Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture
Publisher: Spike
Year: 2004 (JP), 2005 (PAL)
Take a game with a storyline involving zombies,
good-looking news reporters and chances to be as horrible a
person as you want. Sounds pretty sweet, right? Well,
Michigan is not that game.
Story
The story of Michigan seems simple enough. A strange fog
descends over Chicago, Michigan. Yes, that’s right,
Chicago, Michigan. Go check your maps. The government
evacuate all their people, seeing as though monsters and
zombies are around everywhere, but are dumb enough to allow
a TV crew to roll on in and risk their lives for the sake
of ‘news’.
Fine. Fine, I can deal with that. But the game does not
explain this fact very well, and I found myself constantly
going back to the booklet to re-read the storyline to make
sure I still knew what was going on. In other words,
Michigan is chock-full of plot holes.
A cool thing about the storyline though, is the fact that
your actions affects it. Well, not really. It more decides
which reporter you get next.
For example, my reporter is about to be attacked. If I step
in and save her, I stick with her for another level. If I
let her be attacked, she dies, and I go to a completely
different stage with a completely different reporter. It’s
a pretty nifty way of making the story flow, but it is
possible to miss a good chunk of the game due to ‘jumping
around the plot’.
Overall: Michigan’s story did hold some potential, but
ultimately, it got too ridiculous, too repetitive, and too
full of red herrings. [4/10]
Graphics
The graphics are mediocre. The environments look nice
enough as long as you don’t take your time checking them
out.
But the characters lack any real facial expressions
in-game, preferring to keep a pleasant smile on their faces
as shocking plot twists occur. The FMVs look rather nice,
though.
Overall: Nothing special here. [4/10]
Gameplay
Michigan is all about ‘tagging’, or, as it is quickly
translated to in-game, seeing where yellow dots appear so
you can press the X button and hopefully make something
interesting happen. It is quite rare that anything
interesting does happen, though. However, if you tag
anything that the game registers as being suspenseful, it
plays a loud noise accompanied by a spooky little theme.
Unfortunately, things that should (in my opinion) be
classified as suspenseful or just plain creepy are often
overlooked and things that are stupid (such as the sound
technician saying that a painting has been well-done) earn
the eerie noise.
In this game, the polar opposite of suspense is eroticism.
While suspense usually involves you running around filming
things like pots floating for no reason, eroticism pretty
much consists of you crouching in front (or behind) a
reporter and pointing the camera squarely at their crotch
or ass. However, you can also increase your erotic points
by finding dirty magazines or websites left up on computer
screens and tagging them.
The so-called erotic aspect of the game feels tacked on and
pointless; however, apparently if you gain enough erotic
points, you unlock some kind of video that features all the
fine lady reporters. It’s been reported that there is a bug
in the European version that crashes the game if you do try
and watch it though.
The last, and probably most hilarious aspect of the game is
‘immoral’. This basically comes about when you do immoral
(obviously) things such as ramming into your reporter or
the sound technician for no reason (as opposed to doing so
to knock them out of harm’s way) or filming someone as they
are being killed. Nothing like a good ol’ fashioned snuff
film. Nothing special really happens if you gain lots of
immoral points though, unless you really like hearing your
reporter say “Ow! You’re a big jerk!” in a whiny voice. Or
if you want to knock them over for the sole purpose of
filming up their skirts.
How do you know if you’re getting a suspenseful or erotic
scoop, though? And how do you know how immoral you’re
being? That’s what the bar at the top of the screen is for.
When you begin a level, you start in the middle of the bar.
As you film, you’ll find that the marker in the middle will
gradually begin to slide left or right, depending on what
you’ve decided to tag. However, immoral points are
indicated by a red bar which (to quote the booklet) ‘will
seep from the center towards both icons simultaneously’.
Another feature of the screen are the little arrows that
appear on the edges to signify which direction your
reporter has run off in. “Oh, that sounds handy!” You might
say, especially if you read the booklet. Let me just say
now, that it is possibly the most useless thing in-game.
Not to mention that your reporters dart off in random
directions and seemingly disappear. For example, one
particular location in the game comes to mind. It was a
ridiculously simple stage, but due to the poor level design
and terrible reporter indicator, I spent literally half an
hour on one particular stage looking for my reporter.
Remember those nifty button-pressing ‘minigames’ in God of
War that were initiated when you had done enough damage to
an enemy? Michigan has something like that. Kind of. Except
about twenty times less exciting and a billion times less
frequent. These button sequences appear during cutscenes
and involve you helping the person or saving them from
certain doom, i.e. Pulling someone off a railroad track
before they meet a grisly end via train. Choose to help the
person and the person, well, lives. Choose not to, and you
receive a rather large amount of immoral points.
And when I said ‘a billion times less frequent’, I meant
it. In God of War, they happened about once a minute. In my
entire playthrough of Michigan, I believe I only ran into
about two or three.
Overall: The game uses some interesting techniques, but
they were employed quite badly and the game moves quite
slowly. This makes the game feel like a chore to play.
[4/10]
Sound
The game’s soundtrack was composed by none other than
Masafumi Takada, the guy who did the music for God Hand and
most of GHM’s other games. Call it bias, but I enjoyed the
music in the game quite a bit.
I can’t say the same for the voice acting. It is truly
terrible. Everyone whines and carries on, and your
reporters have high-pitched, 13 year-old girl voices. Not
to mention they all either sound too happy, too bored, or
too dramatic.
Overall: Ok, I’ll be kind and give this a three. But only
because the music was good. [3/10]
Overall
Michigan is a rather unspectacular game, one that makes you
step back and wonder “Was this REALLY by the same guys who
brought me Killer7, Contact, and The Silver Case?” It’s not
exactly something I’d recommend to anyone, unless they are:
A) GHM and/or Suda51 and/or Masafumi Takada fans who wish
to say “Yeah, I’ve played that. It wasn’t so great.”
B) People who wish to be frustrated more often; or
C) People who are turned on by filming the badly rendered
crotches of half-witted women.
If you’re not one of those people, don’t waste your time.
[4/10]
By: Akura (saiyuki[UNDERSCORE]freek[SPLAT]hotmail[DOT]com)
20-08-2007
Topdrunkee's note: I've heard that Michigan actually takes
place in Chicago near Lake Michigan. Which is where the
title Michigan comes from. Not that I would know
personally. I've never played this game, and I doubt I ever
will after reading this review.