Cy Girls

Ice and Aska fail to lure Ben with their charms...

More Images

Home video gaming has been with us for three decades now so it astounds me that companies still see fit to release games with fundamentally crippling flaws. In the same way that it's pointless building an opulent mansion if you don't lay good foundations, it's also totally pointless using an established good-quality game engine (borrowed from Metal Gear Solid 2) and thinking up a few original gaming ideas if you don't bother to iron out the fundamental design ergonomics of your title. Cy Girls is guilty of all of these charges. It's all the more upsetting when you realise that the company behind Cy Girls, Konami, are responsible for possibly one the greatest game ever programmed - Winning Eleven 7 (or Pro Evolution Soccer 3 to us European gamers).

Cy Girls is based on the popular Japanese toy and cartoon franchise Cool Girl, but has been re-branded for us Western gamers. It's set in some sort of post-industrial future where everything is governed by large multinationals. Following the lead of Devil May Cry 2, the game comes on two discs; one is devoted to cocky gunslinger Ice (great name, no?) and the other to blade-wielding ninja Aska. Each character follows their own path through the story and although many locations are shared between the two the different weapon types yielded by each of our heroines does evoke a slightly different feel for each.

Being based on the Metal Gear Solid 2 engine, Cy Girls looks good enough though it still fails to ever truly impress. Animations are reasonable, reflections are fine and all in all graphically the game feels quite adequate. The obviously Matrix-influenced plot line sees both gals frequently plunging into what is called Cy D. This is basically a computer generated mirror world that looks much like the Matrix as Neo sees it at the end of the first film; streaming green code flows around the environments pleasingly and is complemented by some impressive fighting techniques that have obviously adopted the "some rules can be bent" Matrix ethos. Street Fighter 2 type hurricane kicks and darting punches are fun, as are some of the bonus moves that you can download from certain nodes. Examples are the wall hack that places a protective barrier in front of you, or the break hack that allows you to... break things. The cut scenes are also of a generally high quality and are quite watchable.

These however are about the only positive things I have to say about Cy Girls. The elements that the game gets right unfortunately all count for nothing because of a couple of fundamentally vital flaws. Firstly and most crucially is the fact that every level requires the player to tackle some of the dullest and most mindless puzzles yet encountered in a videogame. Most take the form of finding key A to unlock door B and all of the tasks require you to travel back and forth across the length of the map anything up to six times simply to open a door or access a terminal. This in itself is bad enough, but add to the fray some utterly obscure solutions and totally unobvious paths of action and the only thing you're guaranteed is hours of intense frustration.

Just to rub it in, whilst you're attempting to tackle these seemingly mindless tasks you'll be constantly hounded by equally mindless and atrociously acted "advice" and comments from various characters. All have a habit of stating the blindingly obvious, repeating themselves incessantly or simply making the most stupid and poorly acted comments you've possibly ever heard. Also, if you tackle the puzzles in a different order to that envisaged by the developer then the comments fail to flow or make sense. When the game itself is already endlessly frustrating, this sort of addition is likely to induce a feeling of hatred and violence toward your fellow man.

The second major flaw is the controls. For starters, the camera is shocking. You have a choice between the novice mode where the camera attempts to manually track you, though often with infuriating results, and the expert mode where you have manual control. The latter is definitely the better though is still far from ideal. As soon as you enter a more cramped environment, such as Ice's second level, the whole system crumbles apart and just trying to keep enemies in view becomes almost as much a challenge as the stupid puzzles themselves. The menu system is clunky and overly complicated requiring many button presses to access even the simplest options.

Combat is overly simple to the point of tedium. Aska's sword attacks are possibly the more satisfying of the two though you're never required to hammer more than one button. From time to time she will also randomly engage in an automated attack sequence where all present bad guys are slaughtered in one move. Although it's reminiscent of Shinobi's chain system the fact that it requires exactly zero skill and is seemingly beyond your control robs the player of any reward. Also present is a Tenchu-like grapple hook though like everything else it's fiddly and unresponsive. There are also attempts at Prince of Persia-esque wall running and acrobatics though their imprecise nature renders them virtually unusable. Ice adopts a duck and shoot mechanic similar to that found in Kill Switch though again as a player you feel removed from the action. Backing up next to a door and peering around every few seconds to let off a few shots will eventually clear even the most crowded room. Saying that, it's also just as easy to storm in with all guns blazing and still barely lose any energy. For both characters the controls remain imprecise in close combat and pretty much unworkable when stealth is required. The game is also incapable of remembering your actions once you've left a room, so along with re-spawning enemies any object you've moved, such as a crate for scaling a high wall, will be miraculously replaced once you return. All of this ensures that fun is almost as hard to come by as the obscure solutions to the puzzles.

Cy Girls undoubtedly had potential but if Konami is unable to get the fundamental aspects of gaming correct then no amount of polish will help. The game is large and the dedicated gamer will be kept busy for quite a while but I personally cannot imagine why on earth anyone would chose to subject themselves to such an undertaking. With so many superior games on the market there is no obviously legitimate reason to recommend Cy Girls. The few things it does well are overshadowed by the many things it does so terribly wrong. Definitely a title best avoided.

41%

By Ben Parfitt