REVIEW: Odama

August 30, 2006

And Odama has been beaten!

This game was a little strange for me when I first started out. For those of you who might remember, the first time I ever played the game was at E3 2004. At that time, they didn't have the microphone support added, so it was more of just a crazy pinball game. At the time I kind of just pushed it off as a "yeah it seems interesting.... but not all that great." When E3 2005 came around, it was back again, only this time it had microphone support. This was when I really fell in love with it. While I was never able to beat the first level, I enjoyed how it played and just couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Fast forward to when the game comes out and the reviews turnout to be not so hot. Even though I really enjoyed it at E3, I felt like I didn't wanna take my chances, and will just wait until it comes down in price. So about a month ago, I was just walking around Best Buy and just saw it sitting there, the same price as it was when it first came out. It was the only copy left, so I was like "Oh the hell with it," and just picked it up.

So I bring it home, and after finishing PoP3, I start playing. Right off the bat, I am doing pretty good. Playing the level way in advanced got me ready so I knew what to expect, so I just cruised right though it. When I got to the second level however, things started to quickly go down hill. Now, don't get me wrong, I like a hard game as much as the next person, but Odama is hard for a different reason. See with a game like Devil May Cry 3, you get your ass kicked because you let yourself get your ass kicked. You try and figure out what you might of done wrong, then you give it another shot only with a different plan maybe. With Odama on the other hand, you could be doing great, seconds away from beating the level and then whoops!, your Odama went the wrong way and wiped out all of your men. Its hard when it really shouldn't have to be, is what I am trying to say I guess.

There were times where I went for days without picking up this game. I would just give it dirty looks and say something like "oh man I don't know if I want to deal with that bullshit." I almost had given up hope when I just told my self I wasn't going to wimp out and then just buckle down and just try to beat it. At that point, the game just got easy for some strange reason. All of a sudden I knew what to do, the Odama went where I wanted it to go, and I seemed to be doing everything right. On maps that might of taken multiple times to play through, I finished on the very first try. It was fun again. This is what I was waiting for all this time.

With that being said, even though I enjoyed the game, the one thing that really pissed me off was the super poor AI. See, you move your troops around by giving them commands through the microphone. If you want them to go to a certain spot, you say "rally" or if you want them to push through the enemy, you say "push forward." Sound easy? Well not when you have to say.... "push forward"....."push forward" ...."PUSH FORWARD"...."PUSH FORWARD FOR GOD SAKES!!!" While the microphone worked just fine, the AI would immediately forget what you just told them, and would need to repeat it over and over again to make sure they did it. Even with that fault, that game was still pretty enjoyable.

Anyway, enough of that, lets just move on.