| The Daibijin review |
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In 1958 Allison Hayes stomped her way through a certain B-movie sci-fi film that went by the name of “Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman”. Many lauded this as a unique narrative concept or even for championing feminist values but, far more likely, most of the guys of that era probably appreciated her enlarged baps.
Fast forward to the present and TamSoft have attempted to convert this cult 1950’s flick into game form. On paper, it sounds brilliant. Not only in terms of the wacky gameplay but also the kitsch visuals. That is on paper though; the gaming reality is shockingly disappointing.
Instead of being set in 1950’s America, TamSoft have relocated the setting to Japan and have it star a suitably dappy Japanese bikini model. Said bikini model is approached by a weird little creature and right on cue the dappiness of this delightful lady results in her being bitten. What transpires is the fact that this little creature was an alien being of immense power that wants to utilise our heroine as a weapon of mass destruction. A very large weapon of mass destruction.
The game starts with suitably retro-styled menu screens that fit the tone of the game perfectly and the player is encouraged to undertake their first sortie. Equipping a helicopter with machine guns, lasers and cake (more of this later) we are all set to take down this feminine menace.
This is when the charm very quickly wears off. The first mission has the player analyse parts of our enlarged heroine’s body, for military research apparently. This means the suitably equipped helicopter has to manoeuvre itself around this rather confused lady and keep her occupied. Firstly, the guns are useless and the controls are incredibly unwieldly. Admittedly, you can deposit cake at the feet of the giant to act as a distraction but due to the cackhanded controls not much good will come of the ruse.
Whilst cake is a slightly comical diversion, the other choices are more so. A hi-fi system that pipes boppy J-pop and a massive wok that slams the dappy lass across the chops are some of the other not very hilarious options.
As you progress through the game there are various missions with different settings and consequently different vehicles for the player to use. Each of these vehicles, whether it be a tank or a jet fighter, are almost impossible to control.
The tank mission has the player traverse a damaged highway whilst dispensing constant damage, by way of machine gun and cannon fire, upon the enlarged bikini-clad lass. Each shot does very little damage and it really is just a case of you having to travel in a straight line along the motorway and holding down fire for what feels like a lifetime. This abject tedium alone makes you want to gouge your eyes out with a rusty fork to curtail this idiotically monotonous rubbish. Yet this is merely one vehicle in the car-pool of gaming purgatory.
There are many instances in the game where the action comes to a chronic standstill due to some dreadful slowdown. This is exemplified in the jet fighter mission, again this is another vehicle with suitably cumbersome controls. Trying to just simply lock-on to flying objects so as to defend your objective is made almost impossible due to the backward controls and the appalling slowdown.
If all this wasn’t enough, the game is also ridiculously short.
In the game’s partial defence, it is actually a budget title and the development time was almost non-existent. Yet, there is no real excuse for foisting gaming excrement upon the public, especially when the premise behind it was originally set to be rather innovative.
This contentiously introduces another matter to the debate; high-concept gaming. If, as this game unsettlingly posits, the future is to be rife with brilliant concepts undermined by piss-poor execution, the future of the medium will be a dread place indeed.
Admittedly, The Daibijin wasn’t meant to be a huge title and the care taken on the game is uncharacteristically lacking for the studio (after all the same team worked on SEGA’s PowerSmash 2), but it is important for a modicum of standards to be upheld. The game is vaguely playable and there is a certain aesthetic charm (when the game engine isn’t dying on its arse) but it is still a particularly dire and tedious game for the majority of its bizarrely brief existence.
In summation, The Daibijin is gaming trash and should be avoided at all costs. |
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System: Sony PlayStation 2
Genre: Action
Developer: Tamsoft
Publisher: D3
Players: 1
Version: Japan
Writer: Ollie Barder
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Pros:
- The game actually loads
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Cons:
- Appalling slowdown
- Shockingly poor controls
- Bizarrely short in duration
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