Vexx

"An appropriately titled waste of time."

I'll open with some scene-setting.

It is a Sunday afternoon. The phone rings.
''Hello?''
''Hi Lisa. I bought this game and just started playing it. You absolutely HAVE to write a review of it for GameFAQs!''
''What game, why do I have to review it, and why are you interrupting the football to tell me this? Is it really good or something?''
''I'm not telling you. Just come and get it and write the review. I'll pick it up again later.''

Intrigued, I immediately (well, after the football) got the game and started to play it. All I can say is that the friend in question has a sick, twisted sense of humour. Read on to find out why.

Introduction

Vexx is a platform game with delusions of grandeur. Acclaim appear to have been trying to formulate a platformer with elements of Zelda and other RPG-lite style games. It's a nice concept - think of it as a mature and involving platform game with a complex plot and extra features. Unfortunately, they did a terrible job.

The sad truth of it is, I have never played a game quite as bad as Vexx. There is precisely one redeeming feature about it - the music. However nice it may sound though, that really can't detract from the other aspects of this ridiculously patronising and at times insultingly pretentious trash.

Yes, it's trash. I do not, however, plan to simply direct a stream of abuse at Vexx; although I'm extremely tempted to do so. I could, if I wanted, be particularly vicious about this, but I'm not going to. I'm going to try to forget the two hours of my life I spent playing... two hours of my life - gone. Two hours that will never return... One could say that I was literally dying while playing this. See? It's this philosophical outpouring and others like it that I won't subject you to that led to me hating this game so intensely. And the game itself brought it on! If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd be fleeing the country about now.

I will be fair in my summation of Vexx - I promise. It is my duty as a reviewer to explain precisely why I feel the way I feel, and I intend to be fair. However, it's the honesty-motivated side of me that will lead to the inevitable conclusion that I will not be recommending people to buy this game.

So, fairness assured, read on to find out exactly what makes Vexx so... vexing.

Story - 2/10

Well, they tried. The story revolves around the themes of revenge and retribution. The people invented a technology which had the pesky side effect of allowing bad things to cross over from another dimension. Predictably, the bad people did mean things, as bad people are prone to do. In the wake of the mean things, a small boy called Vexx somehow came into possession of some very large gloves, and decided to fulfil his destiny of saving the world from the bad men.

Now, the problem here is mainly with the way the story ties in to playing the game - quite simply, it doesn't. As you progress, you find that there is a bewildering lack of references to the story, and that it's very easy to forget that there is a story. It feels suspiciously like the story was added on later in development - it does not feature in game play at all.

This is not only disturbing, but tragic. The story is original, especially for a platform game. Most platform stories are generic and highly predictable, but this was a good story concept. The demo video had made me very excited about Vexx - it appeared to be a story-oriented grown-up platform game with plenty of story linkage to play time. This just didn't happen though. It's so frustrating to see the main selling point, as far as I personally was concerned, completely wasted. It's not even as if they were spending their time on other game aspects! What happened, Acclaim? You used to be so good!

Graphics - 0/10

OH. MY. JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE. The graphics are appalling. There is nothing good about the graphics whatsoever. Think I'm exaggerating? I'm really not.

How to explain... The first thing that sprang to my mind as I commenced play was the memory of this one time that I drank some absinthe and ended up with peculiar vision effects. I could focus on only one thing at a time, and everything else around it appeared to be a blurred smear of colours, with no form of cohesion or logic at all.

So it appears in Vexx - in any one scene, ANY scene in the game (I'm playing it as I write this review), there is only ever one object, character or spot of irrelevant background scenery in focus. This varies from scene to scene. In one view, there may be a character in focus. In another, it may be a branch of a tree. It seems to be entirely random, and not related to your position in the game world or your current task at all.

My main criticism about the graphics concerns every aspect of the graphics. There's nothing good about them - it's UGLY, pure and simple. The backgrounds appear in various shades of brown and green, all smeared together with no thought to, well, anything. The texture is non-existant, and every scene is badly drawn. Even the characters are badly drawn.

Basically, Vexx looks like someone drew some sketches with crayons, smeared the sketches in a thick, opaque substance of some sort and swirled everything around.

Sound - 2/10

The music is good and well-orchestrated. It's also incredibly repetitive and becomes irritating very quickly. Sound effects are atrocious. Nothing more to say, because I turned off the sound and started playing death metal instead, to take out my frustration. Oh, and for your information, I don't like death metal and would never normally dream of listening to it. While playing Vexx though, the angry sounds are rather apt.

Game Play - 0/10

The cameras are possessed - I'm sure of it. They do fit well with the on-drugs appearance of the scenery though. Camera angles are inflexible and in places actually PREVENT successful game play. Quite often, you need to play through a scene multiple times in order to memorize exactly where you are supposed to run to next, simply because you can't see where you're supposed to go and if you move the wrong way, you plummet to your death. In a game with no positive aspects to it, this is unforgivable. Not only does it look bad, not only does it play badly, but it actually gets in your way so that you can't successfully complete the game without mounting the maximum possible frustration.

The object is to collect hearts and items. Then you unleash special effects to defeat your foes. The special effects consist of a slightly differently coloured light being emitted from a space some distance away from your current location and making numbers appear on your screen, although the animation itself will give no hint as to why this is happening.

As you move around the world, you'll have to do certain things in order to progress. These things are: jump, and climb. Jumping is almost always executed blindly. Climbing makes you feel as though your life is slipping away from you, as you simply hold the ''up'' button and watch and wait. And wait some more. And more. And then finally you get to the top and you can move on. Oh joy.

Periodically, you'll encounter a boss battle. You'll be able to tell it's a boss, because a special screen will appear telling you about it. The screen will include a short verse, with thinly-disguised hints to help you to defeat it. I have no intention on focussing on this travesty, but the verses are laughably bad, and incredibly pretentious.

Replay Value - 0/10

Assuming you play through the whole thing once without throwing it away, bursting into tears or worse, I see no reason why you'd want to play it again. There's no flexibility or anything - just the same painful experience.

Mercifully, it's quite short.

The Bottom Line

If you made it this far, then either you're a Vexx fan who now wants to track me down and kill me, or you really wanted to know every reason why I strongly recommend that you do not buy this game (generally, if I don't like a game, I advise people to rent it and try for themselves). Assuming you're among the latter, I left a couple of reasons for last.

Firstly, Vexx is a PS2 game and therefore expensive. It's a waste of money in this case - absolutely and completely. It is certainly not a serious attempt at creating a classic game, and will be remembered by the few unfortunate enough to have played it purely for being tear-inducingly bad. This is not a worthy addition to any collection. Save your money for one of the many great games out at the moment and don't waste it on this travesty.

Secondly, in case you hadn't gathered, Vexx is a very very bad game. Play it, and you'll regret it.

My recommendation... do NOT buy. Do NOT rent. If it were possible, I'd take out a police restraining order against this game just to keep it the heck away from me. It's embarrassingly bad, and really beneath you. Yes, beneath all of you. Is that enough to convince you? If you MUST try it, just check the returns policy of whatever store you choose. Please!

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/03, Updated 04/13/03