TGS '14 - Run! It's Godzilla! - Preview
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 19 September 2014 / 4,686 Views
Godzilla or Gojira (ゴジラ) is a Japanese cinematic icon but he's not made many positive waves in the realm of video games. To be honest I had no idea Namco Bandai had a Godzilla game in the works, but I guess with revived interest due this year’s movie reboot it only makes sense that someone would try to capitalise on that momentum. I got my claws on a demo of the game running on the PlayStation 3 at their booth at this year’s Tokyo Game Show.
Controlling Godzilla is a complex process. Square launches different melee attacks in conjunction with the direction you tilt the left analog stick. Triangle will fire a stream of lightning from Godzilla’s mouth. Circle is used to grab hold of enemies, and once you have grabbed them you can bite, scratch, or throw them depending on what button you press. X charges him forth with a burst of speed and a head-butt. Movement is tailored to the left analog stick but to turn right or left you need to press the R1 or L1 buttons respectively. Godzilla is slow and sluggish, which I suppose is appropriate given his size and mannerisms, but it also makes an ordinarily simple task of merely moving your character something of a chore.
I took control of Godzilla in an area with a coastline and what looked like multiple power plants towers and generators. The demo was completely in Japanese, so story-wise I missed out on some of the context, but from what Japanese I can understand you follow the reports of two women - the prime minister and head of the G Force tasked with taking down Godzilla - who communicate with the player via a small window on the right side of the screen.
At first I spent my time destroying every building and structure in sight. There's a counter on the bottom left of the screen that measures the damage you dish out, and you incur attacks from fighter jets in the sky and from tanks and missile launchers on the ground. I don't know how or even if they impacted my health; there was no health meter nor any indication that I was near death, though I endured many devastating attacks. When I had wreaked enough havoc, the G Force deployed their Super X fighter upon me. The Super X is a flying aircraft pod that looks like a U.F.O. and which has its own health bar that you steadily depleted with your attacks.
A few moments after I had repelled Super X, Godzilla’s famous three-headed foe Ghidora showed up to the fight. The golden dragon attacked from the sky with its breath of fire. It also lashed its three heads at me, knocking Godzilla down and making him look like a chump. I responded with a hail of melee attacks, lightning strikes, and throws, but it eventually becomes a highly repetitive encounter.
Let me be perfectly blunt. Godzilla has the makings of a bad game. The gameplay is slow, simple, and repetitive. The graphics are sub-par, awash in grey, feature torpid animations, and suffer from multiple hit detection issues. The damage and destruction modelling is outdated. This Godzilla video game has the production values of — well — an old Godzilla movie. The trailer promises fights with more classic Godzilla enemies such as Mothra or Mecha-Godzilla but it all looks very dull and predictable. I highly doubt this Godzilla game will ever release in the West so I present this preview to you as a description of an oddity that you will (thankfully) probably never get the chance to play.
Godzilla is releasing this December in Japan exclusively for the PlayStation 3.
