Asterix

[Audi]

Yeah sorry, been traveling since early January, just got back home a few days ago. I will look through and comment soon, alright? Just gotta recover and get rid of this jetlag!

[Shellshock]

Jan 20, 2011 12:51:35 GMT -5 Nyarly said:

I found an (admittingly) small mistake in the Asterix article. On page 3, there is a flyer for the Arcade game, on which stands "German Arcade Flyer", but it's pretty obviously a Dutch one (I don't speak any Dutch, but German is my mother language, so I can at least see that's it's certainly not German). There even seems to be "Exclusive for Netherlands" written on it (if I'm not mistaken).

Yeah, I used to be fluent in Dutch, and that's Dutch.

[lanceboyle94]

Coincidentally, I recently got XXL2 for the PSP.

And it's awesome.

[KeeperBvK]

Mar 10, 2011 4:14:01 GMT -5 Audi said:

Yeah sorry, been traveling since early January, just got back home a few days ago. I will look through and comment soon, alright? Just gotta recover and get rid of this jetlag!

Sure, take your time. Thanks. I just didn't want it to be forgotten.

[Gendo Ikari]

Very late to the party, I want to correct a post by Keeper:

Astérix at the Olympic Games wasn't released in 2007, but 2008. Wouldn't make much sense if it would have seen release a year before both the movie and the Olympic Games.

It's not an error. The game was released in November 2007 (sole exception is the 360 port, released in August 2008), preceding the movie which came out in late January 2008.

Thanks to the article, I got the XXL games. I must say that the article is perfectly right on the first episode, which shows how the developers were still inexperienced. To the complaints, I add the ludicrous number of crates strewn around. I wished it was shorter for how much it becomes repetitive later on... Still, it was the biggest fun I had in a long time. The only point I disagree with is about the uselessness of all special moves. Sure they are annoying and you'll probably end up sticking to one when you buy it, and you can go on for most of the game without using them, but the final level without the Twister is nearly impossibile - you have to confront three arenas of 800, 1000 and 1200 romans respectively! Unless you want to fight for hours and hope to not get hit too much, once you activate that move, literally hundreds of enemies are sucked in as they enter the screen. You can just spare your helmets from buying previous moves and wait to find the first peddler who sells the Twister, and you're set.

XXL 2 is a great improvement, even more considering it was released just 18 months later. The setting perfectly justifies the presence of only enemies (Las Vegum is still not open to the public) and I liked how you can often see parts of other locations in the distance. Not only the reward system is fun, but it constantly reminds you of the various moves and how much they are useful. Having the most powerful moves executable only when getting the potion prevents them from becoming game breakers. The only part that I felt was made really badly is WCW Challenge 3, the one with the targets. Man, is that annoying. Took me about a dozen of hours to complete and I was wholly satisfied with it. The amount of referencies is staggering and I'm going to make a TV Tropes page dedicated to XXL 2 With a little research, I also noticed how the six areas of the game are inspired by some of the most famous hotels in Las Vegas.

Common to both games, however, are the low difficulty level, the recycled bosses, the lack of a coop mode and the soundtrack: I think some of the music is good, even great, but I agree it's often out of place.

I'd like to try Olympic Games (the more I look at it, the more I think it's a hasty retool of what should have been XXL 3) but I think my PC is too old to handle it. Should get a demo to verify.

[Audi]

I personally feel that the XXL games suffer from the DKC64 syndrome of the game fatiguing itself halfway through and becomes more monotonous and recycled, as if the game was made in sequence and you can literally pinpoint where they ran out of ideas. They play fine though and have such wonderfully warm characters and humor that it isn't the end of the world, just that general gamers won't really be able to recognize the things that are Asterix to save it.

Thanks for reading though, very deeply appreciated.

[lanceboyle94]

Dec 14, 2011 4:50:57 GMT -5 Gendo Ikari said:

The amount of referencies is staggering and I'm going to make a TV Tropes page dedicated to XXL 2

Do it, dude.

Also, as for the Asterix at the Olympic Games release date, the Wii version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympics did the same thing.

[Gendo Ikari]

It will take a while (I may not be able to start before Christmas) but it'll definitely happen XXL 2's gallery at Giantbomb was a great way to find a few more referencies, like the easily missed Chu Chu Rocket tiles in Caesar's Palace.

[Gendo Ikari]

I gave another look at Giantbomb to find confirmation for a few more referencies I noticed, and found out that one got unnoticed, although you can't fault them because it's really loose and obscure:

See the roman numeral on the crate (it is on another crate and a lid nearby)? "XIII" is a comic that was turned into a cel-shaded FPS by Ubisoft in 2003.

