PixlBit

Bad Silky,bad! No treat for you!

So let me just take a moment and say I'm addicted to 3rd Birthday! Between farming for bonus points to get new attachments for Aya’s guns and improving her performance via alterations to her DNA board I’ve been having a blast. Considering this is a 3rd person shooter on the psp, the controls and ability to adjust the camera are both handled smoothly.

Of course what’s best about 3rd Birthday is it’s more than a generic shooter. Aya’s ability to over-dive into various soldiers on the battlefield adds another pleasant layer of strategy.  The monstrous “Twisted” are often lethal nuisances so you have to find the best vantage points available to successfully take them out. For example when the hornet-like “stinkers” were pumping out poisonous gas into the air I had to possess snipers on the roof to take them out. When the centipede looking “roller” was charging me head on it helped to over-dive back & forth into the soldiers on either side of it to keep it confused. When dealing with the spherical “wads” you’ll want good cover so you can protect yourself from their projectiles. Additionally taking out the long armed “slackers” requires ample use of the roll dodge and some fast foot-work in addition to the usual fanciful sharp shooting.

When Aya overdives into enemies instead of allies she causes their insides to rupture thus doing internal damage to them. Additionally this allows her to collect “genetic marker orbs” which when assigned to her DNA grid help in boosting her defense, increasing her regeneration, replenishing her ammunition, and upping the chance of critical shots. However, you have to be careful on what orbs to assign. Be sure to pay attention to their level & make sure there are no “red dots” within their configurations. Red dots are negative weaknesses and deductions you do not want to deal with as this game is already very difficult as it is.

Though the mission structure in 3rd birthday is linear the areas are surprisingly open and multi-tiered. Staying on the ground level and engaging tough enemies directly will often get you killed. Sometimes it’s better to over dive into a soldier manning a gun turret or over dive into the guy above you in the balcony who just so happens to have a rocket launcher. Paying attention to your surroundings in 3rd Birthday is essential for survival, especially during boss fights.

I really haven’t commented on the clothes damage feature have I? Frankly, it’s not a big issue for me. When I’m a gamer I’m not an activist. (I rather have fun as opposed to meticulously uncovering grandiose patriarchal conspiracies that exist only within the fevered delusions of radical feminists & white knight journalists.) The truth is it’s better to repair Aya’s damaged clothes at check points on account they do offer her some protection. Running around almost naked ups the amount of damage per hit Aya takes from her adversaries. Aka, there’s no advantage to “perving out” over Aya’s hawt body. The condition of Aya’s outfits is there to indicate if she still has good defense or if her defense has been lowered. Aka, this feature isn’t there just for titillation. It has a rational purpose. Yes, it’s still “fan-service” but at least it’s fan-service with meaning!

I’m not going to divulge too much about the story. I don’t want to give anything away on account there are quite a few unexpected twists. Rest assured the narrative and plot are not as “terrible” as the various “professional game critics” made them out to be. 3rd Birthday had the misfortune of releasing at the beginning of the snoot era of game reviewing. Aka, it seemed to be a time when every paid analyst expected games to have “flawless dialogue” and “flawless  writing”. Not to mention, every game was expected to be “politically correct”. (Er, at least games from Japan. Kratos was still allowed to have his bathhouse orgies, Shepherd was still allowed to pursue blue alien booty, and Saints row passed through customs with its’ purple dildo in hand! Aya Brea?  Well, she had holes in her jeans so that’s a criminal offense!)

This image incited "rage" in some folks. The rest of us merely shrugged it off and returned to our daily routines!

Okay, let me be perfectly honest. PE1 had a better storyline & better overall premise than 3rd Birthday. Melissa Pearce is one of the very best creepy yet sexy game villainesses to ever grace a game console. It’s impossible to compete with a whole audience within an opera house bursting into flames or watching a parrot flip out as it mutates into a hellish winged mutant. Additionally Aya Brea had a much more likable supporting cast in the first game. I’m not saying Blank, Hyde, Gabriel, and Cray are “terrible”. On the contrary, they offer up some very touching moments and you will eventually care about them. Thing is, I feel more of a sympathetic connection with  Daniel, Ben, Maeda, Lorraine, and Douglas. Maybe it’s just nostalgia though. (Oh, and Maeda is back in 3rd Birthday but he’s so different from his original self it’s difficult to acknowledge him as the same person)  

I admit, Gabriel is awesome!

However, so far I prefer 3rd Birthday marginally over PE 2. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed Parasite Eve 2 but I thought it tried a bit too hard to be Resident Evil. At least 3rd Birthday tries to innovate in some ways. Being able to “soul jump” into random soldiers really is a great mechanic and I wouldn’t mind seeing it explored more in the future.

Lastly there’s been a huge hoopla over Aya Brea being much more meek, aloof, and soft spoken in this game. Here I can understand where the fans are coming from but there’s a very good reason for why Aya is acting so strangely and it’s not just because of the convenient amnesia excuse. Again, I don’t want to spoil this for people who haven’t  beat the game. Just rest assured eventually it will all click together.

Considering S/E lost partial rights to the Parasite Eve license I believe they did the very best they could with this reboot. It’s obvious they couldn’t throw around terms like “mitochondria” anymore so they had to hint at a very similar threat which nonetheless retained its’ own distinctive differences. On that level “The Twisted” succeed. Though I get a perverse pleasure out of picking on S/E as much as the next guy, this is an instance where they did very well. (Props to Hexadrive too of course!) If you can dismiss your inner game-snob and enter 3rd Birthday with an opened mind there’s certainly a lot to like here!