Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge
Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!
Published: October 17, 2005
There's nothing worse than seeing a game with painfully good intentions ending up little more than a few interesting points buried under a lot of muddled ideas. Such is the unfortunate end of Capcom's work on The Nightmare Before Christmas, but it's not necessarily because any on part of the game was bad per se, just that what's there is what's everywhere in the game, and it's just not enough fun for a full 10 hours or so.
In something of a continuation of the themes introduced in the brilliantly goth-tastic animated film, Jack inherits something of a present from Dr. Finklestein called a soul robber. Jack freakin' loves the thing and quickly runs off to give a test drive. We know he loves it because he announces the name about 56 biquillion times throughout the course of the game, and by the end you'll never want to hear either word - alone or together - in any sentence ever again.
Anywho, while Jack's out, Lock Shock and Barrel, the pint-sized trio brimming with mischief, help sew Jack's nemesis, Oogie Boogie back up, and he quickly gets to work leaving booby traps all over town, which of course chases away most of the townsfolk. When Jack finally returns, he finds his home overrun by things of a decidedly skeletal nature.
Oogie's Revenge plays like a high-action version of the old Resident Evil games without the creepy bits; tons of fetch questing, backtracking and repetitive combat. This isn't a huge surprise, since the Capcom team responsible did most of the RE ports to other systems as well as Resident Evil 0, but it's no less annoying.
Sure, restoring the town one member at a time and thus opening up more locked doors around the central fountain area hub gives a good sense of progress, but it's also painfully boring most of the time. The soul robber isn't Jack's only weapon (he can turn into the Pumpkin King and Santa Jack to unleash fire- and present-based attacks, which add a little variety), but 90% of the time, you'll be whipping the crap out of enemies for what seems like forever.
Jack has two upgradable attacks at his disposal; one is whip move that attacks enemies from a distance, and the other lets you crap and slam enemies with the soul robber. You can smash them into the ground, into other enemies (who are then smashed into the ground) or huck them about for less damage, but the attacks are fairly limited.
Holding down one of the attacks allows for a more powerful version (and in the case of the normal slam, a spinning attack that sucks nearby enemies in and does some nice crowd control), but that's really the extent of the normal attacks. By using a blue soul, Jack can power-up the soul robber's attacks for a while, which is useful in boss fight situations.
In something of a continuation of the themes introduced in the brilliantly goth-tastic animated film, Jack inherits something of a present from Dr. Finklestein called a soul robber. Jack freakin' loves the thing and quickly runs off to give a test drive. We know he loves it because he announces the name about 56 biquillion times throughout the course of the game, and by the end you'll never want to hear either word - alone or together - in any sentence ever again.
Anywho, while Jack's out, Lock Shock and Barrel, the pint-sized trio brimming with mischief, help sew Jack's nemesis, Oogie Boogie back up, and he quickly gets to work leaving booby traps all over town, which of course chases away most of the townsfolk. When Jack finally returns, he finds his home overrun by things of a decidedly skeletal nature.
Oogie's Revenge plays like a high-action version of the old Resident Evil games without the creepy bits; tons of fetch questing, backtracking and repetitive combat. This isn't a huge surprise, since the Capcom team responsible did most of the RE ports to other systems as well as Resident Evil 0, but it's no less annoying.
Sure, restoring the town one member at a time and thus opening up more locked doors around the central fountain area hub gives a good sense of progress, but it's also painfully boring most of the time. The soul robber isn't Jack's only weapon (he can turn into the Pumpkin King and Santa Jack to unleash fire- and present-based attacks, which add a little variety), but 90% of the time, you'll be whipping the crap out of enemies for what seems like forever.
Jack has two upgradable attacks at his disposal; one is whip move that attacks enemies from a distance, and the other lets you crap and slam enemies with the soul robber. You can smash them into the ground, into other enemies (who are then smashed into the ground) or huck them about for less damage, but the attacks are fairly limited.
Holding down one of the attacks allows for a more powerful version (and in the case of the normal slam, a spinning attack that sucks nearby enemies in and does some nice crowd control), but that's really the extent of the normal attacks. By using a blue soul, Jack can power-up the soul robber's attacks for a while, which is useful in boss fight situations.