Got a demo of Asterix at the Olympic Games and... surprise, it runs on my dinosaur PC! Must keep the minimum settings obviously but didn't expect to be able to run it at least decently. On the other hand, it shows how much the engine was dated at that point.
From the little time the demo allows to play, the Olympic Games proper are fun but shallow, while the gameplay of the "proper" games has little changes here and there; like in the first XXL, enemies are stunned by a series of punches rather than the secondary attack, and attacks are back to being purchased - being able to slap Romans silly now, like in the Konami games, is fun It's also back on holding a button to move the air cart with Obelix (bad!).
At least there's some more care for the PC versions "specificity". In XXL 1&2 the commands to input are shown as pictograms for every button, and at first you'll be tasked to learn the keys you associated to each; here, it shows the specific keys you configured, avoiding confusion completely. Took them three games to realize, though...
The cutscene included in the demo shows XXL Asterix, Obelix and Alafolix with Comic Panoramix - who is a flat cutout. And Brutus swaps places with his movie counterpart. WTF? I perfectly understand the perplexity.

[Gendo Ikari]

It's ready:

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ShoutOut/AsterixAndObelixXXL2

There's still much work to do (namely, a lot of image links) but I'm too tired to do it in a short time. Still, I'm really satisfied at how it turned out

[Audi]

Wonderful work, Gendo, thank you for doing this!

[Gendo Ikari]

Some images from Giantbomb are good, others I don't like too much, so I'll swap them with the screenshots I'll take when I have time.

While I was at it, I tried the GBA version of XXL with an emulator. The technical effort is surely impressive, but after a while pop-up and texture distortion become even more impressive. The river bonus levels are the best-looking because the freedom of movement is limited there, so the technical limits are less evident. Sometimes sprites (the Gauls are excellent, the enemies much grainier) overlap erroneously, so an enemy that should be in the distance appears in front of Asterix or Obelix, but this may be an emulator issue. All of this also limits the level design severely. Anyway, any of this would be more forgivable if it wasn't that the gameplay is so shallow. Collision detection is iffy and there's no moveset to speak of - you just slap away (hoping) to hit enemies until the combo meter is full, and unleash one. It's also very frustrating, levels have no ckeckpoints and several points where you can die because you weren't able to judge the distance of a jump. I'm not ashamed to say that, after a while, I got an IPS trainer. Again, it is a commendable effort, they tried to put in all the gameplay elements of the "bigger" counterpart here; but ultimately, it has all its flaws amplified.

[Audi]

Im not sure if the enemy overlapping is worse on the emulator, but for what it is worth that issue is present on the physical copy of the game as well. I have it.

[Gendo Ikari]

My, Asterix at the Olympic Games is a disappointment. It lasts about 5 hours and it would be even less if several passages weren't so frustrating and/or tedious - I think of when you have to defeat 30 romans before taking the biga, or the series of ledges in Doctomabus's cave, which seems a big aping of Prince of Persia. It does many things right (even more refined and fun combat, some tricky puzzles, some really fun moments like the "Obelix theorem") but among the things that fall flat, even the plot: Princess Irina is never seen, it makes no sense allowing Asterix to compete in the Games in story mode (he should be the one to marry the princess at the end, not Alafolix!), Sam Shieffer disappears at some point, even the McGuffin is underused: wouldn't have been great if the final battle also involved alternate Asterixs and Obelixs? The graphical representation of the final battle itself is somewhat lacking too. The Olympic games are shoehorned into the plot and gameplay and feel really detached. They are also incredibly easy (I had difficulties with the biga at first, but once I got the hang of it... I defeated Brutus at first try). Some cutscenes look really cheap.

It's not a bad game overall, and a few sections taken singularly are even great, but it doesn't live up to the quality of XXL 2 and it's evidently limited by being a (awkward) te-in and not its own Asterix game.

Fun fact: the Mog-shaped vases from XXL 2 are visibile in a cutscene. Says a lot about the limited timeframe they must have had to work on it.

(Edit) For once, I like the Italian voice track better. The voice actors often make the Roman characters speak in a modern Rome accent, like in the movies (or at least they try - afaik most of these VAs are from northern Italy), and the Olympic commenter is clearly making an imitation of a hammy (figuratively and literally) Italian sports reporter.

[Gendo Ikari]

Well, I'm finished with that TV Tropes page. I personally took, uploaded and linked many new screenshots, polished up a bit... I think it's finally time to uninstall the game, by now I can go through its areas with eyes closed

Upon re-watching a cutscene of Asterix at the Olympic Games, I realized that Asterix knocking out one of the Romans who damaged Alafolix's chariot with a headbutt refers to the infamous incident with Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup final, and may be a nod to the cameo of Zidane himself in the movie, too.