Boot-up of SquareSoft’s The Bouncer shows that even a few short months after the Playstation 2 has become available, developers are making games that look great, meaning that even more great looking games are yet to come. Unfortunately, The
Bouncer looks amazing, but that’s mainly what you do in this "game" — look.

The graphics, both foreground and background are completely amazing. The character designs are first-rate, with details adding to the realism, like the wisps of hair that bounce around on Sion’s head, to the spiked horns sprouting from Volt’s head. The emotions revealed through facial expression are great, but I really felt that I was watching a movie, rather than a PS2 game.

Intros ranged from a few seconds to several minutes. They were great to watch, but as the game progressed, they became longer while the parts where having a controller in-hand became shorter.

When the controller was in-hand, fighting enemies, the fighting isn’t much ahead of Final Fight, or even as far back as the Double Dragon series. While you did have the incentive of beating them to see some more breath-taking scenes, the more you play, the less you want to watch, or even play.

Additionally, the camera angles often were pretty bad, with you running toward the camera, making it impossible to see where the enemies were up ahead. There were also times in the subway scene, where you’re running aimlessly to keep ahead of the closing doors and out of the times I did, it never got caught once. There was little challenge here. I think they were included so they could add more time to what was actually interactive on this title.

Had I bought this one, I’d be sorely disappointed, because a DVD action movie has a cheaper price tag. SquareSoft incorporated Dolby Digital 5.1 sound during the cinematic scenes and it sounds wonderful, but again, the Matrix is cheaper and more entertaining.

The game isn’t even that challenging. I’ve beat the game with one character within a couple hours of booting it up and am working through with another, but the storyline really doesn’t change enough (there are parts, but it’s just not enough) for this one to be worth much more than a couple hours of play. The local used game store had several copies of it, and now I see why. There’s little replay value in this one.

The Bouncer really makes a good showoff piece for the PS2, but SquareSoft forgot about putting some game in there. If the cut scenes had ended up having more actual game play in between, it’d be a must-have for the PS2 collection, but as it is, it’s a maybe-rent.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 5th, 2001 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Game Reviews, PS2 Review, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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