed! |
Death Crimson Ox suffers from a wealth of problems that individually might not be killers, but that start stacking up to a pretty unattractive package. The story, nonsensical to begin with, is further hampered by a ham-fisted translation. Names that probably sounded halfway decent in Japanese just seem corny and lame to an American audience and should have been adapted slightly. Also, strange departures from standard light gun games create some bizarre-sounding phrases. For example, the message "Hold you Crimson" is used in place of "Hold your fire," creating both a logical problem (isn't the player already "holding his Crimson"?) and a strange expression that ends up sounding like a vague euphemism (i.e. "When the date ended early, Kou was left 'holding his Crimson,' if you know what I mean...").
Still, games like House of the Dead 2 aren't going to win any awards for either story or use of the English language, but they still manage to be great games. Unfortunately, localization is probably the least of Death Crimson OX's problems. During gameplay (as with every light gun game since Virtua Cop), the camera moves during the game, leading the player into new areas and progressing along a certain fixed route. Death Crimson OX does this also, but occasionally fades to black and fades back up in a completely new location, within a level! This disjointed system leads to all sorts of disorientation. A player might be standing on a city street one moment, only to have the game fade to the interior of a room. If the designers couldn't find a better way to manage load times, they should have simply cut those elements that were causing the loads to occur.
Graphically, the game is solid but uninspiring. The sounds are minimal and the animations of the monsters are incredibly inconsistent. Some creatures animations are smooth and well done, while others are so choppy that they look like paper targets at a county fair. Sound effects are sparse, and voice over is virtually nonexistent. The music in the game isn't necessarily bad, but like most of the rest of the game, it is bland and repetitive.
Early horror films taught us that all monster have a weak point. This guy's is his sword. Shoot him there to win. |
Although the multiple game modes offered to players would seem to be a good thing, the fact that they are all little more than a slight variation on the exact same levels quickly tires them out. With no significant differences in terms of goals or environments, a player who has tired of the story mode isn't likely to find a quick trip through either mission or bullet mode freshens the game up.
If the player sticks with story mode, he is treated to some of the blandest cut scenes to appear in recent memory. There is no voice over, and the dialogue does almost nothing to advance the story. The characters don't seem to make decisions based on any sort of logical process. At one point, Kou and Yuri arrive at the home of a university professor they hope can answer some questions for them. Instead, they find a strangely dressed woman who tells them the professor has gone to another location. Without the slightest hesitation, the characters head to this new destination, without even bothering to find out the woman's identity! Later on, they go back to the professor's house and he's there. No explanation as to where he was before or why he didn't notice the strange woman in his house is given or even requested!
If the cut scenes weren't wearisome enough already, they are also slow and poorly animated. The character models in the cut scenes are stiff and unnatural, and only serve to distance the player further from an already inaccessible plot. Light gun games are repetitive by their very natures, so the things that tend to set them apart are the power ups, the variety of the enemies, the environments, and (occasionally) the story. Unfortunately, Death Crimson OX falls short in all areas. If it were an arcade game, players might stick a few bucks in, get their kicks and move on, but it's hard to imagine most players really wanting to add this game to their permanent collections.
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